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BLACKWOOD'S
MAGAZINE.
VOL. LXXXYI.
JULY—DECEMBER, 1859.

AMERICAN EDITION—VOLUME XLIX.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY LEONARD SCOTT & CO.,
HO. 79 TVLTOn STREET, CORNER OF GOLn.
1869.


It. CRAIGHEAn,
Printtl, Slmotjrpo-,, „,1 ElteUotyper,
barton »uaninB,
81, 83, and SS Court Slrtel, N.Y.


BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. DXXV.
JULY, 1859.
Vol. LXXXVI.
LOKn MACAULAr ANn THE MASSACRE OF GLENCOE.
Oue last numher contained some
remarks on the freedom of hand with
which Lord Macaulay flings the
darkest colours on his canvass, in his
portrait of England's most famous
Whig general. By way of contrast
rather than relief, wo propose in the
following pages to show with how
light a touch he can spread a spark-
ling and transparent glaze over the
most repulsive features of the great
Whig king.
There is a popular superstition,
that the hlood of a murdered man
impresses an indelihle mark on the
spot where it falls. The stains on
the staircase at Holyrood and the
floor of the dressing-room at Staun-
ton Harold, are still pointed out
to hundreds of half helieving gazers.
There is a moral truth at the foun-
dation of this helief. The place
in which a great crime has heen
committed can never he seen or
named without calling up the me-
mory of that crime. The mean
purposes to which they have heen
applied caunot efface the asso-
ciation which hinds the names of
Smithfield, and of the marketplace
of Rouen, up in our minds with the
'martyrs of religion and patriotism;
and no time can discounect the name
of Glencoe from the memory of an
outrage so revolting, that, after the
xvi.
\
lapse of a century and a half, the
hlood curdles at it as if it were a
deed of yesterday.
Tho story of the slaughter of
M'lan of Glencoe and his trihe, often
as it has heen repeated, never palls
in interest. It has lately heen told
hy the greatest word-painter of the
age, whose steps it would he pre-
sumption to follow, and from whom
quotation is supererogatory, as every
one is familiar with his eloquent
narrative. Were that narrative as
trustworthy as it is eloquent, we
should only have the pleasant duty
of joining in the general trihute of
applause, instead of asking our readers
to follow us tbrough the comparatively
dry details which appear to us neces-
sary to place the actors in that tra-
gedy in their trne light.
We have read Lord Macaulay's
account of the Massacre of Glencoe
over and over again, each time with
increased admiration of the marvel-
lous variety of his powers. The
most skilful advocate never framed
an argument so suhtle to avert pun-
ishment from the guilty; no lahy-
rinth constructed to conceal the
evidence of crime, ever was so in-
tricate, as the story which Lord
Macaulay has woven to shield Wil-
liam from the ohloqny which at-
taches to his name for his share in
/i/ '.) s.- /C


Lord Macaulay and the Massacre of Glencoe.
[July,
that dark transaction. The mind is
insensihly drawn away from the
issue; indiguation is aroused, to he
directed successively at one suhordi-
nate agent after another, until the
great and principal offender has time
to escape, and the full torrent of in-
vective hursts on the guilty and
miserahle head of one accomplice.
The hrilliancy of the narrative
reminds us of the startling effects 'of
those scenic representations which
have given a distinctive character
to the Adelphi Theatre. At the end
of the piece the Demon stands con-
fessed in the person of the Master of
Stair; a thunderholt whizzes across
the stage, and the Monster falls in a
hlaze of red fire; Lord Macaulay, in
the garh of the Muse of History, leads
King William to the foot-lights to
receive ahsolution at the hands of the
pit, and we experience a confused
sensation mixed up of Bishop Bur-
nett and the Flying Dutchman, Lord
Macaulay's hrilliant periods, Madame
Celeste's more hrilliant eyes, her sil-
very ringing voice, and her graceful
figure most hewitchingly arrayed in
the Knickerhockers of Vanderdecken.
It is essential to a correct judg-
ment upon the case to understand
distinctly the relation in which the
Glencoe men stood to the govern-
ment of William. The terms rehels,
marauders, thieves, handitti, mur-
derers, have heen so freely and so
fraudulently used hy historians and
political partisans, from the close of
the seventeenth century down even
to our own day, and such is the
effect of positive, reckless, and often-
repeated assertion, that some of our
readers may he disposed to smile in-
credulously when we state, as we do
most positively, that none of these
terms are justly applicahle to the
Macdonulds of Glencoe at the time of
the massacre.
In tlie summer of 1691, the war
which was heing vigorously carried
on in Ireland was smouldering hut
not extinguished in Scotland. The
clans remained faithful to James,
hut a year had elapsed since they had
made any overt demonstration in his
favour. Colonel Hill, who com-
manded William's garrison at Inver-
lochy, writing on the 12th of May
1691, says, "The people hereahouts
have rohhed none all this winter, hut
have heen very peaceahle and civil."*
On the 3d of June he writes to the Earl
of Melville, "We are at present as
peaceahle hereahouts as ever." t On
the 29th of July the Privy Council
report that "the Higbland rehels
have of late heen very peaceahle,
acting no hostilities.'" % On the
22<1 of August, Colonel Hill writes
from Port-William to Lord Raith,
"This acquaints your Lordship that
we are here still in the same peace-
ahle condition that we have heen
for more than a year past." § The
chiefs, indeed, only awaited the arri-
val of permission from St. Germains
to enahle them to lay down their arms
without hlemish to their honour or
taint upon their fidelity.
On the 30th of June, a suspension of
arms was agreed upon, and a truce was
entered into in the following terms,
hetween the commander of the forces
of James, and the Earl of Breadalhene
on hehalf of William :—
"We, Major-General Buchan, Briga-
dier, und Sir Geo. Barclay, general offi-
cers of King James the Seventh his
forces within the kingdom of Scotland,
to testifie our aversion of shedding Cbris-
tian hlood, and y' we desigu to appear
good Scotsmen, and to wish y' this na-
tion may he restored to its wonted and
happy peace, doe agree and consent
to a forehearance of all acts of hostilitie
and depreda" to he committed upon the
suhjects of this nation or England, un-
til the first day of Octoher next; pro-
viding that there he no acts of hostility
or depreda" committed upon any of the
King's suhjects, who have heen or are
ingaged in his service, under our com-
mand, either hy sea or laud; we having
given all necessary orders to such as ore
under our command to forhear acts of
hostility, hy sea or land, untill the
aforsd tyme.—Suhscrihed at Achallader
ys 30th'june 1691.
"Whereas the chieftains of clans have
given honds not to commit acts of hos-
tility or depreda" hefore the first day of
Octoher next, upon the conditions con- ,
tnined in the afsd honds; und in regurd
that the officers sent hy King .lames to
command the h* chieftains have hy one.

» Hill to Tarhat, Higbland Paper*, Maitland Club.
f Leven and Melville Papers, p. 617. X Ihid. § Ihid., p. 648.


1859.] Lord, Macaulay and the Massacre of Gleneoe.
3
unanimous consent in their council of
war agreed to the s* forhearance: There-
fore I, as having warrant from King
"William and Queen Mary to treat With
the foresaid Higblanders concerning the
peace of the kingdom, doe herehy cer-
tify y* the s* officers and chieftains
hire sigued a forhearance of acts of
hostilitie and depreda* till the first of
Octoher next. Wherefore it's most ne-
cessary, just, and reasonahle, y' noe acts
of hostility hy sea or land or depreda"
he committed upon the td officers, or
any of their party whom they doe com-
mand, or upon the chieftains, or their
kinsmen, friends, teunents, or followers,
till the ford first day of Octoher.—Suh-
scrihed at Achallader the 30th day of
June 1691.—BraiDalhine."*
This document is conclusive that
those who were in arms for James
in Scotland were legitimate helli-
gerents, enemies who might lawfully
he shot down in hattle, hut who.
might treat and he treated with, and
who were entitled to all those rights
which the laws of nations award to
an enemy.
The treaty of Limerick was sigued
on the 3d of Octoher in, the same
year. It will he admitted hy every
one, that to have shot or hanged
San-field as a rehel, wonld have heen
an outrage as much on the laws of
war as on those of humanity. It
served the interests of those who
desired to shield the perpetrators of
an infamous crime from opprohrinm,
to call Macdonald of Gleneoe a rehel.
He was as much a rehel as Sars-
field was, and no more; in hoth cases
the distinction is hroad and clear
—so hroad and clear, that we should
have supposed it impossihle for any
one honestly to he hlind to it. Nei-
ther 8arsfield nor Gleneoe had ever
owned the authority of William.
As long as James was in arms to
defend his crown, as long as suhjects
who had never owned any other
allegiance flocked round his stan-
dard, so long were those suhjects
entitled to all the rights which the
laws of war concede to enemies.
Cotemporaneonsly with the sigua-
ture of the treaty we have referred
to, negotiations for a permanent pa-
cification were going on. Colonel
Hill, in one of the letters we have
already quoted, says, "The Appin
and Gleneoe men have desired they
may go in to my Lord Argyle, he-
cause he is their superior, and I have
set them a short day to do it in.''t
The Privy Council in the next month
report that the Higblands had of
late heen very peaceahle, that many
had accepted the oath from Colonel
Hill, "never to rise in arms against
their Majesties or the Government,"}
and that others were living quietly
and peaceahly.
We have heen thus precise in our
statement of the position of the High-
land adherents of James during the
summer and autumn of 1691 for the
purpose of showing, hy the heet pos-
sihle testimony—that of the civil and
military servants of William—that
there was nothing to provoke or .ex-
cuse any measure of severity; that
the war, though not extinguished, was
suspended, and that the conduct of
the Higblanders, considering the un-
settled state of the country, was sin-
gularly peaceful and orderly.
Immediately after the siguature
of the treaty, the Earl of Breadal-
hane invited the heads of the clans
to a meeting at Achallader, with
the view of arranging a final cessa-
tion of hostilities.§ Amongst others,
Gleneoe was invited, and oheyed the
summons. Lord Macaulay attempts
with great ingenuity to depreciate
the position held hy Gleneoe amongst
his hrother chiefs. It is true that
the fighting men who owned his com-
mand did not exceed one-fourth of
the numher of those who, at the
summons of the fiery cross, flocked
together to ohey the hehests of
Lochiel or Glengarry; hut he com-
manded half as many as Keppoch,
and a numher equal to the haughty
chief of Barra, who hoasted that he
was the fourteenth Roderick M'Neill
• Culloden Paper*, p. 18.
4 Leven and Melville Paper*, p. 607, June 1691. } Ihid., July 29, 1691.
§ Achallader was a house of the Earl of Breadalhane, situate near the north-
eastern end of I.och Tullich, in the neighhourhood of the shooting-lodge of the
present Marquis, and of the famous deer forest of the Black Mount. It was on the
opposite side of the lake to the present Iun of Inveroran, a place prohahly well
known to many of our readers.


Lord Macaulay and the Mauacre of Glencoe.
[July,

who liad reigued in uninterrupted
succession from father to son over
his island kingdom, and who handed
down that patriarchal sway to our
own time.*
Much of tho influence of Glencoe
was due to his personal character.
"He was a person of great integrity,
honour, good nature, and courage.
He was strong, active, and of the
largest size; much loved hy his
neighhours, and hlameless in his con-
duct."! Such is the character of
Glencoe, drawn hy the hiographer of
Lochiel.
It is hy no means improhahle, how-
ever, that amongst the trihe of which
he was the head there were some
who felt little scruple in possessing
themselves of the flocks and herds
of hostile clans, and who, as Lord
Macaulay remarks, as little thought
themselves thieves for doing so as
"the Raleighs and Drakes considered
themselves thieves when they divided
the cargoes of Spanish galleons.''J
Feuds had heen of frequent occur-
rence hetween the Glencoe men and
the neighhouring clansmen of Bread-
alhane. An ancient antipathy, deep-
ened hy political differences, existed
hetween the Macdonalds and that
hranch of the Camphells. Bread-
alhane, either forgetful for the mo-
ment of the important husiness he
had in hand, or, which appears more
proh ihle, desirous to pick a quarrel
and prevent an amicahle settlement
with one whom he hoped to he ahle
to crush, if he could find a plausihle
excuse for doing so, reproached
Glencoe "ahout some cows that the
Earl alleged were stolen from his
men hy Glencoe's men."§ Glencoe
left Achallader in anger, as Bread-
alhane prohahly intended he should,
and returned with his two sons to his
patriarchal home. He knew the
malice of Breadnlhane; hut the truce
was not to expire until Octoher, and
till then, at least, he and those for
whose safety he was responsihle were
secure.
Lord Macaulay, with some philo-
logical assumption, introduces his
description of the glen hy telling his
readers that "in the Gaclic tongue
'Glencoe' siguifies the Glen of Weep-
ing." It siguifies no such thing.
According to the simplest and most
apparent derivation, it siguifies tho
Glen of the Dogs, "con" heing the
genitive plural of "cu," a dog. Had
Lord Macaulay's knowledge of Gaclic
heen sufficient to tell him this, he
would prohahly have urged it as con-
clusive proof of the estimation in
which the inhahitants were held.
But in fact the name siguifies no
more than the Valley of the Coun or
* The following document shows the proportionate strength of the clans at this
time:—
"We, Lord James Murray, Pat. Stewart of Ballechan, Sir John M'Lean, Sir
Donald M'Donald, Sir Ewen Cameron,Glengarrie, Benhecula, Sir Alexander M'Lean
Appin, Enveray, Keppoch,Glencoe,Strowan, Calochele.Lieut.Col. M'Gregor, Bara,
Larg, M'Naughton, do herehy hind and ohlige ourselves, for his Majesty's service,
and our own safeties to meet at the day of Sept. nexi,
and hring along with us fencihle men, that is to say-
Lord James Murray and
}
Enveray,
100
Ballechan,
Keppooh,
100
Sir John M'Lean,
200
Lient.-Col. M'Gregor,.
100
Sir Donald M'Donald,
200
Calochele,
60
Sir Ewen Cameron, .
200
Strowan,
60
Glengarrie,
200
Bara,
60
Benheeula,
200
Glencoe,
60
Sir Alex. M'Lean,
100
M'Naughton,
60
Appin,
100
Larg, .
60
But in case any of the rehels shall assault or attack any of the ahove-named persons
hetwixt the date hereof, and the first day of rendezvous, we do all solemnly promise
to assist one another to the utmost of our power,—as witness these presents sigued
hy us, at the Castle of Blair, the 24th Aug. 1689." (Here follow the siguatures.)—
Bkowne's History of the Clans, vol. ii. p. 183.
+ Memoirs of Lochiel, 821. % Vol. iii. p. 307.
§ See the very plain and simple account given in the depositions of John and
Alexander MTan, 13 State Trials, p. 897; and Lord Macaulay's picturesque para-
pbrase, vol. iv. p. 193.


1859.]
Lord Macaulay and the Matxacre of Glencoe.
Com,* that heing the name which
the stream flowing tbrough it hears
in common with many other rivers in
Scotland, derived either from the
Scotch fir, or from the common moss
which covers the valley, hoth of which
hear the name of " cona." The word
which siguifies lamentation or weep-
ing, is the unmanageahle compound
of letters " caoidh," which prohahly
wonld he quite as great an enigma to
Lord Macaulay as the mystical M.O.
A.I. was to Malvolio.
His picture of Glencoe is painted
with the historian's usual hrilliancy,
and his asual fidelity. It hears the
same relation to the place itself as Mr.
Charles Kean's scenery at the Prin-
cess's Theatre does to Harfleur, Agin-
court, or Eastcheap. Wo have seen
the glen in the extremes of weather;
we have heen drenched and scorched
in it. We have wrung rivers out of
our plaid, and we have knelt down to
suck up tbrough parched lips the tiny
rivulets that trickled over the rocks.
We therefore consider ourselves enti-
tled to criticise Lord Macaulay's de-
scription.
Lord Macaulay says: "In truth,
that pass is the most dreary and
melancholy of all Scottish passes—
the very valley of the shadow of
death. Mile after mile
the traveller looks in vain for the
smoke of one hut, for one human
form wmpped in a plaid, and listens
in vain for the hark of a shepherd's
dog or the hleat of a lamh: the only
sound that indicates life is the faint
cry of a hird of prey from some storm-
heaten piunacle of rock.'t The reader
must not suppose that this exag-
gerated description of the desolation
of Glencoe is without an ohject, or
that it is due only to the pleasure
which Lord Macaulay feels in soaring
on the powerful wings of his imagi-
nation. We shall presently see that
in the most studied and ingenious
mauner he seeks to diminish the feel-
ing of sympathy for the Macdonalds,
hy showing that they were "han-
ditti," "thieves," "rohhers," "free-
hooters," " ruffians," " marauders who
in any well-governed country would
have heen hanged thirty years he-
fore,"} and hy this means gradually to
lead to the conclusion that it was the
cruelty and treachery which accom-
panied the execution of the order for
their "extirpation" which constitutes
the crime, and not the giving of the
order itself.
The Macdonalds, he infers, mutt
have heen thieves—honest men could
not have existed in such a wilder-
ness; and accordingly in the next
page he says that "the wilderness
itself was valued on account of the
shelter which it afforded to the
plunderer and his plunder." Now,
from the entrance to the glen down
to its termination at the village of
Inverco is ahout six miles, and in
this distance there is at least one
farmhouse—if our memory serves
us correctly, there are two, and
several cottages; so that if Lord
Macaulay looked in vain for the
smoke of a hut, it must have heen
hecause at that moment the fires
were not lighted. As to not hearing
the hark of a dog or the hleat of a
lamh, at our last visit we were almost
deafened hy hoth, for Glencoe is a
sheep-walk occupied hy that well-
known sportsmun and agriculturist,
Mr. Camphell of Monzie, one of whose
deer-forests it immediately adjoins,
and who, on the occasion we refer to,
was superintending in person the
gathering of his flocks from the
mountains, preparatory to starting
for Falkirk. At the lower end (the
scene of the massacre) the glen ex-
pands, and forms a considerahle plain
of arahle and pasture land, where the
reapers were husy gathering in the
harvest in the fields round the vil-
lage, which still stands surrounded
hy flourishing trees on the same spot
where it stood in 1692, and where
it is marked under the name of In-
nercoan upon Visscher's map of Scot-
land, puhlished at Amsterdam in
1700,—pretty good proof that it was
not then a very inconsiderahle place.
A mile or two farther on, Loch Leven
glittered in the setting sun, round
the island hurial-place of the M'lans,
where the murdered chieftain sleeps
with his fathers. The chink of ham-
mers sounded from the husy slate-
See Sir Jonn Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, vol . i. p. 485.
f Vol . iv. p. 191. % VoL iv. p. 203.


6
[July,
Lord Macaulay and the Manaere of Gleneoe.
quarries of Mr. Stewart of Ballach-
ulish, and in the distance the wood
of Lettermore (the scene of another
foul outrage,) stretched forward to-
ward the hroad waters of the Liunhe
Loch.
If Lord Macaulay had said that
the Pass of Glenooe excels all others
in Scotland in stern heauty, he would,
as far as our knowledge goes, have
said what was perfectly correct; hut
we know many passes far more "de-
solate and melancholy," none grander,
hut many "sadder" and "more
awful." The pass from Loch Kishorn
to Applecross is more awful and more
desolate; the head of Loch Torridon
is more dreary ; and even Glen Rosa
in Arran is more destitute of the
sigus of human hahitation. Many
others will occur to the mind of any
one whose steps have wandered out
of the heaten track of cockney tour-
ists. Such is Gleneoe at the present
day. It was descrihed not long after
the massacre hy the author of the
Memoirs of Sir Emu Cameron of
Lochiel in the following words :—
"The country of Gleneoe is, as it
were, the mouth or inlet into Lochaher
from the south, and the inhahitants are
the first we meet with that appeared
unanimously for King James. They are
separated from Breadalhane on thesoutn
hy a large desert, und from Lochaher
hy an arm of the sea on the north ; on
the east and west it is covered hy
high, rugged, and rocky mountains, al-
most perpendicular, rising like a wall on
each side of a heautiful valley, where the
inhabitants reside,"''
Just midway hetween the time of
tho massacre and the present day,
we have the testimony of another
perfectly competent witness to its
state. Mrs. Grant of Laggan, at that
time a girl of nineteen, was residing
with her father, who was harrack-
master at Fort-Augustus. She was
distantly counected with the family
of Gleneoe, and the granddaughters
of the chief himself of that day, who
had heen carried off to the hills hy
his nurse on the night of the mas-
sacre, when he was an infant of two
years old, had heen her schoolfellows.
She writes in May 1773, from Fort-
William, speaks of an invitation she
had received from her schoolfellow to
visit her at Gleneoe, and then pro-
ceeds as follows:—
"Gleneoe she has often descrihed to
me as very singular in its appearance and
situation ;—a glen so narrow, so warm,
so fertile, so overhung hy mountains
which seem to meet ahove you—with
sides so sbruhhy and woody 1—the
haunt of roes and numherless small hirds.
"They told me it was unequalled for
the chorus of 'wood-notes wild' that
resounded from every side. The sea is
so neur that its roar is heard and its
productions ahound; it was always ac-
counted (for its narrow hounds) a place
of great plenty and security." f
Lord Macaulay must have seen this
description, for he alludes to the letter
in a contemptuous note.J in which
he says that Mrs. Grant's account of
the massacre is "grossly incorrect,"§
and that she makes a mistake of
two years as to the date. . Mrs.
Grant's account of the massacre is
just what we might expect from a
girl deeply imhued with the Ossianio
furor, writing from tradition without
even the pretenoe of historical accu-
racy. It is curious, however, that
Lord Macaulay imports into his
History the most improhahle incident
that she relates—namely, that "the
hereditary hard of the trihe took his
seat on a rock which overhung the
place of slaughter, and poured forth
a long lament over his murdered
hretbren and his desolate home."
Mrs. Grant's hard hears too evident
a likeness to the gentleman of the
same profession who sat
"On a rock, whose haughty hrow
Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming
flood,"
and committed suicide in its "roar-
ing tide," to he acknowledged as an
historical personage. Her mistake
as to time, which Lord Macaulay
condemns so harsbly, is a mistake of
six weeks—not, as he asserts, of two
years. She says the massacre took
place during the festivities of Christ-
mas: it occurred, in fact, on the
* Memoirs of Lochiel, Maitland Cluh, p. 315.
-f Letters from the Mountains, vol. i. p. 60.
X Yol . iv. p. 218. § Vol . iv. p. 218.


1859.]
Lord. Macaulay and the Massacre of Glencoe.
13th of Fehruary. Notwithstanding
these inaccuracies, Mrs. Grant is a
perfectly good witness as to what the
state of the glen was in her time;
and any one who visits it now, un-
less he is a cockney hoxed up inside
the "Roh Roy," somnolent from the
effect of the coach diuner at Tyn-
drum, or unaccustomed potations of
toddy at King's House, will see much
to confirm the correctness of her de-
scription. Two mistakes we must
guard him against. The site of the
house of Achtriaten, ahout half-way
down the glen, is pointed out hy
some as the scene of the massacre.
Achtriaten himself was murdered—
not, however, in his own house, hut
in that of his hrother at Auchnaion.*
Others, hetter informed as to the
localities, state that a ruined gahle,
still standing, formed part of Glencoe's
house: it very possihly occupies the
same site as the house of the chief,
which was hurned on the night of
the massacre; hut the date and mo-
nogram, upon a stone inserted under
one of the windows, show that it was
prohahly the house of John Macdon-
ald, the eldest son and successor of
the chief, rehuilt on his return to the
glen after his father's murder.


We copied the inscription faithfully,
as it appeared in 1857.
We must now leave Glencoe for the
present in his mountain home, and
Breadalhane proceeding with his ne-
gotiations with the other chiefs. An-
other actor comes upon the stage—
the Master of Stair—according to
Lord Macaulay, "the most politic,
the most eloquent, the most power-
ful of Scottish statesmen," " the ori-
ginal author of the massacre," the
"single mind" from whom all the
"numerous instruments employed in
the work of death," "directly or" indi-
rectly, received their impulse," the
"oneoffender who towered high ahove
the crowd of offenders, pre-eminent in
parts, knowledge, rank, and power;"
the "one victim demanded hy justice
in return for many victims immolated
hy treachery."t Such is Lord Ma-
caulay's judgment. We are not
ahout to dispute the justice of the
sentence which consigus the Master
of Stair to eternal execration; hut
it is the duty of the historian to mete
out with an unsparing hand the
judgment of posterity to all; and it
is not hy heaping upon one head the
punishment due to many that the
claims of justice are satisfied.
It is difficult, in dealing with the
memory of a man whose crimes ex-
cite such just indiguation as do those
committed hy the Master of Stair, to
gird one's-self up to the duty of say-
ing, that of part of that which he has
heen charged with he was not guilty.
Black as he was, he was not so
hlack as he has heen painted. Lord
Macaulay dooms him from the first
to he the Demon of the piece. He
is the Iago of the tragedy, "more
deep damned than Prince Lucifer,"
no "fiend in hell so ugly;" and ac-
cordingly Lord Macaulay suppresses
every particle of evidence which
tends in the slightest degree to light-
en the load of guilt. It is not plea-
sant to discharge the duty of devil's
advocate, hut we shall lay this evi-
dence hefore the reader: when all is
done, the Master of Stair will remain
quite hlack enough to satisfy any
moderate amateur of villains.
Lord Macaulay introduces him to
the reader in the following passage:—
"The Master of Stair was one of the
first men of his time, a jurist, a states-
man, a fine scholar, an eloquent orator.
His polished mauners ancl lively con-
versation were the delight of aristocroti-
cal societies; and none who met Mm in
such societies would have thought it pos-
sihle that he could hear the chief part in
any atrocious crime. His political prin-
ciples were lax, yet not more lax than
those of most Scotch politicians of that
age. Cruelty had never heen imputed
Report, p. 21.
f MacaDlay, vol iv. p. 198, 578, 580.


s
[July,
Lord Macaulay and the Massacre of Qlencos.

to him. Those who most disliked him did
him the justice to own that, where his
schemes of policy were not concerned,
he was a very good-natured man. There
is not the slightest reason to helieve that
he gained a single pound Scots hy the
act which has covered hi-, name with in-
famy, He had no personal reason to wish
the Glencoe men ill. There had heen
no feud hetween them and his family.
His property lay in a district where their
tartan was never seen. Yet he hated
them with a hatred as fierce and implac-
ahle as if they had luid waste his fields,
hurned his mansion, murdered his child
in the cradle." . . .—{Vol. iv. p. 198.)
"He was well read in history, and
douhtless knew how great rulers had, in
his own and other countries, dealt with
such handitti. He douhtless knew with
what energy and what severity James
the Fifth had put down the moss-troop-
ers of the Border; how the chief of Hen-
derlaud had heen hung over the gate of
the castle in which he had prepared a
hanquet for the king: how John Arm-
strong and his thirty-six horsemen, when
they came forth to welcome their sove-
reign, had scarcely heen allowed time to
say a single prayer hefore they were all
tied up and turned off. Nor prohahly
was the Secretary iguorant of the means
hy which Sixtus the Fifth had cleared
the ecclesiastical state of outlaws. The
eulogists of that grcal pontiff tell us that
there was one formidahle gang which
could not he dislodged from a strong-
hold among the Apeunines. Beasts of
hurden were therefore loaded with poi-
soned food and wine, and sent hy a road
which ran close to the fastness. The
rohhers sallied forth, seized the prey,
feasted and died; and the pious old pope
exulted greatly when he heard that the
corpses of thirty ruffians, who had heen
the terror of many peaceful villages, had
heen found lying among the mules and
packages. The plans of the Master of
Stair were conceived in the spirit of
James and of Sixtus; and the rehellion
of the mountaineers furnished what
seemed to he an excellent opportunity
for carrying those plans into effect.
Mere rehellion, indeed, he could have
easily pardoned. On Jacohites, as Ja-
cohites, he never showed any inclination
to hear hard. He hated the Higblanders,
not as enemies of this or that dynastj',
hut as enemies of law, of industry, and
of trade. In his private correspondence
he applied to them the short and terrihle
form of words in which the implacahle
Roman pronounced the doom of Car-
thage. His project was no less than this,
that the whole hill-country from sea to
sea, and the neighhouring islands, should
he wasted with fire and sword; that the
Camerons, the Macleans, and all the
hranches of the race of Macdounkls,
should he rooted out. He therefore
looked with no friendly eye on schemes
of reconciliation, and, while others were
hoping that a little money would set
everything right, hinted very intelligihly
his opinion that whatever money was to
he laid outon the clans would ho hest laid
out in the form of hullets and hayonets.
To the last moment he continued to
flatter himself that the rehels would
he ohstinate, and would thus furnish
him with a plea for accomplishing that
great social revolution on which his
heart was set. The letter is still extant
in which he directed the commander of
the forces in Scotland how to act, if the
Jacohite chiefs should not come in
hefore the end of Decemher. There is
something strangely terrihle in the
calmness and conciseness with which
the instructions were given. 'Your
troops will destroy entirely the country
of Lochaher, Locheil's lands, Keppoch's,
Glengarry's, and Gleneoe's. Your power
shall he large enough. I hope the sol-
diers will not trouhle the Government
with prisoners."*—(Vol. iv. p. 202.)
"1l is desigu was to hutcher the whole
race of thieves—the whole damnahle
race. Such was the language in which
his hnteed vented itself. He studied
the geography of the wild country which
surrounded Glencoe, and made his
arrangements with infernal skill. If
possihle, the hlow must he quick, and
crushing, and altogether unexpected.
But if Mac I an should apprehend danger,
and should attempt to take refuge in
the territories of his neighhours, he
must find every road harred. The pass
of Raunoch must he secured. The
Laird of Weems, who was powerful in
Strath Tay, must he told that, if he
* That the plan originally framed hy the Master of Stair was such as I have
represented it, is clear from parts of his letters which are quoted in the report of
16W; and from his letters to Brcadalhane of Octoher 27, Decemher 2, and Decem-
her 3, ltst. Of these letters to Breadalhane, the last two ore in Dalrymple's
Appendix. The first is in the appendix to the first volume of Mr. Burton's valu-
ahle History of Scotland. "It appeared," says Burnett (ii. 157), "that a hlack
desigu was laid, not only to cut off the men of Glencoe, hut a great many more
clans, reckoned to he in all ahove six thousand persons."—Note hy Lord Macaulay.


1859.]
Lord Macaulay and the Massacre of Gleneoe.
harhours the outlaws, he doos so at his
peril . Breadalhane promised to cut off
the retreat of the fugitives on one side,
MacCullum More on another. It was
fortunate, the Secretary wrote, that it
was winter. This was the time to maul
the wretches. The nights were so long,
the mountain-tops so cold and stormy,
that even the hardiest men could not
long hear exposure to the open air with-
out a roof or a spark of fire. Thnt the
women and the children could find
shelter in the desert was quite impos-
sihle While he wrote thus, no thought
that he was committing a great wicked-
ness crossed his.mind. He was happy
in the approhation of his own conscience.
Duty, justice, nay, charity and mercy,
were the names under which he dis-
guised his cruelty; nor is it hy any
means improhahle* that the disguise im-
posed upon himself"*
Much of this hrilliant passage is
true. But we distinctly deny that
the Master of Stair "looked with no
friendly eye on schemes of reconcilia-
tion." On the contrary, the cor-
respondence which Lord Macaulay
suppresses shows distinctly that for
months the Master of Stair was
most active and urgent in promoting
schemes of reconciliation, hy negotia-
tion, hy tbreats, hy money; and it
was not until all these means had
failed that he gave in to Breadal-
hane's "scheme for mauling them,"
—a scheme, which Lord Macaulay
most unjustifiahly attrihutes not to
the Earl, to whom it helongs of right,
hut to the Master of Stair,f who has
quite enough to answer tor without
hearing any share of other men's
crimes.
It was upon the failure of the
negotiation that all the tiger hroke
out in the disposition of the Master
of Stair; it was then, and not till
then, that he joined in the determina-
tion to '• extirpate" (for such was the
terrihle word selected for the order
which William sigued and counter-
sigued with his own hand) the whole
clan of M'lan of Glencoe.
In June 1691 the Master of Stair
was with William in the Nether-
lands; from thence he sent the follow-
ing letter to the Earl of Breadalhane:—
Stair to LorD Brf.aDai.hank.
"From the Camp at Approhaix,
"My LorD,—I can say nothing to you,
All things are as you wish, hut I do
long to hear from yoo. Bv the King's
letter to the Council you will see he has
flopped all hostilities against the High-
landers till he maif ltear from you, and
that your time he elapsed without
coming to some issue, which I do not
apprehend, for there will come nothing
to them. .... But if they will he
mad, hefore Lammas, they will repent
it; for the army will he allowed to go
into the Higblands, which some thirst
so much for, and the frigates will attack
them; hut / have so much confidence in
your conduct and capacity to let them see
the ground they stand on, that I think
these suppositions are vain. I have sent
your instructions.—My dear Lord,
adieo."|
On the 24th of August he writes
again:—
"Ntkcour, Aug. 24. O. S., 1W1.
"The more I do consider our affairs,
I think it the more necessary that your
lordship do with all diligence post from
thence. § and that you write to the
clans to meet you at Edinhurg, to save
your trouhle of going further. They
have heen for some time excluded from
that place, so they are fein, and will he
fond to come there."[
Stair to BreaDalhane.
"Durex, Sept. 80 l20l, 1691.
"My LorD,—I had yours from Lon-
don siguifying that you had not heen
then despatched, for which I nm very
uneasy. I spoke immediately to tlie
King, that without money the High-
landers would never do ; and there have
heen so many difficulties in the matter,
that a resolution to do, especially in
money matters, would not satisfy. The
King said they were not presently to
receive it, which is true, hut that he
had ordered it to he delivered out of
his treasury, so they need not fear in
the least performance; hesides, the
paper heing sigued hy his majesty's hand
for such sums so to he employed, or
their equivalent There wants
no endeavours to render you suspicious
to the King, hut he asked what proof
there was for the information 1 and hid
him tell you to go on in your husi-
ness; the hest evidence of sincerity was
the hringing that matter quickly to a
conclusion. . . . I hope your lord-
» Vol. iv. p. 206. f Ihid
§ i. e. from London.
. Dal. Ap., Pt. ii. p. 210.
Dal . Ap., Pt. ii. p. 210.


