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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62,
+No. 384, October 1847, 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 62, No. 384, October 1847
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: May 29, 2008 [EBook #25633]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brendan OConnor, Paul Dring, 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.)
+
+
+
+
+
+  Transcribers note:
+  The letter o appears in this text with a macron and
+  a breve above it. They have been rendered as [=o]
+  and [)o] respectively.
+
+
+
+
+                    BLACKWOOD'S
+                EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  No. CCCLXXXIV.     OCTOBER, 1847.     VOL. LXII.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+
+  HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
+    The Emperors New Clothes
+  THE VISION OF CAGLIOSTRO
+    Tiberius
+    Agrippa
+    Milton
+    Mirabeau
+    Beethoven
+  MAGA IN AMERICA
+  THE TIMES OF GEORGE II
+  ART IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN AGES
+  THE PORTRAIT
+    Chapter I
+    Chapter II
+  HOUNDS AND HORSES AT ROME
+    English Kennel
+    The Steeple-chase
+    Roman Dogs
+  SONG
+  MY FRIEND THE DUTCHMAN
+
+
+
+
+WORKS OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.[1]
+
+
+If our readers have perchance stumbled upon a novel called "The
+Improvisatore" by one HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN, a Dane by birth, they
+have probably regarded it in the light merely of a foreign importation
+to assist in supplying the enormous annual consumption of our
+circulating libraries, which devour books as fast as our mills do raw
+cotton;--with some difference, perhaps, in the result, for the material
+can rarely be said to be worked up into any thing like substantial
+raiment for body or mind, but seems to disappear altogether in the
+process. As the demand, here, exceeds all ordinary means of supply, they
+may have been glad to see that our trade with the North is likely to be
+beneficial to us, in this our intellectual need. Its books may not be so
+durable as its timber, nor so substantial as its oxen, but then they are
+articles of faster growth, and of easier transportation. To free-trade
+in these productions of the literary soil, not the most jealous
+protectionist will object; and they have, perhaps, been amused to
+observe how the mere circumstance of a foreign origin has given a cheap
+repute, and the essential charm of novelty, to materials which in
+themselves were neither good nor rare. The popular prejudice deals very
+differently with foreign oxen and foreign books; for, whereas an
+Englishman has great difficulty in believing that good beef can possibly
+be produced from any pastures but his own, and the outlandish beast is
+always looked upon with more or less suspicion, he has, on the contrary,
+a highly liberal prejudice in favour of the book from foreign parts; and
+nonsense of many kinds, and the most tasteless extravagancies, are
+allowed to pass unchallenged and unreproved, by the aid of a German, or
+French, or Danish title-page.
+
+Nay, the eye is sometimes tasked to discover extraordinary beauty, where
+there is nothing but extraordinary blemish. Where the shrewd translator
+had veiled some absurdity or rashness of his author, the more profound
+reader has been known to detect a meaning and a charm, which "the
+English language had failed adequately to convey;" and he has, perhaps,
+shown a sovereign contempt for "the bungling translator," at the very
+time when that discreet workman had most displayed his skill and
+judgment. The idea has sometimes occurred to us--Suppose one of these
+foreign books were suddenly proved to be of genuine home
+production--suppose the German, or the Dane, or the Frenchman, were
+discovered to be a fictitious personage, and all the genius, or all the
+rant, to have really emanated from the English gentleman, or lady, who
+had merely professed to translate--presto! how the book would instantly
+change colours! What a reverse of judgment would there be! What secret
+_misgivings_ would now be detected and proclaimed! What sudden
+outpourings of epithets by no means complimentary! How the boldness of
+many a metaphor would be transformed into sheer impudence! How the
+profundities would clear up, leaving only darkness behind! They were so
+mysterious--and now, throw all the light of heaven upon them, and there
+is nothing there but a blunder or a blot.
+
+If our readers, we say, have fallen upon this, and other novels of
+Andersen, they have probably passed them by as things belonging to the
+literary _season_: they have been struck with some passages of vivid
+description, with touches of genuine feeling, with traits of character
+which, though imperfectly delineated, bore the impress of truth; but
+they have pronounced them, on the whole, to be unfashioned things, but
+half made up, constructed with no skill, informed by no clear spirit of
+thought, and betraying a most undisciplined taste. Such, at least, was
+the impression their first perusal left upon our mind. Notwithstanding
+the glimpses of natural feeling and of truthful portraiture which caught
+our eye, they were so evidently deficient in some of the higher
+qualities which ought to distinguish a writer, and so defaced by
+abortive attempts at fine writing, that they hardly appeared deserving
+of a very critical examination, or a very careful study. But now there
+has lately come into our hands the autobiography of Hans Christian
+Andersen, "The True Story of my Life," and this has revealed to us so
+curious an instance of intellectual cultivation, or rather of genius
+exerting itself without any cultivation at all, and has reflected back
+so strong a light, so vivid and so explanatory, on all his works, that
+what we formerly read with a very mitigated admiration, with more of
+censure than of praise, has been invested with quite a novel and
+peculiar interest. Moreover, certain tales for children have also fallen
+into our hands, some of which are admirable. We prophesy them an
+immortality in the nursery--which is not the worst immortality a man can
+Win--and doubt not but that they have already been read by children, or
+told to children, in every language of Europe. Altogether Andersen, his
+character and his works, have thus appeared to us a subject worthy of
+some attention.
+
+We insist upon coupling them together. We must be allowed to abate
+somewhat of the austerity of criticism by a reference to the life of the
+author. We cannot implicitly follow the unconditioned admiration of Mrs
+Howitt for "the beautiful thoughts of Andersen," which she tells us in
+her preface to the Autobiography, "it is the most delightful of her
+literary labours to translate." We must be excused if we think that the
+mixture of praise and of puff, which the lady lavishes so
+indiscriminately upon the author whose works she translates, is more
+likely to display her own skill and dexterity in author-craft, than
+permanently to enhance the fame of Andersen. In the works which Mrs
+Howitt has translated, (with the exception of the Autobiography,) there
+is a great proportion of most unquestionable trash, which, we should
+imagine, it must be a great affliction to render into English.
+
+It is curious, and perhaps necessary, to watch this new relationship
+which has sprung up in the world of letters, between the original author
+and his translator. A reciprocity of services is always amiable, and one
+is glad to see society enriched by another bond of mutual amity. The
+translator finds a profitable commodity in the genius of his author; the
+author, a stanch champion in his foreign ally, who, notwithstanding his
+community of interest, can still praise without blushing. Many good
+results doubtless arise from this alliance, but an increased chance of
+impartial criticism is not likely to be one of them.
+
+When Andersen writes _for_ childhood or _of_ childhood, he is singularly
+felicitous--fanciful, tender, and true to nature. This alone were
+sufficient to separate him from the crowd of common writers. For the
+rest of his works, if you will look at them kindly, and with a friendly
+scrutiny, you will find many a natural sentiment vividly reflected. But
+traces of the higher operations of the intellect, of deep or subtle
+thought, of analytic power, of ratiocination of any kind, there is
+absolutely none. If, therefore, his injudicious admirers should insist,
+without any reference to his origin or culture, on extolling his
+writings as works submitted, without apology or excuse, to the mature
+judgment and formed taste--they can only peril the reputation they seek
+to magnify. They will expose to ridicule and contempt one who, if you
+allow him a place apart by himself, becomes a subject of kindly and
+curious regard. If they insist upon his introduction, unprotected by the
+peculiar circumstances which environ him--we do not say amongst the
+literary magnates of his time, but even in the broad host of highly
+cultivated minds, we lose sight of him, or we follow him with something
+very much like a smile of derision.
+
+We remember being told of a dexterous stratagem, by which a lady cured
+her son of what she deemed an unworthy passion for a rustic beauty. We
+tell the story--for it may not only afford us an illustration, but a
+hint also to other perplexed mammas, who may find themselves in the like
+predicament. She had argued, and of course in vain, against his
+high-flown admiration of the village belle. She was a goddess! She would
+become a throne! Apparently acquiescing in his matrimonial project, she
+now professed her willingness to receive his bride-elect. Accordingly,
+she sent her own milliner--mantua-maker--what you will,--to array her in
+the complete toilette of a lady of fashion. The blushing damsel appeared
+in the most elegant attire, and took her place in the maternal
+drawing-room, amongst the sisters of the enraptured lover. Alas!
+enraptured no more! The rustic beauty, where could it have flown? The
+belle of the village was transformed into a very awkward young lady.
+Goddess!--She was a simpleton. Become a throne!--She could not sit upon
+a chair. The charm was broken. The application we need hardly make.
+There may be certain uncultivated men of genius on whom it is possible
+to practise a like malicious kindness.
+
+We would rather preface our notice of the life and works of Andersen, by
+a motto taken from our own countryman Blake, artist and poet, and a man
+of somewhat kindred nature:--[2]
+
+  "Piping down the valleys wild,
+    Piping songs of pleasant glee,
+  On a cloud I saw a child,
+    And he laughing said to me--
+
+  'Pipe a song about a lamb;'
+    So I piped with merry cheer.
+  'Piper, pipe that song again!--'
+    So I piped--he wept to hear.
+
+  'Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe,
+    Sing thy songs of happy cheer--'
+  So I sang the same again,
+    While he wept with joy to hear.
+
+  'Piper, sit thee down and _write_,
+    In a book that all may read.'
+  Then he vanished from my sight;
+    And I plucked a hollow reed,
+
+  And I made a rural pen,
+    And I stained the water clear,
+  And I wrote my happy songs,
+    Every child may joy to hear."
+
+Such was the form under which the muse may be said to have visited and
+inspired Andersen. He ought to have been exclusively the poet of
+children and of childhood. He ought never to have seen, or dreamed, of
+an Apollo six feet high, looking sublime, and sending forth dreadful
+arrows from the far-resounding bow; he should have looked only to that
+"child upon the cloud," or rather, he should have seen his little muse
+as she walks upon the earth--we have her in Gainsborough's picture--with
+her tattered petticoat, and her bare feet, and her broken pitcher, but
+looking withal with such a sweet sad contentedness upon the world, that
+surely, one thinks, she must have filled that pitcher and drawn the
+water which she carries--without, however, knowing any thing of the
+matter--from the very well where Truth lies hidden.
+
+We should like to quote at once, before proceeding further, one of
+Andersen's tales for children. We _will_ venture upon an extract. It
+will at all events be new to our readers, and will be more likely to
+interest them in the history of its author than any quotation we could
+make from his more ambitious works. Besides, the story we select will
+somewhat foreshadow the real history which follows.
+
+A highly respectable matronly duck introduces into the poultry-yard a
+brood which she has just hatched. She has had a deal of trouble with one
+egg, much larger than the rest, and which after all produced a very
+"ugly duck," who gives the name, and is the hero of the story.
+
+     "'So, we are to have this tribe, too!' said the other ducks, 'as if
+     there were not enough of us already! And only look how ugly one is!
+     we won't suffer that one here.' And immediately a duck flew at it,
+     and bit it in the neck.
+
+     "'Let it alone,' said the mother; 'it does no one any harm.'
+
+     "'Yes, but it is so large and strange looking, and therefore it
+     must be teased.'
+
+     "'These are fine children that the mother has!' said an old duck,
+     who belonged to the noblesse, and wore a red rag round its leg.
+     'All handsome, except one; it has not turned out well. I wish she
+     could change it.'
+
+     "'That can't be done, your grace,' said the mother; 'besides, if it
+     is not exactly pretty, it is a sweet child, and swims as well as
+     the others, even a little better. I think in growing it will
+     improve. It was long in the egg, and that's the reason it is a
+     little awkward.'
+
+     "'The others are nice little things,' said the old duck: 'now make
+     yourself quite at home here.'
+
+     "And so they did. But the poor young duck that had come last out of
+     the shell, and looked so ugly, was bitten, and pecked, and teased
+     by ducks and fowls. 'It's so large!' said they all; and the
+     turkey-cock, that had spurs on when he came into the world, and
+     therefore fancied himself an emperor, strutted about like a ship
+     under full sail, went straight up to it, gobbled, and got quite
+     red. The poor little duck hardly knew where to go, or where to
+     stand, it was so sorrowful because it was so ugly, and the ridicule
+     of the whole poultry-yard.
+
+     "Thus passed the first day, and afterwards it grew worse and worse.
+     The poor duck was hunted about by every one; its brothers and
+     sisters were cross to it, and always said, 'I wish the cat would
+     get you, you frightful creature!' and even its mother said, 'Would
+     you were far from here!' And the ducks bit it, and the hens pecked
+     at it, and the girl that fed the poultry kicked it with her foot.
+     So it ran and flew over the hedge.
+
+     "On it ran. At last it came to a great moor where wild-ducks lived;
+     here it lay the whole night, and was so tired and melancholy. In
+     the morning up flew the wild-ducks, and saw their new comrade; 'Who
+     are you?' asked they; and our little duck turned on every side, and
+     bowed as well as it could. 'But you are tremendously ugly!' said
+     the wild-ducks. 'However, that is of no consequence to us, if you
+     don't marry into our family.' The poor thing! It certainly never
+     thought of marrying; it only wanted permission to lie among the
+     reeds, and to drink the water of the marsh.
+
+     "'Bang! bang!' was heard at this moment, and several wild-ducks lay
+     dead amongst the reeds, and the water was as red as blood. There
+     was a great shooting excursion. The sportsmen lay all round the
+     moor; and the blue smoke floated like a cloud through the dark
+     trees, and sank down to the very water; and the dogs spattered
+     about in the marsh--splash! splash! reeds and rushes were waving on
+     all sides; it was a terrible fright for the poor duck.
+
+     "At last all was quiet; but the poor little thing did not yet dare
+     to lift up its head; it waited many hours before it looked round,
+     and then hastened away from the moor as quickly as possible. It ran
+     over the fields and meadows, and there was such a wind that it
+     could hardly get along.
+
+     "Towards evening, the duck reached a little hut. Here dwelt an old
+     woman with her tom-cat and her hen; and the cat could put up its
+     back and purr, and the hen could lay eggs, and the old woman loved
+     them both as her very children. For certain reasons of her own, she
+     let the duck in to live with them.
+
+     "Now the tom-cat was master in the house, and the hen was mistress;
+     and they always said, 'We and the world.' That the duck should
+     have any opinion of its own, they never would allow.
+
+     "'Can you lay eggs?' asked the hen.
+
+     "'No!'
+
+     "'Well, then, hold your tongue.'
+
+     "Can you put up your back and purr?' said the tom-cat.
+
+     "'No.'
+
+     "'Well, then, you ought to have no opinion of your own, where
+     sensible people are speaking.'
+
+     "And the duck sat in the corner, and was very sad; when suddenly it
+     took it into its head to think of the fresh air and the sunshine;
+     and it had such an inordinate longing to swim on the water, that it
+     could not help telling the hen of it.
+
+     "'What next, I wonder!' said the hen, 'you have nothing to do, and
+     so you sit brooding over such fancies. Lay eggs, or purr, and
+     you'll forget them.'
+
+     "'But it is so delightful to swim on the water!' said the duck--'so
+     delightful when it dashes over one's head, and one dives down to
+     the very bottom.'
+
+     "'Well, that must be a fine pleasure!' said the hen. 'You are
+     crazy, I think. Ask the cat, who is the cleverest man I know, if he
+     would like to swim on the water, or perhaps to dive, to say nothing
+     of myself. Ask our mistress, the old lady, and there is no one in
+     the world cleverer than she is; do you think that she would much
+     like to swim on the water, and for the water to dash over her
+     head?'
+
+     "'You don't understand me,' said the duck.
+
+     "'Understand, indeed! If we don't understand you, who should? I
+     suppose you won't pretend to be cleverer than the tom-cat, or our
+     mistress, to say nothing of myself? Don't behave in that way,
+     child; but be thankful for all the kindness that has been shown
+     you. Have you not got into a warm room, and have you not the
+     society of persons from whom something is to be learnt? But you are
+     a blockhead, and it is tiresome to have to do with you. You may
+     believe what I say; I am well disposed towards you; I tell you what
+     is disagreeable, and it is by that one recognises one's true
+     friends.'
+
+     "'I think I shall go into the wide world,' said the duckling.
+
+     "'Well then, go!' answered the hen.
+
+     "And so the duck went. It swam on the water, it dived down; but was
+     disregarded by every animal on account of its ugliness.
+
+     "One evening--the sun was setting most magnificently--there came a
+     whole flock of large beautiful birds out of the bushes; never had
+     the duck seen any thing so beautiful. They were of a brilliant
+     white, with long slender necks: they were swans. They uttered a
+     strange note, spread their superb long wings, and flew away from
+     the cold countries (for the winter was setting in) to warmer lands
+     and unfrozen lakes. They mounted so high, so very high! The little
+     ugly duck felt indescribably--it turned round in the water like a
+     mill-wheel, stretched out its neck towards them, and uttered a cry
+     so loud and strange that it was afraid even of itself. Oh, the
+     beautiful birds! the happy birds! it could not forget them; and
+     when it could see them no longer, it dived down to the very bottom
+     of the water; and when it came up again it was quite beside itself.
+
+     "And now it became so cold! But it would be too sad to relate all
+     the suffering and misery which the duckling had to endure through
+     the hard winter. It lay on the moor in the rushes. But when the sun
+     began to shine again more warmly, when the larks sang, and the
+     lovely spring was come, then, all at once it spread out its wings,
+     and rose in the air. They made a rushing noise louder than
+     formerly, and bore it onwards more vigorously; and before it was
+     well aware of it, it found itself in a garden, where the
+     apple-trees were in blossom, and where the syringas sent forth
+     their fragrance, and their long green branches hung down in the
+     clear stream. Just then three beautiful white swans came out of the
+     thicket. They rustled their feathers, and swam on the water so
+     lightly--oh! so very lightly! The duckling knew the superb
+     creatures, and was seized with a strange feeling of sadness.
+
+     "'To them will I fly!' said it, 'to the royal birds. Though they
+     kill me, I must fly to them!' And it flew into the water, and swam
+     to the magnificent birds, that looked at, and with rustling plumes,
+     sailed towards it.
+
+     "'Kill me!' said the poor creature, and bowed down its head to the
+     water, and awaited death. But what did it see in the water? It saw
+     beneath it its own likeness; but no longer that of an awkward
+     grayish bird, ugly and displeasing--it was the figure of a swan.
+
+     "It is of no consequence being born in a farm-yard, if only it is
+     in a swan's egg.
+
+     "The large swans swam beside it, and stroked it with their bills.
+     There were little children running about in the garden; they threw
+     bread into the water, and the youngest cried out, 'There is a new
+     one!' And the other children shouted too; 'Yes, a new one is
+     come!'--and they clapped their hands and danced, and ran to tell
+     their father and mother. And they threw bread and cake into the
+     water; and every one said, 'The new one is the best! so young, and
+     so beautiful!'
+
+     "Then the young one felt quite ashamed, and hid its head under its
+     wing; it knew not what to do: it was too happy, but yet not
+     proud--for a good heart is never proud. It remembered how it had
+     been persecuted and derided, and now it heard all say it was the
+     most beautiful of birds. And the syringas bent down their branches
+     to it in the water, and the sun shone so lovely and so warm. Then
+     it shook its plumes, the slender neck was lifted up, and, from its
+     very heart, it cried rejoicingly--'Never dreamed I of such
+     happiness when I was the little ugly duck!'"
+
+It is not only in writing for children that our author succeeds; but
+whenever childhood crosses his path, it calls up a true pathos, and the
+playful tenderness of his nature. The commencement of his serious
+novels, where he treats of the infancy and boyhood of his heroes, is
+always interesting. Amongst the translated works of Andersen is one
+entitled "A Picture-Book without Pictures." The author describes himself
+as inhabiting a solitary garret in a large town, where no one knew him,
+and no friendly face greeted him. One evening, however, he stands at the
+open casement, and suddenly beholds "the face of an old friend--a round,
+kind face, looking down on him. It was the moon--the dear old moon! with
+the same unaltered gleam, just as she appeared when, through the
+branches of the willows, she used to shine upon him as he sat on the
+mossy bank beside the river." The moon becomes very sociable, and breaks
+that long silence which poets have so often celebrated--breaks it, we
+must confess, to very little purpose. "Sketch what I relate to you,"
+says the moon, "and you will have a pretty picture-book." And
+accordingly, every visit, she tells him "of one thing or another that
+she has seen during the past night." One would think that such a
+sketch-book, or album, as we have here, might easily have been put
+together without calling in the aid of so sublime a personage. But
+amongst the pictures that are presented to us, two or three, where the
+moon has had her eye upon children in their sports or their distresses,
+took hold of our fancy. Here Andersen is immediately at home. We give
+one short extract.
+
+     "It was but yesternight (said the moon) that I peeped into a small
+     court-yard, enclosed by houses: there was a hen with eleven
+     chickens. A pretty little girl was skipping about. The hen chicked,
+     and, affrighted, spread out her wings over her little ones. Then
+     came the maiden's father, and chid the child; and I passed on,
+     without thinking more of it at the moment.
+
+     "This evening--but a few minutes ago--I again peeped into the same
+     yard. All was silent; but soon the little maiden came. She crept
+     cautiously to the hen-house, lifted the latch, and stole gently up
+     to the hen and the chickens. The hen chicked aloud, and they all
+     ran fluttering about: the little girl ran after them. I saw it
+     plainly, for I peeped in through a chink in the wall. I was vexed
+     with the naughty child, and was glad that the father came and
+     scolded her still more than yesterday, and seized her by the arm.
+     She bent her head back; big tears stood in her blue eyes. She wept.
+     'I wanted to go in and kiss the hen, and beg her to forgive me for
+     yesterday. But I could not tell it you.' And the father kissed the
+     brow of the innocent child; and I kissed her eyes and her lips."
+
+Our poet--we call him such, though we know nothing of his verses, for
+whatever there is of merit in his writings is of the nature of
+poetry--our poet of childhood and of poverty, was born at Odense, a town
+of Funen, one of the green, beech-covered islands of Denmark. It bears
+the name of the Scandinavian hero, or demigod, Odin; Tradition says he
+lived there. The parents of Andersen were so poor that when they married
+they had not wherewithal to purchase a bedstead, or at least thought it
+advisable to make shift by constructing one out of the wooden tressels
+which, a little time before, had supported the coffin of some
+neighbouring count as he lay in state. It still retained a part of the
+black cloth, and some of the funeral ornaments attached to it, when in
+the year 1805 there lay upon it, not in any peculiar state, the solitary
+fruit of their marriage--the little Hans Christian Andersen. He was a
+crying infant, and when carried to the baptismal font, sorely vexed the
+parson with his outcries. "Your young one screams like a cat!" said the
+reverend official. The mother was hurt at this reflection upon her
+offspring; but a prophetic god-papa, who stood by, consoled her by
+saying, "that the louder he cried when a child, all the more beautifully
+would he sing when he grew older."
+
+Those who are disposed to trace a hereditary descent in mental
+qualifications, will find an instance to their purpose in the case of
+Andersen. His mother, we are told, was utterly ignorant of books and of
+the world, "but possessed a heart full of love!" From her he may be said
+to have derived a singular frankness and amiability of disposition--a
+fond, open, affectionate temper. For the more intellectual qualities, by
+which this temper, through the medium of authorship, was to become
+patent to the world, he must have been indebted to his father. This poor
+and hapless shoemaker (such was his trade) seems to have been a singular
+person. To use a favourite phrase of Napoleon, "he had missed his
+destiny." His parents had been country people of some substance, but
+misfortune falling upon misfortune had reduced them to poverty. Finally,
+the father had become insane; the mother had been glad to obtain a
+menial situation in the very asylum where her husband was confined; and
+there was nothing better to be done for the son than to apprentice him
+to a shoemaker. Some talk there was amongst the neighbours of raising a
+subscription to send him to the grammar-school, and thus give him a
+start in life; but it never went beyond talk. A shoemaker he became. But
+to the leather and the last he never took kindly. He would read what
+books he could get--Holberg's plays and the Bible--and ponder over them.
+At first he would make his wife a sharer in his reflections, but as she,
+good woman, never understood a word of what he said, he learned to
+meditate in silence. On Sundays he would go out into the woods
+accompanied only by his child; then he would sit down, sunk in
+abstraction and solitary thought, while young Hans gathered flowers or
+wild strawberries. "I recollect," says the son, in his Autobiography,
+"that once, as a child, I saw tears in his eyes; and it was when a youth
+from the grammar-school came to our house to be measured for a new pair
+of boots, and showed us his books, and told us what he learned, 'That
+was the path on which I ought to have gone!' said my father; he kissed
+me passionately, and was silent the whole evening."
+
+There surely went out of the world something still undeveloped in that
+poor shoemaker. At a subsequent period of the history we find him fairly
+abandoning his unchosen trade. The name of Napoleon resounded even in
+Odense--even in Odense could find a heart that is disquieted. He would
+follow the banner of him who had "opened a career to all the talents."
+But the regiment in which he enlisted got no further than Holstein.
+Peace was concluded; he had to return to his native place, and fall back
+as well as he could into the old routine. His march to Holstein had,
+however, shaken his health, and he died shortly after his return.
+
+"I was," says our author, "the only child, and was extremely spoilt; but
+I continually heard my mother say how very much happier I was than she
+had been, and that I was brought up like a nobleman's child." No
+nobleman's child could, at all events, be brought up with less
+restraint, or more completely left to his own fancies. Poor as were his
+parents, he never felt want; he had no care; he was fed and clothed
+without any thought on his part; he lived his own dreamy life, nourished
+by scraps of plays, songs, and all manner of traditionary stories. There
+was a theatre at Odense, and young Andersen was now and then taken to it
+by his parents. He himself constructed a puppet-show, and the dressing
+and drilling of his dolls was for a long time the chief occupation of
+his life. As he could rarely go to the theatre, he made friends with the
+man who sold the play-bills, who was charitable enough to give him one.
+With this upon his knee, he would sit apart and construct a play for
+himself; putting the _dramatis person�_ into movement as well as he
+could, and at all events despatching them all at the close; for he had
+no idea, he tells us, of a tragedy "that had not plenty of dying."
+
+Of what is commonly called education he had little enough. He was sent
+to a charity-school, where, by a somewhat startling error of the press,
+Mrs Howitt is made to say "he learned only _religion_, writing, and
+arithmetic." Of the _reading_, writing, and arithmetic there taught, he
+seemed to have gained little; certainly the writing, and the arithmetic
+went on very slowly. To make amends, he used to present his master on
+his birth-day with a poem and a garland. Both the wreath and the verses
+seemed to have been but churlishly received, and the last time they were
+offered, he got scolded for his pains.
+
+It would be difficult, however, to conceive of a life more suitable to
+the fostering of the imagination than that which little Hans was
+leading. Besides the play-house, and the scraps of dramas read to him by
+his father, himself a strange and dreamy man, we catch sight of an old
+grandmother, she who resided in the lunatic asylum where her husband was
+confined. Young Hans was occasionally permitted to visit her; and here
+he was a great favourite with certain old crones, who told him many a
+marvellous and terrible story. These stories, and the insane figures
+which he caught sight of around him, operated, he tells us, so
+powerfully upon his imagination that when it grew dark he scarcely dared
+to go out of the house. His own mother was extremely superstitious. When
+her husband was dying, she sent her son, not to the doctor, but to a
+wise-woman, who, after measuring the boy's arm with a woollen thread,
+and performing some other ceremonies, bade him go home by the river
+side, "and if he did not see the ghost of his father, he was to be sure
+that he would not die this time." He did _not_ see the ghost of his
+father--which, considering all things, was rather surprising; but his
+father died nevertheless.
+
+After the death of her husband, the mother of Andersen found another
+object for her affections, for that "heart so full of love." She married
+again. But the stepfather was "a grave young man, who would have nothing
+to do with Hans Christian's education;" refused, we presume, all
+responsibility on so delicate a business. He was still left to himself.
+He had now grown a tall lad, with long yellow hair, which the sun
+probably had assisted to dye, as he was accustomed to go bare-headed. He
+continued to amuse himself with dressing his theatrical puppets. His
+mother reconciled herself to the occupation, as it formed, she thought,
+no bad introduction to the trade of a tailor, to which she now destined
+him. On the other hand, Hans partly reconciled himself to the idea of
+being a tailor, because he should then have plenty of cloth, of all
+colours, for his puppets. Meanwhile it was to a very different trade or
+destiny that these puppets were conducting him.
+
+About this time, not for the money, said the warm-hearted mother, but
+that the lad, like the rest of the world, might be doing something, Hans
+was sent, for a short interval, to a cloth factory. But it was fated
+that he should never work. He had a beautiful voice, and could sing. The
+people at the factory asked him to sing. "He began, and all the looms
+stood still." He had to sing again and again, whilst the other boys had
+his work given them to do. He was not long, however, at the factory. The
+coarse jests and behaviour of its inmates drove out the shy and solitary
+boy.
+
+And now came the crisis. He would go forth into the world. He would be
+famous. All his early aspirations for distinction and celebrity had
+become, as might be expected, associated with the theatre. But as yet he
+had not the least idea in what department he was to excel--whether as
+actor or poet, dancer or singer--or rather he seems to have thought
+himself capable of success in them all. The passion for fame, or rather
+for distinction, had been awakened before the passion for any particular
+art. All he knew was, that he was to be a celebrated man; by what sort
+of labour, what kind of performance, he had no conception. Indeed, the
+remarkable performance, the work to be done, was not the most essential
+thing in his calculation. "People suffer a deal of adversity, and then
+they become famous." It was thus he explained the matter to himself. He
+was on the right road, at all events, for the adversity.
+
+We must relate his going forth in his own words. Never, surely, on the
+part of all the actors in it, was there a scene of such singular
+simplicity.
+
+     "My mother said that I must be confirmed, in order that I might be
+     apprenticed to the tailor trade, and thus do something rational.
+     She loved me with her whole heart, but she did not understand my
+     impulses and my endeavours, nor, indeed, at that time did I myself.
+     The people about her always spoke against my odd ways, and turned
+     me into ridicule. (They only saw the ugly duckling in the young
+     swan.)
+
+     "We belonged to the parish of St Knud, and the candidates for
+     confirmation could either enter their names with the provost or
+     with the chaplain. The children of the so-called superior families,
+     and the scholars of the grammar-school, went to the first, and the
+     children of the poor to the second. I, however, announced myself as
+     a candidate to the provost, who was obliged to receive me, although
+     he discovered vanity in my placing myself among his catechists,
+     where, although taking the lowest place, I was still above those
+     who were under the care of the chaplain. I would, however, hope
+     that it was not alone vanity that impelled me. I had a sort of fear
+     of the poor boys, who had laughed at me, and I always felt as it
+     were an inward drawing towards the scholars of the grammar-school,
+     whom I regarded as far better than other boys. When I saw them
+     Playing in the churchyard, I would stand outside the railings, and
+     wish that I were but among the fortunate ones--not for the sake of
+     the play, but for the many books they had, and for what they might
+     be able to become in the world.
+
+     "An old female tailor altered my deceased father's greatcoat into a
+     confirmation suit for me; never before had I worn so good a coat. I
+     had also, for the first time in my life, a pair of boots. My
+     delight was extremely great; my only fear was that every body would
+     not see them, and therefore I drew them up over my trousers, and
+     thus marched through the church. The boots creaked, and that
+     inwardly pleased me, for thus the congregation would hear that they
+     were new. My whole devotion was disturbed. I was aware of it, and
+     it caused me a horrible pang of conscience that my thoughts should
+     be as much with my new boots as with God. I prayed him earnestly
+     from my heart to forgive me, and then again I thought upon my new
+     boots.
+
+     "During the last year I had saved together a little sum of money.
+     When I counted it over, I found it to be thirteen rix-dollars banco
+     (about thirty shillings.) I was quite overjoyed at the possession
+     of so much wealth; and as my mother now most resolutely required
+     that I should be apprenticed to a tailor, I prayed and besought her
+     that I might make a journey to Copenhagen, that I might see the
+     greatest city in the world.
+
+     "'What wilt thou do there?' asked my mother.
+
+     "'I will become famous,' returned I; and I then told her all that I
+     had read about extraordinary men. 'People have,' said I, 'at first
+     an immense deal of adversity to go through, and then they will be
+     famous.'
+
+     "It was a wholly unintelligible impulse that guided me. I wept and
+     prayed, and at last my mother consented, after having first sent
+     for a so-called wise-woman out of the hospital, that she might read
+     my future fortune by the coffee-grounds and cards.
+
+     "'Your son will become a great man!' said the old woman; 'and in
+     honour of him all Odense will one day be illuminated.'
+
+     "My mother wept when she heard that, and I obtained permission to
+     travel."--(p. 27.)
+
+So, at the age of fourteen, with thirty shillings in his pocket, and his
+idea of becoming famous by going through a deal of adversity, he comes
+to Copenhagen--the Paris, the more than the Paris of Denmark, for, in
+respect to all that a great town collects or fosters, Copenhagen is
+literally Denmark. There never was a stranger history than this of young
+Andersen's. It is more like a dream than a life; it is like one of his
+own tales for children, where the rigid laws of probability are
+dispensed with in favour of a quite free and rapid invention. The
+theatre is his point of attraction: but he was by no means determined in
+what department, or under what form, his universal genius shall make its
+appearance. He will first try dancing. He had heard of a celebrated
+_danseuse_, a Madame Schall. To her he goes with a letter of
+introduction, which he had coaxed out of an old printer in Odense, who,
+though he protested he did not know the lady, was still prevailed upon
+to write the letter. Dressed in his confirmation suit, a broad hat upon
+his head, his boots, we may be sure, not forgotten, which were worn,
+however, this time under the trousers, he finds out the residence of
+Madame Schall, rings at the bell, and is admitted. "She looked at me
+with great amazement," writes our author, "and then heard what I had to
+say. She had not the slightest knowledge of him from whom the letter
+came, and my whole appearance and behaviour seemed very strange to her.
+I confessed to her my heartfelt inclination for the theatre; and upon
+her asking me what character I thought I could represent, I replied
+Cinderella. This piece had been performed in Odense by the royal
+company, and the principal character had so taken my fancy, that I could
+play the part perfectly from memory. In the mean time I asked her
+permission to take off my boots, otherwise I was not light enough for
+this character; and then, taking up my broad hat for a tambourine, I
+began to dance and sing--
+
+  'Here below nor rank nor riches
+  Are exempt from pain and wo.'
+
+My strange gestures and my great activity caused the lady to think me
+out of my mind, and she lost no time in getting rid of me."
+
+We should think so. Only imagine some wild colt of a boy, one of those
+young Savoyards, for instance, who are in the habit of dancing round the
+organ they are grinding, apparently to convince the world how sprightly
+the tune is--imagine a genius of this natural description introducing
+himself into the drawing-room of a Taglioni or an Elssler, and
+commencing forthwith, "with great activity," to give a specimen of his
+talent! Just such as this must have been the part which young Andersen
+performed in the saloon of Madame Schall.
+
+As the dancing does not succeed, he next offers himself as an
+actor--proceeding, quite as a matter of course, to the manager of a
+theatre to ask for an engagement. The manager was facetious--said he was
+"too thin for the theatre." Hans would be facetious too. "Oh," he
+replied, "if you will but engage me at one hundred rix-dollars banco
+salary, I shall soon get fat." Then the manager looked grave, and bade
+him go his way, adding, that he engaged only people of education.
+
+But he had many strings to his bow--he could sing. It was at the opera
+evidently that he was destined to become famous. Here he met with what,
+for a moment, looked like success. A voice he certainly possessed,
+though uncultivated, and Seboni, the director of the Academy of Music,
+promised to procure instruction for him. But a short time afterwards he
+lost his voice, through insufficient clothing, as he thinks, and bad
+shoe leather. (Those boots could not be new always--doubtless got sadly
+worn tramping through the streets of Copenhagen.) Seboni dropped his
+_prot�g�_, counselled him to go back to Odense, and learn a trade.
+
+As well learn a trade in Copenhagen, if it was to come to that. He still
+stayed in the capital, and still lingered round the theatre, sometimes
+getting a lesson in recitation, sometimes one in dancing, and overjoyed
+if only as one of a crowd of masked people he could stand before the
+scenes. There never surely was so irrepressible a vanity combined with
+so sensitive a temperament; never so strong an impulse for distinction
+accompanied with such vague notions of the means to attain it. At this
+period of his life his utter childishness, his affectionate simplicity,
+his superstition, his unconquerable vanity, present a picture quite
+unexampled in all biographies we have ever read. He has to make a
+bargain with an old woman (no better than she should be) for his board
+and lodging. She had left the room for a short time; there was in it a
+portrait of her deceased husband. "I was so much a child," he says,
+"that, as the tears rolled down my own cheeks, I wetted the eyes of the
+portrait with my tears, in order that the dead man might feel how
+troubled I was, and influence the heart of his wife."
+
+Great as his susceptibility to ridicule, his vanity is always greater,
+can surmount it, and find a gratification where a sterner nature would
+have felt only mortification. In a scene of an opera where a crowd is to
+be represented, he edges himself upon the stage. He is very conscious of
+the ill condition of his attire: the confirmation coat did but just hold
+together; and he did not dare to hold himself upright lest he should
+exhibit the more plainly the shortness of the waistcoat which he had
+outgrown. He had the feeling very plainly that people would be making
+themselves merry with him; yet at this moment, he says, "he felt nothing
+but the happiness of stepping for the first time before the footlamps."
+
+Of his superstition he records the following amusing instance. "I had
+the notion that as it went with me on New Year's Day, so would it go
+with me through the whole year; and my highest wishes were to obtain a
+part in a play. It was now New Year's Day. The theatre was closed, and
+only a half-blind porter sat at the entrance to the stage, on which
+there was not a soul. I stole past him with a beating heart, got between
+the moveable scenes and the curtain, and advanced to the open part of
+the stage. Here I fell down upon my knees, but not a single verse for
+declamation could I recall to my memory. I then said aloud the Lord's
+Prayer. I went out with the persuasion that, because I had spoken from
+the stage on New Year's Day, I should, in the course of the year,
+succeed in speaking still more, as well as in having a part assigned to
+me."--(p. 50.)
+
+We must quote the paragraph that immediately follows this extract,
+because it shows that, after all, there was something better stirring at
+his heart than this vague theatrical ambition, this empty vanity. There
+was the love of nature there. "During the two years of my residence in
+Copenhagen, I had never been out into the open country. Once only had I
+been in the park, and there I had been deeply engrossed by studying the
+diversions of the people and their gay tumult. In the spring of the
+third year, I went out for the first time amid the verdure of a spring
+morning. I stood still suddenly under the first large budding
+beech-tree. The sun made the leaves transparent--there was a fragrance,
+a freshness--the birds sang. I was overcome by it--I shouted aloud for
+joy, threw my arms around the tree, and kissed it. 'Is he mad?' said a
+man close behind me."
+
+His good fortune provided him at length with a sincere and serviceable
+friend in the person of Collins--conference-councillor, as his title
+runs, and one of the most influential men at that time in Denmark.
+Through his means a grant was obtained from the royal purse, and access
+procured to something like regular education in the grammar-school at
+Slagelse. His place in the school was in the lowest class amongst little
+boys. He knew indeed nothing at all--nothing of what is taught by the
+pedagogue. At the age of eighteen, after having written a tragedy, which
+had been submitted to the theatre at Copenhagen, and we know not what
+poems besides,--after having versified a dance, and recited a song, he
+begins at the very beginning, and seats himself down in the lowest form
+of a grammar-school.
+
+It is not our intention to pursue the biography of Andersen beyond what
+is necessary for understanding the singular circumstances in which his
+mind grew up; we shall not, therefore, detain our readers much longer on
+this part of our subject. His scholastic progress appears to have been
+at first slow and painful; the rector of the grammar-school behaved
+neither kindly nor generously towards him; and on him he afterwards took
+his revenge in the character of Habbas Dahdah, in "The Improvisatore."
+But he was docile, he was persevering, and passed through the school,
+and afterwards the college, not discreditably. In 1829, he was launched
+again into the world, a member of the educated class of society.
+
+After supporting himself some time by his pen, he received from his
+government a stipend for travelling, which, it appears, in Denmark is
+bestowed on young poets as well as artists. And now he started on his
+travels--evidently the best school of education for a mind like his. For
+whatever use books may have been of to Andersen, in teaching him to
+_write_, they have had nothing to do with teaching him to _think_. No
+one portion of his writings of any value can be traced to his
+acquaintance with books. What knowledge he got from this source he could
+never rightly use. What his eye saw, what his heart felt--that alone he
+could work with. The slowly won reflection, the linked thought--any
+thing like a train of reasoning, seems to have been an utter stranger
+to his mind. Throughout his life, he is an observant child. From books
+he can gather nothing: severe analytic thinking he knows nothing of; he
+must see the world, must hear people talk, must remember how his own
+heart beat, and thus only can he find something for utterance.
+
+What a change now in his destiny! The poor shoemaker's child, that
+wandered wild in the woods of Odense, and afterwards wandered almost as
+wild and as solitary in the streets of Copenhagen--who was next
+imprisoned in a school with dictionary and grammar--is now free
+again--may wander with wider range of vision--is a traveller--and in
+Italy! But the sensitive temper of Andersen, we are afraid, hardly
+permitted him to enjoy, as he might have done, his full cup of
+happiness. Vanity is an unquiet companion; he should have left it behind
+him at home; then the little piece of malice which he records of one of
+his friends would not have disturbed him as it appears to have done.
+
+"During my journey to Paris, and the whole month that I spent there, I
+heard not a single word from home. Could it be that my friends had
+nothing agreeable to tell me? At length, however, a letter arrived; a
+large letter, which cost a large sum in postage. My heart beat with joy,
+and yearning impatience; it was indeed my first letter. I opened it, but
+I discovered not a single written word--nothing but a Copenhagen
+newspaper, _containing a lampoon upon me_, and that was sent to me all
+that distance with postage unpaid, probably by the anonymous writer
+himself. This abominable malice wounded me deeply. I have never
+discovered who the author was; perhaps he was one of those who
+afterwards called me friend, and pressed my hand. Some men have base
+thoughts; I also have mine."
+
+Poor Andersen has all his life long been sorely plagued by his critics.
+Those who peruse his Autobiography to the close, and every part of it is
+worth reading, will find him in violent ill humour with the theatrical
+public, whom he describes as taking a malicious and diabolical pleasure
+in damning plays. To hiss down a piece, he declares, is one of the chief
+amusements that fill the house. "Five minutes is the usual time, and the
+whistles resound, and the lovely women smile and felicitate themselves
+like the Spanish ladies at their bloody bull-fights." His second journey
+into Italy seems to have been in part occasioned by some quarrel with
+the theatre. "If I would represent this portion of my life more clearly
+and reflectively, it would require me to penetrate into the mysteries of
+the theatre, to analyse our �sthetic cliques, and to drag into
+conspicuous notice many individuals who do not belong to publicity; many
+persons in my place would, like me, have fallen ill, or would have
+resented it vehemently. Perhaps the latter would have been the most
+sensible."
+
+Oh, no! Hans Christian--by no means the most sensible. Better even to
+have fallen ill. An author by his quarrel with the public, whether the
+reading or theatrical public, can gain nothing for himself but added
+torment. The more vehemently he contests and resents, the louder is the
+laugh against him. Whether the right is upon his side, time alone can
+show; time alone can redress his wrongs. When the poet has written his
+best, he has done all his part. If he cannot feel perfectly tranquil as
+to the result, let him at least affect tranquillity--let him be silent,
+and silence will soon bring that peace it typifies.
+
+Henceforward, however, upon the whole, the career of Andersen is
+prosperous, and his life genial. We find him in friendly intercourse
+with the best spirits of the age. The lad who walked about Odense with
+long yellow locks, bare-headed, and bare-footed, and who was half
+reconciled to being a tailor's apprentice, because he should get plenty
+of remnants to dress his puppets with--is seen spending the evening with
+the royal family of Denmark, or dining with the King of Prussia, who
+decorates him with his order of the Red Eagle! He has exemplified his
+text--"people have a deal of adversity to go through, and then they
+become famous."
+
+Those who have read "The Improvisatore," the most ambitious of the
+works of Andersen, and by far the most meritorious of his novels, will
+now directly recognise the materials of which it has been constructed.
+His own early career, and his travels into Italy, have been woven
+together in the story of Antonio. So far from censuring him--as some of
+his Copenhagen critics appear to have done--for describing himself and
+the scenes he beheld, we are only surprised when we read "The True Story
+of his Life," that he has not been able to employ in a still more
+striking manner, the experience of his singular career. But, as we have
+already observed, he betrays no habit or power of mental analysis; he
+has not that introspection which, in the phrase of our poet Daniel,
+"raises a man above himself;" so that Andersen could contemplate
+Andersen, and combine the impartial scrutiny of a spectator with the
+thorough knowledge which self can only have of self. So far from
+censuring him for the frequent use he makes of the materials which his
+own life and travels afforded him, we could wish that he had never
+attempted to employ any other. Throughout his novels, whenever he
+departs from these, he is either commonplace or extravagant,--or both
+together, which, in our days, is very possible. If he imitates other
+writers, it is always their worst manner that he contrives to seize; if
+he adopts the worn-out resources of preceding novelists, it is always
+(and in this he may be doing good service) to render them still more
+palpably absurd and ridiculous than they were before. He has dreams in
+plenty--his heroes are always dreaming; he has fevered descriptions of
+the over-excited imagination--a very favourite resource of modern
+novelists; he has his moral enigmas; and of course he has a witch
+(Fulvia) who tells fortunes and reads futurity, and reads it correctly,
+let philosophy or common sense say what it will. His Fulvia affords his
+readers one gratification; they find her fairly hanged at the end of the
+book.
+
+We are far enough from attempting to give an outline of the story of
+this or any other novel--such skeletons are not attractive; but the
+extracts, and the observations we have to make, will best be understood
+by entering a few steps into the narrative.
+
+Antonio, the Improvisatore, is born in Rome of poor parents. He is
+introduced to us as a child, living with his fond mother, his only
+surviving parent, in a room, or rather a loft, in the roof of a house.
+She is accidentally run over and killed by a nobleman's carriage. A
+certain uncle Peppo, a cripple and a beggar, claims guardianship of the
+orphan. Of this Peppo we have a most unamiable portrait. His withered
+legs are fastened to a board, and he shuffles himself along with his
+hands, which were armed with a pair of wooden hand clogs. He used to sit
+upon the steps of the Piazza de Spagna. "Once I was witness," says the
+Improvisatore, who tells his own story, "of a scene which awoke in me
+fear of him, and also exhibited his own disposition. Upon one of the
+lowest flights of stairs sat an old blind beggar, and rattled with his
+little leaden box that people might drop a _bajocco_ therein. Many
+people passed by my uncle without noticing his crafty smile and the
+waivings of his hat; the blind man gained more by his silence--they gave
+to him. Three had gone by, and now came the fourth, and threw him a
+small coin. Peppo could no longer contain himself: I saw how he crept
+down like a snake, and struck the blind man in his face, so that he lost
+both money and stick. 'Thou thief!' cried my uncle, 'wilt thou steal
+money from me--thou who art not even a regular cripple--cannot see--that
+is all! And so he will take my bread from my mouth.'"
+
+On great occasions Peppo could quit his board and straddle upon an ass.
+And now he came upon his ass, set Antonio before him, and carried him
+off to his home or den. The boy was put into a small recess contiguous
+to the apartment which his uncle occupied with some of his guests. He
+overheard this conversation: "Can the boy do any thing?" asked one; "Has
+he any sort of hurt?"
+
+"No; the Madonna has not been so kind to him," said Peppo; "he is
+slender and well formed, like a nobleman's child."
+
+"That is a great misfortune," said they all; and some suggestions were
+added, that he could have some little hurt to help him to get his
+earthly bread until the Madonna gave him the heavenly. Conversation such
+as this filled him with alarm; he crept through the aperture which
+served for window to his dormitory; slid down the wall, and made his
+escape. He ran as fast as he could, and found himself at length in the
+Coliseum.
+
+Antonio, at this time, is a poor boy about nine or ten years old; we
+have seen from what sort of guardian the terrified lad was making his
+escape. Now, observe the exquisite appropriateness, taste, and judgment
+of what follows. It is precisely here that the author makes parade of
+the knowledge he has lately gained in the grammar-school of
+Slagelse--precisely here that he throws his Antonio into a classical
+dream or vision!
+
+     "Behind one of the many wooden altars which stand not far apart
+     within the ruins, and indicate the resting-points of the Saviour's
+     progress to the cross,[3] I seated myself upon a fallen capital,
+     which lay in the grass. The stone was as cold as ice, my head
+     burned, there was fever in my blood; I could not sleep, and there
+     occurred to my mind all that people had related to me of this old
+     building; of the captive Jews who had been made to raise these huge
+     blocks of stone for the mighty Roman C�sar; of the wild beasts
+     which, within this space, had fought with each other, nay, even
+     with men also, while the people sat upon stone benches, which
+     ascended step-like from the ground to the loftiest colonnade.
+
+     "There was a rustling in the bushes above me; I looked up, and
+     fancied that I saw something moving. Oh, yes! my imagination showed
+     to me pale dark shapes, which hewed and builded around me; I heard
+     distinctly every stroke that fell, saw the meagre black-bearded
+     Jews tear away grass and shrubs to pile stone upon stone, till the
+     whole monstrous building stood there newly erected; and now all was
+     one throng of human beings, head above head, and the whole seemed
+     one infinitely vast living giant body.
+
+     "I saw the vestals in their long white garments; the magnificent
+     court of the C�sar; the naked bleeding gladiators; then I heard how
+     there was a roaring and a howling round about, in the lowest
+     colonnades; from various sides sprang in whole herds of tigers and
+     hy�nas; they sped close past the spot where I lay; I felt their
+     burning breath; saw their red fiery glances, and held myself fast
+     upon the stone upon which I was seated, whilst I prayed the Madonna
+     to save me. But wilder still grew the tumult around me; yet I could
+     see in the midst of all the holy cross as it still stands, and
+     which, whenever I had passed it, I had piously kissed. I exerted
+     all my strength, and perceived distinctly that I had thrown my arms
+     around it; but every thing that surrounded me trembled violently
+     together,--walls, men, beasts. Consciousness had left me,--I
+     perceived nothing more. When I again opened my eyes, my fever was
+     over."
+
+Sadder trash than this it were almost impossible to write. It is
+necessary to make some quotations to justify the terms of censure, as
+well as of praise, which we have bestowed upon Andersen; but our readers
+will willingly excuse the infliction of many such quotations; they might
+be made abundantly enough, we can assure them.
+
+On awaking from this vision, Antonio finds himself in the presence of
+some worthy monks. They take charge of him, and ultimately give him over
+to the protection of an old woman, a relative, Dominica, who is living
+the most solitary life imaginable, in one of the tombs of the Campagna.
+Here there is a striking picture presented to the imagination--of the
+old woman and the little boy, shut up in the ruined tomb, in the almost
+tropical heat, or the heavy rains, that visit the Campagna. He who
+erewhile had visions of vestals and captive Jews, C�sar and the
+gladiators, is more naturally represented as amusing himself by floating
+sticks and reeds upon the little canal dug to carry the water from their
+dwelling;--"they were his boats which were to sail to Rome."
+
+One day a young nobleman, pursued by an enraged buffalo, takes refuge in
+this tomb, and thus becomes acquainted with Antonio. He is a member of
+the Borghese family, and proves to be the very nobleman whose carriage
+had accidentally occasioned the death of his mother. Antonio becomes the
+prot�g� of the Borghese, returns to Rome, receives an education, and is
+raised into the high and cultivated ranks of society. He is put under
+the learned discipline of Habbas Dahdah--an excellent name, we confess,
+for a fool--in whose person, we presume, he takes a sly revenge upon his
+late rector of Slagelse. But he has not been fortunate in the invention
+of parallel absurdities in his Italian pedagogue to those which he may
+have remembered of some German prototype. He describes him as animated
+with a sort of insane aversion to the poet Dante, whom he decries on
+every occasion in order to exalt Petrarch. A Habbas Dahdah would be much
+more more likely to feign an excessive admiration for the idol and glory
+of Italy. However, his pupil stealthily procures a Dante; reads him, of
+course _dreams_ of him; in short, there is an intolerable farago about
+the great poet.
+
+But the time now comes when the great business of all novels--love--is
+brought upon the scene. And here we have an observation to make which we
+think may be deserving of attention.
+
+Antonio, the Improvisatore, is made, in the novel, to love in the
+strangest fashion imaginable. He loves and he does not love; he never
+knows himself, nor the reader either, whether, or with whom, to
+pronounce him in love. Annunciata, the first object of this uncertain
+passion, behaves herself, it must be confessed, in a very extraordinary
+manner. We suppose the exigencies of the novel must excuse her; it was
+necessary that her lover should be plunged in despair, and therefore she
+could not be permitted to behave as any other woman would have done in
+the same circumstances. She has a real affection for Antonio; yet at the
+critical moment--the last moment he will be able to learn the truth, the
+last time he will see her unless her response be favourable--she behaves
+in such a manner as to lead him inevitably to the conclusion that his
+rival is preferred to him. This Annunciata, the most celebrated singer
+of her day, loses her voice, loses her beauty,--a fever deprives her of
+both;--and not till her death does Antonio learn that he, and not
+another, was the person really beloved. Meanwhile, in his travels,
+Antonio meets with a blind girl, whom he does or does not love, on whom
+at least he poetises, and whose forehead, _because she was blind_, he
+had kissed. He is afterwards introduced, at Venice, to a young lady,
+(Maria) who bears a striking resemblance to this blind girl. She is, in
+fact, the same person, restored to sight, though he is not aware of it.
+Maria loves the Improvisatore; he says, he believes that his affection
+is _not_ love. He quits Venice--he returns--he is ill. Then follows one
+of those miserable scenes which novelists will inflict upon us--of
+dream, or delirium--what you will,--and, in this state, he fancies Maria
+is dead; he finds then that he really loved; and, in his sleep or
+trance, he expresses aloud his affection. His declaration is overheard
+by Maria and her sister, who are watching over his couch. He wakes, and
+Maria is there, alive before him. In his sleep he has become aware of
+the true condition of his own heart; nay, he has leapt the Rubicon,--he
+has declared it. He becomes a married man.
+
+Now, in the confused and contradictory account of Antonio's passion, we
+see a truth which the author drew from his own nature and experience,--a
+truth which, if he had fully appreciated, or had manfully adhered to,
+would have enabled him to draw a striking, consistent, and original
+portrait. In such natures as Andersen's, there is often found a modesty
+more than a woman's, combined with a vivid feeling of beauty, and a
+yearning for affection. Modesty is no exclusive property of the female
+sex, and there may be so much of it in a youth as to be the impediment,
+perhaps the unconscious impediment, to all the natural outpouring of his
+heart. The coyness of the virgin, the suitor, by his prayers and wooing,
+does all he can to overcome; but here the coyness is in the suitor
+himself. He has to overcome it by himself, and he cannot. He hardly
+knows the sort of enemy he has to conquer. Every woman seems to him
+enclosed in a bell-glass, fine as gossamer, but he cannot break it. He
+feels himself drawn, but he cannot approach. His heart is yearning; yet
+he says to himself, no, I do not love. A looker-on calls him inconstant,
+uncertain, capricious. He is not so; he is bound by viewless fetters,
+nor does he know where to strike the chain that is coiled around him.
+
+Such was the truth, we apprehend, such the character, that Andersen had
+indistinctly in view. He drew from himself, but he had not previously
+analysed that self. It is, therefore, not so much a false as a confused
+and imperfect representation that he has given, which the reader, if he
+thinks it worth his while, must explain and complete for himself.
+Perhaps, too, a fear of the ridicule which an exhibition of modesty in
+man might draw down from certain slender witlings, from the young
+gentlemen, or even the young ladies, of Copenhagen, may have, in part,
+deterred him from a faithful portraiture. To people of reflection, who
+have learned to estimate at its true value the laugh of coxcombs, and
+the wisdom of the so-called man of the world--the shallowest bird of
+passage that we know of--such a portrait would have been attractive for
+the genuine truth it contains. It would require, indeed, a master's hand
+to deal both well and honestly with it.
+
+The descriptions of Italy which "The Improvisatore" contains are
+sufficiently striking and faithful to recall the scenes to those who
+have visited them; which is all, we believe, the best descriptions can
+effect. What is absolutely new to a reader cannot be described to him.
+If all the poets and romancers of England were to unite together in a
+committee of taste, they could not frame a description which would give
+the effect of mountainous scenery to one who had never seen a mountain.
+The utmost the describer call do, in all such cases, is to liken the
+scene to something already familiar to the reader's imagination. Though
+generally faithful, we cannot say that our author never sacrifices
+accuracy of detail to the demands of the novelist, never sacrifices the
+actual to the ideal. For instance, his account of the _Miserere_ in the
+Sistine Chapel, is rather what one is willing to anticipate it might be,
+than what a traveller really finds it. To be sure, he has a right to
+place his hero of the novel where he pleases in the chapel, relieve him
+from the crowd, and give him all the advantages of position: still his
+perfect enjoyment of all that both the arts of painting and music can
+afford, and that overpowering _sentiment_ which he finds in the great
+picture of the Last Judgment by Michel Angelo, (a picture which
+addresses itself far more to the artist than the poet,) strikes us as a
+description more from imagination than experience.
+
+A little satire upon the travelling English seems, by the way, to be as
+agreeable at Copenhagen as at Paris. Our Danish friends are quite
+welcome to it; we only wish for their sakes that, in the present
+instance, it had been a little more lively and pungent. Our Hans
+Andersen is too weak in the wrist, has not arm strong enough "to crack
+the satyric thong." Mere exaggeration maybe mere nonsense, and very dull
+nonsense. The scene is at the hotel at Terracina, so well known by all
+travellers.
+
+     "The cracking of whips re-echoed from the wall of rocks; a carriage
+     with four horses rolled up to the hotel. Armed servants sat on the
+     seat at the back of the carriage; a pale thin gentleman, wrapped in
+     a large bright-coloured dressing-gown, stretched himself within it.
+     The postilion dismounted and cracked his long whip several times,
+     whilst fresh horses were put to. The stranger wished to proceed,
+     but as he desired to have an escort over the mountains where Fra
+     Diavolo and Cesari had bold descendants, he was obliged to wait a
+     quarter of an hour, and now scolded, half in English and half in
+     Italian, at the people's laziness, and at the torments and
+     sufferings which travellers had to endure; and at length knotted up
+     his pocket-handkerchief into a night-cap, which he drew on his
+     head, and then, throwing himself into a corner of the carriage,
+     closed his eyes, and seemed to resign himself to his fate.
+
+     "I perceived that it was all Englishman, who already, in ten days,
+     had travelled through the north and the middle of Italy, and in
+     that time had made himself acquainted with this country; had seen
+     Rome in one day, and was now going to Naples to ascend Vesuvius,
+     and then by the steam-vessel to Marseilles, to gain a knowledge
+     also of the south of France, which he hoped to do in a still
+     shorter time. At length eight well-armed horsemen arrived, the
+     postilion cracked his whip, and the carriage and the out-riders
+     vanished through the gate between the tall yellow rocks."--(Vol.
+     ii. p. 6.)
+
+"_Only a Fiddler_" proceeds, in part, on the same plan as "The
+Improvisatore." Here, too, the author has drawn from his own early
+experience; here, too, we have a poor lad of genius, who will "go
+through an immense deal of adversity and then become famous;" here too
+we have the little ugly duck, who, however, was born in a swan's egg.
+The commencement of the novel is pretty, where it treats of the
+childhood of the hero; but Christian (such is his name) does not win
+upon our sympathy, and still less upon our respect. We are led to
+suspect that Christian Andersen himself, is naturally deficient in
+certain elements of character, or he would have better upheld the
+dignity of his namesake, whom he has certainly no desire to lower in our
+esteem. With an egregious passion for distinction, a great vanity, in
+short, we are afraid that he himself (judging from some passages in his
+Autobiography) hardly possesses a proper degree of pride, or the due
+feeling of self-respect. The Christian in the novel is the butt and
+laughing-stock of a proud, wilful young beauty of the name of Naomi; yet
+does he forsake the love of a sweet girl Lucie, to be the beaten spaniel
+of this Naomi. He has so little spirit as to take her money and her
+contempt at the same time.
+
+This self-willed and beautiful Naomi is a well-imagined character, but
+imperfectly developed. Indeed the whole novel may be described as a
+jumble of ill-connected scenes, and of half-drawn characters. We have
+some sad imitations of the worst models of our current literature. Here
+is a Norwegian godfather, the blurred likeness of some Parisian
+murderer. Here are dreams and visions, and plenty of delirium. He has
+caught the trick, perhaps, from some of our English novelists, of
+infusing into the persons of his drama all sorts of distorted
+imaginations, by way of describing the situation he has placed them in.
+We will quote a passage of this nature: it is just possible that some of
+our countrymen, when they see their own style reflected back to them
+from a foreign page, may be able to appreciate its exquisite truth to
+nature. Christian, still a boy, is at play with his companions; he hides
+from them in the belfry of a church. It was the custom to ring the bells
+at sunset. He had ensconced himself between the wall and the great bell,
+and "when this rose, and showed to him the whole opening of its mouth,"
+he found he was within a hair's breadth of contact with it. Retreat was
+impossible, and the least movement exposed his head to be shattered. The
+conception is terrible enough, but by no means a novel one, as all
+readers conversant with the pages of this Magazine will readily allow,
+by reference to the story of "The Man in the Bell," in our tenth
+volume,[4] one of the late Dr Maginn's most powerful and graphic
+sketches. But the natural horror of the situation by no means satisfies
+this novelist; he therefore engrafts the following imaginations
+thereupon, as being such as were most likely to occur to the lad,
+frightened out of his senses, stunned by the roar of the bell, winking
+hard, and pressing himself closer and closer to the wall to escape the
+threatened blow.
+
+     "Overpowered to his very inmost soul by the most fearful anguish,
+     the bell appeared to him the jaws of some immense serpent; the
+     clapper was the poisonous tongue, which it extended towards him.
+     Confused imaginations pressed upon him; feelings similar to the
+     anguish which he felt when the godfather had dived with him beneath
+     the water, took possession of him; but here it roared far stronger
+     in his ears, and the changing colours before his eyes formed
+     themselves into gray figures. The old pictures in the castle
+     floated before him, but with threatening mien and gestures, and
+     ever-changing forms; now long and angular, again jelly-like, clear
+     and trembling; they clashed cymbals and beat drums, and then
+     suddenly passed away into that fiery glow in which every thing had
+     appeared to him, when, with Naomi, he looked through the red
+     window-panes. It burned, that he felt plainly. He swam through a
+     burning sea, and ever did the serpent exhibit to him its fearful
+     jaws. An irresistible desire seized him to take hold on the clapper
+     with both hands, when suddenly it became calm around him, but it
+     still raged within his brain. He felt that all his clothes clung
+     to him, and that his hands seemed fastened to the wall. Before him
+     hung the serpent's head, dead and bowed; the bell was silent. He
+     closed his eyes and felt that he fell asleep. He had
+     fainted."--(Vol. i. p. 59.)
+
+Are these some of the "beautiful thoughts" which Mrs Howitt finds it the
+greatest delight of her literary life to translate? One is a little
+curious to know how far this beauty has been increased or diminished by
+their admiring translator; but unfortunately we can boast no
+Scandinavian scholarship. This novel, however, is not without some
+striking passages, whether of description of natural scenery, or of
+human life. Of these, the little episode of the fate of Steffen-Margaret
+recurs most vividly to our recollection. Mrs Howitt, in her translation
+of "The True Story of my Life," draws our attention, in a note, to this
+character of Steffen-Margaret, informing us that it is the reproduction
+of a personage whom Andersen becomes slightly acquainted with in the
+early part of his career. She thus points out a striking passage in the
+novel; but the translator of the Autobiography and of "Only a Fiddler,"
+might have found more natural opportunities for illustrating the
+connexion between the novel and the life of the author. There is no
+resemblance whatever between the two characters alluded to, except that
+they both belong to the same unfortunate class of society. Of the young
+girl mentioned in the life, nothing indeed is said, except that she
+received once a week a visit from her papa, who came to drink tea with
+her, dressed always in a shabby blue coat; and the point of the story
+is, that in after times, when Andersen rose into a far different rank of
+society, he encountered in some fashionable saloon the papa of the
+shabby blue coat in a bland old gentleman glittering with orders.
+
+Christian, the hero of the novel, a lad utterly ignorant of life, has
+come for the first time to Copenhagen. Whilst the ship in which he has
+arrived is at anchor in the port, it is visited by some _ladies_, one of
+whom particularly fascinates him. She must be a princess, or something
+of that kind, if not a species of angel. The next day he finds out her
+residence, sees her, tells her all his history, all his inspirations,
+all his hopes; he is sure that he has found a kind and powerful
+patroness. The lady smiles at him, and dismisses him with some cakes and
+sweetmeats, and kindly taps upon the head. This is just what Andersen at
+the same age would have done himself, and just in this manner would he
+have been dismissed and comforted. There is a scene in the Autobiography
+very similar. He explains to some kind old dames, whom he encounters at
+the theatre, his thwarted aspirations after art; they give him
+cakes;--he tells them again of his impulses, and that he is dying to be
+famous; they give him more cakes;--he eats and is pacified.
+
+The ship, however, had not been long in the harbour before his princess
+visited it again. It was evening--Christian was alone in the cabin.
+
+     "He was most strangely affected as he heard at this moment a voice
+     on the cabin steps, which was just like hers. She, perhaps, would
+     already present herself as a powerful fairy to conduct him to
+     happiness. He would have rushed towards her, but she came not
+     alone; a sailor accompanied her, and inquired aloud, on entering,
+     if there were any one there. But a strange feeling of distress
+     fettered Christian's tongue, and he remained silent.
+
+     "'What have you got to say to me?' asked the sailor.
+
+     "'Save me!' was the first word, which Christian heard from her lips
+     in the cabin; she whom he had regarded as a rich and noble lady. 'I
+     am sunk in shame!' said she. 'No one esteems me; I no longer esteem
+     myself. Oh, save me, S�ren! I have honestly divided my money with
+     you; I yet am possessed of forty dollars. Marry me, and take me
+     away out of this wo, and out of this misery! Take me to a place
+     where nobody will know me, where you may not be ashamed of me. I
+     will work for you like a slave, till the blood comes out at my
+     finger-ends. Oh, take me away with you! In a year's time it may be
+     too late.'
+
+     "'Should I take you to my old father and mother?' said the sailor.
+
+     "'I will kiss the dust from their feet they may beat me, and I will
+     bear it without a murmur--will patiently bear every blow. I am
+     already old, that I know. I shall soon be eight-and-twenty; but it
+     is an act of mercy, which I beseech of you. If you will not do it,
+     nobody else will; and I think I must drink--drink till my brain
+     reels--and I forget what I have made myself!'
+
+     "'Is that the very important thing that you have got to tell me?'
+     remarked the sailor, with a cold indifference.
+
+     "Her tears, her sighs, her words of despair, sank deep into
+     Christian's heart. A visionary image had vanished, and with its
+     vanishing he saw the dark side of a naked reality.
+
+     "He found himself again alone.
+
+     "A few days after this, the ice had to be hewed away from the
+     channel. Christian and the sailor struck their axes deeply into the
+     firm ice, so that it broke into great pieces. Something white hung
+     fast to the ice in the opening; the sailor enlarged the opening,
+     and then a female corpse presented itself, dressed in white as for
+     a ball. She had amber leads round her neck, gold earrings, and she
+     held her hands closely folded against her breast as if for prayer.
+     It was Steffen-Margaret."
+
+"O.T." commences in a more lively style than either of the preceding
+novels, but soon becomes in fact the dullest and most wearisome of the
+three. During a portion of this novel he seems to have taken for his
+model of narrative the "Wilhelm Meister" of Goethe; but the calm
+domestic manner which is tolerable in the clear-sighted man, who we know
+can rise nobly from it when he pleases, accords ill enough with the
+bewildered, most displeasing, and half intelligible story which Andersen
+has here to relate.
+
+We have occupied ourselves quite sufficiently with these novels, and
+shall pass over "O.T." without further comment. Neither shall we bestow
+any of our space upon "The Poet's Bazaar," which seems to be nothing
+else than the Journal which the author may be supposed to have kept
+during his second visit to Italy, when he also extended his travels into
+Greece and Constantinople.
+
+We take refuge in the nursery--we will listen to these tales for
+children--we throw away the rigid pen of criticism--we will have a
+story.
+
+What precisely are the laws, what the critical rules, on which tales for
+children should be written, we will by no means undertake to define. Are
+they to contain nothing, in language or significance, beyond the
+apprehension of the inmates of the nursery? It is a question which we
+will not pretend to answer. Aristotle lays down nothing on the subject
+in his "Poetici;" nor Mr Dunlop in his "History of Fiction." If this be
+the law, if every thing must be level to the understanding of the
+frock-and-trousers population, then these, and many other Tales for
+Children, transgress against the first rule of their construction. How
+often does the story turn, like the novels for elder people, upon a
+marriage! Some king's son in disguise marries the beautiful princess.
+What idea has a child of marriage?--unless the sugared plum-cake
+distributed on such occasions comes in aid of his imagination. Marriage,
+to the infantine intelligence, must mean fine dresses, and infinite
+sweetmeats--a sort of juvenile party that is never to break up. Well,
+and the notion serves to carry on the tale withal. The imagination
+throws this temporary bridge over the gap, till time and experience
+supply other architecture. Amongst this collection, is a story in which
+vast importance is attached to a kiss. What can a curly-headed urchin,
+who is kissing, or being kissed, all day long, know of the value that
+may be given to what some versifier calls,
+
+     "The humid seal of soft affections!"
+
+To our apprehension, it has always appeared that the best books for
+children were those not written expressly for them, but which,
+interesting to all readers, happened to fasten peculiarly upon the
+youthful imagination,--such as "Robinson Crusoe," the "Arabian Nights,"
+"Pilgrim's Progress," &c. It is quite true that in all these there is
+much the child does not understand, but where there is something vividly
+apprehended, there is an additional pleasure procured, and an admirable
+stimulant, in the endeavour to penetrate the rest. There is all the
+charm of a riddle combined with all the fascination of a story. Besides,
+do we not throughout our boyhood and our youth, read with intense
+interest, and to our great improvement, books which we but partly
+understand? How much was lost to us of our Milton and our Shakspeare at
+an age when nevertheless we read them with intense interest and
+excitement, and therefore, we may be sure, with great profit. Throughout
+the whole season of our intellectual progress, we are necessarily
+reading works of which a great part is obscure to us; we get half at
+one time, and half at another.
+
+Not, by any means, that we intend to say a word against writing books
+for children; if they are good books we shall read them too. A clever
+man talking to his child, in the presence of his adult friends,--has it
+never been remarked, how infinitely amusing he may be, and what an
+advantage he has from this two-fold audience? He lets loose all his
+fancy, under pretence that he is talking to a child, and he couples this
+wildness with all his wit, and point, and shrewdness, because he knows
+his friend is listening. The child is not a whit the less pleased,
+because there is something above its comprehension, nor the friend at
+all the less entertained, because he laughs at what was not intended for
+his capacity. A writer of children's tales--(If they are any thing
+better than what every nursery-maid can invent for herself)--is
+precisely in this position: he will, he _must_ have in view the adult
+listener. While speaking to the child, he will endeavour to interest the
+parent who is overhearing him; and thus there may result a very amusing
+and agreeable composition.
+
+We have met with some children's tales which, we thought, were so
+plainly levelled at the parent, that they seemed little more than
+lectures to grown-up people in the disguise of stories to their
+children. Some of the very clever stories of Miss Edgeworth appear to be
+more evidently designed for the adult listener, than to the little
+people to whom they are immediately addressed. And they may perhaps
+render good service in this way. Perhaps some mature matron, far above
+counsel, may take a hint which she thinks was not _intended_--may accept
+that piece of good advice which she fancies her own shrewdness has
+discovered, and which the subtle, Miss Edgeworth had laid, like a trap,
+in her path.
+
+We are happy, we repeat, that we do not feel it incumbent upon us to
+settle the rules, the critical canon, of this nursery literature. We
+have no objection, however, to peep into it now and then, and we shall
+venture to give our readers another of Andersen's little stories, and so
+take our leave of him. We omit a sentence, here and there, where we can
+without injury to the tale; yet we have no fear that our gravest readers
+will think the extract too long. Our quotation is from the volume called
+"Tales from Denmark." There is another collection called, "The Shoes of
+Fortune;" these are higher in pretension, and inferior in merit.
+
+
+THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES.
+
+     "One day a couple of swindlers, who called themselves first-rate
+     weavers, made their appearance in the imperial town of----. They
+     pretended that they were able to weave the richest stuffs, in which
+     not only the colours and the pattern were extremely beautiful, but
+     that the clothes made of such stuffs possessed the wonderful
+     property of remaining invisible to him who was unfit for the office
+     he held, or was extremely silly.
+
+     "'What capital clothes they must be!' thought the Emperor. 'If I
+     had but such a suit, I could directly find out what people in my
+     empire were not equal to their office; and besides, I should be
+     able to distinguish the clever from the stupid. By Jove, I must
+     have some of this stuff made directly for me!' And so he ordered
+     large sums of money to be given to the two swindlers, that they
+     might set to work immediately.
+
+     "The men erected two looms, and did as if they worked very
+     diligently; but in reality they had got nothing on the loom. They
+     boldly demanded the finest silk, and gold thread, put it all in
+     their own pockets, and worked away at the empty loom till quite
+     late at night.
+
+     "'I should like to know how the two weavers are getting on with my
+     stuff,' said the Emperor one day to himself; 'but he was rather
+     embarrassed when he remembered that a silly fellow, or one unfitted
+     for his office, would not be able to see the stuff. 'Tis true, he
+     thought, as far as regarded himself, there was no risk whatever;
+     but yet he preferred sending some one else, to bring him
+     intelligence of the two weavers, and how they were getting on,
+     before he went himself; for every body in the whole town had heard
+     of the wonderful property that this stuff was said to possess.
+
+     "'I will send my worthy old minister,' said the Emperor at last,
+     after much consideration; 'he will be able to say how the stuff
+     looks better than anybody.'
+
+     "So the worthy old minister went to the room where the two
+     swindlers were' working away with all their might and main. 'Lord
+     help me!' thought the old man, opening his eyes as wide as
+     possible--'Why, I can't see the least thing whatever on the loom.'
+     But he took care not to say so.
+
+     "The swindlers, pointing to the empty frame, asked him most
+     politely if the colours were not of great beauty. And the poor old
+     minister looked and looked, and could see nothing whatever. 'Bless
+     me!' thought he to himself, 'Am I, then, really a simpleton? Well,
+     I never thought so. Nobody knows it. I not fit for office! No,
+     nothing on earth shall make me say that I have not seen the stuff!'
+
+     "'Well, sir,' said one of the swindlers, still working busily at
+     the empty loom, 'you don't say if the stuff pleases you or not.'
+
+     "'Oh beautiful! beautiful! the work is admirable!' said the old
+     minister looking hard through his spectacles. 'This pattern, and
+     these colours! Well, well, I shall not fail to tell the Emperor
+     that they are most beautiful!'
+
+     "The swindlers then asked for more money, and silk, and gold
+     thread; but they put as before all that was given them into their
+     own pocket, and still continued to work with apparent diligence at
+     the empty loom.
+
+     "Some time after, the Emperor sent another officer to see how the
+     work was getting on. But he fared like the other; he stared at the
+     loom from every side; but as there was nothing there, of course he
+     could see nothing. 'Does the stuff not please you as much as it did
+     the minister?' asked the men, making the same gestures as before,
+     and talking of splendid colours and patterns, which did not exist.
+
+     "'Stupid I certainly am not!' thought the new commissioner; 'then
+     it must be that I am not fitted for my lucrative office--that were
+     a good joke! However, no one dare even suspect such a thing.' And
+     so he began praising the stuff that he could not see, and told the
+     two swindlers how pleased he was to behold such beautiful colours,
+     and such charming patterns. 'Indeed, your majesty,' said he to the
+     Emperor on his return, 'the stuff which the weavers are making, is
+     extraordinarily fine.'
+
+     "It was the talk of the whole town.
+
+     "The Emperor could no longer restrain his curiosity to see this
+     costly stuff; so, accompanied by a chosen train of courtiers, among
+     whom were the two trusty men who had so admired the work, off he
+     went to the two cunning cheats. As soon as they heard of the
+     Emperor's approach they began working with all diligence, although
+     there was still not a single thread on the loom.
+
+     "'Is it not magnificent?' said the two officers of the crown, who
+     had been there before. 'Will your majesty only look? What a
+     charming pattern! What beautiful colours!' said they, pointing to
+     the empty frames, for they thought the others really could see the
+     stuff.
+
+     "'What's the meaning of this?' said the Emperor to himself, 'I see
+     nothing! Am _I_ a simpleton! I not fit to be Emperor? Oh,' he cried
+     aloud, 'charming! The stuff is really charming! I approve of it
+     highly;' and he smiled graciously, and examined the empty looms
+     minutely. And the whole suite strained their eyes and cried
+     'Beautiful!' and counselled his Majesty to have new robes made out
+     of this magnificent stuff for the grand procession that was about
+     to take place. And so it was ordered.
+
+     "The day on which the procession was to take place, the two men
+     brought the Emperor's new suit to the palace; they held up their
+     arms as though they had something in their hands, and said, 'Here
+     are your Majesty's knee-breeches; here is the coat, and here the
+     mantle. The whole suit is as light as a cobweb; and when one is
+     dressed, one would almost fancy one had nothing on: but that is
+     just the beauty of this stuff!'
+
+     "'Of course!' said all the courtiers, although not a single one of
+     them could see any thing of the clothes.
+
+     "'Will your imperial Majesty most graciously be pleased to undress?
+     We will then try on the new things before the glass.'
+
+     "The Emperor allowed himself to be undressed, and then the two
+     cheats did exactly as if each one helped him on with an article of
+     dress, while his Majesty turned himself round on all sides before
+     the mirror.
+
+     "'The canopy which is to be borne above your Majesty in the
+     procession, is in readiness without,' announced the chief master of
+     the ceremonies.
+
+     "'I am quite ready,' replied the Emperor, turning round once more
+     before the looking-glass.
+
+     "So the Emperor walked on, under the high canopy, through the
+     streets of the metropolis, and all the people in the streets and at
+     the windows cried out, 'Oh, how beautiful the Emperor's new dress
+     is!' In short there was nobody but wished to cheat himself into the
+     belief that he saw the Emperor's new clothes.
+
+     "'But he has nothing on!' said a little child.'
+
+     "And then all the people cried out, 'He has nothing on!'
+
+     "But the Emperor and the courtiers--they retained their seeming
+     faith, and walked on with great dignity to the close of the
+     procession."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] _The Improvisatore; or, Life in Italy_, from the Danish of HANS
+CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. Translated by MARY HOWITT.
+
+_Only a Fiddler!_ and _O.T. or, Life in Denmark_, by the Author of _The
+Improvisatore_. Translated by MARY HOWITT.
+
+_A True Story of my Life_, by HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. Translated by
+MARY HOWITT.
+
+_Tales from Denmark_. Translated by CHARLES BONAR.
+
+_A Picture-Book without Pictures_. Translated by META TAYLOR.
+
+_The Shoes of Fortune, and other Tales_.
+
+_A Poet's Bazaar_. Translated by CHARLES BECKWITH, Esq.
+
+[2] See Allan Cunningham's _Lives of the Painters and Sculptors_, vol.
+ii. p. 150.
+
+[3] Not very clearly expressed by the translator. One would think that
+our Saviour, in his progress to the cross, had passed through the area
+of the Coliseum, and not that each of the pictures on these altars
+represented one of the resting-points, &c. Mrs Howitt is sometimes hasty
+and careless in her writing. And why does she employ such expressions as
+these:--"many white buttons," "beside of it," "beside of us?" We have
+read _a many_ English books, but never met them in anyone beside of
+this.
+
+[4] Vol. x, Nov. 1821, p. 373.
+
+
+
+
+THE VISION OF CAGLIOSTRO.
+
+     "In the horror of a vision by night, when deep sleep is wont to
+     hold men, fear seized upon me, and trembling, and all my bones were
+     affrighted; and when a spirit passed before me, the hair of my
+     flesh stood up."--_The Book of Job._
+
+
+The last, and perhaps the most renowned of the Rosicrucians, was,
+according to a historical insinuation, implicated in that notorious
+juggle of the Diamond Necklace, which tended so much to increase the
+popular hatred towards the evil-doomed and beautiful Marie Antoinette.
+Whether this imputation were correct, or whether the Cardinal Duc de
+Rohan was the only distinguished person deluded by the artifices of the
+Countess de la Motte, it is certain that Joseph Balsamo, commonly called
+Alexandre, Count de Cagliostro, was capable of any knavery, however
+infamous. Guile was his element; audacity was his breastplate; delusion
+was his profession; immorality was his creed; debauchery was his
+consolation; his own genius--the genius of cunning--was the god of his
+idolatry. Had Cagliostro been sustained by the principles of rectitude,
+he must have become the idol as well as the wonder of his
+contemporaries; his accomplishments must have dazzled them into
+admiration, for he possessed all the attributes of a Crichton. Beautiful
+in aspect, symmetrical in proportions, graceful in carriage, capacious
+in intellect, erudite as a Benedictine, agile as an Acrobat, daring as
+Sc�vola, persuasive as Alcibiades, skilled in all manly pastimes,
+familiar with the philosophies of the scholar and the worldling, an
+orator, a musician, a courtier, a linguist,--such was the celebrated
+Cagliostro. In his abilities, he was as capricious as Leonardo, and as
+subtle as Macchiavelli; but he was without the magnanimity of the one,
+or the crafty prudence of the other. Lucretius so darkened the glories
+of nature by the glooms of his blasphemous imagination, that he might
+have described this earth as a golden globe animated by a demon.
+Fashioned in a mould as marvellous as that golden orb, and animated in
+like manner by a devilish and wily spirit, was Balsamo the Rosicrucian.
+
+Between the period of his birth in 1743, and that of his dissolution in
+1795, when incarcerated in a dungeon of San Leo, at Rome, Cagliostro,
+rendered himself in a manner illustrious by practising upon the
+credulity of his fellow-creatures. Holstein had witnessed his pretended
+successes in alchemy. Strasburg had received him with admiration, as the
+evangelist of a mystic religion. Paris had resounded with the marvels
+revealed by his performances in Egyptian free-masonry. Molten gold was
+said to stream at pleasure over the rim of his crucibles; divination by
+astrology was as familiar to him as it had been of yore to Zoroaster or
+Nostradamus; graves yawned at the beck of his potent finger; their
+ghostly habitants, appeared at his preternatural bidding. The
+necromantic achievements of Doctor Dee and William Lilly dwindled into
+insignificance before those attributed to a man who, although apparently
+in the bloom of manhood, was believed to have survived a thousand
+winters.
+
+Accident had supplied Cagliostro with an accomplice of suitable
+depravity. In the course of his eccentric peregrinations among the
+continental cities, he had formed the acquaintance of a female,
+remarkable for her consummate loveliness and her boundless sensuality.
+Married to this Circe, the adventurer began to thrive beyond his most
+sanguine anticipations. It must be remembered, however, that in his
+nefarious proceedings, Balsamo was aided by a faculty of invention
+almost miraculous in its fruitfulness, and occasionally almost sublime
+in its audacity. By these means, he ultimately became the most
+astonishing impostor the world had ever beheld, with the solitary
+exception of Mohammed.
+
+As a forerunner of a disastrous revolution, the appearance of this
+fantastic personage in the capital of civilisation was at once dismal
+and prophetic. Unconsciously, he was the prophet of disaster.
+Unconsciously, he was the prelude--half-solemn, half-grotesque--of a
+bloody and diabolical saturnalia. History, both profane and inspired,
+tells us that when the Euphrates forsook its natural channel, and the
+hostile legions trampled under its gates at nightfall; when the
+revellers of Belshazzar, drunk with prolonged orgies and haggard with
+the shadow of an impending doom, staggered through the marble vestibules
+and out upon the marble causeways, rending their purple vestures in the
+moonlight, there was weeping among the lords of Chaldea,--"Wo! wo! wo!"
+was walled in the streets of Babylon. A similar destiny awaited Paris,
+but as yet a different spectacle was visible; as yet the carousals of
+the metropolis were at their zenith; as yet the current flowed in its
+ancient channel; as yet the woes of the empire were not written on the
+wall of the palace. Festivities were never conducted with more
+magnificence than immediately before the downfall of the monarchy and
+the general desolation of the kingdom. The pomps of the religion, the
+pageantries of the court, and the munificence of the nobility, were
+never before characterised by so much grandeur and profusion. The
+church, the sovereign, and the oligarchy, were crowning themselves for
+the sacrifice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Opposite the Rue de Luxembourg, and parallel with the Rue de Caumartin,
+there stood, in the year 1782, a little villa-cottage or rustic
+pavilion. It was separated from the Boulevard de la Madeleine by a green
+paddock, and was concealed in a nest of laurustinus and clematis.
+Autumn, that generous season, which seems in its bounty to impart a
+smell of ripeness to the very leaves, had already scattered dyes of gold
+and vermilion over the verdure of this shrubbery. A night-breeze,
+impregnated with vegetable perfumes, and wafting before it one of these
+leaves, stole between the branches--over the fragrant mould--across a
+grass-plot--through an open window of the cottage. The leaf tinkled. It
+had fallen upon the pages of a volume from which a man was reading by a
+lamp. At that moment the clock of the Capuchins tolled out a doleful
+TWO; it was answered by the numerous bells of Paris. Solemn, querulous,
+sepulchral, quavering, silvery, close at hand, or modulated into a dim
+echo by the distance, the voice of the inexorable hours vibrated over
+the capital, and then ceased.
+
+Alas, for the heart of Cagliostro!
+
+The solitary watcher shuddered as the metallic sounds floated in from
+the belfries. Although startled by the dropping of the leaf, he closed
+the volume, leisurely placing it between the pages as a marker--_it_, so
+brittle! so yellow! so typical of decay and mortality! The book
+comprised the writings of Sir Cornelius Agrippa. Having tossed the old
+alchemist from him with an air of overwhelming dejection, the student
+abandoned himself to the most sorrowful reflections.
+
+He had but recently returned from a masked ball, and a domino of
+salmon-coloured satin still hung loosely over his shoulders. As the
+feeble light of the lamp glimmered upon the jet-bugles and
+steel-spangles of his costume, there was visible the perpetual contrast
+of his destiny,--a mingling of the most abstruse researches and the most
+extravagant frivolities. Jewels sparkled upon his hands and bosom; the
+varicose veins on his temples throbbed with a feverish precision; the
+fumes of the wine-cup flushed his cheek and disordered his imagination.
+
+"Death," thought the Rosicrucian, "fills me with abhorrence; and yet
+life is totally devoid of happiness. Happiness! O delusive phantom of
+humanity, how art thou attainable? Through Fame? Fame is mine, and I am
+wretched. Over the realms of civilisation my name is noised abroad; in
+the populous cities the glory of my art resounds; when my barge glided
+among the palaces of Venice, the blue Adriatic was purpled with blossoms
+in my honour.--Fame? Fame brings not happiness to Cagliostro. Wealth?
+Not so. Ducats, pistoles, louis-d'or, have brought no panacea to the
+sorrows of Balsamo. Beauty? Nay; for, in the profligate experience of
+capitals, the sage is saddened with the knowledge that comeliness, at
+best, is but an exquisite hypocrisy. I have striven also, vainly, for
+contentment in the luxuries of voluptuous living. The talisman of
+Epicurus has evaded my grasp--the glittering bauble![5] The ravishing
+ideal JOY, has been to me not as the statue to Pygmalion: I have
+grovelled down in adoration at its feet, and have found it the same
+immobile, relentless, unresponsive image. Youth is yet mine, but it is a
+youth hoary in desolation. Centuries of anguish have flooded through my
+bosom, even in the heyday of existence. The tangible and the intangible,
+the visible and the invisible, the material and the immaterial, have
+been at deadly strife in my conjectures. The present has been to me an
+evasion, the future an enigma; the earth a delusion, the heavens a
+doubt. Even the pomp of those inexplicable stars is a new agony of
+indecision to my recoiling fancy[6]--so impassive in their
+unchangeableness, so awful in the quiescence of their eternal grandeur.
+Supreme, too, in my bewilderment, remains the problem of their
+revolutions--the cause of their impulsion[7] as well as of their
+creation. Baffled in my scrutiny of the sublime puzzle which is _domed_
+over the globe at nightfall, dizzy with the contemplation of such
+abysses of mystery, my thoughts have reverted to this earth, in which
+pleasure sparkles but to evaporate. No solace in the investigation of
+those infinitudes, which are only fathomable by a system revolting to my
+judgment--the system of a theocratic philosophy; no consolation in the
+dreamings evoked by the lore of the stupendous skies: my heart throbs
+still for the detection and the possession of happiness. Nature has
+endowed me with senses--five delicate and susceptible instruments--for
+the realisation of bodily delight. Sights of unutterable loveliness,
+tones of surpassing melody, perfumes of delicious fragrance, marvellous
+sensibilities of touch and palate, afford me so many channels for
+enjoyment. Still the insufficiency of the palpable and appreciable is
+paramount; still the everlasting dolor interposes: the appetite is
+satiated, the aroma palls upon the nostrils, the nerves are affected by
+irritability, the harmony merges into dissonance; even the beautiful
+becomes so far an abomination that man is 'mad for the sight of his eyes
+that he did see.' Such is the sterile and repulsive penalty of the
+searcher after happiness. Happiness! O delusive phantom of humanity, how
+art thou attainable?"
+
+A thrill pervaded the frame of the visionary as he paused in his
+meditations. Subtle as the birth of an emotion--solemn as the presage of
+a disaster--terrible as the throes of dissolution, was the pang that
+agonised the Rosicrucian. His flesh crept upon his bones at the
+consciousness of a preternatural but invisible presence--the presence of
+an unseen visitant in the dead of the midnight! His heart quaked as it
+drank in, like Eliphaz, "_the veins of_ ITS _whisper_."[8] There was no
+sound or reverberation, and yet the language streamed upon the knowledge
+of the listener with a distinctness beyond that of human articulation.
+The stillness of his solitude was only broken by the rustling of the
+night-breeze among the laurustines, and yet in the ears of Cagliostro
+there was the utterance as of unsubstantial lips--the sense as of a
+divine symphony--"the thunder, and the music, and the pomp" of an
+unearthly Voice.[9]
+
+"Balsamo!" it cried, "thy thoughts are blasphemy; thy lamentations are
+foolishness; thy mind is darkened by the glooms of a most barren
+dejection. Away! vain Sceptic, with the syllogisms of infidelity. The
+glory of the immortal WILL evades thy comprehension in the depths of
+infinitude. When in its natural brightness, the spiritual being of man
+reflects that glory as in a mirror. _Thine_ is blurred by sensuality.
+Tranquillity is denied thee, because of the concupiscence of thy
+ambition. A profligate and venal career has troubled thy soul with
+misgivings. Thou hast scorned even the five senses--those golden portals
+of humanity! Know, O dreamer, that in them alone consists the enjoyment
+of a finite existence: know that _through the virtuous use of those five
+senses, earthly happiness is attainable_! Dost thou still tremble in thy
+unbelief? Arise, Balsamo, and behold the teachings of eternity!"
+
+As the last sentence resounded in the heart of Cagliostro, up into the
+air floated the Rosicrucian and the Voice.
+
+
+TIBERIUS.
+
+Time and distance seemed to be conquered in that mysterious ascension,
+and an impenetrable darkness enveloped the impostor as he felt himself
+carried swiftly through the atmosphere. When he had somewhat recovered,
+however, from his astonishment, the motion ceased, and the light of an
+Italian evening beamed upon him from the heavens. A scene then revealed
+itself around Cagliostro, the like of which his eyes had never before
+beheld, or his imagination, in its wildest mood, conceived.
+
+He was standing in a secluded grove in the island of Capre�. Fountains
+sparkled under the branches; blossoms of the gaudiest colours flaunted
+on the brambles, or enamelled the turf; laughter and music filled the
+air with a confusion of sweet sounds; and among the intricacies of the
+trees, bands of revellers flitted to and fro, clad in the antique
+costumes of Rome. Under the shadow of a gigantic orange-bush, upon a
+couch of luxurious softness and embroidered in gorgeous arabesques,
+there reclined the figure of an old man. His countenance was hideous
+with age and debauchery. Sin glimmered in the evil light of his
+eyes--those enormous and bloodshot eyes with which (_pr�grandibus
+oculis_) the historian tells us he could see even in the night-time.[10]
+Habitual intemperance had inflamed his complexion, and disfigured his
+skin with disgusting eruptions; while his body, naturally robust in its
+proportions, had become bloated with the indolence of confirmed
+gluttony. A garment (the _toga virilis_) of virgin whiteness covered his
+limbs; along the edge of the garment was the broad hem of Tyrian purple
+indicative of the imperial dignity; and around the hoary brow of the
+epicurean, was woven a chaplet of roses and aloe-leaves.
+
+Cagliostro recoiled in abhorrence before a spectacle at once so austere
+and lascivious. His spirit quailed at the sight of a visage in which
+appeared to be concentrated the infamy of many centuries. His soul
+revolted at the sinister and ferocious expression pervading every
+lineament, and lurking in every wrinkle. As he gazed, however, a blithe
+sound startled him from the umbrage of the boughs. Quick, lively,
+jocund, to the clashing of her cymbals, there bounded forth an Italian
+maiden in the garb of a Bacchante. Her feet agile as the roe's, her eyes
+lustrous and defiant, her hair dishevelled, her bosom heaving, her arms
+symmetrical as sculpture, but glowing with the roseate warmth of youth,
+the virgin still rejoiced, as it were, in the tumult of the dance.
+Grapes of a golden-green relieved by the ruddy-brown of their foliage,
+clustered in a garland about her temples, and leaped in unison with her
+movements. Around! with her raven tresses streaming abroad in
+ringlets--around! with her sandals clinking on the gravel to the
+capricious beat of her cymbals--around! with her light robes flowing
+back from a jewelled brooch above the knee--singing, sparkling,
+undulating, circling, rustling, the Bacchante entranced the heart of the
+Rosicrucian. She gleamed before him like the embodiment of enthusiasm.
+She was the genius of motion, the divinity of the dance; she was
+Terpsichore in the grace of her movements, Euterpe in the ravishing
+sweetness of her voice. A thrill of admiration suffused with a deeper
+tint even the abhorred cheek of the voluptuary.
+
+By an almost imperceptible degree, the damsel abated the ardour of her
+gyrations, her cymbals clashed less frequently, the song faded from her
+lip, the flutter of her garments ceased, the vine-fruit drooped upon her
+forehead. She stood before the couch palpitating with emotion, and
+radiant with a divine beauty. In another instant, she had prostrated
+herself upon the earth, for in the decrepit monster of Capre�, she
+recognised the lord of the whole world--Tiberius.
+
+"Arise, maiden of Apulia," he said, with an immediate sense that he
+beheld another of those innocent damsels, who were stolen from their
+pastoral homes on the Peninsula to become the victims of his depravity.
+"Arise, and slake my thirst from yonder goblet. The tongue of Tiberius
+is dry with the avidity of his passion."
+
+An indescribable loathing entered into the imagination of the Bacchante
+even as she lay upon the grass; yet she rose with precipitation and
+filled a chalice to the brim with Falernian. Tiberius grasped it with an
+eager hand, and his mouth pressed the lip of the cup as if to drain its
+ruby vintage to the bottom. Suddenly, however, the eyes of the old man
+blazed with a raging light; the scowl of lust was forgotten; the
+vindictiveness of a fiend shone in his dilated eyeballs, and, with a
+yell of fury, he cast the goblet into the air, crying out that the wine
+_boiled like the bowl of Pluto_. He was writhing in one of those
+paroxysms of rage, which justified posterity in regarding him as a
+madman. The howling of Tiberius resounded among the verdure, as the
+rattle of a snake might do when it raises its deadly crest from its lair
+among the flowers. Quick as thought at the first sound of those
+inexorable accents, the grove was thronged with the revellers. They
+jostled each other in their solicitude to minister to the cruelty of the
+despot; and that cruelty was as ruthless, and as hell-born, as it was
+ingenious and appalling.
+
+Obedient to a gesture of Tiberius, the Bacchante was placed upon a
+pedestal. For a moment, she stood before them an exquisite statue Of
+despair--exquisite even in the excess of her bewilderment. For a moment,
+she stood there stunned by the suddenness of the commotion, and frantic
+with the consciousness of her peril. For a moment she gazed about her
+for aid, wildly but, alas! vainly. No pity beamed upon her in that more
+horrible Gomorrah. The marble trembled under her feet--a sulphurous
+stench shot through its crevices--the virgin shrieked and fell forwards,
+scorched and blackened to a cinder. She was blasted, as if by a
+thunderbolt.[11] Cagliostro looked with horror upon the ashes of the
+Bacchante. He had seen youth stricken down by age; he had seen virtue
+annihilated, so to speak, at the mandate of vice; he had seen--and even
+_his_ callous heart exulted at the thought--he had seen innocence
+snatched from pollution, when upon the very threshold of an earthly
+hell. While rejoicing in this reflection, he was aroused by the
+stertorous breathing of the emperor. The crowned demon of the island was
+being borne away to his palace upon the shoulders of his attendants.
+Although maddened by an insatiable thirst, and by a gloom that was
+becoming habitual, the monster lay upon his cushions as impotent as a
+child, in the midst of his diseases and iniquities.[12]
+
+At the feet of the Rosicrucian were huddled the bones of the virgin of
+Apulia; and the babbling of the fountains was alone audible in the
+solitude.
+
+"Such," said the mournful Voice, as Cagliostro again felt himself
+carried through the darkness--"such, Balsamo, are the miseries of a
+debauched appetite."
+
+
+AGRIPPA.
+
+In another instant, the impostor was standing upon the floor of a
+gigantic amphitheatre in Palestine. The whole air was refulgent with the
+light of a summer morning, and through the loopholes of the structure,
+the eye caught the blue shimmer of the Mediterranean. Banners,
+emblazoned with the ciphers of Rome, fluttered from the walls of the
+amphitheatre. Its internal circumference was thronged with a vast
+concourse of citizens; and, immediately about the Rosicrucian, groups of
+foreign traders, habited as if for some unusual ceremony, were scattered
+over the arena. Expectation was evinced in every movement of the
+assemblage, in every murmur that floated round the benches. The
+worshippers were there, it seemed, and were awaiting the high-priest.
+That high-priest was approaching, and more than a high-priest; for Herod
+Agrippa, the tetrarch of Judea had descended from Jerusalem to C�sarea,
+for the celebration of warlike games in honour of the Emperor Claudius,
+and, on the completion of those festivities, the deputed sovereign had
+consented, at the intercession of Blastus, to receive a deputation of
+certain Phenician ambassadors who were solicitous for an assurance of
+his clemency. Those envoys--the merchant princes of Tyre and Sidon--were
+tarrying in the public theatre of the city for the promised interview in
+the presence of the people of Samaria.
+
+Cagliostro marvelled, as he scanned the scene before him, whether it
+were all a reality or a delusion of his fancy; but the lapping of the
+surge upon the adjacent beach, and the perfume of Oriental spices which
+impregnated the breezes from the Levant, and even the motes that swarmed
+about him like phosphoric atoms, proved that it was no juggle of a
+distempered imagination.
+
+Suddenly the air was rent with acclamations; the crowd rose as if by a
+single impulse; trumpets sounded in the seven porches of the
+amphitheatre; again the plaudits shook the air like the concussion of
+enthusiasm, and the deputation in the arena prostrated themselves in the
+dust. Balsamo saw, at once, the reason of this rejoicing; he saw the
+tetrarch of Judea seated upon a throne of ivory. The crown of Agrippa
+glittered upon his forehead with an unnatural brightness--it was of the
+purest gold, radiating from the brow in spikes, and flecked with pearls
+of an uncommon size. Silent--erect--inflated with pride at his own
+grandeur, and the adulation of the rabble, sate the King of Palestine.
+Silent--awe-stricken--uncovered before the majesty of the representative
+of Claudius, stood the people of Samaria and Phenicia. Extreme beauty of
+an elevated and heroic character shone upon the features of Herod,
+although his beard was grizzled with the passage of fifty-four winters.
+In the midst of the silence of the populace, the morning sun rose,
+almost abruptly, above the topmost arches of the edifice, and darted his
+beams full upon the glorious garments of Agrippa. It played in sparkles
+of intense lustre upon the jewels of his diadem; and upon the outer
+robe, which was of silver tissue woven with consummate skill and
+powdered with diamonds, the refraction of the sunlight produced an
+intolerable splendour.[13] The Samaritans shielded their eyes from its
+magnificence; they were dazzled; they were blinded; they thrilled with
+admiration and astonishment.
+
+Agrippa spoke.
+
+At the first sound of his accents, there was a whisper of awe among the
+multitude--it increased--it grew louder--it arose to the heavens in one
+prolonged and jubilant shout of adoration.
+
+"It is a God!" they cried--"it is a God that speaketh, not a man!"
+
+As the language of that impious homage saluted the ears of Herod, his
+mouth curled with a smile of satisfaction, his soul expanded with an
+inexpressible tumult of emotions, he drank in the blasphemous flatteries
+of the rabble, and assumed to himself the power and the dignity of the
+Most High God. Yet in the very ecstasy of those sensations, his
+countenance became ghastly, his lips writhed, his eyes beheld with
+unutterable dismay the omen of his dissolution--the visible phantom of
+an avenging Nemesis.[14] He staggered from his throne, crying aloud in
+the extremity of his anguish; a sudden corruption had seized upon his
+body--he was being devoured by worms.
+
+The heart of Cagliostro quailed within him at the lamentations of the
+people of Samaria, as they beheld their idol smitten down by death in
+the midst of his surpassing pomp. Even the Jewish hagiographer tells us,
+with pathetic simplicity, that King Agrippa himself wept at the wailings
+of the adoring mob.
+
+Again the Alchemist found himself enveloped in darkness, again the
+unearthly Voice stole into his brain.
+
+"Lo!" it said, "how the frame rots in the ermine: how the body and soul
+are polluted by vicious passions! Such, Balsamo, are the penalties of
+the lusts of the flesh."
+
+
+MILTON.
+
+Another scene then revealed itself to the Rosicrucian, but one
+altogether different from those he had already witnessed. Instead of
+being in an Oriental amphitheatre, he was standing in a rural lane;
+instead of tumult he found tranquillity; instead of regal pageantries an
+almost primitive simplicity. He inhaled the sweet smells of clover and
+newly-turned mould with a zest hitherto unexperienced. The gurgling of a
+brook by the wayside saluted his ears, as it struggled through the
+rushes and tinkled over the pebbles, with a sound more agreeable than he
+ever remembered to have heard from the instruments of court musicians.
+For the first time nature seemed to disclose her real loveliness to his
+comprehension. Every where she appeared to abound with beauties: in the
+bee that lit upon the nettle and sucked the honey out of its blossom; in
+the nettle that nodded under the weight of the bee; in the dew that
+dropped like a diamond from the alder-bough when the thrush alighted on
+its stem; in the thrush that warbled till the speckled feathers on its
+throat throbbed as if its heart were in its song; in the slug that
+trailed a silver track upon the dust; in the very dust itself that
+twirled in threads and circles on the ground as the wind swerved round
+the corner of the hedgerow. Cagliostro was entranced with the most novel
+and pleasurable emotions, as he strolled on towards the building he had
+already observed. From the elevation of the ground which he was
+traversing, his glance roved with admiration over a wide and diversified
+extent of country; over a prospect richly wooded and teeming with
+vegetation; over orchards laden with fruit and knee-deep in grass; over
+fields of barley bristling with golden ripeness; over distant mills,
+churning the water into foam, and driving gusts of meal out through the
+open doorway; over meadows where the sheep cropped the cool herbage, and
+the cattle lay in the sunshine sleeping; over village steeples, over
+homesteads brown with age, or hid amongst the verdure. The worldling
+scanned the profusion of the panorama with an amazement that was
+exquisite from its newness. He marvelled at the charms that strewed the
+earth in such abundance, at the almost unnumbered forms and colours of
+her vitality, at the wonderful harmony that subsisted amidst all those
+various hues and shapes. Never had the joys derivable from the sense of
+vision appeared of so much value as now that he gazed into the deep and
+delicious magnificence of nature. His sight, with a sort of luxurious
+abandonment, strayed over the contrasts, and penetrated into the
+distances of the landscape; his bosom swelled with the consciousness of
+a sympathy with that creation of which he felt himself to be but a
+kindred unit, or, at best, a sentient atom.
+
+It was while absorbed in these sensations, that Cagliostro paused before
+the rustic dwelling-house towards which his steps had been involuntarily
+directed. The building was situated at a few paces from the pathway.
+There was nothing about it to arrest the attention of a passer-by,
+except, perhaps, all appearance of extreme but picturesque humility. The
+walls were riveted together with iron-bands in crossbars and zig-zags;
+the brickwork was decayed and crumbling away in blotches; the roof was
+low and thatched. Yet, in spite of these evidences of poverty, the
+scholar regarded the structure with a reverential aspect, with such an
+aspect as he might have presented had he contemplated the hut of Baucis
+and Philemon.
+
+The threshold of this obscure edifice formed of itself a bower of
+greenery, thickly covered with the blooms of the honey-suckle. Under the
+porch was seated a man of a most venerable countenance. He was muffled
+in a gray coat of the coarsest texture, and his legs being crossed, a
+worsted stocking and a slipper of untanned leather betrayed the meanness
+of his under garments. His hair, brilliant with a whiteness like that of
+milk, was parted in the centre of the forehead, and fell over his
+shoulders in those negligent curls called _oreilles de chien_, which
+became fashionable long afterwards, during the days of the French
+Directory. Had the Alchemist remained profoundly ignorant as to the
+identity of the old man, he must still have observed with interest,
+features which were equally characterised by the pensiveness of the
+student and the paleness of the valetudinarian. He knew, however,
+instinctively, as he had done upon the two preceding occasions, that he
+beheld a personage of illustrious memory. And he knew rightly, for it
+was Milton. While the great plague was desolating the metropolis, he had
+escaped from his residence in the Artillery Walk, and sought security
+from the contagion by a temporary sojourn in Buckinghamshire.
+
+Opposite the immortal sage stood a person of about the same years, but
+of a very different deportment--it was the dearest of his few friends,
+and the most ardent of his many worshippers, Richardson. The latter was
+leaning against the trunk of a great maple-tree that grew close to the
+parlour-lattice, stretching forth its enormous branches in all
+directions, and mingling its foliage with the smoke that issued from the
+chimney. Richardson had been reading aloud but a moment before, from a
+volume of Boccaccio; he had placed the book, however, upon the
+window-sill, in obedience to a movement from his companion, and
+continued, with his arms folded and his eyelids closed, a silent and
+almost inanimate portion of the domestic group. The quietude which
+ensued was so contagious that Cagliostro remarked with a feeling of
+listlessness, the details and accessories of the spectacle--the silk
+curtains of rusty green festooned before the open window, the
+tobacco-pipe lying among the manuscripts upon the table, even the
+slouched-hat hanging from the back of an arm-chair. The rambling
+meditations of Balsamo were soon concentrated upon a loftier theme, by
+the voice of Milton singing in a subdued tone the antistrophe of a
+favourite ode of Pindar. As the noble words of the Greek lyrist rolled
+with an indescribable gusto from the lips of Milton, it seemed to the
+Rosicrucian that he had never before comprehended the true euphony of
+the language. And the visage of the old bard responded to the strain of
+Pindar; it was illumined with a certain majesty of expression that
+imparted additional dignity to a countenance at all times beaming with
+wisdom. In appreciating the Pagan poet, the poet of Christianity
+appeared to glow with enthusiasm like that which entranced his whole
+soul in the moments of his own superb inspiration.[15] Nor was the
+grandeur of the head diminished in any manner by the unpoetical
+proportions of the body, for, to the acknowledgment of his most partial
+biographer, Richardson, the stature of Milton was so much below the
+ordinary height, and so much beyond the ordinary bulk, that he might
+almost be described as "short and thick." Yet, notwithstanding these
+peculiarities of the frame, an august radiance seemed to envelope the
+brow--a brow, hoary alike from years and from misfortunes--and to invest
+with a sublime air the figure of that old man huddled in that old gray
+coat. Cagliostro gazed with profound interest upon Milton as the rolling
+melody of Pindar streamed into his ears, when suddenly the song ceased,
+and the face of the singer was raised to the resplendent light of the
+heavens. Alas! those eyes turned vacantly in their sockets--those eyes
+which had once looked so sorrowfully on the sightless Galileo--those
+eyes which had mourned over the ashes of _Lycidas_, and rained upon them
+tears transmuted by poetry into a shower of precious stones! The misery
+of his blindness recurred to Milton himself at that same instant. A
+cloud of grief descended upon his countenance. He experienced one of
+those poignant feelings of regret which, in our own day, occasionally
+oppress the heart of Augustin Thierry--for with the sensibility of a
+poet he _knew_ that the hour was beautiful. Never had Cagliostro seen
+human face express such exquisite but patient suffering; it seemed to be
+_listening_ to the loveliness of the earth; it seemed to be _inhaling_
+the glories of nature, as it were, through those channels which were not
+obliterated. The stirring of the leaves, the scent of the woodbine, the
+pattering of the winged seeds of the maple upon the pages of Boccaccio,
+the fitful twittering of the birds--all ascended as offerings of
+recompense to the blind man, but they only tended to enhance the sense
+of his affliction. He caught but the skirts of the goddess of that
+creation whose glories he had chanted in his celestial epic; and yet no
+murmur escaped from the dejected lip of Milton!
+
+Again darkness surrounded the Rosicrucian--again the awful voice
+resounded in his imagination.
+
+"Behold!" it said, "the sorrows of the great and virtuous when the light
+is quenched: behold the divine prerogative of those who see! And know,
+Balsamo, that such are the boons thou hast contemned--such are the
+faculties thou hast polluted."
+
+
+MIRABEAU.
+
+After a scarcely perceptible pause, the Voice resumed: "The miseries of
+those who have abused or lost the powers of seeing, of tasting, or of
+feeling, have been revealed to thee, O sceptic! Thine eyes have
+penetrated into the dim retrospections of the past. Look onwards,
+Balsamo, and thou shalt discern the things that are germinating in the
+womb of the future."
+
+Cagliostro had scarcely heard this assurance when the curtain hitherto
+impenetrable to mortal, was raised--the dread shadows of the future were
+dispelled. He found himself in the upper apartment of one of the most
+distinguished mansions in Paris. The chamber, which was lofty and
+spacious, was enriched with the most costly furniture, and the most
+gorgeous decorations. Pilasters, incrusted with marble, and enamelled
+with lapis-lazuli, broke the monotony of the walls and supported the
+ceiling with their capitals. Between these pilasters were pedestals
+surmounted with statuary and busts; and these, again, were reflected in
+the mirrors hung about the room in profusion. An almost oriental luxury
+characterised the Turkish carpets, as soft as the greensward, and the
+draperies of velvet which concealed the windows, and fell in graceful
+folds about a bed at the opposite end of the apartment. An antique
+candelabrum stood upon the mantelpiece and shed a rosy and voluptuous
+light over this domestic pomp, while some odorous gums crackled in a
+chafing-dish upon the hearth and loaded the air with their fragrance.
+
+Familiar as the Rosicrucian was with splendour, his glance roved over
+these appurtenances with delight, for he had never before seen the
+evidences of wealth so enhanced by the evidences of refinement. He
+thought that the possession of such a dwelling would be something
+towards the realisation of happiness. In the very conception of that
+ignoble thought, however, he received a solemn and effectual admonition.
+Before him, in the silent chamber, on either side of it groups of
+attendants and men robed in the costumes of the court and the barracks,
+was a deathbed. It was the deathbed of an extraordinary being, the owner
+of all this grandeur. It was the deathbed of Honor�-Gabriel de Mirabeau.
+
+The patrician demagogue reposed upon the pillows in the final stage of
+dissolution, and his broad forehead was already damp with the sweat of
+his last agony. Cagliostro surveyed the dying tribune with emotion, for
+in the very hideousness of his countenance there was a subtle and
+indefinable fascination. The gigantic stature which had so often awed
+the tumults of the National Assembly was prostrate. The voice, whose
+brazen tones had sounded like a trumpet over the land, was hushed--that
+voice which had exclaimed with such sublime significance to the
+Marseillais,--"When the last of the Gracchi expired, he flung dust
+towards heaven, and from this dust sprang Marius!"--that voice which had
+conquered the aversion of Mademoiselle de Marignan with its seductive
+melody--that voice which had been at once the oracle of the king and the
+law of the rabble. Mirabeau lay before the Rosicrucian, with his natural
+ugliness rendered yet more repulsive by the tokens of a terrible malady.
+The touch of death imparted additional horror to the massive deformity
+of his skull, to the coarseness of his pockmarked features, to his
+sunken eyeballs, to his cheeks scared by disease, to his hair bristling
+and dishevelled like that of a gorgon. Still, through all these
+unsightly and almost loathsome peculiarities, there was perceptible a
+sort of masculine susceptibility. It was that susceptibility which gave
+zest to his debaucheries, and occasionally subdued into pathos the
+storms of his dazzling and sonorous eloquence.
+
+Never was a solitary life prized by so many millions, as that which was
+then ebbing from the breast of Mirabeau. He seemed to be the only
+guarantee for the solid adjustment of the Revolution. With his
+disappearance, all hope of tranquillity and good government was prepared
+to vanish. His was the intellect in which the extremes of that momentous
+epoch were united. He was the antithesis of public opinion. Noble by
+birth and plebeian by accident, a democrat in principle and a dictator
+in ambition, the shield of the monarch and the sword of the people, he
+was placed exactly between the contending powers of the age. He was the
+arbiter between royalty and revolt: on the one side he acquired the
+obedience of the sovereign through his fears, and on the other he
+obtained the allegiance of the multitude through their aspirations. His
+supremacy occupied at the same moment the palace, the legislative
+chamber, and the marketplace; for all recognised _in_ him the omen of
+their good fortune, and _through_ him, the realisation of their wishes.
+Flattered by the minions of the monarchy, applauded by the members of
+the National Assembly, and idolised by the mob, his influence rested, as
+it were, upon a triple foundation. And yet, by a contradiction as
+remarkable as the anomalies of his own character, all parties were
+disposed to rejoice at the probability of his departure. The King was
+gratified at the thought of his removal, forasmuch as Mirabeau was the
+impersonation of a formidable sedition; the political adventurers
+exulted in the prospect of his decease, because he monopolised
+popularity, and rendered them insignificant by the contrast of his
+colossal genius; the people, in like manner, were, not altogether
+displeased at the notion of his extinction, because he appeared to them
+the only obstacle between themselves, and the supreme authority. All
+valued him as their present preserver, and all hated him as their future
+impediment. Such were the conflicting sentiments entertained towards
+Mirabeau, during the last incidents of his eccentric and volatile
+career. And in the midst of so many antagonistic interests, he alone
+remained unshaken and unappalled, his oratory rendering him still the
+mouth-piece of the Revolution, his duplicity its diplomatist, and his
+intellectual contrivance its statesman. Nor was he satisfied with these
+successes; he sought others, and was equally fortunate. Profligacy and
+legislation equally divided his enthusiasm between them, and proved him
+to be not only the most daring politician, but the most debauched
+citizen in France. His power and popularity had now, however, reached
+their apogee, and Honor�-Gabriel Riquetti Comte de Mirabeau was
+stretched upon his deathbed.
+
+Cagliostro approached the couch and listened, for the great demagogue
+was speaking. His voice was harsh even in a murmur, though it still
+retained, according to Lemercier, "a slight meridional accent." The rosy
+light of the candelabrum beamed upon his cadaverous lips.
+
+"Sprinkle me with perfumes, crown me with flowers, that thus I may enter
+upon eternal sleep."
+
+Memorable words--the last words of Gabriel de Mirabeau. They embody the
+spirit of his sterile philosophy, and are in unison with the
+evanescence of his genius.[16] As Cagliostro observed the limbs
+convulsed and the eyes glazed with a simultaneous pang, he was caught up
+again into the darkness, and again his soul hearkened to the whispers of
+the Holy Voice.
+
+"Thus," it said, "are those recompensed with disease and satiety, who
+are the slaves of their meanest, as of their noblest appetites; thus is
+their talisman shattered in the hour of its attainment."
+
+
+BEETHOVEN.
+
+When the reproachful accents ceased, Balsamo felt his feet once more
+pressing the earth, and the breezes rustling against his domino. He was
+wandering in the garden of what is termed the Schwarzpanier House,
+situated on a slope or glacis in the outskirts of Wahring. The evening
+was so far advanced, that candles already twinkled from the upper
+windows of the building, while the fires of the kitchens checkered the
+shrubs and gravel with patches of glaring light. Through the flowerbeds,
+and along the intricate paths of the shrubbery, the Alchemist strolled
+at a languid pace, musing upon the things he had already witnessed, when
+his vigilant ears caught the tones of a musical instrument. Although it
+was scarcely audible from the distance, Cagliostro was struck by the
+extreme beauty and _espi�glerie_ of the performance. He hurried forward
+in the direction from which the sounds proceeded, and at each step they
+became more distinguishable and bewitching. After a momentary feeling of
+indecision when he reached the walls of the Schwarzpanier, the Alchemist
+ascended a flight of steps, and passed through the open casement of a
+French-window into a modest sitting-room. The musician whose skill had
+attracted him, was seated in the gray twilight at a piano. Cagliostro
+scarcely noticed that he was a man of short stature but of muscular
+proportions; he scarcely remarked, indeed, either the apartment or its
+occupant; his whole consciousness was absorbed in the melody that
+streamed from the instrument.
+
+At first, the fingers of the player seemed to frolic over the keys, as
+though they toyed with the vibrations of the strings. The sounds were
+sportive and jocund; they rippled like laughter; they were capricious as
+the merriment of a coquette. Then they merged into a sweet and warbling
+cadence--a cadence of inimitable tenderness, the very suavity of which
+was rendered more piquant by its lavish variations. The measure changed,
+with an abrupt fling of the treble-hand: it gushed into an air quaint
+and sprightly as the dance of Puck--comic--odd--sparkling on the ear
+like zig-zags: it threw out a shower of notes; it was the voice of
+agility and merriment; it was grotesque and fitful, droll in its absurd
+confusion, and yet nimble, in its amazing ingenuity. Gradually, however,
+the humorous movement resolved itself into a strain of preternatural
+wildness--a strain that made the blood curdle, and the flesh creep, and
+the nerves shudder. It abounded with dark and goblin passages; it was
+the whirlwind blowing among the crags of the Jungfrau, and swarming with
+the forms and cries of the witches of the Walpurgis; it was Eurydice,
+traversing the corridors of hell; it was midnight over the wilderness,
+with the clouds drifting before the moon; it was a hurricane on the deep
+sea; it was every thing horrible, wierdlike, and tumultuous. And through
+the very fury of these passages there would start tones of ravishing and
+gentle beauty--the incense of an adoring heart wafted to the black
+heavens through the lightnings and lamentations of Nineveh. Again the
+musician changed the purpose of his improvisation; it was no longer
+dismal and appalling, it was pathetic. The instrument became, as it
+were, the organ of sadness, it became eloquent with an inarticulate wo;
+it was a breast bursting with affliction, a voice broken with sorrow, a
+soul dissolving with emotions. Then the variable harmonies rose from
+pensiveness into frenzy, from frenzy into the noise and the shocks of a
+great battle; they swelled to the din of contending armies, to the storm
+and vicissitudes of warlike deeds, and soared at last into a p�an such
+as that of victorious legions when--
+
+  "Gaily to glory they come,
+      Like a king in his pomp,
+      To the blast of the tromp,
+  And the roar of the mighty drum!"
+
+As the triumphant tones of the instrument rolled up from its recesses,
+and filled the apartment with a torrent of majestic sounds, as the
+musician swayed to and fro in the enthusiasm of his sublime
+inspirations, and enhanced the divine symphony by the crash of many
+thrilling and abrupt discords, the Rosicrucian gazed with awe upon the
+responsive grandeur of his countenance. The impetus of his superb
+imagination imparted an inconceivable dignity to every lineament, to his
+capacious forehead, to his broad and distended nostrils, to the fierce
+protrusion of his under-lip, to the mobile and generous expression of
+his mouth, to the tawny yellow of his complexion, to the brown depths of
+his noble and dilated eyes. There was something in unison with the
+glorious sounds that reverberated through the chamber, even in the
+enormous contour of his head and the gray disorder of his hair. He
+seemed to exult in the torrent of melody as it gushed from the piano and
+streamed out upon the dusk of the evening. While Cagliostro was
+listening in an ecstasy of admiration, he was startled by a sudden
+clangour among the bass-notes--the music seemed to be jumbled into
+confusion, and the ear was stunned by a painful and intolerable
+dissonance. On looking more intently, he perceived that the composer had
+let one hand fall abstractedly upon the key-board, while the other
+executed, by itself, a passage of extraordinary difficulty and
+involution. Then, for the first time, the thought struck him that the
+musician was deaf.[17] Alas! the supposition was too true: Beethoven was
+cursed with the loss of his most precious faculty. Those who appreciate
+the full splendour of his gigantic genius, those who conceive, with a
+distinguished composer now living, that "Beethoven began where Haydn and
+Mozart left off;" those who coincide with an eminent critic, in saying
+that "the discords of Beethoven are better than the harmonies of all
+other musicians;" those, in fine, who worship his memory with the
+devotion inspired by his compositions, can sympathise in that terrible
+deprivation of the powers of hearing, by which his art was rendered a
+blank, and the latter years of his life were imbittered. They will
+remember with gratitude the joys they have derived from the effusions of
+his fruitful intellect; they will call to their recollection the joyous
+chorus of the prisoners in _Fidelio_,--the sublime and adoring hymn of
+the "Alleluia" in _The Mount of Olives_,--the matchless pomp of the
+_Sinfonia Eroica_,--the passionate beauty of the sentiment of
+_Adelaida_,--the aerial grace of his quartets and waltzes,--the
+thrilling and almost awful pathos of the dirge written for six
+trombones,--but, above all, they will recall to mind the noblest work
+ever conceived and perfected by composer, one of the greatest
+achievements of the human mind, _the Mass in D_. And, bearing these
+wonders in their memory, their hearts will ache for the doom of Ludwig
+Von Beethoven. None of these things, however, being known to the
+Rosicrucian, his sympathies were aroused solely by what he himself had
+heard and witnessed. Still that was more than enough to fill his whole
+soul with commiseration, especially as the sounds again burst in
+bewitching concert from the instrument, and a new inspiration lit up the
+visage of the musician. Cagliostro found himself, with profound sorrow,
+returning into the silent darkness, and the solemn Voice stealing, for
+the last time, into his brain.
+
+"Behold, Balsamo," it said, "the pleasures that may vanish with the loss
+of hearing. Behold, and shudder at the remembrance of thy blasphemies.
+Recognise the goodness of Omnipotence in thy five senses--value them
+beyond either rank, or wealth, or dignity, or fame, or power,--value
+them as the five mysterious talismans of human life; and, in their
+virtuous employment, know that earthly happiness _is_ attainable!"
+
+While these words were resounding in his mind, the Rosicrucian felt
+himself carried, with inconceivable swiftness, through the atmosphere.
+Immediately they ceased he became motionless, though he was still
+enveloped in the shadows of night. All that had recently occurred to
+him,--all the strange and moving circumstances of which he had been a
+spectator, then thronged upon his recollection, and stirred his heart
+with astonishment. His imagination responded to his amazement. He
+revisited again, in thought, the blooming grove of Capre�, the
+pageantries of Cesarea, the green lanes of Buckingham, the luxurious
+_salon_ of Paris, and the twilight of the garden of Wahring. Italian
+beauty lived again in his remembrance, but a beauty marred by
+licentiousness and cruelty. He seemed to behold once more the multitudes
+of Palestine, the landscapes of England, the dainty splendours of
+France, and the tranquil homes of Germany. Gradually, however, his
+reflections became less incoherent, and the meaning of the vision
+appeared to evolve itself before him, in inductions fraught at once with
+reproach and consolation. Coupling together the truths enunciated by the
+Voice of his unseen visitant, and the spectacles revealed to him in
+succession through its agency, the Alchemist bethought himself whether
+his original impressions, as to the condition of humanity, might not, in
+a great measure, have been erroneous. What he had just witnessed assured
+him, in an unanswerable manner, that overt crimes or overt virtues were
+merely the good or evil employment of one or other of the five senses;
+that they were the bright and black spots upon the spiritual nature of
+man, the _facul�_ and the _macul�_, as it were, on the disc of his
+conscience. Satisfied, therefore, that the purity or depravity of every
+mortal was merely the consequence of the different purpose to which
+their senses had been directed, the Rosicrucian perceived the intimate
+relationship subsisting between the immaterial being and the physical
+organs. He perceived especially that those organs were the channels
+through which that immaterial portion of humanity was brought into
+communication with a material existence, was compelled to endure its
+miseries, or was enabled to appreciate its enjoyments. In this he
+recognised the veracity of that solemn assurance, that happiness is
+accessible, even on this earth, to all who use their senses with a
+virtuous discrimination. Nor had this consolatory truth been enforced
+merely by a barren asseveration. Balsamo had been taught the inestimable
+value of those senses, and the penalties of such as abused them by their
+vices. Five incidents, most touching, or most appalling, had reminded
+him of the exquisite pleasures derivable from created things, through
+the eyes, through the nostrils, through the ears, through the palate,
+and through the nerves. He had seen the anguish, moreover, of those who
+suffered from the deprivation of either sense, or of those who were
+tortured by the result of their own heinous misapplication. He had seen
+this in the insanity of Tiberius, in the torments of Agrippa, in the
+sadness of Milton, in the desolation of Mirabeau, and even in the
+philosophic sorrows of Beethoven. The emperor, the tetrarch, the poet,
+the demagogue, and the musician, crowded upon his memory, and appealed
+to his judgment with the same melancholy distinctness. Still the
+villainous predilections of the Rosicrucian contended for the mastery,
+although his intellect recognised the wisdom of the Vision. A fierce
+strife arose between his passions and his reason.
+
+Suddenly his eyes opened to the splendour of an autumn morning; and as
+the sunlight poured along the _Boulevard de la Madeleine_, as it gilded
+every blade of grass in the paddock, and streamed in golden pencils
+through the open window of the cottage, it glittered upon his cheek like
+raindrops.
+
+Cagliostro was weeping.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[5] B�ranger has already conveyed this truth through the melody of his
+delicious verse:--
+
+  "Le vois-tu bien, l�-bas, l�-bas,
+  L�-bas, l�-bas? dit l'Esp�rance;
+  Bourgeois, manants, rois et prelats
+  Lui font de loin la r�v�rence.
+  C'est le Bonheur, dit l'Esp�rance.
+  Courons, courons; doublons le pas,
+  Pour le trouver l�-bas, l�-bas,
+  L�-bas, l�-bas."
+
+[6] "I did not dare to breathe aloud the unhallowed anguish of my mind
+to the majesty of the unsympathising stars."--See _Falkland_.
+
+[7] "Motus autem siderum," such is the reverent and sententious remark
+of Grotius, "qui eccentrici, quique epicyclici dicuntur, manifeste
+ostendunt _non vim materi�, sed liberi agentis ordinationem_."--See _De
+Veritate Rel. Christ. Lib._ i. � 7.
+
+[8] "Now, there was a word spoken to me in private, and my ears, by
+stealth as it were, received the veins of its whisper."--_Job_, chap.
+iv. verse 12.
+
+[9]
+
+  "There is a roaring in the bleak-grown pines
+  When Winter lifts his voice; there is a noise
+  Among immortals when a god gives sign
+  With hushing finger, how he means to load
+  His tongue with the full weight of utterless thought,
+  With thunder, and with music, and with pomp."
+
+Such are the majestic syllables which preface the speech of Saturn in
+_Hyperion_. Keats was ridding himself of the puerilities of Cockaigne
+when he wrote that fragment of an epic--a fragment which is unsurpassed
+by any modern attempt at heroic composition. In reading it, the very
+earth seems shaking with the footsteps of fallen divinities. Even Byron,
+who, like ourselves, had no great predilection for the school in which
+the poetic genius of John Keats was germinated, has emphatically said of
+_Hyperion_ that "it seems actually inspired by the Titans, and is as
+sublime as �schylus."--See _Byron's Works_, vol. xv., p. 92.
+
+[10] Thus writes Suetonius--"pr�grandibus oculis, qui, quod mirum esset,
+noctu etiam et in tenebris, viderent, sed ad breve, et quum primum a
+somno patuissent; deinde rursum hebescebant."--_Tib._ cap. lxviii.
+
+[11] Those who are familiar with the classic historians, will see in
+this description no exaggeration whatever. Instruments for the
+destruction of life yet more awful and mysterious, were employed by many
+of the predecessors, and many of the successors of Tiberius, as well as
+by Tiberius himself: and modern science has shown that these devices,
+instead of being, as was originally conjectured, the result of
+black-magic, were, in reality, the effect of hydraulic, pneumatic, and
+mechanical contrivances. Even the most marvellous feats of the Egyptian
+sorcerers have been latterly explained by the revelations of natural
+philosophy, and a multitude of these explanations may be found by the
+reader in the learned work "Des Sciences Occultes," &c. written by M.
+Eusebe Salverte, and published in Paris as recently as 1843. In that
+remarkable volume, M. Salverte proves that natural phenomena are more
+startling than necromantic tricks, and that, in the words of Roger
+Bacon, "_non igitur oportet nos magicis illusionibus uti, cum potestas
+philosophica doceat operari quod sufficit._" That Tiberius was capable
+of atrocities yet more terrific, and that murders of the most inhuman
+kind were the consequence of almost every one of his diabolical whims,
+those acquainted with the picturesque narrative of Suetonius already
+know. They will remember not only how he caused his nephew Germanicus to
+be poisoned by the governor of Syria, but how he ordered a fisherman to
+be torn in pieces by the claws of a crab, simply because he met him, in
+one of his suspicious moods, when strolling in a sequestered garden of
+Capre�.--_Sue. Tib._ c. lx.
+
+[12] Suetonius assures us (cap. lxviii.), that the muscular strength of
+Tiberius Claudius Nero was, in the prime of his manhood, almost as
+supernatural as his crimes; that he could with his outstretched finger
+bore a hole through a sound apple (_integrum malum digito terebraret_),
+and wound the head of a child or even a youth with a fillip, (_caput
+pueri, vel etiam adolescentis, talitro vulneraret._) His excesses must,
+however, have enervated his frame long before his death by suffocation.
+
+[13] His garb, writes Josephus, "was so resplendent as to spread a
+horror over those that looked intently upon Him."--_Lib._ xix. c. 8.
+
+[14] "An owl," says Josephus (xix. 8); "an angel of the Lord," angelos
+Kyriou, say the scriptures, (Acts. xii. 23,)--in either case a spectral
+illusion.
+
+[15] It is impossible for anyone devoted to the study of "Paradise
+Lost," of "Comus," even of "Sampson Agonistes," and especially of "Il
+Pensoroso" and "L'Allegro," to doubt that their writer was carried away
+at times by the _oestrum_, or _divine afflatus_, although Dr Johnson
+discredits "these bursts of light, and involutions of darkness, these
+transient and involuntary excursions and retrocessions of
+invention."--See _Lives of the Poets_, vol. i. p. 188.
+
+[16] Even M. Alphonse de Lamartine acknowledges of Mirabeau, that
+"neither his character, his deeds, nor his thoughts, have the brand of
+immortality."--_Hist. Giron._ Liv. i. chap. 3.
+
+[17] This incident was suggested by a touching sentence in Schindler's
+biography of Beethoven. After observing that the outward sense no longer
+co-operated with the inward mind of the great composer, and that,
+consequently, "the outpourings of his fancy became scarcely
+intelligible," Schindler continues:--_"Sometimes he would lay his left
+hand flat upon the key-board, and thus drown, in discordant noise, the
+music to which his right was feelingly giving utterance._"--See _Life of
+Beethoven, Edited by Ignace Moschelles_, ii. 175.
+
+
+
+
+MAGA IN AMERICA.
+
+
+                                        _New York, August_ 1847.
+
+My Dear Godfrey--You will laugh when you hear into what a practical
+blunder I was led, by a desire to gratify your curiosity concerning
+Maga's Icon in America. I wondered you should ask me for a description,
+when it was so easy to have ordered out the thing itself; and so
+resolved to save myself the trouble of writing a long story, by duly
+exporting a specimen of the American Ebony, from which you might form
+your own conclusions as to its counterfeit merits, and its supposed
+relations to the great question of international copyright. _Segnius
+irritant_--you know! What disciple of old Plunkett's will ever forget
+the difference between the _demissa per aurem_, and
+
+  ----"qu� sunt _oculis_ subjecta fidelibus!"
+
+I have always maintained that his illustration of this great principle
+gave Dickens the hint of his Dotheboy's Hall. You remember, doubtless,
+poor Harry Farmar's false quantity, and how Plunkett made him peel
+onions till he cried his eyes out; asserting his confidence in Horace's
+maxim, and that he had found the usual box on the ear quite incapable of
+any exciting effect on Harry's mind. Who would have said that the same
+Harry, surviving the operation, would have lived to hunt bisons on the
+prairies of Western America, after riding on elephants in India, and
+bestriding a camel's hump through the waste places of Edom! Harry's
+wandering mind has developed as vagabond a habit of life as ever his
+prophetic instructor ventured to predict; but he vows himself cured at
+last, and that, if he ever sets foot again on England's _terra firma_,
+he will at once become one of the manly hearts that guard the fair, and
+settle down in contented conjugation. He it was, then, who offered to be
+the bearer to yourself at C---- of any despatches, or parcels, I might
+choose to send; but he affected to think me so thoroughly Americanised,
+that he entered a caveat against my loading him with a consignment of
+bowie knives or cotton-bales. A nicely packthreaded parcel was
+accordingly put up, and duly adorned with your most Saxon name and
+address, in the delusive expectation that none but your own hands would
+presume
+
+  "----to set the imprison'd wranglers free,
+  And give them voice and utterance once again."
+
+I was doomed to be quickly undeceived; and as I doubt not Harry will be
+giving you his own version of the affair, over a glass of wine, some
+three weeks hence, at the Hall, you shall know beforehand how much to
+allow, in this matter, for his habitual unveracity, or rather love of
+romance.
+
+I waited on him yesterday and presented the packet; but you should have
+seen him start, when I happened to mention its contents. Not the captors
+of Guido Fawkes bounced with more consternation, when that eminent
+pyrotechnist proposed to touch off his gunpowder for their especial
+gratification and amusement. "What!" exclaimed our mutual friend--"Have
+you lived so long in America, as to have forgotten the laws of a
+civilised and Christian land! Would you have me seized as a smuggler;
+posted in every newspaper as an importer of contraband goods; brutally
+insulted by the officers of her Majesty's Customs; and perhaps actually
+brought before a justice, and locked up where the only prospect would
+be a distant view of New South Wales!" It was in vain that I
+remonstrated with his eloquent horrors, at the thought of renewing his
+travels at government cost: he insisted that my proposal might actually
+have ensured the catastrophe; and from this appeal to my feelings,
+passed to a bold invective against literary piracy, and concluded by a
+generous compromise in favour of the cotton-bales, if I would pardon the
+warm expressions with which he found himself compelled to decline my
+extraordinary commission. You should have seen him, Godfrey! If he ever
+takes that seat in Parliament which he threatens to make the sequel of
+matrimony, I predict wo to the whole race of Humes, Brights, and
+Cobdens, should they ever start him on a subject capable of
+transatlantic illustration.
+
+I could not but laugh, though, when I saw the true state of the case, at
+the comical scene that might have ensued, had he taken my parcel without
+explanations. Think of Harry's air of fearless innocence before the
+inspectors of imports, till from the depths of an enormous trunk comes
+forth a parcel, which those faithful officials at once lay bare, with
+the professional dexterity of a private tearing his cartridge. The
+officer stares, and Harry looks still more astounded, at the sight of a
+familiar visage, peering forth from under the wrapper, and giving mute
+but significant expressions of pain and displeasure. It is the head of
+Geordy Buchanan! It is Blackwood, imported from New York! The confounded
+servant of her Majesty's Customs begins to whisper contraband, and
+expresses a wish for the undoubted original, which you, just stepping up
+to welcome your friend, are enabled to supply. The fresh number from
+your coat-skirts, and the suspicious importation from America, are set
+together like the two Dromios before the duke. "Look on this picture,
+and on that!" Behold the two Buchanans!
+
+     "One of these men is genius to the other
+     ----Which is the natural man,
+     And which the spirit? Who deciphers them?"
+
+Harry, to prevent the coming crisis, volunteers a confession, but
+invites you to a comparison of the heads. With his outrageous Tory
+hatred of the Yankees, he, of course, declares there's no comparison;
+ridicules the fac-simile, and hastily seizing what he mistakes for the
+counterfeit, confounds the company by a quotation from the Latin of
+"Terence"--that very small fragment of the Eunuchus which Plunkett
+forced into his head through the opposite pole of his person--
+
+     "Ne comparandus hic quidem ad illum est, ille erat
+     Honesta facie, et liberali!"
+
+And finally, disgusted to find that he has ascribed the more gentlemanly
+bearing to the American, he tosses the whole parcel into the docks, with
+the tardy announcement that it was my friendly consignment to yourself,
+as well as the very curiosity of literature which you so much desire to
+see. You remember, doubtless, what I did not recollect, that there is no
+port of entry in her Majesty's empire for the Icons of British copyright
+property. They come with a Frenchified air from the press of Galignani;
+they arrive in vulgarised costume from the cheap manufactories of New
+England; but the scent of the vermin is familiar to the nose of a
+collector of customs, and no rat-catching terrier, says my informant,
+ever pounces upon his Norwegian with half the gusto with which such an
+official snubs such an intruder. A health, I say, to the fury of this
+sort of Iconoclasts!
+
+Our friend's unusual caution has saved you the excitement of the scene I
+have imagined, but it puts me to the necessity of substituting a hurried
+description for the ocular satisfaction I had proposed to send you. Who
+would have supposed, thirty years since, that one Maga would not be
+enough for the world, and that New York would be the seat of its
+flourishing double! Yet it is now twelve years since its twin started up
+on this side the water, and has been battening and fattening on the
+rewards of successful illegitimacy. Nay--for a portion of that period,
+Maga has been "three gentlemen at once." The very pirates were pirated,
+and undersold; and two reprints of Maga, both professing to be
+fac-similes, were at one time supported in America, in addition to
+countless republications of particular articles; such, for instance, as
+the tales of "Ten Thousand a-Year," and "Caleb Stukeley"! I think I hear
+you exclaim at such wholesale grand-larceny; but though not inclined to
+take up the cudgels for Reprint and Co., it is but justice to tell you
+what they would say in self-defence. The truth is, they would not have
+known what you meant, had you told them, when their republication was
+established, that there was any question as to the ethics of such a
+business. The laws not only permitted, but even encouraged the
+enterprise; and they do so still. The most respectable booksellers were
+engaged in a similar seizure of every new novel of Bulwer's, and every
+new work whatever, that had stood the experiment of success in England.
+Original copies of the Magazine were rarely imported, as the importer's
+charges and duties nearly doubled the first cost of each number; and
+besides, it was already virtually republished, its leading articles
+being constantly appropriated, in different ways, by editors of literary
+periodicals, and often by the daily newspapers. Then, it must be
+remembered, that England was nearly twice as far from America before the
+era of steamers; and that the matter of copyright was only just
+beginning to excite the attention of Parliament. As yet Lord Mahon had
+not stirred up the ministry to move foreign countries to international
+justice, and England was not, as now, prepared to invest their authors
+with all the rights she concedes to her own. It is not surprising,
+therefore, that Reprint and Co. commenced operations without any
+compunctions of conscience, and were even praised for their enterprise
+by honourable men. Hundreds, who could hardly forego the reading of
+Maga, were unable to pay for it twice what it costs in England; and I
+grant you, that when the first number was laid on my table at one-fourth
+the price of an importation, I myself was not the man to throw a pebble
+at the pirates, but wished them good luck and gave them my name as a
+subscriber. I verily believe I did so with a virtuous delight in what
+then struck me as a compliment to my favourite magazine; for somebody,
+at about the same time, had started a similar republication of other
+English Monthlies, and I desired to see them fairly run off the course.
+You will certainly concede to the Americans some credit for a discerning
+taste, when I add that Maga's competitors have long since been withdrawn
+for want of backers; and she so easily walks the field, that it begins
+to be a fair question whether Messrs Reprint and Co. are honestly
+entitled to the purse.
+
+I have marvelled a little, I confess, that a magazine of such
+unmitigated Toryism, and of so uncomplimentary a tone towards America,
+should nevertheless gain so universal a popularity in this country. I
+must stand to it, Godfrey--there's a touch of the magnanimous in the
+affection which exists among Americans for Christopher North, and all
+his high Tory fraternity. Seldom approving, they always enjoy his
+old-fashioned prejudices; and defend in Maga what, in a book of
+Alison's, they would relish very little. Much is said for the kind of
+affectionate regard with which they welcome to their firesides its
+monthly returns, in the fact that it is the only foreign work which
+American republishers have felt themselves forced, by popular feeling,
+to furnish in the form of a fac-simile. It is proof of the individual
+interest which it possesses, and of the rich associations which it has
+imparted even to the simplicity of its outside. Every one wants old
+Ebony in its own gentlemanly wear: but much as is implied in the livery
+of the _Edinburgh Review_, and many as are its admirers among the
+literary freethinkers of the eastern states, it is curious that no one
+cares twopence to see it in any other than a semi-newspaper shape, and
+that Reprint and Co. have never thought of reproducing it in all the
+splendour of its popinjay surtout. In fact, I doubt whether it will long
+continue in any shape at all. Its crack article is always reprinted in
+another form; and oracular as its pages are deemed by the clannish
+provincials of Boston, its general contents seldom go down with the
+public. The truth is, no one honestly prefers porridge to roast-beef;
+and in spite of a natural leaning to buff and blue, Jonathan will not be
+diverted from his luxurious repasts in Maga, by anything less "hot in
+the mouth."
+
+I remember that, in one of those Ambrosial Noctes, some one remarked in
+auld-lang-syne, that Maga is a ubiquity. The Shepherd assented, for he
+had seen the head of Geordy alike in the hut and the hall; beaming the
+same by the mirrored fire-light of the manorial villa, and "by the
+peat-lowe frae the ingle o' the auld clay biggin." But think, my dear
+Godfrey, what a flow of the _decalect_ would have gushed from that child
+of the Yarrow, had he beheld, with me, the pirated Maga scattered
+through the length and breadth of this immense republic, and devoured
+with equal delight by the self-congratulating native of Massachusetts
+Bay, and the home-sick immigrant of Oregon. Here, too, Maga is
+ubiquitous. If you make your summer tour through the States of New
+England, and stop to visit its priggish little colleges, and biggish
+little schools, you shall find it on many a sophister's table, and in
+many a schoolboy's hands; or, ten to one, as you pass the windows of the
+barracks where they keep their terms, you will chance to hear some
+full-voiced youth adding a nasal rhetoric to Maga's pages, as he retails
+them, through clouds of cigar-smoke, to his assembled companions. To
+your surprise, you will find Maga in every library and reading-room from
+the Independent Union Lyceum of Jeffersonville, in New Hampshire, to the
+Congressional lobbies at Washington. And I assure you, they not only
+take it in, but they read it out and out. Often, when I have wanted but
+a glimpse at its leader, I have found it, like _The Times_ at a country
+inn, in the grasp of some sturdy monopolist, exploring it inch by inch,
+and only pausing at intervals, to wipe his glasses, and renew his pinch
+of snuff. Along the shores of the Hudson, in those snug little villas
+that peep forth from the thick trees and copsewood, Maga is quite as
+universal, but is found in more palmy estate. There--whether your
+retreat from the city be to the banks of Westchester, to the glens of
+the Highlands, or to the table-lands that underlie the Kaatskills--your
+welcome you value none the less that you see volumes of old numbers in
+the book-case, and the number of the month already laid on the table in
+the hall; and you think of the hot noons they will help to wile away,
+after the morning's sport, and before the evening drive. In homes like
+these, I have usually found _Blackwood_ a favourite with the fairer
+portion of American society. You shall find it lurking amongst worsteds
+and flower-patterns, and very often preferred to the pretty work that
+tasks a far prettier eye: or, stepping into the verandah to see a
+steamer go by, you shall pick it up from a tabouret, where it lies with
+a pearl-knife in its uncut pages, and the breezes playing with its
+parted leaves--evidently the immediate relic of some startled and
+disappearing fair one. Going south or west, you meet it on railways, and
+in steamers. It is usually the companion of such travellers as are
+accustomed to decline the repeated attempts of fellow-passengers to
+engage them in conversation or political debate, and seems to afford
+peculiar refreshment to those who have effected a retreat from the
+philanthropic assaults of travelling temperance agents, and of other
+affectionate inquirers as to the condition of their bodies and souls.
+When you reach the Carolinas, where, in default of taverns, you may
+always venture to make yourself the guest of a planter, and will be
+thanked for your visit--if you would bait at noon, and turn from the
+road to a hospitable-looking mansion among the pines, I'll wager that a
+basking Negro, without a shirt, will start up, and take charge of your
+horse, while the master of a thousand slaves gives you one open hand,
+but holds in the other the ubiquitous pages, which he has been reading
+in the cool of his piazza. I say then, had the Shepherd been blest with
+such universal experiences as mine, with what a flow of metaphor and
+illustrative wit would he have enlarged upon the proposition--Maga is an
+ubiquity. Beginning with a broadside at the literary corsairs of New
+York, I can fancy him bursting with indignant virtue into luxurious
+comparisons between the rape of the Sabines, and that of the inimitable
+Noctes--and then between Maga bodily, and her who in the field of Enna
+gathering flowers, experienced a fate most gloomy; and so on till his
+exuberant good-humour expands at last into an apology, as he expatiates
+on the tempting character of the booty, and declares, that like apples
+of gold to frolicsome schoolboys, so beautiful Maga, to covetous
+Yankees, is a thing too full of relish and of beauty to be other than
+pardonable plunder! Maga, like Italy, ought to be less bewitching, or
+better defended. What would not some of Maga's cotemporaries give,
+nevertheless, for the compliment of being perpetually ravished by the
+Goths and Vandals of Letters--the merciless anti-copyright booksellers
+of America? Nay--they will pout at the insinuation, and stand upon the
+virtue which no one believes they possess. But assure them, dear
+Godfrey, that they are in no conceivable danger. Maga shall growl, and
+they shall fawn; but the republicans will not be repulsed by the honest
+frankness of the one nor propitiated by the hypocritical blandishments
+of the others. If they doubt it, just tell them what happened with me
+the other day, and what I vouch for as fairly exhibiting the feeling of
+the most intelligent Americans. I could add many other anecdotes of the
+same colour and character; but I tell this as creditable to them, and
+illustrative of Maga's footing among them:--
+
+I was at the reading-rooms of "The Athen�um"--a literary club-house in
+this city, which has grown out of a small society of scholars that
+existed here before the Revolution--and which, I am happy to say, is
+always supplied with the genuine imported Magazine. A young man, whom I
+had often met at the rooms, and who had the Magazine in his hand, called
+my attention to a palpable error in an article, that reflected pretty
+merrily on his countrymen. "Ha!" said I, "just like old Ebony! Why don't
+you banish the rabid old Tory from these most democratic tables?"
+
+"Banish Maga!" was the reply--"what would be left fit to read?"
+
+"You surprise me! Edinburgh, Westminster--any thing that thinks better
+of Congress, and legislative eloquence--as you do, of course!"
+
+"Why so? Mayn't a man be a republican, without recognising a _jure
+divino_ majesty in a Congressman?"
+
+"But Maga would make out some of your Solons prodigiously long in the
+ears."
+
+"Nay--rather intolerably long in the wind, which is just the intolerable
+truth. Thanks to Maga for giving them the echo of their palaver! and may
+the first reformed Congress vote her a gold medal for the good she has
+done to the country!"
+
+"She sometimes makes free with the nation itself, and some of the little
+peculiarities of your countrymen."
+
+"Well, well--we are not drawn more out of proportion than the Iron
+Duke's nose is in _Punch_! Why should we not laugh like heroes, who are
+said to grow hale of good-humour kept up by caricatures?"
+
+"You must allow that Maga is not always good-natured, as some of her
+rivals invariably are."
+
+"There's no comparison, sir, between the sometimes irritable merriment
+of King Christopher, and the professional tinkling of a jester's
+cap-and-bells. I can't argue it,--only I like _Blackwood_ for all its
+Toryism; and when Kit North is testy, I reflect that he's long had the
+gout! Banish Geordie Buchanan's venerable old pow--did you say? Never,
+Sir, never!"
+
+Of course, I allowed the good sense of these replies, and at once
+explained to myself the philosophy which gave rise to them. The truth
+is, there is in human nature a deep sense of "the eternal fitness of
+things," which usually gives tone to the opinions of man, where undue
+prejudices do not exercise an overruling control. You know, my dear
+Godfrey, how unlikely it is that an American would ever care to pay you
+a second visit at the Hall, should he signalise his first by
+depreciating the character of Washington, or undervaluing the many
+advantages which his country really enjoys. On the same principle which
+would certainly betray you into marks of cool aversion towards such a
+guest from this side the Atlantic, the intelligent American despises in
+his heart the Briton, whose spirit is alien to the time-honoured
+institutions of his ancestors, and whose life is one long blasphemy of
+all that has contributed most to the glory and greatness of an empire,
+whose worst symptom of decay is the fungous existence of a race of such
+blasphemers, at once the morbid fruit of a free constitution, and its
+fatal and cancerous disease. Whiggery is, therefore, at a discount in
+the republic; and I have been surprised to hear the confession from
+American democrats, that if they were Englishmen, they would be far from
+any sympathy with those who call themselves reformers. This, perhaps,
+will account for it, that with all the influence of the Edinburgh
+Reviewers, they have never gained, in this country, any hold of the
+heart, even where they have controlled the head; whilst Maga, on the
+contrary, without bending the republican opinions of Americans, has
+secured no small degree of their affections, and become enshrined in
+their genuine regard. You may see one proof of this in the fact, that if
+you contract with Reprint & Co. for their republications, and will take
+_Blackwood_ and _The Quarterly_, you can have _The Edinburgh_ and _The
+Westminster_ almost thrown into the bargain; like the lying little
+_Mercury_ of �sop's statuary, which was a mere gratuity to those who
+would buy a _Phoebus_, and _Pallas-Athene_. In truth, if my observation
+has been correct, intelligent Americans like to be republicans
+themselves, because such were the fathers of their country; but an
+Englishman in blue and yellow, they regard much as they do an Indian in
+shoes and stockings. He is despised, as no specimen of the noble race
+from which he has degenerated and dwindled into a Whig.
+
+To return to the republished Magazine; it is not only a republication,
+but, as I have said, it professes to be a fac-simile. You will ask, if
+it is cleverly done. I must answer--not very, considered as a whole; and
+yet, to give the mannikin its due, the face of the thing is about as
+accurate as counterfeits usually are. The colour is not often right,
+however, and I suspect Reprint & Co. are ignorant that the colour is of
+any consequence. The thistle-framed portrait, nevertheless, is tolerably
+well copied; enough so, to deserve the greatest proportion of credit
+belonging to the whole, as an imitation. You look for the familiar
+imprint in vain. One would never know from the publisher's part of the
+title-page that the house of Blackwood & Sons was still in existence.
+Instead of the usual mark, we have that of the republishers, with an
+intimation that they are assisted in the sale by booksellers in Boston,
+Philadelphia, Charlestown, Baltimore, Savannah, New Orleans, and PARIS!
+Why they should print Paris in capitals, rather than Boston and
+Philadelphia, I am at a loss to conceive; but such an announcement does
+indeed demand some note of admiration at the vastness of the enterprise
+of REPRINT & Co., who, to give Mr Blackwood more time to attend to the
+getting up of each successive number of his work, thus undertake to
+relieve him of any share in seeing to the supply of the Continent of
+Europe. In this benevolent effort to take the burthen from the
+proprietors of the genuine Ebony, it is fair that the French coadjutor
+should have his share of the honour. His name is given as HECTOR
+BOSSANGE; and his shop, if I rightly remember, adorns the Quai Voltaire.
+And, now I think of it, I advise you, dear Godfrey, to skip across the
+Channel this summer, and alight on the capital, (where very likely they
+will just be getting up an _emeute_ in honour of the Three Days), and
+there, in Monsieur Bossange's establishment, you will be permitted to
+try the merits of my description and Maga's Icon at the same time, and
+with no danger from officials of the Customs. So much then for the
+front, which is good, except the colour. _Nimium ne crede colori_, says
+Mr Reprint; and _fronti nulla fides_, say I.
+
+The reverse cover has, of course, an outer and inner surface, with only
+the thickness of the paper between the letter-press adorning the twain.
+What say you, then, to the fact, that whilst the outer half is devoted
+to an advertisement of Mr Reprint's imitative publications, the _better
+half_ contains a bold and faithful warning against such piracy! You
+stare, but I repeat it; whilst the one side of the leaf announces Mr
+Reprint's arrangements for circulating throughout the States his
+imitations of Blackwood, the other indignantly announces that there are
+"now in circulation in the United States, SPURIOUS and HIGHLY
+PERNICIOUS IMITATIONS." Alas for the difference between those who
+_instruct_ the head, and those who only _dress_ it! The imitations that
+are shamelessly commended are only those of _Blackwood's Magazine_;
+while those which Messrs Reprint feel called upon to hold up as shocking
+to every sense of virtue,--to head with IMPORTANT INFORMATION, and to
+stamp with triple marks of wonder, as FRAUDULENT COUNTERFEITS--are
+imitations of Rowland's Macassar Oil! Think of that, Godfrey! I learn
+from this announcement of Reprint's, that there are now in the United
+States men base enough to rob the immortal Rowland of his patent right,
+men who have doubtless established agencies in "Boston, Philadelphia,
+Baltimore, Savannah, New Orleans and PARIS," but who, as the imitation
+Blackwood is circulated in just those places, will find it, by just
+retribution, always in their way. _A bon chat, bon rat!_ Well, it was
+wise in the agents of Rowland to employ one ubiquitous imitation to stop
+another; but since the trade is much the same, it ought to be suggested
+to Reprint & Co., that they do ill to expose a fellow-craftsman.
+Suppose, now, the enterprising apothecaries, who do for Mr Rowland what
+Reprint & Co. are doing for Mr Blackwood, should print a label for every
+bottle of their "incomparable oil," warning the public that spurious
+imitations of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine are now in circulation
+throughout the States, which they are compelled to stamp as FRAUDULENT
+COUNTERFEITS! Would not this be quite as IMPORTANT INFORMATION as the
+other? Are not the public as much concerned in having the genuine
+article for their brain, as in having the unadulterated article for
+their hair? Yet, how would Reprint like to see such a _Rowland_ for his
+Oliver?
+
+Strange that the same leaf that thus brands a counterfeit,--which
+Reprint repudiates, hinting that respectable perfumers "sell only the
+genuine article,"--should within one two-hundredth part of an inch,
+contain the exposure of his own counterfeit, by his own pen, ink, and
+types: and that with the announcement of a "Travelling Agent, recently
+appointed to procure Subscribers in the Western States, Iowa and
+Wisconsin, _who will prove his identity by a certificate from the Mayor
+of Cincinnati_!" Now, it strikes me, would not a certificate from his
+lordship, proving _the identity of the Magazine_, be much more to the
+purpose? It is called _Blackwood's_ Magazine; and if so, the Travelling
+Agent would be better certified by a commission from Mr Blackwood to be
+selling his property, and that would be more to the purpose still! But
+think, dear Godfrey, where this certified bagman goes! Iowa and
+Wisconsin are a thousand miles inland, where even so lately as when this
+reprint was begun, the Indian trail was the only post-road, and the
+aborigines almost the only inhabitants, and where, even at this day, the
+reader of Maga, holding the cream of civilisation and refinement in one
+hand, must keep the other in close contact with his rifle, and the rifle
+well loaded and cocked; for should his magazine interest him more than
+his safety, he might expect at any moment the pressing salutations of a
+cougar, or the warm embrace of a grisly bear. Or think, I pray you, of a
+circumstance still less improbable, which will illustrate what it is to
+be a bagman in Iowa. Where this "Travelling Agent" goes, he often
+carries his merchandise through an Indian village, and often, I'll
+venture to say, has Buchanan been seen in his hand, as centre to a
+circle of fierce-visaged Red-skins, with tomahawks in their girdles, and
+any thing but brotherly love in their gestures. Ah, then, the
+contrabandist is afraid. Among savages he first learns to wish himself
+engaged in any thing but an anti-copyright expedition; and produces in
+vain the proof of his identity, signed by the Mayor of Cincinnati.
+
+I observe that there are similar agencies in the Southern and
+South-western States; so that Reprint & Co. are the monopolists of Maga,
+from the mouth of the St Lawrence, to the deltas of the Mississippi, and
+before long will doubtless have their travelling agents pushing its
+sale in the "halls of the Montezumas," or exchanging it for peltry at
+the head-waters of the Colombia. It is said in one of the newspapers of
+this city, that for every copy issued in Edinburgh, two copies of the
+reprint are published here; and though the estimate strikes me as, at
+least, unlikely, it is far from being incredible. I can pardon Mr
+Blackwood should his temper be a little ruffled, when he compares his
+trouble and responsibility, and limited sale, with the _sans souci_ and
+universal market of Reprint & Co.; but surely, old Christopher North
+should smile with inward satisfaction when, not by cannon, or carnage,
+but as the result of a greatness thrust upon him, he finds his empire,
+like her Majesty's, the girdle of the earth, and his sovereignty
+recognised, in the world of letters, where hers can claim no subjects,
+and demand no homage. That crutch is now the sceptre of bookdom. Its
+shadow stretcheth over all lands, whether the dawn project it athwart
+the broad Atlantic, or the Boreal light send it overland to farthest
+India. Who reads not Maga? You shall find the smutched lieutenant
+turning over its pages by the camp-fire, after a terrible scratch with
+the Sikhs; and within the same twenty-four hours you may fairly surmise
+that some green mountain volunteer, on the wrong side of the Rio Grande,
+has lighted a pine-knot, and is reading one of the Marlborough articles
+to his mess, with extemporary paralellisms in favour of General Taylor,
+which the shade of the great Churchill must not venture to overhear.
+Swinging in his hammock, the midshipman holds Blackwood to the smoky
+lamp of the orlop, as he plunges and pitches around Cape Horn. Lounging
+in his state-room, and bound for Hong Kong, the sea-sick passenger
+corrects his nausea with the same spicy page, and bewitched with the
+flavour, forgets to sigh for Madeira, which he has passed, or to look
+out for St Helena, which is somewhere on his lee. It keeps the old
+Admiral from the deck as his keel scrapes the coral-reefs of the South
+Pacific; and a stale back number, from the bottom of a seaman's chest,
+is purchased as a prize, by him who cruises among seals, icebergs, and
+spermaceti whales.
+
+          "Quis jam locus, inquit, Achate,
+     Qu� regio in terris nostri non plena laboris!"
+
+Yes--who reads not Maga? The flayed Radical of Parliament--the rasped
+Balaamite of Congress--the spanked Cockney of an author--the jaundiced
+Editor of some new no-go periodical--even these must cut the leaves of
+each new number, if they die for it, or if their only reward be to find
+their own sweet selves hung up in its pages, like sham Socrates in his
+basket, but not looking on like live Socrates with philosophic
+composure. And if they whimper, who will sympathise? Like the Shepherd
+at Awmrose's, the testy public may now and then rebel, and rail for a
+season at "the cawm, cauld, clear, glitterin' cruelty in the expression
+of his een,"--but who can keep up a quarrel with North? Again, like the
+Shepherd, they relax into a broad good humour, and, before they know it,
+are drinking with all the honours, "Long live King Christopher!" So
+then, in spite of Cockneys, chartists, coxcombs, rebels, radicals, and
+rascally reformers, yea, and the whole alphabetical list of what is
+whiggish, vulgar, and vexatious,--
+
+          "Maga still sitteth on Edina's crags,
+     And from her throne of beauty rules the world!"
+
+Ah! my dear Godfrey of Godfrey Hall, in the county of Kent, Esquire,--I
+know what you are thinking of. You were certainly meant for trade, and
+'twas a loss to the Bank of England, that you ever wore a
+shooting-jacket. There was ever a commercial crotchet in your head, and I
+am sure it now suggests the rejoinder--that to rule the world is nothing,
+so long as one can't rule the market. But I respectfully ask, do you go
+for absolute monarchy? Would you have Maga more potent than her Majesty?
+I grant there should be something coming to Mr Blackwood for the
+thousands that profit by his labours in America--but if it can't be so,
+let the glory suffice him, and let _Sic vos non vobis_ be his song of
+patient resignation. The parallel between his case and that of the
+Virgilian sufferers, is perfect. Who concentrates more pungency, or
+collects more sweets than the busy bee? Who keeps more musical throats in
+time than the motherly bird? Who lends the agricultural interest greater
+assistance than the labouring ox; or who suffers more by the
+manufacturers than the fleeced lamb? Undoubtedly, the answer is,--Mr.
+Blackwood! Well then, I say, he must comfort himself by philosophy and
+_Sic vos non vobis_. He may, indeed, utter one word of remonstrance
+against literary and commercial piracy, like that first great sufferer by
+anti-copyright,--Mr. Virgilius Maro, of Mantua--
+
+     "Hos ego versiculos _emi_, tulit alter honores."
+
+Or, in other words, I pay for every line and letter of Maga, and lo! Mr
+Bathyllus Reprint, of New York, carries off the sesterces! Think,
+Godfrey, what a charm of a life this Bathyllus must make of it! His are
+all the honey, and the bird's nests, the corn-bags, and the fleeces of
+the Ebony estates; and yet he has no trouble to see his banks furnished
+with bees, or to preserve game in the brake; no care to drive away
+crows, or to stifle the blatter of sheep. For him--to descend from the
+firmament of metaphor, to the plain prose of George Street and
+Paternoster Row--for him, Mr North inspects boxes of Balaam, with the
+patience of a proofreader, and deciphers pages of wit and pathos with
+the perseverance of a Champollion. For him, with each new moon, and
+punctual to the day, comes forth the Maga of the month, the fruit of
+incredible diligence, and the flower of admirable skill. For him the
+foreign purveyor of all he lives by pays down the golden _honorarium_,
+fifty guineas for the sheet, that he may have the whole for less than
+fifty pence. For him--the same benevolent provider takes pains to
+silence, by the same metallic spell, ten thousand other claims and
+clamours, contingent to each lunation of Maga. All things work for him!
+For him the steamer ploughs Atlantic surges; and for him, when she gains
+her port, two hundred miles of wire are put into galvanic tremor,
+bidding him prepare his covers, and rally his compositors. It is there
+that Reprint, with a grateful sense (perhaps) of all that has been done
+for him, and a still more gratifying sense of the very little that
+remains for him to do, finds himself called to bestir from a fortnight's
+nap, and proceed to do that little. With railway speed, and thunder
+step, the Express of Harnden brings to his hand almost the only emigrant
+original of _Blackwood_ that ever touches these occidental shores. No
+prosy correspondence--no botheration manuscript--no rejectable
+contribution--but the choicest literary matter that the genius of the
+British empire can furnish, all picked, packed, and laid at his feet, in
+fair white printed copy, without pains and without cost! Another's all
+the toil--his, all the profits! In a turn or two of his hand the
+American market is supplied. Sure sale--no risk--all clear gains, and
+quick returns! I am sure Mr Bathyllus Reprint must be the happiest of
+men, and the most amiable of publishers; and I can conceive that few of
+the more legitimate craft would be able to stand upon dignity, or refuse
+his kind invitation to meet a little company at his board--
+
+     "At the close of the day, when the market is still,
+     And mortals the sweets of comestibles prove."
+
+But hold! When is the market still. For a fortnight after he has set it
+astir with a new number, his announcements confront you as you open your
+"folio of four pages." His placards smite the eye at the crossings of
+the streets; they return your glance at the shop-window, and confound
+your senses at every turn. "Old Ebony for the month,"--"Kit North again
+in the field,"--"A racy new number of _Blackwood_,"--such are the
+headings of newspaper puffs, and the bawlings of hawkers on the steps of
+Astor House. They pursue you to the Boston railway-station, or to the
+Hudson-river steamer; they follow you on the road to Niagara; meet you
+afresh at Detroit and Chicago, and hardly provoke any additional
+surprise when the bagman accosts you with the same syllables, through
+the nose, as you arrive in the buffalo-season on the debateable grounds
+of Oregon! To quote once more the oracular words of the Ettrick orator
+and poet, "Ane gets tired o' that eternal soun'--_Blackwood's
+Magazeen,--Blackwood's Magazeen_--dinnin' in ane's lugs, day and nicht!"
+So vast and so varied I suppose to be the commercial relations of
+Reprint & Co., and such, beyond a doubt, is Maga's empire in America.
+
+No more by this steamer. Let me see; in ten days, perhaps, Harry will be
+with you at breakfast, discussing my letter, and lamenting my lot, to
+live so far from the world. For me, however, a contented disposition,
+the steamers twice a-month, and _Blackwood_ monthly, do wonders. I see
+as much of the world as a good man need wish to see; and at any time,
+you know, it's not a fortnight's work, by God's blessing, to rejoin the
+old friends and true friends, that so often go fishing under your
+patronage, and tell improbable stories around your table. Wait till I
+get into my own chair beside you, and I will tell stories of my sojourn
+in America that will put Harry's Indian romances to the blush. He now
+goes out with a stock of prairie-adventures, that out-Sinbad Sinbad, and
+yet he tells them with an air of honesty that would gull Gulliver. Wait
+till I rejoin you, and you shall see how a plain tale will put him down.
+
+                                                  Yours, &c.
+
+
+
+
+THE TIMES OF GEORGE II.[18]
+
+
+Female authorship is beginning to flourish in England. To this
+employment no rational objection can be raised. The want of occupation
+for female life in the higher classes has long been a subject of
+complaint, and any honest change which removes it will be a change for
+the better. The quantity of time and thread which has been wasted on
+chainstitch, and roundstitch, and all the other mysteries of the needle,
+in the last three centuries, is beyond all calculation. If the fair
+artists had been workers at the loom, they might have clothed half the
+living population in "fine linen," if not in purple. If they had been
+equally diligent in brickmaking, they might have built ten Babels; or if
+they had devoted similar energies, on Iago's hint, "to suckle fools, and
+chronicle small beer," they might have tripled the population, or
+anticipated the colossal vats of Messrs Truman & Co. What myriads of
+young faces have grown old over worsted parrots and linsey-wolsey maps
+of the terrestrial globe! What exquisite fingers have been thinned to
+the bone, in creating carnations to be sat upon, and cowslip beds for
+the repose of favourite poodles! What bright eyes have been reduced to
+spectacles, in the remorseless fabrication of patchwork, quilts and
+flowery footstools for the feet of gouty gentlemen! Nay, what thousands
+and tens of thousands have been flung into the arms of their only
+bridegroom, Consumption, leaving nothing to record their existence but
+an accumulation of trifles, which cost them only their health, their
+tempers, their time, their charms, and their usefulness!
+
+But the age of knitting and tambour passed away. The spinning-jenny was
+its mortal enemy. The most inveterate of fringemakers, the most
+painstaking devotee of patchwork, when she found that Arkwright could
+make in a minute more than with all her diligence she could make in a
+month, and that old Robert Peel could pour out figured muslins, by a
+twist of a screw, sufficient to give gowns to the whole petticoat
+population of England, had only to give in; the spinsterhood were forced
+to feel that their "occupation was o'er."
+
+Even then, however, the female fingers were not suffered to "forget
+their cunning;" and the age of purse-making began. The land was
+inundated with purses of every shape, size, and substance. Then
+followed another change. The Berlin manufacturers had contrived to bring
+back the age of worsted wonders, though, by a happy art, they saved the
+fair artists all the trouble of drawing and design. We are still under a
+Gothic invasion of trimmings and tapestry, of needlework nondescripts,
+moonlight minstrels in canvass, playing under cross-bar balconies; and
+all the signs of the zodiac brought down to the level of the ivory
+fingers of womankind.
+
+To this, we must acknowledge, that the incipient taste of the ladies for
+historical publications, for diving into the trunks of family memorials,
+and giving us those private correspondences which are to be found only
+by the desperate determination to find something and every thing, is a
+fortunate turn of the wheel.
+
+It is true, that England boasts of many distinguished female writers;
+that the works of Mrs Radcliffe opened a new vein of rich description
+and solemn mystery; that the comedies of Inchbald netted her innocent
+and persevering spirit some thousand pounds; and that Joanna Baillie's
+tragedies entitle her to an enduring fame. We also acknowledge, with
+equal sincerity and gratification, the merits of many of our female
+novelists in the past half century; their keen insight into character,
+their close anatomy of the general impulses of the human heart, and the
+mingled delicacy and force with which they seize on personal
+peculiarities, belong to woman alone. But their day, too, has gone down.
+They were first rivalled by the "high-life novel," the most vulgar of
+all earthly caricatures. They are now extinguished by the low-life
+novel; the most intolerable of all earthly realities. The true novel,
+true in its fidelity to nature, polished without affectation, and
+vigorous without rudeness, now sleeps in the grave, and must sleep,
+until posterity shall, with one voice, demand its revival.
+
+Yet, until another race of genius shall arise, and the laurel of
+Fielding or of Shakspeare shall descend on our female authors, we must
+be grateful for their gentle labours in the rather rugged field of
+history.
+
+It must be owned, that gallantry has a good deal to do in giving these
+works the name of history. They want all the vigour, all the philosophy,
+and all the eloquence of history. Of course, no human being will ever
+apply to them as authorities. Still, they have the merit of giving
+general statements to general readers, of supplying facts in their
+regular order, and probably, of inducing the multitude, who would shrink
+from the formalities of Hume or Gibbon in solemn quartos and ponderous
+octavos, to dip into pages having all the look and nearly all the
+slightness of the modern novel. At all events, if they do nothing else,
+they employ the time of pens, which might be much worse occupied; and
+that pens are often much worse occupied, we have evidence from hour to
+hour.
+
+The French novels are making rapid way into our circulating libraries.
+Yet nothing can be more unfortunate, for nothing can be more corrupting
+than a French novel of the nineteenth century. France, always a
+profligate country, always had profligate writers. But they were
+generally confined to "Memoirs," "Court anecdotes," and the ridicule of
+the world of Versailles; their criminality was at least partially
+concealed by their good breeding, and their vice was not altogether
+lowered to the grossness of the crowd.
+
+The Revolution created a new school. All there was hatred to duty,
+faith, and honour. The deepest profligacy was pictured as scarcely less
+than the natural right of man; and all the abominations of the human
+heart were excited, encouraged, and propagated by daring pens, sometimes
+subtle, sometimes eloquent, and in all instances appealing to the most
+tempting abominations of man.
+
+But the Revolution fell, and with the ascendant of Napoleon another
+school followed. War, public business, the general objects of the active
+faculties, and strong ambition of a people with Europe at its feet,
+partially superseded alike the frivolous taste of the monarchy, and the
+rabid ferocities of revolutionary authorship. The Bulletins of the
+"Grande Arm�e" told a daily tale of romance, to which the brains of a
+Parisian scribbler could find no rival, and men with the sound of
+falling thrones echoing in their ears, forgot the whispers of low
+intrigue and commonplace corruption.
+
+The "Three Glorious Days" of July 1830, have now produced another
+change; and peace has given leisure to think of something else than
+conquest and the conscription. The power of the national pen has turned
+again to fiction, and the natural wit, habitual dexterity, and dashing
+verbiage of France have all been thrown into the novel. Even the French
+drama, once the pride of the nation, has perished under this sudden
+pressure. A French modern tragedy is now only a rhymed melodrama. Even
+French history attracts popular applause only as it approaches to a
+three volume romance. Every man of name in French modern authorship has
+attained it only by the rapid production of novels. But no language can
+be too contemptuous, or too condemnatory, for the spirit of those works
+in general. Every tie of society is violated in the progress of their
+pages; and violated with the full approval of every body. Seduction is
+the habitual office of the hero. Adultery is the regular office of the
+heroine. In each the vice is simply a matter of course. Manly honour is
+a burlesque every where, but where the criminal shoots the injured
+husband in a duel. Female virtue is only a proof of dulness or decay, a
+vulgar formality of mind, or an unaccountable inaptitude to adopt the
+customs of polished society.
+
+The hero is pictured with every quality which can charm the eye or ear;
+he is the handsomest, the most accomplished, and the most high-spirited
+of mankind, all sentiment, and all scoundrelism. The heroine, always a
+wife or a widow,--in the former instance, is the "lovely victim of a
+marriage in which her heart had no share," and in which she is entitled
+to have all the privileges of her heart supplied. And in the latter is a
+creature full of charms, about twenty-one, resolved to live for love,
+but never to be "chained in the iron links of a dull and obsolete
+ceremonial" again. She quickly fixes her eyes on some Adolphe, Auguste,
+or Hyppolite, "_Officier de la Garde_," who has performed prodigies of
+valour in Algiers, taken lions by the beard every where, and is the best
+waltzer in all Paris. They meet, flame together, swear an _amiti�
+eternelle_, and defy the world, through three volumes.
+
+In reprobating this detestable school, we certainly have no hope that
+our remarks will reform the French novelism of the day; but we call on
+the critical press of England to take up the rational and righteous task
+of reforming our own.
+
+Within these few years, the English novels are rapidly falling into the
+imitation of the French. And we say it with no less regret than
+surprise, that the chief imitators are females. The novels written by
+men have generally some manliness, some recollection of the higher
+impulses which occasionally act on the minds of men; some reluctancy in
+revealing the more infirm movements of the mind; and some doubts as to
+the absorption of all human nature in one perpetual whirl of
+love-making.
+
+But with the female pen in general, the whole affair is resolved into
+one impulse--all is "passion." The winds of heaven have nothing to do,
+but to "waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole." The art of printing is
+seriously presumed to have been invented only for "some banished lover,
+or some captive maid." Flirtation is the grand business of life. The
+maiden flirts from the nursery, the married woman flirts from the altar.
+The widow adds to the miscellaneous cares of her "bereaved" life,
+flirtation from the hearse which carries her husband to his final
+mansion. She flirts in her weeds more glowingly than ever. But she knows
+too well the "value of her liberty" to submit to be a slave once more;
+and so flirts on for life, in the most innocent manner imaginable,
+taking all risks, and throwing herself into situations of which the
+result would be obvious any where but in the pages of an _English_
+novel.
+
+The French have no scruples on such subjects, and their candour leaves
+nothing to the imagination. Our female novelists have not yet arrived at
+that pitch of explicitness, and it is to be hoped will pause before they
+leap the gulf.
+
+We attribute a good deal of this dangerous adoption to the prevalent
+habit of yearly running to the Continent. The English ear becomes
+familiarised to language on the other side of the Channel, which would
+have shocked it here. The chief topic of foreign life is intrigue, the
+chief employment of foreign life is that half idle, half infamous
+intercourse, which extinguishes all delicacy even in the spectators. The
+young English woman sees the foreign woman leading a life which, though
+in England it would stamp her with universal shame, in France or
+Germany, and above all, in Italy, never brings more than a sneer, and
+seldom even the sneer. She sees this wedded or widowed profligate
+received in the highest ranks; flourishing without a reproach, if she
+has the means of keeping an opera-box, or giving suppers; every soul
+round her acquainted with every point of her history, yet none shrinking
+from her association. If she has one Cicisbeo, or ten, the whole affair
+is _selon les r�gles_.
+
+The young English woman who blushes at this scandalous career, or
+exhibits any reluctance on the subject of the companionship or the
+crime, is laughed at as a "novice," is charged with a want of the
+"_savoir vivre_," is quietly reproved for "the coldness of her English
+blood," and is recommended to abandon, as speedily as possible, ideas so
+unsuitable to "the glow of the warm South."
+
+She soon finds a dangler, or a dozen danglers, who, having nothing on
+earth to do, and in their penury rejoiced to find any spot where they
+can kill an hour, and get a cup of coffee, are daily at her command. All
+those fellows, too, are counts; the title being about as common, and as
+cheap, as chimney-sweepers among us, though not belonging to so valuable
+fraternity.