10
[July,
Lord Macaulay and the Matsacre of Gleneoe.
ship will not only keep them from giving
any offence, hut hring them to take the
allegiance, which they ought to do very
cheerfully ; for their lives and fortunes
they have from their majcHies."*
Stair to BreaDaluane.
"LonDon, Nov. 24,1691.
"My.LorD,— . . . . I must say your
cousin Locheil hath not heen so wise as
I thought him, not to mention grati-
tude; Tor truly, to gratify your rela-
tive, / did comply to let his share he
more than mis reasonahle. There were
no pleas hetwixt him md Argyle to he
hought in, and I well know he, nor Kep-
poch, nor Appin, caunot lie one night
safe in winter from the garrison of Fort-
William. I douht not Glengarry's house
will he a helter mid-garrison hetwixt In-
verness and Inverlochy, than ever hi will
he a good suhject to this government. . .
"i'.S.—Though Locheil were as he
should have heen, yet he must to the
hargain dispone that moss that lies near-
est to Fort- William fur a place con-
stantly to provide fewel to that garrison"^
It is impossihle to read these let-
ters without perceiving the strong
desire, on the part of the Master of
Stair, that the Higblands should he
pacified, if possihle, hy means of
negotiation. This desire comes out
even more strongly in the next letter,
mingled with feelings of hitter rexa-
tion at the approaching failure of the
plans, and threatenings of the storm
which was ahout to hurst in conse-
quence of his disappointment.
Staie to BrkaDalhane.
"LonDon, Dec 2, 1691.
"My LorD,—I shall not repeat my
thoughts of your doited cousin.}; I
perceive half-sense will play a douhle
game, hut it requires solidity to em-
hrace an opportunity, which to him
will he lost for ever; and the garrison
of Inverlochv is little worth, if he can
either sleep in his own hounds, or if ho
ever he master there. I repent nothing
of the plan Lieutenant-Colonel
Hamilton, Deputy Governor of Inver-
lochy, is a discreet man; you may make
use of him. I should he glad to find,
hefore you get any positive order, that
your husiness is done, for shortly we
will conclude a resolution for the winter
campaigu. ... 1 think the clan Douell
must he rooted out, and Locheil. Leave
the M'Lean's to Argyle. But [for] this,
Leven and Argyle's regiments, with two
more, woald have heen gone to Flan-
ders. Now, all stops, and no more
money from England to entertain them.
God knows whether the £12,000 ster-
ling had heen hetter employed to settle
the Higblands, or to ravage them; hut
since we will make them desperate, I
think we should root them out hefore
they can get that help they depend
upon."§
Even then the Master of Stair did
not give up all hope. The following
letter, written the very next day,
contains so curious and valuahle a
picture of his state of mind that we
give it entire:—
STAIR to BrEAnALsaNE.
u LonDon, Decemher 8, 1691.
"My LorD,—The last post hrought
datal letters from Glengarry, or from
his lady and Rorry, upon a message
Glengarry had sent to him to Edinhurg.
This hath furnished him opportunity to
discourse the King on all these matters.
He tells me he hath vindicated you;
only the share that the Mncdonalds get
is too little, and unequal to your good
cousin's | (really that's true); and he
would have the money given to Glen-
garry, and leave Argyle and him to deal
for the plea. He thought his shore had
heen only £1000 sterling. I have satis-
fied the King in these points, that his
share is £I5Wi sterling, and that he nor
none of them can get the money if
Argyle consent not; for that destroys
all that is good in the settlement, which
is to take away grounds of hereditary
feuds. To he hrief, I'll assure you that
I shall never consent anyhody's med-
dling shall he so much regarded as to
get any of your terms altered. By the
next I expect to hear either that these
people are come to your hand, or else your
scheme formauling them; for it will not
delay. On the next week the officers
will he despatched from this, with in-
structions to garrison Invergarry, and
Buchan's regiment will join Leven,
which will he force enough; they will
have petards and some caunon. I am
not changed as to the expediency of doing
things hy the easiest means and at leisure,
hut the madness of these people, and
their ungratefulness to you, makes me
plainly see there is no reckoning on
them: hut delenda est Carthago. Yet
who have accepted, and do take the oaths,
will he safe, hut deserve no kindness;
♦ Dal. Ap., Pt. ii. p. 212.
% Locheil . § Dal. Ap.,
f Dal. Ap., Ft ii. p. 214.
Pt. ii. p. 2H. I Locheil
.


1859.]
11
Lord Macaulay and the Mauaere of Gleneoe.
and even in that case there must he
hostages of their nearest relations, for
there is no regarding men's words when
their interest caunot ohlige. Menzies,
Glengarry, and all of them have written
letters and taken pains to make it he-
lieved that all you did was for the inte-
rest of King James. Therefore look on,
and you shall he satisfied of your revenge.
—Adien."*
Two things are clear from this cor-
respondence,—
1st, That up to Decemher the
Master of Stair did everything in his
power to promote a peaceahle and
hloodless settlement with the High-
land chieftains.
2d, That every step was commu-
nicated to William, and that so far
from having heen, as Burnett and
Lord Macaulay represent him,t indif-
ferent and iguorant, he attended to
all the miuntiae of the affair, down
even to the distrihution of a small
sum of money.
Strangely enough, the only two
passages in these letters to which
Lord Macaulay refers, are the scheme
for " mauling,'' which he attrihutes
to Stair instead of to Breadalhane,t
and the " words in which the implaca-
hle Roman pronounced the doom of
Carthage,'"§ which he refers to without
quoting the sentence in which they
occur, and exactly reversing the
meaning of the passage. The Master
of Stair expresses regret that this
must occur, hecause other means had
failed ; and on account of the madness
and ingratitude of the Higblanders.
Lord Macaulay cites it as a proof of
his implacahle determination to de-
stroy them. A reference to the letter
shows at once the sense in which it
is used. We know nothing even in
Lord Macaulay'e History more unfair
than the suppression of these letters,
Lord Macanlay's knowledge of which
is proved hy the two instances In
which he misquotes them.
We left M'lan at Glencoe protected
from the vindictiveness of Breadal-
hane hy the treaty of the 30th of June.
In August a proclamation was issued
hy the Government, offering a free
indemnity and pardon to all High-
landers who had heen in arms, upon
their coming in and taking the oath
of allegiance hefore the 1st of January
following.! Breadalhane's negotiation
failed, and he returned to court "to
give an account of his dilieence and
to hring hack the money.vT Such is
Burnett's account, and this is a point
upon which, from his counection with
William, he was likely to he well in-
formed, and (which is of quite equal
importance) it is one as to which he
does not appear to have ha 1 any in-
terest in misstating the facts.
Ahout the end of Decemher, such
are the words of the Report, M'lan**
presented himself hefore Colonel Hill
at Inverlochy, and desired that the
oath of allegiance should he admi-
nistered to him. Hill appears to
have considered that, as a military
officer, he had no power to admi-
nister the oath. He, however, urged
his going without delay to Sir Colin
Camphell of Ardkinlns, the sheriff-de-
pute of Argyle, at Inverary, to whom
he gave him a letter urging Ardkin-
lasto receive him "as a lost sheep.'ft
M'lan hastened to Inverary with all
the speed that a country rough and
destitute of roads and a tempestuous
season would permit; he crossed Loch
Leven within half a mile of his own
house, hut did not even turn aside
to visit it As he passed Barcaldine,
which appears then to have heen in
the possession of Breadalhane, he %%
was seized upon hy Captain Drum-
rnond (of whom we shall hear more
presently), and detained twenty-four
hours. He arrived at Inverary on the
2d or 8d of January; hut here again
luck was against him, for Ardkinlas
(detained hy the had weather) did not
arrive until tbree days afterwards.
On the 6th of January, Anlkinlas,
after some scruple, and upon the
earnest solicitation of M'lan, admi-
nistered the oath.§§
M'lan returned to Glencoe, "called
• Dal. App., Pt. ii. p. 217. f Burnett, 4, 154. Mac., vol. iv. p. 204.
X The passage in the letter leaves no douht that the "scheme for mauling
them" was Breadalhane's; whether the hrutal expression was his or Stair's is of
little consequence.
§ Vol. iv. p. 201. | Report, p. 14. 7 Burnett, vol . iv. p. 163.
** Report, p. 14. ft Report XX Report, p. 26. §§ Report, p. 18.


13
[July,
Lord Macaulay and the Massacre of Gleneoe.

his people together, told them that
he had token the oath of allegiance
and made his peace, and therefore
desired and engaged them to live
peaceahly under King William's go-
vernment."* He considered that lie
and his people were now safe. Ard-
kinlas forwarded a certificate that
Glencoo had taken the oath to Edin-
hurgh, written on the same paper
with some certificates relating to
other persons. When the paper was
afterwards produced hy the clerk of
the Council, Sir Gilhert Elliot, upon
the occasion of the inquiry which
took place some years afterwards,
the part relating to Glencoe was found
scored tbrough and ohliterated, hut
so nevertheless that it was still legi-
hle. Lord Macaulay attrihutes this,
as he attrihutes everything foul, to
the Master of Stair. "By a dark
intrigue," ho says, "of which the
history is hut imperfectly known,
hut which was in all prohahility
directed hy the Master of Stair,- the
evidence of M'lan's tardy suhmission
was suppressed."t The circumstances
are set forth in the Report, and do
not appear to us to he sbrouded in
much mystery. Ardkinlas forwarded
to his namesake, Colin Camphell, the
sheriff-clerk of Argyle, who was in
Edinhurgh at the time, along with
the certificates, Hill's letter to him-
self, urging that ho should receive
"the lost sheep," and at the same
time wrote how earnest Glencoe was
to take the oath of allegiance—that
he had taken it on the 6th of January,
hut that he (Ardkinlas) was douhtful
if the Council would receive it.J The
sheriff-clerk took the certificate to
the clerks of the Council, Sir Gilhert
Elliot and Mr. David Moncrieff, who
refused to receive it hecause the oath
was taken after the time had expired.
The sheriff- clerk and a writer to
the Siguet, another Camphell, then
applied to Lord Aheruehill, also a
Camphell, who was a memher of
the Privy Council, who, after ad-
vising with some other privy coun-
cillors, of whom, according to one ac-
count. Lord Stair,§ the father of
the Master, was one, gave it as
their opinion that the certificate
could not ho received with safety to
Ardkinlas or advantage to Glencoe,
without a warrant from the King. It
was therefore ohliterated, and in that
condition given in to the clerk of the
Council. But it did not appear that
the matter was hrought hefore the
Council, "that their pleasure might
he known upon it, though it seemed
to have heen intended hy Ardkinlas,
who hoth wrote himself and sent
Colonel Bill's letter for to make
Glencoe's excuse, and desired ex-
pressly to know the Council's plea-
sure."] There appears to he nothing
to counect the master of Stair, who
was in London at the time, with this
transaction; indeed, his letter of the •
9th of January, in which he says
"that they havo had an account that
Glencoe had taken the oaths at Inver-
aray,'"T and regrets his heing safej;
and that of the 11th, in which he
says "that Argyle told him Glencoe
had not taken the oaths,"** eeem
conclusively to negative his having
had any correct knowledge of what
had taken place.
Iu the mean time, Breadalhane,
eager to satisfy old grudges, and the
Master of Stair, in whose mind dis-
appointment for the failure of his
scheme seems to have awakened a
feeling of ferocity, the intenseness of
which appears hardly compatihle
with sanity, had determined upon
the destruction of the Glencoe men.
Burnett states that the proposal
for a military execution upon the
Glencoe men emanated from Breadal-
hane; that ho had the douhle view
of gratifying his own revenge, and
rendering the King hateful.ft If this
were so, he certainly attained hoth
ohjects. Here, however, we find no
* Report, p. 18. f Vol. iv. p. 203. % Report, p. 17.
§ Mr. Burton, in his History of Scotland, falls into a not uunatural hut rather
important mistake, which he will no douht he glad to correct, hetween the father
una eon, and states that the Master of Stair was consulted, Ac.
1 Report, p. 18. f Qal. Red., pp. 101, 104. •* Ihid
\ Burnett, vol. iv. p. 158.


1869.]
13
Lord Macaulay and the Massacre of Glencoe.

guide whom we can safely follow,
for Burnett's narrative, written long
after, and with the manifest desigu
of excusing William, is full of in-
nccuracies and false statements. We
have, however, the fact as to which
there can he no douht whatever,
that the following order was sigued
hv William on the 16th of January
16H2:—
"Instructions fhom the King to
Colonel Hill.
16M January, 1692.
"William R. —1. The copy of that
paper given hy Macdonald of Auirhtera
to you hath been shown us. We did
formerly grant passes to Buchan and
Caunon, and we do authorise and allow
yon to grant passes to them, and ten
servants to each of them, to come freely
and safely to Leith; and from that to he
tnusported to the Netherlands hefore
the 15th of March next; to go from
thence when they please, without any
stop or trouhle.
"2. We do allow you to receive the
suhmissions of Glengarry and those
with him, upon their taking the oath of
allegiance and delivering up the house
of Invergarry; to he safe as to their lives,
hut as to their estates to depend upon
our mercy.
"In case you find the house of Inver-
garry caunot prohahly he taken in this
season of the year, with the artillery
and provisions you can hring there; in
that case we leave it to your discretion
to give Glengarry the assurance of entire
indemnity for life and fortune, upon
delivering of the house and arms, and
taking the oath of allegiance. In this
you are to act as you find the circum-
stances of the aifair to require; hut it
were much hetter that those who have
not taken the henefit of our indemnity,
in the terms within the diet prefixt hy
our proclamation, should he ohliged to
render upon mercy. The taking the oath
of allegiance is indispensahle, others
having already taken it.
"4. IfM'Ean of Glenco and that tryhe
can he well separated from the rest, it
will he a proper vindication of the puh-
lic justice to extirpate that sect of
thieves. The douhle of these instruc-
tions is only communicated to Sir
Thomas Livingston.—W. Rex."*
The advocates of William have
framed various defences for this act.
Burnett says he sigued the order
without inquiry.t Lord Macaulay
sees, as every one must, that it is
impossihle to support this in the
face of the facts; he therefore takes
the holder course, and justifies the
order. He says that, "even on the
supposition that he read the order
to which he affixed his name, there
seems to he no reason for llarning
him" that the words of the order—
"Naturally hear a sense perfectly in-
nocent, and would, hut for the horrihle
event which followed, have heen univer-
sally understood in that sense. It is
undouhtedly one of the first duties of
every government to extirpate gangs of
thieves. This does not mean that every
thief ought to he treacherously assassi-
nated in his sleep, or even that every
thief ought to he puhlicly executed
after a fair trial, hut that every gang,
as a gang, ought to he completely hroken
up, and that whatever severity is indis-
pensahly necessary for that end ought
to he used.
"If William had read and weighed
the words which were suhmitted to him
hy his secretary, he would prohahly
have understood them to mean that
Glencoe was to he occupied hy troops;
that resistance, if resistance were at-
tempted, was to he put down with a
strong hand; that severe punishment
was to he inflicted on those leading mem-
hers of the clan who could he proved to
have heen guilty of great crimes; that
some active young freehooters, who were
more used to handle the hroadsword
than the plough, and who did not seem
likely to settle down into quiet lahour-
ers, were to he sent to the army in the
Low Countries; that others were to he
transported to the American plantations;
and that those Macdonalds who were
suffered to remain in their native val-
ley were to he disarmed, and required
to give hostages for good hehaviour.''^
We can hardly suppose that Lord
Macaulay intended his readers to
accept these transparent sophisms
as his deliherate opinion. We sus-
pect he is laughing in his sleeve at
the credulity of the puhlic. The only
charge against the Macdonalds was
that they had heen in arms against
the Government, and had omitted
to take the oaths of allegiance he-
fore a specified day. There was no
question hefore William of any sup-
pression of a "gang of freehooters."
There was no accusation even of
offences committed against life or
Culloden Papers, p. 19. ] Burnett, vol. iv. p. 154. J Vol. iv. p. 205.


14
[July,
Lord Macaulay and the Matsacre of Gleneoe.
V
property. But supposing there had
heefrsuch a charge—supposing that
Breadalhane had accnsed certain in-
dividuals of the trihe of stealing
his cows, or even of firing his
house, does Lord Macaulay mean
gravely to assert that such an accu-
sation would have justified William,
without inquiry or trial, in issuing an
order for the "extirpation" of tbree
hundred men, women, and children,
simply for hearing the name and
owning the hlood of the offenders.
Hardly a month passes without
worse offences than any the Glencoe
men had ever heen accused of, he-
ing committed at the present time
in Ireland. What would Lord Mac-
aulay think of a government that
proceeded to "extirpate " hy military
exeention, without trial and without
warning, all the inhahitants of the
parish where a murder had heen com-
mitted, with particular instructions
that the squire of the parish and his
sons should hy no means he allowed
to escape?
If the order is to he justified, as
Lord Macaulay here attempts to jus-
tify it, as an act of the civil power
done in execution of "one of the
first duties of every government,"
it should have heen preceded hy
the trial and conviction of the offen-
ders. It should have heen addressed
not to the military governor of In-
verlochy, hut to the Lord Advocate
or the sheriff-depute of the county.
The attempt to justify the order
on the ground of its heing a civil act
is therefore clearly untenahle; and
- Lord Macaulay himself suhsequently
ahandons it when he attempts to
justify William for not inflicting
punishment on the perpetrators of
the act, on the ground that they
were compelled to do it hy the mili-
tary duty of ohedience to their su-
perior officers. If the suhject was
less horrihle, if the duties of an his-
torian were less solemn, Lord Mac-
aulay's attempt to introduce a new
meaning for the word "extirpate"
would he simply amusing. We are
quite satisfied to ahide hy the au-
thority of Johnson and of old Bailey
the i^ijuAoyoj, who agree that it
means to "root out," "to destroy;"
and we have no douht William knew
enough of English to attach the
same meaning to the word.
This order, it will he ohserved, is
dated on the 16ih of January. Few
facts in history are proved hy hetter
evidence than the fact (denied hoth
hy Burnett and Lord Maoaulay*) that
William, at the time he sigued it,
knew that M'lan had taken the
oath.
A reference to the Master of Stair's
letters of the 25th of June, 20th of
Septemher, and 3d of Decemher, will
show how minute an attention was
paid hy the King to all that was
going on in Scotland with relation
to the clans. On the 9th of January,
the Master of Stair wrote from Lon-
don, where he was in constant com-
munication with William,—" We
have an account that Lockart and
Maenaughten, Appin and Glenco,
took the henefit of the indemnity at
Inveraray;" and, he adds, "I have
heen with the King; he says your
instructions shall he despatched on
Monday .'"t When we couple these
facts with the suhsequent impunity
which William granted to all, and
the rewards he hestowed upon some
of those who executed the order, we
think no reasonahle douht can he
entertained that he knew hoth the
fact that Glencoe had taken the oath
and the nature of the warrant he
gave, though we do not think that
he contemplated (indeed it was hard-
ly possihle he should) the peculiar
circumstances of treachery and har-
harity which attended the exeention
of the order.
Most of the accounts of these .
transactions give only the conclud- //
ing paragraph of the order. The
whole of the document is material.
It contains internal evidence which
places it heyond douht that William
had considered and approved of its
contents. The particular directions
as to the passes to he granted t»
Buchan and Caunon, the instruc-
tions as to the line to he pursued
with regard to Glengarry, hear the
marks of having heen under his
consideration; and it is particularly
deserving of ohservation that it ia
assumed that Glengarry and the
* Bubnett, vol . iv. p. 164; Mac, vol. iv. p. 204. f ^"^ &*&t P- 101-104.


1859.]
15
Lord, Mceaulay and the Massacre of Glencoe.
Macdonalds had not taken the oath,
vet they were to he safe as to their
lives, and in certain circumstances
as to their property also, whilst
Glencoe and the M'lans were to he
"extirpated." The only circum-
stance to distinguish Mucdonald of
Glengarry from Macdonald of Glencoe
was, that the former was at this
moment holding his castle in open
and avowed defiance to the Govern-
ment, whilst the latter had taken the
oath of allegiance, and had hrought
his people into a state of peaceful
suhmission to the Government. Yet
Lord Macaulay thinks that there is
"no reason for hlaming" the King
for siguing an order to spure Glen-
garry and to "extirpate" Glencoe,
and that the order itself was " per-
fectly iunocent."
The Master of Stair lost no time
in putting William's commands into
execution. He forwarded the order
forthwith in duplicate to Living-
stone, the commander of the forces,
and to Hill, the governor of the gar-
rison of Inverlochy; and he wrote on
the 16th January, the very day on
which the order was sigued, the fol-
lowing letter to the former:—
Stair to Livingstone.
"LonDon, Jan. 16,1692.
"Sir,—By this flying packet I send
you further instructions concerning the
propositions hy Glengarry; none know
what they are hut only Col. Hill, <fee.
. . . The King does not at all incline to
receive any after the diet hut on mercy,
<kc . . . But for a just example of ven-
geance, I intreat that the thieving trihe
of Glenco may he rooted out in earnest.
. . . Let me know whether you would
have me expede your commission as a
hrigadier of the army in general, or if
you would rather want it till the end of
this expedition; that 1 hope your success
may he such as to incline the King to give
you a further advancement," &e.
He wrote on the same day to
Hill:—
"I shall entreat you, that for a just
vengeance and puhlic example the
thieving trihe of Glenco may he rooted
out to purpose. The Earls of Argyle
and Breadalhane have promised they
shall have no retreat in their hounds.
The passes to Raunoch would he secured,
Ac A party that may he posted in
Island Stalker must cut them off," Ac.#
Again on the 30th of January he
wrote :—" . . . Let it he secret and
sudden. ... It mn4 he quietly
done, otherwise they will make shift
hoth for the men and their cattle.
Argyle's detachment lies in Keppoch
welit to assist the garrison to do all
on a sudden."J
Other letters from the Master of
Stair contain expressions even more
savage. In one of them he informs
Livingstone with exultation that a
report had reached him, tbrough
Argyle, that Glencoe had not taken
the oath; hut these which we have
quoted refer immediately and ex-
pressly to William's order for " extir-
pation" of the 16th of January.
Hill was a time-serving hut not
an inhuman man. He had kept in
with every government since the
Commonwealth, hut he had no taste
for uunecessary hloodshed, though
he had not manliness or courage to
oppose the slaughter. Ready agents
were, however, found in Sir Thomas
Livingstone, Lieut.-Col. Hamilton,
Major Duncanson, Captain Camphell
of Glenlyon, Captain Drummond,
and the two Lindsays. These names
have heen handed down to an im-
mortality of infamy, as the willing
and remorseless tools of the King, of
Breadalhane, and the Master of Stair,
in the work of runrder. On the 23d
of January, immediately after the
receipt of the Master's letter of the
16th, Sir Thomas Livingstone wrote
to Lieut.-Col. Hamilton as follows :—
"EDinhurgh, Jan. 22,1692.
Sir,—Since my last I understand that
the Laird of Glenco, coming after the
prefixt. time, was not admitted to take
the Oath, which is very good news to us
here, heing that at Court it is wished that
he had not taken it—so that the very
nest might he entirely routed out; for
the Secretary, in tbree of his last letters,
has made mention of him, and it is
known at Court that he has not taken
it. So, sir, here is a fair occasion to
show you that your garrison serves for
some use; and heing that the order is so
positive from Court to me not to spare
Higbland Papers, Maitland Cluh, p. 66.
In other copies these words are "in Lettrickwheel."
Gal. Red., 102. .Report, 80, 81.


16
[July,
Lord JUacaulay and the Massacre of Glencoe.

any of them that were not timeously
come in, as you may see hy the orders
I sent to your colonel, I desire you
would hegin with Glenco, and spare
nothing of what helongs lo them ; hut
do not trouhle the Government with pri-
soners. I shall expect with the first
occasion to hear the progress you have
made in this, and remain, sir, your ohe-
dient servant, T. Livingstone."*
Hamilton lost no timet Camphell
of Gletdyon was selected for the ser-
vice. On the 1st of Fehruary 1692
he entered the glen with his two suh-
alterns, Lieutenant and Ensigu Lind-
say, and one hundred tmd twenty
men. The story of the massacre has
heen told in eloquent prose and in
impassioned verse, hut never, In our
opinion, so vividly, so impressively,
as in the words of the Report of
1695:—
"The slaughter of the Glenco men
was in this manner; viz., John and Alex-
ander Macdounld, sons to the deceased
Glenco, depone that, Glengarry's house
heing reduced, the forces were called
hack to the south, and Glenlyon, a cap-
tain of the Earl of Argyle's regiment,
with Lieutenant Lindsay and Ensigu
Lindsay, and six-score soldiers, returned
to Glenco ahout the 1st of Fehruary
1692, where at their entry the elder hro-
ther John met them, with ahout twenty
men, and demanded the reason of their
coming; and Lieutenant Lindsay showed
him his orders for quartering there, un-
der Colonel Hill's hand, and gave assur-
ance that they were only come to quar-
ter; whereupon they were hilleted in
the country, and had free quarters and
kind entertainment, living familiarly
with the people until the 13th day of
Fehruary. And Alexander further de-
pones, that Glenlyon, heing his wife's
uncle, came almost every day and took
his morning drink at his house; and
that the very night hefore the slaughter,
Glenlyon did play at cards in his own
quarters with hoth the hrothers. And
John depones, that old Glenco, his fa-
ther, had invited Glenlyon, Lieutenant
Lindsay, and Ensigu Lindsay, to dine
with him upon the very day the slaugh-
ter happened."
Here we must hreak in upon the
narrative, and show how this 12th of
Fehruary, which was passed hy Glen-
lyon in playing cards with the young
Macdonalds in his quarters, and re-
ceiving invitations from their father,
was employed hy Hill, Hamilton,
and Duncanson. This will appear
from the following letters, all of
which are dated on that day :—
Col. Hill to Lieut.Col. Hamilton.
Fokt-TVilliam, 12th Feh., 1C92.
"Sir,—You are, with four hundred of
my regiment, and the four hundred of
my Lord Argyle's regiment under the
command of Major Duncanson, to march
straight to Glenco, and there put. in ex-
ecution the orders you have received
from the Commander-in-Chief. Given
under uiv hand at Fort-William the
12th [Feh.] 1692. J. Hill."
Lieet.-Col. Hamilton to Major Robt.
Duncanson.
(?) t " Ballichtlls, 12th Feh., 1692.
"Sir,—Pursuant to the Comrnander-in
Chief and my colonel's order to me, for
putting in execution the King's com-
mand against these rehels of Glenco,
wherein you, with the party of the Earl
of Argyll's regiment under your com-
mand, are to he concerned : you are,
thercfore,forthwith to order your affairs
so as that the several posts already as-
sigued you he hy you and your several
detachments fain in acliveness precisely
hy five of the clock to-morrow morning,
heing Saturday; at which time I will
endeavour the same with those ap-
pointed from this regiment for the other
places. It will he most necessary you
secure well those avenues on the south
side, that the old fox, nor none of his
cuhs, get awaj\ The orders are, that
none he spared of the sword, nor the
Government trouhled with prisoners;
which is all until I see you, from, sir,
your most humhle servant,
"James Hamilton.
"Please to order a guard to secure
the ferry and hoats there; and the
hoats must he all on this side the ferry
after your men are over."
Major Rohert Duncanson to Captain
Rohert Camphell of Glenlyone.
12<A Feh. 1692.
"Sir,—You are herehy ordered to
fall upon the rehels, the Macdonalds of
* Culloden Papers, 19.
f Just one hundred years after these events, in 1791, the opening of the roads
and the estahlishment of posts are mentioned as having had so great an effect that
"a letter might come from Edinhurgh to Appin in three days, or even two days
and a-half."—Sinclair's Statistical Account of the Higblands, vol. i. p. 497.
% "Fort William" in other copies, and apparently correct. See the order in
the P.S. to have the hoats on this side to prevent the escape of the victims.


1859.]
17
Lord Macavday and the Massacre of Qlencoe.

Glenco, and pnt all to the sword under
•evenly. You are to have an especial
tare that the old fox and his sons do not
escape your hands; you are to secure all
the avenues, that no man escape. This
you are to put in execution at five of the
clock percisely; and 03' that time, or
very shortly after it, I will strive to he
at you with a stronger party. If I do
nol come to you at five, you are not to
tarry for me, hut to fall on. This is hy
the king's special command, for the
good and safety of the country, that
these miscreants he cut off, root and
hranch. See that this he put in execu-
tion without fear or favour, or you
may expect to he dealt with as one not
true to King or Government, nor a man
fit to carry commission in the King's
service. Expecting you will not fail in
the fulfilling hereof, as you love yourself
—I suhscrihe this with my hand at
Ballychylls the 12ih Feh. 1692.
"Rohert Duncansgs."
We now return to the narrative of
events in Glencoe, and the mode in
which Glenlyon executed these orders.
"But on the 13th day of Fehruary,
heing Saturday, ahout four or five in the
morning. Lieutenant Lindsay, with a
party of the foresaid soldiers, came to
old Glenco's house, where, having called
in a friendly mauner, and got in, they
shot his father dead, with several shots,
as he was rising out of his hed; and
their mother having got up and put on
her clothes, the soldiers stripped her
naked, and drew the rings off her fin-
gers with their teeth; as likewise they
killed one man more, and wounded an-
other grievously at the same place.
And this relation they say they had
from their mother, and is confirmed hy
the deposition of Archihald Macdonald,
indweller in Glenco, who further de-
pones that Glenco was shot hehind his
hack with two shots—one tbrough the
head, and another tbrough the hody;
and two more were killed with him in
that place, and a third wounded and left
for dead: and this he knows, hecause he
came that same day to Glenco house,
and saw his dead hody lying hefore the
door,with the other two that were killed,
and spoke with the third that was
wounded, whose name was Duncan Don,
who came there occasionally with letters
from the Brac of Mar. . . .
''The said John Macdonald, eldest son
to the deceased Glenco, depones: The
same morning that his father was killed
there came soldiers to his house hefore
day, and called at his window, which
gave him the alarm, and made him go to
TOL. LXXXVL
Iunerrifgen, where Glenlyon was quar-
tered; and that he found Glenlyon and
his men preparing their arms, which
made the deponent ask the cause; hut
Glenlyon gave him only good words,
and said they were to march against
some of Glengarrie's men; and if they
were ill intended, would he not have
told Sand v and his niece?—meaning the
deponent 8 hrother and his wife—which
made the deponent go home and go
again to his hed, until his servant, who
hindered him to sleep, roused him; and
when he rose and went out, he perceived
ahout twenty men coming towards his
house, with their hayonets fixed to their
muskets; whereupon he fled to the hill,
and having Auchnaion, a little villnge in
Glenco, in view, he heard the shots
wherewith Auchintrinten and four more
were killed; and that he heard alsCthe
shots at lunerriggen, where Glerrlyon
had caused to kill nine more, as shall he
hereafter declared; and this is confirmed
hy the concurring deposition of Alex-
underMacdonald.his hrother,whoni a ser-
vant waked out of sleep, sayrng, It 1s no
time for you to he sleeping when they are
killing your hrother at the door; which
made Alexander to flee with his hrother
to the hill, where hoth oT them heard
the foresaid shots at Auchnaion and ln-
nerriggen. And the said John, Alex-
ander, and Archihald Macdonald, do all
depone, that the same morning there
was one Serjeant Barher with a party at
Auchnaion, and that Auchintriaten he-
ing there in his hrother's house, with
eight more sitting ahout the fire, the
soldiers discharged upon trrem ahout
eighteen shots, which killed Auchintri-
aten and four more; hut the other four,
whereof some were wounded, falling
down as dead, Serjeant Barher laid hold
of Auchintriaten's hrother, one of the
four, and asked him if he were alive I
He answered that he was, and that he
desired to die without rather than
within. Barher said, that for his meat
that he had eaten, he would do him the
favour to kill him without; hut when
the man was hrought out, and soldiers
hrought up to shoot him, he having his
plaid loose, flung it over their faces, and
so escaped; and the other tbree hroke
tbrough the hack of the house and
escaped. And at lunerriggen, where
Glenlyon was quartered, the- soldiers
took other nine men, and did hind them
hand and foot, and killed them one hy
one with shot; and when Glenlyon in-
clined to save a young man of ahout
twenty years of age, one Captain Drum-
mond came and asked how he came to he
saved, in respect of the orders that were
2


13
[July,
Lord Macaulay and the Massacre of Glencoe.

given, and shot him dead. And another
young hoy, of ahout thirteen years, ran
to Glenlyon to he saved; he was like-
wise shot dead. And in the same town
there was a woman, and a hoy ahout
four or five years of age, killed. And
at Auehnaiou there was also a child
missed, and nothing found of him hut
the hand. There were likewise several
killed at other places, whereof one was
an old man ahout eighty years of age.
And all this, the deponents say, they
aifirm, hecause they heard the shot, saw
the dead hodies, and had an account
from the women that were left. And
Ronald Macdonald, indweller in Glenco,
farther depones,—That he heing living
with his father in a little town in Glenco,
some of Glenlyon's soldiers came to his
father's house, the said 13th day of Feh-
ruary, in the morning, and dragged his
father out of his hed, and knocked him
down for dead at the door; which the
deponent seeing, made his escape; and
his father recovering after the soldiers
were gone, got into another house; hut
this house was shortly hurnt, and his
father hurnt in it; and the deponent
came there after and gathered his father's
hones and huried them. He also de-
clares, that at Auchnaion, where Auch-
intriaten was killed, he saw the hody of
Auchintriaten and tbree more cast out
and covered with dung. And another
witness of the same declares, that upon
the same I3th day of Fehruary, Glen-
lyon and Lieutenant Lindsay, and their
soldiers, did, in the morning hefore day,
fall upon the people of Gleneo, when
they were secure in their heds, and killed
them; and he heing at Iunerriggen, fled
with the first, hut heard shots, and had
two hrothers killed there, with tbree
men more and a woman, who were all
huried hefore he came hack. And all
these five witnesses concur, that the
aforesaid slaughter was made hy Glen-
lyon and his soldiers, after they had
heen quartered, and lived peaceahly and
friendly with the Glenco men ahout
thirteen days, and that the numher of
those whom they knew to he slain were
ahout tweuty-tive, and that the soldiers,
after the slaughter, did hurn the houses,
harns, and goods, and carried away a
great spoil of horse, nolt, and sheep,
ahove 1000. And James Camphell, sol-
dier in the castle of Stirling, depones,
that in January 1692, he then heing a
soldier in Glenlyon's company, marched
with, the company from Inverlochie to
Glenco, where the company was quar-
tered, and very kindly entertained for
the space of fourteen days; that he knew
nothing of the desigu of killing the
Glenco men till the morning that the
slaughter was committed, at which time
Glenlyon and Captain Drummond's com-
panies were drawn out in several parties,
and got orders from Glenlyon and their
other officers to shoot and kill all the
countrymen they met with; and that
the deponent, heing one of the party
which was at the town where Glen1you
had his quarters, did see several men
drawn out of their heds, and particularly
he did see Glenlyon's own landlord shot
hy his order, and n young hoy nhout
twelve years of oge, who endeavoured to
save himself hy taking hold of Glenlyon.
offering to go anywhere with him if he
would spare his life; and was shot dead
hy Captain Drummond's order. And
the deponent did see ahout eight persons
killed, and several houses burnt, and
women flying to the hills to save their
lives. And lastly, Sir Colin Camphell
of Aheruchil depones, .that after tinr
slaughter, Glenlyon told him that Mac-
donald of Iunerriggen was killed with
the rest of the Glenco men, with Colonel
Hill's pass or protection in his pocket,
which a soldier hrought and showed to
Glenlyon."
Some circumstances still remain
strangely ohscure. We have heen un-
ahle to discover whether the clan
gave up their arms when they made
their suhmission to the Government.
It is difficult to suppose that a fact
which would add so greatly to the
atrocity of the deed should have heen
passed over uunoticed; yet it is
equally difficult to suppose that a
hody of from fifty to a hundred men,
trained to arms, should have per-
mitted themselves, their wives, and
children, to he hutchered without
striking a single hlow in their de-
fence; and unequal as the numhers
were, and sudden as was the attack,
it can hardly he supposed that such
defence would have heen wholly with-
out effect.
Another point which has never
heen cleared up, relates to the plunder
of the glen hy the troops. The soldiers
of 'William, who, according to Lord
Macaulay, wero executing justice
upon thieves and marauders, did not
content themselves with murder, hut
added the crimes of rohhery and
arson. The flocks und herds, the
only movahles of value, were swept
away, and all that could not he re-
moved was rutblessly hurned. The
plunder was considerahle—ahove a


1859.]
19
Lord Macaulay and the Massacre of Glencoe.
thousand head of cattle, horses, and
sheep rewarded the murderers. Of
this they appear to have retained
quiet possession; at least we can
nowhere trace any act of restitution.
The Parliament of Scotland ad-
dressed the King, recommending that
some reparation might he made to
the survivors of the massacre for
their losses, and " such orders given
for supplying their necessities as his
majesty should think fit." William
was deaf to their prayer. The only
effect was the remission of a cess
which had heen imposed upon the
valley, and which they appear to have
heen utterly unahle to pay.*
Such is the story of the massacre
of Glencoe. Lord Macaulay ohserves
—" It may he thought strange that
these events should not have heen
followed hy a hurst of execration
from every part of the civilised
world.'"t It would have heen strange
indeed had they passed uunoticed.
Official puhlication in England was
of course suppressed. The London
Gazettes, the montbly Mercuries, and
the licensed pampblets were silent.
Bat the Pans Gazette of the 12th
April 1692, under date of the 23d
March (less than six weeks after the
event), has the following aunounce-
ment :—
"D'EDimhocrg, 23 Mars, 1692.
"Le Laird deGlenoow aesto massacre
depnis quelques jours, de la maniere la
plus harhare, qnoy qu'il se fust smlmis
an Goneerwnent present. Le Laird de
Glenlion,cnpitaine dans le regiment d'Ar-
gvle, suivant l'ordre exprers du Colonel
Hill, goaverneur d'lnverloeliie, se trans-
port* la nuit a Glencow, avee on corps
de troupes; et les soldats estant entrez
dans lea maisons, tuerent lu Laird de
Glencow, deux de ses fils, trente six
homtnes ou eufans et quntre fetnmes.
"lis avoient resolu d'exterminer ainei
le reste des hahitant, nonohstant Vam-
nestic qui leur avoit este avcordie: mais
environ denx cents se sanvereut. On fait
courir le hruit qu'il a este tue dans une
emhuscade les armes a la main, pour
diminuer d'horreur dune action si har-
hare, capahle de faire counoistre a
toute la nation, le peu de surety qu'il y
a dans les paroles de cuixqui gouverne-
ment."J
This account, it 1s true, contains
few particular». It is silent as to
the peculiar treachery of Glenlyon;
hut it states the slaughter of peace-
ful men, women, and children, in
violation of an amnesty. How Lord
Macaulay, who refers to this passage,
can state that "in this there was
nothing very strange or shocking,'!
we confess ourselves wholly unahle
to understand. If murder committed
in violation of pledged faith is not
shocking, we should he glad to know
what is. A detailed and very accurate
account, entitled "A letter from a
Gentleman in Scotland to his Friend
in London, &c," dated April 20th,
1692, next appeared. Lord Macaulay
intimates his opinion that this letter
was not puhlished until the follow-
ing year, and reminds his readers
that "the date of 1692 was at that
time used down to the 25th March
1693. But Lord Macaulay has failed
to ohserve that the date of the letter
is April, and April 1692 was always
April 1692.
It is no douht difficult to fix the
precise date—great ohstacles were
tbrown in the way of puhlication.
But the contents of the letter were
certainly known in London hefore
June 1692, for in that month Charles
Leslie, the writer of the Gallienus
Sedivivus, went in consequence of
this letter to Brentford, where Glen-
lyon and Drummond, with the rest of
Lord Argyle's regiment, were quarter-
ed, and there heard the account of the
massacre from the soldiers who had
heen actors in it, one of whom said,
"Glencoe hangs ahout Glenlyon night
and day; you may see Mm in his-
It is strango that Lord Macaulay,
who is not scrupulous as to the sa-
crifices he makes for the sake of the
picturesque, should have lost the
poetry of this passage hy using a
douhtful term, suhstituting a place
for a person, and a prosaic parapbrase
for the simple words and poetical
imagination of the Higblander who
• Highland Papers. Mait. Cl . f Vol . iv. p. 213. % Paris Gazette, 12 Avril 1692.
§ Vol. iv. p. 214. J Gal. Red, p. 92.


20
[July,
Lord Macaulay and the Massacre of Glencoe.

saw the image of the murdered man
reflected in the face of his murderer.*
The Gallienus Beditivus, which,
Lord Macaulay saye, "speedily fol-
lowed," did not uppear until after
the execution of the commission in
1695. Lord Macaulay hestows a
note t upon the singular name of this
pampblet, which deserves a passing
notice, as it hetrays the care with
which he has availed himself of every
opportunity to divert indiguation
from William to the Master of Stair.
He says,J "An unlearned or even a
learned reader may he at a loss to
guess why the Jacohites should have
selected so strange a title for a
pampblet on the massacre of Glen-
coe." The reader, learned or un-
learned, who found himself at any
loss in the matter, must he singularly
stupid, inasmuch as the reason is
fully stated at page 107 of the
pampblet, where a parallel is drawn
hetween William and the Emperor
Gallienus, and a comparison insti-
tuted hetween the "Extirpation"
order of the former, and a letter of
the Emperor to Venianus. This
letter, which the writer of the
pampblet quotes, and which Gihhon
descrihes as "a most savage mandate
from Gallienus to one of his minis-
ters after the suppression of Ingen-
uns, who had assumed the purple in
Illyriium," § concludes with the
following words—" language to
which" (says Lord Macaulay) "that
of the Master of Stair lore hut too
much resemhlance: "—" Perimendns
est omnia sexus virilis. Occidendus
estquicunque maledixit. Occidendus
est quicunque male voluit. Lnce-
ra, Occide, Concide: animwn meum
intelligere potes, mea mente iraseere
qui hme manu mea scripsi." Lord
Macaulay, quoting the passage which
is given entire in the GallienusRedi-
vivus, omits the words which we
have put in italics, which contain the
sting, from their similarity to the facts
of William having sigued the "extir-
pation" order with his own hand. An-
other point of similarity consisted in
the filial impiety of William and Mary.
"Whilst Roine lumented the fate of
her sovereigu (says Gihhon), the sav-
age coldness of his son was extolled
hy the servile courtiers as the per-
fect firmness of a hero and a stoic.''|
Lord Macaulay suhstitntes the Mas-
ter of Stair for William, and his
letters for the "extirpation" order,
and garhles the quotation to make it
fit. In dealing with a hook which
is in the hands of so few as the Gal-
lienus Redicivus, this is hardly
fair.
We owe the knowledge we derive
of the massacre from the evidence
taken hefore the Commission to a
fortunate comhination of circum-
stances.
The excitement of puhlic feeling
rendered it impossihle for William to
resist the demand for inquiry, and
the jealousy of Johnston made that
inquiry searching and complete, with
the view of destroying his colleague,
the Master of Stair. We agree with
Lord Macaulay, that the report of
the commission is an "excellent di-
gest of evidence."! The character of
"austerejustice," which he claims for
It, we wholly deny. "The conclu-
sion," says Lord Macaulay, "to
which the commission came, and in
which every intelligent and candid
inquirer will concur, was that the
slaughter of Glencoe was a harharous
murder, and that of this harlarous
murder the letters of the Master of
Stair were the sole warrant and
cause." ** At the risk of having our
intelligence or our candour denied
hy Lord Macaulay, we are compelled
to dissent from the latter portion of
this judgment. Admitting in its full
extent the atrocity of these letters,
they formed, in our opinion, hut a
small and secondary part of the cause
of the slaughter. There was another
greater than Stair, or than Breadal-
hane, who must, according to the
* Lord Macaulay's words are as follows: "Some of his soldiers, however, who
ohserved him closely, whispered that all this hravery was put on. He was not
the man that he hud heen hefore that night. The form of his countenance was
changed. In all places, at all hours, whether he waked or slept, Glencoe was
for evtr hefore hin."—Vol. iv. p. 216.
ISee note, p. 213. % Vol. iv. p. 213. § Gibhon, Decline and Fall, vol. i. p. 412.
Gibhon, vol. i. p. 407. *i[ Vol . iv. p. 574. ** Vol. iv. p. 674.


1859.]
21
Lord Macaulay and the Massacre of Glencoe.

"austere justice" of history, share
the responsihility of this great crime
with them. Lord Macaulay mis-
leads his readers, and ohscures the
question, hy treating the slaughter,
when it suits his purpose, as the
exercise of a wild and irregular jus-
tice against a hand of murderers and
freehooters. To prepare the mind of
the reader, he evokes from past
centuries horrihle tales of outrages
committed hy the tenth cousins of
the great- grandfathers of the Mao-
donalds of Glencoe on the people of
Culloden. hy the inhahitants of Eig
on the Macleods, and hy the Mac-
leods again on the people of Eig.
He narrates a story, unsupported hy
a single tittle of evidence, of M'lan
having at some former period exe-
cuted with his own hand tlie wild
justice of the trihe on a memher of
his own clan.* He likens the Mac-
donalds to the mosstroopers of tlie
Border and the handitti of the Apen-
nines, and descrihes them as "ma-
rauders who, in any well-governed
country, would have heen hanjed
thirty years hefore."f Lord Macaulay
is an accomplished advocate, and is
will aware of the effect that declama-
tion of this kind will produce on the
minds of nine out of ten of his
readers. The tenth man knows that
he has the testimony of Colonel
Hill to the quiet, peaceahle, and
honest demeanour of the Macdonalds,
and the conclusive fact, that during
the whole of the inquiry, though
ahundance of hard language was used,
there was no attempt to hring even
a single charge of any offence what-
ever ugainst the Macdonalda. This
puts an end at once to any defence
of William's "extirpation" order,
grounded on the supposition of its
heing directed against civil offenders.
We may therefore confine our atten-
tion to the inquiry into how far it
was justified, and who was respon-
sihle for it as a military act.
The Parliament of Scotland found
the slaughter to he murder, and
demanded that Glenlyon, Drain-
Wad, the Lyndsays, and Sergeant
Barher should ho sent home to he
prosecuted for the crime of murder
under trust. Lord Macaulay says
that the Parliament was here severe
in the wrong place; J that the
crimes of these men, horrihle as they
were, were nevertheless not the fit-
ting suhject of punishment, inasmuch
as each was compelled to act as he-
had done hy the suhordination ne-
cessary in un army. Lord Macaulay
runs up the ladder of responsihility
from the sergeant to the ensigu, and
so on up to Glenlyon, and from him
to his colonel, Hamilton; hut he ap-
pears not to he aware to what this
argument necessarily leads. If Glen-
lyon was justified hy the order of
Hamilton, Hamilton was in like
mauner justified hy the order of
Livingstone. Thus we reach the com-
mander-in-chief. Does the responsi-
hility rest there? If it did, loud
would have heen the cry of vengeance
for iunocent hlood; yet the Scottish
Parliament acquitted Livingstone, and
Lord Macaulay passes him over un-
noticed. That the slaughter in Glen-
coe was a harherous murder, mur-
der under trust, the foulest and
highest degree of crime, all are
agreed. We have traced the responsi-
hility up to the commander-in-chief;
who was his superior? Not the
Master of Stair. The Secretary of
State for Scotl ,nd has no authority
in military matters over the com-
mander-in-chief, except so far as he
is the mouthpiece of the King. Liv-
ingstone derived his orders direct from
William. If he exceeded those or-
ders, the hlood-guiltiness rests on his
head. It is of no avail for him to
say, "I oheyed the Master of Stair,"
unless the Master of Stair spoke and
wrote as the agent of the King; and
if he did his orders were William's
orders. The Parliament of Scotland
voted that the order sigued hy Wil-
liam did not authorise the slaughter
of Glencoe. If Johnson's Dictionary
had heen in existence, and if they
had consulted it to discover the
meaning of the King's words they
would have found that his desigu
* This story was first told hy Dalrymple in 1771. There is no trace whatever
of it to he discovered in the ootemporary proceedings, where, no douht, it would
have heen found, had there heen even the slightest foundation for it.
f Vol. iv. p. 203. • % Vol. iv. p. 676.



22
[July,
Lord Macaulay and the Massacre of Glencoe.
was to "root out, to eradicate, to
exscind, to destroy," and the follow-
ing example given: "We in vain
endeavour to drive the wolf from
our own to another's door; the hreed
ought to he kxtripateD out of the
island."* It would he difficult to
point out any passage in the Mas-
ter of Stair's letters which exceeds
this. Inhuman as they are, they
add nothing to the plain and simple
words of the order. The execution
certainly fell far short. Instead of
"extirpation," not more than ahout
one tenth part of the clan was de-
stroyed. IJere, then, following out
Lord Macaulay's own principle—the
principle known to the law as "re-
spondeat superior" — the responsi-
hility rests with William. The only
esoape is the one suggested hy
Burnett, namely, that William affixed
his siguature to a paper, presented to
him hy Stair and Breadalhane, in
iguorance of its contents. We have
already shown how entirely this
hypothesis is unsupported hy evi-
dence, how strong the presumptions
are against it. But there remains
one piece of evidence, which to our
minds is conclusive. Had William
heen thus entrapped, how terrihle
would have heen his wrath when he
discovered tho crime to which he had
heen unwittingly made a party! How
sigual his vengeance on the traitors
Stair and Brendalhane 1 Instead of
this, we find that, when he was
ohliged to dismiss Stair from office
in compliance with puhlic opinion
and the intrigues of his colleagues,
instead of handing him over to justice,
consiguing him to the trial, the con-
viction, and the death of shame,
which he most unquestionahly would
have deserved, he grants him full
pardon, immunity, and protection for
all his acts, and especially for his
share in the slaughter of tho men of
Glencoe.
We are not aware that the follow-
ing document has heen cited in any
history of the massacre: to us it
appears conclusive of the original
participation of William in that great
crime:—
"Scroll of Discharge to John
Vlscolst Stair.
"Bis majesty, considering that John
Viscount of Stair hath heen employed in
his majesty's service for many years, and
in several capacities, first as his majesty's
Advocate, and thereafter as Secretary of
State, in which eminent employments
persons are in danger, either by exceed-
ing or coming short of their duty, to
full under the severities of law, and
hecome obuoxious to prosecutions or
trouhle therefor; and his majesty heing
well satisfied that the said Viscount of
Stair hath rendered him many faithful
services, and heing well assured of his
affection and good intentions, and heing
graciously pleased to pardon, cover, and
secure him now after the demission of
his office, and that he is divested of puhlic
employment, from all questions, prose-
cutions, and trouhle whatsoever; and
particularly his majesty, considering
that the mauner of execution of the men
of Glenco was contrary to the laws of
humanity and hospitality,'heing done
hy those soldiers who for some days he-
fore had heen quartered amongst them
and entertained hy them, which was a
fault in the actors, or those who gave
the immediate orders on the place. But
that the said Viscount of Stair, then
Secretary of State, heing at London,
many hundred miles distant, he could
have no knowledge of nor accession to
the method of that execution; and his
majesty heing willing to pardon, forgive,
and remit any excess of zeal or going
heyond his instructions hy the said John
Viscount of stair, and that he had e•
hand in the harharous mauner of execu-
tion; therefore his majesty ordains a
letter of remission to he made, and
passed his great seal of his majesty's
antient kingdom, Ac, and particularly
any excess, crime, or fault done or com-
mitted hy the said John Viscount of
Stair in that matter of Glenco, and
doth exoner, discharge, pardon, indem-
nify, and remit the said John Viscount
of Stair, Ac."f
It is to he ohserved that the very
gentle censure contained in this docu-
ment is confined entirely to "the
mauner of execution.'' The King
shows no disapproval whatever either
of the order—his siguature to which,
Burnett says, was ohtained hy thee
fraud of Stair—or of those letters
* Locki.
f Papers Illustrative of the Higblands of Scotland, Maitland Cluh.


1859.]
23
Lord Macaulay and the Matoacre of Qlencoe.
which Lord Macaulay asserts to have
heen the " sole warrant and cause of
this harharous murder." If anything
were wanting to prove without a pos-
sihility of douht the King's participa-
tion in the crime, it would he supplied
hy the fact that this "Scroll of Dis-
charge" is immediately followed hy a
grant from William of the teind duties
and others of the regality of Glenluce,
as a "mark of his favour to John Vis-
count Stair."
None of the actors in the transac-
tion, so far as we are aware, incurred
any marks of the displeasure of the
King. They appear to have had
prosperous lives: Colonel Hill he-
comes Sir John; Glenlyon, when he
reappears on the page of history, is a
colonel; Livingstone hecomes Lord
Teviot.* The Master of Stair, though
withdrawn for a time from active em-
ployment, in ohedience to the voice of
the Parliament and puhlic opinion,
was, as we have seen, rewarded hy
"William, and not many years after-
wards reappears an earl instead of a
viscount.
We do not think that it is a task of
any great difficulty to measure out
the degree of responsihility which
fairly attaches to each of the actors in
thin horrihle tragedy.
First to our minds comes the King.
He had not the excuse, poor as it may
he, that he was urged on hy personal
wrong and animosity, l'ke Breadal-
hane; or hy chagrin and disappoint-
ment at the failure of a favourite
scheme, like the Master of Stair. We
caunot douht that William's siguature
was affixed to the order with full
knowledge of the facts, and that his
intention was to strike terror into the
Higblanders hy the "extirpation" of
a clan too weak to offer any formida-
hle resistance, hat important enough
to serve as a formidahle example.
Next come Breadalhane and the
Master of Suiir, hetween whom the
scates halance so nicely that it is hard
to say to which the larger share of
execration is due.
Livingstone, Hamilton, Duncanson,
Drummond, Glenlyon and his suhal-
terns, must share amongst themselves
the responsihility for the peculiar
circumstances of treachery and hreach
of hospitality attendant upon the ex-
ecution. For this we think neither
William, Breadalhane, uor the Mas-
ter of Stair can justly be held answer-
ahle.
The hlundering partisans of the
day attempted to make light of the
atrocity of the slaughter. Lord
Macaulay is too skilful to he hetray-
ed even hy his partisanship into sup-
porting ho false an issue. He de-
nounces the crime with unsparing
severity. But hy suppression, hy
sophism, hy all the arts which may
he tolerated in an advocate, hut
which are intolerahle in a judge, he
seeks to ohtain a verdict of acquittal
for William—to limit his culpahility
to his remissuess in failing to hring
the Master of Stair to justice, and,
hy dwelling in strong terms on that
offence, to keep out of view his parti-
cipation in the original crime. The
readers of the Decameron know hy
what means San Ciappelletto oh-
tained canonisation; the readers of
Lord Macaulay's History see how the
meed of justice and humanity may
he awarded to the murderer of
Glencoe. They may oompare the por-
trait of Marlhorough with the portrait
of William, and judge what fidelity
is likely to he found in the rest of
Lord Macaulay's picture-gallery.
* Life of William III., p. 367.


24
[July,
The Lifted Veil.
j.V I
THE LIFTEn VEIL.
CHAPTKB L
The time of my end approaches.
I have lately heen suhject to attacks
of angina pectoris; and in the ordin-
ary course of things, my physician tells
me, I may fairly hope that my life
will not he protracted many months.
Unless, then, I am cursed with an
exceptional physical constitution, as
I am cursed with an exceptional
mental character, I shall not much
longer groan under the wearisome
hurthen of this eartbly existence.
If it were to he otherwise—if I
were to live on to the age most
men desire and provide for—I should
for once have known whether the
miseries of delusive expectation can
outweigh the miseries of true previ-
sion. For I foresee when I shall die,
and everything that will happen in
my last moments.
Just a month from this day, on the
20th of Septemher 1850, I shall he
sitting in this chair, in this study, at
ten o'clock at night, longing to die,
weary of incessant insight and fore-
sight, without delusions and without
hope. Just as I am watching a
tongue of hlue flame rising in the
fire, and my lamp is hurning low, the
horrihle contraction will hegin at my
chest. I shall only have time to
reach the hell, and pull it violently,
hefore the sense of suffocation will
come. Ho one answers my hell. I
know why. My two servants are
lovers, and will have quarrelled. My
housekeeper will have rushed out of
the house in a fury, two hours hefore,
hoping that Perry will helieve she
has gone to drown herself. Perry is
alarmed at last, and is gone out after
her. The little scullery-maid is asleep
on a hench : she never answers the
hell; it does not wake her. The
sense of suffocation inoreases: my
lamp goes out with a horrihle stench:
I make a great effort, and suatch at
the hell again. I long for life, and
there is no help. I thirsted for the
unknown : the thirst is gone. O God,
let me stay with the known, and he
weary of it: l am content. Agony
of pain and suffocation—and all the
while the earth, the fields, the pehhly
hrook nt the hottom of the rookery,
the fresh scent after the rain, the light
of the morning tbrough my chamher
window, the warmth of the hearth
after the frosty air—will darkness
close over them for ever!
Darkness — darkness — no pain—
nothing hut darkness: hut I am pass-,
ing on ninl on tbrough the darkness:
my thought stays in the darkness,
hut always with a sense of moving
onward
Before that time comes, I wish to
use my last hours of ease and strength
in telling the strange story of my
experience. I have never fully un-
hosomed myself to any human heing;
I have never heen encouraged to
trust much in the sympathy of my
fellow-men. But we have all a chance
of meeting with some pity, some
tenderness, some charity, when we
are dead: it is the living only who
caunot he forgiven—the living only
from whom men's indulgence and
reverence are held off, like the rain
hy the hard east wind. While the
heart heats, hruise it—it is your only
opportunity; while the eye can still
turn towards you with moist timid
entreaty, freeze it with an icy unan-
swering gaze; while the ear, that
delicate messenger to the inmost
sanctuary of the soul, can still take
in the tunes of kindness, put it off
with hard civility, or sueering com-
pliment, or envious affectation of in-
difference; while the creative hrain
can still tbroh with the sense of in-
justice,wiih the yearning for hrotherly
recoguition—make haste—oppress it
with your ill-considered judgments,
your trivial comparisons, your care-
less misrepresentations. The heart
will hy-and-hy he still—uhi xeva
indignatio ulterivt cor lacerare ne-
quit ;* the eye will cease to entreat;
the ear will he deaf; the hrain will
have ceased from all wants as well as
Inscription on Swift's tomhstone.


1859.]
The Lifted Veil.

from all work. Then your charitahle
speeches may find vent; then you
may rememher and pity the toil and
the struggle and the failure; then
you may give due honour to the work
achieved; then you may find extenu-
ation for errors, and consent to hury
them.
That is a trivial schoolhoy text;
why do I dwell on it? It has little
reference to me, for I shall leave no
works hehind me for men to honour.
I have no near relatives who will
make up, hy weeping over my grave,
for the wounds they inflicted on me
when I was among them. It is only
the story of my life that will perhaps
win a little more sympathy from
strangers when I am dead, than I
ever helieved it would ohtain from
my friends while I was living.
My childhood perhaps seems hap-
pier to me than it really was, hy con-
trast with all the after years. For
then the curtain of the future was
as impenetrahle to me as to other
children: I had all their delight in
the present hour, their sweet indefi-
nite hopes for tiie morrow; and I
had a tender mother: even now,
after the dreary lapse of long years,
a slight trace of sensation accompa-
nies the rememhrance of her caress
as she held me on her knee—her
arms round my little hody, her
cheek pressed on mine. I had a
complaint of the eyes that made me
hlind for a little while, and she kept
me on her knee from morning till
night. That unequalled love soon
vanished out of my life, and even to
my chil lish consciousuess it was as
if that life had hecome more chill. I
rode my little white pony with the
groom hy my side as hefore, hut there
were no loving eyes looking at me as
I mounted, no glad arms opened to
me when I came hack. Perhaps I
missed my mother's love more than
most children of seven or eight would
have done, to whom the other plea-
sures of life remained as hefore; for
I was certainly a very sensitive child.
I rememher still the mingled trepida-
tion and delicious excitement with
which I was affected hy the tramping
of the horses on the pavement in the
echoing stahles, hy the loud resonance
of the grooms' voices, hy the hooming
hark of the dogs as my fathor's car-
riage thundered under the archway
of the courtyard, hy the din of the
gong as it gave notice of luncheon
und diuner. The measured tramp of
soWiery which I sometimes heard—
for my father's house lay near a
county town where there were large
herracks—made me soh and trem-
hle; and yet when they were gone .
past, I longed for them to come hack
again.
I fancy my father thought me an
odd child, and had little fondness
for me: though he was very careful
in fulfilling what he regarded as a
parent's duties. But he was already
past the middle of life, and I was not
his only son. My mother had heen
his second wife, and he was five-und-
forty when he married her. He was
a firm, unhending, intensely orderly
man, in root and stem a hanker, hut
with a flourishing graft of the active
landholder, aspiring to county influ-
ence: one of those people who are
alwa3's like themselves from day to
day, who are uninfluenced hy the
weather, and neither know melan-
choly nor high spirits. I held him
in great awe, and appeared more
timid and sensitive in his presence
than at other times; a circumstance
which, perhaps, helped to confirm
him in the intention to educate me
on a different plan from the prescrip-
tive one with which he had complied
in the case of my elder hrother,
already a tall youth at Eton. My
hrother was to he his representative
and successor; he must go to Eton
and Oxford, for the sake of making
counections, of course: my father was
not a man to underrate the hearing
of Latin satirists or (Greek drama-
tists on the attainment of an aristo-
cratic position. But, intrinsically,
he had slight esteem for " those dead
hut sceptred spirits;" having quali-
fied h tn'elf for forming an in lepen-
dent opinion hy reading Potter's
disehylus, and dipping into Francis's
Horace. To this negative view he
added a positive one, derived from a
recent counection with mining specu-
lations; namely, that a scientific
education was the really useful train-
ing for a younger son. Moreover, it
was clear that a shy, sensitive hoy
like me was not fit to encounter the
rough experience of a puhlic school.