+
+After a month's training of this kind, the poor fool is fit for nothing
+else, to the last hour of her being. She is a flirt and a _figurante_,
+as long as she lives. Duty and decorum are things too icy for the
+"ardour of her soul." The life of England is utterly barbarian to the
+refinement of the land of macaroni.
+
+And it is unquestionably much better that the whole tribe should remain
+where they are, and roam among the lazzaroni, than return to corrupt the
+decencies of English life. If this sentimentalist has money, she is sure
+to be picked up by some "superb chevalier," some rambling
+fortune-hunter, or known swindler, hunted from the gambling table;
+probably beginning his career as a frizeur or a footman, and making
+rapid progress towards the galleys. If she has none, she returns to
+England, to grumble, for the next fifty years, at the climate, the
+country, and the people; to drawl out her maudlin regrets for olive
+groves, and pout for the Bay of Naples; to talk of her loves; exhibit a
+cameo or a crucifix, (the parting pledge of some inamorato, probably
+since hanged), prate papistry, and profess _liberalism_; pronounce the
+Roman holidays "charming things," and long to see the carnival, and the
+worship of the Virgin together, imported to relieve the _ennui_ of
+London.
+
+The subject is startling: and we recommend any thing, and every thing,
+in the shape of employment, in preference to the vitiating follies of a
+life of Touring.
+
+Another tribe of female authorship ought to be extinguished without a
+moment's delay. Those are the yearly travellers. A woman of this kind
+scampers over the Continent, like a queen's messenger, every season; she
+rushes along with the rapidity and the regularity of the "Royal Mail."
+The month of May no sooner appears in the calendar, than she packs up
+her trunk, and crosses to Boulogne, "to make a book." One year she takes
+the north, another the south; to her, all points of the compass are
+equal. But whether the _roulage_ carries her to the Baltic or the
+Mediterranean, her affair is done, if she adds a page a day to her
+journal. She gossips along, and scribbles, with the indefatigable finger
+of a maker of bobbin lace, or a German knitter of stockings. The most
+slipshod descriptions of every thing that has been described before;
+sketches of peasant character taken from the beggars at the roadside;
+national traits taken from the commonplaces of the _table-d'h�te_, and
+court _secrets_ copied from the newspapers--all are disgorged into the
+Journal. We have, unfailingly, whole pages of setting suns, moonlight
+nights, effulgent stars, and southern breezes. She gloats over pictures
+of enraptured monks, and sees heaven in the eyes of saints, copied from
+the painter's mistresses. If she goes to Italy, she tells us of the
+banditti, the gondola, and St Peter's; gazes with solemn speculation on
+the naked beauties of the Belvidere Apollo; and descants in an
+ultra-ecstasy on the proportions of sages and heroes destitute of
+drapery; winding up by an adventure, in which she falls by night into
+the hands of a marching regiment, or band of smugglers setting out on a
+robbery, and leaving the world to guess at the results of the adventure
+to herself.
+
+In all this farrago, she never gives the reader an atom of information
+worth the paper which she blots. We have no additional lights on
+character, public life, national feeling, or national advancement. All
+is as vapid as the "Academy of Compliments," and as well known as
+"Lindley Murray's Grammar." But why object to all this? Why not let the
+scribbler take her way--and the world know that vineyards are green, and
+the sky blue, if it desires the knowledge? Our reason is this,--such
+practices actually destroy all taste for the legitimate narratives of
+travel. Those trading tourists talk nonsense, until intelligence itself
+becomes wearisome. They strip away the interest which novelty gives to
+new countries, and by running their silly speculation into scenes of
+beauty, sublimity, or high recollection, would make Tempe a counterpart
+to the Thames Tunnel; Mount Atlas a fellow to Primrose Hill; and
+Marathon a fac-simile of the Zoological Garden or Bartholomew Fair. The
+subject is pawed, and dandled, and fondled, until the very name excites
+nausea; and a writer of real ability would no more touch upon it, than a
+great artist would paint St George and the Dragon.
+
+This has been the history of the decline of works of imagination in
+England. No sooner had Mrs Radcliffe touched the old monasteries with
+her glorious pencil, than a generation of monk-describers and
+ruined-castle-builders sprang up, until the very name of convent or
+castle became an abhorrence. Sir Walter Scott's "Lay of the Last
+Minstrel," rich and romantic as it was, was nearly buried under an
+overflow of heavy imitations, which drove his genius to other pursuits,
+and which filled the public ear with such enormities of octo-syllabic
+_ennui_, that it hates poetry ever since. The Helicon of which he drank
+the gushing and pure stream, was stirred into mire by the slippers of
+school-girls, city-apprentices, and chambermaid-poetesses of every shade
+of character.
+
+A new Malthus for the express purpose of extinguishing, by strangulation
+or otherwise, the whole race of Annual Travellers in Normandy, Picardy,
+up the Seine and down the Seine, up the Loire and down the Loire, on the
+shores of the Mediterranean, and in the Brenner Alps, would be a
+benefactor to society.
+
+Whether England would be the wiser and the happier if, instead of being
+separated from the Continent by a channel, she were separated by an
+ocean, is a question which we leave to the philosopher; but there can be
+no doubt of the nature of its answer by the historian. It will be found,
+that the national character had degenerated in every period when that
+intercourse increased, and that it resumed its vigour only in the
+periods when that intercourse was restricted.
+
+It would not be difficult to exemplify this principle, from the earliest
+times of English independence. But our glance shall be limited to the
+era of the Reformation, when England began first to assume an imperial
+character.
+
+Elizabeth was always contemptuous of the foreigner, and boasted of the
+defiance; the national mind never rose to a higher rank than in her
+illustrious reign. James renewed the connexions of the throne with
+France, and Charles I. renewed the connexion of the royal line. It may
+have been for the purpose of checking the national contagion of the
+intercourse, that rebellion was suffered to grow up in his kingdom. But
+whatever might be the origin, the effect was, to break off the
+intercourse with France and her corruptions, and to exhibit a new energy
+and purity in the people. Cromwell raised a sudden barrier against
+France by his political system, and the nation recovered its daring and
+its character in its contempt for the foreigner.
+
+In the reign of Charles II. the intercourse was resumed, and corruption
+rapidly spread from France to the court, and from the court to the
+people. England, proud and powerful under the Protectorate, became
+almost a rival to France in infidelity and profligacy in the course of
+the Reign. Again the war of William with France closed the Continent
+upon the national intercourse, and the manliness of the national
+character partially revived. But with the death of Anne the intercourse
+was renewed, and the result was a renewal of the corruption. The war of
+the French Revolution again and utterly broke off the intercourse for
+the time; and it is undeniable, that the national character suddenly
+exhibited a most singular and striking return to the original virtues of
+the country--to its fortitude, to its patriotism, and to the purity of
+its religious feelings.
+
+The period from the Treaty of Utrecht to the war of the French
+Revolution, has always appeared to us a blot on the annals of England.
+It is true that it contained many names of distinction, that it
+exhibited a graceful and animated literature, that it was characterised
+by striking advances in national power, and that towards its close it
+gave the world a Chatham, as if to reconcile us to its existence and
+throw a brief splendour over its close.
+
+But no period of British history developed more unhappily those vices
+which naturally ripen in the hot bed of political intrigue. The names of
+Harley, Bolingbroke, Walpole, and Newcastle, might head a general
+indictment against the manliness, the integrity, and the honour of
+England. The low faithlessness of Harley, who seems to have been
+carrying on a Jacobite correspondence at the foot of the throne--the
+infamous treachery of his brother-minister, St John--the undenied and
+undeniable corruption of Walpole, and the half-imbecility which made the
+chicane of Newcastle ridiculous, while his perpetual artifice alone
+saved his imbecility from overthrow,--altogether form a congeries,
+which, like the animal wrecks of the primitive world, almost give in
+their deformity a reason for its extinction.
+
+There can be no question of the perpetual villany which then assumed the
+insulted name of politics; none, of the utter sacrifice of public
+interests to the office-hunting avarice of all the successive parties;
+none, of the atrocious corruptibility of them all; none, of that general
+decay of religion, morals, and national honour, which was the result of
+a time when principle was laughed at, and when the loudest laugher
+passed for the wisest man of his generation.
+
+The cause was obvious. Charles II. had brought with him from France all
+the vices of a court, where the grossest licentiousness found its
+grossest example in the person of the sovereign. Profligate as private
+life naturally is in all the dominions of a religion where every crime
+is rated by a tariff, and where the confessional relieves every man of
+his conscience, the conduct of Louis XIV. had made profligacy the actual
+pride of the throne.
+
+The feeble and frivolous Charles was more a Frenchman than an
+Englishman; more a courtier than a king; and fitter to be a page in the
+seraglio than either.
+
+The royal robe on the shoulders of such a monarch, instead of concealing
+his vices, only made them glitter in the national eyes; and the morals
+of England might have been irretrievably stained, but for that salutary
+judgment which interposed between the people and the dynasty, and by
+driving James into an ignominious exile, placed a man of principle on
+the throne. Unfortunately, the reign of William was too busy and too
+brief to produce any striking change in the habits of the people. His
+whole policy was turned to the great terror of the time, the daring
+ambition of France. He fought on the outposts of Europe. All his ideas
+were Continental. The singular constitution of his nature gave him the
+spirit of a warrior, combined with the seclusion of a monk. Solitary
+even in camps, what must he be in the trivial bustle of a court?--and,
+engrossed with the largest interests of nations, what interest could he
+attach to the squabbles of rival professors of licentiousness, to
+giving force to a feeble drama, or regulating the decorum of factions
+equally corrupt and querulous, and long since equally despised and
+forgotten?
+
+The reign of Anne made some progress in the national restoration. But it
+was less by the influence of the Queen than by the work of time. The
+"gallants" of the reign of Charles were now a past generation. Their
+frolics were a gossip's tale; their showy vices were now as tarnished as
+their wardrobe, and both were hung out of sight. The man who, in the
+days of Anne, would have ventured on the freaks of Rochester, would have
+finished his nights in the watch-house, and his years in the
+plantations. The wit of the past age was also rude, vulgar, and
+pointless to the polished sarcasm of Pope, or even to the reckless sting
+of Swift. Yet manners were still coarse, and the Queen complained of
+Harley's coming to her after dinner,--"troublesome, impudent, and
+_drunk_." Her court exhibited form without dignity, and her parliaments
+the most violent partisanship in politics and religion, without
+sincerity or substance in either. But the long peace threw open the
+floodgates of frivolity and fashion once more, and France again became
+the universal model.
+
+On glancing over the history of public men through this diversified
+period, the astonishment of an honest mind is perpetually excited at the
+unblushing effrontery with which the most scandalous treacheries seem to
+have been all but acknowledged. France was still the great corrupter,
+and French money was lavished, not more in undermining the fidelity of
+public men, than in degrading the character of the nation. But when
+Charles was an actual pensioner of the French King, and James a palpable
+dependent on the French throne, the force of example may be easily
+conceived, among the spendthrift and needy officials, one half of whose
+life was spent at the gaming table.
+
+On those vilenesses history looks back with an eye of disgust. But they
+were the natural results of an age when religion was at the lowest ebb
+in Europe; when our travelled gentry only brought back with them that
+disregard of Christianity which they had learned in Paris and Rome, and
+when Voltaire's works were found on the toilet of every woman in high
+life.
+
+The accession of George III. was, in this view, of incalculable value to
+England. Contempt for the marriage tie is universally the source of all
+popular corruption. The king instantly discountenanced the fashionable
+levity of noble life. No man openly stigmatised for profligacy, dared to
+appear before him. No woman scandalised by her looseness of conduct was
+suffered to approach the drawing-room. The public feeling was suddenly
+righted. The shameless forehead was sent into deserved obscurity. The
+debased heart felt that there was a punishment, which no rank, wealth,
+or effrontery could resist. The decorum of public manners was
+effectively restored, and the nation had to thank the monarch for the
+example and for the restoration.
+
+Lady Sundon was of an obscure family, of the name of Dyves. Her portrait
+represents her as handsome, and her history vouches for her cleverness.
+It was probably owing to both that she was married to Mr Clayton, then
+holding an appointment in the treasury, and also the agent for the great
+Duke of Marlborough's estate, both of them appointments which implied a
+certain degree of intelligence and character. He also at one period was
+deputy-auditor of the exchequer. Mrs Clayton soon obtained the
+confidence of that most impracticable of all personages, Sarah, Duchess
+of Marlborough.
+
+On the death of Queen Anne, the duke and duchess had returned to
+England, but, repulsed shortly after by the ungracious manner of the
+ungrateful George I., they soon abandoned public life. Still it was
+difficult for so stirring a personage as the duchess altogether to
+abandon court intrigue, and probably for the purpose of obtaining some
+shadow of that influence which she might afterwards turn into substance,
+she contrived to obtain for her correspondent and dependant, Mrs
+Clayton, the place of bedchamber-woman to Caroline, wife of the
+heir-apparent.
+
+It is obvious that such a position might give all the advantages of the
+most confidential intercourse, to a clever woman, who had her own game
+to play. The Princess herself was in a position which required great
+dexterity. She was the wife of a brutish personage whom it was
+impossible to respect, and yet with whom it was hazardous to quarrel.
+She was the daughter-in-law of a Prince utterly incapable of popularity,
+yet singularly jealous of power. She was surrounded by a court, half
+Jacobite, and wholly unprincipled; and exposed to the constant
+observation of a people still dubious of the German title to the throne,
+contemptuous by nature of all foreign alliances, disgusted with the
+manners of the court, and still disturbed by the struggles of the fallen
+dynasty.
+
+It was obviously of high importance to such a personage, to have in her
+employ so clear-headed, and at the same time so stirring an agent as Mrs
+Clayton. There seems even to have been a strong similitude in their
+characters--both keen, both intelligent, both fond of power, and both
+exhibiting no delicacy whatever with regard to the means for its
+possession. Mrs Clayton never shrank from intercourse with those
+profligate persons who then abounded at court, when she had a point to
+carry; and Caroline, as Queen, endured for thirty years the notorious
+irregularities of her lord and master, without a remonstrance. She even
+went farther. She pretended, in the midst of those gross offences, to be
+even tenderly attached to him, talked of "not valuing her children as a
+grain of sand in comparison with him," and not merely acquiesced in
+conduct which must have galled every feeling of virtue in a pure heart,
+but involved herself in the natural suspicion of playing a part for the
+sake of power, and forgetting the injuries of the wife in order to
+retain the influence of the Queen.
+
+There can be no doubt that this policy had its reward. The King gave her
+power, or at least never attempted to disturb the power belonging to her
+rank, while it left him the full indulgence of his vices. She thus
+obtained two objects--to the world she appeared a suffering angel, to
+the King a submissive wife. In the mean time she managed both court and
+King, possessed vast patronage, perhaps more general court popularity
+than any Queen of the age; led a pleasant life, enjoying the sweets
+without the responsibilities of royalty; and by judicious liberality of
+purse, and equally dexterous flexibility of opinion, contrived to carry
+some degree of public respect with her, while she lived, and be followed
+by some degree of public regret to her grave.
+
+But this example was productive of palpable evil. The example of the
+higher ranks always operates powerfully on the lower. The toleration
+exhibited by the highest female in the kingdom for the most notorious
+vices, gave additional effect to that fashion of flexibility, which is
+the besetting sin of polished times. If the Queen had firmly set her
+face against the offences of her husband, or if she had shown the
+delicacy of a woman of virtue in keeping aloof from all intercourse with
+women whom the public voice had long marked as criminal, she might have,
+partially at least, reformed the corruptions of her profligate period.
+
+But this indifference to all the nobler feelings was the style of the
+day. Religion was scarcely more than a form: its preachers were
+partisans; its controversies were court feuds, its principles were
+politics, and its objects were stoles and mitres. In an age when
+Sacheverel, with his rampant nonsense, had been a popular apostle, and
+Swift, with his pungent abominations, had been a church adviser of the
+cabinet, and when Hoadley was regarded alternately as a pillar and as a
+subverter of the faith, we may easily conjecture the national estimate
+of Christianity.
+
+Unfortunately, a considerable proportion of the correspondence in these
+volumes is from clerical candidates for personal services; and if
+singular eagerness in pursuit of preferment, and singular homage to the
+influence of the queen's bed-chamber-woman, could stamp them with shame,
+the brand would be at once broad and indelible. But it must be
+remembered, that there are contemptible minds in every profession, that
+these men acted in direct violation of the principles of their religion,
+and that the church is no more accountable for the delinquencies of its
+members, than the courts of law for the morals of the jail.
+
+Another repulsive feature of the period was the conduct of conspicuous
+females. The habits of Germany in its higher ranks were offensive to all
+purity. The Brunswick Princes had brought those habits to St James's.
+Born and educated in Germany, they were regardless even of the feeble
+decorums of English life, and a king's mistress was an understood
+portion of the royal establishment. It is to the honour of later times,
+that such offences could not now be committed with impunity. But the
+example of Louis XIV. had sanctioned all royal excesses, and the conduct
+of his successor was an actual study of the most reckless profligacy.
+The constant intercourse of the English nobility with Paris, to which
+allusion has already been made, had accustomed them to such scenes, and
+persons of the highest condition, of the most important offices of the
+state, and even of the most respectable private character, such as
+respectability was in those days, associated with those mistresses,
+corresponded with them, and even submitted to be assisted by their
+influence with the king.
+
+We shall give but one example; that of Henrietta Hobart, afterwards Lady
+Suffolk. A baronet's daughter, and poor, she had married in early life
+the son of the Earl of Suffolk, nearly as poor as herself. In their
+narrowness of means, their only resource was some court office, and to
+obtain this, and probably to live cheap, they went to Hanover, to lay
+the foundation of favour with the future monarch of England. To some
+extent they succeeded. For, on the accession of George the First, Mrs
+Howard was appointed bedchamber-woman to Caroline the Princess of Wales.
+
+Courts, in all countries, seem to be dull places; ceremonial fails as a
+substitute for animation, and dinners of fifty covers become a mere tax
+on time, taste, and common-sense. Etiquette is only _ennui_ under
+another name, and the eternal anticipation of enjoyment is the death of
+all pleasure. Miss Burney's narrative has let in light on the sullen
+mysteries of the Maid of Honour's life, and her pencil has evidently
+given us only the picture of what had been in the times of our
+forefathers, and what will be in the times of our posterity.
+
+Mrs Howard was well-looking, without the invidious attribute of great
+beauty, and lively, without the not less invidious faculty of wit. All
+the court officials crowded her apartments in the palace. Chesterfield,
+young Churchill, Lord Hervey, Lord Scarborough, all hurried to the
+tea-table of the well-bred bedchamber-woman, to escape the dreary duties
+and monotonous moping of attendance on the throne. Lady Walpole, Mrs
+Selwyn, Mary Lepell, and Mary Bellenden, formed a part of this
+coterie--all women of presumed character, yet all associating familiarly
+with women of none. Of Mrs Howard, Swift observed in his acid
+style--"That her private virtues, for want of room to operate, might be
+folded and laid up clean, like clothes in a chest, never to be put on;
+till satiety, or some reverse of fortune should dispose her to
+retirement."
+
+Then, probably in reference to the prudery with which she occasionally
+covered her conduct,--"In the meantime," said he, "it will be her
+prudence, to take care that they be not tarnished and moth-eaten, for
+want of opening and airing, and turning, at least _once a-year_."
+
+Those matters seem to have sought no concealment whatever. "Es regolar,"
+says the Spaniard, when his country is charged with some especial
+abomination. Howard, the husband, though a _rou�_, at last went into the
+quadrangle at St James's and publicly demanded his wife. He then wrote
+to the Archbishop. His letter was given to the Queen, and by her to Mrs
+Howard. Yet all this scandal never interrupted the lady's intercourse
+with the highest personages of the court. Mrs Howard continued to be the
+Queen's bedchamber woman; the Queen suffered her personal attendance,
+her carriage was escorted by John Duke of Argyle; her husband obtained a
+pension to hold his tongue; and even when the King grew tired of the
+_liaison_, and wished to get rid of her, actually complaining to the
+Queen, "That he did not know why she would not let him part with a deaf
+old woman, of whom he was weary," the politic Caroline would not allow
+him to give her up, "lest a younger favourite should gain a greater
+ascendency over him." After this, we must hear no more of the delicacy
+of Queen Caroline. Virtue and religion scarcely belonged to her day.
+
+In a court of this intolerable worldliness, the worldly must thrive; and
+Mrs Clayton advanced year by year in the imitation of her mistress, and
+in power. She, as well as Lady Suffolk, adopted Caroline's patronage of
+letters, and corresponded a good deal with the clever men of the time.
+We quote one of Lady Suffolk's letters addressed to Swift, apparently in
+answer to some of his perpetual complaints of a world, which used him
+only too well after all.
+
+                                        "_September_, 1727.
+
+     "I write to you to please myself. I hear you are melancholy,
+     because you have a bad head and deaf ears. These are two
+     misfortunes I have laboured under these many years, and yet never
+     was peevish with either myself or the world. Have I more philosophy
+     and resolution than you? Or am I so stupid that I do not feel the
+     evil?
+
+     "Answer those queries in writing, if _poison_ or other methods do
+     not enable you soon to appear in person. Though I make use of your
+     own word, poison, yet let me tell you--it is nonsense, and I desire
+     you will take more care for the time to come. Now, you endeavour to
+     impose on my understanding by taking no care of your own."
+
+The value of a keen and active confidante in a court of perpetual
+intrigue was obvious, and Mrs Clayton was the double of the Queen. But a
+deeper and more painful reason is assigned for her confidence. The Queen
+had a malady, which is not described in her Memoirs, but which we
+suppose to have been a cancer, which she was most anxious to hide from
+all the world. Walpole discovered it, and the discovery exhibits his
+skill in human nature.
+
+On the death of Lady Walpole, the Queen, who was about the same age,
+asked Sir Robert in many questions as to her illness; but he remarked,
+that she frequently reverted to one particular malady, which had _not_
+been Lady Walpole's disease. "When he came home," (his son writes) "he
+said to me,--now, Horace, I know by the possession of what secret Lady
+Sundon has preserved such an ascendant over the Queen."
+
+Mrs Clayton possessed at least one merit (if merit it be) in a
+remarkable degree, that of providing for her relatives. She was of a
+poor family, and she contrived to get something for them all. Her three
+nieces had court places, one of them that of a maid of honour; one
+brother obtained a cornetcy in the Horse Guards; another a chief
+clerkship in the annuity office; and her nephew was sent out with Lord
+Albemarle to Spain. A more remarkable relative was Clayton, Bishop of
+Clogher, who evidently knew the value of her patronage, for a more
+importunate suitor, and a more persevering sycophant, never kissed
+hands. Finally, she obtained a peerage for her husband, a distinction in
+which, of course, she herself shared, but which probably she desired
+merely to throw some _eclat_ round a singularly submissive husband.
+
+Yet there was no slight infusion of pleasantry in the minds of some of
+the royal household. When they got rid of the stately pedantry of
+Caroline, and the smooth hypocrisy of her confidante,--when the gross
+and formal monarch was shut out, and the younger portion of the court
+were left to their own inventions, they seem to have enjoyed themselves
+like children at play. There was a vast deal of flirtation, of course,
+for this folly was as much the fashion of the time as rouge. But there
+was also a great deal of verse writing, correspondence of all degrees of
+wit, and now and then caricature with pencil and pen. Mary Lepell, in
+one of those _jeux d' esprit_, described the "Six Maids of Honour" as
+six volumes bound in _calf_.--The first, Miss Meadows, as mingled
+satire, and reflection; the second as a _plain_ treatise on morality;
+the third as a rhapsody; the fourth (supposed to be the future Lady
+Pembroke) as a volume, neatly bound, of "The Whole Art of Dressing;" the
+next a miscellaneous work, with essays on "Gallantry;" the sixth, a
+folio collection of all the "Court Ballads." But there were some women
+of a superior stamp in the court circle. One of those was Lady Sophia
+Fermor, the daughter of Lady Pomfret, who seems to have been followed by
+all the men of fashion, and loved by some of them. But, like other
+professed beauties, she remained unmarried, until at last she accepted
+Lord Carteret, a man twice her age. Yet the match was a brilliant one in
+all other points, for Carteret was Secretary of State, and perhaps the
+most accomplished public man of his time.
+
+"Do but imagine," observes that prince of gossips, Horace Walpole, "how
+many passions will be gratified in that family; her own ambition,
+vanity, and resentment--love, she never had any; the politics,
+management, and pedantry of her mother, who will think to govern her
+son-in-law out of Froissart. Figure the instructions which she will give
+her daughter. Lincoln, (one of her admirers) is quite indifferent, and
+laughs."
+
+While the marriage was on the _tapis_, the beautiful Sophia was taken
+ill of the scarlet fever, and Lord Carteret of the gout. Nothing could
+be less amatory than such a crisis. But his lordship was all gallantry;
+he corresponded with her, read her letters to the Privy Council, and
+tired all the world with his passion. At length both recovered, and the
+lady had all the enjoyments which she could find in ambition. Carteret
+obtained an earldom, lost his place, but became only more popular,
+personally distinguished, and politically active. The Countess then
+became the female head of the Opposition, and gave brilliant parties, to
+the infinite annoyance of the Pelhams. For a while, she was the
+"observed of all observers." But her career came to a sudden and
+melancholy close. She had given promise of an heir, which would have
+been doubly a source of gratification to her husband; as his son by a
+former wife was a lunatic. But she was suddenly seized with a fever. One
+evening, as her mother and sister were sitting beside her, she sighed
+and said, "I feel death coming very fast upon me." This was their first
+intimation of her danger. She died on the same night!
+
+Walpole is the especial chronicler of this time. Such a man must have
+been an intolerable nuisance in his day, but his piquant impertinence is
+amusing in ours. He was evidently a wasp, pretending to perform the part
+of a butterfly, and fluttering over all the court flowers, only to plant
+his sting. As he was a perpetual flirt, he dangled round the Pomfret
+family; and probably received some severe rebuke from their mother, for
+he describes her with all the venom of an expelled _dilettante_.
+
+He speaks of her as all that was prim in pedantry, and all that was
+ridiculous in affectation; as, on being told of some man who talked of
+nothing but Madeira, gravely asking, "What language that was;" and as
+attending the public act at Oxford (on the occasion of her presenting
+some statues to the University) in a box built for her near the
+Vice-Chancellor, "where she sat for three days together, to receive
+adoration, and hear herself for four hours at a time called Minerva." In
+this assembly, adds the wit, in his peculiar style, "she appeared in all
+the tawdry poverty and frippery imaginable, and in a scoured damask
+robe," and wonders that "she did not wash out a few words of Latin," as
+she used to _fricassee_ French and Italian; or, that "she did not
+torture some learned simile," as when she said, that "it was as
+difficult to get into an Italian coach, as it was for C�sar to take
+Attica, by which she meant Utica."
+
+But Lady Pomfret is said also to have employed her talents upon more
+substantial things than pedantry. She had an early intercourse with the
+immaculate Mrs Clayton, with whom she was supposed to have negotiated
+the appointment of Lord Pomfret as master of the horse, for a pair of
+diamond rings, worth �1,400. The rumour appears to have obtained
+considerable currency; for one day when she appeared at the Duchess of
+Marlborough's with the jewels in her ears, the Duchess (old Sarah) said
+to Lady Wortley Montague, "How can the woman have the impudence to go
+about _in that bribe_!" Lady Wortley keenly and promptly
+answered,--"Madam, how can people know where wine is to be sold, unless
+where they see the sign?"
+
+Another of the curiosities of this court menagerie, was Katherine,
+Duchess of Buckingham. She was a daughter of James the Second by
+Katherine Sedley, daughter of the wit, Sir Charles. James, who with all
+his zeal for popery was a scandalous profligate, and as shameless in his
+contempt of decent opinion as he was criminal in his contempt for his
+coronation oath; gave this illegitimate offspring the rank of a Duke's
+daughter, and the permission to bear the royal arms! She found a husband
+in the Earl of Anglesea, from whom she was soon separated; the earl
+died, and she took another husband, John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham,
+certainly not too youthful a bridegroom. The duke, always a wit, had
+been in early life one of the most dissipated men of his day, and
+through all the varieties and _vexations_ of a life devoted to pleasure,
+had reached his 59th year. Yet, this handsome wreck, almost the last
+relic of the court of Charles the Second, lived a dozen years longer,
+and left the duchess guardian of his son.
+
+His lordly dowager afforded the world of high life perpetual amusement.
+Her whole life was an unintentional caricature of royalty. Beggarly
+beyond conception in her private affairs, she was as pompous in public
+as if she had the blood of all the thrones of Europe in her veins. She
+evidently regarded the Brunswicks as usurpers, and hated them; while she
+affected a sort of superstitious homage for the exiled dynasty, and gave
+them--every thing but her money. She once made a sort of pilgrimage to
+visit the body of James, and pretended to shed tears over it. The monk
+who showed it, adroitly observed to her, that the velvet pall which
+covered the coffin was in rags, but her sympathies did not reach quite
+so far, and she would not take the hint, and saved her purse.
+
+At the opera, she appeared in a sort of royal robe of scarlet and
+ermine, and everywhere made herself so supremely ridiculous, that the
+laughers called her Princess Buckingham. Even the deepest domestic
+calamity could not tame down this outrageous pride. When her only son
+died of consumption, she sent messengers to all her circle, telling
+them, that if they wished to see him lie in state, "she would admit them
+by the back stairs." On this melancholy occasion, her only feeling
+seemed to be, her vanity. She sent to the Duchess of Marlborough to
+borrow the triumphal car which had conveyed the remains of the great
+duke to the grave. This preposterous request was naturally refused by
+the duchess, who replied, "that the car which had borne the Duke of
+Marlborough's dead body should never be profaned by another."
+
+On her own deathbed, she declared her wish to be buried beside her
+father James the Second. "George Selwyn shrewdly said, that to be buried
+by her father, she need not be carried out of England," (she was
+supposed to be actually the daughter of Colonel Graham.) When she found
+herself dying, she carried on the melancholy farce to the last. She sent
+for Anstis, the herald, and arranged the whole funeral ceremony with
+him. She was particularly anxious to see the preparations before she
+died. "Why," she asked, "won't they send the canopy for me to see? Let
+them send it, even though the tassels are not finished." And finally,
+she exacted from her ladies a promise, that if she became insensible,
+they should not sit down in the presence of her body, till she was
+completely dead!
+
+Such things told in a romance, would be criticised for their
+extravagance, but nothing is too extravagant for human nature. Reared in
+folly, pampered with self-indulgence, and bloated with vanity, the
+wholesome discipline of adversity would have been of infinite value to
+this woman and her tribe. Six months in Bridewell, varied by beating
+hemp, would have been the most fortunate lesson which she could have
+received from society.
+
+Another of those persons, yet more remarkable for her position in life,
+was the second daughter of George II., the Princess Amelia. She was
+supposed to have been attached to the Duke of Grafton; but remaining
+single, and having nothing on the earth to do, she became a torment to
+the King, the Court, and every body. Idleness is the vice of high life,
+and discontent its punishment. The Princess became proverbial for
+peevishness, sarcasm, and scandal. Of course, fashion took its revenge;
+and where every one was shooting an arrow, some struck, and struck
+deep. The Princess grew masculine in her manners, and coarse in her
+mind. Her appointment as ranger in Richmond Park, one of those sinecure
+offices which are scattered among the dependants of the throne, made her
+enemies. Little acts of authority, such as stopping up pathways, brought
+the tongues of the neighbouring population and gentry upon her, until
+her royal highness had the vexation of seeing an action brought against
+her. After some of the usual delays of justice, she had the
+mortification of being beaten, and ultimately resigned the rangership.
+From this period she almost disappeared from the public eye, yet she
+survived till 1786, dying at the age of 71.
+
+Mrs Clayton still held her quiet ascendancy, and her position was so
+perfectly understood, that her interest seems to have been an object of
+solicitation with nearly every person involved in public difficulties.
+Of this kind was her intercourse with the three sons of Bishop Burnet,
+all individuals of intelligence and accomplishment, but all in early
+life struggling with fortune. The character of the bishop himself is
+best known from his works: gossiping, giddiness, and imprudence in
+taking every thing for granted that he had heard, but honesty in telling
+it, belonged to the bishop as much as to his books. The chances of the
+Revolution placed him in the way of preferment; chances, however, which,
+if they had turned the other way, might have cost him his head. But he
+was on the right side in politics, and not on the wrong side in
+religion; and he won and wore the mitre in better style than any man of
+his age. His oldest son, William, was educated as a barrister; he lost
+his fortune in the South Sea bubble, and was sent to America as governor
+of New York. Subsequently he was removed to Boston, with which he was
+discontented, and after long altercations with the General Assembly of
+the province, he died of a fever, probably inflamed by vexation.
+Gilbert, the second son, was appointed chaplain to George I., was a man
+of clear understanding, and exhibited his knowledge of courts by siding
+with Hoadley. With all the distinctions of his profession opening before
+him, he died young. Thomas, the third son, differed from both his
+brothers, in the superiority of his talents, and the wildness of his
+temper. The manners of the time were a mixture of vulgar riot and gross
+indulgence. The streets were infested with ruffianism, and a society
+among the young men of rank and education, which took to itself the name
+of "The Mohocks," and whose barbarous habits were worthy of the name,
+insulted alike public justice and endangered personal safety. Thomas
+Burnet was said to have been engaged in some of their violences, though
+he, perhaps, was not one of the "affiliated." It may be naturally
+supposed, that those excesses grieved so distinguished a man as his
+father; and it is equally to be supposed that they led to frequent
+remonstrance. If so, they operated effectively at last.
+
+One day the bishop, observing the peculiar gravity of his son's
+countenance, asked, "On what he was thinking."
+
+"On a greater work than your 'History of the Reformation.'--_My own_,"
+was the answer.
+
+"I shall be heartily glad to see it," said the father, "though I almost
+despair of it."
+
+It was undertaken, however, and vigorously pursued. The young _rou�_
+became a leading lawyer, and finally attained the rank of Chief-justice
+of the Common Pleas. He died in 1753.
+
+There is, perhaps, in public history, no more curious instance of the
+power which circumstances may place in the hands of a private
+individual, than the deference paid to Mrs Clayton. Her whole merit
+seems to have been caution, a perpetual sense of the delicacy of her
+position, and an undeviating deference to the habits, opinions, and
+purposes of the Queen. Those were useful qualities, but not remarkable
+for dignity, and rather opposed to personal amiability of mind. Yet this
+cautious, considerate, and frigid personage, was all but worshipped by
+the world of fashion, of talents, and of celebrity.
+
+Among those worshippers was the man who did the most evil, and gained
+the most renown, of any man of his generation. The wit, who eclipsed all
+the witty pungency of France in his sportive sarcasm; all the libellers
+of royalty in his scorn of thrones; and all the grave infidelity of
+England, in his restless and envenomed antipathy to all religion--the
+memorable Voltaire.
+
+He was then only beginning his mischievous career, but he had already
+made its character sufficiently marked to earn an imprisonment in the
+Bastille, and, on his liberation, an order to quit Paris.
+
+In England he occupied himself chiefly with literature; published his
+"Henriade," for which he obtained a large subscription; wrote his
+tragedy of "Brutus," his "Philosophical Letters," and other works.
+
+At length he was permitted to return to that spot out of which a French
+wit may be scarcely said to live; and kept up his intercourse with Mrs
+Clayton by the following letter:
+
+                                        "_Paris, April_ 18, 1729.
+
+     "Madame,--Though I am out of London, the favours which your
+     ladyship has honoured me with, are not, nor ever will be, out of my
+     memory. I will remember, as long as I live, that the most
+     respectable lady, who waits, and is a friend to the most truly
+     great queen in the world, has vouchsafed to protect me, and receive
+     me with kindness while I was at London.
+
+     "I am just now arrived at Paris, and pay my respects to your Court,
+     before I see our own. I wish, for the honour of Versailles, and for
+     the improvement of virtue and letters, we could have here some
+     ladies like you. You see, my wishes are unbounded. So is the
+     respect and gratitude I am with, Madame, your most humble, obedient
+     servant,
+
+                                                  "Voltaire."
+
+We pass over a thousand triflings in the subsequent pages--the alarms of
+court ladies for the loss of a royal smile, the sickness of a favourite
+monkey, or the formidable "impossibility" of matching a set of old
+china. Such are the calamities of having nothing to do. We see in those
+pages instances of high-born men contented to linger round the court for
+life, performing some petty office which, however, required constant
+attendance on the court circle, and submitting, with many a groan, it
+must be confessed, to the miserable routine of trivial duties and meagre
+ceremonial, much fitter for their own footmen; while they left their own
+magnificent mansions to solitude, their noble estates unvisited, their
+tenantry uncheered, unprotected, and unencouraged by their residence in
+their proper sphere, and finally degenerated into feeble gossips,
+splenetic intriguers, and ridiculous encumbrances of the court itself.
+
+Difficulty seems essential to the vigour of man. Difficulty seems
+essential even to the vigour of nations. The old theory, that luxury is
+the ruin of a state, was obviously untrue; for in no condition of the
+earth could luxury ever go down to the multitude. But the true evil of
+states is, the decay of the national activity, the chill of the national
+ardour, the adoption of a trifling, indolent, vegetative style of being.
+Into this life France had sunk, from the time of Louis XIV. Into this
+life Germany had sunk, from the peace of Westphalia. Into this life
+England was rapidly sinking, from the reign of Anne.
+
+But the visitation came at last, at once to punish and to stimulate.
+France, Germany, and England were plunged into war together; and fearful
+as the plunge was, out of that raging torrent the three nations have
+struggled to shore, refreshed and invigorated by the struggle. England
+seems now to be entering on another career, more perilous than the
+exigencies of war--a moral and intellectual conflict, in which popular
+passions and rational principles will be ranged on opposite sides; and
+the question may involve the final shape which government shall assume
+in the British empire, or, perhaps, in the European world.
+
+The characteristics of our time are wholly unshared with the past. In
+calling up the recollections of the great ages of English change, we can
+discover but slight evidence of their connexion with our own. To the
+stately, but religious, aspect of the Republic of 1641, we find no
+resemblance in the general features of our religious tolerance. To the
+ardent zeal for liberty which marked the Revolution of 1688, we can find
+no counterpart in the constitutional quietude of the present day. The
+fiery ferocity of Continental Revolution has certainly furnished no
+model to the professors of national regeneration, since the reform of
+1830. And yet, a determination, a power and a progress of public change,
+is now the acknowledged principle of the most active, indefatigable, and
+unscrupulous portion of the mind of England.
+
+And among the most remarkable and most menacing adjuncts of the crisis,
+is the singular sense of inadequacy to resist its career, which seems to
+paralyse the habitual defenders of the right cause. The consecrated
+guardians of the church seem only to wait the final blow. The great
+landholders in the peerage are contented with making protests. The
+agricultural interest, the boast of England, and the vital interest of
+the empire, has abandoned a resistance, too feeble to deserve the praise
+of fortitude, and too irregular to deserve the fruits of victory. The
+moneyed interest sees its gigantic opulence threatened by a
+hundred-handed grasp; but makes no defence, or makes that most dangerous
+of all defences, which calls in the invader as the auxiliary, bribes him
+with a portion of the spoils, and only provokes his appetite for the
+possession of the whole.
+
+This condition of things cannot last. A few years, perhaps a few months,
+will ripen the bitter fruit, which the meekness of undecided governments
+has suffered to grow before their eyes. The Ballot, which offers a
+subterfuge for every fraud; Extended Suffrage, which offers a force for
+every aggression; the overthrow of all religious endowments, which
+offers a bribe to every desire of avarice--above all that turning of
+religion into a political tool, that indifference to the true, and that
+welcoming of the false, in whatever shape it may approach, however
+fierce and foul; however coldly contemptuous, or furiously fanatical,
+however grim or grotesque, whose first act must be to trample all
+principle under foot, and place on its altar the worship of the
+passions;--those are the demands which are already made, and those will
+be the trophies which the hands of political zealotry and personal
+rapine, in the first hour of their triumph, will raise on the grave
+where lies buried the Constitution.
+
+Yet nothing is done by the natural defenders of the rights of
+Englishmen. No leader comes forward; no new followers are to be found;
+no banner is raised as the rallying point for the fugitives, already
+broken. We see the approach of the evil, as the men of the old world
+might have seen the approach of the Deluge; awaiting with folded hands,
+and feet rooted to the ground, the surges which nothing could resist;
+looking with an indolent despair at the mighty inundation, before which
+the plain and the mountain alike began to disappear; and sullenly
+submitting to an extinction, of which they had been long offered the
+means of escape, and perishing, with the pledge of security floating
+before their eyes.
+
+We are by no means desirous of being prophets of public misfortune; but,
+with the tenets publicly avowed, in the elections which have just
+closed, with the strong popularity attached to the most daring opinions,
+with thirty pledged _Repealers_ from Ireland, with the wildest doctrines
+of trade advocated by the popular representatives in England, with sixty
+subjects of the Pope sitting in a Protestant legislature, and with the
+evident determination to bring into that legislature individuals (and
+who shall limit their numbers, when its doors are once thrown open to
+their wealth?) who pronounce Christianity itself to be an imposture,--we
+can conjecture no consequences, however hazardous, which ought not to
+present themselves to the soberest friend of his country. That the worst
+consequences may not be inevitable, is only to hope in a higher
+protection; that even out of the evil good may come, is not
+unconformable to the ways of Providence; but that times are at hand in
+which the noblest energy of English statesmanship will be required to
+meet the conflict, we have no more doubt, than that the pilot who, in a
+storm, uses neither compass nor sail, must run his ship on shore; or
+that the man who walks about in clothes dipped in pestilence, will leave
+his corpse as a testimony to the fact of the contagion.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[18] _Memoirs of Viscountess Sundon._ By Mrs THOMPSON. 2 Vols. Colburn.
+
+
+
+
+ART IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN AGES.[19]
+
+
+From time immemorial the German universities have been regarded as the
+seats of patient, persevering, indefatigable, but also unprofitable,
+erudition. They have been the homes of men whose lives were one long day
+of toil--a continual course of labour, the sole reward of which was a
+secret consciousness of worth, and a fame, circumscribed it is true, yet
+still spreading wide amongst the elect of science in all civilised
+countries. Lost, not in the day-dreams of romance, but in the depths and
+amongst the mazes of science, it was but seldom that these men of the
+study and the library found leisure and nerve to escape from seclusion,
+and to take their share of the duties of active life in which their less
+reflective brethren were feverishly engaged. And when they attempted the
+competition, their failure was signal. They presented an extraordinary
+exhibition of awkward genius and blundering sagacity, and exposed
+themselves at once to the painful ridicule of those whose calling and
+pursuits taught them to prize mere worldly wisdom above all human lore.
+
+Their country owes them a heavy debt of gratitude. Though little known,
+they ought never to be forgotten. They were unpopular, but they worked
+for the popularity of science. The results of their labours are not to
+be looked for in their own creations, but must rather be traced in the
+productions of their children's children. Generations to come will
+acknowledge them for their lawful progenitors, nor will future ages lose
+by confessing the obligations which they owe to so noble an ancestry. If
+our task to-day is comparatively easy, it is because the men of whom we
+speak never shrank from the difficulties attending theirs. We may smile
+at the childish simplicity of Neander, but we deeply venerate the
+profound erudition and the subtle discernment of that extraordinary
+critic's mind. We may feel shocked at the clownish sallies of a
+Blumenbach, the stinginess of Gesenius, and the rude manners of Ernesti.
+But with the first, we connect vast realms in natural philosophy
+unconquered before him; to the second, the student of Hebrew refers with
+reverential affection and gratitude; whilst we know, that the burly
+demeanour of the last could never hide the treasures of a Latin style,
+which, for purity and power, competes with that of Tully, and like that
+may well be compared to a precious sword, pure in metal, and as lasting
+as it is flexible and cutting.
+
+The greater number of those to whom we refer have long since passed from
+the silence of their study to that of the grave. They have died as they
+lived--poor and honoured. Of them all, there is scarcely one whose
+departure was generally lamented; not one whose death was generally
+known. For the bulk of mankind, they never existed. Their works,
+unpalatable to the many, had always been the delight and instruction of
+the few. Yet, let not their unpopularity be quoted against them. They
+knew the extent of their mission. It was to collect and hoard bullion
+for future coinage and circulation. They prepared the path along which a
+whole nation was hereafter to travel. They were modest but meritorious
+labourers, who built a massive and powerful foundation, that another age
+might be left at ease to erect the brilliant superstructure.
+
+That other age is here. The proud fane for which they cleared the way,
+and saw as the prophet of old beheld the Land of Promise, is rising now
+before us. In the author of the "History of the Fine Arts in the Early
+Ages of Christianity," we greet a worthy follower of those great masters
+whose works have somewhat rashly been pronounced more curious than
+useful. Professor Gottfried Kinkel is a true disciple and no imitator.
+He understands the period which has produced him. He knows its wants.
+General diffusion of knowledge is its distinguishing feature. Science
+leaves the closet to communicate her benefits to the forum. Neither the
+centralisation of wealth, nor that of knowledge, can now secure a nation
+against poverty and ignorance. People may starve, though the royal
+coffers are bursting with their weight of gold; they may be ignorant,
+though their chiefs luxuriate in the possession of unbounded knowledge.
+Rapid circulation of the currency has been found to constitute national
+wealth. A general diffusion of knowledge is the necessary condition of
+civilisation. Poesy is no longer content to dwell at court. Chemistry
+has chosen the path which Bacon pointed out to her; and whilst she has
+found a new field of action, has been enriched by treasures of knowledge
+hitherto concealed from her view. The sneering exclamation of Persius--
+
+     "Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter."
+
+is the great truth and motto of this our century.
+
+Even the universities of Germany have begun to popularise the results of
+their laborious researches; although it cannot be said that they have
+taken the lead of the age, we may at least affirm that they have gone
+along with it. They have not lingered in the rear. They have adapted
+their instruction and language to homely understandings, and have
+increased rather than lessened their dignity by the condescension. They
+have become more honoured and respected as the benefits of their labours
+have grown more palpable to common sight; they have been more renowned
+since the many have been permitted to appreciate the merits of the few.
+Instruction itself has been more courted and made more welcome since it
+took courage to cast aside its cumbrous wig and gown, and ventured to
+appear before the world with the natural graces of pure humanity.
+
+Professor Kinkel, to whom we owe the work whose title is placed at the
+foot of the present article, is in every respect a specimen, and perhaps
+a prototype, of the German professor of the nineteenth century. To the
+deep and solid learning of a former generation, he adds the good taste
+and social accomplishments indispensable in these more advanced times.
+Thirteen years ago he was a student of theology in the university of
+Bonn, and even at that period the extraordinary application and the
+commanding faculties of the "studiosus Kinkel" had earned for him a
+scholastic reputation, and won the respect of his fellow-students and of
+the professors of the university. Indefatigable, then, in his
+theological pursuits, he was the subject of general admiration on
+account of the vast extent of his acquirements, and of the enthusiastic
+interest with which he engaged in the sacred study of the fine arts. No
+less general was the complaint that a mind so happily formed to range
+through the boundless realms of philosophy, a genius so brilliant, a
+soul so deeply imbued with a love of the beautiful and the great, should
+be suffered to pine beneath the monotonous duties of a theological
+professorship, and dissipate unparalleled energies in splitting the
+straws of a controversy, or deciding the dusty quibbles of an antiquated
+lore. At the close of his academical career, GOTTFRIED KINKEL was
+admitted into the university as a licentiate in theology; but shortly
+after his promotion, he quitted his native country, and was for some
+years a wanderer amongst the splendid ruins of Italy. The treasures of
+art which mock the nakedness of this ill-starred country were to him
+what they are ever to the mind of the artist,--they revealed a new
+world. Unlike many others, however, Kinkel was not bewildered by the
+beauty which so suddenly burst upon his view. He was not surfeited. His
+enthusiasm, tempered by the metallic reasoning of the Hegel school, was
+closely allied with the subtlest criticism. His admiration was never an
+obstacle to comparison. Whilst he admired he remembered: individual
+faults or excellencies, he found to be reducible to common causes. His
+conclusions he drew from the objects: he did not force the one upon the
+other.
+
+In like manner, and intent upon the same purpose, the theological
+licentiate travelled through France, Belgium, and Holland; and when he
+returned to Bonn, his spirit as well as his habits of life were more
+than ever wedded to the critical contemplation of the results of the
+creative faculty in the mind of man. The annual exhibitions of paintings
+in Cologne, D�sseldorf, and Frankfort, found in him an indulgent and
+impartial critic. His researches on the monuments of ancient sacred
+architecture were at intervals published in _The Domban Blatt_, and
+immediately secured the attention and regard of all antiquarians.
+
+The cherished pursuits, however, were ill calculated to reconcile Kinkel
+to his adopted profession. In 1845, the licentiate in theology doffed
+his gown, and was forthwith appointed a professor of philosophy in the
+university of Bonn. It is to his lectures in this capacity that we owe
+the treatise on Art in the Early Christian Ages. This remarkable book
+was written with the purpose of instructing the public mind, and of
+enabling the many to participate in the intellectual enjoyment as yet
+confined to a favoured few. Its objects were to vindicate the merits of
+Christianity as a fosterer of the arts, and to encourage, all lovers of
+art by opening new fields for exploration.
+
+The productions of real art are the most universally instructive of all
+creations. Nothing acts so powerfully on individual and national
+character; nothing so beneficially. Wherever art has been without these
+consequences, we may be sure that art was false. Its prophets were false
+prophets. The assumption of charlatans, however, is no condemnation of
+the art itself. The abuses of idolaters is no argument against religion.
+M. Kinkel's introduction to the plan of his work has but one fault. It
+is a national one. His mode of reasoning is conclusive; but the English
+reader, less accustomed to metaphysical phraseology than his German
+neighbours, will find some difficulty in grasping it. According to our
+author, two conditions are necessary to true art, which he defines to be
+"the incorporation of the spirit in a beautiful form." _Beauty_, then,
+and _spirit_ are, the two conditions of true art. If one be wanting,
+true art is likewise wanting. The spirit, separate from beauty of form,
+may be religion and ethics--it can never be art. Beauty of form without
+the spirit, is likewise not a work of art. It remains on a level with
+matter; but the production of the artist soars higher. Hence true art is
+capable of yielding more universal satisfaction both to the artist and
+to the spectator than all other intellectual creations. The reason is
+obvious. We express and meet with the two grand constituents of our
+being; and, whilst other branches of knowledge are apter to separate
+than to unite--whilst science is exclusive, and even religion herself is
+sometimes productive of discord, true art asserts her right to be
+regarded as the great Pantheon of mankind. No idea is _universal_
+property unless expressed by art. Even the vast abyss which separates
+the lower orders of men from the ranks above them is overcome by art,
+for all are sensible of the joys which art produces. To know, therefore,
+what and how the mind and hand of man have hitherto worked, is a
+necessary, if it be not an indispensable, investigation and pursuit. "We
+are not ambitious," says M. Kinkel, "to conquer fame by profound
+hypotheses concerning things which, both by time and place, are indeed
+far from us. It is not our object to look for art in its infancy amongst
+nations which have long ceased to exist, nor shall we at once turn to
+Greece and Rome. Our desire is to contemplate those creations, which
+from their time and spirit are kindred to our feelings, and to speak of
+that branch of art with which Christianity has been busy within the last
+eighteen hundred years."
+
+The author proceeds to point out the two grand directions in which all
+original art branches off. It serves either religion or history. The
+first productions of art were idols and monuments. Palaces, theatres,
+paintings, are the work of progressive civilisation. Christian art has
+one principal feature in common with pagan art,--its origin. They are
+alike the offspring of religion. They are also similar in their
+progress; they acquired an inclination towards history, and both have at
+last taken a decided _realistic_ direction. But the vast difference
+between Christian and antique art is no less palpable. The art of
+antiquity was far more deeply imbued with the principle of nationality
+than the former. Nations were isolated; each had its proper gods and its
+peculiar history. The diversity of religion and of political
+institutions engendered a difference of feeling. This civilised world of
+ours, on the other hand, has a community of feeling, in as much as it
+has one religion common to all. The Celtic, Sclavonian, and German
+nations exhibit far greater diversities of origin and climate than the
+inhabitants of Persia and India in ancient times; yet the artistic
+productions of the former are more alike. Their religion furnishes one
+point at which all meet, and in respect of which they are inseparable.
+The prevalence of the ecclesiastical element in modern art, is, however,
+liable to one great objection. For many years it served to exclude
+historical art, which even in our own time has not attained so high a
+perfection. It is true that Christianity makes amends in some degree for
+the want of this historical development. A total absence of historical
+facts is the great characteristic of the religions of antiquity. The Son
+of David, on the contrary, is in himself the greatest of historical
+facts. The Apostles are no mythical personages. The great men of Judaic
+history, the family of our Saviour, and the people with whom he
+conversed, all form one large group of historical personages, and
+religion and history, formerly separated, are _here_ united. Christ on
+the cross is an object of touching adoration, but he is also the
+monument of the greatest event in the history of the world. But that
+this is no national history is undeniable. Offspring of a foreign soil,
+it had no connexion with the state.
+
+The exclusively ecclesiastical character of early Christian art, is
+another grand feature which at once destroys all analogy between this
+art and the creations of pagan antiquity. In Hellenic paganism, we
+behold the triumph of humanity. The human form in its most ideal beauty
+is the type of all things divine. Christianity starts at once with the
+peremptory condition of a renunciation of individual beauty and
+strength. Christianity counted sensual beauty as nothing: she regarded
+the mind alone. She permits the human form only as the incorporation of
+some hidden thought divine. In the one instance, the _form_ was all in
+all; in the other, it is the _expression_. The heathen delighted in
+naked bodies, for every single part might convey the sensation of
+beauty. The face sufficed for Christian art, as solely expressive of
+divine beauty. And since the adopted Jewish custom excludes nudity in
+life, it must needs die in art. In the new order of things, sculpture is
+lost, and painting is better adapted to the narrow limits of early
+Christian art.
+
+Upon the question whether this fear of the world, as exhibited in the
+rejection of the world's material forms, be truly the character of real
+Christianity, Professor Kinkel answers with a decided negative. He
+rather favours the opinion of those who hold the fear and hate of the
+world which distinguished the early Christian ages, to have been founded
+on an erroneous comprehension of the doctrine and example of the great
+Founder, who, as far as we are able to learn, facilitated the creation
+of real art. The misconception, so fatal to the civilising influence of
+art, M. Kinkel, explains by reminding us of the fears of idolatry, so
+justly entertained by Christianity in its first existence, of the
+oppression and persecution which the early church experienced, and of
+the natural desire entertained by the oppressed, to be as little like
+the oppressors as possible.
+
+The extreme opinions, however, could not last. They began with the fury
+of persecution, and they died with it. An earnest admiration of the
+beautiful is implanted deeply in the soul of man for noble purposes,
+which Providence will not suffer to be thwarted. Mistaken notions of
+duty, religious zeal maddened by oppression, for a time clouded the
+faculty amongst the early Christians, but it soon burst forth again.
+Faint at first in its appearance, it gained strength with every passing
+lustre; and however sweeping the condemnation pronounced by early
+believers against vain signs and images expressive of the objects of
+this fleeting world, the voices of the cursers gradually hushed, and the
+mind of man, asserting its prerogative, was active again with new and
+regenerated power. The history of civilisation must needs count by
+centuries, and it took ages to effect the transition. From our present
+lofty and unprejudiced height, from that height at which modern art
+strives to emulate that of antiquity, it may not be wholly uninstructive
+to look back towards the first trembling attempts of the early Christian
+people.
+
+It would appear that the first attempts of the early Christians were of
+a symbolical and allegorical kind. The same figures, with little or no
+variation, were constantly repeated to express ideas which, whilst they
+led the thoughts of the believer into the channel which to him appeared
+most satisfactory, were mere forms, and void of meaning to pagan eyes.
+Chief amongst these was the Cross, but without the body of Christ
+affixed to it. The crucifix is an invention of the seventh century. In
+the beginning, the Cross did not expose the Christians to suspicion, for
+it was known to many religions of antiquity. The nations of Egypt adored
+the cross as a sign of their salvation, since they placed it in the
+hands of one of their idols as a key to the annual flux of the Nile. The
+Persian worshippers of Mithras considered the cross a sacred symbol.
+When pagan persecution finally discovered the exclusive and peculiar
+signification of the sign amongst the Christians, the latter ingeniously
+contrived forms of the cross translatable by the eyes of the elect
+alone. To these, the image of a flying bird was a cross; the human
+figure in a swimming attitude was the same thing, and so also the
+cross-trees of a sailing ship; the letters Alpha and Omega are seen
+frequently engraved at the extremities of these disguised emblems in
+remembrance of Revelation, i. 8. Doves, ships, lyres, anchors, fishes
+and fishermen, are recommended by Clemens Alexandrinus, as the most
+fitting objects for Christians to contemplate, and for representation on
+seals. Amongst other symbols we find the seven-branched chandelier,
+though originally a Jewish sign, employed as a type of our Saviour, who
+calls himself (John, viii. 12.) the "light of the world." A wreath of
+flowers was expressive of the crown of life. A pair of scales, in
+remembrance of the last judgment, and a house, have been occasionally
+discovered on ancient grave-stones; and once, a simple _curriculum_ has
+been traced with the pole thrown backwards and a whip leaning against
+it,--an unmistakable allusion to a departure for that place where "the
+weary are at rest." Amongst plants, the olive, the vine, and the palm
+were favourite symbols, the latter being generally reserved for the
+grave-stones of martyrs. Birds, too, are frequently met with on the
+walls of houses: the phoenix and the peacock being emblems of
+immortality. The fable of the phoenix is minutely told by Clemens
+Romanus; but the common superstition which ascribes imputrescibility to
+the flesh of the latter, easily rendered this bird a symbol of the
+resurrection of the body. Saint Augustine is said to have subjected this
+peculiar quality of the peacock's flesh to a practical test. He ordered
+one to be roasted, and at the close of a twelvemonth requested it to be
+served up. Tradition does not inform us whether he ate it, and with what
+appetite.
+
+The dove occurs more frequently than any other bird. Two doves bearing
+olive branches, are seen on Christian grave-stones in the Cologne
+museum, and on the _porta nigra_ at Treves. The meaning of the sign of a
+fish will not readily occur: but the frequency of its appearance
+establishes its character as a secret mark of recognition. It was used
+to signify both Christ and his church. Of quadrupeds we find the
+stag,[20] the ox,[21] the lion,[22] and the lamb,[23] constantly in
+connexion with the cross. The lion and the lamb are typical of Christ.
+The transition to his representation in human form is rendered by two
+figures, which, whilst human, are still symbolical. In the catacombs of
+Saint Calintus, in the Via Appia at Rome, Christ is discovered in the
+character of Orpheus, whilst at other places he is represented as a
+shepherd.
+
+Two paintings were found in Herculaneum, and may at present be seen in
+the Museo Borbonico at Naples, which are of undoubted Christian origin,
+and present a curious specimen of Christian art in the first century.
+Each of these two paintings is divided into an upper field, and into a
+lower smaller one. The smaller field of one of them is destined to
+expose the folly and corruption of paganism, and Egyptian mythology is
+selected for the purpose. We behold temples. In front of one of them
+stands a statue of Isis; another is devoted to Anubis the dog-god: two
+figures of crocodiles lie stretched across the entrance. On the left, we
+see a live crocodile waiting for its prey amongst the bulrushes: an ass
+is in the act of walking into the open mouth of the monster, in spite of
+the efforts of the driver, who vainly endeavours to pull the animal back
+by its tail. This might be intended to satirize some Roman pagan, were
+it not for the counterpart. To the right, and immediately opposite the
+idolatries on the field already spoken of, we see a well into which a
+rope is being lowered, whilst a naked man, standing by, is seeking to
+cover himself. An allusion is here made to fishing and baptism. On the
+left, the crocodile of the former picture is again met with, but a
+warrior with lance and shield advances with the view of slaying it. In
+the middle of the painting a net is spread between two trees, and behind
+it, and in direct opposition to the Isis on the pagan picture, we behold
+a tall and erect cross. The upper fields harmonise with the lower. The
+Christian painting displays a vigorous and stately tree between two
+younger palm-trees; the pagan picture has the same symbols; but the
+middle tree is in the sere and yellow leaf, whilst a Dryad issuing from
+the roots flourishes an axe to cut it down. The allusion is not to be
+mistaken. The sun of paganism has set: the axe is already at the root.
+
+The greater number of the symbols named, however rich they may be in
+thought, are sadly deficient in form, and we can discover but little
+progress in this respect from the origin of Christianity to the time of
+Constantine. Architecture, and especially ecclesiastical architecture,
+may be said to be the only branch of the fine arts which was
+successfully cultivated, and architecture itself was insignificant for
+three centuries subsequently to the birth of Christ. Painting and
+sculpture could elude cruelty and take refuge beneath the cloak of
+symbols: but churches could not be masked. It was difficult to hide
+them. In the earliest periods of Christianity, too, their absence was
+not seriously felt; people prayed where they thought proper. Scripture
+tells us that the apostles taught in the temple of Jerusalem.
+Christianity, a sect of Judaism in its origin, dwelt for a long time in
+the synagogues. Wherever St Paul came, he preached first in the Jewish
+schools. In times of persecution, the believers sought refuge in the
+catacombs. They assembled in the solitude of forests to pray and to
+exhort one another. When the Jews opposed themselves to the new creed,
+congregations met in the houses of the more wealthy. The apartment
+usually employed for divine purposes is supposed to have been the
+triclinium, or large dining-room of the richer classes amongst the
+Greeks and Romans. The want of churches was first experienced when
+frequent conversions swelled congregations beyond the limits of a large
+family; and this, as we have hinted, occurred in the course of the third
+century. The existence of a church expressly devoted to Christian
+worship in the reign of the Emperor Severus Alexander, has been proved
+beyond a doubt. It was a reign remarkable for its spirit of toleration.
+The Christians were suffered to hold offices in the state, in the army,
+and even at court. Churches rose rapidly under the mild light of
+toleration. Even in the western provinces of the empire, in Gaul, Spain,
+and Britain, we meet with churches erected at the commencement of the
+fourth century. In Nicomedia also, under the very eyes of Diocletian, a
+church was built that surpassed in splendour the very palace of the
+Emperor. The army of Diocletian destroyed the holy building in the last
+grand persecution. It was the last convulsive effort of paganism in its
+agony.
+
+No particulars of these churches have come down to us. Of that in
+Nicomedia we know nothing, save that it was splendid. None had, we are
+inclined to suppose, any fixed style. The style of the original
+triclinium in which believers first congregated, was, in all likelihood,
+imitated. Even in private houses, these triclinia were magnificently
+adorned. The walls were ornamented with rows of lofty columns, and where
+the Egyptian style prevailed, two rows of columns were constructed, one
+above the other; an effect of this last arrangement was the formation of
+a two-storied passage between the walls and the columns. In the
+beginning of the tenth century, Pope Leo III. constructed a dining-room
+after this fashion. We may fairly conclude that nothing grand or
+extraordinary in architecture was attempted in a period of great trouble
+and poverty. The real glory of Christian architecture dates from the
+reign of Constantine. Christianity, legalised by him, might venture to
+display her rites and her art. Under the government of Constantine the
+church was enriched. He endowed it with the spoils of defeated and
+expiring paganism. In the third century, the church of Rome, when
+summoned to yield its treasures, produced its poor as the only treasures
+it possessed. In the fifth century, that same church appointed a
+clerical commission to watch over and inspect its possessions in foreign
+countries.
+
+The change of circumstances was not without a great and lasting
+influence. Paganism threatened no more. It was conquered. No further
+danger was to be apprehended from the departed religion of a gloomier
+age. The clerical profession, warmed and nourished by the rays of
+imperial favour, was soon effectually distinguished from the crowd of
+laymen which surrounded it. The desire to render this separation
+systematic and all-pervading was too natural to slumber for any length
+of time, and the absence of an order of architecture peculiar to the
+ministers of the new religion came to be severely felt. Rank and wealth
+have ever delighted in drawing towards them the eyes of the world. The
+worldliness and splendour of the church have been long the subject of
+violent animadversion. But how could it be otherwise? From the moment
+that Christianity became a favoured creed, conversions were rapid and
+frequent; but not all the neophytes converted in form, had undergone a
+similar change of spirit. Millions flocked through the open gates of the
+church. To teach all, before they entered, was an impossibility. If
+there was time to _awe_, that was something. If general conviction was
+out of the question, universal respect was easily attainable. The
+charms, the sensual enjoyments of the pagan altars, were once more
+offered to the heathen. The smoke of incense filled the church; the
+spoils of antiquity adorned its roofs and columns; the robes of the
+clergy were covered with gold; the rites of the church delighted in
+colours. But decoration and ornament alone were borrowed from paganism.
+The temples of the heathen could not be copied in form: they could not
+serve the purposes of Christian worship.
+
+The destination of the temple was different from that of the church. The
+temple was the house of an idol: limited in extent, it received
+sufficient light through the open door. The rites of paganism were
+performed in the colonnade surrounding the temple, not in the temple
+itself, and the crowd of spectators stood beyond the limits of the
+sacred building. The sanctuary of Pandrosus at Athens, admits only of a
+few persons; and even the temple of Athen� is not to be compared for
+size with our modern churches. The Christian religion is essentially
+didactic. It requires space for its hearers and disciples. But its
+sacraments were mysteries, and none but the elect were admitted to them.
+Thus, it was necessary to separate true believers from the bulk of the
+congregation. No buildings were so happily adapted to this double
+purpose as the houses of public justice and traffic, which, originally
+of Grecian origin, had arrived at a high state of perfection in the
+Roman empire. The most ancient of such houses--called Basilika--stood in
+Athens at the foot of the Pnyx. It was in such a building that Socrates
+appeared before his judges, and Christ was judged by Pilate. In the
+history of art, we trace the workings of omnipresent Nemesis. The sign
+of curse and infamy--the cross--has for centuries graced the banners of
+humanity. The Basilikon in which Christ was condemned, has lent its form
+to the churches in which his name is adored.
+
+Whilst the groundwork of the Basilikon remained unchanged, Christian art
+added steeples and cupolas to increase the solemnity of the impression.
+The most perfect building of the kind is, without doubt, the church of
+Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. For chastity and purity of style, it can
+never be surpassed. The numerous churches erected by ostentation and
+devotion in basilikon form are all inferior to that incomparable temple.
+Many, it is true, have been disfigured, robbed, and half-burned; but
+their faults are not accidental. The greater number were built at a time
+when Pagan art, their prototype, had sunk very low indeed. Moreover,
+since the days of Constantine, Pagan temples had fallen into disuse.
+They stood deserted, and were suffered to crumble away beneath the
+influences of neglect and time. Christian builders took all they wanted
+from the ruins; a fragment from this temple, a block from that. Ionian
+and Corinthian columns were placed in the same line. If a pillar was too
+long for its companion, it was shortened without reference to its
+diameters or form. Columns of different stones were jumbled together in
+a row. Thus, amongst a number of columns of purple granite in the church
+of Ara Celi at Rome we discover two Ionian columns of white marble. In
+Saint Peter's, granite and Parian and African marbles are grouped
+together without the smallest attempt at harmony or adaptation. San
+Giovanni in Porta Laterana boasts ten columns of five different kinds of
+stone.
+
+A more interesting employment cannot be found than that of watching the
+slow and cautious progress of ancient painting and sculpture in
+connexion with Christianity. The slowness is indeed remarkable, when we
+reflect upon the high perfection which these arts had generally attained
+even during the reigns of the first emperors. Christianity dealt far
+differently with painting and sculpture, than with architecture. In the
+latter, the Pagan form was adopted and improved; but with respect to the
+former, she made a _tabula rasa_, and descended to the rudest efforts of
+daubing and carving. The shapes, both of men and animals, were awkward,
+cumbrous, and unnatural; every part was out of proportion, and the most
+solemn scenes acquired a ludicrous grotesqueness. But the strangest
+phenomenon is, that Pagan art itself, of its own accord, descended to as
+low a level. The productions of Paganism in the time of Constantine were
+altogether as barbarous as the clumsy attempts of the untutored hands of
+Christianity. The new religion had created a new world. The forms of the
+old might indeed survive for a time, but its spirit was gone. Paganism
+was a corpse. Altars might be crowned with garlands, sacrifice might be
+offered to the gods: but all in vain. A voice came forth from an island
+in the �gean Sea; a voice of sorrow and complaint, but of truth also. It
+wailed the death of the great Pan. The mighty were indeed fallen, and so
+vast was the gulf between Paganism in the days of Titus, and Paganism in
+those of Constantine, that the creations of the former period could be
+no lesson to the idolaters of the latter. These clung to the worship of
+a departed age, but in spite of themselves. The new and mighty river of
+thought swept them onward, and carried them on to the very same parting
+point from which Christian art was struggling for perfection.
+
+Christian art started with one grand error. It was warring for ever
+against itself. In portraying the world, it hated it. Of all its
+creations, there is not one which can be said to be really beautiful;
+the effusions of symbolical enthusiasm are without all plastic truth.
+Ideas were incorporated, but they did not prove men with flesh and
+blood. The paintings and carvings were hieroglyphics. The same figure
+expressed the same idea, and the idea once expressed, there was no
+desire to extend the circle of figures or to alter their wretched
+appearance. The same uncouth forms return with a killing monotony.
+Centuries do not change them. The uniformity of monastic life by no
+means tended to relax the inflexibility of invention. Religion, not art,
+was the sculptor's or the painter's object; his production was a
+creation of faith, not of beauty. Such is the character of almost all
+the carvings in wood and stone which have been found in the catacombs of
+Rome and Naples.
+
+Christianity has the great merit of having discovered the poesy of the
+grave. From the outset it abhorred the Pagan custom of burning the dead,
+and faithful to its Jewish origin, and mindful perhaps of Christ's
+burial, it renewed the old Roman custom of interring the departed. This
+was the origin of the catacombs. The early Christians loved to be
+deposited with, or near the Martyrs, and grounds for burial capable of
+receiving a large number of the dead were wholly wanting. The population
+of Rome, Naples, Alexandria, and Syracuse was so great, that there was
+scarcely room enough for the living. To find new receptacles for the
+dead became an urgent necessity. It is true, that digging into the
+bowels of the earth for the purpose of entombing the bodies of the dead
+was no new operation. Egypt and Etruria had in their time set the
+example. The one idea of immortality, led to similar results in
+different creeds. The early Christians found their cities of the dead
+already prepared for them. Paris, in our own time, stands upon a soil
+which is hollowed throughout. The limestone upon which Paris stands was
+taken from beneath to supply the wants of the builders. Rome, in like
+manner, has a second and subterraneous town of vast extent, with its
+streets and squares in endless number. Nor is it without its
+inhabitants. In this town did Christians seek refuge from Pagan
+persecution, and here did they likewise inter their dead. The caves and
+passages were not dug by Christian hands, but were discovered already
+made. They date from the last century of the republic, when the clay
+upon which Rome stands, was required by the mania then raging for
+extensive and magnificent structures. The Christians took possession of
+the hollows and enlarged them; the work was by no means difficult, for
+the clay was soft and plastic.
+
+It was after the time of Constantine that the catacombs came into more
+general use. Martyrs were more revered subsequently to the reign of this
+Emperor than before it, for martyrdom became less easy of achievement.
+The chief martyrs had found a resting-place in the catacombs. Churches
+rose above their remains, from which secret and sacred doors led into
+the City of the Dead, the cemetery of the saints. It was at the period
+to which we refer that the regularly formed spacious catacombs were
+first fashioned--a fact established by the date of the coffins, all of
+which belong to a time later than that of the Emperor Constantine. The
+wealthier members of the community constructed small chapels in the
+catacombs for the reception of the bodies of their relations and
+friends. These chapels are for the most part situated at the crossing of
+passages or at the end of them, in which latter case the chapel forms
+the termination of one particular passage. They are most important as
+indices to the development of art. Besides the curious character and
+beauty of the architecture, they afford specimens of the most ancient
+grave paintings that we know of. Their walls and ceilings are covered
+with a thin crust of gypsum, upon which the colours were laid. Not
+unfrequently we find ornaments of stucco and marble. Altars and stone
+seats, too, are found in these chapels. An astonishing number of
+skeletons have been discovered in the passages by which the chapels are
+connected: it was not the custom, as now, to bury the dead beneath the
+floor and to cover the grave with a stone slab. The bodies were placed
+in niches of from three to six feet in length. Sometimes four and six
+together, one above the other. The corpse of a departed brother was
+thrust into one of these niches; a lamp and some tool, explanatory of
+the trade he had followed in life, were placed beside him, and then the
+aperture was walled up, and lastly covered with a thin marble slab,
+bearing an inscription and the particulars of the life and death of the
+departed.
+
+Church service was frequently performed in the catacombs, yet not in the
+days of persecution. It was after Constantine that these tombs were used
+for such a purpose. On Sabbath days they were open to the public and
+were much visited. Devotion, love for departed relatives, and mere
+curiosity, carried vast numbers to these silent halls. Saint Jerome,
+tells us of his having often explored them with his comrades whilst he
+was still a student in Rome; and he lived some three hundred and fifty
+years after the death of Christ. The catacombs were but badly lighted at
+first, light being admitted by a few apertures only in the roofs of the
+chapels. At a later period, great care was taken to prevent visitors
+losing their way amidst the labyrinth of passages. The guardianship of
+the catacombs was confided to a certain body of the clergy, who went
+under the name of _fossores_, or grave-diggers. It was their office to
+inspect the chapels and passages, to point out the places where new
+passages might be formed, and to portion out and sell the spots in which
+burials might take place. The water in the wells of the catacombs was
+subsequently found to possess the virtue of healing to a marvellous
+degree. Nay, even the use of the drinking-cups found in the catacombs
+was sufficient to cure several diseases.
+
+In later days, many of the catacombs were opened, and a vast number of
+curious and interesting objects brought to light. Not the least valuable
+amongst these objects were the paintings and carvings to which we have
+above adverted, and which throw some light upon the history of the
+portraiture of the great Founder of our religion. Still in the great
+bulk of the subjects represented the symbolical prevails; and since the
+earliest masters were for a long time forbidden, by a pious awe, from
+producing the figure of Christ, we find in the more ancient carvings a
+decided preference given to the Old Testament over the New. Noah's ark,
+Abraham sacrificing his son, Moses taking off his shoes upon receiving
+the tablets of the law, the destruction of Pharaoh, and the miracle of
+the water starting from the rock--in short, all the subjects of our
+modern illustrated Bibles are of frequent occurrence in these ancient
+houses of the dead, and one and all are intended to represent the
+mission and person of Christ. The suffering of Christ, in the
+delineation of which the masters of later times have so much delighted,
+formed no subject for the artist in the earliest selections from the
+history of the New Testament. The controversy in the temple, the entry
+into Jerusalem, and the most celebrated of the miracles, were subjects
+that better suited the ancient master's pencil. The infancy of Christ
+was an inexhaustible subject to a later age. The Nestorian controversy
+brought the religious pretensions of the Holy Virgin to an issue; and
+after the church in the fifth century had bestowed upon Mary the title
+of Mother of God, artists took pleasure in representing her either as
+lying-in, or as holding the babe in her arms. The Eastern Kings are not
+unfrequently found in the Virgin's company. M. Kinkel presumes that the
+number of these wise men was first determined by the early masters, who
+in all probability conferred the royal dignity upon them. Holy Writ does
+not inform us that these personages were kings, and in the more ancient
+carvings, they wear ordinary Phrygian caps. At a later period, and no
+doubt inadvertently, these caps were changed into crowns. The four
+evangelists are constantly represented either as four rolls of papyrus,
+or as four fountains issuing from a hill beneath the feet of Christ.
+When seen in the guise of the four apocalyptical animals, they belong to
+a later period. The apostles also are found on ancient coffins,
+surrounding Christ, at whose left side Peter is placed, whilst Paul
+stands on his right. They all wear sandals tied with ribbon to their
+feet. Some paintings represent scenes of early Christian life, the
+sacred rites of the Church, and the love-feasts of the first Christians.
+
+Wherever our Saviour is found he is represented by two types. In the
+earliest paintings of the catacombs he appears as a beardless youth:
+this type of the Saviour was produced under the influence of antique
+art. The second and later type bears those oriental features which have
+been transmitted by sacred painting even to our own time. The features
+of the second face so closely resemble those of the first that the early
+theologians do not hesitate to proclaim them exact copies of the
+original. "Christ was well proportioned," says John of Damascus in the
+eighth century; "his fingers were slender, his nose mighty, and the
+eyebrows joined above the same; his hair was very curly, his beard
+black, and the colour of his face like his mother's,--viz. yellowish,
+like unto wheat." Later western writers change the colour of the beard
+and hair from black to blond. Both hair and beard are parted in the
+middle. There are two pictures of Christ thus represented, one in the
+cemetery of S. Calintus, and another in that of S. Ponziano. The former
+is partly, the latter wholly dressed. In both, the features are strongly
+marked, and the eyes are very large; the right hand is placed on the
+breast, whilst the left holds a book.
+
+Apocryphal pictures ascribed to Saint Luke have asserted a considerable
+influence upon the traditions concerning the portrait of Christ. The
+same has happened in the instance of the Virgin Mary, although her type
+is far from attaining the degree of stability which we find in the
+representations of her divine son. The fathers, however, are unanimous
+in their opinion that the face of Mary bore a strong resemblance to that
+of our Saviour. She is seldom found in the Catacombs, but frequently in
+the Mosaic work of churches dedicated to her worship, and on Byzantine
+coins from the tenth century forwards. The face is oval, similar to that
+of a youthful matron of ancient Rome, and carrying always the expression
+of a calm benignity. The head is covered with a veil and surrounded by a
+nimbus. Next to Mary and her Son, Peter and Paul, the chief apostles of
+the Pagan and Judaic world, are most frequently represented. They were
+both objects of devotion, even to those who still lingered without the
+pale of Christianity. The Mosaics display them more frequently than the
+Catacombs. Their type is not fixed; although Peter may at times be known
+by his curly hair and beard, whilst the bald forehead and the pointed
+fashion of the beard render Paul at once recognisable. The other
+apostles, as well as the personages of the Old Testament, have not grown
+into individuality, and lack the distinguishing features by which sacred
+and historical characters of antiquity become objects of real life, and
+are rendered familiar to the most distant ages.
+
+The most ancient Mosaic works of the Christian era are to be found in
+the mausoleum of Constantine. The subject is strictly symbolic. It is
+the vine, with birds perched on the branches and angels collecting the
+grapes. One of the tendrils encompasses the head of Constantine. The
+forms of the angels show a near affinity to Pagan art. Another great
+Mosaic work, more ecclesiastical in thought and execution, was promoted
+by Pope Sixtus III. in 443. It consists of historical representations
+from the Old and New Testaments, and ornaments the space below the
+windows of the Maria Maggiore. The costumes, the helmets, and cuirasses
+resemble those of ancient Rome; but where priests and Levites appear,
+the oriental character is followed. The composition is poor, and the
+human figures are rude and awkward. That little regard is paid to
+perspective is not a matter of surprise. Antique art is guilty of the
+fault. It would be difficult for any Mosaic work to overcome the
+difficulties which present themselves in the active scenes of real life
+and history. The Mosaics in the triumphal arch of the Church of St Paul
+create a favourable impression, simply because they confine themselves
+to that narrow and more suitable sphere, in which alone the Mosaic art
+can look to be successful.
+
+The study of the period of Christian art, treated of and exemplified in
+Professor Kinkel's book, though apparently unprofitable to the artist,
+is full of interest to the curious observer, and to one who has pleasure
+in beholding the development of the human mind under the most varied
+circumstances. We have read the volume of the learned and accomplished
+professor with infinite satisfaction, and we can safely recommend it to
+the perusal of the student and the man of letters. The history of art,
+in the early stages of Christianity, is the history of intellectual
+cultivation in the most extraordinary period of the world's history. The
+state of the world during the first centuries after the departure of
+Christ, was essentially exceptional. It had never been; it never will be
+again. Art and civilisation were weighed and were found wanting--a new
+idea visited the earth and conquered it--old arts drooped and died:
+civilisation degenerated at once into barbarism; whilst a new art and a
+new civilisation, with the light of Heaven upon them, were already
+preparing to claim the dominion over future centuries.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[19] _Geschichte der bildenden K�nste bei den Christlichen V�lkern_. Von
+GOTTFRIED KINKEL.
+
+[20] Psalm xlii. 1.
+
+[21] 1 Cor. ix. 9.
+
+[22] Rev. v. 5.
+
+[23] John, i. 29, and Rev. v. 6.
+
+
+
+
+THE PORTRAIT.
+
+A TALE: ABRIDGED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF G�GOL. BY THOMAS B. SHAW.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+By none of the numerous objects of interest in the busy city of St
+Petersburg are the steps of the sauntering pedestrian more frequently
+arrested than by the picture-shop in the Stch�kin Dvor.[24] True it is
+that the specimens of art there displayed are distinguished rather by
+eccentricity of design, and rudeness of execution, than by striking
+evidences of genius. The paintings are for the most part in oil, coated
+with green varnish, and fitted into frames of dark yellow tinsel. A
+winter-piece with white trees, a ferociously red sunset, like the glow
+of a conflagration, a Flemish boor with a pipe and dislocated-looking
+arm--resembling a turkey-cock in ruffles, rather than a human
+being,--such are the ordinary subjects. Beside them hang a few
+engravings: portraits of Khosrev-Mirza in his sheepskin bonnet, and of
+truculent generals with cocked hats and crooked noses. Bundles of coarse
+prints, on large paper broadsides, are suspended on either side the
+door. Here we have the Princess Miliktris Kirbitierna;[25] yonder the
+city of Jerusalem, its houses and churches smeared with vermilion, which
+gaudy colour has also invaded a part of the ground and a brace of
+Russian pilgrims in huge fur gloves. If these works of art find few
+purchasers, they at least attract a throng of starers; drunken
+ragamuffin lacqueys on their way from the cook's shop, bearing piles of
+plates with their masters' dinners, which grow cold whilst they gape at
+the pictures; great-coated Russian soldiers with penknives for sale;
+Okhta pedlar-women with boxes of shoes. Each spectator expresses his
+admiration in his own peculiar way: peasants point with their fingers;
+soldiers gaze with stolid gravity; dirty foot-boys and blackguard
+apprentices laugh and apply the caricatures to each other; old serving
+men in frieze cloaks stand listless and agape, indulging their
+propensity to utter idleness.
+
+A number of persons answering to the above description were assembled
+before the picture-shop, when they were joined by a young man in a
+threadbare cloak and shabby garments. He was a painter, named
+Tchartk�ff, as enthusiastic in his art as he was needy in his
+circumstances and careless of his dress. Pausing before the booth, he
+smiled as he glanced at the wretched pictures there displayed. The next
+moment the expression of mirthful contempt faded from his thin, ardent
+features, and he fell a-thinking. The question had occurred to him,
+amongst what class of people could those tawdry, worthless productions
+find purchasers? That Russian _muj�ks_ should gaze delightedly upon the
+_Yerusl�n Lazar�vitches_, on pictures of _Phom�_ and _Yerema_, of the
+heroes of their tales and legends, was quite natural; the objects
+represented were adapted to popular taste and comprehension; but who
+would buy those tawdry oil-paintings, those Flemish boors, those crimson
+and azure landscapes, which, whilst pretending to a higher grade of art,
+served but to prove its deep degradation? Not one redeeming touch could
+be traced in the senseless caricatures, to whose authors' clumsy hands
+the mason's trowel would assuredly have been better adapted than the
+painter's pencil. It was the very dotage of incapacity. The colouring,
+the treatment, the coarse obtrusive mechanical touch, seemed those of a
+clumsily constructed automaton, rather than of a human painter. Thus
+musing, our artist stood for some time before the vile daubs that
+excited his disgust, gazing at them long after the train of his
+reflections had led him far from them; whilst the master of the shop, a
+little, gray, ill-shaven fellow in a frieze cloak, chattered and
+chaffered and bargained as indefatigably as if the young man had
+announced himself a purchaser.
+
+"Well now," said he, "for these muj�ks and the landscape, I'll take a
+white note.[26] There's painting! It hurts your eye, it's so bright;
+just received from the Exchange; varnish hardly dry. Take the
+winter-piece. Fifteen rubles! Frame worth the money. There's a winter,
+there's snow for you!"
+
+Here the eager trader gave a slight fillip to the canvass, as if he
+expected the snow to fall off.
+
+"Take the three. I'll send them home at once. Where does your honour
+live? Boy, a cord!"
+
+"Not so fast, my friend," cried the artist, startled from his reverie,
+and perceiving the brisk dealer about to tie up the three daubs. His
+first impulse was to walk away, but he felt ashamed to purchase nothing
+after standing so long before the shop, and causing the hungry-looking
+old salesman so large an expenditure of breath. "Wait a little," he
+said. "I will see if you have any thing to suit me." And, stooping down,
+he turned over a number of battered dusty old pictures heaped like
+lumber upon the ground. They were chiefly old-fashioned family
+portraits, likenesses of unknown and insignificant faces, with torn
+canvass, and frames that had lost their gilding. Nevertheless Tchartk�ff
+carefully examined them, thinking it possible he might pick up something
+good. He had more than once heard stories of pictures of the great
+masters being met with amongst the dust and trash of such shops as this.
+The dealer, perceiving he had probably nailed a customer, ceased his
+bustling importunity, resumed his station at the door, and recommenced
+his appeals to the passengers. He shouted, chattered, and pointed to his
+wares, but without success; then he had a long chat with an
+old-clothesman, whose establishment was on the opposite side of the
+alley; and at last, recollecting that, all this time there was a
+customer in his shop, he turned his back upon the public and walked in.
+
+"Have you chosen anything, sir?"
+
+The artist stood immoveable before a large portrait, whose frame had
+once been richly gilt, although it now scarcely retained a few tarnished
+vestiges of its former splendour. The subject was an old man, his face
+swarthy and bronzed, with furrowed brow and hollow temples, and sharp
+high cheekbones; a physiognomy on which the ravages of time, and
+climate, and suffering were plainly legible. The figure was draped in a
+flowing Asiatic costume. Defaced and injured and grimed with dirt though
+the portrait was, yet, when Tchartk�ff had wiped the dust from the
+countenance, he perceived evident traces of the touch of a great artist.
+The picture seemed to have been scarcely finished, but the force of
+treatment was immense. Its most extraordinary part was the eyes; in them
+the artist had concentrated all the power of his pencil. There was
+vitality in those dark and lustrous orbs, they looked out of the
+portrait, and in some measure destroyed its harmony by their strange and
+life-like expression. When Tchartk�ff took the picture to the door, he
+fancied the pupils dilated. The peculiarity of the painting at once
+attracted the attention of the idlers without. Some uttered exclamations
+of surprise, others fell back a pace as if in terror. A pale,
+sickly-looking woman of the lower classes, who suddenly found herself
+face to face with this singular portrait, screamed with alarm. "It's
+looking at me!" she cried, and hurried away, casting nervous glances
+over her shoulder. Tchartk�ff himself experienced--he could not tell
+why--a sort of disagreeable sensation, and he put the portrait on the
+ground.
+
+"D'ye buy?" said the picture-dealer.
+
+"How much?" replied the artist.
+
+"At a word--three _tchetvert�ks_."[27]
+
+Tchartk�ff shook his head. "Too much. I will give you a dougr�vennoi,"
+he added, moving towards the door.
+
+"A dougr�vennoi for that picture! You are pleased to joke, sir. The
+frame is worth twice the money. Bid me something more, if it be only
+another grivennik. Come back, sir," he shouted, running after the
+painter, and detaining him by his cloak-skirt; "come back, sir. You are
+my first customer to-day, and I will take your offer, for luck's sake.
+But the picture is given away."
+
+On finding his offer thus unexpectedly accepted, Tchartk�ff heartily
+repented his temerity in making it. The dougr�vennoi he paid the dealer
+was his last in the world, and he was encumbered with a lumbering old
+portrait for which he had no earthly use. Cursing his own imprudence, he
+took up his purchase, and trudged away with it. Its weight and size
+caused it to slip perpetually from under his arm, and rendered it a most
+troublesome burthen. At last, tired to death and bathed in perspiration,
+he reached the house, in the fifteenth line of the Vas�lievsk� Ostrow,
+in which he occupied a modest lodging, ascended the uncleanly staircase,
+and knocked impatiently at the door of his apartment. It was opened by a
+slatternly lad in a blue shirt--his cook, model, colour-grinder and
+floor-sweeper, who had to thank his godfathers for the harmonious name
+of Nik�ta, and who united in his person the dirt incidental to three out
+of his four occupations. Tchartk�ff entered his ante-room, which felt
+very chilly, as artists' ante-rooms usually are, and, without taking off
+his cloak, walked on into his studio a square apartment, tolerably
+spacious, but low in the ceiling, and with windows dimmed by the frost.
+This room was littered with all kinds of artistical rubbish: fragments
+of plaster of Paris, casts of hands, frames, stretched canvasses,
+sketches begun and thrown aside, and drapery cast carelessly over the
+chairs. Completely knocked up, Tchartk�ff let his cloak fall, placed his
+new purchase against the wall, and threw himself on a narrow meagre
+little sofa, whose leathern cover, torn upon one side from the row of
+brass nails that had formerly confined it, afforded Nik�ta a convenient
+receptacle for dish-cloths, old clothes, dirty linen, and any other
+miscellaneous matters he thought fit to cram under. The sun had set, and
+the night grew each moment darker. Our artist ordered Nik�ta to bring a
+candle.
+
+"There are no candles," was Nik�ta's reply.
+
+"How!--no candles?"
+
+"There were none yesterday," said Nik�ta.
+
+Tchartk�ff remembered that there _had_ been none the night before, and
+that his credit with the tallow-chandler was not such as to render it
+probable a supply had been sent in that morning. So he held his tongue,
+allowed Nik�ta to take off his coat, waistcoat, and cravat, and wrapped
+himself up as warmly as he could in a dressing gown with tattered
+elbows.
+
+"I forgot to tell you," said Nik�ta, "the landlord has been here."
+
+"For money, I suppose," said the artist, shrugging his shoulders.
+
+"He had somebody with him. A Kvart�ln�, I think.[28] He said something
+about the rent not being paid."
+
+"Well, what can they do?"
+
+"Don't know," replied the imperturbable Nik�ta. "He said you must leave
+the lodgings or pay. Will come again to-morrow."
+
+"Let them come," said Tchartk�ff gloomily. And he turned himself upon
+the comfortless sofa with a feeling akin to desperation.
+
+Tchartk�ff was a young artist of considerable promise, and whose pencil
+was at times remarked for its accuracy, and near approach to the
+truthfulness of nature. But he had faults which procured him frequent
+admonitions from the professor under whom he studied. "You have talent,"
+he would say to him; "it will be a sin to ruin it by carelessness and by
+pursuing erroneous ideas and principles. You are too impatient; too apt
+to be fascinated by novelty, and to neglect rules hallowed by time and
+experience, laws immutable as those of the Medes. Beware, lest you
+become a mere fashionable painter. Your colours, I observe, are not
+unfrequently selected in defiance of good taste; your drawing is often
+feeble, sometimes positively incorrect; your outlines want clearness.
+You run after a flashy kind of chiaro-scuro, the lighting up of your
+picture is meant only to strike the eye at the first glance. And you
+have a passion for the introduction of finery; a taste for dandified
+costume. All this is dangerous, and may lead you into the fatal habit of
+painting mere fashionable pictures, pretty portraits and the like, which
+yield money, but can never give fame. Do that, and your talent is lost
+and thrown away. Be patient, wait, reflect, chasten your taste by study,
+and wean yourself from that hankering after prettiness and dandyism.
+Leave such tricks to those who care but for gold, and propose yourself a
+higher aim, the never-dying laurels of a Titian or an Angelo."
+
+The professor meant well, and was right in the main. Tchartk�ff was apt
+to indulge in the flashy and the superficial. But he had sufficient
+strength of mind to control this dangerous tendency, and a purer taste
+was gradually but perceptibly developing itself in him. As yet he could
+not quite appreciate all the depth of Raphael, but he was strongly
+fascinated by the broad and rapid touch of Guido; he would stand
+enchanted before Titian's portraits, and had a high appreciation of the
+Flemish school. Yet the darkened and sober tone characterising old
+pictures did not quite please or satisfy him; nor did he, in his
+innermost mind, altogether agree with the professor, when the latter
+expatiated to him on that mysterious power which places the old masters
+at such immeasurable distance above the moderns. In some respects he
+almost fancied them surpassed by the nineteenth century; that the
+imitation of nature had somehow become, in modern times, more vivid, and
+lively, and faithful: in a word, his mind was in that fluctuating
+unsettled state in which the minds of young people are apt to be when
+they have reached a particular point of proficiency in their art, and
+feel a proud internal conviction of talent. Often was he filled with
+rage when he saw some travelling French or German painter, by the mere
+effect of trick and habit, by readiness of pencil and flashy colouring,
+catching the multitude, and making a fortune. These impressions made
+their way into his mind, not in moments when he was buried, body and
+soul, in his work, and forgot food and drink and all outward things; but
+when, as was often the case, necessity stared him in the face, and he
+found himself without the means of buying brushes and colours, or even
+bread, whilst the greedy and implacable landlord came ten times a-day to
+dun him for his rent. Then his hunger-sharpened imagination would revert
+to the different lot of the rich and fashionable painter; then darted
+through his brain the thought that so often flits through the Russian
+head, the idea of sending his art and all to the devil, and going to the
+devil himself.
+
+"Yes, wait! wait!" he exclaimed passionately; "but patience and waiting
+must have an end. Wait, indeed! and where am I to seek to-morrow's
+dinner? Borrowing is out of the question; and if I sell my pictures and
+drawings, they will give me, perhaps, a _dougr�vennoi_ for the whole
+lot. They are useful to me; not one of them but was undertaken with an
+object,--from each I have learned something. But what would be their
+value to any body else? They are studies,--exercises; and studies and
+exercises they will remain to the end of the chapter. And, besides, who
+would buy them? I am unknown as an artist, and who wants studies from
+the antique and sketches from the living model, or my unfinished Love
+and Psyche, or the perspective sketch of my room, or my portrait of
+Nik�ta, though it is really better than the portraits painted by any of
+your fashionable fellows? And, after all, what do I gain by this? Why
+should I work myself to death, and keep plodding like a schoolboy over
+his A, B, C, when I might be as famous as any of them, and have as much
+money in my pockets?" As he pronounced these words, the artist
+involuntarily shuddered and turned pale. He saw, looking fixedly at him,
+peeping out from the shadow of a tall canvass that stood against the
+wall, a face seemingly torn by some convulsive agony. Two dreadful eyes
+glared upon the young man, with a strange inexplicable expression; the
+lips were curled with mingled scorn and suffering; the features were
+haggard and distorted. Startled, almost terrified, Tchartk�ff was on the
+point of calling Nik�ta, who by this time sent forth from his ante-room
+a Titanic snore, when he checked himself and burst into a laugh. The
+object of alarm was the portrait he had bought, and which he had
+completely forgotten. The bright moonbeams, streaming into the room,
+partially illuminated the picture, and gave it a strange air of reality.
+By the clear cold light Tchartk�ff set to work to examine and clean his
+purchase. When the coat of dust and filth that incrusted it was removed,
+he hung the picture upon the wall, and, retiring to look at it, was more
+than ever astounded at its extraordinary character and power. The
+countenance seemed lighted up by the fierce and glittering eyes, which
+looked out of the picture so wonderfully, and assumed, as it seemed to
+him, such strange and varied and terrible expression, that he at last
+involuntarily turned away his own, unable to support the gaze of the old
+Asiatic. Then came into his mind a story he had once heard from his
+professor, of a certain portrait of the famous Leonardo da Vinci, at
+which the great master worked for many years, still counting it
+unfinished, and which, nevertheless, according to Vasari, was
+universally considered the most perfect and finished production of art.
+But the most exquisitely finished part of it were the eyes, which
+excited the wonder of all contemporaries; even the minute and almost
+invisible veins were exactly rendered and put upon the canvass. But
+here, on the other hand, in the portrait before him, there was something
+strange and horrid. This was not art: the eyes absolutely destroyed the
+harmony of the portrait. They were living, they were human eyes! They
+seemed to have been cut out of a living man's face and stuck in the
+picture. Instead of admiration, the portrait inspired a painful feeling
+of oppression; the beholder was seized with a sort of waking nightmare,
+weighing upon and overwhelming him like a moral and mysterious incubus.
+
+Shaking off this feeling, Tchartk�ff again approached the portrait, and
+forced himself to gaze steadily upon its eyes. They were still fixed
+upon him. He changed his place; the eyes followed him. To whatever part
+of the room he removed, he met their deep malignant glance. They seemed
+animated with the unnatural sort of life one might expect to find in the
+eyes of a corpse, newly recalled to existence by the spell of some
+potent sorcerer. In spite of his better reason, which reproached him for
+his weakness, Tchartk�ff felt an inexplicable impression, which made him
+unwilling to remain alone in the room. He retired softly from the
+portrait, turned his eyes in a different direction, and endeavoured to
+forget its presence; yet, in spite of all his efforts, his eye, as
+though of its own accord, kept glancing sideways at it. At last he
+became even fearful to walk about; his excited imagination made him
+fancy that as soon as he moved somebody was walking behind him,--at each
+step he glanced timidly over his shoulder. He was naturally no coward;
+but his nerves and imagination were painfully on the stretch, and he
+could not control his absurd and involuntary fears. He sat down in the
+corner; somebody, he thought, peeped stealthily over his shoulder into
+his face. Even the loud snoring of Nik�ta, which resounded from the
+ante-room, could not dispel his uneasiness and chase away the unreal
+visions haunting him. At last he rose from his seat, timidly, without
+lifting his eyes, went behind the screen and lay down on his bed.
+Through the crevices in the screen he saw his room brightly illuminated
+by the moon, and he beheld the portrait hanging on the wall. The eyes
+were fixed upon him even more horribly and meaningly than before, and
+seemed as if they would not look at any thing but him. Making a strong
+effort, he got out of bed, took a sheet and hung it over the portrait.
+This done, he again lay down, feeling more tranquil, and began to muse
+upon his melancholy lot,--upon the thorns and difficulties that beset
+the path of the friendless and aspiring artist. At intervals he
+involuntarily glanced through the crevices of the screen at the shrouded
+portrait. The bright moonlight increased the whiteness of the sheet, and
+he at last fancied that he saw the horrible eyes shining through the
+linen. He strained his sight to convince himself he was mistaken. The
+contrary effect was produced. The old man's face became more and more
+distinct;--there could no longer be any doubt: the sheet had
+disappeared,--the grim portrait was completely uncovered, and the
+infernal eyes stared straight at him, peering into his very soul. An icy
+chill came over his heart. He looked again;--the old man had moved, and
+stood with both hands leaning on the frame. In a few seconds he rose
+upon his arms, put forth both legs and leaped out of the frame, which
+was now seen empty through the crevice in the screen. A heavy footstep
+was heard in the room. The poor artist's heart beat hard and fast.
+Swallowing his breath for very fear, he awaited the sight of the old
+man, who evidently approached his bed. And in another moment there he
+was, peeping round the screen, with the same bronze-like countenance and
+fixed glittering eyes. Tchartk�ff made a violent effort to cry out, but
+his voice was gone. He strove to stir his limbs,--they refused to obey
+him. With open mouth and arrested breath he gazed upon the apparition.
+It was that of a tall man in a wide Asiatic robe. The painter watched
+its movements. Presently it sat down almost at his very feet, and drew
+something from between the folds of its flowing dress. This was a bag.
+The old man untied it, and, seizing it by the two ends, shook it: with a
+dull heavy sound there fell on the floor a number of heavy packets, of a
+long cylindrical shape. Their envelope was of dark blue paper, and on
+each was inscribed, 1000 DUCATS. Extending his long lean hands from his
+wide sleeves, the old man began unrolling the packets. There was a gleam
+of gold. Great as Tchartk�ff's terror was, he could not help staring
+covetously at the coin, and looked on with profound attention as it
+streamed rapidly through the spectre's bony hands, glittering and
+clinking with a dull thin metallic sound, and was then rolled up anew.
+Suddenly he remarked one packet which had rolled a little farther than
+the rest, and stopped at the leg of the bedstead, near the head. By a
+rapid and furtive motion he seized this packet, gazing the while at the
+old man to see whether he remarked it. But he was too busy. He collected
+the remaining packets, replaced them in the bag, and, without looking at
+the artist, retired behind the screen. Tchartk�ff's heart beat
+vehemently when he heard his departing footsteps echoing through the
+room. Congratulating himself on impunity, he joyfully grasped the
+packet, and had almost ceased to tremble for its safety, when suddenly
+the footsteps again approached the screen; the old man had evidently
+discovered that one of his packets was wanting. Nearer he came, and
+nearer, until once more his grim visage was seen peeping round the
+screen. In an agony of terror the young man dropped the rouleau, made a
+desperate effort to stir his limbs, uttered a great cry--and awoke. A
+cold sweet streamed from every pore; his heart beat so violently that it
+seemed about to burst; his breast felt as tight as if the last breath
+were in the act of leaving it. Was it a dream? he said, pressing his
+head between both hands; the vividness of the apparition made him doubt
+it. Now, at any rate, he was unquestionably awake, yet he thought he saw
+the old man moving as he settled himself in his frame, his hand sinking
+by his side, and the border of his wide robe waving. His own hand
+retained the sensation of having, but a moment before, held a weighty
+substance. The moon still shone into the room, bringing out from its
+dark corners here a canvass, there a lay figure, there again the drapery
+thrown over a chair, or a plaster cast on its bracket on the wall.
+Tchartk�ff now perceived that he was not in bed, but on his feet,
+opposite the portrait. How he got there--was a thing he could in no way
+comprehend. What astounded him still more was the fact that the portrait
+was completely uncovered. No vestige of a sheet was there, but the
+living eyes staring fixedly at him. A cold sweat stood upon his brow; he
+would fain have fled, but his feet were rooted to the ground. And then
+he saw (of a certainty this was no dream) the old man's features move,
+and his lips protruded as if about to utter words. With a shrill cry of
+horror, and a despairing effort, Tchartk�ff tore himself from the
+spot--and awoke. It was still a dream. His heart beat as though it would
+burst his bosom, but there was no cause for such agitation. He was in
+bed, in the same attitude as when he fell asleep. Before him was the
+screen: the chamber was filled with the watery moonbeams. Through the
+crack in the screen, the portrait was visible, covered with the sheet he
+had himself laid over it. Although thus convinced of the groundlessness
+of his alarm, the palpitation of his heart increased in violence, until
+it became painful and alarming; the oppression on his breast grew more
+and more severe. He could not detach his eyes from the sheet, and
+presently he distinctly saw it move, at first gently, then quickly and
+violently, as though hands were struggling and groping behind it,
+pulling and tearing, and striving, but in vain, to throw it aside. There
+was something mysteriously awful in this struggle of an invisible power
+against so flimsy an obstacle, which it yet was unable to overcome.
+Tchartk�ff felt his very soul chilled with fear. "Great God! what is
+this?" he cried, crossing himself in an agony of terror. And once more
+he awoke. For the third time he had dreamed a dream! He sprang from his
+bed in utter bewilderment, his brain whirling and burning, and at first
+could not make up his mind whether he had been favoured by a visit from
+the _domov�i_,[29] or by that of a real apparition.
+
+Approaching the window, he opened the _f�rtotchka_.[30] A sharp frosty
+breeze brought refreshment to his heated frame. The moon's radiance
+still lay broadly on the roofs and white walls of the houses, and small
+floating clouds chased each other across the sky. All was still, save
+when, from time to time, there fell faintly upon the ear the distant
+jarring rattle of a lingering dr�jki, prowling in search of a belated
+fare. For some time our young painter remained with his head out of
+the f�rtotchka, and it was not until signs of approaching dawn were
+visible in the heavens that he closed the pane, threw himself upon his
+bed, and fell into a deep and dreamless slumber.
+
+It was very late when he awoke with a violent headache. The room felt
+close; a disagreeable dampness saturated the air, and made its way
+through the crevices of the windows. Low-spirited, uncomfortable, and
+cheerless as a drenched cock, he sat down on his dilapidated sofa, and
+began to recall his dream of the previous night. So vivid was the
+impression it had made, that he could hardly persuade himself it had
+been a mere dream. Removing the sheet, he minutely examined the portrait
+by the light of day. He was still struck with the extraordinary power
+and expression of the eyes, but he found in them nothing peculiarly
+terrific. Still an unpleasant impression remained upon his mind. He
+could not divest himself of the conviction that a fragment of horrible
+reality had mingled with his dream. In defiance of reason, he imagined
+something peculiarly significant in the expression of the old man's
+face; a something of the cautious stealthy look it had worn when he
+crept round the screen, and counted his gold under the very nose of the
+needy painter. And Tchartk�ff still felt the print of the rouleau upon
+his palm, as though it had but that instant left his grasp. Had he held
+it but a little tighter, he thought, it must have remained in his hand
+even after his awakening.
+
+"Heavens!" he exclaimed, heaving a sorrowful sigh, "had I but the moiety
+of that wealth!" And again in his mind's eye he saw the rouleaus
+streaming from the sack. Again he read the attractive inscription,--1000
+DUCATS; again they were unrolled, he heard the chink of metal, saw it
+shine, burned to clutch it. But once more the blue paper was rolled
+around it; and there he sat, motionless and entranced, straining his eyes
+upon vacancy, powerless to divert their gaze from the imaginary
+treasure--like a child gazing with watering mouth at a dish of
+unattainable sweetmeats.
+
+A knock at the door at last roused him from his reverie. It was promptly
+followed by the entrance of his landlord, accompanied by the
+_Nadzir�tel_, or police-inspector of the quarter--a gentleman whose
+appearance is, if possible, more disagreeable to the poor than the face
+of a petitioner is to the rich. The landlord of the small house in which
+Tchartk�ff lodged, was no bad type of the class of house-owners in such
+quarters as the fifteenth line of the Vas�lievsk� Ostrov. In his youth,
+he had been a captain in the army, where he was noted as a noisy
+quarrelsome fellow; transferred thence to the civil service, he proved
+himself a thorough master of the art of petty tyranny, a bustling
+coxcomb and a blockhead. Age had done little to improve his character.
+He had been some time a widower, had long retired from the service, was
+less given to quarrels and coxcombry, but more trivial and teasing. His
+chief happiness consisted in drinking tea, propagating scandal, and in
+sauntering about his apartment, with hands behind his back. These
+intellectual occupations were varied by an occasional inspection of the
+roof of his house, by ferreting his _dv�rnik_, or porter, fifty times
+a-day out of the kennel in which he oftener slept than watched, and by a
+monthly attack upon his lodgers for their rent.
+
+"Do me the favour to see about it yourself, Var�kh Kusm�tch," said the
+landlord, to the Kvart�ln�: "he won't pay his rent--he won't pay, sir."
+
+"How can I, without money? Give me time, and I will pay."
+
+"Time, my good sir! impossible! I can't hear of such a thing," said the
+landlord in a rage, flourishing the key he held in his hand. "Perhaps
+you don't know that Colonel Potog�nkin lodges in my house--a colonel,
+sir, and has lived here these seven years; and Anna Petr�vna
+Buchm�steroff--a lady of fortune, sir, who rents a coach-house, and a
+two-stall stable, sir, and keeps three out-door servants: these are the
+sort of lodgers I have. My house, I tell you plainly, is not one of
+those establishments where people live who don't pay their rent. So I
+will thank you to pay yours directly, and be off bag and baggage."
+
+"You had better pay," said the Kvart�ln� Nadzir�tel, with a slight but
+significant shake of the head, sticking his forefinger through a
+button-hole of his uniform.
+
+"It's very easy to say pay, but where is the money? I have not a sous."
+
+"In that case, you can satisfy Iv�n Iv�novitch with goods, with the
+produce of your profession," said the Kvart�ln�; "he will probably agree
+to take pictures."
+
+"Not I, indeed! no pictures for me! It would be all very well to take
+pictures with respectable subjects, such as a gentleman could hang on
+his wall; a general with a star, or the likeness of Prince Kut�zoff;
+but, here I see nothing but paintings of muj�ks in their shirt-sleeves,
+servants, and such like cattle--a mere waste of time and colours. He has
+taken the likeness of that blackguard of his, whose bones I shall
+assuredly break, for the thief has pulled the nails out of all my locks
+and window-hasps--a scoundrel! Just look; there's a subject for you! a
+picture of the room! It would have been all very well if he had drawn it
+clean, neat, and orderly; but there he has got it full of filth and
+rubbish, just as it is. Only see how he has bedevilled and dirtied my
+room; pretty work, indeed, when I have had colonels for lodgers seven
+years together, and Anna Petr�vna Buchm�steroff! Truly there are no
+worse lodgers than artists; they turn a drawing-room into a pigstye."
+
+To all this, and much more, the poor painter was forced to listen
+patiently. Meanwhile the Kvart�ln� Nadzir�tel amused himself by looking
+at the pictures and sketches, occasionally uttering a comment or
+question.
+
+"Not bad!" said he, pausing before a female figure: "pretty woman,
+really! But what's the meaning of that black, there, under her nose? is
+it snuff, or what?"
+
+"That's the shadow," replied Tchartk�ff surlily, without turning towards
+him.
+
+"You would have done better to have put it somewhere else. It is too
+remarkable just under the nose," said the critical Argus. "But, whose
+portrait is this?" continued he, approaching the picture that had
+occasioned Tchartk�ff so restless a night. "What an ugly old heathen!
+And what eyes! They might belong to Belzebub himself. I must have a look
+at this."
+
+And without asking permission, or thinking it necessary to use much
+ceremony with a poor devil of a painter who could not pay his rent, the
+agent of the law lifted the portrait from the nails on which it hung, to
+carry it to the window, and examine it at his leisure. But his hands
+were stiff and clumsy, and he had miscalculated the weight of the
+picture. It slipped through his fingers, and fell to the ground with a
+heavy thump and slight crashing noise, upsetting some lumber that stood
+against the wall, and raising a cloud of dust, which caused the man of
+manacles to step back and rub his eyes. With a muttered curse on the
+meddlesome official, Tchartk�ff sprang forward to raise the picture. As
+he did so, a small board, forming one of the sides of the frame, and
+which had been cracked by the fall, gave way altogether under the
+pressure of his hand, and part of it fell out. The fragment was followed
+by a rouleau of dark blue paper, which emitted a dull chink as it struck
+the ground. Tchartk�ff's eye glanced upon an inscription; it was--1000
+DUCATS. To snatch up the packet, and thrust it into his pocket, was the
+work of an instant.
+
+"Surely, I heard the sound of coin," said the Kvart�ln�, who, owing to
+the dust, and to the rapidity of the painter's movement, had not caught
+sight of the rouleau.
+
+"And what business of yours is it, to know what I have in my room?"
+
+"It's my business to tell you, that you must pay the landlord his rent;
+it's my business to tell you, that I know you have money, and yet you
+won't pay--that's my business, my fine fellow!"
+
+"Well, I will pay him to-day."
+
+"And, why did you not pay at once, without giving trouble to the
+landlord, and disturbing the police?"
+
+"Because I didn't intend to touch this money. But I will pay him this
+evening, and leave his lodgings at once. I will live no longer in his
+paltry garret."
+
+"He will pay you, Iv�n Iv�novitch," said the Kvart�ln� to the landlord.
+"If you neglect to do so by this evening, why then you must excuse me,
+Mr Painter, if we use severer means." And resuming his cocked hat, he
+departed, followed by the landlord, who hung his head, and looked
+exceedingly small.
+
+"The devil go with them!" said Tchartk�ff, as he heard the outer door
+shut. He looked into the ante-room, sent Nik�ta out, in order to be
+quite alone, locked himself in, and, with a violent palpitation of the
+heart, opened his packet. It contained exactly a thousand ducats, almost
+all of them quite new, and sparkling like the sun. Its appearance was
+precisely the same as those he had seen in his dream. Almost frantic
+with delight, he sat with the pile of gold before him, asking himself
+whether he did not still dream. Long did he handle and tell the gold
+before he could believe that it was real, and that he himself was awake
+and in his right mind.
+
+He then curiously and carefully examined the frame. In one side of it a
+kind of cavity had been hollowed out, and afterwards closed with a
+board, so neatly that if the loutish hand of the Kvart�ln� Nadzir�tel
+had not let the frame drop, the ducats might have remained for centuries
+undisturbed. It was with gratitude and complacency, rather than
+aversion, that the painter now contemplated the peculiar features and
+remarkable eyes of the old Asiatic.
+
+"Whoever you are, my old boy," said Tchartk�ff to himself, "I'll put you
+under glass, and give you a splendid frame for this."
+
+At this moment his hand happened to touch the heap of gold, and the
+contact made his heart beat as violently as ever. "What shall I do with
+it?" he thought, fixing his eyes upon the money. "Now I am at my ease
+for three years at least, I can shut myself in my studio, and work. I
+can buy colours, pay for a comfortable lodging and good food. I have
+enough for every thing; nobody can tease or badger me now. I'll get a
+first-rate lay-figure, order a plaster torso, model feet, buy a Venus,
+have engravings of all the great masters. And if I work steadily for
+three years, quietly, without hurry, without being obliged to sell my
+pictures for my daily bread, I shall astonish the world and achieve
+fame."
+
+Such was the artist's soliloquy, prompted by conscious talent and
+honourable ambition. A far different counsel was given by his twenty-two
+summers and heat of youth. He now had at his command all that he had
+hitherto gazed at from afar with envying eyes. How his heart bounded and
+swelled within him, as he thought of the luxuries he could now command!
+how he longed to exchange rags for purple and fine linen, and fare
+sumptuously after his long fast, to dwell in a splendid lodging, to
+visit the theatre, the caf�, the ball!
+
+Seizing his money, the young man was in the street in a moment. His
+first visit was to a tailor's shop, where he dressed himself from top to
+toe, and walked down the street looking at himself in every window. He
+bought a huge quantity of trinkets and perfumes, an opera-glass, and a
+mountain of brilliant cravats; took, without a word of bargaining, the
+first lodging that he saw, a magnificent set of rooms in the Nevsku
+perspective, with immense mirrors, and each window glazed with a single
+pane; had his hair curled at a coiffeur's, hired a carriage, and drove
+twice, without the slightest object, from one end of the town to the
+other, crammed himself with bon-bons at a confectioner's, and went to a
+French _restaurant_, about which he had hitherto heard only vague and
+uncertain rumours, such as one hears of the Chinese empire. There he
+dined, assuming the while a haughty and supercilious air, and
+incessantly arranging his well-curled locks. There, too, he drank a
+bottle of champagne; a liquid he had hitherto known only by reputation.
+His head full of wine, he went out into the street, gay, bold, ready for
+any thing--able to face the devil, as the Russians say. On the bridge he
+met his former professor, and pushed coolly past him, as if he did not
+observe him, leaving the poor man motionless with astonishment, a mark
+of interrogation visibly printed in his countenance. All that he
+possessed in the world, easels, canvasses, pictures, Tchartk�ff
+transported that very evening to his new and splendid lodgings. He
+arranged his best pictures in the most visible situations, cast those he
+thought less of into corners, and perambulated his splendid rooms,
+looking at himself each minute in the mirrors. Then there arose in his
+mind a restless desire to take fame by storm, instantly, without delay,
+and to compel, by whatever means, the applause of the multitude. Already
+the cry rang in his ears, "Tchartk�ff, Tchartk�ff! haven't you seen
+Tchartk�ff's picture? What a rapid pencil Tchartk�ff has! Tchartk�ff has
+immense talent!" Musing, and castle-building, he paced his apartment
+till a late hour of the night, and when in bed, could not sleep for
+ruminating his ambitious projects.
+
+The next morning he took a dozen ducats, and drove to the editor of a
+fashionable newspaper. The introduction was efficacious. The journalist
+praised his genius, professed the most ardent desire to serve him,
+loaded him with compliments, shook him fervently by both hands, and
+accompanied him obsequiously to the door, making minute inquiries as to
+his name, his style of painting, his place of residence.
+
+The very next day there appeared in the newspaper, immediately after an
+advertisement of newly discovered candles, warranted to burn without
+wicks, an article headed,
+
+     EXTRAORDINARY TALENT OF TCHARTK�FF.
+
+"We hasten to congratulate the inhabitants of this polite metropolis on
+what may be styled a _discovery_ of the most splendid and useful
+nature. We refer to the sudden appearance of an artist of consummate
+skill, possessing all the qualifications that can render a painter
+worthy to transfer to the magic canvass the faces of the many beautiful
+women and handsome men who adorn the cultivated circles of St
+Petersburg. Ladies may now confidently rely on being transmitted to
+posterity without diminution of their graces, with all their delicate
+loveliness, enchanting symmetry of form, and exquisite expression of
+feature--graces ephemeral, alas! as the existence of the butterfly that
+hovers over the vernal flowers. Parents, ere they leave this vale of
+tears, may bequeath to their sorrowing children their exact resemblance.
+The warrior, the statesman, the poet, all classes of men, in short, will
+pursue their career with fresh zeal and ardour, now that the brilliant
+pencil of a Tchartk�ff enables them to transmit to posterity their
+visible features, as well as their imperishable renown. Let all hasten,
+then, abandoning promenade, and party, opera, ball, and theatre, to the
+splendid and luxurious studio of our artist, (Nevsku Perspective,
+No.--). It is hung with portraits, the produce of his pencil, worthy a
+Vandyke or a Titian. The happy connoisseur knows not what to admire most
+in these exquisite works, their exact resemblance to the original, or
+the extraordinary brilliancy and freshness of their handling. They must
+be seen to be even imperfectly appreciated; the artist has truly drawn a
+prize in the lottery of genius. Success to you, Andr�i Petr�vitch! (the
+journalist was evidently fond of the familiar style). _Macte nov�
+virtute_, and immortalise yourself and us. Glory, fortune, crowds of
+sitters, in spite of the feeble and envious efforts of certain
+contemporary prints, will be your speedy and unfailing reward!"
+
+His face beaming with contentment, our artist perused this puff. He saw
+his name in print,--a thing which was to him a complete novelty; and he
+could not help reading the lines at least a dozen times. He was
+particularly tickled with the comparison of his works to Vandyke and
+Titian. The use of his baptismal name, Andr�i Petr�vitch, also gratified
+him not a little. To be mentioned in this delightfully familiar way in
+print, was to him an honour as gratifying as it was new. He could not
+remain quiet a moment. Now he sat down in a chair, then threw himself
+picturesquely on a sofa, rehearsing the way he would receive his
+sitters; then he went to his easel, and gave a bold dashing stroke of
+the brush, studying at the same time a graceful mode of wielding it.
+Thus he got through the day.
+
+The next morning, soon after breakfast, his bell rang. He hurried to the
+door; a lady entered, preceded by a footman in a furred livery cloak,
+and accompanied by a young girl of eighteen, her daughter.
+
+"Monsieur Tchartk�ff, I believe?" said the lady. The painter bowed.
+
+"I have seen your name in the papers; your portraits, they say, are
+incomparable." With these words the lady put her glass to her eye, and
+glanced round the walls, which were bare. "But where are all your
+portraits?"
+
+"They are not arrived," said the artist, a little confused; "I have just
+removed into these rooms, the pictures are still on the road--they will
+soon be here."
+
+"You have been in Italy?" said the lady, turning her eye-glass on the
+painter in the absence of the paintings.
+
+"No, I have not been there exactly--I intend to go--I have been
+compelled to put it off; but pray do me the honour to sit down; you must
+be tired."
+
+"You are very kind, but I have been sitting--in my carriage. Ah, at
+last, I see some of your works!" said the lady, running up to the
+opposite side of the room, and levelling her glass at some canvasses
+placed on the floor, studies, sketches, interiors, and portraits.
+"_C'est charmant! Lise, Lise! venez ici_: there's an interior in the
+manner of Teniers, see: all is in disorder, higgledy-piggledy, a table
+with a bust upon it, a hand, a palette; and the dust, look how well the
+dust is painted! _c'est charmant!_ And there is another canvass, a woman
+washing her face--_quelle jolie figure!_ Oh, and there's a _muj�k_!
+Lise, Lise! a _muj�k_ in a Russian shirt! look, do look--_a muj�k_! So
+you don't paint portraits only?"
+
+"These are mere trifles--done for amusement, in an idle moment--mere
+studies----"
+
+"But do tell me your opinion of the portrait-painters of the present
+day? Isn't it true, that we have none at present like Titian? There's
+not that force of colouring, not that,----really, what a pity it is that
+I cannot express what I mean in Russian." The lady was passionately fond
+of painting, and had run, eye-glass in hand, over all the galleries in
+Italy. "Only, I must say, that Monsieur Dauberelli--ah, how he paints!
+What an extraordinary touch! I find more expression in his faces than
+even in Titian's. You know Monsieur Dauberelli?"
+
+"Dauberelli! who is he?" asked the artist.
+
+"Such talent! He painted my daughter when she was only twelve years old.
+You must come and see it, really you must. Lise, you shall show him your
+album. But I want another portrait of my daughter, and that is the
+motive of my visit. Can you begin at once?"
+
+"Directly, madam, if you please." And in a moment he wheeled up his
+easel, with a canvass on it, ready stretched, took his palette in his
+hand and fixed his eyes on the pale childish features of the daughter.
+Young as she was, they already bore traces of late hours and
+dissipation. Expression they had little or none. But the artist saw in
+the complexion an almost china-like transparence, exquisitely adapted to
+his pencil; the neck was white and slender, the form elegant and
+aristocratic. And he prepared for a triumph; he intended to show the
+lightness and brilliancy of his touch, for the display of which he had
+hitherto lacked opportunities. He already began to fancy to himself how
+the pale but graceful little lady would come out upon the canvass.
+
+"Do you know," said the mother, with a sentimental expression of face "I
+should like--you see she has a frock on now--well, I confess I should
+not like you to paint her in a frock, it's so commonplace; I should like
+her to be painted simply dressed, sitting in the shade of a thicket,
+with fields in the distance, and sheep or a forest in the
+back-ground--simplicity, the greatest simplicity, is what I should
+like."
+
+Tchartk�ff set to work, arranged the sitter in the attitude he required,
+endeavoured to fix the whole subject in his mind; waved his brush in the
+air before him, as if establishing the principal points; half-closed his
+eyes several times, retired back a step or two, examined his sitter from
+a distance, and in about an hour he finished drawing in the face.
+Satisfied with the effect, he now commenced painting, and his labour
+rapidly grew lighter. By this time he had forgotten he was in the
+presence of two ladies of high fashion, and began to fall into a few
+tricks of the painting-room, uttering half-aloud various inarticulate
+sounds, and at intervals humming a tune between his teeth. Without the
+slightest ceremony he from time to time signed, by a movement of his
+brush, to his sitter to raise her head. At last the young lady grew
+weary and restless.
+
+"That's quite enough for the first sitting," said her mother.
+
+"Another minute," cried the painter in an absent tone.
+
+"Impossible! Lise, three o'clock!" said the lady, looking at her
+diminutive watch. "Oh, how late!"
+
+"Only half a second," said Tchartk�ff, in the wistful and beseeching
+voice of a child.
+
+But the lady was disinclined to comply. She promised him a longer
+sitting another time.
+
+"Horridly annoying!" said Tchartk�ff to himself; "just as my hand was
+getting in." And he remembered that no one had ever interrupted him,
+when he worked in his painting-room in the Vas�lievsk� Ostrov. Nik�ta
+would sit hour after hour without moving a muscle: you might paint him
+as much as you liked; he would go to sleep in the attitude he was fixed
+in. And the artist discontentedly laid his pencil and palette on a
+chair, and stood pensively before the canvass. He was aroused from his
+reverie by a compliment addressed to him by the fashionable lady. He
+darted towards the door to show out his visitors: on the stairs he
+received an invitation to dine with them the following week, and with a
+cheerful air he re-entered his rooms. The aristocratic style of his
+visitors had quite fascinated him. Up to this time he had held such
+beings unapproachable, born only to glide about in a splendid carriage
+with liveried footmen and a laced and bearded coachman, throwing a calm
+indifferent glance on the humble foot-passenger as he plodded by in a
+shabby cloak. And yet, here was one of these exquisite beings calling
+upon him: he was painting her portrait, and had received an invitation
+to dine with her. Intoxicated with vanity and delight, he treated
+himself to a splendid dinner, went to the theatre in the evening, and
+again, without the slightest occasion, drove about the town in a
+carriage.
+
+For some days he did nothing but arrange his rooms and listen for the
+sound of his bell. At last the lady arrived, with her pale daughter. He
+made them sit down, wheeled up his easel with a strong affectation of
+fashionable manner, and began to paint. He saw in his delicate sitter
+much that, being cleverly caught, would give high value to the portrait:
+he perceived that he might produce something quite peculiar and
+characteristic, if he could render it with the same accuracy and
+completeness with which nature herself had placed it before him. His
+heart even felt a slight tremor when he found himself expressing what no
+one else perhaps had ever remarked. His attention became riveted on his
+canvass, and he again forgot the aristocratic descent of his sitter.
+Holding his breath from eagerness, he gradually saw the delicate
+features and transparent skin come out upon his canvass. He had caught
+every half-tint, even the slight ivory-like yellowness, the nearly
+imperceptible blueish tone under the eyes, and was just in the act of
+seizing a little mole upon the forehead, when he suddenly heard behind
+him the voice of the mother, crying--"Oh, never mind that! that is not
+necessary! I see, too, you have got a--here, for instance, and here,
+see!--a kind of yellowish--and here and there you have, as it were,
+little dark places." The artist explained that the dark and yellow tones
+relieved the face, and gave a delicacy to the flesh-tints. But the
+notion was scouted. He was informed that Lise had not slept well, that
+there was usually no yellowness at all in her face, which struck every
+body by its freshness of complexion. Sadly and reluctantly Tchartk�ff
+began to efface what he had taken such pains to produce. With it there
+vanished of course much of the resemblance. He now began, with a feeling
+of indifference, to throw over the whole a more commonplace and
+hackneyed colouring, the red and white, devoid of vigour, which each
+daubster has at his command. The obnoxious tint was effaced, and the
+mamma was delighted. She only expressed her surprise that the work went
+on so slowly. She had heard, she said, that he could completely finish a
+portrait in two sittings. The ladies rose and prepared to go away.
+Tchartk�ff laid down his pencil, conducted them to the door, and then,
+returning, stood for a while before his portrait, regretting the
+delicate lines, the half-tints and airy tones, so happily caught and
+pitilessly effaced. With these recollections vivid in his mind, he put
+aside the portrait, and looked for a study, which had been long
+abandoned, of a head of Psyche, an idea he had some time before thrown
+sketchily on the canvass. It was a pretty little countenance, cleverly
+and rapidly painted, but quite ideal, cold and hard, devoid of life and
+reality. Scarcely knowing why, he began to work at this, endeavouring to
+communicate to it all he could remember of the countenance of his
+aristocratic sitter. Psyche grew more and more animated; the type of the
+young fashionable lady's countenance was by degrees mingled with hers,
+at the same time acquiring an expression which gave it originality and
+character. Tchartk�ff was able to avail himself, both in the details and
+in the general effect, of all that he had obtained from his sitter, and
+to incorporate it with his work. During several days he laboured hard at
+his Psyche. He was still busy with it when he was interrupted by the
+arrival of his former visitors. The picture was on the easel. Both
+ladies uttered a cry of admiration, and clapped their hands.
+
+"Lise! Lise! Oh, how like! _Superbe_! _Superbe!_ What an exquisite idea,
+to dress her in the Grecian costume! What a truly delicious surprise!"
+
+The artist hardly knew how to undeceive the ladies in their agreeable
+mistake. He hung his head, and, with an apologetic air, said, in a low
+voice, "This is Psyche."
+
+"Painted as Psyche! _C'est charmant!_" said the mother, with a smile,
+faithfully repeated by the daughter. "Don't you think so, Lise? it's
+just the thing for you. Painted as Pysche! _Quelle id�e d�licieuse!_ But
+what a picture! Quite a Correggio! I have heard and read much about you,
+but I had not the least idea of your talent."
+
+"What the deuce am I to do with them?" thought the artist. "Well, if
+they will have it so, Psyche shall go;" and he said aloud--"I must
+trouble you to give me a few minutes more--I should like to add a few
+touches."
+
+"You cannot improve it. Pray leave it as it is."
+
+The painter guessed that they apprehended some more yellow tones, and he
+hastened to remove their fears, saying that he was only going to
+increase the brilliancy and expression of the eyes. In reality he
+desired to give his picture a closer resemblance with the
+original--fearing, if he did not, that he should be taxed with
+unblushing flattery. In spite of the lady's reluctance, the pallid
+damsel's features began to come out more clearly amid the outlines of
+the Psyche.
+
+"That will do," said the mother, less pleased by the picture as the
+resemblance grew closer. The artist was rewarded for his labour with
+smiles, money, compliments, a most affectionate squeeze of the hand, and
+a pressing invitation to dinner; in a word, he was overwhelmed with
+recompenses. The portrait made much noise in the town. The lady showed
+it to all her acquaintance. Every body admired the skill with which the
+painter had succeeded in preserving the resemblance, and at the same
+time in giving beauty to the original. The last remark, of course, was
+not made without a slight tinge of malice. Tchartk�ff was besieged with
+commissions. The whole town was mad to be painted by him. His door-bell
+rang incessantly. Unfortunately his sitters were of the class most
+difficult to manage; either persons very much occupied, or fashionable
+people, who having in reality nothing to do, were, of course, far busier
+than anybody else, and hurried and impatient in the highest degree.
+Every body expected a good picture in less time than was necessary to do
+a slovenly one. The artist saw that high finish was quite out of the
+question, and that all he could do was to dazzle by the facility,
+rapidity, and smartness of his execution. He had to content himself with
+catching the general expression, neglecting the more delicate details,
+and not attempting to attain the individuality and reality of nature.
+Besides this, every sitter had some fresh fancy. The ladies required
+that only their sentiment and character should be represented in their
+portraits; that all the rest should be smoothed and softened; sharp
+angles rounded off; defects mitigated, and even, if possible, altogether
+concealed. They required, in short, to be made attractive in their
+portraits, whether nature had made them so or not. Consequently many,
+when they seated themselves in the painting chair, put on such looks and
+expressions as absolutely astounded the artist. One struggled to give
+her features an air of melancholy; another of sentimental abstraction; a
+third tried desperately to make her mouth small, and pursed it up till
+it resembled a round dot. And in spite of all this they expected
+striking resemblance, ease, and grace. Nor were the gentlemen more
+reasonable. One required to be painted with a strong energetic turn of
+the head; another with uplifted eyes, full of poetic inspiration; an
+ensign of the Guards declared that he should not be satisfied unless
+Mars was made visible in his countenance: a civilian delicately
+suggested that his face should be made as much as possible to express
+incorruptible probity, mingled with imposing dignity, and that he should
+be painted leaning his arm on a book, inscribed in legible characters,
+"I stand for right." At first all these requests frightened and annoyed
+our painter; there was so much to be harmonised, considered, and
+arranged, and all in a few hours. At last he began to understand the
+secret, and went on without troubling his head in the least. From the
+first two or three words spoken, he perceived how the sitter wished to
+be painted. The gentleman who wanted Mars was made a Mars of; he who
+aped Byron received a Byronic attitude. As to the ladies, whether they
+wished to be Corinnas, or Undines, or Aspasias, he was quite ready to
+accommodate them, and even added, from his own imagination, a universal
+air of distinction, which never does any harm, and which sometimes makes
+people excuse even want of resemblance. He soon began to be astonished
+at the wonderful rapidity and success of his execution. As to the
+sitters, they were in ecstasies, and proclaimed him every where a genius
+of the first water.
+
+Tchartk�ff became all the fashion. He drove out every day to dinner
+parties, escorted ladies to exhibitions and promenades, was a consummate
+puppy in his dress, and openly declared that an artist ought to be a man
+of the world; that it was his duty to maintain his dignity; that
+painters in general dressed like shoemakers; that their manners were
+excruciatingly vulgar, and that they were people of no education. His
+studio was a pattern of elegance; he kept a couple of magnificent
+footmen; took a number of dandified pupils; had his hair curled; dressed
+half-a-dozen times a-day in various fantastical costumes. He was
+perpetually rehearsing improvements in his way of receiving visitors;
+meditating on all possible means of beautifying his person, and of
+producing an agreeable impression on the ladies. In short, it soon
+became impossible to recognise in him the modest student who once
+laboured so fervently in his garret in the Vas�lievsk� Ostrov.
+Concerning art and artists he now rarely spoke; he asserted that the
+merit of the old masters had been outrageously overrated; that, before
+Raphael, their figures were rather like herrings than human beings; that
+it was the imagination of the spectator only that could find in their
+works that air of grandeur and dignity generally attributed to them.
+Raphael himself, he said, was very unequal, and many of his productions
+owed their glory only to tradition. Michael Angelo was a boaster, weakly
+vain of his knowledge of anatomy, and without a particle of grace. Real
+force of outline, grace of touch, and magic of colouring we must look
+for, he said, in the present age. Thence the conversation easily glided
+to his own pictures.
+
+"I cannot conceive," he would say, "the obstinacy of people who drudge
+at their pictures. A fellow who hangs month after month over one piece
+of canvass is, in my opinion, an artisan, not an artist. Such a one has
+no genius, for genius creates boldly, rapidly. Now this portrait, for
+instance," he would say, "I painted in two days, this head in one day,
+this in a few hours, and that other in rather more than an hour. I don't
+call it art to go crawling on, line after line."
+
+Thus he would chatter to his visitors, and the visitors would admire his
+dashing rapidity, and utter exclamations of wonder when they heard how
+quickly he worked; and then they would whisper to each other--"This is
+genius--real genius! How well he talks! What an extraordinary talent!"
+
+Such praise as this the painter greedily drank in, and was as delighted
+as a child by the encomiums of the press, even when bought and paid for
+with his own money. His fame continued to spread, and his occupation to
+increase, till he grew weary of painting portraits and faces with the
+same tricks and attitudes that he knew by heart. Gradually he worked
+with less and less good-will, contenting himself with carelessly
+sketching in the head, and leaving all the rest to be finished by his
+pupils. Formerly he had taken trouble to seek new attitudes; to strike
+by novelty--by effect. Now he began to grow weary even of this labour.
+He entirely left off reflecting; he had neither power nor leisure for
+it. His dissipated mode of life, and the society in which he played the
+part of a man of fashion, severed him more and more from labour and from
+thought. His touch grew cold and dull, and he insensibly confined
+himself to stale, commonplace, worn-out forms. The stiff, monotonous
+countenances of officers and civilians, in their graceless modern
+costumes, were not very attractive subjects for the pencil. He forgot
+all--his graceful draping, his easy attitudes, his power of representing
+the passions. As to skilful grouping or dramatic effect in painting, all
+that was quite out of the question. He had nothing before his eyes but
+the eternal uniform, corset, or dress-coat--objects chilling to the
+artist, and affording little scope to imagination. By and by even the
+most ordinary merits disappeared, one by one, from his productions; and
+they still enjoyed the highest reputation, though real judges and
+artists only shrugged their shoulders as they looked at the work of his
+hand.
+
+These mute but significant criticisms of the discerning few never
+reached the ears of the artist, intoxicated as he was with vanity and
+false fame. He already too approached the period of maturity in age and
+intellect, and was rapidly acquiring a respectable corpulence. He now
+met in the journals with such expressions as these:--"Our respectable
+Andr�i Petr�vitch--our veteran of the pencil, Andr�i Petr�vitch." He now
+received many honorary appointments in public institutions; was
+frequently invited to examinations and to committees. He began, as
+people infallibly do on reaching a certain age, to stand up sturdily for
+the old masters, not from any profound conviction of their wonderful
+merits, but in order to throw their names in the teeth of young artists.
+He did not hesitate to fly in the face of the doctrines he had advocated
+some years previously. According to him, labour was every thing,
+inspiration a mere name; and he affirmed that, in art, all things should
+be subjected to the severest rules.
+
+Fame can give no satisfaction to one who has not earned, but stolen it.
+It produces a constant thrill only in the heart conscious of having
+deserved it. Tchartk�ff no longer valued fame. All his feelings and
+desires were turned towards gold. Gold became his passion, his delight,
+the object of his being. Bank-notes filled his portfolios, piles of gold
+his coffers; but, like all avaricious men, he grew sour, selfish,
+inaccessible to every thing but money--cold-hearted and penurious. He
+was gradually sinking into an unhappy miser, when an event came to pass
+which gave his whole moral being a terrible and awakening shock.
+
+Returning home one day, Tchartk�ff found lying on his table a letter, in
+which the Academy of Arts invited him, as one of its most distinguished
+members, to give his opinion of a new picture just arrived from Italy,
+the work of a Russian artist who had long studied there. The painter,
+who had been a schoolfellow of Tchartk�ff's, imbued, even as a boy, with
+a fervent passion for art, had early torn himself from home and friends,
+from all the pleasures and habits of his age and country, to toil and
+study in the renowned Italian city, whose very name thrills the
+painter's heart. There he condemned himself to solitude and
+uninterrupted labour. Men spoke of his eccentricity, of his ignorance of
+the world, of his neglect of all the customs of society, of the disgrace
+he cast on the artist's profession by his dress, which was beneath his
+station, and by his frugality, which was almost penury. He cared nothing
+for scoff and reproach. Regardless of the world's comments, he gave
+himself up to his art. Unweariedly did he haunt the galleries; hour
+after hour, day after day, he stood before the works of the great
+masters, striving to penetrate their secrets. He never finished a
+picture without comparing it many times with the productions of those
+mighty teachers, and reading in their creations silent but eloquent
+counsel. He engaged in no arguments or disputes, but accorded to every
+school the honour it deserved; and after aiming at acquiring what was
+most meritorious in each, at length addicted himself to the study of the
+immortal Raphael; like a student of letters, who, after reading and
+rereading the works of a multitude of authors, at last confines himself
+to the writings of one whom he conceives to unite the chief beauties of
+all the others, superadding graces none of them possess. After many
+years of persevering application and gradual progress, the artist left
+the schools, possessing pure and elevated ideas of composition, great
+powers of conception, and an execution that charmed alike by its
+delicacy and force. But, with the modesty of true genius, he still
+allowed a considerable time to elapse before he ventured to submit a
+picture to the verdict of his countrymen.
+
+On entering the exhibition-room, Tchartk�ff found it thronged with
+visitors, grouped before the painting. Silence, such as is rarely met
+with amongst a numerous collection of amateurs, reigned throughout the
+crowd. Assuming the knowing and supercilious look of an acknowledged
+connoisseur, he approached the picture, prepared to cavil and find
+fault, or, at best, to damn with faint praise. But the canting phrase of
+conventional criticism died away upon his lips at the sight he there
+beheld. Faultless, pure, gracious, and beautiful as some fair and virgin
+bride was the noble production of genius that met his astonished gaze.
+With wonder and admiration he recognised the work of a pencil that
+revived the glories of ancient art. A profound study of Raphael was
+manifest in the noble elevation of the attitudes; there was a something
+Correggian in the skilful handling and careful finish. But there was no
+servile imitation of any painter; the artist had sought and found in his
+own soul the divine spark that gave life to his creation. Not an object
+in the picture, however trifling, but had been the subject of a profound
+study; the law of its constitution had been analysed, and its internal
+organism investigated. And the painter had caught that flowing roundness
+of line which pervades all nature, but which no eye ever sees save that
+of the creator-artist--that roundness which the mere copyist degrades
+into points and angles. He had poetised, whilst faithfully representing,
+the commonest objects of external nature. A feeling of awe mingled with
+the admiration that kept the crowd profoundly silent. Not a whisper was
+heard, not a rustle or a sound, for some time after the arrival of
+Tchartk�ff. All were absorbed in contemplation of the masterpiece; and
+in the eyes of the more enthusiastic tears of delight were seen to
+glisten. Tchartk�ff himself stood open-mouthed and motionless before the
+wonderful painting, whose merits and beauties the spectators at last
+began to discuss. He was roused from abstraction by being appealed to
+for his opinion. In vain did he strive to resume his dignified air, and
+to give utterance to the musty commonplace of criticism. The
+contemptuous smile was chased from his features by the workings of
+emotion; his breast heaved with a convulsive sob, and after a moment's
+violent but ineffectual struggle, he burst into tears and rushed wildly
+from the hall.
+
+A few minutes later he stood motionless, almost paralysed, in his own
+magnificent studio. The bandage had fallen from his eyes. He saw how he
+had squandered the best years of his youth; how he had trampled and
+stifled the spark of that fire once burning within him, which might have
+been fanned till it blazed up into grandeur and glory, and extorted
+tears of gratitude and admiration from a wondering world. All this he
+had sacrificed and thrown away, heedlessly, madly, brutally. There
+suddenly revived in his soul those enthusiastic aspirations he once had
+known. He caught up a pencil and approached a canvass. The sweat of
+eagerness stood upon his brow; his soul was filled with one passionate
+desire--one solitary thought burned in his brain. The zeal for art, the
+thirst for fame he once so strongly felt, had suddenly returned, evoked
+from their lurking-place by the mute voice of another's genius. And why,
+Tchartk�ff thought, should not he also excel? His hand trembled with
+feverish impatience till he could scarcely hold the pencil. He took for
+his subject a fallen angel. The idea was in accordance with his frame of
+mind. But, alas! how soon he was convinced of the vanity of his efforts!
+His hand and imagination had been too long confined to one line and
+limit, and his fierce but impotent endeavour to overleap the barrier, to
+break his self-imposed fetters, had no result. He had despised and
+neglected the fundamental condition of future greatness--the long and
+fatiguing ladder of study and reflection. Maddened by disappointment,
+furious at the conviction of impotency, he ignominiously dismissed from
+his studio all his later and most esteemed productions, to which places
+of honour had been accorded--all his lifeless, senseless, fashionable
+portraits of hussars, ladies of fashion, and privy councillors. He then
+shut himself up, denied himself to all visitors, and sat down to work,
+patient and eager as a young student. For a while he laboured day and
+night. But how unsatisfactory, how cruelly ungrateful was all that grew
+under his pencil! Each moment he found himself checked and repulsed in
+the new path he fain would have trodden by the wretched mechanical
+tricks to which he had so long habituated himself. They stood on his
+road, an impassable barrier. In spite of himself he recurred to the old
+commonplace forms; the arms would arrange themselves in one graceless
+position; the head assume the old hackneyed attitude; the folds of dress
+refused to drape themselves otherwise than they had so long been wont to
+do in his hands. All this the unhappy artist plainly felt and saw. His
+eyes were opened to his heinous faults, but he lacked the power to
+correct them.
+
+"Surely I _had_ ability!" said he to himself; "or was it mere delusion?
+Could I not, under any circumstances, have done better than I have? Did
+the whispers of youthful vanity mislead me?" And, to settle this doubt,
+he hunted out some of his early pictures, which lay neglected in a
+corner of his painting-room--pictures he had laboured at long ago, when
+his heart was pure from avarice, and he dwelt in his poor garret in the
+lonely Vas�lievsk� Ostrov, far from the world, from luxury and
+covetousness. He examined them attentively, and the conviction forced
+itself upon him with irresistible strength, that he had sacrificed
+genius at the altar of Mammon. "I had it in me!" was his agonised
+exclamation. "Every where, in all of these, I behold traces and proofs
+of the power I have recklessly frittered away."
+
+Covering his face with his hands, Tchartk�ff stood silent, full of
+bitter thoughts, rapidly but minutely reviewing the whole of his past
+life. When he removed his hands he started, and a thrill passed over
+him, for he suddenly encountered the gaze of two piercing eyes
+glittering with a sombre lustre, and seeming to watch and enjoy his
+despair. A second glance showed him they belonged to the strange
+portrait which he had bought, many years before, in the Stch�kin Dvor.
+It had remained forgotten and concealed amidst a mass of old pictures,
+and he had long since forgotten its existence. Now that the gaudy,
+fashionable pictures and portraits had been removed from the studio,
+there it was, peering grimly out from amongst his early productions.
+Tchartk�ff remembered that, in a certain sense, this hideous portrait
+had been the origin of the useless life he had so long led and now so
+deeply deplored; that the hoard of gold discovered in its frame had
+developed and fostered in him those worldly passions, that sensuality
+and love of luxury, which had been the bane of his genius. Calling his
+servants, he ordered the hateful picture to be taken from the room, and
+bestowed where he should never again behold it. Its departure, however,
+was insufficient to calm his agitation and quell the storm that raged
+within him. He was a prey to that rare moral torture sometimes witnessed
+when a feeble talent wrestles unsuccessfully to attain a development
+above its capacity--a furious endeavour which often conducts young and
+vigorous minds to great achievements, but whose result to old and
+enervated ones is more frequently despair and insanity. Tchartk�ff, when
+convinced of the futility of his efforts, became possessed by the demon
+of envy, who soon monopolised and made him all his own. His complexion
+assumed a bilious yellow tint; he could not bear to hear an artist
+praised, or look with patience at any work of art that bore the impress
+of genius. On beholding such he would grind his teeth with fury, and the
+expression of his face became that of a maniac.
+
+At last he conceived one of the most execrable projects the human mind
+ever engendered; and with an eagerness approaching to frenzy, he
+hastened to put it into execution. He bought up all the best pictures he
+could find in St Petersburg, and whose owners could be induced to part
+with them. The prices he gave to tempt sellers were often most
+extravagant. As soon as he had purchased a picture, and got it safely
+home, he would set upon it with demoniac fury, tearing, scratching, even
+biting it; and, when it was utterly defaced and rent into the smallest
+possible fragments, he would dance and trample on it, laughing like a
+fiend. The enormous fortune he had accumulated during his long and
+successful career as a fashionable portrait-painter, enabled him largely
+to indulge this infernal monomania. To this abominable end he,
+Tchartk�ff, but a short time before so avaricious, became reckless in
+his expenditure. For this he untied the strings of his bags of gold, and
+scattered his rubles with lavish hand. All were surprised at the change,
+and at the rapidity with which he squandered his fortune, in his zeal,
+as it was supposed, to form a gallery of the noblest works of art. In
+the auction room, none cared to oppose him, for all were certain to be
+outbid. He was held to be mad, and certainly his conduct and appearance
+justified the presumption. His countenance, of a jaundiced hue, grew
+haggard and wrinkled; misanthropy and hatred of the world were plainly
+legible upon it. He resembled that horrid demon whom Pushkin has so ably
+conceived and portrayed. Save all occasional sarcasm, venomous and
+bitter, no word ever passed his lips, and at last he became universally
+avoided. His acquaintances, and even his oldest friends, shunned his
+presence, and would go a mile round to escape meeting him in the street.
+The mere sight of him, they said, was enough to cloud their whole day.
+
+Fortunately for society and for art, such an unnatural and agitated
+existence as this could not long endure. Tchartk�ff's mental excitement
+was too violent for his physical strength. A burning fever and furious
+delirium ravaged his frame, and in a few days he was but the ghost of
+his former self. The delirium augmented, and became a permanent and
+incurable mania, in some of whose paroxysms it was necessary to bind him
+to his couch. He fancied he saw continually before him the singular old
+portrait from the Stch�kin Dvor! This was the more strange, because
+since the day he had turned it out of his studio, it had never once met
+his sight. But now he raved of its terrible living eyes, which haunted
+him unceasingly, and when this fancy came over him, his madness was
+something terrific. All the persons who approached his bed he imagined
+to be horrible portraits; copies, repeated again and again, of the old
+man with the fiendish eyes. The image multiplied itself perpetually; the
+ceiling, the walls, the floor, were all covered with portraits, staring
+sternly and fixedly at him with living eyes. The room extended and
+stretched out to a vast and interminable gallery, to afford room for
+millions of repetitions of the ghastly picture. In vain did numerous
+physicians seek to discover, with a view to the alleviation of the poor
+wretch's sufferings, some secret connexion between the incidents of his
+past life and the strange phantom that thus eternally haunted him. No
+explanation or clue could be obtained from the patient, who continued to
+apostrophise the portrait in disconnected phrase, and to utter howls of
+agony and lamentation. At last his existence terminated in one last
+horrible paroxysm. His corpse was frightful to behold; of his once
+comely form, a yellow shrivelled skeleton was all that remained. A few
+thousand rubles were the sole residue of his wealth; and his
+disappointed heirs, beholding numerous drawers and closets full of torn
+fragments that had once composed noble pictures, understood and cursed
+the odious use to which their relative had applied his princely fortune.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A number of carriages, caleches, and dr�jkis were drawn up in the
+vicinity of a handsome mansion in one of the best quarters of St
+Petersburg. It had been the residence of a rich virtuoso, lately
+deceased, and whose pictures, furniture, and curiosities, were now
+selling by auction. The large drawing-room was filled with the most
+distinguished amateurs of art in St Petersburg, mingled with brokers and
+dealers on the look-out for bargains, and with a large sprinkling of
+those idlers who, without intending to purchase, frequent auctions to
+kill a morning. The sale was in full activity, and there was eager
+competition for the lot then up. The biddings succeeded each other so
+rapidly, that the auctioneer was scarcely able to repeat them. The
+object so many were eager to possess, was a portrait, which could hardly
+fail to attract the attention even of persons who know nothing of
+pictures. This painting, which possessed a very considerable amount of
+artistical merit, and had apparently been more than once restored,
+repaired, and cleaned, represented the tawny features of an Oriental,
+attired in a loose costume. The expression of the face was singular, and
+by no means pleasant. Its most striking feature was the extraordinary
+and unaccountable look of the eyes, which, by some trick of the artist,
+seemed to follow the spectator wherever he went. Every one of the
+persons there assembled was ready to swear that the eyes looked straight
+at him; and, what was yet more unaccountable, the effect was the same
+whether the beholder stood on the right, or on the left, or in front of
+the picture. This peculiarity it was that had made so many anxious to
+possess a portrait whose subject and painter were alike unknown.
+Gradually, however, many of the amateurs ceased their biddings, for the
+price had become extravagant, and at last only two continued to
+compete--two rich noblemen, both enthusiastic lovers of the eccentric in
+art. These still continued the contest, grew heated with their rivalry,
+and were in a fair way to raise the price to something positively
+absurd, when a by-stander stepped forward and addressed them. "Before
+this contest goes farther," he said, "permit me to say a few words. Of
+all here present, it is I, I believe, who have the best right to the
+portrait in dispute."
+
+All eyes were turned towards the speaker. He was a tall, handsome man,
+of about thirty-five, with a pleasant, cheerful countenance, a careless
+style of dress, and long black curls flowing down his neck. He was
+personally known to many present, and the name of B----, the artist,
+was circulated through the room.
+
+"Extraordinary as my words may appear to you," he resumed, perceiving he
+had fixed the general attention, "I can explain them if you are disposed
+to give me five minutes' audience. I have every reason to believe that
+this portrait is one I have long sought in vain."
+
+Curiosity was expressed on every countenance; the auctioneer stood
+open-mouthed and with uplifted hammer; all entreated B---- to tell his
+tale. The artist at once complied.
+
+"You are all acquainted," he said, "with the quarter of St Petersburg
+known as the Kol�mna, and aware that it is chiefly occupied by persons
+either in poverty, or whose resources are exceedingly limited, many of
+whom, compelled by unforeseen circumstances to outstrip their limited
+income, frequently find themselves in want of immediate and temporary
+assistance; compelled, in short, to apply to money-lenders. In
+consequence of this, there has settled amongst them a particular class
+of usurers, who supply petty sums on satisfactory pledges, and at
+enormous interest. These pawnbrokers on a small scale are generally far
+more pitiless than the aristocratic usurer, whose customers drive to his
+door in their carriages. Compunction, humanity, a feeling of pity for
+the unfortunates upon whose need they fatten, never by any chance enter
+their breast. Amongst these callous extortioners there was one who, at a
+certain period of the last century, under the reign of the Empress
+Catherine II., had been settled for some years in the Kol�mna. He was an
+extraordinary and enigmatical personage, of whom none knew any thing; he
+wore a flowing Asiatic dress, his complexion was swarthy as an Arab; but
+to what nation he really belonged, whether Hindoo, or Greek, or Persian,
+none could decide. His tall stature, his tawny, withered, wiry face,
+with its tint of greenish bronze, his large eyes full of sullen fire,
+shadowed by thick and overhanging brows; every point in his appearance,
+in short, made a strong and marked distinction between him and the other
+inhabitants of the quarter. His very dwelling was quite unlike the
+little wooden houses which surrounded it. It was a large brick building,
+in the style of those often constructed by the Genoese merchants, with
+windows of different sizes disposed at irregular distances, with iron
+shutters and hasps. This usurer was distinguished from all others by the
+circumstance that he could always supply any sum of money required, and
+would accommodate alike the needy groom and the extravagant noble. At
+his door were often to be seen brilliant equipages, through whose
+windows might sometimes be discerned the head of a luxurious and
+fashionable lady. Rumour said that his iron chests teemed with countless
+heaps of money, plate, diamonds, and all kinds of valuable pledges, but
+nevertheless he was reported less greedy than the other money-lenders.
+He made no difficulty, people said, to lend, and was apparently far from
+oppressive in fixing the terms of payment. But on the day of reckoning,
+it was observed, that by some extraordinary arithmetical calculation, he
+made the interest mount up to an enormous sum: such, at least, was the
+popular report. The strangest thing about him, however, and which struck
+every body, was the fatality that seemed to attach to his loans; all who
+borrowed of him finished their lives in an unhappy manner. Whether this
+was a mere popular notion, a stupid superstitious gossip, or a rumour
+intentionally disseminated, has ever remained a mystery. But it is a
+fact that many things occurred to give it validity, and that within a
+comparatively short period of time. Amongst the aristocracy of the day,
+there was one young man who particularly attracted the attention of
+society. He was of ancient descent and noble blood; had very early
+distinguished himself in the service of the empire, as a warm protector
+of every thing honourable and elevated, and as a passionate lover of art
+and genius. He was soon distinguished by the personal notice of the
+Empress, who confided to him the duties of an office peculiarly adapted
+to his tastes and talents--an office which gave him power to be of the
+greatest service not only to science, but to humanity itself. The young
+noble surrounded himself with artists, poets, scholars, and men of
+learning. To all of them he promised employment, patronage, protection.
+He undertook, at his own expense, a number of important publications,
+gave a multitude of orders to artists, founded prizes for excellence,
+spent enormous sums in this unselfish manner, and at length got into
+difficulties. Full, however, of generous enthusiasm, and unwilling to
+leave his work half finished, he borrowed money in all directions, and
+at length found his way to the famous usurer in the Kol�mna. Having
+obtained from this man a very extensive loan, the young noble all at
+once underwent a complete transformation. He became, as by enchantment,
+the enemy of rising intellect and talent, the persecutor of all he had
+previously protected. It was just then that the French Revolution broke
+out. This event gave him a handle for suspicion. In every thing he
+detected some revolutionary tendency; in every word, in every expressed
+opinion, he saw a dangerous hint or perfidious insinuation. The disease
+gained on him till he almost began to suspect himself. He laid false
+informations, fabricated the foulest charges, and caused the ruin of
+numbers of innocent people. At first, his guilty manoeuvres were
+undetected, and, when found out, they were thought to proceed from
+insanity. Report was made to the Empress, who deprived him of his
+office. But his severest sentence was the contempt he read in the faces
+of his countrymen. I need not describe the sufferings of this vain and
+insolent spirit, the tortures he endured from crushed pride, defeated
+ambition, ruined expectations. At last his monomania--for such it must
+surely have been--aggravated by regret and chagrin, became insanity, and
+in a frightful paroxysm the unhappy maniac committed suicide.
+
+"Not less remarkable than the fate of this wretched young man was that
+of a lady who passed at that time for the most beautiful woman in St
+Petersburg. My father has often assured me, that he never beheld any
+thing to be compared to her. Possessing, besides her beauty, the not
+less fascinating charms of wit, intellect, wealth, and high rank, she
+was of course surrounded by a swarm of admirers. The most remarkable of
+these was Prince R., the flower of all the young nobles of that day, and
+to whom the palm was universally conceded, not only for beauty of
+person, but for high qualities and chivalry of character. He was well
+qualified for a hero of romance, or a woman's beau-ideal. Deeply and
+passionately enamoured of the young countess, his affection met with as
+pure and ardent a return. But her relations disapproved the match. The
+prince's paternal estates had passed out of his hands,--his family was
+in disgrace at court, and the derangement of his finances was no secret
+to any body. Suddenly he left the capital, apparently for the purpose of
+putting his affairs in order; and, after a brief absence, reappeared and
+commenced a life of splendid extravagance. His balls and entertainments
+were so magnificent as to attract the notice of the court, and, it was
+rumoured, to mollify imperial displeasure. The countess's father became
+suddenly gracious, and soon nothing was talked of in St Petersburg but
+the marriage of the two lovers. Of the origin of the enormous fortune of
+the bridegroom, to which this change in the sentiments of his future
+father-in-law was unquestionably to be attributed, nobody could give a
+distinct account, though it was pretty generally whispered that he had
+entered into a compact with the mysterious money-lender of the Kol�mna,
+and from him obtained a large loan. Be this as it may, the wedding
+formed the whole talk of the town. Bride and bridegroom were the object
+of universal envy. Every body had heard of their beauty and virtues, of
+their ardent and constant love; and all rejoiced that the obstacles to
+their union were removed. Numerous were the prophetic pictures drawn of
+the blissful existence the young couple were certain to enjoy. The event
+proved very different. In one twelvemonth a total and terrible change
+took place in the character of the prince. Hitherto noble, generous, and
+confiding, he became, on a sudden, jealous, suspicious, impatient, and
+capricious. He was the tyrant and tormentor of his wife; and, to the
+unbounded astonishment of every body who had known him before his
+marriage, treated her with inhuman brutality, and was even known to
+strike her! In one year the beautiful and dazzling girl, who was
+followed by a crowd of obedient adorers, could not be recognised in the
+careworn and unhappy wife. At length, unable longer to support the cruel
+yoke of such a marriage, she sought a separation. At the first
+notification of this step, the prince gave way to the most uncontrolled
+fury,--burst into her chamber, and would infallibly have stabbed her,
+had he not been seized and removed by force. Mad with rage, he turned
+his weapon upon himself, and lay a corpse at the feet of his
+horror-stricken friends. Besides these two incidents, which attracted
+great notice in the higher circles, a number of other instances were
+cited as having occurred amongst the lower classes, where the loans of
+the mysterious usurer had brought misfortune in their train. One man,
+previously a sober and honest artisan, had become a confirmed drunkard,
+and died in the hospital; a shopman had robbed his master; an
+izv�ztchik, for years noted for his honesty, had cut the throat of a
+customer in order to rob him of an insignificant sum. All these persons,
+and many others, who sank into misery and crime, or perished by violent
+deaths, had been customers of the mysterious Asiatic, of whom these
+stories, related, as they often were, with additions and exaggerations,
+inspired the quiet and peaceable inhabitants of the Kol�mna with an
+involuntary horror. Nobody doubted the real presence of the evil spirit
+in this man. They said that he exacted conditions which made one's very
+hair stand on end, and which none of his unhappy clients dared disclose;
+that his money had a mysterious property of attraction; that the coins
+were marked with strange characters, and grew red-hot of their own
+accord. In short, there were a thousand extravagant reports. But what is
+most remarkable is, that this population of Kol�mna, made up of
+pensioners, half-pay officers, petty functionaries, obscure artists, and
+others equally necessitous, preferred bearing the utmost distress to
+having recourse to the dreaded money-lender. They all declared they
+would rather mortify their bodies than destroy their souls. Those who
+met him in the street hurried by with an uneasy sensation, making way
+for him with anxious submissiveness, and looking long over their
+shoulders at the tall lean figure as it lost itself in the distance. His
+singular frame might well have been the receptacle of a supernatural and
+unholy spirit. The wild and deeply-cut features had something different
+from humanity; the extraordinary thickness of the shaggy eyebrows; the
+bronzed glow of the countenance; the frightful eyes, with their steady
+unsupportable glare; even the broad folds of the Oriental dress were,
+each in turn, the subject of uneasy and suspicious comment. My father
+told me, that when he met him he could not avoid stopping to gaze at
+him; and it invariably occurred to him that he had never seen, either in
+painting or life, a face that so completely came up to his notion of a
+demon. But I must make you, as briefly as possible, acquainted with my
+father, who is the real hero of my tale. He was a remarkable man, a
+self-taught painter, seeking principles in his own mind, and
+elaborating, without master or school, rules and laws of art, led onward
+by the mere thirst for excellence, and advancing, under the influence of
+causes which he himself, perhaps, could not have defined, along a path
+marked out for him only in his own mind. He was one of those children of
+genius whom contemporaries so often stigmatise as ignorant, because they
+have struck out a track for themselves, and whose ardour is to be
+chilled neither by censure nor failures; whence, on the contrary, they
+derive fresh vigour and courage. Aided only by his own lofty instincts,
+he attained to the true understanding of what historical painting should
+be. Scriptural subjects, the last and loftiest step of high art, chiefly
+occupied his pencil. Free from the feverish irritable vanity and paltry
+envy so common amongst artists, he was a firm, upright, honourable man,
+a little rough and unpolished in externals--the husk rather rugged--and
+with a share of honest pride and independent feeling which sometimes
+imparted to his manner an air of mingled bluntness and condescension. 'I
+care nothing for your fine folks,' he would say. 'I don't work for them.
+I don't paint drawing-room pictures. Those who understand my work best
+reward me for it. I do not blame fashionable people for not
+understanding art: how should they? They understand their cards; they
+are judges of wine and horses. 'Tis enough. When they do pick up a crude
+notion or two on the subject of painting, they become intolerable by
+their assumption. I prefer, a thousand times, the man who honestly
+confesses he knows nothing about art, to your ignoramus who comes in
+with a solemn affectation of connoisseurship, claiming to be a judge,
+talking about things he does not understand, and consequently talking
+nonsense.' By no means a covetous man, my father painted for very modest
+remuneration, contented to earn sufficient for the support of his
+family, and for providing the means of exercising his art. Generous in
+the extreme, his hand was ever open to less successful artists. Imbued
+with a fervent and profound sense of religion, it was that, perhaps,
+which enabled him to communicate to the faces he painted an elevation of
+religious sentiment that the most brilliant pencils often fall to give.
+In course of time, and aided by obstinate industry and unflinching
+perseverance, his talent attracted the attention and commanded the
+respect even of those who had at first sneered at him as a _home-made_
+artist. He received numerous orders for altar-pieces and other church
+pictures, and laboured incessantly. One picture, in particular, engaged
+his closest attention. The subject I forget, but I know that the great
+enemy of mankind was to be introduced. Long did my father meditate on
+this figure; he desired to embody in the countenance the expression of
+every evil passion that afflicts fallen humanity. Whilst reflecting on
+the subject, and conjuring up horrible countenances in his imagination,
+the strange features of the mysterious money-lender frequently recurred
+to him; and, as often as they did so, he said to himself, 'The usurer
+would be a fine model for my Devil.' One day, whilst he was busy
+planning his great work, and making sketches, with which he had
+difficulty in pleasing himself, there was a knock at his studio door,
+and the next instant, to his infinite astonishment, the usurer entered
+the room. My father has since told me that on beholding him he felt an
+inexplicable chill and shudder come over his whole frame.
+
+"'You are an artist?' said the intruder, abruptly.
+
+"'I am,' replied my father, and wondered what was coming next.
+
+"'I want my portrait painted. I have not long to live. I have no
+children, and I do not wish to die altogether. Can you paint a portrait
+of me that shall be exactly like life?"
+
+"My father reflected for a moment. 'Nothing could be more opportune,'
+thought he to himself; 'he comes of his own accord to sit to me for my
+Devil.' And he at once agreed to satisfy his singular visitor. Hour and
+price were stipulated, and the next day, my father, bearing palette and
+brushes, repaired to the abode of his new sitter. The gloomy court-yard,
+surrounded by high walls; the watch-dogs; the iron doors and shutters;
+the arched windows; the huge coffers, covered with strange,
+outlandish-looking carpets; and, above all, the grim, gloomy visage of
+the master of the house, seated immoveable before him,--all these
+conspired to produce a strong impression on his mind. The windows were
+closed and darkened; a single pane in the upper part of one of them
+admitted a strong ray of light. My father forgot the strange repute of
+his sitter in zeal for his art. 'How splendidly the fellow's face is
+lighted up!' he thought to himself, and set to work with furious
+eagerness, as though fearful of losing the favourable moment. 'What
+vigour! what light and shade!' he exclaimed, inaudibly. 'If I can get
+him in only half as vigorously as he sits there, the portrait will beat
+every thing I have done: he will walk out of the canvass. What
+extraordinary features; what depth in the lines and furrows! he repeated
+to himself, redoubling his fervour at every stroke, as he observed trait
+after trait rapidly transferring itself to the canvass. But, whilst
+proceeding with his work, he insensibly became aware of a strange
+feeling of oppression and uneasiness that crept over him, he knew not
+how or wherefore. Disregarding it, he persisted in following, with the
+strictest fidelity and most scrupulous care, every line, and tone, and
+shade in the extraordinary countenance of his model. To the eyes he gave
+his chief attention. At first they nearly made him despair. So peculiar
+and penetrating was their expression, so unlike were they to any eyes he
+had ever encountered, that it seemed an almost hopeless task to attempt
+to render them in a picture. Nevertheless he persevered, resolved, at
+whatever cost of pains and time, to follow them in their minute details,
+and thus to penetrate, if possible, the mystery and secret of their
+expression. But whilst engaged in this work, whilst diving, as it were,
+with his pencil, into the recesses of those mysterious orbs, the
+uneasiness he had before felt rapidly increased, and there arose in his
+soul such an inexplicable loathing, such an overpowering sensation of
+vague horror, that he was several times obliged to suspend his work, and
+it was only by a violent effort he could bring himself to resume it. At
+last this unaccountable feeling fairly mastered him; he could no longer
+bear to look upon those horrible eyes, whose demon-like gaze filled him
+with dismay. He closed the sitting. But the next day, and the one after
+that, the same thing occurred; after painting for a short time he
+invariably became agitated, excited, and unable to proceed. Each day
+these sensations increased in strength, until they became positive
+torture, and at last my father threw down his brush, declaring he would
+paint no more. Extraordinary was the effect produced upon the mysterious
+usurer by this declaration. By the most touching and humble entreaties,
+and by promises of munificent reward, he essayed, but in vain, to induce
+my father to retract his decision and resume his task. He even
+prostrated himself before him and implored him to terminate the
+picture, saying that upon its completion hung his fate, and his very
+existence. And then he threw out dark and confused hints of supernatural
+agency, by which, if his living features were once faithfully
+represented, his soul would be in some sort transferred to the portrait,
+and be saved from complete annihilation, or a yet worse doom.
+Terror-stricken at these strange and fearful words, my father threw down
+pencil and palette and rushed from the house. He could not sleep that
+night for meditating on this occurrence. The next morning he received
+back the unfinished portrait, brought to his house by an old woman, the
+only human being who lived with the usurer. She left also a message,
+that her master returned the portrait, because he did not want and would
+not pay for it. A few hours afterwards, on going out, my father learned
+that the usurer of the Kol�mna had died that morning. There was a
+mystery in all this which my father neither was able nor desired to
+solve.
+
+"Dating from that day, a perceptible and unfavourable change took place
+in my father's character. Without apparent cause he became irritable,
+restless, and unhappy, and a very short time elapsed before he became
+guilty of an act of which none supposed him capable. About this period,
+the works of one of his pupils had attracted the attention of a small
+circle of judges and amateurs of art. My father from the first had
+perceived and appreciated this young man's talent, and had shown himself
+particularly well-disposed towards him. Suddenly, as if by a spell, envy
+and hatred were generated in his mind. The general interest excited by
+the pupil became intolerable to the master, who could not hear with
+patience the name of the rising genius. At length, to fill up the
+measure of his mortification, he learned that the young man had been
+preferred to paint a picture for a splendid church then just completed.
+This drove my father frantic. Previously the most upright and honourable
+of men, he now condescended to the pettiest intrigues and manoeuvres--he
+who, up to that time, had regarded with horror and contempt all that
+bore the semblance of intrigue. By dint of caballing, he succeeded in
+obtaining an open competition for the work in question; whoever chose,
+was at liberty to send in his picture, and the best would obtain the
+preference. Having brought this about, he secluded himself in his studio
+and applied himself to the task with intense ardour, summoning up all
+his great energy, skill, and experience of art. As was to be expected,
+the result was one of his very finest pictures. As a work of art, it was
+unquestionably the best. When my father saw it placed beside those of
+the other competitors, a smile of triumph curled his lip, and he
+entertained no doubt that his would be the picture chosen to adorn the
+altar. The committee appointed to decide arrived, and cast approving
+glances at my father's painting. Before giving their verdict, however,
+they proceeded to examine it minutely, and at last, one of the
+members--an ecclesiastic of high rank, if I remember rightly--waved his
+hand to secure the attention of his fellow-judges, and spoke thus: 'The
+picture presented by this artist,' he said, 'has undoubtedly very high
+merit as a mere work of art; but it is unsuited to the place and purpose
+for which it was designed. Those countenances have nothing sacred or
+holy in their expression. On the contrary, you may discern in every one
+of them, and especially in the eyes, the traces, more or less modified,
+of some evil passion, a something unhallowed and almost fiendish.'
+Struck by this observation, all present looked at the picture: it was
+impossible to deny the justice of the criticism. My father rushed
+furiously forward eager to deny and disprove the unfavourable judgment.
+But he saw for the first time, with feelings of intense horror, that he
+had given to almost all his countenances the eyes of the money-lender.
+They all looked out of the canvass with such a devilish and abominable
+stare, that he himself could scarcely help shuddering. The picture was
+rejected, and, with unspeakable rage and envy, he heard the prize
+awarded to his former pupil. He returned home in a state of mind worthy
+of a demon. He abused and even ill-treated my poor mother, who sought to
+console him for his disappointment, drove his children brutally from
+him, broke his easel and brushes, tore down from the wall the portrait
+of the money-lender, called for a knife, and ordered a fire to be
+instantly lighted, intending to cut up the picture and burn it. In this
+mood he was found by a friend, a painter like himself, a careless,
+jovial dog, always in good-humour, untroubled with ambition, working
+gaily at whatever he could get to do, and loving a good dinner and merry
+company.
+
+"'What the deuce are you at? what are you about to burn?' said he, going
+up to the portrait. 'Why, are you mad? This is one of your very best
+pictures! The old money-lender, I declare. By Jove! an exquisite thing!
+Admirably hit off! you have caught the old fellow's eyes to perfection.
+One would almost swear you had transplanted them from the head to the
+picture. They look out of the canvass.'
+
+"'We'll see how they look in the fire,' said my father surlily, making a
+movement to thrust the picture into the grate.
+
+"'Stop, stop!' cried his friend, checking his arm. 'Give it me, rather
+than burn it.' My father was at first unwilling, but at last consented;
+and the jolly old painter, enchanted with his acquisition, carried off
+the portrait.
+
+"The picture gone, my father felt himself more tranquil. 'It seemed,' he
+said, 'as if its departure had taken a load off his heart.' He was
+astonished at his recent conduct, at the malice and envy that had filled
+his soul. The more he reflected, the stronger became his sorrow and
+repentance. 'Yes,' he at last exclaimed, with sincere self-reproach,
+'God has punished me for my sins; my picture was really a shameful and
+abominable thing. It was inspired by the wicked hope of injuring a
+fellow-man, and a brother artist. Hatred and envy guided my pencil; what
+better feelings could I expect it to portray?' Without a moment's delay
+he went in search of his former pupil, embraced him affectionately,
+entreated his forgiveness, and did all in his power to efface from the
+young man's mind the remembrance of his offence. Once more his days
+glided on in peaceful and contented toll, although his face had assumed
+a pensive and melancholy expression, previously a stranger to it. He
+prayed more frequently and fervently, was more often silent, and spoke
+less bluntly and roughly to others; the rugged suffice of his character
+was smoothed and softened.
+
+"A long time had elapsed without his seeing or hearing any thing of the
+friend to whom he had given the portrait, and he was one day about to go
+out and inquire after him, when the man himself entered the room. But
+his former joviality of manner was gone. He looked worn and melancholy,
+his checks were hollow, his complexion pale, and his clothes hung
+loosely upon him. My father was struck with the change, and inquired
+what ailed him.
+
+"'Nothing now,' was the reply: 'nothing since I got rid of that infernal
+portrait. I was wrong, my friend, not to let you burn it. The devil fly
+away with the thing, say I! I am no believer in witchcraft and the like,
+but I am more than half persuaded some evil spirit is lodged in the
+portrait of the usurer.'
+
+"'What makes you think so?' said my father.
+
+"'The simple fact, that from the very first day it entered my house, I,
+formerly so gay and joyous, became the most anxious melancholy dog that
+ever whined under a gallows. I was irritable, ill-tempered, disposed to
+cut my own throat, and every body else's. My whole life through, I had
+never known what it was to sleep badly. Well, my sleep left me, and when
+I did get any, it was broken by dreams. Good Heavens! such horrible
+dreams; I could not bring myself to believe they were mere dreams,
+ordinary nightmares. I was sometimes nearly stifled in my sleep; and
+eternally, my good sir, the old man, that accursed old man, flitted
+about me. In short, I was in a pitiable state, lost flesh and appetite,
+and cursed the hour I was born. I crawled about, as if drunk or stupid,
+tormented with a vague incessant fear, a dread, and anticipation of
+something frightful about to happen, of some uncommon danger besetting
+me at every turn. At last, I bethought me of the portrait, and gave it
+away to a nephew of mine, who had taken a great fancy to it. Since then
+I have been much relieved; I feel as if a great stone had been rolled
+off my heart; I can sleep and eat, and am recovering my former spirits.
+It was a rare devil you cooked up there, my boy!'
+
+"My father listened to his friend's confession with the closest
+attention.
+
+"'The portrait, then, is now in your nephew's possession?' he at last
+inquired.
+
+"'My nephew's! No, no! He tried it, but could stand it no better than
+your humble servant. Assuredly the spirit of the old usurer has
+transmigrated into the picture. My nephew declares that he walks out of
+the frame, glides about the room; in short the things he tells me, pass
+human understanding and belief. I should have taken him for a madman, if
+I had not partly experienced the thing myself. He sold the picture to
+some dealer or other; and the dealer could not stand it either, and got
+it off his hands.'
+
+"This narrative made a deep impression upon my father. About this time
+he became subject to long fits of abstraction, and incessant reveries,
+which gradually turned to hypochondria. At last, he was firmly convinced
+that his pencil had served as an instrument to the evil spirit; that a
+portion of the usurer's vitality had actually passed into the picture,
+which thus continued to torment and persecute its possessors, inspiring
+them with evil passions, tempting them from the paths of virtue and
+religion, rousing in their breasts feelings of envy and malice and all
+uncharitableness. A great misfortune which afflicted him shortly after,
+the loss, by a contagious disorder, of his wife, daughter, and infant
+son, he accounted a judgment of heaven upon his sin. He determined to
+quit the world, and devote himself to religion and prayer. I was then
+nine years of age. He placed me in the Academy of Arts, wound up his
+affairs, and retired to a remote convent, where he shortly afterwards
+assumed the tonsure. There, by the severity of his life, and by the
+unwearied punctuality with which he fulfilled the rules of his order, he
+struck the whole brotherhood with surprise and admiration. The superior
+of the monastery, hearing of his skill as a painter, requested him to
+execute an altar-piece for the convent chapel. But the devout brother
+declared that his pencil had been polluted by a great sin, and that he
+must purify himself by mortification and long penance, before he could
+dare apply it to a holy purpose. He then, of his own accord, gradually
+increased the austerity of his monastic life. At last, the utmost
+privations he could inflict on himself appearing to him insufficient, he
+retired, with the blessing of the superior, to court solitude in the
+desert. There he built himself a hermitage out of the branches of trees,
+lived on uncooked roots, dragged a heavy stone with him wherever he
+went, and stood from sunrise to sunset with his hands uplifted to
+heaven, fervently praying. His penances and mortifications were such as
+we find examples of only in the lives of the saints. For many years he
+followed this austere manner of life, and his brethren at the convent
+had given up all hopes of again seeing him, when one day he suddenly
+appeared amongst them. 'I am ready,' he said, firmly and calmly to the
+superior: 'with the help of God, I will begin my task.' The subject he
+selected was the Birth of Christ. For a whole year he laboured
+incessantly at his picture, without leaving his cell, nourishing himself
+with the coarsest food, and rigid in the fulfilment of his religious
+duties. At the end of that time the picture was completed. It was a
+miracle of art. Neither the brethren nor the superior were profound
+critics of painting, but they were awe-struck by the extraordinary
+sublimity of the figures. The sentiment of divine tranquillity and
+mildness in the Holy Mother, bending over the Infant Jesus--the profound
+and celestial intelligence in the eyes of the Babe--the solemn silence
+and dignified humility of the three Wise Men prostrate at His feet--the
+holy, unspeakable calm breathed over the whole work--the combined
+impression of all this was magical. The brethren bowed the knee before
+the picture, and the superior, deeply affected, pronounced a blessing on
+the artist. 'No mere human art,' he said, 'could have produced a
+picture like this. A power from on high has guided thy pencil, my son,
+and the blessing of heaven has descended on the work of thy hands.'