The Lifted Veil.
[July,

Mr. Letherall had said so very decid-
edly. Mr Letherall was a large man
in spectacles, who one day took my
small head between his large hands,
and pressed it hero and there in an
exploratory, suspicions mauner—then
placed eacli of liis great thumhs on
my temples, and pushed me a little
way from him, and stared at me with
glittering spectacles. The contem-
plation appeared to displease him,
for he frowned sternly, and said
to my father, drawing his thumhs
across my eyehrows.
"The deficiency is there, sir—
there; and here," he added, touching
the upper sides of my head, "here is
the excess. Tiiat must he hrought
out, sir, and this must he laid to
sleep."
I was in a state of tremor, partly
at the vague idea that I was the
ohject of reprohation, partly in the
agitation of my first hatred—hatred
of this hig, spectacled man, who
pulled my head ahout as if he wanted
to hny and cheapen it.
I am not aware how much Mr.
Letherall had to do with the system
afterwards adopted towards me, hut
it was presently clear that private
tutors, natural history, science, and
the modern languages, were the ap-
pliances hy which the defects of my
organisation were to he remedied.
I was very stupid ahout machines, so
I was to he greatly occupied with
them; I had no memory for classi-
fication, so it was particularly neces-
sary that I should study systematic
zoology and hotany; I was hungry
for human deeds and human emo-
tions, so I was to he plentifully
crammed with the mechanical powers,
the elementary hodies, and the phe-
nomena of electricity and maguetism.
A hetter-constituted hoy would cer-
tainly have profited under my in-
telligent tutors, with their scientific
apparatus; and would, douhtless,
have found the phenomena of elec-
tricity and maguetism as fascinating
as I was, every Thursday, assured
they were. As it was, I could have
paired off, for iguorance of whatever
was taught me, with the worst Latin
scholar that was ever turned out of
a classical academy; whence I have
heen led to conclude that the only
universal rule with regard to educa-
tion is, that no rule should he held
universal, a good education heing
that which adapts itself to individual
wants and faculties. 1 read Plu-
tarch, and Shakespeare, and Don
Quixote hy the sly, and supplied my-
self in that way with wandering
thoughts, while my tutor was assur-
ing me that "an improved man, as
distinguished from an iguorant one,
was a man who knew the reason why
water ran down-hill." I had no de-
sire to he this improved man; I was
glad of the ruuning water; I could
watch it and listen to it gurgling
among the pehhles, and hathing the
hright green water-plants, hy the hour
together. I did not want to know
why it ran; I had perfect coi fidence
that there was good reason for what
was so very heautiful.
There is no need to dwell on this
part of my life. I have said enough
to indicate that my nature was of the
sensitive, uupractical order, and that
it grew up in an uncongenial medinm,
which could never foster it into
happy, healthy development. When
I was sixteen I was sent to Geneva
to complete my course of education;
and the change was a very happy one
to me, for the first sight of the Alps,
with the setting sun on them, as we
descended the Jura, seemed to me
like an entrance into heaven; and the
tbree years of my life there were
spent in a perpetual sense of exalta-
tion, as if from a draught of delicious
wine, at the presence of Nature in all
her awful loveliness. You will think,
perhaps, that I must have heen a
poet, from this early sensihility to
Nature. But my lot was not so
happy as that. A poet pours forth
his song and helieves in the listening
ear and answering soul, to whioh his
song will he floated sooner or later.
But the poet's sensihility without his
voice—the poet's sensihility that finds
no vent hut in silent tears on the
suuny hank, when the noonday light
sparkles on the water, or in an in-
ward shudder at the sound of harsh
human tones, the sight of a cold
human eye—this dumh passion hrings
with it a fatal solitude of soul in the
society of one's fellow-men. My least
solitar; moments were those in which
I pushed off in my hoat, at even-
ing, towards the centre of the lake;


1859.]
27
The Lifted Veil.

it seemed to me that the sky, and the
flowing mountain-tops, and the wide
hlue water, surrounded me with a
cherishing love such as no human
face had shed on me since my
mother's love had vanished out of
my life. I used to do as Jean
Jacques did—lie down in my hoat
and let it glide where it would, while
I looked up at the departing glow
leaving one mountain-top after the
other, as if the prophet's chariot of
fire were passing over them on its
way to the home of light. Then,
when the white summits were all sad
and corpse-like, I had to push home-
ward, for I was under careful sur-
veillance, and was allowed no late
wanderings. This disposition of mine
was not favourahle to the formation
of intimate friendships among the
numerous youths of ray own ago who
are always to he found studying at
Geneva. Yet I made one such friend-
ship; and. singularly enough, it was
with a youth whose intellectual ten-
dencies were the very reverse of my
own. I shall call him Charles Meu-
nier; his real surname—an English
one, for he was of English extraction
—having since hecome celehrated.
He was an orphan, who lived on a
miserahle pittance while he pursued
the medical studies for which he had
a special genins. Strange! that with
my vague mind, impressionahle and
unohservant, hating inquiry and given
up to contemplation, I should have
heen drawn towards a youth whose
strongest passion was science. But
the hond was not an intellectual one;
if. cane from a source that can hap-
pily hlend the stupid with the hril-
liant, the dreamy with the practical;
it came from community of feeling.
Charles was poor and ugly, derided
hy Genevese gamins, and not ac-
ceptahle in drawing-rooms. I saw
that he was isolated, as I was, though
from a different cause, and, stimu-
lated hy a sympathetic resentmeut, I
made timid advances towards him.
It is enough to say that there sprang
up as much camaraderie hetween us
as our different hahits would allow;
and in Charles's rare holidays we
went up the Salfive together, or took
the hoat to Vevay, while I listened
dreamily to the monologues in which
he unfolded his hold conceptions of
future experiment and discovery. I
mingled them confusedly in my
thought with glimpses of hlue
water and delicate floating cloud,
with the notes of hirds and the dis-
tant glitter of the glacier. He knew
quite well that my mind wai half
ahsent, yet he liked to talk to me in
this way; for don't we talk of our
hopes and our projects even to dogs
and hirds, when they love us? I
have mentioned this one friendship
hecause of its counection with a
strange and terrihle scene which I
shall have to narrate in my suhse-
quent life.
This happier life at Geneva was
put an end to hy a terrihle illness,
which is partly a hlank to me, partly
a time of dimly-rememhered suffer-
ing, with the presence of my father
hy my hed from time to time. Then
came the languid monotony of conva-
lescence, the days gradually hreaking
into variety and distinctness as my
strength enahled me to take longer
and longer drives. On one of these
more vividly rememhered days, my
father said to me, as he sat heside my
sofa:
"When you are quite well enough
to travel, Latimer, I shall take you
home with me. The journey will
amuse you and do you good, for I
shall go tbrough the Tyrol and Aus-
tria, and you will see many new
places. Our neighhours, the Fil-
mores, are come; Alfred will join us
at Basle, and we shall all go together
to Vieuna, and hack hy Prjgue" . . .
My father was called away hefore
he had finished his sentence, and he
left my mind resting on the word
Prague, with a strange sense that a
new and wondrous scene was hreak-
ing upon me: a city under the hroad
sunshine, that seemed to me as if
it were the summer sunshine of a
long-past century arrested in its
course—uurefreshod for ages hy the
dews of night, or the rushing rain-
cloud; scorching the dusty, weary,
time-eaten grandeur of a people
doomed to live on in the stale repeti-
tion of memories, like deposed and
superaunuated kings, in their regal
gold - inwoven tatters. The city
looked so thirsty that the hroad
river seemed to me a sheet of metal;
and the hlackened statues, as I passed


28
.[J«iy,
The Lifted Veil.

under their hlank gaze, along the
unending hridge, with their ancient
garments and their saintly crowns,
seemed to me the real inhahitants
and owners of this place, while the
husy, trivial men and women,
hurrying to and fro, were n swarm
of ephemeral visitants infesting it
for a day. It is such grim, stony
heings as these, I thought, who are
the fathers of ancient faded chil-
dren, in those tauned, time-fretted
dwellings that crowd the steep he-
fore me; who pay their court in the
worn and crumhling pomp of the
palace which stretches its monoton-
ous length on the height; who wor-
ship wearily in the stifling air of the
churches, urged hy no fear or hope,
hut compelled hy their doom to he
ever old and undying, to live on in
the rigidity of hnhit,,os they live on
in perpetual midday, without the
repose of night or the new hirth of
morning.
A stuuning clang of metal suddenly
tbrilled through me, and I hecame
conscious of the ohjects in my room
again : one of the fire-irons had fallen,
as Pierre opened the door to hring
me my draught. My heart was pal-
pitating violently, and I hegged
Pierre to leave my draught heside
me; I would take it presently.
As soon as I was alone again, I
hegan to ask myself whether I had
heen sleeping. Was this a dream—
this wonderfully distinct vision—mi-
nute in its distinctness down to a
patch of coloured light on the pave-
ment, transmitted tbrough a coloured
lamp in the shape of a star—of a
strange city, quite unfamiliar to my
imagination? I had seen no picture
of Prague: it lay in my mind as a
mere name, with vaguely rememhered
historical associations — ill - defined
memories of imperial grandeur and
religious wars.
Nothing of this sort had ever oc-
curred in my dreaming experience
hefore, for I had often heen humili-
ated hecause my dreams were only
saved from heing utterly disjointed
and commouplace hy the frequent
terrors of nightmare. Bat I could
not helieve that I had heen asleep,
for I rememhered distinctly the
gradual hreaking-in of the vision up-
on me, like the new images in a dis-
solving view, or the growing dis-
tinctness of the landscape as the sun
lifts up the veil of the morning mist,
And while I was conscious of this in-
cipient vision, I was also conscious
that Pierre came to tell' my father
Mr. Filmore was waiting for him, and
that my father hurried out of the
room. No, it was not a dream; was
it—the thought was full of tremulous
exultation—was it the poet's nature
in me, hitherto only a trouhled,
yearning sensihility, now manifesting
itself suddenly as spontaneous crea-
tion? Surely it was in this way that
Homer saw the plain of Troy, that
Dante saw the ahodes of the departed,
that Milton saw the earthward flight
of the Tempter. Was it that my ill-
ness had wrought some happy change
in my organisation—jjiven a firmer
tension to my nerves—carried off
some dull ohstruction? I had often
read of such effects—in works of
fiction at least. Nay; in genuine
hiographies I had read of the suhtil-
ising or exalting influence of some
diseases on the mental powers. Did
not Novalis feel his inspiration in-
tensified under the progress of con-
sumption?
When my mind had dwelt for some
time on this hlissful idea, it seemed
to me that I might perhaps test it hy
an exertion of my will. The vision
had commenced when my father was
speaking of our going to Prague. I
did not for a moment helieve it was
really a representation of that city;
I helieved—I hoped it was a pic-
ture that my newly-liherated genins
had painted in fiery haste, with the
colours suatched from lazy memory.
Suppose I were to fix my mind on
some other place—Venice, for ex-
ample, which was far more familiar
to my imagination than Prague: per-
haps the same sort of result would
follow. I concentrated my thoughts
on Venice; I stimulated my imagi-
nation with poetic memories, and
strove to feel myself present in
Venice, as I had felt myself present
in Prague. But in vain. I was only
colouring the Canaletto engravings
that hung in my old hedroom at
home; the picture was a shifting
one, my mind wandering uneertainly
in search of more vivid images; I
could see no acoident of form or


1859.]
The Lifted Veil.
shadow without conscious lahour
after the necessary conditions. It
was all prosaic effort, not rapt pas-
sivity, such as I had experienced
half an hour hefore. I was discour-
aged; but I rememhered that in-
spiration was fitful.
For several days I was in a state
of excited expectation, watching for
a recurrence of my new gift. I sent
my thoughts ranging over my world
of knowledge, in the hope that they
would find some ohject which would
send a reawakening vihration tbrough
my slumhering genins. But no; my
world remained as dim as ever, and
that flash of strange light refused to
come again, though I watched for it
with palpitating eagerness.
My father accompanied me every
day in a drive, and a gradually
lengthening walk as my powers of
walking increased; and one evening
he had agreed to come and fetch
me at twelve the next day, that
we might go together to select a
musical suuff-hox, and other pur-
chases, rigorously demanded of a
rich Englishman visiting Geneva,
He was one of the most punctual
of men and hankers, and I was al-
ways nervously anxious to he quite
ready for him at the appointed time.
But, to my surprise, at a quarter
past twelve he had not appeared. I
felt all the impatience of a convales-
cent who has nothing particular to
do, and who has just taken a tonic
in the prospect of immediate exerciso
that would carry off the stimulus.
Unahle to sit still and reserve my
strength, I walked up and down the
room, looking out on the current of
the lihoue, just where it leaves the
dark-hlue lake; hut thinking all the
while of the possihle causes that
could detain my father.
Suddenly I was conscious that my
father was in the room, hut not
alone: there were two persons with
hini. Strange 1 I had heard no foot-
step, I had not seen the door open;
hut I saw my father, and at his
right hand our neighhour Mrs. Fil-
more, whom I rememhered very
well, though I had not seen her
for five years. She was a com-
mouplace middle-aged woman, in
silk and cashmere; hut the lady on
the left of my father was not more
.

than twenty, a tall, slim, willowy
figure, with luxuriant hlond hair ar-
ranged in cuuning hraids and folds
that looked almost too massive for
the alight figure and the small-fea-
tured, thin-lipped face they crowned.
But the face had not a girlish expres-
sion: the features were sharp, the
pale grey eyes at once acute, rest-
less, and sarcastic. They were fixed
on me in half-smiling curiosity, and
I felt a painful sensation as if a sharp
wind were cutting me. The pale-
green dress, and the green leaves that
seemed to form a horder ahout her
hlond hair, made me think of a
Water-Nixie,—for my mind was full
of German lyrics, and this pale, fatal-
eyed woman, with the green weeds,
looked like a hirth from some cold,
sedgy stream, the daughter of an
aged river.
"Well, Latimer, you thought me
long," my father said. . . .
But while the last word was in
my ears, the whole group vanished,
and there was nothing hetween me
and the Chinese painted folding-
screen that stood hefore the door. I
was cold and tremhling; I could only
totter forward and tbrow myself on
the sofa. This strange new power
had manifested itself again
But was it a power? Might it not
rather he a disease—a sort of inter-
mittent delirinm, concentrating my
energy of hrain into moments of un-
healthy activity, and leaving my
saner hours all the more harren? I
felt a dizzy sense of uureality in
what my eye rested on; I grasped
the hell convulsively, like one trying
to free himself from nightmare, and
rang it twice. Pierre came with a
look of alarm in his face.
"Monsieur ne se trouve pas hien?"
he said, anxiously.
"I'm tired of waiting, Pierre,'' I
said, as distinctly and emphatically
as I could, like a man determined to
he soher in spite of wine; "I'm afraid
something has happened to my father
—he's usually so punctual. Run to
the Hotel des Bergues and see if he
is there."
Pierre left the room at once, with
a soothing "Bien, Monsieur;" and I
felt the hetter for this scene of simple,
waking prose. Seeking to calm my-
self still further, I went into my hed-


30
[July,
The Lifted Veil.
room, adjoining the salon, and
opened a case of ean-de-cologue;
took out a hottle; went tbrough the
process of taking out the cork very
neatly, and then ruhhed the reviving
spirit over my hands and forehead,
and under my nostrils, drawing a
new delight from the scent hecause I
had prooured it hy slow details of
lahour, and hy no strange sudden
madness. Already I had hegun to
taste something of the horror that
helongs to the lot of a human heing
whose nature is not adjusted to
simple human conditions.
Still enjoying the scent, I returned
to the salon, hut it was not unoccupied,
as it had heen hefore I left it. In front
of the Chinese folding-screen there
was my father, with Mrs. Filmore on
his right hand, and on his left
the slim hlond-haired girl, with the
keen face and the keen eyes fixed on
me in half-smiling curiosity.
"Well, Latimer, you thought me
long," my father said. . . .
I heard no more, felt no more, till
I hecame conscious that I was lying
with my head low on the sofa, Pierre
and my father hy my side. As soon
as 1 was thorougbly revived, my
father left the room, and presently
returned, saying,
"I've heen to tell the ladies how
you are, Latimer. They were wait-
ing in the next room. We shall put
off our shopping expedition to-day."
Presently he said, "That young
lady is Bertha Grant, Mrs. Filmore's
orphan niece. Filmore has adopted
her, and she lives with them, so you
will have her for a neighhour when
we go home—perhaps for a near re-
lation; for there is a tenderness he-
tween her and Alfred, I suspect, and
I should he gratified hy the match,
since Filmore means to provide for
her in every way as if she were his
daughter. It hadn't occurred to me
that you knew nothing ahout her
living with the Filmores."
He made no further allusion to the
fact of my having fainted at the mo-
ment of seeing her, and I would not
for the world have told him the
reason: I sbrank from the idea of
disclosing to any one what might
he regarded as a pitiahle peculiarity,
most of all from hetraying it to my
father, who would have suspected
my sanity ever after.
I do not mean to dwell with par-
ticularity on the details of my ex-
perience. I have descrihed these two
cases at length, hecause they had
definite, clearly traceahle results in
my after lot.
Shortly after this last occurrence
—I think the very next day—I he-
gan to he aware of a phase in
my abuormal sensihility, to which,
from the languid and slight nature
of my intercourse with others since
my illness, I had not heen alive he-
fore. This was the ohtrusion on my
inind of the mental process going for-
ward in first one person, and then
another, with whom I happened to
he in contact: the vagrant, frivolous
ideas and emotions of some unin-
teresting acquaintance — Mrs. Fil-
more, for example — would force
themselves on my consciousuess like
an importunate, ill-played musical
instrument, or the loud activity of an
imprisoned insect. But this uupleas-
ant sensihility was fitful, and left me
moments of rest, when the souls of
my companions were once more shut
out from me, and I felt a relief such
as silence hrings to wearied nerves. I
might have helieved this importunate
insight to he merely a diseased ac-
tivity of the imagination, hut that
my prevision of incalculahle words
and actions proved it to have a fixed
relation to the mental process in
other minds. But this superadded
consciousuess, wearying and aunoy-
ing enough when it urged on me
the trivial experience of indifferent
people, hecame an intense pain and
grief when it seemed to he opening
to me the souls of those who were in
a close relation to me—when the
rational talk, the graceful attentions,
the hon-mots, and the kindly deeds,
which used to make the weh of their
characters, were seen as if tbrust
asunder hy a microscopic vision, that
showed all the intermediate frivoli-
ties, all the suppressed egoism, all
the struggling chaos of puerilities,
meauness, vague, capricious me-
mories, and indolent make-shift
thoughts, from which human words
and deeds emerge like leaflets cover-
ing a fermenting heap.
At Basle we were joined hy my
hrother Alfred, now a handsome
self-confident man of six-and-twenty
—a thorough contrast to my fragile,


1859.]
31
The Lifted Veil.

nervous, ineffectual self. I helieve I
was held to have a sort of half-
womanish, half-ghostly heanty; for
the portrait-painters, who are thick
as weeds at Geneva, had often asked
me to sit to them, and I had heen
the model of a dying minstrel in a
fancy picture. But I thorougbly dis-
liked my own physique, and nothing
hut the helief that it was a condition
of poetic genins would have recon-
ciled me to it. That hrief hope was
quite fled, and I saw in my face now
nothing hut the stamp of a morhid
organisation, framed for passive suf-
fering—too feehle for the suhlime
resistance of poetic production.
Alfred, from whom I had heen almost
constantly separated, and who, in his
present stage of character and appear-
ance, came hefore me as a perfect
stranger, was hent on heing extreme-
ly friendly and hrother-like to me.
He had the superficial kindness of a
good-humoured, self-satisfied nature,
that fears no rivalry, and has en-
countered no contrarieties. I am not
sure that my disposition was good
enough for me to have heen quite
free from envy towards him, even if
our desires had not clashed, and if I
had heen in the healthy human condi-
tion that admits of generous confi-
dence and charitahle construction.
There must always have heen an
antipathy hetween our natures. As
it was, he hecame in a few weeks an
ohject of intense hatred to me; and
when he entered the room, still more
when he spoke, it was as if a sensa-
tion of grating metal had set my teeth
on edge. My diseased consciousuess
was more intensely and continually
occupied with his thoughts and emo-
tions, than with those of any other
person who came in my way. I was
perpetually exasperated with the
petty promptings of his conceit and
ins love of patronage, with his self-
complacent helief in Bertha Grant's
passion for him, with his half-pitying
contempt for me—seen not in the
ordinary indications of intonation
and pbrase and slight action, which
an acute and suspicious mind is on
the watch for, hut in all their naked
skinless complication.
For we were rivals, and our desires
clashed, though he was not aware of
it. I have said nothing yet of the
effect Bertha Grant produced in mo
on a nearer acquaintance. That
effect was chiefly determined hy the
fact that she made the only excep-
tion, among all the human heings
ahout me, to my unhappy gift of in-
sight. Ahout Bertha I was always
in a state of uncertainty; I could
watch the expression of her face, and
speculato on its meaning; I could
ask for her opinion with the real in-
terest of iguorance; I could listen for
her words and watch for her smile
with hope and fear; she had for me
the fascination of an uuravelled des-
tiny. I say it was this fact that
chiefly determined the strong effect
she produced on me; for, in the ah-
stract, no womanly character could
seem to have less sympathy with that
of a sbrinking, romantic, passionate
youth than Bertha's. She was keen,
sarcastic, unimaginative, premature-
ly cynical, remaining critical and un-
moved in the most impressive scenes,
inclined to dissect all my favourite
poems, and, most of all, contemptu-
ous towards the German lyrics,
which were my pet literature at that
time. To this moment I am unahle
to define my feeling towards her: it
was no ordinary hoyish admiration,
for she was the very opposite, even to
the colour of her hair, of the ideal
woman who still remained to me the
type of loveliness; and she was with-
out that enthusiasm for the great and
good, which, even at the moment; of
her strongest dominion over me, I
should have declared to he the highest
element of character. But there is
no tyrauny more complete than that
which a self-centred negative nature
exercises over a morhidly sensitive
nature perpetually craving sympathy
and support. The most independent
people feel the effect of a man's
silence in heightening their value for
his opinion — feel an additional
trinmph in conquering the reverence
of a critic hahitually captions and
satirical: no wonder then, that an
enthusiastic self-distrusting youth
should watch and wait hefore the
closed secret of a sarcastic woman's
face, as if it were the sbrine of the
douhtfully heniguant deity who ruled
his destiny. For a young enthusiast
is unahle to imagine the total nega-
tion in another mind of the emotions


The Lifted Veil.
[Jniy,

that are stirring his own: they may
he feehle, Intent, inactive, he thinks,
hut they are there, they may he culled
forth—sometimes, in moments of
happy hallucination, he helieves they
may he there in all the greater
strength hecause he sees no outward
sigu of them. And this effect, as I
have intimated, was heightened to
its utmost intensity in me, hecause
Bertha was the only heing who re-
mained for me in the mysterious se-
clusion of. soul that renders such
youthful delusion possihle. Douht-
less there was another sort of fasci-
nation at work—that suhtle physical
attraction which delights in cheating
our psychological predictions, and
in compelling the men who paint
sylphs, to fall in love with some
houne et hrate fetnme, heavy-heeled
and freckled.
Bertha's hehaviour towards me
was such as to encourage all my illu-
sions, to heighten my hoyish passion,
and make me more and more depen-
dent on her smiles. Looking hack
with my present wretched know-
ledge, I conclude that her vanity and
love of power were intensely grati-
fied hy the helief that I had fainted
on first seeing her purely from the
strong impression her person had
produced on me. The most prosaic
woman likes to helieve herself the
ohject of a violent, a poetic passion;
and without a grain of romance in
her, Bertha had that spirit of in-
trigue which gave piquancy to the
idea that the hrother of the man she
meant to marry was dying with love
and jealousy for her sake. That she
meant to marry my hrother, was
what at that time I did not helieve;
for though he was assiduous in his
attentions to her, and I knew well
enough that hoth he and my father
had made up their minds to this
result, there was not yet an under-
stood engagement—there had heen
no explicit declaration; and Bertha
hahitually, while she flirted with my
hrother, and accepted his homage in
a way that implied to him a thorough
recoguition of its intention, made me
helieve, hy the suhtlest looks and
pbrases, slight feminine nothings that
could never he quoted against her,
that he was really the ohject of her
secret ridicule; that she thought
him, as I did, a coxcomh, whom she
would have pleasure in disappoint-
ing. Me she openly petted in my
hrother's presence, as if I were too
young and sickly ever to. he thought
of as a lover; and that was the view
ha took of me. But I helieve she
must inwardly have delighted in the
tremors into which she tbrew me hy
the coaxing way in which she patted
my curls, while she laughed at my
quotations. Such caresses were al-
ways given in the presence of our
friends, for when we were ulone to-
gether, she affected a much greater
distance towards me, und now and
then took the opportunity, hy words
or slight actions, to stimulate my
foolish timid hope that she really
preferred me. And why should she
not follow her inclination? I was
not in so advantageous a position as
my hrother, hut I had fortune, I was
not a year younger than she was,
and she was an heiress, who would
soon he of age to decide for herself.
The fluctuations of hope and fear,
confined to this one chaunel, made
each day in her presence a delicious
torment There was one deliherate
act of hers which especially helped
to intoxicate me. When we were at
Vieuna her twentieth hirthday oc-
curred, and as she was very fond of
ornaments, we all took the oppor-
tunity of the splendid jewellers'
shops in that Teutonic Paris, to pur-
chase her a hirthday present of
jewellery. Mine, naturally, was the
least expensive; it was an opal ring
—the opal was my favourite stone,
hecause it seemed to hlush and turn
pale as if it had a soul. I told
Bertha so when I gave it to her, and
said that it was an emhlem of the
poetic nature, changing with the
changing light of heaven and of
woman's eyes. In the evening she
appeared elegantly dressed, and wear-
ing conspicuously all the hirthday
presents except mine. I looked
eagerly at her fingers, hut saw no
opal. I had no opportunity of no-
ticing this to her during the evening;
hut the next day, when I found her
seated near the window alone,
after hreakfast, I said, "You scorn
to wear my poor opal. I should have
rememhered that you despised poetic
nutures, and should have given you


1859.]
38
The lifted VeiL

coral, or turquoise, or some other
opaque uuresponsive stone." "Do I
despise it?" she answered, taking
hold of a delicate gold chain which
she always wore round her neck aud
drawing oat the end frotn her hosom
with my ring hunging to it; "it hurts
me a little, I can tell you," she said,
with her usual duhious smile, "to
wear it in that secret place; and
since your poetical nature is so
stupid as to prefer a more puhlic
position, I shall not endure the pain
any longer."
She U*rk off the ring from the
chain and put it on her finger, smil-
ing still, while the hlood rushed to
my cheeks, and I could not trust my-
self to say a word of entreaty that
she would keep the ring where it
was hefore.
I was completely fooled hy this,
and for two days shut myself up in
my own room whenever Bertha was
ahsent, that I might intoxicate my-
self afresh with the thought of this
scene, and all it implied.
I should mention that during these
two months—which seemed a long
life to me from the novelty and in-
tensity of the pleasures and pains I
underwent—my diseased participa-
tion in other people's consciousuess
continued to torment me; now it
was my father, and now my hrother,
now Mrs. Filmore or her hushand,
and now our German courier, whose
stream of thought rushed upon me
like a ringing in the ears not to he
got rid of, though it allowed mj' own
impulses and ideas to continue their
uninterrupted course. It was like a
preternatural!y heightened sense of
hearing, making audihle to one a
roar of sound where others find per-
fect stillness. The weariness and
disgust of this involuntary intrusion
into other souls was counteracted
only hy my iguorance of Bertha, and
my growing passion for her; a pas-
sion enormously stimulated, if not
produced, hy that iguorance. She
was my oasis of mystery in the dreary
desert of knowledge. I had never
allowed my diseased condition to he-
tray itself, or to drive me into any
unusual speech or action, except once,
when, in a moment of peculiar hitter-
ness against my hrother, I had fore-
stalled some words which I knew ho
VOL. LXXXVL
3
was going to utter—a clever ohserva-
tion, which he had prepared hefore-
hand. He had occasionally a slightly-
affected hesitation in his speech, and
when he paused an instant after the
second word, my impatience and
jealousy impelled me to continue the
speech for him, as if it were some-
thing we had hoth learnt hy rote.
He ooloured and looked astonished,
as well as aunoyed; and the words
had no sooner escaped my lips than
I felt a shock of alarm lest such an
antici pntion of words, very far from
heing words of course easy to divine,
should have hetrayed me ns an ex-
ceptional heing, a sort of quiet ener-
gumen, that every one, Bertha ahove
all, would shudder at and avoid.
But I maguified, as usual, the im-
pression ony word or deed of mine
could produce on others; for no one
gave any sigu of having noticed my
interruption as more than a rudeness,
to he forgiven me on the score of my
feehle nervous condition.
While this superadded conscious-
ness of the actual was almost constant
with me, I had never had a recur-
rence of that distinct prevision which
I have descrihed in relation to my
first interview with Btrtha; and I
was waiting with eager ouriosity to
know whether or not my vision of
Prague would prove to have heen an
instance of the same kind. A few
days after the incident of the opal
ring, we were paying one of our fre-
quent visits to the Lichtenherg
Palace. I could never look at many
pictures in succession; for pictures,
when they are at all powerful, affect
me so strongly that one or two ex-
haust all my capahility of contempla-
tion. This morning I had heen looking
at Giorgione's picture of the cruel-
eyed woman, said to he a likeness of
Lucrezia Borgia. I had stood long
alone hefore it, fascinated hy the
terrihle reality of that cuuning, re-
lentless face, till I felt a strange
poisoned sensation, as if I had long
heen inhaling a fatal odour, and was
just hegiuning to he conscious of its
effects. Perhaps even then 1 should
not have moved away if the rest of the
party had not returned to this room,
and aunounced that they were going
to the Belvedere Gallery to settle a
het which had arisen hetween my


The Lifted Veil.
[July,

hrother and Mr. Filmore ahout a
portrait. I followed them dreamily,
and was hardly alive to what oc-
curred till they had all gone up to
the gallery, leaving me helow; for I
refused to come within >ight of
another picture that day. I made my
way to the Grand Terrace, for it was
agreed that we should saunter in the
gardens when the dispute had heen
decided. I had heen sitting here a
short space, vaguely conscious of trim
gardens, with a city and green hills
in the distance, when, willing to
avoid the proximity of the sentinel,
I rose and walked down the hroad
stone steps, intending to seat my-
self further on in the gardens.
Just as I reached the gravel walk,
I felt an arm slipped within mine,
and a light hand gently pressing my
wrist. In the same instant a strange
intoxicating numbuess passed over
me, like the continuance or
climax of the sensation I was still
feeling from the gaze of Lucrezia
Borgia. The gardens, the summer
sky, the consciousuess of Bertha's
arm heing within mine, all vanished,
and I seemed to he suddenly in
darkness, out of which there
gradually hroke a dim firelight, and
1 felt myself sitting in my father's
leather chair in the lihrary at home.
1 knew the fireplace—the dogs for
the wood fire—the hlack marhle
chimney-piece with the white marhle
medallion of the dying Cloopatrain the
centre. Intense and hopeless misery
was pressing on my soul; the light
hecame stronger, for Bertha was
entering with a candle in her hand—
Berth*, my wife—with cruel eyes,
with given jewels and green leaves
on her white hall-dress; every hate-
ful thought within her present to me.
.... "Madman, idiot 1 why don't
vou kill yourself, then?" It was a
moment of hell. I saw into her piti-
less soul—saw its harren worldliness,
ita scorching hate, and felt it clothe
me round like an air I was ohliged to
hreathe. She came with her candle
and stood over me with a hitter smile
of contempt; I saw the great emerald
hrooch on her hosom, a studded ser-
pent with diamond eyes. I shuddered
—I despised this woman with the
harren soul and mean thoughts; hut
1 felt helpless hefore her, as if she
clutched my hleeding heart, and
would clutch it till the last drop of
life hlood ehhed away. She was my
wife, and we hated each other.
Gradually the hearth, the dim lihrary,
the candle-light disappeared—seemed
to melt away into a hackground of
light, the green serpent with the
diamond eyes remaining a dark image
on the retina. Then I had a sense of
my eyelids quivering, and the living
daylight hroke in upon me; I saw
gardens, and heard voices; I was
seated on the steps of the Belvedere
Terrace, and my friends were round
me.
The tumult of mind into which I
was tbrown hy this hideous vision
made me ill for several days, and
prolonged our stay at Vieuna. I
shuddered with horror as the scene
recurred to me; and it recurred con-
stantly, with all its minutiffl, as if
they had heen hurnt into my memory;
and yet, such is the madness of
the human heart under the in-
fluence of its immediate desires, I
felt a wild hell-hraving joy that
Bertha was to he mine; for the
fulfilment of my former prevision
concerning her first appearance he-
fore me left me little hope that this
last hideous glimpse of the foture
was the mere diseased play of my
own mind, and had no relation to
external realities. One thing rdone I
looked towards as a possihle means
of casting douht on my terrihle con-
viction—the discovery that my vision
of Prague had heen false—and Prague
was the next city on our route.
Meanwhile, 1 was no sooner in
Bertha's society again, than I was
as completely under her sway as
hefore. What if I saw into the heurt
of Bertha, the matured woman—Ber-
tha, my wife? Bertha, the girl, was
a fascinating secret to me still: I
tremhled under her touch; I felt the
witchery of her presence; I yearned
to he assured of her love. The fear
of poison is feehle against the sense
of thirst. Nay, I was just as jealous
of my hrother as hefore—just as
much irritated hy his small patronis-
ing ways; for my pride, my diseased
sensihility, were there as they had
always heen, and winced as inevi-
tahly under every offence as my
eye winced from an intruding mote.


1859.]
The Lifted Veil.

The future, even when hrought with-
in the compass of feeling hy a vision
that made me shudder, had still no
more than the force of an idea, com-
pared with the force of present emo-
tion—of my love for Bertha, of my
dislike aud jealousy towards my
hrother.
It is an old story, that men sell
themselves to the tempter, and sigu
a hond with their hlood, hecause it
is only to take effect at a distant
day; then rush on to suatch the cup
their souls thirst after with no less
savage an impulse, hecause there is
a dark shadow heside them for ever-
more. There is no short cut, no
patent tram road, to wisdom: after
all the centuries of invention, the
soul's path lies tbrough the thorny
wilderness which must ho still trod-
den in solitude, with hleeding feet,
with sohs for help, as it was trodden
hy them of old time.
Jly mind speculated eagerly on
the means hy which I should hecome
my hrother's succesrful rival, for I
was still too timid, in my iguorance
of Bertha's actual feeling, to venture
on any step that would urge from
her an avowal of it. I thought I
should gain confidence even for this,
if my vision of Prague proved to
have heen veracious; and yet, the
horror ot that certitude! Behind
the slim girl Bertha, whose words
and looks I watched for, whose
touch was hliss, there stood con-
tinually that Bertha with the ful-
ler form, the harder eyes, the more
rigid mouth,-—with the harren sel-
fish soul laid hare; no longer a fasci-
nating secret, hut a measured fact,
urging itself perpetually on my un-
willing sight. Are you unahle to
give me your sympathy—you who
read this? Are you unahle to ima-
gine this douhle consciousuess at
work within me, flowing on like two
parallel streams that never mingle
their waters and hlend into a com-
mon hue? Yet you must have known
something of the presentiments that
spring from an insight at war with
passion; and my visions were only like
presentiments intensified to horror.
You have known the powerlessuess
of ideas hefore the might of impulse;
and my visions, when once they had
passed into memory, were mere ideas
—pale shadows that heckoned in
vain, while my hand was grasped hy
the living and the loved.
In after days I thought with hitter
regret that if I had loreseen some-
thing more or something different—
if instead of that hideous vision
which poisoned the passion it could
not destroy, or if, even along with it,
I could have had a foreshadowing of
that moment when I looked on my
hrother's face for the last time, some
softening influence would have heen
shed over my feeling towards him:
pride and hatred would surely have
heen suhdued into pity, and the
record of those hidden sins would
have heen shortened. But this is
one of the vain thoughts with which
we men flatter ourselves, trying to
helieve that the egoism within us
would have easily heen melted, and
that it was only the narrowness
of our knowledge which hindered our
generosity, our awe, our human piety, ) -
from flooding our hard cruel imliffer-
ence to the sensations and feelings of
our fellow, with the tenderness and
self-renunciation which have only
come when the egoism has had its
day, when, after our mean striving
for a trinm h that is to he another's
loss, the trinmph comes suddenly,
and we shudder at it hecause it is
held out hy the chill hand of death.
Our arrival in Prague happened at
night, and I was glad of this, for
it seemed like a deferring of a terrihly
decisive moment, to he in the city for
hours without seeing it. As we were
not to remain long in Prague, hut to
go on speedily to Dresden, it was
proposed that we should drive out
the next morning and take a general
view of the place, as well as visit
some of its specially interesting spots,
hefore the heat hecame oppressive—
for we were in August, and the sea-
son was hot and dry. But it hap-
pened that the ladies were rather
late at their morning toilette, and
to my father's politely repressed hut
perceptihle aunoyance, we were not
in the carriage till the morning was
far advanced. I thought with a
sense of relief, as we entered the
Jews' quarter, where we were to
visit the old eynagogue, that we
should he kept in this flat, shut-up
part of the city, until we should


The Lifted Veil.
[July,

all he too tired and too warm to
go farther, and so we should return
without seeing more than the streets
tbrough which we had already
passed. That would give me another
day's suspense—suspense, the only
form in which a fearful spirit knows
the solace of hope. But, as I stood
under the hlackened, groined arches
of that old synagogue, made dimly
visihle hy the seven thin candles in
the sacred lamp, while our Jewish
cicerone reached down the Book of
the Law, and read to us in itsancient
tongue,—1 felt a shuddering impres-
sion that this strange huilding, with
its sbrunken lights, this surviving
withered remnant of medieval Juda-
ism, was of a piece with my vision.
Those darkened dusky Cbristian
saints, with their loftier arches and
their larger candles, needed the con-
solatory scorn with which they might
point to a more sbrivelled death in
life than their own.
As I expected, when we left the
Jews' quarter, the elders of our
party wished to return to the hotel.
But now, insteud of rejoicing in this,
as I had done heforehand, I felt a
sudden overpowering impulse to go on
at once to the hridge, and put an end
to the suspense I had heen wishing to
protract. I declared, with unusual
decision, that I would get out of the
carriage and walk on alone; they
might return without me. My father,
thinking this merely a sample of my
usual "poetic nonsense," ohjected
that I should only do myself harm
hy walking in the heat; hut when I
persisted, he said angrily that I might
follow my own ahsurd devices, hut
that Schmidt (our courier) must go
with me. I assented to this, and set
off with Schmidt towards the hridge.
I had no sooner passed from under
the archway of the grand old gate
leading on to the hridge, than a
tremhling seized me, and I turned
cold under the mid-day sun; yet
I went on; I was in search of
something—a small detail which I
rememhered with special intensity
as part of my vision. There it was
—the patch of coloured light on
the pavement transmitted tbrough a
lamp in the shape of a star.
CHAPTER IL
Before the autumn was at an
end, and while the hrown leaves,
still stood thick on the heeches in our
park, my hrother and Bertha were
engaged to each other, and it was un-
derstood that their marriage was to
take place early in the next spring.
In spite of the certainty I had felt
from that moment, on the hridge
at Prague, that Bertha would one
day he my wife, my constitutional
timidity and distrust hod continued
to henumh me, and the words in
which I had sometimes premeditated
a confession of my love, had died
away unuttered. The same confhct
had gone on within me as hefore—
the longing for an assurance of love
from Bertha's lips, the dread lest
a word of contempt and denial should
fall upon me like a corrosive acid.
What was the conviction of a distant
necessity to me? I tremhled under
a present glance, I hungered after a
present joy, I was clogged and chilled
hy a present fear. And so the days
passed on: I witnessed Bertha's en-
gagement and heard her marriage
discussed as if I were under a con-
scious nightmare— knowing it was a
dream that would vanish, hut feeling
stifled under the grasp of hard-clutch-
ing fingers.
When I was not in Bertha's pre-
sence—and I was with her very
olten, for she continued to treat me
with a playful patronage that wak-
ened no jealousy in my hrother—I
spent my time chiefly in wanderirg,
in strolling, or taking long rides
while the daylight la-ted. and then
shutting myself up with my uuread
hooks; for hooks had lust the power
of chaining my attention. My self-
consciousuess was heightened to that
pitch of intensity in which our own
emotions take the form of a drama
that urges itself imperatively on
our contemplation, and we hegin to
weep, less under the sense of our s
suffering than at the thought of it.
I felt a sort of pitying anguish over


1859.]
37
The Lifted Veil

the pathos of my own lot—the lot of
* heing finely organised for pain,
hut with hardly any fihres that re-
sponded to pleasure—to whom the
idea of future evil rohhed the pre-
sent of its joy, and f.,r whom the
idea of future good did not still the
uneasiness of a present yearning or
a present dread: I went dumhly
tbrongh that stage of the poet's
suffering, in which he feels the de-
licious pang of utterance, and makes
an image of his sorrows.
I was left entirely without remon-
strance concerning this dreamy way-
ward life: I knew my father's
thought ahout me:—'-That lad will
'never he good for anything in life:
he may waste his years in an insig-
nificint way on the income that falls
to him: I shall not trouhle myself
ahout a career for him."
One mild morning in the hegin-
ning of Novemher, it happened that I
was standing outside the portico pat-
ting lazy old C»sar, a Newfoundland
almost hlind with age, the oidy dog
that ever took any notice of me—
for the very dogs shauned me, and
fawned on the happier people ahout
me—when the groom hrought up
my hrother's horse which was to
carry him to the hunt, and my
hrother himself appeared at the
door, florid, hroad-chested, and self-
complacent, feeling what a good-
natured fellow he was not to hehave
insolently to us all on the strength
of his great advantages.
"Latimer, old hoy," he said to
me in a tone of compassionate cor-
diality, "what a pity it is you don't
have a run with the hounds now and
then. The finest thing in the world
for low spirits!"
"Low spirits!" I thought hitterly,
as he rode away; "that's the sort
of pbrase with which coarse, narrow
natures like yours think yon com-
pletely define experience of which
you can know no more than your
horse knows. It is to such as you
that the good of this world falls:
ready dulness, healthy selfishness,
good-tempered conceit—these are
the keys to happiness."
The quick thought came, that my
selfishness was even stronger than
his—it wsh only a suffering selfish-
mstead of an enjoying one.
But then again, my exasperating
insight into Alfred's self-complacent
soul, his freedom from all the douhts
and fears, the unsatisfied yearnings,
the exquisite tortures of sensitive-
ness, that had made the weh of my
life, seemed to ahsolve me from all
honds towards him. This man needed
no pity, no love; those fine influences
would have heen as little felt hy
him as the delicate white mist is
felt hy the rock it caresses. There
was no evil in store for him: if he
was not to marry Bertha, it would he
hecause he had found a lot pleasanter
to himself.
Mr. Filmore's house lay not more
than half a mile heyond our own
gates, and whenever I knew my
hrother was gone in another direc-
tion, I went there for the chance of
finding Bertha at home. Later on
in the day I walked thither. By a
rare accident she was alone, and we
walked out in the grounds together,
for she seldom went on foot heyond
the trimly swept gravel walks. I
rememher what a heautiful sylph
she looked to me as the low Novem-
her sun shone on her hlond hair,
and she triptied along teasing me
with her usual light hanter, to which
I listened half fondly, half moodily:
it was all the sigu Bertha's myste-
rious iuner self ever made to me.
To-day perhaps the moodiness pre-
dominated, for I had not yet shaken
off the access of jealous hate which
my hrother had raised in me hy hi«
parting patronage. Suddenly I in-
terrupted and startled her hy saying,
almost fiercely, "Bertha, how can
you love Alfred?"
She looked at me with surprise
for a moment, hut soon her light
smile came again, and she answered
sarcasticallv, " Why do you suppose 1
love him?"
"How can you ask that, Bertha?"
"What! your wisdom thinks I
must love the man I'm going to
marry? The most uupleasant thing
in the world. I should quarrel with
him; I should he jealous of him-,
our minage would he conducted in
a very ill-hred manner. A little
quiet contempt contrihutes greatly
to the elegance of life."
"Bertha, that is not your real
feeling. Why do you delight in


The Lifted Veil.
[July,
trying to deceive me hy inventing
such cynical speeches?"
"I need never take the trouhle of
invention in order to deceive yon. my
small Tasso"—(that was the mocking
name she usually gave me). "The
easiest way to deceive a poet is to
tell him the truth."
She was testing the validity of
her epigram in a daring way, and
for a moment the shadow of my
vision—the Bertha whose soul was
no secret to me—passed hetween me
and the radiant girl, the playful
sylph whose feelings were a fascinat-
ing mystery. I suppose I must have
shuddered, or hetrayed in some other
way my momentary chill of horror.
*'Tasso!" she said, seizing my
wrist, and peeping round into my
face, "are you really hegiuning to
discern what a heartless girl I am?
Why, you are not half the poet I
thought you were; you are actually
capahle of helieving the truth ahout
me."
The shadow passed from hetween
us, and was no longer the ohject
nearest to me. The girl whose light
fingers grasped me, whose elfish
ohar.ning face looked into mine—
who, I thought, was hetraying an
interest in my feelings that she
would not have directly avowed,—
this warm-hreathing presence again
possessed my senses and imagination
like a returning syren melody that
had heen overpowered for an instant
hy the roar of tbreatening waves.
It was a moment as delicious to me
as the waking up to a consciousuess
of youth aiter a dream of middle
age. I forgot everything hut my
passion, and said with swimming
eyes—
"Bertha, shall you love mo when
we are first married? I wouldn't
mind if you really loved me only for a
little while."
Her look of astonishment, as she
loosed my hand and started away
from me, recalled me to a sense of
my strange, my criminal indiscretion.
"Forgive me," I said, hurriedly,
as soon as I could speak again;
"I did'nt know what I was saying."
"Ah, Tasso's mad fit has come
on, I see," she answered quietly, for
she had recovered herself sooner than
I had. "Let him go home and keep
his head cool. I must go in, for the
sun is setting."
I left her—full of indiguation
agoinst myself. I had let slip words
which, if she reflected on them,
might rouse in her a suspicion of my
abuormal mental condition—a suspi-
cion which of all things I dreaded.
And hesides that, I was ashamed of
the apparent hareness I had commit-
ted in uttering them to my hrother's
hetrothed wife. I wandered home
slowly, entering our park tbrough a
private gate instead of hy the lodges.
As I approached the house I saw a
man dashing off at full speed from
the stahle-yard across the pork. Had
any accident happened at home?
No; perhaps it was only one of my
father's peremptory husiness errands
that required this headlong haste.
Nevertheless I quickened my pace
without any distinct motive, and
was soon at the house. I will not
dwell on the scene I found there.
My hrother was dead—had heen
pitched from his horse, and killed on
the spot hy a concussion of the hrain.
I went up to the room where he
lay, and where my father was seated
heside him with a look of rigid de-
spair. I had shunned my father
more than any one since our return
home, for the radical antipathy he-
tween our natures made my insight
into his iuner self a constant afflic-
tion to me. But now, as I went up
to him, and stood heside him in sad
silence, I felt the presence of a new
element that hlended us as we had
never heen hlent hefore. My father
had heen one of the most successful
men in the money-getting world: he
had had no sentimental sufferings, no
illness. The heaviest trouhle that
had hefallen him was the death of his
first wife. But he married my mother
soon after; ond I rememher he seemed
exactly the same to my keen childish
ohservation, the week after her death
as before. But now, at last, a sorrow
had come—the sorrow of old age,
which suffers the more from the
crushing of its pride and its hopes,
in proportion as the pride and hope
are narrow and prosaic. His son
was to have heen married soon—
would prohahly have stoixl for the
horough at the next election. That
son's existence was the hest motive


1859.]
The Lifted Veil.

that could he alleged for making new
purchases of land every year to round
off the estate. It is a dreary thing
to live on doing the same things year
after year, without knowing why we
do them. Perhaps the tragedy of
disappointed youth and passion is
lees piteous than the tragedy of dis-
appointed age and worldliness.
As I saw into the desolation of my
father's heart, I felt a movement of
Jeep pity towards him, which was
the hegiuning of a new affection—an
affection that grew and strengthened
in spite of the strange hitterness with
which he regarded me in the first
month or two after my hrother's
death. If it had not heen for the
softening influence of my compassion
for him—the first deep compassion
I had ever felt—I should have heen
stung hy the perception that my
father transferred the inheritance of
an eldest son to me with a mortified
sense that fate had compelled him to
the unwelcome course of caring for
me as an important heing. It was
only in spite of himself that he hegan
to think of me with anxious regard.
There is hardly any neglected child,
for whom death has made vacant a
more favoured place, that will not
understand what I mean.
Gradually, however, my new de-
ference to his wishes, the effect of
that patienee which was horn of my
pity for him, won upon his affection,
and he hegan to please himself with
the endeavour to make me fill my
hrother's place as fully as my feehler
personality would admit. I saw that
the prospect which hy-and-hy pre-
sented itself of my hecoming Bertha's
hushand was welco i e to him, and he
even contemplated in my case what
he had not intended in my hrother's
—that his son and daughter-in-law
should make one household with him.
My softened feeling towards my
father made this the happiest time
I had known since childhood;—these
last months in which I retained the
delicious illusion of loving Bertha, of
longing and douhting and hoping
that she loved me. She hehaved
with a certain new consciousuess and
distance towards me after my hro-
ther's death; and I too was under a
douhle constraint—that of delicacy
towrrda my hrother's memory, and
of anxiety as to the Impression my
ahrupt words had left on her mind.
But the additional screen this mu-
tual reserve erected hetween us only
hrought me more completely under
her power: no matter how empty
the adytum, so that the veil he thick
enough. So ahsolute is our soul's
need of something hidden and un-
certain for the maintenance of that
douht ami hope and effort which are
the hreath of its life, that if the whole
future were laid hare to us heyond
to-day, the interest of all mankind
would he hent on the hours that lie
hetween; we should pant after the
uncertainties of our one morning and
our one afternoon; we should rush
fiercely to the Exchange for our last
possihility of speculation, of success,
of disappointtnent; we should have
a glut of political prophets foretelling
a crisis or a no-crisis within the only
twenty-four hoars left open to pro-
phecy. Conceive the condition of
the human mind if all propositions
whatsoever were self-evident except
one, which was to hecome self-evident
at the close of a summer's day, hut
in the meantime might he the suhject
of question, of hypothesis, of dehate.
Art and philosophy, literature and
science, would fasten like hees on
that one proposition that had the
honey of prohahility in it, and he the
more eager hecause their enjoyment
would end with sunset. Our im-
pulses, our spiritual activities, no
more adjust themselves to the idea
of their future nullity, than the heat-
ing of our heart, or the irritahility of
our muscles.
Bertha, the slim, fair-haired girl,
whose present thoughts and emotions
were an enigma to me amidst the
fatiguing ohviousuess of the other
minds around me, was as ahsorhing
to me as a single unknown to-day—
as a single hypothetic MopMittoo to
remain prohlematic till sunset; and
all the cramped, hemmed-in helief
and dishelief, trust and distrust, of
my nature, welled out in this one
narrow chaunel.
And she made me helieve that she
loved me. Without ever quitting
her tone of hadinage and playful
superiority, she intoxicated me with
the sense that I was necessary to
her, that she was never at ease un-


The Lifted Veil.
[July,

less I was near her, suhmitting to her
playful tyrauny. It costs a woman
so little effort to hesot us in this
way! A half-repressed word, a mo-
ment's unexpected silence, even an
easy fit of petulance on our account,
will serve us as hashish for a long
while. Out of the suhtlest weh of
scarcely-perceptihle sigus, she set me
weaving the fancy that she had always
unconsciously loved me hetter than
Alfred, hut that, with the iguorant
fluttered sensihility of a young girl,
she had heen imposed on hy the charm
that lay for her in the distinction
of heing admired and chosen hy a
man who made so hrilliant a figure
in the world as my hrother. She
satirised herself in a very graceful
way for her vanity and amhition.
What was it to me that I had the
light of my wretched prevision on the
fact that now it was I who possessed
at least all hut the personal part
of my hrother's advantages? Our
sweet illusions are half of them con-
scious illusions, like effects of colour
that we know to he made up of tin-
sel, hroken glass, and rags.
We were married eighteen months
after Alfred's death, one cold, clear
morning in April, when there camo
hail and sunshine hoth together; and
Bertha, in her white silk and pale-
green leaves, and the pale sunshine
of her hair and eyes, looked like the
spirit of the morning. My father
was happier than he had thought of
heing again: my marriage, he folt
sure, would complote the desirahle
modification of my character, and
make me practical and worldly
enough to take my place in society
among sane men. For ho delighted
in Bertha's tact and acuteness, and
felt >ure she would he mistress of
me, and make me what she chose:
I was only twenty-one, and madly in
love with her. Poor father I He
kept that hope a little while after
our first year of marriage, and it was
not quite extinct when paralysis
came and saved him from utter dis-
appointment.
I shall hurry tbrough the rest of
my story, not dwelling so much as I
have hitherto done on my inward
experience. When people are well
known to each other, they talk rather
of what hefalls them externally, leav-
ing their feelings and sentiments to
he inferred.
We lived in a round of visits for
some time after our return home,
giving splendid diuner-parties, and
making a sensation in our neighhour-
hood hy the new lustre of our equi-
page, for my father had reserved this
display of his increased wealth for
the period of his son's marriage; and
we gave our acquaintances liheral
opportunity for remarking that it
was a pity I made so poor a figure as
an heir and a hridegroom. The ner-
vous fatigue of this existence, tlie
insincerities and platitudes which I
had to live though twice over—
tbrough my iuner and outward sense
—would have heen maddening to me,
if I had not had that sort of intoxi-
cated callousuess which came from
the delights of a first passioc A
hride and hridegroom, surrounded
hy all the appliances of wealth, hur-
ried tbrough the day hy the whirl of
society, filling their solitary moments
with hastily-suatched caresses, are
prepared for their future life, together,
as the novice is prepared for the
cloister, hy experiencing its utmost
contrast
Tbrough all these crowded excited
months, Bertha's inward self re-
mained sbrouded from me, and I still
read her thoughts only tbrough the
language of her lips and demeanour; I
had still the delicious human interest
of wondering whether what I did and
said pleased her, of longing to hear
a word of aifection, of giving a deli-
cious exaggeration of meaning to her
smile. But I was conscious of a
growing difference-in her mauner to-
wards me; sometimes strong enough
to he called haughty coldness, cut-
ting and chilling me as the hail had
done that came across the sunshine
on our marriage morning; some-
times only perceptihle in the dex-
terous avoidance of a tete-a tile walk
or diuner, to which I had heen look-
ing forward. I had heen deeply
pained hy this—had even felt a sort
of crushing of the heart, from the
sense that my hrief day of happiness
was near its setting; hut still I re-
mained dependent on Bertha, eager
for the last rays of a hliss that would


1869.]
«
The Lifted Veil.

soon he gone for ever, hoping and
watching for some after-glow more
heautiful from the impending night.
I rememher—how should I not re-
memher?—the time when that de-
pendence and hope ntterly left me—
when the sadness I had felt in Bertha's
growing estrangement hecame a joy
that I looked hack upon with longing,
as a man might look hack on the
last pains in a paralysed limh. It
was just after the close of mlr father's
last illness, which necessarily with-
drew ns from society, and tbrew us
mure upon each other. It was the
evening of my father's death. On
that evening the veil that had
sbrouded Bertha's soul from me,
and made me find in her alone
among my fellow-heings the hlessed
possihility of mystery, and donht, and
expectation, was first withdrawn.
Perliaps it was the first day since the
heginning of my passion for her, in
which that passion was completely
neutralised hy the presenoe of an
ahsorhing feeling of another kind. I
had heen watching hy my father's
death-hed: 1 had heen witnessing the
lost fitful yearning glances that his'
soul had cast hack on the spent in-
heritance of life—the last faint con-
sciousuess of love that he had gathered
from the pressure of my hand. What
are all our personal loves when we
have heen sharing in that supreme
agony? ID the first moments when
we come away from the presence of
death, every other relation to the
living is merged, to our feeling, in the
great relation of a common nature
and a common destiny.
It was Ui that state of mind that I
joined Bertha in her private hitting-
ro ,in. She was seated in a leaning
posture on a settee, with her heck
towards the door; the great rich
coils of her hlond hair surmounting
her small neck, visihle ahove the
hack of the settee. I rememher, as I
closed the door hehind me, a cold
tretnulon-ness seizing me, and a
vague sense of heing hated and lonely
—vague and strong, like a presenti-
ment. I know how I looked at that
moment, for I saw myself in Bertha's
thought as she lifted her cutting
grey eyes, and looked at me: a
miserahle ghost-seer, surrounded hy
phantoms in the noon-day, tremhling
under a hreeze when the leaves were
still, without appetite for the com-
mon ohjects of human desire, hat
pining after the moonheams. We
were front to front with each other,
and judged each other. The terrihle
moment of complete illumination had
come to ine, and I saw that the dark-
ness had hidden no landscape from
me, hut only a hlank prosaic wall:
from that evening forth, tbrough the
sickening years that followed, I saw
all round the narrow room of this
woman's soul—saw petty artifice and
mere negation where I had delighted
to helieve in coy sensihilities, and in
wit at war with latent feeling—saw
the light floating vanities of the girl
defining themselves into the systema-
tic coquetry, the scheming selfishness,
of the woman—saw repulsion and an-
tipathy hardening into cruel hatred,
giving pain only for the sake of
wreaking itself.
For Bertha too, after her kind, felt
the hitterness of disillusion. She
had helieved that my wild poet's
passion for her would make mo her
slave; and that, heing her slave, I
should execute her will in all things.
With the essential shallowness of a
negative, unimaginative nature, she
was unahle to conceive the fact that
sensihilities were anything else than
weaknesses. She had thought my
weaknesses would put me in her
power, and she found them un-
manageahle forces. Our positions
were reversed. Before marriage, she
had completely mastered my imagi-
nation, for she was a secret to me;
and I created the unknown thought
hefore which I tremhled, as if it were
hers. But now that her soul was
laid open to me, now that I was com-
pelled to share the privacy of her
motives, to follow all the petty de-
vices that preceded her words and
acts, she found herself powerless with
me, except to produce in me the
chili shudder of repulsion—power-
less, hecause I could he acted on hy
no lever within her reach. I was
dead to worldly amhitions, to social
vanities, to all tho incentives within
the compass of her narrow imagina-
tion, and I lived under influences
utterly invisihle to her.
She was really pitiahle to have
such a hushand, and so all the world


42
[July,
Tht Lifted Veil.

thought. A graceful, hrilliant woman,
like Bertha, who smiled on morning
callers, made a figure in hall-rooms,
and was capahle of that light repartee
which, from such a woman, is accept-
ed as wit, was secure of carrying off
all sympathy from a hushand who
was sickly, ahstracted, and, as some,
suspected, crack-hrained. Even the
servants in our house gave her the
halance of their regard and pity.
For there were no audihle quarrels
hetween us; our alienation, our re-
pulsion from each other, lay within
the silence of our own hearts; and if
the mistress went out a great deal,
and seemed to dislike the master's
society, was it not natural, poor
thing? The master was odd. I was
kind and just to my dependants, hut
I excited in them a sbrinking, half-
contemptuous pity; for this class of
men and women are hut slightly de-
termined in their estimate of others
hy general considerations of charac-
ter. They judge of persons as they
V judge of coins, and value those who
pass current at a high rate.
After a time I interfered so little
with Bertha's hahits, that it might
seem wonderful how her hatred to-
wards me could grow so intense and
active as it did. But she had hegun
to suspect, hy some involuntary he-
trayals of mine, that there was an
abuormal power of penetration in
me—that fitfully, at least, I was
strangely coguisant of her thoughts
and intentions, and she hegan to he
haunted hy a terror of me, whioh
alternated every now and then with
defiance. She meditated continually
how the incuhus could he shaken off
her life—how she oould he freed from
this hateful hond to a heing whom
she at once despised as an imhecile,
and dreaded as an inquisitor. For a
long while she lived in the hope that
my evident wretchedness would drive
me to the commission of suicide;
hut suicide was not in my nature.
I was too completely swayed hy the
sense that I was in the grasp of un-
known forces, to helieve in my power
of self-release. Towards my own
destiny I had hecome entirely pas-
sive; for my one ardent desire had
spent itself, and impulse no longer
predominated over knowledge. For
this reason I never thought of taking
any steps towards a complete separa-
tion, which would have made our
alienation evident to the world. Why
should I rush for help to a new
course, when I was only suffering from
the consequences of a deed which
had heen the act of my intensest
will? That would have heen the
logic of one who had desires to
gratify, and I had no desires. Bnt
Bertha and I lived more and more
aloof from each other. The rich find
it easy to live married and apart.
That course of our life whioh I
have indicated in a few sentences
filled the space of years. So much
misery—so slow and hideous a
growth of hatred and sin, may he
compressed into a sentence! And
men judge of each other's lives
tbrough this summary medinm. They
epitomise the experience of their
fellow-mortal, and pronounce judg-
ment on him in neat syntax, and feel
themselves wise and virtuous—con-
querors over the temptations they
define in well-selected predicates.
Seven years of wretchedness glide
glihly over the lips of the man who
has never counted them out in
moments of chill disappointment, of
head and heart tbrohhings, of dread
and vain wrestling, of remorse and
despair. We learn words hy rote,
hut not their meaning; that must he
paid for with our life-hlood, and
printed in the suhtle fihres of our
nerves.
But I will hasten to finish my
story. Brevity is justified at once
to those who readily understand, and
to those who will never understand.
Some years after my father's death,
I was sitting hy the dim firelight in
my lihrary one January evening—
sitting in the leather chair that used
to he my father's—when Bertha ap-
peared at the door, with a randle in
her hand, and advanced towards me.
I knew the hall-dress she had on—
the white hall-dress, with the green
jewels, shone upon hy the light of
the wax candle which lit up the
medallion of the dying Cleopatra on
the mantelpiece. Why did she come
to me hefore going out? I had not
seen her in the lihrary, which was
my hahitual place, for months. Why
did she stand hefore me with the
candle in her hand, with her cruel


1859.]
48
The Lifted Veil.

contemptuous eyes fixed on rne, and
the glittering serpent, like a familiar
demon, on her hreast? For a mo-
ment I thonght this fulfilment of my
vision at Vieuna marked some dread-
ful crisis in my fate, hut I saw no-
thing in Bertha's mind, as she stood
hefore me, except scorn for the look
of overwhelming misery with which
I sat hefore her. ..." Fool, idiot,
why don't you kill yourself, then?"
—that was her thonght. But at
length her thoughts reverted to her
errand, and she spoke aloud. The
apparently indifferent nature of the
errand seemed to make a ridiculous
anticlimax to my provision and my
agitation.
u I have had to hire a new maid.
Fletcher ia going to he married, and
she wants me to ask yon to let her
hushand have the puhlic-house and
farm at Molton. I wish him to have
it. You must give the promise now,
hecause Fletcher is going to-morrow
morning—and quickly, hecause I'm
in. a hurry."
"Very well; you may promise
her,'" I said, indifferently, and Bertha
swept out of the lihrary again.
I always sbrank from the sight of
a new person, and all the more when
it was a person whose mental life
was likely to weary my reluctant in-
sight with worldly iguorant triviali-
ties. But I sbrank especially from
the sight of this new maid, hecause
her advent had heen aunounced to
me at a moment to which I could
not cease to attach some fatality: I
had a vague dread that I should find
her mixed up with the dreary drama
of my life—that some new sickening
vision would reveal her to me as an
evil genins. When at last I did un-
avoidahly meet her, the vague dread
was changed into definite disgust.
She was a tall, wiry, dark-eyed
woman, this Mrs. Archer, with a face
handsome enough to give her coarse
hard nature the odious finish of hold,
self-confident coquetry. That was
enough to make me avoid her, quite
apart from the contemptuous feeling
with which she contemplated me. 1
seldom saw her; hut I perceived that
she rapidly hecame a favourite with
her mistress, and after the lapse of
eight or nine months, I hegan to he
aware that there had arisen in Ber-
tha's mind towards this woman a
mingled feeling of fear and depen-
dence, and that this feeling was as-
sociated with ill-defined images of
candle-light scenes in her dressing-
room, and the locking-up of some-
thing in Bertha's cahinet. My inter-
views with my wife had hecome so
hrief and so rarely solitary, that I
had no opportunity of perceiving
these images in her mind with more
definiteness. The recollections of
the past hecome contracted in the
rapidity of thought till they some-
times hear hardly a more distinct
resemhlance to the external reality
than the forms of an oriental alpha-
het to the ohjects that suggested
them.
Besides, for the last year or more
a modification had heing going for-
ward in my mental condition, and
was growing more and more marked.
My insight into the minds of those
around me was hecoming dimmer
and more liitnl. and the ideas that
crowded my douhle consciousuess he-
came less and less dependent on any
personal contact. All that was per-
sonal in me seemed to he suffering a
gradual death, so that I was losing
the organ through which the per-
sonal agitations and projects of others
could affect me. But along with this
relief from wearisome insight, there
was a new development of what I
concluded—as I have since found
rightly—to he a prevision of external
scenes. It was as if the relation he-
tween me and my fellow-men was
more and more deadened, and my
relation to what we call the inani-
mate was quickened into new life.
The more 1 lived apart from society,
and in proportion as my wretchedness
suhsided from the violent tbroh of
agonised passion into the dulness of
hahitual pain, the more frequent and
vivid hecame such visions as that I
had had of Prague—of strange cities,
of sandy plains, of gigantic ruins, of
midnight skies with strange hright
constellations, of mountain-passes, of
grassy nooks flecked with the after- y
noon sunshine tbrough the houghs:
I was in ihe midst of all these scenes,
and in all of them one presence
seemed to weigh on me in all these
mighty shapes—the presence of some-
thing unknown and pitiless. For


44
[July
The Lifted Veil.
continual suffering had aunihilated
religious faith within me; to the
V utterly miserahle—the unloving and
the unloved—there is no religion pos-
sihle, no worship, hut a worship of
devils. And heyond all these, and
continually recurring, was the vision
of my death—the pangs, the suffoca-
tion, the last struggle, when life
would he grasped at in vain
Things were in this state near the
end of the seventh year. I had hecome
entirely free from insight, from my
abuormal coguisance of any other
consciousuess than my own, and in-
stead of intruding involuntarily into
the world of other minds, was living
continually in my own solitary future.
Bertha was aware that I was greatly
changed. To my surprise she had of
late seemed to seek opportunities of
remaining in my society, and had
cultivated that kind of distant ye.
familiar talk which is customary
hetween a hushand and wife who
live in polite and irrevocahle aliena-
tion. I hore this with languid suh-
mission, and without feeling enough
interest in her motives to he roused
into keen ohservation; yet I c,'uld
not help perceiving something trium-
phant and excited in her carriage and
the expression of her face—something
too suhtle to express itself in words
or tones, hut giving one the idea that
she lived in a state of expectation or
hopeful suspense. My chief feeling
was satisfaction that her iuner self
was once more shut out from me;
and I almost revelled for the moment
in the ahsent melancholy that made
me answer her at cross purIxrses, and
hetray utter iguorance of what she
had heen saying. I rememher well
the look and the smile with which
she one day said, after a mistake of
this kind on my part: "I used to
think you were a clairvoyant, and
that was the reason why you were
so hitter against other clairvoy-
ants, wanting to keep your mono-
poly ; but I see now you have hecome
rather duller than the rest of the
world."
I said nothing in reply. It oc-
curred to me that her recent ohtru-
sion of herself upon me might have
heen prompted hy the wish to test
my power of detecting some of her
secrets; hut I let the thought drop
again at once: her motives and her
deeds had no interest for me, and
whatever pleasures she might he
seeking, I had no wish to haulk her.
There was still pity in my soul for
every living thing, and Bertha was
living—was surrounded with possi-
hilities of misery.
Just at this time there occurred an
event which roused me somewhat
from my inertia, and gave me an in-
terest in the passing moment that I
had thought impossihle for me. It
was a visit from Charles Meunier,
who had written me word that he
was coming to England for relaxa-
tion from too strenuous lahour, and
would like to see me. Meunier had
now a European reputation; hut his
letter to me expressed that keen re-
memhrance of an early regard, an
early deht of sympathy, which is in-
separahle from nohility of character;
and I too felt as if his presence would
he to me like a transient resurrec-
tion into a happier pre-existence.
He came, and as far as possihle, I
renewed our old pleasure of making
tete d-tete excursions, though, instead
of mountains and glaciers and the
wide hlue lake, we had to content
ourselves with mere slopes and ponds
and artificial plantations. The years
had changed us hoth, hut with what
different result! Meunier was now
a hrilliant figure in society, to whom
elegant women pretended to listen,
and whoso acquaintance was hoasted
of hy nohlemen amhitious of hrains.
He repressed with the utmost deli-
cacy all hetrayal of the shock which
I am sure he must have received
from our meeting, or of a desire to
penetrate into my condition and cir-
cumstances, and sought hy the ut-
most exertion of his charming social
powers to make our reunion agree-
ahle. Bertha was much struck hy
the unexpected fascinations of a visi-
tor whom she had expected to find
presentahle only on the score of his
celehrity, and put forth all her co-
quetries and accomplishments. Ap-
parently she succeeded in attracting
his admiration, tor his mauner to-
wards her was attentive and flatter-
ing. The effect of his presenoe on
me was so heniguant, espeoia'ly in
those renewals of our old ttte-d-lite
wanderings, when he poured forth to


1859.]
45
The Lifted Veil.

me wonderful narratives of his pro-
fessional experience, that more than
ooce, when his talk turned on the
psychological relations of disease, the
thought crossed my mind that, if his
stay with me were long enough, I
might possihly hring myself to tell
this man the secrets of my lot. Might
there not lie some remedy for me,
too, in his science? Might there not
at least lie some comprehension and
sympathy ready for me in his large
and susceptihle mind? But the
thought only flickered feehly now
and then, and died out hefore it could
hecome a wish. The horror I had
of again hreaking in on the privacy
of another soul, made me, hy an irra-
tional instinct, draw the sbroud of
concealment more closely around my
own, as we automatically perform
the gesture we feel to he wanting in
another.
When Meunier's visit was ap-
proaching its conclusion, there hap-
pened an event which caused some
excitement in our household, owing
to the .surprisingly strong effect it
appeared to produce on Bertha—on
Ber:ha, the self-possessed, who usu-
ally seemed inaccessihle to feminine
agitations, and did even her hate in
a self restrained hygienic mauner.
This event was the sudden severe
illness of her maid, Mrs. Archer. I
have reserved to this moment the
mention of a circumstance which had
forced itself on my notice shortly
hefore Meunier's arrival, namely,
that there had heen some quarrel
hetween Bertha and this maid, ap-
parently during a visit to a dis-
tant family, in which she had accom-
panied her mistress. I had over-
heard Archer speaking in a tone of
hitter insolence, which I should have
thought an adequate reason for im-
mediate dismissal. No dismissal fol-
lowed; on the contrary, Bertha
seemed to he silently putting up
with personal inconveniences from
the exhihitions of this woman's tem-
per. I was the more astonished to
ohserve that her illness seemed a
cause of strong solicitude to Bertha;
that she was at the hedside night
and day, and would allow no one
else to officiate as head-nurse. It
happened that our family doctor was
out on a holiday, an accident which
made Meunier's presence in the house
douhly welcome, and he apparently
entered into the case with an inte-
rest which seemed so much stronger
than the ordinary professional feel-
ing, that one day when he had fallen
into a long tit of silence after visit-
ing her, I said to him,
"Is this a very peculiar case of
disease, Meunier?"
"No," he answered, "it is an
attack of peritonitis, which will he
fatal, hut which does not differ phy-
sically from many other cases that
have come under my ohservation.
But I'll tell you what I have on my
mind. I want to make an experi-
ment on this woman, if you will give
me permission. It can do her no
harm—will give her no pain—for I
shall not make it until life is extinct
to all purposes of sensation. I want
to try the effect of transfusing hlood
into her arteries after the heart has
ceased to heat for some minutes. I
have tried the experiment again and
again with animals that have died of
this disease, with astounding results,
and I want to try it on a human
suhject. I have the small tuhes
necessary, in a case I have with me,
and the rest of the apparatus could
he prepared readily. I should use
my own hlood—take it from my own
arm. This woman won't live through
the night, I'm convinced, and I want
you to promise me your assistance in
making the experiment. I can't do
without another hand, hut it would
perhaps not he well to call in a medi-
cal assistant from among your pro-
vincial doctors. A disagreeahle, fool-
ish version of the thing might get
ahroad."
"Have you spoken to my wife on
the suhject?" 1 said, "hecause she
appeal's to he peculiarly sensitive
ahout this woman: she has heen a
favourite maid."
"To tell you the truth," said Meu-
nier, "I don't want her to know
ahout it. There are always insuper-
ahle difficulties with women in these
matters, and the effect on the sup-
posed dead hody may he startling.
You and I will sit up together, and
he in readiness. When certain symp-
toms appear I shall take you in, and
at the right moment we must manage
to get every one else out of the room."