+
+"About this time I finished my education in the Academy; I received the
+gold medal, and at the same time saw realised the delicious hope of
+being sent to Italy--the cherished dream of the boy-artist. Before
+departing, I wished to take leave of my father, whom I had not seen for
+twelve years. I had heard divers reports of the extreme austerity of his
+life, and expected to see the withered figure of a hermit, worn-out,
+exhausted, macerated with fast and vigil. My astonishment was great when
+I beheld my father. No trace of exhaustion was on his countenance, which
+beamed with a joy whose source was not of this world. A beard as white
+as snow, and long thin hair of silvery hue floated picturesquely down
+his breast and along the folds of his black robe, and descended even to
+the cord girding his monastic gown. Before we parted, I received from
+his lips precepts and counsels for the conduct of my life and for my
+guidance in art--precepts I have religiously remembered, and which will
+ever remain indelibly engraven on my soul. Three days I abode near him;
+on the third, I went to ask his blessing before my departure for the
+artist's home, the distant and much-desired shores of Italy. Already, in
+the course of our long communings, he had told me the story of his life,
+especially dwelling on the remarkable passage I have just related. 'My
+son, these were his last words, 'my conscience, tranquillised in great
+measure by years of prayer and penitence, has yet its uneasy moments,
+when I recall the circumstances connected with that portrait. I have
+been told that it still passes from hand to hand, occasioning misery to
+many, exciting feelings of envy and hatred, fostering unlawful desires
+and unholy thoughts. By the memory of thy mother, and by the love thou
+bearest me, I entreat thee, my son, truly and faithfully to perform my
+last request. Seek out that portrait; sooner or later you must find it;
+you cannot fail to recognise it by the strange expression, and by the
+extraordinary fire and vividness of the eyes. Purchase it, at whatever
+cost, and commit it to the flames! So shall my blessing prosper thee,
+and thy days be long in the land.'
+
+"How could I refuse the pledge thus touchingly required by the venerable
+old man? Throwing myself into his arms, I swore by the silver locks that
+flowed over his breast, faithfully to do his bidding. We live in a
+positive age, and believers in any thing bordering on the supernatural
+grow each day rarer. But my path was plain before me; I had promised,
+and must perform. For fifteen years I have devoted a certain portion of
+each, to a search for the mysterious picture, with constant ill-success,
+until to-day--at this auction."
+
+Here the artist, suspending his sentence, turned towards the wall where
+the portrait had hung. His movement was imitated by his hearers, who,
+looked round in search of the wonderful picture, concerning which they
+had just been told so strange a tale. But the portrait was no longer
+there. A murmur of surprise, almost of consternation, ran through the
+throng.
+
+"Stolen!" at last exclaimed a voice. And stolen the picture doubtless
+had been. Some dexterous thief, profiting by the profound attention with
+which the eyes of all were fixed upon the narrator, whilst all ears,
+drank in his singular story, had managed to take down and carry off the
+portrait. The company remained plunged in perplexity, almost doubting
+whether they had really seen those extraordinary eyes, or whether the
+whole thing were not a fantasy, a vision, the phantom of a brain heated
+and fatigued by the long examination of a gallery of old pictures.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[24] A kind of bazaar or perpetual market, where second-hand furniture,
+old books and pictures, earthenware, and other cheap commodities, are
+exposed for sale in small open booths.
+
+[25] A personage who figures, like two or three others afterwards
+alluded to, in the popular legends and fairy tales of Russia.
+
+[26] Twenty-five rubles.
+
+[27] A silver coin, about the size of a shilling, the quarter of a
+silver ruble (_und e nomen_) worth ninepence.
+
+[28] The officer commanding the police of the quarter.
+
+[29] The Russian house-spirit. This "lubber fiend" is frequently the
+popular name of the nightmare.
+
+[30] The "was-ist-das," a single pane of glass fixed in a frame, to
+admit of its being opened, very necessary in a climate where double
+casements are fixed during eight months out of the year.
+
+
+
+
+HOUNDS AND HORSES AT ROME.
+
+ENGLISH KENNEL.
+
+"The Dog-Star rages!"--POPE.
+
+
+To do at Rome as the Romans do, is an adage which we English can no
+longer apply to our proceedings in that city; we now reverse this, and
+carrying thither our games, field-sports, and other whimsies, not only
+practise these ourselves, but would impose them upon her senate and
+people; for a senate she still has, and the Romans take a strange
+pleasure in exhibiting, on state occasions, the well-known letters,
+which tell of formerly allied, but long since departed glories. What
+would her ancient senate, the stern descendants of the wolf-nursed
+twins--
+
+     "Curius quid sentit, et ambo Scipiad�?--"
+
+have said to the subserviency of their present _mis_-representatives,
+who go forth, not to give races, but to witness the feats of barbarian
+jockeyship, on a turf that once resounded only to the hoofs of their own
+favourite racers;
+
+  "Whose easy triumph and transcendant speed
+  Palm after palm proclaimed; whilst Victory,
+  In the horse circus, stood exulting by."[31]
+
+If the senator Damisippus once received such a castigation at the hands
+of the bard of Aquinum, for merely driving his own phaeton at noon, and
+for nodding _varmintly_ to a friend as he passed, how would that poet's
+indignation or muse--
+
+  "Si natura negat, facit indignatio versum--"
+
+have dealt with you, Princes Borghese and Cesarini, Doria and Colonna,
+who, changing your long robes for the scarlet jacket, (worse than any
+_Trechidipna_), have learned to vie with each other in acquiring a
+field-note, of which Alaric had been proud, to strive for precedence in
+a fox-hunt, and to glory more in winning his brush, than ever did your
+ancestors on wresting a trophy from the Sicambri. But, thanks to Popes
+who have wisely prohibited satirists and satire, ye are free to follow,
+unscathed by the Iambic muse, this or any other pastime you please,
+however unsuited in character to the dignity of your descent. To one
+merely paying a transitory visit to Rome in the grand tour of twenty
+years ago, it might not have occurred as a likely contingency that a
+pack of English fox-hounds should be one day kennelled close up to her
+gates; but to him who witnessed the sporting monomania of some of our
+countrymen, and the difficulty they found (having nothing else to
+_kill_) in killing _time_, it would never have seemed improbable. The
+enthusiasm which every one, gets up for the Coliseum, or the Arch of
+Titus, generally expends itself on the spot, and is not afterwards to be
+resuscitated. This leads many during a six weeks' sojourn in the eternal
+city, (which seems to them already an eternity), to ask themselves, with
+Fabricius, their business there; while some, following his example still
+farther, leave it in disgust. Till certain very recent arrangements had
+been completed for his equipment, no one's position was more to be
+compassionated--if you adopted his own view of it--than that of the
+English sportsman; it was really lamentable to hear him describe, while
+it would occasionally prompt a smile to see his expedients, to relieve
+it. Finding little that was congenial to his tastes or his talents in
+the arts or the society of the place, he would sometimes seek to abridge
+the tedium and length of his stay at Rome, by episodes of lark-shooting
+at Subiaco, or by looking after wild-boars at Ostia; and some, to whom
+hunting was indispensable, would hire dogs and make them chase _each
+other_, while they harked on the ragged pack, on the best hacks they
+could procure for the purpose. This, however, which might have proved
+excellent sport had the dogs always chosen to run properly, was
+oft-times tried and relinquished, in consequence of a practical
+difficulty, originating in the pack itself, which refused to supply from
+its ranks the necessary _quota_ of amateur hares required by the riders.
+By this token, it was high time something should be done! At length the
+auspicious day dawned when the sporting world (already on the alert to
+contrive less unturf-like proceedings than the last mentioned) was
+agreeably saved from the embarrassment of further thought on the
+subject, by a spirited announcement, noticed with becoming gratitude in
+_Galignani_, from Lord C---- that he had actually sent for his dogs from
+England. No time was lost; the groom, despatched in haste with the
+necessary instructions, returned within six weeks, leaving the kennel
+and _canaille_ that accompanied it only a few days behind on the road.
+One morning, shortly after, it was announced at the Vatican, that a pack
+of hungry hounds was at the Popolo Gate, barking for admittance, and
+apparently threatening to eat up the whole Apostolic Doganieri if they
+kept them much longer. The matter pressed: a deputation of Englishmen
+waited on the governor, requesting permission for the establishment of a
+kennel in a spot already fixed upon for the purpose, (it was somewhere
+about the site where Constantine's mother was buried, and where, by
+tradition, Nero's ghost is supposed to brood, beyond the Pons Nomentana,
+and the Sacred mount); and having obtained the desired leave, the dogs
+were at once established in their new settlement. When they had
+recovered the fatigues of their journey, a notice was posted up,
+advertising the first "throw off" for the next day. On this occasion
+they hunted an old fox round the Claudian Aqueduct, into the body of
+which, on getting over his surprise, he scoured a retreat, thus baffling
+the pursuers. The next field-day his successor was not so fortunate,
+losing both brush and life at the end of a long run. The third was
+distinguished by the feat of a Roman prince, who contrived to be in at
+the death, and received the brush for his encouragement. After this the
+weekly obituary of foxes increased permanently in number. Meanwhile a
+few dogs disappeared in subterranean mystery, awkward falls occurred,
+wrists and ankles were dislocated; but no brains spilt. At last forty
+persons, having nothing better to do with themselves, agree to meet
+regularly twice a-week and to set up a subscription. While it is yet
+early in the winter, dogs come dropping in by couples, from various
+well-wishers in England; while large orders in the shape of scarlet
+coats and hunting-caps, duly executed and forwarded, are stopped at the
+Dogana Apostolica, and after a suitable demur on account of the
+Cardinalesque colour, allowed to pass, on paying a handsome duty. These
+_liveries_ at first produced a great sensation in Rome, not only amongst
+the hierarchy, who were jealous of the profanation, but with the
+populace, both within and without the walls: from the prince to the
+peasant, every body had something to say about them. As they paced along
+the streets the men stared in silent admiration, while the women clapped
+their hands and cried, "_Guardi! Guardi!_" When they trotted out to
+cover, the delighted swine-herd whistled to his pigs to make way for
+them to pass; while the mounted buffalo-driver, from some crag above the
+road, would point them out with his long-spiked pole, to the man in the
+sheepskin who was on foot. We do not know what comments _these_ might
+make, but those of the Roman townsfolk were by no means in keeping with
+the flattering admiration they expressed. "What a gay livery!" said a
+Roman citizen, emerging from the Salara Gate, as a detachment of the
+"red-coats" was turning in. "Cazzo! how well they ride, and what a
+number too!" "Yes," said his friend at our elbow; "to whom do they
+belong--_a chi appartengono_?" "'Tis the livery of a Russian prince who
+came last week to Rome, and has put up at Serny's," said the other,
+affecting to know all about it. "Well, to my mind, they beat Prince
+Torlonia's postilions out-and-out." "_Altro_--I agree with you there;
+_ma abbia pazienza_--wait a bit, and depend on it our Prince, when he
+has seen them, will not be long in taking the hint!" We hope he will;
+for, however we may elsewhere admire a mounted field, _here_ it shocks
+every notion of propriety. That fox-hunters should have their _meeting_
+where the Fabii met; Gell's map of Rome's classic topography be studied,
+with no other reference than to _runs_; and Veii be scared in her lofty
+citadel by the cry of hounds and harum-scarum fellows sweeping along her
+ravines, are evident improprieties; while the having all one's senses
+assailed and offended together by the scent of highly-ammoniated
+bandy-legged fellows in fustian or corduroy, (their necessary
+satellites,) who inundate street and piazza with the slang of the London
+mews, is something still worse.
+
+     "Quoi! Venue d'un peuple roi,
+     Toi, reine encore du monde!"
+
+Thou who hast taken the lead by turns, in legislature, literature, and
+the fine arts, doomed at last to become the sovereign seat for
+hunting--the Melton Mowbray of the South! May thy _genius loci_ forbid
+it; may thy goddess of fever visit the hounds in one of her ugliest
+types; loimos or limos destroy them; old Tiber rise with his yellow
+waves to drown, catacombs yawn to ingulf, and aqueducts fall to crush
+them! Or, should inanimate nature disregard our row, two other hopes
+remain: the one, that the foxes, made aware by this time of the love
+with which the Roman princes contemplate _il loro brush_, will send them
+a yearly tribute of a certain number of these appendages, on condition
+that they forthwith dismiss the dogs; the other, that the Dominicans,
+who are well known to be jealous of our movements, will come to regard
+hunting as an heretical sport, especially as here practised by
+Protestant dogs and riders--and in Lent, too, against orthodox
+foxes--and persuade the Pope to abolish it!
+
+
+THE STEEPLE-CHASE.
+
+In that grassy month of the Campagna, ere the sun has seared the
+standing herbage into hay--when anemones, cyclamens, crocuses, and Roman
+hyacinths, as prescient of the coming heat, lose no time in quickening,
+and burst out suddenly in myriads to cover the plain with their
+loveliness; while the towering _ferula_ conceals the sandy rock whence
+it springs, with its delicate tracery yet unspecked by the solar rays;
+and the stately teazle, bending under the clutch of goldfinch and
+linnet, or recoiling as they spurn it, in quest of their
+butterfly-breakfast, has still some sap in its veins. Early on one of
+the most exhilarating mornings of this truly delicious season, (alas,
+how brief in its continuance!) we are awaked by unusual sounds in the
+street. These proceeded from the young Romans vociferating to their
+friends to bestir themselves to procure places at the steeple-chase
+programmed for this 14th of March. An hour before Aurora had opened her
+_porte coch�re_ to Phoebus, and those sleek piebald coursers whose
+portraits are to be seen in the Ludovisi and Ruspigliosi palaces, all
+the vetturini and cabmen of Rome had already opened _theirs_; and while
+some were adjusting misfitting harness to every specimen of horseflesh
+that could be procured for the occasion, others were trundling out from
+their black recesses in stable and coach-house, every mis-shapen vehicle
+that permitted of being fastened to their backs, in order to proceed out
+of the Porta Salara betimes. By six all Rome was awake, and by seven, in
+motion towards the race-course. On that memorable morning artists
+forewent their studies, the Sapienza its wisdom, the Roman college its
+theology; shopkeepers kept their windows closed; Italian masters
+barouched with their pupils, mouthed Ariosto, and seemed highly
+delighted; while the professions of law and physic sent as many of their
+members as public safety could spare. In short, it had been long ago
+settled that all the world would be present; and all the world was
+present, sure enough, and long before the time. It was a lively and a
+pleasing spectacle, to which novelty lent another charm, when, about
+two miles beyond the Salara gate, we looked from our double-lined
+procession of Broughams and Britskas, fore and aft, and saw, for miles,
+scattered over that usually deserted plain, groups of peasants in the
+gay costumes of the adjacent villages, now animating it in every
+direction; some emerging from under the arches of aqueducts, or the
+screen of ruined columbaria, alternately lost to sight and again rising
+above those abrupt dips in which the ground abounds, all tending in one
+direction, all bent on one object. At length our carriage, (which has
+been intimating its purpose shortly to stop,) pulls up definitely, and
+Joseph, having already told us that he can neither move backward nor
+forward, touches his hat for orders. On such an occasion, we resigned
+ourselves to wait, without any feeling of impatience, finding sufficient
+amusement, both from the distant prospect and in the immediate vicinity;
+sometimes watching the wheeling of those sporting characters, the
+Peregrine Hawks overhead, now listening to the warbling of the loudest
+lark music we ever remember to have heard; then exchanging a few words
+with some roadside acquaintance, and anon giving ourselves up
+exclusively to the silent enjoyment of the weather. We were kept long
+enough in all conscience, waiting till even the quietly expectant
+Romans, drilled by their church into habits of great forbearance, at
+length began to murmur aloud disapprobation, and we could hear one
+coachman ask another "_Quando quel benidetto stippel-chess_" was to be;
+while the respondent, shrugging his shoulders, growled out for answer a
+"_Chi lo sa_!" Meanwhile our attention was fitfully resuscitated by a
+rider in costume doing a bit of turf, by an unsaddled racer led across
+the ground, or by men on horseback carrying small flags to stake at the
+different leaps; sometimes by an English oath, startling the _Genius
+loci_ or whoever heard it; or more agreeably by a display of voluble
+young countrywomen, standing tiptoe on their carriage seats, eager to
+see the first fall, and permitting the young men who swaggered by to
+scare them into the prettiest attitudes of dismay, by a prophetical
+announcement of the bones that would be broken before the race was won.
+Some little buzz there is about unfairness and jockeyship, when we
+catch, from the mouth of our Anglo-Roman livery-stable-man, who chanced
+to be near, that "the osses is a-saddling." It took long to saddle; long
+to mount; and some time still before they started, during which interval
+
+  "The jockeys keep their horses on the fret,
+  And each gay Spencer prompts the noisy bet,
+  Till drops the signal; then, without demur,
+  Ten horses start,--ten riders whip and spur;
+  At first a line an easy gallop keep,
+  Then forward press, to take th' approaching leap:
+  Abreast go red and yellow; after these
+  Two more succeed; one's down upon his knees;
+  The sixth o'ertops it; clattering go two more,
+  And two decline; now swells the general roar."
+
+And every horse on the right side of the hurdle strives to get his head,
+and every rider is wiser than to indulge this instinct. Soon another
+leap presents itself; up they all go and down again,--four close
+together! Hurrah! blue and yellow! Hurrah! green and red! A third leap,
+not far from the last, and no refusals! Over and on again. Another! and
+this time three favourites are abreast, the fourth is a second behind,
+but may still be in, for he has cleared the fence and is coming up with
+the others; the motion appears smoother as they recede; the riders,
+diminished to the size of birds, are still seen gliding on--on:--
+
+  "No longer soon their colours can we trace,
+  Lost in the mazy distance of the race
+  Till at Salara's far-off bridge descried,
+  Like coursing butterflies, they seem to glide;
+  Then, dwindling farther, in the lengthening course,
+  Mere floating specks supplant both man and horse;
+  Till, having crossed the Columbarium gray,
+  They swerve, and back retrace their airy way."
+
+At this point of the contest we cross the road--and there far away, two
+dots, a yellow and a blue one, are seen with increasing distinctness
+every second; which may be in advance of the other we cannot say,
+notwithstanding the clearness of the air; they _seem_, from where we
+stand, in the same line of distance; the coloured dots disappear
+momentarily behind a slope, and on emerging the yellow is distinctly
+first; the green not far behind. Where are the others? have they broken
+their necks? No! there they come, in the rear. They were a little thrown
+out at the last leap, but two are making ground upon the green usurper;
+and now they are once more all in full sight and full speed, while the
+Roman welkin rings to strange sounds! "_Guardi il Verde_;" "_Per me
+guadagna il Giallo_." "I'll take you two to one on the Maid of the
+Mill." "Done." "Who's riding the bay-mare?" "Mr A. for Lord G. and a
+pretty mess he's making of it." "_Das ist wunderbar, nicht wahr?_" "_Ya,
+gut!_" "_Les Anglais savent manier leurs chevaux, parbleu!_" "I'll be
+blowed if Lord G. don't win after all!" "Well, Miss Smith, I shall call
+for my gloves to-morrow." "_Bravi tutti quanti!_" "_Cazzo! che
+cavalli!_" "_Forwartz! Forwartz._" "_Allons, Messieurs! avancez._"
+"_Allez! Allez!_" "_Guardi! Guardi!_" And here a distant shout, fleeter
+in its journey than the fleetest of the horses that it sped onwards,
+reaches our ears; another moment brings the two foremost to the last
+leap, the blue hesitates--the red springs into the air, drops
+_d'aplomb_, then on again swifter than before. The blue sticks close to
+him, is near, nearer still; comes up--
+
+  "Then anxious silence breaks in deafening cries,
+  His whip and spur each desperate rider plies;
+  The prescient coursers foaming, cheek by jowl,
+  Now see the stand and guess th' approaching goal;
+  True to their blood, and frantic still to win,
+  Goaded, they fly, and spent, will not give in;
+  Exactly matched, with fruitless efforts strain
+  In rival speed, a single inch to gain.
+  Once more, the fluttering Spencers urge the goad,
+  Bend o'er their saddles, lift them, light their load
+  Just at the goal--one spur and it is done!
+  The rowel'd _Red_ starts forward, and has won!"
+
+After this exploit, the red, green, and yellow liveries could have done
+what they would with the uninitiated Romans. Captain Cooke's arrival at
+Otaheite; the first steamer seen on the Nile; the introduction of gun
+and gunpowder amongst people hitherto hunting or making war with bow and
+arrow,--are only parallel cases of that enthusiasm mixed with awe, with
+which the Romans viewed the English gentleman jockeys on this day. They
+would have been delighted to have it over again six times, but had to
+learn that races (unlike songs) are never _encored_.
+
+
+ROMAN DOGS.
+
+A "dog's life" has become a synonym for suffering; nor does the
+associating him with another domestic animal (if a second proverbial
+expression may be trusted) appear to mend his condition; but ill as he
+may fare with the cat, his position is less enviable when man is
+co-partner in the m�nage, against whose kicks and hard usage should he
+venture upon the lowest remonstrative growl, he is sure to receive a
+double portion of both for his pains; and thus it has ever been, for the
+condition of a dog cannot have changed materially since the creation.
+Being naturally domestic in his habits, he was born to that contumely
+"which patient merit from the unworthy takes," and can never have known
+a golden age. "Croyez-vous," (demanda quelqu'un � Candide,) "que les
+hommes ont toujours �t� rans?" "Croyez-vous," (repliqua Candide,) "que
+les �perviers ont toujours mang� les pigeons." We entertain no more
+doubt of the one than of the other, and must therefore applaud the
+sagacity of Esop's wolf, who, when sufficiently tamed by hunger to think
+of offering himself as a volunteer dog, speedily changed his mind, on
+hearing the uses of a collar first fully expounded to him by Trusty. Not
+that every dog is ill-used; no; for every rule has its exception, and
+every tyrant his favourite. Man's selfishness here proves a safer ally
+than his humanity, and oft-times interposes to rescue the dog from those
+sufferings to which the race is subject. Thus in savage countries, where
+his strength may be turned to account, size and sinew recommend him to
+public notice and respect;
+
+          "----animalia muta
+     Quis generosa putat nisi fortia"
+
+while among civilised nations, eccentricity, beauty, cleverness, or love
+of sport, may establish him a lady's pet or a sportsman's companion.
+Happy indeed the dog born in the kennel of a park; no canister for his
+tail, no halter for his neck; physiologists shall try no experiments on
+his eighth pair of nerves; his wants are liberally supplied; a Tartar
+might envy him his rations of horseflesh, shut up with congenial and
+select associates with whom he courses twice a-week,
+
+  "Unites his bark with theirs; and through the vale,
+  Pursues in triumph, as he snuffs the gale."
+
+He enjoys himself thoroughly while in health, and when he is sick a
+veterinary surgeon feels his pulse, and prescribes for him in dog-Latin!
+Benign too the star, albeit the "dog star," under which are born those
+equal rivals in their mistress' heart, the silky-eared spaniel and the
+black-nosed pug, who sleep at opposite ends of a costly muff, lie on the
+sofa, bow-wow strangers round the drawing-room, and take their daily
+airing in the park! Nor are the several lots of the spotted dog from
+Denmark, who adds importance to his master's equipage; of the ferocious
+bull-dog, the Frenchman's and the butcher's friend; or of the
+quick-witted terrier from Skye, less enviable. But where caprice or
+interest do not plead for the dog, his condition is universally such as
+fully to justify the terms in which men speak of it. To see this
+exemplified, observe the misery of his _life_ and _death_, in a country
+where he is neither petted nor employed. Throughout Italy, and
+particularly in Rome, (where we now introduce him to the reader,) he
+lives "to find abuse his only use;" to be hunted, and not to hunt; now
+dropping from starvation without the gates, and now the victim of poison
+within. Ye unkennelled scavengers of the Pincian Hill,--ye that have no
+master to propitiate the good Saint Anthony, on his birth-day, to bless,
+nor priest to asperse you with holy water, (in consequence of which
+omissions, no doubt, your plagues multiply upon you)--poor friendless
+wanderers, who come up to every lonely pedestrian, at once to remind him
+that it is not good for man to be alone, and to alleviate his solitude
+with your company; good-natured, rough, ill-favoured dogs, with whom our
+acquaintance has been extensive, dull indeed would the Pincian appear,
+were it deprived of your grotesque forms and awkward but well-meant
+gambols! The life of a Campagna sheep-dog, kept half starved in the
+sight of mutton which he dare not touch, is hard enough, but that of the
+members of this large, unowned republic more so. Hungry and gaunt as
+she-wolves, but with none of their fierceness, these poor animals seek
+the city gates, and, molesting nobody, find a foul and precarious
+subsistence from the _Immondezze_ of the streets; but when their
+condition and appearance are improved, and they are beginning to think
+of an establishment, the fatal edict goes forth; nux vomica is
+triturated with liver, and the treacherous _bocconi_ are strewn upon the
+dirt-heaps where they resort; the unsuspecting animals greedily devour
+the only meal provided for them by the State, and in a few hours
+experience the anguish of the slowly killing poison; an intense thirst
+urges them to the fountains, but the water only serves to dilute and
+render it more potent: their bodies swell, they totter, fall, try to
+recover their feet, but cannot; then piteously howling are carried off
+in the height of a titanic convulsion. Often on returning at this season
+from an evening party, we discern dark receding forms and hear voices
+too, "vis� _canes_ ululare per umbras," as _they_ glide moaning away and
+are lost in the obscurity of the off streets. Occasionally they
+anticipate their doom, by premature madness, when the authorities issue
+orders to use steel, and sometimes fifty will perish in a single night.
+It is remarkable that notwithstanding these summary proceedings, the
+canine ranks, as Easter comes round again, are renewed for fresh
+destruction. Some few dogs of superior cunning contrive from year to
+year to elude these "_Editti fulminanti_," which make such havoc among
+their companions; these, by securing the favour and protection of the
+soldiers and galley-slaves of the district, obtain besides an occasional
+meal from the canteens, and plenary indulgence for themselves, and for
+an unsightly progeny, which they screen from public remark, and bring up
+amidst the _latebr�_ of the brushwood; but aware at the same time of the
+precarious tenure by which such clandestine concessions must be held,
+they seek to keep alive the interest, exerted in their behalf, by the
+exhibition of many strange antics, evidently got up for the occasion, by
+affecting an extraordinary interest in man and his affairs, which they
+cannot feel, and by the display of a most obsequious gentleness,
+humouring, while they play with your favourite dog, and though his
+superior in strength, lying under on purpose to give him the advantage;
+but above all, they seek to make interest with the Pincian _bonnes_,
+whom they readily conciliate by withdrawing the attention of the
+children from any _collateral_ object of interest which may engage
+theirs. Petted and patted by many little hands, which _bongr� malgr�_
+must give up their buns to his voracity, the large quadruped, in return
+for these snatched courtesies, follows the small urchin, who is learning
+to trundle his hoop, barking for it to proceed, and stopping when it
+stops. Any one observing their clever gambols and extreme docility,
+wishes straightway that their forms were less uncouth, and might next be
+tempted, as we were, to overlook external disadvantages, and to adopt
+one of the ragged pack in consideration of mental endowments; the
+experiment would fail if he made it; these animals resemble the
+_uneducated_ negro, who shows to most advantage in difficulties--well
+housed, well fed, caressed, and cared for, both forget their master and
+the part he has taken in securing their prosperity. Stand forth,
+ungrateful _Frate_, while, for the reader's caution, and your own
+misconduct, we rehearse your history.
+
+We met Frate at the end of the fever season upon the unhealthy heights
+of Otricoli; a poor lean beast, with a penetrating gray eye, rough brown
+coat, a tail with no grace in its rigid half curl, and an untidy grizzly
+white beard. We had halted to bait the horses, and finding nothing for
+ourselves, preceded the carriage, and were winding down the steep hill,
+when he came suddenly upon us through a break in the hedge, and having
+first looked all around and satisfied himself that no fellow town-dog
+was in sight, raised his ill-shaped head, barked an unmistakable "_bon
+giorno_;" then, turning tail on the city of his birth, ran on gambolling
+a few yards in front, to look back, bark again, and encourage us to
+proceed. "What an ugly brute! what a _hideous_ dog!" but as he engages
+the attention of our party, these expressions become modified, and
+before reaching the bottom of the hill, nobody cares about the remains
+of Otricoli, nor looks any longer at the yellow reaches of the
+pestiferous Tiber, that was winding far along the plain; the dog alone
+occupies every thought. "Such a discerning creature! What clever eyes he
+has! See how well he understands what we are saying about him; suppose
+we take him on to Rome? We might get his grizzly beard shaved; his rough
+coat would become sleek after a month's good feeding, his legs could be
+clipped below the knees. Oh! he is full of capabilities. See! he is now
+acting Sphinx, and looking up at us, as if he could delve into what is
+passing in our minds, and would turn these vague suggestions to
+account." Suddenly he sprang to his feet, barked, and seemed much
+agitated; in a minute we, too, hear the sound of wheels, which his more
+acute ear had already caught; as the carriage approached, his excitement
+increased; at first he only barked back as if to entreat it not to come
+on so quickly, but as it plainly did not heed his civil remonstrance,
+the bow-wow became still more earnest in its expostulatory accents.
+B[=o]w (long) w[)o]w (short). "Why such haste?" Then he tried his
+eloquence upon us; and while reiterating his canine _accidente_ in his
+own way at the horses now close at hand, his voice assumes an elegiac
+whine as he turns to supplicate, in a tone that none accustomed to
+Italian beggars can mistake; "_non abbandonatemi_," being plainly the
+purport of its most dolorous and plaintive accents. We hesitate, the
+carriage draws up, down go the steps, and lo! in a twinkling, our new
+friend has darted in before us, taken possession, and there he sits
+ready to kiss our hand. Such audacity was sure to succeed, so, letting
+him gently down from the steps we left him to follow if he chose.
+Follow! trust him for that! he bounded along the Appian way, barking to
+encourage the horses, coquetting with a favourite pony, and winning over
+our Joseph, by the time we had arrived at _Civita Castellana_, to let
+him remain in their company for the night. Next morning he starts
+betimes, nor permits the carriage to overtake him, till all fear of
+being sent back is removed, by our near approach to Rome. Arrived there,
+he at once finds his way to the livery stables, and establishes himself
+permanently with the horses. Throughout the winter, we take with good
+humour the flippant comments of _flaneurs_ and over-fastidious friends,
+touching the bestowal of our patronage upon such an ill-favoured cur,
+while we thought ourselves the objects of his gratitude and affection;
+but Frate's character (we gave him this name from the length of his
+beard, the colour of his coat, and because he had lived upon alms) did
+not improve upon acquaintance. One bad trait soon showed itself, he
+refused to hold communication with the less-favoured dogs of the
+Pincian, turning a deaf ear to their advances, or if they yet
+persevered, meeting them with set teeth and an unamiable growl; as he
+filled out, his regard for his patrons diminished perceptibly;
+attentions bestowed on a smaller colleague excited his jealousy; and we
+began to believe the truth of a report circulated to his prejudice, that
+Frate was really on the look-out for a place where no other dog was
+kept, and where he might have it all his own way. No longer proud of
+notice, he seldom sought our society, but was glad to slink off whenever
+this could be done without observation. Toward the close of the winter,
+indeed, we were deceived by some renewed advances into the belief of a
+return of affection, which determined us, when we left Rome, to take him
+once more in our suite; we soon, however, found out our mistake. Already
+unprincipled in no ordinary degree, the society of the caf�s and
+table-d'h�tes at Lucca completed his corruption. His misconduct at last
+became town-talk, and his misdeeds were in every body's mouth; so, when
+he had lamed half-a-dozen labourers, scared the whole neighbourhood like
+a second Dragon of Wantley, and fought sundry battles with dogs as ugly,
+for Helens scarce better-looking than himself, we yielded to public
+remonstrance, and removing our protective collar from his unworthy neck,
+consigned him to a village sportsman, who hoped to turn his fierceness
+to account in attacking the wild-boar. With him Frate remained for about
+six weeks, by which time, tiring of the _Cacciatore's_ rough handling,
+he had the temerity, two days before our departure, to present himself
+again at our door. Too much disgusted to receive him after what had
+passed, we showed him a whip from an open window, which to a dog of his
+sagacity was enough; in one instant he was on his legs, and in the next
+out of sight, but whether to return to the sportsman, or the mountain,
+or to seek and find a new master to cozen, we never heard, as this was
+our last visit to Lucca. The lesson inculcated by Frate's misconduct has
+not been lost upon us; so whenever any queer canine scarecrow now meets
+us on the Pincian, and by his dejected looks seeks to enlist our
+sympathy, we cut short the appeal, stare him in the face, and then utter
+the word "never" with sufficient emphasis to send him off shaking his
+head, as if a brace of fleas, or a "fulminating edict" from the governor
+were ringing in both ears.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[31] Badham's _Juvenal_, Sat. 8.
+
+
+
+
+SONG,
+
+FOR THE DINNER GIVEN TO THE EARL OF DALHOUSIE, AT EDINBURGH, 14th
+SEPTEMBER 1847, BEFORE HIS PROCEEDING TO INDIA AS GOVERNOR-GENERAL.
+
+BY DELTA.
+
+
+  I.
+
+  Long, long ere the thistle was twined with the rose,
+  And the firmest of friends now were fiercest of foes,
+    The flag of Dalwolsey aye foremost was seen;
+  Through the night of oppression it glitter'd afar,
+  To the patriot's eye 'twas a ne'er-setting star,
+  And with Bruce and with Wallace it flash'd through the fray,
+  When "Freedom or Death" was the shout of the day,
+    For the thistle of Scotland shall ever be green!
+
+  II.
+
+  A long line of chieftains! from father to son,
+  They lived for their country--their purpose was one--
+    In heart they were fearless--in hand they were clean;
+  From the hero of yore, who, in Gorton's grim caves,
+  Kept watch with the band who disdain'd to be slaves,
+  Down to him, with the Hopetoun and Lynedoch that vied,
+  Who should shine like a twin star by Wellington's side,
+    That the thistle of Scotland might ever be green!
+
+  III.
+
+  Then a bumper to him in whose bosom combine
+  All the virtues that proudly ennoble his line,
+    As dear to his country, as stanch to his Queen;
+  Nor less that Dalhousie a patriot we find,
+  Whose field is the senate, whose sword is the mind,
+  And whose object the strife of the world to compose,
+  That the shamrock may bloom by the side of the rose,
+    And the thistle of Scotland for ever be green!
+
+  IV.
+
+  It is not alone for his bearing and birth,
+  It is not alone for his wisdom and worth,
+    At this board that our good and our noble convene;
+  But a faith in the blessings which India may draw
+  From science, from commerce, religion, and law;
+  And that all who obey Britain's sceptre may see
+  That knowledge is power--that the truth makes us free;
+    For rose, thistle, and shamrock, shall ever be green!
+
+  V.
+
+  A hail and farewell! it is pledged to the brim,
+  And drain'd to the bottom in honour of him
+    Who a glory to Scotland shall be and hath been:
+  Untired in the cause of his country and crown,
+  May his path be a long one of spotless renown;
+  Till the course nobly rounded, the goal proudly won,
+  Fame, smiling on Scotland, shall point to her son,
+    For the thistle--Her thistle!--shall ever be green!
+
+
+
+
+MY FRIEND THE DUTCHMAN.
+
+
+"And you will positively marry her, if she will have you?"
+
+"Not a doubt of either. Before this day fortnight she shall be Madame
+Van Haubitz."
+
+"You will make her your wife without acquainting her with your true
+position?"
+
+"Indeed will I. My very position requires it. There's no room for a
+scruple. She expects to live on my fortune; thinks to make a great catch
+of the rich Dutchman. Instead of that I shall spend her salary. The old
+story; going out for wool and returning shorn."
+
+The conversation of which this is the concluding fragment, occurred in
+the public room of the Hotel de Hesse, in the village of Homburg on the
+Hill--an insignificant handful of houses, officiating as capital of the
+important landgravate of Hesse-Homburg. The table-d'h�te had been over
+some time; the guests had departed to repose in their apartments until
+the hour of evening promenade should summon them to the excellent band
+of music, provided by the calculating liberality of the gaming-house
+keepers, and to loiter round the _brunnens_ of more or less nauseous
+flavour, the pretext of resort to this rendezvous of idlers and
+gamblers. The waiters had disappeared to batten on the broken meats from
+the public table, and to doze away the time till the approach of supper
+renewed their activity. My interlocutor, with whom I was alone in the
+deserted apartment, was a man of about thirty years of age, whose dark
+hair and mustaches, marked features, spare person, and complexion
+bronzed by a tropical sun, entitled him to pass for a native of southern
+Europe, or even of some more ardent clime. Nevertheless he answered to
+the very Dutch patronymic of Van Haubitz, and was a native of Holland,
+in whose principal city his father was a banker of considerable wealth
+and financial influence.
+
+It was towards the close of a glorious August, and for two months I had
+been wandering in Rhine-land. Not after the fashion of deluded Cockneys,
+who fancy they have seen the Rhine when they have careered from Cologne
+to Mannheim astride of a steam-engine, gaping at objects passed as soon
+as perceived; drinking and paying for indifferent vinegar as
+Steinberger-Cabinet, eating vile dinners on the decks of steamers, and
+excellent ones in the capital hotels which British cash and patronage
+have raised upon the banks of the flower of German streams. On the
+contrary, I had early dispensed with the aid of steam, to wander on
+foot, with the occasional assistance of a lazy country diligence or
+rickety _einspanner_, through the many beautiful districts that lie upon
+either bank of the river; pedestrianising in Rhenish Bavaria, losing
+myself in the Odenwald, and pausing, when occasion offered, to pick a
+trout out of the numerous streamlets that dash and meander through dell
+and ravine, on their way to swell the waters of old Father Rhine. At
+last, weary of solitude--scarcely broken by an occasional gossip with a
+heavy German boor, village priest, or strolling student,--I thirsted
+after the haunts of civilisation, and found myself, within a day of the
+appearance of the symptom, installed in a luxurious hotel in the free
+city of Frankfort on the Maine. But Frankfort at that season is
+deserted, save by passing tourists, who escape as fast as possible from
+its lifeless streets and sun-baked pavements; so, after glancing over an
+English newspaper at the Casino, taking one stroll in the beautiful
+garden surrounding the city, and another through the Jew-quarter--always
+interesting and curious, although any thing but savoury at that warm
+season,--I gathered together my baggage and was off to Homburg. There I
+could not complain of solitude, of deserted streets and shuttered
+windows. It seemed impossible that the multitude of gaily dressed belles
+and cavaliers, English, French, German, and Russ, who, from six in the
+morning until sunset, lounged and flirted on the walks, watered
+themselves at the fountains, and perilled their complexions in the
+golden sunbeams, could ever bestow themselves in the two or three
+middling hotels and few score shabby lodging-houses composing the town
+of Homburg. Manage it they did, however; crept into their narrow cells
+at night, to emerge next morning, like butterflies from the chrysalis,
+gay, bright, and brilliant, and to recommence the never-varying but
+pleasant round of eating, sauntering, love-making, and gambling. Homburg
+was not then what it has since become. That great house of cards, the
+new Cursaal, had not yet arisen; and its table-d'h�te, reading-room, and
+profane mysteries of roulette and rouge-et-noir, found temporary
+domicile in a narrow, disreputable-looking den in the main street, where
+accommodation of all kinds, but especially for dinner, was scanty in the
+extreme. The public tables at the hotels were consequently thronged, and
+there acquaintances were soon made. The day of my arrival at Homburg I
+was seated next to Van Haubitz; his manner was off hand and frank, we
+entered into conversation, took our after-dinner cigar and evening
+stroll together, and by bed-time had knocked up that sort of intimacy
+easily contracted at a watering-place, which lasts one's time of
+residence, and is extinguished and forgotten on departure. Van Haubitz,
+like many Continentals and very few Englishmen, was one of those
+free-and-easy communicative persons who are as familiar after twelve
+hours' acquaintance as if they had known you twelve years, and who do
+not hesitate to confide to a three days' acquaintance the history of
+their lives, their pursuits, position, and prospects. I was soon made
+acquainted, to a very considerable extent, at least, with those of my
+friend Van Haubitz, late lieutenant of artillery in the service of his
+majesty the King of Holland. He was the youngest of four sons, and
+having shown, at a very early age, a wild and intractable disposition,
+and precocious addiction to dissipation, his father pronounced him
+unsuited to business, and decided on placing him in the army. To this
+the _Junker_, (he claimed nobility, and displayed above his arms a
+species of coronet, bearing considerable resemblance to a fragment of
+chevaux-de-frise, which he might have been puzzled to prop with a
+parchment,) had no particular objection, and might have made a good
+enough officer, but for his reckless, spendthrift manner of life, which
+entailed negligence of duty and frequent reprimands. Extravagant beyond
+measure, unable to deny himself any gratification, squandering money as
+though millions were at his command, he was constantly overwhelmed with
+debts and a martyr to duns. At last his father, after thrice clearing
+him with his creditors, consented to do so a fourth time only on
+condition of his getting transferred to a regiment stationed in the
+Dutch East Indies, and remaining there until his return had the paternal
+sanction. To avoid a prison, and perhaps not altogether sorry to leave a
+country where his credit was bad and his reputation worse, he embarked
+for Batavia. But any pleasant day-dreams he may have cherished of
+tropical luxuries, of the indulgence of a _farniente_ life in a grass
+hammock, gently balanced by Javan houris beneath banana shades, of
+spice-laden breezes and cool sherbets, and other attributes of a
+Mahomedan paradise, were speedily dissipated by the odious realities of
+filth and vermin, marsh-fever and mosquitoes. He wrote to his father,
+describing the horrors of the place, and begging to be released from his
+pledge and allowed to return to Holland. His obdurate progenitor replied
+by a letter of reproach, and swore that if he left Batavia he might live
+on his pay, and never expect a stiver from the paternal strong-box,
+either as gift or bequest. To live upon his pay would have been no easy
+matter, even for a more prudent and economical person than Van Haubitz.
+He grumbled immoderately, blasphemed like a pagan, but remained where he
+was. A year passed and he could hold out no longer. Disregarding the
+paternal menaces and displeasure, and reckless of consequences, he
+applied to the chief military authority of the colony for leave of
+absence. He was asked his plea, and alleged ill health. The general
+thought he looked pretty well, and requested the sight of a medical
+certificate of his invalid state. Van Haubitz assumed a doleful
+countenance and betook him to the surgeons. They agreed with the
+general that he looked pretty healthy; asked for symptoms; could
+discover none more alarming than regularity of pulse, sleep, appetite,
+and digestion, laughed in his face and refused the certificate. The
+sickly cannonier, who had the constitution of a rhinoceros, and had
+never had a day's illness since he got over the measles at the age of
+four years, waited a little, and tried the second "dodge," usually
+resorted to in such cases. "Urgent private affairs" were now the
+pretext. The general expressed his regret that urgent public affairs
+rendered it impossible for him to dispense with the valuable services of
+Lieutenant Van Haubitz. Whereupon Lieutenant Van Haubitz passed half an
+hour in heaping maledictions on the head of his disobliging commander,
+and then sat down and wrote an application for an exchange to the
+authorities in Holland. The reply was equally unsatisfactory, the fact
+being that Haubitz senior, like an implacable old savage as he was, had
+made interest at the war-office for the refusal of all such requests on
+the part of his scapegrace offspring. Haubitz junior took patience for
+another year, and then, in a moment of extreme disgust and ennui, threw
+up his commission and returned to Europe, trusting, he told me, that
+after five years' absence, the governor's bowels would yearn towards his
+youngest-born. In this he was entirely mistaken; he greatly underrated
+the toughness of paternal viscera. Far from killing the fatted calf on
+the prodigal's return, the incensed old Hollander refused him the
+smallest cutlet, and shutting the door in his face, consigned him, with
+more energy than affection, to the custody of the evil one. Van Haubitz
+found himself in an awkward fix. Credit was dead, none of his relatives
+would notice or assist him; his whole fortune consisted of a dozen gold
+Wilhelms. At this critical moment an eccentric maiden aunt, to whom, a
+year or two previously, he had sent a propitiatory offering of a
+ring-tailed monkey and a leash of pea-green parrots, and who had never
+condescended even to acknowledge the present, departed this life,
+bequeathing him ten thousand florins as a return for the addition to her
+menagerie. A man of common prudence, and who had seen himself so near
+destitution, would have endeavoured to employ this sum, moderate as it
+was, in some trade or business, or, at any rate, would have lived
+sparingly till he found other resources. But Haubitz had not yet sown
+all his wild-oats; he had a soul above barter, a glorious disregard of
+the future, the present being provided for. He left Holland, shaking the
+dust from his boots, dashed across Belgium, and was soon plunged in the
+gaieties of a Paris carnival. Breakfasts at the Rocher, dinners at the
+Caf�, balls at the opera, and the concomitant _petits soupers_ and
+�cart� parties with the fair denizens of the Quartier Lorette, soon
+operated a prodigious chasm in the monkey-money, as Van Haubitz
+irreverently styled his venerable aunt's bequest. Spring having arrived,
+he beat a retreat from Paris, and established himself at Homburg, where
+he was quietly completing the consumption of the ten thousand florins,
+at rather a slower pace than he would have done at that head-quarters of
+pleasant iniquity, the capital of France. From hints he had let fall, I
+suspected a short time would suffice to see the last of the legacy. On
+this head, however, he had been less confidential than on most other
+matters, and certainly his manner of living would have led no one to
+suppose he was low in the locker. Nothing was too good for him; he drank
+the most expensive wines, got up parties and pic-nics for the ladies,
+and had a special addiction to the purchase of costly trinkets, which he
+generally gave away before they had been a day in his possession. He did
+not gamble; he had done so, he told me, once since he was at Homburg,
+and had won, but he had no faith in his luck, or taste for that kind of
+excitement, and should play no more. He was playing another game just
+now, which apparently interested him greatly. A few days before myself,
+a young actress, who, within a very short time, had acquired
+considerable celebrity, had arrived at Homburg, escorted by her mother.
+Fraulein Emilie Sendel was a lively lady of four-and-twenty or
+thereabouts, possessing a smart figure and pretty face, the latter
+somewhat wanting in refinement. Her blue eyes although rather too
+prominent, had a merry sparkle; her cheeks had not yet been entirely
+despoiled by envious rouge of their natural healthful tinge; her hair,
+of that peculiar tint of red auburn which the French call a _blond
+hasard�_, was more remarkable for abundance and flexibility than for
+fineness of texture. As regarded her qualities and accomplishments, she
+was good-humoured and tolerably unaffected, but wilful and capricious as
+a spoiled child; she spoke her own language pretty well, with an
+occasional slight vulgarism or bit of green-room slang; had a smattering
+of French, and played the piano sufficiently to accompany the ballads
+and vaudeville airs which she sang with spirit and considerable freedom
+of style. I had met German actresses who were far more lady-like off the
+stage, but there was nothing glaringly or repulsively vulgar about
+Emilie, and as a neighbour at a public dinner-table, she was amusing and
+quite above par. As if to vindicate her nationality, she would
+occasionally look sentimental, but the mood sat ill upon her, and never
+lasted long; comedy was evidently her natural line. Against her
+reputation, rumour, always an inquisitive censor, often a mean libeller,
+of ladies of her profession, had as yet, so far as I could learn, found
+nothing to allege. Her mother, a dingy old dowager, with bad teeth,
+dowdy gowns, a profusion of artificial flowers, and a strong addiction
+to tea and knitting, perfectly understood the duties of duennaship, and
+did propriety by her daughter's side at dinner-table and promenade. To
+the heart of the daughter, Van Haubitz, almost from the first hour he
+had seen her, had laid persevering and determined siege.
+
+During our after-dinner t�te-�-t�te on the day now referred to, my
+friend the cannonier had shown himself exceedingly unreserved, and,
+without any attempt on my part to draw him out, he had elucidated, with
+a frankness that must have satisfied the most inquisitive, whatever
+small points of his recent history and present position he had
+previously left in obscurity. The conversation began, so soon as the
+cloth was removed and the guests had departed, by a jesting allusion on
+my part to his flirtation with the actress, and to her gracious
+reception of his attentions.
+
+"It is no mere flirtation," said Van, gravely. "My intentions are
+serious. You may depend Mademoiselle Sendel understands them as such."
+
+"Serious! you don't mean that you want to marry her?"
+
+"Unquestionably I do. It is my only chance."
+
+"Your only chance!" I repeated, considerably puzzled. "Are you about to
+turn actor, and do you trust to her for instruction in histrionics?"
+
+"Not exactly. I will explain. La Sendel, you must know, has just
+terminated her last engagement, which was at a salary of ten thousand
+florins. She has already received and accepted an offer of a new one, at
+fifteen thousand, from the Vienna theatre. Vienna is a very pleasant
+place. Fifteen thousand florins are thirty-two thousand francs, or
+twelve hundred of your English pounds sterling. Upon that stun two
+persons can live excellently well--in Germany at least."
+
+Unable to contradict any of these assertions, I held my tongue. The
+Dutchman resumed.
+
+"You know the history of my past life; I will tell you my present
+position. It is critical enough, but I shall improve it, for here," and
+he touched his forehead, "is what never fails me. This letter," he
+produced an epistle of mercantile aspect, bearing the Amsterdam
+post-mark, "I received last week from my eldest brother. The shabby
+_schelm_ declares he will reply to no more of mine, that his efforts to
+arrange matters with my father have been fruitless, and that the old
+gentleman has strictly forbidden him and his brothers to hold any
+communication with me, a command they seem willing enough to obey. So
+much for that. And now for the finances."
+
+He took out his pocket-book, opened and shook it, a flimsy crumpled bit
+of paper fell out. It was a note of the bank of France, for one thousand
+francs.
+
+"My last," said he. "That gone, I am a beggar. But it won't come to
+that, either, thanks to Fraulein Emilie."
+
+"Surely," said I, "you are too reckless of money, too extravagant and
+unreflecting. Six months ago, you told me, you had twenty such notes."
+
+"Ay, twenty-two exactly, at the end of January, when I left Amsterdam.
+But whither was I bound? To Paris; and who can economize there? I've had
+my money's worth, and could have had no more, had I dribbled the dirty
+ten thousand florins over three years, instead of three months. I take
+great credit for making it last so long. Such suppers, and balls, and
+orgies, with the pleasantest fellows and prettiest actresses in Paris.
+But the louis-d'or roll rapidly in that sort of society. One must be a
+Russian prince, or French _feuilletoniste_, to keep it up. I never
+flinched at any thing so long as the money lasted. Then, when I found
+myself reduced to the last note, I got into the Frankfort mail, and came
+to rusticate at this rural roulette table. My next change will be to
+conjugation and Vienna."
+
+"But if you had only a thousand francs on leaving Paris, and have got
+them still, how have you lived since?"
+
+"You don't suppose these are the same? There are not many ways of
+getting through money here, unless one gambles, which I do not; but coin
+has somehow or other a peculiar aptitude to slip through my fingers, and
+the thousand francs soon evaporated. Meanwhile, I had written dozens of
+letters to my brothers, who seldom answered, and to my father, who never
+did. I promised reform and a respectable life, if they would either get
+me a snug place with little to do and good pay, or make me a reasonable
+yearly allowance, something better than the paltry three thousand
+florins they doled out to me when I was in the artillery, and on which,
+as I could not live, I was obliged to get in debt. They paid no
+attention to my request, reasonable as it was. The best offer they made
+me was five francs a-day, paid weekly, to live in a Silesian village.
+This was adding insult to injury, and I left off writing to them. A few
+days afterwards, taking out my purse to pay for cigars, a dollar dropped
+out. It was my last. I paid it away, walked home, lay down upon my bed,
+smoked and reflected. My position was gloomy enough, and the more I
+looked at it, the blacker it seemed. From my undutiful relatives there
+was no hope; the abominable Silesian project was evidently their
+ultimatum. I had no friend to turn to, no resource left. I might
+certainly have obtained the mere necessaries of life at this hotel,
+where my credit was excellent, and have vegetated for a month or two, as
+a man must vegetate, without ready money. But I had no fancy for such an
+expedient, a mere protraction of the agony. I lay ruminating for two
+hours, two such hours as I should be sorry to pass again, and then my
+mind was made up. I had a brace of small travelling pistols amongst my
+baggage; these I loaded and put in my pocket, and then, leaving the
+hotel and the town, I struck across the country for some distance and
+plunged into a wood. There I sat down upon a grass bank, my back against
+an old beech. It was evening, and the solitary little glade before me
+was striped with the last sunbeams darting between the tree-trunks. I
+have difficulty in defining my sensations at that moment. I was quite
+resolved, did not waver an instant in my purpose, but my head was dizzy,
+and I had a sickly sensation about the heart. Determined that the
+physical shrinking from death should not have time to weaken my moral
+determination, I hastily opened my waistcoat, felt for the pulsations of
+my heart, placed the muzzle of a pistol where they were strongest,
+steadying it on that spot with my left hand. Then I looked straight
+before me and pulled the trigger. There was the click of the lock, but
+no report; the cap was bad, and had been crushed without exploding. That
+was a horrible moment. I snatched up another pistol, which lay cocked to
+my hand, and thrust the muzzle into my mouth. As before, the sharp noise
+of the hammer upon the nipple was the sole result. The caps had been
+some time in my possession, and had become worthless through age or
+damp."
+
+I looked at Van Haubitz, doubtful whether he was not hoaxing me. But
+hitherto I had observed in him no addiction to the Munchausen vein, and
+now his countenance and voice were serious; there was a slight flush on
+his cheek, and he was evidently excited at the recollection of his
+abortive attempt at suicide,--perhaps a little ashamed of it. I was
+convinced he told the truth.
+
+"I do not know," he continued, "whether, had I had surer weapons with
+me, I should have had courage to make a third attempt upon my life.
+Honestly, I think not; the self-preservative instinct was rapidly
+gaining strength. I walked slowly back to the town, my brain still
+confused from the agitating moments I had passed. I was unable quite to
+collect my thoughts, and felt as if I had just awakened from a long
+heavy sleep. It was now dark; lights streamed from the open windows of
+the gambling-rooms; the voices of the croupiers, the stir and hum of the
+players and jingling of money were distinctly heard in the street
+without. I have already told you I am no gambler, not from scruple, but
+choice. Nevertheless, I used often to stroll up to the Cursaal for an
+hour of in evening, when the play was at the highest, to look on and
+chat with any acquaintances I met. Mechanically, I now ascended the
+stairs. On the landing-place, I found myself face to face with a man
+with whom I was slightly intimate, and who, a few evenings before, had
+borrowed forty francs of me. I had not seen him since, and he now
+returned me the piece of gold. 'Try your luck with it,' said he; 'there
+is a run against the bank tonight, every body wins, and M. Blanc looks
+blue.' And he pointed to one of the proprietors of the tables, who,
+however, wore a tolerably tranquil air, knowing well that what was
+carried away one night, would come back with compound interest the next.
+The play was heavy at the Rouge-et-noir table; a Russian and two
+Frenchmen--the latter of whom, judging from their appearance, and from
+the complicated array of calculations on the table before them, were
+professional gamblers--extracted, at nearly every _coup_, notes or
+rouleaus of gold from the grated boxes in front of the bankers. I drank
+a glass of water, for my lips and mouth were dry and hot, and placing
+myself as near the table as the crowd of players and spectators
+permitted, watched the game. My hand was in my pocket, the forty-franc
+piece still between its fingers. But in spite of the advice of him who
+had paid it me, I felt no disposition to risk the coin; not that I
+feared to lose it, for as my only one it was useless, but because, as I
+tell you, I never had the slightest love of gambling or expectation to
+win.
+
+"A pause occurred in the game. The cards had run out, and the bankers
+were subjecting them to those complicated and ostentatious shufflings
+intended to convince the players of the fairness of their dealings.
+During this operation, the previous silence was exchanged for eager
+gossip. The game, it appeared, had come out that night in a peculiar
+manner, very favourable to those who had had _nous_ and nerve to avail
+themselves of it. There had been alternate long runs upon red and black.
+
+"'_Mille noms de Dieu_!' exclaimed a hoarse cracked voice just below me.
+'What a series of black! Twenty-two, and only three red! And to be
+unable to take advantage of it!'
+
+"I looked down, and recognised the gray mustache, wrinkled features, and
+snuffy black coat with a ribbon of the Legion of Honour, of an old
+French colonel whom you may have seen limping in and out of the Cursaal,
+and who ranks amongst the antiquities of Homburg. He served under
+Napoleon, was shelved at the peace, and has lived since then on a
+moderate annuity, of which one-fifth procures him the barest necessaries
+of existence, whilst the other four parts are annually absorbed in the
+vortex of rouge-et-noir. When gambling-houses were legal at Paris, _le
+colonel rap�_, the threadbare colonel, as he was called, was one of the
+most punctual attendants at Frascati's and the Palais Royal. When they
+were abolished, he commenced a wandering existence amongst the German
+baths, and finally settled down at Homburg, giving it the preference, as
+the only place where he could follow his darling pursuit alike in winter
+and in summer. From the opening to the close of the play he is seen
+seated at the table, a number of cards, ruled in red and black columns,
+on the green cloth before him, in which he pricks with pins the progress
+of the game. That evening he had been unfortunate, and had emptied his
+pocket, but nevertheless continued puncturing cards with laudable
+perseverance, of course discovering, like every penniless gambler, that,
+had he money to stake, he should infallibly make a fortune; predicting
+what colour would come out, and indulging, when he proved a true
+prophet, in a little subdued blasphemy because he was unable to profit
+by his acuteness.
+
+"'Extraordinary run! to be sure,' repeated the veteran dicer.
+'Twenty-two black, and only three red! There'll be a series of red now:
+I feel there will, and when I don't play myself, I'm always right. I bet
+this deal begins with seven red. Who bets a hundred francs to fifty it
+does not?'
+
+"Nobody accepted this sporting offer, or placed upon the colour which
+the colonel's prophetic soul foresaw was to come out. The cards were now
+shuffled and cut for dealing. The hell relapsed into silence.
+
+"'_Faites le jeu, Messieurs!_' was repeated in the harsh business-like
+tones of the presiding demon.
+
+"'Red wins,' croaked the colonel. 'Seven times at the least.'
+
+"Nearly all the players backed the black. By an idle impulse I threw
+down my forty francs, my entire fortune, upon the red. The old soldier
+looked round to see the judicious individual who followed his advice,
+smiled grimly, and nodded approvingly. The next moment red won. I let
+the money lie, and walked into the next room. Eighty francs were of no
+more use to me than forty, and I felt very sure that another turn of the
+card would carry off both stake and winnings. I took up a newspaper, but
+soon threw it down again, for my head was not clear enough to read, and
+I felt exhausted with the emotions of the day. I was about to leave the
+house when I heard a loud buzz in the card-room, and the next instant
+somebody clutched my arm. It was the French colonel, in a state of
+furious excitement; grinning, panting, perspiring, and stuttering with
+eagerness.
+
+"'Seven reds!' was all he could say. 'Seven reds, Monsieur. Take up your
+money.'
+
+"I hastened to the table. By a strange caprice of fortune, the colonel's
+prophecy had come true. Red had won seven times, and my forty francs had
+become five thousand. I took up my winnings, the colonel looking on with
+a triumphant smile. This was suddenly exchanged for a portentous frown
+and fierce twist of the gray mustache.
+
+"'_Mille millions de tonnerres!_ Not a dollar left to follow up that
+splendid run!' And with a furious gesture, he upset his chair, and
+dashed his cards upon the ground.
+
+"I took the hint, whether intended or not. I could not do less in return
+for the five thousand francs the old gentleman had put in my pocket.
+
+"'If Monsieur,' I said, 'will allow me the pleasure of lending him--'
+
+"'_Impossible, Monsieur!_' interrupted the colonel, looking as stern as
+if about to charge single-handed a whole pult of Cossacks. But I knew my
+man. He was the type of a class of which I have seen many.
+
+"'_Cependant, Monsieur, entre militaires_, between brother-soldiers--'
+
+"'_Ah! Monsieur est militaire!_' exclaimed the old gentleman, his
+alarming contraction of brow and rigidity of feature instantaneously
+dissolving into a smile of extreme benignity. 'That alters the case.
+Certainly, between brothers in arms those little services may be offered
+and accepted. Although, really, it is encroaching on Monsieur's
+complaisance ... at the same time ... a hundred francs ... till
+to-morrow ... quarters at some distance ... &c. &c.' which ended in his
+picking up his chair, cards, and pin, and applying all his faculties to
+break the bank with ten _louis_ which I lent him, and which I need
+hardly say I have not seen from that day to this.
+
+"Such a sudden stroke of good fortune would have made gamblers of nine
+men out of ten, but I decidedly want the organ of gaming, for I have
+never played since. My narrow escape from suicide had made some
+impression on me, and now that I had five thousand francs in my pocket,
+I looked back at the attempt as an exceedingly foolish proceeding. For a
+month or more, I lived with what even you would admit to be great
+economy, writing frequent letters to Amsterdam, and trying to come to
+terms and an arrangement with my family. All in vain. They had no
+confidence in my promises, proposed nothing I could accept, talked of
+Silesian exile--roots and water in the wilderness--and the like
+absurdities, until I plainly saw they were determined to cast me off,
+and that if I was to be helped at all, it must be by myself. How to do
+this was the puzzle. There are few things I can do, that could in any
+way be rendered profitable. I can ride a horse, lay a gun, and put a
+battery through its exercise; but such accomplishments are sufficiently
+common not to be paid at a very high rate; and besides I had had enough
+of garrison duty, even could I have got back my commission, which was
+not very likely. So I put soldiering out of the question; and yet, when
+I had done so, I was infernally puzzled to think of any thing better. I
+had no fancy to turn rook, and rove from place to place in search of
+pigeons--no uncommon resource with younger brothers of an idle turn and
+exhausted means. I had fallen in with a few birds of that breed, and had
+come to the conclusion that to save themselves work and trouble, they
+had adopted by far the most laborious and painful of all professions. In
+the midst of my doubts and uncertainties, the fair Sendel and her mother
+made their appearance. The first sight of their names upon the hotel
+book was a ray of light to me. Within an hour I made up my mind to
+sacrifice my independence to my necessities, and become the virtuous and
+domesticated spouse of the charming and well-paid Emilie. A hint and a
+dollar to the waiter placed me next her at the table-d'h�te, and I
+immediately opened my intrenchments, and began a siege in due form."
+
+"Which you expect will soon terminate by the capitulation of the
+garrison?" said I, laughing.
+
+"Undoubtedly. The result of the first day or two's operations was not
+very satisfactory. I rattled away, and did the amiable to a furious
+extent; but the divinity was shy, and the guardian of the temple (an old
+gorgon whom I shall suppress before the honeymoon is out) looked askance
+at me, and pulled her daughter by the sleeve whenever she seemed
+disposed to listen. They evidently thought the rattle might belong to a
+snake; did me the injustice to take me for an adventurer. On the third
+day, however, the ice had melted. I soon found out the cause of the
+thaw. The head-waiter, whom a little well-timed liberality had rendered
+my devoted slave, informed me that Madame Sendel had been making minute
+inquiries concerning me of the master of the hotel. The worthy man, who
+adored me because I despised _vin ordinaire_ and looked only at the
+sum-total of his bills, said that I was a son of Van Haubitz, the rich
+banker of Amsterdam, which was perfectly true; adding, which was rather
+less so, that I was a partner in the house, and a _millionaire_. The
+effect of this information upon the speculative firm of Sendel _M�re et
+Fille_, was perfectly electric. Medusa smoothed her horrid looks, and
+came out at that day's dinner in cherry ribands and fresh artificials.
+Emilie was all smiles and suavity, laughed at my worst jokes, nearly
+burst her stays by holding her breath to raise a blush at my soft
+speeches, and returned from that evening's promenade talking about the
+moon, and leaning with tender _abandon_, on my arm."
+
+"With such encouragement, I am surprised you did not propose at once."
+
+"So hasty a measure--oh, most unsophisticated of Britons!" replied Van,
+with a look of grave pity for my simplicity--"would have greatly
+perilled the success of my scheme. Sendel Senior, having only the
+innkeeper's report to rely upon, would have had her ungenerous
+suspicions re-awakened by my precipitation, and have instituted further
+inquiries; have written, probably, to some friend in Holland, and
+learned that the pretender to her daughter's hand, although
+unquestionably a son of the wealthy banker Van Haubitz, is excluded
+beyond redemption from the good graces of that respectable pillar of
+Dutch finance, who has further announced his irrevocable determination
+to take not the slightest notice of him in his testamentary
+dispositions. The excellent Herr Bratenbengel, whose succulent dinner we
+are now digesting, and whose very laudable _Rudesheimer_ stands before
+us, had unwittingly laid the foundation of my success; it was for me to
+raise the superstructure. Now it was that I rejoiced at my economy since
+the lucky hit at the gaming-table. The greater part of my winnings still
+remained to me; golden grain, which I now profusely scattered, sure that
+it would yield rich harvest. On one manoeuvre I particularly pride
+myself. Retaining a few napoleons for immediate use, I remitted the
+remainder to a friend in Amsterdam, requesting him to return it me in a
+bill on Frankfort drawn by my father's bank. I took care to have the
+letter containing the draft delivered to me at dinner when seated beside
+the adorable Emilie, and was equally careful to lay the bill open upon
+the table, whilst I took a hasty glance at the letter. Of course my
+neighbour pretended not to see the draft, and equally of course she made
+herself mistress of its contents, particularly noting the drawer's name,
+and communicating the same to her mother at the earliest opportunity.
+This had a good effect, establishing my connexion with the rich house of
+Van Haubitz; and I have taken care to confirm the favourable impression
+by the profuse expenditure which you, in your ignorance, have called
+extravagance, by treating money as if its abundance in my coffers made
+it valueless in my eyes, and by delicate generosity in the shape of
+presents to mother and daughter. The trap was too cunningly set to prove
+a failure; the birds are fairly snared, and tonight, when we take our
+usual romantic stroll, I shall raise the fair Sendel to the seventh
+heaven of happiness by asking her to become Madame Van Haubitz."
+
+Although the tenour and tone of these confessions had by no means tended
+to elevate the Dutchman in my opinion, I could not forbear smiling at
+the coolness with which they were made and at the skill of his
+manoeuvres. Still there was some good about the scamp; he had his own
+code of honour, such as it was, and from that he would not easily have
+been induced to swerve. He would have scorned to do a dirty thing, to
+cheat at cards, or leave a debt of honour unpaid; but would readily have
+got in debt to tradesmen and money-lenders beyond all possibility of
+reimbursement. And as regarded his present conspiracy against the
+celibacy and salary of Mademoiselle Sendel, a synod of sages and
+logicians would have failed to convince him of its impropriety. He
+looked upon it as a most justifiable stratagem, a lawful preying upon
+the spoiler, praiseworthy in the sight of men, gods, and columns, and
+which he would perhaps have boasted of to a considerable extent to many
+besides myself, had not secrecy been essential to the welfare of his
+combinations. I, of course, did not feel called upon to betray his plot,
+or to put the Sendel on her guard against this snake amongst the roses.
+And whilst mentally resolving rather to diminish than increase the
+intimacy which the confident and confidential artilleryman had in great
+measure forced upon me, and which I, through a sort of easy-going
+indolence of character, had perhaps somewhat lightly accepted, I
+anticipated much diversion in watching the manoeuvres of the high
+contracting parties. I considered myself as a spectator, called upon to
+witness an amusing comedy in real life, and admitted behind the scenes
+by peculiar favour of an actor. I resolved to watch the progress of the
+intrigue, and, if possible, to be present at the _denouement_.
+
+"Are you quite certain," said I to Van, "that Mademoiselle Sendel's
+pecuniary position and prospects are so very favourable? The sum you
+mentioned is a large one for an actress who has been so short a time on
+the stage. Public report, very apt to take liberties with the reputation
+of theatrical ladies, often endeavours to compensate them by magnifying
+their salaries."
+
+Van, I may here mention, lest the reader should not have perceived it,
+had a most inordinate opinion of his own abilities and acuteness. Like
+certain Yankees, he "conceited" it was necessary to rise before the sun
+to outwit him, and even then your chance was a poor one. He had been in
+hot water all his life, never out of difficulties and scrapes, once, as
+has been shown, kept from suicide by a mere accident, and was now
+reduced to the alternative of beggary or of marrying for a living. None
+of these circumstances, which would have taken the conceit out of most
+men, at all impaired his opinion of his talent and sharpness. Replying
+to my observation merely by a slight shrug and smile of pity for the man
+who thus misappreciated his foresight, he again produced his
+pocket-book, and extracted from its innermost recesses a fragment of a
+German newspaper, reputed oracular in matters theatrical. This he handed
+to me, tapping a particular paragraph significantly with his forefinger.
+The paragraph was thus conceived:--
+
+"Theatrical Intelligence.--That promising young actress, Fraulein Emilie
+Sendel--whose first appearance, in the spring of last year, at once
+established her in the foremost line of the dramatic genius of the
+day--has concluded her twelve months' engagement at the _Hof Theater_ of
+B----, where she doubtless considered, and not without reason, that her
+talents and exertions were inadequately compensated by a salary of ten
+thousand florins. The gay society of that _Residenz_ will sensibly feel
+the loss of the accomplished and fascinating comedian, who has accepted
+an engagement at Vienna, on the more suitable terms of fifteen thousand
+florins, with two months' _cong�_, and other advantages. Before
+proceeding to ravish the eyes and cars of the pleasure-loving population
+of the _Kaiser-Stadt, la belle_ Sendel is off to the baths, under the
+protecting wing of the watchful guardian who has presided at all her
+theatrical triumphs."
+
+"Clear enough, I think," said Van, when I raised my eyes from the
+protracted periods of the penny-a-liner.
+
+I had nothing to say against the lucidity of the paragraph, nor any
+thing to urge, at all likely to avail, against the prosecution of Van's
+designs upon the lady's hand and fifteen thousand florins, with "two
+months' _cong�_ and other advantages." No possible sophistry, to which I
+was equal, could prove the marriage to be against his interest; and as
+to trying him on the tack of delicacy--"imposition on an unprotected
+woman,--degrading dependence on her exertions," and so forth--I knew the
+thick skin and indomitable self-conceit of the cannonier would repel
+such feather-shafts without feeling them, or that the utmost effect I
+could expect to produce would be to get myself into a quarrel with the
+redoubtable native of the Netherlands, a predicament in which, as a man
+of peace, I was by no means anxious to find myself. So after hazarding
+the fruitless hint with which the reader was made acquainted at the
+commencement of this narrative, I abstained from all further
+intermeddling, and retired to my apartment, leaving Van Haubitz to con
+the declaration with which he was that evening to rejoice the ears of
+the fair and too-confiding Sendel.
+
+I went to bed early that night and, saw nothing more of the Hollander
+till the next morning, when I was roused from a balmy slumber at the
+untimely hour of seven, by his bursting into my room with more
+impetuosity than ceremony, with the gestures of a maniac and shouts of
+victory. Before my eyes were half open, he was more than half through
+the history of his proceedings on the previous evening. His success had
+been complete. Emilie had faltered, with downcast eyes, a sweet assent.
+The friendly gloom of eve, and the overarching foliage, beneath whose
+shade the momentous question was put, saved her the necessity of
+practising upon her lungs to produce a blush. Mamma Sendel had bestowed
+her blessing upon the happy pair, and in the ardour of her maternal
+accolades had nearly extinguished her future son-in-law's left ogle with
+the wire stalk of an artificial passion-flower. The first burst of
+benevolence over, and the effervescence of feeling a little subsided,
+the bridegroom elect, who could not afford delays, pressed for an early
+day. Thereupon Emilie was, of course, horror-stricken, but her maternal
+relative, nothing loath to land the fish thus satisfactorily hooked, and
+well aware of the impediments that sometimes arise between cup and lip,
+ranged herself upon the side of the eager lover, and their combined
+forces bore down all opposition. Madame Sendel at first showed an
+evident hankering after a preliminary jaunt to Amsterdam and a gay
+wedding, graced by the presence of the bridegroom's numerous and wealthy
+family. She also testified some anxiety as to the view Van Haubitz
+Senior might take of his son's matrimonial project, and as to how far he
+might approve of a hasty and unceremonious wedding. But the gallant
+artilleryman had an answer to every thing. He pledged himself, which he
+was perfectly safe in doing, that his father would not attempt in the
+slightest degree to control his inclinations or interfere with his
+projects, extolled the delights of an autumnal tour with his wife and
+mother-in-law before returning to Holland; in short, was so plausible in
+his arguments, so specious and pressing, pleading so eloquently the
+violence of his love and inutility of delay, and overruling objections
+with such cogent reasoning, that he achieved a complete triumph, and it
+was agreed that in one week Van Haubitz should lead his adored Emilie to
+the hymeneal altar. In the interval, he would have abundant time to
+obtain his father's consent and the necessary papers from Amsterdam--all
+of which he doubted not he should most satisfactorily procure by the
+kind aid of the accommodating friend who had made him returns for his
+remittance.
+
+"There will be a small matter to arrange with respect to Emilie," said
+Madame Sendel in her blandest tones, and with affectation of
+embarrassment. "She has an engagement at the Vienna theatre, which must
+of course now be broken off. There is a forfeit to pay, no very heavy
+sum," added she--
+
+"Not a word about that," interrupted Van, whose blood curdled in his
+veins, at the mere idea of cancelling the engagement on which his hopes
+were built. "There is no hurry for a few days. Let me once call Emilie
+mine, and I take charge of all those matters."
+
+Emilie smiled angelically; Madame patted her considerate son-in-law on
+the shoulders, and applied to her snuff-box to conceal her emotion; and
+all matters of business being thus satisfactorily settled, the evening
+closed in harmony and bliss.
+
+"Are you for Frankfort, to-day?" said Van Haubitz, when he had concluded
+his exulting narrative, and without giving me time for congratulations,
+which I should have been at a loss to offer. "I am off, after breakfast,
+to get some diamond earrings and other small matters for my adorable. I
+shall be glad of your taste and opinion."
+
+"Diamonds!" I exclaimed. "Farewell, then, to the thousand franc note--"
+
+"Pooh! Nonsense! You don't suppose I throw away my last cash that way.
+The Frankfort jewellers know me well, or think they do, which is the
+same thing. They have seen enough of my coin since I have been at
+Homburg. For them, as for my excellent mother-in-law, I am the wealthy
+partner in the undoubted good firm of Van Haubitz, Krummwinkel, & Co. I
+never told them so; if they choose to imagine it I am not to blame. My
+credit is good. The diamonds shall be paid for--if paid for they must
+be--out of Madame Van Haubitz's first quarter's salary."
+
+I was meditating an excuse for not accompanying my pertinacious and
+unscrupulous acquaintance on his cruise against the Frankfort
+Israelites, when he resumed--
+
+"By the bye," he said, "you will come to church with us. I have arranged
+it all. Quite private, for reasons good. Nobody but yourself, Madame
+Sendel, and Emilie. You shall act as father, and give away the bride."
+
+The start I gave, at this alarming announcement, nearly broke the bed.
+This was carrying things rather too far. Not satisfied with rendering
+me, by his intrusive and unsolicited confidence, a sort of tacit
+accomplice in his manoeuvres, this Dutch Gil Blas would fain make me an
+active participator in the swindle he was practising on the actress and
+her mother. I drew at sight on my imagination, quickened by the peril,
+for a letter received the previous evening from a dear and near
+relative who lay dangerously ill at Baden-Baden, and to whose sick-bed
+it was absolutely necessary I should immediately repair; and, jumping
+up, I began to dress in all haste, rang furiously for the bill and a
+carriage, and requested Van Haubitz to present my excuses to the ladies,
+my unexpected departure at that early hour depriving me of the pleasure
+of taking leave of them. The Dutchman swore all manner of
+_donderwetters_ and _sacraments_ that he was grieved at my departure,
+trusted I should find my friend better, and be able to return to
+Frankfort in time for the marriage, but did not press me to do so, and
+in reality was too exhilarated by the success of his machinations to
+care a straw about the matter. And saying he must go and write to
+Amsterdam, he shook me by the hand and left the room, whistling in loud
+and joyous key the burthen of a Dutch march. In less than an hour I was
+on the road to Frankfort, and that evening I reached Heidelberg, where
+some friends of mine had passed the summer. I expected to find them
+still there, but they had left for Baden-Baden. Thither I pursued them,
+and--as if it were a judgment on me for my white lie to the
+Dutchman--arrived there the morrow of their departure. Baden was
+thinning, and they had gone down stream: I must have passed them on the
+Rhine. Having strong reasons to see them before they left Germany, I
+followed upon their trail. But their movements were rapid and eccentric,
+and after tracking them to one or two of the minor baths, the chase led
+me back to Frankfort. Here I made sure to catch them, or resolved to
+give up the hunt.
+
+A week had been consumed in thus travelling to and fro. I had no great
+fancy for returning to Frankfort, lest my friend the Dutchman should
+still be there, and press his society upon me, of which, after his
+recent revelations, I was any thing but ambitious. Upon the whole,
+however, I thought it likely he would have departed. I knew he would
+accelerate his marriage as much as possible; I had been nine days
+absent, which gave him ample time to get over the ceremony and leave the
+neighbourhood. By way of precaution I resolved to keep pretty close in
+my hotel during the period of my stay, which was not to exceed one or
+two days.
+
+On arriving at the "White Swan," I found my friends were staying there,
+but had driven over to Homburg. Unwilling to follow them, and risk
+meeting my bug-bear, I awaited their return, which was to take place to
+a late dinner. As usual, there was much bustle at the "Swan;" many
+goings and comings, several carriages in the court-yard, others in the
+street packing for departure, a throng of greedy _lohn-kutschers_, warm
+waiters, and bearded couriers, hanging about the door, and running up
+and down stairs. I entered the public room. It was past noon, and the
+tables were laid for dinner, but there were only two persons in the
+apartment, a gentleman and a lady. They stood at a window, outside of
+which a handsome Vienna-made berline, with a count's coronet on the
+panels, was getting ready for a journey. As I walked up the room, the
+lady turned her head, and I was instantly struck by her resemblance to
+Emilie Sendel. So strong was it that I for a moment thought I had fallen
+in with the very persons I wished to avoid. A second glance convinced me
+of error. The likeness was certainly startling, but there were many
+points of difference. Age and stature were the same, so were the hair
+and complexion, save that the former was less ruddy, the latter paler
+than in the case of the buxom Emilie. And there were grace and
+refinement about this person, far beyond any to which the Dutchman's
+lady-love could pretend. The expression of the interesting features was
+rather pensive than gay, and there was something classical in the arch
+of the eyebrow and outline of the face. The lady was plainly but richly
+attired in an elegant travelling dress, and had her hand upon the arm of
+a tall and very handsome man, about forty years of age, of singularly
+aristocratic but somewhat dissipated appearance. They were talking as I
+entered, and a sentence or two of their conversation reached my ear.
+They spoke French, with a scarcely perceptible foreign accent.
+
+Curious to know who these persons were, I returned to the court of the
+hotel, intending to question a waiter. It was first necessary to catch
+one, not easy at that busy time of day; and after several fruitless
+efforts to detain the jacketed gentry, I gave the attempt, and took my
+station at the gateway. Scarcely had I done so, when a carriage drove up
+at a rattling pace, a small spit of a boy in a smart green suit, and
+with an ambiguous sort of coronet embroidered in silver on the front of
+his cap, jumped off and opened the door, and there emerged from the
+vehicle, to my infinite dismay, the inevitable Van Haubitz. Retreat was
+impossible, for he saw me directly; and after handing out Madame Sendel
+and her daughter, seized me vehemently by both hands.
+
+"Delighted to see you!" he cried; "I wish you had been a day sooner. We
+were married yesterday," he added in a hurried voice, drawing me aside.
+"Have left Homburg, paid every thing _there_, and leave this to-morrow
+for Heaven knows where. Explanations must come first, (here he made a
+grimace) for my purse is low, and my mother-in-law makes projects that
+would ruin Rothschild. Lucky you are here to back me. Come in."
+
+I was fairly caught, and in a pretty dilemma. My first thought was to
+knock down the Dutchman, and run for it, but reflection checked the
+impulse. Stammering a confused congratulation to the bride and her
+mother, and meditating an escape at all hazards, I allowed Madame Sendel
+to hook herself on my arm, and lead me into the hotel in the wake of the
+newly wedded pair, who made at once for the public room. A magnificent
+courier, in a Hungarian dress, with beard, belt, and hunting-knife,
+strode past us into the apartment.
+
+"_Herr Graf_," said the man, addressing the distinguished looking
+stranger, who had attracted my attention, "the horses are ready."
+
+The Count and his companion turned at the announcement, and found
+themselves face to face with our party. There was a general start and
+exclamation from the three women. The strange lady turned very pale and
+visibly trembled; Madame Van Haubitz gave a slight scream; her mother
+flushed as red as the poppies in her head-dress, and hung like a log
+upon my arm, glaring angrily at the strangers. For one moment all stood
+still; Van Haubitz and I looked at each other in bewilderment. He was
+evidently struck by the extraordinary resemblance I had noticed, and
+which became more manifest, now the two ladies were seen together.
+
+"Come, Ameline," said the Count, who alone preserved complete
+self-possession. And he hurried his companion from the room. Madame
+Sendel released my arm, and letting herself fall upon a chair with an
+hysterical giggle, closed her eyes and seemed preparing for a
+comfortable swoon. Her daughter hastened to her assistance and untied
+her bonnet; Van Haubitz grasped a decanter of water and made an alarming
+demonstration of emptying it upon the full-moon countenance of his
+respectable mother-in-law. I was curious to see him do it, for I had
+always had my doubts whether the dowager's colours were what is
+technically termed "fast." My curiosity was not gratified. Whether from
+apprehension of the remedy or from some other cause, I cannot say, but
+Madame Sendel abandoned her faint, and after two or three grotesque
+contortions of countenance, and a certain amount of winking and
+blinking, was sufficiently recovered to take a huge pinch of snuff, and
+ascend the stairs to a private room, with her daughter and son-in-law
+for supporters, and half a score waiters and chamber-maids, whom her
+hysterical symptoms had assembled, by way of a tail. Seeing her so well
+guarded, I thought it unnecessary to add to the escort. As she left the
+room, there was a clatter of hoofs outside, and looking through the
+window, I saw the coroneted berline whirled rapidly away by four
+vigorous posters. Just then the dinner-bell rang, and the obsequious
+head-waiter, who with profound bows had assisted at the departure of the
+travellers, bustled into the room.
+
+"Who is the gentleman who has just left?" I inquired.
+
+"His Excellency, Count J----," replied the man. It was the name of a
+Hungarian nobleman of great wealth, and of reputation almost European
+as one of the most fashionable and successful Lotharios of the
+dissipated Austrian capital.
+
+"And his companion?"
+
+"The celebrated actress, Fraulein Sendel."
+
+Had the cunning but unlucky Van Haubitz been a regular reader of the
+_Theater Zeitung_, or Journal of the Theatres, he would have seen, in
+the ensuing number to that whence he derived his information respecting
+Mademoiselle Sendel's confirmed popularity and advantageous engagement
+the following short but important paragraph:--
+
+"Erratum.--In our yesterday's impression an error occurred, arising from
+a similarity of names. It is Fraulein _Ameline_ Sendel who has concluded
+with the Vienna theatre, an engagement equally advantageous to herself
+and the manager. Her elder sister, Fraulein _Emilie_, continues the
+engagement she has already held for two seasons, as a supernumerary
+_soubrette_. The amount stated yesterday as her salary would still be
+correct, with the abstraction of a zero. Talent does not always run in
+families."
+
+This good-natured paragraph, evidently from the pen of a sulky
+sub-editor, smarting under a lashing for his blunder of the preceding
+day, did not come to my knowledge till some time afterwards, so that the
+waiter's reply to my question concerning Count J----'s travelling
+companion perplexed me greatly, and plunged me into an ocean of
+conjectures. In fact, my curiosity was so strongly roused, that instead
+of availing myself of the absence of the Dutchman to escape from the
+hotel, I sat down to dinner, resolved not to depart till I heard the
+mystery explained. I had not long to wait. Dinner was just over, when I
+received a message from Van Haubitz, who earnestly desired to see me. I
+found him alone, seated at a table, his chin resting on his hand, anger,
+shame, and mortification stamped upon his inflamed countenance. A
+tumbler half full of water stood upon the table, beside a bottle of
+smelling salts; and, upon entering, I was pretty sure I heard a sound of
+sobbing from another room, which ceased, however, when I spoke. There
+had evidently been a violent scene. Its cause was explained to me by Van
+Haubitz, at first in rather a confused manner, for at each attempt to
+detail the circumstances he interrupted himself by bursts of fury. Owing
+to this, it was some time before I could arrive at a clear understanding
+of the facts of the case. When I did, I could scarcely help feeling
+sorry for the unfortunate schemer, although in truth he richly deserved
+the disappointment he had met. Never was there a more glaring instance
+of excess of cunning over-reaching itself,--for no deception had been
+practised by Madame Sendel and her daughter. They doubtless gave
+themselves credit for some cleverness and more good fortune in enticing
+a rich banker with more ducats than brains, into their matrimonial nets;
+and doubtless Fraulein Emile put on her best looks and gowns, her
+sweetest smiles and most becoming bonnets, to lure the lion into the
+toils. But neither mother nor daughter had for a moment imagined that
+Van Haubitz took the latter for the celebrated and successful actress
+whose name was known throughout Germany, whilst that of poor Emile,
+whose talents were of the most humble order, had scarcely ever
+penetrated beyond the wings and green-room of the theatre, where she
+enacted unimportant characters for the modest remuneration of a hundred
+florins a month. By no means proud of her position as all actress, which
+appeared the more lowly when contrasted with her sister's brilliant
+success, Emilie had seldom referred to things theatrical since her
+acquaintance with Van Haubitz. On his part, the 'cute Dutchman,
+conscious of his real motives and anxious to conceal them, abstained
+from all direct reference to Mademoiselle Sendel's great talents and
+their lucrative results, contenting himself with general compliments,
+which passed current without being closely scanned. If he had never
+heard either his wife or mother-in-law make mention of Ameline, it was
+because they were on the worst possible terms with that young lady, who
+had lived, nearly from the period of her first appearance upon the
+boards, under the protection of the accomplished libertine, Count
+J----, over whom she was said to exercise extraordinary influence. When
+she formed this connexion, Madame Sendel, who--in spite of her suspicion
+of paint and artificial floriculture--had very strict notions of
+propriety, wrote her a letter of furious reproach, renounced her as her
+daughter, and prohibited Emilie from holding any communication with her.
+Emile, against whose virtue none had ever found aught to say,
+sorrowfully obeyed; and, after two or three ineffectual attempts on the
+part of Ameline to soften her mother's wrath, all communication ceased
+between them. Their next meeting was that at which Van Haubitz and
+myself were present. Its singularity, Madame Sendel's fainting fit, and
+the resemblance between the sisters, brought on inquiries and an
+explanation; and the Dutchman found, to his inexpressible disgust and
+consternation, that he had encumbered himself with a wife he cared
+nothing for, and a mother-in-law he detested, whose joint income was
+largely stated at one hundred and fifty pounds sterling per annum. In
+his first paroxysm of rage he taunted them with the mistake they had
+made when they thought to secure the love-sick millionaire, proclaimed
+himself in debt, disinherited, and a beggar; and, finally, by the
+violence of his reproaches and maledictions, drove them trembling and
+weeping from the room.
+
+Van Haubitz had sent for me to implore my advice in his present
+difficult position; but was so bewildered by passion and overwhelmed by
+this sudden awakening from his dream of success and prosperity, that he
+was hardly in a condition to listen to reason. His regrets were so
+disgustingly selfish, his invectives against the innocent cause of his
+disappointment so violent and unmerited, that I should have left him to
+his fate and his own devices, had I not thought that my so doing would
+make matters worse for the poor girl who had thus heedlessly linked
+herself to a fortune-hunter. So I remained; after a while he became
+calmer, and we talked over various plans for the future. By my
+suggestion, Madame Sendel and her daughter were invited to the
+conference. The old lady was sulky and frightened, and would hardly open
+her lips; Emilie, on the other hand, made a more favourable impression
+on me than she had ever previously done. I now saw, what I had not
+before suspected, that she was really attached to Van Haubitz; hitherto,
+I had taken her for a mere adventuress, speculating on his supposed
+wealth. She spoke kindly and affectionately to him, smiled through the
+tears brought to her eyes by his recent brutality, and evidently
+trembled each time her mother spoke, lest she should vent a reproach or
+refer to his heartless duplicity. She tried to speak confidently and
+cheerfully of the future. They must go immediately to Vienna, she said;
+there she would apply diligently to her profession; the manager had half
+promised her an increase of salary after another year--she was sure she
+should deserve it, and meanwhile Van Haubitz, with his abilities, could
+not fail to find some lucrative employment. He must get rid of his
+accent, she added with a smile, (he spoke a voluble but most execrable
+jargon of mingled Dutch and German) and then he might go upon the stage,
+where she was certain he would succeed. This last suggestion was made
+timidly, as if she feared to hurt the pride of the scapegrace by
+proposing such a plan. There was not a word or an accent of reproach in
+all she said, and I heartily forgave the little coquetry, affectation,
+and vulgarity I had formerly remarked in her, in consideration of the
+intuitive delicacy and good feeling she now displayed. Truly, thought I,
+it is humbling to us, the bearded and baser moiety of humankind, to
+contrast our vile egotism with the beautiful self-devotion of woman, as
+exhibited even in this poor actress.
+
+Madame Sendel by no means acquiesced in her daughter's project. The
+flesh-pots of Amsterdam had attractions for her, far superior to those
+of a struggling and uncertain existence at Vienna. She evidently leaned
+upon the hope of a reconciliation between Van Haubitz and his father,
+and hinted pretty plainly at the effect that might be produced by a
+personal interview with the obdurate banker. I could see she was
+arranging matters in her queer old noddle upon the approved theatrical
+principle, the penitent son and fascinating daughter-in-law throwing
+themselves at the feet of the melting father, who, with handkerchief to
+eyes, bestows on them a blubbering benediction and ample subsidy. To my
+surprise Van Haubitz also seemed disposed to place hope in an appeal to
+his father, perhaps as a drowning man clutches at a straw. He may have
+thought that his marriage, imprudent as it was, would be taken as some
+guarantee of future steadiness, or at least of abstinence from the
+spendthrift courses which had hitherto destroyed all confidence in him.
+He could hardly expect his union with a penniless actress to re-instate
+him in his father's good graces; but he probably imagined he might
+extract a small annuity, as a condition of living at a distance from the
+friends he had disgraced. He asked me what I thought of the plan. I of
+course did not dissuade him from its adoption, and upon the whole
+thought it his best chance, for I really saw no other. After some
+deliberation and discussion, he seemed nearly to have made up his mind,
+when I was called away to my friends, who had returned from their
+excursion.
+
+I was getting into bed that night, when Van Haubitz knocked at my door,
+and entered the room with a downcast and dejected air, very different
+from his usual boisterous headlong manner.
+
+"I am off to Holland," he said; "'tis my only chance, bad though it be."
+
+"I sincerely wish you success," replied I. "In any case, do not despair;
+something will turn up. You have friends in your own country, I have
+heard you say. They will help you to occupation."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Good friends over a bottle and a dice-box," said he, "but useless at a
+pinch like this. Pleasant fellows enough, but scamps like"--myself, he
+was going to add, but did not. "I am come to say farewell," he
+continued. "I must be off before day-break. I have debts in Frankfort,
+and if my departure gets wind, I shall have a dozen duns on my back.
+Misfortunes never come alone. As for paying, it is out of the question.
+Amongst us we have only about enough money to reach Amsterdam. Once
+there--_� la grace de Dieu!_ but I confess my hopes are small. Thanks
+for your advice--and for your sympathy too, for I saw this morning you
+were sorry for me, though you did not think I deserved pity. Well,
+perhaps not. God bless you."
+
+He was leaving the room, but returned.
+
+"I think you said you should stay at Coblenz before returning to
+England."
+
+"I shall probably be there a few days towards the end of the month."
+
+"Good. If I succeed, you shall hear from me. What is your address
+there?"
+
+"_Poste restante_ will find me," I replied, not very covetous of the
+correspondence, and unwilling to give a more exact direction.
+
+Van Haubitz nodded and left me. At breakfast the next morning I learned
+that the Dutch baron, as the waiter styled him, had taken his departure
+at peep of day.
+
+The first days of October found me still at Coblenz, lingering amongst
+the valleys and vineyards, and loath to exchange them for the autumnal
+fogs and emptiness of London. Thither, however, I was compelled to
+return; and I endeavoured to console myself for the necessity by
+discovering that the green Rhine grew brown, the trees scant of leaves,
+the evenings long and chilly. I had heard nothing of Van Haubitz, and
+had ceased to think of him, when, walking out at dusk on the eve of the
+day fixed for my departure, I suddenly encountered him. He had just
+arrived by a steamboat coming up stream; his wife and mother-in-law were
+with him, and they were about to enter a fifth-rate inn, which, two
+months previously, he would have felt insulted if solicited to
+patronise. I was shocked by the change that had taken place in all three
+of them. In five weeks they had grown five years older. Emilie had lost
+her freshness, her eye its sparkle; and the melancholy smile with which
+she welcomed me made my heart ache. Madame Sendel's rotund checks had
+collapsed, she looked cross and jaundiced, and more snuffy than ever.
+Van Haubitz was thin and haggard, his hair and mustaches, formerly
+glossy and well-trimmed, were ragged and neglected, his dress, once so
+smart and carefully arranged, was soiled and slovenly. My imagination
+furnished me with a rapid and vivid sketch of the anxieties and
+disappointments and heart-burnings, which, more than any actual bodily
+privations, had worked so great a change in so short a time. Van Haubitz
+started on seeing me, and faltered in his pace, as if unwilling to enter
+the shabby hotel in my presence. The hesitation was momentary. "Worse
+quarters than we used to meet in," said he, with a bitter smile. "I will
+not ask you into this dog-hole. Wait an instant, and I will walk with
+you."
+
+Badly as I thought of Van Haubitz, and indisposed as I was to keep up
+any acquaintance with such an unprincipled adventurer, I had not the
+heart, seeing him so miserable and down in the world, to turn my back
+upon him at once. So I entered the hotel, and waited in the public room.
+In a few minutes he reappeared with the two ladies, and we all four
+strolled out in the direction of the Rhine. I did not ask the Dutchman
+the result of his journey. It was unnecessary. His disheartened air and
+general appearance told the tale of disappointment, of humiliating
+petitions sternly rejected, of hopes fled and a cheerless future. He
+kept silence the while we walked a hundred yards, and then, having left
+his wife and mother-in-law out of ear-shot, abruptly began the tale of
+his mishaps. As I conjectured, he had totally failed in his attempt to
+mollify his father, who was furious at his temerity in appearing before
+him, and whose rage redoubled when he heard of his ill-omened marriage.
+Unfortunately for Van Haubitz, the jeweller and some other tradesmen at
+Frankfort, so soon as they learned his departure, had forwarded their
+accounts to the care of the Amsterdam firm; and, although his father had
+not the remotest intention of paying them, he was incensed in the
+extreme at the slur thus cast upon his house and name. In short, the
+unlucky artilleryman at once saw he had no chance of a single kreuzer,
+or of the slightest countenance from his father. His applications to his
+brothers, and one or two to more distant relatives, were equally
+unsuccessful. All were disgusted at his irregularities, angry at his
+marriage, incredulous of his promises of reform; and, after passing a
+miserable month in Amsterdam, he set out to accompany his wife to
+Vienna, whither she was compelled to repair under pain of fine and
+forfeiture of her engagement. Although living with rigid economy--on
+bread and water, as Van Haubitz expressed it--their finances had been
+utterly consumed by their stay in the expensive Dutch capital, and it
+was only by disposing of every trinket and superfluity (and of
+necessaries too, I feared, when I remembered the slender baggage that
+came up with them from the boat) that they had procured the means of
+travelling, in the cheapest and most humble manner, and with the
+disheartening certainty of arriving penniless at Vienna. Van Haubitz
+told me all this, and many other details, with an air of gloomy
+despondency. He was hopeless, heart-broken, desperate; and certain
+circumstances of his position, which by some would have been held an
+alleviation, aggravated it in his eyes. He said little of his wife; but,
+from what escaped him, I easily gathered that she had shown strength of
+mind, good feeling and affection for him, and was willing to struggle by
+his side for a scanty and hard-earned subsistence. His selfish cares and
+irritable mood prevented his appreciating or returning her attachment,
+and he looked upon her as a clog and an encumbrance, without which he
+might again rise in the world. He had always entertained a confident
+expectation of enriching himself by marriage; and this hope, which had
+buoyed him up under many difficulties, was now gone. From something he
+said I suspected he had sounded Emilie on the subject of a divorce, so
+easily obtained in Germany, and that she had shown determined
+opposition. She evidently possessed a firmness of character more than a
+match for her husband's impetuosity and violence.
+
+"I have one resource left," said Van Haubitz. "I have pondered over it
+for the last two days, and have almost determined on its adoption."
+
+"What is it?" I asked.
+
+"If I decide upon it," he replied, "you shall shortly know. 'Tis a
+desperate one enough."
+
+We had insensibly slackened our pace, and, at this moment, the ladies
+came up. Van Haubitz made a gesture, as of impatience at the
+interruption.
+
+"Wait for me here," he said, and walked away. Without speculating upon
+the motive of his absence, I stood still, and entered into conversation
+with the ladies. We were on the quay. The night was mild and calm, but
+overcast and exceedingly dark. A few feet below us rolled the dark mass
+of the Rhine, slightly swollen by recent rains. A light from an adjacent
+window illuminated the spot, and cast a flickering gleam across the
+water. Unwilling to refer to their misfortunes, I spoke to Emilie on
+some general topic. But Madame Sendel was too full of her troubles to
+tolerate any conversation that did not immediately relate to them, and
+she broke in with a long history of grievances, of the hard-heartedness
+of the Amsterdam relations, the cruelty of Emilie's position, her
+son-in-law's helplessness, and various other matters, in a querulous
+tone, and with frightful volubility. The poor daughter, I plainly saw,
+winced under this infliction. I was waiting the smallest opening to
+interrupt the indiscreet old lady, and revert to commonplace, when a
+distant splash in the water reached my ears. The women also heard it,
+and at the same instant a presentiment of evil came over us all. Madame
+Sendel suddenly held her tongue and her breath; Emilie turned deadly
+pale, and without saying a word, flew along the quay in the direction of
+the sound. She had gone but a few yards when her strength failed her,
+and she would have fallen but for my support. There was a shout, and a
+noise of men running. Leaving Madame Van Haubitz to the care of her
+mother, I ran swiftly along the river side, and soon reached a place
+where the deep water moaned and surged against the perpendicular quay.
+Here several men were assembled, talking hurriedly and pointing to the
+river. Others each moment arrived, and two boats were hastily shoved off
+from an adjacent landing-place.
+
+"A man in the river," was the reply to my hasty inquiry.
+
+It was so dark that I could not distinguish countenances close to me,
+and at a very few yards even the outline of objects was scarcely to be
+discerned. There were no houses close at hand, and some minutes elapsed
+before lights were procured. At last several boats put off, with men
+standing in the bows, holding torches and lanterns high in the air.
+Meanwhile I had questioned the by-standers, but could get little
+information; none as to the person to whom the accident had happened.
+The man who had given the alarm, was returning from mooring his boat to
+a neighbouring jetty, when he perceived a figure moving along the quay a
+short distance in his front. The figure disappeared, a heavy splash
+followed, and the boatman ran forward. He could see no one either on
+shore or in the stream, but heard a sound as of one striking out and
+struggling in the water. Having learned this much, I jumped into a boat
+just then putting off, and bid the rowers pull down stream, keeping a
+short distance from the quay. The current ran strong, and I doubted not
+that the drowning man had been carried along by it. Two vigorous oarsmen
+pulled till the blades bent, and the boat, aided by the stream, flew
+through the water. A third man held a torch. I strained my eyes through
+the darkness. Presently a small object floated within a few feet of the
+boat, which was rapidly passing it. It shone in the torchlight. I struck
+at it with a boat-hook, and brought it on board. It was a man's cap,
+covered with oilskin, and I remembered Van Haubitz wore such a one.
+Stripping off the cover, I beheld in officer's foraging cap, with a
+grenade embroidered on its front. My doubts, slight before, were
+entirely dissipated.
+
+When the search, rendered almost hopeless by the extreme darkness and
+power of the current, was at last abandoned, I hastened to the hotel,
+and inquired for Madame Sendel. She came to me in a state of great
+agitation. Van Haubitz had not returned, but she thought less of that
+than of the state of her daughter, who, since recovering from a long
+swoon, had been almost distracted with anxiety. She knew some one had
+been drowned, and her mind misgave her it was her husband. The
+foraging-cap, which Madame Sendel immediately recognised, removed all
+uncertainty. The only hope remaining was, that Van Haubitz, although
+carried rapidly away by the power of the current, had been able to
+maintain himself on the surface, and had got ashore at some considerable
+distance down the river, or had been picked up by a passing boat. But
+this was a very feeble hope, and for my own part, and for more than one
+reason, I placed no reliance on it. I left Madame Sendel to break the
+painful intelligence to her daughter, and went home, promising to call
+again in the morning.
+
+As I had expected, nothing was heard of Van Haubitz, nor any vestige of
+him found, save the foraging-cap I had picked up. Doubtless, the Rhine
+had borne down his lifeless corpse to the country of his birth. The next
+day Coblenz rang with the death of the unfortunate Dutchman. A stranger,
+and unacquainted with the localities, he was supposed to have walked
+over the quay by accident. I thought differently; and so I knew did
+Madame Sendel and Emilie. I saw the former early the next day. She was
+greatly cast down about her daughter, who had passed a sleepless night,
+was very weak and suffering, but who nevertheless insisted on continuing
+her journey the following morning.
+
+"We must go," said her mother; "if we delay, Emilie loses her
+engagement, and how can we both live on my poor jointure? Weeping will
+not bring him back, were he worth it. To think of the misery he has
+caused us!"
+
+I ventured to hint an inquiry as to their means of prosecuting their
+journey. The old lady understood the intention, and took it kindly. "But
+she needed no assistance," she said; "Van Haubitz (and this confirmed
+our strong suspicion of suicide) had given their little stock of money
+into his wife's keeping only a few hours before his death."
+
+That afternoon I left Coblenz for England.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On a certain Wednesday of the present year, after enjoying the excellent
+acting of Bouff� in two of his best characters, I paused a moment to
+speak to a friend in the crowded lobby of the St James's Theatre. Whilst
+thus engaged, I became aware that I was an object of attention to two
+persons, whom I had an indistinct notion of having seen before, but when
+or where, or who they might be, I had not the remotest idea. One of them
+was a comfortable-looking, middle-aged man, with a bald head, a smooth,
+clean-shaven face, and an incipient ventral rotundity. His complexion
+was clear and wholesome, his countenance good-humoured, his whole
+appearance bespoke an existence free from care, nights of sound sleep,
+and days of tranquil enjoyment. His face was too sleek to be very
+expressive, but there was a shrewd, quick look in the eye, and I set him
+down in my mind as a wealthy German merchant or manufacturer (some small
+peculiarities of costume betrayed the foreigner) come to show London to
+his wife--a well-favoured _Frau_, fat, fair, but some years short of
+forty--who accompanied him, and who, as well as her better-half, seemed
+to honour me with very particular notice. My confabulation over, I was
+leaving the theatre, when a sleek soft hand was gently passed through my
+arm. It was my friend the fat foreigner. I strained my eyes and my
+memory, but in vain; I felt very puzzled, and doubtless looked so, for
+he smiled, and advancing his head, whispered a name in my ear. It was
+that of Van Haubitz.
+
+I started, looked again, doubted, and was at last convinced. _Minus_
+mustache and whisker, which were closely shaven, and half his hair, of
+which the remainder was considerably grizzled; _plus_ a degree of
+corpulence such as I should never have thought the slender lieutenant of
+artillery capable of acquiring; his heated, sun-burnt complexion, and
+dissipated look, exchanged for a fresh colour and benevolent placidity;
+the Dutchman I had left on the Rhine stood beside me in the lobby of the
+French theatre. I turned to the lady: she was less changed than her
+companion, and now that I was upon the track, I recognised Emilie
+Sendel. By this time we were in the street. Van Haubitz handed his wife
+into a carriage.
+
+"Come and sup with us," he said, "and I will explain."
+
+I mechanically obeyed, and in less than three minutes, still tongue-tied
+by astonishment, I alighted at the door of a fashionable hotel in a
+street adjoining Piccadilly.
+
+A few lines will convey to the reader the substance of the long
+conversation which kept the resuscitated Dutchman and myself from our
+beds for fully two hours after our unexpected meeting. I had been right
+in supposing that he had thrown himself voluntarily into the river;
+wrong in my belief that he meditated suicide. An excellent swimmer, he
+had taken the water to get rid of his wife. He might certainly have
+chosen a drier method, and have given her the slip in the night-time or
+on the road; but she had shown, whenever he referred to the possibility
+of their separation, such a determination to remain with him at all
+risks and sacrifices, that he felt certain she would be after him as
+soon as she discovered his absence. He had formed a wild scheme of
+returning to Amsterdam, and haunting his family until, through mere
+weariness and vexation, they supplied him with funds for all outfit to
+Sumatra. There he trusted to redeem his fortunes, as he had heard that
+others of no greater abilities or better character than himself had
+already done. A more extravagant project was never formed, and indeed
+all his acts, during the six weeks that followed his marriage, were more
+or less eccentric and ill-judged. This he admitted, when relating them
+to me, and probably would not have been sorry to place them to the score
+of actual mental derangement. The only redeeming touch in his conduct,
+at that, the blackest period of his life, was his leaving, as I have
+already mentioned, what money he had to his wife and her mother,
+reserving but a few florins for his own support.
+
+With these in his pocket, he proposed proceeding on foot to Amsterdam.
+After landing on the right bank of the Rhine, he walked the greater part
+of the night, as the best means of drying his saturated garments. When
+weariness at last compelled him to pause, it was not yet daylight, no
+house was open, and he threw himself on some straw in a farm-yard. He
+awoke in a high fever, the result of his immersion, of exposure and
+fatigue, acting on a frame heated and weakened by anxiety and mental
+suffering. He obtained shelter at the neighboring farm-house, whose
+kind-hearted inhabitants carefully tended him for several weeks, during
+which his life was more than once despaired of. His convalescence was
+long, and not till the close of the year could he resume his journey
+northwards, by short stages, chiefly on foot. Unfavourable as his
+prospects were, his good star had not yet set. This very illness, as
+occasioning a delay, was a stroke of good fortune. Had he at once
+proceeded to Holland, his family, in hopes to get rid of him for ever,
+would probably have given him the small sum he needed for an outfit to
+the Indian Archipelago, and he would have sailed thither before the 31st
+of December, on which day his father, a joyous liver, and confirmed
+votary of Bacchus, eat and drank to such an extent to celebrate the exit
+of the old year and commencement of the new, that he fell down, on his
+way to his bed, in a thundering fit of apoplexy, and was a corpse before
+morning. The day of his funeral, Van Haubitz, footsore and emaciated,
+and reduced to his last pfenning, walked wearily into the city of
+Amsterdam. There a great surprise awaited him.
+
+"Your father had not disinherited you?" I exclaimed, when the Dutchman
+made a momentary pause at this point of his narrative.
+
+"He had left a will devising his entire property to my brothers, and not
+even naming me. But a slight formality was omitted, which rendered the
+document of no more value than the parchment it was drawn upon. The
+signature was wanting. My father had the weakness, no uncommon one, of
+disliking whatever reminded him of his mortality. He would have fancied
+himself nearer his grave had he signed his will. And thus he had delayed
+till it was too late. I found myself joint heir with my brothers. By far
+the greater part of my father's large capital was embarked in his bank,
+and in extensive financial operations, which it would have been
+necessary to liquidate at considerable disadvantage, to operate the
+partition prescribed by law. Seeing this, I proposed to my brothers to
+admit me as partner in the firm, with the stipulation that I should have
+no active share in its direction, until my knowledge of business and
+steadiness of conduct gave them the requisite confidence in me. After
+some deliberation they agreed to this; and three years later their
+opinion of me had undergone such a change, that two of them retired to
+estates in the country, leaving me the chief management of the concern."
+
+"And Madame Van Haubitz; when did she rejoin you?"
+
+"Immediately the change in my fortunes occurred. Reckless as I at that
+time was, and utterly devoid of feeling as you must have thought me, I
+could not remember without emotion the disinterested affection,
+delicacy, and unselfishness she had exhibited on discovery of my real
+circumstances. During my long illness I had had time to reflect, and
+when I left my sick-bed in that rude but hospitable German farm-house,
+it was as a penitent past offences, and with a strong resolution to
+atone them. Within a week after my father's funeral, I was on my way to
+Vienna, to fetch Emilie to the opulent home she had anticipated when she
+married me. Her joy at seeing me was scarcely increased when she heard I
+now really was the rich banker she had at first thought me."
+
+"And Madame Sendel?"
+
+"Returned to Amsterdam with us. There was good about the old lady, and
+by purloining her artificials, limiting her snuff, and soaking her in
+tea, she was made endurable enough. Until her death, which occurred a
+couple of years ago, she passed her time alternately with us and her
+younger daughter."
+
+"She became reconciled to Mademoiselle, Ameline?"
+
+"Ameline had been Countess J---- all the time. She was privately married.
+For certain family reasons the Count had conditioned that their union
+should for a while be kept secret. Seeing that her equivocal position
+and her mother's displeasure preyed upon her health and spirits, he
+declared his marriage. She left the stage to become a reigning beauty in
+the best society of Austria, lady of half a dozen castles, and sovereign
+mistress of as many thousand Hungarian boors."
+
+Van Haubitz remained some time in London, and I saw him often. He was as
+much changed in character as in personal appearance. The sharp lessons
+received, about the period of our first acquaintance, had made a strong
+impression on him; and the summer-tide of prosperity suddenly setting
+in, had enabled him to realise good intentions and honourable resolves,
+which the chill current of adversity might have frozen in the germ. Some
+of those who read these lines may have occasion, when visiting the
+country stigmatised by the snarling Frenchman as the land of _canards_,
+_canaux_, and _canaille_, to receive cash in the busy counting-house,
+and hospitality the princely mansion of one of its most respected
+bankers. None, I am well assured, will discern in their amiable and
+exemplary entertainer any vestige of the disreputable impulses and evil
+passions that sullied the early life of "My Friend the Dutchman."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine -
+Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXXIV., by Various.
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62,
+No. 384, October 1847, 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 62, No. 384, October 1847
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: May 29, 2008 [EBook #25633]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
+
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+
+Produced by Brendan OConnor, Paul Dring, Jonathan Ingram
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+
+
+<h1>BLACKWOOD'S</h1>
+<h1>EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.</h1>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h2><span class="smcap">No.</span> CCCLXXXIV.&nbsp; &nbsp;  OCTOBER, 1847.&nbsp; &nbsp;  <span class="smcap">Vol.</span> LXII.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h2><span class="smcap">Contents</span></h2>
+
+<ul class="toc">
+<li><a href="#HANS_CHRISTIAN_ANDERSEN">HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#HANS_CHRISTIAN_ANDERSEN">387</a></span></li>
+<li><a href="#EMPEROR">The Emperors New Clothes</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#EMPEROR">406</a></span></li>
+<li><a href="#THE_VISION_OF_CAGLIOSTRO">THE VISION OF CAGLIOSTRO</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#THE_VISION_OF_CAGLIOSTRO">408</a></span></li>
+<li><a href="#TIBERIUS">Tiberius</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#TIBERIUS">411</a></span></li>
+<li><a href="#AGRIPPA">Agrippa</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#AGRIPPA">413</a></span></li>
+<li><a href="#MILTON">Milton</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#MILTON">415</a></span></li>
+<li><a href="#MIRABEAU">Mirabeau</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#MIRABEAU">417</a></span></li>
+<li><a href="#BEETHOVEN">Beethoven</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#BEETHOVEN">419</a></span></li>
+<li><a href="#MAGA_IN_AMERICA">MAGA IN AMERICA</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#MAGA_IN_AMERICA">422</a></span></li>
+<li><a href="#THE_TIMES_OF_GEORGE_II">THE TIMES OF GEORGE II</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#THE_TIMES_OF_GEORGE_II">431</a></span></li>
+<li><a href="#ART_IN_THE_EARLY_CHRISTIAN_AGES">ART IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN AGES</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#ART_IN_THE_EARLY_CHRISTIAN_AGES">446</a></span></li>
+<li><a href="#THE_PORTRAIT">THE PORTRAIT</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#THE_PORTRAIT">457</a></span></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_I">Chapter I</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">457</a></span></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_II">Chapter II</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">475</a></span></li>
+<li><a href="#HOUNDS_AND_HORSES_AT_ROME">HOUNDS AND HORSES AT ROME</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#HOUNDS_AND_HORSES_AT_ROME">485</a></span></li>
+<li><a href="#ENGLISH_KENNEL">English Kennel</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#ENGLISH_KENNEL">485</a></span></li>
+<li><a href="#THE_STEEPLE-CHASE">The Steeple-chase</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#THE_STEEPLE-CHASE">487</a></span></li>
+<li><a href="#ROMAN_DOGS">Roman Dogs</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#ROMAN_DOGS">489</a></span></li>
+<li><a href="#SONG">SONG</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#SONG">493</a></span></li>
+<li><a href="#MY_FRIEND_THE_DUTCHMAN">MY FRIEND THE DUTCHMAN</a>
+    <span class="ralign"><a href="#MY_FRIEND_THE_DUTCHMAN">494</a></span></li>
+</ul>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h3><a name="HANS_CHRISTIAN_ANDERSEN" id="HANS_CHRISTIAN_ANDERSEN"></a>WORKS OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor"><span class="smaller">[1]</span></a></h3>
+
+<p>If our readers have perchance stumbled upon a novel called "The
+Improvisatore" by one <span class="smcap">Hans Christian Andersen</span>, a Dane by birth, they
+have probably regarded it in the light merely of a foreign importation
+to assist in supplying the enormous annual consumption of our
+circulating libraries, which devour books as fast as our mills do raw
+cotton;&mdash;with some difference, perhaps, in the result, for the material
+can rarely be said to be worked up into any thing like substantial
+raiment for body or mind, but seems to disappear altogether in the
+process. As the demand, here, exceeds all ordinary means of supply, they
+may have been glad to see that our trade with the North is likely to be
+beneficial to us, in this our intellectual need. Its books may not be so
+durable as its timber, nor so substantial as its oxen, but then they are
+articles of faster growth, and of easier transportation. To free-trade
+in these productions of the literary soil, not the most jealous
+protectionist will object; and they have, perhaps, been amused to
+observe how the mere circumstance of a foreign origin has given a cheap
+repute, and the essential charm of novelty, to materials which in
+themselves were neither good nor rare. The popular prejudice deals very
+differently with foreign oxen and foreign books; for, whereas an
+Englishman has great difficulty in believing that good beef can possibly
+be produced from any pastures but his own, and the outlandish beast is
+always looked upon with more or less suspicion, he has, on the contrary,
+a highly liberal prejudice in favour of the book from foreign parts; and
+nonsense of many kinds, and the most tasteless extravagancies, are
+allowed to pass unchallenged and unreproved, by the aid of a German, or
+French, or Danish title-page.</p>
+
+<p>Nay, the eye is sometimes tasked to discover extraordinary beauty, where
+there is nothing but extraordinary blemish. Where the shrewd translator
+had veiled some absurdity or rashness of his author, the more profound
+reader has been known to detect a meaning and a charm, which "the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span>English language had failed adequately to convey;" and he has, perhaps,
+shown a sovereign contempt for "the bungling translator," at the very
+time when that discreet workman had most displayed his skill and
+judgment. The idea has sometimes occurred to us&mdash;Suppose one of these
+foreign books were suddenly proved to be of genuine home
+production&mdash;suppose the German, or the Dane, or the Frenchman, were
+discovered to be a fictitious personage, and all the genius, or all the
+rant, to have really emanated from the English gentleman, or lady, who
+had merely professed to translate&mdash;presto! how the book would instantly
+change colours! What a reverse of judgment would there be! What secret
+<i>misgivings</i> would now be detected and proclaimed! What sudden
+outpourings of epithets by no means complimentary! How the boldness of
+many a metaphor would be transformed into sheer impudence! How the
+profundities would clear up, leaving only darkness behind! They were so
+mysterious&mdash;and now, throw all the light of heaven upon them, and there
+is nothing there but a blunder or a blot.</p>
+
+<p>If our readers, we say, have fallen upon this, and other novels of
+Andersen, they have probably passed them by as things belonging to the
+literary <i>season</i>: they have been struck with some passages of vivid
+description, with touches of genuine feeling, with traits of character
+which, though imperfectly delineated, bore the impress of truth; but
+they have pronounced them, on the whole, to be unfashioned things, but
+half made up, constructed with no skill, informed by no clear spirit of
+thought, and betraying a most undisciplined taste. Such, at least, was
+the impression their first perusal left upon our mind. Notwithstanding
+the glimpses of natural feeling and of truthful portraiture which caught
+our eye, they were so evidently deficient in some of the higher
+qualities which ought to distinguish a writer, and so defaced by
+abortive attempts at fine writing, that they hardly appeared deserving
+of a very critical examination, or a very careful study. But now there
+has lately come into our hands the autobiography of Hans Christian
+Andersen, "The True Story of my Life," and this has revealed to us so
+curious an instance of intellectual cultivation, or rather of genius
+exerting itself without any cultivation at all, and has reflected back
+so strong a light, so vivid and so explanatory, on all his works, that
+what we formerly read with a very mitigated admiration, with more of
+censure than of praise, has been invested with quite a novel and
+peculiar interest. Moreover, certain tales for children have also fallen
+into our hands, some of which are admirable. We prophesy them an
+immortality in the nursery&mdash;which is not the worst immortality a man can
+Win&mdash;and doubt not but that they have already been read by children, or
+told to children, in every language of Europe. Altogether Andersen, his
+character and his works, have thus appeared to us a subject worthy of
+some attention.</p>
+
+<p>We insist upon coupling them together. We must be allowed to abate
+somewhat of the austerity of criticism by a reference to the life of the
+author. We cannot implicitly follow the unconditioned admiration of Mrs
+Howitt for "the beautiful thoughts of Andersen," which she tells us in
+her preface to the Autobiography, "it is the most delightful of her
+literary labours to translate." We must be excused if we think that the
+mixture of praise and of puff, which the lady lavishes so
+indiscriminately upon the author whose works she translates, is more
+likely to display her own skill and dexterity in author-craft, than
+permanently to enhance the fame of Andersen. In the works which Mrs
+Howitt has translated, (with the exception of the Autobiography,) there
+is a great proportion of most unquestionable trash, which, we should
+imagine, it must be a great affliction to render into English.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious, and perhaps necessary, to watch this new relationship
+which has sprung up in the world of letters, between the original author
+and his translator. A reciprocity of services is always amiable, and one
+is glad to see society enriched by another bond of mutual amity. The
+translator finds a profitable commodity in the genius of his author; the
+author, a stanch champion in his foreign ally, who, notwithstanding his
+community of interest, can still praise without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> blushing. Many good
+results doubtless arise from this alliance, but an increased chance of
+impartial criticism is not likely to be one of them.</p>
+
+<p>When Andersen writes <i>for</i> childhood or <i>of</i> childhood, he is singularly
+felicitous&mdash;fanciful, tender, and true to nature. This alone were
+sufficient to separate him from the crowd of common writers. For the
+rest of his works, if you will look at them kindly, and with a friendly
+scrutiny, you will find many a natural sentiment vividly reflected. But
+traces of the higher operations of the intellect, of deep or subtle
+thought, of analytic power, of ratiocination of any kind, there is
+absolutely none. If, therefore, his injudicious admirers should insist,
+without any reference to his origin or culture, on extolling his
+writings as works submitted, without apology or excuse, to the mature
+judgment and formed taste&mdash;they can only peril the reputation they seek
+to magnify. They will expose to ridicule and contempt one who, if you
+allow him a place apart by himself, becomes a subject of kindly and
+curious regard. If they insist upon his introduction, unprotected by the
+peculiar circumstances which environ him&mdash;we do not say amongst the
+literary magnates of his time, but even in the broad host of highly
+cultivated minds, we lose sight of him, or we follow him with something
+very much like a smile of derision.</p>
+
+<p>We remember being told of a dexterous stratagem, by which a lady cured
+her son of what she deemed an unworthy passion for a rustic beauty. We
+tell the story&mdash;for it may not only afford us an illustration, but a
+hint also to other perplexed mammas, who may find themselves in the like
+predicament. She had argued, and of course in vain, against his
+high-flown admiration of the village belle. She was a goddess! She would
+become a throne! Apparently acquiescing in his matrimonial project, she
+now professed her willingness to receive his bride-elect. Accordingly,
+she sent her own milliner&mdash;mantua-maker&mdash;what you will,&mdash;to array her in
+the complete toilette of a lady of fashion. The blushing damsel appeared
+in the most elegant attire, and took her place in the maternal
+drawing-room, amongst the sisters of the enraptured lover. Alas!
+enraptured no more! The rustic beauty, where could it have flown? The
+belle of the village was transformed into a very awkward young lady.
+Goddess!&mdash;She was a simpleton. Become a throne!&mdash;She could not sit upon
+a chair. The charm was broken. The application we need hardly make.
+There may be certain uncultivated men of genius on whom it is possible
+to practise a like malicious kindness.</p>
+
+<p>We would rather preface our notice of the life and works of Andersen, by
+a motto taken from our own countryman Blake, artist and poet, and a man
+of somewhat kindred nature:&mdash;<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="50%" summary="verse">
+<tr>
+<td>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Piping down the valleys wild,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Piping songs of pleasant glee,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On a cloud I saw a child,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And he laughing said to me&mdash;</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Pipe a song about a lamb;'</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So I piped with merry cheer.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Piper, pipe that song again!&mdash;'</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So I piped&mdash;he wept to hear.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sing thy songs of happy cheer&mdash;'</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So I sang the same again,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">While he wept with joy to hear.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Piper, sit thee down and <i>write</i>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In a book that all may read.'</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then he vanished from my sight;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And I plucked a hollow reed,</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And I made a rural pen,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And I stained the water clear,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And I wrote my happy songs,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Every child may joy to hear."</span><br />
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>Such was the form under which the muse may be said to have visited and
+inspired Andersen. He ought to have been exclusively the poet of
+children and of childhood. He ought never to have seen, or dreamed, of
+an Apollo six feet high, looking sublime, and sending forth dreadful
+arrows from the far-resounding bow; he should have looked only to that
+"child upon the cloud," or rather, he should have seen his little muse
+as she walks upon the earth&mdash;we have her in Gainsborough's picture&mdash;with
+her tattered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> petticoat, and her bare feet, and her broken pitcher, but
+looking withal with such a sweet sad contentedness upon the world, that
+surely, one thinks, she must have filled that pitcher and drawn the
+water which she carries&mdash;without, however, knowing any thing of the
+matter&mdash;from the very well where Truth lies hidden.</p>
+
+<p>We should like to quote at once, before proceeding further, one of
+Andersen's tales for children. We <i>will</i> venture upon an extract. It
+will at all events be new to our readers, and will be more likely to
+interest them in the history of its author than any quotation we could
+make from his more ambitious works. Besides, the story we select will
+somewhat foreshadow the real history which follows.</p>
+
+<p>A highly respectable matronly duck introduces into the poultry-yard a
+brood which she has just hatched. She has had a deal of trouble with one
+egg, much larger than the rest, and which after all produced a very
+"ugly duck," who gives the name, and is the hero of the story.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"'So, we are to have this tribe, too!' said the other ducks, 'as if
+there were not enough of us already! And only look how ugly one is!
+we won't suffer that one here.' And immediately a duck flew at it,
+and bit it in the neck.</p>
+
+<p>"'Let it alone,' said the mother; 'it does no one any harm.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, but it is so large and strange looking, and therefore it
+must be teased.'</p>
+
+<p>"'These are fine children that the mother has!' said an old duck,
+who belonged to the noblesse, and wore a red rag round its leg.
+'All handsome, except one; it has not turned out well. I wish she
+could change it.'</p>
+
+<p>"'That can't be done, your grace,' said the mother; 'besides, if it
+is not exactly pretty, it is a sweet child, and swims as well as
+the others, even a little better. I think in growing it will
+improve. It was long in the egg, and that's the reason it is a
+little awkward.'</p>
+
+<p>"'The others are nice little things,' said the old duck: 'now make
+yourself quite at home here.'</p>
+
+<p>"And so they did. But the poor young duck that had come last out of
+the shell, and looked so ugly, was bitten, and pecked, and teased
+by ducks and fowls. 'It's so large!' said they all; and the
+turkey-cock, that had spurs on when he came into the world, and
+therefore fancied himself an emperor, strutted about like a ship
+under full sail, went straight up to it, gobbled, and got quite
+red. The poor little duck hardly knew where to go, or where to
+stand, it was so sorrowful because it was so ugly, and the ridicule
+of the whole poultry-yard.</p>
+
+<p>"Thus passed the first day, and afterwards it grew worse and worse.
+The poor duck was hunted about by every one; its brothers and
+sisters were cross to it, and always said, 'I wish the cat would
+get you, you frightful creature!' and even its mother said, 'Would
+you were far from here!' And the ducks bit it, and the hens pecked
+at it, and the girl that fed the poultry kicked it with her foot.
+So it ran and flew over the hedge.</p>
+
+<p>"On it ran. At last it came to a great moor where wild-ducks lived;
+here it lay the whole night, and was so tired and melancholy. In
+the morning up flew the wild-ducks, and saw their new comrade; 'Who
+are you?' asked they; and our little duck turned on every side, and
+bowed as well as it could. 'But you are tremendously ugly!' said
+the wild-ducks. 'However, that is of no consequence to us, if you
+don't marry into our family.' The poor thing! It certainly never
+thought of marrying; it only wanted permission to lie among the
+reeds, and to drink the water of the marsh.</p>
+
+<p>"'Bang! bang!' was heard at this moment, and several wild-ducks lay
+dead amongst the reeds, and the water was as red as blood. There
+was a great shooting excursion. The sportsmen lay all round the
+moor; and the blue smoke floated like a cloud through the dark
+trees, and sank down to the very water; and the dogs spattered
+about in the marsh&mdash;splash! splash! reeds and rushes were waving on
+all sides; it was a terrible fright for the poor duck.</p>
+
+<p>"At last all was quiet; but the poor little thing did not yet dare
+to lift up its head; it waited many hours before it looked round,
+and then hastened away from the moor as quickly as possible. It ran
+over the fields and meadows, and there was such a wind that it
+could hardly get along.</p>
+
+<p>"Towards evening, the duck reached a little hut. Here dwelt an old
+woman with her tom-cat and her hen; and the cat could put up its
+back and purr, and the hen could lay eggs, and the old woman loved
+them both as her very children. For certain reasons of her own, she
+let the duck in to live with them.</p>
+
+<p>"Now the tom-cat was master in the house, and the hen was mistress;
+and they always said, 'We and the world.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> That the duck should
+have any opinion of its own, they never would allow.</p>
+
+<p>"'Can you lay eggs?' asked the hen.</p>
+
+<p>"'No!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, then, hold your tongue.'</p>
+
+<p>"Can you put up your back and purr?' said the tom-cat.</p>
+
+<p>"'No.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, then, you ought to have no opinion of your own, where
+sensible people are speaking.'</p>
+
+<p>"And the duck sat in the corner, and was very sad; when suddenly it
+took it into its head to think of the fresh air and the sunshine;
+and it had such an inordinate longing to swim on the water, that it
+could not help telling the hen of it.</p>
+
+<p>"'What next, I wonder!' said the hen, 'you have nothing to do, and
+so you sit brooding over such fancies. Lay eggs, or purr, and
+you'll forget them.'</p>
+
+<p>"'But it is so delightful to swim on the water!' said the duck&mdash;'so
+delightful when it dashes over one's head, and one dives down to
+the very bottom.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, that must be a fine pleasure!' said the hen. 'You are
+crazy, I think. Ask the cat, who is the cleverest man I know, if he
+would like to swim on the water, or perhaps to dive, to say nothing
+of myself. Ask our mistress, the old lady, and there is no one in
+the world cleverer than she is; do you think that she would much
+like to swim on the water, and for the water to dash over her
+head?'</p>
+
+<p>"'You don't understand me,' said the duck.</p>
+
+<p>"'Understand, indeed! If we don't understand you, who should? I
+suppose you won't pretend to be cleverer than the tom-cat, or our
+mistress, to say nothing of myself? Don't behave in that way,
+child; but be thankful for all the kindness that has been shown
+you. Have you not got into a warm room, and have you not the
+society of persons from whom something is to be learnt? But you are
+a blockhead, and it is tiresome to have to do with you. You may
+believe what I say; I am well disposed towards you; I tell you what
+is disagreeable, and it is by that one recognises one's true
+friends.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I think I shall go into the wide world,' said the duckling.</p>
+
+<p>"'Well then, go!' answered the hen.</p>
+
+<p>"And so the duck went. It swam on the water, it dived down; but was
+disregarded by every animal on account of its ugliness.</p>
+
+<p>"One evening&mdash;the sun was setting most magnificently&mdash;there came a
+whole flock of large beautiful birds out of the bushes; never had
+the duck seen any thing so beautiful. They were of a brilliant
+white, with long slender necks: they were swans. They uttered a
+strange note, spread their superb long wings, and flew away from
+the cold countries (for the winter was setting in) to warmer lands
+and unfrozen lakes. They mounted so high, so very high! The little
+ugly duck felt indescribably&mdash;it turned round in the water like a
+mill-wheel, stretched out its neck towards them, and uttered a cry
+so loud and strange that it was afraid even of itself. Oh, the
+beautiful birds! the happy birds! it could not forget them; and
+when it could see them no longer, it dived down to the very bottom
+of the water; and when it came up again it was quite beside itself.</p>
+
+<p>"And now it became so cold! But it would be too sad to relate all
+the suffering and misery which the duckling had to endure through
+the hard winter. It lay on the moor in the rushes. But when the sun
+began to shine again more warmly, when the larks sang, and the
+lovely spring was come, then, all at once it spread out its wings,
+and rose in the air. They made a rushing noise louder than
+formerly, and bore it onwards more vigorously; and before it was
+well aware of it, it found itself in a garden, where the
+apple-trees were in blossom, and where the syringas sent forth
+their fragrance, and their long green branches hung down in the
+clear stream. Just then three beautiful white swans came out of the
+thicket. They rustled their feathers, and swam on the water so
+lightly&mdash;oh! so very lightly! The duckling knew the superb
+creatures, and was seized with a strange feeling of sadness.</p>
+
+<p>"'To them will I fly!' said it, 'to the royal birds. Though they
+kill me, I must fly to them!' And it flew into the water, and swam
+to the magnificent birds, that looked at, and with rustling plumes,
+sailed towards it.</p>
+
+<p>"'Kill me!' said the poor creature, and bowed down its head to the
+water, and awaited death. But what did it see in the water? It saw
+beneath it its own likeness; but no longer that of an awkward
+grayish bird, ugly and displeasing&mdash;it was the figure of a swan.</p>
+
+<p>"It is of no consequence being born in a farm-yard, if only it is
+in a swan's egg.</p>
+
+<p>"The large swans swam beside it, and stroked it with their bills.
+There were little children running about in the garden; they threw
+bread into the water, and the youngest cried out, 'There is a new
+one!' And the other children shouted too; 'Yes, a new one is
+come!'&mdash;and they clapped their hands and danced, and ran to tell
+their father<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> and mother. And they threw bread and cake into the
+water; and every one said, 'The new one is the best! so young, and
+so beautiful!'</p>
+
+<p>"Then the young one felt quite ashamed, and hid its head under its
+wing; it knew not what to do: it was too happy, but yet not
+proud&mdash;for a good heart is never proud. It remembered how it had
+been persecuted and derided, and now it heard all say it was the
+most beautiful of birds. And the syringas bent down their branches
+to it in the water, and the sun shone so lovely and so warm. Then
+it shook its plumes, the slender neck was lifted up, and, from its
+very heart, it cried rejoicingly&mdash;'Never dreamed I of such
+happiness when I was the little ugly duck!'"</p></div>
+
+<p>It is not only in writing for children that our author succeeds; but
+whenever childhood crosses his path, it calls up a true pathos, and the
+playful tenderness of his nature. The commencement of his serious
+novels, where he treats of the infancy and boyhood of his heroes, is
+always interesting. Amongst the translated works of Andersen is one
+entitled "A Picture-Book without Pictures." The author describes himself
+as inhabiting a solitary garret in a large town, where no one knew him,
+and no friendly face greeted him. One evening, however, he stands at the
+open casement, and suddenly beholds "the face of an old friend&mdash;a round,
+kind face, looking down on him. It was the moon&mdash;the dear old moon! with
+the same unaltered gleam, just as she appeared when, through the
+branches of the willows, she used to shine upon him as he sat on the
+mossy bank beside the river." The moon becomes very sociable, and breaks
+that long silence which poets have so often celebrated&mdash;breaks it, we
+must confess, to very little purpose. "Sketch what I relate to you,"
+says the moon, "and you will have a pretty picture-book." And
+accordingly, every visit, she tells him "of one thing or another that
+she has seen during the past night." One would think that such a
+sketch-book, or album, as we have here, might easily have been put
+together without calling in the aid of so sublime a personage. But
+amongst the pictures that are presented to us, two or three, where the
+moon has had her eye upon children in their sports or their distresses,
+took hold of our fancy. Here Andersen is immediately at home. We give
+one short extract.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"It was but yesternight (said the moon) that I peeped into a small
+court-yard, enclosed by houses: there was a hen with eleven
+chickens. A pretty little girl was skipping about. The hen chicked,
+and, affrighted, spread out her wings over her little ones. Then
+came the maiden's father, and chid the child; and I passed on,
+without thinking more of it at the moment.</p>
+
+<p>"This evening&mdash;but a few minutes ago&mdash;I again peeped into the same
+yard. All was silent; but soon the little maiden came. She crept
+cautiously to the hen-house, lifted the latch, and stole gently up
+to the hen and the chickens. The hen chicked aloud, and they all
+ran fluttering about: the little girl ran after them. I saw it
+plainly, for I peeped in through a chink in the wall. I was vexed
+with the naughty child, and was glad that the father came and
+scolded her still more than yesterday, and seized her by the arm.
+She bent her head back; big tears stood in her blue eyes. She wept.
+'I wanted to go in and kiss the hen, and beg her to forgive me for
+yesterday. But I could not tell it you.' And the father kissed the
+brow of the innocent child; and I kissed her eyes and her lips."</p></div>
+
+<p>Our poet&mdash;we call him such, though we know nothing of his verses, for
+whatever there is of merit in his writings is of the nature of
+poetry&mdash;our poet of childhood and of poverty, was born at Odense, a town
+of Funen, one of the green, beech-covered islands of Denmark. It bears
+the name of the Scandinavian hero, or demigod, Odin; Tradition says he
+lived there. The parents of Andersen were so poor that when they married
+they had not wherewithal to purchase a bedstead, or at least thought it
+advisable to make shift by constructing one out of the wooden tressels
+which, a little time before, had supported the coffin of some
+neighbouring count as he lay in state. It still retained a part of the
+black cloth, and some of the funeral ornaments attached to it, when in
+the year 1805 there lay upon it, not in any peculiar state, the solitary
+fruit of their marriage&mdash;the little Hans Christian Andersen. He was a
+crying infant, and when carried to the baptismal font, sorely vexed the
+parson with his outcries. "Your young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> one screams like a cat!" said the
+reverend official. The mother was hurt at this reflection upon her
+offspring; but a prophetic god-papa, who stood by, consoled her by
+saying, "that the louder he cried when a child, all the more beautifully
+would he sing when he grew older."</p>
+
+<p>Those who are disposed to trace a hereditary descent in mental
+qualifications, will find an instance to their purpose in the case of
+Andersen. His mother, we are told, was utterly ignorant of books and of
+the world, "but possessed a heart full of love!" From her he may be said
+to have derived a singular frankness and amiability of disposition&mdash;a
+fond, open, affectionate temper. For the more intellectual qualities, by
+which this temper, through the medium of authorship, was to become
+patent to the world, he must have been indebted to his father. This poor
+and hapless shoemaker (such was his trade) seems to have been a singular
+person. To use a favourite phrase of Napoleon, "he had missed his
+destiny." His parents had been country people of some substance, but
+misfortune falling upon misfortune had reduced them to poverty. Finally,
+the father had become insane; the mother had been glad to obtain a
+menial situation in the very asylum where her husband was confined; and
+there was nothing better to be done for the son than to apprentice him
+to a shoemaker. Some talk there was amongst the neighbours of raising a
+subscription to send him to the grammar-school, and thus give him a
+start in life; but it never went beyond talk. A shoemaker he became. But
+to the leather and the last he never took kindly. He would read what
+books he could get&mdash;Holberg's plays and the Bible&mdash;and ponder over them.
+At first he would make his wife a sharer in his reflections, but as she,
+good woman, never understood a word of what he said, he learned to
+meditate in silence. On Sundays he would go out into the woods
+accompanied only by his child; then he would sit down, sunk in
+abstraction and solitary thought, while young Hans gathered flowers or
+wild strawberries. "I recollect," says the son, in his Autobiography,
+"that once, as a child, I saw tears in his eyes; and it was when a youth
+from the grammar-school came to our house to be measured for a new pair
+of boots, and showed us his books, and told us what he learned, 'That
+was the path on which I ought to have gone!' said my father; he kissed
+me passionately, and was silent the whole evening."</p>
+
+<p>There surely went out of the world something still undeveloped in that
+poor shoemaker. At a subsequent period of the history we find him fairly
+abandoning his unchosen trade. The name of Napoleon resounded even in
+Odense&mdash;even in Odense could find a heart that is disquieted. He would
+follow the banner of him who had "opened a career to all the talents."
+But the regiment in which he enlisted got no further than Holstein.
+Peace was concluded; he had to return to his native place, and fall back
+as well as he could into the old routine. His march to Holstein had,
+however, shaken his health, and he died shortly after his return.</p>
+
+<p>"I was," says our author, "the only child, and was extremely spoilt; but
+I continually heard my mother say how very much happier I was than she
+had been, and that I was brought up like a nobleman's child." No
+nobleman's child could, at all events, be brought up with less
+restraint, or more completely left to his own fancies. Poor as were his
+parents, he never felt want; he had no care; he was fed and clothed
+without any thought on his part; he lived his own dreamy life, nourished
+by scraps of plays, songs, and all manner of traditionary stories. There
+was a theatre at Odense, and young Andersen was now and then taken to it
+by his parents. He himself constructed a puppet-show, and the dressing
+and drilling of his dolls was for a long time the chief occupation of
+his life. As he could rarely go to the theatre, he made friends with the
+man who sold the play-bills, who was charitable enough to give him one.
+With this upon his knee, he would sit apart and construct a play for
+himself; putting the <i>dramatis person&aelig;</i> into movement as well as he
+could, and at all events despatching them all at the close; for he had
+no idea, he tells us, of a tragedy "that had not plenty of dying."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Of what is commonly called education he had little enough. He was sent
+to a charity-school, where, by a somewhat startling error of the press,
+Mrs Howitt is made to say "he learned only <i>religion</i>, writing, and
+arithmetic." Of the <i>reading</i>, writing, and arithmetic there taught, he
+seemed to have gained little; certainly the writing, and the arithmetic
+went on very slowly. To make amends, he used to present his master on
+his birth-day with a poem and a garland. Both the wreath and the verses
+seemed to have been but churlishly received, and the last time they were
+offered, he got scolded for his pains.</p>
+
+<p>It would be difficult, however, to conceive of a life more suitable to
+the fostering of the imagination than that which little Hans was
+leading. Besides the play-house, and the scraps of dramas read to him by
+his father, himself a strange and dreamy man, we catch sight of an old
+grandmother, she who resided in the lunatic asylum where her husband was
+confined. Young Hans was occasionally permitted to visit her; and here
+he was a great favourite with certain old crones, who told him many a
+marvellous and terrible story. These stories, and the insane figures
+which he caught sight of around him, operated, he tells us, so
+powerfully upon his imagination that when it grew dark he scarcely dared
+to go out of the house. His own mother was extremely superstitious. When
+her husband was dying, she sent her son, not to the doctor, but to a
+wise-woman, who, after measuring the boy's arm with a woollen thread,
+and performing some other ceremonies, bade him go home by the river
+side, "and if he did not see the ghost of his father, he was to be sure
+that he would not die this time." He did <i>not</i> see the ghost of his
+father&mdash;which, considering all things, was rather surprising; but his
+father died nevertheless.</p>
+
+<p>After the death of her husband, the mother of Andersen found another
+object for her affections, for that "heart so full of love." She married
+again. But the stepfather was "a grave young man, who would have nothing
+to do with Hans Christian's education;" refused, we presume, all
+responsibility on so delicate a business. He was still left to himself.
+He had now grown a tall lad, with long yellow hair, which the sun
+probably had assisted to dye, as he was accustomed to go bare-headed. He
+continued to amuse himself with dressing his theatrical puppets. His
+mother reconciled herself to the occupation, as it formed, she thought,
+no bad introduction to the trade of a tailor, to which she now destined
+him. On the other hand, Hans partly reconciled himself to the idea of
+being a tailor, because he should then have plenty of cloth, of all
+colours, for his puppets. Meanwhile it was to a very different trade or
+destiny that these puppets were conducting him.</p>
+
+<p>About this time, not for the money, said the warm-hearted mother, but
+that the lad, like the rest of the world, might be doing something, Hans
+was sent, for a short interval, to a cloth factory. But it was fated
+that he should never work. He had a beautiful voice, and could sing. The
+people at the factory asked him to sing. "He began, and all the looms
+stood still." He had to sing again and again, whilst the other boys had
+his work given them to do. He was not long, however, at the factory. The
+coarse jests and behaviour of its inmates drove out the shy and solitary
+boy.</p>
+
+<p>And now came the crisis. He would go forth into the world. He would be
+famous. All his early aspirations for distinction and celebrity had
+become, as might be expected, associated with the theatre. But as yet he
+had not the least idea in what department he was to excel&mdash;whether as
+actor or poet, dancer or singer&mdash;or rather he seems to have thought
+himself capable of success in them all. The passion for fame, or rather
+for distinction, had been awakened before the passion for any particular
+art. All he knew was, that he was to be a celebrated man; by what sort
+of labour, what kind of performance, he had no conception. Indeed, the
+remarkable performance, the work to be done, was not the most essential
+thing in his calculation. "People suffer a deal of adversity, and then
+they become famous." It was thus he explained the matter to himself. He
+was on the right road, at all events, for the adversity.</p>
+
+<p>We must relate his going forth in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> his own words. Never, surely, on the
+part of all the actors in it, was there a scene of such singular
+simplicity.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"My mother said that I must be confirmed, in order that I might be
+apprenticed to the tailor trade, and thus do something rational.
+She loved me with her whole heart, but she did not understand my
+impulses and my endeavours, nor, indeed, at that time did I myself.
+The people about her always spoke against my odd ways, and turned
+me into ridicule. (They only saw the ugly duckling in the young
+swan.)</p>
+
+<p>"We belonged to the parish of St Knud, and the candidates for
+confirmation could either enter their names with the provost or
+with the chaplain. The children of the so-called superior families,
+and the scholars of the grammar-school, went to the first, and the
+children of the poor to the second. I, however, announced myself as
+a candidate to the provost, who was obliged to receive me, although
+he discovered vanity in my placing myself among his catechists,
+where, although taking the lowest place, I was still above those
+who were under the care of the chaplain. I would, however, hope
+that it was not alone vanity that impelled me. I had a sort of fear
+of the poor boys, who had laughed at me, and I always felt as it
+were an inward drawing towards the scholars of the grammar-school,
+whom I regarded as far better than other boys. When I saw them
+Playing in the churchyard, I would stand outside the railings, and
+wish that I were but among the fortunate ones&mdash;not for the sake of
+the play, but for the many books they had, and for what they might
+be able to become in the world.</p>
+
+<p>"An old female tailor altered my deceased father's greatcoat into a
+confirmation suit for me; never before had I worn so good a coat. I
+had also, for the first time in my life, a pair of boots. My
+delight was extremely great; my only fear was that every body would
+not see them, and therefore I drew them up over my trousers, and
+thus marched through the church. The boots creaked, and that
+inwardly pleased me, for thus the congregation would hear that they
+were new. My whole devotion was disturbed. I was aware of it, and
+it caused me a horrible pang of conscience that my thoughts should
+be as much with my new boots as with God. I prayed him earnestly
+from my heart to forgive me, and then again I thought upon my new
+boots.</p>
+
+<p>"During the last year I had saved together a little sum of money.
+When I counted it over, I found it to be thirteen rix-dollars banco
+(about thirty shillings.) I was quite overjoyed at the possession
+of so much wealth; and as my mother now most resolutely required
+that I should be apprenticed to a tailor, I prayed and besought her
+that I might make a journey to Copenhagen, that I might see the
+greatest city in the world.</p>
+
+<p>"'What wilt thou do there?' asked my mother.</p>
+
+<p>"'I will become famous,' returned I; and I then told her all that I
+had read about extraordinary men. 'People have,' said I, 'at first
+an immense deal of adversity to go through, and then they will be
+famous.'</p>
+
+<p>"It was a wholly unintelligible impulse that guided me. I wept and
+prayed, and at last my mother consented, after having first sent
+for a so-called wise-woman out of the hospital, that she might read
+my future fortune by the coffee-grounds and cards.</p>
+
+<p>"'Your son will become a great man!' said the old woman; 'and in
+honour of him all Odense will one day be illuminated.'</p>
+
+<p>"My mother wept when she heard that, and I obtained permission to
+travel."&mdash;(p. 27.)</p></div>
+
+<p>So, at the age of fourteen, with thirty shillings in his pocket, and his
+idea of becoming famous by going through a deal of adversity, he comes
+to Copenhagen&mdash;the Paris, the more than the Paris of Denmark, for, in
+respect to all that a great town collects or fosters, Copenhagen is
+literally Denmark. There never was a stranger history than this of young
+Andersen's. It is more like a dream than a life; it is like one of his
+own tales for children, where the rigid laws of probability are
+dispensed with in favour of a quite free and rapid invention. The
+theatre is his point of attraction: but he was by no means determined in
+what department, or under what form, his universal genius shall make its
+appearance. He will first try dancing. He had heard of a celebrated
+<i>danseuse</i>, a Madame Schall. To her he goes with a letter of
+introduction, which he had coaxed out of an old printer in Odense, who,
+though he protested he did not know the lady, was still prevailed upon
+to write the letter. Dressed in his confirmation suit, a broad hat upon
+his head, his boots, we may be sure, not forgotten, which were worn,
+however, this time under the trousers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span> he finds out the residence of
+Madame Schall, rings at the bell, and is admitted. "She looked at me
+with great amazement," writes our author, "and then heard what I had to
+say. She had not the slightest knowledge of him from whom the letter
+came, and my whole appearance and behaviour seemed very strange to her.
+I confessed to her my heartfelt inclination for the theatre; and upon
+her asking me what character I thought I could represent, I replied
+Cinderella. This piece had been performed in Odense by the royal
+company, and the principal character had so taken my fancy, that I could
+play the part perfectly from memory. In the mean time I asked her
+permission to take off my boots, otherwise I was not light enough for
+this character; and then, taking up my broad hat for a tambourine, I
+began to dance and sing&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="50%" summary="verse">
+<tr>
+<td>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Here below nor rank nor riches</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Are exempt from pain and wo.'</span><br />
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>My strange gestures and my great activity caused the lady to think me
+out of my mind, and she lost no time in getting rid of me."</p>
+
+<p>We should think so. Only imagine some wild colt of a boy, one of those
+young Savoyards, for instance, who are in the habit of dancing round the
+organ they are grinding, apparently to convince the world how sprightly
+the tune is&mdash;imagine a genius of this natural description introducing
+himself into the drawing-room of a Taglioni or an Elssler, and
+commencing forthwith, "with great activity," to give a specimen of his
+talent! Just such as this must have been the part which young Andersen
+performed in the saloon of Madame Schall.</p>
+
+<p>As the dancing does not succeed, he next offers himself as an
+actor&mdash;proceeding, quite as a matter of course, to the manager of a
+theatre to ask for an engagement. The manager was facetious&mdash;said he was
+"too thin for the theatre." Hans would be facetious too. "Oh," he
+replied, "if you will but engage me at one hundred rix-dollars banco
+salary, I shall soon get fat." Then the manager looked grave, and bade
+him go his way, adding, that he engaged only people of education.</p>
+
+<p>But he had many strings to his bow&mdash;he could sing. It was at the opera
+evidently that he was destined to become famous. Here he met with what,
+for a moment, looked like success. A voice he certainly possessed,
+though uncultivated, and Seboni, the director of the Academy of Music,
+promised to procure instruction for him. But a short time afterwards he
+lost his voice, through insufficient clothing, as he thinks, and bad
+shoe leather. (Those boots could not be new always&mdash;doubtless got sadly
+worn tramping through the streets of Copenhagen.) Seboni dropped his
+<i>prot&eacute;g&eacute;</i>, counselled him to go back to Odense, and learn a trade.</p>
+
+<p>As well learn a trade in Copenhagen, if it was to come to that. He still
+stayed in the capital, and still lingered round the theatre, sometimes
+getting a lesson in recitation, sometimes one in dancing, and overjoyed
+if only as one of a crowd of masked people he could stand before the
+scenes. There never surely was so irrepressible a vanity combined with
+so sensitive a temperament; never so strong an impulse for distinction
+accompanied with such vague notions of the means to attain it. At this
+period of his life his utter childishness, his affectionate simplicity,
+his superstition, his unconquerable vanity, present a picture quite
+unexampled in all biographies we have ever read. He has to make a
+bargain with an old woman (no better than she should be) for his board
+and lodging. She had left the room for a short time; there was in it a
+portrait of her deceased husband. "I was so much a child," he says,
+"that, as the tears rolled down my own cheeks, I wetted the eyes of the
+portrait with my tears, in order that the dead man might feel how
+troubled I was, and influence the heart of his wife."</p>
+
+<p>Great as his susceptibility to ridicule, his vanity is always greater,
+can surmount it, and find a gratification where a sterner nature would
+have felt only mortification. In a scene of an opera where a crowd is to
+be represented, he edges himself upon the stage. He is very conscious of
+the ill condition of his attire: the confirmation coat did but just hold
+together; and he did not dare to hold himself upright lest he should
+exhibit the more plainly the shortness of the waistcoat which he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> had
+outgrown. He had the feeling very plainly that people would be making
+themselves merry with him; yet at this moment, he says, "he felt nothing
+but the happiness of stepping for the first time before the footlamps."</p>
+
+<p>Of his superstition he records the following amusing instance. "I had
+the notion that as it went with me on New Year's Day, so would it go
+with me through the whole year; and my highest wishes were to obtain a
+part in a play. It was now New Year's Day. The theatre was closed, and
+only a half-blind porter sat at the entrance to the stage, on which
+there was not a soul. I stole past him with a beating heart, got between
+the moveable scenes and the curtain, and advanced to the open part of
+the stage. Here I fell down upon my knees, but not a single verse for
+declamation could I recall to my memory. I then said aloud the Lord's
+Prayer. I went out with the persuasion that, because I had spoken from
+the stage on New Year's Day, I should, in the course of the year,
+succeed in speaking still more, as well as in having a part assigned to
+me."&mdash;(p. 50.)</p>
+
+<p>We must quote the paragraph that immediately follows this extract,
+because it shows that, after all, there was something better stirring at
+his heart than this vague theatrical ambition, this empty vanity. There
+was the love of nature there. "During the two years of my residence in
+Copenhagen, I had never been out into the open country. Once only had I
+been in the park, and there I had been deeply engrossed by studying the
+diversions of the people and their gay tumult. In the spring of the
+third year, I went out for the first time amid the verdure of a spring
+morning. I stood still suddenly under the first large budding
+beech-tree. The sun made the leaves transparent&mdash;there was a fragrance,
+a freshness&mdash;the birds sang. I was overcome by it&mdash;I shouted aloud for
+joy, threw my arms around the tree, and kissed it. 'Is he mad?' said a
+man close behind me."</p>
+
+<p>His good fortune provided him at length with a sincere and serviceable
+friend in the person of Collins&mdash;conference-councillor, as his title
+runs, and one of the most influential men at that time in Denmark.
+Through his means a grant was obtained from the royal purse, and access
+procured to something like regular education in the grammar-school at
+Slagelse. His place in the school was in the lowest class amongst little
+boys. He knew indeed nothing at all&mdash;nothing of what is taught by the
+pedagogue. At the age of eighteen, after having written a tragedy, which
+had been submitted to the theatre at Copenhagen, and we know not what
+poems besides,&mdash;after having versified a dance, and recited a song, he
+begins at the very beginning, and seats himself down in the lowest form
+of a grammar-school.</p>
+
+<p>It is not our intention to pursue the biography of Andersen beyond what
+is necessary for understanding the singular circumstances in which his
+mind grew up; we shall not, therefore, detain our readers much longer on
+this part of our subject. His scholastic progress appears to have been
+at first slow and painful; the rector of the grammar-school behaved
+neither kindly nor generously towards him; and on him he afterwards took
+his revenge in the character of Habbas Dahdah, in "The Improvisatore."
+But he was docile, he was persevering, and passed through the school,
+and afterwards the college, not discreditably. In 1829, he was launched
+again into the world, a member of the educated class of society.</p>
+
+<p>After supporting himself some time by his pen, he received from his
+government a stipend for travelling, which, it appears, in Denmark is
+bestowed on young poets as well as artists. And now he started on his
+travels&mdash;evidently the best school of education for a mind like his. For
+whatever use books may have been of to Andersen, in teaching him to
+<i>write</i>, they have had nothing to do with teaching him to <i>think</i>. No
+one portion of his writings of any value can be traced to his
+acquaintance with books. What knowledge he got from this source he could
+never rightly use. What his eye saw, what his heart felt&mdash;that alone he
+could work with. The slowly won reflection, the linked thought&mdash;any
+thing like a train of reasoning, seems<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> to have been an utter stranger
+to his mind. Throughout his life, he is an observant child. From books
+he can gather nothing: severe analytic thinking he knows nothing of; he
+must see the world, must hear people talk, must remember how his own
+heart beat, and thus only can he find something for utterance.</p>
+
+<p>What a change now in his destiny! The poor shoemaker's child, that
+wandered wild in the woods of Odense, and afterwards wandered almost as
+wild and as solitary in the streets of Copenhagen&mdash;who was next
+imprisoned in a school with dictionary and grammar&mdash;is now free
+again&mdash;may wander with wider range of vision&mdash;is a traveller&mdash;and in
+Italy! But the sensitive temper of Andersen, we are afraid, hardly
+permitted him to enjoy, as he might have done, his full cup of
+happiness. Vanity is an unquiet companion; he should have left it behind
+him at home; then the little piece of malice which he records of one of
+his friends would not have disturbed him as it appears to have done.</p>
+
+<p>"During my journey to Paris, and the whole month that I spent there, I
+heard not a single word from home. Could it be that my friends had
+nothing agreeable to tell me? At length, however, a letter arrived; a
+large letter, which cost a large sum in postage. My heart beat with joy,
+and yearning impatience; it was indeed my first letter. I opened it, but
+I discovered not a single written word&mdash;nothing but a Copenhagen
+newspaper, <i>containing a lampoon upon me</i>, and that was sent to me all
+that distance with postage unpaid, probably by the anonymous writer
+himself. This abominable malice wounded me deeply. I have never
+discovered who the author was; perhaps he was one of those who
+afterwards called me friend, and pressed my hand. Some men have base
+thoughts; I also have mine."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Andersen has all his life long been sorely plagued by his critics.
+Those who peruse his Autobiography to the close, and every part of it is
+worth reading, will find him in violent ill humour with the theatrical
+public, whom he describes as taking a malicious and diabolical pleasure
+in damning plays. To hiss down a piece, he declares, is one of the chief
+amusements that fill the house. "Five minutes is the usual time, and the
+whistles resound, and the lovely women smile and felicitate themselves
+like the Spanish ladies at their bloody bull-fights." His second journey
+into Italy seems to have been in part occasioned by some quarrel with
+the theatre. "If I would represent this portion of my life more clearly
+and reflectively, it would require me to penetrate into the mysteries of
+the theatre, to analyse our &aelig;sthetic cliques, and to drag into
+conspicuous notice many individuals who do not belong to publicity; many
+persons in my place would, like me, have fallen ill, or would have
+resented it vehemently. Perhaps the latter would have been the most
+sensible."</p>
+
+<p>Oh, no! Hans Christian&mdash;by no means the most sensible. Better even to
+have fallen ill. An author by his quarrel with the public, whether the
+reading or theatrical public, can gain nothing for himself but added
+torment. The more vehemently he contests and resents, the louder is the
+laugh against him. Whether the right is upon his side, time alone can
+show; time alone can redress his wrongs. When the poet has written his
+best, he has done all his part. If he cannot feel perfectly tranquil as
+to the result, let him at least affect tranquillity&mdash;let him be silent,
+and silence will soon bring that peace it typifies.</p>
+
+<p>Henceforward, however, upon the whole, the career of Andersen is
+prosperous, and his life genial. We find him in friendly intercourse
+with the best spirits of the age. The lad who walked about Odense with
+long yellow locks, bare-headed, and bare-footed, and who was half
+reconciled to being a tailor's apprentice, because he should get plenty
+of remnants to dress his puppets with&mdash;is seen spending the evening with
+the royal family of Denmark, or dining with the King of Prussia, who
+decorates him with his order of the Red Eagle! He has exemplified his
+text&mdash;"people have a deal of adversity to go through, and then they
+become famous."</p>
+
+<p>Those who have read "The Improvisatore," the most ambitious of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span>
+works of Andersen, and by far the most meritorious of his novels, will
+now directly recognise the materials of which it has been constructed.
+His own early career, and his travels into Italy, have been woven
+together in the story of Antonio. So far from censuring him&mdash;as some of
+his Copenhagen critics appear to have done&mdash;for describing himself and
+the scenes he beheld, we are only surprised when we read "The True Story
+of his Life," that he has not been able to employ in a still more
+striking manner, the experience of his singular career. But, as we have
+already observed, he betrays no habit or power of mental analysis; he
+has not that introspection which, in the phrase of our poet Daniel,
+"raises a man above himself;" so that Andersen could contemplate
+Andersen, and combine the impartial scrutiny of a spectator with the
+thorough knowledge which self can only have of self. So far from
+censuring him for the frequent use he makes of the materials which his
+own life and travels afforded him, we could wish that he had never
+attempted to employ any other. Throughout his novels, whenever he
+departs from these, he is either commonplace or extravagant,&mdash;or both
+together, which, in our days, is very possible. If he imitates other
+writers, it is always their worst manner that he contrives to seize; if
+he adopts the worn-out resources of preceding novelists, it is always
+(and in this he may be doing good service) to render them still more
+palpably absurd and ridiculous than they were before. He has dreams in
+plenty&mdash;his heroes are always dreaming; he has fevered descriptions of
+the over-excited imagination&mdash;a very favourite resource of modern
+novelists; he has his moral enigmas; and of course he has a witch
+(Fulvia) who tells fortunes and reads futurity, and reads it correctly,
+let philosophy or common sense say what it will. His Fulvia affords his
+readers one gratification; they find her fairly hanged at the end of the
+book.</p>
+
+<p>We are far enough from attempting to give an outline of the story of
+this or any other novel&mdash;such skeletons are not attractive; but the
+extracts, and the observations we have to make, will best be understood
+by entering a few steps into the narrative.</p>
+
+<p>Antonio, the Improvisatore, is born in Rome of poor parents. He is
+introduced to us as a child, living with his fond mother, his only
+surviving parent, in a room, or rather a loft, in the roof of a house.
+She is accidentally run over and killed by a nobleman's carriage. A
+certain uncle Peppo, a cripple and a beggar, claims guardianship of the
+orphan. Of this Peppo we have a most unamiable portrait. His withered
+legs are fastened to a board, and he shuffles himself along with his
+hands, which were armed with a pair of wooden hand clogs. He used to sit
+upon the steps of the Piazza de Spagna. "Once I was witness," says the
+Improvisatore, who tells his own story, "of a scene which awoke in me
+fear of him, and also exhibited his own disposition. Upon one of the
+lowest flights of stairs sat an old blind beggar, and rattled with his
+little leaden box that people might drop a <i>bajocco</i> therein. Many
+people passed by my uncle without noticing his crafty smile and the
+waivings of his hat; the blind man gained more by his silence&mdash;they gave
+to him. Three had gone by, and now came the fourth, and threw him a
+small coin. Peppo could no longer contain himself: I saw how he crept
+down like a snake, and struck the blind man in his face, so that he lost
+both money and stick. 'Thou thief!' cried my uncle, 'wilt thou steal
+money from me&mdash;thou who art not even a regular cripple&mdash;cannot see&mdash;that
+is all! And so he will take my bread from my mouth.'"</p>
+
+<p>On great occasions Peppo could quit his board and straddle upon an ass.
+And now he came upon his ass, set Antonio before him, and carried him
+off to his home or den. The boy was put into a small recess contiguous
+to the apartment which his uncle occupied with some of his guests. He
+overheard this conversation: "Can the boy do any thing?" asked one; "Has
+he any sort of hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; the Madonna has not been so kind to him," said Peppo; "he is
+slender and well formed, like a nobleman's child."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a great misfortune," said they all; and some suggestions were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span>
+added, that he could have some little hurt to help him to get his
+earthly bread until the Madonna gave him the heavenly. Conversation such
+as this filled him with alarm; he crept through the aperture which
+served for window to his dormitory; slid down the wall, and made his
+escape. He ran as fast as he could, and found himself at length in the
+Coliseum.</p>
+
+<p>Antonio, at this time, is a poor boy about nine or ten years old; we
+have seen from what sort of guardian the terrified lad was making his
+escape. Now, observe the exquisite appropriateness, taste, and judgment
+of what follows. It is precisely here that the author makes parade of
+the knowledge he has lately gained in the grammar-school of
+Slagelse&mdash;precisely here that he throws his Antonio into a classical
+dream or vision!</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Behind one of the many wooden altars which stand not far apart
+within the ruins, and indicate the resting-points of the Saviour's
+progress to the cross,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> I seated myself upon a fallen capital,
+which lay in the grass. The stone was as cold as ice, my head
+burned, there was fever in my blood; I could not sleep, and there
+occurred to my mind all that people had related to me of this old
+building; of the captive Jews who had been made to raise these huge
+blocks of stone for the mighty Roman C&aelig;sar; of the wild beasts
+which, within this space, had fought with each other, nay, even
+with men also, while the people sat upon stone benches, which
+ascended step-like from the ground to the loftiest colonnade.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a rustling in the bushes above me; I looked up, and
+fancied that I saw something moving. Oh, yes! my imagination showed
+to me pale dark shapes, which hewed and builded around me; I heard
+distinctly every stroke that fell, saw the meagre black-bearded
+Jews tear away grass and shrubs to pile stone upon stone, till the
+whole monstrous building stood there newly erected; and now all was
+one throng of human beings, head above head, and the whole seemed
+one infinitely vast living giant body.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw the vestals in their long white garments; the magnificent
+court of the C&aelig;sar; the naked bleeding gladiators; then I heard how
+there was a roaring and a howling round about, in the lowest
+colonnades; from various sides sprang in whole herds of tigers and
+hy&aelig;nas; they sped close past the spot where I lay; I felt their
+burning breath; saw their red fiery glances, and held myself fast
+upon the stone upon which I was seated, whilst I prayed the Madonna
+to save me. But wilder still grew the tumult around me; yet I could
+see in the midst of all the holy cross as it still stands, and
+which, whenever I had passed it, I had piously kissed. I exerted
+all my strength, and perceived distinctly that I had thrown my arms
+around it; but every thing that surrounded me trembled violently
+together,&mdash;walls, men, beasts. Consciousness had left me,&mdash;I
+perceived nothing more. When I again opened my eyes, my fever was
+over."</p></div>
+
+<p>Sadder trash than this it were almost impossible to write. It is
+necessary to make some quotations to justify the terms of censure, as
+well as of praise, which we have bestowed upon Andersen; but our readers
+will willingly excuse the infliction of many such quotations; they might
+be made abundantly enough, we can assure them.</p>
+
+<p>On awaking from this vision, Antonio finds himself in the presence of
+some worthy monks. They take charge of him, and ultimately give him over
+to the protection of an old woman, a relative, Dominica, who is living
+the most solitary life imaginable, in one of the tombs of the Campagna.
+Here there is a striking picture presented to the imagination&mdash;of the
+old woman and the little boy, shut up in the ruined tomb, in the almost
+tropical heat, or the heavy rains, that visit the Campagna. He who
+erewhile had visions of vestals and captive Jews, C&aelig;sar and the
+gladiators, is more naturally represented as amusing himself by floating
+sticks and reeds upon the little canal dug to carry the water from their
+dwelling;&mdash;"they were his boats which were to sail to Rome."</p>
+
+<p>One day a young nobleman, pursued by an enraged buffalo, takes refuge in
+this tomb, and thus becomes ac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span>quainted with Antonio. He is a member of
+the Borghese family, and proves to be the very nobleman whose carriage
+had accidentally occasioned the death of his mother. Antonio becomes the
+prot&eacute;g&eacute; of the Borghese, returns to Rome, receives an education, and is
+raised into the high and cultivated ranks of society. He is put under
+the learned discipline of Habbas Dahdah&mdash;an excellent name, we confess,
+for a fool&mdash;in whose person, we presume, he takes a sly revenge upon his
+late rector of Slagelse. But he has not been fortunate in the invention
+of parallel absurdities in his Italian pedagogue to those which he may
+have remembered of some German prototype. He describes him as animated
+with a sort of insane aversion to the poet Dante, whom he decries on
+every occasion in order to exalt Petrarch. A Habbas Dahdah would be much
+more more likely to feign an excessive admiration for the idol and glory
+of Italy. However, his pupil stealthily procures a Dante; reads him, of
+course <i>dreams</i> of him; in short, there is an intolerable farago about
+the great poet.</p>
+
+<p>But the time now comes when the great business of all novels&mdash;love&mdash;is
+brought upon the scene. And here we have an observation to make which we
+think may be deserving of attention.</p>
+
+<p>Antonio, the Improvisatore, is made, in the novel, to love in the
+strangest fashion imaginable. He loves and he does not love; he never
+knows himself, nor the reader either, whether, or with whom, to
+pronounce him in love. Annunciata, the first object of this uncertain
+passion, behaves herself, it must be confessed, in a very extraordinary
+manner. We suppose the exigencies of the novel must excuse her; it was
+necessary that her lover should be plunged in despair, and therefore she
+could not be permitted to behave as any other woman would have done in
+the same circumstances. She has a real affection for Antonio; yet at the
+critical moment&mdash;the last moment he will be able to learn the truth, the
+last time he will see her unless her response be favourable&mdash;she behaves
+in such a manner as to lead him inevitably to the conclusion that his
+rival is preferred to him. This Annunciata, the most celebrated singer
+of her day, loses her voice, loses her beauty,&mdash;a fever deprives her of
+both;&mdash;and not till her death does Antonio learn that he, and not
+another, was the person really beloved. Meanwhile, in his travels,
+Antonio meets with a blind girl, whom he does or does not love, on whom
+at least he poetises, and whose forehead, <i>because she was blind</i>, he
+had kissed. He is afterwards introduced, at Venice, to a young lady,
+(Maria) who bears a striking resemblance to this blind girl. She is, in
+fact, the same person, restored to sight, though he is not aware of it.
+Maria loves the Improvisatore; he says, he believes that his affection
+is <i>not</i> love. He quits Venice&mdash;he returns&mdash;he is ill. Then follows one
+of those miserable scenes which novelists will inflict upon us&mdash;of
+dream, or delirium&mdash;what you will,&mdash;and, in this state, he fancies Maria
+is dead; he finds then that he really loved; and, in his sleep or
+trance, he expresses aloud his affection. His declaration is overheard
+by Maria and her sister, who are watching over his couch. He wakes, and
+Maria is there, alive before him. In his sleep he has become aware of
+the true condition of his own heart; nay, he has leapt the Rubicon,&mdash;he
+has declared it. He becomes a married man.</p>
+
+<p>Now, in the confused and contradictory account of Antonio's passion, we
+see a truth which the author drew from his own nature and experience,&mdash;a
+truth which, if he had fully appreciated, or had manfully adhered to,
+would have enabled him to draw a striking, consistent, and original
+portrait. In such natures as Andersen's, there is often found a modesty
+more than a woman's, combined with a vivid feeling of beauty, and a
+yearning for affection. Modesty is no exclusive property of the female
+sex, and there may be so much of it in a youth as to be the impediment,
+perhaps the unconscious impediment, to all the natural outpouring of his
+heart. The coyness of the virgin, the suitor, by his prayers and wooing,
+does all he can to overcome; but here the coyness is in the suitor
+himself. He has to overcome it by himself, and he cannot. He hardly
+knows the sort of enemy he has to conquer. Every woman seems to him
+enclosed in a bell-glass, fine as gossamer, but he cannot break it. He
+feels himself drawn, but he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span> cannot approach. His heart is yearning; yet
+he says to himself, no, I do not love. A looker-on calls him inconstant,
+uncertain, capricious. He is not so; he is bound by viewless fetters,
+nor does he know where to strike the chain that is coiled around him.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the truth, we apprehend, such the character, that Andersen had
+indistinctly in view. He drew from himself, but he had not previously
+analysed that self. It is, therefore, not so much a false as a confused
+and imperfect representation that he has given, which the reader, if he
+thinks it worth his while, must explain and complete for himself.
+Perhaps, too, a fear of the ridicule which an exhibition of modesty in
+man might draw down from certain slender witlings, from the young
+gentlemen, or even the young ladies, of Copenhagen, may have, in part,
+deterred him from a faithful portraiture. To people of reflection, who
+have learned to estimate at its true value the laugh of coxcombs, and
+the wisdom of the so-called man of the world&mdash;the shallowest bird of
+passage that we know of&mdash;such a portrait would have been attractive for
+the genuine truth it contains. It would require, indeed, a master's hand
+to deal both well and honestly with it.</p>
+
+<p>The descriptions of Italy which "The Improvisatore" contains are
+sufficiently striking and faithful to recall the scenes to those who
+have visited them; which is all, we believe, the best descriptions can
+effect. What is absolutely new to a reader cannot be described to him.
+If all the poets and romancers of England were to unite together in a
+committee of taste, they could not frame a description which would give
+the effect of mountainous scenery to one who had never seen a mountain.
+The utmost the describer call do, in all such cases, is to liken the
+scene to something already familiar to the reader's imagination. Though
+generally faithful, we cannot say that our author never sacrifices
+accuracy of detail to the demands of the novelist, never sacrifices the
+actual to the ideal. For instance, his account of the <i>Miserere</i> in the
+Sistine Chapel, is rather what one is willing to anticipate it might be,
+than what a traveller really finds it. To be sure, he has a right to
+place his hero of the novel where he pleases in the chapel, relieve him
+from the crowd, and give him all the advantages of position: still his
+perfect enjoyment of all that both the arts of painting and music can
+afford, and that overpowering <i>sentiment</i> which he finds in the great
+picture of the Last Judgment by Michel Angelo, (a picture which
+addresses itself far more to the artist than the poet,) strikes us as a
+description more from imagination than experience.</p>
+
+<p>A little satire upon the travelling English seems, by the way, to be as
+agreeable at Copenhagen as at Paris. Our Danish friends are quite
+welcome to it; we only wish for their sakes that, in the present
+instance, it had been a little more lively and pungent. Our Hans
+Andersen is too weak in the wrist, has not arm strong enough "to crack
+the satyric thong." Mere exaggeration maybe mere nonsense, and very dull
+nonsense. The scene is at the hotel at Terracina, so well known by all
+travellers.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The cracking of whips re-echoed from the wall of rocks; a carriage
+with four horses rolled up to the hotel. Armed servants sat on the
+seat at the back of the carriage; a pale thin gentleman, wrapped in
+a large bright-coloured dressing-gown, stretched himself within it.
+The postilion dismounted and cracked his long whip several times,
+whilst fresh horses were put to. The stranger wished to proceed,
+but as he desired to have an escort over the mountains where Fra
+Diavolo and Cesari had bold descendants, he was obliged to wait a
+quarter of an hour, and now scolded, half in English and half in
+Italian, at the people's laziness, and at the torments and
+sufferings which travellers had to endure; and at length knotted up
+his pocket-handkerchief into a night-cap, which he drew on his
+head, and then, throwing himself into a corner of the carriage,
+closed his eyes, and seemed to resign himself to his fate.</p>
+
+<p>"I perceived that it was all Englishman, who already, in ten days,
+had travelled through the north and the middle of Italy, and in
+that time had made himself acquainted with this country; had seen
+Rome in one day, and was now going to Naples to ascend Vesuvius,
+and then by the steam-vessel to Marseilles, to gain a knowledge
+also of the south of France, which he hoped to do in a still
+shorter time. At length eight well-armed horsemen arrived, the
+postilion cracked his whip, and the carriage and the out-riders<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span>
+vanished through the gate between the tall yellow rocks."&mdash;(Vol.
+ii. p. 6.)</p></div>
+
+<p>"<i>Only a Fiddler</i>" proceeds, in part, on the same plan as "The
+Improvisatore." Here, too, the author has drawn from his own early
+experience; here, too, we have a poor lad of genius, who will "go
+through an immense deal of adversity and then become famous;" here too
+we have the little ugly duck, who, however, was born in a swan's egg.
+The commencement of the novel is pretty, where it treats of the
+childhood of the hero; but Christian (such is his name) does not win
+upon our sympathy, and still less upon our respect. We are led to
+suspect that Christian Andersen himself, is naturally deficient in
+certain elements of character, or he would have better upheld the
+dignity of his namesake, whom he has certainly no desire to lower in our
+esteem. With an egregious passion for distinction, a great vanity, in
+short, we are afraid that he himself (judging from some passages in his
+Autobiography) hardly possesses a proper degree of pride, or the due
+feeling of self-respect. The Christian in the novel is the butt and
+laughing-stock of a proud, wilful young beauty of the name of Naomi; yet
+does he forsake the love of a sweet girl Lucie, to be the beaten spaniel
+of this Naomi. He has so little spirit as to take her money and her
+contempt at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>This self-willed and beautiful Naomi is a well-imagined character, but
+imperfectly developed. Indeed the whole novel may be described as a
+jumble of ill-connected scenes, and of half-drawn characters. We have
+some sad imitations of the worst models of our current literature. Here
+is a Norwegian godfather, the blurred likeness of some Parisian
+murderer. Here are dreams and visions, and plenty of delirium. He has
+caught the trick, perhaps, from some of our English novelists, of
+infusing into the persons of his drama all sorts of distorted
+imaginations, by way of describing the situation he has placed them in.
+We will quote a passage of this nature: it is just possible that some of
+our countrymen, when they see their own style reflected back to them
+from a foreign page, may be able to appreciate its exquisite truth to
+nature. Christian, still a boy, is at play with his companions; he hides
+from them in the belfry of a church. It was the custom to ring the bells
+at sunset. He had ensconced himself between the wall and the great bell,
+and "when this rose, and showed to him the whole opening of its mouth,"
+he found he was within a hair's breadth of contact with it. Retreat was
+impossible, and the least movement exposed his head to be shattered. The
+conception is terrible enough, but by no means a novel one, as all
+readers conversant with the pages of this Magazine will readily allow,
+by reference to the story of "The Man in the Bell," in our tenth
+volume,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> one of the late Dr Maginn's most powerful and graphic
+sketches. But the natural horror of the situation by no means satisfies
+this novelist; he therefore engrafts the following imaginations
+thereupon, as being such as were most likely to occur to the lad,
+frightened out of his senses, stunned by the roar of the bell, winking
+hard, and pressing himself closer and closer to the wall to escape the
+threatened blow.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Overpowered to his very inmost soul by the most fearful anguish,
+the bell appeared to him the jaws of some immense serpent; the
+clapper was the poisonous tongue, which it extended towards him.
+Confused imaginations pressed upon him; feelings similar to the
+anguish which he felt when the godfather had dived with him beneath
+the water, took possession of him; but here it roared far stronger
+in his ears, and the changing colours before his eyes formed
+themselves into gray figures. The old pictures in the castle
+floated before him, but with threatening mien and gestures, and
+ever-changing forms; now long and angular, again jelly-like, clear
+and trembling; they clashed cymbals and beat drums, and then
+suddenly passed away into that fiery glow in which every thing had
+appeared to him, when, with Naomi, he looked through the red
+window-panes. It burned, that he felt plainly. He swam through a
+burning sea, and ever did the serpent exhibit to him its fearful
+jaws. An irresistible desire seized him to take hold on the clapper
+with both hands, when suddenly it became calm around him, but it
+still raged within his brain. He felt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> that all his clothes clung
+to him, and that his hands seemed fastened to the wall. Before him
+hung the serpent's head, dead and bowed; the bell was silent. He
+closed his eyes and felt that he fell asleep. He had
+fainted."&mdash;(Vol. i. p. 59.)</p></div>
+
+<p>Are these some of the "beautiful thoughts" which Mrs Howitt finds it the
+greatest delight of her literary life to translate? One is a little
+curious to know how far this beauty has been increased or diminished by
+their admiring translator; but unfortunately we can boast no
+Scandinavian scholarship. This novel, however, is not without some
+striking passages, whether of description of natural scenery, or of
+human life. Of these, the little episode of the fate of Steffen-Margaret
+recurs most vividly to our recollection. Mrs Howitt, in her translation
+of "The True Story of my Life," draws our attention, in a note, to this
+character of Steffen-Margaret, informing us that it is the reproduction
+of a personage whom Andersen becomes slightly acquainted with in the
+early part of his career. She thus points out a striking passage in the
+novel; but the translator of the Autobiography and of "Only a Fiddler,"
+might have found more natural opportunities for illustrating the
+connexion between the novel and the life of the author. There is no
+resemblance whatever between the two characters alluded to, except that
+they both belong to the same unfortunate class of society. Of the young
+girl mentioned in the life, nothing indeed is said, except that she
+received once a week a visit from her papa, who came to drink tea with
+her, dressed always in a shabby blue coat; and the point of the story
+is, that in after times, when Andersen rose into a far different rank of
+society, he encountered in some fashionable saloon the papa of the
+shabby blue coat in a bland old gentleman glittering with orders.</p>
+
+<p>Christian, the hero of the novel, a lad utterly ignorant of life, has
+come for the first time to Copenhagen. Whilst the ship in which he has
+arrived is at anchor in the port, it is visited by some <i>ladies</i>, one of
+whom particularly fascinates him. She must be a princess, or something
+of that kind, if not a species of angel. The next day he finds out her
+residence, sees her, tells her all his history, all his inspirations,
+all his hopes; he is sure that he has found a kind and powerful
+patroness. The lady smiles at him, and dismisses him with some cakes and
+sweetmeats, and kindly taps upon the head. This is just what Andersen at
+the same age would have done himself, and just in this manner would he
+have been dismissed and comforted. There is a scene in the Autobiography
+very similar. He explains to some kind old dames, whom he encounters at
+the theatre, his thwarted aspirations after art; they give him
+cakes;&mdash;he tells them again of his impulses, and that he is dying to be
+famous; they give him more cakes;&mdash;he eats and is pacified.</p>
+
+<p>The ship, however, had not been long in the harbour before his princess
+visited it again. It was evening&mdash;Christian was alone in the cabin.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"He was most strangely affected as he heard at this moment a voice
+on the cabin steps, which was just like hers. She, perhaps, would
+already present herself as a powerful fairy to conduct him to
+happiness. He would have rushed towards her, but she came not
+alone; a sailor accompanied her, and inquired aloud, on entering,
+if there were any one there. But a strange feeling of distress
+fettered Christian's tongue, and he remained silent.</p>
+
+<p>"'What have you got to say to me?' asked the sailor.</p>
+
+<p>"'Save me!' was the first word, which Christian heard from her lips
+in the cabin; she whom he had regarded as a rich and noble lady. 'I
+am sunk in shame!' said she. 'No one esteems me; I no longer esteem
+myself. Oh, save me, S&ouml;ren! I have honestly divided my money with
+you; I yet am possessed of forty dollars. Marry me, and take me
+away out of this wo, and out of this misery! Take me to a place
+where nobody will know me, where you may not be ashamed of me. I
+will work for you like a slave, till the blood comes out at my
+finger-ends. Oh, take me away with you! In a year's time it may be
+too late.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Should I take you to my old father and mother?' said the sailor.</p>
+
+<p>"'I will kiss the dust from their feet they may beat me, and I will
+bear it without a murmur&mdash;will patiently bear every blow. I am
+already old, that I know. I shall soon be eight-and-twenty; but it
+is an act of mercy, which I beseech of you. If you will not do it,
+nobody else will; and I think I must drink<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span>&mdash;drink till my brain
+reels&mdash;and I forget what I have made myself!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Is that the very important thing that you have got to tell me?'
+remarked the sailor, with a cold indifference.</p>
+
+<p>"Her tears, her sighs, her words of despair, sank deep into
+Christian's heart. A visionary image had vanished, and with its
+vanishing he saw the dark side of a naked reality.</p>
+
+<p>"He found himself again alone.</p>
+
+<p>"A few days after this, the ice had to be hewed away from the
+channel. Christian and the sailor struck their axes deeply into the
+firm ice, so that it broke into great pieces. Something white hung
+fast to the ice in the opening; the sailor enlarged the opening,
+and then a female corpse presented itself, dressed in white as for
+a ball. She had amber leads round her neck, gold earrings, and she
+held her hands closely folded against her breast as if for prayer.
+It was Steffen-Margaret."</p></div>
+
+<p>"O.T." commences in a more lively style than either of the preceding
+novels, but soon becomes in fact the dullest and most wearisome of the
+three. During a portion of this novel he seems to have taken for his
+model of narrative the "Wilhelm Meister" of Goethe; but the calm
+domestic manner which is tolerable in the clear-sighted man, who we know
+can rise nobly from it when he pleases, accords ill enough with the
+bewildered, most displeasing, and half intelligible story which Andersen
+has here to relate.</p>
+
+<p>We have occupied ourselves quite sufficiently with these novels, and
+shall pass over "O.T." without further comment. Neither shall we bestow
+any of our space upon "The Poet's Bazaar," which seems to be nothing
+else than the Journal which the author may be supposed to have kept
+during his second visit to Italy, when he also extended his travels into
+Greece and Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p>We take refuge in the nursery&mdash;we will listen to these tales for
+children&mdash;we throw away the rigid pen of criticism&mdash;we will have a
+story.</p>
+
+<p>What precisely are the laws, what the critical rules, on which tales for
+children should be written, we will by no means undertake to define. Are
+they to contain nothing, in language or significance, beyond the
+apprehension of the inmates of the nursery? It is a question which we
+will not pretend to answer. Aristotle lays down nothing on the subject
+in his "Poetici;" nor Mr Dunlop in his "History of Fiction." If this be
+the law, if every thing must be level to the understanding of the
+frock-and-trousers population, then these, and many other Tales for
+Children, transgress against the first rule of their construction. How
+often does the story turn, like the novels for elder people, upon a
+marriage! Some king's son in disguise marries the beautiful princess.
+What idea has a child of marriage?&mdash;unless the sugared plum-cake
+distributed on such occasions comes in aid of his imagination. Marriage,
+to the infantine intelligence, must mean fine dresses, and infinite
+sweetmeats&mdash;a sort of juvenile party that is never to break up. Well,
+and the notion serves to carry on the tale withal. The imagination
+throws this temporary bridge over the gap, till time and experience
+supply other architecture. Amongst this collection, is a story in which
+vast importance is attached to a kiss. What can a curly-headed urchin,
+who is kissing, or being kissed, all day long, know of the value that
+may be given to what some versifier calls,</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The humid seal of soft affections!"</p></div>
+
+<p>To our apprehension, it has always appeared that the best books for
+children were those not written expressly for them, but which,
+interesting to all readers, happened to fasten peculiarly upon the
+youthful imagination,&mdash;such as "Robinson Crusoe," the "Arabian Nights,"
+"Pilgrim's Progress," &amp;c. It is quite true that in all these there is
+much the child does not understand, but where there is something vividly
+apprehended, there is an additional pleasure procured, and an admirable
+stimulant, in the endeavour to penetrate the rest. There is all the
+charm of a riddle combined with all the fascination of a story. Besides,
+do we not throughout our boyhood and our youth, read with intense
+interest, and to our great improvement, books which we but partly
+understand? How much was lost to us of our Milton and our Shakspeare at
+an age when nevertheless we read them with intense interest and
+excitement, and therefore, we may be sure, with great profit. Throughout
+the whole season of our intellectual progress, we are necessarily
+reading works of which a great part is obscure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> to us; we get half at
+one time, and half at another.</p>
+
+<p>Not, by any means, that we intend to say a word against writing books
+for children; if they are good books we shall read them too. A clever
+man talking to his child, in the presence of his adult friends,&mdash;has it
+never been remarked, how infinitely amusing he may be, and what an
+advantage he has from this two-fold audience? He lets loose all his
+fancy, under pretence that he is talking to a child, and he couples this
+wildness with all his wit, and point, and shrewdness, because he knows
+his friend is listening. The child is not a whit the less pleased,
+because there is something above its comprehension, nor the friend at
+all the less entertained, because he laughs at what was not intended for
+his capacity. A writer of children's tales&mdash;(If they are any thing
+better than what every nursery-maid can invent for herself)&mdash;is
+precisely in this position: he will, he <i>must</i> have in view the adult
+listener. While speaking to the child, he will endeavour to interest the
+parent who is overhearing him; and thus there may result a very amusing
+and agreeable composition.</p>
+
+<p>We have met with some children's tales which, we thought, were so
+plainly levelled at the parent, that they seemed little more than
+lectures to grown-up people in the disguise of stories to their
+children. Some of the very clever stories of Miss Edgeworth appear to be
+more evidently designed for the adult listener, than to the little
+people to whom they are immediately addressed. And they may perhaps
+render good service in this way. Perhaps some mature matron, far above
+counsel, may take a hint which she thinks was not <i>intended</i>&mdash;may accept
+that piece of good advice which she fancies her own shrewdness has
+discovered, and which the subtle, Miss Edgeworth had laid, like a trap,
+in her path.</p>
+
+<p>We are happy, we repeat, that we do not feel it incumbent upon us to
+settle the rules, the critical canon, of this nursery literature. We
+have no objection, however, to peep into it now and then, and we shall
+venture to give our readers another of Andersen's little stories, and so
+take our leave of him. We omit a sentence, here and there, where we can
+without injury to the tale; yet we have no fear that our gravest readers
+will think the extract too long. Our quotation is from the volume called
+"Tales from Denmark." There is another collection called, "The Shoes of
+Fortune;" these are higher in pretension, and inferior in merit.</p>
+
+<h4><a name="EMPEROR" id="EMPEROR"></a>THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES.</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"One day a couple of swindlers, who called themselves first-rate
+weavers, made their appearance in the imperial town of&mdash;&mdash;. They
+pretended that they were able to weave the richest stuffs, in which
+not only the colours and the pattern were extremely beautiful, but
+that the clothes made of such stuffs possessed the wonderful
+property of remaining invisible to him who was unfit for the office
+he held, or was extremely silly.</p>
+
+<p>"'What capital clothes they must be!' thought the Emperor. 'If I
+had but such a suit, I could directly find out what people in my
+empire were not equal to their office; and besides, I should be
+able to distinguish the clever from the stupid. By Jove, I must
+have some of this stuff made directly for me!' And so he ordered
+large sums of money to be given to the two swindlers, that they
+might set to work immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"The men erected two looms, and did as if they worked very
+diligently; but in reality they had got nothing on the loom. They
+boldly demanded the finest silk, and gold thread, put it all in
+their own pockets, and worked away at the empty loom till quite
+late at night.</p>
+
+<p>"'I should like to know how the two weavers are getting on with my
+stuff,' said the Emperor one day to himself; 'but he was rather
+embarrassed when he remembered that a silly fellow, or one unfitted
+for his office, would not be able to see the stuff. 'Tis true, he
+thought, as far as regarded himself, there was no risk whatever;
+but yet he preferred sending some one else, to bring him
+intelligence of the two weavers, and how they were getting on,
+before he went himself; for every body in the whole town had heard
+of the wonderful property that this stuff was said to possess.</p>
+
+<p>"'I will send my worthy old minister,' said the Emperor at last,
+after much consideration; 'he will be able to say how the stuff
+looks better than anybody.'</p>
+
+<p>"So the worthy old minister went to the room where the two
+swindlers were' working away with all their might and main. 'Lord
+help me!' thought the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> old man, opening his eyes as wide as
+possible&mdash;'Why, I can't see the least thing whatever on the loom.'
+But he took care not to say so.</p>
+
+<p>"The swindlers, pointing to the empty frame, asked him most
+politely if the colours were not of great beauty. And the poor old
+minister looked and looked, and could see nothing whatever. 'Bless
+me!' thought he to himself, 'Am I, then, really a simpleton? Well,
+I never thought so. Nobody knows it. I not fit for office! No,
+nothing on earth shall make me say that I have not seen the stuff!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, sir,' said one of the swindlers, still working busily at
+the empty loom, 'you don't say if the stuff pleases you or not.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh beautiful! beautiful! the work is admirable!' said the old
+minister looking hard through his spectacles. 'This pattern, and
+these colours! Well, well, I shall not fail to tell the Emperor
+that they are most beautiful!'</p>
+
+<p>"The swindlers then asked for more money, and silk, and gold
+thread; but they put as before all that was given them into their
+own pocket, and still continued to work with apparent diligence at
+the empty loom.</p>
+
+<p>"Some time after, the Emperor sent another officer to see how the
+work was getting on. But he fared like the other; he stared at the
+loom from every side; but as there was nothing there, of course he
+could see nothing. 'Does the stuff not please you as much as it did
+the minister?' asked the men, making the same gestures as before,
+and talking of splendid colours and patterns, which did not exist.</p>
+
+<p>"'Stupid I certainly am not!' thought the new commissioner; 'then
+it must be that I am not fitted for my lucrative office&mdash;that were
+a good joke! However, no one dare even suspect such a thing.' And
+so he began praising the stuff that he could not see, and told the
+two swindlers how pleased he was to behold such beautiful colours,
+and such charming patterns. 'Indeed, your majesty,' said he to the
+Emperor on his return, 'the stuff which the weavers are making, is
+extraordinarily fine.'</p>
+
+<p>"It was the talk of the whole town.</p>
+
+<p>"The Emperor could no longer restrain his curiosity to see this
+costly stuff; so, accompanied by a chosen train of courtiers, among
+whom were the two trusty men who had so admired the work, off he
+went to the two cunning cheats. As soon as they heard of the
+Emperor's approach they began working with all diligence, although
+there was still not a single thread on the loom.</p>
+
+<p>"'Is it not magnificent?' said the two officers of the crown, who
+had been there before. 'Will your majesty only look? What a
+charming pattern! What beautiful colours!' said they, pointing to
+the empty frames, for they thought the others really could see the
+stuff.</p>
+
+<p>"'What's the meaning of this?' said the Emperor to himself, 'I see
+nothing! Am <i>I</i> a simpleton! I not fit to be Emperor? Oh,' he cried
+aloud, 'charming! The stuff is really charming! I approve of it
+highly;' and he smiled graciously, and examined the empty looms
+minutely. And the whole suite strained their eyes and cried
+'Beautiful!' and counselled his Majesty to have new robes made out
+of this magnificent stuff for the grand procession that was about
+to take place. And so it was ordered.</p>
+
+<p>"The day on which the procession was to take place, the two men
+brought the Emperor's new suit to the palace; they held up their
+arms as though they had something in their hands, and said, 'Here
+are your Majesty's knee-breeches; here is the coat, and here the
+mantle. The whole suit is as light as a cobweb; and when one is
+dressed, one would almost fancy one had nothing on: but that is
+just the beauty of this stuff!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Of course!' said all the courtiers, although not a single one of
+them could see any thing of the clothes.</p>
+
+<p>"'Will your imperial Majesty most graciously be pleased to undress?
+We will then try on the new things before the glass.'</p>
+
+<p>"The Emperor allowed himself to be undressed, and then the two
+cheats did exactly as if each one helped him on with an article of
+dress, while his Majesty turned himself round on all sides before
+the mirror.</p>
+
+<p>"'The canopy which is to be borne above your Majesty in the
+procession, is in readiness without,' announced the chief master of
+the ceremonies.</p>
+
+<p>"'I am quite ready,' replied the Emperor, turning round once more
+before the looking-glass.</p>
+
+<p>"So the Emperor walked on, under the high canopy, through the
+streets of the metropolis, and all the people in the streets and at
+the windows cried out, 'Oh, how beautiful the Emperor's new dress
+is!' In short there was nobody but wished to cheat himself into the
+belief that he saw the Emperor's new clothes.</p>
+
+<p>"'But he has nothing on!' said a little child.'</p>
+
+<p>"And then all the people cried out, 'He has nothing on!'</p>
+
+<p>"But the Emperor and the courtiers&mdash;they retained their seeming
+faith, and walked on with great dignity to the close of the
+procession."</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<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> <i>The Improvisatore; or, Life in Italy</i>, from the Danish of
+<span class="smcap">Hans Christian Andersen</span>. Translated by <span class="smcap">Mary Howitt</span>.
+</p><p>
+<i>Only a Fiddler!</i> and <i>O.T. or, Life in Denmark</i>, by the Author of <i>The
+Improvisatore</i>. Translated by <span class="smcap">Mary Howitt</span>.
+</p><p>
+<i>A True Story of my Life</i>, by <span class="smcap">Hans Christian Andersen</span>. Translated by
+<span class="smcap">Mary Howitt</span>.
+</p><p>
+<i>Tales from Denmark</i>. Translated by <span class="smcap">Charles Bonar</span>.
+</p><p>
+<i>A Picture-Book without Pictures</i>. Translated by <span class="smcap">Meta Taylor</span>.
+</p><p>
+<i>The Shoes of Fortune, and other Tales</i>.
+</p><p>
+<i>A Poet's Bazaar</i>. Translated by <span class="smcap">Charles Beckwith</span>, Esq.</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> See Allan Cunningham's <i>Lives of the Painters and
+Sculptors</i>, vol. ii. p. 150.</p></div>
+
+<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> Not very clearly expressed by the translator. One would
+think that our Saviour, in his progress to the cross, had passed through
+the area of the Coliseum, and not that each of the pictures on these
+altars represented one of the resting-points, &amp;c. Mrs Howitt is
+sometimes hasty and careless in her writing. And why does she employ
+such expressions as these:&mdash;"many white buttons," "beside of it,"
+"beside of us?" We have read <i>a many</i> English books, but never met them
+in anyone beside of this.</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> Vol. x, Nov. 1821, p. 373.</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="THE_VISION_OF_CAGLIOSTRO" id="THE_VISION_OF_CAGLIOSTRO"></a>THE VISION OF CAGLIOSTRO.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"In the horror of a vision by night, when deep sleep is wont to
+hold men, fear seized upon me, and trembling, and all my bones were
+affrighted; and when a spirit passed before me, the hair of my
+flesh stood up."&mdash;<i>The Book of Job.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>The last, and perhaps the most renowned of the Rosicrucians, was,
+according to a historical insinuation, implicated in that notorious
+juggle of the Diamond Necklace, which tended so much to increase the
+popular hatred towards the evil-doomed and beautiful Marie Antoinette.
+Whether this imputation were correct, or whether the Cardinal Duc de
+Rohan was the only distinguished person deluded by the artifices of the
+Countess de la Motte, it is certain that Joseph Balsamo, commonly called
+Alexandre, Count de Cagliostro, was capable of any knavery, however
+infamous. Guile was his element; audacity was his breastplate; delusion
+was his profession; immorality was his creed; debauchery was his
+consolation; his own genius&mdash;the genius of cunning&mdash;was the god of his
+idolatry. Had Cagliostro been sustained by the principles of rectitude,
+he must have become the idol as well as the wonder of his
+contemporaries; his accomplishments must have dazzled them into
+admiration, for he possessed all the attributes of a Crichton. Beautiful
+in aspect, symmetrical in proportions, graceful in carriage, capacious
+in intellect, erudite as a Benedictine, agile as an Acrobat, daring as
+Sc&aelig;vola, persuasive as Alcibiades, skilled in all manly pastimes,
+familiar with the philosophies of the scholar and the worldling, an
+orator, a musician, a courtier, a linguist,&mdash;such was the celebrated
+Cagliostro. In his abilities, he was as capricious as Leonardo, and as
+subtle as Macchiavelli; but he was without the magnanimity of the one,
+or the crafty prudence of the other. Lucretius so darkened the glories
+of nature by the glooms of his blasphemous imagination, that he might
+have described this earth as a golden globe animated by a demon.
+Fashioned in a mould as marvellous as that golden orb, and animated in
+like manner by a devilish and wily spirit, was Balsamo the Rosicrucian.</p>
+
+<p>Between the period of his birth in 1743, and that of his dissolution in
+1795, when incarcerated in a dungeon of San Leo, at Rome, Cagliostro,
+rendered himself in a manner illustrious by practising upon the
+credulity of his fellow-creatures. Holstein had witnessed his pretended
+successes in alchemy. Strasburg had received him with admiration, as the
+evangelist of a mystic religion. Paris had resounded with the marvels
+revealed by his performances in Egyptian free-masonry. Molten gold was
+said to stream at pleasure over the rim of his crucibles; divination by
+astrology was as familiar to him as it had been of yore to Zoroaster or
+Nostradamus; graves yawned at the beck of his potent finger; their
+ghostly habitants, appeared at his preternatural bidding. The
+necromantic achievements of Doctor Dee and William Lilly dwindled into
+insignificance before those attributed to a man who, although apparently
+in the bloom of manhood, was believed to have survived a thousand
+winters.</p>
+
+<p>Accident had supplied Cagliostro with an accomplice of suitable
+depravity. In the course of his eccentric peregrinations among the
+continental cities, he had formed the acquaintance of a female,
+remarkable for her consummate loveliness and her boundless sensuality.
+Married to this Circe, the adventurer began to thrive beyond his most
+sanguine anticipations. It must be remembered, however, that in his
+nefarious proceedings, Balsamo was aided by a faculty of invention
+almost miraculous in its fruitfulness, and occasionally almost sublime
+in its audacity. By these means, he ultimately became the most
+astonishing impostor the world had ever beheld, with the solitary
+exception of Mohammed.</p>
+
+<p>As a forerunner of a disastrous revolution, the appearance of this
+fantastic personage in the capital of civilisation was at once dismal
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> prophetic. Unconsciously, he was the prophet of disaster.
+Unconsciously, he was the prelude&mdash;half-solemn, half-grotesque&mdash;of a
+bloody and diabolical saturnalia. History, both profane and inspired,
+tells us that when the Euphrates forsook its natural channel, and the
+hostile legions trampled under its gates at nightfall; when the
+revellers of Belshazzar, drunk with prolonged orgies and haggard with
+the shadow of an impending doom, staggered through the marble vestibules
+and out upon the marble causeways, rending their purple vestures in the
+moonlight, there was weeping among the lords of Chaldea,&mdash;"Wo! wo! wo!"
+was walled in the streets of Babylon. A similar destiny awaited Paris,
+but as yet a different spectacle was visible; as yet the carousals of
+the metropolis were at their zenith; as yet the current flowed in its
+ancient channel; as yet the woes of the empire were not written on the
+wall of the palace. Festivities were never conducted with more
+magnificence than immediately before the downfall of the monarchy and
+the general desolation of the kingdom. The pomps of the religion, the
+pageantries of the court, and the munificence of the nobility, were
+never before characterised by so much grandeur and profusion. The
+church, the sovereign, and the oligarchy, were crowning themselves for
+the sacrifice.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Opposite the Rue de Luxembourg, and parallel with the Rue de Caumartin,
+there stood, in the year 1782, a little villa-cottage or rustic
+pavilion. It was separated from the Boulevard de la Madeleine by a green
+paddock, and was concealed in a nest of laurustinus and clematis.
+Autumn, that generous season, which seems in its bounty to impart a
+smell of ripeness to the very leaves, had already scattered dyes of gold
+and vermilion over the verdure of this shrubbery. A night-breeze,
+impregnated with vegetable perfumes, and wafting before it one of these
+leaves, stole between the branches&mdash;over the fragrant mould&mdash;across a
+grass-plot&mdash;through an open window of the cottage. The leaf tinkled. It
+had fallen upon the pages of a volume from which a man was reading by a
+lamp. At that moment the clock of the Capuchins tolled out a doleful
+<span class="smcap">two</span>; it was answered by the numerous bells of Paris. Solemn, querulous,
+sepulchral, quavering, silvery, close at hand, or modulated into a dim
+echo by the distance, the voice of the inexorable hours vibrated over
+the capital, and then ceased.</p>
+
+<p>Alas, for the heart of Cagliostro!</p>
+
+<p>The solitary watcher shuddered as the metallic sounds floated in from
+the belfries. Although startled by the dropping of the leaf, he closed
+the volume, leisurely placing it between the pages as a marker&mdash;<i>it</i>, so
+brittle! so yellow! so typical of decay and mortality! The book
+comprised the writings of Sir Cornelius Agrippa. Having tossed the old
+alchemist from him with an air of overwhelming dejection, the student
+abandoned himself to the most sorrowful reflections.</p>
+
+<p>He had but recently returned from a masked ball, and a domino of
+salmon-coloured satin still hung loosely over his shoulders. As the
+feeble light of the lamp glimmered upon the jet-bugles and
+steel-spangles of his costume, there was visible the perpetual contrast
+of his destiny,&mdash;a mingling of the most abstruse researches and the most
+extravagant frivolities. Jewels sparkled upon his hands and bosom; the
+varicose veins on his temples throbbed with a feverish precision; the
+fumes of the wine-cup flushed his cheek and disordered his imagination.</p>
+
+<p>"Death," thought the Rosicrucian, "fills me with abhorrence; and yet
+life is totally devoid of happiness. Happiness! O delusive phantom of
+humanity, how art thou attainable? Through Fame? Fame is mine, and I am
+wretched. Over the realms of civilisation my name is noised abroad; in
+the populous cities the glory of my art resounds; when my barge glided
+among the palaces of Venice, the blue Adriatic was purpled with blossoms
+in my honour.&mdash;Fame? Fame brings not happiness to Cagliostro. Wealth?
+Not so. Ducats, pistoles, louis-d'or, have brought no panacea to the
+sorrows of Balsamo. Beauty? Nay; for, in the profligate experience of
+capitals, the sage is saddened with the knowledge that comeliness, at
+best, is but an exquisite hypocrisy. I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> striven also, vainly, for
+contentment in the luxuries of voluptuous living. The talisman of
+Epicurus has evaded my grasp&mdash;the glittering bauble!<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> The ravishing
+ideal <span class="smcap">Joy</span>, has been to me not as the statue to Pygmalion: I have
+grovelled down in adoration at its feet, and have found it the same
+immobile, relentless, unresponsive image. Youth is yet mine, but it is a
+youth hoary in desolation. Centuries of anguish have flooded through my
+bosom, even in the heyday of existence. The tangible and the intangible,
+the visible and the invisible, the material and the immaterial, have
+been at deadly strife in my conjectures. The present has been to me an
+evasion, the future an enigma; the earth a delusion, the heavens a
+doubt. Even the pomp of those inexplicable stars is a new agony of
+indecision to my recoiling fancy<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>&mdash;so impassive in their
+unchangeableness, so awful in the quiescence of their eternal grandeur.
+Supreme, too, in my bewilderment, remains the problem of their
+revolutions&mdash;the cause of their impulsion<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> as well as of their
+creation. Baffled in my scrutiny of the sublime puzzle which is <i>domed</i>
+over the globe at nightfall, dizzy with the contemplation of such
+abysses of mystery, my thoughts have reverted to this earth, in which
+pleasure sparkles but to evaporate. No solace in the investigation of
+those infinitudes, which are only fathomable by a system revolting to my
+judgment&mdash;the system of a theocratic philosophy; no consolation in the
+dreamings evoked by the lore of the stupendous skies: my heart throbs
+still for the detection and the possession of happiness. Nature has
+endowed me with senses&mdash;five delicate and susceptible instruments&mdash;for
+the realisation of bodily delight. Sights of unutterable loveliness,
+tones of surpassing melody, perfumes of delicious fragrance, marvellous
+sensibilities of touch and palate, afford me so many channels for
+enjoyment. Still the insufficiency of the palpable and appreciable is
+paramount; still the everlasting dolor interposes: the appetite is
+satiated, the aroma palls upon the nostrils, the nerves are affected by
+irritability, the harmony merges into dissonance; even the beautiful
+becomes so far an abomination that man is 'mad for the sight of his eyes
+that he did see.' Such is the sterile and repulsive penalty of the
+searcher after happiness. Happiness! O delusive phantom of humanity, how
+art thou attainable?"</p>
+
+<p>A thrill pervaded the frame of the visionary as he paused in his
+meditations. Subtle as the birth of an emotion&mdash;solemn as the presage of
+a disaster&mdash;terrible as the throes of dissolution, was the pang that
+agonised the Rosicrucian. His flesh crept upon his bones at the
+consciousness of a preternatural but invisible presence&mdash;the presence of
+an unseen visitant in the dead of the midnight! His heart quaked as it
+drank in, like Eliphaz, "<i>the veins of</i> <small>ITS</small> <i>whisper</i>."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> There was no
+sound or reverberation, and yet the language streamed upon the knowledge
+of the listener with a distinctness beyond that of human articulation.
+The stillness of his solitude was only broken by the rustling of the
+night-breeze among the lau<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span>rustines, and yet in the ears of Cagliostro
+there was the utterance as of unsubstantial lips&mdash;the sense as of a
+divine symphony&mdash;"the thunder, and the music, and the pomp" of an
+unearthly Voice.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<p>"Balsamo!" it cried, "thy thoughts are blasphemy; thy lamentations are
+foolishness; thy mind is darkened by the glooms of a most barren
+dejection. Away! vain Sceptic, with the syllogisms of infidelity. The
+glory of the immortal <span class="smcap">will</span> evades thy comprehension in the depths of
+infinitude. When in its natural brightness, the spiritual being of man
+reflects that glory as in a mirror. <i>Thine</i> is blurred by sensuality.
+Tranquillity is denied thee, because of the concupiscence of thy
+ambition. A profligate and venal career has troubled thy soul with
+misgivings. Thou hast scorned even the five senses&mdash;those golden portals
+of humanity! Know, O dreamer, that in them alone consists the enjoyment
+of a finite existence: know that <i>through the virtuous use of those five
+senses, earthly happiness is attainable</i>! Dost thou still tremble in thy
+unbelief? Arise, Balsamo, and behold the teachings of eternity!"</p>
+
+<p>As the last sentence resounded in the heart of Cagliostro, up into the
+air floated the Rosicrucian and the Voice.</p>
+
+<h4><a name="TIBERIUS" id="TIBERIUS"></a>TIBERIUS.</h4>
+
+<p>Time and distance seemed to be conquered in that mysterious ascension,
+and an impenetrable darkness enveloped the impostor as he felt himself
+carried swiftly through the atmosphere. When he had somewhat recovered,
+however, from his astonishment, the motion ceased, and the light of an
+Italian evening beamed upon him from the heavens. A scene then revealed
+itself around Cagliostro, the like of which his eyes had never before
+beheld, or his imagination, in its wildest mood, conceived.</p>
+
+<p>He was standing in a secluded grove in the island of Capre&aelig;. Fountains
+sparkled under the branches; blossoms of the gaudiest colours flaunted
+on the brambles, or enamelled the turf; laughter and music filled the
+air with a confusion of sweet sounds; and among the intricacies of the
+trees, bands of revellers flitted to and fro, clad in the antique
+costumes of Rome. Under the shadow of a gigantic orange-bush, upon a
+couch of luxurious softness and embroidered in gorgeous arabesques,
+there reclined the figure of an old man. His countenance was hideous
+with age and debauchery. Sin glimmered in the evil light of his
+eyes&mdash;those enormous and bloodshot eyes with which (<i>pr&aelig;grandibus
+oculis</i>) the historian tells us he could see even in the night-time.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a>
+Habitual intemperance had inflamed his complexion, and disfigured his
+skin with disgusting eruptions; while his body, naturally robust in its
+proportions, had become bloated with the indolence of confirmed
+gluttony. A garment (the <i>toga virilis</i>) of virgin whiteness covered his
+limbs; along the edge of the garment was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> broad hem of Tyrian purple
+indicative of the imperial dignity; and around the hoary brow of the
+epicurean, was woven a chaplet of roses and aloe-leaves.</p>
+
+<p>Cagliostro recoiled in abhorrence before a spectacle at once so austere
+and lascivious. His spirit quailed at the sight of a visage in which
+appeared to be concentrated the infamy of many centuries. His soul
+revolted at the sinister and ferocious expression pervading every
+lineament, and lurking in every wrinkle. As he gazed, however, a blithe
+sound startled him from the umbrage of the boughs. Quick, lively,
+jocund, to the clashing of her cymbals, there bounded forth an Italian
+maiden in the garb of a Bacchante. Her feet agile as the roe's, her eyes
+lustrous and defiant, her hair dishevelled, her bosom heaving, her arms
+symmetrical as sculpture, but glowing with the roseate warmth of youth,
+the virgin still rejoiced, as it were, in the tumult of the dance.
+Grapes of a golden-green relieved by the ruddy-brown of their foliage,
+clustered in a garland about her temples, and leaped in unison with her
+movements. Around! with her raven tresses streaming abroad in
+ringlets&mdash;around! with her sandals clinking on the gravel to the
+capricious beat of her cymbals&mdash;around! with her light robes flowing
+back from a jewelled brooch above the knee&mdash;singing, sparkling,
+undulating, circling, rustling, the Bacchante entranced the heart of the
+Rosicrucian. She gleamed before him like the embodiment of enthusiasm.
+She was the genius of motion, the divinity of the dance; she was
+Terpsichore in the grace of her movements, Euterpe in the ravishing
+sweetness of her voice. A thrill of admiration suffused with a deeper
+tint even the abhorred cheek of the voluptuary.</p>
+
+<p>By an almost imperceptible degree, the damsel abated the ardour of her
+gyrations, her cymbals clashed less frequently, the song faded from her
+lip, the flutter of her garments ceased, the vine-fruit drooped upon her
+forehead. She stood before the couch palpitating with emotion, and
+radiant with a divine beauty. In another instant, she had prostrated
+herself upon the earth, for in the decrepit monster of Capre&aelig;, she
+recognised the lord of the whole world&mdash;Tiberius.</p>
+
+<p>"Arise, maiden of Apulia," he said, with an immediate sense that he
+beheld another of those innocent damsels, who were stolen from their
+pastoral homes on the Peninsula to become the victims of his depravity.
+"Arise, and slake my thirst from yonder goblet. The tongue of Tiberius
+is dry with the avidity of his passion."</p>
+
+<p>An indescribable loathing entered into the imagination of the Bacchante
+even as she lay upon the grass; yet she rose with precipitation and
+filled a chalice to the brim with Falernian. Tiberius grasped it with an
+eager hand, and his mouth pressed the lip of the cup as if to drain its
+ruby vintage to the bottom. Suddenly, however, the eyes of the old man
+blazed with a raging light; the scowl of lust was forgotten; the
+vindictiveness of a fiend shone in his dilated eyeballs, and, with a
+yell of fury, he cast the goblet into the air, crying out that the wine
+<i>boiled like the bowl of Pluto</i>. He was writhing in one of those
+paroxysms of rage, which justified posterity in regarding him as a
+madman. The howling of Tiberius resounded among the verdure, as the
+rattle of a snake might do when it raises its deadly crest from its lair
+among the flowers. Quick as thought at the first sound of those
+inexorable accents, the grove was thronged with the revellers. They
+jostled each other in their solicitude to minister to the cruelty of the
+despot; and that cruelty was as ruthless, and as hell-born, as it was
+ingenious and appalling.</p>
+
+<p>Obedient to a gesture of Tiberius, the Bacchante was placed upon a
+pedestal. For a moment, she stood before them an exquisite statue Of
+despair&mdash;exquisite even in the excess of her bewilderment. For a moment,
+she stood there stunned by the suddenness of the commotion, and frantic
+with the consciousness of her peril. For a moment she gazed about her
+for aid, wildly but, alas! vainly. No pity beamed upon her in that more
+horrible Gomorrah. The marble trembled under her feet&mdash;a sulphurous
+stench shot through its crevices&mdash;the virgin shrieked and fell forwards,
+scorched and blackened to a cinder.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> She was blasted, as if by a
+thunderbolt.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> Cagliostro looked with horror upon the ashes of the
+Bacchante. He had seen youth stricken down by age; he had seen virtue
+annihilated, so to speak, at the mandate of vice; he had seen&mdash;and even
+<i>his</i> callous heart exulted at the thought&mdash;he had seen innocence
+snatched from pollution, when upon the very threshold of an earthly
+hell. While rejoicing in this reflection, he was aroused by the
+stertorous breathing of the emperor. The crowned demon of the island was
+being borne away to his palace upon the shoulders of his attendants.
+Although maddened by an insatiable thirst, and by a gloom that was
+becoming habitual, the monster lay upon his cushions as impotent as a
+child, in the midst of his diseases and iniquities.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p>
+
+<p>At the feet of the Rosicrucian were huddled the bones of the virgin of
+Apulia; and the babbling of the fountains was alone audible in the
+solitude.</p>
+
+<p>"Such," said the mournful Voice, as Cagliostro again felt himself
+carried through the darkness&mdash;"such, Balsamo, are the miseries of a
+debauched appetite."</p>
+
+<h4><a name="AGRIPPA" id="AGRIPPA"></a>AGRIPPA.</h4>
+
+<p>In another instant, the impostor was standing upon the floor of a
+gigantic amphitheatre in Palestine. The whole air was refulgent with the
+light of a summer morning, and through the loopholes of the structure,
+the eye caught the blue shimmer of the Mediterranean. Banners,
+emblazoned with the ciphers of Rome, fluttered from the walls of the
+amphitheatre. Its internal circumference was thronged with a vast
+concourse of citizens; and, immediately about the Rosicrucian, groups of
+foreign traders, habited as if for some unusual ceremony, were scattered
+over the arena. Expectation was evinced in every movement of the
+assemblage, in every murmur that floated round the benches. The
+worshippers were there, it seemed, and were awaiting the high-priest.
+That high-priest was approaching, and more than a high-priest; for Herod
+Agrippa, the tetrarch of Judea had descended from Jerusalem to C&aelig;sarea,
+for the celebration of warlike games in honour of the Emperor Claudius,
+and, on the completion of those festivities, the deputed sovereign had
+consented, at the intercession of Blastus,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> to receive a deputation of
+certain Phenician ambassadors who were solicitous for an assurance of
+his clemency. Those envoys&mdash;the merchant princes of Tyre and Sidon&mdash;were
+tarrying in the public theatre of the city for the promised interview in
+the presence of the people of Samaria.</p>
+
+<p>Cagliostro marvelled, as he scanned the scene before him, whether it
+were all a reality or a delusion of his fancy; but the lapping of the
+surge upon the adjacent beach, and the perfume of Oriental spices which
+impregnated the breezes from the Levant, and even the motes that swarmed
+about him like phosphoric atoms, proved that it was no juggle of a
+distempered imagination.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the air was rent with acclamations; the crowd rose as if by a
+single impulse; trumpets sounded in the seven porches of the
+amphitheatre; again the plaudits shook the air like the concussion of
+enthusiasm, and the deputation in the arena prostrated themselves in the
+dust. Balsamo saw, at once, the reason of this rejoicing; he saw the
+tetrarch of Judea seated upon a throne of ivory. The crown of Agrippa
+glittered upon his forehead with an unnatural brightness&mdash;it was of the
+purest gold, radiating from the brow in spikes, and flecked with pearls
+of an uncommon size. Silent&mdash;erect&mdash;inflated with pride at his own
+grandeur, and the adulation of the rabble, sate the King of Palestine.
+Silent&mdash;awe-stricken&mdash;uncovered before the majesty of the representative
+of Claudius, stood the people of Samaria and Phenicia. Extreme beauty of
+an elevated and heroic character shone upon the features of Herod,
+although his beard was grizzled with the passage of fifty-four winters.
+In the midst of the silence of the populace, the morning sun rose,
+almost abruptly, above the topmost arches of the edifice, and darted his
+beams full upon the glorious garments of Agrippa. It played in sparkles
+of intense lustre upon the jewels of his diadem; and upon the outer
+robe, which was of silver tissue woven with consummate skill and
+powdered with diamonds, the refraction of the sunlight produced an
+intolerable splendour.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> The Samaritans shielded their eyes from its
+magnificence; they were dazzled; they were blinded; they thrilled with
+admiration and astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>Agrippa spoke.</p>
+
+<p>At the first sound of his accents, there was a whisper of awe among the
+multitude&mdash;it increased&mdash;it grew louder&mdash;it arose to the heavens in one
+prolonged and jubilant shout of adoration.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a God!" they cried&mdash;"it is a God that speaketh, not a man!"</p>
+
+<p>As the language of that impious homage saluted the ears of Herod, his
+mouth curled with a smile of satisfaction, his soul expanded with an
+inexpressible tumult of emotions, he drank in the blasphemous flatteries
+of the rabble, and assumed to himself the power and the dignity of the
+Most High God. Yet in the very ecstasy of those sensations, his
+countenance became ghastly, his lips writhed, his eyes beheld with
+unutterable dismay the omen of his dissolution&mdash;the visible phantom of
+an avenging Nemesis.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> He staggered from his throne, crying aloud in
+the extremity of his anguish; a sudden corruption had seized upon his
+body&mdash;he was being devoured by worms.</p>
+
+<p>The heart of Cagliostro quailed within him at the lamentations of the
+people of Samaria, as they beheld their idol smitten down by death in
+the midst of his surpassing pomp. Even the Jewish hagiographer tells us,
+with pathetic simplicity, that King Agrippa himself wept at the wailings
+of the adoring mob.</p>
+
+<p>Again the Alchemist found himself enveloped in darkness, again the
+unearthly Voice stole into his brain.</p>
+
+<p>"Lo!" it said, "how the frame rots in the ermine: how the body and soul
+are polluted by vicious passions! Such, Balsamo, are the penalties of
+the lusts of the flesh."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span></p>
+
+<h4><a name="MILTON" id="MILTON"></a>MILTON.</h4>
+
+<p>Another scene then revealed itself to the Rosicrucian, but one
+altogether different from those he had already witnessed. Instead of
+being in an Oriental amphitheatre, he was standing in a rural lane;
+instead of tumult he found tranquillity; instead of regal pageantries an
+almost primitive simplicity. He inhaled the sweet smells of clover and
+newly-turned mould with a zest hitherto unexperienced. The gurgling of a
+brook by the wayside saluted his ears, as it struggled through the
+rushes and tinkled over the pebbles, with a sound more agreeable than he
+ever remembered to have heard from the instruments of court musicians.
+For the first time nature seemed to disclose her real loveliness to his
+comprehension. Every where she appeared to abound with beauties: in the
+bee that lit upon the nettle and sucked the honey out of its blossom; in
+the nettle that nodded under the weight of the bee; in the dew that
+dropped like a diamond from the alder-bough when the thrush alighted on
+its stem; in the thrush that warbled till the speckled feathers on its
+throat throbbed as if its heart were in its song; in the slug that
+trailed a silver track upon the dust; in the very dust itself that
+twirled in threads and circles on the ground as the wind swerved round
+the corner of the hedgerow. Cagliostro was entranced with the most novel
+and pleasurable emotions, as he strolled on towards the building he had
+already observed. From the elevation of the ground which he was
+traversing, his glance roved with admiration over a wide and diversified
+extent of country; over a prospect richly wooded and teeming with
+vegetation; over orchards laden with fruit and knee-deep in grass; over
+fields of barley bristling with golden ripeness; over distant mills,
+churning the water into foam, and driving gusts of meal out through the
+open doorway; over meadows where the sheep cropped the cool herbage, and
+the cattle lay in the sunshine sleeping; over village steeples, over
+homesteads brown with age, or hid amongst the verdure. The worldling
+scanned the profusion of the panorama with an amazement that was
+exquisite from its newness. He marvelled at the charms that strewed the
+earth in such abundance, at the almost unnumbered forms and colours of
+her vitality, at the wonderful harmony that subsisted amidst all those
+various hues and shapes. Never had the joys derivable from the sense of
+vision appeared of so much value as now that he gazed into the deep and
+delicious magnificence of nature. His sight, with a sort of luxurious
+abandonment, strayed over the contrasts, and penetrated into the
+distances of the landscape; his bosom swelled with the consciousness of
+a sympathy with that creation of which he felt himself to be but a
+kindred unit, or, at best, a sentient atom.</p>
+
+<p>It was while absorbed in these sensations, that Cagliostro paused before
+the rustic dwelling-house towards which his steps had been involuntarily
+directed. The building was situated at a few paces from the pathway.
+There was nothing about it to arrest the attention of a passer-by,
+except, perhaps, all appearance of extreme but picturesque humility. The
+walls were riveted together with iron-bands in crossbars and zig-zags;
+the brickwork was decayed and crumbling away in blotches; the roof was
+low and thatched. Yet, in spite of these evidences of poverty, the
+scholar regarded the structure with a reverential aspect, with such an
+aspect as he might have presented had he contemplated the hut of Baucis
+and Philemon.</p>
+
+<p>The threshold of this obscure edifice formed of itself a bower of
+greenery, thickly covered with the blooms of the honey-suckle. Under the
+porch was seated a man of a most venerable countenance. He was muffled
+in a gray coat of the coarsest texture, and his legs being crossed, a
+worsted stocking and a slipper of untanned leather betrayed the meanness
+of his under garments. His hair, brilliant with a whiteness like that of
+milk, was parted in the centre of the forehead, and fell over his
+shoulders in those negligent curls called <i>oreilles de chien</i>, which
+became fashionable long afterwards, during the days of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> French
+Directory. Had the Alchemist remained profoundly ignorant as to the
+identity of the old man, he must still have observed with interest,
+features which were equally characterised by the pensiveness of the
+student and the paleness of the valetudinarian. He knew, however,
+instinctively, as he had done upon the two preceding occasions, that he
+beheld a personage of illustrious memory. And he knew rightly, for it
+was Milton. While the great plague was desolating the metropolis, he had
+escaped from his residence in the Artillery Walk, and sought security
+from the contagion by a temporary sojourn in Buckinghamshire.</p>
+
+<p>Opposite the immortal sage stood a person of about the same years, but
+of a very different deportment&mdash;it was the dearest of his few friends,
+and the most ardent of his many worshippers, Richardson. The latter was
+leaning against the trunk of a great maple-tree that grew close to the
+parlour-lattice, stretching forth its enormous branches in all
+directions, and mingling its foliage with the smoke that issued from the
+chimney. Richardson had been reading aloud but a moment before, from a
+volume of Boccaccio; he had placed the book, however, upon the
+window-sill, in obedience to a movement from his companion, and
+continued, with his arms folded and his eyelids closed, a silent and
+almost inanimate portion of the domestic group. The quietude which
+ensued was so contagious that Cagliostro remarked with a feeling of
+listlessness, the details and accessories of the spectacle&mdash;the silk
+curtains of rusty green festooned before the open window, the
+tobacco-pipe lying among the manuscripts upon the table, even the
+slouched-hat hanging from the back of an arm-chair. The rambling
+meditations of Balsamo were soon concentrated upon a loftier theme, by
+the voice of Milton singing in a subdued tone the antistrophe of a
+favourite ode of Pindar. As the noble words of the Greek lyrist rolled
+with an indescribable gusto from the lips of Milton, it seemed to the
+Rosicrucian that he had never before comprehended the true euphony of
+the language. And the visage of the old bard responded to the strain of
+Pindar; it was illumined with a certain majesty of expression that
+imparted additional dignity to a countenance at all times beaming with
+wisdom. In appreciating the Pagan poet, the poet of Christianity
+appeared to glow with enthusiasm like that which entranced his whole
+soul in the moments of his own superb inspiration.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> Nor was the
+grandeur of the head diminished in any manner by the unpoetical
+proportions of the body, for, to the acknowledgment of his most partial
+biographer, Richardson, the stature of Milton was so much below the
+ordinary height, and so much beyond the ordinary bulk, that he might
+almost be described as "short and thick." Yet, notwithstanding these
+peculiarities of the frame, an august radiance seemed to envelope the
+brow&mdash;a brow, hoary alike from years and from misfortunes&mdash;and to invest
+with a sublime air the figure of that old man huddled in that old gray
+coat. Cagliostro gazed with profound interest upon Milton as the rolling
+melody of Pindar streamed into his ears, when suddenly the song ceased,
+and the face of the singer was raised to the resplendent light of the
+heavens. Alas! those eyes turned vacantly in their sockets&mdash;those eyes
+which had once looked so sorrowfully on the sightless Galileo&mdash;those
+eyes which had mourned over the ashes of <i>Lycidas</i>, and rained upon them
+tears transmuted by poetry into a shower of precious stones! The misery
+of his blindness recurred to Milton himself at that same instant. A
+cloud of grief descended upon his countenance. He experienced one of
+those poignant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span> feelings of regret which, in our own day, occasionally
+oppress the heart of Augustin Thierry&mdash;for with the sensibility of a
+poet he <i>knew</i> that the hour was beautiful. Never had Cagliostro seen
+human face express such exquisite but patient suffering; it seemed to be
+<i>listening</i> to the loveliness of the earth; it seemed to be <i>inhaling</i>
+the glories of nature, as it were, through those channels which were not
+obliterated. The stirring of the leaves, the scent of the woodbine, the
+pattering of the winged seeds of the maple upon the pages of Boccaccio,
+the fitful twittering of the birds&mdash;all ascended as offerings of
+recompense to the blind man, but they only tended to enhance the sense
+of his affliction. He caught but the skirts of the goddess of that
+creation whose glories he had chanted in his celestial epic; and yet no
+murmur escaped from the dejected lip of Milton!</p>
+
+<p>Again darkness surrounded the Rosicrucian&mdash;again the awful voice
+resounded in his imagination.</p>
+
+<p>"Behold!" it said, "the sorrows of the great and virtuous when the light
+is quenched: behold the divine prerogative of those who see! And know,
+Balsamo, that such are the boons thou hast contemned&mdash;such are the
+faculties thou hast polluted."</p>
+
+<h4><a name="MIRABEAU" id="MIRABEAU"></a>MIRABEAU.</h4>
+
+<p>After a scarcely perceptible pause, the Voice resumed: "The miseries of
+those who have abused or lost the powers of seeing, of tasting, or of
+feeling, have been revealed to thee, O sceptic! Thine eyes have
+penetrated into the dim retrospections of the past. Look onwards,
+Balsamo, and thou shalt discern the things that are germinating in the
+womb of the future."</p>
+
+<p>Cagliostro had scarcely heard this assurance when the curtain hitherto
+impenetrable to mortal, was raised&mdash;the dread shadows of the future were
+dispelled. He found himself in the upper apartment of one of the most
+distinguished mansions in Paris. The chamber, which was lofty and
+spacious, was enriched with the most costly furniture, and the most
+gorgeous decorations. Pilasters, incrusted with marble, and enamelled
+with lapis-lazuli, broke the monotony of the walls and supported the
+ceiling with their capitals. Between these pilasters were pedestals
+surmounted with statuary and busts; and these, again, were reflected in
+the mirrors hung about the room in profusion. An almost oriental luxury
+characterised the Turkish carpets, as soft as the greensward, and the
+draperies of velvet which concealed the windows, and fell in graceful
+folds about a bed at the opposite end of the apartment. An antique
+candelabrum stood upon the mantelpiece and shed a rosy and voluptuous
+light over this domestic pomp, while some odorous gums crackled in a
+chafing-dish upon the hearth and loaded the air with their fragrance.</p>
+
+<p>Familiar as the Rosicrucian was with splendour, his glance roved over
+these appurtenances with delight, for he had never before seen the
+evidences of wealth so enhanced by the evidences of refinement. He
+thought that the possession of such a dwelling would be something
+towards the realisation of happiness. In the very conception of that
+ignoble thought, however, he received a solemn and effectual admonition.
+Before him, in the silent chamber, on either side of it groups of
+attendants and men robed in the costumes of the court and the barracks,
+was a deathbed. It was the deathbed of an extraordinary being, the owner
+of all this grandeur. It was the deathbed of Honor&eacute;-Gabriel de Mirabeau.</p>
+
+<p>The patrician demagogue reposed upon the pillows in the final stage of
+dissolution, and his broad forehead was already damp with the sweat of
+his last agony. Cagliostro surveyed the dying tribune with emotion, for
+in the very hideousness of his countenance there was a subtle and
+indefinable fascination. The gigantic stature which had so often awed
+the tumults of the National Assembly was prostrate. The voice, whose
+brazen tones had sounded like a trumpet over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span> the land, was hushed&mdash;that
+voice which had exclaimed with such sublime significance to the
+Marseillais,&mdash;"When the last of the Gracchi expired, he flung dust
+towards heaven, and from this dust sprang Marius!"&mdash;that voice which had
+conquered the aversion of Mademoiselle de Marignan with its seductive
+melody&mdash;that voice which had been at once the oracle of the king and the
+law of the rabble. Mirabeau lay before the Rosicrucian, with his natural
+ugliness rendered yet more repulsive by the tokens of a terrible malady.
+The touch of death imparted additional horror to the massive deformity
+of his skull, to the coarseness of his pockmarked features, to his
+sunken eyeballs, to his cheeks scared by disease, to his hair bristling
+and dishevelled like that of a gorgon. Still, through all these
+unsightly and almost loathsome peculiarities, there was perceptible a
+sort of masculine susceptibility. It was that susceptibility which gave
+zest to his debaucheries, and occasionally subdued into pathos the
+storms of his dazzling and sonorous eloquence.</p>
+
+<p>Never was a solitary life prized by so many millions, as that which was
+then ebbing from the breast of Mirabeau. He seemed to be the only
+guarantee for the solid adjustment of the Revolution. With his
+disappearance, all hope of tranquillity and good government was prepared
+to vanish. His was the intellect in which the extremes of that momentous
+epoch were united. He was the antithesis of public opinion. Noble by
+birth and plebeian by accident, a democrat in principle and a dictator
+in ambition, the shield of the monarch and the sword of the people, he
+was placed exactly between the contending powers of the age. He was the
+arbiter between royalty and revolt: on the one side he acquired the
+obedience of the sovereign through his fears, and on the other he
+obtained the allegiance of the multitude through their aspirations. His
+supremacy occupied at the same moment the palace, the legislative
+chamber, and the marketplace; for all recognised <i>in</i> him the omen of
+their good fortune, and <i>through</i> him, the realisation of their wishes.
+Flattered by the minions of the monarchy, applauded by the members of
+the National Assembly, and idolised by the mob, his influence rested, as
+it were, upon a triple foundation. And yet, by a contradiction as
+remarkable as the anomalies of his own character, all parties were
+disposed to rejoice at the probability of his departure. The King was
+gratified at the thought of his removal, forasmuch as Mirabeau was the
+impersonation of a formidable sedition; the political adventurers
+exulted in the prospect of his decease, because he monopolised
+popularity, and rendered them insignificant by the contrast of his
+colossal genius; the people, in like manner, were, not altogether
+displeased at the notion of his extinction, because he appeared to them
+the only obstacle between themselves, and the supreme authority. All
+valued him as their present preserver, and all hated him as their future
+impediment. Such were the conflicting sentiments entertained towards
+Mirabeau, during the last incidents of his eccentric and volatile
+career. And in the midst of so many antagonistic interests, he alone
+remained unshaken and unappalled, his oratory rendering him still the
+mouth-piece of the Revolution, his duplicity its diplomatist, and his
+intellectual contrivance its statesman. Nor was he satisfied with these
+successes; he sought others, and was equally fortunate. Profligacy and
+legislation equally divided his enthusiasm between them, and proved him
+to be not only the most daring politician, but the most debauched
+citizen in France. His power and popularity had now, however, reached
+their apogee, and Honor&eacute;-Gabriel Riquetti Comte de Mirabeau was
+stretched upon his deathbed.</p>
+
+<p>Cagliostro approached the couch and listened, for the great demagogue
+was speaking. His voice was harsh even in a murmur, though it still
+retained, according to Lemercier, "a slight meridional accent." The rosy
+light of the candelabrum beamed upon his cadaverous lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Sprinkle me with perfumes, crown me with flowers, that thus I may enter
+upon eternal sleep."</p>
+
+<p>Memorable words&mdash;the last words of Gabriel de Mirabeau. They embody the
+spirit of his sterile philo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span>sophy, and are in unison with the
+evanescence of his genius.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> As Cagliostro observed the limbs
+convulsed and the eyes glazed with a simultaneous pang, he was caught up
+again into the darkness, and again his soul hearkened to the whispers of
+the Holy Voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Thus," it said, "are those recompensed with disease and satiety, who
+are the slaves of their meanest, as of their noblest appetites; thus is
+their talisman shattered in the hour of its attainment."</p>
+
+<h4><a name="BEETHOVEN" id="BEETHOVEN"></a>BEETHOVEN.</h4>
+
+<p>When the reproachful accents ceased, Balsamo felt his feet once more
+pressing the earth, and the breezes rustling against his domino. He was
+wandering in the garden of what is termed the Schwarzpanier House,
+situated on a slope or glacis in the outskirts of Wahring. The evening
+was so far advanced, that candles already twinkled from the upper
+windows of the building, while the fires of the kitchens checkered the
+shrubs and gravel with patches of glaring light. Through the flowerbeds,
+and along the intricate paths of the shrubbery, the Alchemist strolled
+at a languid pace, musing upon the things he had already witnessed, when
+his vigilant ears caught the tones of a musical instrument. Although it
+was scarcely audible from the distance, Cagliostro was struck by the
+extreme beauty and <i>espi&egrave;glerie</i> of the performance. He hurried forward
+in the direction from which the sounds proceeded, and at each step they
+became more distinguishable and bewitching. After a momentary feeling of
+indecision when he reached the walls of the Schwarzpanier, the Alchemist
+ascended a flight of steps, and passed through the open casement of a
+French-window into a modest sitting-room. The musician whose skill had
+attracted him, was seated in the gray twilight at a piano. Cagliostro
+scarcely noticed that he was a man of short stature but of muscular
+proportions; he scarcely remarked, indeed, either the apartment or its
+occupant; his whole consciousness was absorbed in the melody that
+streamed from the instrument.</p>
+
+<p>At first, the fingers of the player seemed to frolic over the keys, as
+though they toyed with the vibrations of the strings. The sounds were
+sportive and jocund; they rippled like laughter; they were capricious as
+the merriment of a coquette. Then they merged into a sweet and warbling
+cadence&mdash;a cadence of inimitable tenderness, the very suavity of which
+was rendered more piquant by its lavish variations. The measure changed,
+with an abrupt fling of the treble-hand: it gushed into an air quaint
+and sprightly as the dance of Puck&mdash;comic&mdash;odd&mdash;sparkling on the ear
+like zig-zags: it threw out a shower of notes; it was the voice of
+agility and merriment; it was grotesque and fitful, droll in its absurd
+confusion, and yet nimble, in its amazing ingenuity. Gradually, however,
+the humorous movement resolved itself into a strain of preternatural
+wildness&mdash;a strain that made the blood curdle, and the flesh creep, and
+the nerves shudder. It abounded with dark and goblin passages; it was
+the whirlwind blowing among the crags of the Jungfrau, and swarming with
+the forms and cries of the witches of the Walpurgis; it was Eurydice,
+traversing the corridors of hell; it was midnight over the wilderness,
+with the clouds drifting before the moon; it was a hurricane on the deep
+sea; it was every thing horrible, wierdlike, and tumultuous. And through
+the very fury of these passages there would start tones of ravishing and
+gentle beauty&mdash;the incense of an adoring heart wafted to the black
+heavens through the lightnings and lamenta<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span>tions of Nineveh. Again the
+musician changed the purpose of his improvisation; it was no longer
+dismal and appalling, it was pathetic. The instrument became, as it
+were, the organ of sadness, it became eloquent with an inarticulate wo;
+it was a breast bursting with affliction, a voice broken with sorrow, a
+soul dissolving with emotions. Then the variable harmonies rose from
+pensiveness into frenzy, from frenzy into the noise and the shocks of a
+great battle; they swelled to the din of contending armies, to the storm
+and vicissitudes of warlike deeds, and soared at last into a p&aelig;an such
+as that of victorious legions when&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="50%" summary="verse">
+<tr>
+<td>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Gaily to glory they come,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Like a king in his pomp,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">To the blast of the tromp,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the roar of the mighty drum!"</span><br />
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>As the triumphant tones of the instrument rolled up from its recesses,
+and filled the apartment with a torrent of majestic sounds, as the
+musician swayed to and fro in the enthusiasm of his sublime
+inspirations, and enhanced the divine symphony by the crash of many
+thrilling and abrupt discords, the Rosicrucian gazed with awe upon the
+responsive grandeur of his countenance. The impetus of his superb
+imagination imparted an inconceivable dignity to every lineament, to his
+capacious forehead, to his broad and distended nostrils, to the fierce
+protrusion of his under-lip, to the mobile and generous expression of
+his mouth, to the tawny yellow of his complexion, to the brown depths of
+his noble and dilated eyes. There was something in unison with the
+glorious sounds that reverberated through the chamber, even in the
+enormous contour of his head and the gray disorder of his hair. He
+seemed to exult in the torrent of melody as it gushed from the piano and
+streamed out upon the dusk of the evening. While Cagliostro was
+listening in an ecstasy of admiration, he was startled by a sudden
+clangour among the bass-notes&mdash;the music seemed to be jumbled into
+confusion, and the ear was stunned by a painful and intolerable
+dissonance. On looking more intently, he perceived that the composer had
+let one hand fall abstractedly upon the key-board, while the other
+executed, by itself, a passage of extraordinary difficulty and
+involution. Then, for the first time, the thought struck him that the
+musician was deaf.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> Alas! the supposition was too true: Beethoven was
+cursed with the loss of his most precious faculty. Those who appreciate
+the full splendour of his gigantic genius, those who conceive, with a
+distinguished composer now living, that "Beethoven began where Haydn and
+Mozart left off;" those who coincide with an eminent critic, in saying
+that "the discords of Beethoven are better than the harmonies of all
+other musicians;" those, in fine, who worship his memory with the
+devotion inspired by his compositions, can sympathise in that terrible
+deprivation of the powers of hearing, by which his art was rendered a
+blank, and the latter years of his life were imbittered. They will
+remember with gratitude the joys they have derived from the effusions of
+his fruitful intellect; they will call to their recollection the joyous
+chorus of the prisoners in <i>Fidelio</i>,&mdash;the sublime and adoring hymn of
+the "Alleluia" in <i>The Mount of Olives</i>,&mdash;the matchless pomp of the
+<i>Sinfonia Eroica</i>,&mdash;the passionate beauty of the sentiment of
+<i>Adelaida</i>,&mdash;the aerial grace of his quartets and waltzes,&mdash;the
+thrilling and almost awful pathos of the dirge written for six
+trombones,&mdash;but, above all, they will recall to mind the noblest work
+ever conceived and perfected by composer, one of the greatest
+achievements of the human mind, <i>the Mass in D</i>. And, bearing these
+wonders in their memory, their hearts will ache for the doom of Ludwig
+Von Beethoven. None of these things,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> however, being known to the
+Rosicrucian, his sympathies were aroused solely by what he himself had
+heard and witnessed. Still that was more than enough to fill his whole
+soul with commiseration, especially as the sounds again burst in
+bewitching concert from the instrument, and a new inspiration lit up the
+visage of the musician. Cagliostro found himself, with profound sorrow,
+returning into the silent darkness, and the solemn Voice stealing, for
+the last time, into his brain.</p>
+
+<p>"Behold, Balsamo," it said, "the pleasures that may vanish with the loss
+of hearing. Behold, and shudder at the remembrance of thy blasphemies.
+Recognise the goodness of Omnipotence in thy five senses&mdash;value them
+beyond either rank, or wealth, or dignity, or fame, or power,&mdash;value
+them as the five mysterious talismans of human life; and, in their
+virtuous employment, know that earthly happiness <i>is</i> attainable!"</p>
+
+<p>While these words were resounding in his mind, the Rosicrucian felt
+himself carried, with inconceivable swiftness, through the atmosphere.
+Immediately they ceased he became motionless, though he was still
+enveloped in the shadows of night. All that had recently occurred to
+him,&mdash;all the strange and moving circumstances of which he had been a
+spectator, then thronged upon his recollection, and stirred his heart
+with astonishment. His imagination responded to his amazement. He
+revisited again, in thought, the blooming grove of Capre&aelig;, the
+pageantries of Cesarea, the green lanes of Buckingham, the luxurious
+<i>salon</i> of Paris, and the twilight of the garden of Wahring. Italian
+beauty lived again in his remembrance, but a beauty marred by
+licentiousness and cruelty. He seemed to behold once more the multitudes
+of Palestine, the landscapes of England, the dainty splendours of
+France, and the tranquil homes of Germany. Gradually, however, his
+reflections became less incoherent, and the meaning of the vision
+appeared to evolve itself before him, in inductions fraught at once with
+reproach and consolation. Coupling together the truths enunciated by the
+Voice of his unseen visitant, and the spectacles revealed to him in
+succession through its agency, the Alchemist bethought himself whether
+his original impressions, as to the condition of humanity, might not, in
+a great measure, have been erroneous. What he had just witnessed assured
+him, in an unanswerable manner, that overt crimes or overt virtues were
+merely the good or evil employment of one or other of the five senses;
+that they were the bright and black spots upon the spiritual nature of
+man, the <i>facul&aelig;</i> and the <i>macul&aelig;</i>, as it were, on the disc of his
+conscience. Satisfied, therefore, that the purity or depravity of every
+mortal was merely the consequence of the different purpose to which
+their senses had been directed, the Rosicrucian perceived the intimate
+relationship subsisting between the immaterial being and the physical
+organs. He perceived especially that those organs were the channels
+through which that immaterial portion of humanity was brought into
+communication with a material existence, was compelled to endure its
+miseries, or was enabled to appreciate its enjoyments. In this he
+recognised the veracity of that solemn assurance, that happiness is
+accessible, even on this earth, to all who use their senses with a
+virtuous discrimination. Nor had this consolatory truth been enforced
+merely by a barren asseveration. Balsamo had been taught the inestimable
+value of those senses, and the penalties of such as abused them by their
+vices. Five incidents, most touching, or most appalling, had reminded
+him of the exquisite pleasures derivable from created things, through
+the eyes, through the nostrils, through the ears, through the palate,
+and through the nerves. He had seen the anguish, moreover, of those who
+suffered from the deprivation of either sense, or of those who were
+tortured by the result of their own heinous misapplication. He had seen
+this in the insanity of Tiberius, in the torments of Agrippa, in the
+sadness of Milton, in the desolation of Mirabeau, and even in the
+philosophic sorrows of Beethoven. The emperor, the tetrarch, the poet,
+the demagogue, and the musician, crowded upon his memory, and appealed
+to his judgment with the same melancholy distinctness. Still the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span>
+villainous predilections of the Rosicrucian contended for the mastery,
+although his intellect recognised the wisdom of the Vision. A fierce
+strife arose between his passions and his reason.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly his eyes opened to the splendour of an autumn morning; and as
+the sunlight poured along the <i>Boulevard de la Madeleine</i>, as it gilded
+every blade of grass in the paddock, and streamed in golden pencils
+through the open window of the cottage, it glittered upon his cheek like
+raindrops.</p>
+
+<p>Cagliostro was weeping.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<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> B&eacute;ranger has already conveyed this truth through the melody
+of his delicious verse:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Le vois-tu bien, l&agrave;-bas, l&agrave;-bas,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">L&agrave;-bas, l&agrave;-bas? dit l'Esp&eacute;rance;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bourgeois, manants, rois et prelats</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lui font de loin la r&eacute;v&eacute;rence.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">C'est le Bonheur, dit l'Esp&eacute;rance.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Courons, courons; doublons le pas,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pour le trouver l&agrave;-bas, l&agrave;-bas,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">L&agrave;-bas, l&agrave;-bas."</span><br />
+</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> "I did not dare to breathe aloud the unhallowed anguish of
+my mind to the majesty of the unsympathising stars."&mdash;See <i>Falkland</i>.</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> "Motus autem siderum," such is the reverent and sententious
+remark of Grotius, "qui eccentrici, quique epicyclici dicuntur,
+manifeste ostendunt <i>non vim materi&aelig;, sed liberi agentis
+ordinationem</i>."&mdash;See <i>De Veritate Rel. Christ. Lib.</i> i. &sect; 7.</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> "Now, there was a word spoken to me in private, and my
+ears, by stealth as it were, received the veins of its whisper."&mdash;<i>Job</i>,
+chap. iv. verse 12.</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>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"There is a roaring in the bleak-grown pines</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When Winter lifts his voice; there is a noise</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Among immortals when a god gives sign</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With hushing finger, how he means to load</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His tongue with the full weight of utterless thought,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With thunder, and with music, and with pomp."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such are the majestic syllables which preface the speech of Saturn in
+<i>Hyperion</i>. Keats was ridding himself of the puerilities of Cockaigne
+when he wrote that fragment of an epic&mdash;a fragment which is unsurpassed
+by any modern attempt at heroic composition. In reading it, the very
+earth seems shaking with the footsteps of fallen divinities. Even Byron,
+who, like ourselves, had no great predilection for the school in which
+the poetic genius of John Keats was germinated, has emphatically said of
+<i>Hyperion</i> that "it seems actually inspired by the Titans, and is as
+sublime as &AElig;schylus."&mdash;See <i>Byron's Works</i>, vol. xv., p. 92.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Thus writes Suetonius&mdash;"pr&aelig;grandibus oculis, qui, quod
+mirum esset, noctu etiam et in tenebris, viderent, sed ad breve, et quum
+primum a somno patuissent; deinde rursum hebescebant."&mdash;<i>Tib.</i> cap.
+lxviii.</p></div>
+
+<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> Those who are familiar with the classic historians, will
+see in this description no exaggeration whatever. Instruments for the
+destruction of life yet more awful and mysterious, were employed by many
+of the predecessors, and many of the successors of Tiberius, as well as
+by Tiberius himself: and modern science has shown that these devices,
+instead of being, as was originally conjectured, the result of
+black-magic, were, in reality, the effect of hydraulic, pneumatic, and
+mechanical contrivances. Even the most marvellous feats of the Egyptian
+sorcerers have been latterly explained by the revelations of natural
+philosophy, and a multitude of these explanations may be found by the
+reader in the learned work "Des Sciences Occultes," &amp;c. written by M.
+Eusebe Salverte, and published in Paris as recently as 1843. In that
+remarkable volume, M. Salverte proves that natural phenomena are more
+startling than necromantic tricks, and that, in the words of Roger
+Bacon, "<i>non igitur oportet nos magicis illusionibus uti, cum potestas
+philosophica doceat operari quod sufficit.</i>" That Tiberius was capable
+of atrocities yet more terrific, and that murders of the most inhuman
+kind were the consequence of almost every one of his diabolical whims,
+those acquainted with the picturesque narrative of Suetonius already
+know. They will remember not only how he caused his nephew Germanicus to
+be poisoned by the governor of Syria, but how he ordered a fisherman to
+be torn in pieces by the claws of a crab, simply because he met him, in
+one of his suspicious moods, when strolling in a sequestered garden of
+Capre&aelig;.&mdash;<i>Sue. Tib.</i> c. lx.</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> Suetonius assures us (cap. lxviii.), that the muscular
+strength of Tiberius Claudius Nero was, in the prime of his manhood,
+almost as supernatural as his crimes; that he could with his
+outstretched finger bore a hole through a sound apple (<i>integrum malum
+digito terebraret</i>), and wound the head of a child or even a youth with
+a fillip, (<i>caput pueri, vel etiam adolescentis, talitro vulneraret.</i>)
+His excesses must, however, have enervated his frame long before his
+death by suffocation.</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> His garb, writes Josephus, "was so resplendent as to
+spread a horror over those that looked intently upon Him."&mdash;<i>Lib.</i> xix.
+c. 8.</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> "An owl," says Josephus (xix. 8); "an angel of the Lord,"
+&#945;&#947;&#947;&#949;&#955;&#959;&#962; &#922;&#965;&#961;&#953;&#959;&#965;, say the scriptures, (Acts. xii. 23,)&mdash;in either case a
+spectral illusion.</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> It is impossible for anyone devoted to the study of
+"Paradise Lost," of "Comus," even of "Sampson Agonistes," and especially
+of "Il Pensoroso" and "L'Allegro," to doubt that their writer was
+carried away at times by the <i>&oelig;strum</i>, or <i>divine afflatus</i>, although
+Dr Johnson discredits "these bursts of light, and involutions of
+darkness, these transient and involuntary excursions and retrocessions
+of invention."&mdash;See <i>Lives of the Poets</i>, vol. i. p. 188.</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> Even M. Alphonse de Lamartine acknowledges of Mirabeau,
+that "neither his character, his deeds, nor his thoughts, have the brand
+of immortality."&mdash;<i>Hist. Giron.</i> Liv. i. chap. 3.</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 incident was suggested by a touching sentence in
+Schindler's biography of Beethoven. After observing that the outward
+sense no longer co-operated with the inward mind of the great composer,
+and that, consequently, "the outpourings of his fancy became scarcely
+intelligible," Schindler continues:&mdash;<i>"Sometimes he would lay his left
+hand flat upon the key-board, and thus drown, in discordant noise, the
+music to which his right was feelingly giving utterance.</i>"&mdash;See <i>Life of
+Beethoven, Edited by Ignace Moschelles</i>, ii. 175.</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="MAGA_IN_AMERICA" id="MAGA_IN_AMERICA"></a>MAGA IN AMERICA.</h2>
+
+<p class="r"><i>New York, August</i> 1847.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Godfrey</span>&mdash;You will laugh when you hear into what a practical
+blunder I was led, by a desire to gratify your curiosity concerning
+Maga's Icon in America. I wondered you should ask me for a description,
+when it was so easy to have ordered out the thing itself; and so
+resolved to save myself the trouble of writing a long story, by duly
+exporting a specimen of the American Ebony, from which you might form
+your own conclusions as to its counterfeit merits, and its supposed
+relations to the great question of international copyright. <i>Segnius
+irritant</i>&mdash;you know! What disciple of old Plunkett's will ever forget
+the difference between the <i>demissa per aurem</i>, and</p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="50%" summary="verse">
+<tr>
+<td>
+&mdash;&mdash;"qu&aelig; sunt <i>oculis</i> subjecta fidelibus!"<br />
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>I have always maintained that his illustration of this great principle
+gave Dickens the hint of his Dotheboy's Hall. You remember, doubtless,
+poor Harry Farmar's false quantity, and how Plunkett made him peel
+onions till he cried his eyes out; asserting his confidence in Horace's
+maxim, and that he had found the usual box on the ear quite incapable of
+any exciting effect on Harry's mind. Who would have said that the same
+Harry, surviving the operation, would have lived to hunt bisons on the
+prairies of Western America, after riding on elephants in India, and
+bestriding a camel's hump through the waste places of Edom! Harry's
+wandering mind has developed as vagabond a habit of life as ever his
+prophetic instructor ventured to predict; but he vows himself cured at
+last, and that, if he ever sets foot again on England's <i>terra firma</i>,
+he will at once become one of the manly hearts that guard the fair, and
+settle down in contented conjugation. He it was, then, who offered to be
+the bearer to yourself at C&mdash;&mdash; of any despatches, or parcels, I might
+choose to send; but he affected to think me so thoroughly Americanised,
+that he entered a caveat against my loading him with a consignment of
+bowie knives or cotton-bales. A nicely packthreaded parcel was
+accordingly put up, and duly adorned with your most Saxon name and
+address, in the delusive expectation that none but your own hands would
+presume</p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="50%" summary="verse">
+<tr>
+<td>
+"&mdash;&mdash;to set the imprison'd wranglers free<br />
+And give them voice and utterance once again."
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>I was doomed to be quickly undeceived; and as I doubt not Harry will be
+giving you his own version of the affair, over a glass of wine, some
+three weeks hence, at the Hall, you shall know beforehand how much to
+allow, in this matter, for his habitual unveracity, or rather love of
+romance.</p>
+
+<p>I waited on him yesterday and presented the packet; but you should have
+seen him start, when I happened to mention its contents. Not the captors
+of Guido Fawkes bounced with more consternation, when that eminent
+pyrotechnist proposed to touch off his gunpowder for their especial
+gratification and amusement. "What!" exclaimed our mutual friend&mdash;"Have
+you lived so long in America, as to have forgotten the laws of a
+civilised and Christian land! Would you have me seized as a smuggler;
+posted in every newspaper as an importer of contraband goods; brutally
+insulted by the officers of her Majesty's Customs; and perhaps actually
+brought before a justice, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> locked up where the only prospect would
+be a distant view of New South Wales!" It was in vain that I
+remonstrated with his eloquent horrors, at the thought of renewing his
+travels at government cost: he insisted that my proposal might actually
+have ensured the catastrophe; and from this appeal to my feelings,
+passed to a bold invective against literary piracy, and concluded by a
+generous compromise in favour of the cotton-bales, if I would pardon the
+warm expressions with which he found himself compelled to decline my
+extraordinary commission. You should have seen him, Godfrey! If he ever
+takes that seat in Parliament which he threatens to make the sequel of
+matrimony, I predict wo to the whole race of Humes, Brights, and
+Cobdens, should they ever start him on a subject capable of
+transatlantic illustration.</p>
+
+<p>I could not but laugh, though, when I saw the true state of the case, at
+the comical scene that might have ensued, had he taken my parcel without
+explanations. Think of Harry's air of fearless innocence before the
+inspectors of imports, till from the depths of an enormous trunk comes
+forth a parcel, which those faithful officials at once lay bare, with
+the professional dexterity of a private tearing his cartridge. The
+officer stares, and Harry looks still more astounded, at the sight of a
+familiar visage, peering forth from under the wrapper, and giving mute
+but significant expressions of pain and displeasure. It is the head of
+Geordy Buchanan! It is Blackwood, imported from New York! The confounded
+servant of her Majesty's Customs begins to whisper contraband, and
+expresses a wish for the undoubted original, which you, just stepping up
+to welcome your friend, are enabled to supply. The fresh number from
+your coat-skirts, and the suspicious importation from America, are set
+together like the two Dromios before the duke. "Look on this picture,
+and on that!" Behold the two Buchanans!</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"One of these men is genius to the other<br />
+&mdash;&mdash;Which is the natural man,<br />
+And which the spirit? Who deciphers them?"</p></div>
+
+<p>Harry, to prevent the coming crisis, volunteers a confession, but
+invites you to a comparison of the heads. With his outrageous Tory
+hatred of the Yankees, he, of course, declares there's no comparison;
+ridicules the fac-simile, and hastily seizing what he mistakes for the
+counterfeit, confounds the company by a quotation from the Latin of
+"Terence"&mdash;that very small fragment of the Eunuchus which Plunkett
+forced into his head through the opposite pole of his person&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Ne comparandus hic quidem ad illum est, ille erat<br />
+Honesta facie, et liberali!"</p></div>
+
+<p>And finally, disgusted to find that he has ascribed the more gentlemanly
+bearing to the American, he tosses the whole parcel into the docks, with
+the tardy announcement that it was my friendly consignment to yourself,
+as well as the very curiosity of literature which you so much desire to
+see. You remember, doubtless, what I did not recollect, that there is no
+port of entry in her Majesty's empire for the Icons of British copyright
+property. They come with a Frenchified air from the press of Galignani;
+they arrive in vulgarised costume from the cheap manufactories of New
+England; but the scent of the vermin is familiar to the nose of a
+collector of customs, and no rat-catching terrier, says my informant,
+ever pounces upon his Norwegian with half the gusto with which such an
+official snubs such an intruder. A health, I say, to the fury of this
+sort of Iconoclasts!</p>
+
+<p>Our friend's unusual caution has saved you the excitement of the scene I
+have imagined, but it puts me to the necessity of substituting a hurried
+description for the ocular satisfaction I had proposed to send you. Who
+would have supposed, thirty years since, that one Maga would not be
+enough for the world, and that New York would be the seat of its
+flourishing double! Yet it is now twelve years since its twin started up
+on this side the water, and has been battening and fattening on the
+rewards of successful illegitimacy. Nay&mdash;for a portion of that period,
+Maga has been "three gentlemen at once." The very pirates were pirated,
+and undersold; and two reprints of Maga, both professing to be
+fac-similes, were at one time supported in America, in addition to
+countless republications of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> particular articles; such, for instance, as
+the tales of "Ten Thousand a-Year," and "Caleb Stukeley"! I think I hear
+you exclaim at such wholesale grand-larceny; but though not inclined to
+take up the cudgels for Reprint and Co., it is but justice to tell you
+what they would say in self-defence. The truth is, they would not have
+known what you meant, had you told them, when their republication was
+established, that there was any question as to the ethics of such a
+business. The laws not only permitted, but even encouraged the
+enterprise; and they do so still. The most respectable booksellers were
+engaged in a similar seizure of every new novel of Bulwer's, and every
+new work whatever, that had stood the experiment of success in England.
+Original copies of the Magazine were rarely imported, as the importer's
+charges and duties nearly doubled the first cost of each number; and
+besides, it was already virtually republished, its leading articles
+being constantly appropriated, in different ways, by editors of literary
+periodicals, and often by the daily newspapers. Then, it must be
+remembered, that England was nearly twice as far from America before the
+era of steamers; and that the matter of copyright was only just
+beginning to excite the attention of Parliament. As yet Lord Mahon had
+not stirred up the ministry to move foreign countries to international
+justice, and England was not, as now, prepared to invest their authors
+with all the rights she concedes to her own. It is not surprising,
+therefore, that Reprint and Co. commenced operations without any
+compunctions of conscience, and were even praised for their enterprise
+by honourable men. Hundreds, who could hardly forego the reading of
+Maga, were unable to pay for it twice what it costs in England; and I
+grant you, that when the first number was laid on my table at one-fourth
+the price of an importation, I myself was not the man to throw a pebble
+at the pirates, but wished them good luck and gave them my name as a
+subscriber. I verily believe I did so with a virtuous delight in what
+then struck me as a compliment to my favourite magazine; for somebody,
+at about the same time, had started a similar republication of other
+English Monthlies, and I desired to see them fairly run off the course.
+You will certainly concede to the Americans some credit for a discerning
+taste, when I add that Maga's competitors have long since been withdrawn
+for want of backers; and she so easily walks the field, that it begins
+to be a fair question whether Messrs Reprint and Co. are honestly
+entitled to the purse.</p>
+
+<p>I have marvelled a little, I confess, that a magazine of such
+unmitigated Toryism, and of so uncomplimentary a tone towards America,
+should nevertheless gain so universal a popularity in this country. I
+must stand to it, Godfrey&mdash;there's a touch of the magnanimous in the
+affection which exists among Americans for Christopher North, and all
+his high Tory fraternity. Seldom approving, they always enjoy his
+old-fashioned prejudices; and defend in Maga what, in a book of
+Alison's, they would relish very little. Much is said for the kind of
+affectionate regard with which they welcome to their firesides its
+monthly returns, in the fact that it is the only foreign work which
+American republishers have felt themselves forced, by popular feeling,
+to furnish in the form of a fac-simile. It is proof of the individual
+interest which it possesses, and of the rich associations which it has
+imparted even to the simplicity of its outside. Every one wants old
+Ebony in its own gentlemanly wear: but much as is implied in the livery
+of the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, and many as are its admirers among the
+literary freethinkers of the eastern states, it is curious that no one
+cares twopence to see it in any other than a semi-newspaper shape, and
+that Reprint and Co. have never thought of reproducing it in all the
+splendour of its popinjay surtout. In fact, I doubt whether it will long
+continue in any shape at all. Its crack article is always reprinted in
+another form; and oracular as its pages are deemed by the clannish
+provincials of Boston, its general contents seldom go down with the
+public. The truth is, no one honestly prefers porridge to roast-beef;
+and in spite of a natural leaning to buff and blue, Jonathan will not be
+diverted from his luxurious repasts in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span> Maga, by anything less "hot in
+the mouth."</p>
+
+<p>I remember that, in one of those Ambrosial Noctes, some one remarked in
+auld-lang-syne, that Maga is a ubiquity. The Shepherd assented, for he
+had seen the head of Geordy alike in the hut and the hall; beaming the
+same by the mirrored fire-light of the manorial villa, and "by the
+peat-lowe frae the ingle o' the auld clay biggin." But think, my dear
+Godfrey, what a flow of the <i>decalect</i> would have gushed from that child
+of the Yarrow, had he beheld, with me, the pirated Maga scattered
+through the length and breadth of this immense republic, and devoured
+with equal delight by the self-congratulating native of Massachusetts
+Bay, and the home-sick immigrant of Oregon. Here, too, Maga is
+ubiquitous. If you make your summer tour through the States of New
+England, and stop to visit its priggish little colleges, and biggish
+little schools, you shall find it on many a sophister's table, and in
+many a schoolboy's hands; or, ten to one, as you pass the windows of the
+barracks where they keep their terms, you will chance to hear some
+full-voiced youth adding a nasal rhetoric to Maga's pages, as he retails
+them, through clouds of cigar-smoke, to his assembled companions. To
+your surprise, you will find Maga in every library and reading-room from
+the Independent Union Lyceum of Jeffersonville, in New Hampshire, to the
+Congressional lobbies at Washington. And I assure you, they not only
+take it in, but they read it out and out. Often, when I have wanted but
+a glimpse at its leader, I have found it, like <i>The Times</i> at a country
+inn, in the grasp of some sturdy monopolist, exploring it inch by inch,
+and only pausing at intervals, to wipe his glasses, and renew his pinch
+of snuff. Along the shores of the Hudson, in those snug little villas
+that peep forth from the thick trees and copsewood, Maga is quite as
+universal, but is found in more palmy estate. There&mdash;whether your
+retreat from the city be to the banks of Westchester, to the glens of
+the Highlands, or to the table-lands that underlie the Kaatskills&mdash;your
+welcome you value none the less that you see volumes of old numbers in
+the book-case, and the number of the month already laid on the table in
+the hall; and you think of the hot noons they will help to wile away,
+after the morning's sport, and before the evening drive. In homes like
+these, I have usually found <i>Blackwood</i> a favourite with the fairer
+portion of American society. You shall find it lurking amongst worsteds
+and flower-patterns, and very often preferred to the pretty work that
+tasks a far prettier eye: or, stepping into the verandah to see a
+steamer go by, you shall pick it up from a tabouret, where it lies with
+a pearl-knife in its uncut pages, and the breezes playing with its
+parted leaves&mdash;evidently the immediate relic of some startled and
+disappearing fair one. Going south or west, you meet it on railways, and
+in steamers. It is usually the companion of such travellers as are
+accustomed to decline the repeated attempts of fellow-passengers to
+engage them in conversation or political debate, and seems to afford
+peculiar refreshment to those who have effected a retreat from the
+philanthropic assaults of travelling temperance agents, and of other
+affectionate inquirers as to the condition of their bodies and souls.
+When you reach the Carolinas, where, in default of taverns, you may
+always venture to make yourself the guest of a planter, and will be
+thanked for your visit&mdash;if you would bait at noon, and turn from the
+road to a hospitable-looking mansion among the pines, I'll wager that a
+basking Negro, without a shirt, will start up, and take charge of your
+horse, while the master of a thousand slaves gives you one open hand,
+but holds in the other the ubiquitous pages, which he has been reading
+in the cool of his piazza. I say then, had the Shepherd been blest with
+such universal experiences as mine, with what a flow of metaphor and
+illustrative wit would he have enlarged upon the proposition&mdash;Maga is an
+ubiquity. Beginning with a broadside at the literary corsairs of New
+York, I can fancy him bursting with indignant virtue into luxurious
+comparisons between the rape of the Sabines, and that of the inimitable
+Noctes&mdash;and then between Maga bodily, and her who in the field of Enna
+gathering flowers, experienced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span> a fate most gloomy; and so on till his
+exuberant good-humour expands at last into an apology, as he expatiates
+on the tempting character of the booty, and declares, that like apples
+of gold to frolicsome schoolboys, so beautiful Maga, to covetous
+Yankees, is a thing too full of relish and of beauty to be other than
+pardonable plunder! Maga, like Italy, ought to be less bewitching, or
+better defended. What would not some of Maga's cotemporaries give,
+nevertheless, for the compliment of being perpetually ravished by the
+Goths and Vandals of Letters&mdash;the merciless anti-copyright booksellers
+of America? Nay&mdash;they will pout at the insinuation, and stand upon the
+virtue which no one believes they possess. But assure them, dear
+Godfrey, that they are in no conceivable danger. Maga shall growl, and
+they shall fawn; but the republicans will not be repulsed by the honest
+frankness of the one nor propitiated by the hypocritical blandishments
+of the others. If they doubt it, just tell them what happened with me
+the other day, and what I vouch for as fairly exhibiting the feeling of
+the most intelligent Americans. I could add many other anecdotes of the
+same colour and character; but I tell this as creditable to them, and
+illustrative of Maga's footing among them:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I was at the reading-rooms of "The Athen&aelig;um"&mdash;a literary club-house in
+this city, which has grown out of a small society of scholars that
+existed here before the Revolution&mdash;and which, I am happy to say, is
+always supplied with the genuine imported Magazine. A young man, whom I
+had often met at the rooms, and who had the Magazine in his hand, called
+my attention to a palpable error in an article, that reflected pretty
+merrily on his countrymen. "Ha!" said I, "just like old Ebony! Why don't
+you banish the rabid old Tory from these most democratic tables?"</p>
+
+<p>"Banish Maga!" was the reply&mdash;"what would be left fit to read?"</p>
+
+<p>"You surprise me! Edinburgh, Westminster&mdash;any thing that thinks better
+of Congress, and legislative eloquence&mdash;as you do, of course!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why so? Mayn't a man be a republican, without recognising a <i>jure
+divino</i> majesty in a Congressman?"</p>
+
+<p>"But Maga would make out some of your Solons prodigiously long in the
+ears."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay&mdash;rather intolerably long in the wind, which is just the intolerable
+truth. Thanks to Maga for giving them the echo of their palaver! and may
+the first reformed Congress vote her a gold medal for the good she has
+done to the country!"</p>
+
+<p>"She sometimes makes free with the nation itself, and some of the little
+peculiarities of your countrymen."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well&mdash;we are not drawn more out of proportion than the Iron
+Duke's nose is in <i>Punch</i>! Why should we not laugh like heroes, who are
+said to grow hale of good-humour kept up by caricatures?"</p>
+
+<p>"You must allow that Maga is not always good-natured, as some of her
+rivals invariably are."</p>
+
+<p>"There's no comparison, sir, between the sometimes irritable merriment
+of King Christopher, and the professional tinkling of a jester's
+cap-and-bells. I can't argue it,&mdash;only I like <i>Blackwood</i> for all its
+Toryism; and when Kit North is testy, I reflect that he's long had the
+gout! Banish Geordie Buchanan's venerable old pow&mdash;did you say? Never,
+Sir, never!"</p>
+
+<p>Of course, I allowed the good sense of these replies, and at once
+explained to myself the philosophy which gave rise to them. The truth
+is, there is in human nature a deep sense of "the eternal fitness of
+things," which usually gives tone to the opinions of man, where undue
+prejudices do not exercise an overruling control. You know, my dear
+Godfrey, how unlikely it is that an American would ever care to pay you
+a second visit at the Hall, should he signalise his first by
+depreciating the character of Washington, or undervaluing the many
+advantages which his country really enjoys. On the same principle which
+would certainly betray you into marks of cool aversion towards such a
+guest from this side the Atlantic, the intelligent American despises in
+his heart the Briton, whose spirit is alien to the time-honoured
+institutions of his ancestors, and whose life is one long blasphemy of
+all that has contributed most to the glory and greatness of an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> empire,
+whose worst symptom of decay is the fungous existence of a race of such
+blasphemers, at once the morbid fruit of a free constitution, and its
+fatal and cancerous disease. Whiggery is, therefore, at a discount in
+the republic; and I have been surprised to hear the confession from
+American democrats, that if they were Englishmen, they would be far from
+any sympathy with those who call themselves reformers. This, perhaps,
+will account for it, that with all the influence of the Edinburgh
+Reviewers, they have never gained, in this country, any hold of the
+heart, even where they have controlled the head; whilst Maga, on the
+contrary, without bending the republican opinions of Americans, has
+secured no small degree of their affections, and become enshrined in
+their genuine regard. You may see one proof of this in the fact, that if
+you contract with Reprint &amp; Co. for their republications, and will take
+<i>Blackwood</i> and <i>The Quarterly</i>, you can have <i>The Edinburgh</i> and <i>The
+Westminster</i> almost thrown into the bargain; like the lying little
+<i>Mercury</i> of &AElig;sop's statuary, which was a mere gratuity to those who
+would buy a <i>Ph&oelig;bus</i>, and <i>Pallas-Athene</i>. In truth, if my
+observation has been correct, intelligent Americans like to be
+republicans themselves, because such were the fathers of their country;
+but an Englishman in blue and yellow, they regard much as they do an
+Indian in shoes and stockings. He is despised, as no specimen of the
+noble race from which he has degenerated and dwindled into a Whig.</p>
+
+<p>To return to the republished Magazine; it is not only a republication,
+but, as I have said, it professes to be a fac-simile. You will ask, if
+it is cleverly done. I must answer&mdash;not very, considered as a whole; and
+yet, to give the mannikin its due, the face of the thing is about as
+accurate as counterfeits usually are. The colour is not often right,
+however, and I suspect Reprint &amp; Co. are ignorant that the colour is of
+any consequence. The thistle-framed portrait, nevertheless, is tolerably
+well copied; enough so, to deserve the greatest proportion of credit
+belonging to the whole, as an imitation. You look for the familiar
+imprint in vain. One would never know from the publisher's part of the
+title-page that the house of Blackwood &amp; Sons was still in existence.
+Instead of the usual mark, we have that of the republishers, with an
+intimation that they are assisted in the sale by booksellers in Boston,
+Philadelphia, Charlestown, Baltimore, Savannah, New Orleans, and <span class="smcap">Paris</span>!
+Why they should print Paris in capitals, rather than Boston and
+Philadelphia, I am at a loss to conceive; but such an announcement does
+indeed demand some note of admiration at the vastness of the enterprise
+of <span class="smcap">Reprint</span> &amp; Co., who, to give Mr Blackwood more time to attend to the
+getting up of each successive number of his work, thus undertake to
+relieve him of any share in seeing to the supply of the Continent of
+Europe. In this benevolent effort to take the burthen from the
+proprietors of the genuine Ebony, it is fair that the French coadjutor
+should have his share of the honour. His name is given as <span class="smcap">Hector
+Bossange</span>; and his shop, if I rightly remember, adorns the Quai Voltaire.
+And, now I think of it, I advise you, dear Godfrey, to skip across the
+Channel this summer, and alight on the capital, (where very likely they
+will just be getting up an <i>emeute</i> in honour of the Three Days), and
+there, in Monsieur Bossange's establishment, you will be permitted to
+try the merits of my description and Maga's Icon at the same time, and
+with no danger from officials of the Customs. So much then for the
+front, which is good, except the colour. <i>Nimium ne crede colori</i>, says
+Mr Reprint; and <i>fronti nulla fides</i>, say I.</p>
+
+<p>The reverse cover has, of course, an outer and inner surface, with only
+the thickness of the paper between the letter-press adorning the twain.
+What say you, then, to the fact, that whilst the outer half is devoted
+to an advertisement of Mr Reprint's imitative publications, the <i>better
+half</i> contains a bold and faithful warning against such piracy! You
+stare, but I repeat it; whilst the one side of the leaf announces Mr
+Reprint's arrangements for circulating throughout the States his
+imitations of Blackwood, the other indignantly announces that there are
+"now in circulation in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span> United States, <span class="smcap">Spurious</span> and <span class="smcap">Highly
+Pernicious Imitations</span>." Alas for the difference between those who
+<i>instruct</i> the head, and those who only <i>dress</i> it! The imitations that
+are shamelessly commended are only those of <i>Blackwood's Magazine</i>;
+while those which Messrs Reprint feel called upon to hold up as shocking
+to every sense of virtue,&mdash;to head with <span class="smcap">Important Information</span>, and to
+stamp with triple marks of wonder, as <span class="smcap">Fraudulent Counterfeits</span>&mdash;are
+imitations of Rowland's Macassar Oil! Think of that, Godfrey! I learn
+from this announcement of Reprint's, that there are now in the United
+States men base enough to rob the immortal Rowland of his patent right,
+men who have doubtless established agencies in "Boston, Philadelphia,
+Baltimore, Savannah, New Orleans and <span class="smcap">Paris</span>," but who, as the imitation
+Blackwood is circulated in just those places, will find it, by just
+retribution, always in their way. <i>A bon chat, bon rat!</i> Well, it was
+wise in the agents of Rowland to employ one ubiquitous imitation to stop
+another; but since the trade is much the same, it ought to be suggested
+to Reprint &amp; Co., that they do ill to expose a fellow-craftsman.
+Suppose, now, the enterprising apothecaries, who do for Mr Rowland what
+Reprint &amp; Co. are doing for Mr Blackwood, should print a label for every
+bottle of their "incomparable oil," warning the public that spurious
+imitations of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine are now in circulation
+throughout the States, which they are compelled to stamp as <span class="smcap">Fraudulent
+Counterfeits</span>! Would not this be quite as <span class="smcap">Important Information</span> as the
+other? Are not the public as much concerned in having the genuine
+article for their brain, as in having the unadulterated article for
+their hair? Yet, how would Reprint like to see such a <i>Rowland</i> for his
+Oliver?</p>
+
+<p>Strange that the same leaf that thus brands a counterfeit,&mdash;which
+Reprint repudiates, hinting that respectable perfumers "sell only the
+genuine article,"&mdash;should within one two-hundredth part of an inch,
+contain the exposure of his own counterfeit, by his own pen, ink, and
+types: and that with the announcement of a "Travelling Agent, recently
+appointed to procure Subscribers in the Western States, Iowa and
+Wisconsin, <i>who will prove his identity by a certificate from the Mayor
+of Cincinnati</i>!" Now, it strikes me, would not a certificate from his
+lordship, proving <i>the identity of the Magazine</i>, be much more to the
+purpose? It is called <i>Blackwood's</i> Magazine; and if so, the Travelling
+Agent would be better certified by a commission from Mr Blackwood to be
+selling his property, and that would be more to the purpose still! But
+think, dear Godfrey, where this certified bagman goes! Iowa and
+Wisconsin are a thousand miles inland, where even so lately as when this
+reprint was begun, the Indian trail was the only post-road, and the
+aborigines almost the only inhabitants, and where, even at this day, the
+reader of Maga, holding the cream of civilisation and refinement in one
+hand, must keep the other in close contact with his rifle, and the rifle
+well loaded and cocked; for should his magazine interest him more than
+his safety, he might expect at any moment the pressing salutations of a
+cougar, or the warm embrace of a grisly bear. Or think, I pray you, of a
+circumstance still less improbable, which will illustrate what it is to
+be a bagman in Iowa. Where this "Travelling Agent" goes, he often
+carries his merchandise through an Indian village, and often, I'll
+venture to say, has Buchanan been seen in his hand, as centre to a
+circle of fierce-visaged Red-skins, with tomahawks in their girdles, and
+any thing but brotherly love in their gestures. Ah, then, the
+contrabandist is afraid. Among savages he first learns to wish himself
+engaged in any thing but an anti-copyright expedition; and produces in
+vain the proof of his identity, signed by the Mayor of Cincinnati.</p>
+
+<p>I observe that there are similar agencies in the Southern and
+South-western States; so that Reprint &amp; Co. are the monopolists of Maga,
+from the mouth of the St Lawrence, to the deltas of the Mississippi, and
+before long will doubtless have their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span> travelling agents pushing its
+sale in the "halls of the Montezumas," or exchanging it for peltry at
+the head-waters of the Colombia. It is said in one of the newspapers of
+this city, that for every copy issued in Edinburgh, two copies of the
+reprint are published here; and though the estimate strikes me as, at
+least, unlikely, it is far from being incredible. I can pardon Mr
+Blackwood should his temper be a little ruffled, when he compares his
+trouble and responsibility, and limited sale, with the <i>sans souci</i> and
+universal market of Reprint &amp; Co.; but surely, old Christopher North
+should smile with inward satisfaction when, not by cannon, or carnage,
+but as the result of a greatness thrust upon him, he finds his empire,
+like her Majesty's, the girdle of the earth, and his sovereignty
+recognised, in the world of letters, where hers can claim no subjects,
+and demand no homage. That crutch is now the sceptre of bookdom. Its
+shadow stretcheth over all lands, whether the dawn project it athwart
+the broad Atlantic, or the Boreal light send it overland to farthest
+India. Who reads not Maga? You shall find the smutched lieutenant
+turning over its pages by the camp-fire, after a terrible scratch with
+the Sikhs; and within the same twenty-four hours you may fairly surmise
+that some green mountain volunteer, on the wrong side of the Rio Grande,
+has lighted a pine-knot, and is reading one of the Marlborough articles
+to his mess, with extemporary paralellisms in favour of General Taylor,
+which the shade of the great Churchill must not venture to overhear.
+Swinging in his hammock, the midshipman holds Blackwood to the smoky
+lamp of the orlop, as he plunges and pitches around Cape Horn. Lounging
+in his state-room, and bound for Hong Kong, the sea-sick passenger
+corrects his nausea with the same spicy page, and bewitched with the
+flavour, forgets to sigh for Madeira, which he has passed, or to look
+out for St Helena, which is somewhere on his lee. It keeps the old
+Admiral from the deck as his keel scrapes the coral-reefs of the South
+Pacific; and a stale back number, from the bottom of a seaman's chest,
+is purchased as a prize, by him who cruises among seals, icebergs, and
+spermaceti whales.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span style="margin-left: 4em;">"Quis jam locus, inquit, Achate,</span><br />
+Qu&aelig; regio in terris nostri non plena laboris!"</p></div>
+
+<p>Yes&mdash;who reads not Maga? The flayed Radical of Parliament&mdash;the rasped
+Balaamite of Congress&mdash;the spanked Cockney of an author&mdash;the jaundiced
+Editor of some new no-go periodical&mdash;even these must cut the leaves of
+each new number, if they die for it, or if their only reward be to find
+their own sweet selves hung up in its pages, like sham Socrates in his
+basket, but not looking on like live Socrates with philosophic
+composure. And if they whimper, who will sympathise? Like the Shepherd
+at Awmrose's, the testy public may now and then rebel, and rail for a
+season at "the cawm, cauld, clear, glitterin' cruelty in the expression
+of his een,"&mdash;but who can keep up a quarrel with North? Again, like the
+Shepherd, they relax into a broad good humour, and, before they know it,
+are drinking with all the honours, "Long live King Christopher!" So
+then, in spite of Cockneys, chartists, coxcombs, rebels, radicals, and
+rascally reformers, yea, and the whole alphabetical list of what is
+whiggish, vulgar, and vexatious,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span style="margin-left: 4em;">"Maga still sitteth on Edina's crags,</span><br />
+And from her throne of beauty rules the world!"</p></div>
+
+<p>Ah! my dear Godfrey Godfrey of Godfrey Hall, in the county of Kent,
+Esquire,&mdash;I know what you are thinking of. You were certainly meant for
+trade, and 'twas a loss to the Bank of England, that you ever wore a
+shooting-jacket. There was ever a commercial crotchet in your head, and
+I am sure it now suggests the rejoinder&mdash;that to rule the world is
+nothing, so long as one can't rule the market. But I respectfully ask,
+do you go for absolute monarchy? Would you have Maga more potent than
+her Majesty? I grant there should be something coming to Mr Blackwood
+for the thousands that profit by his labours in America&mdash;but if it can't
+be so, let the glory suffice him, and let <i>Sic vos non vobis</i> be his
+song of patient resignation. The parallel between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span> his case and that of
+the Virgilian sufferers, is perfect. Who concentrates more pungency, or
+collects more sweets than the busy bee? Who keeps more musical throats
+in time than the motherly bird? Who lends the agricultural interest
+greater assistance than the labouring ox; or who suffers more by the
+manufacturers than the fleeced lamb? Undoubtedly, the answer is,&mdash;Mr.
+Blackwood! Well then, I say, he must comfort himself by philosophy and
+<i>Sic vos non vobis</i>. He may, indeed, utter one word of remonstrance
+against literary and commercial piracy, like that first great sufferer
+by anti-copyright,&mdash;Mr. Virgilius Maro, of Mantua&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Hos ego versiculos <i>emi</i>, tulit alter honores."</p></div>
+
+<p>Or, in other words, I pay for every line and letter of Maga, and lo! Mr
+Bathyllus Reprint, of New York, carries off the sesterces! Think,
+Godfrey, what a charm of a life this Bathyllus must make of it! His are
+all the honey, and the bird's nests, the corn-bags, and the fleeces of
+the Ebony estates; and yet he has no trouble to see his banks furnished
+with bees, or to preserve game in the brake; no care to drive away
+crows, or to stifle the blatter of sheep. For him&mdash;to descend from the
+firmament of metaphor, to the plain prose of George Street and
+Paternoster Row&mdash;for him, Mr North inspects boxes of Balaam, with the
+patience of a proofreader, and deciphers pages of wit and pathos with
+the perseverance of a Champollion. For him, with each new moon, and
+punctual to the day, comes forth the Maga of the month, the fruit of
+incredible diligence, and the flower of admirable skill. For him the
+foreign purveyor of all he lives by pays down the golden <i>honorarium</i>,
+fifty guineas for the sheet, that he may have the whole for less than
+fifty pence. For him&mdash;the same benevolent provider takes pains to
+silence, by the same metallic spell, ten thousand other claims and
+clamours, contingent to each lunation of Maga. All things work for him!
+For him the steamer ploughs Atlantic surges; and for him, when she gains
+her port, two hundred miles of wire are put into galvanic tremor,
+bidding him prepare his covers, and rally his compositors. It is there
+that Reprint, with a grateful sense (perhaps) of all that has been done
+for him, and a still more gratifying sense of the very little that
+remains for him to do, finds himself called to bestir from a fortnight's
+nap, and proceed to do that little. With railway speed, and thunder
+step, the Express of Harnden brings to his hand almost the only emigrant
+original of <i>Blackwood</i> that ever touches these occidental shores. No
+prosy correspondence&mdash;no botheration manuscript&mdash;no rejectable
+contribution&mdash;but the choicest literary matter that the genius of the
+British empire can furnish, all picked, packed, and laid at his feet, in
+fair white printed copy, without pains and without cost! Another's all
+the toil&mdash;his, all the profits! In a turn or two of his hand the
+American market is supplied. Sure sale&mdash;no risk&mdash;all clear gains, and
+quick returns! I am sure Mr Bathyllus Reprint must be the happiest of
+men, and the most amiable of publishers; and I can conceive that few of
+the more legitimate craft would be able to stand upon dignity, or refuse
+his kind invitation to meet a little company at his board&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"At the close of the day, when the market is still,<br />
+And mortals the sweets of comestibles prove."</p></div>
+
+<p>But hold! When is the market still. For a fortnight after he has set it
+astir with a new number, his announcements confront you as you open your
+"folio of four pages." His placards smite the eye at the crossings of
+the streets; they return your glance at the shop-window, and confound
+your senses at every turn. "Old Ebony for the month,"&mdash;"Kit North again
+in the field,"&mdash;"A racy new number of <i>Blackwood</i>,"&mdash;such are the
+headings of newspaper puffs, and the bawlings of hawkers on the steps of
+Astor House. They pursue you to the Boston railway-station, or to the
+Hudson-river steamer; they follow you on the road to Niagara; meet you
+afresh at Detroit and Chicago, and hardly provoke any additional
+surprise when the bagman accosts you with the same syllables, through
+the nose, as you arrive in the buffalo-season on the debateable grounds
+of Oregon! To quote once more the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span> oracular words of the Ettrick orator
+and poet, "Ane gets tired o' that eternal soun'&mdash;<i>Blackwood's
+Magazeen,&mdash;Blackwood's Magazeen</i>&mdash;dinnin' in ane's lugs, day and nicht!"
+So vast and so varied I suppose to be the commercial relations of
+Reprint &amp; Co., and such, beyond a doubt, is Maga's empire in America.</p>
+
+<p>No more by this steamer. Let me see; in ten days, perhaps, Harry will be
+with you at breakfast, discussing my letter, and lamenting my lot, to
+live so far from the world. For me, however, a contented disposition,
+the steamers twice a-month, and <i>Blackwood</i> monthly, do wonders. I see
+as much of the world as a good man need wish to see; and at any time,
+you know, it's not a fortnight's work, by God's blessing, to rejoin the
+old friends and true friends, that so often go fishing under your
+patronage, and tell improbable stories around your table. Wait till I
+get into my own chair beside you, and I will tell stories of my sojourn
+in America that will put Harry's Indian romances to the blush. He now
+goes out with a stock of prairie-adventures, that out-Sinbad Sinbad, and
+yet he tells them with an air of honesty that would gull Gulliver. Wait
+till I rejoin you, and you shall see how a plain tale will put him down.</p>
+
+<p class="r">Yours, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="THE_TIMES_OF_GEORGE_II" id="THE_TIMES_OF_GEORGE_II"></a>THE TIMES OF GEORGE II.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor"><span class="smaller">[18]</span></a></h2>
+
+<p>Female authorship is beginning to flourish in England. To this
+employment no rational objection can be raised. The want of occupation
+for female life in the higher classes has long been a subject of
+complaint, and any honest change which removes it will be a change for
+the better. The quantity of time and thread which has been wasted on
+chainstitch, and roundstitch, and all the other mysteries of the needle,
+in the last three centuries, is beyond all calculation. If the fair
+artists had been workers at the loom, they might have clothed half the
+living population in "fine linen," if not in purple. If they had been
+equally diligent in brickmaking, they might have built ten Babels; or if
+they had devoted similar energies, on Iago's hint, "to suckle fools, and
+chronicle small beer," they might have tripled the population, or
+anticipated the colossal vats of Messrs Truman &amp; Co. What myriads of
+young faces have grown old over worsted parrots and linsey-wolsey maps
+of the terrestrial globe! What exquisite fingers have been thinned to
+the bone, in creating carnations to be sat upon, and cowslip beds for
+the repose of favourite poodles! What bright eyes have been reduced to
+spectacles, in the remorseless fabrication of patchwork, quilts and
+flowery footstools for the feet of gouty gentlemen! Nay, what thousands
+and tens of thousands have been flung into the arms of their only
+bridegroom, Consumption, leaving nothing to record their existence but
+an accumulation of trifles, which cost them only their health, their
+tempers, their time, their charms, and their usefulness!</p>
+
+<p>But the age of knitting and tambour passed away. The spinning-jenny was
+its mortal enemy. The most inveterate of fringemakers, the most
+painstaking devotee of patchwork, when she found that Arkwright could
+make in a minute more than with all her diligence she could make in a
+month, and that old Robert Peel could pour out figured muslins, by a
+twist of a screw, sufficient to give gowns to the whole petticoat
+population of England, had only to give in; the spinsterhood were forced
+to feel that their "occupation was o'er."</p>
+
+<p>Even then, however, the female fingers were not suffered to "forget
+their cunning;" and the age of purse-making began. The land was
+inundated with purses of every shape, size,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span> and substance. Then
+followed another change. The Berlin manufacturers had contrived to bring
+back the age of worsted wonders, though, by a happy art, they saved the
+fair artists all the trouble of drawing and design. We are still under a
+Gothic invasion of trimmings and tapestry, of needlework nondescripts,
+moonlight minstrels in canvass, playing under cross-bar balconies; and
+all the signs of the zodiac brought down to the level of the ivory
+fingers of womankind.</p>
+
+<p>To this, we must acknowledge, that the incipient taste of the ladies for
+historical publications, for diving into the trunks of family memorials,
+and giving us those private correspondences which are to be found only
+by the desperate determination to find something and every thing, is a
+fortunate turn of the wheel.</p>
+
+<p>It is true, that England boasts of many distinguished female writers;
+that the works of Mrs Radcliffe opened a new vein of rich description
+and solemn mystery; that the comedies of Inchbald netted her innocent
+and persevering spirit some thousand pounds; and that Joanna Baillie's
+tragedies entitle her to an enduring fame. We also acknowledge, with
+equal sincerity and gratification, the merits of many of our female
+novelists in the past half century; their keen insight into character,
+their close anatomy of the general impulses of the human heart, and the
+mingled delicacy and force with which they seize on personal
+peculiarities, belong to woman alone. But their day, too, has gone down.
+They were first rivalled by the "high-life novel," the most vulgar of
+all earthly caricatures. They are now extinguished by the low-life
+novel; the most intolerable of all earthly realities. The true novel,
+true in its fidelity to nature, polished without affectation, and
+vigorous without rudeness, now sleeps in the grave, and must sleep,
+until posterity shall, with one voice, demand its revival.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, until another race of genius shall arise, and the laurel of
+Fielding or of Shakspeare shall descend on our female authors, we must
+be grateful for their gentle labours in the rather rugged field of
+history.</p>
+
+<p>It must be owned, that gallantry has a good deal to do in giving these
+works the name of history. They want all the vigour, all the philosophy,
+and all the eloquence of history. Of course, no human being will ever
+apply to them as authorities. Still, they have the merit of giving
+general statements to general readers, of supplying facts in their
+regular order, and probably, of inducing the multitude, who would shrink
+from the formalities of Hume or Gibbon in solemn quartos and ponderous
+octavos, to dip into pages having all the look and nearly all the
+slightness of the modern novel. At all events, if they do nothing else,
+they employ the time of pens, which might be much worse occupied; and
+that pens are often much worse occupied, we have evidence from hour to
+hour.</p>
+
+<p>The French novels are making rapid way into our circulating libraries.
+Yet nothing can be more unfortunate, for nothing can be more corrupting
+than a French novel of the nineteenth century. France, always a
+profligate country, always had profligate writers. But they were
+generally confined to "Memoirs," "Court anecdotes," and the ridicule of
+the world of Versailles; their criminality was at least partially
+concealed by their good breeding, and their vice was not altogether
+lowered to the grossness of the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>The Revolution created a new school. All there was hatred to duty,
+faith, and honour. The deepest profligacy was pictured as scarcely less
+than the natural right of man; and all the abominations of the human
+heart were excited, encouraged, and propagated by daring pens, sometimes
+subtle, sometimes eloquent, and in all instances appealing to the most
+tempting abominations of man.</p>
+
+<p>But the Revolution fell, and with the ascendant of Napoleon another
+school followed. War, public business, the general objects of the active
+faculties, and strong ambition of a people with Europe at its feet,
+partially superseded alike the frivolous taste of the monarchy, and the
+rabid ferocities of revolutionary authorship. The Bulletins of the
+"Grande Arm&eacute;e" told a daily tale of romance, to which the brains of a
+Parisian scribbler could find no rival, and men with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span> sound of
+falling thrones echoing in their ears, forgot the whispers of low
+intrigue and commonplace corruption.</p>
+
+<p>The "Three Glorious Days" of July 1830, have now produced another
+change; and peace has given leisure to think of something else than
+conquest and the conscription. The power of the national pen has turned
+again to fiction, and the natural wit, habitual dexterity, and dashing
+verbiage of France have all been thrown into the novel. Even the French
+drama, once the pride of the nation, has perished under this sudden
+pressure. A French modern tragedy is now only a rhymed melodrama. Even
+French history attracts popular applause only as it approaches to a
+three volume romance. Every man of name in French modern authorship has
+attained it only by the rapid production of novels. But no language can
+be too contemptuous, or too condemnatory, for the spirit of those works
+in general. Every tie of society is violated in the progress of their
+pages; and violated with the full approval of every body. Seduction is
+the habitual office of the hero. Adultery is the regular office of the
+heroine. In each the vice is simply a matter of course. Manly honour is
+a burlesque every where, but where the criminal shoots the injured
+husband in a duel. Female virtue is only a proof of dulness or decay, a
+vulgar formality of mind, or an unaccountable inaptitude to adopt the
+customs of polished society.</p>
+
+<p>The hero is pictured with every quality which can charm the eye or ear;
+he is the handsomest, the most accomplished, and the most high-spirited
+of mankind, all sentiment, and all scoundrelism. The heroine, always a
+wife or a widow,&mdash;in the former instance, is the "lovely victim of a
+marriage in which her heart had no share," and in which she is entitled
+to have all the privileges of her heart supplied. And in the latter is a
+creature full of charms, about twenty-one, resolved to live for love,
+but never to be "chained in the iron links of a dull and obsolete
+ceremonial" again. She quickly fixes her eyes on some Adolphe, Auguste,
+or Hyppolite, "<i>Officier de la Garde</i>," who has performed prodigies of
+valour in Algiers, taken lions by the beard every where, and is the best
+waltzer in all Paris. They meet, flame together, swear an <i>amiti&eacute;
+eternelle</i>, and defy the world, through three volumes.</p>
+
+<p>In reprobating this detestable school, we certainly have no hope that
+our remarks will reform the French novelism of the day; but we call on
+the critical press of England to take up the rational and righteous task
+of reforming our own.</p>
+
+<p>Within these few years, the English novels are rapidly falling into the
+imitation of the French. And we say it with no less regret than
+surprise, that the chief imitators are females. The novels written by
+men have generally some manliness, some recollection of the higher
+impulses which occasionally act on the minds of men; some reluctancy in
+revealing the more infirm movements of the mind; and some doubts as to
+the absorption of all human nature in one perpetual whirl of
+love-making.</p>
+
+<p>But with the female pen in general, the whole affair is resolved into
+one impulse&mdash;all is "passion." The winds of heaven have nothing to do,
+but to "waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole." The art of printing is
+seriously presumed to have been invented only for "some banished lover,
+or some captive maid." Flirtation is the grand business of life. The
+maiden flirts from the nursery, the married woman flirts from the altar.
+The widow adds to the miscellaneous cares of her "bereaved" life,
+flirtation from the hearse which carries her husband to his final
+mansion. She flirts in her weeds more glowingly than ever. But she knows
+too well the "value of her liberty" to submit to be a slave once more;
+and so flirts on for life, in the most innocent manner imaginable,
+taking all risks, and throwing herself into situations of which the
+result would be obvious any where but in the pages of an <i>English</i>
+novel.</p>
+
+<p>The French have no scruples on such subjects, and their candour leaves
+nothing to the imagination. Our female novelists have not yet arrived at
+that pitch of explicitness, and it is to be hoped will pause before they
+leap the gulf.</p>
+
+<p>We attribute a good deal of this dangerous adoption to the prevalent
+habit of yearly running to the Con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span>tinent. The English ear becomes
+familiarised to language on the other side of the Channel, which would
+have shocked it here. The chief topic of foreign life is intrigue, the
+chief employment of foreign life is that half idle, half infamous
+intercourse, which extinguishes all delicacy even in the spectators. The
+young English woman sees the foreign woman leading a life which, though
+in England it would stamp her with universal shame, in France or
+Germany, and above all, in Italy, never brings more than a sneer, and
+seldom even the sneer. She sees this wedded or widowed profligate
+received in the highest ranks; flourishing without a reproach, if she
+has the means of keeping an opera-box, or giving suppers; every soul
+round her acquainted with every point of her history, yet none shrinking
+from her association. If she has one Cicisbeo, or ten, the whole affair
+is <i>selon les r&egrave;gles</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The young English woman who blushes at this scandalous career, or
+exhibits any reluctance on the subject of the companionship or the
+crime, is laughed at as a "novice," is charged with a want of the
+"<i>savoir vivre</i>," is quietly reproved for "the coldness of her English
+blood," and is recommended to abandon, as speedily as possible, ideas so
+unsuitable to "the glow of the warm South."</p>
+
+<p>She soon finds a dangler, or a dozen danglers, who, having nothing on
+earth to do, and in their penury rejoiced to find any spot where they
+can kill an hour, and get a cup of coffee, are daily at her command. All
+those fellows, too, are counts; the title being about as common, and as
+cheap, as chimney-sweepers among us, though not belonging to so valuable
+fraternity.</p>
+
+<p>After a month's training of this kind, the poor fool is fit for nothing
+else, to the last hour of her being. She is a flirt and a <i>figurante</i>,
+as long as she lives. Duty and decorum are things too icy for the
+"ardour of her soul." The life of England is utterly barbarian to the
+refinement of the land of macaroni.</p>
+
+<p>And it is unquestionably much better that the whole tribe should remain
+where they are, and roam among the lazzaroni, than return to corrupt the
+decencies of English life. If this sentimentalist has money, she is sure
+to be picked up by some "superb chevalier," some rambling
+fortune-hunter, or known swindler, hunted from the gambling table;
+probably beginning his career as a frizeur or a footman, and making
+rapid progress towards the galleys. If she has none, she returns to
+England, to grumble, for the next fifty years, at the climate, the
+country, and the people; to drawl out her maudlin regrets for olive
+groves, and pout for the Bay of Naples; to talk of her loves; exhibit a
+cameo or a crucifix, (the parting pledge of some inamorato, probably
+since hanged), prate papistry, and profess <i>liberalism</i>; pronounce the
+Roman holidays "charming things," and long to see the carnival, and the
+worship of the Virgin together, imported to relieve the <i>ennui</i> of
+London.</p>
+
+<p>The subject is startling: and we recommend any thing, and every thing,
+in the shape of employment, in preference to the vitiating follies of a
+life of Touring.</p>
+
+<p>Another tribe of female authorship ought to be extinguished without a
+moment's delay. Those are the yearly travellers. A woman of this kind
+scampers over the Continent, like a queen's messenger, every season; she
+rushes along with the rapidity and the regularity of the "Royal Mail."
+The month of May no sooner appears in the calendar, than she packs up
+her trunk, and crosses to Boulogne, "to make a book." One year she takes
+the north, another the south; to her, all points of the compass are
+equal. But whether the <i>roulage</i> carries her to the Baltic or the
+Mediterranean, her affair is done, if she adds a page a day to her
+journal. She gossips along, and scribbles, with the indefatigable finger
+of a maker of bobbin lace, or a German knitter of stockings. The most
+slipshod descriptions of every thing that has been described before;
+sketches of peasant character taken from the beggars at the roadside;
+national traits taken from the commonplaces of the <i>table-d'h&ocirc;te</i>, and
+court <i>secrets</i> copied from the newspapers&mdash;all are disgorged into the
+Journal. We have, unfailingly, whole pages of setting suns, moonlight
+nights, effulgent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span> stars, and southern breezes. She gloats over pictures
+of enraptured monks, and sees heaven in the eyes of saints, copied from
+the painter's mistresses. If she goes to Italy, she tells us of the
+banditti, the gondola, and St Peter's; gazes with solemn speculation on
+the naked beauties of the Belvidere Apollo; and descants in an
+ultra-ecstasy on the proportions of sages and heroes destitute of
+drapery; winding up by an adventure, in which she falls by night into
+the hands of a marching regiment, or band of smugglers setting out on a
+robbery, and leaving the world to guess at the results of the adventure
+to herself.</p>
+
+<p>In all this farrago, she never gives the reader an atom of information
+worth the paper which she blots. We have no additional lights on
+character, public life, national feeling, or national advancement. All
+is as vapid as the "Academy of Compliments," and as well known as
+"Lindley Murray's Grammar." But why object to all this? Why not let the
+scribbler take her way&mdash;and the world know that vineyards are green, and
+the sky blue, if it desires the knowledge? Our reason is this,&mdash;such
+practices actually destroy all taste for the legitimate narratives of
+travel. Those trading tourists talk nonsense, until intelligence itself
+becomes wearisome. They strip away the interest which novelty gives to
+new countries, and by running their silly speculation into scenes of
+beauty, sublimity, or high recollection, would make Tempe a counterpart
+to the Thames Tunnel; Mount Atlas a fellow to Primrose Hill; and
+Marathon a fac-simile of the Zoological Garden or Bartholomew Fair. The
+subject is pawed, and dandled, and fondled, until the very name excites
+nausea; and a writer of real ability would no more touch upon it, than a
+great artist would paint St George and the Dragon.</p>
+
+<p>This has been the history of the decline of works of imagination in
+England. No sooner had Mrs Radcliffe touched the old monasteries with
+her glorious pencil, than a generation of monk-describers and
+ruined-castle-builders sprang up, until the very name of convent or
+castle became an abhorrence. Sir Walter Scott's "Lay of the Last
+Minstrel," rich and romantic as it was, was nearly buried under an
+overflow of heavy imitations, which drove his genius to other pursuits,
+and which filled the public ear with such enormities of octo-syllabic
+<i>ennui</i>, that it hates poetry ever since. The Helicon of which he drank
+the gushing and pure stream, was stirred into mire by the slippers of
+school-girls, city-apprentices, and chambermaid-poetesses of every shade
+of character.</p>
+
+<p>A new Malthus for the express purpose of extinguishing, by strangulation
+or otherwise, the whole race of Annual Travellers in Normandy, Picardy,
+up the Seine and down the Seine, up the Loire and down the Loire, on the
+shores of the Mediterranean, and in the Brenner Alps, would be a
+benefactor to society.</p>
+
+<p>Whether England would be the wiser and the happier if, instead of being
+separated from the Continent by a channel, she were separated by an
+ocean, is a question which we leave to the philosopher; but there can be
+no doubt of the nature of its answer by the historian. It will be found,
+that the national character had degenerated in every period when that
+intercourse increased, and that it resumed its vigour only in the
+periods when that intercourse was restricted.</p>
+
+<p>It would not be difficult to exemplify this principle, from the earliest
+times of English independence. But our glance shall be limited to the
+era of the Reformation, when England began first to assume an imperial
+character.</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth was always contemptuous of the foreigner, and boasted of the
+defiance; the national mind never rose to a higher rank than in her
+illustrious reign. James renewed the connexions of the throne with
+France, and Charles I. renewed the connexion of the royal line. It may
+have been for the purpose of checking the national contagion of the
+intercourse, that rebellion was suffered to grow up in his kingdom. But
+whatever might be the origin, the effect was, to break off the
+intercourse with France and her corruptions, and to exhibit a new energy
+and purity in the people. Cromwell raised a sudden barrier against
+France by his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span> political system, and the nation recovered its daring and
+its character in its contempt for the foreigner.</p>
+
+<p>In the reign of Charles II. the intercourse was resumed, and corruption
+rapidly spread from France to the court, and from the court to the
+people. England, proud and powerful under the Protectorate, became
+almost a rival to France in infidelity and profligacy in the course of
+the Reign. Again the war of William with France closed the Continent
+upon the national intercourse, and the manliness of the national
+character partially revived. But with the death of Anne the intercourse
+was renewed, and the result was a renewal of the corruption. The war of
+the French Revolution again and utterly broke off the intercourse for
+the time; and it is undeniable, that the national character suddenly
+exhibited a most singular and striking return to the original virtues of
+the country&mdash;to its fortitude, to its patriotism, and to the purity of
+its religious feelings.</p>
+
+<p>The period from the Treaty of Utrecht to the war of the French
+Revolution, has always appeared to us a blot on the annals of England.
+It is true that it contained many names of distinction, that it
+exhibited a graceful and animated literature, that it was characterised
+by striking advances in national power, and that towards its close it
+gave the world a Chatham, as if to reconcile us to its existence and
+throw a brief splendour over its close.</p>
+
+<p>But no period of British history developed more unhappily those vices
+which naturally ripen in the hot bed of political intrigue. The names of
+Harley, Bolingbroke, Walpole, and Newcastle, might head a general
+indictment against the manliness, the integrity, and the honour of
+England. The low faithlessness of Harley, who seems to have been
+carrying on a Jacobite correspondence at the foot of the throne&mdash;the
+infamous treachery of his brother-minister, St John&mdash;the undenied and
+undeniable corruption of Walpole, and the half-imbecility which made the
+chicane of Newcastle ridiculous, while his perpetual artifice alone
+saved his imbecility from overthrow,&mdash;altogether form a congeries,
+which, like the animal wrecks of the primitive world, almost give in
+their deformity a reason for its extinction.</p>
+
+<p>There can be no question of the perpetual villany which then assumed the
+insulted name of politics; none, of the utter sacrifice of public
+interests to the office-hunting avarice of all the successive parties;
+none, of the atrocious corruptibility of them all; none, of that general
+decay of religion, morals, and national honour, which was the result of
+a time when principle was laughed at, and when the loudest laugher
+passed for the wisest man of his generation.</p>
+
+<p>The cause was obvious. Charles II. had brought with him from France all
+the vices of a court, where the grossest licentiousness found its
+grossest example in the person of the sovereign. Profligate as private
+life naturally is in all the dominions of a religion where every crime
+is rated by a tariff, and where the confessional relieves every man of
+his conscience, the conduct of Louis XIV. had made profligacy the actual
+pride of the throne.</p>
+
+<p>The feeble and frivolous Charles was more a Frenchman than an
+Englishman; more a courtier than a king; and fitter to be a page in the
+seraglio than either.</p>
+
+<p>The royal robe on the shoulders of such a monarch, instead of concealing
+his vices, only made them glitter in the national eyes; and the morals
+of England might have been irretrievably stained, but for that salutary
+judgment which interposed between the people and the dynasty, and by
+driving James into an ignominious exile, placed a man of principle on
+the throne. Unfortunately, the reign of William was too busy and too
+brief to produce any striking change in the habits of the people. His
+whole policy was turned to the great terror of the time, the daring
+ambition of France. He fought on the outposts of Europe. All his ideas
+were Continental. The singular constitution of his nature gave him the
+spirit of a warrior, combined with the seclusion of a monk. Solitary
+even in camps, what must he be in the trivial bustle of a court?&mdash;and,
+engrossed with the largest interests of nations, what interest could he
+attach to the squab<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span>bles of rival professors of licentiousness, to
+giving force to a feeble drama, or regulating the decorum of factions
+equally corrupt and querulous, and long since equally despised and
+forgotten?</p>
+
+<p>The reign of Anne made some progress in the national restoration. But it
+was less by the influence of the Queen than by the work of time. The
+"gallants" of the reign of Charles were now a past generation. Their
+frolics were a gossip's tale; their showy vices were now as tarnished as
+their wardrobe, and both were hung out of sight. The man who, in the
+days of Anne, would have ventured on the freaks of Rochester, would have
+finished his nights in the watch-house, and his years in the
+plantations. The wit of the past age was also rude, vulgar, and
+pointless to the polished sarcasm of Pope, or even to the reckless sting
+of Swift. Yet manners were still coarse, and the Queen complained of
+Harley's coming to her after dinner,&mdash;"troublesome, impudent, and
+<i>drunk</i>." Her court exhibited form without dignity, and her parliaments
+the most violent partisanship in politics and religion, without
+sincerity or substance in either. But the long peace threw open the
+floodgates of frivolity and fashion once more, and France again became
+the universal model.</p>
+
+<p>On glancing over the history of public men through this diversified
+period, the astonishment of an honest mind is perpetually excited at the
+unblushing effrontery with which the most scandalous treacheries seem to
+have been all but acknowledged. France was still the great corrupter,
+and French money was lavished, not more in undermining the fidelity of
+public men, than in degrading the character of the nation. But when
+Charles was an actual pensioner of the French King, and James a palpable
+dependent on the French throne, the force of example may be easily
+conceived, among the spendthrift and needy officials, one half of whose
+life was spent at the gaming table.</p>
+
+<p>On those vilenesses history looks back with an eye of disgust. But they
+were the natural results of an age when religion was at the lowest ebb
+in Europe; when our travelled gentry only brought back with them that
+disregard of Christianity which they had learned in Paris and Rome, and
+when Voltaire's works were found on the toilet of every woman in high
+life.</p>
+
+<p>The accession of George III. was, in this view, of incalculable value to
+England. Contempt for the marriage tie is universally the source of all
+popular corruption. The king instantly discountenanced the fashionable
+levity of noble life. No man openly stigmatised for profligacy, dared to
+appear before him. No woman scandalised by her looseness of conduct was
+suffered to approach the drawing-room. The public feeling was suddenly
+righted. The shameless forehead was sent into deserved obscurity. The
+debased heart felt that there was a punishment, which no rank, wealth,
+or effrontery could resist. The decorum of public manners was
+effectively restored, and the nation had to thank the monarch for the
+example and for the restoration.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Sundon was of an obscure family, of the name of Dyves. Her portrait
+represents her as handsome, and her history vouches for her cleverness.
+It was probably owing to both that she was married to Mr Clayton, then
+holding an appointment in the treasury, and also the agent for the great
+Duke of Marlborough's estate, both of them appointments which implied a
+certain degree of intelligence and character. He also at one period was
+deputy-auditor of the exchequer. Mrs Clayton soon obtained the
+confidence of that most impracticable of all personages, Sarah, Duchess
+of Marlborough.</p>
+
+<p>On the death of Queen Anne, the duke and duchess had returned to
+England, but, repulsed shortly after by the ungracious manner of the
+ungrateful George I., they soon abandoned public life. Still it was
+difficult for so stirring a personage as the duchess altogether to
+abandon court intrigue, and probably for the purpose of obtaining some
+shadow of that influence which she might afterwards turn into substance,
+she contrived to obtain for her correspondent and dependant, Mrs
+Clayton, the place of bedchamber-woman to Caroline, wife of the
+heir-apparent.</p>
+
+<p>It is obvious that such a position<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span> might give all the advantages of the
+most confidential intercourse, to a clever woman, who had her own game
+to play. The Princess herself was in a position which required great
+dexterity. She was the wife of a brutish personage whom it was
+impossible to respect, and yet with whom it was hazardous to quarrel.
+She was the daughter-in-law of a Prince utterly incapable of popularity,
+yet singularly jealous of power. She was surrounded by a court, half
+Jacobite, and wholly unprincipled; and exposed to the constant
+observation of a people still dubious of the German title to the throne,
+contemptuous by nature of all foreign alliances, disgusted with the
+manners of the court, and still disturbed by the struggles of the fallen
+dynasty.</p>
+
+<p>It was obviously of high importance to such a personage, to have in her
+employ so clear-headed, and at the same time so stirring an agent as Mrs
+Clayton. There seems even to have been a strong similitude in their
+characters&mdash;both keen, both intelligent, both fond of power, and both
+exhibiting no delicacy whatever with regard to the means for its
+possession. Mrs Clayton never shrank from intercourse with those
+profligate persons who then abounded at court, when she had a point to
+carry; and Caroline, as Queen, endured for thirty years the notorious
+irregularities of her lord and master, without a remonstrance. She even
+went farther. She pretended, in the midst of those gross offences, to be
+even tenderly attached to him, talked of "not valuing her children as a
+grain of sand in comparison with him," and not merely acquiesced in
+conduct which must have galled every feeling of virtue in a pure heart,
+but involved herself in the natural suspicion of playing a part for the
+sake of power, and forgetting the injuries of the wife in order to
+retain the influence of the Queen.</p>
+
+<p>There can be no doubt that this policy had its reward. The King gave her
+power, or at least never attempted to disturb the power belonging to her
+rank, while it left him the full indulgence of his vices. She thus
+obtained two objects&mdash;to the world she appeared a suffering angel, to
+the King a submissive wife. In the mean time she managed both court and
+King, possessed vast patronage, perhaps more general court popularity
+than any Queen of the age; led a pleasant life, enjoying the sweets
+without the responsibilities of royalty; and by judicious liberality of
+purse, and equally dexterous flexibility of opinion, contrived to carry
+some degree of public respect with her, while she lived, and be followed
+by some degree of public regret to her grave.</p>
+
+<p>But this example was productive of palpable evil. The example of the
+higher ranks always operates powerfully on the lower. The toleration
+exhibited by the highest female in the kingdom for the most notorious
+vices, gave additional effect to that fashion of flexibility, which is
+the besetting sin of polished times. If the Queen had firmly set her
+face against the offences of her husband, or if she had shown the
+delicacy of a woman of virtue in keeping aloof from all intercourse with
+women whom the public voice had long marked as criminal, she might have,
+partially at least, reformed the corruptions of her profligate period.</p>
+
+<p>But this indifference to all the nobler feelings was the style of the
+day. Religion was scarcely more than a form: its preachers were
+partisans; its controversies were court feuds, its principles were
+politics, and its objects were stoles and mitres. In an age when
+Sacheverel, with his rampant nonsense, had been a popular apostle, and
+Swift, with his pungent abominations, had been a church adviser of the
+cabinet, and when Hoadley was regarded alternately as a pillar and as a
+subverter of the faith, we may easily conjecture the national estimate
+of Christianity.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, a considerable proportion of the correspondence in these
+volumes is from clerical candidates for personal services; and if
+singular eagerness in pursuit of preferment, and singular homage to the
+influence of the queen's bed-chamber-woman, could stamp them with shame,
+the brand would be at once broad and indelible. But it must be
+remembered, that there are contemptible minds in every profession, that
+these men acted in direct violation of the principles of their religion,
+and that the church is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span> no more accountable for the delinquencies of its
+members, than the courts of law for the morals of the jail.</p>
+
+<p>Another repulsive feature of the period was the conduct of conspicuous
+females. The habits of Germany in its higher ranks were offensive to all
+purity. The Brunswick Princes had brought those habits to St James's.
+Born and educated in Germany, they were regardless even of the feeble
+decorums of English life, and a king's mistress was an understood
+portion of the royal establishment. It is to the honour of later times,
+that such offences could not now be committed with impunity. But the
+example of Louis XIV. had sanctioned all royal excesses, and the conduct
+of his successor was an actual study of the most reckless profligacy.
+The constant intercourse of the English nobility with Paris, to which
+allusion has already been made, had accustomed them to such scenes, and
+persons of the highest condition, of the most important offices of the
+state, and even of the most respectable private character, such as
+respectability was in those days, associated with those mistresses,
+corresponded with them, and even submitted to be assisted by their
+influence with the king.</p>
+
+<p>We shall give but one example; that of Henrietta Hobart, afterwards Lady
+Suffolk. A baronet's daughter, and poor, she had married in early life
+the son of the Earl of Suffolk, nearly as poor as herself. In their
+narrowness of means, their only resource was some court office, and to
+obtain this, and probably to live cheap, they went to Hanover, to lay
+the foundation of favour with the future monarch of England. To some
+extent they succeeded. For, on the accession of George the First, Mrs
+Howard was appointed bedchamber-woman to Caroline the Princess of Wales.</p>
+
+<p>Courts, in all countries, seem to be dull places; ceremonial fails as a
+substitute for animation, and dinners of fifty covers become a mere tax
+on time, taste, and common-sense. Etiquette is only <i>ennui</i> under
+another name, and the eternal anticipation of enjoyment is the death of
+all pleasure. Miss Burney's narrative has let in light on the sullen
+mysteries of the Maid of Honour's life, and her pencil has evidently
+given us only the picture of what had been in the times of our
+forefathers, and what will be in the times of our posterity.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs Howard was well-looking, without the invidious attribute of great
+beauty, and lively, without the not less invidious faculty of wit. All
+the court officials crowded her apartments in the palace. Chesterfield,
+young Churchill, Lord Hervey, Lord Scarborough, all hurried to the
+tea-table of the well-bred bedchamber-woman, to escape the dreary duties
+and monotonous moping of attendance on the throne. Lady Walpole, Mrs
+Selwyn, Mary Lepell, and Mary Bellenden, formed a part of this
+coterie&mdash;all women of presumed character, yet all associating familiarly
+with women of none. Of Mrs Howard, Swift observed in his acid
+style&mdash;"That her private virtues, for want of room to operate, might be
+folded and laid up clean, like clothes in a chest, never to be put on;
+till satiety, or some reverse of fortune should dispose her to
+retirement."</p>
+
+<p>Then, probably in reference to the prudery with which she occasionally
+covered her conduct,&mdash;"In the meantime," said he, "it will be her
+prudence, to take care that they be not tarnished and moth-eaten, for
+want of opening and airing, and turning, at least <i>once a-year</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Those matters seem to have sought no concealment whatever. "Es regolar,"
+says the Spaniard, when his country is charged with some especial
+abomination. Howard, the husband, though a <i>rou&eacute;</i>, at last went into the
+quadrangle at St James's and publicly demanded his wife. He then wrote
+to the Archbishop. His letter was given to the Queen, and by her to Mrs
+Howard. Yet all this scandal never interrupted the lady's intercourse
+with the highest personages of the court. Mrs Howard continued to be the
+Queen's bedchamber woman; the Queen suffered her personal attendance,
+her carriage was escorted by John Duke of Argyle; her husband obtained a
+pension to hold his tongue; and even when the King grew tired of the
+<i>liaison</i>, and wished to get rid of her, actually complaining to the
+Queen, "That he did not know why<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span> she would not let him part with a deaf
+old woman, of whom he was weary," the politic Caroline would not allow
+him to give her up, "lest a younger favourite should gain a greater
+ascendency over him." After this, we must hear no more of the delicacy
+of Queen Caroline. Virtue and religion scarcely belonged to her day.</p>
+
+<p>In a court of this intolerable worldliness, the worldly must thrive; and
+Mrs Clayton advanced year by year in the imitation of her mistress, and
+in power. She, as well as Lady Suffolk, adopted Caroline's patronage of
+letters, and corresponded a good deal with the clever men of the time.
+We quote one of Lady Suffolk's letters addressed to Swift, apparently in
+answer to some of his perpetual complaints of a world, which used him
+only too well after all.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="r">"<i>September</i>, 1727.</p>
+
+<p>"I write to you to please myself. I hear you are melancholy,
+because you have a bad head and deaf ears. These are two
+misfortunes I have laboured under these many years, and yet never
+was peevish with either myself or the world. Have I more philosophy
+and resolution than you? Or am I so stupid that I do not feel the
+evil?</p>
+
+<p>"Answer those queries in writing, if <i>poison</i> or other methods do
+not enable you soon to appear in person. Though I make use of your
+own word, poison, yet let me tell you&mdash;it is nonsense, and I desire
+you will take more care for the time to come. Now, you endeavour to
+impose on my understanding by taking no care of your own."</p></div>
+
+<p>The value of a keen and active confidante in a court of perpetual
+intrigue was obvious, and Mrs Clayton was the double of the Queen. But a
+deeper and more painful reason is assigned for her confidence. The Queen
+had a malady, which is not described in her Memoirs, but which we
+suppose to have been a cancer, which she was most anxious to hide from
+all the world. Walpole discovered it, and the discovery exhibits his
+skill in human nature.</p>
+
+<p>On the death of Lady Walpole, the Queen, who was about the same age,
+asked Sir Robert in many questions as to her illness; but he remarked,
+that she frequently reverted to one particular malady, which had <i>not</i>
+been Lady Walpole's disease. "When he came home," (his son writes) "he
+said to me,&mdash;now, Horace, I know by the possession of what secret Lady
+Sundon has preserved such an ascendant over the Queen."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs Clayton possessed at least one merit (if merit it be) in a
+remarkable degree, that of providing for her relatives. She was of a
+poor family, and she contrived to get something for them all. Her three
+nieces had court places, one of them that of a maid of honour; one
+brother obtained a cornetcy in the Horse Guards; another a chief
+clerkship in the annuity office; and her nephew was sent out with Lord
+Albemarle to Spain. A more remarkable relative was Clayton, Bishop of
+Clogher, who evidently knew the value of her patronage, for a more
+importunate suitor, and a more persevering sycophant, never kissed
+hands. Finally, she obtained a peerage for her husband, a distinction in
+which, of course, she herself shared, but which probably she desired
+merely to throw some <i>eclat</i> round a singularly submissive husband.</p>
+
+<p>Yet there was no slight infusion of pleasantry in the minds of some of
+the royal household. When they got rid of the stately pedantry of
+Caroline, and the smooth hypocrisy of her confidante,&mdash;when the gross
+and formal monarch was shut out, and the younger portion of the court
+were left to their own inventions, they seem to have enjoyed themselves
+like children at play. There was a vast deal of flirtation, of course,
+for this folly was as much the fashion of the time as rouge. But there
+was also a great deal of verse writing, correspondence of all degrees of
+wit, and now and then caricature with pencil and pen. Mary Lepell, in
+one of those <i>jeux d' esprit</i>, described the "Six Maids of Honour" as
+six volumes bound in <i>calf</i>.&mdash;The first, Miss Meadows, as mingled
+satire, and reflection; the second as a <i>plain</i> treatise on morality;
+the third as a rhapsody; the fourth (supposed to be the future Lady
+Pembroke) as a volume, neatly bound, of "The Whole Art of Dressing;" the
+next a miscellaneous work, with essays on "Gallantry;" the sixth, a
+folio collection of all the "Court Ballads." But there were some women
+of a superior stamp in the court circle. One of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span> those was Lady Sophia
+Fermor, the daughter of Lady Pomfret, who seems to have been followed by
+all the men of fashion, and loved by some of them. But, like other
+professed beauties, she remained unmarried, until at last she accepted
+Lord Carteret, a man twice her age. Yet the match was a brilliant one in
+all other points, for Carteret was Secretary of State, and perhaps the
+most accomplished public man of his time.</p>
+
+<p>"Do but imagine," observes that prince of gossips, Horace Walpole, "how
+many passions will be gratified in that family; her own ambition,
+vanity, and resentment&mdash;love, she never had any; the politics,
+management, and pedantry of her mother, who will think to govern her
+son-in-law out of Froissart. Figure the instructions which she will give
+her daughter. Lincoln, (one of her admirers) is quite indifferent, and
+laughs."</p>
+
+<p>While the marriage was on the <i>tapis</i>, the beautiful Sophia was taken
+ill of the scarlet fever, and Lord Carteret of the gout. Nothing could
+be less amatory than such a crisis. But his lordship was all gallantry;
+he corresponded with her, read her letters to the Privy Council, and
+tired all the world with his passion. At length both recovered, and the
+lady had all the enjoyments which she could find in ambition. Carteret
+obtained an earldom, lost his place, but became only more popular,
+personally distinguished, and politically active. The Countess then
+became the female head of the Opposition, and gave brilliant parties, to
+the infinite annoyance of the Pelhams. For a while, she was the
+"observed of all observers." But her career came to a sudden and
+melancholy close. She had given promise of an heir, which would have
+been doubly a source of gratification to her husband; as his son by a
+former wife was a lunatic. But she was suddenly seized with a fever. One
+evening, as her mother and sister were sitting beside her, she sighed
+and said, "I feel death coming very fast upon me." This was their first
+intimation of her danger. She died on the same night!</p>
+
+<p>Walpole is the especial chronicler of this time. Such a man must have
+been an intolerable nuisance in his day, but his piquant impertinence is
+amusing in ours. He was evidently a wasp, pretending to perform the part
+of a butterfly, and fluttering over all the court flowers, only to plant
+his sting. As he was a perpetual flirt, he dangled round the Pomfret
+family; and probably received some severe rebuke from their mother, for
+he describes her with all the venom of an expelled <i>dilettante</i>.</p>
+
+<p>He speaks of her as all that was prim in pedantry, and all that was
+ridiculous in affectation; as, on being told of some man who talked of
+nothing but Madeira, gravely asking, "What language that was;" and as
+attending the public act at Oxford (on the occasion of her presenting
+some statues to the University) in a box built for her near the
+Vice-Chancellor, "where she sat for three days together, to receive
+adoration, and hear herself for four hours at a time called Minerva." In
+this assembly, adds the wit, in his peculiar style, "she appeared in all
+the tawdry poverty and frippery imaginable, and in a scoured damask
+robe," and wonders that "she did not wash out a few words of Latin," as
+she used to <i>fricassee</i> French and Italian; or, that "she did not
+torture some learned simile," as when she said, that "it was as
+difficult to get into an Italian coach, as it was for C&aelig;sar to take
+Attica, by which she meant Utica."</p>
+
+<p>But Lady Pomfret is said also to have employed her talents upon more
+substantial things than pedantry. She had an early intercourse with the
+immaculate Mrs Clayton, with whom she was supposed to have negotiated
+the appointment of Lord Pomfret as master of the horse, for a pair of
+diamond rings, worth &pound;1,400. The rumour appears to have obtained
+considerable currency; for one day when she appeared at the Duchess of
+Marlborough's with the jewels in her ears, the Duchess (old Sarah) said
+to Lady Wortley Montague, "How can the woman have the impudence to go
+about <i>in that bribe</i>!" Lady Wortley keenly and promptly
+answered,&mdash;"Madam, how can people know where wine is to be sold, unless
+where they see the sign?"</p>
+
+<p>Another of the curiosities of this court menagerie, was Katherine,
+Duchess of Buckingham. She was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span> daughter of James the Second by
+Katherine Sedley, daughter of the wit, Sir Charles. James, who with all
+his zeal for popery was a scandalous profligate, and as shameless in his
+contempt of decent opinion as he was criminal in his contempt for his
+coronation oath; gave this illegitimate offspring the rank of a Duke's
+daughter, and the permission to bear the royal arms! She found a husband
+in the Earl of Anglesea, from whom she was soon separated; the earl
+died, and she took another husband, John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham,
+certainly not too youthful a bridegroom. The duke, always a wit, had
+been in early life one of the most dissipated men of his day, and
+through all the varieties and <i>vexations</i> of a life devoted to pleasure,
+had reached his 59th year. Yet, this handsome wreck, almost the last
+relic of the court of Charles the Second, lived a dozen years longer,
+and left the duchess guardian of his son.</p>
+
+<p>His lordly dowager afforded the world of high life perpetual amusement.
+Her whole life was an unintentional caricature of royalty. Beggarly
+beyond conception in her private affairs, she was as pompous in public
+as if she had the blood of all the thrones of Europe in her veins. She
+evidently regarded the Brunswicks as usurpers, and hated them; while she
+affected a sort of superstitious homage for the exiled dynasty, and gave
+them&mdash;every thing but her money. She once made a sort of pilgrimage to
+visit the body of James, and pretended to shed tears over it. The monk
+who showed it, adroitly observed to her, that the velvet pall which
+covered the coffin was in rags, but her sympathies did not reach quite
+so far, and she would not take the hint, and saved her purse.</p>
+
+<p>At the opera, she appeared in a sort of royal robe of scarlet and
+ermine, and everywhere made herself so supremely ridiculous, that the
+laughers called her Princess Buckingham. Even the deepest domestic
+calamity could not tame down this outrageous pride. When her only son
+died of consumption, she sent messengers to all her circle, telling
+them, that if they wished to see him lie in state, "she would admit them
+by the back stairs." On this melancholy occasion, her only feeling
+seemed to be, her vanity. She sent to the Duchess of Marlborough to
+borrow the triumphal car which had conveyed the remains of the great
+duke to the grave. This preposterous request was naturally refused by
+the duchess, who replied, "that the car which had borne the Duke of
+Marlborough's dead body should never be profaned by another."</p>
+
+<p>On her own deathbed, she declared her wish to be buried beside her
+father James the Second. "George Selwyn shrewdly said, that to be buried
+by her father, she need not be carried out of England," (she was
+supposed to be actually the daughter of Colonel Graham.) When she found
+herself dying, she carried on the melancholy farce to the last. She sent
+for Anstis, the herald, and arranged the whole funeral ceremony with
+him. She was particularly anxious to see the preparations before she
+died. "Why," she asked, "won't they send the canopy for me to see? Let
+them send it, even though the tassels are not finished." And finally,
+she exacted from her ladies a promise, that if she became insensible,
+they should not sit down in the presence of her body, till she was
+completely dead!</p>
+
+<p>Such things told in a romance, would be criticised for their
+extravagance, but nothing is too extravagant for human nature. Reared in
+folly, pampered with self-indulgence, and bloated with vanity, the
+wholesome discipline of adversity would have been of infinite value to
+this woman and her tribe. Six months in Bridewell, varied by beating
+hemp, would have been the most fortunate lesson which she could have
+received from society.</p>
+
+<p>Another of those persons, yet more remarkable for her position in life,
+was the second daughter of George II., the Princess Amelia. She was
+supposed to have been attached to the Duke of Grafton; but remaining
+single, and having nothing on the earth to do, she became a torment to
+the King, the Court, and every body. Idleness is the vice of high life,
+and discontent its punishment. The Princess became proverbial for
+peevishness, sarcasm, and scandal. Of course, fashion took its revenge;
+and where every one was shooting an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span> arrow, some struck, and struck
+deep. The Princess grew masculine in her manners, and coarse in her
+mind. Her appointment as ranger in Richmond Park, one of those sinecure
+offices which are scattered among the dependants of the throne, made her
+enemies. Little acts of authority, such as stopping up pathways, brought
+the tongues of the neighbouring population and gentry upon her, until
+her royal highness had the vexation of seeing an action brought against
+her. After some of the usual delays of justice, she had the
+mortification of being beaten, and ultimately resigned the rangership.
+From this period she almost disappeared from the public eye, yet she
+survived till 1786, dying at the age of 71.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs Clayton still held her quiet ascendancy, and her position was so
+perfectly understood, that her interest seems to have been an object of
+solicitation with nearly every person involved in public difficulties.
+Of this kind was her intercourse with the three sons of Bishop Burnet,
+all individuals of intelligence and accomplishment, but all in early
+life struggling with fortune. The character of the bishop himself is
+best known from his works: gossiping, giddiness, and imprudence in
+taking every thing for granted that he had heard, but honesty in telling
+it, belonged to the bishop as much as to his books. The chances of the
+Revolution placed him in the way of preferment; chances, however, which,
+if they had turned the other way, might have cost him his head. But he
+was on the right side in politics, and not on the wrong side in
+religion; and he won and wore the mitre in better style than any man of
+his age. His oldest son, William, was educated as a barrister; he lost
+his fortune in the South Sea bubble, and was sent to America as governor
+of New York. Subsequently he was removed to Boston, with which he was
+discontented, and after long altercations with the General Assembly of
+the province, he died of a fever, probably inflamed by vexation.
+Gilbert, the second son, was appointed chaplain to George I., was a man
+of clear understanding, and exhibited his knowledge of courts by siding
+with Hoadley. With all the distinctions of his profession opening before
+him, he died young. Thomas, the third son, differed from both his
+brothers, in the superiority of his talents, and the wildness of his
+temper. The manners of the time were a mixture of vulgar riot and gross
+indulgence. The streets were infested with ruffianism, and a society
+among the young men of rank and education, which took to itself the name
+of "The Mohocks," and whose barbarous habits were worthy of the name,
+insulted alike public justice and endangered personal safety. Thomas
+Burnet was said to have been engaged in some of their violences, though
+he, perhaps, was not one of the "affiliated." It may be naturally
+supposed, that those excesses grieved so distinguished a man as his
+father; and it is equally to be supposed that they led to frequent
+remonstrance. If so, they operated effectively at last.</p>
+
+<p>One day the bishop, observing the peculiar gravity of his son's
+countenance, asked, "On what he was thinking."</p>
+
+<p>"On a greater work than your 'History of the Reformation.'&mdash;<i>My own</i>,"
+was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be heartily glad to see it," said the father, "though I almost
+despair of it."</p>
+
+<p>It was undertaken, however, and vigorously pursued. The young <i>rou&eacute;</i>
+became a leading lawyer, and finally attained the rank of Chief-justice
+of the Common Pleas. He died in 1753.</p>
+
+<p>There is, perhaps, in public history, no more curious instance of the
+power which circumstances may place in the hands of a private
+individual, than the deference paid to Mrs Clayton. Her whole merit
+seems to have been caution, a perpetual sense of the delicacy of her
+position, and an undeviating deference to the habits, opinions, and
+purposes of the Queen. Those were useful qualities, but not remarkable
+for dignity, and rather opposed to personal amiability of mind. Yet this
+cautious, considerate, and frigid personage, was all but worshipped by
+the world of fashion, of talents, and of celebrity.</p>
+
+<p>Among those worshippers was the man who did the most evil, and gained
+the most renown, of any man of his generation. The wit, who eclipsed all
+the witty pungency of France in his sportive sarcasm; all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span> the libellers
+of royalty in his scorn of thrones; and all the grave infidelity of
+England, in his restless and envenomed antipathy to all religion&mdash;the
+memorable Voltaire.</p>
+
+<p>He was then only beginning his mischievous career, but he had already
+made its character sufficiently marked to earn an imprisonment in the
+Bastille, and, on his liberation, an order to quit Paris.</p>
+
+<p>In England he occupied himself chiefly with literature; published his
+"Henriade," for which he obtained a large subscription; wrote his
+tragedy of "Brutus," his "Philosophical Letters," and other works.</p>
+
+<p>At length he was permitted to return to that spot out of which a French
+wit may be scarcely said to live; and kept up his intercourse with Mrs
+Clayton by the following letter:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="r"><i>"Paris, April</i> 18, 1729.<br /></p>
+
+<p>"Madame,&mdash;Though I am out of London, the favours which your
+ladyship has honoured me with, are not, nor ever will be, out of my
+memory. I will remember, as long as I live, that the most
+respectable lady, who waits, and is a friend to the most truly
+great queen in the world, has vouchsafed to protect me, and receive
+me with kindness while I was at London.</p>
+
+<p>"I am just now arrived at Paris, and pay my respects to your Court,
+before I see our own. I wish, for the honour of Versailles, and for
+the improvement of virtue and letters, we could have here some
+ladies like you. You see, my wishes are unbounded. So is the
+respect and gratitude I am with, Madame, your most humble, obedient
+servant,</p>
+
+<p class="r">
+"<span class="smcap">Voltaire.</span>"<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>We pass over a thousand triflings in the subsequent pages&mdash;the alarms of
+court ladies for the loss of a royal smile, the sickness of a favourite
+monkey, or the formidable "impossibility" of matching a set of old
+china. Such are the calamities of having nothing to do. We see in those
+pages instances of high-born men contented to linger round the court for
+life, performing some petty office which, however, required constant
+attendance on the court circle, and submitting, with many a groan, it
+must be confessed, to the miserable routine of trivial duties and meagre
+ceremonial, much fitter for their own footmen; while they left their own
+magnificent mansions to solitude, their noble estates unvisited, their
+tenantry uncheered, unprotected, and unencouraged by their residence in
+their proper sphere, and finally degenerated into feeble gossips,
+splenetic intriguers, and ridiculous encumbrances of the court itself.</p>
+
+<p>Difficulty seems essential to the vigour of man. Difficulty seems
+essential even to the vigour of nations. The old theory, that luxury is
+the ruin of a state, was obviously untrue; for in no condition of the
+earth could luxury ever go down to the multitude. But the true evil of
+states is, the decay of the national activity, the chill of the national
+ardour, the adoption of a trifling, indolent, vegetative style of being.
+Into this life France had sunk, from the time of Louis XIV. Into this
+life Germany had sunk, from the peace of Westphalia. Into this life
+England was rapidly sinking, from the reign of Anne.</p>
+
+<p>But the visitation came at last, at once to punish and to stimulate.
+France, Germany, and England were plunged into war together; and fearful
+as the plunge was, out of that raging torrent the three nations have
+struggled to shore, refreshed and invigorated by the struggle. England
+seems now to be entering on another career, more perilous than the
+exigencies of war&mdash;a moral and intellectual conflict, in which popular
+passions and rational principles will be ranged on opposite sides; and
+the question may involve the final shape which government shall assume
+in the British empire, or, perhaps, in the European world.</p>
+
+<p>The characteristics of our time are wholly unshared with the past. In
+calling up the recollections of the great ages of English change, we can
+discover but slight evidence of their connexion with our own. To the
+stately, but religious, aspect of the Republic of 1641, we find no
+resemblance in the general features of our religious tolerance. To the
+ardent zeal for liberty which marked the Revolution of 1688, we can find
+no counterpart in the constitutional quietude of the present day. The
+fiery ferocity of Continental Revolution has certainly furnished no
+model to the professors of national regeneration, since the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span> reform of
+1830. And yet, a determination, a power and a progress of public change,
+is now the acknowledged principle of the most active, indefatigable, and
+unscrupulous portion of the mind of England.</p>
+
+<p>And among the most remarkable and most menacing adjuncts of the crisis,
+is the singular sense of inadequacy to resist its career, which seems to
+paralyse the habitual defenders of the right cause. The consecrated
+guardians of the church seem only to wait the final blow. The great
+landholders in the peerage are contented with making protests. The
+agricultural interest, the boast of England, and the vital interest of
+the empire, has abandoned a resistance, too feeble to deserve the praise
+of fortitude, and too irregular to deserve the fruits of victory. The
+moneyed interest sees its gigantic opulence threatened by a
+hundred-handed grasp; but makes no defence, or makes that most dangerous
+of all defences, which calls in the invader as the auxiliary, bribes him
+with a portion of the spoils, and only provokes his appetite for the
+possession of the whole.</p>
+
+<p>This condition of things cannot last. A few years, perhaps a few months,
+will ripen the bitter fruit, which the meekness of undecided governments
+has suffered to grow before their eyes. The Ballot, which offers a
+subterfuge for every fraud; Extended Suffrage, which offers a force for
+every aggression; the overthrow of all religious endowments, which
+offers a bribe to every desire of avarice&mdash;above all that turning of
+religion into a political tool, that indifference to the true, and that
+welcoming of the false, in whatever shape it may approach, however
+fierce and foul; however coldly contemptuous, or furiously fanatical,
+however grim or grotesque, whose first act must be to trample all
+principle under foot, and place on its altar the worship of the
+passions;&mdash;those are the demands which are already made, and those will
+be the trophies which the hands of political zealotry and personal
+rapine, in the first hour of their triumph, will raise on the grave
+where lies buried the Constitution.</p>
+
+<p>Yet nothing is done by the natural defenders of the rights of
+Englishmen. No leader comes forward; no new followers are to be found;
+no banner is raised as the rallying point for the fugitives, already
+broken. We see the approach of the evil, as the men of the old world
+might have seen the approach of the Deluge; awaiting with folded hands,
+and feet rooted to the ground, the surges which nothing could resist;
+looking with an indolent despair at the mighty inundation, before which
+the plain and the mountain alike began to disappear; and sullenly
+submitting to an extinction, of which they had been long offered the
+means of escape, and perishing, with the pledge of security floating
+before their eyes.</p>
+
+<p>We are by no means desirous of being prophets of public misfortune; but,
+with the tenets publicly avowed, in the elections which have just
+closed, with the strong popularity attached to the most daring opinions,
+with thirty pledged <i>Repealers</i> from Ireland, with the wildest doctrines
+of trade advocated by the popular representatives in England, with sixty
+subjects of the Pope sitting in a Protestant legislature, and with the
+evident determination to bring into that legislature individuals (and
+who shall limit their numbers, when its doors are once thrown open to
+their wealth?) who pronounce Christianity itself to be an imposture,&mdash;we
+can conjecture no consequences, however hazardous, which ought not to
+present themselves to the soberest friend of his country. That the worst
+consequences may not be inevitable, is only to hope in a higher
+protection; that even out of the evil good may come, is not
+unconformable to the ways of Providence; but that times are at hand in
+which the noblest energy of English statesmanship will be required to
+meet the conflict, we have no more doubt, than that the pilot who, in a
+storm, uses neither compass nor sail, must run his ship on shore; or
+that the man who walks about in clothes dipped in pestilence, will leave
+his corpse as a testimony to the fact of the contagion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<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> <i>Memoirs of Viscountess Sundon.</i> By Mrs <span class="smcap">Thompson</span>. 2 Vols.
+Colburn.</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="ART_IN_THE_EARLY_CHRISTIAN_AGES" id="ART_IN_THE_EARLY_CHRISTIAN_AGES"></a><span class="smcap">ART IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN AGES.</span><a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor"><span class="smaller">[19]</span></a></h2>
+
+<p>From time immemorial the German universities have been regarded as the
+seats of patient, persevering, indefatigable, but also unprofitable,
+erudition. They have been the homes of men whose lives were one long day
+of toil&mdash;a continual course of labour, the sole reward of which was a
+secret consciousness of worth, and a fame, circumscribed it is true, yet
+still spreading wide amongst the elect of science in all civilised
+countries. Lost, not in the day-dreams of romance, but in the depths and
+amongst the mazes of science, it was but seldom that these men of the
+study and the library found leisure and nerve to escape from seclusion,
+and to take their share of the duties of active life in which their less
+reflective brethren were feverishly engaged. And when they attempted the
+competition, their failure was signal. They presented an extraordinary
+exhibition of awkward genius and blundering sagacity, and exposed
+themselves at once to the painful ridicule of those whose calling and
+pursuits taught them to prize mere worldly wisdom above all human lore.</p>
+
+<p>Their country owes them a heavy debt of gratitude. Though little known,
+they ought never to be forgotten. They were unpopular, but they worked
+for the popularity of science. The results of their labours are not to
+be looked for in their own creations, but must rather be traced in the
+productions of their children's children. Generations to come will
+acknowledge them for their lawful progenitors, nor will future ages lose
+by confessing the obligations which they owe to so noble an ancestry. If
+our task to-day is comparatively easy, it is because the men of whom we
+speak never shrank from the difficulties attending theirs. We may smile
+at the childish simplicity of Neander, but we deeply venerate the
+profound erudition and the subtle discernment of that extraordinary
+critic's mind. We may feel shocked at the clownish sallies of a
+Blumenbach, the stinginess of Gesenius, and the rude manners of Ernesti.
+But with the first, we connect vast realms in natural philosophy
+unconquered before him; to the second, the student of Hebrew refers with
+reverential affection and gratitude; whilst we know, that the burly
+demeanour of the last could never hide the treasures of a Latin style,
+which, for purity and power, competes with that of Tully, and like that
+may well be compared to a precious sword, pure in metal, and as lasting
+as it is flexible and cutting.</p>
+
+<p>The greater number of those to whom we refer have long since passed from
+the silence of their study to that of the grave. They have died as they
+lived&mdash;poor and honoured. Of them all, there is scarcely one whose
+departure was generally lamented; not one whose death was generally
+known. For the bulk of mankind, they never existed. Their works,
+unpalatable to the many, had always been the delight and instruction of
+the few. Yet, let not their unpopularity be quoted against them. They
+knew the extent of their mission. It was to collect and hoard bullion
+for future coinage and circulation. They prepared the path along which a
+whole nation was hereafter to travel. They were modest but meritorious
+labourers, who built a massive and powerful foundation, that another age
+might be left at ease to erect the brilliant superstructure.</p>
+
+<p>That other age is here. The proud fane for which they cleared the way,
+and saw as the prophet of old beheld the Land of Promise, is rising now
+before us. In the author of the "History of the Fine Arts in the Early
+Ages of Christianity," we greet a worthy follower of those great masters
+whose works have somewhat rashly been pronounced more curious than
+useful. Professor Gottfried Kinkel is a true disciple and no imitator.
+He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span> understands the period which has produced him. He knows its wants.
+General diffusion of knowledge is its distinguishing feature. Science
+leaves the closet to communicate her benefits to the forum. Neither the
+centralisation of wealth, nor that of knowledge, can now secure a nation
+against poverty and ignorance. People may starve, though the royal
+coffers are bursting with their weight of gold; they may be ignorant,
+though their chiefs luxuriate in the possession of unbounded knowledge.
+Rapid circulation of the currency has been found to constitute national
+wealth. A general diffusion of knowledge is the necessary condition of
+civilisation. Poesy is no longer content to dwell at court. Chemistry
+has chosen the path which Bacon pointed out to her; and whilst she has
+found a new field of action, has been enriched by treasures of knowledge
+hitherto concealed from her view. The sneering exclamation of Persius&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter."</p></div>
+
+<p>is the great truth and motto of this our century.</p>
+
+<p>Even the universities of Germany have begun to popularise the results of
+their laborious researches; although it cannot be said that they have
+taken the lead of the age, we may at least affirm that they have gone
+along with it. They have not lingered in the rear. They have adapted
+their instruction and language to homely understandings, and have
+increased rather than lessened their dignity by the condescension. They
+have become more honoured and respected as the benefits of their labours
+have grown more palpable to common sight; they have been more renowned
+since the many have been permitted to appreciate the merits of the few.
+Instruction itself has been more courted and made more welcome since it
+took courage to cast aside its cumbrous wig and gown, and ventured to
+appear before the world with the natural graces of pure humanity.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Kinkel, to whom we owe the work whose title is placed at the
+foot of the present article, is in every respect a specimen, and perhaps
+a prototype, of the German professor of the nineteenth century. To the
+deep and solid learning of a former generation, he adds the good taste
+and social accomplishments indispensable in these more advanced times.
+Thirteen years ago he was a student of theology in the university of
+Bonn, and even at that period the extraordinary application and the
+commanding faculties of the "studiosus Kinkel" had earned for him a
+scholastic reputation, and won the respect of his fellow-students and of
+the professors of the university. Indefatigable, then, in his
+theological pursuits, he was the subject of general admiration on
+account of the vast extent of his acquirements, and of the enthusiastic
+interest with which he engaged in the sacred study of the fine arts. No
+less general was the complaint that a mind so happily formed to range
+through the boundless realms of philosophy, a genius so brilliant, a
+soul so deeply imbued with a love of the beautiful and the great, should
+be suffered to pine beneath the monotonous duties of a theological
+professorship, and dissipate unparalleled energies in splitting the
+straws of a controversy, or deciding the dusty quibbles of an antiquated
+lore. At the close of his academical career, <span class="smcap">Gottfried Kinkel</span> was
+admitted into the university as a licentiate in theology; but shortly
+after his promotion, he quitted his native country, and was for some
+years a wanderer amongst the splendid ruins of Italy. The treasures of
+art which mock the nakedness of this ill-starred country were to him
+what they are ever to the mind of the artist,&mdash;they revealed a new
+world. Unlike many others, however, Kinkel was not bewildered by the
+beauty which so suddenly burst upon his view. He was not surfeited. His
+enthusiasm, tempered by the metallic reasoning of the Hegel school, was
+closely allied with the subtlest criticism. His admiration was never an
+obstacle to comparison. Whilst he admired he remembered: individual
+faults or excellencies, he found to be reducible to common causes. His
+conclusions he drew from the objects: he did not force the one upon the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>In like manner, and intent upon the same purpose, the theological
+licentiate travelled through France, Belgium, and Holland; and when he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span>
+returned to Bonn, his spirit as well as his habits of life were more
+than ever wedded to the critical contemplation of the results of the
+creative faculty in the mind of man. The annual exhibitions of paintings
+in Cologne, D&uuml;sseldorf, and Frankfort, found in him an indulgent and
+impartial critic. His researches on the monuments of ancient sacred
+architecture were at intervals published in <i>The Domban Blatt</i>, and
+immediately secured the attention and regard of all antiquarians.</p>
+
+<p>The cherished pursuits, however, were ill calculated to reconcile Kinkel
+to his adopted profession. In 1845, the licentiate in theology doffed
+his gown, and was forthwith appointed a professor of philosophy in the
+university of Bonn. It is to his lectures in this capacity that we owe
+the treatise on Art in the Early Christian Ages. This remarkable book
+was written with the purpose of instructing the public mind, and of
+enabling the many to participate in the intellectual enjoyment as yet
+confined to a favoured few. Its objects were to vindicate the merits of
+Christianity as a fosterer of the arts, and to encourage, all lovers of
+art by opening new fields for exploration.</p>
+
+<p>The productions of real art are the most universally instructive of all
+creations. Nothing acts so powerfully on individual and national
+character; nothing so beneficially. Wherever art has been without these
+consequences, we may be sure that art was false. Its prophets were false
+prophets. The assumption of charlatans, however, is no condemnation of
+the art itself. The abuses of idolaters is no argument against religion.
+M. Kinkel's introduction to the plan of his work has but one fault. It
+is a national one. His mode of reasoning is conclusive; but the English
+reader, less accustomed to metaphysical phraseology than his German
+neighbours, will find some difficulty in grasping it. According to our
+author, two conditions are necessary to true art, which he defines to be
+"the incorporation of the spirit in a beautiful form." <i>Beauty</i>, then,
+and <i>spirit</i> are, the two conditions of true art. If one be wanting,
+true art is likewise wanting. The spirit, separate from beauty of form,
+may be religion and ethics&mdash;it can never be art. Beauty of form without
+the spirit, is likewise not a work of art. It remains on a level with
+matter; but the production of the artist soars higher. Hence true art is
+capable of yielding more universal satisfaction both to the artist and
+to the spectator than all other intellectual creations. The reason is
+obvious. We express and meet with the two grand constituents of our
+being; and, whilst other branches of knowledge are apter to separate
+than to unite&mdash;whilst science is exclusive, and even religion herself is
+sometimes productive of discord, true art asserts her right to be
+regarded as the great Pantheon of mankind. No idea is <i>universal</i>
+property unless expressed by art. Even the vast abyss which separates
+the lower orders of men from the ranks above them is overcome by art,
+for all are sensible of the joys which art produces. To know, therefore,
+what and how the mind and hand of man have hitherto worked, is a
+necessary, if it be not an indispensable, investigation and pursuit. "We
+are not ambitious," says M. Kinkel, "to conquer fame by profound
+hypotheses concerning things which, both by time and place, are indeed
+far from us. It is not our object to look for art in its infancy amongst
+nations which have long ceased to exist, nor shall we at once turn to
+Greece and Rome. Our desire is to contemplate those creations, which
+from their time and spirit are kindred to our feelings, and to speak of
+that branch of art with which Christianity has been busy within the last
+eighteen hundred years."</p>
+
+<p>The author proceeds to point out the two grand directions in which all
+original art branches off. It serves either religion or history. The
+first productions of art were idols and monuments. Palaces, theatres,
+paintings, are the work of progressive civilisation. Christian art has
+one principal feature in common with pagan art,&mdash;its origin. They are
+alike the offspring of religion. They are also similar in their
+progress; they acquired an inclination towards history, and both have at
+last taken a decided <i>realistic</i> direction. But the vast difference
+between Christian and an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span>tique art is no less palpable. The art of
+antiquity was far more deeply imbued with the principle of nationality
+than the former. Nations were isolated; each had its proper gods and its
+peculiar history. The diversity of religion and of political
+institutions engendered a difference of feeling. This civilised world of
+ours, on the other hand, has a community of feeling, in as much as it
+has one religion common to all. The Celtic, Sclavonian, and German
+nations exhibit far greater diversities of origin and climate than the
+inhabitants of Persia and India in ancient times; yet the artistic
+productions of the former are more alike. Their religion furnishes one
+point at which all meet, and in respect of which they are inseparable.
+The prevalence of the ecclesiastical element in modern art, is, however,
+liable to one great objection. For many years it served to exclude
+historical art, which even in our own time has not attained so high a
+perfection. It is true that Christianity makes amends in some degree for
+the want of this historical development. A total absence of historical
+facts is the great characteristic of the religions of antiquity. The Son
+of David, on the contrary, is in himself the greatest of historical
+facts. The Apostles are no mythical personages. The great men of Judaic
+history, the family of our Saviour, and the people with whom he
+conversed, all form one large group of historical personages, and
+religion and history, formerly separated, are <i>here</i> united. Christ on
+the cross is an object of touching adoration, but he is also the
+monument of the greatest event in the history of the world. But that
+this is no national history is undeniable. Offspring of a foreign soil,
+it had no connexion with the state.</p>
+
+<p>The exclusively ecclesiastical character of early Christian art, is
+another grand feature which at once destroys all analogy between this
+art and the creations of pagan antiquity. In Hellenic paganism, we
+behold the triumph of humanity. The human form in its most ideal beauty
+is the type of all things divine. Christianity starts at once with the
+peremptory condition of a renunciation of individual beauty and
+strength. Christianity counted sensual beauty as nothing: she regarded
+the mind alone. She permits the human form only as the incorporation of
+some hidden thought divine. In the one instance, the <i>form</i> was all in
+all; in the other, it is the <i>expression</i>. The heathen delighted in
+naked bodies, for every single part might convey the sensation of
+beauty. The face sufficed for Christian art, as solely expressive of
+divine beauty. And since the adopted Jewish custom excludes nudity in
+life, it must needs die in art. In the new order of things, sculpture is
+lost, and painting is better adapted to the narrow limits of early
+Christian art.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the question whether this fear of the world, as exhibited in the
+rejection of the world's material forms, be truly the character of real
+Christianity, Professor Kinkel answers with a decided negative. He
+rather favours the opinion of those who hold the fear and hate of the
+world which distinguished the early Christian ages, to have been founded
+on an erroneous comprehension of the doctrine and example of the great
+Founder, who, as far as we are able to learn, facilitated the creation
+of real art. The misconception, so fatal to the civilising influence of
+art, M. Kinkel, explains by reminding us of the fears of idolatry, so
+justly entertained by Christianity in its first existence, of the
+oppression and persecution which the early church experienced, and of
+the natural desire entertained by the oppressed, to be as little like
+the oppressors as possible.</p>
+
+<p>The extreme opinions, however, could not last. They began with the fury
+of persecution, and they died with it. An earnest admiration of the
+beautiful is implanted deeply in the soul of man for noble purposes,
+which Providence will not suffer to be thwarted. Mistaken notions of
+duty, religious zeal maddened by oppression, for a time clouded the
+faculty amongst the early Christians, but it soon burst forth again.