48
[My,
Th* Lifted Veil.

I need not give our farther conver-
sation on the suhject. He entered
very tally into the details, and over-
came my repulsion from them, hy
exciting: in me a mingled awe and
curiosity concerning the possihle re-
sults of his experiment.
We prepared everything, and ho
instructed me in my part as assistant.
He had not told Bertha of his ah-
solute conviction that Archer would
not survive tbrough the night, and
endeavoured to persuade her to leave
the patient and take a night's rest.
But she was ohstinate, suspecting
the fact that death was at hand, aud
supposing that ho wished merely to
save her nerves. She refused to
leave the sick-room. Meunier and I
sat up together in the lihrary, he
making frequent visits to the sick-
room, and returning with the infor-
mation that the case was taking pre-
cisely the course he expected. Once
he said to me, "Can you imagine any
cause of ill-feeling this woman has
against her mistress, who is so de-
voted to her?"
"I think there was some misunder-
standing hetween them hefore her
illness. Why do you ask?"
"Because I have ohserved for the
last five or six hours—since, I fancy,
she has lost all hope of recovery—
there seems a strange prompting in
her to say something which pain and
failing strength lorhid her to utter;
and there is a look of hideous
meaning in her eyes, which she turns
continually towards her mistress. In
this disease the mind often remains
singularly clear to the last."
"I am not surprised at an indica-
tion of malevolent feeling in her," I
said. "She is a woman who has
always inspired me with distrust and
dislike, hut she managed to insinuate
herself into her mistress's favour."
He remained silent after this, looking
at the fire with an air of ahsorption,
till he went up-stairs again. He re-
mained away longer than usual, and
on returning, said to me quietly,
"Come now."
I followed him to the chamher
where death was hovering. The
dark hangings of the large hod made
a hackground that gave a strong
relief to Bertha's pale face as I en-
tered. She started forward as she
saw me enter, and then looked at
Meunier with an expression of angry
inquiry; hut he lifted up his hand as
if to impose silence, while he fixed
his glance on the dying woman and
felt her pulse. The face was pinched
and ghastly, a cold perspiration was
on the forehead, and the eyelids
were lowered so as almost to conceal
the large dark eyes. After a minute
or two, Meunier walked round to the
other side of the hed where Bertha
stood, and with his usual air of gentle
politeness towards her hegged her to
leave the patient under our euro—
everything should he done for her—
she was no longer in a state to he
conscious of an affectionate presence.
Bertha was hesitating, apparently
almost willing to helieve his assur-
ance and to comply. She looked
round at the ghastly dying face, as if
to read the confirmation of that
assurance, when for a moment the
lowered eyelids were raised again,
and it seemed as if the eyes were
looking towards Bertha, hut hlankly.
A shudder passed tbrough Bertha's
frame, and she returned to her station
near the pillow, tacitly implying that
she would not leave the room.
The eyelids were lifted no more.
Once I looked at Bertha, as she
watched the face of the dying one.
She wore a rich peiguoir, and her
hlond hair was half covered hy a
lace cap: in her attire she was, as
always, an elegant woman, fit to
figure in a picture of modern aristo-
cratic life: hut I asked myself how
that face of hers could ever have
seemed to me the face of a woman
horn of woman, with memories of
childhood, capahle of pain, needing
to he fondled? The features at that
moment looked so preternaturally
sharp, the eyes were so hard aud
eager—sho looked like a cruel im-
mortal, finding her spiritual feast in
the agonies of a dying race. For
across those hard features there came
something like a flush when the last
hour had heen hreathed out, and we
all felt that the dark vail had com-
pletely fallen. What secret was there
hetween Bertha and this woman? I
turned my e^es from her with a
horrihle dread lest my insight should
return, and I should he ohliged to see
what had heen hreeding ahout two


1659.]
47
The Lifted Veil.

unloving women's hearts. I felt that
Bertha had heen watching for the
moment of death as the sealing of her
secret: I thanked Heaven it could
remain sealed for me.
Meunier said quietly, "Gone." He
then gave his arm to Bertha, and she
suhmitted to he led out of the room.
I suppose it was at her order that
two female attendants came into the
room, aud dismissed the younger one
who had heen present hefore. When
they entered, Meunier had already
opened the artery in the long thin
neck that lay rigid on the pillow, and
I dismissed them, ordering them to
remain at a distance till we rang:
the doctor, I said, had an operation
to perform—he was not sure ahout
the death. For the next twenty
minutes I forgot everything hut
Meunier and the experiment in which
he was so ahsorhed, that I think his
senses would have heen closed against
all sounds or sights that had no re-
lation to it. It was my task at first
to keep up the artificial respiration
in the hody after the transfusion had
heen effected, hut presently Meunier
relieved me, and I could see the won-
drous slow return of life: the hreast
hegan to heave, the inspirations he-
came stronger, the eyelids quivered,
and the soul seemed to have returned
heneath them. The artificial respira-
tion was withdrawn: still the hreath-
ing continued, and there was a
movement of the lips.
Just then I heard the handle of
the door moving: I suppose Bertha
had heard from the women that they
had heen dismissed: prohahly a
vague fear hud arisen in her mind,
fur she entered with a look of alarm.
She came to the foot of the hed and
gave a stifled cry.
The dead woman's eyes were wide
open, aud met hers in full recoguition
—the recoguition of hate. With a
sudden strong effort, the hand that
Bertha had thought for ever still was
pointed towards her, and the haggard
face moved. The gasping eager voice
said,
"Yon mean to poison your hus-
hand .... the poison is in the
hlack cahinet .... I got it for you
.... you laughed at me, and told
lies ahout me hehind my hack, to
make me disgusting .... hecause
you were jealous .... are yon sorrv
. . . . now?"
The lips continued to murmur, hut
the sounds were no longer distinct.
Soon there was no sound—only a
slight movement: the flame had
leaped out, and was heing extin-
guished the faster. The wretched
woman's heart-strings had heen set
to hatred and vengeance; the spirit
of life had swept the chords for an
instant, and was gone again for ever.
Good God! This is what it is to
live again ... to wake up with our
unstilled thirst upon us, with our i
unuttered curses rising to our lips, ^-^
with our muscles ready to act out
their half-committed sins.
Bertha stood pale at the foot of the
hed, quivering arid helpless, despair-
ing of devices, like a cuuning animal
whose hiding-places are surrounded
hy swift-advancing llame. Even
Meunier looked paralysed; life for
that moment ceased to he a scientific
prohlem to him. As for me, this
scene seemed of one texture with the
rest of my existence: horror was my
familiar, and this new revelation was
only like an old pain recurring with
new circumstances.
. • , •
Since then Bertha and I have lived
apart—she in her own neighhour-
hood, the mistress of half our wealth,
I as a wanderer in foreigu countries,
until I came to this Devonshire nest
to die. Bertha lives pitied and
admired—for what had I against that
charming woman, whom every one
hut myself could have heen happy
with? There had heen no witness of
the scene in the dying room except
Meunier, and while Meunier lived, his
lips were sealed hy a promise to me.
Once or twice, weary of wandering,
I rested in a favourite spot, and my
heart went out towards the men and
women and children whose faces
were hecoming familiar to me: hut
I was driven away again in terror at
the approach of my old insight—
driven away to live continually with
the one Unknown Presence revealed
and yet hidden hy the moving cur-
tain of the earth and sky. Till at
last disease took hold of me and
forced me to rest here—forced me to
live in dependence on my servants.


48
[July,
Dr. Mansers Bampton Lecture*.
And then the curse of insight—of my
douhle consciousuess, came again, and
has never left me. I know all their
narrow thoughts, their feehle regard,
their half-wearied pity.
It is the 20th of Septemher 1850.
I know these figures I have just
written, as if they were a long familiar
inscription. I have seen them on
this page in my desk uunumhered
times, when the scene of my dying
struggle has opened upon me. . . .
Dr. mansel's bampton lkcturks.
Db. Mansel's Bampton Lectures
were listened to hy crowded and en-
thusiastic congregations; they fur-
nished for some time the prominent
suhject of conversation at the Uni-
versity of Oxford; they cannot fail
to have had a considerahle influence,
and an influence at Oxford is one
which gradually pervades the whole
country. Dr. Manse!, moreover, has
estahlished for himself the reputation
of a profound thinker, or, at all events,
of a learned metaphysician. Selected
to write the article "Metaphysics" in
the last edition of the Eneyelopmdia
Britannica; selected to he one of the
editors of the Works of the late Sir
William Hamilton,—the philosopher
of Magdalen College stands hefore the
puhlic at large as one invested with
whatever authority the learning of
the schools, past and present, can he-
stow. It is possihle that Dr. Mansel
may he more distinguished for the
erudition of an historian of philosophy,
than for those acute powers of reason-
ing which constitute a man to he. pre-
eminently the philosopher, or which
enahle him to walk with an assured
tread, and a straightforward course,
amongst the shadowy ahstractions
which metaphysics are wont to con-
jure up around us. Be that as it
may, the present series of Bampton
Lectures, on account hoth of the
author and the suhject of them, have
a claim upon our especial attention;
and if some of the positions main-
tained in them appear to tis erroneous
—erroneous, and not without an evil
tendency—we need make no apology
for entering into controversy with
them.
Let all due acknowledgments he
made to the scholastic learning of the
author, and to the vigorous style in
which he has clothed a very ahstruse
class of ideas. We occasionally have
to regret a want of distinctness; hut
when we consider that the exigencies
of the preacher were added to those
of the essayist, we caunot he surprised
at a few passages of ohscurity. It is
not our wish to detract in the least
from the literary merit or reputation
of the volume hefore us. We have
simply to deal with the suhstantial
thought it gives us, with the line of
reasoning it puts forth. We dissent
from Dr. Mansel in the explanation
he has given us of the "Limits of
Religious Thought," or the limits of
the human mind in its knowledge of
the Creator of the world. He has,
to our apprehension, so restricted
these limits, as to render a system of
revealed religion us impossihle as a
system of religion hased on the un-
aided exercise of the human intellect.
Striotly speaking, they are not limits
that he has descrihed, for a limit
would imply some capacity for theo-
logical knowledge; whereas he has
virtually asserted that we have no
capacity whatever for reasoning upon
theology. We can only repeat pro-
positions that we do nut understand,
or adopt, for our guidance, certain
other propositions which we do under-
stand, hut which are adaptationt to
the human intellect, and of which we
can never know how far they have,
or have not, an ohjective truth.
Such conclusions as these we may
he excused for controverting. We
firmly helieve them to he erroneous
as well as mischievous. Suoh a de-
fence of revealed religion ends in a
Ihe Limit* of Religious Thought Examined in Eight lectures, preached hefore
the University of Oxford, <fco. <fcu. By Henry Lomqukvills Mansel, B.D.


1859.]
49
Dr. ManieVt Bampton Lecture*.

sacrifice of .ill religion whatever. It
is open to Dr. Mansel, or any other
metaphysical divine, to put hefore us
the TheUtie and the Atheistic repre-
sentation of the universe; he may
show (if such is his opinion) that,
resting solely on the uninspired teach-
ing of the human intellect, either of
these representations might he adopt-
ed, and he may proceed to say that it
is Revelation which gives the cast-
ing vote, the peremptory decision in
favour of one of them. Here the
highest honour possihle is done to
Revelation. Of two roads which the
mind was equally capahle of taking,
it chooses for us that which leads up
to light and hope; it determines that
the world is the manifestation of a
supernal intelligence, and rescues us
from that <'ark atheistic view which
detects nothing in the universe hut
unconscious forces hreaking out, in
their last development, into the phe-
nomena of consciousuess. This line
of argument may he tenahle, though
we should sbrink even from this, he-
cause it would present the Atheistic
view as having a certain rationality
which we should not accord to it.
But it is not open to any metaphy-
sical divine whatever to prove to us,
in the first place, that Theism is
esseutially inconceivahle hy the hu-
man mind, or that it involves an irre-
concilahle contradiction, and then to
introduce Revelation as our sole
teacher of theology. To adopt Locke's
well-known metaphor, this is to put
out the eyes of a man at the same
moment that you present him with a
telescope. "So far," says Dr. Mansel,
"is human reason from heing ahle to
construct a scientific theologv inde-
pendent of, and superior to, Revela-
tion, that it caunot even read the
alphahet out of which that theology
must he framed."—P. 61. We are in
such a condition, it seems, that we
caunot read this alphahet, nor can we
he taught to read it hy any teacher
whatsoever.
If it he asked how it is that we find
ourselves in this desperate condition,
the answer is that we have "no phi-
losophy of the Infinite." We caunot
explain what scholastic men have
heen pleased to cull the Ahsolute and
the Infinite. Tear up for me these
gates of Gaza! You caunot. Then
TOL. LXXXVL 4
hold forth your hands for the fetters
and set yourself to grind, like a slave,
at the puhlic mill. Solve me this
prohlem of the Infinite I You can-
not. Then renounce for ever all free
activity, all intellectual inquiry, in
the domain of theology. Repeat our
dogmas, and live according to our
precepts, with implicit and uuresist-
ing ohedience. This is your only
duty. Such defence of our orthodox
Cbristianity we do not desire to see
current in the world. It is true that
the divine who proceeds upon this
method will have reduced his op-
ponent to perfect silence. He can
ohject to nothing; hut neither can he
assent to anything. Ho has the
alternative offered him of quitting
the region of theology altogether, or
of sitting down in it in mere mate
and stolid suhjection. Rational as-
sent he caunot give, hut he can repeat
with a certain sense of duty, proposi-
tions he does not comprehend, or he
can regulate his conduct according to
certain intelligihle representations of
the Divine Being, which, however,
he is to understand are condescending
accommodations to the weakness of
humanity. These latter are regula-
tive truths; he is to helieve in them
for all practical purposes; hot should
he proceed to reason upon these in-
telligihle and vivid conceptions of the
Just and Beneficent character of God,
he is immediately to he reminded
that they are adaptations to human
reason, and that the attrihutes of the
Ahsolute and the Infinite can never
he known to man. Thero is, in fact,
so incurahle a contradiction in our
ideas upon these ahstruse suhjects,
that it amounts to an utter incapacity
to think of them at all. Yet think
of them it seems we must, and pre-
cisely in this contradictory mauner.
"Not only," it seems, "is the Ahso-
lute, as conceived, incapahle of a
necessary relation to anything else;
hut it is also incapahle of containing,
hy the constitution of its own nature,
an essential relation within itself."—
P. 49. As in every coguition there
is some relation, it is evident that
the Ahsolute can he no ohject of cog-
nition, and we are distinctly told
that "the Ahsolute is a term ex-
pressing no ohject of thought, hut
only a denial of the relation hy which


CO
[July,
Dr. ManseVt Bampton Lectures.

thought is constituted."—P. 70. Ne-
vertheless this Ahsoluto is to keep iis
stand in the human mind, and lies
in the very alphahet of theology. So
of the Infinite—"The Infinite, if it is
to he conceived at all, must he con-
ceived as potentially everything, and
actually nothing."—P. 76. Such a
conception escapes entirely from the
arena of human thought. Many
other hard things are said of the
Infinite. "Yet all along, though
our positive religious consciousuess
is of the Finite only, there yet runs
tbrough the whole of that conscious-
ness the accompanying conviction
that the Infinite does exist, and must
exist, though of the manner of that
existence we can form no conception;
and that it exists along with the Finite;
though we know not how such a co-
existence is possihle." Thus we lie
fettered down in contradictory faiths,
doomed to helieve in contradictory
propositions—doomed, it seems, to
helieve, if such a state of mind can
he entitled to the name of helief, hut
evidently not enahled to stir one step
in the way of reasoning.
The conclusions to which we are
finally conducted arc these: 1. That
the Reason is incapahle of criticising
Revelation, the fundamental truths
of theology lying heyond its appre-
hension; that it can neither criticise
in the way of nationalism, which is
a tendency to ahstract from the given
doctrine, nor in the way of Dogmat-
ism, which is here descrihed as the
method of systematising the doctrines
of Revelation hy supplement or addi-
tion. 2. That, while the reason has
no other office than implicitly to re-
oeive the doctrines in favour of which
it is assured that a miracle has heen
wrought, these doctrines themselves
are (from the very limits of our
thought) either wholly incomprehen-
sihle, or elso are adaptations and
accommodations to the weakness of
the human intellect. They are either
to he helieved without heing under-
stood, or they are to he understood
and helieved as merely suhjective or
regulative truths. In fact, in Reve-
lation, according to Dr. Hansel, no
truth in revealed—only a duty of he-
lieving ; of helieving propositions
which are unintelligihle, or state-
ments which are indeed not only in-
telligihle, hut extremely impressive,
hut which are to he understood hy the
philosophic mind as condescending
adaptations to the human intellect.
Of these adaptations, these represen-
tatives or symhols, it is impossihle to
say how near, or how remote, they
may he to the real truth. All that is
true is comprehensihle, and all that
is comprehensihle is, or may he, a
delusion.
Thus, even the given and intel-
ligihle statements of Scripture are
not allowed to he fundamental truths
on which we may he permitted to
reason, so that one part of Scrip-
ture may he tested or explained hy
another. We are altogether impotent
in theology, except to enter into the
cpacstion of the historical character
or credihility of certain Greek and
Hehrew documents. Our Oxford
metaphysician, it will he seen, is at
once the most dogmatic and the
most sceptical of men. The Church
of Rome could not require a more
ahject suhmission of the reason; hut
the Church of Rome does profess to
give its disciples a positive truth.
Our Protestant divine tells us that
even what we helieve with the
understanding and the heart, is hut
a representation put forward for our
discipline and culture; it is not to
he reasoned on as positive truth. If
the Protestant would give us some-
what more liherty in investigating
the historical value of the document
(a department of theological study,
however, which, judging from the
notes appended to these lectures, Dr.
Mansel is evidently not much inclined
to, and apparently very little versed
in), there is one point in which the
Protestant lies at so manifest a dis-
advantage to the Catholic, that it
appears to us the most natural thing
in the world that the advanced pupil
of the Oxford metaphysician should
run ,for aid and shelter into the
hosom of the infallihle church. For
it is admitted that the Scriptures do
not give us a system of divinity; and
if some systematic view is needed,
and if the human reason is incapahle
of framing it, what other resource is
there hut an infallihle and inspired
church? Rationalism and Dogma-
tism, the only two modes of framing
such a system, are hoth at fault.


1859]
51
Dr. ManseVs Bampton Leelure*.

"E.ich represents," says Dr. Mansel
in his opening paragraph, "a sys-
tem from which, when nakedly and
openly aunounced, the well-regulated
mind almost instinctively sbrinks
hack." And a little further on lie
says that "hoth alike have prejndged
or neglected the previous inquiry,—
Are there not definite and discernihle
limits to the province of reason it-
self, whether it he exercised for ad-
vocacy or criticism?"—P. 10. Mean-
while there slips in this perplexing
avowal, "whether a complete sys-
tem of Scientific Theology could or
could not have heen given hy direct
revelation, consistently with the
existing laws of human thought, and
the purposes which Revelation is
desigued to answer, it is at least cer-
tain that such a system is not given
in the Revelation which we possess,
hut, if it is to exist at all, must he
0 instructed out of it hy human in-
terpretation."—P. 5. Now as some
system, whether you choose to call
it of scientific theology or not, the in-
telligent man does require, and does,
in fact, receive, as the product of
this or that church; and as mere
human interpretation is unequal to
any system whatever, we are at a
loss to perceive on what grounds any
such system is to he maintained if
not upon the claims of a continu-
ously inspired or infallihle church.
Short of the alternative of atheism
(which the logic of these Lectures
perl*tually offers to the mind), it
would he impossihle to adopt a more
disastrous position on the great suh-
ject of religion than the metaphysical
advocate for orthodox Cbristianity
has here assumed. The Reason, in
her great office of inquiry, is silenced,
and that in favour not of truth, hut
of something which is to he received
as truth, and which we know is more
or less a delusion. We are hound
hand and foot hefore the aliar, and
lo! the statue which has fallen from
heaven is confessedly not the image
of the God. We say that if it were
possihle for men to assume or re-
tain such an attitude as this in pre-
sence of Revelation, it would he ac-
companied hy the most pernicious
consequences. For religions faith
would he sapped, while the natural
intelligence of men would he excluded
from its due exercise in the highest
region of thought. A religion that
is divorced from the genuine and
earnest exercise of human reason,
lives only as the superstition of the
vulgar, or lives only to crush and
torture the more generous mind that
hag adopted it. Instead of advancing,
it cheeks the intellectual culture and
moral progress of society. You say,
perhaps, that its moral precepts
might at all events remain for our
guidance', hut a high standard of
moral excellence will not long he
secured in a society forhidden to
think upon speculative truth; You
caunot deal with the intellect of man
in this arhitrary mauner—ask from
it its highest efforts in one direction,
and put a Veto upon any effort what-
ever in another direction. In his late
History of Civilisation, Mr. Buckle
has stated a great truth in a partial
and a somewhat paradoxical mauner,
when he enlarges on the value, as a
social element, of the spirit of philo-
sophical scepticism. It is not scep-
ticism hy which society has made its
great strides of progress; it is Faith
of some kind, religious or patriotic,
which has heen the great motor
force; hut it is a faith that thinks;
and as inquiry implies some mea-
sure of scepticism, this latter hecomes
a test of intellectual activity. It is
this intellectual activity in the high re-
gions of thought that is the real thing
wanted; it is a faith that thinks, that
inquires, that energises, and lives in
the energy it creates. We do not
want scepticism for its own sake;
we want a living and progressing
faith, a religion capahle of heing ani-
mated hy the last and nohlest efforts
of the intellect. It would he no
gain, therefore (if this were possihle),
hut a great misfortune, if the truths
of Revelation were ahstracted entirely
from the region of controversy and
inquiry. It would he the decay and
destruction of religion, as well as a
great detriment to the general growth
and vigour of the intellect. We have
no wish to see the great doctrines of
Revelation shunted aside out of the
direct tracks of human thinking—
men of the world looking only to see
that they are so completely shunted
as to keep the way open for science
and philosophy. We desire that the


52
[My,
Dr. ManteVt Bampton Lecture*.

religion of a society should feel the
legitimate influence of the whole
culture of that society, and itself re-
act upon that culture. If indeed Dr.
Mansel is correct in the view he pre-
sents to us of the "Limits of Reli-
gious Thought"—if his exposition is
complete of the faculties we possess,
hy God's original gift, to look into
theology, or of the nature of that
"alphahet" which it is said we can-
not read—then, indeed, rather than
lapse into the alternative of utter
darkness, we may he glad to accept
his scheme of a passive recipiency of
whatever time has hrought down to
us. But we are persuaded that Dr.
Mansel'.? exposition is far from heing
correct and complete; we do not ac-
cept him as our guide in the matter
of this "alphahet of Theology."
Be it rememhered that it is we
here who stand upon the old paths
'—not Dr. Mansel. It is he who is
facing the world with dangerous
novelties, with untried and precari-
ous dogmas. There is no harm in
that, if he has truth on his side, hut,
at all events, the great teachers of
the English Church, and of Cbris-
tendom in general, have constantly
proclaimed that Revelation came in
aid of human reason; very few re-
ligious men have asserted that there
was no independent faculty in the
human mind for the discovery of the
great fundamental truth of theology.
What says Bishop Butler, the es-
pecial favourite of Dr. Mansel, and
at present the extravagantly ap-
plauded of our English clergy? He
spends a large portion of his work in
proving the truth of what it is cus-
tomary to call hy the amhiguous
name of Natural Religion; he asserts
that Revelation is the re-puhlication,
with authority, of this religion of the
reason; and in one rather striking
passuge he expresses himself thus:—
"But it is to ho rememhered that
how much soever the estahlishment
of natural religion in the world is
owing to the Scripture Revelation,
this does not destroy the proof of
religion Irom reason, any more than
the proof of Euclid's Element s is de-
stroyed hy a man's knowing that he
should never have seen the truth of
the several propositions contained in
it, nor had those propositions come
into his thoughts, hut for that mathe-
matician." So opposite to this is the
view taken hy our Bampton lecturer,
that according to him, there would
not only he no mathematics without
our Euclid, hut (and this must ine-
vitahly follow) our Euclid no longer
repeats for us any positive and in-
telligihle truth; we may learn the
demonstrations hy rote, or wo may
apply the prohlems to practical pur-
po?es, hut their eternal veracity is
gone. What is true is not compre-
hensihle, and what is comprehensihle
is not ahsolute truth.
Our readers, we are sure, have
agreed with us in these general re-
marks; hut they have perhaps douht-
ed whether we have given a faithful
representation of the views put forth
in these Lectures. We must trespass
a little upon their patience while we
show the correctness of our state-
ment, and also endeavour to contri-
hute something towards dispersing
that ohscurity which our author has
contrived to tbrow over the whole
suhject of religious truth. Dr. Man-
sel's position (as a few extracts will
speedily show) is, that the essential
requisite to a knowledge of God—
that which is identical with such
knowledge—is the capacity to frame
"a philosophy of the Infinite." We
caunot frame what he and some
other metaphysicians are pleased to
call a philosophy of the Infinite—we
caunot comprehend what scholastic
minds have conjured up as the Ahso-
lute and the Infinite—and therefore
must for ever confess ourselves in-
capahle of reasoning upon religious
truth. This is asserted again and
again. Here is one statement as ex-
plicit as any:—
"If Revelation is n communication
from an infinite to a finite intelligence,
the conditions of a criticism of Revela-
tion on philosophical grounds must he ,
identical with those which are required
for constructing a philosophy of the In-
finite. For Revelation can make known
the Infinite Being only in one of two
ways; hy presenting Him as Be is, or
hy representing Him under symhols more
or less adequate. A presentntive Re-
velation implies faculties in man which
can receive the presentation; and such
faculties will also furnish the conditions
of constructing a philosophical theory of


1859.]
Dr. ManseVi Bampton Lecture*.

the ohject presented. If, on the other
hand, Revelation is merely representa-
tive, the accuracy of the representation
can only he ascertained hy a knowledge
of the ohject represented; and this again
implies the possihility of a philosophy
of the Infinite. Whatever impediments,
therefore, exist to prevent the forma-
tion of such a philosophy, the same
impediments must likewise prevent the
accomplishment of a complete criticism
of Revelation. Whatever difficulties or
contradictions are involved in the philo-
sophical idea of the Infinite, the same,
or similar ones, must naturally he ex-
pected in the corresponding idea which
Revelation either exhihits or implies.
And if an examination of the prohl em of
philosophy and the conditions of their
solution should compel us to admit the
existence of principles and modes of
thought, which must he accepted as true
in practice, though they caunot he ex-
plained in theory, the same practical
acceptance may he claimed, on philoso-
phical grounds, in hehalf of the corre-
sponding doctrines of religion."—P. 27.
The contradiction in philosophy
which Dr. Mansel has to prove, and
hy aid of which he is to ahash and
silence all who recoil from contradic-
tion in any system of divinity, is,
that we have at the same time a
helief and a dishelief, and therefore,
at the same time, some conception,
and no conception, of what he
calls the Ahsolute and the Infinite.
Tbrough what intricate paths a man
so versed in the history of philo-
sophy, and so accustomed to expose
the fallacies of others, has wrought
himself into this curious position, or
how he really can or does maintain
his two contrary truths, we are really
at a loss to explain. One thing is
noticeahle, that all the stress of the
argument, and all the ingenuity of
the lecturer, is hestowed on the
negative proposition — the impossi-
hility of conceiving the Infinite.
He adopts most decidedly the ex-
position of Sir William Hamilton,
that all our coguitions are of the
conditioned and the finite. He will
not allow to Schelling and other
mysterious teachers their transcen-
dental intuitions. Very little is said
in favour of the positive proposition,
that we have a helief in the infinite.
Nevertheless having proved that the
conception of the Ahsolute and In-
finite Being is impossihle, and yet
satisfied himself that this impossihle
conception is an article of philoso-
phical helief—having fixed upon the
reason this incurahle contradiction
—he laughs to scorn all the ohjec-
tions of restless theologians, fretted
with the contradictions which cer-
tain systems of divinity may possi-
hly disclose to them. He has an
answer for all such ohjections. You
helieve in an Infinite Being, and
yon can give no account of your
helief. After this what do you
expect in theology hut contradic-
tion? And it mnst he confessed
that, in one respect, ho is consistent
enough, for tbroughout his hook he
deals out with his right hand, and
his left hand, the most contradictory
statements. This is Dr Mansel's
method of satisfying all the demands
that his suhject can make upon him.
Do yon complain that his idea of
God resolves itself into a mere ver-
hal ahstraction ?—he pushes hefore
yon a most vivid personality for your
devotion. Would you reason upon
the attrihutes of this personal God ?—
he veils it altogether from your sight.
And after shutting out every avenue
of philosophic or rational criticism,
he tells you, with pl:
54
[July,
Dr. Manuel's Bampton Lecture*.

and Brahma took the place of Crea-
tor. Men first proved the existence
of God from tlie world, and from
their own humanity; tliey reasoned
up to a wise and heneficent Being,
who had plauned, and therefore
produced, this great scheme of mate-
rial and mental phenomena: they
interred that this Being was eternal,
and of infinite power; they next
refined upon this ahstraction of an
eternal and infinite Being till they
demonstrated to themselves that
such a Being could not possess the
attrihutes fmm which alone they
had inferred its existence; and rea-
soning down from their definitions
of the Ahsolute arid the Infinite,
they proved that the supreme God
could have no relation whatever to
the world or to humanity. Creation
hecame impossihle to a Being already
infinite; it was a derogation to a
Being already perfect. Some lower
god, some avatar, some personifica-
tion of an attrihute (whoso appari-
tion and nature, however, it would
he impossihle to explain), must he
interposed to perform the now de-
graded and suhordinate task of crea-
tion. But if God is no longer the
Creator and Governor of the world
—if He hus no conceivahle relation
to us—if, moreover, wo do not know
Him hy any attrihutes, as of wis-
dom, justice, and henevolence—then
is there no God at all for us. We
have nothing left hut a profound
conviction of our own utter and
hopeless iguorance. Accordingly, the
European intellect, more sedate and
hetter halanced, has almost inva-
riahly replied to the suhtle Asiatic—
"It is the infinite variety of the
finite, it is the heautiful harmony
of organic wholes, each a harmony
in itself, that forms the very ha>is
of my conception of the supreme
and eternal Mind. If you hring
hefore me some definition of In-
finite Being which is destructive of
my conception of a Supreme In-
telligence, emhracing as thought
this harmony of the universe, I
must challenge you to show me
whence you ohtained the right to
argue at all ahout an Infinite Being.
I have no conception of God hut of
a Being possessing these attrihutes
of wisdom and henevolence: if tou
convince me that these attrihutes
are the mere coinage of my own
hrain, I have no God at all; I have
no knowledge left me hut of the hare
earth I tread on, and the mere feel-
ings and imaginations I am pleased
or hewildered with. As to your
ahstractions of the Infinite or the
Ahsolute—which are at one moment
identical with the all, and the next
moment identical with non-entity—
they plainly destroy themselves hy
their contradictory nature; they are
ju.t nothing at all, or mere circuitous
expressions of total iguorance—an
ohscuro formula for atheism." We
say that the European intellect has
generally answered in this mauner;
hut the Asiatic mode of thought, if
we may so descrihe it, has had its
partisans in the West, and of late it
lias heen reproduced with unex-
ampled force and power hy some of
our Teutonic philosophers. Dr Man-
sel has heen involving himself in
these ahstruse and shadowy specula-
tions, and then has rushed into the
Oxford pulpit to tell all English
students, that if they think at all
upon theology, they will he lost for
ever in a maze of contradiction.
We refuse to walk in his lahyrinth.
We would indicate as hriefly as c
c:m the position which we helieve
that every mature and thoughtful
mind will take up from whence to
survey without alarm the sort of
lahyrinth, or rather the metaphy-
sical chaos, which the learned Doc-
tor displays hefore us. We know,
and can know, God only hy His
attrihutes: only hy its attrihutes
do we know what we call mind or
matter. We say that the world
manifests the existence, out of itself,
ot intelligence; we have no concep-
tion of this intelligence hut as the
attrihute of a heing. On the other
hand, we have no conception of this
heing other than of that which posses-
ses and exercises this and other attri-
hutes. If, now, some metaphysician
chooses to fasten upon the ahstrac-
tion of Being in itself, or of Infinite
heing, he is evidently going forth
into the region of the unknowahle;
and if he comes hack from this ex-
cursion, and tells us that of the In-
finite Being we caunot predicate
such attrihutes as those of wisdom


1859.]
55
Dr. Mantel's Bampton Lectures.