+Faint at first in its appearance, it gained strength with every passing
+lustre; and however sweeping the condemnation pronounced by early
+believers against vain signs and images expressive of the objects of
+this fleeting world, the voices of the cursers gradually hushed, and the
+mind of man, asserting its prerogative, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span> active again with new and
+regenerated power. The history of civilisation must needs count by
+centuries, and it took ages to effect the transition. From our present
+lofty and unprejudiced height, from that height at which modern art
+strives to emulate that of antiquity, it may not be wholly uninstructive
+to look back towards the first trembling attempts of the early Christian
+people.</p>
+
+<p>It would appear that the first attempts of the early Christians were of
+a symbolical and allegorical kind. The same figures, with little or no
+variation, were constantly repeated to express ideas which, whilst they
+led the thoughts of the believer into the channel which to him appeared
+most satisfactory, were mere forms, and void of meaning to pagan eyes.
+Chief amongst these was the Cross, but without the body of Christ
+affixed to it. The crucifix is an invention of the seventh century. In
+the beginning, the Cross did not expose the Christians to suspicion, for
+it was known to many religions of antiquity. The nations of Egypt adored
+the cross as a sign of their salvation, since they placed it in the
+hands of one of their idols as a key to the annual flux of the Nile. The
+Persian worshippers of Mithras considered the cross a sacred symbol.
+When pagan persecution finally discovered the exclusive and peculiar
+signification of the sign amongst the Christians, the latter ingeniously
+contrived forms of the cross translatable by the eyes of the elect
+alone. To these, the image of a flying bird was a cross; the human
+figure in a swimming attitude was the same thing, and so also the
+cross-trees of a sailing ship; the letters &#913; and &#937; are seen
+frequently engraved at the extremities of these disguised emblems in
+remembrance of Revelation, i. 8. Doves, ships, lyres, anchors, fishes
+and fishermen, are recommended by Clemens Alexandrinus, as the most
+fitting objects for Christians to contemplate, and for representation on
+seals. Amongst other symbols we find the seven-branched chandelier,
+though originally a Jewish sign, employed as a type of our Saviour, who
+calls himself (John, viii. 12.) the "light of the world." A wreath of
+flowers was expressive of the crown of life. A pair of scales, in
+remembrance of the last judgment, and a house, have been occasionally
+discovered on ancient grave-stones; and once, a simple <i>curriculum</i> has
+been traced with the pole thrown backwards and a whip leaning against
+it,&mdash;an unmistakable allusion to a departure for that place where "the
+weary are at rest." Amongst plants, the olive, the vine, and the palm
+were favourite symbols, the latter being generally reserved for the
+grave-stones of martyrs. Birds, too, are frequently met with on the
+walls of houses: the ph&oelig;nix and the peacock being emblems of
+immortality. The fable of the ph&oelig;nix is minutely told by Clemens
+Romanus; but the common superstition which ascribes imputrescibility to
+the flesh of the latter, easily rendered this bird a symbol of the
+resurrection of the body. Saint Augustine is said to have subjected this
+peculiar quality of the peacock's flesh to a practical test. He ordered
+one to be roasted, and at the close of a twelvemonth requested it to be
+served up. Tradition does not inform us whether he ate it, and with what
+appetite.</p>
+
+<p>The dove occurs more frequently than any other bird. Two doves bearing
+olive branches, are seen on Christian grave-stones in the Cologne
+museum, and on the <i>porta nigra</i> at Treves. The meaning of the sign of a
+fish will not readily occur: but the frequency of its appearance
+establishes its character as a secret mark of recognition. It was used
+to signify both Christ and his church. Of quadrupeds we find the
+stag,<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> the ox,<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> the lion,<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> and the lamb,<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> constantly in
+connexion with the cross. The lion and the lamb are typical of Christ.
+The transition to his representation in human form is rendered by two
+figures, which, whilst human, are still symbolical. In the catacombs of
+Saint Calintus, in the Via Appia at Rome, Christ is discovered in the
+character of Orpheus, whilst at other places he is represented as a
+shepherd.</p>
+
+<p>Two paintings were found in Herculaneum, and may at present be seen in
+the Museo Borbonico at Naples,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span> which are of undoubted Christian origin,
+and present a curious specimen of Christian art in the first century.
+Each of these two paintings is divided into an upper field, and into a
+lower smaller one. The smaller field of one of them is destined to
+expose the folly and corruption of paganism, and Egyptian mythology is
+selected for the purpose. We behold temples. In front of one of them
+stands a statue of Isis; another is devoted to Anubis the dog-god: two
+figures of crocodiles lie stretched across the entrance. On the left, we
+see a live crocodile waiting for its prey amongst the bulrushes: an ass
+is in the act of walking into the open mouth of the monster, in spite of
+the efforts of the driver, who vainly endeavours to pull the animal back
+by its tail. This might be intended to satirize some Roman pagan, were
+it not for the counterpart. To the right, and immediately opposite the
+idolatries on the field already spoken of, we see a well into which a
+rope is being lowered, whilst a naked man, standing by, is seeking to
+cover himself. An allusion is here made to fishing and baptism. On the
+left, the crocodile of the former picture is again met with, but a
+warrior with lance and shield advances with the view of slaying it. In
+the middle of the painting a net is spread between two trees, and behind
+it, and in direct opposition to the Isis on the pagan picture, we behold
+a tall and erect cross. The upper fields harmonise with the lower. The
+Christian painting displays a vigorous and stately tree between two
+younger palm-trees; the pagan picture has the same symbols; but the
+middle tree is in the sere and yellow leaf, whilst a Dryad issuing from
+the roots flourishes an axe to cut it down. The allusion is not to be
+mistaken. The sun of paganism has set: the axe is already at the root.</p>
+
+<p>The greater number of the symbols named, however rich they may be in
+thought, are sadly deficient in form, and we can discover but little
+progress in this respect from the origin of Christianity to the time of
+Constantine. Architecture, and especially ecclesiastical architecture,
+may be said to be the only branch of the fine arts which was
+successfully cultivated, and architecture itself was insignificant for
+three centuries subsequently to the birth of Christ. Painting and
+sculpture could elude cruelty and take refuge beneath the cloak of
+symbols: but churches could not be masked. It was difficult to hide
+them. In the earliest periods of Christianity, too, their absence was
+not seriously felt; people prayed where they thought proper. Scripture
+tells us that the apostles taught in the temple of Jerusalem.
+Christianity, a sect of Judaism in its origin, dwelt for a long time in
+the synagogues. Wherever St Paul came, he preached first in the Jewish
+schools. In times of persecution, the believers sought refuge in the
+catacombs. They assembled in the solitude of forests to pray and to
+exhort one another. When the Jews opposed themselves to the new creed,
+congregations met in the houses of the more wealthy. The apartment
+usually employed for divine purposes is supposed to have been the
+triclinium, or large dining-room of the richer classes amongst the
+Greeks and Romans. The want of churches was first experienced when
+frequent conversions swelled congregations beyond the limits of a large
+family; and this, as we have hinted, occurred in the course of the third
+century. The existence of a church expressly devoted to Christian
+worship in the reign of the Emperor Severus Alexander, has been proved
+beyond a doubt. It was a reign remarkable for its spirit of toleration.
+The Christians were suffered to hold offices in the state, in the army,
+and even at court. Churches rose rapidly under the mild light of
+toleration. Even in the western provinces of the empire, in Gaul, Spain,
+and Britain, we meet with churches erected at the commencement of the
+fourth century. In Nicomedia also, under the very eyes of Diocletian, a
+church was built that surpassed in splendour the very palace of the
+Emperor. The army of Diocletian destroyed the holy building in the last
+grand persecution. It was the last convulsive effort of paganism in its
+agony.</p>
+
+<p>No particulars of these churches have come down to us. Of that in
+Nicomedia we know nothing, save that it was splendid. None had, we are
+inclined to suppose, any fixed style.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span> The style of the original
+triclinium in which believers first congregated, was, in all likelihood,
+imitated. Even in private houses, these triclinia were magnificently
+adorned. The walls were ornamented with rows of lofty columns, and where
+the Egyptian style prevailed, two rows of columns were constructed, one
+above the other; an effect of this last arrangement was the formation of
+a two-storied passage between the walls and the columns. In the
+beginning of the tenth century, Pope Leo III. constructed a dining-room
+after this fashion. We may fairly conclude that nothing grand or
+extraordinary in architecture was attempted in a period of great trouble
+and poverty. The real glory of Christian architecture dates from the
+reign of Constantine. Christianity, legalised by him, might venture to
+display her rites and her art. Under the government of Constantine the
+church was enriched. He endowed it with the spoils of defeated and
+expiring paganism. In the third century, the church of Rome, when
+summoned to yield its treasures, produced its poor as the only treasures
+it possessed. In the fifth century, that same church appointed a
+clerical commission to watch over and inspect its possessions in foreign
+countries.</p>
+
+<p>The change of circumstances was not without a great and lasting
+influence. Paganism threatened no more. It was conquered. No further
+danger was to be apprehended from the departed religion of a gloomier
+age. The clerical profession, warmed and nourished by the rays of
+imperial favour, was soon effectually distinguished from the crowd of
+laymen which surrounded it. The desire to render this separation
+systematic and all-pervading was too natural to slumber for any length
+of time, and the absence of an order of architecture peculiar to the
+ministers of the new religion came to be severely felt. Rank and wealth
+have ever delighted in drawing towards them the eyes of the world. The
+worldliness and splendour of the church have been long the subject of
+violent animadversion. But how could it be otherwise? From the moment
+that Christianity became a favoured creed, conversions were rapid and
+frequent; but not all the neophytes converted in form, had undergone a
+similar change of spirit. Millions flocked through the open gates of the
+church. To teach all, before they entered, was an impossibility. If
+there was time to <i>awe</i>, that was something. If general conviction was
+out of the question, universal respect was easily attainable. The
+charms, the sensual enjoyments of the pagan altars, were once more
+offered to the heathen. The smoke of incense filled the church; the
+spoils of antiquity adorned its roofs and columns; the robes of the
+clergy were covered with gold; the rites of the church delighted in
+colours. But decoration and ornament alone were borrowed from paganism.
+The temples of the heathen could not be copied in form: they could not
+serve the purposes of Christian worship.</p>
+
+<p>The destination of the temple was different from that of the church. The
+temple was the house of an idol: limited in extent, it received
+sufficient light through the open door. The rites of paganism were
+performed in the colonnade surrounding the temple, not in the temple
+itself, and the crowd of spectators stood beyond the limits of the
+sacred building. The sanctuary of Pandrosus at Athens, admits only of a
+few persons; and even the temple of Athen&aelig; is not to be compared for
+size with our modern churches. The Christian religion is essentially
+didactic. It requires space for its hearers and disciples. But its
+sacraments were mysteries, and none but the elect were admitted to them.
+Thus, it was necessary to separate true believers from the bulk of the
+congregation. No buildings were so happily adapted to this double
+purpose as the houses of public justice and traffic, which, originally
+of Grecian origin, had arrived at a high state of perfection in the
+Roman empire. The most ancient of such houses&mdash;called Basilika&mdash;stood in
+Athens at the foot of the Pnyx. It was in such a building that Socrates
+appeared before his judges, and Christ was judged by Pilate. In the
+history of art, we trace the workings of omnipresent Nemesis. The sign
+of curse and infamy&mdash;the cross&mdash;has for centuries graced the banners of
+humanity. The Basilikon in which Christ was condemned, has lent its form
+to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span> churches in which his name is adored.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst the groundwork of the Basilikon remained unchanged, Christian art
+added steeples and cupolas to increase the solemnity of the impression.
+The most perfect building of the kind is, without doubt, the church of
+Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. For chastity and purity of style, it can
+never be surpassed. The numerous churches erected by ostentation and
+devotion in basilikon form are all inferior to that incomparable temple.
+Many, it is true, have been disfigured, robbed, and half-burned; but
+their faults are not accidental. The greater number were built at a time
+when Pagan art, their prototype, had sunk very low indeed. Moreover,
+since the days of Constantine, Pagan temples had fallen into disuse.
+They stood deserted, and were suffered to crumble away beneath the
+influences of neglect and time. Christian builders took all they wanted
+from the ruins; a fragment from this temple, a block from that. Ionian
+and Corinthian columns were placed in the same line. If a pillar was too
+long for its companion, it was shortened without reference to its
+diameters or form. Columns of different stones were jumbled together in
+a row. Thus, amongst a number of columns of purple granite in the church
+of Ara Celi at Rome we discover two Ionian columns of white marble. In
+Saint Peter's, granite and Parian and African marbles are grouped
+together without the smallest attempt at harmony or adaptation. San
+Giovanni in Porta Laterana boasts ten columns of five different kinds of
+stone.</p>
+
+<p>A more interesting employment cannot be found than that of watching the
+slow and cautious progress of ancient painting and sculpture in
+connexion with Christianity. The slowness is indeed remarkable, when we
+reflect upon the high perfection which these arts had generally attained
+even during the reigns of the first emperors. Christianity dealt far
+differently with painting and sculpture, than with architecture. In the
+latter, the Pagan form was adopted and improved; but with respect to the
+former, she made a <i>tabula rasa</i>, and descended to the rudest efforts of
+daubing and carving. The shapes, both of men and animals, were awkward,
+cumbrous, and unnatural; every part was out of proportion, and the most
+solemn scenes acquired a ludicrous grotesqueness. But the strangest
+phenomenon is, that Pagan art itself, of its own accord, descended to as
+low a level. The productions of Paganism in the time of Constantine were
+altogether as barbarous as the clumsy attempts of the untutored hands of
+Christianity. The new religion had created a new world. The forms of the
+old might indeed survive for a time, but its spirit was gone. Paganism
+was a corpse. Altars might be crowned with garlands, sacrifice might be
+offered to the gods: but all in vain. A voice came forth from an island
+in the &AElig;gean Sea; a voice of sorrow and complaint, but of truth also. It
+wailed the death of the great Pan. The mighty were indeed fallen, and so
+vast was the gulf between Paganism in the days of Titus, and Paganism in
+those of Constantine, that the creations of the former period could be
+no lesson to the idolaters of the latter. These clung to the worship of
+a departed age, but in spite of themselves. The new and mighty river of
+thought swept them onward, and carried them on to the very same parting
+point from which Christian art was struggling for perfection.</p>
+
+<p>Christian art started with one grand error. It was warring for ever
+against itself. In portraying the world, it hated it. Of all its
+creations, there is not one which can be said to be really beautiful;
+the effusions of symbolical enthusiasm are without all plastic truth.
+Ideas were incorporated, but they did not prove men with flesh and
+blood. The paintings and carvings were hieroglyphics. The same figure
+expressed the same idea, and the idea once expressed, there was no
+desire to extend the circle of figures or to alter their wretched
+appearance. The same uncouth forms return with a killing monotony.
+Centuries do not change them. The uniformity of monastic life by no
+means tended to relax the inflexibility of invention. Religion, not art,
+was the sculptor's or the painter's object; his production was a
+creation of faith, not of beauty. Such is the character of almost all
+the carvings in wood and stone which have been found in the catacombs of
+Rome and Naples.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Christianity has the great merit of having discovered the poesy of the
+grave. From the outset it abhorred the Pagan custom of burning the dead,
+and faithful to its Jewish origin, and mindful perhaps of Christ's
+burial, it renewed the old Roman custom of interring the departed. This
+was the origin of the catacombs. The early Christians loved to be
+deposited with, or near the Martyrs, and grounds for burial capable of
+receiving a large number of the dead were wholly wanting. The population
+of Rome, Naples, Alexandria, and Syracuse was so great, that there was
+scarcely room enough for the living. To find new receptacles for the
+dead became an urgent necessity. It is true, that digging into the
+bowels of the earth for the purpose of entombing the bodies of the dead
+was no new operation. Egypt and Etruria had in their time set the
+example. The one idea of immortality, led to similar results in
+different creeds. The early Christians found their cities of the dead
+already prepared for them. Paris, in our own time, stands upon a soil
+which is hollowed throughout. The limestone upon which Paris stands was
+taken from beneath to supply the wants of the builders. Rome, in like
+manner, has a second and subterraneous town of vast extent, with its
+streets and squares in endless number. Nor is it without its
+inhabitants. In this town did Christians seek refuge from Pagan
+persecution, and here did they likewise inter their dead. The caves and
+passages were not dug by Christian hands, but were discovered already
+made. They date from the last century of the republic, when the clay
+upon which Rome stands, was required by the mania then raging for
+extensive and magnificent structures. The Christians took possession of
+the hollows and enlarged them; the work was by no means difficult, for
+the clay was soft and plastic.</p>
+
+<p>It was after the time of Constantine that the catacombs came into more
+general use. Martyrs were more revered subsequently to the reign of this
+Emperor than before it, for martyrdom became less easy of achievement.
+The chief martyrs had found a resting-place in the catacombs. Churches
+rose above their remains, from which secret and sacred doors led into
+the City of the Dead, the cemetery of the saints. It was at the period
+to which we refer that the regularly formed spacious catacombs were
+first fashioned&mdash;a fact established by the date of the coffins, all of
+which belong to a time later than that of the Emperor Constantine. The
+wealthier members of the community constructed small chapels in the
+catacombs for the reception of the bodies of their relations and
+friends. These chapels are for the most part situated at the crossing of
+passages or at the end of them, in which latter case the chapel forms
+the termination of one particular passage. They are most important as
+indices to the development of art. Besides the curious character and
+beauty of the architecture, they afford specimens of the most ancient
+grave paintings that we know of. Their walls and ceilings are covered
+with a thin crust of gypsum, upon which the colours were laid. Not
+unfrequently we find ornaments of stucco and marble. Altars and stone
+seats, too, are found in these chapels. An astonishing number of
+skeletons have been discovered in the passages by which the chapels are
+connected: it was not the custom, as now, to bury the dead beneath the
+floor and to cover the grave with a stone slab. The bodies were placed
+in niches of from three to six feet in length. Sometimes four and six
+together, one above the other. The corpse of a departed brother was
+thrust into one of these niches; a lamp and some tool, explanatory of
+the trade he had followed in life, were placed beside him, and then the
+aperture was walled up, and lastly covered with a thin marble slab,
+bearing an inscription and the particulars of the life and death of the
+departed.</p>
+
+<p>Church service was frequently performed in the catacombs, yet not in the
+days of persecution. It was after Constantine that these tombs were used
+for such a purpose. On Sabbath days they were open to the public and
+were much visited. Devotion, love for departed relatives, and mere
+curiosity, carried vast numbers to these silent halls. Saint Jerome,
+tells us of his having often explored them with his comrades whilst he
+was still a student in Rome; and he lived some three hundred and fifty
+years after the death of Christ. The catacombs were but badly lighted at
+first, light being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span> admitted by a few apertures only in the roofs of the
+chapels. At a later period, great care was taken to prevent visitors
+losing their way amidst the labyrinth of passages. The guardianship of
+the catacombs was confided to a certain body of the clergy, who went
+under the name of <i>fossores</i>, or grave-diggers. It was their office to
+inspect the chapels and passages, to point out the places where new
+passages might be formed, and to portion out and sell the spots in which
+burials might take place. The water in the wells of the catacombs was
+subsequently found to possess the virtue of healing to a marvellous
+degree. Nay, even the use of the drinking-cups found in the catacombs
+was sufficient to cure several diseases.</p>
+
+<p>In later days, many of the catacombs were opened, and a vast number of
+curious and interesting objects brought to light. Not the least valuable
+amongst these objects were the paintings and carvings to which we have
+above adverted, and which throw some light upon the history of the
+portraiture of the great Founder of our religion. Still in the great
+bulk of the subjects represented the symbolical prevails; and since the
+earliest masters were for a long time forbidden, by a pious awe, from
+producing the figure of Christ, we find in the more ancient carvings a
+decided preference given to the Old Testament over the New. Noah's ark,
+Abraham sacrificing his son, Moses taking off his shoes upon receiving
+the tablets of the law, the destruction of Pharaoh, and the miracle of
+the water starting from the rock&mdash;in short, all the subjects of our
+modern illustrated Bibles are of frequent occurrence in these ancient
+houses of the dead, and one and all are intended to represent the
+mission and person of Christ. The suffering of Christ, in the
+delineation of which the masters of later times have so much delighted,
+formed no subject for the artist in the earliest selections from the
+history of the New Testament. The controversy in the temple, the entry
+into Jerusalem, and the most celebrated of the miracles, were subjects
+that better suited the ancient master's pencil. The infancy of Christ
+was an inexhaustible subject to a later age. The Nestorian controversy
+brought the religious pretensions of the Holy Virgin to an issue; and
+after the church in the fifth century had bestowed upon Mary the title
+of Mother of God, artists took pleasure in representing her either as
+lying-in, or as holding the babe in her arms. The Eastern Kings are not
+unfrequently found in the Virgin's company. M. Kinkel presumes that the
+number of these wise men was first determined by the early masters, who
+in all probability conferred the royal dignity upon them. Holy Writ does
+not inform us that these personages were kings, and in the more ancient
+carvings, they wear ordinary Phrygian caps. At a later period, and no
+doubt inadvertently, these caps were changed into crowns. The four
+evangelists are constantly represented either as four rolls of papyrus,
+or as four fountains issuing from a hill beneath the feet of Christ.
+When seen in the guise of the four apocalyptical animals, they belong to
+a later period. The apostles also are found on ancient coffins,
+surrounding Christ, at whose left side Peter is placed, whilst Paul
+stands on his right. They all wear sandals tied with ribbon to their
+feet. Some paintings represent scenes of early Christian life, the
+sacred rites of the Church, and the love-feasts of the first Christians.</p>
+
+<p>Wherever our Saviour is found he is represented by two types. In the
+earliest paintings of the catacombs he appears as a beardless youth:
+this type of the Saviour was produced under the influence of antique
+art. The second and later type bears those oriental features which have
+been transmitted by sacred painting even to our own time. The features
+of the second face so closely resemble those of the first that the early
+theologians do not hesitate to proclaim them exact copies of the
+original. "Christ was well proportioned," says John of Damascus in the
+eighth century; "his fingers were slender, his nose mighty, and the
+eyebrows joined above the same; his hair was very curly, his beard
+black, and the colour of his face like his mother's,&mdash;viz. yellowish,
+like unto wheat." Later western writers change the colour of the beard
+and hair from black to blond. Both hair<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span> and beard are parted in the
+middle. There are two pictures of Christ thus represented, one in the
+cemetery of S. Calintus, and another in that of S. Ponziano. The former
+is partly, the latter wholly dressed. In both, the features are strongly
+marked, and the eyes are very large; the right hand is placed on the
+breast, whilst the left holds a book.</p>
+
+<p>Apocryphal pictures ascribed to Saint Luke have asserted a considerable
+influence upon the traditions concerning the portrait of Christ. The
+same has happened in the instance of the Virgin Mary, although her type
+is far from attaining the degree of stability which we find in the
+representations of her divine son. The fathers, however, are unanimous
+in their opinion that the face of Mary bore a strong resemblance to that
+of our Saviour. She is seldom found in the Catacombs, but frequently in
+the Mosaic work of churches dedicated to her worship, and on Byzantine
+coins from the tenth century forwards. The face is oval, similar to that
+of a youthful matron of ancient Rome, and carrying always the expression
+of a calm benignity. The head is covered with a veil and surrounded by a
+nimbus. Next to Mary and her Son, Peter and Paul, the chief apostles of
+the Pagan and Judaic world, are most frequently represented. They were
+both objects of devotion, even to those who still lingered without the
+pale of Christianity. The Mosaics display them more frequently than the
+Catacombs. Their type is not fixed; although Peter may at times be known
+by his curly hair and beard, whilst the bald forehead and the pointed
+fashion of the beard render Paul at once recognisable. The other
+apostles, as well as the personages of the Old Testament, have not grown
+into individuality, and lack the distinguishing features by which sacred
+and historical characters of antiquity become objects of real life, and
+are rendered familiar to the most distant ages.</p>
+
+<p>The most ancient Mosaic works of the Christian era are to be found in
+the mausoleum of Constantine. The subject is strictly symbolic. It is
+the vine, with birds perched on the branches and angels collecting the
+grapes. One of the tendrils encompasses the head of Constantine. The
+forms of the angels show a near affinity to Pagan art. Another great
+Mosaic work, more ecclesiastical in thought and execution, was promoted
+by Pope Sixtus III. in 443. It consists of historical representations
+from the Old and New Testaments, and ornaments the space below the
+windows of the Maria Maggiore. The costumes, the helmets, and cuirasses
+resemble those of ancient Rome; but where priests and Levites appear,
+the oriental character is followed. The composition is poor, and the
+human figures are rude and awkward. That little regard is paid to
+perspective is not a matter of surprise. Antique art is guilty of the
+fault. It would be difficult for any Mosaic work to overcome the
+difficulties which present themselves in the active scenes of real life
+and history. The Mosaics in the triumphal arch of the Church of St Paul
+create a favourable impression, simply because they confine themselves
+to that narrow and more suitable sphere, in which alone the Mosaic art
+can look to be successful.</p>
+
+<p>The study of the period of Christian art, treated of and exemplified in
+Professor Kinkel's book, though apparently unprofitable to the artist,
+is full of interest to the curious observer, and to one who has pleasure
+in beholding the development of the human mind under the most varied
+circumstances. We have read the volume of the learned and accomplished
+professor with infinite satisfaction, and we can safely recommend it to
+the perusal of the student and the man of letters. The history of art,
+in the early stages of Christianity, is the history of intellectual
+cultivation in the most extraordinary period of the world's history. The
+state of the world during the first centuries after the departure of
+Christ, was essentially exceptional. It had never been; it never will be
+again. Art and civilisation were weighed and were found wanting&mdash;a new
+idea visited the earth and conquered it&mdash;old arts drooped and died:
+civilisation degenerated at once into barbarism; whilst a new art and a
+new civilisation, with the light of Heaven upon them, were already
+preparing to claim the dominion over future centuries.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<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> <i>Geschichte der bildenden K&uuml;nste bei den Christlichen
+V&ouml;lkern</i>. Von <span class="smcap">Gottfried Kinkel</span>.</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> Psalm xlii. 1.</p></div>
+
+<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> 1 Cor. ix. 9.</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> Rev. v. 5.</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> John, i. 29, and Rev. v. 6.</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="THE_PORTRAIT" id="THE_PORTRAIT"></a>THE PORTRAIT.</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><small>A TALE: ABRIDGED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF G&Oacute;GOL. BY THOMAS B. SHAW.</small></p>
+
+<h4><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h4>
+
+<p>By none of the numerous objects of interest in the busy city of St
+Petersburg are the steps of the sauntering pedestrian more frequently
+arrested than by the picture-shop in the Stch&uacute;kin Dvor.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> True it is
+that the specimens of art there displayed are distinguished rather by
+eccentricity of design, and rudeness of execution, than by striking
+evidences of genius. The paintings are for the most part in oil, coated
+with green varnish, and fitted into frames of dark yellow tinsel. A
+winter-piece with white trees, a ferociously red sunset, like the glow
+of a conflagration, a Flemish boor with a pipe and dislocated-looking
+arm&mdash;resembling a turkey-cock in ruffles, rather than a human
+being,&mdash;such are the ordinary subjects. Beside them hang a few
+engravings: portraits of Khosrev-Mirza in his sheepskin bonnet, and of
+truculent generals with cocked hats and crooked noses. Bundles of coarse
+prints, on large paper broadsides, are suspended on either side the
+door. Here we have the Princess Miliktris Kirbitierna;<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> yonder the
+city of Jerusalem, its houses and churches smeared with vermilion, which
+gaudy colour has also invaded a part of the ground and a brace of
+Russian pilgrims in huge fur gloves. If these works of art find few
+purchasers, they at least attract a throng of starers; drunken
+ragamuffin lacqueys on their way from the cook's shop, bearing piles of
+plates with their masters' dinners, which grow cold whilst they gape at
+the pictures; great-coated Russian soldiers with penknives for sale;
+Okhta pedlar-women with boxes of shoes. Each spectator expresses his
+admiration in his own peculiar way: peasants point with their fingers;
+soldiers gaze with stolid gravity; dirty foot-boys and blackguard
+apprentices laugh and apply the caricatures to each other; old serving
+men in frieze cloaks stand listless and agape, indulging their
+propensity to utter idleness.</p>
+
+<p>A number of persons answering to the above description were assembled
+before the picture-shop, when they were joined by a young man in a
+threadbare cloak and shabby garments. He was a painter, named
+Tchartk&oacute;ff, as enthusiastic in his art as he was needy in his
+circumstances and careless of his dress. Pausing before the booth, he
+smiled as he glanced at the wretched pictures there displayed. The next
+moment the expression of mirthful contempt faded from his thin, ardent
+features, and he fell a-thinking. The question had occurred to him,
+amongst what class of people could those tawdry, worthless productions
+find purchasers? That Russian <i>muj&iacute;ks</i> should gaze delightedly upon the
+<i>Yerusl&aacute;n Lazar&eacute;vitches</i>, on pictures of <i>Phom&aacute;</i> and <i>Yerema</i>, of the
+heroes of their tales and legends, was quite natural; the objects
+represented were adapted to popular taste and comprehension; but who
+would buy those tawdry oil-paintings, those Flemish boors, those crimson
+and azure landscapes, which, whilst pretending to a higher grade of art,
+served but to prove its deep degradation? Not one redeeming touch could
+be traced in the senseless caricatures, to whose authors' clumsy hands
+the mason's trowel would assuredly have been better adapted than the
+painter's pencil. It was the very dotage of incapacity. The colouring,
+the treatment, the coarse obtrusive mechanical touch, seemed those of a
+clumsily constructed automaton, rather than of a human painter. Thus
+musing, our artist stood for some time before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span> the vile daubs that
+excited his disgust, gazing at them long after the train of his
+reflections had led him far from them; whilst the master of the shop, a
+little, gray, ill-shaven fellow in a frieze cloak, chattered and
+chaffered and bargained as indefatigably as if the young man had
+announced himself a purchaser.</p>
+
+<p>"Well now," said he, "for these muj&iacute;ks and the landscape, I'll take a
+white note.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> There's painting! It hurts your eye, it's so bright;
+just received from the Exchange; varnish hardly dry. Take the
+winter-piece. Fifteen rubles! Frame worth the money. There's a winter,
+there's snow for you!"</p>
+
+<p>Here the eager trader gave a slight fillip to the canvass, as if he
+expected the snow to fall off.</p>
+
+<p>"Take the three. I'll send them home at once. Where does your honour
+live? Boy, a cord!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so fast, my friend," cried the artist, startled from his reverie,
+and perceiving the brisk dealer about to tie up the three daubs. His
+first impulse was to walk away, but he felt ashamed to purchase nothing
+after standing so long before the shop, and causing the hungry-looking
+old salesman so large an expenditure of breath. "Wait a little," he
+said. "I will see if you have any thing to suit me." And, stooping down,
+he turned over a number of battered dusty old pictures heaped like
+lumber upon the ground. They were chiefly old-fashioned family
+portraits, likenesses of unknown and insignificant faces, with torn
+canvass, and frames that had lost their gilding. Nevertheless Tchartk&oacute;ff
+carefully examined them, thinking it possible he might pick up something
+good. He had more than once heard stories of pictures of the great
+masters being met with amongst the dust and trash of such shops as this.
+The dealer, perceiving he had probably nailed a customer, ceased his
+bustling importunity, resumed his station at the door, and recommenced
+his appeals to the passengers. He shouted, chattered, and pointed to his
+wares, but without success; then he had a long chat with an
+old-clothesman, whose establishment was on the opposite side of the
+alley; and at last, recollecting that, all this time there was a
+customer in his shop, he turned his back upon the public and walked in.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you chosen anything, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>The artist stood immoveable before a large portrait, whose frame had
+once been richly gilt, although it now scarcely retained a few tarnished
+vestiges of its former splendour. The subject was an old man, his face
+swarthy and bronzed, with furrowed brow and hollow temples, and sharp
+high cheekbones; a physiognomy on which the ravages of time, and
+climate, and suffering were plainly legible. The figure was draped in a
+flowing Asiatic costume. Defaced and injured and grimed with dirt though
+the portrait was, yet, when Tchartk&oacute;ff had wiped the dust from the
+countenance, he perceived evident traces of the touch of a great artist.
+The picture seemed to have been scarcely finished, but the force of
+treatment was immense. Its most extraordinary part was the eyes; in them
+the artist had concentrated all the power of his pencil. There was
+vitality in those dark and lustrous orbs, they looked out of the
+portrait, and in some measure destroyed its harmony by their strange and
+life-like expression. When Tchartk&oacute;ff took the picture to the door, he
+fancied the pupils dilated. The peculiarity of the painting at once
+attracted the attention of the idlers without. Some uttered exclamations
+of surprise, others fell back a pace as if in terror. A pale,
+sickly-looking woman of the lower classes, who suddenly found herself
+face to face with this singular portrait, screamed with alarm. "It's
+looking at me!" she cried, and hurried away, casting nervous glances
+over her shoulder. Tchartk&oacute;ff himself experienced&mdash;he could not tell
+why&mdash;a sort of disagreeable sensation, and he put the portrait on the
+ground.</p>
+
+<p>"D'ye buy?" said the picture-dealer.</p>
+
+<p>"How much?" replied the artist.</p>
+
+<p>"At a word&mdash;three <i>tchetvert&aacute;ks</i>."<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p>
+
+<p>Tchartk&oacute;ff shook his head. "Too much. I will give you a dougr&iacute;ven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span>noi,"
+he added, moving towards the door.</p>
+
+<p>"A dougr&iacute;vennoi for that picture! You are pleased to joke, sir. The
+frame is worth twice the money. Bid me something more, if it be only
+another grivennik. Come back, sir," he shouted, running after the
+painter, and detaining him by his cloak-skirt; "come back, sir. You are
+my first customer to-day, and I will take your offer, for luck's sake.
+But the picture is given away."</p>
+
+<p>On finding his offer thus unexpectedly accepted, Tchartk&oacute;ff heartily
+repented his temerity in making it. The dougr&iacute;vennoi he paid the dealer
+was his last in the world, and he was encumbered with a lumbering old
+portrait for which he had no earthly use. Cursing his own imprudence, he
+took up his purchase, and trudged away with it. Its weight and size
+caused it to slip perpetually from under his arm, and rendered it a most
+troublesome burthen. At last, tired to death and bathed in perspiration,
+he reached the house, in the fifteenth line of the Vas&iacute;lievsk&uuml; Ostrow,
+in which he occupied a modest lodging, ascended the uncleanly staircase,
+and knocked impatiently at the door of his apartment. It was opened by a
+slatternly lad in a blue shirt&mdash;his cook, model, colour-grinder and
+floor-sweeper, who had to thank his godfathers for the harmonious name
+of Nik&iacute;ta, and who united in his person the dirt incidental to three out
+of his four occupations. Tchartk&oacute;ff entered his ante-room, which felt
+very chilly, as artists' ante-rooms usually are, and, without taking off
+his cloak, walked on into his studio a square apartment, tolerably
+spacious, but low in the ceiling, and with windows dimmed by the frost.
+This room was littered with all kinds of artistical rubbish: fragments
+of plaster of Paris, casts of hands, frames, stretched canvasses,
+sketches begun and thrown aside, and drapery cast carelessly over the
+chairs. Completely knocked up, Tchartk&oacute;ff let his cloak fall, placed his
+new purchase against the wall, and threw himself on a narrow meagre
+little sofa, whose leathern cover, torn upon one side from the row of
+brass nails that had formerly confined it, afforded Nik&iacute;ta a convenient
+receptacle for dish-cloths, old clothes, dirty linen, and any other
+miscellaneous matters he thought fit to cram under. The sun had set, and
+the night grew each moment darker. Our artist ordered Nik&iacute;ta to bring a
+candle.</p>
+
+<p>"There are no candles," was Nik&iacute;ta's reply.</p>
+
+<p>"How!&mdash;no candles?"</p>
+
+<p>"There were none yesterday," said Nik&iacute;ta.</p>
+
+<p>Tchartk&oacute;ff remembered that there <i>had</i> been none the night before, and
+that his credit with the tallow-chandler was not such as to render it
+probable a supply had been sent in that morning. So he held his tongue,
+allowed Nik&iacute;ta to take off his coat, waistcoat, and cravat, and wrapped
+himself up as warmly as he could in a dressing gown with tattered
+elbows.</p>
+
+<p>"I forgot to tell you," said Nik&iacute;ta, "the landlord has been here."</p>
+
+<p>"For money, I suppose," said the artist, shrugging his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"He had somebody with him. A Kvart&agrave;ln&uuml;, I think.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> He said something
+about the rent not being paid."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what can they do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know," replied the imperturbable Nik&iacute;ta. "He said you must leave
+the lodgings or pay. Will come again to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Let them come," said Tchartk&oacute;ff gloomily. And he turned himself upon
+the comfortless sofa with a feeling akin to desperation.</p>
+
+<p>Tchartk&oacute;ff was a young artist of considerable promise, and whose pencil
+was at times remarked for its accuracy, and near approach to the
+truthfulness of nature. But he had faults which procured him frequent
+admonitions from the professor under whom he studied. "You have talent,"
+he would say to him; "it will be a sin to ruin it by carelessness and by
+pursuing erroneous ideas and principles. You are too impatient; too apt
+to be fascinated by novelty, and to neglect rules hallowed by time and
+experience, laws immutable as those of the Medes. Beware, lest you
+become a mere fashionable painter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span> Your colours, I observe, are not
+unfrequently selected in defiance of good taste; your drawing is often
+feeble, sometimes positively incorrect; your outlines want clearness.
+You run after a flashy kind of chiaro-scuro, the lighting up of your
+picture is meant only to strike the eye at the first glance. And you
+have a passion for the introduction of finery; a taste for dandified
+costume. All this is dangerous, and may lead you into the fatal habit of
+painting mere fashionable pictures, pretty portraits and the like, which
+yield money, but can never give fame. Do that, and your talent is lost
+and thrown away. Be patient, wait, reflect, chasten your taste by study,
+and wean yourself from that hankering after prettiness and dandyism.
+Leave such tricks to those who care but for gold, and propose yourself a
+higher aim, the never-dying laurels of a Titian or an Angelo."</p>
+
+<p>The professor meant well, and was right in the main. Tchartk&oacute;ff was apt
+to indulge in the flashy and the superficial. But he had sufficient
+strength of mind to control this dangerous tendency, and a purer taste
+was gradually but perceptibly developing itself in him. As yet he could
+not quite appreciate all the depth of Raphael, but he was strongly
+fascinated by the broad and rapid touch of Guido; he would stand
+enchanted before Titian's portraits, and had a high appreciation of the
+Flemish school. Yet the darkened and sober tone characterising old
+pictures did not quite please or satisfy him; nor did he, in his
+innermost mind, altogether agree with the professor, when the latter
+expatiated to him on that mysterious power which places the old masters
+at such immeasurable distance above the moderns. In some respects he
+almost fancied them surpassed by the nineteenth century; that the
+imitation of nature had somehow become, in modern times, more vivid, and
+lively, and faithful: in a word, his mind was in that fluctuating
+unsettled state in which the minds of young people are apt to be when
+they have reached a particular point of proficiency in their art, and
+feel a proud internal conviction of talent. Often was he filled with
+rage when he saw some travelling French or German painter, by the mere
+effect of trick and habit, by readiness of pencil and flashy colouring,
+catching the multitude, and making a fortune. These impressions made
+their way into his mind, not in moments when he was buried, body and
+soul, in his work, and forgot food and drink and all outward things; but
+when, as was often the case, necessity stared him in the face, and he
+found himself without the means of buying brushes and colours, or even
+bread, whilst the greedy and implacable landlord came ten times a-day to
+dun him for his rent. Then his hunger-sharpened imagination would revert
+to the different lot of the rich and fashionable painter; then darted
+through his brain the thought that so often flits through the Russian
+head, the idea of sending his art and all to the devil, and going to the
+devil himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, wait! wait!" he exclaimed passionately; "but patience and waiting
+must have an end. Wait, indeed! and where am I to seek to-morrow's
+dinner? Borrowing is out of the question; and if I sell my pictures and
+drawings, they will give me, perhaps, a <i>dougr&iacute;vennoi</i> for the whole
+lot. They are useful to me; not one of them but was undertaken with an
+object,&mdash;from each I have learned something. But what would be their
+value to any body else? They are studies,&mdash;exercises; and studies and
+exercises they will remain to the end of the chapter. And, besides, who
+would buy them? I am unknown as an artist, and who wants studies from
+the antique and sketches from the living model, or my unfinished Love
+and Psyche, or the perspective sketch of my room, or my portrait of
+Nik&iacute;ta, though it is really better than the portraits painted by any of
+your fashionable fellows? And, after all, what do I gain by this? Why
+should I work myself to death, and keep plodding like a schoolboy over
+his A, B, C, when I might be as famous as any of them, and have as much
+money in my pockets?" As he pronounced these words, the artist
+involuntarily shuddered and turned pale. He saw, looking fixedly at him,
+peeping out from the shadow of a tall canvass that stood against the
+wall, a face<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span> seemingly torn by some convulsive agony. Two dreadful eyes
+glared upon the young man, with a strange inexplicable expression; the
+lips were curled with mingled scorn and suffering; the features were
+haggard and distorted. Startled, almost terrified, Tchartk&oacute;ff was on the
+point of calling Nik&iacute;ta, who by this time sent forth from his ante-room
+a Titanic snore, when he checked himself and burst into a laugh. The
+object of alarm was the portrait he had bought, and which he had
+completely forgotten. The bright moonbeams, streaming into the room,
+partially illuminated the picture, and gave it a strange air of reality.
+By the clear cold light Tchartk&oacute;ff set to work to examine and clean his
+purchase. When the coat of dust and filth that incrusted it was removed,
+he hung the picture upon the wall, and, retiring to look at it, was more
+than ever astounded at its extraordinary character and power. The
+countenance seemed lighted up by the fierce and glittering eyes, which
+looked out of the picture so wonderfully, and assumed, as it seemed to
+him, such strange and varied and terrible expression, that he at last
+involuntarily turned away his own, unable to support the gaze of the old
+Asiatic. Then came into his mind a story he had once heard from his
+professor, of a certain portrait of the famous Leonardo da Vinci, at
+which the great master worked for many years, still counting it
+unfinished, and which, nevertheless, according to Vasari, was
+universally considered the most perfect and finished production of art.
+But the most exquisitely finished part of it were the eyes, which
+excited the wonder of all contemporaries; even the minute and almost
+invisible veins were exactly rendered and put upon the canvass. But
+here, on the other hand, in the portrait before him, there was something
+strange and horrid. This was not art: the eyes absolutely destroyed the
+harmony of the portrait. They were living, they were human eyes! They
+seemed to have been cut out of a living man's face and stuck in the
+picture. Instead of admiration, the portrait inspired a painful feeling
+of oppression; the beholder was seized with a sort of waking nightmare,
+weighing upon and overwhelming him like a moral and mysterious incubus.</p>
+
+<p>Shaking off this feeling, Tchartk&oacute;ff again approached the portrait, and
+forced himself to gaze steadily upon its eyes. They were still fixed
+upon him. He changed his place; the eyes followed him. To whatever part
+of the room he removed, he met their deep malignant glance. They seemed
+animated with the unnatural sort of life one might expect to find in the
+eyes of a corpse, newly recalled to existence by the spell of some
+potent sorcerer. In spite of his better reason, which reproached him for
+his weakness, Tchartk&oacute;ff felt an inexplicable impression, which made him
+unwilling to remain alone in the room. He retired softly from the
+portrait, turned his eyes in a different direction, and endeavoured to
+forget its presence; yet, in spite of all his efforts, his eye, as
+though of its own accord, kept glancing sideways at it. At last he
+became even fearful to walk about; his excited imagination made him
+fancy that as soon as he moved somebody was walking behind him,&mdash;at each
+step he glanced timidly over his shoulder. He was naturally no coward;
+but his nerves and imagination were painfully on the stretch, and he
+could not control his absurd and involuntary fears. He sat down in the
+corner; somebody, he thought, peeped stealthily over his shoulder into
+his face. Even the loud snoring of Nik&iacute;ta, which resounded from the
+ante-room, could not dispel his uneasiness and chase away the unreal
+visions haunting him. At last he rose from his seat, timidly, without
+lifting his eyes, went behind the screen and lay down on his bed.
+Through the crevices in the screen he saw his room brightly illuminated
+by the moon, and he beheld the portrait hanging on the wall. The eyes
+were fixed upon him even more horribly and meaningly than before, and
+seemed as if they would not look at any thing but him. Making a strong
+effort, he got out of bed, took a sheet and hung it over the portrait.
+This done, he again lay down, feeling more tranquil, and began to muse
+upon his melancholy lot,&mdash;upon the thorns and difficulties that beset
+the path of the friendless and aspiring artist. At in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span>tervals he
+involuntarily glanced through the crevices of the screen at the shrouded
+portrait. The bright moonlight increased the whiteness of the sheet, and
+he at last fancied that he saw the horrible eyes shining through the
+linen. He strained his sight to convince himself he was mistaken. The
+contrary effect was produced. The old man's face became more and more
+distinct;&mdash;there could no longer be any doubt: the sheet had
+disappeared,&mdash;the grim portrait was completely uncovered, and the
+infernal eyes stared straight at him, peering into his very soul. An icy
+chill came over his heart. He looked again;&mdash;the old man had moved, and
+stood with both hands leaning on the frame. In a few seconds he rose
+upon his arms, put forth both legs and leaped out of the frame, which
+was now seen empty through the crevice in the screen. A heavy footstep
+was heard in the room. The poor artist's heart beat hard and fast.
+Swallowing his breath for very fear, he awaited the sight of the old
+man, who evidently approached his bed. And in another moment there he
+was, peeping round the screen, with the same bronze-like countenance and
+fixed glittering eyes. Tchartk&oacute;ff made a violent effort to cry out, but
+his voice was gone. He strove to stir his limbs,&mdash;they refused to obey
+him. With open mouth and arrested breath he gazed upon the apparition.
+It was that of a tall man in a wide Asiatic robe. The painter watched
+its movements. Presently it sat down almost at his very feet, and drew
+something from between the folds of its flowing dress. This was a bag.
+The old man untied it, and, seizing it by the two ends, shook it: with a
+dull heavy sound there fell on the floor a number of heavy packets, of a
+long cylindrical shape. Their envelope was of dark blue paper, and on
+each was inscribed, 1000 <span class="smcap">DUCATS</span>. Extending his long lean hands from his
+wide sleeves, the old man began unrolling the packets. There was a gleam
+of gold. Great as Tchartk&oacute;ff's terror was, he could not help staring
+covetously at the coin, and looked on with profound attention as it
+streamed rapidly through the spectre's bony hands, glittering and
+clinking with a dull thin metallic sound, and was then rolled up anew.
+Suddenly he remarked one packet which had rolled a little farther than
+the rest, and stopped at the leg of the bedstead, near the head. By a
+rapid and furtive motion he seized this packet, gazing the while at the
+old man to see whether he remarked it. But he was too busy. He collected
+the remaining packets, replaced them in the bag, and, without looking at
+the artist, retired behind the screen. Tchartk&oacute;ff's heart beat
+vehemently when he heard his departing footsteps echoing through the
+room. Congratulating himself on impunity, he joyfully grasped the
+packet, and had almost ceased to tremble for its safety, when suddenly
+the footsteps again approached the screen; the old man had evidently
+discovered that one of his packets was wanting. Nearer he came, and
+nearer, until once more his grim visage was seen peeping round the
+screen. In an agony of terror the young man dropped the rouleau, made a
+desperate effort to stir his limbs, uttered a great cry&mdash;and awoke. A
+cold sweet streamed from every pore; his heart beat so violently that it
+seemed about to burst; his breast felt as tight as if the last breath
+were in the act of leaving it. Was it a dream? he said, pressing his
+head between both hands; the vividness of the apparition made him doubt
+it. Now, at any rate, he was unquestionably awake, yet he thought he saw
+the old man moving as he settled himself in his frame, his hand sinking
+by his side, and the border of his wide robe waving. His own hand
+retained the sensation of having, but a moment before, held a weighty
+substance. The moon still shone into the room, bringing out from its
+dark corners here a canvass, there a lay figure, there again the drapery
+thrown over a chair, or a plaster cast on its bracket on the wall.
+Tchartk&oacute;ff now perceived that he was not in bed, but on his feet,
+opposite the portrait. How he got there&mdash;was a thing he could in no way
+comprehend. What astounded him still more was the fact that the portrait
+was completely uncovered. No vestige of a sheet was there, but the
+living eyes staring fixedly at him. A cold sweat stood upon his brow; he
+would fain have fled,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span> but his feet were rooted to the ground. And then
+he saw (of a certainty this was no dream) the old man's features move,
+and his lips protruded as if about to utter words. With a shrill cry of
+horror, and a despairing effort, Tchartk&oacute;ff tore himself from the
+spot&mdash;and awoke. It was still a dream. His heart beat as though it would
+burst his bosom, but there was no cause for such agitation. He was in
+bed, in the same attitude as when he fell asleep. Before him was the
+screen: the chamber was filled with the watery moonbeams. Through the
+crack in the screen, the portrait was visible, covered with the sheet he
+had himself laid over it. Although thus convinced of the groundlessness
+of his alarm, the palpitation of his heart increased in violence, until
+it became painful and alarming; the oppression on his breast grew more
+and more severe. He could not detach his eyes from the sheet, and
+presently he distinctly saw it move, at first gently, then quickly and
+violently, as though hands were struggling and groping behind it,
+pulling and tearing, and striving, but in vain, to throw it aside. There
+was something mysteriously awful in this struggle of an invisible power
+against so flimsy an obstacle, which it yet was unable to overcome.
+Tchartk&oacute;ff felt his very soul chilled with fear. "Great God! what is
+this?" he cried, crossing himself in an agony of terror. And once more
+he awoke. For the third time he had dreamed a dream! He sprang from his
+bed in utter bewilderment, his brain whirling and burning, and at first
+could not make up his mind whether he had been favoured by a visit from
+the <i>domov&oacute;i</i>,<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> or by that of a real apparition.</p>
+
+<p>Approaching the window, he opened the <i>f&oacute;rtotchka</i>.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> A sharp frosty
+breeze brought refreshment to his heated frame. The moon's radiance
+still lay broadly on the roofs and white walls of the houses, and small
+floating clouds chased each other across the sky. All was still, save
+when, from time to time, there fell faintly upon the ear the distant
+jarring rattle of a lingering dr&oacute;jki, prowling in search of a belated
+fare. For some time our young painter remained with his his head out of
+the f&oacute;rtotchka, and it was not until signs of approaching dawn were
+visible in the heavens that he closed the pane, threw himself upon his
+bed, and fell into a deep and dreamless slumber.</p>
+
+<p>It was very late when he awoke with a violent headache. The room felt
+close; a disagreeable dampness saturated the air, and made its way
+through the crevices of the windows. Low-spirited, uncomfortable, and
+cheerless as a drenched cock, he sat down on his dilapidated sofa, and
+began to recall his dream of the previous night. So vivid was the
+impression it had made, that he could hardly persuade himself it had
+been a mere dream. Removing the sheet, he minutely examined the portrait
+by the light of day. He was still struck with the extraordinary power
+and expression of the eyes, but he found in them nothing peculiarly
+terrific. Still an unpleasant impression remained upon his mind. He
+could not divest himself of the conviction that a fragment of horrible
+reality had mingled with his dream. In defiance of reason, he imagined
+something peculiarly significant in the expression of the old man's
+face; a something of the cautious stealthy look it had worn when he
+crept round the screen, and counted his gold under the very nose of the
+needy painter. And Tchartk&oacute;ff still felt the print of the rouleau upon
+his palm, as though it had but that instant left his grasp. Had he held
+it but a little tighter, he thought, it must have remained in his hand
+even after his awakening.</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens!" he exclaimed, heaving a sorrowful sigh, "had I but the moiety
+of that wealth!" And again in his mind's eye he saw the rouleaus
+streaming from the sack. Again he read the attractive
+inscription,&mdash;1000<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span> <span class="smcap">DUCATS</span>; again they were unrolled, he heard the chink
+of metal, saw it shine, burned to clutch it. But once more the blue
+paper was rolled around it; and there he sat, motionless and entranced,
+straining his eyes upon vacancy, powerless to divert their gaze from the
+imaginary treasure&mdash;like a child gazing with watering mouth at a dish of
+unattainable sweetmeats.</p>
+
+<p>A knock at the door at last roused him from his reverie. It was promptly
+followed by the entrance of his landlord, accompanied by the
+<i>Nadzir&aacute;tel</i>, or police-inspector of the quarter&mdash;a gentleman whose
+appearance is, if possible, more disagreeable to the poor than the face
+of a petitioner is to the rich. The landlord of the small house in which
+Tchartk&oacute;ff lodged, was no bad type of the class of house-owners in such
+quarters as the fifteenth line of the Vas&iacute;lievsk&uuml; Ostrov. In his youth,
+he had been a captain in the army, where he was noted as a noisy
+quarrelsome fellow; transferred thence to the civil service, he proved
+himself a thorough master of the art of petty tyranny, a bustling
+coxcomb and a blockhead. Age had done little to improve his character.
+He had been some time a widower, had long retired from the service, was
+less given to quarrels and coxcombry, but more trivial and teasing. His
+chief happiness consisted in drinking tea, propagating scandal, and in
+sauntering about his apartment, with hands behind his back. These
+intellectual occupations were varied by an occasional inspection of the
+roof of his house, by ferreting his <i>dv&ograve;rnik</i>, or porter, fifty times
+a-day out of the kennel in which he oftener slept than watched, and by a
+monthly attack upon his lodgers for their rent.</p>
+
+<p>"Do me the favour to see about it yourself, Var&ugrave;kh Kusm&igrave;tch," said the
+landlord, to the Kvart&agrave;ln&uuml;: "he won't pay his rent&mdash;he won't pay, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"How can I, without money? Give me time, and I will pay."</p>
+
+<p>"Time, my good sir! impossible! I can't hear of such a thing," said the
+landlord in a rage, flourishing the key he held in his hand. "Perhaps
+you don't know that Colonel Potog&ograve;nkin lodges in my house&mdash;a colonel,
+sir, and has lived here these seven years; and Anna Petr&ograve;vna
+Buchm&igrave;steroff&mdash;a lady of fortune, sir, who rents a coach-house, and a
+two-stall stable, sir, and keeps three out-door servants: these are the
+sort of lodgers I have. My house, I tell you plainly, is not one of
+those establishments where people live who don't pay their rent. So I
+will thank you to pay yours directly, and be off bag and baggage."</p>
+
+<p>"You had better pay," said the Kvart&agrave;ln&uuml; Nadzir&aacute;tel, with a slight but
+significant shake of the head, sticking his forefinger through a
+button-hole of his uniform.</p>
+
+<p>"It's very easy to say pay, but where is the money? I have not a sous."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case, you can satisfy Iv&agrave;n Iv&agrave;novitch with goods, with the
+produce of your profession," said the Kvart&agrave;ln&uuml;; "he will probably agree
+to take pictures."</p>
+
+<p>"Not I, indeed! no pictures for me! It would be all very well to take
+pictures with respectable subjects, such as a gentleman could hang on
+his wall; a general with a star, or the likeness of Prince Kut&uacute;zoff;
+but, here I see nothing but paintings of muj&iacute;ks in their shirt-sleeves,
+servants, and such like cattle&mdash;a mere waste of time and colours. He has
+taken the likeness of that blackguard of his, whose bones I shall
+assuredly break, for the thief has pulled the nails out of all my locks
+and window-hasps&mdash;a scoundrel! Just look; there's a subject for you! a
+picture of the room! It would have been all very well if he had drawn it
+clean, neat, and orderly; but there he has got it full of filth and
+rubbish, just as it is. Only see how he has bedevilled and dirtied my
+room; pretty work, indeed, when I have had colonels for lodgers seven
+years together, and Anna Petr&ograve;vna Buchm&igrave;steroff! Truly there are no
+worse lodgers than artists; they turn a drawing-room into a pigstye."</p>
+
+<p>To all this, and much more, the poor painter was forced to listen
+patiently. Meanwhile the Kvart&agrave;ln&uuml; Nadzir&aacute;tel amused himself by looking
+at the pictures and sketches, occasionally uttering a comment or
+question.</p>
+
+<p>"Not bad!" said he, pausing be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span>fore a female figure: "pretty woman,
+really! But what's the meaning of that black, there, under her nose? is
+it snuff, or what?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's the shadow," replied Tchartk&oacute;ff surlily, without turning towards
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"You would have done better to have put it somewhere else. It is too
+remarkable just under the nose," said the critical Argus. "But, whose
+portrait is this?" continued he, approaching the picture that had
+occasioned Tchartk&oacute;ff so restless a night. "What an ugly old heathen!
+And what eyes! They might belong to Belzebub himself. I must have a look
+at this."</p>
+
+<p>And without asking permission, or thinking it necessary to use much
+ceremony with a poor devil of a painter who could not pay his rent, the
+agent of the law lifted the portrait from the nails on which it hung, to
+carry it to the window, and examine it at his leisure. But his hands
+were stiff and clumsy, and he had miscalculated the weight of the
+picture. It slipped through his fingers, and fell to the ground with a
+heavy thump and slight crashing noise, upsetting some lumber that stood
+against the wall, and raising a cloud of dust, which caused the man of
+manacles to step back and rub his eyes. With a muttered curse on the
+meddlesome official, Tchartk&oacute;ff sprang forward to raise the picture. As
+he did so, a small board, forming one of the sides of the frame, and
+which had been cracked by the fall, gave way altogether under the
+pressure of his hand, and part of it fell out. The fragment was followed
+by a rouleau of dark blue paper, which emitted a dull chink as it struck
+the ground. Tchartk&oacute;ff's eye glanced upon an inscription; it was&mdash;1000
+DUCATS. To snatch up the packet, and thrust it into his pocket, was the
+work of an instant.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, I heard the sound of coin," said the Kvart&agrave;ln&uuml;, who, owing to
+the dust, and to the rapidity of the painter's movement, had not caught
+sight of the rouleau.</p>
+
+<p>"And what business of yours is it, to know what I have in my room?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's my business to tell you, that you must pay the landlord his rent;
+it's my business to tell you, that I know you have money, and yet you
+won't pay&mdash;that's my business, my fine fellow!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I will pay him to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"And, why did you not pay at once, without giving trouble to the
+landlord, and disturbing the police?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I didn't intend to touch this money. But I will pay him this
+evening, and leave his lodgings at once. I will live no longer in his
+paltry garret."</p>
+
+<p>"He will pay you, Iv&agrave;n Iv&agrave;novitch," said the Kvart&agrave;ln&uuml; to the landlord.
+"If you neglect to do so by this evening, why then you must excuse me,
+Mr Painter, if we use severer means." And resuming his cocked hat, he
+departed, followed by the landlord, who hung his head, and looked
+exceedingly small.</p>
+
+<p>"The devil go with them!" said Tchartk&oacute;ff, as he heard the outer door
+shut. He looked into the ante-room, sent Nik&iacute;ta out, in order to be
+quite alone, locked himself in, and, with a violent palpitation of the
+heart, opened his packet. It contained exactly a thousand ducats, almost
+all of them quite new, and sparkling like the sun. Its appearance was
+precisely the same as those he had seen in his dream. Almost frantic
+with delight, he sat with the pile of gold before him, asking himself
+whether he did not still dream. Long did he handle and tell the gold
+before he could believe that it was real, and that he himself was awake
+and in his right mind.</p>
+
+<p>He then curiously and carefully examined the frame. In one side of it a
+kind of cavity had been hollowed out, and afterwards closed with a
+board, so neatly that if the loutish hand of the Kvart&agrave;ln&uuml; Nadzir&aacute;tel
+had not let the frame drop, the ducats might have remained for centuries
+undisturbed. It was with gratitude and complacency, rather than
+aversion, that the painter now contemplated the peculiar features and
+remarkable eyes of the old Asiatic.</p>
+
+<p>"Whoever you are, my old boy," said Tchartk&oacute;ff to himself, "I'll put you
+under glass, and give you a splendid frame for this."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment his hand happened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span> to touch the heap of gold, and the
+contact made his heart beat as violently as ever. "What shall I do with
+it?" he thought, fixing his eyes upon the money. "Now I am at my ease
+for three years at least, I can shut myself in my studio, and work. I
+can buy colours, pay for a comfortable lodging and good food. I have
+enough for every thing; nobody can tease or badger me now. I'll get a
+first-rate lay-figure, order a plaster torso, model feet, buy a Venus,
+have engravings of all the great masters. And if I work steadily for
+three years, quietly, without hurry, without being obliged to sell my
+pictures for my daily bread, I shall astonish the world and achieve
+fame."</p>
+
+<p>Such was the artist's soliloquy, prompted by conscious talent and
+honourable ambition. A far different counsel was given by his twenty-two
+summers and heat of youth. He now had at his command all that he had
+hitherto gazed at from afar with envying eyes. How his heart bounded and
+swelled within him, as he thought of the luxuries he could now command!
+how he longed to exchange rags for purple and fine linen, and fare
+sumptuously after his long fast, to dwell in a splendid lodging, to
+visit the theatre, the caf&eacute;, the ball!</p>
+
+<p>Seizing his money, the young man was in the street in a moment. His
+first visit was to a tailor's shop, where he dressed himself from top to
+toe, and walked down the street looking at himself in every window. He
+bought a huge quantity of trinkets and perfumes, an opera-glass, and a
+mountain of brilliant cravats; took, without a word of bargaining, the
+first lodging that he saw, a magnificent set of rooms in the Nevsku
+perspective, with immense mirrors, and each window glazed with a single
+pane; had his hair curled at a coiffeur's, hired a carriage, and drove
+twice, without the slightest object, from one end of the town to the
+other, crammed himself with bon-bons at a confectioner's, and went to a
+French <i>restaurant</i>, about which he had hitherto heard only vague and
+uncertain rumours, such as one hears of the Chinese empire. There he
+dined, assuming the while a haughty and supercilious air, and
+incessantly arranging his well-curled locks. There, too, he drank a
+bottle of champagne; a liquid he had hitherto known only by reputation.
+His head full of wine, he went out into the street, gay, bold, ready for
+any thing&mdash;able to face the devil, as the Russians say. On the bridge he
+met his former professor, and pushed coolly past him, as if he did not
+observe him, leaving the poor man motionless with astonishment, a mark
+of interrogation visibly printed in his countenance. All that he
+possessed in the world, easels, canvasses, pictures, Tchartk&oacute;ff
+transported that very evening to his new and splendid lodgings. He
+arranged his best pictures in the most visible situations, cast those he
+thought less of into corners, and perambulated his splendid rooms,
+looking at himself each minute in the mirrors. Then there arose in his
+mind a restless desire to take fame by storm, instantly, without delay,
+and to compel, by whatever means, the applause of the multitude. Already
+the cry rang in his ears, "Tchartk&oacute;ff, Tchartk&oacute;ff! haven't you seen
+Tchartk&oacute;ff's picture? What a rapid pencil Tchartk&oacute;ff has! Tchartk&oacute;ff has
+immense talent!" Musing, and castle-building, he paced his apartment
+till a late hour of the night, and when in bed, could not sleep for
+ruminating his ambitious projects.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning he took a dozen ducats, and drove to the editor of a
+fashionable newspaper. The introduction was efficacious. The journalist
+praised his genius, professed the most ardent desire to serve him,
+loaded him with compliments, shook him fervently by both hands, and
+accompanied him obsequiously to the door, making minute inquiries as to
+his name, his style of painting, his place of residence.</p>
+
+<p>The very next day there appeared in the newspaper, immediately after an
+advertisement of newly discovered candles, warranted to burn without
+wicks, an article headed,</p>
+
+<p class="center">EXTRAORDINARY TALENT OF TCHARTK&Oacute;FF.</p>
+
+<p>"We hasten to congratulate the inhabitants of this polite metropolis on
+what may be styled a <i>discovery</i> of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span> the most splendid and useful
+nature. We refer to the sudden appearance of an artist of consummate
+skill, possessing all the qualifications that can render a painter
+worthy to transfer to the magic canvass the faces of the many beautiful
+women and handsome men who adorn the cultivated circles of St
+Petersburg. Ladies may now confidently rely on being transmitted to
+posterity without diminution of their graces, with all their delicate
+loveliness, enchanting symmetry of form, and exquisite expression of
+feature&mdash;graces ephemeral, alas! as the existence of the butterfly that
+hovers over the vernal flowers. Parents, ere they leave this vale of
+tears, may bequeath to their sorrowing children their exact resemblance.
+The warrior, the statesman, the poet, all classes of men, in short, will
+pursue their career with fresh zeal and ardour, now that the brilliant
+pencil of a Tchartk&oacute;ff enables them to transmit to posterity their
+visible features, as well as their imperishable renown. Let all hasten,
+then, abandoning promenade, and party, opera, ball, and theatre, to the
+splendid and luxurious studio of our artist, (Nevsku Perspective,
+No.&mdash;). It is hung with portraits, the produce of his pencil, worthy a
+Vandyke or a Titian. The happy connoisseur knows not what to admire most
+in these exquisite works, their exact resemblance to the original, or
+the extraordinary brilliancy and freshness of their handling. They must
+be seen to be even imperfectly appreciated; the artist has truly drawn a
+prize in the lottery of genius. Success to you, Andr&eacute;i Petr&oacute;vitch! (the
+journalist was evidently fond of the familiar style). <i>Macte nov&acirc;
+virtute</i>, and immortalise yourself and us. Glory, fortune, crowds of
+sitters, in spite of the feeble and envious efforts of certain
+contemporary prints, will be your speedy and unfailing reward!"</p>
+
+<p>His face beaming with contentment, our artist perused this puff. He saw
+his name in print,&mdash;a thing which was to him a complete novelty; and he
+could not help reading the lines at least a dozen times. He was
+particularly tickled with the comparison of his works to Vandyke and
+Titian. The use of his baptismal name, Andr&eacute;i Petr&oacute;vitch, also gratified
+him not a little. To be mentioned in this delightfully familiar way in
+print, was to him an honour as gratifying as it was new. He could not
+remain quiet a moment. Now he sat down in a chair, then threw himself
+picturesquely on a sofa, rehearsing the way he would receive his
+sitters; then he went to his easel, and gave a bold dashing stroke of
+the brush, studying at the same time a graceful mode of wielding it.
+Thus he got through the day.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, soon after breakfast, his bell rang. He hurried to the
+door; a lady entered, preceded by a footman in a furred livery cloak,
+and accompanied by a young girl of eighteen, her daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Tchartk&oacute;ff, I believe?" said the lady. The painter bowed.</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen your name in the papers; your portraits, they say, are
+incomparable." With these words the lady put her glass to her eye, and
+glanced round the walls, which were bare. "But where are all your
+portraits?"</p>
+
+<p>"They are not arrived," said the artist, a little confused; "I have just
+removed into these rooms, the pictures are still on the road&mdash;they will
+soon be here."</p>
+
+<p>"You have been in Italy?" said the lady, turning her eye-glass on the
+painter in the absence of the paintings.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I have not been there exactly&mdash;I intend to go&mdash;I have been
+compelled to put it off; but pray do me the honour to sit down; you must
+be tired."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very kind, but I have been sitting&mdash;in my carriage. Ah, at
+last, I see some of your works!" said the lady, running up to the
+opposite side of the room, and levelling her glass at some canvasses
+placed on the floor, studies, sketches, interiors, and portraits.
+"<i>C'est charmant! Lise, Lise! venez ici</i>: there's an interior in the
+manner of Teniers, see: all is in disorder, higgledy-piggledy, a table
+with a bust upon it, a hand, a palette; and the dust, look how well the
+dust is painted! <i>c'est charmant!</i> And there is another canvass, a woman
+washing her face&mdash;<i>quelle jolie figure!</i> Oh, and there's a <i>muj&iacute;k</i>!
+Lise, Lise!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span> a <i>muj&iacute;k</i> in a Russian shirt! look, do look&mdash;<i>a muj&iacute;k</i>! So
+you don't paint portraits only?"</p>
+
+<p>"These are mere trifles&mdash;done for amusement, in an idle moment&mdash;mere
+studies&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But do tell me your opinion of the portrait-painters of the present
+day? Isn't it true, that we have none at present like Titian? There's
+not that force of colouring, not that,&mdash;&mdash;really, what a pity it is that
+I cannot express what I mean in Russian." The lady was passionately fond
+of painting, and had run, eye-glass in hand, over all the galleries in
+Italy. "Only, I must say, that Monsieur Dauberelli&mdash;ah, how he paints!
+What an extraordinary touch! I find more expression in his faces than
+even in Titian's. You know Monsieur Dauberelli?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dauberelli! who is he?" asked the artist.</p>
+
+<p>"Such talent! He painted my daughter when she was only twelve years old.
+You must come and see it, really you must. Lise, you shall show him your
+album. But I want another portrait of my daughter, and that is the
+motive of my visit. Can you begin at once?"</p>
+
+<p>"Directly, madam, if you please." And in a moment he wheeled up his
+easel, with a canvass on it, ready stretched, took his palette in his
+hand and fixed his eyes on the pale childish features of the daughter.
+Young as she was, they already bore traces of late hours and
+dissipation. Expression they had little or none. But the artist saw in
+the complexion an almost china-like transparence, exquisitely adapted to
+his pencil; the neck was white and slender, the form elegant and
+aristocratic. And he prepared for a triumph; he intended to show the
+lightness and brilliancy of his touch, for the display of which he had
+hitherto lacked opportunities. He already began to fancy to himself how
+the pale but graceful little lady would come out upon the canvass.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," said the mother, with a sentimental expression of face "I
+should like&mdash;you see she has a frock on now&mdash;well, I confess I should
+not like you to paint her in a frock, it's so commonplace; I should like
+her to be painted simply dressed, sitting in the shade of a thicket,
+with fields in the distance, and sheep or a forest in the
+back-ground&mdash;simplicity, the greatest simplicity, is what I should
+like."</p>
+
+<p>Tchartk&oacute;ff set to work, arranged the sitter in the attitude he required,
+endeavoured to fix the whole subject in his mind; waved his brush in the
+air before him, as if establishing the principal points; half-closed his
+eyes several times, retired back a step or two, examined his sitter from
+a distance, and in about an hour he finished drawing in the face.
+Satisfied with the effect, he now commenced painting, and his labour
+rapidly grew lighter. By this time he had forgotten he was in the
+presence of two ladies of high fashion, and began to fall into a few
+tricks of the painting-room, uttering half-aloud various inarticulate
+sounds, and at intervals humming a tune between his teeth. Without the
+slightest ceremony he from time to time signed, by a movement of his
+brush, to his sitter to raise her head. At last the young lady grew
+weary and restless.</p>
+
+<p>"That's quite enough for the first sitting," said her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Another minute," cried the painter in an absent tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible! Lise, three o'clock!" said the lady, looking at her
+diminutive watch. "Oh, how late!"</p>
+
+<p>"Only half a second," said Tchartk&oacute;ff, in the wistful and beseeching
+voice of a child.</p>
+
+<p>But the lady was disinclined to comply. She promised him a longer
+sitting another time.</p>
+
+<p>"Horridly annoying!" said Tchartk&oacute;ff to himself; "just as my hand was
+getting in." And he remembered that no one had ever interrupted him,
+when he worked in his painting-room in the Vas&iacute;lievsk&uuml; Ostrov. Nik&iacute;ta
+would sit hour after hour without moving a muscle: you might paint him
+as much as you liked; he would go to sleep in the attitude he was fixed
+in. And the artist discontentedly laid his pencil and palette on a
+chair, and stood pensively before the canvass. He was aroused from his
+reverie by a compliment addressed to him by the fashionable lady. He
+darted towards the door to show out his visitors: on the stairs he
+received<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span> an invitation to dine with them the following week, and with a
+cheerful air he re-entered his rooms. The aristocratic style of his
+visitors had quite fascinated him. Up to this time he had held such
+beings unapproachable, born only to glide about in a splendid carriage
+with liveried footmen and a laced and bearded coachman, throwing a calm
+indifferent glance on the humble foot-passenger as he plodded by in a
+shabby cloak. And yet, here was one of these exquisite beings calling
+upon him: he was painting her portrait, and had received an invitation
+to dine with her. Intoxicated with vanity and delight, he treated
+himself to a splendid dinner, went to the theatre in the evening, and
+again, without the slightest occasion, drove about the town in a
+carriage.</p>
+
+<p>For some days he did nothing but arrange his rooms and listen for the
+sound of his bell. At last the lady arrived, with her pale daughter. He
+made them sit down, wheeled up his easel with a strong affectation of
+fashionable manner, and began to paint. He saw in his delicate sitter
+much that, being cleverly caught, would give high value to the portrait:
+he perceived that he might produce something quite peculiar and
+characteristic, if he could render it with the same accuracy and
+completeness with which nature herself had placed it before him. His
+heart even felt a slight tremor when he found himself expressing what no
+one else perhaps had ever remarked. His attention became riveted on his
+canvass, and he again forgot the aristocratic descent of his sitter.
+Holding his breath from eagerness, he gradually saw the delicate
+features and transparent skin come out upon his canvass. He had caught
+every half-tint, even the slight ivory-like yellowness, the nearly
+imperceptible blueish tone under the eyes, and was just in the act of
+seizing a little mole upon the forehead, when he suddenly heard behind
+him the voice of the mother, crying&mdash;"Oh, never mind that! that is not
+necessary! I see, too, you have got a&mdash;here, for instance, and here,
+see!&mdash;a kind of yellowish&mdash;and here and there you have, as it were,
+little dark places." The artist explained that the dark and yellow tones
+relieved the face, and gave a delicacy to the flesh-tints. But the
+notion was scouted. He was informed that Lise had not slept well, that
+there was usually no yellowness at all in her face, which struck every
+body by its freshness of complexion. Sadly and reluctantly Tchartk&oacute;ff
+began to efface what he had taken such pains to produce. With it there
+vanished of course much of the resemblance. He now began, with a feeling
+of indifference, to throw over the whole a more commonplace and
+hackneyed colouring, the red and white, devoid of vigour, which each
+daubster has at his command. The obnoxious tint was effaced, and the
+mamma was delighted. She only expressed her surprise that the work went
+on so slowly. She had heard, she said, that he could completely finish a
+portrait in two sittings. The ladies rose and prepared to go away.
+Tchartk&oacute;ff laid down his pencil, conducted them to the door, and then,
+returning, stood for a while before his portrait, regretting the
+delicate lines, the half-tints and airy tones, so happily caught and
+pitilessly effaced. With these recollections vivid in his mind, he put
+aside the portrait, and looked for a study, which had been long
+abandoned, of a head of Psyche, an idea he had some time before thrown
+sketchily on the canvass. It was a pretty little countenance, cleverly
+and rapidly painted, but quite ideal, cold and hard, devoid of life and
+reality. Scarcely knowing why, he began to work at this, endeavouring to
+communicate to it all he could remember of the countenance of his
+aristocratic sitter. Psyche grew more and more animated; the type of the
+young fashionable lady's countenance was by degrees mingled with hers,
+at the same time acquiring an expression which gave it originality and
+character. Tchartk&oacute;ff was able to avail himself, both in the details and
+in the general effect, of all that he had obtained from his sitter, and
+to incorporate it with his work. During several days he laboured hard at
+his Psyche. He was still busy with it when he was interrupted by the
+arrival of his former visitors. The picture was on the easel. Both
+ladies uttered a cry of admiration, and clapped their hands.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Lise! Lise! Oh, how like! <i>Superbe</i>! <i>Superbe!</i> What an exquisite idea,
+to dress her in the Grecian costume! What a truly delicious surprise!"</p>
+
+<p>The artist hardly knew how to undeceive the ladies in their agreeable
+mistake. He hung his head, and, with an apologetic air, said, in a low
+voice, "This is Psyche."</p>
+
+<p>"Painted as Psyche! <i>C'est charmant!</i>" said the mother, with a smile,
+faithfully repeated by the daughter. "Don't you think so, Lise? it's
+just the thing for you. Painted as Pysche! <i>Quelle id&eacute;e d&eacute;licieuse!</i> But
+what a picture! Quite a Correggio! I have heard and read much about you,
+but I had not the least idea of your talent."</p>
+
+<p>"What the deuce am I to do with them?" thought the artist. "Well, if
+they will have it so, Psyche shall go;" and he said aloud&mdash;"I must
+trouble you to give me a few minutes more&mdash;I should like to add a few
+touches."</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot improve it. Pray leave it as it is."</p>
+
+<p>The painter guessed that they apprehended some more yellow tones, and he
+hastened to remove their fears, saying that he was only going to
+increase the brilliancy and expression of the eyes. In reality he
+desired to give his picture a closer resemblance with the
+original&mdash;fearing, if he did not, that he should be taxed with
+unblushing flattery. In spite of the lady's reluctance, the pallid
+damsel's features began to come out more clearly amid the outlines of
+the Psyche.</p>
+
+<p>"That will do," said the mother, less pleased by the picture as the
+resemblance grew closer. The artist was rewarded for his labour with
+smiles, money, compliments, a most affectionate squeeze of the hand, and
+a pressing invitation to dinner; in a word, he was overwhelmed with
+recompenses. The portrait made much noise in the town. The lady showed
+it to all her acquaintance. Every body admired the skill with which the
+painter had succeeded in preserving the resemblance, and at the same
+time in giving beauty to the original. The last remark, of course, was
+not made without a slight tinge of malice. Tchartk&oacute;ff was besieged with
+commissions. The whole town was mad to be painted by him. His door-bell
+rang incessantly. Unfortunately his sitters were of the class most
+difficult to manage; either persons very much occupied, or fashionable
+people, who having in reality nothing to do, were, of course, far busier
+than anybody else, and hurried and impatient in the highest degree.
+Every body expected a good picture in less time than was necessary to do
+a slovenly one. The artist saw that high finish was quite out of the
+question, and that all he could do was to dazzle by the facility,
+rapidity, and smartness of his execution. He had to content himself with
+catching the general expression, neglecting the more delicate details,
+and not attempting to attain the individuality and reality of nature.
+Besides this, every sitter had some fresh fancy. The ladies required
+that only their sentiment and character should be represented in their
+portraits; that all the rest should be smoothed and softened; sharp
+angles rounded off; defects mitigated, and even, if possible, altogether
+concealed. They required, in short, to be made attractive in their
+portraits, whether nature had made them so or not. Consequently many,
+when they seated themselves in the painting chair, put on such looks and
+expressions as absolutely astounded the artist. One struggled to give
+her features an air of melancholy; another of sentimental abstraction; a
+third tried desperately to make her mouth small, and pursed it up till
+it resembled a round dot. And in spite of all this they expected
+striking resemblance, ease, and grace. Nor were the gentlemen more
+reasonable. One required to be painted with a strong energetic turn of
+the head; another with uplifted eyes, full of poetic inspiration; an
+ensign of the Guards declared that he should not be satisfied unless
+Mars was made visible in his countenance: a civilian delicately
+suggested that his face should be made as much as possible to express
+incorruptible probity, mingled with imposing dignity, and that he should
+be painted leaning his arm on a book, inscribed in legible characters,
+"I stand for right." At first all these requests frightened and annoyed
+our painter; there was so much to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span> harmonised, considered, and
+arranged, and all in a few hours. At last he began to understand the
+secret, and went on without troubling his head in the least. From the
+first two or three words spoken, he perceived how the sitter wished to
+be painted. The gentleman who wanted Mars was made a Mars of; he who
+aped Byron received a Byronic attitude. As to the ladies, whether they
+wished to be Corinnas, or Undines, or Aspasias, he was quite ready to
+accommodate them, and even added, from his own imagination, a universal
+air of distinction, which never does any harm, and which sometimes makes
+people excuse even want of resemblance. He soon began to be astonished
+at the wonderful rapidity and success of his execution. As to the
+sitters, they were in ecstasies, and proclaimed him every where a genius
+of the first water.</p>
+
+<p>Tchartk&oacute;ff became all the fashion. He drove out every day to dinner
+parties, escorted ladies to exhibitions and promenades, was a consummate
+puppy in his dress, and openly declared that an artist ought to be a man
+of the world; that it was his duty to maintain his dignity; that
+painters in general dressed like shoemakers; that their manners were
+excruciatingly vulgar, and that they were people of no education. His
+studio was a pattern of elegance; he kept a couple of magnificent
+footmen; took a number of dandified pupils; had his hair curled; dressed
+half-a-dozen times a-day in various fantastical costumes. He was
+perpetually rehearsing improvements in his way of receiving visitors;
+meditating on all possible means of beautifying his person, and of
+producing an agreeable impression on the ladies. In short, it soon
+became impossible to recognise in him the modest student who once
+laboured so fervently in his garret in the Vas&iacute;lievsk&uuml; Ostrov.
+Concerning art and artists he now rarely spoke; he asserted that the
+merit of the old masters had been outrageously overrated; that, before
+Raphael, their figures were rather like herrings than human beings; that
+it was the imagination of the spectator only that could find in their
+works that air of grandeur and dignity generally attributed to them.
+Raphael himself, he said, was very unequal, and many of his productions
+owed their glory only to tradition. Michael Angelo was a boaster, weakly
+vain of his knowledge of anatomy, and without a particle of grace. Real
+force of outline, grace of touch, and magic of colouring we must look
+for, he said, in the present age. Thence the conversation easily glided
+to his own pictures.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot conceive," he would say, "the obstinacy of people who drudge
+at their pictures. A fellow who hangs month after month over one piece
+of canvass is, in my opinion, an artisan, not an artist. Such a one has
+no genius, for genius creates boldly, rapidly. Now this portrait, for
+instance," he would say, "I painted in two days, this head in one day,
+this in a few hours, and that other in rather more than an hour. I don't
+call it art to go crawling on, line after line."</p>
+
+<p>Thus he would chatter to his visitors, and the visitors would admire his
+dashing rapidity, and utter exclamations of wonder when they heard how
+quickly he worked; and then they would whisper to each other&mdash;"This is
+genius&mdash;real genius! How well he talks! What an extraordinary talent!"</p>
+
+<p>Such praise as this the painter greedily drank in, and was as delighted
+as a child by the encomiums of the press, even when bought and paid for
+with his own money. His fame continued to spread, and his occupation to
+increase, till he grew weary of painting portraits and faces with the
+same tricks and attitudes that he knew by heart. Gradually he worked
+with less and less good-will, contenting himself with carelessly
+sketching in the head, and leaving all the rest to be finished by his
+pupils. Formerly he had taken trouble to seek new attitudes; to strike
+by novelty&mdash;by effect. Now he began to grow weary even of this labour.
+He entirely left off reflecting; he had neither power nor leisure for
+it. His dissipated mode of life, and the society in which he played the
+part of a man of fashion, severed him more and more from labour and from
+thought. His touch grew cold and dull, and he insensibly confined
+himself to stale, common<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span>place, worn-out forms. The stiff, monotonous
+countenances of officers and civilians, in their graceless modern
+costumes, were not very attractive subjects for the pencil. He forgot
+all&mdash;his graceful draping, his easy attitudes, his power of representing
+the passions. As to skilful grouping or dramatic effect in painting, all
+that was quite out of the question. He had nothing before his eyes but
+the eternal uniform, corset, or dress-coat&mdash;objects chilling to the
+artist, and affording little scope to imagination. By and by even the
+most ordinary merits disappeared, one by one, from his productions; and
+they still enjoyed the highest reputation, though real judges and
+artists only shrugged their shoulders as they looked at the work of his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>These mute but significant criticisms of the discerning few never
+reached the ears of the artist, intoxicated as he was with vanity and
+false fame. He already too approached the period of maturity in age and
+intellect, and was rapidly acquiring a respectable corpulence. He now
+met in the journals with such expressions as these:&mdash;"Our respectable
+Andr&eacute;i Petr&oacute;vitch&mdash;our veteran of the pencil, Andr&eacute;i Petr&oacute;vitch." He now
+received many honorary appointments in public institutions; was
+frequently invited to examinations and to committees. He began, as
+people infallibly do on reaching a certain age, to stand up sturdily for
+the old masters, not from any profound conviction of their wonderful
+merits, but in order to throw their names in the teeth of young artists.
+He did not hesitate to fly in the face of the doctrines he had advocated
+some years previously. According to him, labour was every thing,
+inspiration a mere name; and he affirmed that, in art, all things should
+be subjected to the severest rules.</p>
+
+<p>Fame can give no satisfaction to one who has not earned, but stolen it.
+It produces a constant thrill only in the heart conscious of having
+deserved it. Tchartk&oacute;ff no longer valued fame. All his feelings and
+desires were turned towards gold. Gold became his passion, his delight,
+the object of his being. Bank-notes filled his portfolios, piles of gold
+his coffers; but, like all avaricious men, he grew sour, selfish,
+inaccessible to every thing but money&mdash;cold-hearted and penurious. He
+was gradually sinking into an unhappy miser, when an event came to pass
+which gave his whole moral being a terrible and awakening shock.</p>
+
+<p>Returning home one day, Tchartk&oacute;ff found lying on his table a letter, in
+which the Academy of Arts invited him, as one of its most distinguished
+members, to give his opinion of a new picture just arrived from Italy,
+the work of a Russian artist who had long studied there. The painter,
+who had been a schoolfellow of Tchartk&oacute;ff's, imbued, even as a boy, with
+a fervent passion for art, had early torn himself from home and friends,
+from all the pleasures and habits of his age and country, to toil and
+study in the renowned Italian city, whose very name thrills the
+painter's heart. There he condemned himself to solitude and
+uninterrupted labour. Men spoke of his eccentricity, of his ignorance of
+the world, of his neglect of all the customs of society, of the disgrace
+he cast on the artist's profession by his dress, which was beneath his
+station, and by his frugality, which was almost penury. He cared nothing
+for scoff and reproach. Regardless of the world's comments, he gave
+himself up to his art. Unweariedly did he haunt the galleries; hour
+after hour, day after day, he stood before the works of the great
+masters, striving to penetrate their secrets. He never finished a
+picture without comparing it many times with the productions of those
+mighty teachers, and reading in their creations silent but eloquent
+counsel. He engaged in no arguments or disputes, but accorded to every
+school the honour it deserved; and after aiming at acquiring what was
+most meritorious in each, at length addicted himself to the study of the
+immortal Raphael; like a student of letters, who, after reading and
+rereading the works of a multitude of authors, at last confines himself
+to the writings of one whom he conceives to unite the chief beauties of
+all the others, superadding graces none of them possess. After many
+years of persevering application and gradual progress, the artist left
+the schools, possessing pure and elevated ideas of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span> composition, great
+powers of conception, and an execution that charmed alike by its
+delicacy and force. But, with the modesty of true genius, he still
+allowed a considerable time to elapse before he ventured to submit a
+picture to the verdict of his countrymen.</p>
+
+<p>On entering the exhibition-room, Tchartk&oacute;ff found it thronged with
+visitors, grouped before the painting. Silence, such as is rarely met
+with amongst a numerous collection of amateurs, reigned throughout the
+crowd. Assuming the knowing and supercilious look of an acknowledged
+connoisseur, he approached the picture, prepared to cavil and find
+fault, or, at best, to damn with faint praise. But the canting phrase of
+conventional criticism died away upon his lips at the sight he there
+beheld. Faultless, pure, gracious, and beautiful as some fair and virgin
+bride was the noble production of genius that met his astonished gaze.
+With wonder and admiration he recognised the work of a pencil that
+revived the glories of ancient art. A profound study of Raphael was
+manifest in the noble elevation of the attitudes; there was a something
+Correggian in the skilful handling and careful finish. But there was no
+servile imitation of any painter; the artist had sought and found in his
+own soul the divine spark that gave life to his creation. Not an object
+in the picture, however trifling, but had been the subject of a profound
+study; the law of its constitution had been analysed, and its internal
+organism investigated. And the painter had caught that flowing roundness
+of line which pervades all nature, but which no eye ever sees save that
+of the creator-artist&mdash;that roundness which the mere copyist degrades
+into points and angles. He had poetised, whilst faithfully representing,
+the commonest objects of external nature. A feeling of awe mingled with
+the admiration that kept the crowd profoundly silent. Not a whisper was
+heard, not a rustle or a sound, for some time after the arrival of
+Tchartk&oacute;ff. All were absorbed in contemplation of the masterpiece; and
+in the eyes of the more enthusiastic tears of delight were seen to
+glisten. Tchartk&oacute;ff himself stood open-mouthed and motionless before the
+wonderful painting, whose merits and beauties the spectators at last
+began to discuss. He was roused from abstraction by being appealed to
+for his opinion. In vain did he strive to resume his dignified air, and
+to give utterance to the musty commonplace of criticism. The
+contemptuous smile was chased from his features by the workings of
+emotion; his breast heaved with a convulsive sob, and after a moment's
+violent but ineffectual struggle, he burst into tears and rushed wildly
+from the hall.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later he stood motionless, almost paralysed, in his own
+magnificent studio. The bandage had fallen from his eyes. He saw how he
+had squandered the best years of his youth; how he had trampled and
+stifled the spark of that fire once burning within him, which might have
+been fanned till it blazed up into grandeur and glory, and extorted
+tears of gratitude and admiration from a wondering world. All this he
+had sacrificed and thrown away, heedlessly, madly, brutally. There
+suddenly revived in his soul those enthusiastic aspirations he once had
+known. He caught up a pencil and approached a canvass. The sweat of
+eagerness stood upon his brow; his soul was filled with one passionate
+desire&mdash;one solitary thought burned in his brain. The zeal for art, the
+thirst for fame he once so strongly felt, had suddenly returned, evoked
+from their lurking-place by the mute voice of another's genius. And why,
+Tchartk&oacute;ff thought, should not he also excel? His hand trembled with
+feverish impatience till he could scarcely hold the pencil. He took for
+his subject a fallen angel. The idea was in accordance with his frame of
+mind. But, alas! how soon he was convinced of the vanity of his efforts!
+His hand and imagination had been too long confined to one line and
+limit, and his fierce but impotent endeavour to overleap the barrier, to
+break his self-imposed fetters, had no result. He had despised and
+neglected the fundamental condition of future greatness&mdash;the long and
+fatiguing ladder of study and reflection. Maddened by disappointment,
+furious at the conviction of impotency, he ignominiously dismissed from
+his studio all his later<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span> and most esteemed productions, to which places
+of honour had been accorded&mdash;all his lifeless, senseless, fashionable
+portraits of hussars, ladies of fashion, and privy councillors. He then
+shut himself up, denied himself to all visitors, and sat down to work,
+patient and eager as a young student. For a while he laboured day and
+night. But how unsatisfactory, how cruelly ungrateful was all that grew
+under his pencil! Each moment he found himself checked and repulsed in
+the new path he fain would have trodden by the wretched mechanical
+tricks to which he had so long habituated himself. They stood on his
+road, an impassable barrier. In spite of himself he recurred to the old
+commonplace forms; the arms would arrange themselves in one graceless
+position; the head assume the old hackneyed attitude; the folds of dress
+refused to drape themselves otherwise than they had so long been wont to
+do in his hands. All this the unhappy artist plainly felt and saw. His
+eyes were opened to his heinous faults, but he lacked the power to
+correct them.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely I <i>had</i> ability!" said he to himself; "or was it mere delusion?
+Could I not, under any circumstances, have done better than I have? Did
+the whispers of youthful vanity mislead me?" And, to settle this doubt,
+he hunted out some of his early pictures, which lay neglected in a
+corner of his painting-room&mdash;pictures he had laboured at long ago, when
+his heart was pure from avarice, and he dwelt in his poor garret in the
+lonely Vas&iacute;lievsk&uuml; Ostrov, far from the world, from luxury and
+covetousness. He examined them attentively, and the conviction forced
+itself upon him with irresistible strength, that he had sacrificed
+genius at the altar of Mammon. "I had it in me!" was his agonised
+exclamation. "Every where, in all of these, I behold traces and proofs
+of the power I have recklessly frittered away."</p>
+
+<p>Covering his face with his hands, Tchartk&oacute;ff stood silent, full of
+bitter thoughts, rapidly but minutely reviewing the whole of his past
+life. When he removed his hands he started, and a thrill passed over
+him, for he suddenly encountered the gaze of two piercing eyes
+glittering with a sombre lustre, and seeming to watch and enjoy his
+despair. A second glance showed him they belonged to the strange
+portrait which he had bought, many years before, in the Stch&uacute;kin Dvor.
+It had remained forgotten and concealed amidst a mass of old pictures,
+and he had long since forgotten its existence. Now that the gaudy,
+fashionable pictures and portraits had been removed from the studio,
+there it was, peering grimly out from amongst his early productions.
+Tchartk&oacute;ff remembered that, in a certain sense, this hideous portrait
+had been the origin of the useless life he had so long led and now so
+deeply deplored; that the hoard of gold discovered in its frame had
+developed and fostered in him those worldly passions, that sensuality
+and love of luxury, which had been the bane of his genius. Calling his
+servants, he ordered the hateful picture to be taken from the room, and
+bestowed where he should never again behold it. Its departure, however,
+was insufficient to calm his agitation and quell the storm that raged
+within him. He was a prey to that rare moral torture sometimes witnessed
+when a feeble talent wrestles unsuccessfully to attain a development
+above its capacity&mdash;a furious endeavour which often conducts young and
+vigorous minds to great achievements, but whose result to old and
+enervated ones is more frequently despair and insanity. Tchartk&oacute;ff, when
+convinced of the futility of his efforts, became possessed by the demon
+of envy, who soon monopolised and made him all his own. His complexion
+assumed a bilious yellow tint; he could not bear to hear an artist
+praised, or look with patience at any work of art that bore the impress
+of genius. On beholding such he would grind his teeth with fury, and the
+expression of his face became that of a maniac.</p>
+
+<p>At last he conceived one of the most execrable projects the human mind
+ever engendered; and with an eagerness approaching to frenzy, he
+hastened to put it into execution. He bought up all the best pictures he
+could find in St Petersburg, and whose owners could be induced to part
+with them. The prices he gave to tempt sellers were often most
+extravagant. As soon as he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span> purchased a picture, and got it safely
+home, he would set upon it with demoniac fury, tearing, scratching, even
+biting it; and, when it was utterly defaced and rent into the smallest
+possible fragments, he would dance and trample on it, laughing like a
+fiend. The enormous fortune he had accumulated during his long and
+successful career as a fashionable portrait-painter, enabled him largely
+to indulge this infernal monomania. To this abominable end he,
+Tchartk&oacute;ff, but a short time before so avaricious, became reckless in
+his expenditure. For this he untied the strings of his bags of gold, and
+scattered his rubles with lavish hand. All were surprised at the change,
+and at the rapidity with which he squandered his fortune, in his zeal,
+as it was supposed, to form a gallery of the noblest works of art. In
+the auction room, none cared to oppose him, for all were certain to be
+outbid. He was held to be mad, and certainly his conduct and appearance
+justified the presumption. His countenance, of a jaundiced hue, grew
+haggard and wrinkled; misanthropy and hatred of the world were plainly
+legible upon it. He resembled that horrid demon whom Pushkin has so ably
+conceived and portrayed. Save all occasional sarcasm, venomous and
+bitter, no word ever passed his lips, and at last he became universally
+avoided. His acquaintances, and even his oldest friends, shunned his
+presence, and would go a mile round to escape meeting him in the street.
+The mere sight of him, they said, was enough to cloud their whole day.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately for society and for art, such an unnatural and agitated
+existence as this could not long endure. Tchartk&oacute;ff's mental excitement
+was too violent for his physical strength. A burning fever and furious
+delirium ravaged his frame, and in a few days he was but the ghost of
+his former self. The delirium augmented, and became a permanent and
+incurable mania, in some of whose paroxysms it was necessary to bind him
+to his couch. He fancied he saw continually before him the singular old
+portrait from the Stch&uacute;kin Dvor! This was the more strange, because
+since the day he had turned it out of his studio, it had never once met
+his sight. But now he raved of its terrible living eyes, which haunted
+him unceasingly, and when this fancy came over him, his madness was
+something terrific. All the persons who approached his bed he imagined
+to be horrible portraits; copies, repeated again and again, of the old
+man with the fiendish eyes. The image multiplied itself perpetually; the
+ceiling, the walls, the floor, were all covered with portraits, staring
+sternly and fixedly at him with living eyes. The room extended and
+stretched out to a vast and interminable gallery, to afford room for
+millions of repetitions of the ghastly picture. In vain did numerous
+physicians seek to discover, with a view to the alleviation of the poor
+wretch's sufferings, some secret connexion between the incidents of his
+past life and the strange phantom that thus eternally haunted him. No
+explanation or clue could be obtained from the patient, who continued to
+apostrophise the portrait in disconnected phrase, and to utter howls of
+agony and lamentation. At last his existence terminated in one last
+horrible paroxysm. His corpse was frightful to behold; of his once
+comely form, a yellow shrivelled skeleton was all that remained. A few
+thousand rubles were the sole residue of his wealth; and his
+disappointed heirs, beholding numerous drawers and closets full of torn
+fragments that had once composed noble pictures, understood and cursed
+the odious use to which their relative had applied his princely fortune.</p>
+
+<h4><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h4>
+
+<p>A number of carriages, caleches, and dr&oacute;jkis were drawn up in the
+vicinity of a handsome mansion in one of the best quarters of St
+Petersburg. It had been the residence of a rich virtuoso, lately
+deceased, and whose pictures, furniture, and curiosities, were now
+selling by auction. The large drawing-room was filled with the most
+distinguished amateurs of art in St Petersburg, mingled with brokers and
+dealers on the look-out for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span> bargains, and with a large sprinkling of
+those idlers who, without intending to purchase, frequent auctions to
+kill a morning. The sale was in full activity, and there was eager
+competition for the lot then up. The biddings succeeded each other so
+rapidly, that the auctioneer was scarcely able to repeat them. The
+object so many were eager to possess, was a portrait, which could hardly
+fail to attract the attention even of persons who know nothing of
+pictures. This painting, which possessed a very considerable amount of
+artistical merit, and had apparently been more than once restored,
+repaired, and cleaned, represented the tawny features of an Oriental,
+attired in a loose costume. The expression of the face was singular, and
+by no means pleasant. Its most striking feature was the extraordinary
+and unaccountable look of the eyes, which, by some trick of the artist,
+seemed to follow the spectator wherever he went. Every one of the
+persons there assembled was ready to swear that the eyes looked straight
+at him; and, what was yet more unaccountable, the effect was the same
+whether the beholder stood on the right, or on the left, or in front of
+the picture. This peculiarity it was that had made so many anxious to
+possess a portrait whose subject and painter were alike unknown.
+Gradually, however, many of the amateurs ceased their biddings, for the
+price had become extravagant, and at last only two continued to
+compete&mdash;two rich noblemen, both enthusiastic lovers of the eccentric in
+art. These still continued the contest, grew heated with their rivalry,
+and were in a fair way to raise the price to something positively
+absurd, when a by-stander stepped forward and addressed them. "Before
+this contest goes farther," he said, "permit me to say a few words. Of
+all here present, it is I, I believe, who have the best right to the
+portrait in dispute."</p>
+
+<p>All eyes were turned towards the speaker. He was a tall, handsome man,
+of about thirty-five, with a pleasant, cheerful countenance, a careless
+style of dress, and long black curls flowing down his neck. He was
+personally known to many present, and the name of B&mdash;&mdash;, the artist,
+was circulated through the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Extraordinary as my words may appear to you," he resumed, perceiving he
+had fixed the general attention, "I can explain them if you are disposed
+to give me five minutes' audience. I have every reason to believe that
+this portrait is one I have long sought in vain."</p>
+
+<p>Curiosity was expressed on every countenance; the auctioneer stood
+open-mouthed and with uplifted hammer; all entreated B&mdash;&mdash; to tell his
+tale. The artist at once complied.</p>
+
+<p>"You are all acquainted," he said, "with the quarter of St Petersburg
+known as the Kol&oacute;mna, and aware that it is chiefly occupied by persons
+either in poverty, or whose resources are exceedingly limited, many of
+whom, compelled by unforeseen circumstances to outstrip their limited
+income, frequently find themselves in want of immediate and temporary
+assistance; compelled, in short, to apply to money-lenders. In
+consequence of this, there has settled amongst them a particular class
+of usurers, who supply petty sums on satisfactory pledges, and at
+enormous interest. These pawnbrokers on a small scale are generally far
+more pitiless than the aristocratic usurer, whose customers drive to his
+door in their carriages. Compunction, humanity, a feeling of pity for
+the unfortunates upon whose need they fatten, never by any chance enter
+their breast. Amongst these callous extortioners there was one who, at a
+certain period of the last century, under the reign of the Empress
+Catherine II., had been settled for some years in the Kol&oacute;mna. He was an
+extraordinary and enigmatical personage, of whom none knew any thing; he
+wore a flowing Asiatic dress, his complexion was swarthy as an Arab; but
+to what nation he really belonged, whether Hindoo, or Greek, or Persian,
+none could decide. His tall stature, his tawny, withered, wiry face,
+with its tint of greenish bronze, his large eyes full of sullen fire,
+shadowed by thick and overhanging brows; every point in his appearance,
+in short, made a strong and marked distinction between him and the other
+inhabitants of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span> quarter. His very dwelling was quite unlike the
+little wooden houses which surrounded it. It was a large brick building,
+in the style of those often constructed by the Genoese merchants, with
+windows of different sizes disposed at irregular distances, with iron
+shutters and hasps. This usurer was distinguished from all others by the
+circumstance that he could always supply any sum of money required, and
+would accommodate alike the needy groom and the extravagant noble. At
+his door were often to be seen brilliant equipages, through whose
+windows might sometimes be discerned the head of a luxurious and
+fashionable lady. Rumour said that his iron chests teemed with countless
+heaps of money, plate, diamonds, and all kinds of valuable pledges, but
+nevertheless he was reported less greedy than the other money-lenders.
+He made no difficulty, people said, to lend, and was apparently far from
+oppressive in fixing the terms of payment. But on the day of reckoning,
+it was observed, that by some extraordinary arithmetical calculation, he
+made the interest mount up to an enormous sum: such, at least, was the
+popular report. The strangest thing about him, however, and which struck
+every body, was the fatality that seemed to attach to his loans; all who
+borrowed of him finished their lives in an unhappy manner. Whether this
+was a mere popular notion, a stupid superstitious gossip, or a rumour
+intentionally disseminated, has ever remained a mystery. But it is a
+fact that many things occurred to give it validity, and that within a
+comparatively short period of time. Amongst the aristocracy of the day,
+there was one young man who particularly attracted the attention of
+society. He was of ancient descent and noble blood; had very early
+distinguished himself in the service of the empire, as a warm protector
+of every thing honourable and elevated, and as a passionate lover of art
+and genius. He was soon distinguished by the personal notice of the
+Empress, who confided to him the duties of an office peculiarly adapted
+to his tastes and talents&mdash;an office which gave him power to be of the
+greatest service not only to science, but to humanity itself. The young
+noble surrounded himself with artists, poets, scholars, and men of
+learning. To all of them he promised employment, patronage, protection.
+He undertook, at his own expense, a number of important publications,
+gave a multitude of orders to artists, founded prizes for excellence,
+spent enormous sums in this unselfish manner, and at length got into
+difficulties. Full, however, of generous enthusiasm, and unwilling to
+leave his work half finished, he borrowed money in all directions, and
+at length found his way to the famous usurer in the Kol&oacute;mna. Having
+obtained from this man a very extensive loan, the young noble all at
+once underwent a complete transformation. He became, as by enchantment,
+the enemy of rising intellect and talent, the persecutor of all he had
+previously protected. It was just then that the French Revolution broke
+out. This event gave him a handle for suspicion. In every thing he
+detected some revolutionary tendency; in every word, in every expressed
+opinion, he saw a dangerous hint or perfidious insinuation. The disease
+gained on him till he almost began to suspect himself. He laid false
+informations, fabricated the foulest charges, and caused the ruin of
+numbers of innocent people. At first, his guilty man&oelig;uvres were
+undetected, and, when found out, they were thought to proceed from
+insanity. Report was made to the Empress, who deprived him of his
+office. But his severest sentence was the contempt he read in the faces
+of his countrymen. I need not describe the sufferings of this vain and
+insolent spirit, the tortures he endured from crushed pride, defeated
+ambition, ruined expectations. At last his monomania&mdash;for such it must
+surely have been&mdash;aggravated by regret and chagrin, became insanity, and
+in a frightful paroxysm the unhappy maniac committed suicide.</p>
+
+<p>"Not less remarkable than the fate of this wretched young man was that
+of a lady who passed at that time for the most beautiful woman in St
+Petersburg. My father has often assured me, that he never beheld any
+thing to be compared to her. Possessing,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span> besides her beauty, the not
+less fascinating charms of wit, intellect, wealth, and high rank, she
+was of course surrounded by a swarm of admirers. The most remarkable of
+these was Prince R., the flower of all the young nobles of that day, and
+to whom the palm was universally conceded, not only for beauty of
+person, but for high qualities and chivalry of character. He was well
+qualified for a hero of romance, or a woman's beau-ideal. Deeply and
+passionately enamoured of the young countess, his affection met with as
+pure and ardent a return. But her relations disapproved the match. The
+prince's paternal estates had passed out of his hands,&mdash;his family was
+in disgrace at court, and the derangement of his finances was no secret
+to any body. Suddenly he left the capital, apparently for the purpose of
+putting his affairs in order; and, after a brief absence, reappeared and
+commenced a life of splendid extravagance. His balls and entertainments
+were so magnificent as to attract the notice of the court, and, it was
+rumoured, to mollify imperial displeasure. The countess's father became
+suddenly gracious, and soon nothing was talked of in St Petersburg but
+the marriage of the two lovers. Of the origin of the enormous fortune of
+the bridegroom, to which this change in the sentiments of his future
+father-in-law was unquestionably to be attributed, nobody could give a
+distinct account, though it was pretty generally whispered that he had
+entered into a compact with the mysterious money-lender of the Kol&oacute;mna,
+and from him obtained a large loan. Be this as it may, the wedding
+formed the whole talk of the town. Bride and bridegroom were the object
+of universal envy. Every body had heard of their beauty and virtues, of
+their ardent and constant love; and all rejoiced that the obstacles to
+their union were removed. Numerous were the prophetic pictures drawn of
+the blissful existence the young couple were certain to enjoy. The event
+proved very different. In one twelvemonth a total and terrible change
+took place in the character of the prince. Hitherto noble, generous, and
+confiding, he became, on a sudden, jealous, suspicious, impatient, and
+capricious. He was the tyrant and tormentor of his wife; and, to the
+unbounded astonishment of every body who had known him before his
+marriage, treated her with inhuman brutality, and was even known to
+strike her! In one year the beautiful and dazzling girl, who was
+followed by a crowd of obedient adorers, could not be recognised in the
+careworn and unhappy wife. At length, unable longer to support the cruel
+yoke of such a marriage, she sought a separation. At the first
+notification of this step, the prince gave way to the most uncontrolled
+fury,&mdash;burst into her chamber, and would infallibly have stabbed her,
+had he not been seized and removed by force. Mad with rage, he turned
+his weapon upon himself, and lay a corpse at the feet of his
+horror-stricken friends. Besides these two incidents, which attracted
+great notice in the higher circles, a number of other instances were
+cited as having occurred amongst the lower classes, where the loans of
+the mysterious usurer had brought misfortune in their train. One man,
+previously a sober and honest artisan, had become a confirmed drunkard,
+and died in the hospital; a shopman had robbed his master; an
+izv&oacute;ztchik, for years noted for his honesty, had cut the throat of a
+customer in order to rob him of an insignificant sum. All these persons,
+and many others, who sank into misery and crime, or perished by violent
+deaths, had been customers of the mysterious Asiatic, of whom these
+stories, related, as they often were, with additions and exaggerations,
+inspired the quiet and peaceable inhabitants of the Kol&oacute;mna with an
+involuntary horror. Nobody doubted the real presence of the evil spirit
+in this man. They said that he exacted conditions which made one's very
+hair stand on end, and which none of his unhappy clients dared disclose;
+that his money had a mysterious property of attraction; that the coins
+were marked with strange characters, and grew red-hot of their own
+accord. In short, there were a thousand extravagant reports. But what is
+most remarkable is, that this population of Kol&oacute;mna, made up of
+pensioners, half-pay officers, petty functionaries, obscure artists, and
+others equally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span> necessitous, preferred bearing the utmost distress to
+having recourse to the dreaded money-lender. They all declared they
+would rather mortify their bodies than destroy their souls. Those who
+met him in the street hurried by with an uneasy sensation, making way
+for him with anxious submissiveness, and looking long over their
+shoulders at the tall lean figure as it lost itself in the distance. His
+singular frame might well have been the receptacle of a supernatural and
+unholy spirit. The wild and deeply-cut features had something different
+from humanity; the extraordinary thickness of the shaggy eyebrows; the
+bronzed glow of the countenance; the frightful eyes, with their steady
+unsupportable glare; even the broad folds of the Oriental dress were,
+each in turn, the subject of uneasy and suspicious comment. My father
+told me, that when he met him he could not avoid stopping to gaze at
+him; and it invariably occurred to him that he had never seen, either in
+painting or life, a face that so completely came up to his notion of a
+demon. But I must make you, as briefly as possible, acquainted with my
+father, who is the real hero of my tale. He was a remarkable man, a
+self-taught painter, seeking principles in his own mind, and
+elaborating, without master or school, rules and laws of art, led onward
+by the mere thirst for excellence, and advancing, under the influence of
+causes which he himself, perhaps, could not have defined, along a path
+marked out for him only in his own mind. He was one of those children of
+genius whom contemporaries so often stigmatise as ignorant, because they
+have struck out a track for themselves, and whose ardour is to be
+chilled neither by censure nor failures; whence, on the contrary, they
+derive fresh vigour and courage. Aided only by his own lofty instincts,
+he attained to the true understanding of what historical painting should
+be. Scriptural subjects, the last and loftiest step of high art, chiefly
+occupied his pencil. Free from the feverish irritable vanity and paltry
+envy so common amongst artists, he was a firm, upright, honourable man,
+a little rough and unpolished in externals&mdash;the husk rather rugged&mdash;and
+with a share of honest pride and independent feeling which sometimes
+imparted to his manner an air of mingled bluntness and condescension. 'I
+care nothing for your fine folks,' he would say. 'I don't work for them.
+I don't paint drawing-room pictures. Those who understand my work best
+reward me for it. I do not blame fashionable people for not
+understanding art: how should they? They understand their cards; they
+are judges of wine and horses. 'Tis enough. When they do pick up a crude
+notion or two on the subject of painting, they become intolerable by
+their assumption. I prefer, a thousand times, the man who honestly
+confesses he knows nothing about art, to your ignoramus who comes in
+with a solemn affectation of connoisseurship, claiming to be a judge,
+talking about things he does not understand, and consequently talking
+nonsense.' By no means a covetous man, my father painted for very modest
+remuneration, contented to earn sufficient for the support of his
+family, and for providing the means of exercising his art. Generous in
+the extreme, his hand was ever open to less successful artists. Imbued
+with a fervent and profound sense of religion, it was that, perhaps,
+which enabled him to communicate to the faces he painted an elevation of
+religious sentiment that the most brilliant pencils often fall to give.
+In course of time, and aided by obstinate industry and unflinching
+perseverance, his talent attracted the attention and commanded the
+respect even of those who had at first sneered at him as a <i>home-made</i>
+artist. He received numerous orders for altar-pieces and other church
+pictures, and laboured incessantly. One picture, in particular, engaged
+his closest attention. The subject I forget, but I know that the great
+enemy of mankind was to be introduced. Long did my father meditate on
+this figure; he desired to embody in the countenance the expression of
+every evil passion that afflicts fallen humanity. Whilst reflecting on
+the subject, and conjuring up horrible countenances in his imagination,
+the strange features of the mysterious money-lender frequently recurred
+to him; and, as often<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span> as they did so, he said to himself, 'The usurer
+would be a fine model for my Devil.' One day, whilst he was busy
+planning his great work, and making sketches, with which he had
+difficulty in pleasing himself, there was a knock at his studio door,
+and the next instant, to his infinite astonishment, the usurer entered
+the room. My father has since told me that on beholding him he felt an
+inexplicable chill and shudder come over his whole frame.</p>
+
+<p>"'You are an artist?' said the intruder, abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"'I am,' replied my father, and wondered what was coming next.</p>
+
+<p>"'I want my portrait painted. I have not long to live. I have no
+children, and I do not wish to die altogether. Can you paint a portrait
+of me that shall be exactly like life?"</p>
+
+<p>"My father reflected for a moment. 'Nothing could be more opportune,'
+thought he to himself; 'he comes of his own accord to sit to me for my
+Devil.' And he at once agreed to satisfy his singular visitor. Hour and
+price were stipulated, and the next day, my father, bearing palette and
+brushes, repaired to the abode of his new sitter. The gloomy court-yard,
+surrounded by high walls; the watch-dogs; the iron doors and shutters;
+the arched windows; the huge coffers, covered with strange,
+outlandish-looking carpets; and, above all, the grim, gloomy visage of
+the master of the house, seated immoveable before him,&mdash;all these
+conspired to produce a strong impression on his mind. The windows were
+closed and darkened; a single pane in the upper part of one of them
+admitted a strong ray of light. My father forgot the strange repute of
+his sitter in zeal for his art. 'How splendidly the fellow's face is
+lighted up!' he thought to himself, and set to work with furious
+eagerness, as though fearful of losing the favourable moment. 'What
+vigour! what light and shade!' he exclaimed, inaudibly. 'If I can get
+him in only half as vigorously as he sits there, the portrait will beat
+every thing I have done: he will walk out of the canvass. What
+extraordinary features; what depth in the lines and furrows! he repeated
+to himself, redoubling his fervour at every stroke, as he observed trait
+after trait rapidly transferring itself to the canvass. But, whilst
+proceeding with his work, he insensibly became aware of a strange
+feeling of oppression and uneasiness that crept over him, he knew not
+how or wherefore. Disregarding it, he persisted in following, with the
+strictest fidelity and most scrupulous care, every line, and tone, and
+shade in the extraordinary countenance of his model. To the eyes he gave
+his chief attention. At first they nearly made him despair. So peculiar
+and penetrating was their expression, so unlike were they to any eyes he
+had ever encountered, that it seemed an almost hopeless task to attempt
+to render them in a picture. Nevertheless he persevered, resolved, at
+whatever cost of pains and time, to follow them in their minute details,
+and thus to penetrate, if possible, the mystery and secret of their
+expression. But whilst engaged in this work, whilst diving, as it were,
+with his pencil, into the recesses of those mysterious orbs, the
+uneasiness he had before felt rapidly increased, and there arose in his
+soul such an inexplicable loathing, such an overpowering sensation of
+vague horror, that he was several times obliged to suspend his work, and
+it was only by a violent effort he could bring himself to resume it. At
+last this unaccountable feeling fairly mastered him; he could no longer
+bear to look upon those horrible eyes, whose demon-like gaze filled him
+with dismay. He closed the sitting. But the next day, and the one after
+that, the same thing occurred; after painting for a short time he
+invariably became agitated, excited, and unable to proceed. Each day
+these sensations increased in strength, until they became positive
+torture, and at last my father threw down his brush, declaring he would
+paint no more. Extraordinary was the effect produced upon the mysterious
+usurer by this declaration. By the most touching and humble entreaties,
+and by promises of munificent reward, he essayed, but in vain, to induce
+my father to retract his decision and resume his task. He even
+prostrated himself before him and implored him to terminate the
+picture,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span> saying that upon its completion hung his fate, and his very
+existence. And then he threw out dark and confused hints of supernatural
+agency, by which, if his living features were once faithfully
+represented, his soul would be in some sort transferred to the portrait,
+and be saved from complete annihilation, or a yet worse doom.
+Terror-stricken at these strange and fearful words, my father threw down
+pencil and palette and rushed from the house. He could not sleep that
+night for meditating on this occurrence. The next morning he received
+back the unfinished portrait, brought to his house by an old woman, the
+only human being who lived with the usurer. She left also a message,
+that her master returned the portrait, because he did not want and would
+not pay for it. A few hours afterwards, on going out, my father learned
+that the usurer of the Kol&oacute;mna had died that morning. There was a
+mystery in all this which my father neither was able nor desired to
+solve.</p>
+
+<p>"Dating from that day, a perceptible and unfavourable change took place
+in my father's character. Without apparent cause he became irritable,
+restless, and unhappy, and a very short time elapsed before he became
+guilty of an act of which none supposed him capable. About this period,
+the works of one of his pupils had attracted the attention of a small
+circle of judges and amateurs of art. My father from the first had
+perceived and appreciated this young man's talent, and had shown himself
+particularly well-disposed towards him. Suddenly, as if by a spell, envy
+and hatred were generated in his mind. The general interest excited by
+the pupil became intolerable to the master, who could not hear with
+patience the name of the rising genius. At length, to fill up the
+measure of his mortification, he learned that the young man had been
+preferred to paint a picture for a splendid church then just completed.
+This drove my father frantic. Previously the most upright and honourable
+of men, he now condescended to the pettiest intrigues and
+man&oelig;uvres&mdash;he who, up to that time, had regarded with horror and
+contempt all that bore the semblance of intrigue. By dint of caballing,
+he succeeded in obtaining an open competition for the work in question;
+whoever chose, was at liberty to send in his picture, and the best would
+obtain the preference. Having brought this about, he secluded himself in
+his studio and applied himself to the task with intense ardour,
+summoning up all his great energy, skill, and experience of art. As was
+to be expected, the result was one of his very finest pictures. As a
+work of art, it was unquestionably the best. When my father saw it
+placed beside those of the other competitors, a smile of triumph curled
+his lip, and he entertained no doubt that his would be the picture
+chosen to adorn the altar. The committee appointed to decide arrived,
+and cast approving glances at my father's painting. Before giving their
+verdict, however, they proceeded to examine it minutely, and at last,
+one of the members&mdash;an ecclesiastic of high rank, if I remember
+rightly&mdash;waved his hand to secure the attention of his fellow-judges,
+and spoke thus: 'The picture presented by this artist,' he said, 'has
+undoubtedly very high merit as a mere work of art; but it is unsuited to
+the place and purpose for which it was designed. Those countenances have
+nothing sacred or holy in their expression. On the contrary, you may
+discern in every one of them, and especially in the eyes, the traces,
+more or less modified, of some evil passion, a something unhallowed and
+almost fiendish.' Struck by this observation, all present looked at the
+picture: it was impossible to deny the justice of the criticism. My
+father rushed furiously forward eager to deny and disprove the
+unfavourable judgment. But he saw for the first time, with feelings of
+intense horror, that he had given to almost all his countenances the
+eyes of the money-lender. They all looked out of the canvass with such a
+devilish and abominable stare, that he himself could scarcely help
+shuddering. The picture was rejected, and, with unspeakable rage and
+envy, he heard the prize awarded to his former pupil. He returned home
+in a state of mind worthy of a demon. He abused and even ill-treated my
+poor mother, who sought to console him for his disappointment, drove his
+children brutally from him, broke his easel and brushes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span> tore down from
+the wall the portrait of the money-lender, called for a knife, and
+ordered a fire to be instantly lighted, intending to cut up the picture
+and burn it. In this mood he was found by a friend, a painter like
+himself, a careless, jovial dog, always in good-humour, untroubled with
+ambition, working gaily at whatever he could get to do, and loving a
+good dinner and merry company.</p>
+
+<p>"'What the deuce are you at? what are you about to burn?' said he, going
+up to the portrait. 'Why, are you mad? This is one of your very best
+pictures! The old money-lender, I declare. By Jove! an exquisite thing!
+Admirably hit off! you have caught the old fellow's eyes to perfection.
+One would almost swear you had transplanted them from the head to the
+picture. They look out of the canvass.'</p>
+
+<p>"'We'll see how they look in the fire,' said my father surlily, making a
+movement to thrust the picture into the grate.</p>
+
+<p>"'Stop, stop!' cried his friend, checking his arm. 'Give it me, rather
+than burn it.' My father was at first unwilling, but at last consented;
+and the jolly old painter, enchanted with his acquisition, carried off
+the portrait.</p>
+
+<p>"The picture gone, my father felt himself more tranquil. 'It seemed,' he
+said, 'as if its departure had taken a load off his heart.' He was
+astonished at his recent conduct, at the malice and envy that had filled
+his soul. The more he reflected, the stronger became his sorrow and
+repentance. 'Yes,' he at last exclaimed, with sincere self-reproach,
+'God has punished me for my sins; my picture was really a shameful and
+abominable thing. It was inspired by the wicked hope of injuring a
+fellow-man, and a brother artist. Hatred and envy guided my pencil; what
+better feelings could I expect it to portray?' Without a moment's delay
+he went in search of his former pupil, embraced him affectionately,
+entreated his forgiveness, and did all in his power to efface from the
+young man's mind the remembrance of his offence. Once more his days
+glided on in peaceful and contented toll, although his face had assumed
+a pensive and melancholy expression, previously a stranger to it. He
+prayed more frequently and fervently, was more often silent, and spoke
+less bluntly and roughly to others; the rugged suffice of his character
+was smoothed and softened.</p>
+
+<p>"A long time had elapsed without his seeing or hearing any thing of the
+friend to whom he had given the portrait, and he was one day about to go
+out and inquire after him, when the man himself entered the room. But
+his former joviality of manner was gone. He looked worn and melancholy,
+his checks were hollow, his complexion pale, and his clothes hung
+loosely upon him. My father was struck with the change, and inquired
+what ailed him.</p>
+
+<p>"'Nothing now,' was the reply: 'nothing since I got rid of that infernal
+portrait. I was wrong, my friend, not to let you burn it. The devil fly
+away with the thing, say I! I am no believer in witchcraft and the like,
+but I am more than half persuaded some evil spirit is lodged in the
+portrait of the usurer.'</p>
+
+<p>"'What makes you think so?' said my father.</p>
+
+<p>"'The simple fact, that from the very first day it entered my house, I,
+formerly so gay and joyous, became the most anxious melancholy dog that
+ever whined under a gallows. I was irritable, ill-tempered, disposed to
+cut my own throat, and every body else's. My whole life through, I had
+never known what it was to sleep badly. Well, my sleep left me, and when
+I did get any, it was broken by dreams. Good Heavens! such horrible
+dreams; I could not bring myself to believe they were mere dreams,
+ordinary nightmares. I was sometimes nearly stifled in my sleep; and
+eternally, my good sir, the old man, that accursed old man, flitted
+about me. In short, I was in a pitiable state, lost flesh and appetite,
+and cursed the hour I was born. I crawled about, as if drunk or stupid,
+tormented with a vague incessant fear, a dread, and anticipation of
+something frightful about to happen, of some uncommon danger besetting
+me at every turn. At last, I bethought me of the portrait, and gave it
+away to a nephew of mine, who had taken a great fancy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span> to it. Since then
+I have been much relieved; I feel as if a great stone had been rolled
+off my heart; I can sleep and eat, and am recovering my former spirits.
+It was a rare devil you cooked up there, my boy!'</p>
+
+<p>"My father listened to his friend's confession with the closest
+attention.</p>
+
+<p>"'The portrait, then, is now in your nephew's possession?' he at last
+inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"'My nephew's! No, no! He tried it, but could stand it no better than
+your humble servant. Assuredly the spirit of the old usurer has
+transmigrated into the picture. My nephew declares that he walks out of
+the frame, glides about the room; in short the things he tells me, pass
+human understanding and belief. I should have taken him for a madman, if
+I had not partly experienced the thing myself. He sold the picture to
+some dealer or other; and the dealer could not stand it either, and got
+it off his hands.'</p>
+
+<p>"This narrative made a deep impression upon my father. About this time
+he became subject to long fits of abstraction, and incessant reveries,
+which gradually turned to hypochondria. At last, he was firmly convinced
+that his pencil had served as an instrument to the evil spirit; that a
+portion of the usurer's vitality had actually passed into the picture,
+which thus continued to torment and persecute its possessors, inspiring
+them with evil passions, tempting them from the paths of virtue and
+religion, rousing in their breasts feelings of envy and malice and all
+uncharitableness. A great misfortune which afflicted him shortly after,
+the loss, by a contagious disorder, of his wife, daughter, and infant
+son, he accounted a judgment of heaven upon his sin. He determined to
+quit the world, and devote himself to religion and prayer. I was then
+nine years of age. He placed me in the Academy of Arts, wound up his
+affairs, and retired to a remote convent, where he shortly afterwards
+assumed the tonsure. There, by the severity of his life, and by the
+unwearied punctuality with which he fulfilled the rules of his order, he
+struck the whole brotherhood with surprise and admiration. The superior
+of the monastery, hearing of his skill as a painter, requested him to
+execute an altar-piece for the convent chapel. But the devout brother
+declared that his pencil had been polluted by a great sin, and that he
+must purify himself by mortification and long penance, before he could
+dare apply it to a holy purpose. He then, of his own accord, gradually
+increased the austerity of his monastic life. At last, the utmost
+privations he could inflict on himself appearing to him insufficient, he
+retired, with the blessing of the superior, to court solitude in the
+desert. There he built himself a hermitage out of the branches of trees,
+lived on uncooked roots, dragged a heavy stone with him wherever he
+went, and stood from sunrise to sunset with his hands uplifted to
+heaven, fervently praying. His penances and mortifications were such as
+we find examples of only in the lives of the saints. For many years he
+followed this austere manner of life, and his brethren at the convent
+had given up all hopes of again seeing him, when one day he suddenly
+appeared amongst them. 'I am ready,' he said, firmly and calmly to the
+superior: 'with the help of God, I will begin my task.' The subject he
+selected was the Birth of Christ. For a whole year he laboured
+incessantly at his picture, without leaving his cell, nourishing himself
+with the coarsest food, and rigid in the fulfilment of his religious
+duties. At the end of that time the picture was completed. It was a
+miracle of art. Neither the brethren nor the superior were profound
+critics of painting, but they were awe-struck by the extraordinary
+sublimity of the figures. The sentiment of divine tranquillity and
+mildness in the Holy Mother, bending over the Infant Jesus&mdash;the profound
+and celestial intelligence in the eyes of the Babe&mdash;the solemn silence
+and dignified humility of the three Wise Men prostrate at His feet&mdash;the
+holy, unspeakable calm breathed over the whole work&mdash;the combined
+impression of all this was magical. The brethren bowed the knee before
+the picture, and the superior, deeply affected, pronounced a blessing on
+the artist. 'No mere human art,' he said, 'could have produced a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span>
+picture like this. A power from on high has guided thy pencil, my son,
+and the blessing of heaven has descended on the work of thy hands.'</p>
+
+<p>"About this time I finished my education in the Academy; I received the
+gold medal, and at the same time saw realised the delicious hope of
+being sent to Italy&mdash;the cherished dream of the boy-artist. Before
+departing, I wished to take leave of my father, whom I had not seen for
+twelve years. I had heard divers reports of the extreme austerity of his
+life, and expected to see the withered figure of a hermit, worn-out,
+exhausted, macerated with fast and vigil. My astonishment was great when
+I beheld my father. No trace of exhaustion was on his countenance, which
+beamed with a joy whose source was not of this world. A beard as white
+as snow, and long thin hair of silvery hue floated picturesquely down
+his breast and along the folds of his black robe, and descended even to
+the cord girding his monastic gown. Before we parted, I received from
+his lips precepts and counsels for the conduct of my life and for my
+guidance in art&mdash;precepts I have religiously remembered, and which will
+ever remain indelibly engraven on my soul. Three days I abode near him;
+on the third, I went to ask his blessing before my departure for the
+artist's home, the distant and much-desired shores of Italy. Already, in
+the course of our long communings, he had told me the story of his life,
+especially dwelling on the remarkable passage I have just related. 'My
+son, these were his last words, 'my conscience, tranquillised in great
+measure by years of prayer and penitence, has yet its uneasy moments,
+when I recall the circumstances connected with that portrait. I have
+been told that it still passes from hand to hand, occasioning misery to
+many, exciting feelings of envy and hatred, fostering unlawful desires
+and unholy thoughts. By the memory of thy mother, and by the love thou
+bearest me, I entreat thee, my son, truly and faithfully to perform my
+last request. Seek out that portrait; sooner or later you must find it;
+you cannot fail to recognise it by the strange expression, and by the
+extraordinary fire and vividness of the eyes. Purchase it, at whatever
+cost, and commit it to the flames! So shall my blessing prosper thee,
+and thy days be long in the land.'</p>
+
+<p>"How could I refuse the pledge thus touchingly required by the venerable
+old man? Throwing myself into his arms, I swore by the silver locks that
+flowed over his breast, faithfully to do his bidding. We live in a
+positive age, and believers in any thing bordering on the supernatural
+grow each day rarer. But my path was plain before me; I had promised,
+and must perform. For fifteen years I have devoted a certain portion of
+each, to a search for the mysterious picture, with constant ill-success,
+until to-day&mdash;at this auction."</p>
+
+<p>Here the artist, suspending his sentence, turned towards the wall where
+the portrait had hung. His movement was imitated by his hearers, who,
+looked round in search of the wonderful picture, concerning which they
+had just been told so strange a tale. But the portrait was no longer
+there. A murmur of surprise, almost of consternation, ran through the
+throng.</p>
+
+<p>"Stolen!" at last exclaimed a voice. And stolen the picture doubtless
+had been. Some dexterous thief, profiting by the profound attention with
+which the eyes of all were fixed upon the narrator, whilst all ears,
+drank in his singular story, had managed to take down and carry off the
+portrait. The company remained plunged in perplexity, almost doubting
+whether they had really seen those extraordinary eyes, or whether the
+whole thing were not a fantasy, a vision, the phantom of a brain heated
+and fatigued by the long examination of a gallery of old pictures.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<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> A kind of bazaar or perpetual market, where second-hand
+furniture, old books and pictures, earthenware, and other cheap
+commodities, are exposed for sale in small open booths.</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> A personage who figures, like two or three others
+afterwards alluded to, in the popular legends and fairy tales of
+Russia.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Twenty-five rubles.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> A silver coin, about the size of a shilling, the quarter
+of a silver ruble (<i>und e nomen</i>) worth ninepence.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> The officer commanding the police of the quarter.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> The Russian house-spirit. This "lubber fiend" is
+frequently the popular name of the nightmare.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> The "was-ist-das," a single pane of glass fixed in a
+frame, to admit of its being opened, very necessary in a climate where
+double casements are fixed during eight months out of the year.</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="HOUNDS_AND_HORSES_AT_ROME" id="HOUNDS_AND_HORSES_AT_ROME"></a>HOUNDS AND HORSES AT ROME.</h2>
+
+<h4><a name="ENGLISH_KENNEL" id="ENGLISH_KENNEL"></a>ENGLISH KENNEL.</h4>
+
+<p class="center"><small>"The Dog-Star rages!"</small>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Pope.</span></p>
+
+<p>To do at Rome as the Romans do, is an adage which we English can no
+longer apply to our proceedings in that city; we now reverse this, and
+carrying thither our games, field-sports, and other whimsies, not only
+practise these ourselves, but would impose them upon her senate and
+people; for a senate she still has, and the Romans take a strange
+pleasure in exhibiting, on state occasions, the well-known letters,
+which tell of formerly allied, but long since departed glories. What
+would her ancient senate, the stern descendants of the wolf-nursed
+twins&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Curius quid sentit, et ambo Scipiad&aelig;?&mdash;"</p></div>
+
+<p>have said to the subserviency of their present <i>mis</i>-representatives,
+who go forth, not to give races, but to witness the feats of barbarian
+jockeyship, on a turf that once resounded only to the hoofs of their own
+favourite racers;</p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="50%" summary="verse">
+<tr>
+<td>
+"Whose easy triumph and transcendant speed<br />
+Palm after palm proclaimed; whilst Victory,<br />
+In the horse circus, stood exulting by."<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a><br />
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>If the senator Damisippus once received such a castigation at the hands
+of the bard of Aquinum, for merely driving his own phaeton at noon, and
+for nodding <i>varmintly</i> to a friend as he passed, how would that poet's
+indignation or muse&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="50%" summary="verse">
+<tr>
+<td>
+"Si natura negat, facit indignatio versum&mdash;"
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>have dealt with you, Princes Borghese and Cesarini, Doria and Colonna,
+who, changing your long robes for the scarlet jacket, (worse than any
+<i>Trechidipna</i>), have learned to vie with each other in acquiring a
+field-note, of which Alaric had been proud, to strive for precedence in
+a fox-hunt, and to glory more in winning his brush, than ever did your
+ancestors on wresting a trophy from the Sicambri. But, thanks to Popes
+who have wisely prohibited satirists and satire, ye are free to follow,
+unscathed by the Iambic muse, this or any other pastime you please,
+however unsuited in character to the dignity of your descent. To one
+merely paying a transitory visit to Rome in the grand tour of twenty
+years ago, it might not have occurred as a likely contingency that a
+pack of English fox-hounds should be one day kennelled close up to her
+gates; but to him who witnessed the sporting monomania of some of our
+countrymen, and the difficulty they found (having nothing else to
+<i>kill</i>) in killing <i>time</i>, it would never have seemed improbable. The
+enthusiasm which every one, gets up for the Coliseum, or the Arch of
+Titus, generally expends itself on the spot, and is not afterwards to be
+resuscitated. This leads many during a six weeks' sojourn in the eternal
+city, (which seems to them already an eternity), to ask themselves, with
+Fabricius, their business there; while some, following his example still
+farther, leave it in disgust. Till certain very recent arrangements had
+been completed for his equipment, no one's position was more to be
+compassionated&mdash;if you adopted his own view of it&mdash;than that of the
+English sportsman; it was really lamentable to hear him describe, while
+it would occasionally prompt a smile to see his expedients, to relieve
+it. Finding little that was congenial to his tastes or his talents in
+the arts or the society of the place, he would sometimes seek to abridge
+the tedium and length of his stay at Rome, by episodes of lark-shooting
+at Subiaco, or by looking after wild-boars at Ostia; and some, to whom
+hunting was indispensable, would hire dogs and make them chase <i>each
+other</i>, while they harked on the ragged pack, on the best hacks they
+could procure for the purpose. This, how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span>ever, which might have proved
+excellent sport had the dogs always chosen to run properly, was
+oft-times tried and relinquished, in consequence of a practical
+difficulty, originating in the pack itself, which refused to supply from
+its ranks the necessary <i>quota</i> of amateur hares required by the riders.
+By this token, it was high time something should be done! At length the
+auspicious day dawned when the sporting world (already on the alert to
+contrive less unturf-like proceedings than the last mentioned) was
+agreeably saved from the embarrassment of further thought on the
+subject, by a spirited announcement, noticed with becoming gratitude in
+<i>Galignani</i>, from Lord C&mdash;&mdash; that he had actually sent for his dogs from
+England. No time was lost; the groom, despatched in haste with the
+necessary instructions, returned within six weeks, leaving the kennel
+and <i>canaille</i> that accompanied it only a few days behind on the road.
+One morning, shortly after, it was announced at the Vatican, that a pack
+of hungry hounds was at the Popolo Gate, barking for admittance, and
+apparently threatening to eat up the whole Apostolic Doganieri if they
+kept them much longer. The matter pressed: a deputation of Englishmen
+waited on the governor, requesting permission for the establishment of a
+kennel in a spot already fixed upon for the purpose, (it was somewhere
+about the site where Constantine's mother was buried, and where, by
+tradition, Nero's ghost is supposed to brood, beyond the Pons Nomentana,
+and the Sacred mount); and having obtained the desired leave, the dogs
+were at once established in their new settlement. When they had
+recovered the fatigues of their journey, a notice was posted up,
+advertising the first "throw off" for the next day. On this occasion
+they hunted an old fox round the Claudian Aqueduct, into the body of
+which, on getting over his surprise, he scoured a retreat, thus baffling
+the pursuers. The next field-day his successor was not so fortunate,
+losing both brush and life at the end of a long run. The third was
+distinguished by the feat of a Roman prince, who contrived to be in at
+the death, and received the brush for his encouragement. After this the
+weekly obituary of foxes increased permanently in number. Meanwhile a
+few dogs disappeared in subterranean mystery, awkward falls occurred,
+wrists and ankles were dislocated; but no brains spilt. At last forty
+persons, having nothing better to do with themselves, agree to meet
+regularly twice a-week and to set up a subscription. While it is yet
+early in the winter, dogs come dropping in by couples, from various
+well-wishers in England; while large orders in the shape of scarlet
+coats and hunting-caps, duly executed and forwarded, are stopped at the
+Dogana Apostolica, and after a suitable demur on account of the
+Cardinalesque colour, allowed to pass, on paying a handsome duty. These
+<i>liveries</i> at first produced a great sensation in Rome, not only amongst
+the hierarchy, who were jealous of the profanation, but with the
+populace, both within and without the walls: from the prince to the
+peasant, every body had something to say about them. As they paced along
+the streets the men stared in silent admiration, while the women clapped
+their hands and cried, "<i>Guardi! Guardi!</i>" When they trotted out to
+cover, the delighted swine-herd whistled to his pigs to make way for
+them to pass; while the mounted buffalo-driver, from some crag above the
+road, would point them out with his long-spiked pole, to the man in the
+sheepskin who was on foot. We do not know what comments <i>these</i> might
+make, but those of the Roman townsfolk were by no means in keeping with
+the flattering admiration they expressed. "What a gay livery!" said a
+Roman citizen, emerging from the Salara Gate, as a detachment of the
+"red-coats" was turning in. "Cazzo! how well they ride, and what a
+number too!" "Yes," said his friend at our elbow; "to whom do they
+belong&mdash;<i>a chi appartengono</i>?" "'Tis the livery of a Russian prince who
+came last week to Rome, and has put up at Serny's," said the other,
+affecting to know all about it. "Well, to my mind, they beat Prince
+Torlonia's postilions out-and-out." "<i>Altro</i>&mdash;I agree with you there;
+<i>ma abbia pazienza</i>&mdash;wait a bit, and depend on it our Prince, when he
+has seen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span> them, will not be long in taking the hint!" We hope he will;
+for, however we may elsewhere admire a mounted field, <i>here</i> it shocks
+every notion of propriety. That fox-hunters should have their <i>meeting</i>
+where the Fabii met; Gell's map of Rome's classic topography be studied,
+with no other reference than to <i>runs</i>; and Veii be scared in her lofty
+citadel by the cry of hounds and harum-scarum fellows sweeping along her
+ravines, are evident improprieties; while the having all one's senses
+assailed and offended together by the scent of highly-ammoniated
+bandy-legged fellows in fustian or corduroy, (their necessary
+satellites,) who inundate street and piazza with the slang of the London
+mews, is something still worse.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Quoi! Venue d'un peuple roi,<br />
+Toi, reine encore du monde!"</p></div>
+
+<p>Thou who hast taken the lead by turns, in legislature, literature, and
+the fine arts, doomed at last to become the sovereign seat for
+hunting&mdash;the Melton Mowbray of the South! May thy <i>genius loci</i> forbid
+it; may thy goddess of fever visit the hounds in one of her ugliest
+types; &#955;&#959;&#953;&#956;&#959;&#962; or &#955;&#953;&#956;&#959;&#962; destroy them; old Tiber rise with his yellow
+waves to drown, catacombs yawn to ingulf, and aqueducts fall to crush
+them! Or, should inanimate nature disregard our row, two other hopes
+remain: the one, that the foxes, made aware by this time of the love
+with which the Roman princes contemplate <i>il loro brush</i>, will send them
+a yearly tribute of a certain number of these appendages, on condition
+that they forthwith dismiss the dogs; the other, that the Dominicans,
+who are well known to be jealous of our movements, will come to regard
+hunting as an heretical sport, especially as here practised by
+Protestant dogs and riders&mdash;and in Lent, too, against orthodox
+foxes&mdash;and persuade the Pope to abolish it!</p>
+
+<h4><a name="THE_STEEPLE-CHASE" id="THE_STEEPLE-CHASE"></a>THE STEEPLE-CHASE.</h4>
+
+<p>In that grassy month of the Campagna, ere the sun has seared the
+standing herbage into hay&mdash;when anemones, cyclamens, crocuses, and Roman
+hyacinths, as prescient of the coming heat, lose no time in quickening,
+and burst out suddenly in myriads to cover the plain with their
+loveliness; while the towering <i>ferula</i> conceals the sandy rock whence
+it springs, with its delicate tracery yet unspecked by the solar rays;
+and the stately teazle, bending under the clutch of goldfinch and
+linnet, or recoiling as they spurn it, in quest of their
+butterfly-breakfast, has still some sap in its veins. Early on one of
+the most exhilarating mornings of this truly delicious season, (alas,
+how brief in its continuance!) we are awaked by unusual sounds in the
+street. These proceeded from the young Romans vociferating to their
+friends to bestir themselves to procure places at the steeple-chase
+programmed for this 14th of March. An hour before Aurora had opened her
+<i>porte coch&egrave;re</i> to Ph&oelig;bus, and those sleek piebald coursers whose
+portraits are to be seen in the Ludovisi and Ruspigliosi palaces, all
+the vetturini and cabmen of Rome had already opened <i>theirs</i>; and while
+some were adjusting misfitting harness to every specimen of horseflesh
+that could be procured for the occasion, others were trundling out from
+their black recesses in stable and coach-house, every mis-shapen vehicle
+that permitted of being fastened to their backs, in order to proceed out
+of the Porta Salara betimes. By six all Rome was awake, and by seven, in
+motion towards the race-course. On that memorable morning artists
+forewent their studies, the Sapienza its wisdom, the Roman college its
+theology; shopkeepers kept their windows closed; Italian masters
+barouched with their pupils, mouthed Ariosto, and seemed highly
+delighted; while the professions of law and physic sent as many of their
+members as public safety could spare. In short, it had been long ago
+settled that all the world would be present; and all the world was
+present, sure enough, and long before the time. It was a lively and a
+pleasing spectacle, to which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span> novelty lent another charm, when, about
+two miles beyond the Salara gate, we looked from our double-lined
+procession of Broughams and Britskas, fore and aft, and saw, for miles,
+scattered over that usually deserted plain, groups of peasants in the
+gay costumes of the adjacent villages, now animating it in every
+direction; some emerging from under the arches of aqueducts, or the
+screen of ruined columbaria, alternately lost to sight and again rising
+above those abrupt dips in which the ground abounds, all tending in one
+direction, all bent on one object. At length our carriage, (which has
+been intimating its purpose shortly to stop,) pulls up definitely, and
+Joseph, having already told us that he can neither move backward nor
+forward, touches his hat for orders. On such an occasion, we resigned
+ourselves to wait, without any feeling of impatience, finding sufficient
+amusement, both from the distant prospect and in the immediate vicinity;
+sometimes watching the wheeling of those sporting characters, the
+Peregrine Hawks overhead, now listening to the warbling of the loudest
+lark music we ever remember to have heard; then exchanging a few words
+with some roadside acquaintance, and anon giving ourselves up
+exclusively to the silent enjoyment of the weather. We were kept long
+enough in all conscience, waiting till even the quietly expectant
+Romans, drilled by their church into habits of great forbearance, at
+length began to murmur aloud disapprobation, and we could hear one
+coachman ask another "<i>Quando quel benidetto stippel-chess</i>" was to be;
+while the respondent, shrugging his shoulders, growled out for answer a
+"<i>Chi lo sa</i>!" Meanwhile our attention was fitfully resuscitated by a
+rider in costume doing a bit of turf, by an unsaddled racer led across
+the ground, or by men on horseback carrying small flags to stake at the
+different leaps; sometimes by an English oath, startling the <i>Genius
+loci</i> or whoever heard it; or more agreeably by a display of voluble
+young countrywomen, standing tiptoe on their carriage seats, eager to
+see the first fall, and permitting the young men who swaggered by to
+scare them into the prettiest attitudes of dismay, by a prophetical
+announcement of the bones that would be broken before the race was won.
+Some little buzz there is about unfairness and jockeyship, when we
+catch, from the mouth of our Anglo-Roman livery-stable-man, who chanced
+to be near, that "the osses is a-saddling." It took long to saddle; long
+to mount; and some time still before they started, during which interval</p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="50%" summary="verse">
+<tr>
+<td>
+"The jockeys keep their horses on the fret,<br />
+And each gay Spencer prompts the noisy bet,<br />
+Till drops the signal; then, without demur,<br />
+Ten horses start,&mdash;ten riders whip and spur;<br />
+At first a line an easy gallop keep,<br />
+Then forward press, to take th' approaching leap:<br />
+Abreast go red and yellow; after these<br />
+Two more succeed; one's down upon his knees;<br />
+The sixth o'ertops it; clattering go two more,<br />
+And two decline; now swells the general roar."
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>And every horse on the right side of the hurdle strives to get his head,
+and every rider is wiser than to indulge this instinct. Soon another
+leap presents itself; up they all go and down again,&mdash;four close
+together! Hurrah! blue and yellow! Hurrah! green and red! A third leap,
+not far from the last, and no refusals! Over and on again. Another! and
+this time three favourites are abreast, the fourth is a second behind,
+but may still be in, for he has cleared the fence and is coming up with
+the others; the motion appears smoother as they recede; the riders,
+diminished to the size of birds, are still seen gliding on&mdash;on:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="50%" summary="verse">
+<tr>
+<td>
+"No longer soon their colours can we trace,<br />
+Lost in the mazy distance of the race<br />
+Till at Salara's far-off bridge descried,<br />
+Like coursing butterflies, they seem to glide;<br />
+Then, dwindling farther, in the lengthening course,<br />
+Mere floating specks supplant both man and horse;<br />
+Till, having crossed the Columbarium gray,<br />
+They swerve, and back retrace their airy way."
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>At this point of the contest we cross the road&mdash;and there far away, two
+dots, a yellow and a blue one, are seen with increasing distinctness
+every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span> second; which may be in advance of the other we cannot say,
+notwithstanding the clearness of the air; they <i>seem</i>, from where we
+stand, in the same line of distance; the coloured dots disappear
+momentarily behind a slope, and on emerging the yellow is distinctly
+first; the green not far behind. Where are the others? have they broken
+their necks? No! there they come, in the rear. They were a little thrown
+out at the last leap, but two are making ground upon the green usurper;
+and now they are once more all in full sight and full speed, while the
+Roman welkin rings to strange sounds! "<i>Guardi il Verde</i>;" "<i>Per me
+guadagna il Giallo</i>." "I'll take you two to one on the Maid of the
+Mill." "Done." "Who's riding the bay-mare?" "Mr A. for Lord G. and a
+pretty mess he's making of it." "<i>Das ist wunderbar, nicht wahr?</i>" "<i>Ya,
+gut!</i>" "<i>Les Anglais savent manier leurs chevaux, parbleu!</i>" "I'll be
+blowed if Lord G. don't win after all!" "Well, Miss Smith, I shall call
+for my gloves to-morrow." "<i>Bravi tutti quanti!</i>" "<i>Cazzo! che
+cavalli!</i>" "<i>Forwartz! Forwartz.</i>" "<i>Allons, Messieurs! avancez.</i>"
+"<i>Allez! Allez!</i>" "<i>Guardi! Guardi!</i>" And here a distant shout, fleeter
+in its journey than the fleetest of the horses that it sped onwards,
+reaches our ears; another moment brings the two foremost to the last
+leap, the blue hesitates&mdash;the red springs into the air, drops
+<i>d'aplomb</i>, then on again swifter than before. The blue sticks close to
+him, is near, nearer still; comes up&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="50%" summary="verse">
+<tr>
+<td>
+"Then anxious silence breaks in deafening cries,<br />
+His whip and spur each desperate rider plies;<br />
+The prescient coursers foaming, cheek by jowl,<br />
+Now see the stand and guess th' approaching goal;<br />
+True to their blood, and frantic still to win,<br />
+Goaded, they fly, and spent, will not give in;<br />
+Exactly matched, with fruitless efforts strain<br />
+In rival speed, a single inch to gain.<br />
+Once more, the fluttering Spencers urge the goad,<br />
+Bend o'er their saddles, lift them, light their load<br />
+Just at the goal&mdash;one spur and it is done!<br />
+The rowel'd <i>Red</i> starts forward, and has won!"
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>After this exploit, the red, green, and yellow liveries could have done
+what they would with the uninitiated Romans. Captain Cooke's arrival at
+Otaheite; the first steamer seen on the Nile; the introduction of gun
+and gunpowder amongst people hitherto hunting or making war with bow and
+arrow,&mdash;are only parallel cases of that enthusiasm mixed with awe, with
+which the Romans viewed the English gentleman jockeys on this day. They
+would have been delighted to have it over again six times, but had to
+learn that races (unlike songs) are never <i>encored</i>.</p>
+
+<h4><a name="ROMAN_DOGS" id="ROMAN_DOGS"></a>ROMAN DOGS.</h4>
+
+<p>A "dog's life" has become a synonym for suffering; nor does the
+associating him with another domestic animal (if a second proverbial
+expression may be trusted) appear to mend his condition; but ill as he
+may fare with the cat, his position is less enviable when man is
+co-partner in the m&eacute;nage, against whose kicks and hard usage should he
+venture upon the lowest remonstrative growl, he is sure to receive a
+double portion of both for his pains; and thus it has ever been, for the
+condition of a dog cannot have changed materially since the creation.
+Being naturally domestic in his habits, he was born to that contumely
+"which patient merit from the unworthy takes," and can never have known
+a golden age. "Croyez-vous," (demanda quelqu'un &agrave; Candide,) "que les
+hommes ont toujours &eacute;t&eacute; rans?" "Croyez-vous," (repliqua Candide,) "que
+les &eacute;perviers ont toujours mang&eacute; les pigeons." We entertain no more
+doubt of the one than of the other, and must therefore applaud the
+sagacity of Esop's wolf, who, when sufficiently tamed by hunger to think
+of offering himself as a volunteer dog, speedily changed his mind, on
+hearing the uses of a collar first fully expounded to him by Trusty. Not
+that every dog is ill-used; no; for every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span> rule has its exception, and
+every tyrant his favourite. Man's selfishness here proves a safer ally
+than his humanity, and oft-times interposes to rescue the dog from those
+sufferings to which the race is subject. Thus in savage countries, where
+his strength may be turned to account, size and sinew recommend him to
+public notice and respect;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span style="margin-left: 4em;">"&mdash;&mdash;animalia muta</span><br />
+Quis generosa putat nisi fortia"</p></div>
+
+<p>while among civilised nations, eccentricity, beauty, cleverness, or love
+of sport, may establish him a lady's pet or a sportsman's companion.
+Happy indeed the dog born in the kennel of a park; no canister for his
+tail, no halter for his neck; physiologists shall try no experiments on
+his eighth pair of nerves; his wants are liberally supplied; a Tartar
+might envy him his rations of horseflesh, shut up with congenial and
+select associates with whom he courses twice a-week,</p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="50%" summary="verse">
+<tr>
+<td>
+"Unites his bark with theirs; and through the vale,<br />
+Pursues in triumph, as he snuffs the gale."
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>He enjoys himself thoroughly while in health, and when he is sick a
+veterinary surgeon feels his pulse, and prescribes for him in dog-Latin!
+Benign too the star, albeit the "dog star," under which are born those
+equal rivals in their mistress' heart, the silky-eared spaniel and the
+black-nosed pug, who sleep at opposite ends of a costly muff, lie on the
+sofa, bow-wow strangers round the drawing-room, and take their daily
+airing in the park! Nor are the several lots of the spotted dog from
+Denmark, who adds importance to his master's equipage; of the ferocious
+bull-dog, the Frenchman's and the butcher's friend; or of the
+quick-witted terrier from Skye, less enviable. But where caprice or
+interest do not plead for the dog, his condition is universally such as
+fully to justify the terms in which men speak of it. To see this
+exemplified, observe the misery of his <i>life</i> and <i>death</i>, in a country
+where he is neither petted nor employed. Throughout Italy, and
+particularly in Rome, (where we now introduce him to the reader,) he
+lives "to find abuse his only use;" to be hunted, and not to hunt; now
+dropping from starvation without the gates, and now the victim of poison
+within. Ye unkennelled scavengers of the Pincian Hill,&mdash;ye that have no
+master to propitiate the good Saint Anthony, on his birth-day, to bless,
+nor priest to asperse you with holy water, (in consequence of which
+omissions, no doubt, your plagues multiply upon you)&mdash;poor friendless
+wanderers, who come up to every lonely pedestrian, at once to remind him
+that it is not good for man to be alone, and to alleviate his solitude
+with your company; good-natured, rough, ill-favoured dogs, with whom our
+acquaintance has been extensive, dull indeed would the Pincian appear,
+were it deprived of your grotesque forms and awkward but well-meant
+gambols! The life of a Campagna sheep-dog, kept half starved in the
+sight of mutton which he dare not touch, is hard enough, but that of the
+members of this large, unowned republic more so. Hungry and gaunt as
+she-wolves, but with none of their fierceness, these poor animals seek
+the city gates, and, molesting nobody, find a foul and precarious
+subsistence from the <i>Immondezze</i> of the streets; but when their
+condition and appearance are improved, and they are beginning to think
+of an establishment, the fatal edict goes forth; nux vomica is
+triturated with liver, and the treacherous <i>bocconi</i> are strewn upon the
+dirt-heaps where they resort; the unsuspecting animals greedily devour
+the only meal provided for them by the State, and in a few hours
+experience the anguish of the slowly killing poison; an intense thirst
+urges them to the fountains, but the water only serves to dilute and
+render it more potent: their bodies swell, they totter, fall, try to
+recover their feet, but cannot; then piteously howling are carried off
+in the height of a titanic convulsion. Often on returning at this season
+from an evening party, we discern dark receding forms and hear voices
+too, "vis&aelig; <i>canes</i> ululare per umbras," as <i>they</i> glide moaning away and
+are lost in the obscurity of the off streets. Occasionally they
+anticipate their doom, by premature madness, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span> the authorities issue
+orders to use steel, and sometimes fifty will perish in a single night.
+It is remarkable that notwithstanding these summary proceedings, the
+canine ranks, as Easter comes round again, are renewed for fresh
+destruction. Some few dogs of superior cunning contrive from year to
+year to elude these "<i>Editti fulminanti</i>," which make such havoc among
+their companions; these, by securing the favour and protection of the
+soldiers and galley-slaves of the district, obtain besides an occasional
+meal from the canteens, and plenary indulgence for themselves, and for
+an unsightly progeny, which they screen from public remark, and bring up
+amidst the <i>latebr&aelig;</i> of the brushwood; but aware at the same time of the
+precarious tenure by which such clandestine concessions must be held,
+they seek to keep alive the interest, exerted in their behalf, by the
+exhibition of many strange antics, evidently got up for the occasion, by
+affecting an extraordinary interest in man and his affairs, which they
+cannot feel, and by the display of a most obsequious gentleness,
+humouring, while they play with your favourite dog, and though his
+superior in strength, lying under on purpose to give him the advantage;
+but above all, they seek to make interest with the Pincian <i>bonnes</i>,
+whom they readily conciliate by withdrawing the attention of the
+children from any <i>collateral</i> object of interest which may engage
+theirs. Petted and patted by many little hands, which <i>bongr&eacute; malgr&eacute;</i>
+must give up their buns to his voracity, the large quadruped, in return
+for these snatched courtesies, follows the small urchin, who is learning
+to trundle his hoop, barking for it to proceed, and stopping when it
+stops. Any one observing their clever gambols and extreme docility,
+wishes straightway that their forms were less uncouth, and might next be
+tempted, as we were, to overlook external disadvantages, and to adopt
+one of the ragged pack in consideration of mental endowments; the
+experiment would fail if he made it; these animals resemble the
+<i>uneducated</i> negro, who shows to most advantage in difficulties&mdash;well
+housed, well fed, caressed, and cared for, both forget their master and
+the part he has taken in securing their prosperity. Stand forth,
+ungrateful <i>Frate</i>, while, for the reader's caution, and your own
+misconduct, we rehearse your history.</p>
+
+<p>We met Frate at the end of the fever season upon the unhealthy heights
+of Otricoli; a poor lean beast, with a penetrating gray eye, rough brown
+coat, a tail with no grace in its rigid half curl, and an untidy grizzly
+white beard. We had halted to bait the horses, and finding nothing for
+ourselves, preceded the carriage, and were winding down the steep hill,
+when he came suddenly upon us through a break in the hedge, and having
+first looked all around and satisfied himself that no fellow town-dog
+was in sight, raised his ill-shaped head, barked an unmistakable "<i>bon
+giorno</i>;" then, turning tail on the city of his birth, ran on gambolling
+a few yards in front, to look back, bark again, and encourage us to
+proceed. "What an ugly brute! what a <i>hideous</i> dog!" but as he engages
+the attention of our party, these expressions become modified, and
+before reaching the bottom of the hill, nobody cares about the remains
+of Otricoli, nor looks any longer at the yellow reaches of the
+pestiferous Tiber, that was winding far along the plain; the dog alone
+occupies every thought. "Such a discerning creature! What clever eyes he
+has! See how well he understands what we are saying about him; suppose
+we take him on to Rome? We might get his grizzly beard shaved; his rough
+coat would become sleek after a month's good feeding, his legs could be
+clipped below the knees. Oh! he is full of capabilities. See! he is now
+acting Sphinx, and looking up at us, as if he could delve into what is
+passing in our minds, and would turn these vague suggestions to
+account." Suddenly he sprang to his feet, barked, and seemed much
+agitated; in a minute we, too, hear the sound of wheels, which his more
+acute ear had already caught; as the carriage approached, his excitement
+increased; at first he only barked back as if to entreat it not to come
+on so quickly, but as it plainly did not heed his civil remonstrance,
+the bow-wow became still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span> more earnest in its expostulatory accents.
+B&#333;w (long) w&#335;w (short). "Why such haste?" Then he tried his
+eloquence upon us; and while reiterating his canine <i>accidente</i> in his
+own way at the horses now close at hand, his voice assumes an elegiac
+whine as he turns to supplicate, in a tone that none accustomed to
+Italian beggars can mistake; "<i>non abbandonatemi</i>," being plainly the
+purport of its most dolorous and plaintive accents. We hesitate, the
+carriage draws up, down go the steps, and lo! in a twinkling, our new
+friend has darted in before us, taken possession, and there he sits
+ready to kiss our hand. Such audacity was sure to succeed, so, letting
+him gently down from the steps we left him to follow if he chose.
+Follow! trust him for that! he bounded along the Appian way, barking to
+encourage the horses, coquetting with a favourite pony, and winning over
+our Joseph, by the time we had arrived at <i>Civita Castellana</i>, to let
+him remain in their company for the night. Next morning he starts
+betimes, nor permits the carriage to overtake him, till all fear of
+being sent back is removed, by our near approach to Rome. Arrived there,
+he at once finds his way to the livery stables, and establishes himself
+permanently with the horses. Throughout the winter, we take with good
+humour the flippant comments of <i>flaneurs</i> and over-fastidious friends,
+touching the bestowal of our patronage upon such an ill-favoured cur,
+while we thought ourselves the objects of his gratitude and affection;
+but Frate's character (we gave him this name from the length of his
+beard, the colour of his coat, and because he had lived upon alms) did
+not improve upon acquaintance. One bad trait soon showed itself, he
+refused to hold communication with the less-favoured dogs of the
+Pincian, turning a deaf ear to their advances, or if they yet
+persevered, meeting them with set teeth and an unamiable growl; as he
+filled out, his regard for his patrons diminished perceptibly;
+attentions bestowed on a smaller colleague excited his jealousy; and we
+began to believe the truth of a report circulated to his prejudice, that
+Frate was really on the look-out for a place where no other dog was
+kept, and where he might have it all his own way. No longer proud of
+notice, he seldom sought our society, but was glad to slink off whenever
+this could be done without observation. Toward the close of the winter,
+indeed, we were deceived by some renewed advances into the belief of a
+return of affection, which determined us, when we left Rome, to take him
+once more in our suite; we soon, however, found out our mistake. Already
+unprincipled in no ordinary degree, the society of the caf&eacute;s and
+table-d'h&ocirc;tes at Lucca completed his corruption. His misconduct at last
+became town-talk, and his misdeeds were in every body's mouth; so, when
+he had lamed half-a-dozen labourers, scared the whole neighbourhood like
+a second Dragon of Wantley, and fought sundry battles with dogs as ugly,
+for Helens scarce better-looking than himself, we yielded to public
+remonstrance, and removing our protective collar from his unworthy neck,
+consigned him to a village sportsman, who hoped to turn his fierceness
+to account in attacking the wild-boar. With him Frate remained for about
+six weeks, by which time, tiring of the <i>Cacciatore's</i> rough handling,
+he had the temerity, two days before our departure, to present himself
+again at our door. Too much disgusted to receive him after what had
+passed, we showed him a whip from an open window, which to a dog of his
+sagacity was enough; in one instant he was on his legs, and in the next
+out of sight, but whether to return to the sportsman, or the mountain,
+or to seek and find a new master to cozen, we never heard, as this was
+our last visit to Lucca. The lesson inculcated by Frate's misconduct has
+not been lost upon us; so whenever any queer canine scarecrow now meets
+us on the Pincian, and by his dejected looks seeks to enlist our
+sympathy, we cut short the appeal, stare him in the face, and then utter
+the word "never" with sufficient emphasis to send him off shaking his
+head, as if a brace of fleas, or a "fulminating edict" from the governor
+were ringing in both ears.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Badham's <i>Juvenal</i>, Sat. 8.</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="SONG" id="SONG"></a>SONG,</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><small>FOR THE DINNER GIVEN TO THE EARL OF DALHOUSIE, AT EDINBURGH, 14th SEPTEMBER</small><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><small>1847, BEFORE HIS PROCEEDING TO INDIA AS GOVERNOR-GENERAL.</small></span></p>
+
+<h4>BY DELTA.</h4>
+
+<p class="center">I.</p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="65%" summary="verse">
+<tr>
+<td>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Long, long ere the thistle was twined with the rose,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the firmest of friends now were fiercest of foes,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The flag of Dalwolsey aye foremost was seen;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through the night of oppression it glitter'd afar,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To the patriot's eye 'twas a ne'er-setting star,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And with Bruce and with Wallace it flash'd through the fray,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When "Freedom or Death" was the shout of the day,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For the thistle of Scotland shall ever be green!</span><br />
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">II.</p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="65%" summary="verse">
+<tr>
+<td>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A long line of chieftains! from father to son,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They lived for their country&mdash;their purpose was one&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In heart they were fearless&mdash;in hand they were clean;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From the hero of yore, who, in Gorton's grim caves,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kept watch with the band who disdain'd to be slaves,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Down to him, with the Hopetoun and Lynedoch that vied,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who should shine like a twin star by Wellington's side,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That the thistle of Scotland might ever be green!</span><br />
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">III.</p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="65%" summary="verse">
+<tr>
+<td>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then a bumper to him in whose bosom combine</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All the virtues that proudly ennoble his line,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As dear to his country, as stanch to his Queen;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor less that Dalhousie a patriot we find,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whose field is the senate, whose sword is the mind,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And whose object the strife of the world to compose,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That the shamrock may bloom by the side of the rose,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the thistle of Scotland for ever be green!</span><br />
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">IV.</p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="65%" summary="verse">
+<tr>
+<td>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It is not alone for his bearing and birth,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It is not alone for his wisdom and worth,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">At this board that our good and our noble convene;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But a faith in the blessings which India may draw</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From science, from commerce, religion, and law;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And that all who obey Britain's sceptre may see</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That knowledge is power&mdash;that the truth makes us free;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For rose, thistle, and shamrock, shall ever be green!</span><br />
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">V.</p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="65%" summary="verse">
+<tr>
+<td>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A hail and farewell! it is pledged to the brim,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And drain'd to the bottom in honour of him</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who a glory to Scotland shall be and hath been:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Untired in the cause of his country and crown,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">May his path be a long one of spotless renown;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Till the course nobly rounded, the goal proudly won,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fame, smiling on Scotland, shall point to her son,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For the thistle&mdash;Her thistle!&mdash;shall ever be green!</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="MY_FRIEND_THE_DUTCHMAN" id="MY_FRIEND_THE_DUTCHMAN"></a>MY FRIEND THE DUTCHMAN.</h2>
+
+<p>"And you will positively marry her, if she will have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a doubt of either. Before this day fortnight she shall be Madame
+Van Haubitz."</p>
+
+<p>"You will make her your wife without acquainting her with your true
+position?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed will I. My very position requires it. There's no room for a
+scruple. She expects to live on my fortune; thinks to make a great catch
+of the rich Dutchman. Instead of that I shall spend her salary. The old
+story; going out for wool and returning shorn."</p>
+
+<p>The conversation of which this is the concluding fragment, occurred in
+the public room of the Hotel de Hesse, in the village of Homburg on the
+Hill&mdash;an insignificant handful of houses, officiating as capital of the
+important landgravate of Hesse-Homburg. The table-d'h&ocirc;te had been over
+some time; the guests had departed to repose in their apartments until
+the hour of evening promenade should summon them to the excellent band
+of music, provided by the calculating liberality of the gaming-house
+keepers, and to loiter round the <i>brunnens</i> of more or less nauseous
+flavour, the pretext of resort to this rendezvous of idlers and
+gamblers. The waiters had disappeared to batten on the broken meats from
+the public table, and to doze away the time till the approach of supper
+renewed their activity. My interlocutor, with whom I was alone in the
+deserted apartment, was a man of about thirty years of age, whose dark
+hair and mustaches, marked features, spare person, and complexion
+bronzed by a tropical sun, entitled him to pass for a native of southern
+Europe, or even of some more ardent clime. Nevertheless he answered to
+the very Dutch patronymic of Van Haubitz, and was a native of Holland,
+in whose principal city his father was a banker of considerable wealth
+and financial influence.</p>
+
+<p>It was towards the close of a glorious August, and for two months I had
+been wandering in Rhine-land. Not after the fashion of deluded Cockneys,
+who fancy they have seen the Rhine when they have careered from Cologne
+to Mannheim astride of a steam-engine, gaping at objects passed as soon
+as perceived; drinking and paying for indifferent vinegar as
+Steinberger-Cabinet, eating vile dinners on the decks of steamers, and
+excellent ones in the capital hotels which British cash and patronage
+have raised upon the banks of the flower of German streams. On the
+contrary, I had early dispensed with the aid of steam, to wander on
+foot, with the occasional assistance of a lazy country diligence or
+rickety <i>einspanner</i>, through the many beautiful districts that lie upon
+either bank of the river; pedestrianising in Rhenish Bavaria, losing
+myself in the Odenwald, and pausing, when occasion offered, to pick a
+trout out of the numerous streamlets that dash and meander through dell
+and ravine, on their way to swell the waters of old Father Rhine. At
+last, weary of solitude&mdash;scarcely broken by an occasional gossip with a
+heavy German boor, village priest, or strolling student,&mdash;I thirsted
+after the haunts of civilisation, and found myself, within a day of the
+appearance of the symptom, installed in a luxurious hotel in the free
+city of Frankfort on the Maine. But Frankfort at that season is
+deserted, save by passing tourists, who escape as fast as possible from
+its lifeless streets and sun-baked pavements; so, after glancing over an
+English newspaper at the Casino, taking one stroll in the beautiful
+garden surrounding the city, and another through the Jew-quarter&mdash;always
+interesting and curious, although any thing but savoury at that warm
+season,&mdash;I gathered together my baggage and was off to Homburg. There I
+could not complain of solitude, of deserted streets and shuttered
+windows. It seemed impossible that the multitude of gaily dressed belles
+and cavaliers, English, French, German, and Russ, who, from six in the
+morning until sunset, lounged and flirted on the walks, watered
+themselves at the fountains, and perilled their complexions in the
+golden sunbeams, could ever bestow themselves in the two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span> or three
+middling hotels and few score shabby lodging-houses composing the town
+of Homburg. Manage it they did, however; crept into their narrow cells
+at night, to emerge next morning, like butterflies from the chrysalis,
+gay, bright, and brilliant, and to recommence the never-varying but
+pleasant round of eating, sauntering, love-making, and gambling. Homburg
+was not then what it has since become. That great house of cards, the
+new Cursaal, had not yet arisen; and its table-d'h&ocirc;te, reading-room, and
+profane mysteries of roulette and rouge-et-noir, found temporary
+domicile in a narrow, disreputable-looking den in the main street, where
+accommodation of all kinds, but especially for dinner, was scanty in the
+extreme. The public tables at the hotels were consequently thronged, and
+there acquaintances were soon made. The day of my arrival at Homburg I
+was seated next to Van Haubitz; his manner was off hand and frank, we
+entered into conversation, took our after-dinner cigar and evening
+stroll together, and by bed-time had knocked up that sort of intimacy
+easily contracted at a watering-place, which lasts one's time of
+residence, and is extinguished and forgotten on departure. Van Haubitz,
+like many Continentals and very few Englishmen, was one of those
+free-and-easy communicative persons who are as familiar after twelve
+hours' acquaintance as if they had known you twelve years, and who do
+not hesitate to confide to a three days' acquaintance the history of
+their lives, their pursuits, position, and prospects. I was soon made
+acquainted, to a very considerable extent, at least, with those of my
+friend Van Haubitz, late lieutenant of artillery in the service of his
+majesty the King of Holland. He was the youngest of four sons, and
+having shown, at a very early age, a wild and intractable disposition,
+and precocious addiction to dissipation, his father pronounced him
+unsuited to business, and decided on placing him in the army. To this
+the <i>Junker</i>, (he claimed nobility, and displayed above his arms a
+species of coronet, bearing considerable resemblance to a fragment of
+chevaux-de-frise, which he might have been puzzled to prop with a
+parchment,) had no particular objection, and might have made a good
+enough officer, but for his reckless, spendthrift manner of life, which
+entailed negligence of duty and frequent reprimands. Extravagant beyond
+measure, unable to deny himself any gratification, squandering money as
+though millions were at his command, he was constantly overwhelmed with
+debts and a martyr to duns. At last his father, after thrice clearing
+him with his creditors, consented to do so a fourth time only on
+condition of his getting transferred to a regiment stationed in the
+Dutch East Indies, and remaining there until his return had the paternal
+sanction. To avoid a prison, and perhaps not altogether sorry to leave a
+country where his credit was bad and his reputation worse, he embarked
+for Batavia. But any pleasant day-dreams he may have cherished of
+tropical luxuries, of the indulgence of a <i>farniente</i> life in a grass
+hammock, gently balanced by Javan houris beneath banana shades, of
+spice-laden breezes and cool sherbets, and other attributes of a
+Mahomedan paradise, were speedily dissipated by the odious realities of
+filth and vermin, marsh-fever and mosquitoes. He wrote to his father,
+describing the horrors of the place, and begging to be released from his
+pledge and allowed to return to Holland. His obdurate progenitor replied
+by a letter of reproach, and swore that if he left Batavia he might live
+on his pay, and never expect a stiver from the paternal strong-box,
+either as gift or bequest. To live upon his pay would have been no easy
+matter, even for a more prudent and economical person than Van Haubitz.
+He grumbled immoderately, blasphemed like a pagan, but remained where he
+was. A year passed and he could hold out no longer. Disregarding the
+paternal menaces and displeasure, and reckless of consequences, he
+applied to the chief military authority of the colony for leave of
+absence. He was asked his plea, and alleged ill health. The general
+thought he looked pretty well, and requested the sight of a medical
+certificate of his invalid state. Van Haubitz assumed a doleful
+countenance and betook him to the surgeons. They agreed with the
+general<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span> that he looked pretty healthy; asked for symptoms; could
+discover none more alarming than regularity of pulse, sleep, appetite,
+and digestion, laughed in his face and refused the certificate. The
+sickly cannonier, who had the constitution of a rhinoceros, and had
+never had a day's illness since he got over the measles at the age of
+four years, waited a little, and tried the second "dodge," usually
+resorted to in such cases. "Urgent private affairs" were now the
+pretext. The general expressed his regret that urgent public affairs
+rendered it impossible for him to dispense with the valuable services of
+Lieutenant Van Haubitz. Whereupon Lieutenant Van Haubitz passed half an
+hour in heaping maledictions on the head of his disobliging commander,
+and then sat down and wrote an application for an exchange to the
+authorities in Holland. The reply was equally unsatisfactory, the fact
+being that Haubitz senior, like an implacable old savage as he was, had
+made interest at the war-office for the refusal of all such requests on
+the part of his scapegrace offspring. Haubitz junior took patience for
+another year, and then, in a moment of extreme disgust and ennui, threw
+up his commission and returned to Europe, trusting, he told me, that
+after five years' absence, the governor's bowels would yearn towards his
+youngest-born. In this he was entirely mistaken; he greatly underrated
+the toughness of paternal viscera. Far from killing the fatted calf on
+the prodigal's return, the incensed old Hollander refused him the
+smallest cutlet, and shutting the door in his face, consigned him, with
+more energy than affection, to the custody of the evil one. Van Haubitz
+found himself in an awkward fix. Credit was dead, none of his relatives
+would notice or assist him; his whole fortune consisted of a dozen gold
+Wilhelms. At this critical moment an eccentric maiden aunt, to whom, a
+year or two previously, he had sent a propitiatory offering of a
+ring-tailed monkey and a leash of pea-green parrots, and who had never
+condescended even to acknowledge the present, departed this life,
+bequeathing him ten thousand florins as a return for the addition to her
+menagerie. A man of common prudence, and who had seen himself so near
+destitution, would have endeavoured to employ this sum, moderate as it
+was, in some trade or business, or, at any rate, would have lived
+sparingly till he found other resources. But Haubitz had not yet sown
+all his wild-oats; he had a soul above barter, a glorious disregard of
+the future, the present being provided for. He left Holland, shaking the
+dust from his boots, dashed across Belgium, and was soon plunged in the
+gaieties of a Paris carnival. Breakfasts at the Rocher, dinners at the
+Caf&eacute;, balls at the opera, and the concomitant <i>petits soupers</i> and
+&eacute;cart&eacute; parties with the fair denizens of the Quartier Lorette, soon
+operated a prodigious chasm in the monkey-money, as Van Haubitz
+irreverently styled his venerable aunt's bequest. Spring having arrived,
+he beat a retreat from Paris, and established himself at Homburg, where
+he was quietly completing the consumption of the ten thousand florins,
+at rather a slower pace than he would have done at that head-quarters of
+pleasant iniquity, the capital of France. From hints he had let fall, I
+suspected a short time would suffice to see the last of the legacy. On
+this head, however, he had been less confidential than on most other
+matters, and certainly his manner of living would have led no one to
+suppose he was low in the locker. Nothing was too good for him; he drank
+the most expensive wines, got up parties and pic-nics for the ladies,
+and had a special addiction to the purchase of costly trinkets, which he
+generally gave away before they had been a day in his possession. He did
+not gamble; he had done so, he told me, once since he was at Homburg,
+and had won, but he had no faith in his luck, or taste for that kind of
+excitement, and should play no more. He was playing another game just
+now, which apparently interested him greatly. A few days before myself,
+a young actress, who, within a very short time, had acquired
+considerable celebrity, had arrived at Homburg, escorted by her mother.