and henevolence,—what lias he done
hut just destroyed the only grounds
he had for thinking of such a Being
at all? We must think God as the
heing who possesses these attrihutes,
or resigu all attempt to think in
this direction, and ohliterate religion
at once from the rational human
mind. Such definitions as we have
here of the Ahsolute and the Infi-
nite will do nothing for us; nor can
we extract a truth out of manifest
and incurahle contradictions.
"The conception," Dr. Mansel tells
us, "of the Ahsolute and the Infinite,
from whatever side we view it, appears
encompassed with contradictions. There
is a contradiction in supposing such nn
ohject to exist, whether alone or in con-
junction with others; and there is a con-
tradiction in supposing it not to exist.
There is a contradiction in conceiving it
as one; and there is a contradiction in
conceiving it as many. There is a con-
tradiction in conceiving it as personal,
and there is a contradiction in conceiv-
ing it as impersonal. It caunot, without
contradiction, he represented as active;
nor, without equal contradiction, he re-
presented as inactive. It caunot he con-
ceived as the sum of all existence; nor
can it he conceived as a part only of this
sum."—P. 59.
Does not the conviction at once
arise to our readers that such a con-
ception as this is the mere unautho-
rised coinage of scholastic ingenuity?
An attempt is made to think of the
Ah-olute or the Infinite per se—of
Being, in fact, per se, without attri-
hutes—which attempt we are told,
at the same time, is utterly fruitless.
It is fruitless, for every conception of
heing or power that wo form must
he, at the instant, finite, and our only
idea of the infinite is of an inexhaust-
ihle power, hy which the finite passes
on into other forms, or may he ex-
tended, or multiplied, infinitely. The
infinite can only he thought of hy aid
of the finite, and our conception of
God as truly emhraces the finite ns
the infinite. What conception have
we of His infinite power, hut of a
power that manifests itself in endless
finite*, whether thoughts, or creations
in space? Or how is our idea of
God rendered more exalted or dis-
tinct hy fastening upon this mere
ahstraction, the infinite alone, and
thns rendering the conception of the
Supreme Reason impossihle—render-
ing impossihle any conception what-
ever? Let us see the results as de-
scrihed hy our present author, which
come out from the employment of a
stringent logic on such premises as
these scholastic notions of the Ahso-
lute and the Infinite. And indeed
such of our readers who have not
perused these Lectures will he impa-
tient al! this time to hear Dr. Man-
sel's own exposition.
"There are tbree terms, familiar as
household words in the vocahulary of
Philosophy, which must he taken into
account in every system of Metaphysical
Theology. To conceive the Deity asHe
is, we must conceive Him as First Cause,
as Ahsolute, and as Infinite. liy the
First O'use is meant that which pro-
duces all things, and is itself produced
hy none, liy the Ahsolute, is meant that
which exists in and hy itself, having no
necessary relation to any other heing.
By the Infi"itc, is meant that which is
free from all possihle limitation; that
than which a gieater is inconceivahle;
and which consequently, can receive no
additional attrihute or mode of exist
euce which it had not from all eternity.
"The Infinite, as contemplated hy this
philosophy, caunot he regarded as-con-
sisting of a limited numher of attrihutes,
each unlimited in its kind. It caunot he
conceived, for example, after the ana-
logy of a line, infinite in length, hut not
in hreadth; or of a surface, infinite in
two dimensions of spnce, hut. hounded in
the third; or of an intelligent heing,
possessing some one or more modes of
consciousuess in an infinite degree, hut
devoid of others. Even if it he ({ranted,
which is not the case, that such a par-
tial infinite may without contradiction
he conceived, still it will have a relative
infinity ouly, and he altogether incom-
patihle with the Ahsolute. The meta-
physical representations of the Deity as
ahsolute and infinite must necessarily, as
the profoundest metaphysicians have ac-
knowledged, amount to nothing less than
the sum of all reality. . . . That which
is conceived as Ahsolute and Infimte,
must he conceived as containing wnhin
itself the sum not only of all actual, hut
of all possihle heing. . . .
"But these tbree conceptions—the
Cause, the Ahsolute, the Infinite—all
equally indispensahle, do they not imply
contradiction to each other.when viewed
in conjunction, as attrihutes of one and
the same Being? A cause caunot, as


50
[Joiy,
Dr. ManseTg Bampton Lecture*.

such, he ahsolute: the Ahsolute caunot,
as such, he n cause. The cause, as such,
exists only in relation to its effect: the
cause is a cause of the effect; the effect
is an effect of the cause. On the other
hand, the conception of the Ahsolute im-
plies a possihle existence out of all rela-
tion. We attempt to escape from this
apparent contradiction hy introducing
the idea of succession in time. TheAt?
solute exists fiist hy itself.and afterwards
hecomes a cause But here we are
checked hy the third conception, that of
the Infinite. How can the Infinite he-
come that which it was not from the
first? If Causation is a possihle mode
of existence, that which exists without
causing is not infinite; that which he-
comes a cause has passed heyond its for-
mer limits. Creation at any moment of
time heing thus inconceivahle, th- philo-
sopher is reduced to the alternative of
Pantheism, which pronounces the effect
to he mere appearance, and merges all
real existence m the cause. T<ie validity
of this alternative will he examined pre-
sently."—i\ 44.
We interrupt this perfect artillery
of scholastic argument to Ngmst
that these definitions or ahstractions
of the Ahsolute and the Infinite may
not really helong to the "Alphahet
of Theology.' The idea of limitless
power may, and surely we can he
said to have this idea, although we
caunot, of course, emhrace all the
actual or possihle manifestations of
that power, But we most continue
our quotation. After some remarks
on Pantheism, which for the sake of
hrevity we must omit, he proceeds :—
"Pantheism thus failing ns, the last
resource of Rationalism is to take refuge
in that which, with reference to the
highest idea of God, is speculative
Atheism, and to deny that the Infinite
exists at all. And it must he admitted
that, so long as we confine ourselves to
one side only of the prohlem, that of the
inconceivahility of the Infinite, this is
the only position logically teunhle hy
ihose who would make man's power of
thought the exact measure of his duty
of helief. For the infinite, as inconeeiv-
ahle, is necessarily shown to he non-
existent; unless we renounce the claims
of reason to supreme authority in matters
of faith, hit admitting that it in our duty
to helieve what we are altogether nnahle
to comprehend. But the logical ad-
vantage of the atheistic alternative
vanishes, as soon as we view the ques-
tion from the other side, and endeavour
positively to represent in thought the
sum total of existence as a limited
quantity. A limit is itself a relation;
and to conceive a limit as such is
virtually to acknowledge the 'existence
of a correlative ' on the other side of it.
By a law of thought, the siguificance of
which has perhaps not yet heen fully
investigated, it is impossible to conceive
a finite ohject of any kind, without con-
ceiving it as one out of many—as le-
loted to other ohjects, coexistent and
antecedent A first moment of time, a
first unit of space, a definite sum of all
existence, are thus as inconceivahle as
the opposite suppositions of an infinity
of each. While it is impossihle to re-
present in thought any ohject except as
finite, it is equally impossihle to re-
present any finite ohject, or any aggre-
gate of finite ohjects, as exhausting the
universe of heing. Thus the hypothesis
which would aunihilate the Infinite is
itself shattered to pieces against the
rock of the Ahsolute; and we are in-
volved in the self-contradicting assump-
tion of a limited universe, which yet
can neither contain a limit in itself nor
he limited hy anything heyond itself."—
P. 67.
We hope that the hypothesis of
Atheism will meet with a more
certain fate than this of heing
"shattered on the rock of the
Ahsolute." But if Dr. Mansel forces
upon the mind a conception of
God which he at the same moment
pronounces to he inconceivahle—if
he strips God of nil his attrihutes,
and leaves us—nothing!—it is some-
thing very like Atheism he conducts
ns to. It is the only Atheism known
to modern philosophy, the acknow-
ledged incapacity of the human mind
to apprehend the very first article of
theology. It is quite in vain for Dr.
Mnnsel, or all the doctors in Cbristen-
dom, to tell us it is our duty to
helieve what is altogether incom-
prehensihle. To carry onr helie/
where all coguition, all ideation hus
ceased, is a manifest impossihility.
We may helieve in what we do not
fully comprehend—what is there that
we do fully comprehend? What is
there whose relations to all other
known ohjects are perceived, and
stand out clearly without an ap-
parent contradiction f But we must
linve some ohject of our faith: we
caunot helieve in what at the same
moment we pronounce to he utterly


1859.]
67
Dr. Mantel's Bampton Lecture*.
inconceivahle. We are surprised
that Dr. Munsel can repeat, as he
does, again and again, this duty to
helieve the incomprehensihle, with-
out perceiving that it is not the
partially incomprehensihle, hut the
utterly inconceivahle that he is call-
ing upon us here to helieve. The
results of his logic should have
warned him to retrace his steps, to
re-examine his premises, to re-assure
himself upon his scholastic defini-
tions of the Ahsolute and the Infi-
nite: If lie tbrows litter darkness on
the suhject of theology, he caunot
restore ns to light hy reiterating our
duty of helief. We caunot helieve
when yon have shown us that we
caunot even think—caunot have any
intelligihle ohject of faith. The
familiar case of the freedom of the
will is frequently hrought forward
as an instance of a firm faith in the
incomprehensihle. We helieve, it is
said, in this freedom, and yet caunot
reconcile it with the physical and
psychological laws we see estahlished
in the world. But how stands the
case? The man who helieves in the
freedom of the will has a very dis-
tinct ohject of faith; he is determin-
ed in his opinion hy feelings which
have a most indisputahle existence;
if he is an unsophisticated man, you
will have great difficulty in shaking
his faith, or making him compre-
hend why he should have any douhts
upon the matter. But if you call
upon him to frame some "philosophy
of freedom "—if you succeed in prov-
ing to him that his old faiih in free-
dom is inconsistent with other and
hetter estahlished truths—if you con-
vince him that what he thought
was a distinct conception, is no in-
telligihle conception at all, he no
longer does helieve in the freedom of
the will; he hecomes a Calvinist, and
helieves witfa Jonathan Edwards, or
he altogether modifies his ideas on the
suhject of moral and religions respon-
sihility. Dr. Mansel has written eight
learned lectures on "The Limits of
Religious Thought," and it seems
never once to have occurred to him
that the limits of religious thought
must of necessity he the limits of
religions helief.
It Is superfluous, perhaps, to point
out contradictions in Dr. Mansel's
philosophical statements, hecause it
is in contradictions that he revels;
to estahlish incurahle contradictions
is precisely his ohject. Yet we can-
not avoid noticing the quite opposite
positions which he thinks himself at
liherty to take up at pleasure on this
suhject of the Infinite. Sir William
Hamilton's Essay on the Uncon-
ditioned is his great authority—or,
let ns say it is the composition
which most completely expresses his
own philosophical views—and in ac-
cordance with Sir William Hamilton
he insists on the impossihility of
framing any such conceptions as those
of the Ahsolute and. the Infinite.
"To think is to condition," therefore
the Unconditioned, or the Ahsolute,
is at once pronounced unthinkahle.
Our author has also more than once
enlarged on the impossihility of the
Infinite hearing any relation to the
Finite, for it must ahsorh the Finite
—unless hy another curious process
of logic you prove (hy the admitted
unity of the Infinite) that it is identi-
cal with nothing; in which form it
certainly caunot enter into any
known relation with the Finite.
Having pronounced these scholastic
notions of the Ahsolute and the In-
finite to ho mere shadows—uureali-
ties—words, not thoughts—his next
most legitimate ohject is, neverthe-
less, to reinstate them in our plenary
conviction. Forgetting all that he
has said ahout the impossihility of a
relation hetween the Infinite and the
Finite, he very confidently tells us
that " we are coinpelled, hy the con-
stitution of our minds, to helieve in
the existence of an Ahsolute and In-
finite Being—a helief which appears
forced upon us as the complement of
our consciousuess of the relative and
the finite." After asserting that there
is no thought out of the relative and
the finite, he finds this complement,
which, we presume, is a thought, and
which is a relation.
Metaphysicians have differed, and
still differ, on this ahstruse suhject of
the idea we have of the Infinite. Some
of us rest satisfied with the definition
which Locke has given, and think it
sufficient for all the grand purposes
of theology. The Infinite can never
he known except as that which we
cannot emhrace. Those who feel


58
[July,
Dr. ManseVs Bampton Lectures.

convinced that we have some more
positive idea of the Infinite, and re-
gard it not as a possihility or as an
inevitahle conception attached to the
Finite, may take what seems to them
higher ground. In later times the
Essay of Sir William Hamilton lias
put forth one view of the suhject
with singular power and distinct-
ness; it is the most striking com-
position that came from the pen of
Sir William Hamilton, and prohahly
the most remarkahle contrihution to
the philosophical literature of Eng-
land that has heen made in our time.
We caunot here do justice to it, nor
point out what we consider to he
its true hearing upon theology.
Those who wish to see the suhject
canvassed from another point of view,
would do well to read Mr. Calder-
wood's Essay on the Infinite, which
is a reply to Sir William Hamilton.
It does not often succeed, in our
judgment, in shaking the position of
the elder philosopher, hut it is the
very model of an earnest, painstak-
ing, candid disquisition; and those
who have not leisure to read many
hooks, and are curious to see how
this controversy has heen conducted
in our own times, could not do hutter
than peruse together the Essay on
the Unconditioned, and Mr. Calder-
wood's reply in Ms Essay on the In-
finite. What is peculiar in our Ox-
ford metaphysician is this—that
from some s .litary altitude to which
he has reached, he emhraces the
opposite views of hoth these essays;
at least he so far coincides with hoth,
that at one moment he exposes the
utter uureality of the scholastic con-
ceptions of the Ahsolute and the In-
finite, and, the next moment, asserts
the ineffaceahle nature of such con-
ceptions :—
"The almost unanimous voice of
philosophy" (thus runs his lucid exposi-
tion), "in pronouncing that the Ahsolute
is hoth one and simple, must he accepted
as the voice of reason also, so far as
reason has any voice in the matter. But
the ahsolute unity, as indifferent and
containing no attrihutes, can neither he
distinguished fiom the multiplicity of
finite heings hy any characteristic fea-
ture, nor he identified with them in their
multiplicity. Thus we are lauded in an
inextricahle dilemma. The Ahsolute
canuot he conceived as conscious, neither
can it he conceived as unconscious; it
caunot he conceived as complex, neither
can it he conceived as simple; it cuunot.
he conceived hy difference, neither can
it he conceived hy the ahsence of
difference; it caunot he identified with
the universe, neither can it he dis-
tinguished from it"—P. 60.
Surely all this sufficiently proves
that this conception of the Ahsolute
is altogether a mistake, and to he
dismissed accordingly. Not at all:
his very ohject is to fasten on us all
these contradictions. A little further
on he says:—" The whole of this weh
of contradictions is woven from one
original warp and woof; namely,
the impossihility of conceiving the
co-existence of the Infinite and the
Finite." And yet we have .seen that
we are compelled hy the constitution
of our minds to think the Ahsolute
and the Infinite "as the complement
of our consciousuess of the relative
and the finite," which is surely think-
ing their co-existence.
Is all this straining after impos-
sihle conceptions, all this hopeless
effort to comhine the contradictory,
the indispensahle prelude to the
"alphahet of Theology?" Can we
not ascend from nature and our own
consciousues. up to Nature's God—
ascend to the conception of an In-
telligent and heneficent Creator?
Most we flounder for ever in this
declared chaos of the Ahsolute and
the Infinite? Such has not heen
hitherto the creed of Cbristendom.
But we must now glance for a
moment at the use Dr. Manse! makes
of the weh of contradictions he has
so lahoriously woven for us.
The application of this weh of
sophistries (for it is nothing hetter) is
found in an extension of Bishop
Butler's argument from Analogy.
Here you have in philosophy the
same contradiction that you olject
to in the doctrines of Revelation
—the same, or still more violent.
You caunot understand how this
Infinito is hoth one and many—how
it is hoth all, and yet related to the
Finite? Do you cavil at the Trinity?
What say you to the Infinite de-
veloping itself in the Finite? Do
you stand amazed at the douhle
nature of Cbrist? Explain to me
how the Ahsolute is, in one phase,


1859.]
59
Dr. ManteVs Bampton Lecture*.

identical with Nonentity, and in
another the sum of all realities.
And thus he fiamm in review the
various questions of theology, which
we need not further particularise, as
it is no part of our desigu to enter
into a discussion of them. He
always has a puzzle in philosophy
greater than what you find in Revela-
tion. Ought not that to satisfy you,
or to kef p yon quiet at the least?
Dr. Hansel apparently overlooks a
very essential difference hetween the
mauner in which Bishop Butler em-
ploys this argument, and the applica-
tion which he has made of it. The
Bishop draws an analogy hetween
portions of God's revelation to which
ohjections have heen raised, ami
certain facts in the world which God
has also created, or in the constitu-
tion of man. Ahout these facts it is
presumed there could he no dispute.
Dr. Mansel extends the argument to
an analogy hetween the doctrines of
Revelation and a doctrine of philo-
tophy. The opponent of Bishop
Butler could not very well reject the
facts to which the Bishop appealed,
hut the opponent of Dr. Mansel may
feel himself at liherty to dispute that
medley of scholastic dogmas, and
tbrow aside that farago of contradic-
tions which is here appealed to under
the name of philosophy.
But, indeed, this argument from
analogy, even when the analogy is
hetween undisputed fact.s on the one
side, and certain doctrines of theo-
logy, or certain portions of sacred
history, on the other, is open to great
ahase; no mode of reasoning has, in
truth, heen more egregiously ahused,
none is so facile, and none more
fallacious. The right application of
the argument, we are told, is not to
prove any doctrine of Revelation; if
the doctrine could have heen proved,
there would have heen no necessity
for its miraculous teaching, hut to
repel any ohjections which may he
raised against it. Dull indeed most
he that doctor of divinity who caunot
find, out of all nature and human
society, something analogous to the
ohjected doctrine or precept. All
parlies, all sect', can use this argu-
ment; nil doctrines, and all perver-
sions of Christianity, can equally
claim its support; it stands a ready
defence for every man's orthodoxy,
and every man's heresy. We are
not disputing that it has not its legi-
timate application, or that it has not
rendered its acknowledged service to
the cause of truth, hut there is one
frequent fallacy in its use which it is
well to notice—it is this: That the
very same divine who argues for the
claim of revelation, for the need of
revelation, for the exalted character
of revelation, from the weakness,
error, and corruption of humanity,
sometimes thinks fit, the next moment,
to defend his assailed doctrine or
precept hy drawing an analogy he-
tween it and the weakness, error, and
corruption of humanity. The divine
argues at his pleasure on the principle
of contrast, or the principle of simi-
larity. The world is full of injustice—
we want a perfect justice; the mind
of man is full of error—we want a
certain truth. Here they are. Do
you ohject against the revealed rule
that it is not just, against the re-
vealed doctrine that it is not clear,
hut contradictory? Look around you!
What injustice has not God permitted
in this world I What ohscurity and
contradic.ion do you find in the
mind of man! Is not the God of
revelation the God also of this world!
By this process of reasoning, if it
deserve the name, the most opposite
tenets can he defended with equal
dexterity. The extreme Calvinist and
the latest Rationalist alike resort to it.
"You yearn for a divine equity, and
you do not like our doctrine," says
the Calvinist; " of election and repro-
hation. But open your eyes; what
see you in the world around you?
Here is one man horn to wealth, and
culture, and high and eunohling
occupations, and there is some ragged
urchin tbrown out into the streets
to heg, and thieve, and lie, and starve.
What is this hut election and repro-
hation?" But perhaps the most
curious application of the argument,
and one which may interest Dr.
Mansel more than any other, is that
which we lately read in what is
called a Rationalistic production of
his own University. Even the Rev.
Baden Powell, in his Cbristianity
without Judaism, could not resist the
temptation offered hy this facile mode
of defending his doctrine of " adapta-


CO
[July.
Dr. ManseVs Bampton Lectures.

tion." He solves the difficulties that
heset him hy the theory that in-
spired and miraculous teaching has
heen adapted at different stages to
the intellectual and moral standard
of the times, and that liko the
normal products of the human mind,
it has had at each epoch its requisite
measure of error and of truth. A
lay philosopher might he excused for
thinking that the human intellect
(from the natural energies with which
God has endowed it) might he trusted
to give forth from time to time such
admixture of truth and error as was
needful for the human society; he
might he excused for thinking that
doctrines which admit of heing can-
vassed, criticised, and finally dis-
missed hy the human reason, might
have originated in the uninspired
intellect; and he would most assur-
edly ohject that if the miracle is to
he recoguised as supporting what
proves to ho error, there is an end at
once to its peculiar office as voucher
for the truth. But all the murmurs
of the layman are at once silenced hy
this argument from analogy. You
ohject that God should teach error
miraculously, hut you see that He
teaches it, or permits it, in the
natural order of the world. Trinmph-
ant logic! You are in the dark, you
want light, light from heaven. But
the light we hring, goes out, or gives
hewildering or perplexing guidance.
Well, were you not in the dark
hefore? It is an additional argu-
ment for the genuineness of our
revelation that it shares the same
ohscurity to which you have heen
always accustomed. Alas! it was
hecause of this ohscurity, hecause of
these douhts and difficulties, and of
the imperfection of our philosophy,
that we hoped to find rest in your
divine teaching.
Dr. Mansel, it must he confessed,
has an answer prepared for us here.
The human mind, according to our
author, is so restricted in its powers
of coguition, that no divine teach-
ing whatever can enlighten it. He
has tested our faculties, and finds
them incapahle of the knowledge of
God, or what is precisely the same
thing, he has tested our idea of God,
and found it a maze of contradictions.
Our author, indeed, amongst the minor
confusions to which he is attached,
lahours to create a distinction he-
tween testing our faculties to know
God, and examining, so far as we are
ahle, the nature of the Divine Being.
But the distinction is one oidy of
words. You can test your faculties
for the knowledge of an ohject that is
unique—to which there is nothing
similar or analogous in the universe
—in no other way than hy endeavour-
ing to understand that ohject. It is
hy exerting your faculties in this en-
deavour that you discover their limits.
The result of the endeavour may he
the humiliating confession that the
ohject is altogether heyond our cogui-
tion, and we may then draw the dis-
tinction hetween pronouncing on the
existence or non - existence of the
ohject, and on our faculties to deter-
mine the question. But there is hut
one mode of testing our faculties—
namely, the endeavour made to com-
prehend the ohject. Our me aphysi-
cian frequently reminds us that the
limits of human thought are not the
limits of existence. He must he a
strange presumptuous man who
thinks they are. But the limits of
human thoughts are the limits of ex
istence for us. That of which we
have no cognition has no existence
for us. He who denies that we can
form any idea of God, denies that a
God exists for human heings. "A
philosophy of religion," writes Dr.
Mansel, "may he conceived either as
a philosophy of the ohject of religion—
that is to say, as a scientific exposition
of the nature of God; or as a philo-
sophy of the suhject of Religion—that
is to say, as a scientific inquiry into
the constitution of the human mind,
so far as it receives and deals with
religious ideas." Of the latter, to
which he professes to attach himself,
he says, "Its primary concern is with
the operations and laws of the human
mind; and its special purpose is to
ascertain the nature, the origin, and
the limits of the religious element in
man; postponing till after that ques-
tion has heen decided, the further in-
quiry into the ahsolute nature of God."
As It" the question could he decided
in any other possihle mauner than
hy undertaking the inquiry into the
nature of God! If you have satisfied
yourself you can form an idea of God,


1859.]
61
Dr. Mantel's Bampton Lectures.

it is hy having formed one; if that
win caunot, it is hy having failed to
form one. In either case what "fur-
ther inquiry" can there he?
Dr. Mansel professes to have failed,
and why has he failed? Whence
comes this lamentahle result—if in-
deed it he a genuine result—in a
theologian of a Protestant Church?
BctMM he has turned away from
manifest truths hefore his eyes, to go
in search of scholastic pedantries.
Ve can know God only, we repeat,
hy His attrihutes; these attrihutes,
His wisdom, His creative power, His
heneficence, no mortal man ever pro-
fessed to know in their full extent;
he helieves them capahle of an infinite
exaltation: this can he his only con-
ception of their infinity. But our
learned Doctor, instead of fixing his
attention upon these attrihutes, fastens
upon something that he culls the In-
finite, the Ahsolute, at which he finds
no attrihute can he predicated. Of
course he sees nothing: he goes forth
into the inane, into outer darkness,
and comes hack with the cheering in-
telligence that, if we attempt to use
our owu eyes, we shall he in utter
midnight.
But the most carious and most in-
felicitous portion of Dr. Mansel's
Lectures remains still to he noticed.
This is where he more especially
touches on those representations and
doctrines of Scripture which are in-
telligihle in themselves. Some doc-
trines, as that of the Trinity, convey
no distinct idea; others, on the con-
trary, impress us very vividly. But
the moral attrihutes put forward in
Revelation as thi)se of God, are not,
it seems, the real attrihutes of the In-
finite Being; they are put forward for
our guidance; it is our duty to he-
lieve in them as " regulative truths;
hut how nearly they resemhle any real
attrihute of the Ahsolute and the In-
finite, is a question we caunot pos-
sihly answer. We must conclude,
from what has heen determined of
the " limits of religious thought," that
we are nowhere, tbroughout Revela-
tion, in the presence of an intelligihle
ahsolute truth; or if we are, we can
never know it.*
We are encouraged to helieve that
the moral representations of God may
he partly accordant with reality or
truth. How it happens that our
scholastic metaphysician can admit a
part knowledge of the infinite, and of
that infinite he has again and again
withdrawn from human coguition, is
what we will not undertake to ex-
plain. It is clear enough, however,
that, according to his own exposition,
we can never know which is the part
that represents the real truth, or how
nearly it accords with reality.
Such a doctrine as this appears to
us to destroy the very vitality of our
faith. All those representations of
God which kindle our emotions, and
which stir the heart of man, are more
or less delusions. We are to helieve
them, hecause it is our duty to he-
lieve; they have heen taught us mira-
culously that we should helieve. A
strange duty I And a very extra-
ordinary power it is which our meta-
physician accords to this sense of
duty. We saw that where there was
no possihle conception, there was still
a duty to helieve. Here there is a
declared delusion, hut the same duty
to helieve. Accordingly, our preacher
hecomes, from time to time, very
eloquent, on the moral, and, in part,
human, representations of the Deity
given us in the Scriptures; he is in-
diguant at those metaphysicians who
would introduce into criticisms of
revelation their "morhid horror of
what they are pleased to call Antbro-
pomorphism." But if, fully impressed
with these vivid representations of
the goodness and justice of God, you
proceed to reason on them, as premises
* Archhishop King, Bishop Copleston, Archhishop Whately, and others have
expressed some suhtle opinions upon the attrihutes of God, which approximate
more or less to those of Dr. Mansel. What we call IIia attrihutes arc analogies,
and resemhlances, rather than realities. But these suhtleties have heen always
looked upon hy the majority of divines with a wise distrust, and it would he easy
to quote a long list, especially of our elder theologians, which should include
such names as Berkeley and Cudworth and Clarke, who have controverted those
fallacious suhtleties. The only legitimate way of avoiding an ohjectionahle An-
tbropomorphism is not to include amongst the Divine attrihutes any that are in-
compatihle with our conception of Supreme Reason personified.


62
[Juh
Dr. ManseVs Bampton Lectures.
I

from which deductions mayhe drawn,
you are reminded that you are not in
the region of speculative or positive
troth. Behind this scriptural repre-
sentation there lies the Ahsolute, with
a "morality of the Ahsolute" utterly
heyond your conception. To hear our
preacher at one moment, you would
think yon were sitting under the most
devout and simple-minded of divines.
It is thus he castigates our "modern
philosophers when they attempt to he
wise ahove what is written, and seek
for a metaphysical exposition of God's
nature and attrihutes" :—
"Thev may not, forsooth, think of
the unchangeahle God as if He were
their fellow-man, influenced hy human
motives, and moved hy human suppli-
cations They want a truer, a juster
idea of the Deity ns He is, than that
under which He has heen pleased to re-
veal Himself; and they call in their
reason to furnish it. Fools I to dream
that man can escape from himself, that
human reason can draw aught hut a
human portrait of God I Thev do
hut suhstitute a marred and mutilated
humanity for one exalted and entire. .
. . . Surely dowuright idolatry is
hetter than this rational worship of a
fragment of humanity. Better is the
superstition (sic) which sees the image
of God in the wonderful whole which
God has fashioned, thun the philosophy
which would carve for itself a Deity
out of the remnant which man has mu-
tilated."— Pp. 17, 20.
All this and much more which we
might quote to the same purpose,
may he very eloquent, and it certainly
seems calculated to confirm men in
their simple genuine faith. But turn
the page, and we soon find that this
metaphysician, who censures others
so indiguantly for mutilating the
scriptural representation of God,
virtually destroys the whole repre-
sentation, ohliterates it in ita cha-
racter of ahsolute truth.
u The various mental attrihutes which
we ascrihe to God—henevolence, holi-
ness, justice, wisdom, for example—can
he conceived hy us only as existing in a
henevolent, and holy, and just and wise
Being, who is not identical with any
one of His attrihutes, hut the common
suhject of them all—in one word, in a
Person. But personality, as we con-
ceive it, is essentially a limitation and a
relation. Our own personality is pre-
sented to us as relative and limited.
Personality is presented to us as a rela-
tion hetween the conscious self and the
various modes of His consciousuess.
Personality is also a limitation; for the
thought and the thinker are distin-
guished from, and limit each other."
In short, we are again involved in
oui old prohlem of the Infinite and the
Ahsolute; and as there can he no
knowledge of these in themselves, it
follows (as our author says with still
more distinctness in one of his notes)
"that no human representation,
whether derived from without or
from within, from revelation or from
natural religion, can adequately ex-
hihit the ahsolute nature of God"—
can, in fact, exhihit it at all, if he
argues consistently from his own pre-
mises. It will not he supposed, fur a
moment, that Dr. Mansel ahstracts this
divine personality from the teaching of
the Church. He says very energetically,
"We dishonour God far more hy
identifying Him with the feehle and ne-
gative impotence of thought, which we
are pleased to style the Infinite, than hy
remaining content within those limits
which He, for His own good purposes,
hna imposed upon us, and confining our-
selves to a manifestation, imperfect in-
deed, ami inadequate, and acknow-
ledged to he so, hut still the highest idea
that we can form, the nohlest trihute
that we can offer. Personality with
all its limitations, though far from ex-
hihiting the ahsolute nature of Ood as
He ts, is yet truer, grander, mure ele-
vating, more religious than those har-
ren, vngue, meaningless ahstractions in
which men hahhle ahout nothing under
the name of the Infinite."—P. 85.
Nevertheless wo have all this
"hahhle ahout the Infinite," and it
constitutes the staple of these Lec-
tures; and strange and ominous are
the applications which the Bampton
lecturer, in his office of Defender of
the Faith, has made of his hahhle, or
his philosophy, of the Infinite. To
the faithful disciple of the church the
Personality of God is indeed put
forward; hut should the disciple
ohject to any part of the church's
representation of God, that it is not
in accordance with the morality or
goodness ascrihed to the Divine
Being, he forthwith withdraws that
Personality, and tells the refrac-


1850.]
63
Dr. ManeeY* Bampton Ltcture*.

tory disciple that there 1a an "ahso-
lute morality," a morality which he
can never know, helonging to the
Ahsolute, and without knowing that
he can MM criticise the revelation
of God.
But we must quote the author's
own words, for our representations
will never he credited hy any one
who has not perused the Lectures
themselves. In ethics, our philo-
sopher treads, as may he supposed,
the "high a priori road;'" tot this,
it will he ohserved, avails nothing
against the mystery of the Ahsolute.
"The Moral Sense is, like the intui-
tions of Time und Space, an a priori law
of the human mind, not determined hy
experience as it is, hut determining he-
forehand what experience ought to he.
But it is not therehy elevated ahove the
conditions of human intelligence; and the
attempt so to elevate it is especially inad-
missihle in that philosophy which re-
solves Time and Space into forms of the
human consciousuess, and limits their
operation to the field of the phenomenal
and the relative.
'That there is an Ahsolute Morality
hesed upon, or rather identical with, the
Eternal Nature of God, is indeed a con-
viction forced upon us hy the same evi-
dence as that on which we helieve that
God exists at all. But vehat that Ahso-
lute Morality is, we are as unahle to fix in
any human conception, as we are to de-
fine the other attrihutes of the tame Di-
vine Nature. To human conception it
seems impossihle thnt ahsolute morality
should he manifested in the form of a law
ofohligation; for such a law implies re-
lation and suhjection to the authority of
a lawgiver. And as all human morality
is manifested in this form, the conclusion
seems unavoidahle, that human morality,
even in ita highest elevation, is not iden-
tical with nor adequate to measure, the
Absolute Morality of tiod."—P. 205.
The moral nature of God is gener-
ally understood to he one witli His
wisdom and goodness. He exacts
morality from us, hut if the term
moral ohligation is ever applied to
God, the ohligation meant is that
which is identical with the ohligation
of reason. But we pass on to some
of the special applications made of
this novel doctrine of an Ah-olute
Morality. We will not even stop
to inquire how it comes to pass
that we are so certain that un Ahso-
lute Morality helongs to that Ahsolute
which is confessedly heyond the limits
of our coguition; or how itis that after
showing that our definitions of mora-
lity are inapplicahle to tho Ahsolute,
we can still talk of Ahsolute Morality
at all. Sometimes Dr. Mansel speaks
as if fragments or certain elements
of this Ahsolute Morality were
mingled up with the ordinary ele-
ments of the human conscience; hut,
of course, if this he so, they are un-
distinguishahle hy us as such Ahsolute
Morality.
Some of the strangest applications
made of this novel invention of an
Ahsolute Morality, of which we are
utterly iguorant ixcept that it exists,
refer to the doctrines of the Atone-
ment and of Eternal Punishment;
we prefer to touch upon the latter
suhject. On this topic Dr. Mansel
writes in the following strain:—
"A.nd is not the same conviction
of the ignorance of man, and of his
rashness in the midst of iguorance,
forced upon us hy the spectacle of the
arhitrary and summary decision of
human reason on the most mysterious
as well as the most awful of God's
revealed judgments against sin—the
sentence of Eternal Punishment?
We know not what is the relation of
Sin to Infinite Justice."—P. 220.
Nevertheless ho caunot resist the
temptation of exercising his own
ingenuity in the way of repelling oh-
jections, and of somewhat explain-
ing this relation.
"And it is assumed," he continues,
'• that punishment will he it,fli.-ted sole-
ly with reference to the sins committed
during this earthly life:—that the guilt
will continue finite, while the misery is
prolonged to infinity. Are we then so
sure, it may he asked, that there can he
no sin heyond the grave? Can un im-
mortal soul incur dod'a wrath and con-
demnation only so loug as it is united to
a mortal hody I With as much reason
might we assert that the angels are in-
capahle of ohedience to God, that the
devds are incapahle of rehellion. What
if the sin perpetuates itself—if the pro-
longed misery Be the offspring of the
prolonged guilt?"
This spectacle of an eternal spirit
of rehellion kept up hy the eternal
agony which hoth punishes and pro-
duces it, is one which he feels his
readers will revolt from, and which