+Fraulein Emilie Sendel was a lively lady of four-and-twenty or
+thereabouts, possessing a smart figure and pretty face, the latter
+somewhat wanting in re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span>finement. Her blue eyes although rather too
+prominent, had a merry sparkle; her cheeks had not yet been entirely
+despoiled by envious rouge of their natural healthful tinge; her hair,
+of that peculiar tint of red auburn which the French call a <i>blond
+hasard&eacute;</i>, was more remarkable for abundance and flexibility than for
+fineness of texture. As regarded her qualities and accomplishments, she
+was good-humoured and tolerably unaffected, but wilful and capricious as
+a spoiled child; she spoke her own language pretty well, with an
+occasional slight vulgarism or bit of green-room slang; had a smattering
+of French, and played the piano sufficiently to accompany the ballads
+and vaudeville airs which she sang with spirit and considerable freedom
+of style. I had met German actresses who were far more lady-like off the
+stage, but there was nothing glaringly or repulsively vulgar about
+Emilie, and as a neighbour at a public dinner-table, she was amusing and
+quite above par. As if to vindicate her nationality, she would
+occasionally look sentimental, but the mood sat ill upon her, and never
+lasted long; comedy was evidently her natural line. Against her
+reputation, rumour, always an inquisitive censor, often a mean libeller,
+of ladies of her profession, had as yet, so far as I could learn, found
+nothing to allege. Her mother, a dingy old dowager, with bad teeth,
+dowdy gowns, a profusion of artificial flowers, and a strong addiction
+to tea and knitting, perfectly understood the duties of duennaship, and
+did propriety by her daughter's side at dinner-table and promenade. To
+the heart of the daughter, Van Haubitz, almost from the first hour he
+had seen her, had laid persevering and determined siege.</p>
+
+<p>During our after-dinner t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te on the day now referred to, my
+friend the cannonier had shown himself exceedingly unreserved, and,
+without any attempt on my part to draw him out, he had elucidated, with
+a frankness that must have satisfied the most inquisitive, whatever
+small points of his recent history and present position he had
+previously left in obscurity. The conversation began, so soon as the
+cloth was removed and the guests had departed, by a jesting allusion on
+my part to his flirtation with the actress, and to her gracious
+reception of his attentions.</p>
+
+<p>"It is no mere flirtation," said Van, gravely. "My intentions are
+serious. You may depend Mademoiselle Sendel understands them as such."</p>
+
+<p>"Serious! you don't mean that you want to marry her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Unquestionably I do. It is my only chance."</p>
+
+<p>"Your only chance!" I repeated, considerably puzzled. "Are you about to
+turn actor, and do you trust to her for instruction in histrionics?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly. I will explain. La Sendel, you must know, has just
+terminated her last engagement, which was at a salary of ten thousand
+florins. She has already received and accepted an offer of a new one, at
+fifteen thousand, from the Vienna theatre. Vienna is a very pleasant
+place. Fifteen thousand florins are thirty-two thousand francs, or
+twelve hundred of your English pounds sterling. Upon that stun two
+persons can live excellently well&mdash;in Germany at least."</p>
+
+<p>Unable to contradict any of these assertions, I held my tongue. The
+Dutchman resumed.</p>
+
+<p>"You know the history of my past life; I will tell you my present
+position. It is critical enough, but I shall improve it, for here," and
+he touched his forehead, "is what never fails me. This letter," he
+produced an epistle of mercantile aspect, bearing the Amsterdam
+post-mark, "I received last week from my eldest brother. The shabby
+<i>schelm</i> declares he will reply to no more of mine, that his efforts to
+arrange matters with my father have been fruitless, and that the old
+gentleman has strictly forbidden him and his brothers to hold any
+communication with me, a command they seem willing enough to obey. So
+much for that. And now for the finances."</p>
+
+<p>He took out his pocket-book, opened and shook it, a flimsy crumpled bit
+of paper fell out. It was a note of the bank of France, for one thousand
+francs.</p>
+
+<p>"My last," said he. "That gone, I am a beggar. But it won't come to
+that, either, thanks to Fraulein Emilie."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Surely," said I, "you are too reckless of money, too extravagant and
+unreflecting. Six months ago, you told me, you had twenty such notes."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, twenty-two exactly, at the end of January, when I left Amsterdam.
+But whither was I bound? To Paris; and who can economize there? I've had
+my money's worth, and could have had no more, had I dribbled the dirty
+ten thousand florins over three years, instead of three months. I take
+great credit for making it last so long. Such suppers, and balls, and
+orgies, with the pleasantest fellows and prettiest actresses in Paris.
+But the louis-d'or roll rapidly in that sort of society. One must be a
+Russian prince, or French <i>feuilletoniste</i>, to keep it up. I never
+flinched at any thing so long as the money lasted. Then, when I found
+myself reduced to the last note, I got into the Frankfort mail, and came
+to rusticate at this rural roulette table. My next change will be to
+conjugation and Vienna."</p>
+
+<p>"But if you had only a thousand francs on leaving Paris, and have got
+them still, how have you lived since?"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't suppose these are the same? There are not many ways of
+getting through money here, unless one gambles, which I do not; but coin
+has somehow or other a peculiar aptitude to slip through my fingers, and
+the thousand francs soon evaporated. Meanwhile, I had written dozens of
+letters to my brothers, who seldom answered, and to my father, who never
+did. I promised reform and a respectable life, if they would either get
+me a snug place with little to do and good pay, or make me a reasonable
+yearly allowance, something better than the paltry three thousand
+florins they doled out to me when I was in the artillery, and on which,
+as I could not live, I was obliged to get in debt. They paid no
+attention to my request, reasonable as it was. The best offer they made
+me was five francs a-day, paid weekly, to live in a Silesian village.
+This was adding insult to injury, and I left off writing to them. A few
+days afterwards, taking out my purse to pay for cigars, a dollar dropped
+out. It was my last. I paid it away, walked home, lay down upon my bed,
+smoked and reflected. My position was gloomy enough, and the more I
+looked at it, the blacker it seemed. From my undutiful relatives there
+was no hope; the abominable Silesian project was evidently their
+ultimatum. I had no friend to turn to, no resource left. I might
+certainly have obtained the mere necessaries of life at this hotel,
+where my credit was excellent, and have vegetated for a month or two, as
+a man must vegetate, without ready money. But I had no fancy for such an
+expedient, a mere protraction of the agony. I lay ruminating for two
+hours, two such hours as I should be sorry to pass again, and then my
+mind was made up. I had a brace of small travelling pistols amongst my
+baggage; these I loaded and put in my pocket, and then, leaving the
+hotel and the town, I struck across the country for some distance and
+plunged into a wood. There I sat down upon a grass bank, my back against
+an old beech. It was evening, and the solitary little glade before me
+was striped with the last sunbeams darting between the tree-trunks. I
+have difficulty in defining my sensations at that moment. I was quite
+resolved, did not waver an instant in my purpose, but my head was dizzy,
+and I had a sickly sensation about the heart. Determined that the
+physical shrinking from death should not have time to weaken my moral
+determination, I hastily opened my waistcoat, felt for the pulsations of
+my heart, placed the muzzle of a pistol where they were strongest,
+steadying it on that spot with my left hand. Then I looked straight
+before me and pulled the trigger. There was the click of the lock, but
+no report; the cap was bad, and had been crushed without exploding. That
+was a horrible moment. I snatched up another pistol, which lay cocked to
+my hand, and thrust the muzzle into my mouth. As before, the sharp noise
+of the hammer upon the nipple was the sole result. The caps had been
+some time in my possession, and had become worthless through age or
+damp."</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Van Haubitz, doubtful whether he was not hoaxing me. But
+hitherto I had observed in him no addiction to the Munchausen vein, and
+now his countenance and voice were serious; there was a slight flush<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span> on
+his cheek, and he was evidently excited at the recollection of his
+abortive attempt at suicide,&mdash;perhaps a little ashamed of it. I was
+convinced he told the truth.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know," he continued, "whether, had I had surer weapons with
+me, I should have had courage to make a third attempt upon my life.
+Honestly, I think not; the self-preservative instinct was rapidly
+gaining strength. I walked slowly back to the town, my brain still
+confused from the agitating moments I had passed. I was unable quite to
+collect my thoughts, and felt as if I had just awakened from a long
+heavy sleep. It was now dark; lights streamed from the open windows of
+the gambling-rooms; the voices of the croupiers, the stir and hum of the
+players and jingling of money were distinctly heard in the street
+without. I have already told you I am no gambler, not from scruple, but
+choice. Nevertheless, I used often to stroll up to the Cursaal for an
+hour of in evening, when the play was at the highest, to look on and
+chat with any acquaintances I met. Mechanically, I now ascended the
+stairs. On the landing-place, I found myself face to face with a man
+with whom I was slightly intimate, and who, a few evenings before, had
+borrowed forty francs of me. I had not seen him since, and he now
+returned me the piece of gold. 'Try your luck with it,' said he; 'there
+is a run against the bank tonight, every body wins, and M. Blanc looks
+blue.' And he pointed to one of the proprietors of the tables, who,
+however, wore a tolerably tranquil air, knowing well that what was
+carried away one night, would come back with compound interest the next.
+The play was heavy at the Rouge-et-noir table; a Russian and two
+Frenchmen&mdash;the latter of whom, judging from their appearance, and from
+the complicated array of calculations on the table before them, were
+professional gamblers&mdash;extracted, at nearly every <i>coup</i>, notes or
+rouleaus of gold from the grated boxes in front of the bankers. I drank
+a glass of water, for my lips and mouth were dry and hot, and placing
+myself as near the table as the crowd of players and spectators
+permitted, watched the game. My hand was in my pocket, the forty-franc
+piece still between its fingers. But in spite of the advice of him who
+had paid it me, I felt no disposition to risk the coin; not that I
+feared to lose it, for as my only one it was useless, but because, as I
+tell you, I never had the slightest love of gambling or expectation to
+win.</p>
+
+<p>"A pause occurred in the game. The cards had run out, and the bankers
+were subjecting them to those complicated and ostentatious shufflings
+intended to convince the players of the fairness of their dealings.
+During this operation, the previous silence was exchanged for eager
+gossip. The game, it appeared, had come out that night in a peculiar
+manner, very favourable to those who had had <i>nous</i> and nerve to avail
+themselves of it. There had been alternate long runs upon red and black.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Mille noms de Dieu</i>!' exclaimed a hoarse cracked voice just below me.
+'What a series of black! Twenty-two, and only three red! And to be
+unable to take advantage of it!'</p>
+
+<p>"I looked down, and recognised the gray mustache, wrinkled features, and
+snuffy black coat with a ribbon of the Legion of Honour, of an old
+French colonel whom you may have seen limping in and out of the Cursaal,
+and who ranks amongst the antiquities of Homburg. He served under
+Napoleon, was shelved at the peace, and has lived since then on a
+moderate annuity, of which one-fifth procures him the barest necessaries
+of existence, whilst the other four parts are annually absorbed in the
+vortex of rouge-et-noir. When gambling-houses were legal at Paris, <i>le
+colonel rap&eacute;</i>, the threadbare colonel, as he was called, was one of the
+most punctual attendants at Frascati's and the Palais Royal. When they
+were abolished, he commenced a wandering existence amongst the German
+baths, and finally settled down at Homburg, giving it the preference, as
+the only place where he could follow his darling pursuit alike in winter
+and in summer. From the opening to the close of the play he is seen
+seated at the table, a number of cards, ruled in red and black columns,
+on the green cloth before him, in which he pricks with pins the progress
+of the game. That evening<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span> he had been unfortunate, and had emptied his
+pocket, but nevertheless continued puncturing cards with laudable
+perseverance, of course discovering, like every penniless gambler, that,
+had he money to stake, he should infallibly make a fortune; predicting
+what colour would come out, and indulging, when he proved a true
+prophet, in a little subdued blasphemy because he was unable to profit
+by his acuteness.</p>
+
+<p>"'Extraordinary run! to be sure,' repeated the veteran dicer.
+'Twenty-two black, and only three red! There'll be a series of red now:
+I feel there will, and when I don't play myself, I'm always right. I bet
+this deal begins with seven red. Who bets a hundred francs to fifty it
+does not?'</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody accepted this sporting offer, or placed upon the colour which
+the colonel's prophetic soul foresaw was to come out. The cards were now
+shuffled and cut for dealing. The hell relapsed into silence.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Faites le jeu, Messieurs!</i>' was repeated in the harsh business-like
+tones of the presiding demon.</p>
+
+<p>"'Red wins,' croaked the colonel. 'Seven times at the least.'</p>
+
+<p>"Nearly all the players backed the black. By an idle impulse I threw
+down my forty francs, my entire fortune, upon the red. The old soldier
+looked round to see the judicious individual who followed his advice,
+smiled grimly, and nodded approvingly. The next moment red won. I let
+the money lie, and walked into the next room. Eighty francs were of no
+more use to me than forty, and I felt very sure that another turn of the
+card would carry off both stake and winnings. I took up a newspaper, but
+soon threw it down again, for my head was not clear enough to read, and
+I felt exhausted with the emotions of the day. I was about to leave the
+house when I heard a loud buzz in the card-room, and the next instant
+somebody clutched my arm. It was the French colonel, in a state of
+furious excitement; grinning, panting, perspiring, and stuttering with
+eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>"'Seven reds!' was all he could say. 'Seven reds, Monsieur. Take up your
+money.'</p>
+
+<p>"I hastened to the table. By a strange caprice of fortune, the colonel's
+prophecy had come true. Red had won seven times, and my forty francs had
+become five thousand. I took up my winnings, the colonel looking on with
+a triumphant smile. This was suddenly exchanged for a portentous frown
+and fierce twist of the gray mustache.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Mille millions de tonnerres!</i> Not a dollar left to follow up that
+splendid run!' And with a furious gesture, he upset his chair, and
+dashed his cards upon the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"I took the hint, whether intended or not. I could not do less in return
+for the five thousand francs the old gentleman had put in my pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"'If Monsieur,' I said, 'will allow me the pleasure of lending him&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Impossible, Monsieur!</i>' interrupted the colonel, looking as stern as
+if about to charge single-handed a whole pult of Cossacks. But I knew my
+man. He was the type of a class of which I have seen many.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Cependant, Monsieur, entre militaires</i>, between brother-soldiers&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Ah! Monsieur est militaire!</i>' exclaimed the old gentleman, his
+alarming contraction of brow and rigidity of feature instantaneously
+dissolving into a smile of extreme benignity. 'That alters the case.
+Certainly, between brothers in arms those little services may be offered
+and accepted. Although, really, it is encroaching on Monsieur's
+complaisance ... at the same time ... a hundred francs ... till
+to-morrow ... quarters at some distance ... &amp;c. &amp;c.' which ended in his
+picking up his chair, cards, and pin, and applying all his faculties to
+break the bank with ten <i>louis</i> which I lent him, and which I need
+hardly say I have not seen from that day to this.</p>
+
+<p>"Such a sudden stroke of good fortune would have made gamblers of nine
+men out of ten, but I decidedly want the organ of gaming, for I have
+never played since. My narrow escape from suicide had made some
+impression on me, and now that I had five thousand francs in my pocket,
+I looked back at the attempt as an exceedingly foolish proceeding. For a
+month or more, I lived with what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</a></span> even you would admit to be great
+economy, writing frequent letters to Amsterdam, and trying to come to
+terms and an arrangement with my family. All in vain. They had no
+confidence in my promises, proposed nothing I could accept, talked of
+Silesian exile&mdash;roots and water in the wilderness&mdash;and the like
+absurdities, until I plainly saw they were determined to cast me off,
+and that if I was to be helped at all, it must be by myself. How to do
+this was the puzzle. There are few things I can do, that could in any
+way be rendered profitable. I can ride a horse, lay a gun, and put a
+battery through its exercise; but such accomplishments are sufficiently
+common not to be paid at a very high rate; and besides I had had enough
+of garrison duty, even could I have got back my commission, which was
+not very likely. So I put soldiering out of the question; and yet, when
+I had done so, I was infernally puzzled to think of any thing better. I
+had no fancy to turn rook, and rove from place to place in search of
+pigeons&mdash;no uncommon resource with younger brothers of an idle turn and
+exhausted means. I had fallen in with a few birds of that breed, and had
+come to the conclusion that to save themselves work and trouble, they
+had adopted by far the most laborious and painful of all professions. In
+the midst of my doubts and uncertainties, the fair Sendel and her mother
+made their appearance. The first sight of their names upon the hotel
+book was a ray of light to me. Within an hour I made up my mind to
+sacrifice my independence to my necessities, and become the virtuous and
+domesticated spouse of the charming and well-paid Emilie. A hint and a
+dollar to the waiter placed me next her at the table-d'h&ocirc;te, and I
+immediately opened my intrenchments, and began a siege in due form."</p>
+
+<p>"Which you expect will soon terminate by the capitulation of the
+garrison?" said I, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Undoubtedly. The result of the first day or two's operations was not
+very satisfactory. I rattled away, and did the amiable to a furious
+extent; but the divinity was shy, and the guardian of the temple (an old
+gorgon whom I shall suppress before the honeymoon is out) looked askance
+at me, and pulled her daughter by the sleeve whenever she seemed
+disposed to listen. They evidently thought the rattle might belong to a
+snake; did me the injustice to take me for an adventurer. On the third
+day, however, the ice had melted. I soon found out the cause of the
+thaw. The head-waiter, whom a little well-timed liberality had rendered
+my devoted slave, informed me that Madame Sendel had been making minute
+inquiries concerning me of the master of the hotel. The worthy man, who
+adored me because I despised <i>vin ordinaire</i> and looked only at the
+sum-total of his bills, said that I was a son of Van Haubitz, the rich
+banker of Amsterdam, which was perfectly true; adding, which was rather
+less so, that I was a partner in the house, and a <i>millionaire</i>. The
+effect of this information upon the speculative firm of Sendel <i>M&egrave;re et
+Fille</i>, was perfectly electric. Medusa smoothed her horrid looks, and
+came out at that day's dinner in cherry ribands and fresh artificials.
+Emilie was all smiles and suavity, laughed at my worst jokes, nearly
+burst her stays by holding her breath to raise a blush at my soft
+speeches, and returned from that evening's promenade talking about the
+moon, and leaning with tender <i>abandon</i>, on my arm."</p>
+
+<p>"With such encouragement, I am surprised you did not propose at once."</p>
+
+<p>"So hasty a measure&mdash;oh, most unsophisticated of Britons!" replied Van,
+with a look of grave pity for my simplicity&mdash;"would have greatly
+perilled the success of my scheme. Sendel Senior, having only the
+innkeeper's report to rely upon, would have had her ungenerous
+suspicions re-awakened by my precipitation, and have instituted further
+inquiries; have written, probably, to some friend in Holland, and
+learned that the pretender to her daughter's hand, although
+unquestionably a son of the wealthy banker Van Haubitz, is excluded
+beyond redemption from the good graces of that respectable pillar of
+Dutch finance, who has further announced his irrevocable determination
+to take not the slightest notice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</a></span> of him in his testamentary
+dispositions. The excellent Herr Bratenbengel, whose succulent dinner we
+are now digesting, and whose very laudable <i>Rudesheimer</i> stands before
+us, had unwittingly laid the foundation of my success; it was for me to
+raise the superstructure. Now it was that I rejoiced at my economy since
+the lucky hit at the gaming-table. The greater part of my winnings still
+remained to me; golden grain, which I now profusely scattered, sure that
+it would yield rich harvest. On one man&oelig;uvre I particularly pride
+myself. Retaining a few napoleons for immediate use, I remitted the
+remainder to a friend in Amsterdam, requesting him to return it me in a
+bill on Frankfort drawn by my father's bank. I took care to have the
+letter containing the draft delivered to me at dinner when seated beside
+the adorable Emilie, and was equally careful to lay the bill open upon
+the table, whilst I took a hasty glance at the letter. Of course my
+neighbour pretended not to see the draft, and equally of course she made
+herself mistress of its contents, particularly noting the drawer's name,
+and communicating the same to her mother at the earliest opportunity.
+This had a good effect, establishing my connexion with the rich house of
+Van Haubitz; and I have taken care to confirm the favourable impression
+by the profuse expenditure which you, in your ignorance, have called
+extravagance, by treating money as if its abundance in my coffers made
+it valueless in my eyes, and by delicate generosity in the shape of
+presents to mother and daughter. The trap was too cunningly set to prove
+a failure; the birds are fairly snared, and tonight, when we take our
+usual romantic stroll, I shall raise the fair Sendel to the seventh
+heaven of happiness by asking her to become Madame Van Haubitz."</p>
+
+<p>Although the tenour and tone of these confessions had by no means tended
+to elevate the Dutchman in my opinion, I could not forbear smiling at
+the coolness with which they were made and at the skill of his
+man&oelig;uvres. Still there was some good about the scamp; he had his own
+code of honour, such as it was, and from that he would not easily have
+been induced to swerve. He would have scorned to do a dirty thing, to
+cheat at cards, or leave a debt of honour unpaid; but would readily have
+got in debt to tradesmen and money-lenders beyond all possibility of
+reimbursement. And as regarded his present conspiracy against the
+celibacy and salary of Mademoiselle Sendel, a synod of sages and
+logicians would have failed to convince him of its impropriety. He
+looked upon it as a most justifiable stratagem, a lawful preying upon
+the spoiler, praiseworthy in the sight of men, gods, and columns, and
+which he would perhaps have boasted of to a considerable extent to many
+besides myself, had not secrecy been essential to the welfare of his
+combinations. I, of course, did not feel called upon to betray his plot,
+or to put the Sendel on her guard against this snake amongst the roses.
+And whilst mentally resolving rather to diminish than increase the
+intimacy which the confident and confidential artilleryman had in great
+measure forced upon me, and which I, through a sort of easy-going
+indolence of character, had perhaps somewhat lightly accepted, I
+anticipated much diversion in watching the man&oelig;uvres of the high
+contracting parties. I considered myself as a spectator, called upon to
+witness an amusing comedy in real life, and admitted behind the scenes
+by peculiar favour of an actor. I resolved to watch the progress of the
+intrigue, and, if possible, to be present at the <i>denouement</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you quite certain," said I to Van, "that Mademoiselle Sendel's
+pecuniary position and prospects are so very favourable? The sum you
+mentioned is a large one for an actress who has been so short a time on
+the stage. Public report, very apt to take liberties with the reputation
+of theatrical ladies, often endeavours to compensate them by magnifying
+their salaries."</p>
+
+<p>Van, I may here mention, lest the reader should not have perceived it,
+had a most inordinate opinion of his own abilities and acuteness. Like
+certain Yankees, he "conceited" it was necessary to rise before the sun
+to outwit him, and even then your chance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</a></span> was a poor one. He had been in
+hot water all his life, never out of difficulties and scrapes, once, as
+has been shown, kept from suicide by a mere accident, and was now
+reduced to the alternative of beggary or of marrying for a living. None
+of these circumstances, which would have taken the conceit out of most
+men, at all impaired his opinion of his talent and sharpness. Replying
+to my observation merely by a slight shrug and smile of pity for the man
+who thus misappreciated his foresight, he again produced his
+pocket-book, and extracted from its innermost recesses a fragment of a
+German newspaper, reputed oracular in matters theatrical. This he handed
+to me, tapping a particular paragraph significantly with his forefinger.
+The paragraph was thus conceived:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Theatrical Intelligence</span>.&mdash;That promising young actress, Fraulein Emilie
+Sendel&mdash;whose first appearance, in the spring of last year, at once
+established her in the foremost line of the dramatic genius of the
+day&mdash;has concluded her twelve months' engagement at the <i>Hof Theater</i> of
+B&mdash;&mdash;, where she doubtless considered, and not without reason, that her
+talents and exertions were inadequately compensated by a salary of ten
+thousand florins. The gay society of that <i>Residenz</i> will sensibly feel
+the loss of the accomplished and fascinating comedian, who has accepted
+an engagement at Vienna, on the more suitable terms of fifteen thousand
+florins, with two months' <i>cong&eacute;</i>, and other advantages. Before
+proceeding to ravish the eyes and cars of the pleasure-loving population
+of the <i>Kaiser-Stadt, la belle</i> Sendel is off to the baths, under the
+protecting wing of the watchful guardian who has presided at all her
+theatrical triumphs."</p>
+
+<p>"Clear enough, I think," said Van, when I raised my eyes from the
+protracted periods of the penny-a-liner.</p>
+
+<p>I had nothing to say against the lucidity of the paragraph, nor any
+thing to urge, at all likely to avail, against the prosecution of Van's
+designs upon the lady's hand and fifteen thousand florins, with "two
+months' <i>cong&eacute;</i> and other advantages." No possible sophistry, to which I
+was equal, could prove the marriage to be against his interest; and as
+to trying him on the tack of delicacy&mdash;"imposition on an unprotected
+woman,&mdash;degrading dependence on her exertions," and so forth&mdash;I knew the
+thick skin and indomitable self-conceit of the cannonier would repel
+such feather-shafts without feeling them, or that the utmost effect I
+could expect to produce would be to get myself into a quarrel with the
+redoubtable native of the Netherlands, a predicament in which, as a man
+of peace, I was by no means anxious to find myself. So after hazarding
+the fruitless hint with which the reader was made acquainted at the
+commencement of this narrative, I abstained from all further
+intermeddling, and retired to my apartment, leaving Van Haubitz to con
+the declaration with which he was that evening to rejoice the ears of
+the fair and too-confiding Sendel.</p>
+
+<p>I went to bed early that night and, saw nothing more of the Hollander
+till the next morning, when I was roused from a balmy slumber at the
+untimely hour of seven, by his bursting into my room with more
+impetuosity than ceremony, with the gestures of a maniac and shouts of
+victory. Before my eyes were half open, he was more than half through
+the history of his proceedings on the previous evening. His success had
+been complete. Emilie had faltered, with downcast eyes, a sweet assent.
+The friendly gloom of eve, and the overarching foliage, beneath whose
+shade the momentous question was put, saved her the necessity of
+practising upon her lungs to produce a blush. Mamma Sendel had bestowed
+her blessing upon the happy pair, and in the ardour of her maternal
+accolades had nearly extinguished her future son-in-law's left ogle with
+the wire stalk of an artificial passion-flower. The first burst of
+benevolence over, and the effervescence of feeling a little subsided,
+the bridegroom elect, who could not afford delays, pressed for an early
+day. Thereupon Emilie was, of course, horror-stricken, but her maternal
+relative, nothing loath to land the fish thus satisfactorily hooked, and
+well aware of the impediments that sometimes arise between cup and lip,
+ranged herself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</a></span> upon the side of the eager lover, and their combined
+forces bore down all opposition. Madame Sendel at first showed an
+evident hankering after a preliminary jaunt to Amsterdam and a gay
+wedding, graced by the presence of the bridegroom's numerous and wealthy
+family. She also testified some anxiety as to the view Van Haubitz
+Senior might take of his son's matrimonial project, and as to how far he
+might approve of a hasty and unceremonious wedding. But the gallant
+artilleryman had an answer to every thing. He pledged himself, which he
+was perfectly safe in doing, that his father would not attempt in the
+slightest degree to control his inclinations or interfere with his
+projects, extolled the delights of an autumnal tour with his wife and
+mother-in-law before returning to Holland; in short, was so plausible in
+his arguments, so specious and pressing, pleading so eloquently the
+violence of his love and inutility of delay, and overruling objections
+with such cogent reasoning, that he achieved a complete triumph, and it
+was agreed that in one week Van Haubitz should lead his adored Emilie to
+the hymeneal altar. In the interval, he would have abundant time to
+obtain his father's consent and the necessary papers from Amsterdam&mdash;all
+of which he doubted not he should most satisfactorily procure by the
+kind aid of the accommodating friend who had made him returns for his
+remittance.</p>
+
+<p>"There will be a small matter to arrange with respect to Emilie," said
+Madame Sendel in her blandest tones, and with affectation of
+embarrassment. "She has an engagement at the Vienna theatre, which must
+of course now be broken off. There is a forfeit to pay, no very heavy
+sum," added she&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Not a word about that," interrupted Van, whose blood curdled in his
+veins, at the mere idea of cancelling the engagement on which his hopes
+were built. "There is no hurry for a few days. Let me once call Emilie
+mine, and I take charge of all those matters."</p>
+
+<p>Emilie smiled angelically; Madame patted her considerate son-in-law on
+the shoulders, and applied to her snuff-box to conceal her emotion; and
+all matters of business being thus satisfactorily settled, the evening
+closed in harmony and bliss.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you for Frankfort, to-day?" said Van Haubitz, when he had concluded
+his exulting narrative, and without giving me time for congratulations,
+which I should have been at a loss to offer. "I am off, after breakfast,
+to get some diamond earrings and other small matters for my adorable. I
+shall be glad of your taste and opinion."</p>
+
+<p>"Diamonds!" I exclaimed. "Farewell, then, to the thousand franc note&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh! Nonsense! You don't suppose I throw away my last cash that way.
+The Frankfort jewellers know me well, or think they do, which is the
+same thing. They have seen enough of my coin since I have been at
+Homburg. For them, as for my excellent mother-in-law, I am the wealthy
+partner in the undoubted good firm of Van Haubitz, Krummwinkel, &amp; Co. I
+never told them so; if they choose to imagine it I am not to blame. My
+credit is good. The diamonds shall be paid for&mdash;if paid for they must
+be&mdash;out of Madame Van Haubitz's first quarter's salary."</p>
+
+<p>I was meditating an excuse for not accompanying my pertinacious and
+unscrupulous acquaintance on his cruise against the Frankfort
+Israelites, when he resumed&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"By the bye," he said, "you will come to church with us. I have arranged
+it all. Quite private, for reasons good. Nobody but yourself, Madame
+Sendel, and Emilie. You shall act as father, and give away the bride."</p>
+
+<p>The start I gave, at this alarming announcement, nearly broke the bed.
+This was carrying things rather too far. Not satisfied with rendering
+me, by his intrusive and unsolicited confidence, a sort of tacit
+accomplice in his man&oelig;uvres, this Dutch Gil Blas would fain make me
+an active participator in the swindle he was practising on the actress
+and her mother. I drew at sight on my imagination, quickened by the
+peril, for a letter received the previous evening from a dear and near
+relative<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</a></span> who lay dangerously ill at Baden-Baden, and to whose sick-bed
+it was absolutely necessary I should immediately repair; and, jumping
+up, I began to dress in all haste, rang furiously for the bill and a
+carriage, and requested Van Haubitz to present my excuses to the ladies,
+my unexpected departure at that early hour depriving me of the pleasure
+of taking leave of them. The Dutchman swore all manner of
+<i>donderwetters</i> and <i>sacraments</i> that he was grieved at my departure,
+trusted I should find my friend better, and be able to return to
+Frankfort in time for the marriage, but did not press me to do so, and
+in reality was too exhilarated by the success of his machinations to
+care a straw about the matter. And saying he must go and write to
+Amsterdam, he shook me by the hand and left the room, whistling in loud
+and joyous key the burthen of a Dutch march. In less than an hour I was
+on the road to Frankfort, and that evening I reached Heidelberg, where
+some friends of mine had passed the summer. I expected to find them
+still there, but they had left for Baden-Baden. Thither I pursued them,
+and&mdash;as if it were a judgment on me for my white lie to the
+Dutchman&mdash;arrived there the morrow of their departure. Baden was
+thinning, and they had gone down stream: I must have passed them on the
+Rhine. Having strong reasons to see them before they left Germany, I
+followed upon their trail. But their movements were rapid and eccentric,
+and after tracking them to one or two of the minor baths, the chase led
+me back to Frankfort. Here I made sure to catch them, or resolved to
+give up the hunt.</p>
+
+<p>A week had been consumed in thus travelling to and fro. I had no great
+fancy for returning to Frankfort, lest my friend the Dutchman should
+still be there, and press his society upon me, of which, after his
+recent revelations, I was any thing but ambitious. Upon the whole,
+however, I thought it likely he would have departed. I knew he would
+accelerate his marriage as much as possible; I had been nine days
+absent, which gave him ample time to get over the ceremony and leave the
+neighbourhood. By way of precaution I resolved to keep pretty close in
+my hotel during the period of my stay, which was not to exceed one or
+two days.</p>
+
+<p>On arriving at the "White Swan," I found my friends were staying there,
+but had driven over to Homburg. Unwilling to follow them, and risk
+meeting my bug-bear, I awaited their return, which was to take place to
+a late dinner. As usual, there was much bustle at the "Swan;" many
+goings and comings, several carriages in the court-yard, others in the
+street packing for departure, a throng of greedy <i>lohn-kutschers</i>, warm
+waiters, and bearded couriers, hanging about the door, and running up
+and down stairs. I entered the public room. It was past noon, and the
+tables were laid for dinner, but there were only two persons in the
+apartment, a gentleman and a lady. They stood at a window, outside of
+which a handsome Vienna-made berline, with a count's coronet on the
+panels, was getting ready for a journey. As I walked up the room, the
+lady turned her head, and I was instantly struck by her resemblance to
+Emilie Sendel. So strong was it that I for a moment thought I had fallen
+in with the very persons I wished to avoid. A second glance convinced me
+of error. The likeness was certainly startling, but there were many
+points of difference. Age and stature were the same, so were the hair
+and complexion, save that the former was less ruddy, the latter paler
+than in the case of the buxom Emilie. And there were grace and
+refinement about this person, far beyond any to which the Dutchman's
+lady-love could pretend. The expression of the interesting features was
+rather pensive than gay, and there was something classical in the arch
+of the eyebrow and outline of the face. The lady was plainly but richly
+attired in an elegant travelling dress, and had her hand upon the arm of
+a tall and very handsome man, about forty years of age, of singularly
+aristocratic but somewhat dissipated appearance. They were talking as I
+entered, and a sentence or two of their conversation reached my ear.
+They spoke French, with a scarcely perceptible foreign accent.</p>
+
+<p>Curious to know who these persons<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</a></span> were, I returned to the court of the
+hotel, intending to question a waiter. It was first necessary to catch
+one, not easy at that busy time of day; and after several fruitless
+efforts to detain the jacketed gentry, I gave the attempt, and took my
+station at the gateway. Scarcely had I done so, when a carriage drove up
+at a rattling pace, a small spit of a boy in a smart green suit, and
+with an ambiguous sort of coronet embroidered in silver on the front of
+his cap, jumped off and opened the door, and there emerged from the
+vehicle, to my infinite dismay, the inevitable Van Haubitz. Retreat was
+impossible, for he saw me directly; and after handing out Madame Sendel
+and her daughter, seized me vehemently by both hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Delighted to see you!" he cried; "I wish you had been a day sooner. We
+were married yesterday," he added in a hurried voice, drawing me aside.
+"Have left Homburg, paid every thing <i>there</i>, and leave this to-morrow
+for Heaven knows where. Explanations must come first, (here he made a
+grimace) for my purse is low, and my mother-in-law makes projects that
+would ruin Rothschild. Lucky you are here to back me. Come in."</p>
+
+<p>I was fairly caught, and in a pretty dilemma. My first thought was to
+knock down the Dutchman, and run for it, but reflection checked the
+impulse. Stammering a confused congratulation to the bride and her
+mother, and meditating an escape at all hazards, I allowed Madame Sendel
+to hook herself on my arm, and lead me into the hotel in the wake of the
+newly wedded pair, who made at once for the public room. A magnificent
+courier, in a Hungarian dress, with beard, belt, and hunting-knife,
+strode past us into the apartment.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Herr Graf</i>," said the man, addressing the distinguished looking
+stranger, who had attracted my attention, "the horses are ready."</p>
+
+<p>The Count and his companion turned at the announcement, and found
+themselves face to face with our party. There was a general start and
+exclamation from the three women. The strange lady turned very pale and
+visibly trembled; Madame Van Haubitz gave a slight scream; her mother
+flushed as red as the poppies in her head-dress, and hung like a log
+upon my arm, glaring angrily at the strangers. For one moment all stood
+still; Van Haubitz and I looked at each other in bewilderment. He was
+evidently struck by the extraordinary resemblance I had noticed, and
+which became more manifest, now the two ladies were seen together.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Ameline," said the Count, who alone preserved complete
+self-possession. And he hurried his companion from the room. Madame
+Sendel released my arm, and letting herself fall upon a chair with an
+hysterical giggle, closed her eyes and seemed preparing for a
+comfortable swoon. Her daughter hastened to her assistance and untied
+her bonnet; Van Haubitz grasped a decanter of water and made an alarming
+demonstration of emptying it upon the full-moon countenance of his
+respectable mother-in-law. I was curious to see him do it, for I had
+always had my doubts whether the dowager's colours were what is
+technically termed "fast." My curiosity was not gratified. Whether from
+apprehension of the remedy or from some other cause, I cannot say, but
+Madame Sendel abandoned her faint, and after two or three grotesque
+contortions of countenance, and a certain amount of winking and
+blinking, was sufficiently recovered to take a huge pinch of snuff, and
+ascend the stairs to a private room, with her daughter and son-in-law
+for supporters, and half a score waiters and chamber-maids, whom her
+hysterical symptoms had assembled, by way of a tail. Seeing her so well
+guarded, I thought it unnecessary to add to the escort. As she left the
+room, there was a clatter of hoofs outside, and looking through the
+window, I saw the coroneted berline whirled rapidly away by four
+vigorous posters. Just then the dinner-bell rang, and the obsequious
+head-waiter, who with profound bows had assisted at the departure of the
+travellers, bustled into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is the gentleman who has just left?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"His Excellency, Count J&mdash;&mdash;," replied the man. It was the name of a
+Hungarian nobleman of great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</a></span> wealth, and of reputation almost European
+as one of the most fashionable and successful Lotharios of the
+dissipated Austrian capital.</p>
+
+<p>"And his companion?"</p>
+
+<p>"The celebrated actress, Fraulein Sendel."</p>
+
+<p>Had the cunning but unlucky Van Haubitz been a regular reader of the
+<i>Theater Zeitung</i>, or Journal of the Theatres, he would have seen, in
+the ensuing number to that whence he derived his information respecting
+Mademoiselle Sendel's confirmed popularity and advantageous engagement
+the following short but important paragraph:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Erratum.</span>&mdash;In our yesterday's impression an error occurred, arising from
+a similarity of names. It is Fraulein <i>Ameline</i> Sendel who has concluded
+with the Vienna theatre, an engagement equally advantageous to herself
+and the manager. Her elder sister, Fraulein <i>Emilie</i>, continues the
+engagement she has already held for two seasons, as a supernumerary
+<i>soubrette</i>. The amount stated yesterday as her salary would still be
+correct, with the abstraction of a zero. Talent does not always run in
+families."</p>
+
+<p>This good-natured paragraph, evidently from the pen of a sulky
+sub-editor, smarting under a lashing for his blunder of the preceding
+day, did not come to my knowledge till some time afterwards, so that the
+waiter's reply to my question concerning Count J&mdash;&mdash;'s travelling
+companion perplexed me greatly, and plunged me into an ocean of
+conjectures. In fact, my curiosity was so strongly roused, that instead
+of availing myself of the absence of the Dutchman to escape from the
+hotel, I sat down to dinner, resolved not to depart till I heard the
+mystery explained. I had not long to wait. Dinner was just over, when I
+received a message from Van Haubitz, who earnestly desired to see me. I
+found him alone, seated at a table, his chin resting on his hand, anger,
+shame, and mortification stamped upon his inflamed countenance. A
+tumbler half full of water stood upon the table, beside a bottle of
+smelling salts; and, upon entering, I was pretty sure I heard a sound of
+sobbing from another room, which ceased, however, when I spoke. There
+had evidently been a violent scene. Its cause was explained to me by Van
+Haubitz, at first in rather a confused manner, for at each attempt to
+detail the circumstances he interrupted himself by bursts of fury. Owing
+to this, it was some time before I could arrive at a clear understanding
+of the facts of the case. When I did, I could scarcely help feeling
+sorry for the unfortunate schemer, although in truth he richly deserved
+the disappointment he had met. Never was there a more glaring instance
+of excess of cunning over-reaching itself,&mdash;for no deception had been
+practised by Madame Sendel and her daughter. They doubtless gave
+themselves credit for some cleverness and more good fortune in enticing
+a rich banker with more ducats than brains, into their matrimonial nets;
+and doubtless Fraulein Emile put on her best looks and gowns, her
+sweetest smiles and most becoming bonnets, to lure the lion into the
+toils. But neither mother nor daughter had for a moment imagined that
+Van Haubitz took the latter for the celebrated and successful actress
+whose name was known throughout Germany, whilst that of poor Emile,
+whose talents were of the most humble order, had scarcely ever
+penetrated beyond the wings and green-room of the theatre, where she
+enacted unimportant characters for the modest remuneration of a hundred
+florins a month. By no means proud of her position as all actress, which
+appeared the more lowly when contrasted with her sister's brilliant
+success, Emilie had seldom referred to things theatrical since her
+acquaintance with Van Haubitz. On his part, the 'cute Dutchman,
+conscious of his real motives and anxious to conceal them, abstained
+from all direct reference to Mademoiselle Sendel's great talents and
+their lucrative results, contenting himself with general compliments,
+which passed current without being closely scanned. If he had never
+heard either his wife or mother-in-law make mention of Ameline, it was
+because they were on the worst possible terms with that young lady, who
+had lived, nearly from the period of her first appearance upon the
+boards, under the protection of the accomplished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</a></span> libertine, Count
+J&mdash;&mdash;, over whom she was said to exercise extraordinary influence. When
+she formed this connexion, Madame Sendel, who&mdash;in spite of her suspicion
+of paint and artificial floriculture&mdash;had very strict notions of
+propriety, wrote her a letter of furious reproach, renounced her as her
+daughter, and prohibited Emilie from holding any communication with her.
+Emile, against whose virtue none had ever found aught to say,
+sorrowfully obeyed; and, after two or three ineffectual attempts on the
+part of Ameline to soften her mother's wrath, all communication ceased
+between them. Their next meeting was that at which Van Haubitz and
+myself were present. Its singularity, Madame Sendel's fainting fit, and
+the resemblance between the sisters, brought on inquiries and an
+explanation; and the Dutchman found, to his inexpressible disgust and
+consternation, that he had encumbered himself with a wife he cared
+nothing for, and a mother-in-law he detested, whose joint income was
+largely stated at one hundred and fifty pounds sterling per annum. In
+his first paroxysm of rage he taunted them with the mistake they had
+made when they thought to secure the love-sick millionaire, proclaimed
+himself in debt, disinherited, and a beggar; and, finally, by the
+violence of his reproaches and maledictions, drove them trembling and
+weeping from the room.</p>
+
+<p>Van Haubitz had sent for me to implore my advice in his present
+difficult position; but was so bewildered by passion and overwhelmed by
+this sudden awakening from his dream of success and prosperity, that he
+was hardly in a condition to listen to reason. His regrets were so
+disgustingly selfish, his invectives against the innocent cause of his
+disappointment so violent and unmerited, that I should have left him to
+his fate and his own devices, had I not thought that my so doing would
+make matters worse for the poor girl who had thus heedlessly linked
+herself to a fortune-hunter. So I remained; after a while he became
+calmer, and we talked over various plans for the future. By my
+suggestion, Madame Sendel and her daughter were invited to the
+conference. The old lady was sulky and frightened, and would hardly open
+her lips; Emilie, on the other hand, made a more favourable impression
+on me than she had ever previously done. I now saw, what I had not
+before suspected, that she was really attached to Van Haubitz; hitherto,
+I had taken her for a mere adventuress, speculating on his supposed
+wealth. She spoke kindly and affectionately to him, smiled through the
+tears brought to her eyes by his recent brutality, and evidently
+trembled each time her mother spoke, lest she should vent a reproach or
+refer to his heartless duplicity. She tried to speak confidently and
+cheerfully of the future. They must go immediately to Vienna, she said;
+there she would apply diligently to her profession; the manager had half
+promised her an increase of salary after another year&mdash;she was sure she
+should deserve it, and meanwhile Van Haubitz, with his abilities, could
+not fail to find some lucrative employment. He must get rid of his
+accent, she added with a smile, (he spoke a voluble but most execrable
+jargon of mingled Dutch and German) and then he might go upon the stage,
+where she was certain he would succeed. This last suggestion was made
+timidly, as if she feared to hurt the pride of the scapegrace by
+proposing such a plan. There was not a word or an accent of reproach in
+all she said, and I heartily forgave the little coquetry, affectation,
+and vulgarity I had formerly remarked in her, in consideration of the
+intuitive delicacy and good feeling she now displayed. Truly, thought I,
+it is humbling to us, the bearded and baser moiety of humankind, to
+contrast our vile egotism with the beautiful self-devotion of woman, as
+exhibited even in this poor actress.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Sendel by no means acquiesced in her daughter's project. The
+flesh-pots of Amsterdam had attractions for her, far superior to those
+of a struggling and uncertain existence at Vienna. She evidently leaned
+upon the hope of a reconciliation between Van Haubitz and his father,
+and hinted pretty plainly at the effect that might be produced by a
+personal interview with the obdurate banker. I could see she was
+arranging matters in her queer old noddle upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[Pg 509]</a></span> the approved theatrical
+principle, the penitent son and fascinating daughter-in-law throwing
+themselves at the feet of the melting father, who, with handkerchief to
+eyes, bestows on them a blubbering benediction and ample subsidy. To my
+surprise Van Haubitz also seemed disposed to place hope in an appeal to
+his father, perhaps as a drowning man clutches at a straw. He may have
+thought that his marriage, imprudent as it was, would be taken as some
+guarantee of future steadiness, or at least of abstinence from the
+spendthrift courses which had hitherto destroyed all confidence in him.
+He could hardly expect his union with a penniless actress to re-instate
+him in his father's good graces; but he probably imagined he might
+extract a small annuity, as a condition of living at a distance from the
+friends he had disgraced. He asked me what I thought of the plan. I of
+course did not dissuade him from its adoption, and upon the whole
+thought it his best chance, for I really saw no other. After some
+deliberation and discussion, he seemed nearly to have made up his mind,
+when I was called away to my friends, who had returned from their
+excursion.</p>
+
+<p>I was getting into bed that night, when Van Haubitz knocked at my door,
+and entered the room with a downcast and dejected air, very different
+from his usual boisterous headlong manner.</p>
+
+<p>"I am off to Holland," he said; "'tis my only chance, bad though it be."</p>
+
+<p>"I sincerely wish you success," replied I. "In any case, do not despair;
+something will turn up. You have friends in your own country, I have
+heard you say. They will help you to occupation."</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Good friends over a bottle and a dice-box," said he, "but useless at a
+pinch like this. Pleasant fellows enough, but scamps like"&mdash;myself, he
+was going to add, but did not. "I am come to say farewell," he
+continued. "I must be off before day-break. I have debts in Frankfort,
+and if my departure gets wind, I shall have a dozen duns on my back.
+Misfortunes never come alone. As for paying, it is out of the question.
+Amongst us we have only about enough money to reach Amsterdam. Once
+there&mdash;<i>&agrave; la grace de Dieu!</i> but I confess my hopes are small. Thanks
+for your advice&mdash;and for your sympathy too, for I saw this morning you
+were sorry for me, though you did not think I deserved pity. Well,
+perhaps not. God bless you."</p>
+
+<p>He was leaving the room, but returned.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you said you should stay at Coblenz before returning to
+England."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall probably be there a few days towards the end of the month."</p>
+
+<p>"Good. If I succeed, you shall hear from me. What is your address
+there?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Poste restante</i> will find me," I replied, not very covetous of the
+correspondence, and unwilling to give a more exact direction.</p>
+
+<p>Van Haubitz nodded and left me. At breakfast the next morning I learned
+that the Dutch baron, as the waiter styled him, had taken his departure
+at peep of day.</p>
+
+<p>The first days of October found me still at Coblenz, lingering amongst
+the valleys and vineyards, and loath to exchange them for the autumnal
+fogs and emptiness of London. Thither, however, I was compelled to
+return; and I endeavoured to console myself for the necessity by
+discovering that the green Rhine grew brown, the trees scant of leaves,
+the evenings long and chilly. I had heard nothing of Van Haubitz, and
+had ceased to think of him, when, walking out at dusk on the eve of the
+day fixed for my departure, I suddenly encountered him. He had just
+arrived by a steamboat coming up stream; his wife and mother-in-law were
+with him, and they were about to enter a fifth-rate inn, which, two
+months previously, he would have felt insulted if solicited to
+patronise. I was shocked by the change that had taken place in all three
+of them. In five weeks they had grown five years older. Emilie had lost
+her freshness, her eye its sparkle; and the melancholy smile with which
+she welcomed me made my heart ache. Madame Sendel's rotund checks had
+collapsed, she looked cross and jaundiced, and more snuffy than ever.
+Van Haubitz was thin and haggard, his hair and mustaches, formerly
+glossy and well-trimmed, were ragged and neglected, his dress, once so
+smart<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[Pg 510]</a></span> and carefully arranged, was soiled and slovenly. My imagination
+furnished me with a rapid and vivid sketch of the anxieties and
+disappointments and heart-burnings, which, more than any actual bodily
+privations, had worked so great a change in so short a time. Van Haubitz
+started on seeing me, and faltered in his pace, as if unwilling to enter
+the shabby hotel in my presence. The hesitation was momentary. "Worse
+quarters than we used to meet in," said he, with a bitter smile. "I will
+not ask you into this dog-hole. Wait an instant, and I will walk with
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Badly as I thought of Van Haubitz, and indisposed as I was to keep up
+any acquaintance with such an unprincipled adventurer, I had not the
+heart, seeing him so miserable and down in the world, to turn my back
+upon him at once. So I entered the hotel, and waited in the public room.
+In a few minutes he reappeared with the two ladies, and we all four
+strolled out in the direction of the Rhine. I did not ask the Dutchman
+the result of his journey. It was unnecessary. His disheartened air and
+general appearance told the tale of disappointment, of humiliating
+petitions sternly rejected, of hopes fled and a cheerless future. He
+kept silence the while we walked a hundred yards, and then, having left
+his wife and mother-in-law out of ear-shot, abruptly began the tale of
+his mishaps. As I conjectured, he had totally failed in his attempt to
+mollify his father, who was furious at his temerity in appearing before
+him, and whose rage redoubled when he heard of his ill-omened marriage.
+Unfortunately for Van Haubitz, the jeweller and some other tradesmen at
+Frankfort, so soon as they learned his departure, had forwarded their
+accounts to the care of the Amsterdam firm; and, although his father had
+not the remotest intention of paying them, he was incensed in the
+extreme at the slur thus cast upon his house and name. In short, the
+unlucky artilleryman at once saw he had no chance of a single kreuzer,
+or of the slightest countenance from his father. His applications to his
+brothers, and one or two to more distant relatives, were equally
+unsuccessful. All were disgusted at his irregularities, angry at his
+marriage, incredulous of his promises of reform; and, after passing a
+miserable month in Amsterdam, he set out to accompany his wife to
+Vienna, whither she was compelled to repair under pain of fine and
+forfeiture of her engagement. Although living with rigid economy&mdash;on
+bread and water, as Van Haubitz expressed it&mdash;their finances had been
+utterly consumed by their stay in the expensive Dutch capital, and it
+was only by disposing of every trinket and superfluity (and of
+necessaries too, I feared, when I remembered the slender baggage that
+came up with them from the boat) that they had procured the means of
+travelling, in the cheapest and most humble manner, and with the
+disheartening certainty of arriving penniless at Vienna. Van Haubitz
+told me all this, and many other details, with an air of gloomy
+despondency. He was hopeless, heart-broken, desperate; and certain
+circumstances of his position, which by some would have been held an
+alleviation, aggravated it in his eyes. He said little of his wife; but,
+from what escaped him, I easily gathered that she had shown strength of
+mind, good feeling and affection for him, and was willing to struggle by
+his side for a scanty and hard-earned subsistence. His selfish cares and
+irritable mood prevented his appreciating or returning her attachment,
+and he looked upon her as a clog and an encumbrance, without which he
+might again rise in the world. He had always entertained a confident
+expectation of enriching himself by marriage; and this hope, which had
+buoyed him up under many difficulties, was now gone. From something he
+said I suspected he had sounded Emilie on the subject of a divorce, so
+easily obtained in Germany, and that she had shown determined
+opposition. She evidently possessed a firmness of character more than a
+match for her husband's impetuosity and violence.</p>
+
+<p>"I have one resource left," said Van Haubitz. "I have pondered over it
+for the last two days, and have almost determined on its adoption."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"If I decide upon it," he replied, "you shall shortly know. 'Tis a
+desperate one enough."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[Pg 511]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We had insensibly slackened our pace, and, at this moment, the ladies
+came up. Van Haubitz made a gesture, as of impatience at the
+interruption.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait for me here," he said, and walked away. Without speculating upon
+the motive of his absence, I stood still, and entered into conversation
+with the ladies. We were on the quay. The night was mild and calm, but
+overcast and exceedingly dark. A few feet below us rolled the dark mass
+of the Rhine, slightly swollen by recent rains. A light from an adjacent
+window illuminated the spot, and cast a flickering gleam across the
+water. Unwilling to refer to their misfortunes, I spoke to Emilie on
+some general topic. But Madame Sendel was too full of her troubles to
+tolerate any conversation that did not immediately relate to them, and
+she broke in with a long history of grievances, of the hard-heartedness
+of the Amsterdam relations, the cruelty of Emilie's position, her
+son-in-law's helplessness, and various other matters, in a querulous
+tone, and with frightful volubility. The poor daughter, I plainly saw,
+winced under this infliction. I was waiting the smallest opening to
+interrupt the indiscreet old lady, and revert to commonplace, when a
+distant splash in the water reached my ears. The women also heard it,
+and at the same instant a presentiment of evil came over us all. Madame
+Sendel suddenly held her tongue and her breath; Emilie turned deadly
+pale, and without saying a word, flew along the quay in the direction of
+the sound. She had gone but a few yards when her strength failed her,
+and she would have fallen but for my support. There was a shout, and a
+noise of men running. Leaving Madame Van Haubitz to the care of her
+mother, I ran swiftly along the river side, and soon reached a place
+where the deep water moaned and surged against the perpendicular quay.
+Here several men were assembled, talking hurriedly and pointing to the
+river. Others each moment arrived, and two boats were hastily shoved off
+from an adjacent landing-place.</p>
+
+<p>"A man in the river," was the reply to my hasty inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>It was so dark that I could not distinguish countenances close to me,
+and at a very few yards even the outline of objects was scarcely to be
+discerned. There were no houses close at hand, and some minutes elapsed
+before lights were procured. At last several boats put off, with men
+standing in the bows, holding torches and lanterns high in the air.
+Meanwhile I had questioned the by-standers, but could get little
+information; none as to the person to whom the accident had happened.
+The man who had given the alarm, was returning from mooring his boat to
+a neighbouring jetty, when he perceived a figure moving along the quay a
+short distance in his front. The figure disappeared, a heavy splash
+followed, and the boatman ran forward. He could see no one either on
+shore or in the stream, but heard a sound as of one striking out and
+struggling in the water. Having learned this much, I jumped into a boat
+just then putting off, and bid the rowers pull down stream, keeping a
+short distance from the quay. The current ran strong, and I doubted not
+that the drowning man had been carried along by it. Two vigorous oarsmen
+pulled till the blades bent, and the boat, aided by the stream, flew
+through the water. A third man held a torch. I strained my eyes through
+the darkness. Presently a small object floated within a few feet of the
+boat, which was rapidly passing it. It shone in the torchlight. I struck
+at it with a boat-hook, and brought it on board. It was a man's cap,
+covered with oilskin, and I remembered Van Haubitz wore such a one.
+Stripping off the cover, I beheld in officer's foraging cap, with a
+grenade embroidered on its front. My doubts, slight before, were
+entirely dissipated.</p>
+
+<p>When the search, rendered almost hopeless by the extreme darkness and
+power of the current, was at last abandoned, I hastened to the hotel,
+and inquired for Madame Sendel. She came to me in a state of great
+agitation. Van Haubitz had not returned, but she thought less of that
+than of the state of her daughter, who, since recovering from a long
+swoon, had been almost distracted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[Pg 512]</a></span> with anxiety. She knew some one had
+been drowned, and her mind misgave her it was her husband. The
+foraging-cap, which Madame Sendel immediately recognised, removed all
+uncertainty. The only hope remaining was, that Van Haubitz, although
+carried rapidly away by the power of the current, had been able to
+maintain himself on the surface, and had got ashore at some considerable
+distance down the river, or had been picked up by a passing boat. But
+this was a very feeble hope, and for my own part, and for more than one
+reason, I placed no reliance on it. I left Madame Sendel to break the
+painful intelligence to her daughter, and went home, promising to call
+again in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>As I had expected, nothing was heard of Van Haubitz, nor any vestige of
+him found, save the foraging-cap I had picked up. Doubtless, the Rhine
+had borne down his lifeless corpse to the country of his birth. The next
+day Coblenz rang with the death of the unfortunate Dutchman. A stranger,
+and unacquainted with the localities, he was supposed to have walked
+over the quay by accident. I thought differently; and so I knew did
+Madame Sendel and Emilie. I saw the former early the next day. She was
+greatly cast down about her daughter, who had passed a sleepless night,
+was very weak and suffering, but who nevertheless insisted on continuing
+her journey the following morning.</p>
+
+<p>"We must go," said her mother; "if we delay, Emilie loses her
+engagement, and how can we both live on my poor jointure? Weeping will
+not bring him back, were he worth it. To think of the misery he has
+caused us!"</p>
+
+<p>I ventured to hint an inquiry as to their means of prosecuting their
+journey. The old lady understood the intention, and took it kindly. "But
+she needed no assistance," she said; "Van Haubitz (and this confirmed
+our strong suspicion of suicide) had given their little stock of money
+into his wife's keeping only a few hours before his death."</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon I left Coblenz for England.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>On a certain Wednesday of the present year, after enjoying the excellent
+acting of Bouff&eacute; in two of his best characters, I paused a moment to
+speak to a friend in the crowded lobby of the St James's Theatre. Whilst
+thus engaged, I became aware that I was an object of attention to two
+persons, whom I had an indistinct notion of having seen before, but when
+or where, or who they might be, I had not the remotest idea. One of them
+was a comfortable-looking, middle-aged man, with a bald head, a smooth,
+clean-shaven face, and an incipient ventral rotundity. His complexion
+was clear and wholesome, his countenance good-humoured, his whole
+appearance bespoke an existence free from care, nights of sound sleep,
+and days of tranquil enjoyment. His face was too sleek to be very
+expressive, but there was a shrewd, quick look in the eye, and I set him
+down in my mind as a wealthy German merchant or manufacturer (some small
+peculiarities of costume betrayed the foreigner) come to show London to
+his wife&mdash;a well-favoured <i>Frau</i>, fat, fair, but some years short of
+forty&mdash;who accompanied him, and who, as well as her better-half, seemed
+to honour me with very particular notice. My confabulation over, I was
+leaving the theatre, when a sleek soft hand was gently passed through my
+arm. It was my friend the fat foreigner. I strained my eyes and my
+memory, but in vain; I felt very puzzled, and doubtless looked so, for
+he smiled, and advancing his head, whispered a name in my ear. It was
+that of Van Haubitz.</p>
+
+<p>I started, looked again, doubted, and was at last convinced. <i>Minus</i>
+mustache and whisker, which were closely shaven, and half his hair, of
+which the remainder was considerably grizzled; <i>plus</i> a degree of
+corpulence such as I should never have thought the slender lieutenant of
+artillery capable of acquiring; his heated, sun-burnt complexion, and
+dissipated look, exchanged for a fresh colour and benevolent placidity;
+the Dutchman I had left on the Rhine stood beside me in the lobby of the
+French theatre. I turned to the lady: she was less changed than her
+companion, and now that I was upon the track, I recognised Emilie
+Sendel. By this time we were in the street. Van<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[Pg 513]</a></span> Haubitz handed his wife
+into a carriage.</p>
+
+<p>"Come and sup with us," he said, "and I will explain."</p>
+
+<p>I mechanically obeyed, and in less than three minutes, still tongue-tied
+by astonishment, I alighted at the door of a fashionable hotel in a
+street adjoining Piccadilly.</p>
+
+<p>A few lines will convey to the reader the substance of the long
+conversation which kept the resuscitated Dutchman and myself from our
+beds for fully two hours after our unexpected meeting. I had been right
+in supposing that he had thrown himself voluntarily into the river;
+wrong in my belief that he meditated suicide. An excellent swimmer, he
+had taken the water to get rid of his wife. He might certainly have
+chosen a drier method, and have given her the slip in the night-time or
+on the road; but she had shown, whenever he referred to the possibility
+of their separation, such a determination to remain with him at all
+risks and sacrifices, that he felt certain she would be after him as
+soon as she discovered his absence. He had formed a wild scheme of
+returning to Amsterdam, and haunting his family until, through mere
+weariness and vexation, they supplied him with funds for all outfit to
+Sumatra. There he trusted to redeem his fortunes, as he had heard that
+others of no greater abilities or better character than himself had
+already done. A more extravagant project was never formed, and indeed
+all his acts, during the six weeks that followed his marriage, were more
+or less eccentric and ill-judged. This he admitted, when relating them
+to me, and probably would not have been sorry to place them to the score
+of actual mental derangement. The only redeeming touch in his conduct,
+at that, the blackest period of his life, was his leaving, as I have
+already mentioned, what money he had to his wife and her mother,
+reserving but a few florins for his own support.</p>
+
+<p>With these in his pocket, he proposed proceeding on foot to Amsterdam.
+After landing on the right bank of the Rhine, he walked the greater part
+of the night, as the best means of drying his saturated garments. When
+weariness at last compelled him to pause, it was not yet daylight, no
+house was open, and he threw himself on some straw in a farm-yard. He
+awoke in a high fever, the result of his immersion, of exposure and
+fatigue, acting on a frame heated and weakened by anxiety and mental
+suffering. He obtained shelter at the neighboring farm-house, whose
+kind-hearted inhabitants carefully tended him for several weeks, during
+which his life was more than once despaired of. His convalescence was
+long, and not till the close of the year could he resume his journey
+northwards, by short stages, chiefly on foot. Unfavourable as his
+prospects were, his good star had not yet set. This very illness, as
+occasioning a delay, was a stroke of good fortune. Had he at once
+proceeded to Holland, his family, in hopes to get rid of him for ever,
+would probably have given him the small sum he needed for an outfit to
+the Indian Archipelago, and he would have sailed thither before the 31st
+of December, on which day his father, a joyous liver, and confirmed
+votary of Bacchus, eat and drank to such an extent to celebrate the exit
+of the old year and commencement of the new, that he fell down, on his
+way to his bed, in a thundering fit of apoplexy, and was a corpse before
+morning. The day of his funeral, Van Haubitz, footsore and emaciated,
+and reduced to his last pfenning, walked wearily into the city of
+Amsterdam. There a great surprise awaited him.</p>
+
+<p>"Your father had not disinherited you?" I exclaimed, when the Dutchman
+made a momentary pause at this point of his narrative.</p>
+
+<p>"He had left a will devising his entire property to my brothers, and not
+even naming me. But a slight formality was omitted, which rendered the
+document of no more value than the parchment it was drawn upon. The
+signature was wanting. My father had the weakness, no uncommon one, of
+disliking whatever reminded him of his mortality. He would have fancied
+himself nearer his grave had he signed his will. And thus he had delayed
+till it was too late. I found myself joint heir with my brothers. By far
+the greater part of my father's large capital was embarked in his bank,
+and in extensive financial operations,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[Pg 514]</a></span> which it would have been
+necessary to liquidate at considerable disadvantage, to operate the
+partition prescribed by law. Seeing this, I proposed to my brothers to
+admit me as partner in the firm, with the stipulation that I should have
+no active share in its direction, until my knowledge of business and
+steadiness of conduct gave them the requisite confidence in me. After
+some deliberation they agreed to this; and three years later their
+opinion of me had undergone such a change, that two of them retired to
+estates in the country, leaving me the chief management of the concern."</p>
+
+<p>"And Madame Van Haubitz; when did she rejoin you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Immediately the change in my fortunes occurred. Reckless as I at that
+time was, and utterly devoid of feeling as you must have thought me, I
+could not remember without emotion the disinterested affection,
+delicacy, and unselfishness she had exhibited on discovery of my real
+circumstances. During my long illness I had had time to reflect, and
+when I left my sick-bed in that rude but hospitable German farm-house,
+it was as a penitent past offences, and with a strong resolution to
+atone them. Within a week after my father's funeral, I was on my way to
+Vienna, to fetch Emilie to the opulent home she had anticipated when she
+married me. Her joy at seeing me was scarcely increased when she heard I
+now really was the rich banker she had at first thought me."</p>
+
+<p>"And Madame Sendel?"</p>
+
+<p>"Returned to Amsterdam with us. There was good about the old lady, and
+by purloining her artificials, limiting her snuff, and soaking her in
+tea, she was made endurable enough. Until her death, which occurred a
+couple of years ago, she passed her time alternately with us and her
+younger daughter."</p>
+
+<p>"She became reconciled to Mademoiselle, Ameline?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ameline had been Countess J&mdash;&mdash;all the time. She was privately married.
+For certain family reasons the Count had conditioned that their union
+should for a while be kept secret. Seeing that her equivocal position
+and her mother's displeasure preyed upon her health and spirits, he
+declared his marriage. She left the stage to become a reigning beauty in
+the best society of Austria, lady of half a dozen castles, and sovereign
+mistress of as many thousand Hungarian boors."</p>
+
+<p>Van Haubitz remained some time in London, and I saw him often. He was as
+much changed in character as in personal appearance. The sharp lessons
+received, about the period of our first acquaintance, had made a strong
+impression on him; and the summer-tide of prosperity suddenly setting
+in, had enabled him to realise good intentions and honourable resolves,
+which the chill current of adversity might have frozen in the germ. Some
+of those who read these lines may have occasion, when visiting the
+country stigmatised by the snarling Frenchman as the land of <i>canards</i>,
+<i>canaux</i>, and <i>canaille</i>, to receive cash in the busy counting-house,
+and hospitality the princely mansion of one of its most respected
+bankers. None, I am well assured, will discern in their amiable and
+exemplary entertainer any vestige of the disreputable impulses and evil
+passions that sullied the early life of "My Friend the Dutchman."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p class="center"><i>Printed by William Blackwood &amp; Sons, Edinburgh.</i></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine -
+Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847, by Various
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+</body>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62,
+No. 384, October 1847, 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 62, No. 384, October 1847
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: May 29, 2008 [EBook #25633]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brendan OConnor, Paul Dring, 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.)
+
+
+
+
+
+  Transcribers note:
+  The letter o appears in this text with a macron and
+  a breve above it. They have been rendered as [=o]
+  and [)o] respectively.
+
+
+
+
+                    BLACKWOOD'S
+                EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  No. CCCLXXXIV.     OCTOBER, 1847.     VOL. LXII.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+
+  HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
+    The Emperors New Clothes
+  THE VISION OF CAGLIOSTRO
+    Tiberius
+    Agrippa
+    Milton
+    Mirabeau
+    Beethoven
+  MAGA IN AMERICA
+  THE TIMES OF GEORGE II
+  ART IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN AGES
+  THE PORTRAIT
+    Chapter I
+    Chapter II
+  HOUNDS AND HORSES AT ROME
+    English Kennel
+    The Steeple-chase
+    Roman Dogs
+  SONG
+  MY FRIEND THE DUTCHMAN
+
+
+
+
+WORKS OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.[1]
+
+
+If our readers have perchance stumbled upon a novel called "The
+Improvisatore" by one HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN, a Dane by birth, they
+have probably regarded it in the light merely of a foreign importation
+to assist in supplying the enormous annual consumption of our
+circulating libraries, which devour books as fast as our mills do raw
+cotton;--with some difference, perhaps, in the result, for the material
+can rarely be said to be worked up into any thing like substantial
+raiment for body or mind, but seems to disappear altogether in the
+process. As the demand, here, exceeds all ordinary means of supply, they
+may have been glad to see that our trade with the North is likely to be
+beneficial to us, in this our intellectual need. Its books may not be so
+durable as its timber, nor so substantial as its oxen, but then they are
+articles of faster growth, and of easier transportation. To free-trade
+in these productions of the literary soil, not the most jealous
+protectionist will object; and they have, perhaps, been amused to
+observe how the mere circumstance of a foreign origin has given a cheap
+repute, and the essential charm of novelty, to materials which in
+themselves were neither good nor rare. The popular prejudice deals very
+differently with foreign oxen and foreign books; for, whereas an
+Englishman has great difficulty in believing that good beef can possibly
+be produced from any pastures but his own, and the outlandish beast is
+always looked upon with more or less suspicion, he has, on the contrary,
+a highly liberal prejudice in favour of the book from foreign parts; and
+nonsense of many kinds, and the most tasteless extravagancies, are
+allowed to pass unchallenged and unreproved, by the aid of a German, or
+French, or Danish title-page.
+
+Nay, the eye is sometimes tasked to discover extraordinary beauty, where
+there is nothing but extraordinary blemish. Where the shrewd translator
+had veiled some absurdity or rashness of his author, the more profound
+reader has been known to detect a meaning and a charm, which "the
+English language had failed adequately to convey;" and he has, perhaps,
+shown a sovereign contempt for "the bungling translator," at the very
+time when that discreet workman had most displayed his skill and
+judgment. The idea has sometimes occurred to us--Suppose one of these
+foreign books were suddenly proved to be of genuine home
+production--suppose the German, or the Dane, or the Frenchman, were
+discovered to be a fictitious personage, and all the genius, or all the
+rant, to have really emanated from the English gentleman, or lady, who
+had merely professed to translate--presto! how the book would instantly
+change colours! What a reverse of judgment would there be! What secret
+_misgivings_ would now be detected and proclaimed! What sudden
+outpourings of epithets by no means complimentary! How the boldness of
+many a metaphor would be transformed into sheer impudence! How the
+profundities would clear up, leaving only darkness behind! They were so
+mysterious--and now, throw all the light of heaven upon them, and there
+is nothing there but a blunder or a blot.
+
+If our readers, we say, have fallen upon this, and other novels of
+Andersen, they have probably passed them by as things belonging to the
+literary _season_: they have been struck with some passages of vivid
+description, with touches of genuine feeling, with traits of character
+which, though imperfectly delineated, bore the impress of truth; but
+they have pronounced them, on the whole, to be unfashioned things, but
+half made up, constructed with no skill, informed by no clear spirit of
+thought, and betraying a most undisciplined taste. Such, at least, was
+the impression their first perusal left upon our mind. Notwithstanding
+the glimpses of natural feeling and of truthful portraiture which caught
+our eye, they were so evidently deficient in some of the higher
+qualities which ought to distinguish a writer, and so defaced by
+abortive attempts at fine writing, that they hardly appeared deserving
+of a very critical examination, or a very careful study. But now there
+has lately come into our hands the autobiography of Hans Christian
+Andersen, "The True Story of my Life," and this has revealed to us so
+curious an instance of intellectual cultivation, or rather of genius
+exerting itself without any cultivation at all, and has reflected back
+so strong a light, so vivid and so explanatory, on all his works, that
+what we formerly read with a very mitigated admiration, with more of
+censure than of praise, has been invested with quite a novel and
+peculiar interest. Moreover, certain tales for children have also fallen
+into our hands, some of which are admirable. We prophesy them an
+immortality in the nursery--which is not the worst immortality a man can
+Win--and doubt not but that they have already been read by children, or
+told to children, in every language of Europe. Altogether Andersen, his
+character and his works, have thus appeared to us a subject worthy of
+some attention.
+
+We insist upon coupling them together. We must be allowed to abate
+somewhat of the austerity of criticism by a reference to the life of the
+author. We cannot implicitly follow the unconditioned admiration of Mrs
+Howitt for "the beautiful thoughts of Andersen," which she tells us in
+her preface to the Autobiography, "it is the most delightful of her
+literary labours to translate." We must be excused if we think that the
+mixture of praise and of puff, which the lady lavishes so
+indiscriminately upon the author whose works she translates, is more
+likely to display her own skill and dexterity in author-craft, than
+permanently to enhance the fame of Andersen. In the works which Mrs
+Howitt has translated, (with the exception of the Autobiography,) there
+is a great proportion of most unquestionable trash, which, we should
+imagine, it must be a great affliction to render into English.
+
+It is curious, and perhaps necessary, to watch this new relationship
+which has sprung up in the world of letters, between the original author
+and his translator. A reciprocity of services is always amiable, and one
+is glad to see society enriched by another bond of mutual amity. The
+translator finds a profitable commodity in the genius of his author; the
+author, a stanch champion in his foreign ally, who, notwithstanding his
+community of interest, can still praise without blushing. Many good
+results doubtless arise from this alliance, but an increased chance of
+impartial criticism is not likely to be one of them.
+
+When Andersen writes _for_ childhood or _of_ childhood, he is singularly
+felicitous--fanciful, tender, and true to nature. This alone were
+sufficient to separate him from the crowd of common writers. For the
+rest of his works, if you will look at them kindly, and with a friendly
+scrutiny, you will find many a natural sentiment vividly reflected. But
+traces of the higher operations of the intellect, of deep or subtle
+thought, of analytic power, of ratiocination of any kind, there is
+absolutely none. If, therefore, his injudicious admirers should insist,
+without any reference to his origin or culture, on extolling his
+writings as works submitted, without apology or excuse, to the mature
+judgment and formed taste--they can only peril the reputation they seek
+to magnify. They will expose to ridicule and contempt one who, if you
+allow him a place apart by himself, becomes a subject of kindly and
+curious regard. If they insist upon his introduction, unprotected by the
+peculiar circumstances which environ him--we do not say amongst the
+literary magnates of his time, but even in the broad host of highly
+cultivated minds, we lose sight of him, or we follow him with something
+very much like a smile of derision.
+
+We remember being told of a dexterous stratagem, by which a lady cured
+her son of what she deemed an unworthy passion for a rustic beauty. We
+tell the story--for it may not only afford us an illustration, but a
+hint also to other perplexed mammas, who may find themselves in the like
+predicament. She had argued, and of course in vain, against his
+high-flown admiration of the village belle. She was a goddess! She would
+become a throne! Apparently acquiescing in his matrimonial project, she
+now professed her willingness to receive his bride-elect. Accordingly,
+she sent her own milliner--mantua-maker--what you will,--to array her in
+the complete toilette of a lady of fashion. The blushing damsel appeared
+in the most elegant attire, and took her place in the maternal
+drawing-room, amongst the sisters of the enraptured lover. Alas!
+enraptured no more! The rustic beauty, where could it have flown? The
+belle of the village was transformed into a very awkward young lady.
+Goddess!--She was a simpleton. Become a throne!--She could not sit upon
+a chair. The charm was broken. The application we need hardly make.
+There may be certain uncultivated men of genius on whom it is possible
+to practise a like malicious kindness.
+
+We would rather preface our notice of the life and works of Andersen, by
+a motto taken from our own countryman Blake, artist and poet, and a man
+of somewhat kindred nature:--[2]
+
+  "Piping down the valleys wild,
+    Piping songs of pleasant glee,
+  On a cloud I saw a child,
+    And he laughing said to me--
+
+  'Pipe a song about a lamb;'
+    So I piped with merry cheer.
+  'Piper, pipe that song again!--'
+    So I piped--he wept to hear.
+
+  'Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe,
+    Sing thy songs of happy cheer--'
+  So I sang the same again,
+    While he wept with joy to hear.
+
+  'Piper, sit thee down and _write_,
+    In a book that all may read.'
+  Then he vanished from my sight;
+    And I plucked a hollow reed,
+
+  And I made a rural pen,
+    And I stained the water clear,
+  And I wrote my happy songs,
+    Every child may joy to hear."
+
+Such was the form under which the muse may be said to have visited and
+inspired Andersen. He ought to have been exclusively the poet of
+children and of childhood. He ought never to have seen, or dreamed, of
+an Apollo six feet high, looking sublime, and sending forth dreadful
+arrows from the far-resounding bow; he should have looked only to that
+"child upon the cloud," or rather, he should have seen his little muse
+as she walks upon the earth--we have her in Gainsborough's picture--with
+her tattered petticoat, and her bare feet, and her broken pitcher, but
+looking withal with such a sweet sad contentedness upon the world, that
+surely, one thinks, she must have filled that pitcher and drawn the
+water which she carries--without, however, knowing any thing of the
+matter--from the very well where Truth lies hidden.
+
+We should like to quote at once, before proceeding further, one of
+Andersen's tales for children. We _will_ venture upon an extract. It
+will at all events be new to our readers, and will be more likely to
+interest them in the history of its author than any quotation we could
+make from his more ambitious works. Besides, the story we select will
+somewhat foreshadow the real history which follows.
+
+A highly respectable matronly duck introduces into the poultry-yard a
+brood which she has just hatched. She has had a deal of trouble with one
+egg, much larger than the rest, and which after all produced a very
+"ugly duck," who gives the name, and is the hero of the story.
+
+     "'So, we are to have this tribe, too!' said the other ducks, 'as if
+     there were not enough of us already! And only look how ugly one is!
+     we won't suffer that one here.' And immediately a duck flew at it,
+     and bit it in the neck.
+
+     "'Let it alone,' said the mother; 'it does no one any harm.'
+
+     "'Yes, but it is so large and strange looking, and therefore it
+     must be teased.'
+
+     "'These are fine children that the mother has!' said an old duck,
+     who belonged to the noblesse, and wore a red rag round its leg.
+     'All handsome, except one; it has not turned out well. I wish she
+     could change it.'
+
+     "'That can't be done, your grace,' said the mother; 'besides, if it
+     is not exactly pretty, it is a sweet child, and swims as well as
+     the others, even a little better. I think in growing it will
+     improve. It was long in the egg, and that's the reason it is a
+     little awkward.'
+
+     "'The others are nice little things,' said the old duck: 'now make
+     yourself quite at home here.'
+
+     "And so they did. But the poor young duck that had come last out of
+     the shell, and looked so ugly, was bitten, and pecked, and teased
+     by ducks and fowls. 'It's so large!' said they all; and the
+     turkey-cock, that had spurs on when he came into the world, and
+     therefore fancied himself an emperor, strutted about like a ship
+     under full sail, went straight up to it, gobbled, and got quite
+     red. The poor little duck hardly knew where to go, or where to
+     stand, it was so sorrowful because it was so ugly, and the ridicule
+     of the whole poultry-yard.
+
+     "Thus passed the first day, and afterwards it grew worse and worse.
+     The poor duck was hunted about by every one; its brothers and
+     sisters were cross to it, and always said, 'I wish the cat would
+     get you, you frightful creature!' and even its mother said, 'Would
+     you were far from here!' And the ducks bit it, and the hens pecked
+     at it, and the girl that fed the poultry kicked it with her foot.
+     So it ran and flew over the hedge.
+
+     "On it ran. At last it came to a great moor where wild-ducks lived;
+     here it lay the whole night, and was so tired and melancholy. In
+     the morning up flew the wild-ducks, and saw their new comrade; 'Who
+     are you?' asked they; and our little duck turned on every side, and
+     bowed as well as it could. 'But you are tremendously ugly!' said
+     the wild-ducks. 'However, that is of no consequence to us, if you
+     don't marry into our family.' The poor thing! It certainly never
+     thought of marrying; it only wanted permission to lie among the
+     reeds, and to drink the water of the marsh.
+
+     "'Bang! bang!' was heard at this moment, and several wild-ducks lay
+     dead amongst the reeds, and the water was as red as blood. There
+     was a great shooting excursion. The sportsmen lay all round the
+     moor; and the blue smoke floated like a cloud through the dark
+     trees, and sank down to the very water; and the dogs spattered
+     about in the marsh--splash! splash! reeds and rushes were waving on
+     all sides; it was a terrible fright for the poor duck.
+
+     "At last all was quiet; but the poor little thing did not yet dare
+     to lift up its head; it waited many hours before it looked round,
+     and then hastened away from the moor as quickly as possible. It ran
+     over the fields and meadows, and there was such a wind that it
+     could hardly get along.
+
+     "Towards evening, the duck reached a little hut. Here dwelt an old
+     woman with her tom-cat and her hen; and the cat could put up its
+     back and purr, and the hen could lay eggs, and the old woman loved
+     them both as her very children. For certain reasons of her own, she
+     let the duck in to live with them.
+
+     "Now the tom-cat was master in the house, and the hen was mistress;
+     and they always said, 'We and the world.' That the duck should
+     have any opinion of its own, they never would allow.
+
+     "'Can you lay eggs?' asked the hen.
+
+     "'No!'
+
+     "'Well, then, hold your tongue.'
+
+     "Can you put up your back and purr?' said the tom-cat.
+
+     "'No.'
+
+     "'Well, then, you ought to have no opinion of your own, where
+     sensible people are speaking.'
+
+     "And the duck sat in the corner, and was very sad; when suddenly it
+     took it into its head to think of the fresh air and the sunshine;
+     and it had such an inordinate longing to swim on the water, that it
+     could not help telling the hen of it.
+
+     "'What next, I wonder!' said the hen, 'you have nothing to do, and
+     so you sit brooding over such fancies. Lay eggs, or purr, and
+     you'll forget them.'
+
+     "'But it is so delightful to swim on the water!' said the duck--'so
+     delightful when it dashes over one's head, and one dives down to
+     the very bottom.'
+
+     "'Well, that must be a fine pleasure!' said the hen. 'You are
+     crazy, I think. Ask the cat, who is the cleverest man I know, if he
+     would like to swim on the water, or perhaps to dive, to say nothing
+     of myself. Ask our mistress, the old lady, and there is no one in
+     the world cleverer than she is; do you think that she would much
+     like to swim on the water, and for the water to dash over her
+     head?'
+
+     "'You don't understand me,' said the duck.
+
+     "'Understand, indeed! If we don't understand you, who should? I
+     suppose you won't pretend to be cleverer than the tom-cat, or our
+     mistress, to say nothing of myself? Don't behave in that way,
+     child; but be thankful for all the kindness that has been shown
+     you. Have you not got into a warm room, and have you not the
+     society of persons from whom something is to be learnt? But you are
+     a blockhead, and it is tiresome to have to do with you. You may
+     believe what I say; I am well disposed towards you; I tell you what
+     is disagreeable, and it is by that one recognises one's true
+     friends.'
+
+     "'I think I shall go into the wide world,' said the duckling.
+
+     "'Well then, go!' answered the hen.
+
+     "And so the duck went. It swam on the water, it dived down; but was
+     disregarded by every animal on account of its ugliness.
+
+     "One evening--the sun was setting most magnificently--there came a
+     whole flock of large beautiful birds out of the bushes; never had
+     the duck seen any thing so beautiful. They were of a brilliant
+     white, with long slender necks: they were swans. They uttered a
+     strange note, spread their superb long wings, and flew away from
+     the cold countries (for the winter was setting in) to warmer lands
+     and unfrozen lakes. They mounted so high, so very high! The little
+     ugly duck felt indescribably--it turned round in the water like a
+     mill-wheel, stretched out its neck towards them, and uttered a cry
+     so loud and strange that it was afraid even of itself. Oh, the
+     beautiful birds! the happy birds! it could not forget them; and
+     when it could see them no longer, it dived down to the very bottom
+     of the water; and when it came up again it was quite beside itself.
+
+     "And now it became so cold! But it would be too sad to relate all
+     the suffering and misery which the duckling had to endure through
+     the hard winter. It lay on the moor in the rushes. But when the sun
+     began to shine again more warmly, when the larks sang, and the
+     lovely spring was come, then, all at once it spread out its wings,
+     and rose in the air. They made a rushing noise louder than
+     formerly, and bore it onwards more vigorously; and before it was
+     well aware of it, it found itself in a garden, where the
+     apple-trees were in blossom, and where the syringas sent forth
+     their fragrance, and their long green branches hung down in the
+     clear stream. Just then three beautiful white swans came out of the
+     thicket. They rustled their feathers, and swam on the water so
+     lightly--oh! so very lightly! The duckling knew the superb
+     creatures, and was seized with a strange feeling of sadness.
+
+     "'To them will I fly!' said it, 'to the royal birds. Though they
+     kill me, I must fly to them!' And it flew into the water, and swam
+     to the magnificent birds, that looked at, and with rustling plumes,
+     sailed towards it.
+
+     "'Kill me!' said the poor creature, and bowed down its head to the
+     water, and awaited death. But what did it see in the water? It saw
+     beneath it its own likeness; but no longer that of an awkward
+     grayish bird, ugly and displeasing--it was the figure of a swan.
+
+     "It is of no consequence being born in a farm-yard, if only it is
+     in a swan's egg.
+
+     "The large swans swam beside it, and stroked it with their bills.
+     There were little children running about in the garden; they threw
+     bread into the water, and the youngest cried out, 'There is a new
+     one!' And the other children shouted too; 'Yes, a new one is
+     come!'--and they clapped their hands and danced, and ran to tell
+     their father and mother. And they threw bread and cake into the
+     water; and every one said, 'The new one is the best! so young, and
+     so beautiful!'
+
+     "Then the young one felt quite ashamed, and hid its head under its
+     wing; it knew not what to do: it was too happy, but yet not
+     proud--for a good heart is never proud. It remembered how it had
+     been persecuted and derided, and now it heard all say it was the
+     most beautiful of birds. And the syringas bent down their branches
+     to it in the water, and the sun shone so lovely and so warm. Then
+     it shook its plumes, the slender neck was lifted up, and, from its
+     very heart, it cried rejoicingly--'Never dreamed I of such
+     happiness when I was the little ugly duck!'"
+
+It is not only in writing for children that our author succeeds; but
+whenever childhood crosses his path, it calls up a true pathos, and the
+playful tenderness of his nature. The commencement of his serious
+novels, where he treats of the infancy and boyhood of his heroes, is
+always interesting. Amongst the translated works of Andersen is one
+entitled "A Picture-Book without Pictures." The author describes himself
+as inhabiting a solitary garret in a large town, where no one knew him,
+and no friendly face greeted him. One evening, however, he stands at the
+open casement, and suddenly beholds "the face of an old friend--a round,
+kind face, looking down on him. It was the moon--the dear old moon! with
+the same unaltered gleam, just as she appeared when, through the
+branches of the willows, she used to shine upon him as he sat on the
+mossy bank beside the river." The moon becomes very sociable, and breaks
+that long silence which poets have so often celebrated--breaks it, we
+must confess, to very little purpose. "Sketch what I relate to you,"
+says the moon, "and you will have a pretty picture-book." And
+accordingly, every visit, she tells him "of one thing or another that
+she has seen during the past night." One would think that such a
+sketch-book, or album, as we have here, might easily have been put
+together without calling in the aid of so sublime a personage. But
+amongst the pictures that are presented to us, two or three, where the
+moon has had her eye upon children in their sports or their distresses,
+took hold of our fancy. Here Andersen is immediately at home. We give
+one short extract.
+
+     "It was but yesternight (said the moon) that I peeped into a small
+     court-yard, enclosed by houses: there was a hen with eleven
+     chickens. A pretty little girl was skipping about. The hen chicked,
+     and, affrighted, spread out her wings over her little ones. Then
+     came the maiden's father, and chid the child; and I passed on,
+     without thinking more of it at the moment.
+
+     "This evening--but a few minutes ago--I again peeped into the same
+     yard. All was silent; but soon the little maiden came. She crept
+     cautiously to the hen-house, lifted the latch, and stole gently up
+     to the hen and the chickens. The hen chicked aloud, and they all
+     ran fluttering about: the little girl ran after them. I saw it
+     plainly, for I peeped in through a chink in the wall. I was vexed
+     with the naughty child, and was glad that the father came and
+     scolded her still more than yesterday, and seized her by the arm.
+     She bent her head back; big tears stood in her blue eyes. She wept.
+     'I wanted to go in and kiss the hen, and beg her to forgive me for
+     yesterday. But I could not tell it you.' And the father kissed the
+     brow of the innocent child; and I kissed her eyes and her lips."
+
+Our poet--we call him such, though we know nothing of his verses, for
+whatever there is of merit in his writings is of the nature of
+poetry--our poet of childhood and of poverty, was born at Odense, a town
+of Funen, one of the green, beech-covered islands of Denmark. It bears
+the name of the Scandinavian hero, or demigod, Odin; Tradition says he
+lived there. The parents of Andersen were so poor that when they married
+they had not wherewithal to purchase a bedstead, or at least thought it
+advisable to make shift by constructing one out of the wooden tressels
+which, a little time before, had supported the coffin of some
+neighbouring count as he lay in state. It still retained a part of the
+black cloth, and some of the funeral ornaments attached to it, when in
+the year 1805 there lay upon it, not in any peculiar state, the solitary
+fruit of their marriage--the little Hans Christian Andersen. He was a
+crying infant, and when carried to the baptismal font, sorely vexed the
+parson with his outcries. "Your young one screams like a cat!" said the
+reverend official. The mother was hurt at this reflection upon her
+offspring; but a prophetic god-papa, who stood by, consoled her by
+saying, "that the louder he cried when a child, all the more beautifully
+would he sing when he grew older."
+
+Those who are disposed to trace a hereditary descent in mental
+qualifications, will find an instance to their purpose in the case of
+Andersen. His mother, we are told, was utterly ignorant of books and of
+the world, "but possessed a heart full of love!" From her he may be said
+to have derived a singular frankness and amiability of disposition--a
+fond, open, affectionate temper. For the more intellectual qualities, by
+which this temper, through the medium of authorship, was to become
+patent to the world, he must have been indebted to his father. This poor
+and hapless shoemaker (such was his trade) seems to have been a singular
+person. To use a favourite phrase of Napoleon, "he had missed his
+destiny." His parents had been country people of some substance, but
+misfortune falling upon misfortune had reduced them to poverty. Finally,
+the father had become insane; the mother had been glad to obtain a
+menial situation in the very asylum where her husband was confined; and
+there was nothing better to be done for the son than to apprentice him
+to a shoemaker. Some talk there was amongst the neighbours of raising a
+subscription to send him to the grammar-school, and thus give him a
+start in life; but it never went beyond talk. A shoemaker he became. But
+to the leather and the last he never took kindly. He would read what
+books he could get--Holberg's plays and the Bible--and ponder over them.
+At first he would make his wife a sharer in his reflections, but as she,
+good woman, never understood a word of what he said, he learned to
+meditate in silence. On Sundays he would go out into the woods
+accompanied only by his child; then he would sit down, sunk in
+abstraction and solitary thought, while young Hans gathered flowers or
+wild strawberries. "I recollect," says the son, in his Autobiography,
+"that once, as a child, I saw tears in his eyes; and it was when a youth
+from the grammar-school came to our house to be measured for a new pair
+of boots, and showed us his books, and told us what he learned, 'That
+was the path on which I ought to have gone!' said my father; he kissed
+me passionately, and was silent the whole evening."
+
+There surely went out of the world something still undeveloped in that
+poor shoemaker. At a subsequent period of the history we find him fairly
+abandoning his unchosen trade. The name of Napoleon resounded even in
+Odense--even in Odense could find a heart that is disquieted. He would
+follow the banner of him who had "opened a career to all the talents."
+But the regiment in which he enlisted got no further than Holstein.
+Peace was concluded; he had to return to his native place, and fall back
+as well as he could into the old routine. His march to Holstein had,
+however, shaken his health, and he died shortly after his return.
+
+"I was," says our author, "the only child, and was extremely spoilt; but
+I continually heard my mother say how very much happier I was than she
+had been, and that I was brought up like a nobleman's child." No
+nobleman's child could, at all events, be brought up with less
+restraint, or more completely left to his own fancies. Poor as were his
+parents, he never felt want; he had no care; he was fed and clothed
+without any thought on his part; he lived his own dreamy life, nourished
+by scraps of plays, songs, and all manner of traditionary stories. There
+was a theatre at Odense, and young Andersen was now and then taken to it
+by his parents. He himself constructed a puppet-show, and the dressing
+and drilling of his dolls was for a long time the chief occupation of
+his life. As he could rarely go to the theatre, he made friends with the
+man who sold the play-bills, who was charitable enough to give him one.
+With this upon his knee, he would sit apart and construct a play for
+himself; putting the _dramatis personae_ into movement as well as he
+could, and at all events despatching them all at the close; for he had
+no idea, he tells us, of a tragedy "that had not plenty of dying."
+
+Of what is commonly called education he had little enough. He was sent
+to a charity-school, where, by a somewhat startling error of the press,
+Mrs Howitt is made to say "he learned only _religion_, writing, and
+arithmetic." Of the _reading_, writing, and arithmetic there taught, he
+seemed to have gained little; certainly the writing, and the arithmetic
+went on very slowly. To make amends, he used to present his master on
+his birth-day with a poem and a garland. Both the wreath and the verses
+seemed to have been but churlishly received, and the last time they were
+offered, he got scolded for his pains.
+
+It would be difficult, however, to conceive of a life more suitable to
+the fostering of the imagination than that which little Hans was
+leading. Besides the play-house, and the scraps of dramas read to him by
+his father, himself a strange and dreamy man, we catch sight of an old
+grandmother, she who resided in the lunatic asylum where her husband was
+confined. Young Hans was occasionally permitted to visit her; and here
+he was a great favourite with certain old crones, who told him many a
+marvellous and terrible story. These stories, and the insane figures
+which he caught sight of around him, operated, he tells us, so
+powerfully upon his imagination that when it grew dark he scarcely dared
+to go out of the house. His own mother was extremely superstitious. When
+her husband was dying, she sent her son, not to the doctor, but to a
+wise-woman, who, after measuring the boy's arm with a woollen thread,
+and performing some other ceremonies, bade him go home by the river
+side, "and if he did not see the ghost of his father, he was to be sure
+that he would not die this time." He did _not_ see the ghost of his
+father--which, considering all things, was rather surprising; but his
+father died nevertheless.
+
+After the death of her husband, the mother of Andersen found another
+object for her affections, for that "heart so full of love." She married
+again. But the stepfather was "a grave young man, who would have nothing
+to do with Hans Christian's education;" refused, we presume, all
+responsibility on so delicate a business. He was still left to himself.
+He had now grown a tall lad, with long yellow hair, which the sun
+probably had assisted to dye, as he was accustomed to go bare-headed. He
+continued to amuse himself with dressing his theatrical puppets. His
+mother reconciled herself to the occupation, as it formed, she thought,
+no bad introduction to the trade of a tailor, to which she now destined
+him. On the other hand, Hans partly reconciled himself to the idea of
+being a tailor, because he should then have plenty of cloth, of all
+colours, for his puppets. Meanwhile it was to a very different trade or
+destiny that these puppets were conducting him.
+
+About this time, not for the money, said the warm-hearted mother, but
+that the lad, like the rest of the world, might be doing something, Hans
+was sent, for a short interval, to a cloth factory. But it was fated
+that he should never work. He had a beautiful voice, and could sing. The
+people at the factory asked him to sing. "He began, and all the looms
+stood still." He had to sing again and again, whilst the other boys had
+his work given them to do. He was not long, however, at the factory. The
+coarse jests and behaviour of its inmates drove out the shy and solitary
+boy.
+
+And now came the crisis. He would go forth into the world. He would be
+famous. All his early aspirations for distinction and celebrity had
+become, as might be expected, associated with the theatre. But as yet he
+had not the least idea in what department he was to excel--whether as
+actor or poet, dancer or singer--or rather he seems to have thought
+himself capable of success in them all. The passion for fame, or rather
+for distinction, had been awakened before the passion for any particular
+art. All he knew was, that he was to be a celebrated man; by what sort
+of labour, what kind of performance, he had no conception. Indeed, the
+remarkable performance, the work to be done, was not the most essential
+thing in his calculation. "People suffer a deal of adversity, and then
+they become famous." It was thus he explained the matter to himself. He
+was on the right road, at all events, for the adversity.
+
+We must relate his going forth in his own words. Never, surely, on the
+part of all the actors in it, was there a scene of such singular
+simplicity.
+
+     "My mother said that I must be confirmed, in order that I might be
+     apprenticed to the tailor trade, and thus do something rational.
+     She loved me with her whole heart, but she did not understand my
+     impulses and my endeavours, nor, indeed, at that time did I myself.
+     The people about her always spoke against my odd ways, and turned
+     me into ridicule. (They only saw the ugly duckling in the young
+     swan.)
+
+     "We belonged to the parish of St Knud, and the candidates for
+     confirmation could either enter their names with the provost or
+     with the chaplain. The children of the so-called superior families,
+     and the scholars of the grammar-school, went to the first, and the
+     children of the poor to the second. I, however, announced myself as
+     a candidate to the provost, who was obliged to receive me, although
+     he discovered vanity in my placing myself among his catechists,
+     where, although taking the lowest place, I was still above those
+     who were under the care of the chaplain. I would, however, hope
+     that it was not alone vanity that impelled me. I had a sort of fear
+     of the poor boys, who had laughed at me, and I always felt as it
+     were an inward drawing towards the scholars of the grammar-school,
+     whom I regarded as far better than other boys. When I saw them
+     Playing in the churchyard, I would stand outside the railings, and
+     wish that I were but among the fortunate ones--not for the sake of
+     the play, but for the many books they had, and for what they might
+     be able to become in the world.
+
+     "An old female tailor altered my deceased father's greatcoat into a
+     confirmation suit for me; never before had I worn so good a coat. I
+     had also, for the first time in my life, a pair of boots. My
+     delight was extremely great; my only fear was that every body would
+     not see them, and therefore I drew them up over my trousers, and
+     thus marched through the church. The boots creaked, and that
+     inwardly pleased me, for thus the congregation would hear that they
+     were new. My whole devotion was disturbed. I was aware of it, and
+     it caused me a horrible pang of conscience that my thoughts should
+     be as much with my new boots as with God. I prayed him earnestly
+     from my heart to forgive me, and then again I thought upon my new
+     boots.
+
+     "During the last year I had saved together a little sum of money.
+     When I counted it over, I found it to be thirteen rix-dollars banco
+     (about thirty shillings.) I was quite overjoyed at the possession
+     of so much wealth; and as my mother now most resolutely required
+     that I should be apprenticed to a tailor, I prayed and besought her
+     that I might make a journey to Copenhagen, that I might see the
+     greatest city in the world.
+
+     "'What wilt thou do there?' asked my mother.
+
+     "'I will become famous,' returned I; and I then told her all that I
+     had read about extraordinary men. 'People have,' said I, 'at first
+     an immense deal of adversity to go through, and then they will be
+     famous.'
+
+     "It was a wholly unintelligible impulse that guided me. I wept and
+     prayed, and at last my mother consented, after having first sent
+     for a so-called wise-woman out of the hospital, that she might read
+     my future fortune by the coffee-grounds and cards.
+
+     "'Your son will become a great man!' said the old woman; 'and in
+     honour of him all Odense will one day be illuminated.'
+
+     "My mother wept when she heard that, and I obtained permission to
+     travel."--(p. 27.)
+
+So, at the age of fourteen, with thirty shillings in his pocket, and his
+idea of becoming famous by going through a deal of adversity, he comes
+to Copenhagen--the Paris, the more than the Paris of Denmark, for, in
+respect to all that a great town collects or fosters, Copenhagen is
+literally Denmark. There never was a stranger history than this of young
+Andersen's. It is more like a dream than a life; it is like one of his
+own tales for children, where the rigid laws of probability are
+dispensed with in favour of a quite free and rapid invention. The
+theatre is his point of attraction: but he was by no means determined in
+what department, or under what form, his universal genius shall make its
+appearance. He will first try dancing. He had heard of a celebrated
+_danseuse_, a Madame Schall. To her he goes with a letter of
+introduction, which he had coaxed out of an old printer in Odense, who,
+though he protested he did not know the lady, was still prevailed upon
+to write the letter. Dressed in his confirmation suit, a broad hat upon
+his head, his boots, we may be sure, not forgotten, which were worn,
+however, this time under the trousers, he finds out the residence of
+Madame Schall, rings at the bell, and is admitted. "She looked at me
+with great amazement," writes our author, "and then heard what I had to
+say. She had not the slightest knowledge of him from whom the letter
+came, and my whole appearance and behaviour seemed very strange to her.
+I confessed to her my heartfelt inclination for the theatre; and upon
+her asking me what character I thought I could represent, I replied
+Cinderella. This piece had been performed in Odense by the royal
+company, and the principal character had so taken my fancy, that I could
+play the part perfectly from memory. In the mean time I asked her
+permission to take off my boots, otherwise I was not light enough for
+this character; and then, taking up my broad hat for a tambourine, I
+began to dance and sing--
+
+  'Here below nor rank nor riches
+  Are exempt from pain and wo.'
+
+My strange gestures and my great activity caused the lady to think me
+out of my mind, and she lost no time in getting rid of me."
+
+We should think so. Only imagine some wild colt of a boy, one of those
+young Savoyards, for instance, who are in the habit of dancing round the
+organ they are grinding, apparently to convince the world how sprightly
+the tune is--imagine a genius of this natural description introducing
+himself into the drawing-room of a Taglioni or an Elssler, and
+commencing forthwith, "with great activity," to give a specimen of his
+talent! Just such as this must have been the part which young Andersen
+performed in the saloon of Madame Schall.
+
+As the dancing does not succeed, he next offers himself as an
+actor--proceeding, quite as a matter of course, to the manager of a
+theatre to ask for an engagement. The manager was facetious--said he was
+"too thin for the theatre." Hans would be facetious too. "Oh," he
+replied, "if you will but engage me at one hundred rix-dollars banco
+salary, I shall soon get fat." Then the manager looked grave, and bade
+him go his way, adding, that he engaged only people of education.
+
+But he had many strings to his bow--he could sing. It was at the opera
+evidently that he was destined to become famous. Here he met with what,
+for a moment, looked like success. A voice he certainly possessed,
+though uncultivated, and Seboni, the director of the Academy of Music,
+promised to procure instruction for him. But a short time afterwards he
+lost his voice, through insufficient clothing, as he thinks, and bad
+shoe leather. (Those boots could not be new always--doubtless got sadly
+worn tramping through the streets of Copenhagen.) Seboni dropped his
+_protege_, counselled him to go back to Odense, and learn a trade.
+
+As well learn a trade in Copenhagen, if it was to come to that. He still
+stayed in the capital, and still lingered round the theatre, sometimes
+getting a lesson in recitation, sometimes one in dancing, and overjoyed
+if only as one of a crowd of masked people he could stand before the
+scenes. There never surely was so irrepressible a vanity combined with
+so sensitive a temperament; never so strong an impulse for distinction
+accompanied with such vague notions of the means to attain it. At this
+period of his life his utter childishness, his affectionate simplicity,
+his superstition, his unconquerable vanity, present a picture quite
+unexampled in all biographies we have ever read. He has to make a
+bargain with an old woman (no better than she should be) for his board
+and lodging. She had left the room for a short time; there was in it a
+portrait of her deceased husband. "I was so much a child," he says,
+"that, as the tears rolled down my own cheeks, I wetted the eyes of the
+portrait with my tears, in order that the dead man might feel how
+troubled I was, and influence the heart of his wife."
+
+Great as his susceptibility to ridicule, his vanity is always greater,
+can surmount it, and find a gratification where a sterner nature would
+have felt only mortification. In a scene of an opera where a crowd is to
+be represented, he edges himself upon the stage. He is very conscious of
+the ill condition of his attire: the confirmation coat did but just hold
+together; and he did not dare to hold himself upright lest he should
+exhibit the more plainly the shortness of the waistcoat which he had
+outgrown. He had the feeling very plainly that people would be making
+themselves merry with him; yet at this moment, he says, "he felt nothing
+but the happiness of stepping for the first time before the footlamps."
+
+Of his superstition he records the following amusing instance. "I had
+the notion that as it went with me on New Year's Day, so would it go
+with me through the whole year; and my highest wishes were to obtain a
+part in a play. It was now New Year's Day. The theatre was closed, and
+only a half-blind porter sat at the entrance to the stage, on which
+there was not a soul. I stole past him with a beating heart, got between
+the moveable scenes and the curtain, and advanced to the open part of
+the stage. Here I fell down upon my knees, but not a single verse for
+declamation could I recall to my memory. I then said aloud the Lord's
+Prayer. I went out with the persuasion that, because I had spoken from
+the stage on New Year's Day, I should, in the course of the year,
+succeed in speaking still more, as well as in having a part assigned to
+me."--(p. 50.)
+
+We must quote the paragraph that immediately follows this extract,
+because it shows that, after all, there was something better stirring at
+his heart than this vague theatrical ambition, this empty vanity. There
+was the love of nature there. "During the two years of my residence in
+Copenhagen, I had never been out into the open country. Once only had I
+been in the park, and there I had been deeply engrossed by studying the
+diversions of the people and their gay tumult. In the spring of the
+third year, I went out for the first time amid the verdure of a spring
+morning. I stood still suddenly under the first large budding
+beech-tree. The sun made the leaves transparent--there was a fragrance,
+a freshness--the birds sang. I was overcome by it--I shouted aloud for
+joy, threw my arms around the tree, and kissed it. 'Is he mad?' said a
+man close behind me."
+
+His good fortune provided him at length with a sincere and serviceable
+friend in the person of Collins--conference-councillor, as his title
+runs, and one of the most influential men at that time in Denmark.
+Through his means a grant was obtained from the royal purse, and access
+procured to something like regular education in the grammar-school at
+Slagelse. His place in the school was in the lowest class amongst little
+boys. He knew indeed nothing at all--nothing of what is taught by the
+pedagogue. At the age of eighteen, after having written a tragedy, which
+had been submitted to the theatre at Copenhagen, and we know not what
+poems besides,--after having versified a dance, and recited a song, he
+begins at the very beginning, and seats himself down in the lowest form
+of a grammar-school.
+
+It is not our intention to pursue the biography of Andersen beyond what
+is necessary for understanding the singular circumstances in which his
+mind grew up; we shall not, therefore, detain our readers much longer on
+this part of our subject. His scholastic progress appears to have been
+at first slow and painful; the rector of the grammar-school behaved
+neither kindly nor generously towards him; and on him he afterwards took
+his revenge in the character of Habbas Dahdah, in "The Improvisatore."
+But he was docile, he was persevering, and passed through the school,
+and afterwards the college, not discreditably. In 1829, he was launched
+again into the world, a member of the educated class of society.
+
+After supporting himself some time by his pen, he received from his
+government a stipend for travelling, which, it appears, in Denmark is
+bestowed on young poets as well as artists. And now he started on his
+travels--evidently the best school of education for a mind like his. For
+whatever use books may have been of to Andersen, in teaching him to
+_write_, they have had nothing to do with teaching him to _think_. No
+one portion of his writings of any value can be traced to his
+acquaintance with books. What knowledge he got from this source he could
+never rightly use. What his eye saw, what his heart felt--that alone he
+could work with. The slowly won reflection, the linked thought--any
+thing like a train of reasoning, seems to have been an utter stranger
+to his mind. Throughout his life, he is an observant child. From books
+he can gather nothing: severe analytic thinking he knows nothing of; he
+must see the world, must hear people talk, must remember how his own
+heart beat, and thus only can he find something for utterance.
+
+What a change now in his destiny! The poor shoemaker's child, that
+wandered wild in the woods of Odense, and afterwards wandered almost as
+wild and as solitary in the streets of Copenhagen--who was next
+imprisoned in a school with dictionary and grammar--is now free
+again--may wander with wider range of vision--is a traveller--and in
+Italy! But the sensitive temper of Andersen, we are afraid, hardly
+permitted him to enjoy, as he might have done, his full cup of
+happiness. Vanity is an unquiet companion; he should have left it behind
+him at home; then the little piece of malice which he records of one of
+his friends would not have disturbed him as it appears to have done.
+
+"During my journey to Paris, and the whole month that I spent there, I
+heard not a single word from home. Could it be that my friends had
+nothing agreeable to tell me? At length, however, a letter arrived; a
+large letter, which cost a large sum in postage. My heart beat with joy,
+and yearning impatience; it was indeed my first letter. I opened it, but
+I discovered not a single written word--nothing but a Copenhagen
+newspaper, _containing a lampoon upon me_, and that was sent to me all
+that distance with postage unpaid, probably by the anonymous writer
+himself. This abominable malice wounded me deeply. I have never
+discovered who the author was; perhaps he was one of those who
+afterwards called me friend, and pressed my hand. Some men have base
+thoughts; I also have mine."
+
+Poor Andersen has all his life long been sorely plagued by his critics.
+Those who peruse his Autobiography to the close, and every part of it is
+worth reading, will find him in violent ill humour with the theatrical
+public, whom he describes as taking a malicious and diabolical pleasure
+in damning plays. To hiss down a piece, he declares, is one of the chief
+amusements that fill the house. "Five minutes is the usual time, and the
+whistles resound, and the lovely women smile and felicitate themselves
+like the Spanish ladies at their bloody bull-fights." His second journey
+into Italy seems to have been in part occasioned by some quarrel with
+the theatre. "If I would represent this portion of my life more clearly
+and reflectively, it would require me to penetrate into the mysteries of
+the theatre, to analyse our aesthetic cliques, and to drag into
+conspicuous notice many individuals who do not belong to publicity; many
+persons in my place would, like me, have fallen ill, or would have
+resented it vehemently. Perhaps the latter would have been the most
+sensible."
+
+Oh, no! Hans Christian--by no means the most sensible. Better even to
+have fallen ill. An author by his quarrel with the public, whether the
+reading or theatrical public, can gain nothing for himself but added
+torment. The more vehemently he contests and resents, the louder is the
+laugh against him. Whether the right is upon his side, time alone can
+show; time alone can redress his wrongs. When the poet has written his
+best, he has done all his part. If he cannot feel perfectly tranquil as
+to the result, let him at least affect tranquillity--let him be silent,
+and silence will soon bring that peace it typifies.
+
+Henceforward, however, upon the whole, the career of Andersen is
+prosperous, and his life genial. We find him in friendly intercourse
+with the best spirits of the age. The lad who walked about Odense with
+long yellow locks, bare-headed, and bare-footed, and who was half
+reconciled to being a tailor's apprentice, because he should get plenty
+of remnants to dress his puppets with--is seen spending the evening with
+the royal family of Denmark, or dining with the King of Prussia, who
+decorates him with his order of the Red Eagle! He has exemplified his
+text--"people have a deal of adversity to go through, and then they
+become famous."
+
+Those who have read "The Improvisatore," the most ambitious of the
+works of Andersen, and by far the most meritorious of his novels, will
+now directly recognise the materials of which it has been constructed.
+His own early career, and his travels into Italy, have been woven
+together in the story of Antonio. So far from censuring him--as some of
+his Copenhagen critics appear to have done--for describing himself and
+the scenes he beheld, we are only surprised when we read "The True Story
+of his Life," that he has not been able to employ in a still more
+striking manner, the experience of his singular career. But, as we have
+already observed, he betrays no habit or power of mental analysis; he
+has not that introspection which, in the phrase of our poet Daniel,
+"raises a man above himself;" so that Andersen could contemplate
+Andersen, and combine the impartial scrutiny of a spectator with the
+thorough knowledge which self can only have of self. So far from
+censuring him for the frequent use he makes of the materials which his
+own life and travels afforded him, we could wish that he had never
+attempted to employ any other. Throughout his novels, whenever he
+departs from these, he is either commonplace or extravagant,--or both
+together, which, in our days, is very possible. If he imitates other
+writers, it is always their worst manner that he contrives to seize; if
+he adopts the worn-out resources of preceding novelists, it is always
+(and in this he may be doing good service) to render them still more
+palpably absurd and ridiculous than they were before. He has dreams in
+plenty--his heroes are always dreaming; he has fevered descriptions of
+the over-excited imagination--a very favourite resource of modern
+novelists; he has his moral enigmas; and of course he has a witch
+(Fulvia) who tells fortunes and reads futurity, and reads it correctly,
+let philosophy or common sense say what it will. His Fulvia affords his
+readers one gratification; they find her fairly hanged at the end of the
+book.
+
+We are far enough from attempting to give an outline of the story of
+this or any other novel--such skeletons are not attractive; but the
+extracts, and the observations we have to make, will best be understood
+by entering a few steps into the narrative.
+
+Antonio, the Improvisatore, is born in Rome of poor parents. He is
+introduced to us as a child, living with his fond mother, his only
+surviving parent, in a room, or rather a loft, in the roof of a house.
+She is accidentally run over and killed by a nobleman's carriage. A
+certain uncle Peppo, a cripple and a beggar, claims guardianship of the
+orphan. Of this Peppo we have a most unamiable portrait. His withered
+legs are fastened to a board, and he shuffles himself along with his
+hands, which were armed with a pair of wooden hand clogs. He used to sit
+upon the steps of the Piazza de Spagna. "Once I was witness," says the
+Improvisatore, who tells his own story, "of a scene which awoke in me
+fear of him, and also exhibited his own disposition. Upon one of the
+lowest flights of stairs sat an old blind beggar, and rattled with his
+little leaden box that people might drop a _bajocco_ therein. Many
+people passed by my uncle without noticing his crafty smile and the
+waivings of his hat; the blind man gained more by his silence--they gave
+to him. Three had gone by, and now came the fourth, and threw him a
+small coin. Peppo could no longer contain himself: I saw how he crept
+down like a snake, and struck the blind man in his face, so that he lost
+both money and stick. 'Thou thief!' cried my uncle, 'wilt thou steal
+money from me--thou who art not even a regular cripple--cannot see--that
+is all! And so he will take my bread from my mouth.'"
+
+On great occasions Peppo could quit his board and straddle upon an ass.
+And now he came upon his ass, set Antonio before him, and carried him
+off to his home or den. The boy was put into a small recess contiguous
+to the apartment which his uncle occupied with some of his guests. He
+overheard this conversation: "Can the boy do any thing?" asked one; "Has
+he any sort of hurt?"
+
+"No; the Madonna has not been so kind to him," said Peppo; "he is
+slender and well formed, like a nobleman's child."
+
+"That is a great misfortune," said they all; and some suggestions were
+added, that he could have some little hurt to help him to get his
+earthly bread until the Madonna gave him the heavenly. Conversation such
+as this filled him with alarm; he crept through the aperture which
+served for window to his dormitory; slid down the wall, and made his
+escape. He ran as fast as he could, and found himself at length in the
+Coliseum.
+
+Antonio, at this time, is a poor boy about nine or ten years old; we
+have seen from what sort of guardian the terrified lad was making his
+escape. Now, observe the exquisite appropriateness, taste, and judgment
+of what follows. It is precisely here that the author makes parade of
+the knowledge he has lately gained in the grammar-school of
+Slagelse--precisely here that he throws his Antonio into a classical
+dream or vision!
+
+     "Behind one of the many wooden altars which stand not far apart
+     within the ruins, and indicate the resting-points of the Saviour's
+     progress to the cross,[3] I seated myself upon a fallen capital,
+     which lay in the grass. The stone was as cold as ice, my head
+     burned, there was fever in my blood; I could not sleep, and there
+     occurred to my mind all that people had related to me of this old
+     building; of the captive Jews who had been made to raise these huge
+     blocks of stone for the mighty Roman Caesar; of the wild beasts
+     which, within this space, had fought with each other, nay, even
+     with men also, while the people sat upon stone benches, which
+     ascended step-like from the ground to the loftiest colonnade.
+
+     "There was a rustling in the bushes above me; I looked up, and
+     fancied that I saw something moving. Oh, yes! my imagination showed
+     to me pale dark shapes, which hewed and builded around me; I heard
+     distinctly every stroke that fell, saw the meagre black-bearded
+     Jews tear away grass and shrubs to pile stone upon stone, till the
+     whole monstrous building stood there newly erected; and now all was
+     one throng of human beings, head above head, and the whole seemed
+     one infinitely vast living giant body.
+
+     "I saw the vestals in their long white garments; the magnificent
+     court of the Caesar; the naked bleeding gladiators; then I heard how
+     there was a roaring and a howling round about, in the lowest
+     colonnades; from various sides sprang in whole herds of tigers and
+     hyaenas; they sped close past the spot where I lay; I felt their
+     burning breath; saw their red fiery glances, and held myself fast
+     upon the stone upon which I was seated, whilst I prayed the Madonna
+     to save me. But wilder still grew the tumult around me; yet I could
+     see in the midst of all the holy cross as it still stands, and
+     which, whenever I had passed it, I had piously kissed. I exerted
+     all my strength, and perceived distinctly that I had thrown my arms
+     around it; but every thing that surrounded me trembled violently
+     together,--walls, men, beasts. Consciousness had left me,--I
+     perceived nothing more. When I again opened my eyes, my fever was
+     over."
+
+Sadder trash than this it were almost impossible to write. It is
+necessary to make some quotations to justify the terms of censure, as
+well as of praise, which we have bestowed upon Andersen; but our readers
+will willingly excuse the infliction of many such quotations; they might
+be made abundantly enough, we can assure them.
+
+On awaking from this vision, Antonio finds himself in the presence of
+some worthy monks. They take charge of him, and ultimately give him over
+to the protection of an old woman, a relative, Dominica, who is living
+the most solitary life imaginable, in one of the tombs of the Campagna.
+Here there is a striking picture presented to the imagination--of the
+old woman and the little boy, shut up in the ruined tomb, in the almost
+tropical heat, or the heavy rains, that visit the Campagna. He who
+erewhile had visions of vestals and captive Jews, Caesar and the
+gladiators, is more naturally represented as amusing himself by floating
+sticks and reeds upon the little canal dug to carry the water from their
+dwelling;--"they were his boats which were to sail to Rome."
+
+One day a young nobleman, pursued by an enraged buffalo, takes refuge in
+this tomb, and thus becomes acquainted with Antonio. He is a member of
+the Borghese family, and proves to be the very nobleman whose carriage
+had accidentally occasioned the death of his mother. Antonio becomes the
+protege of the Borghese, returns to Rome, receives an education, and is
+raised into the high and cultivated ranks of society. He is put under
+the learned discipline of Habbas Dahdah--an excellent name, we confess,
+for a fool--in whose person, we presume, he takes a sly revenge upon his
+late rector of Slagelse. But he has not been fortunate in the invention
+of parallel absurdities in his Italian pedagogue to those which he may
+have remembered of some German prototype. He describes him as animated
+with a sort of insane aversion to the poet Dante, whom he decries on
+every occasion in order to exalt Petrarch. A Habbas Dahdah would be much
+more more likely to feign an excessive admiration for the idol and glory
+of Italy. However, his pupil stealthily procures a Dante; reads him, of
+course _dreams_ of him; in short, there is an intolerable farago about
+the great poet.
+
+But the time now comes when the great business of all novels--love--is
+brought upon the scene. And here we have an observation to make which we
+think may be deserving of attention.
+
+Antonio, the Improvisatore, is made, in the novel, to love in the
+strangest fashion imaginable. He loves and he does not love; he never
+knows himself, nor the reader either, whether, or with whom, to
+pronounce him in love. Annunciata, the first object of this uncertain
+passion, behaves herself, it must be confessed, in a very extraordinary
+manner. We suppose the exigencies of the novel must excuse her; it was
+necessary that her lover should be plunged in despair, and therefore she
+could not be permitted to behave as any other woman would have done in
+the same circumstances. She has a real affection for Antonio; yet at the
+critical moment--the last moment he will be able to learn the truth, the
+last time he will see her unless her response be favourable--she behaves
+in such a manner as to lead him inevitably to the conclusion that his
+rival is preferred to him. This Annunciata, the most celebrated singer
+of her day, loses her voice, loses her beauty,--a fever deprives her of
+both;--and not till her death does Antonio learn that he, and not
+another, was the person really beloved. Meanwhile, in his travels,
+Antonio meets with a blind girl, whom he does or does not love, on whom
+at least he poetises, and whose forehead, _because she was blind_, he
+had kissed. He is afterwards introduced, at Venice, to a young lady,
+(Maria) who bears a striking resemblance to this blind girl. She is, in
+fact, the same person, restored to sight, though he is not aware of it.
+Maria loves the Improvisatore; he says, he believes that his affection
+is _not_ love. He quits Venice--he returns--he is ill. Then follows one
+of those miserable scenes which novelists will inflict upon us--of
+dream, or delirium--what you will,--and, in this state, he fancies Maria
+is dead; he finds then that he really loved; and, in his sleep or
+trance, he expresses aloud his affection. His declaration is overheard
+by Maria and her sister, who are watching over his couch. He wakes, and
+Maria is there, alive before him. In his sleep he has become aware of
+the true condition of his own heart; nay, he has leapt the Rubicon,--he
+has declared it. He becomes a married man.
+
+Now, in the confused and contradictory account of Antonio's passion, we
+see a truth which the author drew from his own nature and experience,--a
+truth which, if he had fully appreciated, or had manfully adhered to,
+would have enabled him to draw a striking, consistent, and original
+portrait. In such natures as Andersen's, there is often found a modesty
+more than a woman's, combined with a vivid feeling of beauty, and a
+yearning for affection. Modesty is no exclusive property of the female
+sex, and there may be so much of it in a youth as to be the impediment,
+perhaps the unconscious impediment, to all the natural outpouring of his
+heart. The coyness of the virgin, the suitor, by his prayers and wooing,
+does all he can to overcome; but here the coyness is in the suitor
+himself. He has to overcome it by himself, and he cannot. He hardly
+knows the sort of enemy he has to conquer. Every woman seems to him
+enclosed in a bell-glass, fine as gossamer, but he cannot break it. He
+feels himself drawn, but he cannot approach. His heart is yearning; yet
+he says to himself, no, I do not love. A looker-on calls him inconstant,
+uncertain, capricious. He is not so; he is bound by viewless fetters,
+nor does he know where to strike the chain that is coiled around him.
+
+Such was the truth, we apprehend, such the character, that Andersen had
+indistinctly in view. He drew from himself, but he had not previously
+analysed that self. It is, therefore, not so much a false as a confused
+and imperfect representation that he has given, which the reader, if he
+thinks it worth his while, must explain and complete for himself.
+Perhaps, too, a fear of the ridicule which an exhibition of modesty in
+man might draw down from certain slender witlings, from the young
+gentlemen, or even the young ladies, of Copenhagen, may have, in part,
+deterred him from a faithful portraiture. To people of reflection, who
+have learned to estimate at its true value the laugh of coxcombs, and
+the wisdom of the so-called man of the world--the shallowest bird of
+passage that we know of--such a portrait would have been attractive for
+the genuine truth it contains. It would require, indeed, a master's hand
+to deal both well and honestly with it.
+
+The descriptions of Italy which "The Improvisatore" contains are
+sufficiently striking and faithful to recall the scenes to those who
+have visited them; which is all, we believe, the best descriptions can
+effect. What is absolutely new to a reader cannot be described to him.
+If all the poets and romancers of England were to unite together in a
+committee of taste, they could not frame a description which would give
+the effect of mountainous scenery to one who had never seen a mountain.
+The utmost the describer call do, in all such cases, is to liken the
+scene to something already familiar to the reader's imagination. Though
+generally faithful, we cannot say that our author never sacrifices
+accuracy of detail to the demands of the novelist, never sacrifices the
+actual to the ideal. For instance, his account of the _Miserere_ in the
+Sistine Chapel, is rather what one is willing to anticipate it might be,
+than what a traveller really finds it. To be sure, he has a right to
+place his hero of the novel where he pleases in the chapel, relieve him
+from the crowd, and give him all the advantages of position: still his
+perfect enjoyment of all that both the arts of painting and music can
+afford, and that overpowering _sentiment_ which he finds in the great
+picture of the Last Judgment by Michel Angelo, (a picture which
+addresses itself far more to the artist than the poet,) strikes us as a
+description more from imagination than experience.
+
+A little satire upon the travelling English seems, by the way, to be as
+agreeable at Copenhagen as at Paris. Our Danish friends are quite
+welcome to it; we only wish for their sakes that, in the present
+instance, it had been a little more lively and pungent. Our Hans
+Andersen is too weak in the wrist, has not arm strong enough "to crack
+the satyric thong." Mere exaggeration maybe mere nonsense, and very dull
+nonsense. The scene is at the hotel at Terracina, so well known by all
+travellers.
+
+     "The cracking of whips re-echoed from the wall of rocks; a carriage
+     with four horses rolled up to the hotel. Armed servants sat on the
+     seat at the back of the carriage; a pale thin gentleman, wrapped in
+     a large bright-coloured dressing-gown, stretched himself within it.
+     The postilion dismounted and cracked his long whip several times,
+     whilst fresh horses were put to. The stranger wished to proceed,
+     but as he desired to have an escort over the mountains where Fra
+     Diavolo and Cesari had bold descendants, he was obliged to wait a
+     quarter of an hour, and now scolded, half in English and half in
+     Italian, at the people's laziness, and at the torments and
+     sufferings which travellers had to endure; and at length knotted up
+     his pocket-handkerchief into a night-cap, which he drew on his
+     head, and then, throwing himself into a corner of the carriage,
+     closed his eyes, and seemed to resign himself to his fate.
+
+     "I perceived that it was all Englishman, who already, in ten days,
+     had travelled through the north and the middle of Italy, and in
+     that time had made himself acquainted with this country; had seen
+     Rome in one day, and was now going to Naples to ascend Vesuvius,
+     and then by the steam-vessel to Marseilles, to gain a knowledge
+     also of the south of France, which he hoped to do in a still
+     shorter time. At length eight well-armed horsemen arrived, the
+     postilion cracked his whip, and the carriage and the out-riders
+     vanished through the gate between the tall yellow rocks."--(Vol.
+     ii. p. 6.)
+
+"_Only a Fiddler_" proceeds, in part, on the same plan as "The
+Improvisatore." Here, too, the author has drawn from his own early
+experience; here, too, we have a poor lad of genius, who will "go
+through an immense deal of adversity and then become famous;" here too
+we have the little ugly duck, who, however, was born in a swan's egg.
+The commencement of the novel is pretty, where it treats of the
+childhood of the hero; but Christian (such is his name) does not win
+upon our sympathy, and still less upon our respect. We are led to
+suspect that Christian Andersen himself, is naturally deficient in
+certain elements of character, or he would have better upheld the
+dignity of his namesake, whom he has certainly no desire to lower in our
+esteem. With an egregious passion for distinction, a great vanity, in
+short, we are afraid that he himself (judging from some passages in his
+Autobiography) hardly possesses a proper degree of pride, or the due
+feeling of self-respect. The Christian in the novel is the butt and
+laughing-stock of a proud, wilful young beauty of the name of Naomi; yet
+does he forsake the love of a sweet girl Lucie, to be the beaten spaniel
+of this Naomi. He has so little spirit as to take her money and her
+contempt at the same time.
+
+This self-willed and beautiful Naomi is a well-imagined character, but
+imperfectly developed. Indeed the whole novel may be described as a
+jumble of ill-connected scenes, and of half-drawn characters. We have
+some sad imitations of the worst models of our current literature. Here
+is a Norwegian godfather, the blurred likeness of some Parisian
+murderer. Here are dreams and visions, and plenty of delirium. He has
+caught the trick, perhaps, from some of our English novelists, of
+infusing into the persons of his drama all sorts of distorted
+imaginations, by way of describing the situation he has placed them in.
+We will quote a passage of this nature: it is just possible that some of
+our countrymen, when they see their own style reflected back to them
+from a foreign page, may be able to appreciate its exquisite truth to
+nature. Christian, still a boy, is at play with his companions; he hides
+from them in the belfry of a church. It was the custom to ring the bells
+at sunset. He had ensconced himself between the wall and the great bell,
+and "when this rose, and showed to him the whole opening of its mouth,"
+he found he was within a hair's breadth of contact with it. Retreat was
+impossible, and the least movement exposed his head to be shattered. The
+conception is terrible enough, but by no means a novel one, as all
+readers conversant with the pages of this Magazine will readily allow,
+by reference to the story of "The Man in the Bell," in our tenth
+volume,[4] one of the late Dr Maginn's most powerful and graphic
+sketches. But the natural horror of the situation by no means satisfies
+this novelist; he therefore engrafts the following imaginations
+thereupon, as being such as were most likely to occur to the lad,
+frightened out of his senses, stunned by the roar of the bell, winking
+hard, and pressing himself closer and closer to the wall to escape the
+threatened blow.
+
+     "Overpowered to his very inmost soul by the most fearful anguish,
+     the bell appeared to him the jaws of some immense serpent; the
+     clapper was the poisonous tongue, which it extended towards him.
+     Confused imaginations pressed upon him; feelings similar to the
+     anguish which he felt when the godfather had dived with him beneath
+     the water, took possession of him; but here it roared far stronger
+     in his ears, and the changing colours before his eyes formed
+     themselves into gray figures. The old pictures in the castle
+     floated before him, but with threatening mien and gestures, and
+     ever-changing forms; now long and angular, again jelly-like, clear
+     and trembling; they clashed cymbals and beat drums, and then
+     suddenly passed away into that fiery glow in which every thing had
+     appeared to him, when, with Naomi, he looked through the red
+     window-panes. It burned, that he felt plainly. He swam through a
+     burning sea, and ever did the serpent exhibit to him its fearful
+     jaws. An irresistible desire seized him to take hold on the clapper
+     with both hands, when suddenly it became calm around him, but it
+     still raged within his brain. He felt that all his clothes clung
+     to him, and that his hands seemed fastened to the wall. Before him
+     hung the serpent's head, dead and bowed; the bell was silent. He
+     closed his eyes and felt that he fell asleep. He had
+     fainted."--(Vol. i. p. 59.)
+
+Are these some of the "beautiful thoughts" which Mrs Howitt finds it the
+greatest delight of her literary life to translate? One is a little
+curious to know how far this beauty has been increased or diminished by
+their admiring translator; but unfortunately we can boast no
+Scandinavian scholarship. This novel, however, is not without some
+striking passages, whether of description of natural scenery, or of
+human life. Of these, the little episode of the fate of Steffen-Margaret
+recurs most vividly to our recollection. Mrs Howitt, in her translation
+of "The True Story of my Life," draws our attention, in a note, to this
+character of Steffen-Margaret, informing us that it is the reproduction
+of a personage whom Andersen becomes slightly acquainted with in the
+early part of his career. She thus points out a striking passage in the
+novel; but the translator of the Autobiography and of "Only a Fiddler,"
+might have found more natural opportunities for illustrating the
+connexion between the novel and the life of the author. There is no
+resemblance whatever between the two characters alluded to, except that
+they both belong to the same unfortunate class of society. Of the young
+girl mentioned in the life, nothing indeed is said, except that she
+received once a week a visit from her papa, who came to drink tea with
+her, dressed always in a shabby blue coat; and the point of the story
+is, that in after times, when Andersen rose into a far different rank of
+society, he encountered in some fashionable saloon the papa of the
+shabby blue coat in a bland old gentleman glittering with orders.
+
+Christian, the hero of the novel, a lad utterly ignorant of life, has
+come for the first time to Copenhagen. Whilst the ship in which he has
+arrived is at anchor in the port, it is visited by some _ladies_, one of
+whom particularly fascinates him. She must be a princess, or something
+of that kind, if not a species of angel. The next day he finds out her
+residence, sees her, tells her all his history, all his inspirations,
+all his hopes; he is sure that he has found a kind and powerful
+patroness. The lady smiles at him, and dismisses him with some cakes and
+sweetmeats, and kindly taps upon the head. This is just what Andersen at
+the same age would have done himself, and just in this manner would he
+have been dismissed and comforted. There is a scene in the Autobiography
+very similar. He explains to some kind old dames, whom he encounters at
+the theatre, his thwarted aspirations after art; they give him
+cakes;--he tells them again of his impulses, and that he is dying to be
+famous; they give him more cakes;--he eats and is pacified.
+
+The ship, however, had not been long in the harbour before his princess
+visited it again. It was evening--Christian was alone in the cabin.
+
+     "He was most strangely affected as he heard at this moment a voice
+     on the cabin steps, which was just like hers. She, perhaps, would
+     already present herself as a powerful fairy to conduct him to
+     happiness. He would have rushed towards her, but she came not
+     alone; a sailor accompanied her, and inquired aloud, on entering,
+     if there were any one there. But a strange feeling of distress
+     fettered Christian's tongue, and he remained silent.
+
+     "'What have you got to say to me?' asked the sailor.
+
+     "'Save me!' was the first word, which Christian heard from her lips
+     in the cabin; she whom he had regarded as a rich and noble lady. 'I
+     am sunk in shame!' said she. 'No one esteems me; I no longer esteem
+     myself. Oh, save me, Soeren! I have honestly divided my money with
+     you; I yet am possessed of forty dollars. Marry me, and take me
+     away out of this wo, and out of this misery! Take me to a place
+     where nobody will know me, where you may not be ashamed of me. I
+     will work for you like a slave, till the blood comes out at my
+     finger-ends. Oh, take me away with you! In a year's time it may be
+     too late.'
+
+     "'Should I take you to my old father and mother?' said the sailor.
+
+     "'I will kiss the dust from their feet they may beat me, and I will
+     bear it without a murmur--will patiently bear every blow. I am
+     already old, that I know. I shall soon be eight-and-twenty; but it
+     is an act of mercy, which I beseech of you. If you will not do it,
+     nobody else will; and I think I must drink--drink till my brain
+     reels--and I forget what I have made myself!'
+
+     "'Is that the very important thing that you have got to tell me?'
+     remarked the sailor, with a cold indifference.
+
+     "Her tears, her sighs, her words of despair, sank deep into
+     Christian's heart. A visionary image had vanished, and with its
+     vanishing he saw the dark side of a naked reality.
+
+     "He found himself again alone.
+
+     "A few days after this, the ice had to be hewed away from the
+     channel. Christian and the sailor struck their axes deeply into the
+     firm ice, so that it broke into great pieces. Something white hung
+     fast to the ice in the opening; the sailor enlarged the opening,
+     and then a female corpse presented itself, dressed in white as for
+     a ball. She had amber leads round her neck, gold earrings, and she
+     held her hands closely folded against her breast as if for prayer.
+     It was Steffen-Margaret."
+
+"O.T." commences in a more lively style than either of the preceding
+novels, but soon becomes in fact the dullest and most wearisome of the
+three. During a portion of this novel he seems to have taken for his
+model of narrative the "Wilhelm Meister" of Goethe; but the calm
+domestic manner which is tolerable in the clear-sighted man, who we know
+can rise nobly from it when he pleases, accords ill enough with the
+bewildered, most displeasing, and half intelligible story which Andersen
+has here to relate.
+
+We have occupied ourselves quite sufficiently with these novels, and
+shall pass over "O.T." without further comment. Neither shall we bestow
+any of our space upon "The Poet's Bazaar," which seems to be nothing
+else than the Journal which the author may be supposed to have kept
+during his second visit to Italy, when he also extended his travels into
+Greece and Constantinople.
+
+We take refuge in the nursery--we will listen to these tales for
+children--we throw away the rigid pen of criticism--we will have a
+story.
+
+What precisely are the laws, what the critical rules, on which tales for
+children should be written, we will by no means undertake to define. Are
+they to contain nothing, in language or significance, beyond the
+apprehension of the inmates of the nursery? It is a question which we
+will not pretend to answer. Aristotle lays down nothing on the subject
+in his "Poetici;" nor Mr Dunlop in his "History of Fiction." If this be
+the law, if every thing must be level to the understanding of the
+frock-and-trousers population, then these, and many other Tales for
+Children, transgress against the first rule of their construction. How
+often does the story turn, like the novels for elder people, upon a
+marriage! Some king's son in disguise marries the beautiful princess.
+What idea has a child of marriage?--unless the sugared plum-cake
+distributed on such occasions comes in aid of his imagination. Marriage,
+to the infantine intelligence, must mean fine dresses, and infinite
+sweetmeats--a sort of juvenile party that is never to break up. Well,
+and the notion serves to carry on the tale withal. The imagination
+throws this temporary bridge over the gap, till time and experience
+supply other architecture. Amongst this collection, is a story in which
+vast importance is attached to a kiss. What can a curly-headed urchin,
+who is kissing, or being kissed, all day long, know of the value that
+may be given to what some versifier calls,
+
+     "The humid seal of soft affections!"
+
+To our apprehension, it has always appeared that the best books for
+children were those not written expressly for them, but which,
+interesting to all readers, happened to fasten peculiarly upon the
+youthful imagination,--such as "Robinson Crusoe," the "Arabian Nights,"
+"Pilgrim's Progress," &c. It is quite true that in all these there is
+much the child does not understand, but where there is something vividly
+apprehended, there is an additional pleasure procured, and an admirable
+stimulant, in the endeavour to penetrate the rest. There is all the
+charm of a riddle combined with all the fascination of a story. Besides,
+do we not throughout our boyhood and our youth, read with intense
+interest, and to our great improvement, books which we but partly
+understand? How much was lost to us of our Milton and our Shakspeare at
+an age when nevertheless we read them with intense interest and
+excitement, and therefore, we may be sure, with great profit. Throughout
+the whole season of our intellectual progress, we are necessarily
+reading works of which a great part is obscure to us; we get half at
+one time, and half at another.
+
+Not, by any means, that we intend to say a word against writing books
+for children; if they are good books we shall read them too. A clever
+man talking to his child, in the presence of his adult friends,--has it
+never been remarked, how infinitely amusing he may be, and what an
+advantage he has from this two-fold audience? He lets loose all his
+fancy, under pretence that he is talking to a child, and he couples this
+wildness with all his wit, and point, and shrewdness, because he knows
+his friend is listening. The child is not a whit the less pleased,
+because there is something above its comprehension, nor the friend at
+all the less entertained, because he laughs at what was not intended for
+his capacity. A writer of children's tales--(If they are any thing
+better than what every nursery-maid can invent for herself)--is
+precisely in this position: he will, he _must_ have in view the adult
+listener. While speaking to the child, he will endeavour to interest the
+parent who is overhearing him; and thus there may result a very amusing
+and agreeable composition.
+
+We have met with some children's tales which, we thought, were so
+plainly levelled at the parent, that they seemed little more than
+lectures to grown-up people in the disguise of stories to their
+children. Some of the very clever stories of Miss Edgeworth appear to be
+more evidently designed for the adult listener, than to the little
+people to whom they are immediately addressed. And they may perhaps
+render good service in this way. Perhaps some mature matron, far above
+counsel, may take a hint which she thinks was not _intended_--may accept
+that piece of good advice which she fancies her own shrewdness has
+discovered, and which the subtle, Miss Edgeworth had laid, like a trap,
+in her path.
+
+We are happy, we repeat, that we do not feel it incumbent upon us to
+settle the rules, the critical canon, of this nursery literature. We
+have no objection, however, to peep into it now and then, and we shall
+venture to give our readers another of Andersen's little stories, and so
+take our leave of him. We omit a sentence, here and there, where we can
+without injury to the tale; yet we have no fear that our gravest readers
+will think the extract too long. Our quotation is from the volume called
+"Tales from Denmark." There is another collection called, "The Shoes of
+Fortune;" these are higher in pretension, and inferior in merit.
+
+
+THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES.
+
+     "One day a couple of swindlers, who called themselves first-rate
+     weavers, made their appearance in the imperial town of----. They
+     pretended that they were able to weave the richest stuffs, in which
+     not only the colours and the pattern were extremely beautiful, but
+     that the clothes made of such stuffs possessed the wonderful
+     property of remaining invisible to him who was unfit for the office
+     he held, or was extremely silly.
+
+     "'What capital clothes they must be!' thought the Emperor. 'If I
+     had but such a suit, I could directly find out what people in my
+     empire were not equal to their office; and besides, I should be
+     able to distinguish the clever from the stupid. By Jove, I must
+     have some of this stuff made directly for me!' And so he ordered
+     large sums of money to be given to the two swindlers, that they
+     might set to work immediately.
+
+     "The men erected two looms, and did as if they worked very
+     diligently; but in reality they had got nothing on the loom. They
+     boldly demanded the finest silk, and gold thread, put it all in
+     their own pockets, and worked away at the empty loom till quite
+     late at night.
+
+     "'I should like to know how the two weavers are getting on with my
+     stuff,' said the Emperor one day to himself; 'but he was rather
+     embarrassed when he remembered that a silly fellow, or one unfitted
+     for his office, would not be able to see the stuff. 'Tis true, he
+     thought, as far as regarded himself, there was no risk whatever;
+     but yet he preferred sending some one else, to bring him
+     intelligence of the two weavers, and how they were getting on,
+     before he went himself; for every body in the whole town had heard
+     of the wonderful property that this stuff was said to possess.
+
+     "'I will send my worthy old minister,' said the Emperor at last,
+     after much consideration; 'he will be able to say how the stuff
+     looks better than anybody.'
+
+     "So the worthy old minister went to the room where the two
+     swindlers were' working away with all their might and main. 'Lord
+     help me!' thought the old man, opening his eyes as wide as
+     possible--'Why, I can't see the least thing whatever on the loom.'
+     But he took care not to say so.
+
+     "The swindlers, pointing to the empty frame, asked him most
+     politely if the colours were not of great beauty. And the poor old
+     minister looked and looked, and could see nothing whatever. 'Bless
+     me!' thought he to himself, 'Am I, then, really a simpleton? Well,
+     I never thought so. Nobody knows it. I not fit for office! No,
+     nothing on earth shall make me say that I have not seen the stuff!'
+
+     "'Well, sir,' said one of the swindlers, still working busily at
+     the empty loom, 'you don't say if the stuff pleases you or not.'
+
+     "'Oh beautiful! beautiful! the work is admirable!' said the old
+     minister looking hard through his spectacles. 'This pattern, and
+     these colours! Well, well, I shall not fail to tell the Emperor
+     that they are most beautiful!'
+
+     "The swindlers then asked for more money, and silk, and gold
+     thread; but they put as before all that was given them into their
+     own pocket, and still continued to work with apparent diligence at
+     the empty loom.
+
+     "Some time after, the Emperor sent another officer to see how the
+     work was getting on. But he fared like the other; he stared at the
+     loom from every side; but as there was nothing there, of course he
+     could see nothing. 'Does the stuff not please you as much as it did
+     the minister?' asked the men, making the same gestures as before,
+     and talking of splendid colours and patterns, which did not exist.
+
+     "'Stupid I certainly am not!' thought the new commissioner; 'then
+     it must be that I am not fitted for my lucrative office--that were
+     a good joke! However, no one dare even suspect such a thing.' And
+     so he began praising the stuff that he could not see, and told the
+     two swindlers how pleased he was to behold such beautiful colours,
+     and such charming patterns. 'Indeed, your majesty,' said he to the
+     Emperor on his return, 'the stuff which the weavers are making, is
+     extraordinarily fine.'
+
+     "It was the talk of the whole town.
+
+     "The Emperor could no longer restrain his curiosity to see this
+     costly stuff; so, accompanied by a chosen train of courtiers, among
+     whom were the two trusty men who had so admired the work, off he
+     went to the two cunning cheats. As soon as they heard of the
+     Emperor's approach they began working with all diligence, although
+     there was still not a single thread on the loom.
+
+     "'Is it not magnificent?' said the two officers of the crown, who
+     had been there before. 'Will your majesty only look? What a
+     charming pattern! What beautiful colours!' said they, pointing to
+     the empty frames, for they thought the others really could see the
+     stuff.
+
+     "'What's the meaning of this?' said the Emperor to himself, 'I see
+     nothing! Am _I_ a simpleton! I not fit to be Emperor? Oh,' he cried
+     aloud, 'charming! The stuff is really charming! I approve of it
+     highly;' and he smiled graciously, and examined the empty looms
+     minutely. And the whole suite strained their eyes and cried
+     'Beautiful!' and counselled his Majesty to have new robes made out
+     of this magnificent stuff for the grand procession that was about
+     to take place. And so it was ordered.
+
+     "The day on which the procession was to take place, the two men
+     brought the Emperor's new suit to the palace; they held up their
+     arms as though they had something in their hands, and said, 'Here
+     are your Majesty's knee-breeches; here is the coat, and here the
+     mantle. The whole suit is as light as a cobweb; and when one is
+     dressed, one would almost fancy one had nothing on: but that is
+     just the beauty of this stuff!'
+
+     "'Of course!' said all the courtiers, although not a single one of
+     them could see any thing of the clothes.
+
+     "'Will your imperial Majesty most graciously be pleased to undress?
+     We will then try on the new things before the glass.'
+
+     "The Emperor allowed himself to be undressed, and then the two
+     cheats did exactly as if each one helped him on with an article of
+     dress, while his Majesty turned himself round on all sides before
+     the mirror.
+
+     "'The canopy which is to be borne above your Majesty in the
+     procession, is in readiness without,' announced the chief master of
+     the ceremonies.
+
+     "'I am quite ready,' replied the Emperor, turning round once more
+     before the looking-glass.
+
+     "So the Emperor walked on, under the high canopy, through the
+     streets of the metropolis, and all the people in the streets and at
+     the windows cried out, 'Oh, how beautiful the Emperor's new dress
+     is!' In short there was nobody but wished to cheat himself into the
+     belief that he saw the Emperor's new clothes.
+
+     "'But he has nothing on!' said a little child.'
+
+     "And then all the people cried out, 'He has nothing on!'
+
+     "But the Emperor and the courtiers--they retained their seeming
+     faith, and walked on with great dignity to the close of the
+     procession."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] _The Improvisatore; or, Life in Italy_, from the Danish of HANS
+CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. Translated by MARY HOWITT.
+
+_Only a Fiddler!_ and _O.T. or, Life in Denmark_, by the Author of _The
+Improvisatore_. Translated by MARY HOWITT.
+
+_A True Story of my Life_, by HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. Translated by
+MARY HOWITT.
+
+_Tales from Denmark_. Translated by CHARLES BONAR.
+
+_A Picture-Book without Pictures_. Translated by META TAYLOR.
+
+_The Shoes of Fortune, and other Tales_.
+
+_A Poet's Bazaar_. Translated by CHARLES BECKWITH, Esq.
+
+[2] See Allan Cunningham's _Lives of the Painters and Sculptors_, vol.
+ii. p. 150.
+
+[3] Not very clearly expressed by the translator. One would think that
+our Saviour, in his progress to the cross, had passed through the area
+of the Coliseum, and not that each of the pictures on these altars
+represented one of the resting-points, &c. Mrs Howitt is sometimes hasty
+and careless in her writing. And why does she employ such expressions as
+these:--"many white buttons," "beside of it," "beside of us?" We have
+read _a many_ English books, but never met them in anyone beside of
+this.
+
+[4] Vol. x, Nov. 1821, p. 373.
+
+
+
+
+THE VISION OF CAGLIOSTRO.
+
+     "In the horror of a vision by night, when deep sleep is wont to
+     hold men, fear seized upon me, and trembling, and all my bones were
+     affrighted; and when a spirit passed before me, the hair of my
+     flesh stood up."--_The Book of Job._
+
+
+The last, and perhaps the most renowned of the Rosicrucians, was,
+according to a historical insinuation, implicated in that notorious
+juggle of the Diamond Necklace, which tended so much to increase the
+popular hatred towards the evil-doomed and beautiful Marie Antoinette.
+Whether this imputation were correct, or whether the Cardinal Duc de
+Rohan was the only distinguished person deluded by the artifices of the
+Countess de la Motte, it is certain that Joseph Balsamo, commonly called
+Alexandre, Count de Cagliostro, was capable of any knavery, however
+infamous. Guile was his element; audacity was his breastplate; delusion
+was his profession; immorality was his creed; debauchery was his
+consolation; his own genius--the genius of cunning--was the god of his
+idolatry. Had Cagliostro been sustained by the principles of rectitude,
+he must have become the idol as well as the wonder of his
+contemporaries; his accomplishments must have dazzled them into
+admiration, for he possessed all the attributes of a Crichton. Beautiful
+in aspect, symmetrical in proportions, graceful in carriage, capacious
+in intellect, erudite as a Benedictine, agile as an Acrobat, daring as
+Scaevola, persuasive as Alcibiades, skilled in all manly pastimes,
+familiar with the philosophies of the scholar and the worldling, an
+orator, a musician, a courtier, a linguist,--such was the celebrated
+Cagliostro. In his abilities, he was as capricious as Leonardo, and as
+subtle as Macchiavelli; but he was without the magnanimity of the one,
+or the crafty prudence of the other. Lucretius so darkened the glories
+of nature by the glooms of his blasphemous imagination, that he might
+have described this earth as a golden globe animated by a demon.
+Fashioned in a mould as marvellous as that golden orb, and animated in
+like manner by a devilish and wily spirit, was Balsamo the Rosicrucian.
+
+Between the period of his birth in 1743, and that of his dissolution in
+1795, when incarcerated in a dungeon of San Leo, at Rome, Cagliostro,
+rendered himself in a manner illustrious by practising upon the
+credulity of his fellow-creatures. Holstein had witnessed his pretended
+successes in alchemy. Strasburg had received him with admiration, as the
+evangelist of a mystic religion. Paris had resounded with the marvels
+revealed by his performances in Egyptian free-masonry. Molten gold was
+said to stream at pleasure over the rim of his crucibles; divination by
+astrology was as familiar to him as it had been of yore to Zoroaster or
+Nostradamus; graves yawned at the beck of his potent finger; their
+ghostly habitants, appeared at his preternatural bidding. The
+necromantic achievements of Doctor Dee and William Lilly dwindled into
+insignificance before those attributed to a man who, although apparently
+in the bloom of manhood, was believed to have survived a thousand
+winters.
+
+Accident had supplied Cagliostro with an accomplice of suitable
+depravity. In the course of his eccentric peregrinations among the
+continental cities, he had formed the acquaintance of a female,
+remarkable for her consummate loveliness and her boundless sensuality.
+Married to this Circe, the adventurer began to thrive beyond his most
+sanguine anticipations. It must be remembered, however, that in his
+nefarious proceedings, Balsamo was aided by a faculty of invention
+almost miraculous in its fruitfulness, and occasionally almost sublime
+in its audacity. By these means, he ultimately became the most
+astonishing impostor the world had ever beheld, with the solitary
+exception of Mohammed.
+
+As a forerunner of a disastrous revolution, the appearance of this
+fantastic personage in the capital of civilisation was at once dismal
+and prophetic. Unconsciously, he was the prophet of disaster.
+Unconsciously, he was the prelude--half-solemn, half-grotesque--of a
+bloody and diabolical saturnalia. History, both profane and inspired,
+tells us that when the Euphrates forsook its natural channel, and the
+hostile legions trampled under its gates at nightfall; when the
+revellers of Belshazzar, drunk with prolonged orgies and haggard with
+the shadow of an impending doom, staggered through the marble vestibules
+and out upon the marble causeways, rending their purple vestures in the
+moonlight, there was weeping among the lords of Chaldea,--"Wo! wo! wo!"
+was walled in the streets of Babylon. A similar destiny awaited Paris,
+but as yet a different spectacle was visible; as yet the carousals of
+the metropolis were at their zenith; as yet the current flowed in its
+ancient channel; as yet the woes of the empire were not written on the
+wall of the palace. Festivities were never conducted with more
+magnificence than immediately before the downfall of the monarchy and
+the general desolation of the kingdom. The pomps of the religion, the
+pageantries of the court, and the munificence of the nobility, were
+never before characterised by so much grandeur and profusion. The
+church, the sovereign, and the oligarchy, were crowning themselves for
+the sacrifice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Opposite the Rue de Luxembourg, and parallel with the Rue de Caumartin,
+there stood, in the year 1782, a little villa-cottage or rustic
+pavilion. It was separated from the Boulevard de la Madeleine by a green
+paddock, and was concealed in a nest of laurustinus and clematis.
+Autumn, that generous season, which seems in its bounty to impart a
+smell of ripeness to the very leaves, had already scattered dyes of gold
+and vermilion over the verdure of this shrubbery. A night-breeze,
+impregnated with vegetable perfumes, and wafting before it one of these
+leaves, stole between the branches--over the fragrant mould--across a
+grass-plot--through an open window of the cottage. The leaf tinkled. It
+had fallen upon the pages of a volume from which a man was reading by a
+lamp. At that moment the clock of the Capuchins tolled out a doleful
+TWO; it was answered by the numerous bells of Paris. Solemn, querulous,
+sepulchral, quavering, silvery, close at hand, or modulated into a dim
+echo by the distance, the voice of the inexorable hours vibrated over
+the capital, and then ceased.
+
+Alas, for the heart of Cagliostro!
+
+The solitary watcher shuddered as the metallic sounds floated in from
+the belfries. Although startled by the dropping of the leaf, he closed
+the volume, leisurely placing it between the pages as a marker--_it_, so
+brittle! so yellow! so typical of decay and mortality! The book
+comprised the writings of Sir Cornelius Agrippa. Having tossed the old
+alchemist from him with an air of overwhelming dejection, the student
+abandoned himself to the most sorrowful reflections.
+
+He had but recently returned from a masked ball, and a domino of
+salmon-coloured satin still hung loosely over his shoulders. As the
+feeble light of the lamp glimmered upon the jet-bugles and
+steel-spangles of his costume, there was visible the perpetual contrast
+of his destiny,--a mingling of the most abstruse researches and the most
+extravagant frivolities. Jewels sparkled upon his hands and bosom; the
+varicose veins on his temples throbbed with a feverish precision; the
+fumes of the wine-cup flushed his cheek and disordered his imagination.
+
+"Death," thought the Rosicrucian, "fills me with abhorrence; and yet
+life is totally devoid of happiness. Happiness! O delusive phantom of
+humanity, how art thou attainable? Through Fame? Fame is mine, and I am
+wretched. Over the realms of civilisation my name is noised abroad; in
+the populous cities the glory of my art resounds; when my barge glided
+among the palaces of Venice, the blue Adriatic was purpled with blossoms
+in my honour.--Fame? Fame brings not happiness to Cagliostro. Wealth?
+Not so. Ducats, pistoles, louis-d'or, have brought no panacea to the
+sorrows of Balsamo. Beauty? Nay; for, in the profligate experience of
+capitals, the sage is saddened with the knowledge that comeliness, at
+best, is but an exquisite hypocrisy. I have striven also, vainly, for
+contentment in the luxuries of voluptuous living. The talisman of
+Epicurus has evaded my grasp--the glittering bauble![5] The ravishing
+ideal JOY, has been to me not as the statue to Pygmalion: I have
+grovelled down in adoration at its feet, and have found it the same
+immobile, relentless, unresponsive image. Youth is yet mine, but it is a
+youth hoary in desolation. Centuries of anguish have flooded through my
+bosom, even in the heyday of existence. The tangible and the intangible,
+the visible and the invisible, the material and the immaterial, have
+been at deadly strife in my conjectures. The present has been to me an
+evasion, the future an enigma; the earth a delusion, the heavens a
+doubt. Even the pomp of those inexplicable stars is a new agony of
+indecision to my recoiling fancy[6]--so impassive in their
+unchangeableness, so awful in the quiescence of their eternal grandeur.
+Supreme, too, in my bewilderment, remains the problem of their
+revolutions--the cause of their impulsion[7] as well as of their
+creation. Baffled in my scrutiny of the sublime puzzle which is _domed_
+over the globe at nightfall, dizzy with the contemplation of such
+abysses of mystery, my thoughts have reverted to this earth, in which
+pleasure sparkles but to evaporate. No solace in the investigation of
+those infinitudes, which are only fathomable by a system revolting to my
+judgment--the system of a theocratic philosophy; no consolation in the
+dreamings evoked by the lore of the stupendous skies: my heart throbs
+still for the detection and the possession of happiness. Nature has
+endowed me with senses--five delicate and susceptible instruments--for
+the realisation of bodily delight. Sights of unutterable loveliness,
+tones of surpassing melody, perfumes of delicious fragrance, marvellous
+sensibilities of touch and palate, afford me so many channels for
+enjoyment. Still the insufficiency of the palpable and appreciable is
+paramount; still the everlasting dolor interposes: the appetite is
+satiated, the aroma palls upon the nostrils, the nerves are affected by
+irritability, the harmony merges into dissonance; even the beautiful
+becomes so far an abomination that man is 'mad for the sight of his eyes
+that he did see.' Such is the sterile and repulsive penalty of the
+searcher after happiness. Happiness! O delusive phantom of humanity, how
+art thou attainable?"
+
+A thrill pervaded the frame of the visionary as he paused in his
+meditations. Subtle as the birth of an emotion--solemn as the presage of
+a disaster--terrible as the throes of dissolution, was the pang that
+agonised the Rosicrucian. His flesh crept upon his bones at the
+consciousness of a preternatural but invisible presence--the presence of
+an unseen visitant in the dead of the midnight! His heart quaked as it
+drank in, like Eliphaz, "_the veins of_ ITS _whisper_."[8] There was no
+sound or reverberation, and yet the language streamed upon the knowledge
+of the listener with a distinctness beyond that of human articulation.
+The stillness of his solitude was only broken by the rustling of the
+night-breeze among the laurustines, and yet in the ears of Cagliostro
+there was the utterance as of unsubstantial lips--the sense as of a
+divine symphony--"the thunder, and the music, and the pomp" of an
+unearthly Voice.[9]
+
+"Balsamo!" it cried, "thy thoughts are blasphemy; thy lamentations are
+foolishness; thy mind is darkened by the glooms of a most barren
+dejection. Away! vain Sceptic, with the syllogisms of infidelity. The
+glory of the immortal WILL evades thy comprehension in the depths of
+infinitude. When in its natural brightness, the spiritual being of man
+reflects that glory as in a mirror. _Thine_ is blurred by sensuality.
+Tranquillity is denied thee, because of the concupiscence of thy
+ambition. A profligate and venal career has troubled thy soul with
+misgivings. Thou hast scorned even the five senses--those golden portals
+of humanity! Know, O dreamer, that in them alone consists the enjoyment
+of a finite existence: know that _through the virtuous use of those five
+senses, earthly happiness is attainable_! Dost thou still tremble in thy
+unbelief? Arise, Balsamo, and behold the teachings of eternity!"
+
+As the last sentence resounded in the heart of Cagliostro, up into the
+air floated the Rosicrucian and the Voice.
+
+
+TIBERIUS.
+
+Time and distance seemed to be conquered in that mysterious ascension,
+and an impenetrable darkness enveloped the impostor as he felt himself
+carried swiftly through the atmosphere. When he had somewhat recovered,
+however, from his astonishment, the motion ceased, and the light of an
+Italian evening beamed upon him from the heavens. A scene then revealed
+itself around Cagliostro, the like of which his eyes had never before
+beheld, or his imagination, in its wildest mood, conceived.
+
+He was standing in a secluded grove in the island of Capreae. Fountains
+sparkled under the branches; blossoms of the gaudiest colours flaunted
+on the brambles, or enamelled the turf; laughter and music filled the
+air with a confusion of sweet sounds; and among the intricacies of the
+trees, bands of revellers flitted to and fro, clad in the antique
+costumes of Rome. Under the shadow of a gigantic orange-bush, upon a
+couch of luxurious softness and embroidered in gorgeous arabesques,
+there reclined the figure of an old man. His countenance was hideous
+with age and debauchery. Sin glimmered in the evil light of his
+eyes--those enormous and bloodshot eyes with which (_praegrandibus
+oculis_) the historian tells us he could see even in the night-time.[10]
+Habitual intemperance had inflamed his complexion, and disfigured his
+skin with disgusting eruptions; while his body, naturally robust in its
+proportions, had become bloated with the indolence of confirmed
+gluttony. A garment (the _toga virilis_) of virgin whiteness covered his
+limbs; along the edge of the garment was the broad hem of Tyrian purple
+indicative of the imperial dignity; and around the hoary brow of the
+epicurean, was woven a chaplet of roses and aloe-leaves.
+
+Cagliostro recoiled in abhorrence before a spectacle at once so austere
+and lascivious. His spirit quailed at the sight of a visage in which
+appeared to be concentrated the infamy of many centuries. His soul
+revolted at the sinister and ferocious expression pervading every
+lineament, and lurking in every wrinkle. As he gazed, however, a blithe
+sound startled him from the umbrage of the boughs. Quick, lively,
+jocund, to the clashing of her cymbals, there bounded forth an Italian
+maiden in the garb of a Bacchante. Her feet agile as the roe's, her eyes
+lustrous and defiant, her hair dishevelled, her bosom heaving, her arms
+symmetrical as sculpture, but glowing with the roseate warmth of youth,
+the virgin still rejoiced, as it were, in the tumult of the dance.
+Grapes of a golden-green relieved by the ruddy-brown of their foliage,
+clustered in a garland about her temples, and leaped in unison with her
+movements. Around! with her raven tresses streaming abroad in
+ringlets--around! with her sandals clinking on the gravel to the
+capricious beat of her cymbals--around! with her light robes flowing
+back from a jewelled brooch above the knee--singing, sparkling,
+undulating, circling, rustling, the Bacchante entranced the heart of the
+Rosicrucian. She gleamed before him like the embodiment of enthusiasm.
+She was the genius of motion, the divinity of the dance; she was
+Terpsichore in the grace of her movements, Euterpe in the ravishing
+sweetness of her voice. A thrill of admiration suffused with a deeper
+tint even the abhorred cheek of the voluptuary.
+
+By an almost imperceptible degree, the damsel abated the ardour of her
+gyrations, her cymbals clashed less frequently, the song faded from her
+lip, the flutter of her garments ceased, the vine-fruit drooped upon her
+forehead. She stood before the couch palpitating with emotion, and
+radiant with a divine beauty. In another instant, she had prostrated
+herself upon the earth, for in the decrepit monster of Capreae, she
+recognised the lord of the whole world--Tiberius.
+
+"Arise, maiden of Apulia," he said, with an immediate sense that he
+beheld another of those innocent damsels, who were stolen from their
+pastoral homes on the Peninsula to become the victims of his depravity.
+"Arise, and slake my thirst from yonder goblet. The tongue of Tiberius
+is dry with the avidity of his passion."
+
+An indescribable loathing entered into the imagination of the Bacchante
+even as she lay upon the grass; yet she rose with precipitation and
+filled a chalice to the brim with Falernian. Tiberius grasped it with an
+eager hand, and his mouth pressed the lip of the cup as if to drain its
+ruby vintage to the bottom. Suddenly, however, the eyes of the old man
+blazed with a raging light; the scowl of lust was forgotten; the
+vindictiveness of a fiend shone in his dilated eyeballs, and, with a
+yell of fury, he cast the goblet into the air, crying out that the wine
+_boiled like the bowl of Pluto_. He was writhing in one of those
+paroxysms of rage, which justified posterity in regarding him as a
+madman. The howling of Tiberius resounded among the verdure, as the
+rattle of a snake might do when it raises its deadly crest from its lair
+among the flowers. Quick as thought at the first sound of those
+inexorable accents, the grove was thronged with the revellers. They
+jostled each other in their solicitude to minister to the cruelty of the
+despot; and that cruelty was as ruthless, and as hell-born, as it was
+ingenious and appalling.
+
+Obedient to a gesture of Tiberius, the Bacchante was placed upon a
+pedestal. For a moment, she stood before them an exquisite statue Of
+despair--exquisite even in the excess of her bewilderment. For a moment,
+she stood there stunned by the suddenness of the commotion, and frantic
+with the consciousness of her peril. For a moment she gazed about her
+for aid, wildly but, alas! vainly. No pity beamed upon her in that more
+horrible Gomorrah. The marble trembled under her feet--a sulphurous
+stench shot through its crevices--the virgin shrieked and fell forwards,
+scorched and blackened to a cinder. She was blasted, as if by a
+thunderbolt.[11] Cagliostro looked with horror upon the ashes of the
+Bacchante. He had seen youth stricken down by age; he had seen virtue
+annihilated, so to speak, at the mandate of vice; he had seen--and even
+_his_ callous heart exulted at the thought--he had seen innocence
+snatched from pollution, when upon the very threshold of an earthly
+hell. While rejoicing in this reflection, he was aroused by the
+stertorous breathing of the emperor. The crowned demon of the island was
+being borne away to his palace upon the shoulders of his attendants.
+Although maddened by an insatiable thirst, and by a gloom that was
+becoming habitual, the monster lay upon his cushions as impotent as a
+child, in the midst of his diseases and iniquities.[12]
+
+At the feet of the Rosicrucian were huddled the bones of the virgin of
+Apulia; and the babbling of the fountains was alone audible in the
+solitude.
+
+"Such," said the mournful Voice, as Cagliostro again felt himself
+carried through the darkness--"such, Balsamo, are the miseries of a
+debauched appetite."
+
+
+AGRIPPA.
+
+In another instant, the impostor was standing upon the floor of a
+gigantic amphitheatre in Palestine. The whole air was refulgent with the
+light of a summer morning, and through the loopholes of the structure,
+the eye caught the blue shimmer of the Mediterranean. Banners,
+emblazoned with the ciphers of Rome, fluttered from the walls of the
+amphitheatre. Its internal circumference was thronged with a vast
+concourse of citizens; and, immediately about the Rosicrucian, groups of
+foreign traders, habited as if for some unusual ceremony, were scattered
+over the arena. Expectation was evinced in every movement of the
+assemblage, in every murmur that floated round the benches. The
+worshippers were there, it seemed, and were awaiting the high-priest.
+That high-priest was approaching, and more than a high-priest; for Herod
+Agrippa, the tetrarch of Judea had descended from Jerusalem to Caesarea,
+for the celebration of warlike games in honour of the Emperor Claudius,
+and, on the completion of those festivities, the deputed sovereign had
+consented, at the intercession of Blastus, to receive a deputation of
+certain Phenician ambassadors who were solicitous for an assurance of
+his clemency. Those envoys--the merchant princes of Tyre and Sidon--were
+tarrying in the public theatre of the city for the promised interview in
+the presence of the people of Samaria.
+
+Cagliostro marvelled, as he scanned the scene before him, whether it
+were all a reality or a delusion of his fancy; but the lapping of the
+surge upon the adjacent beach, and the perfume of Oriental spices which
+impregnated the breezes from the Levant, and even the motes that swarmed
+about him like phosphoric atoms, proved that it was no juggle of a
+distempered imagination.
+
+Suddenly the air was rent with acclamations; the crowd rose as if by a
+single impulse; trumpets sounded in the seven porches of the
+amphitheatre; again the plaudits shook the air like the concussion of
+enthusiasm, and the deputation in the arena prostrated themselves in the
+dust. Balsamo saw, at once, the reason of this rejoicing; he saw the
+tetrarch of Judea seated upon a throne of ivory. The crown of Agrippa
+glittered upon his forehead with an unnatural brightness--it was of the
+purest gold, radiating from the brow in spikes, and flecked with pearls
+of an uncommon size. Silent--erect--inflated with pride at his own
+grandeur, and the adulation of the rabble, sate the King of Palestine.
+Silent--awe-stricken--uncovered before the majesty of the representative
+of Claudius, stood the people of Samaria and Phenicia. Extreme beauty of
+an elevated and heroic character shone upon the features of Herod,
+although his beard was grizzled with the passage of fifty-four winters.
+In the midst of the silence of the populace, the morning sun rose,
+almost abruptly, above the topmost arches of the edifice, and darted his
+beams full upon the glorious garments of Agrippa. It played in sparkles
+of intense lustre upon the jewels of his diadem; and upon the outer
+robe, which was of silver tissue woven with consummate skill and
+powdered with diamonds, the refraction of the sunlight produced an
+intolerable splendour.[13] The Samaritans shielded their eyes from its
+magnificence; they were dazzled; they were blinded; they thrilled with
+admiration and astonishment.
+
+Agrippa spoke.
+
+At the first sound of his accents, there was a whisper of awe among the
+multitude--it increased--it grew louder--it arose to the heavens in one
+prolonged and jubilant shout of adoration.
+
+"It is a God!" they cried--"it is a God that speaketh, not a man!"
+
+As the language of that impious homage saluted the ears of Herod, his
+mouth curled with a smile of satisfaction, his soul expanded with an
+inexpressible tumult of emotions, he drank in the blasphemous flatteries
+of the rabble, and assumed to himself the power and the dignity of the
+Most High God. Yet in the very ecstasy of those sensations, his
+countenance became ghastly, his lips writhed, his eyes beheld with
+unutterable dismay the omen of his dissolution--the visible phantom of
+an avenging Nemesis.[14] He staggered from his throne, crying aloud in
+the extremity of his anguish; a sudden corruption had seized upon his
+body--he was being devoured by worms.
+
+The heart of Cagliostro quailed within him at the lamentations of the
+people of Samaria, as they beheld their idol smitten down by death in
+the midst of his surpassing pomp. Even the Jewish hagiographer tells us,
+with pathetic simplicity, that King Agrippa himself wept at the wailings
+of the adoring mob.
+
+Again the Alchemist found himself enveloped in darkness, again the
+unearthly Voice stole into his brain.
+
+"Lo!" it said, "how the frame rots in the ermine: how the body and soul
+are polluted by vicious passions! Such, Balsamo, are the penalties of
+the lusts of the flesh."
+
+
+MILTON.
+
+Another scene then revealed itself to the Rosicrucian, but one
+altogether different from those he had already witnessed. Instead of
+being in an Oriental amphitheatre, he was standing in a rural lane;
+instead of tumult he found tranquillity; instead of regal pageantries an
+almost primitive simplicity. He inhaled the sweet smells of clover and
+newly-turned mould with a zest hitherto unexperienced. The gurgling of a
+brook by the wayside saluted his ears, as it struggled through the
+rushes and tinkled over the pebbles, with a sound more agreeable than he
+ever remembered to have heard from the instruments of court musicians.
+For the first time nature seemed to disclose her real loveliness to his
+comprehension. Every where she appeared to abound with beauties: in the
+bee that lit upon the nettle and sucked the honey out of its blossom; in
+the nettle that nodded under the weight of the bee; in the dew that
+dropped like a diamond from the alder-bough when the thrush alighted on
+its stem; in the thrush that warbled till the speckled feathers on its
+throat throbbed as if its heart were in its song; in the slug that
+trailed a silver track upon the dust; in the very dust itself that
+twirled in threads and circles on the ground as the wind swerved round
+the corner of the hedgerow. Cagliostro was entranced with the most novel
+and pleasurable emotions, as he strolled on towards the building he had
+already observed. From the elevation of the ground which he was
+traversing, his glance roved with admiration over a wide and diversified
+extent of country; over a prospect richly wooded and teeming with
+vegetation; over orchards laden with fruit and knee-deep in grass; over
+fields of barley bristling with golden ripeness; over distant mills,
+churning the water into foam, and driving gusts of meal out through the
+open doorway; over meadows where the sheep cropped the cool herbage, and
+the cattle lay in the sunshine sleeping; over village steeples, over
+homesteads brown with age, or hid amongst the verdure. The worldling
+scanned the profusion of the panorama with an amazement that was
+exquisite from its newness. He marvelled at the charms that strewed the
+earth in such abundance, at the almost unnumbered forms and colours of
+her vitality, at the wonderful harmony that subsisted amidst all those
+various hues and shapes. Never had the joys derivable from the sense of
+vision appeared of so much value as now that he gazed into the deep and
+delicious magnificence of nature. His sight, with a sort of luxurious
+abandonment, strayed over the contrasts, and penetrated into the
+distances of the landscape; his bosom swelled with the consciousness of
+a sympathy with that creation of which he felt himself to be but a
+kindred unit, or, at best, a sentient atom.
+
+It was while absorbed in these sensations, that Cagliostro paused before
+the rustic dwelling-house towards which his steps had been involuntarily
+directed. The building was situated at a few paces from the pathway.
+There was nothing about it to arrest the attention of a passer-by,
+except, perhaps, all appearance of extreme but picturesque humility. The
+walls were riveted together with iron-bands in crossbars and zig-zags;
+the brickwork was decayed and crumbling away in blotches; the roof was
+low and thatched. Yet, in spite of these evidences of poverty, the
+scholar regarded the structure with a reverential aspect, with such an
+aspect as he might have presented had he contemplated the hut of Baucis
+and Philemon.
+
+The threshold of this obscure edifice formed of itself a bower of
+greenery, thickly covered with the blooms of the honey-suckle. Under the
+porch was seated a man of a most venerable countenance. He was muffled
+in a gray coat of the coarsest texture, and his legs being crossed, a
+worsted stocking and a slipper of untanned leather betrayed the meanness
+of his under garments. His hair, brilliant with a whiteness like that of
+milk, was parted in the centre of the forehead, and fell over his
+shoulders in those negligent curls called _oreilles de chien_, which
+became fashionable long afterwards, during the days of the French
+Directory. Had the Alchemist remained profoundly ignorant as to the
+identity of the old man, he must still have observed with interest,
+features which were equally characterised by the pensiveness of the
+student and the paleness of the valetudinarian. He knew, however,
+instinctively, as he had done upon the two preceding occasions, that he
+beheld a personage of illustrious memory. And he knew rightly, for it
+was Milton. While the great plague was desolating the metropolis, he had
+escaped from his residence in the Artillery Walk, and sought security
+from the contagion by a temporary sojourn in Buckinghamshire.
+
+Opposite the immortal sage stood a person of about the same years, but
+of a very different deportment--it was the dearest of his few friends,
+and the most ardent of his many worshippers, Richardson. The latter was
+leaning against the trunk of a great maple-tree that grew close to the
+parlour-lattice, stretching forth its enormous branches in all
+directions, and mingling its foliage with the smoke that issued from the
+chimney. Richardson had been reading aloud but a moment before, from a
+volume of Boccaccio; he had placed the book, however, upon the
+window-sill, in obedience to a movement from his companion, and
+continued, with his arms folded and his eyelids closed, a silent and
+almost inanimate portion of the domestic group. The quietude which
+ensued was so contagious that Cagliostro remarked with a feeling of
+listlessness, the details and accessories of the spectacle--the silk
+curtains of rusty green festooned before the open window, the
+tobacco-pipe lying among the manuscripts upon the table, even the
+slouched-hat hanging from the back of an arm-chair. The rambling
+meditations of Balsamo were soon concentrated upon a loftier theme, by
+the voice of Milton singing in a subdued tone the antistrophe of a
+favourite ode of Pindar. As the noble words of the Greek lyrist rolled
+with an indescribable gusto from the lips of Milton, it seemed to the
+Rosicrucian that he had never before comprehended the true euphony of
+the language. And the visage of the old bard responded to the strain of
+Pindar; it was illumined with a certain majesty of expression that
+imparted additional dignity to a countenance at all times beaming with
+wisdom. In appreciating the Pagan poet, the poet of Christianity
+appeared to glow with enthusiasm like that which entranced his whole
+soul in the moments of his own superb inspiration.[15] Nor was the
+grandeur of the head diminished in any manner by the unpoetical
+proportions of the body, for, to the acknowledgment of his most partial
+biographer, Richardson, the stature of Milton was so much below the
+ordinary height, and so much beyond the ordinary bulk, that he might
+almost be described as "short and thick." Yet, notwithstanding these
+peculiarities of the frame, an august radiance seemed to envelope the
+brow--a brow, hoary alike from years and from misfortunes--and to invest
+with a sublime air the figure of that old man huddled in that old gray
+coat. Cagliostro gazed with profound interest upon Milton as the rolling
+melody of Pindar streamed into his ears, when suddenly the song ceased,
+and the face of the singer was raised to the resplendent light of the
+heavens. Alas! those eyes turned vacantly in their sockets--those eyes
+which had once looked so sorrowfully on the sightless Galileo--those
+eyes which had mourned over the ashes of _Lycidas_, and rained upon them
+tears transmuted by poetry into a shower of precious stones! The misery
+of his blindness recurred to Milton himself at that same instant. A
+cloud of grief descended upon his countenance. He experienced one of
+those poignant feelings of regret which, in our own day, occasionally
+oppress the heart of Augustin Thierry--for with the sensibility of a
+poet he _knew_ that the hour was beautiful. Never had Cagliostro seen
+human face express such exquisite but patient suffering; it seemed to be
+_listening_ to the loveliness of the earth; it seemed to be _inhaling_
+the glories of nature, as it were, through those channels which were not
+obliterated. The stirring of the leaves, the scent of the woodbine, the
+pattering of the winged seeds of the maple upon the pages of Boccaccio,
+the fitful twittering of the birds--all ascended as offerings of
+recompense to the blind man, but they only tended to enhance the sense
+of his affliction. He caught but the skirts of the goddess of that
+creation whose glories he had chanted in his celestial epic; and yet no
+murmur escaped from the dejected lip of Milton!
+
+Again darkness surrounded the Rosicrucian--again the awful voice
+resounded in his imagination.
+
+"Behold!" it said, "the sorrows of the great and virtuous when the light
+is quenched: behold the divine prerogative of those who see! And know,
+Balsamo, that such are the boons thou hast contemned--such are the
+faculties thou hast polluted."
+
+
+MIRABEAU.
+
+After a scarcely perceptible pause, the Voice resumed: "The miseries of
+those who have abused or lost the powers of seeing, of tasting, or of
+feeling, have been revealed to thee, O sceptic! Thine eyes have
+penetrated into the dim retrospections of the past. Look onwards,
+Balsamo, and thou shalt discern the things that are germinating in the
+womb of the future."
+
+Cagliostro had scarcely heard this assurance when the curtain hitherto
+impenetrable to mortal, was raised--the dread shadows of the future were
+dispelled. He found himself in the upper apartment of one of the most
+distinguished mansions in Paris. The chamber, which was lofty and
+spacious, was enriched with the most costly furniture, and the most
+gorgeous decorations. Pilasters, incrusted with marble, and enamelled
+with lapis-lazuli, broke the monotony of the walls and supported the
+ceiling with their capitals. Between these pilasters were pedestals
+surmounted with statuary and busts; and these, again, were reflected in
+the mirrors hung about the room in profusion. An almost oriental luxury
+characterised the Turkish carpets, as soft as the greensward, and the
+draperies of velvet which concealed the windows, and fell in graceful
+folds about a bed at the opposite end of the apartment. An antique
+candelabrum stood upon the mantelpiece and shed a rosy and voluptuous
+light over this domestic pomp, while some odorous gums crackled in a
+chafing-dish upon the hearth and loaded the air with their fragrance.
+
+Familiar as the Rosicrucian was with splendour, his glance roved over
+these appurtenances with delight, for he had never before seen the
+evidences of wealth so enhanced by the evidences of refinement. He
+thought that the possession of such a dwelling would be something
+towards the realisation of happiness. In the very conception of that
+ignoble thought, however, he received a solemn and effectual admonition.
+Before him, in the silent chamber, on either side of it groups of
+attendants and men robed in the costumes of the court and the barracks,
+was a deathbed. It was the deathbed of an extraordinary being, the owner
+of all this grandeur. It was the deathbed of Honore-Gabriel de Mirabeau.
+
+The patrician demagogue reposed upon the pillows in the final stage of
+dissolution, and his broad forehead was already damp with the sweat of
+his last agony. Cagliostro surveyed the dying tribune with emotion, for
+in the very hideousness of his countenance there was a subtle and
+indefinable fascination. The gigantic stature which had so often awed
+the tumults of the National Assembly was prostrate. The voice, whose
+brazen tones had sounded like a trumpet over the land, was hushed--that
+voice which had exclaimed with such sublime significance to the
+Marseillais,--"When the last of the Gracchi expired, he flung dust
+towards heaven, and from this dust sprang Marius!"--that voice which had
+conquered the aversion of Mademoiselle de Marignan with its seductive
+melody--that voice which had been at once the oracle of the king and the
+law of the rabble. Mirabeau lay before the Rosicrucian, with his natural
+ugliness rendered yet more repulsive by the tokens of a terrible malady.
+The touch of death imparted additional horror to the massive deformity
+of his skull, to the coarseness of his pockmarked features, to his
+sunken eyeballs, to his cheeks scared by disease, to his hair bristling
+and dishevelled like that of a gorgon. Still, through all these
+unsightly and almost loathsome peculiarities, there was perceptible a
+sort of masculine susceptibility. It was that susceptibility which gave
+zest to his debaucheries, and occasionally subdued into pathos the
+storms of his dazzling and sonorous eloquence.
+
+Never was a solitary life prized by so many millions, as that which was
+then ebbing from the breast of Mirabeau. He seemed to be the only
+guarantee for the solid adjustment of the Revolution. With his
+disappearance, all hope of tranquillity and good government was prepared
+to vanish. His was the intellect in which the extremes of that momentous
+epoch were united. He was the antithesis of public opinion. Noble by
+birth and plebeian by accident, a democrat in principle and a dictator
+in ambition, the shield of the monarch and the sword of the people, he
+was placed exactly between the contending powers of the age. He was the
+arbiter between royalty and revolt: on the one side he acquired the
+obedience of the sovereign through his fears, and on the other he
+obtained the allegiance of the multitude through their aspirations. His
+supremacy occupied at the same moment the palace, the legislative
+chamber, and the marketplace; for all recognised _in_ him the omen of
+their good fortune, and _through_ him, the realisation of their wishes.
+Flattered by the minions of the monarchy, applauded by the members of
+the National Assembly, and idolised by the mob, his influence rested, as
+it were, upon a triple foundation. And yet, by a contradiction as
+remarkable as the anomalies of his own character, all parties were
+disposed to rejoice at the probability of his departure. The King was
+gratified at the thought of his removal, forasmuch as Mirabeau was the
+impersonation of a formidable sedition; the political adventurers
+exulted in the prospect of his decease, because he monopolised
+popularity, and rendered them insignificant by the contrast of his
+colossal genius; the people, in like manner, were, not altogether
+displeased at the notion of his extinction, because he appeared to them
+the only obstacle between themselves, and the supreme authority. All
+valued him as their present preserver, and all hated him as their future
+impediment. Such were the conflicting sentiments entertained towards
+Mirabeau, during the last incidents of his eccentric and volatile
+career. And in the midst of so many antagonistic interests, he alone
+remained unshaken and unappalled, his oratory rendering him still the
+mouth-piece of the Revolution, his duplicity its diplomatist, and his
+intellectual contrivance its statesman. Nor was he satisfied with these
+successes; he sought others, and was equally fortunate. Profligacy and
+legislation equally divided his enthusiasm between them, and proved him
+to be not only the most daring politician, but the most debauched
+citizen in France. His power and popularity had now, however, reached
+their apogee, and Honore-Gabriel Riquetti Comte de Mirabeau was
+stretched upon his deathbed.
+
+Cagliostro approached the couch and listened, for the great demagogue
+was speaking. His voice was harsh even in a murmur, though it still
+retained, according to Lemercier, "a slight meridional accent." The rosy
+light of the candelabrum beamed upon his cadaverous lips.
+
+"Sprinkle me with perfumes, crown me with flowers, that thus I may enter
+upon eternal sleep."
+
+Memorable words--the last words of Gabriel de Mirabeau. They embody the
+spirit of his sterile philosophy, and are in unison with the
+evanescence of his genius.[16] As Cagliostro observed the limbs
+convulsed and the eyes glazed with a simultaneous pang, he was caught up
+again into the darkness, and again his soul hearkened to the whispers of
+the Holy Voice.
+
+"Thus," it said, "are those recompensed with disease and satiety, who
+are the slaves of their meanest, as of their noblest appetites; thus is
+their talisman shattered in the hour of its attainment."
+
+
+BEETHOVEN.
+
+When the reproachful accents ceased, Balsamo felt his feet once more
+pressing the earth, and the breezes rustling against his domino. He was
+wandering in the garden of what is termed the Schwarzpanier House,
+situated on a slope or glacis in the outskirts of Wahring. The evening
+was so far advanced, that candles already twinkled from the upper
+windows of the building, while the fires of the kitchens checkered the
+shrubs and gravel with patches of glaring light. Through the flowerbeds,
+and along the intricate paths of the shrubbery, the Alchemist strolled
+at a languid pace, musing upon the things he had already witnessed, when
+his vigilant ears caught the tones of a musical instrument. Although it
+was scarcely audible from the distance, Cagliostro was struck by the
+extreme beauty and _espieglerie_ of the performance. He hurried forward
+in the direction from which the sounds proceeded, and at each step they
+became more distinguishable and bewitching. After a momentary feeling of
+indecision when he reached the walls of the Schwarzpanier, the Alchemist
+ascended a flight of steps, and passed through the open casement of a
+French-window into a modest sitting-room. The musician whose skill had
+attracted him, was seated in the gray twilight at a piano. Cagliostro
+scarcely noticed that he was a man of short stature but of muscular
+proportions; he scarcely remarked, indeed, either the apartment or its
+occupant; his whole consciousness was absorbed in the melody that
+streamed from the instrument.
+
+At first, the fingers of the player seemed to frolic over the keys, as
+though they toyed with the vibrations of the strings. The sounds were
+sportive and jocund; they rippled like laughter; they were capricious as
+the merriment of a coquette. Then they merged into a sweet and warbling
+cadence--a cadence of inimitable tenderness, the very suavity of which
+was rendered more piquant by its lavish variations. The measure changed,
+with an abrupt fling of the treble-hand: it gushed into an air quaint
+and sprightly as the dance of Puck--comic--odd--sparkling on the ear
+like zig-zags: it threw out a shower of notes; it was the voice of
+agility and merriment; it was grotesque and fitful, droll in its absurd
+confusion, and yet nimble, in its amazing ingenuity. Gradually, however,
+the humorous movement resolved itself into a strain of preternatural
+wildness--a strain that made the blood curdle, and the flesh creep, and
+the nerves shudder. It abounded with dark and goblin passages; it was
+the whirlwind blowing among the crags of the Jungfrau, and swarming with
+the forms and cries of the witches of the Walpurgis; it was Eurydice,
+traversing the corridors of hell; it was midnight over the wilderness,
+with the clouds drifting before the moon; it was a hurricane on the deep
+sea; it was every thing horrible, wierdlike, and tumultuous. And through
+the very fury of these passages there would start tones of ravishing and
+gentle beauty--the incense of an adoring heart wafted to the black
+heavens through the lightnings and lamentations of Nineveh. Again the
+musician changed the purpose of his improvisation; it was no longer
+dismal and appalling, it was pathetic. The instrument became, as it
+were, the organ of sadness, it became eloquent with an inarticulate wo;
+it was a breast bursting with affliction, a voice broken with sorrow, a
+soul dissolving with emotions. Then the variable harmonies rose from
+pensiveness into frenzy, from frenzy into the noise and the shocks of a
+great battle; they swelled to the din of contending armies, to the storm
+and vicissitudes of warlike deeds, and soared at last into a paean such
+as that of victorious legions when--
+
+  "Gaily to glory they come,
+      Like a king in his pomp,
+      To the blast of the tromp,
+  And the roar of the mighty drum!"
+
+As the triumphant tones of the instrument rolled up from its recesses,
+and filled the apartment with a torrent of majestic sounds, as the
+musician swayed to and fro in the enthusiasm of his sublime
+inspirations, and enhanced the divine symphony by the crash of many
+thrilling and abrupt discords, the Rosicrucian gazed with awe upon the
+responsive grandeur of his countenance. The impetus of his superb
+imagination imparted an inconceivable dignity to every lineament, to his
+capacious forehead, to his broad and distended nostrils, to the fierce
+protrusion of his under-lip, to the mobile and generous expression of
+his mouth, to the tawny yellow of his complexion, to the brown depths of
+his noble and dilated eyes. There was something in unison with the
+glorious sounds that reverberated through the chamber, even in the
+enormous contour of his head and the gray disorder of his hair. He
+seemed to exult in the torrent of melody as it gushed from the piano and
+streamed out upon the dusk of the evening. While Cagliostro was
+listening in an ecstasy of admiration, he was startled by a sudden
+clangour among the bass-notes--the music seemed to be jumbled into
+confusion, and the ear was stunned by a painful and intolerable
+dissonance. On looking more intently, he perceived that the composer had
+let one hand fall abstractedly upon the key-board, while the other
+executed, by itself, a passage of extraordinary difficulty and
+involution. Then, for the first time, the thought struck him that the
+musician was deaf.[17] Alas! the supposition was too true: Beethoven was
+cursed with the loss of his most precious faculty. Those who appreciate
+the full splendour of his gigantic genius, those who conceive, with a
+distinguished composer now living, that "Beethoven began where Haydn and
+Mozart left off;" those who coincide with an eminent critic, in saying
+that "the discords of Beethoven are better than the harmonies of all
+other musicians;" those, in fine, who worship his memory with the
+devotion inspired by his compositions, can sympathise in that terrible
+deprivation of the powers of hearing, by which his art was rendered a
+blank, and the latter years of his life were imbittered. They will
+remember with gratitude the joys they have derived from the effusions of
+his fruitful intellect; they will call to their recollection the joyous
+chorus of the prisoners in _Fidelio_,--the sublime and adoring hymn of
+the "Alleluia" in _The Mount of Olives_,--the matchless pomp of the
+_Sinfonia Eroica_,--the passionate beauty of the sentiment of
+_Adelaida_,--the aerial grace of his quartets and waltzes,--the
+thrilling and almost awful pathos of the dirge written for six
+trombones,--but, above all, they will recall to mind the noblest work
+ever conceived and perfected by composer, one of the greatest
+achievements of the human mind, _the Mass in D_. And, bearing these
+wonders in their memory, their hearts will ache for the doom of Ludwig
+Von Beethoven. None of these things, however, being known to the
+Rosicrucian, his sympathies were aroused solely by what he himself had
+heard and witnessed. Still that was more than enough to fill his whole
+soul with commiseration, especially as the sounds again burst in
+bewitching concert from the instrument, and a new inspiration lit up the
+visage of the musician. Cagliostro found himself, with profound sorrow,
+returning into the silent darkness, and the solemn Voice stealing, for
+the last time, into his brain.
+
+"Behold, Balsamo," it said, "the pleasures that may vanish with the loss
+of hearing. Behold, and shudder at the remembrance of thy blasphemies.
+Recognise the goodness of Omnipotence in thy five senses--value them
+beyond either rank, or wealth, or dignity, or fame, or power,--value
+them as the five mysterious talismans of human life; and, in their
+virtuous employment, know that earthly happiness _is_ attainable!"
+
+While these words were resounding in his mind, the Rosicrucian felt
+himself carried, with inconceivable swiftness, through the atmosphere.
+Immediately they ceased he became motionless, though he was still
+enveloped in the shadows of night. All that had recently occurred to
+him,--all the strange and moving circumstances of which he had been a
+spectator, then thronged upon his recollection, and stirred his heart
+with astonishment. His imagination responded to his amazement. He
+revisited again, in thought, the blooming grove of Capreae, the
+pageantries of Cesarea, the green lanes of Buckingham, the luxurious
+_salon_ of Paris, and the twilight of the garden of Wahring. Italian
+beauty lived again in his remembrance, but a beauty marred by
+licentiousness and cruelty. He seemed to behold once more the multitudes
+of Palestine, the landscapes of England, the dainty splendours of
+France, and the tranquil homes of Germany. Gradually, however, his
+reflections became less incoherent, and the meaning of the vision
+appeared to evolve itself before him, in inductions fraught at once with
+reproach and consolation. Coupling together the truths enunciated by the
+Voice of his unseen visitant, and the spectacles revealed to him in
+succession through its agency, the Alchemist bethought himself whether
+his original impressions, as to the condition of humanity, might not, in
+a great measure, have been erroneous. What he had just witnessed assured
+him, in an unanswerable manner, that overt crimes or overt virtues were
+merely the good or evil employment of one or other of the five senses;
+that they were the bright and black spots upon the spiritual nature of
+man, the _faculae_ and the _maculae_, as it were, on the disc of his
+conscience. Satisfied, therefore, that the purity or depravity of every
+mortal was merely the consequence of the different purpose to which
+their senses had been directed, the Rosicrucian perceived the intimate
+relationship subsisting between the immaterial being and the physical
+organs. He perceived especially that those organs were the channels
+through which that immaterial portion of humanity was brought into
+communication with a material existence, was compelled to endure its
+miseries, or was enabled to appreciate its enjoyments. In this he
+recognised the veracity of that solemn assurance, that happiness is
+accessible, even on this earth, to all who use their senses with a
+virtuous discrimination. Nor had this consolatory truth been enforced
+merely by a barren asseveration. Balsamo had been taught the inestimable
+value of those senses, and the penalties of such as abused them by their
+vices. Five incidents, most touching, or most appalling, had reminded
+him of the exquisite pleasures derivable from created things, through
+the eyes, through the nostrils, through the ears, through the palate,
+and through the nerves. He had seen the anguish, moreover, of those who
+suffered from the deprivation of either sense, or of those who were
+tortured by the result of their own heinous misapplication. He had seen
+this in the insanity of Tiberius, in the torments of Agrippa, in the
+sadness of Milton, in the desolation of Mirabeau, and even in the
+philosophic sorrows of Beethoven. The emperor, the tetrarch, the poet,
+the demagogue, and the musician, crowded upon his memory, and appealed
+to his judgment with the same melancholy distinctness. Still the
+villainous predilections of the Rosicrucian contended for the mastery,
+although his intellect recognised the wisdom of the Vision. A fierce
+strife arose between his passions and his reason.
+
+Suddenly his eyes opened to the splendour of an autumn morning; and as
+the sunlight poured along the _Boulevard de la Madeleine_, as it gilded
+every blade of grass in the paddock, and streamed in golden pencils
+through the open window of the cottage, it glittered upon his cheek like
+raindrops.
+
+Cagliostro was weeping.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[5] Beranger has already conveyed this truth through the melody of his
+delicious verse:--
+
+  "Le vois-tu bien, la-bas, la-bas,
+  La-bas, la-bas? dit l'Esperance;
+  Bourgeois, manants, rois et prelats
+  Lui font de loin la reverence.
+  C'est le Bonheur, dit l'Esperance.
+  Courons, courons; doublons le pas,
+  Pour le trouver la-bas, la-bas,
+  La-bas, la-bas."
+
+[6] "I did not dare to breathe aloud the unhallowed anguish of my mind
+to the majesty of the unsympathising stars."--See _Falkland_.
+
+[7] "Motus autem siderum," such is the reverent and sententious remark
+of Grotius, "qui eccentrici, quique epicyclici dicuntur, manifeste
+ostendunt _non vim materiae, sed liberi agentis ordinationem_."--See _De
+Veritate Rel. Christ. Lib._ i. Sec. 7.
+
+[8] "Now, there was a word spoken to me in private, and my ears, by
+stealth as it were, received the veins of its whisper."--_Job_, chap.
+iv. verse 12.
+
+[9]
+
+  "There is a roaring in the bleak-grown pines
+  When Winter lifts his voice; there is a noise
+  Among immortals when a god gives sign
+  With hushing finger, how he means to load
+  His tongue with the full weight of utterless thought,
+  With thunder, and with music, and with pomp."
+
+Such are the majestic syllables which preface the speech of Saturn in
+_Hyperion_. Keats was ridding himself of the puerilities of Cockaigne
+when he wrote that fragment of an epic--a fragment which is unsurpassed
+by any modern attempt at heroic composition. In reading it, the very
+earth seems shaking with the footsteps of fallen divinities. Even Byron,
+who, like ourselves, had no great predilection for the school in which
+the poetic genius of John Keats was germinated, has emphatically said of
+_Hyperion_ that "it seems actually inspired by the Titans, and is as
+sublime as AEschylus."--See _Byron's Works_, vol. xv., p. 92.
+
+[10] Thus writes Suetonius--"praegrandibus oculis, qui, quod mirum esset,
+noctu etiam et in tenebris, viderent, sed ad breve, et quum primum a
+somno patuissent; deinde rursum hebescebant."--_Tib._ cap. lxviii.
+
+[11] Those who are familiar with the classic historians, will see in
+this description no exaggeration whatever. Instruments for the
+destruction of life yet more awful and mysterious, were employed by many
+of the predecessors, and many of the successors of Tiberius, as well as
+by Tiberius himself: and modern science has shown that these devices,
+instead of being, as was originally conjectured, the result of
+black-magic, were, in reality, the effect of hydraulic, pneumatic, and
+mechanical contrivances. Even the most marvellous feats of the Egyptian
+sorcerers have been latterly explained by the revelations of natural
+philosophy, and a multitude of these explanations may be found by the
+reader in the learned work "Des Sciences Occultes," &c. written by M.
+Eusebe Salverte, and published in Paris as recently as 1843. In that
+remarkable volume, M. Salverte proves that natural phenomena are more
+startling than necromantic tricks, and that, in the words of Roger
+Bacon, "_non igitur oportet nos magicis illusionibus uti, cum potestas
+philosophica doceat operari quod sufficit._" That Tiberius was capable
+of atrocities yet more terrific, and that murders of the most inhuman
+kind were the consequence of almost every one of his diabolical whims,
+those acquainted with the picturesque narrative of Suetonius already
+know. They will remember not only how he caused his nephew Germanicus to
+be poisoned by the governor of Syria, but how he ordered a fisherman to
+be torn in pieces by the claws of a crab, simply because he met him, in
+one of his suspicious moods, when strolling in a sequestered garden of
+Capreae.--_Sue. Tib._ c. lx.
+
+[12] Suetonius assures us (cap. lxviii.), that the muscular strength of
+Tiberius Claudius Nero was, in the prime of his manhood, almost as
+supernatural as his crimes; that he could with his outstretched finger
+bore a hole through a sound apple (_integrum malum digito terebraret_),
+and wound the head of a child or even a youth with a fillip, (_caput
+pueri, vel etiam adolescentis, talitro vulneraret._) His excesses must,
+however, have enervated his frame long before his death by suffocation.
+
+[13] His garb, writes Josephus, "was so resplendent as to spread a
+horror over those that looked intently upon Him."--_Lib._ xix. c. 8.
+
+[14] "An owl," says Josephus (xix. 8); "an angel of the Lord," angelos
+Kyriou, say the scriptures, (Acts. xii. 23,)--in either case a spectral
+illusion.
+
+[15] It is impossible for anyone devoted to the study of "Paradise
+Lost," of "Comus," even of "Sampson Agonistes," and especially of "Il
+Pensoroso" and "L'Allegro," to doubt that their writer was carried away
+at times by the _oestrum_, or _divine afflatus_, although Dr Johnson
+discredits "these bursts of light, and involutions of darkness, these
+transient and involuntary excursions and retrocessions of
+invention."--See _Lives of the Poets_, vol. i. p. 188.
+
+[16] Even M. Alphonse de Lamartine acknowledges of Mirabeau, that
+"neither his character, his deeds, nor his thoughts, have the brand of
+immortality."--_Hist. Giron._ Liv. i. chap. 3.
+
+[17] This incident was suggested by a touching sentence in Schindler's
+biography of Beethoven. After observing that the outward sense no longer
+co-operated with the inward mind of the great composer, and that,
+consequently, "the outpourings of his fancy became scarcely
+intelligible," Schindler continues:--_"Sometimes he would lay his left
+hand flat upon the key-board, and thus drown, in discordant noise, the
+music to which his right was feelingly giving utterance._"--See _Life of
+Beethoven, Edited by Ignace Moschelles_, ii. 175.
+
+
+
+
+MAGA IN AMERICA.
+
+
+                                        _New York, August_ 1847.
+
+My Dear Godfrey--You will laugh when you hear into what a practical
+blunder I was led, by a desire to gratify your curiosity concerning
+Maga's Icon in America. I wondered you should ask me for a description,
+when it was so easy to have ordered out the thing itself; and so
+resolved to save myself the trouble of writing a long story, by duly
+exporting a specimen of the American Ebony, from which you might form
+your own conclusions as to its counterfeit merits, and its supposed
+relations to the great question of international copyright. _Segnius
+irritant_--you know! What disciple of old Plunkett's will ever forget
+the difference between the _demissa per aurem_, and
+
+  ----"quae sunt _oculis_ subjecta fidelibus!"
+
+I have always maintained that his illustration of this great principle
+gave Dickens the hint of his Dotheboy's Hall. You remember, doubtless,
+poor Harry Farmar's false quantity, and how Plunkett made him peel
+onions till he cried his eyes out; asserting his confidence in Horace's
+maxim, and that he had found the usual box on the ear quite incapable of
+any exciting effect on Harry's mind. Who would have said that the same
+Harry, surviving the operation, would have lived to hunt bisons on the
+prairies of Western America, after riding on elephants in India, and
+bestriding a camel's hump through the waste places of Edom! Harry's
+wandering mind has developed as vagabond a habit of life as ever his
+prophetic instructor ventured to predict; but he vows himself cured at
+last, and that, if he ever sets foot again on England's _terra firma_,
+he will at once become one of the manly hearts that guard the fair, and
+settle down in contented conjugation. He it was, then, who offered to be
+the bearer to yourself at C---- of any despatches, or parcels, I might
+choose to send; but he affected to think me so thoroughly Americanised,
+that he entered a caveat against my loading him with a consignment of
+bowie knives or cotton-bales. A nicely packthreaded parcel was
+accordingly put up, and duly adorned with your most Saxon name and
+address, in the delusive expectation that none but your own hands would
+presume
+
+  "----to set the imprison'd wranglers free,
+  And give them voice and utterance once again."
+
+I was doomed to be quickly undeceived; and as I doubt not Harry will be
+giving you his own version of the affair, over a glass of wine, some
+three weeks hence, at the Hall, you shall know beforehand how much to
+allow, in this matter, for his habitual unveracity, or rather love of
+romance.
+
+I waited on him yesterday and presented the packet; but you should have
+seen him start, when I happened to mention its contents. Not the captors
+of Guido Fawkes bounced with more consternation, when that eminent
+pyrotechnist proposed to touch off his gunpowder for their especial
+gratification and amusement. "What!" exclaimed our mutual friend--"Have
+you lived so long in America, as to have forgotten the laws of a
+civilised and Christian land! Would you have me seized as a smuggler;
+posted in every newspaper as an importer of contraband goods; brutally
+insulted by the officers of her Majesty's Customs; and perhaps actually
+brought before a justice, and locked up where the only prospect would
+be a distant view of New South Wales!" It was in vain that I
+remonstrated with his eloquent horrors, at the thought of renewing his
+travels at government cost: he insisted that my proposal might actually
+have ensured the catastrophe; and from this appeal to my feelings,
+passed to a bold invective against literary piracy, and concluded by a
+generous compromise in favour of the cotton-bales, if I would pardon the
+warm expressions with which he found himself compelled to decline my
+extraordinary commission. You should have seen him, Godfrey! If he ever
+takes that seat in Parliament which he threatens to make the sequel of
+matrimony, I predict wo to the whole race of Humes, Brights, and
+Cobdens, should they ever start him on a subject capable of
+transatlantic illustration.
+
+I could not but laugh, though, when I saw the true state of the case, at
+the comical scene that might have ensued, had he taken my parcel without
+explanations. Think of Harry's air of fearless innocence before the
+inspectors of imports, till from the depths of an enormous trunk comes
+forth a parcel, which those faithful officials at once lay bare, with
+the professional dexterity of a private tearing his cartridge. The
+officer stares, and Harry looks still more astounded, at the sight of a
+familiar visage, peering forth from under the wrapper, and giving mute
+but significant expressions of pain and displeasure. It is the head of
+Geordy Buchanan! It is Blackwood, imported from New York! The confounded
+servant of her Majesty's Customs begins to whisper contraband, and
+expresses a wish for the undoubted original, which you, just stepping up
+to welcome your friend, are enabled to supply. The fresh number from
+your coat-skirts, and the suspicious importation from America, are set
+together like the two Dromios before the duke. "Look on this picture,
+and on that!" Behold the two Buchanans!
+
+     "One of these men is genius to the other
+     ----Which is the natural man,
+     And which the spirit? Who deciphers them?"
+
+Harry, to prevent the coming crisis, volunteers a confession, but
+invites you to a comparison of the heads. With his outrageous Tory
+hatred of the Yankees, he, of course, declares there's no comparison;
+ridicules the fac-simile, and hastily seizing what he mistakes for the
+counterfeit, confounds the company by a quotation from the Latin of
+"Terence"--that very small fragment of the Eunuchus which Plunkett
+forced into his head through the opposite pole of his person--
+
+     "Ne comparandus hic quidem ad illum est, ille erat
+     Honesta facie, et liberali!"
+
+And finally, disgusted to find that he has ascribed the more gentlemanly
+bearing to the American, he tosses the whole parcel into the docks, with
+the tardy announcement that it was my friendly consignment to yourself,
+as well as the very curiosity of literature which you so much desire to
+see. You remember, doubtless, what I did not recollect, that there is no
+port of entry in her Majesty's empire for the Icons of British copyright
+property. They come with a Frenchified air from the press of Galignani;
+they arrive in vulgarised costume from the cheap manufactories of New
+England; but the scent of the vermin is familiar to the nose of a
+collector of customs, and no rat-catching terrier, says my informant,
+ever pounces upon his Norwegian with half the gusto with which such an
+official snubs such an intruder. A health, I say, to the fury of this
+sort of Iconoclasts!
+
+Our friend's unusual caution has saved you the excitement of the scene I
+have imagined, but it puts me to the necessity of substituting a hurried
+description for the ocular satisfaction I had proposed to send you. Who
+would have supposed, thirty years since, that one Maga would not be
+enough for the world, and that New York would be the seat of its
+flourishing double! Yet it is now twelve years since its twin started up
+on this side the water, and has been battening and fattening on the
+rewards of successful illegitimacy. Nay--for a portion of that period,
+Maga has been "three gentlemen at once." The very pirates were pirated,
+and undersold; and two reprints of Maga, both professing to be
+fac-similes, were at one time supported in America, in addition to
+countless republications of particular articles; such, for instance, as
+the tales of "Ten Thousand a-Year," and "Caleb Stukeley"! I think I hear
+you exclaim at such wholesale grand-larceny; but though not inclined to
+take up the cudgels for Reprint and Co., it is but justice to tell you
+what they would say in self-defence. The truth is, they would not have
+known what you meant, had you told them, when their republication was
+established, that there was any question as to the ethics of such a
+business. The laws not only permitted, but even encouraged the
+enterprise; and they do so still. The most respectable booksellers were
+engaged in a similar seizure of every new novel of Bulwer's, and every
+new work whatever, that had stood the experiment of success in England.
+Original copies of the Magazine were rarely imported, as the importer's
+charges and duties nearly doubled the first cost of each number; and
+besides, it was already virtually republished, its leading articles
+being constantly appropriated, in different ways, by editors of literary
+periodicals, and often by the daily newspapers. Then, it must be
+remembered, that England was nearly twice as far from America before the
+era of steamers; and that the matter of copyright was only just
+beginning to excite the attention of Parliament. As yet Lord Mahon had
+not stirred up the ministry to move foreign countries to international
+justice, and England was not, as now, prepared to invest their authors
+with all the rights she concedes to her own. It is not surprising,
+therefore, that Reprint and Co. commenced operations without any
+compunctions of conscience, and were even praised for their enterprise
+by honourable men. Hundreds, who could hardly forego the reading of
+Maga, were unable to pay for it twice what it costs in England; and I
+grant you, that when the first number was laid on my table at one-fourth
+the price of an importation, I myself was not the man to throw a pebble
+at the pirates, but wished them good luck and gave them my name as a
+subscriber. I verily believe I did so with a virtuous delight in what
+then struck me as a compliment to my favourite magazine; for somebody,
+at about the same time, had started a similar republication of other
+English Monthlies, and I desired to see them fairly run off the course.
+You will certainly concede to the Americans some credit for a discerning
+taste, when I add that Maga's competitors have long since been withdrawn
+for want of backers; and she so easily walks the field, that it begins
+to be a fair question whether Messrs Reprint and Co. are honestly
+entitled to the purse.
+
+I have marvelled a little, I confess, that a magazine of such
+unmitigated Toryism, and of so uncomplimentary a tone towards America,
+should nevertheless gain so universal a popularity in this country. I
+must stand to it, Godfrey--there's a touch of the magnanimous in the
+affection which exists among Americans for Christopher North, and all
+his high Tory fraternity. Seldom approving, they always enjoy his
+old-fashioned prejudices; and defend in Maga what, in a book of
+Alison's, they would relish very little. Much is said for the kind of
+affectionate regard with which they welcome to their firesides its
+monthly returns, in the fact that it is the only foreign work which
+American republishers have felt themselves forced, by popular feeling,
+to furnish in the form of a fac-simile. It is proof of the individual
+interest which it possesses, and of the rich associations which it has
+imparted even to the simplicity of its outside. Every one wants old
+Ebony in its own gentlemanly wear: but much as is implied in the livery
+of the _Edinburgh Review_, and many as are its admirers among the
+literary freethinkers of the eastern states, it is curious that no one
+cares twopence to see it in any other than a semi-newspaper shape, and
+that Reprint and Co. have never thought of reproducing it in all the
+splendour of its popinjay surtout. In fact, I doubt whether it will long
+continue in any shape at all. Its crack article is always reprinted in
+another form; and oracular as its pages are deemed by the clannish
+provincials of Boston, its general contents seldom go down with the
+public. The truth is, no one honestly prefers porridge to roast-beef;
+and in spite of a natural leaning to buff and blue, Jonathan will not be
+diverted from his luxurious repasts in Maga, by anything less "hot in
+the mouth."
+
+I remember that, in one of those Ambrosial Noctes, some one remarked in
+auld-lang-syne, that Maga is a ubiquity. The Shepherd assented, for he
+had seen the head of Geordy alike in the hut and the hall; beaming the
+same by the mirrored fire-light of the manorial villa, and "by the
+peat-lowe frae the ingle o' the auld clay biggin." But think, my dear
+Godfrey, what a flow of the _decalect_ would have gushed from that child
+of the Yarrow, had he beheld, with me, the pirated Maga scattered
+through the length and breadth of this immense republic, and devoured
+with equal delight by the self-congratulating native of Massachusetts
+Bay, and the home-sick immigrant of Oregon. Here, too, Maga is
+ubiquitous. If you make your summer tour through the States of New
+England, and stop to visit its priggish little colleges, and biggish
+little schools, you shall find it on many a sophister's table, and in
+many a schoolboy's hands; or, ten to one, as you pass the windows of the
+barracks where they keep their terms, you will chance to hear some
+full-voiced youth adding a nasal rhetoric to Maga's pages, as he retails
+them, through clouds of cigar-smoke, to his assembled companions. To
+your surprise, you will find Maga in every library and reading-room from
+the Independent Union Lyceum of Jeffersonville, in New Hampshire, to the
+Congressional lobbies at Washington. And I assure you, they not only
+take it in, but they read it out and out. Often, when I have wanted but
+a glimpse at its leader, I have found it, like _The Times_ at a country
+inn, in the grasp of some sturdy monopolist, exploring it inch by inch,
+and only pausing at intervals, to wipe his glasses, and renew his pinch
+of snuff. Along the shores of the Hudson, in those snug little villas
+that peep forth from the thick trees and copsewood, Maga is quite as
+universal, but is found in more palmy estate. There--whether your
+retreat from the city be to the banks of Westchester, to the glens of
+the Highlands, or to the table-lands that underlie the Kaatskills--your
+welcome you value none the less that you see volumes of old numbers in
+the book-case, and the number of the month already laid on the table in
+the hall; and you think of the hot noons they will help to wile away,
+after the morning's sport, and before the evening drive. In homes like
+these, I have usually found _Blackwood_ a favourite with the fairer
+portion of American society. You shall find it lurking amongst worsteds
+and flower-patterns, and very often preferred to the pretty work that
+tasks a far prettier eye: or, stepping into the verandah to see a
+steamer go by, you shall pick it up from a tabouret, where it lies with
+a pearl-knife in its uncut pages, and the breezes playing with its
+parted leaves--evidently the immediate relic of some startled and
+disappearing fair one. Going south or west, you meet it on railways, and
+in steamers. It is usually the companion of such travellers as are
+accustomed to decline the repeated attempts of fellow-passengers to
+engage them in conversation or political debate, and seems to afford
+peculiar refreshment to those who have effected a retreat from the
+philanthropic assaults of travelling temperance agents, and of other
+affectionate inquirers as to the condition of their bodies and souls.
+When you reach the Carolinas, where, in default of taverns, you may
+always venture to make yourself the guest of a planter, and will be
+thanked for your visit--if you would bait at noon, and turn from the
+road to a hospitable-looking mansion among the pines, I'll wager that a
+basking Negro, without a shirt, will start up, and take charge of your
+horse, while the master of a thousand slaves gives you one open hand,
+but holds in the other the ubiquitous pages, which he has been reading
+in the cool of his piazza. I say then, had the Shepherd been blest with
+such universal experiences as mine, with what a flow of metaphor and
+illustrative wit would he have enlarged upon the proposition--Maga is an
+ubiquity. Beginning with a broadside at the literary corsairs of New
+York, I can fancy him bursting with indignant virtue into luxurious
+comparisons between the rape of the Sabines, and that of the inimitable
+Noctes--and then between Maga bodily, and her who in the field of Enna
+gathering flowers, experienced a fate most gloomy; and so on till his
+exuberant good-humour expands at last into an apology, as he expatiates
+on the tempting character of the booty, and declares, that like apples
+of gold to frolicsome schoolboys, so beautiful Maga, to covetous
+Yankees, is a thing too full of relish and of beauty to be other than
+pardonable plunder! Maga, like Italy, ought to be less bewitching, or
+better defended. What would not some of Maga's cotemporaries give,
+nevertheless, for the compliment of being perpetually ravished by the
+Goths and Vandals of Letters--the merciless anti-copyright booksellers
+of America? Nay--they will pout at the insinuation, and stand upon the
+virtue which no one believes they possess. But assure them, dear
+Godfrey, that they are in no conceivable danger. Maga shall growl, and
+they shall fawn; but the republicans will not be repulsed by the honest
+frankness of the one nor propitiated by the hypocritical blandishments
+of the others. If they doubt it, just tell them what happened with me
+the other day, and what I vouch for as fairly exhibiting the feeling of
+the most intelligent Americans. I could add many other anecdotes of the
+same colour and character; but I tell this as creditable to them, and
+illustrative of Maga's footing among them:--
+
+I was at the reading-rooms of "The Athenaeum"--a literary club-house in
+this city, which has grown out of a small society of scholars that
+existed here before the Revolution--and which, I am happy to say, is
+always supplied with the genuine imported Magazine. A young man, whom I
+had often met at the rooms, and who had the Magazine in his hand, called
+my attention to a palpable error in an article, that reflected pretty
+merrily on his countrymen. "Ha!" said I, "just like old Ebony! Why don't
+you banish the rabid old Tory from these most democratic tables?"
+
+"Banish Maga!" was the reply--"what would be left fit to read?"
+
+"You surprise me! Edinburgh, Westminster--any thing that thinks better
+of Congress, and legislative eloquence--as you do, of course!"
+
+"Why so? Mayn't a man be a republican, without recognising a _jure
+divino_ majesty in a Congressman?"
+
+"But Maga would make out some of your Solons prodigiously long in the
+ears."
+
+"Nay--rather intolerably long in the wind, which is just the intolerable
+truth. Thanks to Maga for giving them the echo of their palaver! and may
+the first reformed Congress vote her a gold medal for the good she has
+done to the country!"
+
+"She sometimes makes free with the nation itself, and some of the little
+peculiarities of your countrymen."
+
+"Well, well--we are not drawn more out of proportion than the Iron
+Duke's nose is in _Punch_! Why should we not laugh like heroes, who are
+said to grow hale of good-humour kept up by caricatures?"
+
+"You must allow that Maga is not always good-natured, as some of her
+rivals invariably are."
+
+"There's no comparison, sir, between the sometimes irritable merriment
+of King Christopher, and the professional tinkling of a jester's
+cap-and-bells. I can't argue it,--only I like _Blackwood_ for all its
+Toryism; and when Kit North is testy, I reflect that he's long had the
+gout! Banish Geordie Buchanan's venerable old pow--did you say? Never,
+Sir, never!"
+
+Of course, I allowed the good sense of these replies, and at once
+explained to myself the philosophy which gave rise to them. The truth
+is, there is in human nature a deep sense of "the eternal fitness of
+things," which usually gives tone to the opinions of man, where undue
+prejudices do not exercise an overruling control. You know, my dear
+Godfrey, how unlikely it is that an American would ever care to pay you
+a second visit at the Hall, should he signalise his first by
+depreciating the character of Washington, or undervaluing the many
+advantages which his country really enjoys. On the same principle which
+would certainly betray you into marks of cool aversion towards such a
+guest from this side the Atlantic, the intelligent American despises in
+his heart the Briton, whose spirit is alien to the time-honoured
+institutions of his ancestors, and whose life is one long blasphemy of
+all that has contributed most to the glory and greatness of an empire,
+whose worst symptom of decay is the fungous existence of a race of such
+blasphemers, at once the morbid fruit of a free constitution, and its
+fatal and cancerous disease. Whiggery is, therefore, at a discount in
+the republic; and I have been surprised to hear the confession from
+American democrats, that if they were Englishmen, they would be far from
+any sympathy with those who call themselves reformers. This, perhaps,
+will account for it, that with all the influence of the Edinburgh
+Reviewers, they have never gained, in this country, any hold of the
+heart, even where they have controlled the head; whilst Maga, on the
+contrary, without bending the republican opinions of Americans, has
+secured no small degree of their affections, and become enshrined in
+their genuine regard. You may see one proof of this in the fact, that if
+you contract with Reprint & Co. for their republications, and will take
+_Blackwood_ and _The Quarterly_, you can have _The Edinburgh_ and _The
+Westminster_ almost thrown into the bargain; like the lying little
+_Mercury_ of AEsop's statuary, which was a mere gratuity to those who
+would buy a _Phoebus_, and _Pallas-Athene_. In truth, if my observation
+has been correct, intelligent Americans like to be republicans
+themselves, because such were the fathers of their country; but an
+Englishman in blue and yellow, they regard much as they do an Indian in
+shoes and stockings. He is despised, as no specimen of the noble race
+from which he has degenerated and dwindled into a Whig.
+
+To return to the republished Magazine; it is not only a republication,
+but, as I have said, it professes to be a fac-simile. You will ask, if
+it is cleverly done. I must answer--not very, considered as a whole; and
+yet, to give the mannikin its due, the face of the thing is about as
+accurate as counterfeits usually are. The colour is not often right,
+however, and I suspect Reprint & Co. are ignorant that the colour is of
+any consequence. The thistle-framed portrait, nevertheless, is tolerably
+well copied; enough so, to deserve the greatest proportion of credit
+belonging to the whole, as an imitation. You look for the familiar
+imprint in vain. One would never know from the publisher's part of the
+title-page that the house of Blackwood & Sons was still in existence.
+Instead of the usual mark, we have that of the republishers, with an
+intimation that they are assisted in the sale by booksellers in Boston,
+Philadelphia, Charlestown, Baltimore, Savannah, New Orleans, and PARIS!
+Why they should print Paris in capitals, rather than Boston and
+Philadelphia, I am at a loss to conceive; but such an announcement does
+indeed demand some note of admiration at the vastness of the enterprise
+of REPRINT & Co., who, to give Mr Blackwood more time to attend to the
+getting up of each successive number of his work, thus undertake to
+relieve him of any share in seeing to the supply of the Continent of
+Europe. In this benevolent effort to take the burthen from the
+proprietors of the genuine Ebony, it is fair that the French coadjutor
+should have his share of the honour. His name is given as HECTOR
+BOSSANGE; and his shop, if I rightly remember, adorns the Quai Voltaire.
+And, now I think of it, I advise you, dear Godfrey, to skip across the
+Channel this summer, and alight on the capital, (where very likely they
+will just be getting up an _emeute_ in honour of the Three Days), and
+there, in Monsieur Bossange's establishment, you will be permitted to
+try the merits of my description and Maga's Icon at the same time, and
+with no danger from officials of the Customs. So much then for the
+front, which is good, except the colour. _Nimium ne crede colori_, says
+Mr Reprint; and _fronti nulla fides_, say I.
+
+The reverse cover has, of course, an outer and inner surface, with only
+the thickness of the paper between the letter-press adorning the twain.
+What say you, then, to the fact, that whilst the outer half is devoted
+to an advertisement of Mr Reprint's imitative publications, the _better
+half_ contains a bold and faithful warning against such piracy! You
+stare, but I repeat it; whilst the one side of the leaf announces Mr
+Reprint's arrangements for circulating throughout the States his
+imitations of Blackwood, the other indignantly announces that there are
+"now in circulation in the United States, SPURIOUS and HIGHLY
+PERNICIOUS IMITATIONS." Alas for the difference between those who
+_instruct_ the head, and those who only _dress_ it! The imitations that
+are shamelessly commended are only those of _Blackwood's Magazine_;
+while those which Messrs Reprint feel called upon to hold up as shocking
+to every sense of virtue,--to head with IMPORTANT INFORMATION, and to
+stamp with triple marks of wonder, as FRAUDULENT COUNTERFEITS--are
+imitations of Rowland's Macassar Oil! Think of that, Godfrey! I learn
+from this announcement of Reprint's, that there are now in the United
+States men base enough to rob the immortal Rowland of his patent right,
+men who have doubtless established agencies in "Boston, Philadelphia,
+Baltimore, Savannah, New Orleans and PARIS," but who, as the imitation
+Blackwood is circulated in just those places, will find it, by just
+retribution, always in their way. _A bon chat, bon rat!_ Well, it was
+wise in the agents of Rowland to employ one ubiquitous imitation to stop
+another; but since the trade is much the same, it ought to be suggested
+to Reprint & Co., that they do ill to expose a fellow-craftsman.
+Suppose, now, the enterprising apothecaries, who do for Mr Rowland what
+Reprint & Co. are doing for Mr Blackwood, should print a label for every
+bottle of their "incomparable oil," warning the public that spurious
+imitations of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine are now in circulation
+throughout the States, which they are compelled to stamp as FRAUDULENT
+COUNTERFEITS! Would not this be quite as IMPORTANT INFORMATION as the
+other? Are not the public as much concerned in having the genuine
+article for their brain, as in having the unadulterated article for
+their hair? Yet, how would Reprint like to see such a _Rowland_ for his
+Oliver?
+
+Strange that the same leaf that thus brands a counterfeit,--which
+Reprint repudiates, hinting that respectable perfumers "sell only the
+genuine article,"--should within one two-hundredth part of an inch,
+contain the exposure of his own counterfeit, by his own pen, ink, and
+types: and that with the announcement of a "Travelling Agent, recently
+appointed to procure Subscribers in the Western States, Iowa and
+Wisconsin, _who will prove his identity by a certificate from the Mayor
+of Cincinnati_!" Now, it strikes me, would not a certificate from his
+lordship, proving _the identity of the Magazine_, be much more to the
+purpose? It is called _Blackwood's_ Magazine; and if so, the Travelling
+Agent would be better certified by a commission from Mr Blackwood to be
+selling his property, and that would be more to the purpose still! But
+think, dear Godfrey, where this certified bagman goes! Iowa and
+Wisconsin are a thousand miles inland, where even so lately as when this
+reprint was begun, the Indian trail was the only post-road, and the
+aborigines almost the only inhabitants, and where, even at this day, the
+reader of Maga, holding the cream of civilisation and refinement in one
+hand, must keep the other in close contact with his rifle, and the rifle
+well loaded and cocked; for should his magazine interest him more than
+his safety, he might expect at any moment the pressing salutations of a
+cougar, or the warm embrace of a grisly bear. Or think, I pray you, of a
+circumstance still less improbable, which will illustrate what it is to
+be a bagman in Iowa. Where this "Travelling Agent" goes, he often
+carries his merchandise through an Indian village, and often, I'll
+venture to say, has Buchanan been seen in his hand, as centre to a
+circle of fierce-visaged Red-skins, with tomahawks in their girdles, and
+any thing but brotherly love in their gestures. Ah, then, the
+contrabandist is afraid. Among savages he first learns to wish himself
+engaged in any thing but an anti-copyright expedition; and produces in
+vain the proof of his identity, signed by the Mayor of Cincinnati.
+
+I observe that there are similar agencies in the Southern and
+South-western States; so that Reprint & Co. are the monopolists of Maga,
+from the mouth of the St Lawrence, to the deltas of the Mississippi, and
+before long will doubtless have their travelling agents pushing its
+sale in the "halls of the Montezumas," or exchanging it for peltry at
+the head-waters of the Colombia. It is said in one of the newspapers of
+this city, that for every copy issued in Edinburgh, two copies of the
+reprint are published here; and though the estimate strikes me as, at
+least, unlikely, it is far from being incredible. I can pardon Mr
+Blackwood should his temper be a little ruffled, when he compares his
+trouble and responsibility, and limited sale, with the _sans souci_ and
+universal market of Reprint & Co.; but surely, old Christopher North
+should smile with inward satisfaction when, not by cannon, or carnage,
+but as the result of a greatness thrust upon him, he finds his empire,
+like her Majesty's, the girdle of the earth, and his sovereignty
+recognised, in the world of letters, where hers can claim no subjects,
+and demand no homage. That crutch is now the sceptre of bookdom. Its
+shadow stretcheth over all lands, whether the dawn project it athwart
+the broad Atlantic, or the Boreal light send it overland to farthest
+India. Who reads not Maga? You shall find the smutched lieutenant
+turning over its pages by the camp-fire, after a terrible scratch with
+the Sikhs; and within the same twenty-four hours you may fairly surmise
+that some green mountain volunteer, on the wrong side of the Rio Grande,
+has lighted a pine-knot, and is reading one of the Marlborough articles
+to his mess, with extemporary paralellisms in favour of General Taylor,
+which the shade of the great Churchill must not venture to overhear.
+Swinging in his hammock, the midshipman holds Blackwood to the smoky
+lamp of the orlop, as he plunges and pitches around Cape Horn. Lounging
+in his state-room, and bound for Hong Kong, the sea-sick passenger
+corrects his nausea with the same spicy page, and bewitched with the
+flavour, forgets to sigh for Madeira, which he has passed, or to look
+out for St Helena, which is somewhere on his lee. It keeps the old
+Admiral from the deck as his keel scrapes the coral-reefs of the South
+Pacific; and a stale back number, from the bottom of a seaman's chest,
+is purchased as a prize, by him who cruises among seals, icebergs, and
+spermaceti whales.
+
+          "Quis jam locus, inquit, Achate,
+     Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris!"
+
+Yes--who reads not Maga? The flayed Radical of Parliament--the rasped
+Balaamite of Congress--the spanked Cockney of an author--the jaundiced
+Editor of some new no-go periodical--even these must cut the leaves of
+each new number, if they die for it, or if their only reward be to find
+their own sweet selves hung up in its pages, like sham Socrates in his
+basket, but not looking on like live Socrates with philosophic
+composure. And if they whimper, who will sympathise? Like the Shepherd
+at Awmrose's, the testy public may now and then rebel, and rail for a
+season at "the cawm, cauld, clear, glitterin' cruelty in the expression
+of his een,"--but who can keep up a quarrel with North? Again, like the
+Shepherd, they relax into a broad good humour, and, before they know it,
+are drinking with all the honours, "Long live King Christopher!" So
+then, in spite of Cockneys, chartists, coxcombs, rebels, radicals, and
+rascally reformers, yea, and the whole alphabetical list of what is
+whiggish, vulgar, and vexatious,--
+
+          "Maga still sitteth on Edina's crags,
+     And from her throne of beauty rules the world!"
+
+Ah! my dear Godfrey of Godfrey Hall, in the county of Kent, Esquire,--I
+know what you are thinking of. You were certainly meant for trade, and
+'twas a loss to the Bank of England, that you ever wore a
+shooting-jacket. There was ever a commercial crotchet in your head, and I
+am sure it now suggests the rejoinder--that to rule the world is nothing,
+so long as one can't rule the market. But I respectfully ask, do you go
+for absolute monarchy? Would you have Maga more potent than her Majesty?
+I grant there should be something coming to Mr Blackwood for the
+thousands that profit by his labours in America--but if it can't be so,
+let the glory suffice him, and let _Sic vos non vobis_ be his song of
+patient resignation. The parallel between his case and that of the
+Virgilian sufferers, is perfect. Who concentrates more pungency, or
+collects more sweets than the busy bee? Who keeps more musical throats in
+time than the motherly bird? Who lends the agricultural interest greater
+assistance than the labouring ox; or who suffers more by the
+manufacturers than the fleeced lamb? Undoubtedly, the answer is,--Mr.
+Blackwood! Well then, I say, he must comfort himself by philosophy and
+_Sic vos non vobis_. He may, indeed, utter one word of remonstrance
+against literary and commercial piracy, like that first great sufferer by
+anti-copyright,--Mr. Virgilius Maro, of Mantua--
+
+     "Hos ego versiculos _emi_, tulit alter honores."
+
+Or, in other words, I pay for every line and letter of Maga, and lo! Mr
+Bathyllus Reprint, of New York, carries off the sesterces! Think,
+Godfrey, what a charm of a life this Bathyllus must make of it! His are
+all the honey, and the bird's nests, the corn-bags, and the fleeces of
+the Ebony estates; and yet he has no trouble to see his banks furnished
+with bees, or to preserve game in the brake; no care to drive away
+crows, or to stifle the blatter of sheep. For him--to descend from the
+firmament of metaphor, to the plain prose of George Street and
+Paternoster Row--for him, Mr North inspects boxes of Balaam, with the
+patience of a proofreader, and deciphers pages of wit and pathos with
+the perseverance of a Champollion. For him, with each new moon, and
+punctual to the day, comes forth the Maga of the month, the fruit of
+incredible diligence, and the flower of admirable skill. For him the
+foreign purveyor of all he lives by pays down the golden _honorarium_,
+fifty guineas for the sheet, that he may have the whole for less than
+fifty pence. For him--the same benevolent provider takes pains to
+silence, by the same metallic spell, ten thousand other claims and
+clamours, contingent to each lunation of Maga. All things work for him!
+For him the steamer ploughs Atlantic surges; and for him, when she gains
+her port, two hundred miles of wire are put into galvanic tremor,
+bidding him prepare his covers, and rally his compositors. It is there
+that Reprint, with a grateful sense (perhaps) of all that has been done
+for him, and a still more gratifying sense of the very little that
+remains for him to do, finds himself called to bestir from a fortnight's
+nap, and proceed to do that little. With railway speed, and thunder
+step, the Express of Harnden brings to his hand almost the only emigrant
+original of _Blackwood_ that ever touches these occidental shores. No
+prosy correspondence--no botheration manuscript--no rejectable
+contribution--but the choicest literary matter that the genius of the
+British empire can furnish, all picked, packed, and laid at his feet, in
+fair white printed copy, without pains and without cost! Another's all
+the toil--his, all the profits! In a turn or two of his hand the
+American market is supplied. Sure sale--no risk--all clear gains, and
+quick returns! I am sure Mr Bathyllus Reprint must be the happiest of
+men, and the most amiable of publishers; and I can conceive that few of
+the more legitimate craft would be able to stand upon dignity, or refuse
+his kind invitation to meet a little company at his board--
+
+     "At the close of the day, when the market is still,
+     And mortals the sweets of comestibles prove."
+
+But hold! When is the market still. For a fortnight after he has set it
+astir with a new number, his announcements confront you as you open your
+"folio of four pages." His placards smite the eye at the crossings of
+the streets; they return your glance at the shop-window, and confound
+your senses at every turn. "Old Ebony for the month,"--"Kit North again
+in the field,"--"A racy new number of _Blackwood_,"--such are the
+headings of newspaper puffs, and the bawlings of hawkers on the steps of
+Astor House. They pursue you to the Boston railway-station, or to the
+Hudson-river steamer; they follow you on the road to Niagara; meet you
+afresh at Detroit and Chicago, and hardly provoke any additional
+surprise when the bagman accosts you with the same syllables, through
+the nose, as you arrive in the buffalo-season on the debateable grounds
+of Oregon! To quote once more the oracular words of the Ettrick orator
+and poet, "Ane gets tired o' that eternal soun'--_Blackwood's
+Magazeen,--Blackwood's Magazeen_--dinnin' in ane's lugs, day and nicht!"
+So vast and so varied I suppose to be the commercial relations of
+Reprint & Co., and such, beyond a doubt, is Maga's empire in America.
+
+No more by this steamer. Let me see; in ten days, perhaps, Harry will be
+with you at breakfast, discussing my letter, and lamenting my lot, to
+live so far from the world. For me, however, a contented disposition,
+the steamers twice a-month, and _Blackwood_ monthly, do wonders. I see
+as much of the world as a good man need wish to see; and at any time,
+you know, it's not a fortnight's work, by God's blessing, to rejoin the
+old friends and true friends, that so often go fishing under your
+patronage, and tell improbable stories around your table. Wait till I
+get into my own chair beside you, and I will tell stories of my sojourn
+in America that will put Harry's Indian romances to the blush. He now
+goes out with a stock of prairie-adventures, that out-Sinbad Sinbad, and
+yet he tells them with an air of honesty that would gull Gulliver. Wait
+till I rejoin you, and you shall see how a plain tale will put him down.
+
+                                                  Yours, &c.
+
+
+
+
+THE TIMES OF GEORGE II.[18]
+
+
+Female authorship is beginning to flourish in England. To this
+employment no rational objection can be raised. The want of occupation
+for female life in the higher classes has long been a subject of
+complaint, and any honest change which removes it will be a change for
+the better. The quantity of time and thread which has been wasted on
+chainstitch, and roundstitch, and all the other mysteries of the needle,
+in the last three centuries, is beyond all calculation. If the fair
+artists had been workers at the loom, they might have clothed half the
+living population in "fine linen," if not in purple. If they had been
+equally diligent in brickmaking, they might have built ten Babels; or if
+they had devoted similar energies, on Iago's hint, "to suckle fools, and
+chronicle small beer," they might have tripled the population, or
+anticipated the colossal vats of Messrs Truman & Co. What myriads of
+young faces have grown old over worsted parrots and linsey-wolsey maps
+of the terrestrial globe! What exquisite fingers have been thinned to
+the bone, in creating carnations to be sat upon, and cowslip beds for
+the repose of favourite poodles! What bright eyes have been reduced to
+spectacles, in the remorseless fabrication of patchwork, quilts and
+flowery footstools for the feet of gouty gentlemen! Nay, what thousands
+and tens of thousands have been flung into the arms of their only
+bridegroom, Consumption, leaving nothing to record their existence but
+an accumulation of trifles, which cost them only their health, their
+tempers, their time, their charms, and their usefulness!
+
+But the age of knitting and tambour passed away. The spinning-jenny was
+its mortal enemy. The most inveterate of fringemakers, the most
+painstaking devotee of patchwork, when she found that Arkwright could
+make in a minute more than with all her diligence she could make in a
+month, and that old Robert Peel could pour out figured muslins, by a
+twist of a screw, sufficient to give gowns to the whole petticoat
+population of England, had only to give in; the spinsterhood were forced
+to feel that their "occupation was o'er."
+
+Even then, however, the female fingers were not suffered to "forget
+their cunning;" and the age of purse-making began. The land was
+inundated with purses of every shape, size, and substance. Then
+followed another change. The Berlin manufacturers had contrived to bring
+back the age of worsted wonders, though, by a happy art, they saved the
+fair artists all the trouble of drawing and design. We are still under a
+Gothic invasion of trimmings and tapestry, of needlework nondescripts,
+moonlight minstrels in canvass, playing under cross-bar balconies; and
+all the signs of the zodiac brought down to the level of the ivory
+fingers of womankind.
+
+To this, we must acknowledge, that the incipient taste of the ladies for
+historical publications, for diving into the trunks of family memorials,
+and giving us those private correspondences which are to be found only
+by the desperate determination to find something and every thing, is a
+fortunate turn of the wheel.
+
+It is true, that England boasts of many distinguished female writers;
+that the works of Mrs Radcliffe opened a new vein of rich description
+and solemn mystery; that the comedies of Inchbald netted her innocent
+and persevering spirit some thousand pounds; and that Joanna Baillie's
+tragedies entitle her to an enduring fame. We also acknowledge, with
+equal sincerity and gratification, the merits of many of our female
+novelists in the past half century; their keen insight into character,
+their close anatomy of the general impulses of the human heart, and the
+mingled delicacy and force with which they seize on personal
+peculiarities, belong to woman alone. But their day, too, has gone down.
+They were first rivalled by the "high-life novel," the most vulgar of
+all earthly caricatures. They are now extinguished by the low-life
+novel; the most intolerable of all earthly realities. The true novel,
+true in its fidelity to nature, polished without affectation, and
+vigorous without rudeness, now sleeps in the grave, and must sleep,
+until posterity shall, with one voice, demand its revival.
+
+Yet, until another race of genius shall arise, and the laurel of
+Fielding or of Shakspeare shall descend on our female authors, we must
+be grateful for their gentle labours in the rather rugged field of
+history.
+
+It must be owned, that gallantry has a good deal to do in giving these
+works the name of history. They want all the vigour, all the philosophy,
+and all the eloquence of history. Of course, no human being will ever
+apply to them as authorities. Still, they have the merit of giving
+general statements to general readers, of supplying facts in their
+regular order, and probably, of inducing the multitude, who would shrink
+from the formalities of Hume or Gibbon in solemn quartos and ponderous
+octavos, to dip into pages having all the look and nearly all the
+slightness of the modern novel. At all events, if they do nothing else,
+they employ the time of pens, which might be much worse occupied; and
+that pens are often much worse occupied, we have evidence from hour to
+hour.
+
+The French novels are making rapid way into our circulating libraries.
+Yet nothing can be more unfortunate, for nothing can be more corrupting
+than a French novel of the nineteenth century. France, always a
+profligate country, always had profligate writers. But they were
+generally confined to "Memoirs," "Court anecdotes," and the ridicule of
+the world of Versailles; their criminality was at least partially
+concealed by their good breeding, and their vice was not altogether
+lowered to the grossness of the crowd.
+
+The Revolution created a new school. All there was hatred to duty,
+faith, and honour. The deepest profligacy was pictured as scarcely less
+than the natural right of man; and all the abominations of the human
+heart were excited, encouraged, and propagated by daring pens, sometimes
+subtle, sometimes eloquent, and in all instances appealing to the most
+tempting abominations of man.
+
+But the Revolution fell, and with the ascendant of Napoleon another
+school followed. War, public business, the general objects of the active
+faculties, and strong ambition of a people with Europe at its feet,
+partially superseded alike the frivolous taste of the monarchy, and the
+rabid ferocities of revolutionary authorship. The Bulletins of the
+"Grande Armee" told a daily tale of romance, to which the brains of a
+Parisian scribbler could find no rival, and men with the sound of
+falling thrones echoing in their ears, forgot the whispers of low
+intrigue and commonplace corruption.
+
+The "Three Glorious Days" of July 1830, have now produced another
+change; and peace has given leisure to think of something else than
+conquest and the conscription. The power of the national pen has turned
+again to fiction, and the natural wit, habitual dexterity, and dashing
+verbiage of France have all been thrown into the novel. Even the French
+drama, once the pride of the nation, has perished under this sudden
+pressure. A French modern tragedy is now only a rhymed melodrama. Even
+French history attracts popular applause only as it approaches to a
+three volume romance. Every man of name in French modern authorship has
+attained it only by the rapid production of novels. But no language can
+be too contemptuous, or too condemnatory, for the spirit of those works
+in general. Every tie of society is violated in the progress of their
+pages; and violated with the full approval of every body. Seduction is
+the habitual office of the hero. Adultery is the regular office of the
+heroine. In each the vice is simply a matter of course. Manly honour is
+a burlesque every where, but where the criminal shoots the injured
+husband in a duel. Female virtue is only a proof of dulness or decay, a
+vulgar formality of mind, or an unaccountable inaptitude to adopt the
+customs of polished society.
+
+The hero is pictured with every quality which can charm the eye or ear;
+he is the handsomest, the most accomplished, and the most high-spirited
+of mankind, all sentiment, and all scoundrelism. The heroine, always a
+wife or a widow,--in the former instance, is the "lovely victim of a
+marriage in which her heart had no share," and in which she is entitled
+to have all the privileges of her heart supplied. And in the latter is a
+creature full of charms, about twenty-one, resolved to live for love,
+but never to be "chained in the iron links of a dull and obsolete
+ceremonial" again. She quickly fixes her eyes on some Adolphe, Auguste,
+or Hyppolite, "_Officier de la Garde_," who has performed prodigies of
+valour in Algiers, taken lions by the beard every where, and is the best
+waltzer in all Paris. They meet, flame together, swear an _amitie
+eternelle_, and defy the world, through three volumes.
+
+In reprobating this detestable school, we certainly have no hope that
+our remarks will reform the French novelism of the day; but we call on
+the critical press of England to take up the rational and righteous task
+of reforming our own.
+
+Within these few years, the English novels are rapidly falling into the
+imitation of the French. And we say it with no less regret than
+surprise, that the chief imitators are females. The novels written by
+men have generally some manliness, some recollection of the higher
+impulses which occasionally act on the minds of men; some reluctancy in
+revealing the more infirm movements of the mind; and some doubts as to
+the absorption of all human nature in one perpetual whirl of
+love-making.
+
+But with the female pen in general, the whole affair is resolved into
+one impulse--all is "passion." The winds of heaven have nothing to do,
+but to "waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole." The art of printing is
+seriously presumed to have been invented only for "some banished lover,
+or some captive maid." Flirtation is the grand business of life. The
+maiden flirts from the nursery, the married woman flirts from the altar.
+The widow adds to the miscellaneous cares of her "bereaved" life,
+flirtation from the hearse which carries her husband to his final
+mansion. She flirts in her weeds more glowingly than ever. But she knows
+too well the "value of her liberty" to submit to be a slave once more;
+and so flirts on for life, in the most innocent manner imaginable,
+taking all risks, and throwing herself into situations of which the
+result would be obvious any where but in the pages of an _English_
+novel.
+
+The French have no scruples on such subjects, and their candour leaves
+nothing to the imagination. Our female novelists have not yet arrived at
+that pitch of explicitness, and it is to be hoped will pause before they
+leap the gulf.
+
+We attribute a good deal of this dangerous adoption to the prevalent
+habit of yearly running to the Continent. The English ear becomes
+familiarised to language on the other side of the Channel, which would
+have shocked it here. The chief topic of foreign life is intrigue, the
+chief employment of foreign life is that half idle, half infamous
+intercourse, which extinguishes all delicacy even in the spectators. The
+young English woman sees the foreign woman leading a life which, though
+in England it would stamp her with universal shame, in France or
+Germany, and above all, in Italy, never brings more than a sneer, and
+seldom even the sneer. She sees this wedded or widowed profligate
+received in the highest ranks; flourishing without a reproach, if she
+has the means of keeping an opera-box, or giving suppers; every soul
+round her acquainted with every point of her history, yet none shrinking
+from her association. If she has one Cicisbeo, or ten, the whole affair
+is _selon les regles_.
+
+The young English woman who blushes at this scandalous career, or
+exhibits any reluctance on the subject of the companionship or the
+crime, is laughed at as a "novice," is charged with a want of the
+"_savoir vivre_," is quietly reproved for "the coldness of her English
+blood," and is recommended to abandon, as speedily as possible, ideas so
+unsuitable to "the glow of the warm South."
+
+She soon finds a dangler, or a dozen danglers, who, having nothing on
+earth to do, and in their penury rejoiced to find any spot where they
+can kill an hour, and get a cup of coffee, are daily at her command. All
+those fellows, too, are counts; the title being about as common, and as
+cheap, as chimney-sweepers among us, though not belonging to so valuable
+fraternity.
+
+After a month's training of this kind, the poor fool is fit for nothing
+else, to the last hour of her being. She is a flirt and a _figurante_,
+as long as she lives. Duty and decorum are things too icy for the
+"ardour of her soul." The life of England is utterly barbarian to the
+refinement of the land of macaroni.
+
+And it is unquestionably much better that the whole tribe should remain
+where they are, and roam among the lazzaroni, than return to corrupt the
+decencies of English life. If this sentimentalist has money, she is sure
+to be picked up by some "superb chevalier," some rambling
+fortune-hunter, or known swindler, hunted from the gambling table;
+probably beginning his career as a frizeur or a footman, and making
+rapid progress towards the galleys. If she has none, she returns to
+England, to grumble, for the next fifty years, at the climate, the
+country, and the people; to drawl out her maudlin regrets for olive
+groves, and pout for the Bay of Naples; to talk of her loves; exhibit a
+cameo or a crucifix, (the parting pledge of some inamorato, probably
+since hanged), prate papistry, and profess _liberalism_; pronounce the
+Roman holidays "charming things," and long to see the carnival, and the
+worship of the Virgin together, imported to relieve the _ennui_ of
+London.
+
+The subject is startling: and we recommend any thing, and every thing,
+in the shape of employment, in preference to the vitiating follies of a
+life of Touring.
+
+Another tribe of female authorship ought to be extinguished without a
+moment's delay. Those are the yearly travellers. A woman of this kind
+scampers over the Continent, like a queen's messenger, every season; she
+rushes along with the rapidity and the regularity of the "Royal Mail."
+The month of May no sooner appears in the calendar, than she packs up
+her trunk, and crosses to Boulogne, "to make a book." One year she takes
+the north, another the south; to her, all points of the compass are
+equal. But whether the _roulage_ carries her to the Baltic or the
+Mediterranean, her affair is done, if she adds a page a day to her
+journal. She gossips along, and scribbles, with the indefatigable finger
+of a maker of bobbin lace, or a German knitter of stockings. The most
+slipshod descriptions of every thing that has been described before;
+sketches of peasant character taken from the beggars at the roadside;
+national traits taken from the commonplaces of the _table-d'hote_, and
+court _secrets_ copied from the newspapers--all are disgorged into the
+Journal. We have, unfailingly, whole pages of setting suns, moonlight
+nights, effulgent stars, and southern breezes. She gloats over pictures
+of enraptured monks, and sees heaven in the eyes of saints, copied from
+the painter's mistresses. If she goes to Italy, she tells us of the
+banditti, the gondola, and St Peter's; gazes with solemn speculation on
+the naked beauties of the Belvidere Apollo; and descants in an
+ultra-ecstasy on the proportions of sages and heroes destitute of
+drapery; winding up by an adventure, in which she falls by night into
+the hands of a marching regiment, or band of smugglers setting out on a
+robbery, and leaving the world to guess at the results of the adventure
+to herself.
+
+In all this farrago, she never gives the reader an atom of information
+worth the paper which she blots. We have no additional lights on
+character, public life, national feeling, or national advancement. All
+is as vapid as the "Academy of Compliments," and as well known as
+"Lindley Murray's Grammar." But why object to all this? Why not let the
+scribbler take her way--and the world know that vineyards are green, and
+the sky blue, if it desires the knowledge? Our reason is this,--such
+practices actually destroy all taste for the legitimate narratives of
+travel. Those trading tourists talk nonsense, until intelligence itself
+becomes wearisome. They strip away the interest which novelty gives to
+new countries, and by running their silly speculation into scenes of
+beauty, sublimity, or high recollection, would make Tempe a counterpart
+to the Thames Tunnel; Mount Atlas a fellow to Primrose Hill; and
+Marathon a fac-simile of the Zoological Garden or Bartholomew Fair. The
+subject is pawed, and dandled, and fondled, until the very name excites
+nausea; and a writer of real ability would no more touch upon it, than a
+great artist would paint St George and the Dragon.
+
+This has been the history of the decline of works of imagination in
+England. No sooner had Mrs Radcliffe touched the old monasteries with
+her glorious pencil, than a generation of monk-describers and
+ruined-castle-builders sprang up, until the very name of convent or
+castle became an abhorrence. Sir Walter Scott's "Lay of the Last
+Minstrel," rich and romantic as it was, was nearly buried under an
+overflow of heavy imitations, which drove his genius to other pursuits,
+and which filled the public ear with such enormities of octo-syllabic
+_ennui_, that it hates poetry ever since. The Helicon of which he drank
+the gushing and pure stream, was stirred into mire by the slippers of
+school-girls, city-apprentices, and chambermaid-poetesses of every shade
+of character.
+
+A new Malthus for the express purpose of extinguishing, by strangulation
+or otherwise, the whole race of Annual Travellers in Normandy, Picardy,
+up the Seine and down the Seine, up the Loire and down the Loire, on the
+shores of the Mediterranean, and in the Brenner Alps, would be a
+benefactor to society.
+
+Whether England would be the wiser and the happier if, instead of being
+separated from the Continent by a channel, she were separated by an
+ocean, is a question which we leave to the philosopher; but there can be
+no doubt of the nature of its answer by the historian. It will be found,
+that the national character had degenerated in every period when that
+intercourse increased, and that it resumed its vigour only in the
+periods when that intercourse was restricted.
+
+It would not be difficult to exemplify this principle, from the earliest
+times of English independence. But our glance shall be limited to the
+era of the Reformation, when England began first to assume an imperial
+character.
+
+Elizabeth was always contemptuous of the foreigner, and boasted of the
+defiance; the national mind never rose to a higher rank than in her
+illustrious reign. James renewed the connexions of the throne with
+France, and Charles I. renewed the connexion of the royal line. It may
+have been for the purpose of checking the national contagion of the
+intercourse, that rebellion was suffered to grow up in his kingdom. But
+whatever might be the origin, the effect was, to break off the
+intercourse with France and her corruptions, and to exhibit a new energy
+and purity in the people. Cromwell raised a sudden barrier against
+France by his political system, and the nation recovered its daring and
+its character in its contempt for the foreigner.
+
+In the reign of Charles II. the intercourse was resumed, and corruption
+rapidly spread from France to the court, and from the court to the
+people. England, proud and powerful under the Protectorate, became
+almost a rival to France in infidelity and profligacy in the course of
+the Reign. Again the war of William with France closed the Continent
+upon the national intercourse, and the manliness of the national
+character partially revived. But with the death of Anne the intercourse
+was renewed, and the result was a renewal of the corruption. The war of
+the French Revolution again and utterly broke off the intercourse for
+the time; and it is undeniable, that the national character suddenly
+exhibited a most singular and striking return to the original virtues of
+the country--to its fortitude, to its patriotism, and to the purity of
+its religious feelings.
+
+The period from the Treaty of Utrecht to the war of the French
+Revolution, has always appeared to us a blot on the annals of England.
+It is true that it contained many names of distinction, that it
+exhibited a graceful and animated literature, that it was characterised
+by striking advances in national power, and that towards its close it
+gave the world a Chatham, as if to reconcile us to its existence and
+throw a brief splendour over its close.
+
+But no period of British history developed more unhappily those vices
+which naturally ripen in the hot bed of political intrigue. The names of
+Harley, Bolingbroke, Walpole, and Newcastle, might head a general
+indictment against the manliness, the integrity, and the honour of
+England. The low faithlessness of Harley, who seems to have been
+carrying on a Jacobite correspondence at the foot of the throne--the
+infamous treachery of his brother-minister, St John--the undenied and
+undeniable corruption of Walpole, and the half-imbecility which made the
+chicane of Newcastle ridiculous, while his perpetual artifice alone
+saved his imbecility from overthrow,--altogether form a congeries,
+which, like the animal wrecks of the primitive world, almost give in
+their deformity a reason for its extinction.
+
+There can be no question of the perpetual villany which then assumed the
+insulted name of politics; none, of the utter sacrifice of public
+interests to the office-hunting avarice of all the successive parties;
+none, of the atrocious corruptibility of them all; none, of that general
+decay of religion, morals, and national honour, which was the result of
+a time when principle was laughed at, and when the loudest laugher
+passed for the wisest man of his generation.
+
+The cause was obvious. Charles II. had brought with him from France all
+the vices of a court, where the grossest licentiousness found its
+grossest example in the person of the sovereign. Profligate as private
+life naturally is in all the dominions of a religion where every crime
+is rated by a tariff, and where the confessional relieves every man of
+his conscience, the conduct of Louis XIV. had made profligacy the actual
+pride of the throne.
+
+The feeble and frivolous Charles was more a Frenchman than an
+Englishman; more a courtier than a king; and fitter to be a page in the
+seraglio than either.
+
+The royal robe on the shoulders of such a monarch, instead of concealing
+his vices, only made them glitter in the national eyes; and the morals
+of England might have been irretrievably stained, but for that salutary
+judgment which interposed between the people and the dynasty, and by
+driving James into an ignominious exile, placed a man of principle on
+the throne. Unfortunately, the reign of William was too busy and too
+brief to produce any striking change in the habits of the people. His
+whole policy was turned to the great terror of the time, the daring
+ambition of France. He fought on the outposts of Europe. All his ideas
+were Continental. The singular constitution of his nature gave him the
+spirit of a warrior, combined with the seclusion of a monk. Solitary
+even in camps, what must he be in the trivial bustle of a court?--and,
+engrossed with the largest interests of nations, what interest could he
+attach to the squabbles of rival professors of licentiousness, to
+giving force to a feeble drama, or regulating the decorum of factions
+equally corrupt and querulous, and long since equally despised and
+forgotten?
+
+The reign of Anne made some progress in the national restoration. But it
+was less by the influence of the Queen than by the work of time. The
+"gallants" of the reign of Charles were now a past generation. Their
+frolics were a gossip's tale; their showy vices were now as tarnished as
+their wardrobe, and both were hung out of sight. The man who, in the
+days of Anne, would have ventured on the freaks of Rochester, would have
+finished his nights in the watch-house, and his years in the
+plantations. The wit of the past age was also rude, vulgar, and
+pointless to the polished sarcasm of Pope, or even to the reckless sting
+of Swift. Yet manners were still coarse, and the Queen complained of
+Harley's coming to her after dinner,--"troublesome, impudent, and
+_drunk_." Her court exhibited form without dignity, and her parliaments
+the most violent partisanship in politics and religion, without
+sincerity or substance in either. But the long peace threw open the
+floodgates of frivolity and fashion once more, and France again became
+the universal model.
+
+On glancing over the history of public men through this diversified
+period, the astonishment of an honest mind is perpetually excited at the
+unblushing effrontery with which the most scandalous treacheries seem to
+have been all but acknowledged. France was still the great corrupter,
+and French money was lavished, not more in undermining the fidelity of
+public men, than in degrading the character of the nation. But when
+Charles was an actual pensioner of the French King, and James a palpable
+dependent on the French throne, the force of example may be easily
+conceived, among the spendthrift and needy officials, one half of whose
+life was spent at the gaming table.
+
+On those vilenesses history looks back with an eye of disgust. But they
+were the natural results of an age when religion was at the lowest ebb
+in Europe; when our travelled gentry only brought back with them that
+disregard of Christianity which they had learned in Paris and Rome, and
+when Voltaire's works were found on the toilet of every woman in high
+life.
+
+The accession of George III. was, in this view, of incalculable value to
+England. Contempt for the marriage tie is universally the source of all
+popular corruption. The king instantly discountenanced the fashionable
+levity of noble life. No man openly stigmatised for profligacy, dared to
+appear before him. No woman scandalised by her looseness of conduct was
+suffered to approach the drawing-room. The public feeling was suddenly
+righted. The shameless forehead was sent into deserved obscurity. The
+debased heart felt that there was a punishment, which no rank, wealth,
+or effrontery could resist. The decorum of public manners was
+effectively restored, and the nation had to thank the monarch for the
+example and for the restoration.
+
+Lady Sundon was of an obscure family, of the name of Dyves. Her portrait
+represents her as handsome, and her history vouches for her cleverness.
+It was probably owing to both that she was married to Mr Clayton, then
+holding an appointment in the treasury, and also the agent for the great
+Duke of Marlborough's estate, both of them appointments which implied a
+certain degree of intelligence and character. He also at one period was
+deputy-auditor of the exchequer. Mrs Clayton soon obtained the
+confidence of that most impracticable of all personages, Sarah, Duchess
+of Marlborough.
+
+On the death of Queen Anne, the duke and duchess had returned to
+England, but, repulsed shortly after by the ungracious manner of the
+ungrateful George I., they soon abandoned public life. Still it was
+difficult for so stirring a personage as the duchess altogether to
+abandon court intrigue, and probably for the purpose of obtaining some
+shadow of that influence which she might afterwards turn into substance,
+she contrived to obtain for her correspondent and dependant, Mrs
+Clayton, the place of bedchamber-woman to Caroline, wife of the
+heir-apparent.
+
+It is obvious that such a position might give all the advantages of the
+most confidential intercourse, to a clever woman, who had her own game
+to play. The Princess herself was in a position which required great
+dexterity. She was the wife of a brutish personage whom it was
+impossible to respect, and yet with whom it was hazardous to quarrel.
+She was the daughter-in-law of a Prince utterly incapable of popularity,
+yet singularly jealous of power. She was surrounded by a court, half
+Jacobite, and wholly unprincipled; and exposed to the constant
+observation of a people still dubious of the German title to the throne,
+contemptuous by nature of all foreign alliances, disgusted with the
+manners of the court, and still disturbed by the struggles of the fallen
+dynasty.
+
+It was obviously of high importance to such a personage, to have in her
+employ so clear-headed, and at the same time so stirring an agent as Mrs
+Clayton. There seems even to have been a strong similitude in their
+characters--both keen, both intelligent, both fond of power, and both
+exhibiting no delicacy whatever with regard to the means for its
+possession. Mrs Clayton never shrank from intercourse with those
+profligate persons who then abounded at court, when she had a point to
+carry; and Caroline, as Queen, endured for thirty years the notorious
+irregularities of her lord and master, without a remonstrance. She even
+went farther. She pretended, in the midst of those gross offences, to be
+even tenderly attached to him, talked of "not valuing her children as a
+grain of sand in comparison with him," and not merely acquiesced in
+conduct which must have galled every feeling of virtue in a pure heart,
+but involved herself in the natural suspicion of playing a part for the
+sake of power, and forgetting the injuries of the wife in order to
+retain the influence of the Queen.
+
+There can be no doubt that this policy had its reward. The King gave her
+power, or at least never attempted to disturb the power belonging to her
+rank, while it left him the full indulgence of his vices. She thus
+obtained two objects--to the world she appeared a suffering angel, to
+the King a submissive wife. In the mean time she managed both court and
+King, possessed vast patronage, perhaps more general court popularity
+than any Queen of the age; led a pleasant life, enjoying the sweets
+without the responsibilities of royalty; and by judicious liberality of
+purse, and equally dexterous flexibility of opinion, contrived to carry
+some degree of public respect with her, while she lived, and be followed
+by some degree of public regret to her grave.
+
+But this example was productive of palpable evil. The example of the
+higher ranks always operates powerfully on the lower. The toleration
+exhibited by the highest female in the kingdom for the most notorious
+vices, gave additional effect to that fashion of flexibility, which is
+the besetting sin of polished times. If the Queen had firmly set her
+face against the offences of her husband, or if she had shown the
+delicacy of a woman of virtue in keeping aloof from all intercourse with
+women whom the public voice had long marked as criminal, she might have,
+partially at least, reformed the corruptions of her profligate period.
+
+But this indifference to all the nobler feelings was the style of the
+day. Religion was scarcely more than a form: its preachers were
+partisans; its controversies were court feuds, its principles were
+politics, and its objects were stoles and mitres. In an age when
+Sacheverel, with his rampant nonsense, had been a popular apostle, and
+Swift, with his pungent abominations, had been a church adviser of the
+cabinet, and when Hoadley was regarded alternately as a pillar and as a
+subverter of the faith, we may easily conjecture the national estimate
+of Christianity.
+
+Unfortunately, a considerable proportion of the correspondence in these
+volumes is from clerical candidates for personal services; and if
+singular eagerness in pursuit of preferment, and singular homage to the
+influence of the queen's bed-chamber-woman, could stamp them with shame,
+the brand would be at once broad and indelible. But it must be
+remembered, that there are contemptible minds in every profession, that
+these men acted in direct violation of the principles of their religion,
+and that the church is no more accountable for the delinquencies of its
+members, than the courts of law for the morals of the jail.
+
+Another repulsive feature of the period was the conduct of conspicuous
+females. The habits of Germany in its higher ranks were offensive to all
+purity. The Brunswick Princes had brought those habits to St James's.
+Born and educated in Germany, they were regardless even of the feeble
+decorums of English life, and a king's mistress was an understood
+portion of the royal establishment. It is to the honour of later times,
+that such offences could not now be committed with impunity. But the
+example of Louis XIV. had sanctioned all royal excesses, and the conduct
+of his successor was an actual study of the most reckless profligacy.
+The constant intercourse of the English nobility with Paris, to which
+allusion has already been made, had accustomed them to such scenes, and
+persons of the highest condition, of the most important offices of the
+state, and even of the most respectable private character, such as
+respectability was in those days, associated with those mistresses,
+corresponded with them, and even submitted to be assisted by their
+influence with the king.
+
+We shall give but one example; that of Henrietta Hobart, afterwards Lady
+Suffolk. A baronet's daughter, and poor, she had married in early life
+the son of the Earl of Suffolk, nearly as poor as herself. In their
+narrowness of means, their only resource was some court office, and to
+obtain this, and probably to live cheap, they went to Hanover, to lay
+the foundation of favour with the future monarch of England. To some
+extent they succeeded. For, on the accession of George the First, Mrs
+Howard was appointed bedchamber-woman to Caroline the Princess of Wales.
+
+Courts, in all countries, seem to be dull places; ceremonial fails as a
+substitute for animation, and dinners of fifty covers become a mere tax
+on time, taste, and common-sense. Etiquette is only _ennui_ under
+another name, and the eternal anticipation of enjoyment is the death of
+all pleasure. Miss Burney's narrative has let in light on the sullen
+mysteries of the Maid of Honour's life, and her pencil has evidently
+given us only the picture of what had been in the times of our
+forefathers, and what will be in the times of our posterity.
+
+Mrs Howard was well-looking, without the invidious attribute of great
+beauty, and lively, without the not less invidious faculty of wit. All
+the court officials crowded her apartments in the palace. Chesterfield,
+young Churchill, Lord Hervey, Lord Scarborough, all hurried to the
+tea-table of the well-bred bedchamber-woman, to escape the dreary duties
+and monotonous moping of attendance on the throne. Lady Walpole, Mrs
+Selwyn, Mary Lepell, and Mary Bellenden, formed a part of this
+coterie--all women of presumed character, yet all associating familiarly
+with women of none. Of Mrs Howard, Swift observed in his acid
+style--"That her private virtues, for want of room to operate, might be
+folded and laid up clean, like clothes in a chest, never to be put on;
+till satiety, or some reverse of fortune should dispose her to
+retirement."
+
+Then, probably in reference to the prudery with which she occasionally
+covered her conduct,--"In the meantime," said he, "it will be her
+prudence, to take care that they be not tarnished and moth-eaten, for
+want of opening and airing, and turning, at least _once a-year_."
+
+Those matters seem to have sought no concealment whatever. "Es regolar,"
+says the Spaniard, when his country is charged with some especial
+abomination. Howard, the husband, though a _roue_, at last went into the
+quadrangle at St James's and publicly demanded his wife. He then wrote
+to the Archbishop. His letter was given to the Queen, and by her to Mrs
+Howard. Yet all this scandal never interrupted the lady's intercourse
+with the highest personages of the court. Mrs Howard continued to be the
+Queen's bedchamber woman; the Queen suffered her personal attendance,
+her carriage was escorted by John Duke of Argyle; her husband obtained a
+pension to hold his tongue; and even when the King grew tired of the
+_liaison_, and wished to get rid of her, actually complaining to the
+Queen, "That he did not know why she would not let him part with a deaf
+old woman, of whom he was weary," the politic Caroline would not allow
+him to give her up, "lest a younger favourite should gain a greater
+ascendency over him." After this, we must hear no more of the delicacy
+of Queen Caroline. Virtue and religion scarcely belonged to her day.
+
+In a court of this intolerable worldliness, the worldly must thrive; and
+Mrs Clayton advanced year by year in the imitation of her mistress, and
+in power. She, as well as Lady Suffolk, adopted Caroline's patronage of
+letters, and corresponded a good deal with the clever men of the time.
+We quote one of Lady Suffolk's letters addressed to Swift, apparently in
+answer to some of his perpetual complaints of a world, which used him
+only too well after all.
+
+                                        "_September_, 1727.
+
+     "I write to you to please myself. I hear you are melancholy,
+     because you have a bad head and deaf ears. These are two
+     misfortunes I have laboured under these many years, and yet never
+     was peevish with either myself or the world. Have I more philosophy
+     and resolution than you? Or am I so stupid that I do not feel the
+     evil?
+
+     "Answer those queries in writing, if _poison_ or other methods do
+     not enable you soon to appear in person. Though I make use of your
+     own word, poison, yet let me tell you--it is nonsense, and I desire
+     you will take more care for the time to come. Now, you endeavour to
+     impose on my understanding by taking no care of your own."
+
+The value of a keen and active confidante in a court of perpetual
+intrigue was obvious, and Mrs Clayton was the double of the Queen. But a
+deeper and more painful reason is assigned for her confidence. The Queen
+had a malady, which is not described in her Memoirs, but which we
+suppose to have been a cancer, which she was most anxious to hide from
+all the world. Walpole discovered it, and the discovery exhibits his
+skill in human nature.
+
+On the death of Lady Walpole, the Queen, who was about the same age,
+asked Sir Robert in many questions as to her illness; but he remarked,
+that she frequently reverted to one particular malady, which had _not_
+been Lady Walpole's disease. "When he came home," (his son writes) "he
+said to me,--now, Horace, I know by the possession of what secret Lady
+Sundon has preserved such an ascendant over the Queen."
+
+Mrs Clayton possessed at least one merit (if merit it be) in a
+remarkable degree, that of providing for her relatives. She was of a
+poor family, and she contrived to get something for them all. Her three
+nieces had court places, one of them that of a maid of honour; one
+brother obtained a cornetcy in the Horse Guards; another a chief
+clerkship in the annuity office; and her nephew was sent out with Lord
+Albemarle to Spain. A more remarkable relative was Clayton, Bishop of
+Clogher, who evidently knew the value of her patronage, for a more
+importunate suitor, and a more persevering sycophant, never kissed
+hands. Finally, she obtained a peerage for her husband, a distinction in
+which, of course, she herself shared, but which probably she desired
+merely to throw some _eclat_ round a singularly submissive husband.
+
+Yet there was no slight infusion of pleasantry in the minds of some of
+the royal household. When they got rid of the stately pedantry of
+Caroline, and the smooth hypocrisy of her confidante,--when the gross
+and formal monarch was shut out, and the younger portion of the court
+were left to their own inventions, they seem to have enjoyed themselves
+like children at play. There was a vast deal of flirtation, of course,
+for this folly was as much the fashion of the time as rouge. But there
+was also a great deal of verse writing, correspondence of all degrees of
+wit, and now and then caricature with pencil and pen. Mary Lepell, in
+one of those _jeux d' esprit_, described the "Six Maids of Honour" as
+six volumes bound in _calf_.--The first, Miss Meadows, as mingled
+satire, and reflection; the second as a _plain_ treatise on morality;
+the third as a rhapsody; the fourth (supposed to be the future Lady
+Pembroke) as a volume, neatly bound, of "The Whole Art of Dressing;" the
+next a miscellaneous work, with essays on "Gallantry;" the sixth, a
+folio collection of all the "Court Ballads." But there were some women
+of a superior stamp in the court circle. One of those was Lady Sophia
+Fermor, the daughter of Lady Pomfret, who seems to have been followed by
+all the men of fashion, and loved by some of them. But, like other
+professed beauties, she remained unmarried, until at last she accepted
+Lord Carteret, a man twice her age. Yet the match was a brilliant one in
+all other points, for Carteret was Secretary of State, and perhaps the
+most accomplished public man of his time.
+
+"Do but imagine," observes that prince of gossips, Horace Walpole, "how
+many passions will be gratified in that family; her own ambition,
+vanity, and resentment--love, she never had any; the politics,
+management, and pedantry of her mother, who will think to govern her
+son-in-law out of Froissart. Figure the instructions which she will give
+her daughter. Lincoln, (one of her admirers) is quite indifferent, and
+laughs."
+
+While the marriage was on the _tapis_, the beautiful Sophia was taken
+ill of the scarlet fever, and Lord Carteret of the gout. Nothing could
+be less amatory than such a crisis. But his lordship was all gallantry;
+he corresponded with her, read her letters to the Privy Council, and
+tired all the world with his passion. At length both recovered, and the
+lady had all the enjoyments which she could find in ambition. Carteret
+obtained an earldom, lost his place, but became only more popular,
+personally distinguished, and politically active. The Countess then
+became the female head of the Opposition, and gave brilliant parties, to
+the infinite annoyance of the Pelhams. For a while, she was the
+"observed of all observers." But her career came to a sudden and
+melancholy close. She had given promise of an heir, which would have
+been doubly a source of gratification to her husband; as his son by a
+former wife was a lunatic. But she was suddenly seized with a fever. One
+evening, as her mother and sister were sitting beside her, she sighed
+and said, "I feel death coming very fast upon me." This was their first
+intimation of her danger. She died on the same night!
+
+Walpole is the especial chronicler of this time. Such a man must have
+been an intolerable nuisance in his day, but his piquant impertinence is
+amusing in ours. He was evidently a wasp, pretending to perform the part
+of a butterfly, and fluttering over all the court flowers, only to plant
+his sting. As he was a perpetual flirt, he dangled round the Pomfret
+family; and probably received some severe rebuke from their mother, for
+he describes her with all the venom of an expelled _dilettante_.
+
+He speaks of her as all that was prim in pedantry, and all that was
+ridiculous in affectation; as, on being told of some man who talked of
+nothing but Madeira, gravely asking, "What language that was;" and as
+attending the public act at Oxford (on the occasion of her presenting
+some statues to the University) in a box built for her near the
+Vice-Chancellor, "where she sat for three days together, to receive
+adoration, and hear herself for four hours at a time called Minerva." In
+this assembly, adds the wit, in his peculiar style, "she appeared in all
+the tawdry poverty and frippery imaginable, and in a scoured damask
+robe," and wonders that "she did not wash out a few words of Latin," as
+she used to _fricassee_ French and Italian; or, that "she did not
+torture some learned simile," as when she said, that "it was as
+difficult to get into an Italian coach, as it was for Caesar to take
+Attica, by which she meant Utica."
+
+But Lady Pomfret is said also to have employed her talents upon more
+substantial things than pedantry. She had an early intercourse with the
+immaculate Mrs Clayton, with whom she was supposed to have negotiated
+the appointment of Lord Pomfret as master of the horse, for a pair of
+diamond rings, worth L1,400. The rumour appears to have obtained
+considerable currency; for one day when she appeared at the Duchess of
+Marlborough's with the jewels in her ears, the Duchess (old Sarah) said
+to Lady Wortley Montague, "How can the woman have the impudence to go
+about _in that bribe_!" Lady Wortley keenly and promptly
+answered,--"Madam, how can people know where wine is to be sold, unless
+where they see the sign?"
+
+Another of the curiosities of this court menagerie, was Katherine,
+Duchess of Buckingham. She was a daughter of James the Second by
+Katherine Sedley, daughter of the wit, Sir Charles. James, who with all
+his zeal for popery was a scandalous profligate, and as shameless in his
+contempt of decent opinion as he was criminal in his contempt for his
+coronation oath; gave this illegitimate offspring the rank of a Duke's
+daughter, and the permission to bear the royal arms! She found a husband
+in the Earl of Anglesea, from whom she was soon separated; the earl
+died, and she took another husband, John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham,
+certainly not too youthful a bridegroom. The duke, always a wit, had
+been in early life one of the most dissipated men of his day, and
+through all the varieties and _vexations_ of a life devoted to pleasure,
+had reached his 59th year. Yet, this handsome wreck, almost the last
+relic of the court of Charles the Second, lived a dozen years longer,
+and left the duchess guardian of his son.
+
+His lordly dowager afforded the world of high life perpetual amusement.
+Her whole life was an unintentional caricature of royalty. Beggarly
+beyond conception in her private affairs, she was as pompous in public
+as if she had the blood of all the thrones of Europe in her veins. She
+evidently regarded the Brunswicks as usurpers, and hated them; while she
+affected a sort of superstitious homage for the exiled dynasty, and gave
+them--every thing but her money. She once made a sort of pilgrimage to
+visit the body of James, and pretended to shed tears over it. The monk
+who showed it, adroitly observed to her, that the velvet pall which
+covered the coffin was in rags, but her sympathies did not reach quite
+so far, and she would not take the hint, and saved her purse.
+
+At the opera, she appeared in a sort of royal robe of scarlet and
+ermine, and everywhere made herself so supremely ridiculous, that the
+laughers called her Princess Buckingham. Even the deepest domestic
+calamity could not tame down this outrageous pride. When her only son
+died of consumption, she sent messengers to all her circle, telling
+them, that if they wished to see him lie in state, "she would admit them
+by the back stairs." On this melancholy occasion, her only feeling
+seemed to be, her vanity. She sent to the Duchess of Marlborough to
+borrow the triumphal car which had conveyed the remains of the great
+duke to the grave. This preposterous request was naturally refused by
+the duchess, who replied, "that the car which had borne the Duke of
+Marlborough's dead body should never be profaned by another."
+
+On her own deathbed, she declared her wish to be buried beside her
+father James the Second. "George Selwyn shrewdly said, that to be buried
+by her father, she need not be carried out of England," (she was
+supposed to be actually the daughter of Colonel Graham.) When she found
+herself dying, she carried on the melancholy farce to the last. She sent
+for Anstis, the herald, and arranged the whole funeral ceremony with
+him. She was particularly anxious to see the preparations before she
+died. "Why," she asked, "won't they send the canopy for me to see? Let
+them send it, even though the tassels are not finished." And finally,
+she exacted from her ladies a promise, that if she became insensible,
+they should not sit down in the presence of her body, till she was
+completely dead!
+
+Such things told in a romance, would be criticised for their
+extravagance, but nothing is too extravagant for human nature. Reared in
+folly, pampered with self-indulgence, and bloated with vanity, the
+wholesome discipline of adversity would have been of infinite value to
+this woman and her tribe. Six months in Bridewell, varied by beating
+hemp, would have been the most fortunate lesson which she could have
+received from society.
+
+Another of those persons, yet more remarkable for her position in life,
+was the second daughter of George II., the Princess Amelia. She was
+supposed to have been attached to the Duke of Grafton; but remaining
+single, and having nothing on the earth to do, she became a torment to
+the King, the Court, and every body. Idleness is the vice of high life,
+and discontent its punishment. The Princess became proverbial for
+peevishness, sarcasm, and scandal. Of course, fashion took its revenge;
+and where every one was shooting an arrow, some struck, and struck
+deep. The Princess grew masculine in her manners, and coarse in her
+mind. Her appointment as ranger in Richmond Park, one of those sinecure
+offices which are scattered among the dependants of the throne, made her
+enemies. Little acts of authority, such as stopping up pathways, brought
+the tongues of the neighbouring population and gentry upon her, until
+her royal highness had the vexation of seeing an action brought against
+her. After some of the usual delays of justice, she had the
+mortification of being beaten, and ultimately resigned the rangership.
+From this period she almost disappeared from the public eye, yet she
+survived till 1786, dying at the age of 71.
+
+Mrs Clayton still held her quiet ascendancy, and her position was so
+perfectly understood, that her interest seems to have been an object of
+solicitation with nearly every person involved in public difficulties.
+Of this kind was her intercourse with the three sons of Bishop Burnet,
+all individuals of intelligence and accomplishment, but all in early
+life struggling with fortune. The character of the bishop himself is
+best known from his works: gossiping, giddiness, and imprudence in
+taking every thing for granted that he had heard, but honesty in telling
+it, belonged to the bishop as much as to his books. The chances of the
+Revolution placed him in the way of preferment; chances, however, which,
+if they had turned the other way, might have cost him his head. But he
+was on the right side in politics, and not on the wrong side in
+religion; and he won and wore the mitre in better style than any man of
+his age. His oldest son, William, was educated as a barrister; he lost
+his fortune in the South Sea bubble, and was sent to America as governor
+of New York. Subsequently he was removed to Boston, with which he was
+discontented, and after long altercations with the General Assembly of
+the province, he died of a fever, probably inflamed by vexation.
+Gilbert, the second son, was appointed chaplain to George I., was a man
+of clear understanding, and exhibited his knowledge of courts by siding
+with Hoadley. With all the distinctions of his profession opening before
+him, he died young. Thomas, the third son, differed from both his
+brothers, in the superiority of his talents, and the wildness of his
+temper. The manners of the time were a mixture of vulgar riot and gross
+indulgence. The streets were infested with ruffianism, and a society
+among the young men of rank and education, which took to itself the name
+of "The Mohocks," and whose barbarous habits were worthy of the name,
+insulted alike public justice and endangered personal safety. Thomas
+Burnet was said to have been engaged in some of their violences, though
+he, perhaps, was not one of the "affiliated." It may be naturally
+supposed, that those excesses grieved so distinguished a man as his
+father; and it is equally to be supposed that they led to frequent
+remonstrance. If so, they operated effectively at last.
+
+One day the bishop, observing the peculiar gravity of his son's
+countenance, asked, "On what he was thinking."
+
+"On a greater work than your 'History of the Reformation.'--_My own_,"
+was the answer.
+
+"I shall be heartily glad to see it," said the father, "though I almost
+despair of it."
+
+It was undertaken, however, and vigorously pursued. The young _roue_
+became a leading lawyer, and finally attained the rank of Chief-justice
+of the Common Pleas. He died in 1753.
+
+There is, perhaps, in public history, no more curious instance of the
+power which circumstances may place in the hands of a private
+individual, than the deference paid to Mrs Clayton. Her whole merit
+seems to have been caution, a perpetual sense of the delicacy of her
+position, and an undeviating deference to the habits, opinions, and
+purposes of the Queen. Those were useful qualities, but not remarkable
+for dignity, and rather opposed to personal amiability of mind. Yet this
+cautious, considerate, and frigid personage, was all but worshipped by
+the world of fashion, of talents, and of celebrity.
+
+Among those worshippers was the man who did the most evil, and gained
+the most renown, of any man of his generation. The wit, who eclipsed all
+the witty pungency of France in his sportive sarcasm; all the libellers
+of royalty in his scorn of thrones; and all the grave infidelity of
+England, in his restless and envenomed antipathy to all religion--the
+memorable Voltaire.
+
+He was then only beginning his mischievous career, but he had already
+made its character sufficiently marked to earn an imprisonment in the
+Bastille, and, on his liberation, an order to quit Paris.
+
+In England he occupied himself chiefly with literature; published his
+"Henriade," for which he obtained a large subscription; wrote his
+tragedy of "Brutus," his "Philosophical Letters," and other works.
+
+At length he was permitted to return to that spot out of which a French
+wit may be scarcely said to live; and kept up his intercourse with Mrs
+Clayton by the following letter:
+
+                                        "_Paris, April_ 18, 1729.
+
+     "Madame,--Though I am out of London, the favours which your
+     ladyship has honoured me with, are not, nor ever will be, out of my
+     memory. I will remember, as long as I live, that the most
+     respectable lady, who waits, and is a friend to the most truly
+     great queen in the world, has vouchsafed to protect me, and receive
+     me with kindness while I was at London.
+
+     "I am just now arrived at Paris, and pay my respects to your Court,
+     before I see our own. I wish, for the honour of Versailles, and for
+     the improvement of virtue and letters, we could have here some
+     ladies like you. You see, my wishes are unbounded. So is the
+     respect and gratitude I am with, Madame, your most humble, obedient
+     servant,
+
+                                                  "Voltaire."
+
+We pass over a thousand triflings in the subsequent pages--the alarms of
+court ladies for the loss of a royal smile, the sickness of a favourite
+monkey, or the formidable "impossibility" of matching a set of old
+china. Such are the calamities of having nothing to do. We see in those
+pages instances of high-born men contented to linger round the court for
+life, performing some petty office which, however, required constant
+attendance on the court circle, and submitting, with many a groan, it
+must be confessed, to the miserable routine of trivial duties and meagre
+ceremonial, much fitter for their own footmen; while they left their own
+magnificent mansions to solitude, their noble estates unvisited, their
+tenantry uncheered, unprotected, and unencouraged by their residence in
+their proper sphere, and finally degenerated into feeble gossips,
+splenetic intriguers, and ridiculous encumbrances of the court itself.
+
+Difficulty seems essential to the vigour of man. Difficulty seems
+essential even to the vigour of nations. The old theory, that luxury is
+the ruin of a state, was obviously untrue; for in no condition of the
+earth could luxury ever go down to the multitude. But the true evil of
+states is, the decay of the national activity, the chill of the national
+ardour, the adoption of a trifling, indolent, vegetative style of being.
+Into this life France had sunk, from the time of Louis XIV. Into this
+life Germany had sunk, from the peace of Westphalia. Into this life
+England was rapidly sinking, from the reign of Anne.
+
+But the visitation came at last, at once to punish and to stimulate.
+France, Germany, and England were plunged into war together; and fearful
+as the plunge was, out of that raging torrent the three nations have
+struggled to shore, refreshed and invigorated by the struggle. England
+seems now to be entering on another career, more perilous than the
+exigencies of war--a moral and intellectual conflict, in which popular
+passions and rational principles will be ranged on opposite sides; and
+the question may involve the final shape which government shall assume
+in the British empire, or, perhaps, in the European world.
+
+The characteristics of our time are wholly unshared with the past. In
+calling up the recollections of the great ages of English change, we can
+discover but slight evidence of their connexion with our own. To the
+stately, but religious, aspect of the Republic of 1641, we find no
+resemblance in the general features of our religious tolerance. To the
+ardent zeal for liberty which marked the Revolution of 1688, we can find
+no counterpart in the constitutional quietude of the present day. The
+fiery ferocity of Continental Revolution has certainly furnished no
+model to the professors of national regeneration, since the reform of
+1830. And yet, a determination, a power and a progress of public change,
+is now the acknowledged principle of the most active, indefatigable, and
+unscrupulous portion of the mind of England.
+
+And among the most remarkable and most menacing adjuncts of the crisis,
+is the singular sense of inadequacy to resist its career, which seems to
+paralyse the habitual defenders of the right cause. The consecrated
+guardians of the church seem only to wait the final blow. The great
+landholders in the peerage are contented with making protests. The
+agricultural interest, the boast of England, and the vital interest of
+the empire, has abandoned a resistance, too feeble to deserve the praise
+of fortitude, and too irregular to deserve the fruits of victory. The
+moneyed interest sees its gigantic opulence threatened by a
+hundred-handed grasp; but makes no defence, or makes that most dangerous
+of all defences, which calls in the invader as the auxiliary, bribes him
+with a portion of the spoils, and only provokes his appetite for the
+possession of the whole.
+
+This condition of things cannot last. A few years, perhaps a few months,
+will ripen the bitter fruit, which the meekness of undecided governments
+has suffered to grow before their eyes. The Ballot, which offers a
+subterfuge for every fraud; Extended Suffrage, which offers a force for
+every aggression; the overthrow of all religious endowments, which
+offers a bribe to every desire of avarice--above all that turning of
+religion into a political tool, that indifference to the true, and that
+welcoming of the false, in whatever shape it may approach, however
+fierce and foul; however coldly contemptuous, or furiously fanatical,
+however grim or grotesque, whose first act must be to trample all
+principle under foot, and place on its altar the worship of the
+passions;--those are the demands which are already made, and those will
+be the trophies which the hands of political zealotry and personal
+rapine, in the first hour of their triumph, will raise on the grave
+where lies buried the Constitution.
+
+Yet nothing is done by the natural defenders of the rights of
+Englishmen. No leader comes forward; no new followers are to be found;
+no banner is raised as the rallying point for the fugitives, already
+broken. We see the approach of the evil, as the men of the old world
+might have seen the approach of the Deluge; awaiting with folded hands,
+and feet rooted to the ground, the surges which nothing could resist;
+looking with an indolent despair at the mighty inundation, before which
+the plain and the mountain alike began to disappear; and sullenly
+submitting to an extinction, of which they had been long offered the
+means of escape, and perishing, with the pledge of security floating
+before their eyes.
+
+We are by no means desirous of being prophets of public misfortune; but,
+with the tenets publicly avowed, in the elections which have just
+closed, with the strong popularity attached to the most daring opinions,
+with thirty pledged _Repealers_ from Ireland, with the wildest doctrines
+of trade advocated by the popular representatives in England, with sixty
+subjects of the Pope sitting in a Protestant legislature, and with the
+evident determination to bring into that legislature individuals (and
+who shall limit their numbers, when its doors are once thrown open to
+their wealth?) who pronounce Christianity itself to be an imposture,--we
+can conjecture no consequences, however hazardous, which ought not to
+present themselves to the soberest friend of his country. That the worst
+consequences may not be inevitable, is only to hope in a higher
+protection; that even out of the evil good may come, is not
+unconformable to the ways of Providence; but that times are at hand in
+which the noblest energy of English statesmanship will be required to
+meet the conflict, we have no more doubt, than that the pilot who, in a
+storm, uses neither compass nor sail, must run his ship on shore; or
+that the man who walks about in clothes dipped in pestilence, will leave
+his corpse as a testimony to the fact of the contagion.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[18] _Memoirs of Viscountess Sundon._ By Mrs THOMPSON. 2 Vols. Colburn.
+
+
+
+
+ART IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN AGES.[19]
+
+
+From time immemorial the German universities have been regarded as the
+seats of patient, persevering, indefatigable, but also unprofitable,
+erudition. They have been the homes of men whose lives were one long day
+of toil--a continual course of labour, the sole reward of which was a
+secret consciousness of worth, and a fame, circumscribed it is true, yet
+still spreading wide amongst the elect of science in all civilised
+countries. Lost, not in the day-dreams of romance, but in the depths and
+amongst the mazes of science, it was but seldom that these men of the
+study and the library found leisure and nerve to escape from seclusion,
+and to take their share of the duties of active life in which their less
+reflective brethren were feverishly engaged. And when they attempted the
+competition, their failure was signal. They presented an extraordinary
+exhibition of awkward genius and blundering sagacity, and exposed
+themselves at once to the painful ridicule of those whose calling and
+pursuits taught them to prize mere worldly wisdom above all human lore.
+
+Their country owes them a heavy debt of gratitude. Though little known,
+they ought never to be forgotten. They were unpopular, but they worked
+for the popularity of science. The results of their labours are not to
+be looked for in their own creations, but must rather be traced in the
+productions of their children's children. Generations to come will
+acknowledge them for their lawful progenitors, nor will future ages lose
+by confessing the obligations which they owe to so noble an ancestry. If
+our task to-day is comparatively easy, it is because the men of whom we
+speak never shrank from the difficulties attending theirs. We may smile
+at the childish simplicity of Neander, but we deeply venerate the
+profound erudition and the subtle discernment of that extraordinary
+critic's mind. We may feel shocked at the clownish sallies of a
+Blumenbach, the stinginess of Gesenius, and the rude manners of Ernesti.
+But with the first, we connect vast realms in natural philosophy
+unconquered before him; to the second, the student of Hebrew refers with
+reverential affection and gratitude; whilst we know, that the burly
+demeanour of the last could never hide the treasures of a Latin style,
+which, for purity and power, competes with that of Tully, and like that
+may well be compared to a precious sword, pure in metal, and as lasting
+as it is flexible and cutting.
+
+The greater number of those to whom we refer have long since passed from
+the silence of their study to that of the grave. They have died as they
+lived--poor and honoured. Of them all, there is scarcely one whose
+departure was generally lamented; not one whose death was generally
+known. For the bulk of mankind, they never existed. Their works,
+unpalatable to the many, had always been the delight and instruction of
+the few. Yet, let not their unpopularity be quoted against them. They
+knew the extent of their mission. It was to collect and hoard bullion
+for future coinage and circulation. They prepared the path along which a
+whole nation was hereafter to travel. They were modest but meritorious
+labourers, who built a massive and powerful foundation, that another age
+might be left at ease to erect the brilliant superstructure.
+
+That other age is here. The proud fane for which they cleared the way,
+and saw as the prophet of old beheld the Land of Promise, is rising now
+before us. In the author of the "History of the Fine Arts in the Early
+Ages of Christianity," we greet a worthy follower of those great masters
+whose works have somewhat rashly been pronounced more curious than
+useful. Professor Gottfried Kinkel is a true disciple and no imitator.
+He understands the period which has produced him. He knows its wants.
+General diffusion of knowledge is its distinguishing feature. Science
+leaves the closet to communicate her benefits to the forum. Neither the
+centralisation of wealth, nor that of knowledge, can now secure a nation
+against poverty and ignorance. People may starve, though the royal
+coffers are bursting with their weight of gold; they may be ignorant,
+though their chiefs luxuriate in the possession of unbounded knowledge.
+Rapid circulation of the currency has been found to constitute national
+wealth. A general diffusion of knowledge is the necessary condition of
+civilisation. Poesy is no longer content to dwell at court. Chemistry
+has chosen the path which Bacon pointed out to her; and whilst she has
+found a new field of action, has been enriched by treasures of knowledge
+hitherto concealed from her view. The sneering exclamation of Persius--
+
+     "Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter."
+
+is the great truth and motto of this our century.
+
+Even the universities of Germany have begun to popularise the results of
+their laborious researches; although it cannot be said that they have
+taken the lead of the age, we may at least affirm that they have gone
+along with it. They have not lingered in the rear. They have adapted
+their instruction and language to homely understandings, and have
+increased rather than lessened their dignity by the condescension. They
+have become more honoured and respected as the benefits of their labours
+have grown more palpable to common sight; they have been more renowned
+since the many have been permitted to appreciate the merits of the few.
+Instruction itself has been more courted and made more welcome since it
+took courage to cast aside its cumbrous wig and gown, and ventured to
+appear before the world with the natural graces of pure humanity.
+
+Professor Kinkel, to whom we owe the work whose title is placed at the
+foot of the present article, is in every respect a specimen, and perhaps
+a prototype, of the German professor of the nineteenth century. To the
+deep and solid learning of a former generation, he adds the good taste
+and social accomplishments indispensable in these more advanced times.
+Thirteen years ago he was a student of theology in the university of
+Bonn, and even at that period the extraordinary application and the
+commanding faculties of the "studiosus Kinkel" had earned for him a
+scholastic reputation, and won the respect of his fellow-students and of
+the professors of the university. Indefatigable, then, in his
+theological pursuits, he was the subject of general admiration on
+account of the vast extent of his acquirements, and of the enthusiastic
+interest with which he engaged in the sacred study of the fine arts. No
+less general was the complaint that a mind so happily formed to range
+through the boundless realms of philosophy, a genius so brilliant, a
+soul so deeply imbued with a love of the beautiful and the great, should
+be suffered to pine beneath the monotonous duties of a theological
+professorship, and dissipate unparalleled energies in splitting the
+straws of a controversy, or deciding the dusty quibbles of an antiquated
+lore. At the close of his academical career, GOTTFRIED KINKEL was
+admitted into the university as a licentiate in theology; but shortly
+after his promotion, he quitted his native country, and was for some
+years a wanderer amongst the splendid ruins of Italy. The treasures of
+art which mock the nakedness of this ill-starred country were to him
+what they are ever to the mind of the artist,--they revealed a new
+world. Unlike many others, however, Kinkel was not bewildered by the
+beauty which so suddenly burst upon his view. He was not surfeited. His
+enthusiasm, tempered by the metallic reasoning of the Hegel school, was
+closely allied with the subtlest criticism. His admiration was never an
+obstacle to comparison. Whilst he admired he remembered: individual
+faults or excellencies, he found to be reducible to common causes. His
+conclusions he drew from the objects: he did not force the one upon the
+other.
+
+In like manner, and intent upon the same purpose, the theological
+licentiate travelled through France, Belgium, and Holland; and when he
+returned to Bonn, his spirit as well as his habits of life were more
+than ever wedded to the critical contemplation of the results of the
+creative faculty in the mind of man. The annual exhibitions of paintings
+in Cologne, Duesseldorf, and Frankfort, found in him an indulgent and
+impartial critic. His researches on the monuments of ancient sacred
+architecture were at intervals published in _The Domban Blatt_, and
+immediately secured the attention and regard of all antiquarians.
+
+The cherished pursuits, however, were ill calculated to reconcile Kinkel
+to his adopted profession. In 1845, the licentiate in theology doffed
+his gown, and was forthwith appointed a professor of philosophy in the
+university of Bonn. It is to his lectures in this capacity that we owe
+the treatise on Art in the Early Christian Ages. This remarkable book
+was written with the purpose of instructing the public mind, and of
+enabling the many to participate in the intellectual enjoyment as yet
+confined to a favoured few. Its objects were to vindicate the merits of
+Christianity as a fosterer of the arts, and to encourage, all lovers of
+art by opening new fields for exploration.
+
+The productions of real art are the most universally instructive of all
+creations. Nothing acts so powerfully on individual and national
+character; nothing so beneficially. Wherever art has been without these
+consequences, we may be sure that art was false. Its prophets were false
+prophets. The assumption of charlatans, however, is no condemnation of
+the art itself. The abuses of idolaters is no argument against religion.
+M. Kinkel's introduction to the plan of his work has but one fault. It
+is a national one. His mode of reasoning is conclusive; but the English
+reader, less accustomed to metaphysical phraseology than his German
+neighbours, will find some difficulty in grasping it. According to our
+author, two conditions are necessary to true art, which he defines to be
+"the incorporation of the spirit in a beautiful form." _Beauty_, then,
+and _spirit_ are, the two conditions of true art. If one be wanting,
+true art is likewise wanting. The spirit, separate from beauty of form,
+may be religion and ethics--it can never be art. Beauty of form without
+the spirit, is likewise not a work of art. It remains on a level with
+matter; but the production of the artist soars higher. Hence true art is
+capable of yielding more universal satisfaction both to the artist and
+to the spectator than all other intellectual creations. The reason is
+obvious. We express and meet with the two grand constituents of our
+being; and, whilst other branches of knowledge are apter to separate
+than to unite--whilst science is exclusive, and even religion herself is
+sometimes productive of discord, true art asserts her right to be
+regarded as the great Pantheon of mankind. No idea is _universal_
+property unless expressed by art. Even the vast abyss which separates
+the lower orders of men from the ranks above them is overcome by art,
+for all are sensible of the joys which art produces. To know, therefore,
+what and how the mind and hand of man have hitherto worked, is a
+necessary, if it be not an indispensable, investigation and pursuit. "We
+are not ambitious," says M. Kinkel, "to conquer fame by profound
+hypotheses concerning things which, both by time and place, are indeed
+far from us. It is not our object to look for art in its infancy amongst
+nations which have long ceased to exist, nor shall we at once turn to
+Greece and Rome. Our desire is to contemplate those creations, which
+from their time and spirit are kindred to our feelings, and to speak of
+that branch of art with which Christianity has been busy within the last
+eighteen hundred years."
+
+The author proceeds to point out the two grand directions in which all
+original art branches off. It serves either religion or history. The
+first productions of art were idols and monuments. Palaces, theatres,
+paintings, are the work of progressive civilisation. Christian art has
+one principal feature in common with pagan art,--its origin. They are
+alike the offspring of religion. They are also similar in their
+progress; they acquired an inclination towards history, and both have at
+last taken a decided _realistic_ direction. But the vast difference
+between Christian and antique art is no less palpable. The art of
+antiquity was far more deeply imbued with the principle of nationality
+than the former. Nations were isolated; each had its proper gods and its
+peculiar history. The diversity of religion and of political
+institutions engendered a difference of feeling. This civilised world of
+ours, on the other hand, has a community of feeling, in as much as it
+has one religion common to all. The Celtic, Sclavonian, and German
+nations exhibit far greater diversities of origin and climate than the
+inhabitants of Persia and India in ancient times; yet the artistic
+productions of the former are more alike. Their religion furnishes one
+point at which all meet, and in respect of which they are inseparable.
+The prevalence of the ecclesiastical element in modern art, is, however,
+liable to one great objection. For many years it served to exclude
+historical art, which even in our own time has not attained so high a
+perfection. It is true that Christianity makes amends in some degree for
+the want of this historical development. A total absence of historical
+facts is the great characteristic of the religions of antiquity. The Son
+of David, on the contrary, is in himself the greatest of historical
+facts. The Apostles are no mythical personages. The great men of Judaic
+history, the family of our Saviour, and the people with whom he
+conversed, all form one large group of historical personages, and
+religion and history, formerly separated, are _here_ united. Christ on
+the cross is an object of touching adoration, but he is also the
+monument of the greatest event in the history of the world. But that
+this is no national history is undeniable. Offspring of a foreign soil,
+it had no connexion with the state.
+
+The exclusively ecclesiastical character of early Christian art, is
+another grand feature which at once destroys all analogy between this
+art and the creations of pagan antiquity. In Hellenic paganism, we
+behold the triumph of humanity. The human form in its most ideal beauty
+is the type of all things divine. Christianity starts at once with the
+peremptory condition of a renunciation of individual beauty and
+strength. Christianity counted sensual beauty as nothing: she regarded
+the mind alone. She permits the human form only as the incorporation of
+some hidden thought divine. In the one instance, the _form_ was all in
+all; in the other, it is the _expression_. The heathen delighted in
+naked bodies, for every single part might convey the sensation of
+beauty. The face sufficed for Christian art, as solely expressive of
+divine beauty. And since the adopted Jewish custom excludes nudity in
+life, it must needs die in art. In the new order of things, sculpture is
+lost, and painting is better adapted to the narrow limits of early
+Christian art.
+
+Upon the question whether this fear of the world, as exhibited in the
+rejection of the world's material forms, be truly the character of real
+Christianity, Professor Kinkel answers with a decided negative. He
+rather favours the opinion of those who hold the fear and hate of the
+world which distinguished the early Christian ages, to have been founded
+on an erroneous comprehension of the doctrine and example of the great
+Founder, who, as far as we are able to learn, facilitated the creation
+of real art. The misconception, so fatal to the civilising influence of
+art, M. Kinkel, explains by reminding us of the fears of idolatry, so
+justly entertained by Christianity in its first existence, of the
+oppression and persecution which the early church experienced, and of
+the natural desire entertained by the oppressed, to be as little like
+the oppressors as possible.
+
+The extreme opinions, however, could not last. They began with the fury
+of persecution, and they died with it. An earnest admiration of the
+beautiful is implanted deeply in the soul of man for noble purposes,
+which Providence will not suffer to be thwarted. Mistaken notions of
+duty, religious zeal maddened by oppression, for a time clouded the
+faculty amongst the early Christians, but it soon burst forth again.
+Faint at first in its appearance, it gained strength with every passing
+lustre; and however sweeping the condemnation pronounced by early
+believers against vain signs and images expressive of the objects of
+this fleeting world, the voices of the cursers gradually hushed, and the
+mind of man, asserting its prerogative, was active again with new and
+regenerated power. The history of civilisation must needs count by
+centuries, and it took ages to effect the transition. From our present
+lofty and unprejudiced height, from that height at which modern art
+strives to emulate that of antiquity, it may not be wholly uninstructive
+to look back towards the first trembling attempts of the early Christian
+people.
+
+It would appear that the first attempts of the early Christians were of
+a symbolical and allegorical kind. The same figures, with little or no
+variation, were constantly repeated to express ideas which, whilst they
+led the thoughts of the believer into the channel which to him appeared
+most satisfactory, were mere forms, and void of meaning to pagan eyes.
+Chief amongst these was the Cross, but without the body of Christ
+affixed to it. The crucifix is an invention of the seventh century. In
+the beginning, the Cross did not expose the Christians to suspicion, for
+it was known to many religions of antiquity. The nations of Egypt adored
+the cross as a sign of their salvation, since they placed it in the
+hands of one of their idols as a key to the annual flux of the Nile. The
+Persian worshippers of Mithras considered the cross a sacred symbol.
+When pagan persecution finally discovered the exclusive and peculiar
+signification of the sign amongst the Christians, the latter ingeniously
+contrived forms of the cross translatable by the eyes of the elect
+alone. To these, the image of a flying bird was a cross; the human
+figure in a swimming attitude was the same thing, and so also the
+cross-trees of a sailing ship; the letters Alpha and Omega are seen
+frequently engraved at the extremities of these disguised emblems in
+remembrance of Revelation, i. 8. Doves, ships, lyres, anchors, fishes
+and fishermen, are recommended by Clemens Alexandrinus, as the most
+fitting objects for Christians to contemplate, and for representation on
+seals. Amongst other symbols we find the seven-branched chandelier,
+though originally a Jewish sign, employed as a type of our Saviour, who
+calls himself (John, viii. 12.) the "light of the world." A wreath of
+flowers was expressive of the crown of life. A pair of scales, in
+remembrance of the last judgment, and a house, have been occasionally
+discovered on ancient grave-stones; and once, a simple _curriculum_ has
+been traced with the pole thrown backwards and a whip leaning against
+it,--an unmistakable allusion to a departure for that place where "the
+weary are at rest." Amongst plants, the olive, the vine, and the palm
+were favourite symbols, the latter being generally reserved for the
+grave-stones of martyrs. Birds, too, are frequently met with on the
+walls of houses: the phoenix and the peacock being emblems of
+immortality. The fable of the phoenix is minutely told by Clemens
+Romanus; but the common superstition which ascribes imputrescibility to
+the flesh of the latter, easily rendered this bird a symbol of the
+resurrection of the body. Saint Augustine is said to have subjected this
+peculiar quality of the peacock's flesh to a practical test. He ordered
+one to be roasted, and at the close of a twelvemonth requested it to be
+served up. Tradition does not inform us whether he ate it, and with what
+appetite.
+
+The dove occurs more frequently than any other bird. Two doves bearing
+olive branches, are seen on Christian grave-stones in the Cologne
+museum, and on the _porta nigra_ at Treves. The meaning of the sign of a
+fish will not readily occur: but the frequency of its appearance
+establishes its character as a secret mark of recognition. It was used
+to signify both Christ and his church. Of quadrupeds we find the
+stag,[20] the ox,[21] the lion,[22] and the lamb,[23] constantly in
+connexion with the cross. The lion and the lamb are typical of Christ.
+The transition to his representation in human form is rendered by two
+figures, which, whilst human, are still symbolical. In the catacombs of
+Saint Calintus, in the Via Appia at Rome, Christ is discovered in the
+character of Orpheus, whilst at other places he is represented as a
+shepherd.
+
+Two paintings were found in Herculaneum, and may at present be seen in
+the Museo Borbonico at Naples, which are of undoubted Christian origin,
+and present a curious specimen of Christian art in the first century.
+Each of these two paintings is divided into an upper field, and into a
+lower smaller one. The smaller field of one of them is destined to
+expose the folly and corruption of paganism, and Egyptian mythology is
+selected for the purpose. We behold temples. In front of one of them
+stands a statue of Isis; another is devoted to Anubis the dog-god: two
+figures of crocodiles lie stretched across the entrance. On the left, we
+see a live crocodile waiting for its prey amongst the bulrushes: an ass
+is in the act of walking into the open mouth of the monster, in spite of
+the efforts of the driver, who vainly endeavours to pull the animal back
+by its tail. This might be intended to satirize some Roman pagan, were
+it not for the counterpart. To the right, and immediately opposite the
+idolatries on the field already spoken of, we see a well into which a
+rope is being lowered, whilst a naked man, standing by, is seeking to
+cover himself. An allusion is here made to fishing and baptism. On the
+left, the crocodile of the former picture is again met with, but a
+warrior with lance and shield advances with the view of slaying it. In
+the middle of the painting a net is spread between two trees, and behind
+it, and in direct opposition to the Isis on the pagan picture, we behold
+a tall and erect cross. The upper fields harmonise with the lower. The
+Christian painting displays a vigorous and stately tree between two
+younger palm-trees; the pagan picture has the same symbols; but the
+middle tree is in the sere and yellow leaf, whilst a Dryad issuing from
+the roots flourishes an axe to cut it down. The allusion is not to be
+mistaken. The sun of paganism has set: the axe is already at the root.
+
+The greater number of the symbols named, however rich they may be in
+thought, are sadly deficient in form, and we can discover but little
+progress in this respect from the origin of Christianity to the time of
+Constantine. Architecture, and especially ecclesiastical architecture,
+may be said to be the only branch of the fine arts which was
+successfully cultivated, and architecture itself was insignificant for
+three centuries subsequently to the birth of Christ. Painting and
+sculpture could elude cruelty and take refuge beneath the cloak of
+symbols: but churches could not be masked. It was difficult to hide
+them. In the earliest periods of Christianity, too, their absence was
+not seriously felt; people prayed where they thought proper. Scripture
+tells us that the apostles taught in the temple of Jerusalem.
+Christianity, a sect of Judaism in its origin, dwelt for a long time in
+the synagogues. Wherever St Paul came, he preached first in the Jewish
+schools. In times of persecution, the believers sought refuge in the
+catacombs. They assembled in the solitude of forests to pray and to
+exhort one another. When the Jews opposed themselves to the new creed,
+congregations met in the houses of the more wealthy. The apartment
+usually employed for divine purposes is supposed to have been the
+triclinium, or large dining-room of the richer classes amongst the
+Greeks and Romans. The want of churches was first experienced when
+frequent conversions swelled congregations beyond the limits of a large
+family; and this, as we have hinted, occurred in the course of the third
+century. The existence of a church expressly devoted to Christian
+worship in the reign of the Emperor Severus Alexander, has been proved
+beyond a doubt. It was a reign remarkable for its spirit of toleration.
+The Christians were suffered to hold offices in the state, in the army,
+and even at court. Churches rose rapidly under the mild light of
+toleration. Even in the western provinces of the empire, in Gaul, Spain,
+and Britain, we meet with churches erected at the commencement of the
+fourth century. In Nicomedia also, under the very eyes of Diocletian, a
+church was built that surpassed in splendour the very palace of the
+Emperor. The army of Diocletian destroyed the holy building in the last
+grand persecution. It was the last convulsive effort of paganism in its
+agony.
+
+No particulars of these churches have come down to us. Of that in
+Nicomedia we know nothing, save that it was splendid. None had, we are
+inclined to suppose, any fixed style. The style of the original
+triclinium in which believers first congregated, was, in all likelihood,
+imitated. Even in private houses, these triclinia were magnificently
+adorned. The walls were ornamented with rows of lofty columns, and where
+the Egyptian style prevailed, two rows of columns were constructed, one
+above the other; an effect of this last arrangement was the formation of
+a two-storied passage between the walls and the columns. In the
+beginning of the tenth century, Pope Leo III. constructed a dining-room
+after this fashion. We may fairly conclude that nothing grand or
+extraordinary in architecture was attempted in a period of great trouble
+and poverty. The real glory of Christian architecture dates from the
+reign of Constantine. Christianity, legalised by him, might venture to
+display her rites and her art. Under the government of Constantine the
+church was enriched. He endowed it with the spoils of defeated and
+expiring paganism. In the third century, the church of Rome, when
+summoned to yield its treasures, produced its poor as the only treasures
+it possessed. In the fifth century, that same church appointed a
+clerical commission to watch over and inspect its possessions in foreign
+countries.
+
+The change of circumstances was not without a great and lasting
+influence. Paganism threatened no more. It was conquered. No further
+danger was to be apprehended from the departed religion of a gloomier
+age. The clerical profession, warmed and nourished by the rays of
+imperial favour, was soon effectually distinguished from the crowd of
+laymen which surrounded it. The desire to render this separation
+systematic and all-pervading was too natural to slumber for any length
+of time, and the absence of an order of architecture peculiar to the
+ministers of the new religion came to be severely felt. Rank and wealth
+have ever delighted in drawing towards them the eyes of the world. The
+worldliness and splendour of the church have been long the subject of
+violent animadversion. But how could it be otherwise? From the moment
+that Christianity became a favoured creed, conversions were rapid and
+frequent; but not all the neophytes converted in form, had undergone a
+similar change of spirit. Millions flocked through the open gates of the
+church. To teach all, before they entered, was an impossibility. If
+there was time to _awe_, that was something. If general conviction was
+out of the question, universal respect was easily attainable. The
+charms, the sensual enjoyments of the pagan altars, were once more
+offered to the heathen. The smoke of incense filled the church; the
+spoils of antiquity adorned its roofs and columns; the robes of the
+clergy were covered with gold; the rites of the church delighted in
+colours. But decoration and ornament alone were borrowed from paganism.
+The temples of the heathen could not be copied in form: they could not
+serve the purposes of Christian worship.
+
+The destination of the temple was different from that of the church. The
+temple was the house of an idol: limited in extent, it received
+sufficient light through the open door. The rites of paganism were
+performed in the colonnade surrounding the temple, not in the temple
+itself, and the crowd of spectators stood beyond the limits of the
+sacred building. The sanctuary of Pandrosus at Athens, admits only of a
+few persons; and even the temple of Athenae is not to be compared for
+size with our modern churches. The Christian religion is essentially
+didactic. It requires space for its hearers and disciples. But its
+sacraments were mysteries, and none but the elect were admitted to them.
+Thus, it was necessary to separate true believers from the bulk of the
+congregation. No buildings were so happily adapted to this double
+purpose as the houses of public justice and traffic, which, originally
+of Grecian origin, had arrived at a high state of perfection in the
+Roman empire. The most ancient of such houses--called Basilika--stood in
+Athens at the foot of the Pnyx. It was in such a building that Socrates
+appeared before his judges, and Christ was judged by Pilate. In the
+history of art, we trace the workings of omnipresent Nemesis. The sign
+of curse and infamy--the cross--has for centuries graced the banners of
+humanity. The Basilikon in which Christ was condemned, has lent its form
+to the churches in which his name is adored.
+
+Whilst the groundwork of the Basilikon remained unchanged, Christian art
+added steeples and cupolas to increase the solemnity of the impression.
+The most perfect building of the kind is, without doubt, the church of
+Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. For chastity and purity of style, it can
+never be surpassed. The numerous churches erected by ostentation and
+devotion in basilikon form are all inferior to that incomparable temple.
+Many, it is true, have been disfigured, robbed, and half-burned; but
+their faults are not accidental. The greater number were built at a time
+when Pagan art, their prototype, had sunk very low indeed. Moreover,
+since the days of Constantine, Pagan temples had fallen into disuse.
+They stood deserted, and were suffered to crumble away beneath the
+influences of neglect and time. Christian builders took all they wanted
+from the ruins; a fragment from this temple, a block from that. Ionian
+and Corinthian columns were placed in the same line. If a pillar was too
+long for its companion, it was shortened without reference to its
+diameters or form. Columns of different stones were jumbled together in
+a row. Thus, amongst a number of columns of purple granite in the church
+of Ara Celi at Rome we discover two Ionian columns of white marble. In
+Saint Peter's, granite and Parian and African marbles are grouped
+together without the smallest attempt at harmony or adaptation. San
+Giovanni in Porta Laterana boasts ten columns of five different kinds of
+stone.
+
+A more interesting employment cannot be found than that of watching the
+slow and cautious progress of ancient painting and sculpture in
+connexion with Christianity. The slowness is indeed remarkable, when we
+reflect upon the high perfection which these arts had generally attained
+even during the reigns of the first emperors. Christianity dealt far
+differently with painting and sculpture, than with architecture. In the
+latter, the Pagan form was adopted and improved; but with respect to the
+former, she made a _tabula rasa_, and descended to the rudest efforts of
+daubing and carving. The shapes, both of men and animals, were awkward,
+cumbrous, and unnatural; every part was out of proportion, and the most
+solemn scenes acquired a ludicrous grotesqueness. But the strangest
+phenomenon is, that Pagan art itself, of its own accord, descended to as
+low a level. The productions of Paganism in the time of Constantine were
+altogether as barbarous as the clumsy attempts of the untutored hands of
+Christianity. The new religion had created a new world. The forms of the
+old might indeed survive for a time, but its spirit was gone. Paganism
+was a corpse. Altars might be crowned with garlands, sacrifice might be
+offered to the gods: but all in vain. A voice came forth from an island
+in the AEgean Sea; a voice of sorrow and complaint, but of truth also. It
+wailed the death of the great Pan. The mighty were indeed fallen, and so
+vast was the gulf between Paganism in the days of Titus, and Paganism in
+those of Constantine, that the creations of the former period could be
+no lesson to the idolaters of the latter. These clung to the worship of
+a departed age, but in spite of themselves. The new and mighty river of
+thought swept them onward, and carried them on to the very same parting
+point from which Christian art was struggling for perfection.
+
+Christian art started with one grand error. It was warring for ever
+against itself. In portraying the world, it hated it. Of all its
+creations, there is not one which can be said to be really beautiful;
+the effusions of symbolical enthusiasm are without all plastic truth.
+Ideas were incorporated, but they did not prove men with flesh and
+blood. The paintings and carvings were hieroglyphics. The same figure
+expressed the same idea, and the idea once expressed, there was no
+desire to extend the circle of figures or to alter their wretched
+appearance. The same uncouth forms return with a killing monotony.
+Centuries do not change them. The uniformity of monastic life by no
+means tended to relax the inflexibility of invention. Religion, not art,
+was the sculptor's or the painter's object; his production was a
+creation of faith, not of beauty. Such is the character of almost all
+the carvings in wood and stone which have been found in the catacombs of
+Rome and Naples.
+
+Christianity has the great merit of having discovered the poesy of the
+grave. From the outset it abhorred the Pagan custom of burning the dead,
+and faithful to its Jewish origin, and mindful perhaps of Christ's
+burial, it renewed the old Roman custom of interring the departed. This
+was the origin of the catacombs. The early Christians loved to be
+deposited with, or near the Martyrs, and grounds for burial capable of
+receiving a large number of the dead were wholly wanting. The population
+of Rome, Naples, Alexandria, and Syracuse was so great, that there was
+scarcely room enough for the living. To find new receptacles for the
+dead became an urgent necessity. It is true, that digging into the
+bowels of the earth for the purpose of entombing the bodies of the dead
+was no new operation. Egypt and Etruria had in their time set the
+example. The one idea of immortality, led to similar results in
+different creeds. The early Christians found their cities of the dead
+already prepared for them. Paris, in our own time, stands upon a soil
+which is hollowed throughout. The limestone upon which Paris stands was
+taken from beneath to supply the wants of the builders. Rome, in like
+manner, has a second and subterraneous town of vast extent, with its
+streets and squares in endless number. Nor is it without its
+inhabitants. In this town did Christians seek refuge from Pagan
+persecution, and here did they likewise inter their dead. The caves and
+passages were not dug by Christian hands, but were discovered already
+made. They date from the last century of the republic, when the clay
+upon which Rome stands, was required by the mania then raging for
+extensive and magnificent structures. The Christians took possession of
+the hollows and enlarged them; the work was by no means difficult, for
+the clay was soft and plastic.
+
+It was after the time of Constantine that the catacombs came into more
+general use. Martyrs were more revered subsequently to the reign of this
+Emperor than before it, for martyrdom became less easy of achievement.
+The chief martyrs had found a resting-place in the catacombs. Churches
+rose above their remains, from which secret and sacred doors led into
+the City of the Dead, the cemetery of the saints. It was at the period
+to which we refer that the regularly formed spacious catacombs were
+first fashioned--a fact established by the date of the coffins, all of
+which belong to a time later than that of the Emperor Constantine. The
+wealthier members of the community constructed small chapels in the
+catacombs for the reception of the bodies of their relations and
+friends. These chapels are for the most part situated at the crossing of
+passages or at the end of them, in which latter case the chapel forms
+the termination of one particular passage. They are most important as
+indices to the development of art. Besides the curious character and
+beauty of the architecture, they afford specimens of the most ancient
+grave paintings that we know of. Their walls and ceilings are covered
+with a thin crust of gypsum, upon which the colours were laid. Not
+unfrequently we find ornaments of stucco and marble. Altars and stone
+seats, too, are found in these chapels. An astonishing number of
+skeletons have been discovered in the passages by which the chapels are
+connected: it was not the custom, as now, to bury the dead beneath the
+floor and to cover the grave with a stone slab. The bodies were placed
+in niches of from three to six feet in length. Sometimes four and six
+together, one above the other. The corpse of a departed brother was
+thrust into one of these niches; a lamp and some tool, explanatory of
+the trade he had followed in life, were placed beside him, and then the
+aperture was walled up, and lastly covered with a thin marble slab,
+bearing an inscription and the particulars of the life and death of the
+departed.
+
+Church service was frequently performed in the catacombs, yet not in the
+days of persecution. It was after Constantine that these tombs were used
+for such a purpose. On Sabbath days they were open to the public and
+were much visited. Devotion, love for departed relatives, and mere
+curiosity, carried vast numbers to these silent halls. Saint Jerome,
+tells us of his having often explored them with his comrades whilst he
+was still a student in Rome; and he lived some three hundred and fifty
+years after the death of Christ. The catacombs were but badly lighted at
+first, light being admitted by a few apertures only in the roofs of the
+chapels. At a later period, great care was taken to prevent visitors
+losing their way amidst the labyrinth of passages. The guardianship of
+the catacombs was confided to a certain body of the clergy, who went
+under the name of _fossores_, or grave-diggers. It was their office to
+inspect the chapels and passages, to point out the places where new
+passages might be formed, and to portion out and sell the spots in which
+burials might take place. The water in the wells of the catacombs was
+subsequently found to possess the virtue of healing to a marvellous
+degree. Nay, even the use of the drinking-cups found in the catacombs
+was sufficient to cure several diseases.
+
+In later days, many of the catacombs were opened, and a vast number of
+curious and interesting objects brought to light. Not the least valuable
+amongst these objects were the paintings and carvings to which we have
+above adverted, and which throw some light upon the history of the
+portraiture of the great Founder of our religion. Still in the great
+bulk of the subjects represented the symbolical prevails; and since the
+earliest masters were for a long time forbidden, by a pious awe, from
+producing the figure of Christ, we find in the more ancient carvings a
+decided preference given to the Old Testament over the New. Noah's ark,
+Abraham sacrificing his son, Moses taking off his shoes upon receiving
+the tablets of the law, the destruction of Pharaoh, and the miracle of
+the water starting from the rock--in short, all the subjects of our
+modern illustrated Bibles are of frequent occurrence in these ancient
+houses of the dead, and one and all are intended to represent the
+mission and person of Christ. The suffering of Christ, in the
+delineation of which the masters of later times have so much delighted,
+formed no subject for the artist in the earliest selections from the
+history of the New Testament. The controversy in the temple, the entry
+into Jerusalem, and the most celebrated of the miracles, were subjects
+that better suited the ancient master's pencil. The infancy of Christ
+was an inexhaustible subject to a later age. The Nestorian controversy
+brought the religious pretensions of the Holy Virgin to an issue; and
+after the church in the fifth century had bestowed upon Mary the title
+of Mother of God, artists took pleasure in representing her either as
+lying-in, or as holding the babe in her arms. The Eastern Kings are not
+unfrequently found in the Virgin's company. M. Kinkel presumes that the
+number of these wise men was first determined by the early masters, who
+in all probability conferred the royal dignity upon them. Holy Writ does
+not inform us that these personages were kings, and in the more ancient
+carvings, they wear ordinary Phrygian caps. At a later period, and no
+doubt inadvertently, these caps were changed into crowns. The four
+evangelists are constantly represented either as four rolls of papyrus,
+or as four fountains issuing from a hill beneath the feet of Christ.
+When seen in the guise of the four apocalyptical animals, they belong to
+a later period. The apostles also are found on ancient coffins,
+surrounding Christ, at whose left side Peter is placed, whilst Paul
+stands on his right. They all wear sandals tied with ribbon to their
+feet. Some paintings represent scenes of early Christian life, the
+sacred rites of the Church, and the love-feasts of the first Christians.
+
+Wherever our Saviour is found he is represented by two types. In the
+earliest paintings of the catacombs he appears as a beardless youth:
+this type of the Saviour was produced under the influence of antique
+art. The second and later type bears those oriental features which have
+been transmitted by sacred painting even to our own time. The features
+of the second face so closely resemble those of the first that the early
+theologians do not hesitate to proclaim them exact copies of the
+original. "Christ was well proportioned," says John of Damascus in the
+eighth century; "his fingers were slender, his nose mighty, and the
+eyebrows joined above the same; his hair was very curly, his beard
+black, and the colour of his face like his mother's,--viz. yellowish,
+like unto wheat." Later western writers change the colour of the beard
+and hair from black to blond. Both hair and beard are parted in the
+middle. There are two pictures of Christ thus represented, one in the
+cemetery of S. Calintus, and another in that of S. Ponziano. The former
+is partly, the latter wholly dressed. In both, the features are strongly
+marked, and the eyes are very large; the right hand is placed on the
+breast, whilst the left holds a book.
+
+Apocryphal pictures ascribed to Saint Luke have asserted a considerable
+influence upon the traditions concerning the portrait of Christ. The
+same has happened in the instance of the Virgin Mary, although her type
+is far from attaining the degree of stability which we find in the
+representations of her divine son. The fathers, however, are unanimous
+in their opinion that the face of Mary bore a strong resemblance to that
+of our Saviour. She is seldom found in the Catacombs, but frequently in
+the Mosaic work of churches dedicated to her worship, and on Byzantine
+coins from the tenth century forwards. The face is oval, similar to that
+of a youthful matron of ancient Rome, and carrying always the expression
+of a calm benignity. The head is covered with a veil and surrounded by a
+nimbus. Next to Mary and her Son, Peter and Paul, the chief apostles of
+the Pagan and Judaic world, are most frequently represented. They were
+both objects of devotion, even to those who still lingered without the
+pale of Christianity. The Mosaics display them more frequently than the
+Catacombs. Their type is not fixed; although Peter may at times be known
+by his curly hair and beard, whilst the bald forehead and the pointed
+fashion of the beard render Paul at once recognisable. The other
+apostles, as well as the personages of the Old Testament, have not grown
+into individuality, and lack the distinguishing features by which sacred
+and historical characters of antiquity become objects of real life, and
+are rendered familiar to the most distant ages.
+
+The most ancient Mosaic works of the Christian era are to be found in
+the mausoleum of Constantine. The subject is strictly symbolic. It is
+the vine, with birds perched on the branches and angels collecting the
+grapes. One of the tendrils encompasses the head of Constantine. The
+forms of the angels show a near affinity to Pagan art. Another great
+Mosaic work, more ecclesiastical in thought and execution, was promoted
+by Pope Sixtus III. in 443. It consists of historical representations
+from the Old and New Testaments, and ornaments the space below the
+windows of the Maria Maggiore. The costumes, the helmets, and cuirasses
+resemble those of ancient Rome; but where priests and Levites appear,
+the oriental character is followed. The composition is poor, and the
+human figures are rude and awkward. That little regard is paid to
+perspective is not a matter of surprise. Antique art is guilty of the
+fault. It would be difficult for any Mosaic work to overcome the
+difficulties which present themselves in the active scenes of real life
+and history. The Mosaics in the triumphal arch of the Church of St Paul
+create a favourable impression, simply because they confine themselves
+to that narrow and more suitable sphere, in which alone the Mosaic art
+can look to be successful.
+
+The study of the period of Christian art, treated of and exemplified in
+Professor Kinkel's book, though apparently unprofitable to the artist,
+is full of interest to the curious observer, and to one who has pleasure
+in beholding the development of the human mind under the most varied
+circumstances. We have read the volume of the learned and accomplished
+professor with infinite satisfaction, and we can safely recommend it to
+the perusal of the student and the man of letters. The history of art,
+in the early stages of Christianity, is the history of intellectual
+cultivation in the most extraordinary period of the world's history. The
+state of the world during the first centuries after the departure of
+Christ, was essentially exceptional. It had never been; it never will be
+again. Art and civilisation were weighed and were found wanting--a new
+idea visited the earth and conquered it--old arts drooped and died:
+civilisation degenerated at once into barbarism; whilst a new art and a
+new civilisation, with the light of Heaven upon them, were already
+preparing to claim the dominion over future centuries.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[19] _Geschichte der bildenden Kuenste bei den Christlichen Voelkern_. Von
+GOTTFRIED KINKEL.
+
+[20] Psalm xlii. 1.
+
+[21] 1 Cor. ix. 9.
+
+[22] Rev. v. 5.
+
+[23] John, i. 29, and Rev. v. 6.
+
+
+
+
+THE PORTRAIT.
+
+A TALE: ABRIDGED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF GOGOL. BY THOMAS B. SHAW.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+By none of the numerous objects of interest in the busy city of St
+Petersburg are the steps of the sauntering pedestrian more frequently
+arrested than by the picture-shop in the Stchukin Dvor.[24] True it is
+that the specimens of art there displayed are distinguished rather by
+eccentricity of design, and rudeness of execution, than by striking
+evidences of genius. The paintings are for the most part in oil, coated
+with green varnish, and fitted into frames of dark yellow tinsel. A
+winter-piece with white trees, a ferociously red sunset, like the glow
+of a conflagration, a Flemish boor with a pipe and dislocated-looking
+arm--resembling a turkey-cock in ruffles, rather than a human
+being,--such are the ordinary subjects. Beside them hang a few
+engravings: portraits of Khosrev-Mirza in his sheepskin bonnet, and of
+truculent generals with cocked hats and crooked noses. Bundles of coarse
+prints, on large paper broadsides, are suspended on either side the
+door. Here we have the Princess Miliktris Kirbitierna;[25] yonder the
+city of Jerusalem, its houses and churches smeared with vermilion, which
+gaudy colour has also invaded a part of the ground and a brace of
+Russian pilgrims in huge fur gloves. If these works of art find few
+purchasers, they at least attract a throng of starers; drunken
+ragamuffin lacqueys on their way from the cook's shop, bearing piles of
+plates with their masters' dinners, which grow cold whilst they gape at
+the pictures; great-coated Russian soldiers with penknives for sale;
+Okhta pedlar-women with boxes of shoes. Each spectator expresses his
+admiration in his own peculiar way: peasants point with their fingers;
+soldiers gaze with stolid gravity; dirty foot-boys and blackguard
+apprentices laugh and apply the caricatures to each other; old serving
+men in frieze cloaks stand listless and agape, indulging their
+propensity to utter idleness.
+
+A number of persons answering to the above description were assembled
+before the picture-shop, when they were joined by a young man in a
+threadbare cloak and shabby garments. He was a painter, named
+Tchartkoff, as enthusiastic in his art as he was needy in his
+circumstances and careless of his dress. Pausing before the booth, he
+smiled as he glanced at the wretched pictures there displayed. The next
+moment the expression of mirthful contempt faded from his thin, ardent
+features, and he fell a-thinking. The question had occurred to him,
+amongst what class of people could those tawdry, worthless productions
+find purchasers? That Russian _mujiks_ should gaze delightedly upon the
+_Yeruslan Lazarevitches_, on pictures of _Phoma_ and _Yerema_, of the
+heroes of their tales and legends, was quite natural; the objects
+represented were adapted to popular taste and comprehension; but who
+would buy those tawdry oil-paintings, those Flemish boors, those crimson
+and azure landscapes, which, whilst pretending to a higher grade of art,
+served but to prove its deep degradation? Not one redeeming touch could
+be traced in the senseless caricatures, to whose authors' clumsy hands
+the mason's trowel would assuredly have been better adapted than the
+painter's pencil. It was the very dotage of incapacity. The colouring,
+the treatment, the coarse obtrusive mechanical touch, seemed those of a
+clumsily constructed automaton, rather than of a human painter. Thus
+musing, our artist stood for some time before the vile daubs that
+excited his disgust, gazing at them long after the train of his
+reflections had led him far from them; whilst the master of the shop, a
+little, gray, ill-shaven fellow in a frieze cloak, chattered and
+chaffered and bargained as indefatigably as if the young man had
+announced himself a purchaser.
+
+"Well now," said he, "for these mujiks and the landscape, I'll take a
+white note.[26] There's painting! It hurts your eye, it's so bright;
+just received from the Exchange; varnish hardly dry. Take the
+winter-piece. Fifteen rubles! Frame worth the money. There's a winter,
+there's snow for you!"
+
+Here the eager trader gave a slight fillip to the canvass, as if he
+expected the snow to fall off.
+
+"Take the three. I'll send them home at once. Where does your honour
+live? Boy, a cord!"
+
+"Not so fast, my friend," cried the artist, startled from his reverie,
+and perceiving the brisk dealer about to tie up the three daubs. His
+first impulse was to walk away, but he felt ashamed to purchase nothing
+after standing so long before the shop, and causing the hungry-looking
+old salesman so large an expenditure of breath. "Wait a little," he
+said. "I will see if you have any thing to suit me." And, stooping down,
+he turned over a number of battered dusty old pictures heaped like
+lumber upon the ground. They were chiefly old-fashioned family
+portraits, likenesses of unknown and insignificant faces, with torn
+canvass, and frames that had lost their gilding. Nevertheless Tchartkoff
+carefully examined them, thinking it possible he might pick up something
+good. He had more than once heard stories of pictures of the great
+masters being met with amongst the dust and trash of such shops as this.
+The dealer, perceiving he had probably nailed a customer, ceased his
+bustling importunity, resumed his station at the door, and recommenced
+his appeals to the passengers. He shouted, chattered, and pointed to his
+wares, but without success; then he had a long chat with an
+old-clothesman, whose establishment was on the opposite side of the
+alley; and at last, recollecting that, all this time there was a
+customer in his shop, he turned his back upon the public and walked in.
+
+"Have you chosen anything, sir?"
+
+The artist stood immoveable before a large portrait, whose frame had
+once been richly gilt, although it now scarcely retained a few tarnished
+vestiges of its former splendour. The subject was an old man, his face
+swarthy and bronzed, with furrowed brow and hollow temples, and sharp
+high cheekbones; a physiognomy on which the ravages of time, and
+climate, and suffering were plainly legible. The figure was draped in a
+flowing Asiatic costume. Defaced and injured and grimed with dirt though
+the portrait was, yet, when Tchartkoff had wiped the dust from the
+countenance, he perceived evident traces of the touch of a great artist.
+The picture seemed to have been scarcely finished, but the force of
+treatment was immense. Its most extraordinary part was the eyes; in them
+the artist had concentrated all the power of his pencil. There was
+vitality in those dark and lustrous orbs, they looked out of the
+portrait, and in some measure destroyed its harmony by their strange and
+life-like expression. When Tchartkoff took the picture to the door, he
+fancied the pupils dilated. The peculiarity of the painting at once
+attracted the attention of the idlers without. Some uttered exclamations
+of surprise, others fell back a pace as if in terror. A pale,
+sickly-looking woman of the lower classes, who suddenly found herself
+face to face with this singular portrait, screamed with alarm. "It's
+looking at me!" she cried, and hurried away, casting nervous glances
+over her shoulder. Tchartkoff himself experienced--he could not tell
+why--a sort of disagreeable sensation, and he put the portrait on the
+ground.
+
+"D'ye buy?" said the picture-dealer.
+
+"How much?" replied the artist.
+
+"At a word--three _tchetvertaks_."[27]
+
+Tchartkoff shook his head. "Too much. I will give you a dougrivennoi,"
+he added, moving towards the door.
+
+"A dougrivennoi for that picture! You are pleased to joke, sir. The
+frame is worth twice the money. Bid me something more, if it be only
+another grivennik. Come back, sir," he shouted, running after the
+painter, and detaining him by his cloak-skirt; "come back, sir. You are
+my first customer to-day, and I will take your offer, for luck's sake.
+But the picture is given away."
+
+On finding his offer thus unexpectedly accepted, Tchartkoff heartily
+repented his temerity in making it. The dougrivennoi he paid the dealer
+was his last in the world, and he was encumbered with a lumbering old
+portrait for which he had no earthly use. Cursing his own imprudence, he
+took up his purchase, and trudged away with it. Its weight and size
+caused it to slip perpetually from under his arm, and rendered it a most
+troublesome burthen. At last, tired to death and bathed in perspiration,
+he reached the house, in the fifteenth line of the Vasilievskue Ostrow,
+in which he occupied a modest lodging, ascended the uncleanly staircase,
+and knocked impatiently at the door of his apartment. It was opened by a
+slatternly lad in a blue shirt--his cook, model, colour-grinder and
+floor-sweeper, who had to thank his godfathers for the harmonious name
+of Nikita, and who united in his person the dirt incidental to three out
+of his four occupations. Tchartkoff entered his ante-room, which felt
+very chilly, as artists' ante-rooms usually are, and, without taking off
+his cloak, walked on into his studio a square apartment, tolerably
+spacious, but low in the ceiling, and with windows dimmed by the frost.
+This room was littered with all kinds of artistical rubbish: fragments
+of plaster of Paris, casts of hands, frames, stretched canvasses,
+sketches begun and thrown aside, and drapery cast carelessly over the
+chairs. Completely knocked up, Tchartkoff let his cloak fall, placed his
+new purchase against the wall, and threw himself on a narrow meagre
+little sofa, whose leathern cover, torn upon one side from the row of
+brass nails that had formerly confined it, afforded Nikita a convenient
+receptacle for dish-cloths, old clothes, dirty linen, and any other
+miscellaneous matters he thought fit to cram under. The sun had set, and
+the night grew each moment darker. Our artist ordered Nikita to bring a
+candle.
+
+"There are no candles," was Nikita's reply.
+
+"How!--no candles?"
+
+"There were none yesterday," said Nikita.
+
+Tchartkoff remembered that there _had_ been none the night before, and
+that his credit with the tallow-chandler was not such as to render it
+probable a supply had been sent in that morning. So he held his tongue,
+allowed Nikita to take off his coat, waistcoat, and cravat, and wrapped
+himself up as warmly as he could in a dressing gown with tattered
+elbows.
+
+"I forgot to tell you," said Nikita, "the landlord has been here."
+
+"For money, I suppose," said the artist, shrugging his shoulders.
+
+"He had somebody with him. A Kvartalnue, I think.[28] He said something
+about the rent not being paid."
+
+"Well, what can they do?"
+
+"Don't know," replied the imperturbable Nikita. "He said you must leave
+the lodgings or pay. Will come again to-morrow."
+
+"Let them come," said Tchartkoff gloomily. And he turned himself upon
+the comfortless sofa with a feeling akin to desperation.
+
+Tchartkoff was a young artist of considerable promise, and whose pencil
+was at times remarked for its accuracy, and near approach to the
+truthfulness of nature. But he had faults which procured him frequent
+admonitions from the professor under whom he studied. "You have talent,"
+he would say to him; "it will be a sin to ruin it by carelessness and by
+pursuing erroneous ideas and principles. You are too impatient; too apt
+to be fascinated by novelty, and to neglect rules hallowed by time and
+experience, laws immutable as those of the Medes. Beware, lest you
+become a mere fashionable painter. Your colours, I observe, are not
+unfrequently selected in defiance of good taste; your drawing is often
+feeble, sometimes positively incorrect; your outlines want clearness.
+You run after a flashy kind of chiaro-scuro, the lighting up of your
+picture is meant only to strike the eye at the first glance. And you
+have a passion for the introduction of finery; a taste for dandified
+costume. All this is dangerous, and may lead you into the fatal habit of
+painting mere fashionable pictures, pretty portraits and the like, which
+yield money, but can never give fame. Do that, and your talent is lost
+and thrown away. Be patient, wait, reflect, chasten your taste by study,
+and wean yourself from that hankering after prettiness and dandyism.
+Leave such tricks to those who care but for gold, and propose yourself a
+higher aim, the never-dying laurels of a Titian or an Angelo."
+
+The professor meant well, and was right in the main. Tchartkoff was apt
+to indulge in the flashy and the superficial. But he had sufficient
+strength of mind to control this dangerous tendency, and a purer taste
+was gradually but perceptibly developing itself in him. As yet he could
+not quite appreciate all the depth of Raphael, but he was strongly
+fascinated by the broad and rapid touch of Guido; he would stand
+enchanted before Titian's portraits, and had a high appreciation of the
+Flemish school. Yet the darkened and sober tone characterising old
+pictures did not quite please or satisfy him; nor did he, in his
+innermost mind, altogether agree with the professor, when the latter
+expatiated to him on that mysterious power which places the old masters
+at such immeasurable distance above the moderns. In some respects he
+almost fancied them surpassed by the nineteenth century; that the
+imitation of nature had somehow become, in modern times, more vivid, and
+lively, and faithful: in a word, his mind was in that fluctuating
+unsettled state in which the minds of young people are apt to be when
+they have reached a particular point of proficiency in their art, and
+feel a proud internal conviction of talent. Often was he filled with
+rage when he saw some travelling French or German painter, by the mere
+effect of trick and habit, by readiness of pencil and flashy colouring,
+catching the multitude, and making a fortune. These impressions made
+their way into his mind, not in moments when he was buried, body and
+soul, in his work, and forgot food and drink and all outward things; but
+when, as was often the case, necessity stared him in the face, and he
+found himself without the means of buying brushes and colours, or even
+bread, whilst the greedy and implacable landlord came ten times a-day to
+dun him for his rent. Then his hunger-sharpened imagination would revert
+to the different lot of the rich and fashionable painter; then darted
+through his brain the thought that so often flits through the Russian
+head, the idea of sending his art and all to the devil, and going to the
+devil himself.
+
+"Yes, wait! wait!" he exclaimed passionately; "but patience and waiting
+must have an end. Wait, indeed! and where am I to seek to-morrow's
+dinner? Borrowing is out of the question; and if I sell my pictures and
+drawings, they will give me, perhaps, a _dougrivennoi_ for the whole
+lot. They are useful to me; not one of them but was undertaken with an
+object,--from each I have learned something. But what would be their
+value to any body else? They are studies,--exercises; and studies and
+exercises they will remain to the end of the chapter. And, besides, who
+would buy them? I am unknown as an artist, and who wants studies from
+the antique and sketches from the living model, or my unfinished Love
+and Psyche, or the perspective sketch of my room, or my portrait of
+Nikita, though it is really better than the portraits painted by any of
+your fashionable fellows? And, after all, what do I gain by this? Why
+should I work myself to death, and keep plodding like a schoolboy over
+his A, B, C, when I might be as famous as any of them, and have as much
+money in my pockets?" As he pronounced these words, the artist
+involuntarily shuddered and turned pale. He saw, looking fixedly at him,
+peeping out from the shadow of a tall canvass that stood against the
+wall, a face seemingly torn by some convulsive agony. Two dreadful eyes
+glared upon the young man, with a strange inexplicable expression; the
+lips were curled with mingled scorn and suffering; the features were
+haggard and distorted. Startled, almost terrified, Tchartkoff was on the
+point of calling Nikita, who by this time sent forth from his ante-room
+a Titanic snore, when he checked himself and burst into a laugh. The
+object of alarm was the portrait he had bought, and which he had
+completely forgotten. The bright moonbeams, streaming into the room,
+partially illuminated the picture, and gave it a strange air of reality.
+By the clear cold light Tchartkoff set to work to examine and clean his
+purchase. When the coat of dust and filth that incrusted it was removed,
+he hung the picture upon the wall, and, retiring to look at it, was more
+than ever astounded at its extraordinary character and power. The
+countenance seemed lighted up by the fierce and glittering eyes, which
+looked out of the picture so wonderfully, and assumed, as it seemed to
+him, such strange and varied and terrible expression, that he at last
+involuntarily turned away his own, unable to support the gaze of the old
+Asiatic. Then came into his mind a story he had once heard from his
+professor, of a certain portrait of the famous Leonardo da Vinci, at
+which the great master worked for many years, still counting it
+unfinished, and which, nevertheless, according to Vasari, was
+universally considered the most perfect and finished production of art.
+But the most exquisitely finished part of it were the eyes, which
+excited the wonder of all contemporaries; even the minute and almost
+invisible veins were exactly rendered and put upon the canvass. But
+here, on the other hand, in the portrait before him, there was something
+strange and horrid. This was not art: the eyes absolutely destroyed the
+harmony of the portrait. They were living, they were human eyes! They
+seemed to have been cut out of a living man's face and stuck in the
+picture. Instead of admiration, the portrait inspired a painful feeling
+of oppression; the beholder was seized with a sort of waking nightmare,
+weighing upon and overwhelming him like a moral and mysterious incubus.
+
+Shaking off this feeling, Tchartkoff again approached the portrait, and
+forced himself to gaze steadily upon its eyes. They were still fixed
+upon him. He changed his place; the eyes followed him. To whatever part
+of the room he removed, he met their deep malignant glance. They seemed
+animated with the unnatural sort of life one might expect to find in the
+eyes of a corpse, newly recalled to existence by the spell of some
+potent sorcerer. In spite of his better reason, which reproached him for
+his weakness, Tchartkoff felt an inexplicable impression, which made him
+unwilling to remain alone in the room. He retired softly from the
+portrait, turned his eyes in a different direction, and endeavoured to
+forget its presence; yet, in spite of all his efforts, his eye, as
+though of its own accord, kept glancing sideways at it. At last he
+became even fearful to walk about; his excited imagination made him
+fancy that as soon as he moved somebody was walking behind him,--at each
+step he glanced timidly over his shoulder. He was naturally no coward;
+but his nerves and imagination were painfully on the stretch, and he
+could not control his absurd and involuntary fears. He sat down in the
+corner; somebody, he thought, peeped stealthily over his shoulder into
+his face. Even the loud snoring of Nikita, which resounded from the
+ante-room, could not dispel his uneasiness and chase away the unreal
+visions haunting him. At last he rose from his seat, timidly, without
+lifting his eyes, went behind the screen and lay down on his bed.
+Through the crevices in the screen he saw his room brightly illuminated
+by the moon, and he beheld the portrait hanging on the wall. The eyes
+were fixed upon him even more horribly and meaningly than before, and
+seemed as if they would not look at any thing but him. Making a strong
+effort, he got out of bed, took a sheet and hung it over the portrait.
+This done, he again lay down, feeling more tranquil, and began to muse
+upon his melancholy lot,--upon the thorns and difficulties that beset
+the path of the friendless and aspiring artist. At intervals he
+involuntarily glanced through the crevices of the screen at the shrouded
+portrait. The bright moonlight increased the whiteness of the sheet, and
+he at last fancied that he saw the horrible eyes shining through the
+linen. He strained his sight to convince himself he was mistaken. The
+contrary effect was produced. The old man's face became more and more
+distinct;--there could no longer be any doubt: the sheet had
+disappeared,--the grim portrait was completely uncovered, and the
+infernal eyes stared straight at him, peering into his very soul. An icy
+chill came over his heart. He looked again;--the old man had moved, and
+stood with both hands leaning on the frame. In a few seconds he rose
+upon his arms, put forth both legs and leaped out of the frame, which
+was now seen empty through the crevice in the screen. A heavy footstep
+was heard in the room. The poor artist's heart beat hard and fast.
+Swallowing his breath for very fear, he awaited the sight of the old
+man, who evidently approached his bed. And in another moment there he
+was, peeping round the screen, with the same bronze-like countenance and
+fixed glittering eyes. Tchartkoff made a violent effort to cry out, but
+his voice was gone. He strove to stir his limbs,--they refused to obey
+him. With open mouth and arrested breath he gazed upon the apparition.
+It was that of a tall man in a wide Asiatic robe. The painter watched
+its movements. Presently it sat down almost at his very feet, and drew
+something from between the folds of its flowing dress. This was a bag.
+The old man untied it, and, seizing it by the two ends, shook it: with a
+dull heavy sound there fell on the floor a number of heavy packets, of a
+long cylindrical shape. Their envelope was of dark blue paper, and on
+each was inscribed, 1000 DUCATS. Extending his long lean hands from his
+wide sleeves, the old man began unrolling the packets. There was a gleam
+of gold. Great as Tchartkoff's terror was, he could not help staring
+covetously at the coin, and looked on with profound attention as it
+streamed rapidly through the spectre's bony hands, glittering and
+clinking with a dull thin metallic sound, and was then rolled up anew.
+Suddenly he remarked one packet which had rolled a little farther than
+the rest, and stopped at the leg of the bedstead, near the head. By a
+rapid and furtive motion he seized this packet, gazing the while at the
+old man to see whether he remarked it. But he was too busy. He collected
+the remaining packets, replaced them in the bag, and, without looking at
+the artist, retired behind the screen. Tchartkoff's heart beat
+vehemently when he heard his departing footsteps echoing through the
+room. Congratulating himself on impunity, he joyfully grasped the
+packet, and had almost ceased to tremble for its safety, when suddenly
+the footsteps again approached the screen; the old man had evidently
+discovered that one of his packets was wanting. Nearer he came, and
+nearer, until once more his grim visage was seen peeping round the
+screen. In an agony of terror the young man dropped the rouleau, made a
+desperate effort to stir his limbs, uttered a great cry--and awoke. A
+cold sweet streamed from every pore; his heart beat so violently that it
+seemed about to burst; his breast felt as tight as if the last breath
+were in the act of leaving it. Was it a dream? he said, pressing his
+head between both hands; the vividness of the apparition made him doubt
+it. Now, at any rate, he was unquestionably awake, yet he thought he saw
+the old man moving as he settled himself in his frame, his hand sinking
+by his side, and the border of his wide robe waving. His own hand
+retained the sensation of having, but a moment before, held a weighty
+substance. The moon still shone into the room, bringing out from its
+dark corners here a canvass, there a lay figure, there again the drapery
+thrown over a chair, or a plaster cast on its bracket on the wall.
+Tchartkoff now perceived that he was not in bed, but on his feet,
+opposite the portrait. How he got there--was a thing he could in no way
+comprehend. What astounded him still more was the fact that the portrait
+was completely uncovered. No vestige of a sheet was there, but the
+living eyes staring fixedly at him. A cold sweat stood upon his brow; he
+would fain have fled, but his feet were rooted to the ground. And then
+he saw (of a certainty this was no dream) the old man's features move,
+and his lips protruded as if about to utter words. With a shrill cry of
+horror, and a despairing effort, Tchartkoff tore himself from the
+spot--and awoke. It was still a dream. His heart beat as though it would
+burst his bosom, but there was no cause for such agitation. He was in
+bed, in the same attitude as when he fell asleep. Before him was the
+screen: the chamber was filled with the watery moonbeams. Through the
+crack in the screen, the portrait was visible, covered with the sheet he
+had himself laid over it. Although thus convinced of the groundlessness
+of his alarm, the palpitation of his heart increased in violence, until
+it became painful and alarming; the oppression on his breast grew more
+and more severe. He could not detach his eyes from the sheet, and
+presently he distinctly saw it move, at first gently, then quickly and
+violently, as though hands were struggling and groping behind it,
+pulling and tearing, and striving, but in vain, to throw it aside. There
+was something mysteriously awful in this struggle of an invisible power
+against so flimsy an obstacle, which it yet was unable to overcome.
+Tchartkoff felt his very soul chilled with fear. "Great God! what is
+this?" he cried, crossing himself in an agony of terror. And once more
+he awoke. For the third time he had dreamed a dream! He sprang from his
+bed in utter bewilderment, his brain whirling and burning, and at first
+could not make up his mind whether he had been favoured by a visit from
+the _domovoi_,[29] or by that of a real apparition.
+
+Approaching the window, he opened the _fortotchka_.[30] A sharp frosty
+breeze brought refreshment to his heated frame. The moon's radiance
+still lay broadly on the roofs and white walls of the houses, and small
+floating clouds chased each other across the sky. All was still, save
+when, from time to time, there fell faintly upon the ear the distant
+jarring rattle of a lingering drojki, prowling in search of a belated
+fare. For some time our young painter remained with his head out of
+the fortotchka, and it was not until signs of approaching dawn were
+visible in the heavens that he closed the pane, threw himself upon his
+bed, and fell into a deep and dreamless slumber.
+
+It was very late when he awoke with a violent headache. The room felt
+close; a disagreeable dampness saturated the air, and made its way
+through the crevices of the windows. Low-spirited, uncomfortable, and
+cheerless as a drenched cock, he sat down on his dilapidated sofa, and
+began to recall his dream of the previous night. So vivid was the
+impression it had made, that he could hardly persuade himself it had
+been a mere dream. Removing the sheet, he minutely examined the portrait
+by the light of day. He was still struck with the extraordinary power
+and expression of the eyes, but he found in them nothing peculiarly
+terrific. Still an unpleasant impression remained upon his mind. He
+could not divest himself of the conviction that a fragment of horrible
+reality had mingled with his dream. In defiance of reason, he imagined
+something peculiarly significant in the expression of the old man's
+face; a something of the cautious stealthy look it had worn when he
+crept round the screen, and counted his gold under the very nose of the
+needy painter. And Tchartkoff still felt the print of the rouleau upon
+his palm, as though it had but that instant left his grasp. Had he held
+it but a little tighter, he thought, it must have remained in his hand
+even after his awakening.
+
+"Heavens!" he exclaimed, heaving a sorrowful sigh, "had I but the moiety
+of that wealth!" And again in his mind's eye he saw the rouleaus
+streaming from the sack. Again he read the attractive inscription,--1000
+DUCATS; again they were unrolled, he heard the chink of metal, saw it
+shine, burned to clutch it. But once more the blue paper was rolled
+around it; and there he sat, motionless and entranced, straining his eyes
+upon vacancy, powerless to divert their gaze from the imaginary
+treasure--like a child gazing with watering mouth at a dish of
+unattainable sweetmeats.
+
+A knock at the door at last roused him from his reverie. It was promptly
+followed by the entrance of his landlord, accompanied by the
+_Nadziratel_, or police-inspector of the quarter--a gentleman whose
+appearance is, if possible, more disagreeable to the poor than the face
+of a petitioner is to the rich. The landlord of the small house in which
+Tchartkoff lodged, was no bad type of the class of house-owners in such
+quarters as the fifteenth line of the Vasilievskue Ostrov. In his youth,
+he had been a captain in the army, where he was noted as a noisy
+quarrelsome fellow; transferred thence to the civil service, he proved
+himself a thorough master of the art of petty tyranny, a bustling
+coxcomb and a blockhead. Age had done little to improve his character.
+He had been some time a widower, had long retired from the service, was
+less given to quarrels and coxcombry, but more trivial and teasing. His
+chief happiness consisted in drinking tea, propagating scandal, and in
+sauntering about his apartment, with hands behind his back. These
+intellectual occupations were varied by an occasional inspection of the
+roof of his house, by ferreting his _dvornik_, or porter, fifty times
+a-day out of the kennel in which he oftener slept than watched, and by a
+monthly attack upon his lodgers for their rent.
+
+"Do me the favour to see about it yourself, Varukh Kusmitch," said the
+landlord, to the Kvartalnue: "he won't pay his rent--he won't pay, sir."
+
+"How can I, without money? Give me time, and I will pay."
+
+"Time, my good sir! impossible! I can't hear of such a thing," said the
+landlord in a rage, flourishing the key he held in his hand. "Perhaps
+you don't know that Colonel Potogonkin lodges in my house--a colonel,
+sir, and has lived here these seven years; and Anna Petrovna
+Buchmisteroff--a lady of fortune, sir, who rents a coach-house, and a
+two-stall stable, sir, and keeps three out-door servants: these are the
+sort of lodgers I have. My house, I tell you plainly, is not one of
+those establishments where people live who don't pay their rent. So I
+will thank you to pay yours directly, and be off bag and baggage."
+
+"You had better pay," said the Kvartalnue Nadziratel, with a slight but
+significant shake of the head, sticking his forefinger through a
+button-hole of his uniform.
+
+"It's very easy to say pay, but where is the money? I have not a sous."
+
+"In that case, you can satisfy Ivan Ivanovitch with goods, with the
+produce of your profession," said the Kvartalnue; "he will probably agree
+to take pictures."
+
+"Not I, indeed! no pictures for me! It would be all very well to take
+pictures with respectable subjects, such as a gentleman could hang on
+his wall; a general with a star, or the likeness of Prince Kutuzoff;
+but, here I see nothing but paintings of mujiks in their shirt-sleeves,
+servants, and such like cattle--a mere waste of time and colours. He has
+taken the likeness of that blackguard of his, whose bones I shall
+assuredly break, for the thief has pulled the nails out of all my locks
+and window-hasps--a scoundrel! Just look; there's a subject for you! a
+picture of the room! It would have been all very well if he had drawn it
+clean, neat, and orderly; but there he has got it full of filth and
+rubbish, just as it is. Only see how he has bedevilled and dirtied my
+room; pretty work, indeed, when I have had colonels for lodgers seven
+years together, and Anna Petrovna Buchmisteroff! Truly there are no
+worse lodgers than artists; they turn a drawing-room into a pigstye."
+
+To all this, and much more, the poor painter was forced to listen
+patiently. Meanwhile the Kvartalnue Nadziratel amused himself by looking
+at the pictures and sketches, occasionally uttering a comment or
+question.
+
+"Not bad!" said he, pausing before a female figure: "pretty woman,
+really! But what's the meaning of that black, there, under her nose? is
+it snuff, or what?"
+
+"That's the shadow," replied Tchartkoff surlily, without turning towards
+him.
+
+"You would have done better to have put it somewhere else. It is too
+remarkable just under the nose," said the critical Argus. "But, whose
+portrait is this?" continued he, approaching the picture that had
+occasioned Tchartkoff so restless a night. "What an ugly old heathen!
+And what eyes! They might belong to Belzebub himself. I must have a look
+at this."
+
+And without asking permission, or thinking it necessary to use much
+ceremony with a poor devil of a painter who could not pay his rent, the
+agent of the law lifted the portrait from the nails on which it hung, to
+carry it to the window, and examine it at his leisure. But his hands
+were stiff and clumsy, and he had miscalculated the weight of the
+picture. It slipped through his fingers, and fell to the ground with a
+heavy thump and slight crashing noise, upsetting some lumber that stood
+against the wall, and raising a cloud of dust, which caused the man of
+manacles to step back and rub his eyes. With a muttered curse on the
+meddlesome official, Tchartkoff sprang forward to raise the picture. As
+he did so, a small board, forming one of the sides of the frame, and
+which had been cracked by the fall, gave way altogether under the
+pressure of his hand, and part of it fell out. The fragment was followed
+by a rouleau of dark blue paper, which emitted a dull chink as it struck
+the ground. Tchartkoff's eye glanced upon an inscription; it was--1000
+DUCATS. To snatch up the packet, and thrust it into his pocket, was the
+work of an instant.
+
+"Surely, I heard the sound of coin," said the Kvartalnue, who, owing to
+the dust, and to the rapidity of the painter's movement, had not caught
+sight of the rouleau.
+
+"And what business of yours is it, to know what I have in my room?"
+
+"It's my business to tell you, that you must pay the landlord his rent;
+it's my business to tell you, that I know you have money, and yet you
+won't pay--that's my business, my fine fellow!"
+
+"Well, I will pay him to-day."
+
+"And, why did you not pay at once, without giving trouble to the
+landlord, and disturbing the police?"
+
+"Because I didn't intend to touch this money. But I will pay him this
+evening, and leave his lodgings at once. I will live no longer in his
+paltry garret."
+
+"He will pay you, Ivan Ivanovitch," said the Kvartalnue to the landlord.
+"If you neglect to do so by this evening, why then you must excuse me,
+Mr Painter, if we use severer means." And resuming his cocked hat, he
+departed, followed by the landlord, who hung his head, and looked
+exceedingly small.
+
+"The devil go with them!" said Tchartkoff, as he heard the outer door
+shut. He looked into the ante-room, sent Nikita out, in order to be
+quite alone, locked himself in, and, with a violent palpitation of the
+heart, opened his packet. It contained exactly a thousand ducats, almost
+all of them quite new, and sparkling like the sun. Its appearance was
+precisely the same as those he had seen in his dream. Almost frantic
+with delight, he sat with the pile of gold before him, asking himself
+whether he did not still dream. Long did he handle and tell the gold
+before he could believe that it was real, and that he himself was awake
+and in his right mind.
+
+He then curiously and carefully examined the frame. In one side of it a
+kind of cavity had been hollowed out, and afterwards closed with a
+board, so neatly that if the loutish hand of the Kvartalnue Nadziratel
+had not let the frame drop, the ducats might have remained for centuries
+undisturbed. It was with gratitude and complacency, rather than
+aversion, that the painter now contemplated the peculiar features and
+remarkable eyes of the old Asiatic.
+
+"Whoever you are, my old boy," said Tchartkoff to himself, "I'll put you
+under glass, and give you a splendid frame for this."
+
+At this moment his hand happened to touch the heap of gold, and the
+contact made his heart beat as violently as ever. "What shall I do with
+it?" he thought, fixing his eyes upon the money. "Now I am at my ease
+for three years at least, I can shut myself in my studio, and work. I
+can buy colours, pay for a comfortable lodging and good food. I have
+enough for every thing; nobody can tease or badger me now. I'll get a
+first-rate lay-figure, order a plaster torso, model feet, buy a Venus,
+have engravings of all the great masters. And if I work steadily for
+three years, quietly, without hurry, without being obliged to sell my
+pictures for my daily bread, I shall astonish the world and achieve
+fame."
+
+Such was the artist's soliloquy, prompted by conscious talent and
+honourable ambition. A far different counsel was given by his twenty-two
+summers and heat of youth. He now had at his command all that he had
+hitherto gazed at from afar with envying eyes. How his heart bounded and
+swelled within him, as he thought of the luxuries he could now command!
+how he longed to exchange rags for purple and fine linen, and fare
+sumptuously after his long fast, to dwell in a splendid lodging, to
+visit the theatre, the cafe, the ball!
+
+Seizing his money, the young man was in the street in a moment. His
+first visit was to a tailor's shop, where he dressed himself from top to
+toe, and walked down the street looking at himself in every window. He
+bought a huge quantity of trinkets and perfumes, an opera-glass, and a
+mountain of brilliant cravats; took, without a word of bargaining, the
+first lodging that he saw, a magnificent set of rooms in the Nevsku
+perspective, with immense mirrors, and each window glazed with a single
+pane; had his hair curled at a coiffeur's, hired a carriage, and drove
+twice, without the slightest object, from one end of the town to the
+other, crammed himself with bon-bons at a confectioner's, and went to a
+French _restaurant_, about which he had hitherto heard only vague and
+uncertain rumours, such as one hears of the Chinese empire. There he
+dined, assuming the while a haughty and supercilious air, and
+incessantly arranging his well-curled locks. There, too, he drank a
+bottle of champagne; a liquid he had hitherto known only by reputation.
+His head full of wine, he went out into the street, gay, bold, ready for
+any thing--able to face the devil, as the Russians say. On the bridge he
+met his former professor, and pushed coolly past him, as if he did not
+observe him, leaving the poor man motionless with astonishment, a mark
+of interrogation visibly printed in his countenance. All that he
+possessed in the world, easels, canvasses, pictures, Tchartkoff
+transported that very evening to his new and splendid lodgings. He
+arranged his best pictures in the most visible situations, cast those he
+thought less of into corners, and perambulated his splendid rooms,
+looking at himself each minute in the mirrors. Then there arose in his
+mind a restless desire to take fame by storm, instantly, without delay,
+and to compel, by whatever means, the applause of the multitude. Already
+the cry rang in his ears, "Tchartkoff, Tchartkoff! haven't you seen
+Tchartkoff's picture? What a rapid pencil Tchartkoff has! Tchartkoff has
+immense talent!" Musing, and castle-building, he paced his apartment
+till a late hour of the night, and when in bed, could not sleep for
+ruminating his ambitious projects.
+
+The next morning he took a dozen ducats, and drove to the editor of a
+fashionable newspaper. The introduction was efficacious. The journalist
+praised his genius, professed the most ardent desire to serve him,
+loaded him with compliments, shook him fervently by both hands, and
+accompanied him obsequiously to the door, making minute inquiries as to
+his name, his style of painting, his place of residence.
+
+The very next day there appeared in the newspaper, immediately after an
+advertisement of newly discovered candles, warranted to burn without
+wicks, an article headed,
+
+     EXTRAORDINARY TALENT OF TCHARTKOFF.
+
+"We hasten to congratulate the inhabitants of this polite metropolis on
+what may be styled a _discovery_ of the most splendid and useful
+nature. We refer to the sudden appearance of an artist of consummate
+skill, possessing all the qualifications that can render a painter
+worthy to transfer to the magic canvass the faces of the many beautiful
+women and handsome men who adorn the cultivated circles of St
+Petersburg. Ladies may now confidently rely on being transmitted to
+posterity without diminution of their graces, with all their delicate
+loveliness, enchanting symmetry of form, and exquisite expression of
+feature--graces ephemeral, alas! as the existence of the butterfly that
+hovers over the vernal flowers. Parents, ere they leave this vale of
+tears, may bequeath to their sorrowing children their exact resemblance.
+The warrior, the statesman, the poet, all classes of men, in short, will
+pursue their career with fresh zeal and ardour, now that the brilliant
+pencil of a Tchartkoff enables them to transmit to posterity their
+visible features, as well as their imperishable renown. Let all hasten,
+then, abandoning promenade, and party, opera, ball, and theatre, to the
+splendid and luxurious studio of our artist, (Nevsku Perspective,
+No.--). It is hung with portraits, the produce of his pencil, worthy a
+Vandyke or a Titian. The happy connoisseur knows not what to admire most
+in these exquisite works, their exact resemblance to the original, or
+the extraordinary brilliancy and freshness of their handling. They must
+be seen to be even imperfectly appreciated; the artist has truly drawn a
+prize in the lottery of genius. Success to you, Andrei Petrovitch! (the
+journalist was evidently fond of the familiar style). _Macte nova
+virtute_, and immortalise yourself and us. Glory, fortune, crowds of
+sitters, in spite of the feeble and envious efforts of certain
+contemporary prints, will be your speedy and unfailing reward!"
+
+His face beaming with contentment, our artist perused this puff. He saw
+his name in print,--a thing which was to him a complete novelty; and he
+could not help reading the lines at least a dozen times. He was
+particularly tickled with the comparison of his works to Vandyke and
+Titian. The use of his baptismal name, Andrei Petrovitch, also gratified
+him not a little. To be mentioned in this delightfully familiar way in
+print, was to him an honour as gratifying as it was new. He could not
+remain quiet a moment. Now he sat down in a chair, then threw himself
+picturesquely on a sofa, rehearsing the way he would receive his
+sitters; then he went to his easel, and gave a bold dashing stroke of
+the brush, studying at the same time a graceful mode of wielding it.
+Thus he got through the day.
+
+The next morning, soon after breakfast, his bell rang. He hurried to the
+door; a lady entered, preceded by a footman in a furred livery cloak,
+and accompanied by a young girl of eighteen, her daughter.
+
+"Monsieur Tchartkoff, I believe?" said the lady. The painter bowed.
+
+"I have seen your name in the papers; your portraits, they say, are
+incomparable." With these words the lady put her glass to her eye, and
+glanced round the walls, which were bare. "But where are all your
+portraits?"
+
+"They are not arrived," said the artist, a little confused; "I have just
+removed into these rooms, the pictures are still on the road--they will
+soon be here."
+
+"You have been in Italy?" said the lady, turning her eye-glass on the
+painter in the absence of the paintings.
+
+"No, I have not been there exactly--I intend to go--I have been
+compelled to put it off; but pray do me the honour to sit down; you must
+be tired."
+
+"You are very kind, but I have been sitting--in my carriage. Ah, at
+last, I see some of your works!" said the lady, running up to the
+opposite side of the room, and levelling her glass at some canvasses
+placed on the floor, studies, sketches, interiors, and portraits.
+"_C'est charmant! Lise, Lise! venez ici_: there's an interior in the
+manner of Teniers, see: all is in disorder, higgledy-piggledy, a table
+with a bust upon it, a hand, a palette; and the dust, look how well the
+dust is painted! _c'est charmant!_ And there is another canvass, a woman
+washing her face--_quelle jolie figure!_ Oh, and there's a _mujik_!
+Lise, Lise! a _mujik_ in a Russian shirt! look, do look--_a mujik_! So
+you don't paint portraits only?"
+
+"These are mere trifles--done for amusement, in an idle moment--mere
+studies----"
+
+"But do tell me your opinion of the portrait-painters of the present
+day? Isn't it true, that we have none at present like Titian? There's
+not that force of colouring, not that,----really, what a pity it is that
+I cannot express what I mean in Russian." The lady was passionately fond
+of painting, and had run, eye-glass in hand, over all the galleries in
+Italy. "Only, I must say, that Monsieur Dauberelli--ah, how he paints!
+What an extraordinary touch! I find more expression in his faces than
+even in Titian's. You know Monsieur Dauberelli?"
+
+"Dauberelli! who is he?" asked the artist.
+
+"Such talent! He painted my daughter when she was only twelve years old.
+You must come and see it, really you must. Lise, you shall show him your
+album. But I want another portrait of my daughter, and that is the
+motive of my visit. Can you begin at once?"
+
+"Directly, madam, if you please." And in a moment he wheeled up his
+easel, with a canvass on it, ready stretched, took his palette in his
+hand and fixed his eyes on the pale childish features of the daughter.
+Young as she was, they already bore traces of late hours and
+dissipation. Expression they had little or none. But the artist saw in
+the complexion an almost china-like transparence, exquisitely adapted to
+his pencil; the neck was white and slender, the form elegant and
+aristocratic. And he prepared for a triumph; he intended to show the
+lightness and brilliancy of his touch, for the display of which he had
+hitherto lacked opportunities. He already began to fancy to himself how
+the pale but graceful little lady would come out upon the canvass.
+
+"Do you know," said the mother, with a sentimental expression of face "I
+should like--you see she has a frock on now--well, I confess I should
+not like you to paint her in a frock, it's so commonplace; I should like
+her to be painted simply dressed, sitting in the shade of a thicket,
+with fields in the distance, and sheep or a forest in the
+back-ground--simplicity, the greatest simplicity, is what I should
+like."
+
+Tchartkoff set to work, arranged the sitter in the attitude he required,
+endeavoured to fix the whole subject in his mind; waved his brush in the
+air before him, as if establishing the principal points; half-closed his
+eyes several times, retired back a step or two, examined his sitter from
+a distance, and in about an hour he finished drawing in the face.
+Satisfied with the effect, he now commenced painting, and his labour
+rapidly grew lighter. By this time he had forgotten he was in the
+presence of two ladies of high fashion, and began to fall into a few
+tricks of the painting-room, uttering half-aloud various inarticulate
+sounds, and at intervals humming a tune between his teeth. Without the
+slightest ceremony he from time to time signed, by a movement of his
+brush, to his sitter to raise her head. At last the young lady grew
+weary and restless.
+
+"That's quite enough for the first sitting," said her mother.
+
+"Another minute," cried the painter in an absent tone.
+
+"Impossible! Lise, three o'clock!" said the lady, looking at her
+diminutive watch. "Oh, how late!"
+
+"Only half a second," said Tchartkoff, in the wistful and beseeching
+voice of a child.
+
+But the lady was disinclined to comply. She promised him a longer
+sitting another time.
+
+"Horridly annoying!" said Tchartkoff to himself; "just as my hand was
+getting in." And he remembered that no one had ever interrupted him,
+when he worked in his painting-room in the Vasilievskue Ostrov. Nikita
+would sit hour after hour without moving a muscle: you might paint him
+as much as you liked; he would go to sleep in the attitude he was fixed
+in. And the artist discontentedly laid his pencil and palette on a
+chair, and stood pensively before the canvass. He was aroused from his
+reverie by a compliment addressed to him by the fashionable lady. He
+darted towards the door to show out his visitors: on the stairs he
+received an invitation to dine with them the following week, and with a
+cheerful air he re-entered his rooms. The aristocratic style of his
+visitors had quite fascinated him. Up to this time he had held such
+beings unapproachable, born only to glide about in a splendid carriage
+with liveried footmen and a laced and bearded coachman, throwing a calm
+indifferent glance on the humble foot-passenger as he plodded by in a
+shabby cloak. And yet, here was one of these exquisite beings calling
+upon him: he was painting her portrait, and had received an invitation
+to dine with her. Intoxicated with vanity and delight, he treated
+himself to a splendid dinner, went to the theatre in the evening, and
+again, without the slightest occasion, drove about the town in a
+carriage.
+
+For some days he did nothing but arrange his rooms and listen for the
+sound of his bell. At last the lady arrived, with her pale daughter. He
+made them sit down, wheeled up his easel with a strong affectation of
+fashionable manner, and began to paint. He saw in his delicate sitter
+much that, being cleverly caught, would give high value to the portrait:
+he perceived that he might produce something quite peculiar and
+characteristic, if he could render it with the same accuracy and
+completeness with which nature herself had placed it before him. His
+heart even felt a slight tremor when he found himself expressing what no
+one else perhaps had ever remarked. His attention became riveted on his
+canvass, and he again forgot the aristocratic descent of his sitter.
+Holding his breath from eagerness, he gradually saw the delicate
+features and transparent skin come out upon his canvass. He had caught
+every half-tint, even the slight ivory-like yellowness, the nearly
+imperceptible blueish tone under the eyes, and was just in the act of
+seizing a little mole upon the forehead, when he suddenly heard behind
+him the voice of the mother, crying--"Oh, never mind that! that is not
+necessary! I see, too, you have got a--here, for instance, and here,
+see!--a kind of yellowish--and here and there you have, as it were,
+little dark places." The artist explained that the dark and yellow tones
+relieved the face, and gave a delicacy to the flesh-tints. But the
+notion was scouted. He was informed that Lise had not slept well, that
+there was usually no yellowness at all in her face, which struck every
+body by its freshness of complexion. Sadly and reluctantly Tchartkoff
+began to efface what he had taken such pains to produce. With it there
+vanished of course much of the resemblance. He now began, with a feeling
+of indifference, to throw over the whole a more commonplace and
+hackneyed colouring, the red and white, devoid of vigour, which each
+daubster has at his command. The obnoxious tint was effaced, and the
+mamma was delighted. She only expressed her surprise that the work went
+on so slowly. She had heard, she said, that he could completely finish a
+portrait in two sittings. The ladies rose and prepared to go away.
+Tchartkoff laid down his pencil, conducted them to the door, and then,
+returning, stood for a while before his portrait, regretting the
+delicate lines, the half-tints and airy tones, so happily caught and
+pitilessly effaced. With these recollections vivid in his mind, he put
+aside the portrait, and looked for a study, which had been long
+abandoned, of a head of Psyche, an idea he had some time before thrown
+sketchily on the canvass. It was a pretty little countenance, cleverly
+and rapidly painted, but quite ideal, cold and hard, devoid of life and
+reality. Scarcely knowing why, he began to work at this, endeavouring to
+communicate to it all he could remember of the countenance of his
+aristocratic sitter. Psyche grew more and more animated; the type of the
+young fashionable lady's countenance was by degrees mingled with hers,
+at the same time acquiring an expression which gave it originality and
+character. Tchartkoff was able to avail himself, both in the details and
+in the general effect, of all that he had obtained from his sitter, and
+to incorporate it with his work. During several days he laboured hard at
+his Psyche. He was still busy with it when he was interrupted by the
+arrival of his former visitors. The picture was on the easel. Both
+ladies uttered a cry of admiration, and clapped their hands.
+
+"Lise! Lise! Oh, how like! _Superbe_! _Superbe!_ What an exquisite idea,
+to dress her in the Grecian costume! What a truly delicious surprise!"
+
+The artist hardly knew how to undeceive the ladies in their agreeable
+mistake. He hung his head, and, with an apologetic air, said, in a low
+voice, "This is Psyche."
+
+"Painted as Psyche! _C'est charmant!_" said the mother, with a smile,
+faithfully repeated by the daughter. "Don't you think so, Lise? it's
+just the thing for you. Painted as Pysche! _Quelle idee delicieuse!_ But
+what a picture! Quite a Correggio! I have heard and read much about you,
+but I had not the least idea of your talent."
+
+"What the deuce am I to do with them?" thought the artist. "Well, if
+they will have it so, Psyche shall go;" and he said aloud--"I must
+trouble you to give me a few minutes more--I should like to add a few
+touches."
+
+"You cannot improve it. Pray leave it as it is."
+
+The painter guessed that they apprehended some more yellow tones, and he
+hastened to remove their fears, saying that he was only going to
+increase the brilliancy and expression of the eyes. In reality he
+desired to give his picture a closer resemblance with the
+original--fearing, if he did not, that he should be taxed with
+unblushing flattery. In spite of the lady's reluctance, the pallid
+damsel's features began to come out more clearly amid the outlines of
+the Psyche.
+
+"That will do," said the mother, less pleased by the picture as the
+resemblance grew closer. The artist was rewarded for his labour with
+smiles, money, compliments, a most affectionate squeeze of the hand, and
+a pressing invitation to dinner; in a word, he was overwhelmed with
+recompenses. The portrait made much noise in the town. The lady showed
+it to all her acquaintance. Every body admired the skill with which the
+painter had succeeded in preserving the resemblance, and at the same
+time in giving beauty to the original. The last remark, of course, was
+not made without a slight tinge of malice. Tchartkoff was besieged with
+commissions. The whole town was mad to be painted by him. His door-bell
+rang incessantly. Unfortunately his sitters were of the class most
+difficult to manage; either persons very much occupied, or fashionable
+people, who having in reality nothing to do, were, of course, far busier
+than anybody else, and hurried and impatient in the highest degree.
+Every body expected a good picture in less time than was necessary to do
+a slovenly one. The artist saw that high finish was quite out of the
+question, and that all he could do was to dazzle by the facility,
+rapidity, and smartness of his execution. He had to content himself with
+catching the general expression, neglecting the more delicate details,
+and not attempting to attain the individuality and reality of nature.
+Besides this, every sitter had some fresh fancy. The ladies required
+that only their sentiment and character should be represented in their
+portraits; that all the rest should be smoothed and softened; sharp
+angles rounded off; defects mitigated, and even, if possible, altogether
+concealed. They required, in short, to be made attractive in their
+portraits, whether nature had made them so or not. Consequently many,
+when they seated themselves in the painting chair, put on such looks and
+expressions as absolutely astounded the artist. One struggled to give
+her features an air of melancholy; another of sentimental abstraction; a
+third tried desperately to make her mouth small, and pursed it up till
+it resembled a round dot. And in spite of all this they expected
+striking resemblance, ease, and grace. Nor were the gentlemen more
+reasonable. One required to be painted with a strong energetic turn of
+the head; another with uplifted eyes, full of poetic inspiration; an
+ensign of the Guards declared that he should not be satisfied unless
+Mars was made visible in his countenance: a civilian delicately
+suggested that his face should be made as much as possible to express
+incorruptible probity, mingled with imposing dignity, and that he should
+be painted leaning his arm on a book, inscribed in legible characters,
+"I stand for right." At first all these requests frightened and annoyed
+our painter; there was so much to be harmonised, considered, and
+arranged, and all in a few hours. At last he began to understand the
+secret, and went on without troubling his head in the least. From the
+first two or three words spoken, he perceived how the sitter wished to
+be painted. The gentleman who wanted Mars was made a Mars of; he who
+aped Byron received a Byronic attitude. As to the ladies, whether they
+wished to be Corinnas, or Undines, or Aspasias, he was quite ready to
+accommodate them, and even added, from his own imagination, a universal
+air of distinction, which never does any harm, and which sometimes makes
+people excuse even want of resemblance. He soon began to be astonished
+at the wonderful rapidity and success of his execution. As to the
+sitters, they were in ecstasies, and proclaimed him every where a genius
+of the first water.
+
+Tchartkoff became all the fashion. He drove out every day to dinner
+parties, escorted ladies to exhibitions and promenades, was a consummate
+puppy in his dress, and openly declared that an artist ought to be a man
+of the world; that it was his duty to maintain his dignity; that
+painters in general dressed like shoemakers; that their manners were
+excruciatingly vulgar, and that they were people of no education. His
+studio was a pattern of elegance; he kept a couple of magnificent
+footmen; took a number of dandified pupils; had his hair curled; dressed
+half-a-dozen times a-day in various fantastical costumes. He was
+perpetually rehearsing improvements in his way of receiving visitors;
+meditating on all possible means of beautifying his person, and of
+producing an agreeable impression on the ladies. In short, it soon
+became impossible to recognise in him the modest student who once
+laboured so fervently in his garret in the Vasilievskue Ostrov.
+Concerning art and artists he now rarely spoke; he asserted that the
+merit of the old masters had been outrageously overrated; that, before
+Raphael, their figures were rather like herrings than human beings; that
+it was the imagination of the spectator only that could find in their
+works that air of grandeur and dignity generally attributed to them.
+Raphael himself, he said, was very unequal, and many of his productions
+owed their glory only to tradition. Michael Angelo was a boaster, weakly
+vain of his knowledge of anatomy, and without a particle of grace. Real
+force of outline, grace of touch, and magic of colouring we must look
+for, he said, in the present age. Thence the conversation easily glided
+to his own pictures.
+
+"I cannot conceive," he would say, "the obstinacy of people who drudge
+at their pictures. A fellow who hangs month after month over one piece
+of canvass is, in my opinion, an artisan, not an artist. Such a one has
+no genius, for genius creates boldly, rapidly. Now this portrait, for
+instance," he would say, "I painted in two days, this head in one day,
+this in a few hours, and that other in rather more than an hour. I don't
+call it art to go crawling on, line after line."
+
+Thus he would chatter to his visitors, and the visitors would admire his
+dashing rapidity, and utter exclamations of wonder when they heard how
+quickly he worked; and then they would whisper to each other--"This is
+genius--real genius! How well he talks! What an extraordinary talent!"
+
+Such praise as this the painter greedily drank in, and was as delighted
+as a child by the encomiums of the press, even when bought and paid for
+with his own money. His fame continued to spread, and his occupation to
+increase, till he grew weary of painting portraits and faces with the
+same tricks and attitudes that he knew by heart. Gradually he worked
+with less and less good-will, contenting himself with carelessly
+sketching in the head, and leaving all the rest to be finished by his
+pupils. Formerly he had taken trouble to seek new attitudes; to strike
+by novelty--by effect. Now he began to grow weary even of this labour.
+He entirely left off reflecting; he had neither power nor leisure for
+it. His dissipated mode of life, and the society in which he played the
+part of a man of fashion, severed him more and more from labour and from
+thought. His touch grew cold and dull, and he insensibly confined
+himself to stale, commonplace, worn-out forms. The stiff, monotonous
+countenances of officers and civilians, in their graceless modern
+costumes, were not very attractive subjects for the pencil. He forgot
+all--his graceful draping, his easy attitudes, his power of representing
+the passions. As to skilful grouping or dramatic effect in painting, all
+that was quite out of the question. He had nothing before his eyes but
+the eternal uniform, corset, or dress-coat--objects chilling to the
+artist, and affording little scope to imagination. By and by even the
+most ordinary merits disappeared, one by one, from his productions; and
+they still enjoyed the highest reputation, though real judges and
+artists only shrugged their shoulders as they looked at the work of his
+hand.
+
+These mute but significant criticisms of the discerning few never
+reached the ears of the artist, intoxicated as he was with vanity and
+false fame. He already too approached the period of maturity in age and
+intellect, and was rapidly acquiring a respectable corpulence. He now
+met in the journals with such expressions as these:--"Our respectable
+Andrei Petrovitch--our veteran of the pencil, Andrei Petrovitch." He now
+received many honorary appointments in public institutions; was
+frequently invited to examinations and to committees. He began, as
+people infallibly do on reaching a certain age, to stand up sturdily for
+the old masters, not from any profound conviction of their wonderful
+merits, but in order to throw their names in the teeth of young artists.
+He did not hesitate to fly in the face of the doctrines he had advocated
+some years previously. According to him, labour was every thing,
+inspiration a mere name; and he affirmed that, in art, all things should
+be subjected to the severest rules.
+
+Fame can give no satisfaction to one who has not earned, but stolen it.
+It produces a constant thrill only in the heart conscious of having
+deserved it. Tchartkoff no longer valued fame. All his feelings and
+desires were turned towards gold. Gold became his passion, his delight,
+the object of his being. Bank-notes filled his portfolios, piles of gold
+his coffers; but, like all avaricious men, he grew sour, selfish,
+inaccessible to every thing but money--cold-hearted and penurious. He
+was gradually sinking into an unhappy miser, when an event came to pass
+which gave his whole moral being a terrible and awakening shock.
+
+Returning home one day, Tchartkoff found lying on his table a letter, in
+which the Academy of Arts invited him, as one of its most distinguished
+members, to give his opinion of a new picture just arrived from Italy,
+the work of a Russian artist who had long studied there. The painter,
+who had been a schoolfellow of Tchartkoff's, imbued, even as a boy, with
+a fervent passion for art, had early torn himself from home and friends,
+from all the pleasures and habits of his age and country, to toil and
+study in the renowned Italian city, whose very name thrills the
+painter's heart. There he condemned himself to solitude and
+uninterrupted labour. Men spoke of his eccentricity, of his ignorance of
+the world, of his neglect of all the customs of society, of the disgrace
+he cast on the artist's profession by his dress, which was beneath his
+station, and by his frugality, which was almost penury. He cared nothing
+for scoff and reproach. Regardless of the world's comments, he gave
+himself up to his art. Unweariedly did he haunt the galleries; hour
+after hour, day after day, he stood before the works of the great
+masters, striving to penetrate their secrets. He never finished a
+picture without comparing it many times with the productions of those
+mighty teachers, and reading in their creations silent but eloquent
+counsel. He engaged in no arguments or disputes, but accorded to every
+school the honour it deserved; and after aiming at acquiring what was
+most meritorious in each, at length addicted himself to the study of the
+immortal Raphael; like a student of letters, who, after reading and
+rereading the works of a multitude of authors, at last confines himself
+to the writings of one whom he conceives to unite the chief beauties of
+all the others, superadding graces none of them possess. After many
+years of persevering application and gradual progress, the artist left
+the schools, possessing pure and elevated ideas of composition, great
+powers of conception, and an execution that charmed alike by its
+delicacy and force. But, with the modesty of true genius, he still
+allowed a considerable time to elapse before he ventured to submit a
+picture to the verdict of his countrymen.
+
+On entering the exhibition-room, Tchartkoff found it thronged with
+visitors, grouped before the painting. Silence, such as is rarely met
+with amongst a numerous collection of amateurs, reigned throughout the
+crowd. Assuming the knowing and supercilious look of an acknowledged
+connoisseur, he approached the picture, prepared to cavil and find
+fault, or, at best, to damn with faint praise. But the canting phrase of
+conventional criticism died away upon his lips at the sight he there
+beheld. Faultless, pure, gracious, and beautiful as some fair and virgin
+bride was the noble production of genius that met his astonished gaze.
+With wonder and admiration he recognised the work of a pencil that
+revived the glories of ancient art. A profound study of Raphael was
+manifest in the noble elevation of the attitudes; there was a something
+Correggian in the skilful handling and careful finish. But there was no
+servile imitation of any painter; the artist had sought and found in his
+own soul the divine spark that gave life to his creation. Not an object
+in the picture, however trifling, but had been the subject of a profound
+study; the law of its constitution had been analysed, and its internal
+organism investigated. And the painter had caught that flowing roundness
+of line which pervades all nature, but which no eye ever sees save that
+of the creator-artist--that roundness which the mere copyist degrades
+into points and angles. He had poetised, whilst faithfully representing,
+the commonest objects of external nature. A feeling of awe mingled with
+the admiration that kept the crowd profoundly silent. Not a whisper was
+heard, not a rustle or a sound, for some time after the arrival of
+Tchartkoff. All were absorbed in contemplation of the masterpiece; and
+in the eyes of the more enthusiastic tears of delight were seen to
+glisten. Tchartkoff himself stood open-mouthed and motionless before the
+wonderful painting, whose merits and beauties the spectators at last
+began to discuss. He was roused from abstraction by being appealed to
+for his opinion. In vain did he strive to resume his dignified air, and
+to give utterance to the musty commonplace of criticism. The
+contemptuous smile was chased from his features by the workings of
+emotion; his breast heaved with a convulsive sob, and after a moment's
+violent but ineffectual struggle, he burst into tears and rushed wildly
+from the hall.
+
+A few minutes later he stood motionless, almost paralysed, in his own
+magnificent studio. The bandage had fallen from his eyes. He saw how he
+had squandered the best years of his youth; how he had trampled and
+stifled the spark of that fire once burning within him, which might have
+been fanned till it blazed up into grandeur and glory, and extorted
+tears of gratitude and admiration from a wondering world. All this he
+had sacrificed and thrown away, heedlessly, madly, brutally. There
+suddenly revived in his soul those enthusiastic aspirations he once had
+known. He caught up a pencil and approached a canvass. The sweat of
+eagerness stood upon his brow; his soul was filled with one passionate
+desire--one solitary thought burned in his brain. The zeal for art, the
+thirst for fame he once so strongly felt, had suddenly returned, evoked
+from their lurking-place by the mute voice of another's genius. And why,
+Tchartkoff thought, should not he also excel? His hand trembled with
+feverish impatience till he could scarcely hold the pencil. He took for
+his subject a fallen angel. The idea was in accordance with his frame of
+mind. But, alas! how soon he was convinced of the vanity of his efforts!
+His hand and imagination had been too long confined to one line and
+limit, and his fierce but impotent endeavour to overleap the barrier, to
+break his self-imposed fetters, had no result. He had despised and
+neglected the fundamental condition of future greatness--the long and
+fatiguing ladder of study and reflection. Maddened by disappointment,
+furious at the conviction of impotency, he ignominiously dismissed from
+his studio all his later and most esteemed productions, to which places
+of honour had been accorded--all his lifeless, senseless, fashionable
+portraits of hussars, ladies of fashion, and privy councillors. He then
+shut himself up, denied himself to all visitors, and sat down to work,
+patient and eager as a young student. For a while he laboured day and
+night. But how unsatisfactory, how cruelly ungrateful was all that grew
+under his pencil! Each moment he found himself checked and repulsed in
+the new path he fain would have trodden by the wretched mechanical
+tricks to which he had so long habituated himself. They stood on his
+road, an impassable barrier. In spite of himself he recurred to the old
+commonplace forms; the arms would arrange themselves in one graceless
+position; the head assume the old hackneyed attitude; the folds of dress
+refused to drape themselves otherwise than they had so long been wont to
+do in his hands. All this the unhappy artist plainly felt and saw. His
+eyes were opened to his heinous faults, but he lacked the power to
+correct them.
+
+"Surely I _had_ ability!" said he to himself; "or was it mere delusion?
+Could I not, under any circumstances, have done better than I have? Did
+the whispers of youthful vanity mislead me?" And, to settle this doubt,
+he hunted out some of his early pictures, which lay neglected in a
+corner of his painting-room--pictures he had laboured at long ago, when
+his heart was pure from avarice, and he dwelt in his poor garret in the
+lonely Vasilievskue Ostrov, far from the world, from luxury and
+covetousness. He examined them attentively, and the conviction forced
+itself upon him with irresistible strength, that he had sacrificed
+genius at the altar of Mammon. "I had it in me!" was his agonised
+exclamation. "Every where, in all of these, I behold traces and proofs
+of the power I have recklessly frittered away."
+
+Covering his face with his hands, Tchartkoff stood silent, full of
+bitter thoughts, rapidly but minutely reviewing the whole of his past
+life. When he removed his hands he started, and a thrill passed over
+him, for he suddenly encountered the gaze of two piercing eyes
+glittering with a sombre lustre, and seeming to watch and enjoy his
+despair. A second glance showed him they belonged to the strange
+portrait which he had bought, many years before, in the Stchukin Dvor.
+It had remained forgotten and concealed amidst a mass of old pictures,
+and he had long since forgotten its existence. Now that the gaudy,
+fashionable pictures and portraits had been removed from the studio,
+there it was, peering grimly out from amongst his early productions.
+Tchartkoff remembered that, in a certain sense, this hideous portrait
+had been the origin of the useless life he had so long led and now so
+deeply deplored; that the hoard of gold discovered in its frame had
+developed and fostered in him those worldly passions, that sensuality
+and love of luxury, which had been the bane of his genius. Calling his
+servants, he ordered the hateful picture to be taken from the room, and
+bestowed where he should never again behold it. Its departure, however,
+was insufficient to calm his agitation and quell the storm that raged
+within him. He was a prey to that rare moral torture sometimes witnessed
+when a feeble talent wrestles unsuccessfully to attain a development
+above its capacity--a furious endeavour which often conducts young and
+vigorous minds to great achievements, but whose result to old and
+enervated ones is more frequently despair and insanity. Tchartkoff, when
+convinced of the futility of his efforts, became possessed by the demon
+of envy, who soon monopolised and made him all his own. His complexion
+assumed a bilious yellow tint; he could not bear to hear an artist
+praised, or look with patience at any work of art that bore the impress
+of genius. On beholding such he would grind his teeth with fury, and the
+expression of his face became that of a maniac.
+
+At last he conceived one of the most execrable projects the human mind
+ever engendered; and with an eagerness approaching to frenzy, he
+hastened to put it into execution. He bought up all the best pictures he
+could find in St Petersburg, and whose owners could be induced to part
+with them. The prices he gave to tempt sellers were often most
+extravagant. As soon as he had purchased a picture, and got it safely
+home, he would set upon it with demoniac fury, tearing, scratching, even
+biting it; and, when it was utterly defaced and rent into the smallest
+possible fragments, he would dance and trample on it, laughing like a
+fiend. The enormous fortune he had accumulated during his long and
+successful career as a fashionable portrait-painter, enabled him largely
+to indulge this infernal monomania. To this abominable end he,
+Tchartkoff, but a short time before so avaricious, became reckless in
+his expenditure. For this he untied the strings of his bags of gold, and
+scattered his rubles with lavish hand. All were surprised at the change,
+and at the rapidity with which he squandered his fortune, in his zeal,
+as it was supposed, to form a gallery of the noblest works of art. In
+the auction room, none cared to oppose him, for all were certain to be
+outbid. He was held to be mad, and certainly his conduct and appearance
+justified the presumption. His countenance, of a jaundiced hue, grew
+haggard and wrinkled; misanthropy and hatred of the world were plainly
+legible upon it. He resembled that horrid demon whom Pushkin has so ably
+conceived and portrayed. Save all occasional sarcasm, venomous and
+bitter, no word ever passed his lips, and at last he became universally
+avoided. His acquaintances, and even his oldest friends, shunned his
+presence, and would go a mile round to escape meeting him in the street.
+The mere sight of him, they said, was enough to cloud their whole day.
+
+Fortunately for society and for art, such an unnatural and agitated
+existence as this could not long endure. Tchartkoff's mental excitement
+was too violent for his physical strength. A burning fever and furious
+delirium ravaged his frame, and in a few days he was but the ghost of
+his former self. The delirium augmented, and became a permanent and
+incurable mania, in some of whose paroxysms it was necessary to bind him
+to his couch. He fancied he saw continually before him the singular old
+portrait from the Stchukin Dvor! This was the more strange, because
+since the day he had turned it out of his studio, it had never once met
+his sight. But now he raved of its terrible living eyes, which haunted
+him unceasingly, and when this fancy came over him, his madness was
+something terrific. All the persons who approached his bed he imagined
+to be horrible portraits; copies, repeated again and again, of the old
+man with the fiendish eyes. The image multiplied itself perpetually; the
+ceiling, the walls, the floor, were all covered with portraits, staring
+sternly and fixedly at him with living eyes. The room extended and
+stretched out to a vast and interminable gallery, to afford room for
+millions of repetitions of the ghastly picture. In vain did numerous
+physicians seek to discover, with a view to the alleviation of the poor
+wretch's sufferings, some secret connexion between the incidents of his
+past life and the strange phantom that thus eternally haunted him. No
+explanation or clue could be obtained from the patient, who continued to
+apostrophise the portrait in disconnected phrase, and to utter howls of
+agony and lamentation. At last his existence terminated in one last
+horrible paroxysm. His corpse was frightful to behold; of his once
+comely form, a yellow shrivelled skeleton was all that remained. A few
+thousand rubles were the sole residue of his wealth; and his
+disappointed heirs, beholding numerous drawers and closets full of torn
+fragments that had once composed noble pictures, understood and cursed
+the odious use to which their relative had applied his princely fortune.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A number of carriages, caleches, and drojkis were drawn up in the
+vicinity of a handsome mansion in one of the best quarters of St
+Petersburg. It had been the residence of a rich virtuoso, lately
+deceased, and whose pictures, furniture, and curiosities, were now
+selling by auction. The large drawing-room was filled with the most
+distinguished amateurs of art in St Petersburg, mingled with brokers and
+dealers on the look-out for bargains, and with a large sprinkling of
+those idlers who, without intending to purchase, frequent auctions to
+kill a morning. The sale was in full activity, and there was eager
+competition for the lot then up. The biddings succeeded each other so
+rapidly, that the auctioneer was scarcely able to repeat them. The
+object so many were eager to possess, was a portrait, which could hardly
+fail to attract the attention even of persons who know nothing of
+pictures. This painting, which possessed a very considerable amount of
+artistical merit, and had apparently been more than once restored,
+repaired, and cleaned, represented the tawny features of an Oriental,
+attired in a loose costume. The expression of the face was singular, and
+by no means pleasant. Its most striking feature was the extraordinary
+and unaccountable look of the eyes, which, by some trick of the artist,
+seemed to follow the spectator wherever he went. Every one of the
+persons there assembled was ready to swear that the eyes looked straight
+at him; and, what was yet more unaccountable, the effect was the same
+whether the beholder stood on the right, or on the left, or in front of
+the picture. This peculiarity it was that had made so many anxious to
+possess a portrait whose subject and painter were alike unknown.
+Gradually, however, many of the amateurs ceased their biddings, for the
+price had become extravagant, and at last only two continued to
+compete--two rich noblemen, both enthusiastic lovers of the eccentric in
+art. These still continued the contest, grew heated with their rivalry,
+and were in a fair way to raise the price to something positively
+absurd, when a by-stander stepped forward and addressed them. "Before
+this contest goes farther," he said, "permit me to say a few words. Of
+all here present, it is I, I believe, who have the best right to the
+portrait in dispute."
+
+All eyes were turned towards the speaker. He was a tall, handsome man,
+of about thirty-five, with a pleasant, cheerful countenance, a careless
+style of dress, and long black curls flowing down his neck. He was
+personally known to many present, and the name of B----, the artist,
+was circulated through the room.
+
+"Extraordinary as my words may appear to you," he resumed, perceiving he
+had fixed the general attention, "I can explain them if you are disposed
+to give me five minutes' audience. I have every reason to believe that
+this portrait is one I have long sought in vain."
+
+Curiosity was expressed on every countenance; the auctioneer stood
+open-mouthed and with uplifted hammer; all entreated B---- to tell his
+tale. The artist at once complied.
+
+"You are all acquainted," he said, "with the quarter of St Petersburg
+known as the Kolomna, and aware that it is chiefly occupied by persons
+either in poverty, or whose resources are exceedingly limited, many of
+whom, compelled by unforeseen circumstances to outstrip their limited
+income, frequently find themselves in want of immediate and temporary
+assistance; compelled, in short, to apply to money-lenders. In
+consequence of this, there has settled amongst them a particular class
+of usurers, who supply petty sums on satisfactory pledges, and at
+enormous interest. These pawnbrokers on a small scale are generally far
+more pitiless than the aristocratic usurer, whose customers drive to his
+door in their carriages. Compunction, humanity, a feeling of pity for
+the unfortunates upon whose need they fatten, never by any chance enter
+their breast. Amongst these callous extortioners there was one who, at a
+certain period of the last century, under the reign of the Empress
+Catherine II., had been settled for some years in the Kolomna. He was an
+extraordinary and enigmatical personage, of whom none knew any thing; he
+wore a flowing Asiatic dress, his complexion was swarthy as an Arab; but
+to what nation he really belonged, whether Hindoo, or Greek, or Persian,
+none could decide. His tall stature, his tawny, withered, wiry face,
+with its tint of greenish bronze, his large eyes full of sullen fire,
+shadowed by thick and overhanging brows; every point in his appearance,
+in short, made a strong and marked distinction between him and the other
+inhabitants of the quarter. His very dwelling was quite unlike the
+little wooden houses which surrounded it. It was a large brick building,
+in the style of those often constructed by the Genoese merchants, with
+windows of different sizes disposed at irregular distances, with iron
+shutters and hasps. This usurer was distinguished from all others by the
+circumstance that he could always supply any sum of money required, and
+would accommodate alike the needy groom and the extravagant noble. At
+his door were often to be seen brilliant equipages, through whose
+windows might sometimes be discerned the head of a luxurious and
+fashionable lady. Rumour said that his iron chests teemed with countless
+heaps of money, plate, diamonds, and all kinds of valuable pledges, but
+nevertheless he was reported less greedy than the other money-lenders.
+He made no difficulty, people said, to lend, and was apparently far from
+oppressive in fixing the terms of payment. But on the day of reckoning,
+it was observed, that by some extraordinary arithmetical calculation, he
+made the interest mount up to an enormous sum: such, at least, was the
+popular report. The strangest thing about him, however, and which struck
+every body, was the fatality that seemed to attach to his loans; all who
+borrowed of him finished their lives in an unhappy manner. Whether this
+was a mere popular notion, a stupid superstitious gossip, or a rumour
+intentionally disseminated, has ever remained a mystery. But it is a
+fact that many things occurred to give it validity, and that within a
+comparatively short period of time. Amongst the aristocracy of the day,
+there was one young man who particularly attracted the attention of
+society. He was of ancient descent and noble blood; had very early
+distinguished himself in the service of the empire, as a warm protector
+of every thing honourable and elevated, and as a passionate lover of art
+and genius. He was soon distinguished by the personal notice of the
+Empress, who confided to him the duties of an office peculiarly adapted
+to his tastes and talents--an office which gave him power to be of the
+greatest service not only to science, but to humanity itself. The young
+noble surrounded himself with artists, poets, scholars, and men of
+learning. To all of them he promised employment, patronage, protection.
+He undertook, at his own expense, a number of important publications,
+gave a multitude of orders to artists, founded prizes for excellence,
+spent enormous sums in this unselfish manner, and at length got into
+difficulties. Full, however, of generous enthusiasm, and unwilling to
+leave his work half finished, he borrowed money in all directions, and
+at length found his way to the famous usurer in the Kolomna. Having
+obtained from this man a very extensive loan, the young noble all at
+once underwent a complete transformation. He became, as by enchantment,
+the enemy of rising intellect and talent, the persecutor of all he had
+previously protected. It was just then that the French Revolution broke
+out. This event gave him a handle for suspicion. In every thing he
+detected some revolutionary tendency; in every word, in every expressed
+opinion, he saw a dangerous hint or perfidious insinuation. The disease
+gained on him till he almost began to suspect himself. He laid false
+informations, fabricated the foulest charges, and caused the ruin of
+numbers of innocent people. At first, his guilty manoeuvres were
+undetected, and, when found out, they were thought to proceed from
+insanity. Report was made to the Empress, who deprived him of his
+office. But his severest sentence was the contempt he read in the faces
+of his countrymen. I need not describe the sufferings of this vain and
+insolent spirit, the tortures he endured from crushed pride, defeated
+ambition, ruined expectations. At last his monomania--for such it must
+surely have been--aggravated by regret and chagrin, became insanity, and
+in a frightful paroxysm the unhappy maniac committed suicide.
+
+"Not less remarkable than the fate of this wretched young man was that
+of a lady who passed at that time for the most beautiful woman in St
+Petersburg. My father has often assured me, that he never beheld any
+thing to be compared to her. Possessing, besides her beauty, the not
+less fascinating charms of wit, intellect, wealth, and high rank, she
+was of course surrounded by a swarm of admirers. The most remarkable of
+these was Prince R., the flower of all the young nobles of that day, and
+to whom the palm was universally conceded, not only for beauty of
+person, but for high qualities and chivalry of character. He was well
+qualified for a hero of romance, or a woman's beau-ideal. Deeply and
+passionately enamoured of the young countess, his affection met with as
+pure and ardent a return. But her relations disapproved the match. The
+prince's paternal estates had passed out of his hands,--his family was
+in disgrace at court, and the derangement of his finances was no secret
+to any body. Suddenly he left the capital, apparently for the purpose of
+putting his affairs in order; and, after a brief absence, reappeared and
+commenced a life of splendid extravagance. His balls and entertainments
+were so magnificent as to attract the notice of the court, and, it was
+rumoured, to mollify imperial displeasure. The countess's father became
+suddenly gracious, and soon nothing was talked of in St Petersburg but
+the marriage of the two lovers. Of the origin of the enormous fortune of
+the bridegroom, to which this change in the sentiments of his future
+father-in-law was unquestionably to be attributed, nobody could give a
+distinct account, though it was pretty generally whispered that he had
+entered into a compact with the mysterious money-lender of the Kolomna,
+and from him obtained a large loan. Be this as it may, the wedding
+formed the whole talk of the town. Bride and bridegroom were the object
+of universal envy. Every body had heard of their beauty and virtues, of
+their ardent and constant love; and all rejoiced that the obstacles to
+their union were removed. Numerous were the prophetic pictures drawn of
+the blissful existence the young couple were certain to enjoy. The event
+proved very different. In one twelvemonth a total and terrible change
+took place in the character of the prince. Hitherto noble, generous, and
+confiding, he became, on a sudden, jealous, suspicious, impatient, and
+capricious. He was the tyrant and tormentor of his wife; and, to the
+unbounded astonishment of every body who had known him before his
+marriage, treated her with inhuman brutality, and was even known to
+strike her! In one year the beautiful and dazzling girl, who was
+followed by a crowd of obedient adorers, could not be recognised in the
+careworn and unhappy wife. At length, unable longer to support the cruel
+yoke of such a marriage, she sought a separation. At the first
+notification of this step, the prince gave way to the most uncontrolled
+fury,--burst into her chamber, and would infallibly have stabbed her,
+had he not been seized and removed by force. Mad with rage, he turned
+his weapon upon himself, and lay a corpse at the feet of his
+horror-stricken friends. Besides these two incidents, which attracted
+great notice in the higher circles, a number of other instances were
+cited as having occurred amongst the lower classes, where the loans of
+the mysterious usurer had brought misfortune in their train. One man,
+previously a sober and honest artisan, had become a confirmed drunkard,
+and died in the hospital; a shopman had robbed his master; an
+izvoztchik, for years noted for his honesty, had cut the throat of a
+customer in order to rob him of an insignificant sum. All these persons,
+and many others, who sank into misery and crime, or perished by violent
+deaths, had been customers of the mysterious Asiatic, of whom these
+stories, related, as they often were, with additions and exaggerations,
+inspired the quiet and peaceable inhabitants of the Kolomna with an
+involuntary horror. Nobody doubted the real presence of the evil spirit
+in this man. They said that he exacted conditions which made one's very
+hair stand on end, and which none of his unhappy clients dared disclose;
+that his money had a mysterious property of attraction; that the coins
+were marked with strange characters, and grew red-hot of their own
+accord. In short, there were a thousand extravagant reports. But what is
+most remarkable is, that this population of Kolomna, made up of
+pensioners, half-pay officers, petty functionaries, obscure artists, and
+others equally necessitous, preferred bearing the utmost distress to
+having recourse to the dreaded money-lender. They all declared they
+would rather mortify their bodies than destroy their souls. Those who
+met him in the street hurried by with an uneasy sensation, making way
+for him with anxious submissiveness, and looking long over their
+shoulders at the tall lean figure as it lost itself in the distance. His
+singular frame might well have been the receptacle of a supernatural and
+unholy spirit. The wild and deeply-cut features had something different
+from humanity; the extraordinary thickness of the shaggy eyebrows; the
+bronzed glow of the countenance; the frightful eyes, with their steady
+unsupportable glare; even the broad folds of the Oriental dress were,
+each in turn, the subject of uneasy and suspicious comment. My father
+told me, that when he met him he could not avoid stopping to gaze at
+him; and it invariably occurred to him that he had never seen, either in
+painting or life, a face that so completely came up to his notion of a
+demon. But I must make you, as briefly as possible, acquainted with my
+father, who is the real hero of my tale. He was a remarkable man, a
+self-taught painter, seeking principles in his own mind, and
+elaborating, without master or school, rules and laws of art, led onward
+by the mere thirst for excellence, and advancing, under the influence of
+causes which he himself, perhaps, could not have defined, along a path
+marked out for him only in his own mind. He was one of those children of
+genius whom contemporaries so often stigmatise as ignorant, because they
+have struck out a track for themselves, and whose ardour is to be
+chilled neither by censure nor failures; whence, on the contrary, they
+derive fresh vigour and courage. Aided only by his own lofty instincts,
+he attained to the true understanding of what historical painting should
+be. Scriptural subjects, the last and loftiest step of high art, chiefly
+occupied his pencil. Free from the feverish irritable vanity and paltry
+envy so common amongst artists, he was a firm, upright, honourable man,
+a little rough and unpolished in externals--the husk rather rugged--and
+with a share of honest pride and independent feeling which sometimes
+imparted to his manner an air of mingled bluntness and condescension. 'I
+care nothing for your fine folks,' he would say. 'I don't work for them.
+I don't paint drawing-room pictures. Those who understand my work best
+reward me for it. I do not blame fashionable people for not
+understanding art: how should they? They understand their cards; they
+are judges of wine and horses. 'Tis enough. When they do pick up a crude
+notion or two on the subject of painting, they become intolerable by
+their assumption. I prefer, a thousand times, the man who honestly
+confesses he knows nothing about art, to your ignoramus who comes in
+with a solemn affectation of connoisseurship, claiming to be a judge,
+talking about things he does not understand, and consequently talking
+nonsense.' By no means a covetous man, my father painted for very modest
+remuneration, contented to earn sufficient for the support of his
+family, and for providing the means of exercising his art. Generous in
+the extreme, his hand was ever open to less successful artists. Imbued
+with a fervent and profound sense of religion, it was that, perhaps,
+which enabled him to communicate to the faces he painted an elevation of
+religious sentiment that the most brilliant pencils often fall to give.
+In course of time, and aided by obstinate industry and unflinching
+perseverance, his talent attracted the attention and commanded the
+respect even of those who had at first sneered at him as a _home-made_
+artist. He received numerous orders for altar-pieces and other church
+pictures, and laboured incessantly. One picture, in particular, engaged
+his closest attention. The subject I forget, but I know that the great
+enemy of mankind was to be introduced. Long did my father meditate on
+this figure; he desired to embody in the countenance the expression of
+every evil passion that afflicts fallen humanity. Whilst reflecting on
+the subject, and conjuring up horrible countenances in his imagination,
+the strange features of the mysterious money-lender frequently recurred
+to him; and, as often as they did so, he said to himself, 'The usurer
+would be a fine model for my Devil.' One day, whilst he was busy
+planning his great work, and making sketches, with which he had
+difficulty in pleasing himself, there was a knock at his studio door,
+and the next instant, to his infinite astonishment, the usurer entered
+the room. My father has since told me that on beholding him he felt an
+inexplicable chill and shudder come over his whole frame.
+
+"'You are an artist?' said the intruder, abruptly.
+
+"'I am,' replied my father, and wondered what was coming next.
+
+"'I want my portrait painted. I have not long to live. I have no
+children, and I do not wish to die altogether. Can you paint a portrait
+of me that shall be exactly like life?"
+
+"My father reflected for a moment. 'Nothing could be more opportune,'
+thought he to himself; 'he comes of his own accord to sit to me for my
+Devil.' And he at once agreed to satisfy his singular visitor. Hour and
+price were stipulated, and the next day, my father, bearing palette and
+brushes, repaired to the abode of his new sitter. The gloomy court-yard,
+surrounded by high walls; the watch-dogs; the iron doors and shutters;
+the arched windows; the huge coffers, covered with strange,
+outlandish-looking carpets; and, above all, the grim, gloomy visage of
+the master of the house, seated immoveable before him,--all these
+conspired to produce a strong impression on his mind. The windows were
+closed and darkened; a single pane in the upper part of one of them
+admitted a strong ray of light. My father forgot the strange repute of
+his sitter in zeal for his art. 'How splendidly the fellow's face is
+lighted up!' he thought to himself, and set to work with furious
+eagerness, as though fearful of losing the favourable moment. 'What
+vigour! what light and shade!' he exclaimed, inaudibly. 'If I can get
+him in only half as vigorously as he sits there, the portrait will beat
+every thing I have done: he will walk out of the canvass. What
+extraordinary features; what depth in the lines and furrows! he repeated
+to himself, redoubling his fervour at every stroke, as he observed trait
+after trait rapidly transferring itself to the canvass. But, whilst
+proceeding with his work, he insensibly became aware of a strange
+feeling of oppression and uneasiness that crept over him, he knew not
+how or wherefore. Disregarding it, he persisted in following, with the
+strictest fidelity and most scrupulous care, every line, and tone, and
+shade in the extraordinary countenance of his model. To the eyes he gave
+his chief attention. At first they nearly made him despair. So peculiar
+and penetrating was their expression, so unlike were they to any eyes he
+had ever encountered, that it seemed an almost hopeless task to attempt
+to render them in a picture. Nevertheless he persevered, resolved, at
+whatever cost of pains and time, to follow them in their minute details,
+and thus to penetrate, if possible, the mystery and secret of their
+expression. But whilst engaged in this work, whilst diving, as it were,
+with his pencil, into the recesses of those mysterious orbs, the
+uneasiness he had before felt rapidly increased, and there arose in his
+soul such an inexplicable loathing, such an overpowering sensation of
+vague horror, that he was several times obliged to suspend his work, and
+it was only by a violent effort he could bring himself to resume it. At
+last this unaccountable feeling fairly mastered him; he could no longer
+bear to look upon those horrible eyes, whose demon-like gaze filled him
+with dismay. He closed the sitting. But the next day, and the one after
+that, the same thing occurred; after painting for a short time he
+invariably became agitated, excited, and unable to proceed. Each day
+these sensations increased in strength, until they became positive
+torture, and at last my father threw down his brush, declaring he would
+paint no more. Extraordinary was the effect produced upon the mysterious
+usurer by this declaration. By the most touching and humble entreaties,
+and by promises of munificent reward, he essayed, but in vain, to induce
+my father to retract his decision and resume his task. He even
+prostrated himself before him and implored him to terminate the
+picture, saying that upon its completion hung his fate, and his very
+existence. And then he threw out dark and confused hints of supernatural
+agency, by which, if his living features were once faithfully
+represented, his soul would be in some sort transferred to the portrait,
+and be saved from complete annihilation, or a yet worse doom.
+Terror-stricken at these strange and fearful words, my father threw down
+pencil and palette and rushed from the house. He could not sleep that
+night for meditating on this occurrence. The next morning he received
+back the unfinished portrait, brought to his house by an old woman, the
+only human being who lived with the usurer. She left also a message,
+that her master returned the portrait, because he did not want and would
+not pay for it. A few hours afterwards, on going out, my father learned
+that the usurer of the Kolomna had died that morning. There was a
+mystery in all this which my father neither was able nor desired to
+solve.
+
+"Dating from that day, a perceptible and unfavourable change took place
+in my father's character. Without apparent cause he became irritable,
+restless, and unhappy, and a very short time elapsed before he became
+guilty of an act of which none supposed him capable. About this period,
+the works of one of his pupils had attracted the attention of a small
+circle of judges and amateurs of art. My father from the first had
+perceived and appreciated this young man's talent, and had shown himself
+particularly well-disposed towards him. Suddenly, as if by a spell, envy
+and hatred were generated in his mind. The general interest excited by
+the pupil became intolerable to the master, who could not hear with
+patience the name of the rising genius. At length, to fill up the
+measure of his mortification, he learned that the young man had been
+preferred to paint a picture for a splendid church then just completed.
+This drove my father frantic. Previously the most upright and honourable
+of men, he now condescended to the pettiest intrigues and manoeuvres--he
+who, up to that time, had regarded with horror and contempt all that
+bore the semblance of intrigue. By dint of caballing, he succeeded in
+obtaining an open competition for the work in question; whoever chose,
+was at liberty to send in his picture, and the best would obtain the
+preference. Having brought this about, he secluded himself in his studio
+and applied himself to the task with intense ardour, summoning up all
+his great energy, skill, and experience of art. As was to be expected,
+the result was one of his very finest pictures. As a work of art, it was
+unquestionably the best. When my father saw it placed beside those of
+the other competitors, a smile of triumph curled his lip, and he
+entertained no doubt that his would be the picture chosen to adorn the
+altar. The committee appointed to decide arrived, and cast approving
+glances at my father's painting. Before giving their verdict, however,
+they proceeded to examine it minutely, and at last, one of the
+members--an ecclesiastic of high rank, if I remember rightly--waved his
+hand to secure the attention of his fellow-judges, and spoke thus: 'The
+picture presented by this artist,' he said, 'has undoubtedly very high
+merit as a mere work of art; but it is unsuited to the place and purpose
+for which it was designed. Those countenances have nothing sacred or
+holy in their expression. On the contrary, you may discern in every one
+of them, and especially in the eyes, the traces, more or less modified,
+of some evil passion, a something unhallowed and almost fiendish.'
+Struck by this observation, all present looked at the picture: it was
+impossible to deny the justice of the criticism. My father rushed
+furiously forward eager to deny and disprove the unfavourable judgment.
+But he saw for the first time, with feelings of intense horror, that he
+had given to almost all his countenances the eyes of the money-lender.
+They all looked out of the canvass with such a devilish and abominable
+stare, that he himself could scarcely help shuddering. The picture was
+rejected, and, with unspeakable rage and envy, he heard the prize
+awarded to his former pupil. He returned home in a state of mind worthy
+of a demon. He abused and even ill-treated my poor mother, who sought to
+console him for his disappointment, drove his children brutally from
+him, broke his easel and brushes, tore down from the wall the portrait
+of the money-lender, called for a knife, and ordered a fire to be
+instantly lighted, intending to cut up the picture and burn it. In this
+mood he was found by a friend, a painter like himself, a careless,
+jovial dog, always in good-humour, untroubled with ambition, working
+gaily at whatever he could get to do, and loving a good dinner and merry
+company.
+
+"'What the deuce are you at? what are you about to burn?' said he, going
+up to the portrait. 'Why, are you mad? This is one of your very best
+pictures! The old money-lender, I declare. By Jove! an exquisite thing!
+Admirably hit off! you have caught the old fellow's eyes to perfection.
+One would almost swear you had transplanted them from the head to the
+picture. They look out of the canvass.'
+
+"'We'll see how they look in the fire,' said my father surlily, making a
+movement to thrust the picture into the grate.
+
+"'Stop, stop!' cried his friend, checking his arm. 'Give it me, rather
+than burn it.' My father was at first unwilling, but at last consented;
+and the jolly old painter, enchanted with his acquisition, carried off
+the portrait.
+
+"The picture gone, my father felt himself more tranquil. 'It seemed,' he
+said, 'as if its departure had taken a load off his heart.' He was
+astonished at his recent conduct, at the malice and envy that had filled
+his soul. The more he reflected, the stronger became his sorrow and
+repentance. 'Yes,' he at last exclaimed, with sincere self-reproach,
+'God has punished me for my sins; my picture was really a shameful and
+abominable thing. It was inspired by the wicked hope of injuring a
+fellow-man, and a brother artist. Hatred and envy guided my pencil; what
+better feelings could I expect it to portray?' Without a moment's delay
+he went in search of his former pupil, embraced him affectionately,
+entreated his forgiveness, and did all in his power to efface from the
+young man's mind the remembrance of his offence. Once more his days
+glided on in peaceful and contented toll, although his face had assumed
+a pensive and melancholy expression, previously a stranger to it. He
+prayed more frequently and fervently, was more often silent, and spoke
+less bluntly and roughly to others; the rugged suffice of his character
+was smoothed and softened.
+
+"A long time had elapsed without his seeing or hearing any thing of the
+friend to whom he had given the portrait, and he was one day about to go
+out and inquire after him, when the man himself entered the room. But
+his former joviality of manner was gone. He looked worn and melancholy,
+his checks were hollow, his complexion pale, and his clothes hung
+loosely upon him. My father was struck with the change, and inquired
+what ailed him.
+
+"'Nothing now,' was the reply: 'nothing since I got rid of that infernal
+portrait. I was wrong, my friend, not to let you burn it. The devil fly
+away with the thing, say I! I am no believer in witchcraft and the like,
+but I am more than half persuaded some evil spirit is lodged in the
+portrait of the usurer.'
+
+"'What makes you think so?' said my father.
+
+"'The simple fact, that from the very first day it entered my house, I,
+formerly so gay and joyous, became the most anxious melancholy dog that
+ever whined under a gallows. I was irritable, ill-tempered, disposed to
+cut my own throat, and every body else's. My whole life through, I had
+never known what it was to sleep badly. Well, my sleep left me, and when
+I did get any, it was broken by dreams. Good Heavens! such horrible
+dreams; I could not bring myself to believe they were mere dreams,
+ordinary nightmares. I was sometimes nearly stifled in my sleep; and
+eternally, my good sir, the old man, that accursed old man, flitted
+about me. In short, I was in a pitiable state, lost flesh and appetite,
+and cursed the hour I was born. I crawled about, as if drunk or stupid,
+tormented with a vague incessant fear, a dread, and anticipation of
+something frightful about to happen, of some uncommon danger besetting
+me at every turn. At last, I bethought me of the portrait, and gave it
+away to a nephew of mine, who had taken a great fancy to it. Since then
+I have been much relieved; I feel as if a great stone had been rolled
+off my heart; I can sleep and eat, and am recovering my former spirits.
+It was a rare devil you cooked up there, my boy!'
+
+"My father listened to his friend's confession with the closest
+attention.
+
+"'The portrait, then, is now in your nephew's possession?' he at last
+inquired.
+
+"'My nephew's! No, no! He tried it, but could stand it no better than
+your humble servant. Assuredly the spirit of the old usurer has
+transmigrated into the picture. My nephew declares that he walks out of
+the frame, glides about the room; in short the things he tells me, pass
+human understanding and belief. I should have taken him for a madman, if
+I had not partly experienced the thing myself. He sold the picture to
+some dealer or other; and the dealer could not stand it either, and got
+it off his hands.'
+
+"This narrative made a deep impression upon my father. About this time
+he became subject to long fits of abstraction, and incessant reveries,
+which gradually turned to hypochondria. At last, he was firmly convinced
+that his pencil had served as an instrument to the evil spirit; that a
+portion of the usurer's vitality had actually passed into the picture,
+which thus continued to torment and persecute its possessors, inspiring
+them with evil passions, tempting them from the paths of virtue and
+religion, rousing in their breasts feelings of envy and malice and all
+uncharitableness. A great misfortune which afflicted him shortly after,
+the loss, by a contagious disorder, of his wife, daughter, and infant
+son, he accounted a judgment of heaven upon his sin. He determined to
+quit the world, and devote himself to religion and prayer. I was then
+nine years of age. He placed me in the Academy of Arts, wound up his
+affairs, and retired to a remote convent, where he shortly afterwards
+assumed the tonsure. There, by the severity of his life, and by the
+unwearied punctuality with which he fulfilled the rules of his order, he
+struck the whole brotherhood with surprise and admiration. The superior
+of the monastery, hearing of his skill as a painter, requested him to
+execute an altar-piece for the convent chapel. But the devout brother
+declared that his pencil had been polluted by a great sin, and that he
+must purify himself by mortification and long penance, before he could
+dare apply it to a holy purpose. He then, of his own accord, gradually
+increased the austerity of his monastic life. At last, the utmost
+privations he could inflict on himself appearing to him insufficient, he
+retired, with the blessing of the superior, to court solitude in the
+desert. There he built himself a hermitage out of the branches of trees,
+lived on uncooked roots, dragged a heavy stone with him wherever he
+went, and stood from sunrise to sunset with his hands uplifted to
+heaven, fervently praying. His penances and mortifications were such as
+we find examples of only in the lives of the saints. For many years he
+followed this austere manner of life, and his brethren at the convent
+had given up all hopes of again seeing him, when one day he suddenly
+appeared amongst them. 'I am ready,' he said, firmly and calmly to the
+superior: 'with the help of God, I will begin my task.' The subject he
+selected was the Birth of Christ. For a whole year he laboured
+incessantly at his picture, without leaving his cell, nourishing himself
+with the coarsest food, and rigid in the fulfilment of his religious
+duties. At the end of that time the picture was completed. It was a
+miracle of art. Neither the brethren nor the superior were profound
+critics of painting, but they were awe-struck by the extraordinary
+sublimity of the figures. The sentiment of divine tranquillity and
+mildness in the Holy Mother, bending over the Infant Jesus--the profound
+and celestial intelligence in the eyes of the Babe--the solemn silence
+and dignified humility of the three Wise Men prostrate at His feet--the
+holy, unspeakable calm breathed over the whole work--the combined
+impression of all this was magical. The brethren bowed the knee before
+the picture, and the superior, deeply affected, pronounced a blessing on
+the artist. 'No mere human art,' he said, 'could have produced a
+picture like this. A power from on high has guided thy pencil, my son,
+and the blessing of heaven has descended on the work of thy hands.'
+
+"About this time I finished my education in the Academy; I received the
+gold medal, and at the same time saw realised the delicious hope of
+being sent to Italy--the cherished dream of the boy-artist. Before
+departing, I wished to take leave of my father, whom I had not seen for
+twelve years. I had heard divers reports of the extreme austerity of his
+life, and expected to see the withered figure of a hermit, worn-out,
+exhausted, macerated with fast and vigil. My astonishment was great when
+I beheld my father. No trace of exhaustion was on his countenance, which
+beamed with a joy whose source was not of this world. A beard as white
+as snow, and long thin hair of silvery hue floated picturesquely down
+his breast and along the folds of his black robe, and descended even to
+the cord girding his monastic gown. Before we parted, I received from
+his lips precepts and counsels for the conduct of my life and for my
+guidance in art--precepts I have religiously remembered, and which will
+ever remain indelibly engraven on my soul. Three days I abode near him;
+on the third, I went to ask his blessing before my departure for the
+artist's home, the distant and much-desired shores of Italy. Already, in
+the course of our long communings, he had told me the story of his life,
+especially dwelling on the remarkable passage I have just related. 'My
+son, these were his last words, 'my conscience, tranquillised in great
+measure by years of prayer and penitence, has yet its uneasy moments,
+when I recall the circumstances connected with that portrait. I have
+been told that it still passes from hand to hand, occasioning misery to
+many, exciting feelings of envy and hatred, fostering unlawful desires
+and unholy thoughts. By the memory of thy mother, and by the love thou
+bearest me, I entreat thee, my son, truly and faithfully to perform my
+last request. Seek out that portrait; sooner or later you must find it;
+you cannot fail to recognise it by the strange expression, and by the
+extraordinary fire and vividness of the eyes. Purchase it, at whatever
+cost, and commit it to the flames! So shall my blessing prosper thee,
+and thy days be long in the land.'
+
+"How could I refuse the pledge thus touchingly required by the venerable
+old man? Throwing myself into his arms, I swore by the silver locks that
+flowed over his breast, faithfully to do his bidding. We live in a
+positive age, and believers in any thing bordering on the supernatural
+grow each day rarer. But my path was plain before me; I had promised,
+and must perform. For fifteen years I have devoted a certain portion of
+each, to a search for the mysterious picture, with constant ill-success,
+until to-day--at this auction."
+
+Here the artist, suspending his sentence, turned towards the wall where
+the portrait had hung. His movement was imitated by his hearers, who,
+looked round in search of the wonderful picture, concerning which they
+had just been told so strange a tale. But the portrait was no longer
+there. A murmur of surprise, almost of consternation, ran through the
+throng.
+
+"Stolen!" at last exclaimed a voice. And stolen the picture doubtless
+had been. Some dexterous thief, profiting by the profound attention with
+which the eyes of all were fixed upon the narrator, whilst all ears,
+drank in his singular story, had managed to take down and carry off the
+portrait. The company remained plunged in perplexity, almost doubting
+whether they had really seen those extraordinary eyes, or whether the
+whole thing were not a fantasy, a vision, the phantom of a brain heated
+and fatigued by the long examination of a gallery of old pictures.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[24] A kind of bazaar or perpetual market, where second-hand furniture,
+old books and pictures, earthenware, and other cheap commodities, are
+exposed for sale in small open booths.
+
+[25] A personage who figures, like two or three others afterwards
+alluded to, in the popular legends and fairy tales of Russia.
+
+[26] Twenty-five rubles.
+
+[27] A silver coin, about the size of a shilling, the quarter of a
+silver ruble (_und e nomen_) worth ninepence.
+
+[28] The officer commanding the police of the quarter.
+
+[29] The Russian house-spirit. This "lubber fiend" is frequently the
+popular name of the nightmare.
+
+[30] The "was-ist-das," a single pane of glass fixed in a frame, to
+admit of its being opened, very necessary in a climate where double
+casements are fixed during eight months out of the year.
+
+
+
+
+HOUNDS AND HORSES AT ROME.
+
+ENGLISH KENNEL.
+
+"The Dog-Star rages!"--POPE.
+
+
+To do at Rome as the Romans do, is an adage which we English can no
+longer apply to our proceedings in that city; we now reverse this, and
+carrying thither our games, field-sports, and other whimsies, not only
+practise these ourselves, but would impose them upon her senate and
+people; for a senate she still has, and the Romans take a strange
+pleasure in exhibiting, on state occasions, the well-known letters,
+which tell of formerly allied, but long since departed glories. What
+would her ancient senate, the stern descendants of the wolf-nursed
+twins--
+
+     "Curius quid sentit, et ambo Scipiadae?--"
+
+have said to the subserviency of their present _mis_-representatives,
+who go forth, not to give races, but to witness the feats of barbarian
+jockeyship, on a turf that once resounded only to the hoofs of their own
+favourite racers;
+
+  "Whose easy triumph and transcendant speed
+  Palm after palm proclaimed; whilst Victory,
+  In the horse circus, stood exulting by."[31]
+
+If the senator Damisippus once received such a castigation at the hands
+of the bard of Aquinum, for merely driving his own phaeton at noon, and
+for nodding _varmintly_ to a friend as he passed, how would that poet's
+indignation or muse--
+
+  "Si natura negat, facit indignatio versum--"
+
+have dealt with you, Princes Borghese and Cesarini, Doria and Colonna,
+who, changing your long robes for the scarlet jacket, (worse than any
+_Trechidipna_), have learned to vie with each other in acquiring a
+field-note, of which Alaric had been proud, to strive for precedence in
+a fox-hunt, and to glory more in winning his brush, than ever did your
+ancestors on wresting a trophy from the Sicambri. But, thanks to Popes
+who have wisely prohibited satirists and satire, ye are free to follow,
+unscathed by the Iambic muse, this or any other pastime you please,
+however unsuited in character to the dignity of your descent. To one
+merely paying a transitory visit to Rome in the grand tour of twenty
+years ago, it might not have occurred as a likely contingency that a
+pack of English fox-hounds should be one day kennelled close up to her
+gates; but to him who witnessed the sporting monomania of some of our
+countrymen, and the difficulty they found (having nothing else to
+_kill_) in killing _time_, it would never have seemed improbable. The
+enthusiasm which every one, gets up for the Coliseum, or the Arch of
+Titus, generally expends itself on the spot, and is not afterwards to be
+resuscitated. This leads many during a six weeks' sojourn in the eternal
+city, (which seems to them already an eternity), to ask themselves, with
+Fabricius, their business there; while some, following his example still
+farther, leave it in disgust. Till certain very recent arrangements had
+been completed for his equipment, no one's position was more to be
+compassionated--if you adopted his own view of it--than that of the
+English sportsman; it was really lamentable to hear him describe, while
+it would occasionally prompt a smile to see his expedients, to relieve
+it. Finding little that was congenial to his tastes or his talents in
+the arts or the society of the place, he would sometimes seek to abridge
+the tedium and length of his stay at Rome, by episodes of lark-shooting
+at Subiaco, or by looking after wild-boars at Ostia; and some, to whom
+hunting was indispensable, would hire dogs and make them chase _each
+other_, while they harked on the ragged pack, on the best hacks they
+could procure for the purpose. This, however, which might have proved
+excellent sport had the dogs always chosen to run properly, was
+oft-times tried and relinquished, in consequence of a practical
+difficulty, originating in the pack itself, which refused to supply from
+its ranks the necessary _quota_ of amateur hares required by the riders.
+By this token, it was high time something should be done! At length the
+auspicious day dawned when the sporting world (already on the alert to
+contrive less unturf-like proceedings than the last mentioned) was
+agreeably saved from the embarrassment of further thought on the
+subject, by a spirited announcement, noticed with becoming gratitude in
+_Galignani_, from Lord C---- that he had actually sent for his dogs from
+England. No time was lost; the groom, despatched in haste with the
+necessary instructions, returned within six weeks, leaving the kennel
+and _canaille_ that accompanied it only a few days behind on the road.
+One morning, shortly after, it was announced at the Vatican, that a pack
+of hungry hounds was at the Popolo Gate, barking for admittance, and
+apparently threatening to eat up the whole Apostolic Doganieri if they
+kept them much longer. The matter pressed: a deputation of Englishmen
+waited on the governor, requesting permission for the establishment of a
+kennel in a spot already fixed upon for the purpose, (it was somewhere
+about the site where Constantine's mother was buried, and where, by
+tradition, Nero's ghost is supposed to brood, beyond the Pons Nomentana,
+and the Sacred mount); and having obtained the desired leave, the dogs
+were at once established in their new settlement. When they had
+recovered the fatigues of their journey, a notice was posted up,
+advertising the first "throw off" for the next day. On this occasion
+they hunted an old fox round the Claudian Aqueduct, into the body of
+which, on getting over his surprise, he scoured a retreat, thus baffling
+the pursuers. The next field-day his successor was not so fortunate,
+losing both brush and life at the end of a long run. The third was
+distinguished by the feat of a Roman prince, who contrived to be in at
+the death, and received the brush for his encouragement. After this the
+weekly obituary of foxes increased permanently in number. Meanwhile a
+few dogs disappeared in subterranean mystery, awkward falls occurred,
+wrists and ankles were dislocated; but no brains spilt. At last forty
+persons, having nothing better to do with themselves, agree to meet
+regularly twice a-week and to set up a subscription. While it is yet
+early in the winter, dogs come dropping in by couples, from various
+well-wishers in England; while large orders in the shape of scarlet
+coats and hunting-caps, duly executed and forwarded, are stopped at the
+Dogana Apostolica, and after a suitable demur on account of the
+Cardinalesque colour, allowed to pass, on paying a handsome duty. These
+_liveries_ at first produced a great sensation in Rome, not only amongst
+the hierarchy, who were jealous of the profanation, but with the
+populace, both within and without the walls: from the prince to the
+peasant, every body had something to say about them. As they paced along
+the streets the men stared in silent admiration, while the women clapped
+their hands and cried, "_Guardi! Guardi!_" When they trotted out to
+cover, the delighted swine-herd whistled to his pigs to make way for
+them to pass; while the mounted buffalo-driver, from some crag above the
+road, would point them out with his long-spiked pole, to the man in the
+sheepskin who was on foot. We do not know what comments _these_ might
+make, but those of the Roman townsfolk were by no means in keeping with
+the flattering admiration they expressed. "What a gay livery!" said a
+Roman citizen, emerging from the Salara Gate, as a detachment of the
+"red-coats" was turning in. "Cazzo! how well they ride, and what a
+number too!" "Yes," said his friend at our elbow; "to whom do they
+belong--_a chi appartengono_?" "'Tis the livery of a Russian prince who
+came last week to Rome, and has put up at Serny's," said the other,
+affecting to know all about it. "Well, to my mind, they beat Prince
+Torlonia's postilions out-and-out." "_Altro_--I agree with you there;
+_ma abbia pazienza_--wait a bit, and depend on it our Prince, when he
+has seen them, will not be long in taking the hint!" We hope he will;
+for, however we may elsewhere admire a mounted field, _here_ it shocks
+every notion of propriety. That fox-hunters should have their _meeting_
+where the Fabii met; Gell's map of Rome's classic topography be studied,
+with no other reference than to _runs_; and Veii be scared in her lofty
+citadel by the cry of hounds and harum-scarum fellows sweeping along her
+ravines, are evident improprieties; while the having all one's senses
+assailed and offended together by the scent of highly-ammoniated
+bandy-legged fellows in fustian or corduroy, (their necessary
+satellites,) who inundate street and piazza with the slang of the London
+mews, is something still worse.
+
+     "Quoi! Venue d'un peuple roi,
+     Toi, reine encore du monde!"
+
+Thou who hast taken the lead by turns, in legislature, literature, and
+the fine arts, doomed at last to become the sovereign seat for
+hunting--the Melton Mowbray of the South! May thy _genius loci_ forbid
+it; may thy goddess of fever visit the hounds in one of her ugliest
+types; loimos or limos destroy them; old Tiber rise with his yellow
+waves to drown, catacombs yawn to ingulf, and aqueducts fall to crush
+them! Or, should inanimate nature disregard our row, two other hopes
+remain: the one, that the foxes, made aware by this time of the love
+with which the Roman princes contemplate _il loro brush_, will send them
+a yearly tribute of a certain number of these appendages, on condition
+that they forthwith dismiss the dogs; the other, that the Dominicans,
+who are well known to be jealous of our movements, will come to regard
+hunting as an heretical sport, especially as here practised by
+Protestant dogs and riders--and in Lent, too, against orthodox
+foxes--and persuade the Pope to abolish it!
+
+
+THE STEEPLE-CHASE.
+
+In that grassy month of the Campagna, ere the sun has seared the
+standing herbage into hay--when anemones, cyclamens, crocuses, and Roman
+hyacinths, as prescient of the coming heat, lose no time in quickening,
+and burst out suddenly in myriads to cover the plain with their
+loveliness; while the towering _ferula_ conceals the sandy rock whence
+it springs, with its delicate tracery yet unspecked by the solar rays;
+and the stately teazle, bending under the clutch of goldfinch and
+linnet, or recoiling as they spurn it, in quest of their
+butterfly-breakfast, has still some sap in its veins. Early on one of
+the most exhilarating mornings of this truly delicious season, (alas,
+how brief in its continuance!) we are awaked by unusual sounds in the
+street. These proceeded from the young Romans vociferating to their
+friends to bestir themselves to procure places at the steeple-chase
+programmed for this 14th of March. An hour before Aurora had opened her
+_porte cochere_ to Phoebus, and those sleek piebald coursers whose
+portraits are to be seen in the Ludovisi and Ruspigliosi palaces, all
+the vetturini and cabmen of Rome had already opened _theirs_; and while
+some were adjusting misfitting harness to every specimen of horseflesh
+that could be procured for the occasion, others were trundling out from
+their black recesses in stable and coach-house, every mis-shapen vehicle
+that permitted of being fastened to their backs, in order to proceed out
+of the Porta Salara betimes. By six all Rome was awake, and by seven, in
+motion towards the race-course. On that memorable morning artists
+forewent their studies, the Sapienza its wisdom, the Roman college its
+theology; shopkeepers kept their windows closed; Italian masters
+barouched with their pupils, mouthed Ariosto, and seemed highly
+delighted; while the professions of law and physic sent as many of their
+members as public safety could spare. In short, it had been long ago
+settled that all the world would be present; and all the world was
+present, sure enough, and long before the time. It was a lively and a
+pleasing spectacle, to which novelty lent another charm, when, about
+two miles beyond the Salara gate, we looked from our double-lined
+procession of Broughams and Britskas, fore and aft, and saw, for miles,
+scattered over that usually deserted plain, groups of peasants in the
+gay costumes of the adjacent villages, now animating it in every
+direction; some emerging from under the arches of aqueducts, or the
+screen of ruined columbaria, alternately lost to sight and again rising
+above those abrupt dips in which the ground abounds, all tending in one
+direction, all bent on one object. At length our carriage, (which has
+been intimating its purpose shortly to stop,) pulls up definitely, and
+Joseph, having already told us that he can neither move backward nor
+forward, touches his hat for orders. On such an occasion, we resigned
+ourselves to wait, without any feeling of impatience, finding sufficient
+amusement, both from the distant prospect and in the immediate vicinity;
+sometimes watching the wheeling of those sporting characters, the
+Peregrine Hawks overhead, now listening to the warbling of the loudest
+lark music we ever remember to have heard; then exchanging a few words
+with some roadside acquaintance, and anon giving ourselves up
+exclusively to the silent enjoyment of the weather. We were kept long
+enough in all conscience, waiting till even the quietly expectant
+Romans, drilled by their church into habits of great forbearance, at
+length began to murmur aloud disapprobation, and we could hear one
+coachman ask another "_Quando quel benidetto stippel-chess_" was to be;
+while the respondent, shrugging his shoulders, growled out for answer a
+"_Chi lo sa_!" Meanwhile our attention was fitfully resuscitated by a
+rider in costume doing a bit of turf, by an unsaddled racer led across
+the ground, or by men on horseback carrying small flags to stake at the
+different leaps; sometimes by an English oath, startling the _Genius
+loci_ or whoever heard it; or more agreeably by a display of voluble
+young countrywomen, standing tiptoe on their carriage seats, eager to
+see the first fall, and permitting the young men who swaggered by to
+scare them into the prettiest attitudes of dismay, by a prophetical
+announcement of the bones that would be broken before the race was won.
+Some little buzz there is about unfairness and jockeyship, when we
+catch, from the mouth of our Anglo-Roman livery-stable-man, who chanced
+to be near, that "the osses is a-saddling." It took long to saddle; long
+to mount; and some time still before they started, during which interval
+
+  "The jockeys keep their horses on the fret,
+  And each gay Spencer prompts the noisy bet,
+  Till drops the signal; then, without demur,
+  Ten horses start,--ten riders whip and spur;
+  At first a line an easy gallop keep,
+  Then forward press, to take th' approaching leap:
+  Abreast go red and yellow; after these
+  Two more succeed; one's down upon his knees;
+  The sixth o'ertops it; clattering go two more,
+  And two decline; now swells the general roar."
+
+And every horse on the right side of the hurdle strives to get his head,
+and every rider is wiser than to indulge this instinct. Soon another
+leap presents itself; up they all go and down again,--four close
+together! Hurrah! blue and yellow! Hurrah! green and red! A third leap,
+not far from the last, and no refusals! Over and on again. Another! and
+this time three favourites are abreast, the fourth is a second behind,
+but may still be in, for he has cleared the fence and is coming up with
+the others; the motion appears smoother as they recede; the riders,
+diminished to the size of birds, are still seen gliding on--on:--
+
+  "No longer soon their colours can we trace,
+  Lost in the mazy distance of the race
+  Till at Salara's far-off bridge descried,
+  Like coursing butterflies, they seem to glide;
+  Then, dwindling farther, in the lengthening course,
+  Mere floating specks supplant both man and horse;
+  Till, having crossed the Columbarium gray,
+  They swerve, and back retrace their airy way."
+
+At this point of the contest we cross the road--and there far away, two
+dots, a yellow and a blue one, are seen with increasing distinctness
+every second; which may be in advance of the other we cannot say,
+notwithstanding the clearness of the air; they _seem_, from where we
+stand, in the same line of distance; the coloured dots disappear
+momentarily behind a slope, and on emerging the yellow is distinctly
+first; the green not far behind. Where are the others? have they broken
+their necks? No! there they come, in the rear. They were a little thrown
+out at the last leap, but two are making ground upon the green usurper;
+and now they are once more all in full sight and full speed, while the
+Roman welkin rings to strange sounds! "_Guardi il Verde_;" "_Per me
+guadagna il Giallo_." "I'll take you two to one on the Maid of the
+Mill." "Done." "Who's riding the bay-mare?" "Mr A. for Lord G. and a
+pretty mess he's making of it." "_Das ist wunderbar, nicht wahr?_" "_Ya,
+gut!_" "_Les Anglais savent manier leurs chevaux, parbleu!_" "I'll be
+blowed if Lord G. don't win after all!" "Well, Miss Smith, I shall call
+for my gloves to-morrow." "_Bravi tutti quanti!_" "_Cazzo! che
+cavalli!_" "_Forwartz! Forwartz._" "_Allons, Messieurs! avancez._"
+"_Allez! Allez!_" "_Guardi! Guardi!_" And here a distant shout, fleeter
+in its journey than the fleetest of the horses that it sped onwards,
+reaches our ears; another moment brings the two foremost to the last
+leap, the blue hesitates--the red springs into the air, drops
+_d'aplomb_, then on again swifter than before. The blue sticks close to
+him, is near, nearer still; comes up--
+
+  "Then anxious silence breaks in deafening cries,
+  His whip and spur each desperate rider plies;
+  The prescient coursers foaming, cheek by jowl,
+  Now see the stand and guess th' approaching goal;
+  True to their blood, and frantic still to win,
+  Goaded, they fly, and spent, will not give in;
+  Exactly matched, with fruitless efforts strain
+  In rival speed, a single inch to gain.
+  Once more, the fluttering Spencers urge the goad,
+  Bend o'er their saddles, lift them, light their load
+  Just at the goal--one spur and it is done!
+  The rowel'd _Red_ starts forward, and has won!"
+
+After this exploit, the red, green, and yellow liveries could have done
+what they would with the uninitiated Romans. Captain Cooke's arrival at
+Otaheite; the first steamer seen on the Nile; the introduction of gun
+and gunpowder amongst people hitherto hunting or making war with bow and
+arrow,--are only parallel cases of that enthusiasm mixed with awe, with
+which the Romans viewed the English gentleman jockeys on this day. They
+would have been delighted to have it over again six times, but had to
+learn that races (unlike songs) are never _encored_.
+
+
+ROMAN DOGS.
+
+A "dog's life" has become a synonym for suffering; nor does the
+associating him with another domestic animal (if a second proverbial
+expression may be trusted) appear to mend his condition; but ill as he
+may fare with the cat, his position is less enviable when man is
+co-partner in the menage, against whose kicks and hard usage should he
+venture upon the lowest remonstrative growl, he is sure to receive a
+double portion of both for his pains; and thus it has ever been, for the
+condition of a dog cannot have changed materially since the creation.
+Being naturally domestic in his habits, he was born to that contumely
+"which patient merit from the unworthy takes," and can never have known
+a golden age. "Croyez-vous," (demanda quelqu'un a Candide,) "que les
+hommes ont toujours ete rans?" "Croyez-vous," (repliqua Candide,) "que
+les eperviers ont toujours mange les pigeons." We entertain no more
+doubt of the one than of the other, and must therefore applaud the
+sagacity of Esop's wolf, who, when sufficiently tamed by hunger to think
+of offering himself as a volunteer dog, speedily changed his mind, on
+hearing the uses of a collar first fully expounded to him by Trusty. Not
+that every dog is ill-used; no; for every rule has its exception, and
+every tyrant his favourite. Man's selfishness here proves a safer ally
+than his humanity, and oft-times interposes to rescue the dog from those
+sufferings to which the race is subject. Thus in savage countries, where
+his strength may be turned to account, size and sinew recommend him to
+public notice and respect;
+
+          "----animalia muta
+     Quis generosa putat nisi fortia"
+
+while among civilised nations, eccentricity, beauty, cleverness, or love
+of sport, may establish him a lady's pet or a sportsman's companion.
+Happy indeed the dog born in the kennel of a park; no canister for his
+tail, no halter for his neck; physiologists shall try no experiments on
+his eighth pair of nerves; his wants are liberally supplied; a Tartar
+might envy him his rations of horseflesh, shut up with congenial and
+select associates with whom he courses twice a-week,
+
+  "Unites his bark with theirs; and through the vale,
+  Pursues in triumph, as he snuffs the gale."
+
+He enjoys himself thoroughly while in health, and when he is sick a
+veterinary surgeon feels his pulse, and prescribes for him in dog-Latin!
+Benign too the star, albeit the "dog star," under which are born those
+equal rivals in their mistress' heart, the silky-eared spaniel and the
+black-nosed pug, who sleep at opposite ends of a costly muff, lie on the
+sofa, bow-wow strangers round the drawing-room, and take their daily
+airing in the park! Nor are the several lots of the spotted dog from
+Denmark, who adds importance to his master's equipage; of the ferocious
+bull-dog, the Frenchman's and the butcher's friend; or of the
+quick-witted terrier from Skye, less enviable. But where caprice or
+interest do not plead for the dog, his condition is universally such as
+fully to justify the terms in which men speak of it. To see this
+exemplified, observe the misery of his _life_ and _death_, in a country
+where he is neither petted nor employed. Throughout Italy, and
+particularly in Rome, (where we now introduce him to the reader,) he
+lives "to find abuse his only use;" to be hunted, and not to hunt; now
+dropping from starvation without the gates, and now the victim of poison
+within. Ye unkennelled scavengers of the Pincian Hill,--ye that have no
+master to propitiate the good Saint Anthony, on his birth-day, to bless,
+nor priest to asperse you with holy water, (in consequence of which
+omissions, no doubt, your plagues multiply upon you)--poor friendless
+wanderers, who come up to every lonely pedestrian, at once to remind him
+that it is not good for man to be alone, and to alleviate his solitude
+with your company; good-natured, rough, ill-favoured dogs, with whom our
+acquaintance has been extensive, dull indeed would the Pincian appear,
+were it deprived of your grotesque forms and awkward but well-meant
+gambols! The life of a Campagna sheep-dog, kept half starved in the
+sight of mutton which he dare not touch, is hard enough, but that of the
+members of this large, unowned republic more so. Hungry and gaunt as
+she-wolves, but with none of their fierceness, these poor animals seek
+the city gates, and, molesting nobody, find a foul and precarious
+subsistence from the _Immondezze_ of the streets; but when their
+condition and appearance are improved, and they are beginning to think
+of an establishment, the fatal edict goes forth; nux vomica is
+triturated with liver, and the treacherous _bocconi_ are strewn upon the
+dirt-heaps where they resort; the unsuspecting animals greedily devour
+the only meal provided for them by the State, and in a few hours
+experience the anguish of the slowly killing poison; an intense thirst
+urges them to the fountains, but the water only serves to dilute and
+render it more potent: their bodies swell, they totter, fall, try to
+recover their feet, but cannot; then piteously howling are carried off
+in the height of a titanic convulsion. Often on returning at this season
+from an evening party, we discern dark receding forms and hear voices
+too, "visae _canes_ ululare per umbras," as _they_ glide moaning away and
+are lost in the obscurity of the off streets. Occasionally they
+anticipate their doom, by premature madness, when the authorities issue
+orders to use steel, and sometimes fifty will perish in a single night.
+It is remarkable that notwithstanding these summary proceedings, the
+canine ranks, as Easter comes round again, are renewed for fresh
+destruction. Some few dogs of superior cunning contrive from year to
+year to elude these "_Editti fulminanti_," which make such havoc among
+their companions; these, by securing the favour and protection of the
+soldiers and galley-slaves of the district, obtain besides an occasional
+meal from the canteens, and plenary indulgence for themselves, and for
+an unsightly progeny, which they screen from public remark, and bring up
+amidst the _latebrae_ of the brushwood; but aware at the same time of the
+precarious tenure by which such clandestine concessions must be held,
+they seek to keep alive the interest, exerted in their behalf, by the
+exhibition of many strange antics, evidently got up for the occasion, by
+affecting an extraordinary interest in man and his affairs, which they
+cannot feel, and by the display of a most obsequious gentleness,
+humouring, while they play with your favourite dog, and though his
+superior in strength, lying under on purpose to give him the advantage;
+but above all, they seek to make interest with the Pincian _bonnes_,
+whom they readily conciliate by withdrawing the attention of the
+children from any _collateral_ object of interest which may engage
+theirs. Petted and patted by many little hands, which _bongre malgre_
+must give up their buns to his voracity, the large quadruped, in return
+for these snatched courtesies, follows the small urchin, who is learning
+to trundle his hoop, barking for it to proceed, and stopping when it
+stops. Any one observing their clever gambols and extreme docility,
+wishes straightway that their forms were less uncouth, and might next be
+tempted, as we were, to overlook external disadvantages, and to adopt
+one of the ragged pack in consideration of mental endowments; the
+experiment would fail if he made it; these animals resemble the
+_uneducated_ negro, who shows to most advantage in difficulties--well
+housed, well fed, caressed, and cared for, both forget their master and
+the part he has taken in securing their prosperity. Stand forth,
+ungrateful _Frate_, while, for the reader's caution, and your own
+misconduct, we rehearse your history.
+
+We met Frate at the end of the fever season upon the unhealthy heights
+of Otricoli; a poor lean beast, with a penetrating gray eye, rough brown
+coat, a tail with no grace in its rigid half curl, and an untidy grizzly
+white beard. We had halted to bait the horses, and finding nothing for
+ourselves, preceded the carriage, and were winding down the steep hill,
+when he came suddenly upon us through a break in the hedge, and having
+first looked all around and satisfied himself that no fellow town-dog
+was in sight, raised his ill-shaped head, barked an unmistakable "_bon
+giorno_;" then, turning tail on the city of his birth, ran on gambolling
+a few yards in front, to look back, bark again, and encourage us to
+proceed. "What an ugly brute! what a _hideous_ dog!" but as he engages
+the attention of our party, these expressions become modified, and
+before reaching the bottom of the hill, nobody cares about the remains
+of Otricoli, nor looks any longer at the yellow reaches of the
+pestiferous Tiber, that was winding far along the plain; the dog alone
+occupies every thought. "Such a discerning creature! What clever eyes he
+has! See how well he understands what we are saying about him; suppose
+we take him on to Rome? We might get his grizzly beard shaved; his rough
+coat would become sleek after a month's good feeding, his legs could be
+clipped below the knees. Oh! he is full of capabilities. See! he is now
+acting Sphinx, and looking up at us, as if he could delve into what is
+passing in our minds, and would turn these vague suggestions to
+account." Suddenly he sprang to his feet, barked, and seemed much
+agitated; in a minute we, too, hear the sound of wheels, which his more
+acute ear had already caught; as the carriage approached, his excitement
+increased; at first he only barked back as if to entreat it not to come
+on so quickly, but as it plainly did not heed his civil remonstrance,
+the bow-wow became still more earnest in its expostulatory accents.
+B[=o]w (long) w[)o]w (short). "Why such haste?" Then he tried his
+eloquence upon us; and while reiterating his canine _accidente_ in his
+own way at the horses now close at hand, his voice assumes an elegiac
+whine as he turns to supplicate, in a tone that none accustomed to
+Italian beggars can mistake; "_non abbandonatemi_," being plainly the
+purport of its most dolorous and plaintive accents. We hesitate, the
+carriage draws up, down go the steps, and lo! in a twinkling, our new
+friend has darted in before us, taken possession, and there he sits
+ready to kiss our hand. Such audacity was sure to succeed, so, letting
+him gently down from the steps we left him to follow if he chose.
+Follow! trust him for that! he bounded along the Appian way, barking to
+encourage the horses, coquetting with a favourite pony, and winning over
+our Joseph, by the time we had arrived at _Civita Castellana_, to let
+him remain in their company for the night. Next morning he starts
+betimes, nor permits the carriage to overtake him, till all fear of
+being sent back is removed, by our near approach to Rome. Arrived there,
+he at once finds his way to the livery stables, and establishes himself
+permanently with the horses. Throughout the winter, we take with good
+humour the flippant comments of _flaneurs_ and over-fastidious friends,
+touching the bestowal of our patronage upon such an ill-favoured cur,
+while we thought ourselves the objects of his gratitude and affection;
+but Frate's character (we gave him this name from the length of his
+beard, the colour of his coat, and because he had lived upon alms) did
+not improve upon acquaintance. One bad trait soon showed itself, he
+refused to hold communication with the less-favoured dogs of the
+Pincian, turning a deaf ear to their advances, or if they yet
+persevered, meeting them with set teeth and an unamiable growl; as he
+filled out, his regard for his patrons diminished perceptibly;
+attentions bestowed on a smaller colleague excited his jealousy; and we
+began to believe the truth of a report circulated to his prejudice, that
+Frate was really on the look-out for a place where no other dog was
+kept, and where he might have it all his own way. No longer proud of
+notice, he seldom sought our society, but was glad to slink off whenever
+this could be done without observation. Toward the close of the winter,
+indeed, we were deceived by some renewed advances into the belief of a
+return of affection, which determined us, when we left Rome, to take him
+once more in our suite; we soon, however, found out our mistake. Already
+unprincipled in no ordinary degree, the society of the cafes and
+table-d'hotes at Lucca completed his corruption. His misconduct at last
+became town-talk, and his misdeeds were in every body's mouth; so, when
+he had lamed half-a-dozen labourers, scared the whole neighbourhood like
+a second Dragon of Wantley, and fought sundry battles with dogs as ugly,
+for Helens scarce better-looking than himself, we yielded to public
+remonstrance, and removing our protective collar from his unworthy neck,
+consigned him to a village sportsman, who hoped to turn his fierceness
+to account in attacking the wild-boar. With him Frate remained for about
+six weeks, by which time, tiring of the _Cacciatore's_ rough handling,
+he had the temerity, two days before our departure, to present himself
+again at our door. Too much disgusted to receive him after what had
+passed, we showed him a whip from an open window, which to a dog of his
+sagacity was enough; in one instant he was on his legs, and in the next
+out of sight, but whether to return to the sportsman, or the mountain,
+or to seek and find a new master to cozen, we never heard, as this was
+our last visit to Lucca. The lesson inculcated by Frate's misconduct has
+not been lost upon us; so whenever any queer canine scarecrow now meets
+us on the Pincian, and by his dejected looks seeks to enlist our
+sympathy, we cut short the appeal, stare him in the face, and then utter
+the word "never" with sufficient emphasis to send him off shaking his
+head, as if a brace of fleas, or a "fulminating edict" from the governor
+were ringing in both ears.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[31] Badham's _Juvenal_, Sat. 8.
+
+
+
+
+SONG,
+
+FOR THE DINNER GIVEN TO THE EARL OF DALHOUSIE, AT EDINBURGH, 14th
+SEPTEMBER 1847, BEFORE HIS PROCEEDING TO INDIA AS GOVERNOR-GENERAL.
+
+BY DELTA.
+
+
+  I.
+
+  Long, long ere the thistle was twined with the rose,
+  And the firmest of friends now were fiercest of foes,
+    The flag of Dalwolsey aye foremost was seen;
+  Through the night of oppression it glitter'd afar,
+  To the patriot's eye 'twas a ne'er-setting star,
+  And with Bruce and with Wallace it flash'd through the fray,
+  When "Freedom or Death" was the shout of the day,
+    For the thistle of Scotland shall ever be green!
+
+  II.
+
+  A long line of chieftains! from father to son,
+  They lived for their country--their purpose was one--
+    In heart they were fearless--in hand they were clean;
+  From the hero of yore, who, in Gorton's grim caves,
+  Kept watch with the band who disdain'd to be slaves,
+  Down to him, with the Hopetoun and Lynedoch that vied,
+  Who should shine like a twin star by Wellington's side,
+    That the thistle of Scotland might ever be green!
+
+  III.
+
+  Then a bumper to him in whose bosom combine
+  All the virtues that proudly ennoble his line,
+    As dear to his country, as stanch to his Queen;
+  Nor less that Dalhousie a patriot we find,
+  Whose field is the senate, whose sword is the mind,
+  And whose object the strife of the world to compose,
+  That the shamrock may bloom by the side of the rose,
+    And the thistle of Scotland for ever be green!
+
+  IV.
+
+  It is not alone for his bearing and birth,
+  It is not alone for his wisdom and worth,
+    At this board that our good and our noble convene;
+  But a faith in the blessings which India may draw
+  From science, from commerce, religion, and law;
+  And that all who obey Britain's sceptre may see
+  That knowledge is power--that the truth makes us free;
+    For rose, thistle, and shamrock, shall ever be green!
+
+  V.
+
+  A hail and farewell! it is pledged to the brim,
+  And drain'd to the bottom in honour of him
+    Who a glory to Scotland shall be and hath been:
+  Untired in the cause of his country and crown,
+  May his path be a long one of spotless renown;
+  Till the course nobly rounded, the goal proudly won,
+  Fame, smiling on Scotland, shall point to her son,
+    For the thistle--Her thistle!--shall ever be green!
+
+
+
+
+MY FRIEND THE DUTCHMAN.
+
+
+"And you will positively marry her, if she will have you?"
+
+"Not a doubt of either. Before this day fortnight she shall be Madame
+Van Haubitz."
+
+"You will make her your wife without acquainting her with your true
+position?"
+
+"Indeed will I. My very position requires it. There's no room for a
+scruple. She expects to live on my fortune; thinks to make a great catch
+of the rich Dutchman. Instead of that I shall spend her salary. The old
+story; going out for wool and returning shorn."
+
+The conversation of which this is the concluding fragment, occurred in
+the public room of the Hotel de Hesse, in the village of Homburg on the
+Hill--an insignificant handful of houses, officiating as capital of the
+important landgravate of Hesse-Homburg. The table-d'hote had been over
+some time; the guests had departed to repose in their apartments until
+the hour of evening promenade should summon them to the excellent band
+of music, provided by the calculating liberality of the gaming-house
+keepers, and to loiter round the _brunnens_ of more or less nauseous
+flavour, the pretext of resort to this rendezvous of idlers and
+gamblers. The waiters had disappeared to batten on the broken meats from
+the public table, and to doze away the time till the approach of supper
+renewed their activity. My interlocutor, with whom I was alone in the
+deserted apartment, was a man of about thirty years of age, whose dark
+hair and mustaches, marked features, spare person, and complexion
+bronzed by a tropical sun, entitled him to pass for a native of southern
+Europe, or even of some more ardent clime. Nevertheless he answered to
+the very Dutch patronymic of Van Haubitz, and was a native of Holland,
+in whose principal city his father was a banker of considerable wealth
+and financial influence.
+
+It was towards the close of a glorious August, and for two months I had
+been wandering in Rhine-land. Not after the fashion of deluded Cockneys,
+who fancy they have seen the Rhine when they have careered from Cologne
+to Mannheim astride of a steam-engine, gaping at objects passed as soon
+as perceived; drinking and paying for indifferent vinegar as
+Steinberger-Cabinet, eating vile dinners on the decks of steamers, and
+excellent ones in the capital hotels which British cash and patronage
+have raised upon the banks of the flower of German streams. On the
+contrary, I had early dispensed with the aid of steam, to wander on
+foot, with the occasional assistance of a lazy country diligence or
+rickety _einspanner_, through the many beautiful districts that lie upon
+either bank of the river; pedestrianising in Rhenish Bavaria, losing
+myself in the Odenwald, and pausing, when occasion offered, to pick a
+trout out of the numerous streamlets that dash and meander through dell
+and ravine, on their way to swell the waters of old Father Rhine. At
+last, weary of solitude--scarcely broken by an occasional gossip with a
+heavy German boor, village priest, or strolling student,--I thirsted
+after the haunts of civilisation, and found myself, within a day of the
+appearance of the symptom, installed in a luxurious hotel in the free
+city of Frankfort on the Maine. But Frankfort at that season is
+deserted, save by passing tourists, who escape as fast as possible from
+its lifeless streets and sun-baked pavements; so, after glancing over an
+English newspaper at the Casino, taking one stroll in the beautiful
+garden surrounding the city, and another through the Jew-quarter--always
+interesting and curious, although any thing but savoury at that warm
+season,--I gathered together my baggage and was off to Homburg. There I
+could not complain of solitude, of deserted streets and shuttered
+windows. It seemed impossible that the multitude of gaily dressed belles
+and cavaliers, English, French, German, and Russ, who, from six in the
+morning until sunset, lounged and flirted on the walks, watered
+themselves at the fountains, and perilled their complexions in the
+golden sunbeams, could ever bestow themselves in the two or three
+middling hotels and few score shabby lodging-houses composing the town
+of Homburg. Manage it they did, however; crept into their narrow cells
+at night, to emerge next morning, like butterflies from the chrysalis,
+gay, bright, and brilliant, and to recommence the never-varying but
+pleasant round of eating, sauntering, love-making, and gambling. Homburg
+was not then what it has since become. That great house of cards, the
+new Cursaal, had not yet arisen; and its table-d'hote, reading-room, and
+profane mysteries of roulette and rouge-et-noir, found temporary
+domicile in a narrow, disreputable-looking den in the main street, where
+accommodation of all kinds, but especially for dinner, was scanty in the
+extreme. The public tables at the hotels were consequently thronged, and
+there acquaintances were soon made. The day of my arrival at Homburg I
+was seated next to Van Haubitz; his manner was off hand and frank, we
+entered into conversation, took our after-dinner cigar and evening
+stroll together, and by bed-time had knocked up that sort of intimacy
+easily contracted at a watering-place, which lasts one's time of
+residence, and is extinguished and forgotten on departure. Van Haubitz,
+like many Continentals and very few Englishmen, was one of those
+free-and-easy communicative persons who are as familiar after twelve
+hours' acquaintance as if they had known you twelve years, and who do
+not hesitate to confide to a three days' acquaintance the history of
+their lives, their pursuits, position, and prospects. I was soon made
+acquainted, to a very considerable extent, at least, with those of my
+friend Van Haubitz, late lieutenant of artillery in the service of his
+majesty the King of Holland. He was the youngest of four sons, and
+having shown, at a very early age, a wild and intractable disposition,
+and precocious addiction to dissipation, his father pronounced him
+unsuited to business, and decided on placing him in the army. To this
+the _Junker_, (he claimed nobility, and displayed above his arms a
+species of coronet, bearing considerable resemblance to a fragment of
+chevaux-de-frise, which he might have been puzzled to prop with a
+parchment,) had no particular objection, and might have made a good
+enough officer, but for his reckless, spendthrift manner of life, which
+entailed negligence of duty and frequent reprimands. Extravagant beyond
+measure, unable to deny himself any gratification, squandering money as
+though millions were at his command, he was constantly overwhelmed with
+debts and a martyr to duns. At last his father, after thrice clearing
+him with his creditors, consented to do so a fourth time only on
+condition of his getting transferred to a regiment stationed in the
+Dutch East Indies, and remaining there until his return had the paternal
+sanction. To avoid a prison, and perhaps not altogether sorry to leave a
+country where his credit was bad and his reputation worse, he embarked
+for Batavia. But any pleasant day-dreams he may have cherished of
+tropical luxuries, of the indulgence of a _farniente_ life in a grass
+hammock, gently balanced by Javan houris beneath banana shades, of
+spice-laden breezes and cool sherbets, and other attributes of a
+Mahomedan paradise, were speedily dissipated by the odious realities of
+filth and vermin, marsh-fever and mosquitoes. He wrote to his father,
+describing the horrors of the place, and begging to be released from his
+pledge and allowed to return to Holland. His obdurate progenitor replied
+by a letter of reproach, and swore that if he left Batavia he might live
+on his pay, and never expect a stiver from the paternal strong-box,
+either as gift or bequest. To live upon his pay would have been no easy
+matter, even for a more prudent and economical person than Van Haubitz.
+He grumbled immoderately, blasphemed like a pagan, but remained where he
+was. A year passed and he could hold out no longer. Disregarding the
+paternal menaces and displeasure, and reckless of consequences, he
+applied to the chief military authority of the colony for leave of
+absence. He was asked his plea, and alleged ill health. The general
+thought he looked pretty well, and requested the sight of a medical
+certificate of his invalid state. Van Haubitz assumed a doleful
+countenance and betook him to the surgeons. They agreed with the
+general that he looked pretty healthy; asked for symptoms; could
+discover none more alarming than regularity of pulse, sleep, appetite,
+and digestion, laughed in his face and refused the certificate. The
+sickly cannonier, who had the constitution of a rhinoceros, and had
+never had a day's illness since he got over the measles at the age of
+four years, waited a little, and tried the second "dodge," usually
+resorted to in such cases. "Urgent private affairs" were now the
+pretext. The general expressed his regret that urgent public affairs
+rendered it impossible for him to dispense with the valuable services of
+Lieutenant Van Haubitz. Whereupon Lieutenant Van Haubitz passed half an
+hour in heaping maledictions on the head of his disobliging commander,
+and then sat down and wrote an application for an exchange to the
+authorities in Holland. The reply was equally unsatisfactory, the fact
+being that Haubitz senior, like an implacable old savage as he was, had
+made interest at the war-office for the refusal of all such requests on
+the part of his scapegrace offspring. Haubitz junior took patience for
+another year, and then, in a moment of extreme disgust and ennui, threw
+up his commission and returned to Europe, trusting, he told me, that
+after five years' absence, the governor's bowels would yearn towards his
+youngest-born. In this he was entirely mistaken; he greatly underrated
+the toughness of paternal viscera. Far from killing the fatted calf on
+the prodigal's return, the incensed old Hollander refused him the
+smallest cutlet, and shutting the door in his face, consigned him, with
+more energy than affection, to the custody of the evil one. Van Haubitz
+found himself in an awkward fix. Credit was dead, none of his relatives
+would notice or assist him; his whole fortune consisted of a dozen gold
+Wilhelms. At this critical moment an eccentric maiden aunt, to whom, a
+year or two previously, he had sent a propitiatory offering of a
+ring-tailed monkey and a leash of pea-green parrots, and who had never
+condescended even to acknowledge the present, departed this life,
+bequeathing him ten thousand florins as a return for the addition to her
+menagerie. A man of common prudence, and who had seen himself so near
+destitution, would have endeavoured to employ this sum, moderate as it
+was, in some trade or business, or, at any rate, would have lived
+sparingly till he found other resources. But Haubitz had not yet sown
+all his wild-oats; he had a soul above barter, a glorious disregard of
+the future, the present being provided for. He left Holland, shaking the
+dust from his boots, dashed across Belgium, and was soon plunged in the
+gaieties of a Paris carnival. Breakfasts at the Rocher, dinners at the
+Cafe, balls at the opera, and the concomitant _petits soupers_ and
+ecarte parties with the fair denizens of the Quartier Lorette, soon
+operated a prodigious chasm in the monkey-money, as Van Haubitz
+irreverently styled his venerable aunt's bequest. Spring having arrived,
+he beat a retreat from Paris, and established himself at Homburg, where
+he was quietly completing the consumption of the ten thousand florins,
+at rather a slower pace than he would have done at that head-quarters of
+pleasant iniquity, the capital of France. From hints he had let fall, I
+suspected a short time would suffice to see the last of the legacy. On
+this head, however, he had been less confidential than on most other
+matters, and certainly his manner of living would have led no one to
+suppose he was low in the locker. Nothing was too good for him; he drank
+the most expensive wines, got up parties and pic-nics for the ladies,
+and had a special addiction to the purchase of costly trinkets, which he
+generally gave away before they had been a day in his possession. He did
+not gamble; he had done so, he told me, once since he was at Homburg,
+and had won, but he had no faith in his luck, or taste for that kind of
+excitement, and should play no more. He was playing another game just
+now, which apparently interested him greatly. A few days before myself,
+a young actress, who, within a very short time, had acquired
+considerable celebrity, had arrived at Homburg, escorted by her mother.
+Fraulein Emilie Sendel was a lively lady of four-and-twenty or
+thereabouts, possessing a smart figure and pretty face, the latter
+somewhat wanting in refinement. Her blue eyes although rather too
+prominent, had a merry sparkle; her cheeks had not yet been entirely
+despoiled by envious rouge of their natural healthful tinge; her hair,
+of that peculiar tint of red auburn which the French call a _blond
+hasarde_, was more remarkable for abundance and flexibility than for
+fineness of texture. As regarded her qualities and accomplishments, she
+was good-humoured and tolerably unaffected, but wilful and capricious as
+a spoiled child; she spoke her own language pretty well, with an
+occasional slight vulgarism or bit of green-room slang; had a smattering
+of French, and played the piano sufficiently to accompany the ballads
+and vaudeville airs which she sang with spirit and considerable freedom
+of style. I had met German actresses who were far more lady-like off the
+stage, but there was nothing glaringly or repulsively vulgar about
+Emilie, and as a neighbour at a public dinner-table, she was amusing and
+quite above par. As if to vindicate her nationality, she would
+occasionally look sentimental, but the mood sat ill upon her, and never
+lasted long; comedy was evidently her natural line. Against her
+reputation, rumour, always an inquisitive censor, often a mean libeller,
+of ladies of her profession, had as yet, so far as I could learn, found
+nothing to allege. Her mother, a dingy old dowager, with bad teeth,
+dowdy gowns, a profusion of artificial flowers, and a strong addiction
+to tea and knitting, perfectly understood the duties of duennaship, and
+did propriety by her daughter's side at dinner-table and promenade. To
+the heart of the daughter, Van Haubitz, almost from the first hour he
+had seen her, had laid persevering and determined siege.
+
+During our after-dinner tete-a-tete on the day now referred to, my
+friend the cannonier had shown himself exceedingly unreserved, and,
+without any attempt on my part to draw him out, he had elucidated, with
+a frankness that must have satisfied the most inquisitive, whatever
+small points of his recent history and present position he had
+previously left in obscurity. The conversation began, so soon as the
+cloth was removed and the guests had departed, by a jesting allusion on
+my part to his flirtation with the actress, and to her gracious
+reception of his attentions.
+
+"It is no mere flirtation," said Van, gravely. "My intentions are
+serious. You may depend Mademoiselle Sendel understands them as such."
+
+"Serious! you don't mean that you want to marry her?"
+
+"Unquestionably I do. It is my only chance."
+
+"Your only chance!" I repeated, considerably puzzled. "Are you about to
+turn actor, and do you trust to her for instruction in histrionics?"
+
+"Not exactly. I will explain. La Sendel, you must know, has just
+terminated her last engagement, which was at a salary of ten thousand
+florins. She has already received and accepted an offer of a new one, at
+fifteen thousand, from the Vienna theatre. Vienna is a very pleasant
+place. Fifteen thousand florins are thirty-two thousand francs, or
+twelve hundred of your English pounds sterling. Upon that stun two
+persons can live excellently well--in Germany at least."
+
+Unable to contradict any of these assertions, I held my tongue. The
+Dutchman resumed.
+
+"You know the history of my past life; I will tell you my present
+position. It is critical enough, but I shall improve it, for here," and
+he touched his forehead, "is what never fails me. This letter," he
+produced an epistle of mercantile aspect, bearing the Amsterdam
+post-mark, "I received last week from my eldest brother. The shabby
+_schelm_ declares he will reply to no more of mine, that his efforts to
+arrange matters with my father have been fruitless, and that the old
+gentleman has strictly forbidden him and his brothers to hold any
+communication with me, a command they seem willing enough to obey. So
+much for that. And now for the finances."
+
+He took out his pocket-book, opened and shook it, a flimsy crumpled bit
+of paper fell out. It was a note of the bank of France, for one thousand
+francs.
+
+"My last," said he. "That gone, I am a beggar. But it won't come to
+that, either, thanks to Fraulein Emilie."
+
+"Surely," said I, "you are too reckless of money, too extravagant and
+unreflecting. Six months ago, you told me, you had twenty such notes."
+
+"Ay, twenty-two exactly, at the end of January, when I left Amsterdam.
+But whither was I bound? To Paris; and who can economize there? I've had
+my money's worth, and could have had no more, had I dribbled the dirty
+ten thousand florins over three years, instead of three months. I take
+great credit for making it last so long. Such suppers, and balls, and
+orgies, with the pleasantest fellows and prettiest actresses in Paris.
+But the louis-d'or roll rapidly in that sort of society. One must be a
+Russian prince, or French _feuilletoniste_, to keep it up. I never
+flinched at any thing so long as the money lasted. Then, when I found
+myself reduced to the last note, I got into the Frankfort mail, and came
+to rusticate at this rural roulette table. My next change will be to
+conjugation and Vienna."
+
+"But if you had only a thousand francs on leaving Paris, and have got
+them still, how have you lived since?"
+
+"You don't suppose these are the same? There are not many ways of
+getting through money here, unless one gambles, which I do not; but coin
+has somehow or other a peculiar aptitude to slip through my fingers, and
+the thousand francs soon evaporated. Meanwhile, I had written dozens of
+letters to my brothers, who seldom answered, and to my father, who never
+did. I promised reform and a respectable life, if they would either get
+me a snug place with little to do and good pay, or make me a reasonable
+yearly allowance, something better than the paltry three thousand
+florins they doled out to me when I was in the artillery, and on which,
+as I could not live, I was obliged to get in debt. They paid no
+attention to my request, reasonable as it was. The best offer they made
+me was five francs a-day, paid weekly, to live in a Silesian village.
+This was adding insult to injury, and I left off writing to them. A few
+days afterwards, taking out my purse to pay for cigars, a dollar dropped
+out. It was my last. I paid it away, walked home, lay down upon my bed,
+smoked and reflected. My position was gloomy enough, and the more I
+looked at it, the blacker it seemed. From my undutiful relatives there
+was no hope; the abominable Silesian project was evidently their
+ultimatum. I had no friend to turn to, no resource left. I might
+certainly have obtained the mere necessaries of life at this hotel,
+where my credit was excellent, and have vegetated for a month or two, as
+a man must vegetate, without ready money. But I had no fancy for such an
+expedient, a mere protraction of the agony. I lay ruminating for two
+hours, two such hours as I should be sorry to pass again, and then my
+mind was made up. I had a brace of small travelling pistols amongst my
+baggage; these I loaded and put in my pocket, and then, leaving the
+hotel and the town, I struck across the country for some distance and
+plunged into a wood. There I sat down upon a grass bank, my back against
+an old beech. It was evening, and the solitary little glade before me
+was striped with the last sunbeams darting between the tree-trunks. I
+have difficulty in defining my sensations at that moment. I was quite
+resolved, did not waver an instant in my purpose, but my head was dizzy,
+and I had a sickly sensation about the heart. Determined that the
+physical shrinking from death should not have time to weaken my moral
+determination, I hastily opened my waistcoat, felt for the pulsations of
+my heart, placed the muzzle of a pistol where they were strongest,
+steadying it on that spot with my left hand. Then I looked straight
+before me and pulled the trigger. There was the click of the lock, but
+no report; the cap was bad, and had been crushed without exploding. That
+was a horrible moment. I snatched up another pistol, which lay cocked to
+my hand, and thrust the muzzle into my mouth. As before, the sharp noise
+of the hammer upon the nipple was the sole result. The caps had been
+some time in my possession, and had become worthless through age or
+damp."
+
+I looked at Van Haubitz, doubtful whether he was not hoaxing me. But
+hitherto I had observed in him no addiction to the Munchausen vein, and
+now his countenance and voice were serious; there was a slight flush on
+his cheek, and he was evidently excited at the recollection of his
+abortive attempt at suicide,--perhaps a little ashamed of it. I was
+convinced he told the truth.
+
+"I do not know," he continued, "whether, had I had surer weapons with
+me, I should have had courage to make a third attempt upon my life.
+Honestly, I think not; the self-preservative instinct was rapidly
+gaining strength. I walked slowly back to the town, my brain still
+confused from the agitating moments I had passed. I was unable quite to
+collect my thoughts, and felt as if I had just awakened from a long
+heavy sleep. It was now dark; lights streamed from the open windows of
+the gambling-rooms; the voices of the croupiers, the stir and hum of the
+players and jingling of money were distinctly heard in the street
+without. I have already told you I am no gambler, not from scruple, but
+choice. Nevertheless, I used often to stroll up to the Cursaal for an
+hour of in evening, when the play was at the highest, to look on and
+chat with any acquaintances I met. Mechanically, I now ascended the
+stairs. On the landing-place, I found myself face to face with a man
+with whom I was slightly intimate, and who, a few evenings before, had
+borrowed forty francs of me. I had not seen him since, and he now
+returned me the piece of gold. 'Try your luck with it,' said he; 'there
+is a run against the bank tonight, every body wins, and M. Blanc looks
+blue.' And he pointed to one of the proprietors of the tables, who,
+however, wore a tolerably tranquil air, knowing well that what was
+carried away one night, would come back with compound interest the next.
+The play was heavy at the Rouge-et-noir table; a Russian and two
+Frenchmen--the latter of whom, judging from their appearance, and from
+the complicated array of calculations on the table before them, were
+professional gamblers--extracted, at nearly every _coup_, notes or
+rouleaus of gold from the grated boxes in front of the bankers. I drank
+a glass of water, for my lips and mouth were dry and hot, and placing
+myself as near the table as the crowd of players and spectators
+permitted, watched the game. My hand was in my pocket, the forty-franc
+piece still between its fingers. But in spite of the advice of him who
+had paid it me, I felt no disposition to risk the coin; not that I
+feared to lose it, for as my only one it was useless, but because, as I
+tell you, I never had the slightest love of gambling or expectation to
+win.
+
+"A pause occurred in the game. The cards had run out, and the bankers
+were subjecting them to those complicated and ostentatious shufflings
+intended to convince the players of the fairness of their dealings.
+During this operation, the previous silence was exchanged for eager
+gossip. The game, it appeared, had come out that night in a peculiar
+manner, very favourable to those who had had _nous_ and nerve to avail
+themselves of it. There had been alternate long runs upon red and black.
+
+"'_Mille noms de Dieu_!' exclaimed a hoarse cracked voice just below me.
+'What a series of black! Twenty-two, and only three red! And to be
+unable to take advantage of it!'
+
+"I looked down, and recognised the gray mustache, wrinkled features, and
+snuffy black coat with a ribbon of the Legion of Honour, of an old
+French colonel whom you may have seen limping in and out of the Cursaal,
+and who ranks amongst the antiquities of Homburg. He served under
+Napoleon, was shelved at the peace, and has lived since then on a
+moderate annuity, of which one-fifth procures him the barest necessaries
+of existence, whilst the other four parts are annually absorbed in the
+vortex of rouge-et-noir. When gambling-houses were legal at Paris, _le
+colonel rape_, the threadbare colonel, as he was called, was one of the
+most punctual attendants at Frascati's and the Palais Royal. When they
+were abolished, he commenced a wandering existence amongst the German
+baths, and finally settled down at Homburg, giving it the preference, as
+the only place where he could follow his darling pursuit alike in winter
+and in summer. From the opening to the close of the play he is seen
+seated at the table, a number of cards, ruled in red and black columns,
+on the green cloth before him, in which he pricks with pins the progress
+of the game. That evening he had been unfortunate, and had emptied his
+pocket, but nevertheless continued puncturing cards with laudable
+perseverance, of course discovering, like every penniless gambler, that,
+had he money to stake, he should infallibly make a fortune; predicting
+what colour would come out, and indulging, when he proved a true
+prophet, in a little subdued blasphemy because he was unable to profit
+by his acuteness.
+
+"'Extraordinary run! to be sure,' repeated the veteran dicer.
+'Twenty-two black, and only three red! There'll be a series of red now:
+I feel there will, and when I don't play myself, I'm always right. I bet
+this deal begins with seven red. Who bets a hundred francs to fifty it
+does not?'
+
+"Nobody accepted this sporting offer, or placed upon the colour which
+the colonel's prophetic soul foresaw was to come out. The cards were now
+shuffled and cut for dealing. The hell relapsed into silence.
+
+"'_Faites le jeu, Messieurs!_' was repeated in the harsh business-like
+tones of the presiding demon.
+
+"'Red wins,' croaked the colonel. 'Seven times at the least.'
+
+"Nearly all the players backed the black. By an idle impulse I threw
+down my forty francs, my entire fortune, upon the red. The old soldier
+looked round to see the judicious individual who followed his advice,
+smiled grimly, and nodded approvingly. The next moment red won. I let
+the money lie, and walked into the next room. Eighty francs were of no
+more use to me than forty, and I felt very sure that another turn of the
+card would carry off both stake and winnings. I took up a newspaper, but
+soon threw it down again, for my head was not clear enough to read, and
+I felt exhausted with the emotions of the day. I was about to leave the
+house when I heard a loud buzz in the card-room, and the next instant
+somebody clutched my arm. It was the French colonel, in a state of
+furious excitement; grinning, panting, perspiring, and stuttering with
+eagerness.
+
+"'Seven reds!' was all he could say. 'Seven reds, Monsieur. Take up your
+money.'
+
+"I hastened to the table. By a strange caprice of fortune, the colonel's
+prophecy had come true. Red had won seven times, and my forty francs had
+become five thousand. I took up my winnings, the colonel looking on with
+a triumphant smile. This was suddenly exchanged for a portentous frown
+and fierce twist of the gray mustache.
+
+"'_Mille millions de tonnerres!_ Not a dollar left to follow up that
+splendid run!' And with a furious gesture, he upset his chair, and
+dashed his cards upon the ground.
+
+"I took the hint, whether intended or not. I could not do less in return
+for the five thousand francs the old gentleman had put in my pocket.
+
+"'If Monsieur,' I said, 'will allow me the pleasure of lending him--'
+
+"'_Impossible, Monsieur!_' interrupted the colonel, looking as stern as
+if about to charge single-handed a whole pult of Cossacks. But I knew my
+man. He was the type of a class of which I have seen many.
+
+"'_Cependant, Monsieur, entre militaires_, between brother-soldiers--'
+
+"'_Ah! Monsieur est militaire!_' exclaimed the old gentleman, his
+alarming contraction of brow and rigidity of feature instantaneously
+dissolving into a smile of extreme benignity. 'That alters the case.
+Certainly, between brothers in arms those little services may be offered
+and accepted. Although, really, it is encroaching on Monsieur's
+complaisance ... at the same time ... a hundred francs ... till
+to-morrow ... quarters at some distance ... &c. &c.' which ended in his
+picking up his chair, cards, and pin, and applying all his faculties to
+break the bank with ten _louis_ which I lent him, and which I need
+hardly say I have not seen from that day to this.
+
+"Such a sudden stroke of good fortune would have made gamblers of nine
+men out of ten, but I decidedly want the organ of gaming, for I have
+never played since. My narrow escape from suicide had made some
+impression on me, and now that I had five thousand francs in my pocket,
+I looked back at the attempt as an exceedingly foolish proceeding. For a
+month or more, I lived with what even you would admit to be great
+economy, writing frequent letters to Amsterdam, and trying to come to
+terms and an arrangement with my family. All in vain. They had no
+confidence in my promises, proposed nothing I could accept, talked of
+Silesian exile--roots and water in the wilderness--and the like
+absurdities, until I plainly saw they were determined to cast me off,
+and that if I was to be helped at all, it must be by myself. How to do
+this was the puzzle. There are few things I can do, that could in any
+way be rendered profitable. I can ride a horse, lay a gun, and put a
+battery through its exercise; but such accomplishments are sufficiently
+common not to be paid at a very high rate; and besides I had had enough
+of garrison duty, even could I have got back my commission, which was
+not very likely. So I put soldiering out of the question; and yet, when
+I had done so, I was infernally puzzled to think of any thing better. I
+had no fancy to turn rook, and rove from place to place in search of
+pigeons--no uncommon resource with younger brothers of an idle turn and
+exhausted means. I had fallen in with a few birds of that breed, and had
+come to the conclusion that to save themselves work and trouble, they
+had adopted by far the most laborious and painful of all professions. In
+the midst of my doubts and uncertainties, the fair Sendel and her mother
+made their appearance. The first sight of their names upon the hotel
+book was a ray of light to me. Within an hour I made up my mind to
+sacrifice my independence to my necessities, and become the virtuous and
+domesticated spouse of the charming and well-paid Emilie. A hint and a
+dollar to the waiter placed me next her at the table-d'hote, and I
+immediately opened my intrenchments, and began a siege in due form."
+
+"Which you expect will soon terminate by the capitulation of the
+garrison?" said I, laughing.
+
+"Undoubtedly. The result of the first day or two's operations was not
+very satisfactory. I rattled away, and did the amiable to a furious
+extent; but the divinity was shy, and the guardian of the temple (an old
+gorgon whom I shall suppress before the honeymoon is out) looked askance
+at me, and pulled her daughter by the sleeve whenever she seemed
+disposed to listen. They evidently thought the rattle might belong to a
+snake; did me the injustice to take me for an adventurer. On the third
+day, however, the ice had melted. I soon found out the cause of the
+thaw. The head-waiter, whom a little well-timed liberality had rendered
+my devoted slave, informed me that Madame Sendel had been making minute
+inquiries concerning me of the master of the hotel. The worthy man, who
+adored me because I despised _vin ordinaire_ and looked only at the
+sum-total of his bills, said that I was a son of Van Haubitz, the rich
+banker of Amsterdam, which was perfectly true; adding, which was rather
+less so, that I was a partner in the house, and a _millionaire_. The
+effect of this information upon the speculative firm of Sendel _Mere et
+Fille_, was perfectly electric. Medusa smoothed her horrid looks, and
+came out at that day's dinner in cherry ribands and fresh artificials.
+Emilie was all smiles and suavity, laughed at my worst jokes, nearly
+burst her stays by holding her breath to raise a blush at my soft
+speeches, and returned from that evening's promenade talking about the
+moon, and leaning with tender _abandon_, on my arm."
+
+"With such encouragement, I am surprised you did not propose at once."
+
+"So hasty a measure--oh, most unsophisticated of Britons!" replied Van,
+with a look of grave pity for my simplicity--"would have greatly
+perilled the success of my scheme. Sendel Senior, having only the
+innkeeper's report to rely upon, would have had her ungenerous
+suspicions re-awakened by my precipitation, and have instituted further
+inquiries; have written, probably, to some friend in Holland, and
+learned that the pretender to her daughter's hand, although
+unquestionably a son of the wealthy banker Van Haubitz, is excluded
+beyond redemption from the good graces of that respectable pillar of
+Dutch finance, who has further announced his irrevocable determination
+to take not the slightest notice of him in his testamentary
+dispositions. The excellent Herr Bratenbengel, whose succulent dinner we
+are now digesting, and whose very laudable _Rudesheimer_ stands before
+us, had unwittingly laid the foundation of my success; it was for me to
+raise the superstructure. Now it was that I rejoiced at my economy since
+the lucky hit at the gaming-table. The greater part of my winnings still
+remained to me; golden grain, which I now profusely scattered, sure that
+it would yield rich harvest. On one manoeuvre I particularly pride
+myself. Retaining a few napoleons for immediate use, I remitted the
+remainder to a friend in Amsterdam, requesting him to return it me in a
+bill on Frankfort drawn by my father's bank. I took care to have the
+letter containing the draft delivered to me at dinner when seated beside
+the adorable Emilie, and was equally careful to lay the bill open upon
+the table, whilst I took a hasty glance at the letter. Of course my
+neighbour pretended not to see the draft, and equally of course she made
+herself mistress of its contents, particularly noting the drawer's name,
+and communicating the same to her mother at the earliest opportunity.
+This had a good effect, establishing my connexion with the rich house of
+Van Haubitz; and I have taken care to confirm the favourable impression
+by the profuse expenditure which you, in your ignorance, have called
+extravagance, by treating money as if its abundance in my coffers made
+it valueless in my eyes, and by delicate generosity in the shape of
+presents to mother and daughter. The trap was too cunningly set to prove
+a failure; the birds are fairly snared, and tonight, when we take our
+usual romantic stroll, I shall raise the fair Sendel to the seventh
+heaven of happiness by asking her to become Madame Van Haubitz."
+
+Although the tenour and tone of these confessions had by no means tended
+to elevate the Dutchman in my opinion, I could not forbear smiling at
+the coolness with which they were made and at the skill of his
+manoeuvres. Still there was some good about the scamp; he had his own
+code of honour, such as it was, and from that he would not easily have
+been induced to swerve. He would have scorned to do a dirty thing, to
+cheat at cards, or leave a debt of honour unpaid; but would readily have
+got in debt to tradesmen and money-lenders beyond all possibility of
+reimbursement. And as regarded his present conspiracy against the
+celibacy and salary of Mademoiselle Sendel, a synod of sages and
+logicians would have failed to convince him of its impropriety. He
+looked upon it as a most justifiable stratagem, a lawful preying upon
+the spoiler, praiseworthy in the sight of men, gods, and columns, and
+which he would perhaps have boasted of to a considerable extent to many
+besides myself, had not secrecy been essential to the welfare of his
+combinations. I, of course, did not feel called upon to betray his plot,
+or to put the Sendel on her guard against this snake amongst the roses.
+And whilst mentally resolving rather to diminish than increase the
+intimacy which the confident and confidential artilleryman had in great
+measure forced upon me, and which I, through a sort of easy-going
+indolence of character, had perhaps somewhat lightly accepted, I
+anticipated much diversion in watching the manoeuvres of the high
+contracting parties. I considered myself as a spectator, called upon to
+witness an amusing comedy in real life, and admitted behind the scenes
+by peculiar favour of an actor. I resolved to watch the progress of the
+intrigue, and, if possible, to be present at the _denouement_.
+
+"Are you quite certain," said I to Van, "that Mademoiselle Sendel's
+pecuniary position and prospects are so very favourable? The sum you
+mentioned is a large one for an actress who has been so short a time on
+the stage. Public report, very apt to take liberties with the reputation
+of theatrical ladies, often endeavours to compensate them by magnifying
+their salaries."
+
+Van, I may here mention, lest the reader should not have perceived it,
+had a most inordinate opinion of his own abilities and acuteness. Like
+certain Yankees, he "conceited" it was necessary to rise before the sun
+to outwit him, and even then your chance was a poor one. He had been in
+hot water all his life, never out of difficulties and scrapes, once, as
+has been shown, kept from suicide by a mere accident, and was now
+reduced to the alternative of beggary or of marrying for a living. None
+of these circumstances, which would have taken the conceit out of most
+men, at all impaired his opinion of his talent and sharpness. Replying
+to my observation merely by a slight shrug and smile of pity for the man
+who thus misappreciated his foresight, he again produced his
+pocket-book, and extracted from its innermost recesses a fragment of a
+German newspaper, reputed oracular in matters theatrical. This he handed
+to me, tapping a particular paragraph significantly with his forefinger.
+The paragraph was thus conceived:--
+
+"Theatrical Intelligence.--That promising young actress, Fraulein Emilie
+Sendel--whose first appearance, in the spring of last year, at once
+established her in the foremost line of the dramatic genius of the
+day--has concluded her twelve months' engagement at the _Hof Theater_ of
+B----, where she doubtless considered, and not without reason, that her
+talents and exertions were inadequately compensated by a salary of ten
+thousand florins. The gay society of that _Residenz_ will sensibly feel
+the loss of the accomplished and fascinating comedian, who has accepted
+an engagement at Vienna, on the more suitable terms of fifteen thousand
+florins, with two months' _conge_, and other advantages. Before
+proceeding to ravish the eyes and cars of the pleasure-loving population
+of the _Kaiser-Stadt, la belle_ Sendel is off to the baths, under the
+protecting wing of the watchful guardian who has presided at all her
+theatrical triumphs."
+
+"Clear enough, I think," said Van, when I raised my eyes from the
+protracted periods of the penny-a-liner.
+
+I had nothing to say against the lucidity of the paragraph, nor any
+thing to urge, at all likely to avail, against the prosecution of Van's
+designs upon the lady's hand and fifteen thousand florins, with "two
+months' _conge_ and other advantages." No possible sophistry, to which I
+was equal, could prove the marriage to be against his interest; and as
+to trying him on the tack of delicacy--"imposition on an unprotected
+woman,--degrading dependence on her exertions," and so forth--I knew the
+thick skin and indomitable self-conceit of the cannonier would repel
+such feather-shafts without feeling them, or that the utmost effect I
+could expect to produce would be to get myself into a quarrel with the
+redoubtable native of the Netherlands, a predicament in which, as a man
+of peace, I was by no means anxious to find myself. So after hazarding
+the fruitless hint with which the reader was made acquainted at the
+commencement of this narrative, I abstained from all further
+intermeddling, and retired to my apartment, leaving Van Haubitz to con
+the declaration with which he was that evening to rejoice the ears of
+the fair and too-confiding Sendel.
+
+I went to bed early that night and, saw nothing more of the Hollander
+till the next morning, when I was roused from a balmy slumber at the
+untimely hour of seven, by his bursting into my room with more
+impetuosity than ceremony, with the gestures of a maniac and shouts of
+victory. Before my eyes were half open, he was more than half through
+the history of his proceedings on the previous evening. His success had
+been complete. Emilie had faltered, with downcast eyes, a sweet assent.
+The friendly gloom of eve, and the overarching foliage, beneath whose
+shade the momentous question was put, saved her the necessity of
+practising upon her lungs to produce a blush. Mamma Sendel had bestowed
+her blessing upon the happy pair, and in the ardour of her maternal
+accolades had nearly extinguished her future son-in-law's left ogle with
+the wire stalk of an artificial passion-flower. The first burst of
+benevolence over, and the effervescence of feeling a little subsided,
+the bridegroom elect, who could not afford delays, pressed for an early
+day. Thereupon Emilie was, of course, horror-stricken, but her maternal
+relative, nothing loath to land the fish thus satisfactorily hooked, and
+well aware of the impediments that sometimes arise between cup and lip,
+ranged herself upon the side of the eager lover, and their combined
+forces bore down all opposition. Madame Sendel at first showed an
+evident hankering after a preliminary jaunt to Amsterdam and a gay
+wedding, graced by the presence of the bridegroom's numerous and wealthy
+family. She also testified some anxiety as to the view Van Haubitz
+Senior might take of his son's matrimonial project, and as to how far he
+might approve of a hasty and unceremonious wedding. But the gallant
+artilleryman had an answer to every thing. He pledged himself, which he
+was perfectly safe in doing, that his father would not attempt in the
+slightest degree to control his inclinations or interfere with his
+projects, extolled the delights of an autumnal tour with his wife and
+mother-in-law before returning to Holland; in short, was so plausible in
+his arguments, so specious and pressing, pleading so eloquently the
+violence of his love and inutility of delay, and overruling objections
+with such cogent reasoning, that he achieved a complete triumph, and it
+was agreed that in one week Van Haubitz should lead his adored Emilie to
+the hymeneal altar. In the interval, he would have abundant time to
+obtain his father's consent and the necessary papers from Amsterdam--all
+of which he doubted not he should most satisfactorily procure by the
+kind aid of the accommodating friend who had made him returns for his
+remittance.
+
+"There will be a small matter to arrange with respect to Emilie," said
+Madame Sendel in her blandest tones, and with affectation of
+embarrassment. "She has an engagement at the Vienna theatre, which must
+of course now be broken off. There is a forfeit to pay, no very heavy
+sum," added she--
+
+"Not a word about that," interrupted Van, whose blood curdled in his
+veins, at the mere idea of cancelling the engagement on which his hopes
+were built. "There is no hurry for a few days. Let me once call Emilie
+mine, and I take charge of all those matters."
+
+Emilie smiled angelically; Madame patted her considerate son-in-law on
+the shoulders, and applied to her snuff-box to conceal her emotion; and
+all matters of business being thus satisfactorily settled, the evening
+closed in harmony and bliss.
+
+"Are you for Frankfort, to-day?" said Van Haubitz, when he had concluded
+his exulting narrative, and without giving me time for congratulations,
+which I should have been at a loss to offer. "I am off, after breakfast,
+to get some diamond earrings and other small matters for my adorable. I
+shall be glad of your taste and opinion."
+
+"Diamonds!" I exclaimed. "Farewell, then, to the thousand franc note--"
+
+"Pooh! Nonsense! You don't suppose I throw away my last cash that way.
+The Frankfort jewellers know me well, or think they do, which is the
+same thing. They have seen enough of my coin since I have been at
+Homburg. For them, as for my excellent mother-in-law, I am the wealthy
+partner in the undoubted good firm of Van Haubitz, Krummwinkel, & Co. I
+never told them so; if they choose to imagine it I am not to blame. My
+credit is good. The diamonds shall be paid for--if paid for they must
+be--out of Madame Van Haubitz's first quarter's salary."
+
+I was meditating an excuse for not accompanying my pertinacious and
+unscrupulous acquaintance on his cruise against the Frankfort
+Israelites, when he resumed--
+
+"By the bye," he said, "you will come to church with us. I have arranged
+it all. Quite private, for reasons good. Nobody but yourself, Madame
+Sendel, and Emilie. You shall act as father, and give away the bride."
+
+The start I gave, at this alarming announcement, nearly broke the bed.
+This was carrying things rather too far. Not satisfied with rendering
+me, by his intrusive and unsolicited confidence, a sort of tacit
+accomplice in his manoeuvres, this Dutch Gil Blas would fain make me an
+active participator in the swindle he was practising on the actress and
+her mother. I drew at sight on my imagination, quickened by the peril,
+for a letter received the previous evening from a dear and near
+relative who lay dangerously ill at Baden-Baden, and to whose sick-bed
+it was absolutely necessary I should immediately repair; and, jumping
+up, I began to dress in all haste, rang furiously for the bill and a
+carriage, and requested Van Haubitz to present my excuses to the ladies,
+my unexpected departure at that early hour depriving me of the pleasure
+of taking leave of them. The Dutchman swore all manner of
+_donderwetters_ and _sacraments_ that he was grieved at my departure,
+trusted I should find my friend better, and be able to return to
+Frankfort in time for the marriage, but did not press me to do so, and
+in reality was too exhilarated by the success of his machinations to
+care a straw about the matter. And saying he must go and write to
+Amsterdam, he shook me by the hand and left the room, whistling in loud
+and joyous key the burthen of a Dutch march. In less than an hour I was
+on the road to Frankfort, and that evening I reached Heidelberg, where
+some friends of mine had passed the summer. I expected to find them
+still there, but they had left for Baden-Baden. Thither I pursued them,
+and--as if it were a judgment on me for my white lie to the
+Dutchman--arrived there the morrow of their departure. Baden was
+thinning, and they had gone down stream: I must have passed them on the
+Rhine. Having strong reasons to see them before they left Germany, I
+followed upon their trail. But their movements were rapid and eccentric,
+and after tracking them to one or two of the minor baths, the chase led
+me back to Frankfort. Here I made sure to catch them, or resolved to
+give up the hunt.
+
+A week had been consumed in thus travelling to and fro. I had no great
+fancy for returning to Frankfort, lest my friend the Dutchman should
+still be there, and press his society upon me, of which, after his
+recent revelations, I was any thing but ambitious. Upon the whole,
+however, I thought it likely he would have departed. I knew he would
+accelerate his marriage as much as possible; I had been nine days
+absent, which gave him ample time to get over the ceremony and leave the
+neighbourhood. By way of precaution I resolved to keep pretty close in
+my hotel during the period of my stay, which was not to exceed one or
+two days.
+
+On arriving at the "White Swan," I found my friends were staying there,
+but had driven over to Homburg. Unwilling to follow them, and risk
+meeting my bug-bear, I awaited their return, which was to take place to
+a late dinner. As usual, there was much bustle at the "Swan;" many
+goings and comings, several carriages in the court-yard, others in the
+street packing for departure, a throng of greedy _lohn-kutschers_, warm
+waiters, and bearded couriers, hanging about the door, and running up
+and down stairs. I entered the public room. It was past noon, and the
+tables were laid for dinner, but there were only two persons in the
+apartment, a gentleman and a lady. They stood at a window, outside of
+which a handsome Vienna-made berline, with a count's coronet on the
+panels, was getting ready for a journey. As I walked up the room, the
+lady turned her head, and I was instantly struck by her resemblance to
+Emilie Sendel. So strong was it that I for a moment thought I had fallen
+in with the very persons I wished to avoid. A second glance convinced me
+of error. The likeness was certainly startling, but there were many
+points of difference. Age and stature were the same, so were the hair
+and complexion, save that the former was less ruddy, the latter paler
+than in the case of the buxom Emilie. And there were grace and
+refinement about this person, far beyond any to which the Dutchman's
+lady-love could pretend. The expression of the interesting features was
+rather pensive than gay, and there was something classical in the arch
+of the eyebrow and outline of the face. The lady was plainly but richly
+attired in an elegant travelling dress, and had her hand upon the arm of
+a tall and very handsome man, about forty years of age, of singularly
+aristocratic but somewhat dissipated appearance. They were talking as I
+entered, and a sentence or two of their conversation reached my ear.
+They spoke French, with a scarcely perceptible foreign accent.
+
+Curious to know who these persons were, I returned to the court of the
+hotel, intending to question a waiter. It was first necessary to catch
+one, not easy at that busy time of day; and after several fruitless
+efforts to detain the jacketed gentry, I gave the attempt, and took my
+station at the gateway. Scarcely had I done so, when a carriage drove up
+at a rattling pace, a small spit of a boy in a smart green suit, and
+with an ambiguous sort of coronet embroidered in silver on the front of
+his cap, jumped off and opened the door, and there emerged from the
+vehicle, to my infinite dismay, the inevitable Van Haubitz. Retreat was
+impossible, for he saw me directly; and after handing out Madame Sendel
+and her daughter, seized me vehemently by both hands.
+
+"Delighted to see you!" he cried; "I wish you had been a day sooner. We
+were married yesterday," he added in a hurried voice, drawing me aside.
+"Have left Homburg, paid every thing _there_, and leave this to-morrow
+for Heaven knows where. Explanations must come first, (here he made a
+grimace) for my purse is low, and my mother-in-law makes projects that
+would ruin Rothschild. Lucky you are here to back me. Come in."
+
+I was fairly caught, and in a pretty dilemma. My first thought was to
+knock down the Dutchman, and run for it, but reflection checked the
+impulse. Stammering a confused congratulation to the bride and her
+mother, and meditating an escape at all hazards, I allowed Madame Sendel
+to hook herself on my arm, and lead me into the hotel in the wake of the
+newly wedded pair, who made at once for the public room. A magnificent
+courier, in a Hungarian dress, with beard, belt, and hunting-knife,
+strode past us into the apartment.
+
+"_Herr Graf_," said the man, addressing the distinguished looking
+stranger, who had attracted my attention, "the horses are ready."
+
+The Count and his companion turned at the announcement, and found
+themselves face to face with our party. There was a general start and
+exclamation from the three women. The strange lady turned very pale and
+visibly trembled; Madame Van Haubitz gave a slight scream; her mother
+flushed as red as the poppies in her head-dress, and hung like a log
+upon my arm, glaring angrily at the strangers. For one moment all stood
+still; Van Haubitz and I looked at each other in bewilderment. He was
+evidently struck by the extraordinary resemblance I had noticed, and
+which became more manifest, now the two ladies were seen together.
+
+"Come, Ameline," said the Count, who alone preserved complete
+self-possession. And he hurried his companion from the room. Madame
+Sendel released my arm, and letting herself fall upon a chair with an
+hysterical giggle, closed her eyes and seemed preparing for a
+comfortable swoon. Her daughter hastened to her assistance and untied
+her bonnet; Van Haubitz grasped a decanter of water and made an alarming
+demonstration of emptying it upon the full-moon countenance of his
+respectable mother-in-law. I was curious to see him do it, for I had
+always had my doubts whether the dowager's colours were what is
+technically termed "fast." My curiosity was not gratified. Whether from
+apprehension of the remedy or from some other cause, I cannot say, but
+Madame Sendel abandoned her faint, and after two or three grotesque
+contortions of countenance, and a certain amount of winking and
+blinking, was sufficiently recovered to take a huge pinch of snuff, and
+ascend the stairs to a private room, with her daughter and son-in-law
+for supporters, and half a score waiters and chamber-maids, whom her
+hysterical symptoms had assembled, by way of a tail. Seeing her so well
+guarded, I thought it unnecessary to add to the escort. As she left the
+room, there was a clatter of hoofs outside, and looking through the
+window, I saw the coroneted berline whirled rapidly away by four
+vigorous posters. Just then the dinner-bell rang, and the obsequious
+head-waiter, who with profound bows had assisted at the departure of the
+travellers, bustled into the room.
+
+"Who is the gentleman who has just left?" I inquired.
+
+"His Excellency, Count J----," replied the man. It was the name of a
+Hungarian nobleman of great wealth, and of reputation almost European
+as one of the most fashionable and successful Lotharios of the
+dissipated Austrian capital.
+
+"And his companion?"
+
+"The celebrated actress, Fraulein Sendel."
+
+Had the cunning but unlucky Van Haubitz been a regular reader of the
+_Theater Zeitung_, or Journal of the Theatres, he would have seen, in
+the ensuing number to that whence he derived his information respecting
+Mademoiselle Sendel's confirmed popularity and advantageous engagement
+the following short but important paragraph:--
+
+"Erratum.--In our yesterday's impression an error occurred, arising from
+a similarity of names. It is Fraulein _Ameline_ Sendel who has concluded
+with the Vienna theatre, an engagement equally advantageous to herself
+and the manager. Her elder sister, Fraulein _Emilie_, continues the
+engagement she has already held for two seasons, as a supernumerary
+_soubrette_. The amount stated yesterday as her salary would still be
+correct, with the abstraction of a zero. Talent does not always run in
+families."
+
+This good-natured paragraph, evidently from the pen of a sulky
+sub-editor, smarting under a lashing for his blunder of the preceding
+day, did not come to my knowledge till some time afterwards, so that the
+waiter's reply to my question concerning Count J----'s travelling
+companion perplexed me greatly, and plunged me into an ocean of
+conjectures. In fact, my curiosity was so strongly roused, that instead
+of availing myself of the absence of the Dutchman to escape from the
+hotel, I sat down to dinner, resolved not to depart till I heard the
+mystery explained. I had not long to wait. Dinner was just over, when I
+received a message from Van Haubitz, who earnestly desired to see me. I
+found him alone, seated at a table, his chin resting on his hand, anger,
+shame, and mortification stamped upon his inflamed countenance. A
+tumbler half full of water stood upon the table, beside a bottle of
+smelling salts; and, upon entering, I was pretty sure I heard a sound of
+sobbing from another room, which ceased, however, when I spoke. There
+had evidently been a violent scene. Its cause was explained to me by Van
+Haubitz, at first in rather a confused manner, for at each attempt to
+detail the circumstances he interrupted himself by bursts of fury. Owing
+to this, it was some time before I could arrive at a clear understanding
+of the facts of the case. When I did, I could scarcely help feeling
+sorry for the unfortunate schemer, although in truth he richly deserved
+the disappointment he had met. Never was there a more glaring instance
+of excess of cunning over-reaching itself,--for no deception had been
+practised by Madame Sendel and her daughter. They doubtless gave
+themselves credit for some cleverness and more good fortune in enticing
+a rich banker with more ducats than brains, into their matrimonial nets;
+and doubtless Fraulein Emile put on her best looks and gowns, her
+sweetest smiles and most becoming bonnets, to lure the lion into the
+toils. But neither mother nor daughter had for a moment imagined that
+Van Haubitz took the latter for the celebrated and successful actress
+whose name was known throughout Germany, whilst that of poor Emile,
+whose talents were of the most humble order, had scarcely ever
+penetrated beyond the wings and green-room of the theatre, where she
+enacted unimportant characters for the modest remuneration of a hundred
+florins a month. By no means proud of her position as all actress, which
+appeared the more lowly when contrasted with her sister's brilliant
+success, Emilie had seldom referred to things theatrical since her
+acquaintance with Van Haubitz. On his part, the 'cute Dutchman,
+conscious of his real motives and anxious to conceal them, abstained
+from all direct reference to Mademoiselle Sendel's great talents and
+their lucrative results, contenting himself with general compliments,
+which passed current without being closely scanned. If he had never
+heard either his wife or mother-in-law make mention of Ameline, it was
+because they were on the worst possible terms with that young lady, who
+had lived, nearly from the period of her first appearance upon the
+boards, under the protection of the accomplished libertine, Count
+J----, over whom she was said to exercise extraordinary influence. When
+she formed this connexion, Madame Sendel, who--in spite of her suspicion
+of paint and artificial floriculture--had very strict notions of
+propriety, wrote her a letter of furious reproach, renounced her as her
+daughter, and prohibited Emilie from holding any communication with her.
+Emile, against whose virtue none had ever found aught to say,
+sorrowfully obeyed; and, after two or three ineffectual attempts on the
+part of Ameline to soften her mother's wrath, all communication ceased
+between them. Their next meeting was that at which Van Haubitz and
+myself were present. Its singularity, Madame Sendel's fainting fit, and
+the resemblance between the sisters, brought on inquiries and an
+explanation; and the Dutchman found, to his inexpressible disgust and
+consternation, that he had encumbered himself with a wife he cared
+nothing for, and a mother-in-law he detested, whose joint income was
+largely stated at one hundred and fifty pounds sterling per annum. In
+his first paroxysm of rage he taunted them with the mistake they had
+made when they thought to secure the love-sick millionaire, proclaimed
+himself in debt, disinherited, and a beggar; and, finally, by the
+violence of his reproaches and maledictions, drove them trembling and
+weeping from the room.
+
+Van Haubitz had sent for me to implore my advice in his present
+difficult position; but was so bewildered by passion and overwhelmed by
+this sudden awakening from his dream of success and prosperity, that he
+was hardly in a condition to listen to reason. His regrets were so
+disgustingly selfish, his invectives against the innocent cause of his
+disappointment so violent and unmerited, that I should have left him to
+his fate and his own devices, had I not thought that my so doing would
+make matters worse for the poor girl who had thus heedlessly linked
+herself to a fortune-hunter. So I remained; after a while he became
+calmer, and we talked over various plans for the future. By my
+suggestion, Madame Sendel and her daughter were invited to the
+conference. The old lady was sulky and frightened, and would hardly open
+her lips; Emilie, on the other hand, made a more favourable impression
+on me than she had ever previously done. I now saw, what I had not
+before suspected, that she was really attached to Van Haubitz; hitherto,
+I had taken her for a mere adventuress, speculating on his supposed
+wealth. She spoke kindly and affectionately to him, smiled through the
+tears brought to her eyes by his recent brutality, and evidently
+trembled each time her mother spoke, lest she should vent a reproach or
+refer to his heartless duplicity. She tried to speak confidently and
+cheerfully of the future. They must go immediately to Vienna, she said;
+there she would apply diligently to her profession; the manager had half
+promised her an increase of salary after another year--she was sure she
+should deserve it, and meanwhile Van Haubitz, with his abilities, could
+not fail to find some lucrative employment. He must get rid of his
+accent, she added with a smile, (he spoke a voluble but most execrable
+jargon of mingled Dutch and German) and then he might go upon the stage,
+where she was certain he would succeed. This last suggestion was made
+timidly, as if she feared to hurt the pride of the scapegrace by
+proposing such a plan. There was not a word or an accent of reproach in
+all she said, and I heartily forgave the little coquetry, affectation,
+and vulgarity I had formerly remarked in her, in consideration of the
+intuitive delicacy and good feeling she now displayed. Truly, thought I,
+it is humbling to us, the bearded and baser moiety of humankind, to
+contrast our vile egotism with the beautiful self-devotion of woman, as
+exhibited even in this poor actress.
+
+Madame Sendel by no means acquiesced in her daughter's project. The
+flesh-pots of Amsterdam had attractions for her, far superior to those
+of a struggling and uncertain existence at Vienna. She evidently leaned
+upon the hope of a reconciliation between Van Haubitz and his father,
+and hinted pretty plainly at the effect that might be produced by a
+personal interview with the obdurate banker. I could see she was
+arranging matters in her queer old noddle upon the approved theatrical
+principle, the penitent son and fascinating daughter-in-law throwing
+themselves at the feet of the melting father, who, with handkerchief to
+eyes, bestows on them a blubbering benediction and ample subsidy. To my
+surprise Van Haubitz also seemed disposed to place hope in an appeal to
+his father, perhaps as a drowning man clutches at a straw. He may have
+thought that his marriage, imprudent as it was, would be taken as some
+guarantee of future steadiness, or at least of abstinence from the
+spendthrift courses which had hitherto destroyed all confidence in him.
+He could hardly expect his union with a penniless actress to re-instate
+him in his father's good graces; but he probably imagined he might
+extract a small annuity, as a condition of living at a distance from the
+friends he had disgraced. He asked me what I thought of the plan. I of
+course did not dissuade him from its adoption, and upon the whole
+thought it his best chance, for I really saw no other. After some
+deliberation and discussion, he seemed nearly to have made up his mind,
+when I was called away to my friends, who had returned from their
+excursion.
+
+I was getting into bed that night, when Van Haubitz knocked at my door,
+and entered the room with a downcast and dejected air, very different
+from his usual boisterous headlong manner.
+
+"I am off to Holland," he said; "'tis my only chance, bad though it be."
+
+"I sincerely wish you success," replied I. "In any case, do not despair;
+something will turn up. You have friends in your own country, I have
+heard you say. They will help you to occupation."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Good friends over a bottle and a dice-box," said he, "but useless at a
+pinch like this. Pleasant fellows enough, but scamps like"--myself, he
+was going to add, but did not. "I am come to say farewell," he
+continued. "I must be off before day-break. I have debts in Frankfort,
+and if my departure gets wind, I shall have a dozen duns on my back.
+Misfortunes never come alone. As for paying, it is out of the question.
+Amongst us we have only about enough money to reach Amsterdam. Once
+there--_a la grace de Dieu!_ but I confess my hopes are small. Thanks
+for your advice--and for your sympathy too, for I saw this morning you
+were sorry for me, though you did not think I deserved pity. Well,
+perhaps not. God bless you."
+
+He was leaving the room, but returned.
+
+"I think you said you should stay at Coblenz before returning to
+England."
+
+"I shall probably be there a few days towards the end of the month."
+
+"Good. If I succeed, you shall hear from me. What is your address
+there?"
+
+"_Poste restante_ will find me," I replied, not very covetous of the
+correspondence, and unwilling to give a more exact direction.
+
+Van Haubitz nodded and left me. At breakfast the next morning I learned
+that the Dutch baron, as the waiter styled him, had taken his departure
+at peep of day.
+
+The first days of October found me still at Coblenz, lingering amongst
+the valleys and vineyards, and loath to exchange them for the autumnal
+fogs and emptiness of London. Thither, however, I was compelled to
+return; and I endeavoured to console myself for the necessity by
+discovering that the green Rhine grew brown, the trees scant of leaves,
+the evenings long and chilly. I had heard nothing of Van Haubitz, and
+had ceased to think of him, when, walking out at dusk on the eve of the
+day fixed for my departure, I suddenly encountered him. He had just
+arrived by a steamboat coming up stream; his wife and mother-in-law were
+with him, and they were about to enter a fifth-rate inn, which, two
+months previously, he would have felt insulted if solicited to
+patronise. I was shocked by the change that had taken place in all three
+of them. In five weeks they had grown five years older. Emilie had lost
+her freshness, her eye its sparkle; and the melancholy smile with which
+she welcomed me made my heart ache. Madame Sendel's rotund checks had
+collapsed, she looked cross and jaundiced, and more snuffy than ever.
+Van Haubitz was thin and haggard, his hair and mustaches, formerly
+glossy and well-trimmed, were ragged and neglected, his dress, once so
+smart and carefully arranged, was soiled and slovenly. My imagination
+furnished me with a rapid and vivid sketch of the anxieties and
+disappointments and heart-burnings, which, more than any actual bodily
+privations, had worked so great a change in so short a time. Van Haubitz
+started on seeing me, and faltered in his pace, as if unwilling to enter
+the shabby hotel in my presence. The hesitation was momentary. "Worse
+quarters than we used to meet in," said he, with a bitter smile. "I will
+not ask you into this dog-hole. Wait an instant, and I will walk with
+you."
+
+Badly as I thought of Van Haubitz, and indisposed as I was to keep up
+any acquaintance with such an unprincipled adventurer, I had not the
+heart, seeing him so miserable and down in the world, to turn my back
+upon him at once. So I entered the hotel, and waited in the public room.
+In a few minutes he reappeared with the two ladies, and we all four
+strolled out in the direction of the Rhine. I did not ask the Dutchman
+the result of his journey. It was unnecessary. His disheartened air and
+general appearance told the tale of disappointment, of humiliating
+petitions sternly rejected, of hopes fled and a cheerless future. He
+kept silence the while we walked a hundred yards, and then, having left
+his wife and mother-in-law out of ear-shot, abruptly began the tale of
+his mishaps. As I conjectured, he had totally failed in his attempt to
+mollify his father, who was furious at his temerity in appearing before
+him, and whose rage redoubled when he heard of his ill-omened marriage.
+Unfortunately for Van Haubitz, the jeweller and some other tradesmen at
+Frankfort, so soon as they learned his departure, had forwarded their
+accounts to the care of the Amsterdam firm; and, although his father had
+not the remotest intention of paying them, he was incensed in the
+extreme at the slur thus cast upon his house and name. In short, the
+unlucky artilleryman at once saw he had no chance of a single kreuzer,
+or of the slightest countenance from his father. His applications to his
+brothers, and one or two to more distant relatives, were equally
+unsuccessful. All were disgusted at his irregularities, angry at his
+marriage, incredulous of his promises of reform; and, after passing a
+miserable month in Amsterdam, he set out to accompany his wife to
+Vienna, whither she was compelled to repair under pain of fine and
+forfeiture of her engagement. Although living with rigid economy--on
+bread and water, as Van Haubitz expressed it--their finances had been
+utterly consumed by their stay in the expensive Dutch capital, and it
+was only by disposing of every trinket and superfluity (and of
+necessaries too, I feared, when I remembered the slender baggage that
+came up with them from the boat) that they had procured the means of
+travelling, in the cheapest and most humble manner, and with the
+disheartening certainty of arriving penniless at Vienna. Van Haubitz
+told me all this, and many other details, with an air of gloomy
+despondency. He was hopeless, heart-broken, desperate; and certain
+circumstances of his position, which by some would have been held an
+alleviation, aggravated it in his eyes. He said little of his wife; but,
+from what escaped him, I easily gathered that she had shown strength of
+mind, good feeling and affection for him, and was willing to struggle by
+his side for a scanty and hard-earned subsistence. His selfish cares and
+irritable mood prevented his appreciating or returning her attachment,
+and he looked upon her as a clog and an encumbrance, without which he
+might again rise in the world. He had always entertained a confident
+expectation of enriching himself by marriage; and this hope, which had
+buoyed him up under many difficulties, was now gone. From something he
+said I suspected he had sounded Emilie on the subject of a divorce, so
+easily obtained in Germany, and that she had shown determined
+opposition. She evidently possessed a firmness of character more than a
+match for her husband's impetuosity and violence.
+
+"I have one resource left," said Van Haubitz. "I have pondered over it
+for the last two days, and have almost determined on its adoption."
+
+"What is it?" I asked.
+
+"If I decide upon it," he replied, "you shall shortly know. 'Tis a
+desperate one enough."
+
+We had insensibly slackened our pace, and, at this moment, the ladies
+came up. Van Haubitz made a gesture, as of impatience at the
+interruption.
+
+"Wait for me here," he said, and walked away. Without speculating upon
+the motive of his absence, I stood still, and entered into conversation
+with the ladies. We were on the quay. The night was mild and calm, but
+overcast and exceedingly dark. A few feet below us rolled the dark mass
+of the Rhine, slightly swollen by recent rains. A light from an adjacent
+window illuminated the spot, and cast a flickering gleam across the
+water. Unwilling to refer to their misfortunes, I spoke to Emilie on
+some general topic. But Madame Sendel was too full of her troubles to
+tolerate any conversation that did not immediately relate to them, and
+she broke in with a long history of grievances, of the hard-heartedness
+of the Amsterdam relations, the cruelty of Emilie's position, her
+son-in-law's helplessness, and various other matters, in a querulous
+tone, and with frightful volubility. The poor daughter, I plainly saw,
+winced under this infliction. I was waiting the smallest opening to
+interrupt the indiscreet old lady, and revert to commonplace, when a
+distant splash in the water reached my ears. The women also heard it,
+and at the same instant a presentiment of evil came over us all. Madame
+Sendel suddenly held her tongue and her breath; Emilie turned deadly
+pale, and without saying a word, flew along the quay in the direction of
+the sound. She had gone but a few yards when her strength failed her,
+and she would have fallen but for my support. There was a shout, and a
+noise of men running. Leaving Madame Van Haubitz to the care of her
+mother, I ran swiftly along the river side, and soon reached a place
+where the deep water moaned and surged against the perpendicular quay.
+Here several men were assembled, talking hurriedly and pointing to the
+river. Others each moment arrived, and two boats were hastily shoved off
+from an adjacent landing-place.
+
+"A man in the river," was the reply to my hasty inquiry.
+
+It was so dark that I could not distinguish countenances close to me,
+and at a very few yards even the outline of objects was scarcely to be
+discerned. There were no houses close at hand, and some minutes elapsed
+before lights were procured. At last several boats put off, with men
+standing in the bows, holding torches and lanterns high in the air.
+Meanwhile I had questioned the by-standers, but could get little
+information; none as to the person to whom the accident had happened.
+The man who had given the alarm, was returning from mooring his boat to
+a neighbouring jetty, when he perceived a figure moving along the quay a
+short distance in his front. The figure disappeared, a heavy splash
+followed, and the boatman ran forward. He could see no one either on
+shore or in the stream, but heard a sound as of one striking out and
+struggling in the water. Having learned this much, I jumped into a boat
+just then putting off, and bid the rowers pull down stream, keeping a
+short distance from the quay. The current ran strong, and I doubted not
+that the drowning man had been carried along by it. Two vigorous oarsmen
+pulled till the blades bent, and the boat, aided by the stream, flew
+through the water. A third man held a torch. I strained my eyes through
+the darkness. Presently a small object floated within a few feet of the
+boat, which was rapidly passing it. It shone in the torchlight. I struck
+at it with a boat-hook, and brought it on board. It was a man's cap,
+covered with oilskin, and I remembered Van Haubitz wore such a one.
+Stripping off the cover, I beheld in officer's foraging cap, with a
+grenade embroidered on its front. My doubts, slight before, were
+entirely dissipated.
+
+When the search, rendered almost hopeless by the extreme darkness and
+power of the current, was at last abandoned, I hastened to the hotel,
+and inquired for Madame Sendel. She came to me in a state of great
+agitation. Van Haubitz had not returned, but she thought less of that
+than of the state of her daughter, who, since recovering from a long
+swoon, had been almost distracted with anxiety. She knew some one had
+been drowned, and her mind misgave her it was her husband. The
+foraging-cap, which Madame Sendel immediately recognised, removed all
+uncertainty. The only hope remaining was, that Van Haubitz, although
+carried rapidly away by the power of the current, had been able to
+maintain himself on the surface, and had got ashore at some considerable
+distance down the river, or had been picked up by a passing boat. But
+this was a very feeble hope, and for my own part, and for more than one
+reason, I placed no reliance on it. I left Madame Sendel to break the
+painful intelligence to her daughter, and went home, promising to call
+again in the morning.
+
+As I had expected, nothing was heard of Van Haubitz, nor any vestige of
+him found, save the foraging-cap I had picked up. Doubtless, the Rhine
+had borne down his lifeless corpse to the country of his birth. The next
+day Coblenz rang with the death of the unfortunate Dutchman. A stranger,
+and unacquainted with the localities, he was supposed to have walked
+over the quay by accident. I thought differently; and so I knew did
+Madame Sendel and Emilie. I saw the former early the next day. She was
+greatly cast down about her daughter, who had passed a sleepless night,
+was very weak and suffering, but who nevertheless insisted on continuing
+her journey the following morning.
+
+"We must go," said her mother; "if we delay, Emilie loses her
+engagement, and how can we both live on my poor jointure? Weeping will
+not bring him back, were he worth it. To think of the misery he has
+caused us!"
+
+I ventured to hint an inquiry as to their means of prosecuting their
+journey. The old lady understood the intention, and took it kindly. "But
+she needed no assistance," she said; "Van Haubitz (and this confirmed
+our strong suspicion of suicide) had given their little stock of money
+into his wife's keeping only a few hours before his death."
+
+That afternoon I left Coblenz for England.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On a certain Wednesday of the present year, after enjoying the excellent
+acting of Bouffe in two of his best characters, I paused a moment to
+speak to a friend in the crowded lobby of the St James's Theatre. Whilst
+thus engaged, I became aware that I was an object of attention to two
+persons, whom I had an indistinct notion of having seen before, but when
+or where, or who they might be, I had not the remotest idea. One of them
+was a comfortable-looking, middle-aged man, with a bald head, a smooth,
+clean-shaven face, and an incipient ventral rotundity. His complexion
+was clear and wholesome, his countenance good-humoured, his whole
+appearance bespoke an existence free from care, nights of sound sleep,
+and days of tranquil enjoyment. His face was too sleek to be very
+expressive, but there was a shrewd, quick look in the eye, and I set him
+down in my mind as a wealthy German merchant or manufacturer (some small
+peculiarities of costume betrayed the foreigner) come to show London to
+his wife--a well-favoured _Frau_, fat, fair, but some years short of
+forty--who accompanied him, and who, as well as her better-half, seemed
+to honour me with very particular notice. My confabulation over, I was
+leaving the theatre, when a sleek soft hand was gently passed through my
+arm. It was my friend the fat foreigner. I strained my eyes and my
+memory, but in vain; I felt very puzzled, and doubtless looked so, for
+he smiled, and advancing his head, whispered a name in my ear. It was
+that of Van Haubitz.
+
+I started, looked again, doubted, and was at last convinced. _Minus_
+mustache and whisker, which were closely shaven, and half his hair, of
+which the remainder was considerably grizzled; _plus_ a degree of
+corpulence such as I should never have thought the slender lieutenant of
+artillery capable of acquiring; his heated, sun-burnt complexion, and
+dissipated look, exchanged for a fresh colour and benevolent placidity;
+the Dutchman I had left on the Rhine stood beside me in the lobby of the
+French theatre. I turned to the lady: she was less changed than her
+companion, and now that I was upon the track, I recognised Emilie
+Sendel. By this time we were in the street. Van Haubitz handed his wife
+into a carriage.
+
+"Come and sup with us," he said, "and I will explain."
+
+I mechanically obeyed, and in less than three minutes, still tongue-tied
+by astonishment, I alighted at the door of a fashionable hotel in a
+street adjoining Piccadilly.
+
+A few lines will convey to the reader the substance of the long
+conversation which kept the resuscitated Dutchman and myself from our
+beds for fully two hours after our unexpected meeting. I had been right
+in supposing that he had thrown himself voluntarily into the river;
+wrong in my belief that he meditated suicide. An excellent swimmer, he
+had taken the water to get rid of his wife. He might certainly have
+chosen a drier method, and have given her the slip in the night-time or
+on the road; but she had shown, whenever he referred to the possibility
+of their separation, such a determination to remain with him at all
+risks and sacrifices, that he felt certain she would be after him as
+soon as she discovered his absence. He had formed a wild scheme of
+returning to Amsterdam, and haunting his family until, through mere
+weariness and vexation, they supplied him with funds for all outfit to
+Sumatra. There he trusted to redeem his fortunes, as he had heard that
+others of no greater abilities or better character than himself had
+already done. A more extravagant project was never formed, and indeed
+all his acts, during the six weeks that followed his marriage, were more
+or less eccentric and ill-judged. This he admitted, when relating them
+to me, and probably would not have been sorry to place them to the score
+of actual mental derangement. The only redeeming touch in his conduct,
+at that, the blackest period of his life, was his leaving, as I have
+already mentioned, what money he had to his wife and her mother,
+reserving but a few florins for his own support.
+
+With these in his pocket, he proposed proceeding on foot to Amsterdam.
+After landing on the right bank of the Rhine, he walked the greater part
+of the night, as the best means of drying his saturated garments. When
+weariness at last compelled him to pause, it was not yet daylight, no
+house was open, and he threw himself on some straw in a farm-yard. He
+awoke in a high fever, the result of his immersion, of exposure and
+fatigue, acting on a frame heated and weakened by anxiety and mental
+suffering. He obtained shelter at the neighboring farm-house, whose
+kind-hearted inhabitants carefully tended him for several weeks, during
+which his life was more than once despaired of. His convalescence was
+long, and not till the close of the year could he resume his journey
+northwards, by short stages, chiefly on foot. Unfavourable as his
+prospects were, his good star had not yet set. This very illness, as
+occasioning a delay, was a stroke of good fortune. Had he at once
+proceeded to Holland, his family, in hopes to get rid of him for ever,
+would probably have given him the small sum he needed for an outfit to
+the Indian Archipelago, and he would have sailed thither before the 31st
+of December, on which day his father, a joyous liver, and confirmed
+votary of Bacchus, eat and drank to such an extent to celebrate the exit
+of the old year and commencement of the new, that he fell down, on his
+way to his bed, in a thundering fit of apoplexy, and was a corpse before
+morning. The day of his funeral, Van Haubitz, footsore and emaciated,
+and reduced to his last pfenning, walked wearily into the city of
+Amsterdam. There a great surprise awaited him.
+
+"Your father had not disinherited you?" I exclaimed, when the Dutchman
+made a momentary pause at this point of his narrative.
+
+"He had left a will devising his entire property to my brothers, and not
+even naming me. But a slight formality was omitted, which rendered the
+document of no more value than the parchment it was drawn upon. The
+signature was wanting. My father had the weakness, no uncommon one, of
+disliking whatever reminded him of his mortality. He would have fancied
+himself nearer his grave had he signed his will. And thus he had delayed
+till it was too late. I found myself joint heir with my brothers. By far
+the greater part of my father's large capital was embarked in his bank,
+and in extensive financial operations, which it would have been
+necessary to liquidate at considerable disadvantage, to operate the
+partition prescribed by law. Seeing this, I proposed to my brothers to
+admit me as partner in the firm, with the stipulation that I should have
+no active share in its direction, until my knowledge of business and
+steadiness of conduct gave them the requisite confidence in me. After
+some deliberation they agreed to this; and three years later their
+opinion of me had undergone such a change, that two of them retired to
+estates in the country, leaving me the chief management of the concern."
+
+"And Madame Van Haubitz; when did she rejoin you?"
+
+"Immediately the change in my fortunes occurred. Reckless as I at that
+time was, and utterly devoid of feeling as you must have thought me, I
+could not remember without emotion the disinterested affection,
+delicacy, and unselfishness she had exhibited on discovery of my real
+circumstances. During my long illness I had had time to reflect, and
+when I left my sick-bed in that rude but hospitable German farm-house,
+it was as a penitent past offences, and with a strong resolution to
+atone them. Within a week after my father's funeral, I was on my way to
+Vienna, to fetch Emilie to the opulent home she had anticipated when she
+married me. Her joy at seeing me was scarcely increased when she heard I
+now really was the rich banker she had at first thought me."
+
+"And Madame Sendel?"
+
+"Returned to Amsterdam with us. There was good about the old lady, and
+by purloining her artificials, limiting her snuff, and soaking her in
+tea, she was made endurable enough. Until her death, which occurred a
+couple of years ago, she passed her time alternately with us and her
+younger daughter."
+
+"She became reconciled to Mademoiselle, Ameline?"
+
+"Ameline had been Countess J---- all the time. She was privately married.
+For certain family reasons the Count had conditioned that their union
+should for a while be kept secret. Seeing that her equivocal position
+and her mother's displeasure preyed upon her health and spirits, he
+declared his marriage. She left the stage to become a reigning beauty in
+the best society of Austria, lady of half a dozen castles, and sovereign
+mistress of as many thousand Hungarian boors."
+
+Van Haubitz remained some time in London, and I saw him often. He was as
+much changed in character as in personal appearance. The sharp lessons
+received, about the period of our first acquaintance, had made a strong
+impression on him; and the summer-tide of prosperity suddenly setting
+in, had enabled him to realise good intentions and honourable resolves,
+which the chill current of adversity might have frozen in the germ. Some
+of those who read these lines may have occasion, when visiting the
+country stigmatised by the snarling Frenchman as the land of _canards_,
+_canaux_, and _canaille_, to receive cash in the busy counting-house,
+and hospitality the princely mansion of one of its most respected
+bankers. None, I am well assured, will discern in their amiable and
+exemplary entertainer any vestige of the disreputable impulses and evil
+passions that sullied the early life of "My Friend the Dutchman."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine -
+Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
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