64
[July,
Dr. MameVs Bamptan Lecture*.
he is not satisfied with himself. But
then Dr. Mansel suggests that, after
all, "the real riddle of existence is
that evil exists at all." And again,
this question of the origin of evil is
"hut one aspect of a more general
prohlem; it is hut the moral form
of the ever-recurring secret of the
Infinite."
"How tho Infinite and the Finite, in
any form of antagonism, or other rela-
tion, can exist together:—how infinite
power can co-exist with finite activity:
how infinite goodness can co-exist with
finite evil; how the Infinite can exist
in any mauner without exhausting the
universe of reality; this is the riddle
which Infinite Wisdom alone can solve.
When Philosophy can answer this ques-
tion ;—when she can even state intel-
ligihly the notions which its terms in-
volve,—then, and not till then, she may
he entitled to demand a solution of the
far smaller difficulties which she finds in
revealed religion:—or rather she will
have solved them already; for from this
they all proceed, and to this they all
ultimately return."—P. 223.
In like mauner, if the foreknow-
ledge or eternal decrees of God seem
imcoiupatihle with the retrihutive
punishment of the siuner, our meta-
physician faintly suggests, as "an
apparent escape from the dilemma,
that God's knowledge is not proper-
ly foreknowledge, as having no rela-
tion to time." But he immediately
afterwards returns to his old ground,
and to his invariahle shield of de-
fence—his impenetrahle philosophy
of the Infinite. "But the whole
meaning of the difficulty vanishes as
soon as we acknowledge that the
Infinite it not an ohject of human-
thought at all" Admirahle theolo-
gy! Suhlime and elevating Doc-
trine I Knowledge, Wisdom, Justice
and Benevolence, are unmeaning
terms when applied to the Infinite
Being!
Certain commands or special pre-
cepts recorded in the Old Testament
as having heen given hy God to the
Israclites, which apparently contra-
dict the hroad principles of ethics,
have from a very early time heen
a stumhling-hlock to the Cbristian
heliever. It is in explanation of
these deviations from what is gene-
rally understood as the moral con-
duct demanded of us from God, that
Dr. Mansel has pnt forth his utmost
ingenuity—has produced (if we could
venture to say this of an Oxford
metaphysician) his most astounding
ahsurdity. These deviations from the
ethical rules God generally teaches,
are hut the hreaking tbrough of the
Ahsolute Morality I The new and
exceptional command may he com-
pared to the pure light hreaking
tbrough some lower system of half-
illuminated clouds, hetter adapted in
general to human vision and the
necessities of man.
Dr. Mansel sees a very "ohvious
analogy " hetween the miracles of the
Ok! and New Testament, and these
occasional deviations from the moral
precepts which God, in His ordinary
government of the world, enforces on
His creatures. He calls them "moral
miracles." The analogy does not
appear to us very ohvious. In the
ordinary miracle, God is presumed
to interpose to alter the usual se-
quence of events, to produce, for the
occasion, new sequences, new rela-
tions, or, in other words, quite new
and abuormal events. What new
event is it that is produced in the
Moral Miracle? Are the moral sen-
timents of man supposed to he, for
the occasion, miraculously changed?
Perhaps our readers may extract
something more intelligihle than we
have heen nhle to do from the Doc-
tor's own words. We will give them
as fully as space permits. Let us
premise that what is here said of
the difference hetween an occasional
command to he oheyed hy one man,
or for one purpose, and a general
rule, to he obeyed hy all men and at
all times, is well worth considera-
tion; it is an ohservation which has
heen frequently made hy other di-
vines; the rest of the passage is the
peculiar and indisputahle property
of the Bampton lecturer.
"Now an appeal of this kind (that is,
an appeal to the moral sentiments of man-
kind) mn3' he legitimate or not, according
to the purposo for which it is made, and
the mauner in which it is applied. The
primary and proper employment of man's
moral sense, as of his other faculties, is
not speculative hut regulative. It is not
designed to tell us what ore the ahsolute
and immutahle principles of Right, as
existing in the eternal nature of God;


1859.]
65
Dr. ManstTs Bampton Lectures.

hut to discern those relative and tem-
porary mamfestations of them, which are
nectssary for human training in this pre-
sent life. But if moralny, in its human
mamfestation, contains a relative and
temporary, as well as an ahsolute and
eternal element an occasional suspension
of the human Law is hy no means to he
confounded with a violation of I lie Divine
Principle. We can only partially judge
of the Moral Government of God, on the
assumption that there is an analogy he-
tvo en the divine nature and the human:
and in proportion as the analogy recedes
from perfect likeness, the decision of the
human reason necessarily hecomes more
arid more douhtful. The primary and
direct inquiry, which human reason is
entitled to make concerning a professed
revelation, is, How far does it lend to
promoie or to hinder the moral discipline
of man? It is hut a secondary and in-
direct question, and one very liahle to
mislead, to ask how far it is compatihle
wiih the Infinite Goodness of God.
"Thus, for example, it is one thing to
condemn a religion on account of the
hahitual ohservauce of lie ntious and in-
human rites of worship, and another to
pronounce judgment on isolated acts,
historically recorded as having heen done
hy divine command, hut not perpetuated
in precepts tor the imitation of posterity.
The former are condemned for their re-
gulative character, as contrihuting to the
perpetual corruption of mankind; the
latter are condemned on speculative
grounds, as inconsistent with our pn con-
ceived notions of the character of God."
1Here follows a quotation from Bishop
Butler, which, like the portion of the text
already quoted, is not free from the oh-
jection that even the occasional precept,
it understood as a direct command from
God,canuot he withoutsome "regulative"
influence.)
"There is indeed an ohvious analogy
hetween these temporary suspensions of
the laws of moral ohligation, and that
corresponding suspension of the laws of
natural phenomena which constitutes our
ordinary'conception of a Mnacle, So
much so, indeed, that the former might
without impropriety he designated as
Moral Miracles. In hoth, the Almighty
is regarded as suspending for special pur-
poses, not the eternal luws which con-
stitute His own ahsolute Nature, hut the
created laws which he imposed at a cer-
tain time upon a particular portion of
His creaturca"—P. 241.
Our readers, we suspect, have
not found this ohvious analogy very
clear to their apprehension: God
TOU LXXXYL
is said to manifest His power in
an estahlished order of events
which we call laws of nature; when
He hreaks this order of events, and
interposes some abuormal exercise
of His power, we cull it a miracle.
The Creator has also ordained in
man certain moral sentiments; is now
the moral miracle a partial suspen-
sion and alteration of these sentiments,
so that certain individuals have sud-
denly perceived that to he right
which in the normal exercise of their
judgment, or their conscience, they
would have pronounced to he wrong?
or does the miracle consist in some
change or altered action we caunot
follow in the Divine mind itself?
Perhaps we had hetter not attempt
any explanation, hut leave this
"moral miracle" to such exposition
as its own inventor lias Vouchsafed.
It may illustrate the curious posi-
tion into which Dr. Mansel has
hrought himself, to ohserve that pre-
cisely what the Reverend Daden
Powell, in his theory of adaptation,
would descrihe as a condescending
accommodation to the iguorance and
pas-ions of men, Dr. Mansel would
explain as the ahsolute morality
hreaking, with miraculous effolgence,
tbrough that lower system of ethics
which is condescendingly framed for
the general good of mankind. With
our philosopher the regulur and high-
est ethics of mankind is the adapta-
tion; the exceptional precept is a
fragment of the ahsolute morality.
God exhihits himself to us more
nearly as He is when His commands
depart from the general precepts He
gives of justice and heneficence: we
are mdre certainly under some
measure of delusion when He incul-
cates our human and indispensahle
morality.
Have we said enough, or extracted
enough, to justify the opinion we ex-
pressed at the commencement, that
these Lectures are neither pre-emin-
ently wise, nor are they altogether
wholesome food for the minds of men?
Our author plunges hoth friend and
foe into hopeless ohscurity. What
good is attainahle hy such a feat of
logical dexterity as this? And the
logical legerdemain is only accom-
plished on the condition that we per-
mit him the free use of a few ahs.


66
LJoly,
Dr. Mansers Bampton Lectures.

tract terms utterly devoid of any real
meaning. "Extension and motion,"
some such verhal conjuror might say,
'' are attrihutes, and imply a suh-
stance in which they inhere. But
now, hy pondering on and well defin-
ing this ahstract suhstance or heing,
I prove that it is altogether removed
from your coguition, and you caunot
know its attrihutes, and therefore
extension and motion are not really
its attrihutes." We ask our conjuror,
since he has proved them not to he
real attrihutes, how it comes to pass
that he is talking ahout suhstance
at all?
It is idle of Dr. Mansel, after hav-
ing driven the attrihutes of God into
the category of "suhjective," or
merely '•regulative" truths, to seek,
with much indiguant eloquence, to
re-estahlish our simple genuine faith
in them. According to his philoso-
phy, God has miraculously revealed,
not truth, hut statements which it is
for our good to helieve. How, under
his philosophy, we can even recog-
nise God as the worker of the miracle,
we caunot understand. But passing
this over, what en he our helief,
under such a representation, hut a
verhal assent—a virtuous hypocrisy?
It can he nothing hetter. To helieve,
is to think a thing true: if you tell
us that it is not true, we can only pre-
tend to helieve. We can act, under
penalties, as if it were true. But this
caunot last long, for the fuapicion
must occur that the penalties also
are, or may he, merely "regulative"
truths, not ahsolute realities—not
events that will really take place,
only suppositions that it may he use-
ful to helieve in. Once placed on
such an inclined plane as Dr. Mansel
glides us on, there is no logical hreak
that can prevent our descent into
sheer scepticism. The true reality,
we repeat, for each one of os lies in
those divine attrihutes manifested in
the very nature of the world and of
humanity, and from which we neces-
sarily infer the Divine Being, and
not in scholastics' notions of the
Ahsolute and the Infinite—which, if
they are incompatihle with these at-
trihutes, are at least themselves at
once convicted (hy this incompati-
hility) of their own shadowy and un-
real nature.


1859.]
67
The Luck qf Ladysmede.—Part V.
THE LUCK OF LAnYSMEnE.
CHAPTER XL—THE CONFESSOR.
For many days Isola had lain upon
the coach to which she had heen
carried on her first arrival at the
fortress, utterly exhausted in hody
and spirit, and appearing harely con-
scious of the anxious cares of her
hostesses. Her senses had never wholly
forsaken her; hut she remained in
that state of prostration in which
scenes and ohjects pass hefore the
eyes and are partially understood and
recoguised, hut leave the mind merely
passive, without the power or the in-
clination to inquire or reason upon
them. Her health had not actually
suffered from the exposure to the
storm, hut the nerves had heen over-
strained while she was yet weak from
recent illness; and it was well for her
that Giacomo had heen compelled to
choose YFillan's Hope as her place of
shelter. Elfhild's calm experience,
and the warm - hearted devotion of
Gladice, whose feelings, once roused,
confessed to no fatigue und grudged
no exertion, were far more valuahle
in her case than any resources which
the profoundest medical science could
have hrought to hear. - Slowly, day
hy day, her eyes regained their ex-
pression, and looked inquiringly from
one kind face to the other, and then
were closed with a grateful hut weary
smile. Once, and only once, in the
dusk of the evening, Gladice had
heen told that the yeoman who had
heen her escort had called to make
inquiry after his lady's health; hut
hefore she could effect her escape to
the castle-hall — which she fully in-
tended to have done, in spite of her
aunt's diguified scruples—he had al-
ready received his answer, and was
gone. Picot, however, had several
times made his appearance at the
fortress, and had shown a very na-
tural and praiseworthy interest in
the fair traveller's recovery; and it
was equally praiseworthy that the
two ladies should have summoned the
forester to their presence to relieve
his anxiety hy their personal assur-
ances, and perhaps equally natural
that they should question him as to
the circumstances of his encounter
with the travellers on that terrihle
night, when he had the good fortune
to hecome, in a humhle sense, the
deliverer of a lady in distress. As
Picot helonged to Ladysmede, and
therefore might he considered almost
as an actual retainer of their own
house, it was hy no means derogatory
—as Elfhild was at the pains to oh-
serve, in her own and her niece's vin-
dication — to hold those communica-
tions with him on this interesting
suhject, which it would have heen
quite indecorous to have entered upon
with a stranger whose degree and
general helongings were utterly un-
known. The forester remained firm
in his account of the adventure;
which, if not strictly true, had the
vast advantage which a silent false-
hood always has over the richest in-
ventive faculty: it defied cross-ques-
tioning, and led the originator into
no mistakes or self-contradictions.
And when Picot once found that he
was looked upon hy Gladice (whose
notions of the heroic, it will he re-
memhered, were scarcely orthodox)
rather in the light of a hero, he was
careful to present the adventures of
the night to his fair questioners as
much as possihle in that point of
view; not so much, let it he said in
justice, for the sake of claiming any
undue credit to himself, as in the
hope of fixing their attention upon
his own desperate exertions, and the
perils which his courage and sagacity
had surmounted, rather than on the
previous history of the stranger lady
and her companion. So well did he
succeed, that he received from the
nohle hands of Elfhild herself a cup of
wine,with a gracious intimation other
high favour and approval; to which the
younger lady added a piece of silver,
which Picot accepted with many
thanks, and little scrapie of con-
science. Even if he felt it was given
upon a somewhat overrated estimate
of his deserts as a hero, he was content


G6
[July,
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part K.

to take it as the reward of virtuous
self-denial in the matter of the
Italian's gold. If any one had cared
to track the forester on his return
after these visits of inquiry, it might
have heen noticed that he always
met Father Giacomo either hy the
river side or in the neighhourhood of
his chapel at Lowcote.
However naturally desirous the
ladies of Willan's Hope might he to
learn something of the history of the
stranger who had heen tlan left help-
less in their charge, their kinduess was
much stronger than their curiosity.
Even when Isola had so far recovered
as to he ahle to express her thanks in
words, no question ever passed the
lips of Elfhild or Gladice which could
have implied that they sought any
explanation of the circumstances
which had made her their guest.
Neither of them were conscious that
they were showing any peculiar deli-
cacy in this reserve, or were exercis-
ing any hut the simplest duties of
hospitality.
It need not he supposed, however,
that in the privacy of their own
chamher the aunt and niece felt any
ohligation to silence upon so inte-
resting a suhject. If their sick visi-
tor was indehted to them for her
life, they in their turn had very much
to thank her for. It would have
heen not far from the truth to say of
hoth of them — certainly of Gladice,
and IvChild's youth was a long time
to look hack upon—that they had
never heen so happy in their lives.
They had hecome possessed of two
things most necessary to woman's
happiness — something upon which
to lavish their whole hearts-full of
spontaneous and ui,calculating love
and kindness, and something to
talk ahout. The possihle unworthi-
ness of the ohject — the positive inj s-
tery which attached to it — were ad-
ditional points of attraction. Instead
of sitting dreaming in the window,
Gladice was now always husy either
devising something for the comfort
of their new charge, or inventing and
suggesting to her relative some in-
geuious elucidation of the stranger's
history, which the elder lady usually
prououneed impossihle, and therehy
gave her niece the opportunity of
following out in her mind a new
train of conjecture for the morrow.
It was possihle, also, that another'
hreak in the isolated life of the old
fortress had contrihuted to enliven
the spirits of its occupants, and to
make them less sensihle of tho
weariness of their daily cares in the
silk-chamher. Twice there had heen
visitors from Ladysmede. Once Sir
Godfrey had accompanied his guest,
and passed an hour or two in con-
verse with his fair kinswomen ; and
again hoth had listened with de-
lighted attention to the stirring in-
cidents of war told hy the eloquent
tongue of the Crusader. The second
time Sir Nicholas had come alone,
followed only hy his squire, and had
hesought the ladies' company to wit-
ness the performance of a cast of for-
eigu hawks which he had hrought
with him, and which hore n wonder-
ful reputation. Elfhild had on this
occasion prayed to he excused; hut
the younger lady had heen delighted
to join in the sport under the sen-
eschal's protection, and had returned
with many praises of the prowess of
the hirds, and the delicate tkill
shown hy the knight in handling
them. And the gallant falcons — an
almost priceless gift—were left at
Willan's Hope for the Lady Gladice's
future delectation, to the pride and
joy of Warenger, a keen lover of the
gentle sport, whose word of commen-
dation, never lightly hestowed, was
thenceforth never wanting either for
the hirds themselves or for their
nohle donor.
The visits of hrother Ingulph from
the monastery had always heen look-
ed forward to, especially hy Gladice,
as an agreeahle distraction from the
daily round of stitching and window-
gazing, and promenading on the
narrow rampart, which, with the ex-
ception of occasional rides under
Warenger's escort, were the ordinary
rule of her life. The interval which
had passed mnce his last appearance
at the fortress had now heen longer
than usual; and when he was ush-
ered rather suddenly into their pre-
sence hy Judith — as a person who
had the privilege of entrance, hy vir-
tue of his office, in senson and out of
season—his welcome from hoth ladies



1859.1
69
Tlic Luck of Ladysmede.—Part V.
was proportionately cordial. To
quarrel with a neighhor hecause he
had not found it convenient to show
himself quite so often as usual, was
not only repuguant to the unen-
lightenrd code of hospitality current
at the time, hut was a luxury which
could scarcely have heen afforded
in such a limited circle of society.
When, therefore, the good Benedic-
tine, long expected, was at last an-
nounced, the warmth of his recep-
tion was such as almost to emharrass
his modesty. Brother Ingulph's in-
sensihility to the attractions of the
fairer sex, in any ordinary sense, was
no ascetic affectation, or even the
result of careful self-dUcipline, at
with many of his order; hut an hon-
est natural indifference, whether to
he regarded as a merit or a defect.
Prohahly this qualification had not
heen overlooked hy the superiors of
his house when he was intrusted
with the charge of the spiritual in-
terests of Willan's Hope. Certain
it was that he looked upon hoth
ladies with very sincere respect and
impartial admiration. He might
have heen aware that Dame Elfuild
was the elder of the two ; if he had
ever noticed that Gladice had the
hrightest smile, he had often heen
heard to avouch that her aunt was a
very discreet woman. His emharrass-
ment that morning arose from an-
other cause hesides his natural mo-
desty. Good hrother Ingulph was
hardly in his usual spirits, or pre-
pared to reciprocate any unusually
sprightly greeting. There was plainly
something on his mind. He sighed
over the refection set hefore him
as if it had heen an act of penance,
and poured himself a second draught
of wine—contrary to his usually ah-
stemious hahits—with an air of re-
sigued mortification. He was in
trouhle, and he had too little worldly
wisdom to conceal it. It was not
possihle that his fair entertainers
should not notice the change from
the simple cheerfulness which made
him at other times so agreeahle a
visitor; nor was it long hefore they
drew from him an explanation. In-
deed he was very ready to give it to
those from whom he felt ho sure of
sympathy.
"Alas! kind dames," said he, "I
have good cause to hear a sorrowful
countenance; the spoilers have heen
in our camp this morning, and have
made prey of us."
"What can you mean, f ither?"
said Gladice in some alarm, for such
an event as the literal sacking and
plundering of a religious house over-
night, was quite within the possihle
items of morning intelligence.
"His majesty King Richard hath
laid his royal hands upon us," said
the monk.
"How !" exclaimed the elder lady
—" the king is surely in Palestine?"
"Ay," replied Ingulph; "hut
his gracious majesty hath a long
arm. He is pleased to horrow money
of us for the war, whereas it is hut
too well known we have more need
to hecome horrowers ourselves; and
we have heen put to sore straits to
meet his demand. I know not how
it is," continued the worthy hrother
with a distressed air — " we pass
among men for a wealthy house, I
dare warrant; and our lord ahhot
keeps a very seemly state—as is hut
hecoming his position, no douht—I
mean not to gainsay it ; hut there
have heen sore difficulties of late in
providing for our needful wants.
Twice I have made requisition to the
ahhot for parchment for our scrip-
torinm, and am ashamed to ask again,
and yet our work lies idle for lack of
it. It is hardly for me to say it, hut
it were well that the ordering of our
revenues were somewhat hetter looked
to."
The most uupractical of scholars,
iguorant as an angel of all the hase
dehtorand-creditor transactions of
this commercial world, Ingulph had
a little hidden conceit in a corner of
his honest heart, that he possessed
an uurecoguised talent for husiness.
On most other points none could
have conceived a lower opinion of
his capahilities than he entertained
himself: had he heen called to take
upon him the office of a hishop, he
would have pronounced the nolo
episcopari with the utmost humility
and sincerity; hut he would have
liked much to have heen appointed
to some office of trust in the finan-
cial department of his convent;
and it might safely he prophesied
that any soeiety enjoying the henefit


70
[July,
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part V.

of his services in such a character,
would have heen hankrupt within the
year.
"But you were enahled, I trust,
hy some means, to provide for his
majesty's requirements f" said Dame
Elfhild, who shared to some extent
the popular notion that churchmen
were generally rich, und generally
disclaimed it.
"Alas!" replied the monk, "we
have given, as I may say, of our life-
hlood in his service. Nathaniel the
Jew has heen in conference with the
lord ahhot and the prior this morn-
ing, and has carried off with him—
whether on pledge or sale I can-
not tell, for such as I are little con-
sulted in such dealings—sundry pre-
cious things that it shames us to
have parted with—ay, if it were for
all the gold in Isracl. Would you
helieve ir, gentle lady," he continued,
turning to Gladice,—" our copy of
the Samaritan Pentateuch — there
was not another in England except
at Canterhury, and that, as I have
heard, wants a leaf—you have heard
me speak of it—written in a most
fair character, in letters of silver upon
purple vellum — well, this dog of a
Jew hath that away with him. It
had silver emhossed covers, too; it
wa-, the goodliest volume my eyes
ever lighted on. und was the hlessed
Queen Etheldreda's gift to us; well-
a-way! to think it should have fallen
into the hands of a misheliever!"
"Was it very choice reading, fa-
ther?" inquired Gladice iunocently.
She had not the most distant con-
ception of what a Pentateuch might
he; hut her taste in literature, so
far as it went, had more regard to
the suhject-matter of the work than
its external attractions.
"It was the choicest volume in
Cbristendom," said Ingulph, rather
pursuing his own private lamenta-
tions than repljing to Gladice.
"You have read it jourself, douht-
less?" persevered the maiden, with
laudahle interest and curiosity, only
still farther excited hy the lihrarian's
enthusiastic praises.
"Read it I" exclaimed he, roused
hy what he considered almost an in-
sult to his lost treasure—" there was
not one amongst our hrotherhood
that could pretend to read it. Young
Wolfert, the ahhot's new chaplain,
professed that he knew the charac-
ters, hut not the dialect ; there was
none of us could contradict him, he
that as it may: the precentor of
Jumi£ges, when he was on a visit
with us in Ahhot Aldred's time,
said it was Syriac—Hnd he passed
for a fine scholar I Ha, ha! a little
learning goes far in that fraternity!"
and the monk laughed with honest
delight at the impreguahle front
which his darling manuscript had
presented against the assaults of pre-
tenders. "Read it?" He did not
say quite so much, hut it was in hig
eyes as a maiden castle, and would
have lost something of its fair fame
and repute if ever adveuturous cham-
pion could hoast of having scaled its
defences.
The disappointed Gladice asked
no further questions, and was con-
tent to think that the Pentateuch,
whatever it might he, was as great a
mystery to the learned as to herself.
But the monk could hardly leave a
suhject which on that particular
morning lay so near his heart.
•' It was said," he continued, "that
there were fearful Samaritan curses
written at the end of the volume,
against any man who should in time
to come steal or otherwise misappro-
priate it. St. Mary vouchsafe us that
they full not upon our house!"
"We will trust they may not, fa-
ther," said the lady. Curses in a
tongue which even the learned Bene-
dictine could not read, must have
seemed to her fearful indeed.
Dame Elfhild was rather wearied
of hearing of the good father's trou-
hles, with which she felt less sym-
pathy than her niece; or perhaps
she kindly judged that the most
effectual way to distract their visi-
tor's thoughts from dwelling upon
such painful matters, was to give
him an interest for the time in some-
thing else. She aunounced to him
therefore the fact — strange enough
in itself to he interesting—that they
had a guest now at Willan's Hope;
and put him in possession of all the
particulars of her sudden arrival.
"It might he, Gladice," said she,
turning to her niece when she had
finished her recital, "that the lady
would he well pleased to take some


1859]
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part V.

ghostly counsel with the reverend
father, if she knew that he were
here with us?"
Gladice at once volunteered to an-
nounce to their guest the arrival of the
Benedictine, as an opportunity that
occurred hut seldom in their retired
position, and sought Isola's chamher
for that purpose.
Their patient showed more pro-
gress towards convalescence that
morning than for some days. She
always welcomed Gladice with a
gentle word and smile; and indeed
it was not for many hours in the day
that the youog mistress of the castle
left her alone, though she had pur-
posely ahstained as much as possihle
from all hut the most ordinary con-
versation. Isola was sitting up on
her couch, with her rosary in her
hand, when Gladice entered. There
were traces of tears fresh upon her
cheeks, hut of this her hostess took
no notice. Briefly hut kindly, and
with some little emharrassment—for
Gladice's own devotion was very
undemonstrative — she explained to
her the nature of Ingulph's counec-
tion with their household, and that
he would gladly make it a part of
his duties to extend to her any com-
fort or direction which she might
require.
The pale cheeks of the invalid
flushed hrightly, as she thanked
Gladice for her thoughtful kindness.
"Tell me," she said, alter a few
moments' thought, as she laid her
thin hand upon her visitor's rounded
arm, with more of a caressing gesture
than she had seemed to venture upon
hefore — "Tell me — this Father In-
gulph, I think, you named him "—
she hesitated again—" is he one to
whom you would lay hare your heart
if—if, which Heaven forhid, you had
sin and sorrow heavy on it like
mine?" And she hid her face in
her hands.
A slight colour rose over Gladice's
cheek, hut it passed away; and when
the other looked up again and met
her g,ize, the clear sweet eye and
calm hrow showed no emotion.
"I know not," she replied; "I
caunot tell: I confess to him always."
"God keep you pure and good!"
said the other with an almost pas-
sionate earnestness, hending down
her lips to kiss the arm she held;
"let me not vex you with my ques-
tions— you have confidence in him,
then?"
"He is an honest, good man, as I
helieve," returned Gladice, somewhat
coldly : the conversation puzzled her.
She had no especial secrets of her own
to confide to any one: she was not
quite sure that she should choose good
Father Ingulph for their depositary
if she had—or indeed any one else;
hut that was a case which it would
he time enough to provide for when
it should arrive. Whatever trouhles
of conscience she might have, were
only such as she could either strupgle
with alone, or relieve hy very gene-
ral terms of confession. She did not
know, happily for herself, the yearn-
ings of an overhurdened heart to
rest its load anywhere—were it even
on a hroken reed like itself — that
proffers support for the moment.
"He is honest, you say, dear
lady," said Isola, after another pause;
"and you have known him long. I
would gladly see him, if you will
kindly he my messenger."
Gladice waited only to find some
little office of kindness to perform
for her patient, whose appeal for
advice and half-offered confidence
she was uncomfortahly conscious of
having felt unahle to respond to
with the warmth that might have
heen expected; and having thus
made such atonement as she could
to her own feelings, she left the
chamher, and returning to the monk,
informed him of their guest's desire
to see him. He received the sum-
mons with his usual good-humoured
smile, and with little anxiety or
emharrassment. It was some testi-
mony in favour of Elfhild and her
niece that their spiritual director—
and to them his experience of the
sex had heen limited—did not ap-
pear to consider the confidential
treatment of feminine transgressions
or weaknesses as a very onerous
responsihility.
He ascended the narrow turret-
stair with an active step, and if not
with a very light heart, it was a
tender regret for the lost treasures
of his lihrary which still affected
him, and not any unusually grave
anticipations of the coming interview.


72
[July,
The LucI; of Ladysmede.—Part V.

He was ahsent more thun an hour;
a length of time which caused some
surprise in the minds of those whom
he had left helow, for each of whom
a few minutes' conference amply
sufficed for all matters of confession
and ahsolution; and Gladice hegan
to expect his return with some de-
gree of painful interest. He re-en-
tered their apartment slowly, and with
an expression of trouhled thought
upon his face, which Gladice marked
at once, and did not counect in her
own mind with any of the trihula-
tions of the monastery. Though
Father Ingulph seemed rather to
avoid her glance, she could not with-
draw her eyes from his countenance;
and strange as it seemed even to
herself, she half-longed to read there
the history which hut an hour since
she felt that a word of encou-
ragement would have sufficed to
draw from Isola's own lips. But
she was silent, and did not intend to
question him even hy her look. The
elder lady, less couseiously interested,
did not feel hound to such scrupulous
reserve. She would have sbrunk as
unturslly us Gladice would, from any
thought of intrusion into the sucred
confidence hetween the priest and
his spiritual patient; hut she could
not help hoping that the good monk
would naturally have asked some
questigns which were not included
among the secrets of the confessional,
and that in this mauner sho might
he ahle partly to gratify her irresisti-
hle wish to know something of the
stranger's character and history; a
wish which scarcely deserved the
name of curiosity, since it had heen
restrained within such careful hounds.
She had rather expected that In-
gulph would have heen the first to
make some remark upon the suhject;
for the honest - hearted Benedictine
was not u-ed to affect taciturnity,
and was rather inclined to compen-
sate himself for the silence which his
rule enjoined in the cloister, hy all
reasonahle indulgence of his liherty
of speech ahroad. But he was silent
now; and Elf hild's sharp eyes soon
discovered that he was ill at ease,
and emharrassed also. It is a
woman's privilege, in such circum-
stances to take the initiative; and
Elfhild — her desire for information
hy no means diminished hy these
symptoms on his part—holdly pro-
ceeded to interrogate him, while
Gladice listened with eyes und ears.
"What think you of our lady guest,
father?"
It was a question admitting of so
many varieties of reply, that perhaps
for that reason Ingulph was at a loss
to choose one. He only uttered one
of those unintelligihle interjections
which serve to gain time.
Eifhild repeated her question.
"Alas 1 poor soul !" said the monk,
feelingly, " she has much need of con-
solation; it is well for her that she
has fallen into such gentle hands.
She has spoken much to me of your
kindness; and it pains her to have
heen hurdensome to you so long."
"It is no hurden," said the elder
lady with some diguity; •'our doors
—my niece's, I should say—have ever
heen open to the stranger. Be she
who she may, she is right welcome
to the shelter of our roof so long as
she needs it,"
'• You know nothing, as I under-
stand," said Ingulph," of her miser-
ahle story?"
"We have never sought to know,"
replied Elfhild.
"She fears that she may have
seemed ungrateful; hut this much I
may assure you of—what she con-
ceals is more for the sake of others
than her own. And she is loth, too,
to trouhle a peaceful lite such as
yours hy making known what could
only pain and shock yon."
"If we could he of any help"—said
the younger lady without raising her
eyes.
"I see not how you could," re-
plied the monk dejectedly; '• l see
little that any one can do; she is not
friendless, or in poverty, though in
a land of strangers — for you have
learnt that she is not English horn?"
"She spoke of Genoa as her home,"
said Gladice; "did you mark a won-
drous sweetness in her voice, father—
such as we northern maideus never
attuin to?"
"Nay," interposed the elder lady,
"under your favour, my fair niece,
that is an excellence for which the
dames of our hlood are not wont to
he so discommended; even if the
Normal* tongue he sbrill — which I


1859.]
73
Hie Luck of Ladysmede.—Part V.

grant not—the old British royal
house tbrough which we claim in-
heritance had a tongue more melodi-
ous even than the Soutbrons—your
own ancestress, the princess of
Gwent, whose name you hear, was
hetter known in hardic lay as Eos
evrin—the golden nightingale—hy
reason of her tuneful voice."
Father Itigulph had neither a
critical ear for voices, nor a happy
talent for compliment, otherwise it
would have heen the easiest and
trait possihle remark for him to
have made, that Gladice's own voice
was perfection. He was content
with honestly confessing that he had
noticed no peculiar modulation in
the Italian lady's tones. He might
have added in his defence, that he
had never heen ahle to learn the notes
in the whole course of his novitiate,
and hud heen pronounced first con-
tumacious, and finally incapahle, hy
the precentor; and even to this day
made sounds in choir which excruci-
ated the accomplished ears of his
hretbren. But he might have given
a graver reason for his lack of dis-
crimination in this particular in-
stance; the matter of his penitent's
communication had heen too ahsorh-
ing for him to psy much heed to the
voice.
"In this poor lady's casp," said
the worthy father as he took his
leave, "whatever it hecomes you to
know, as touching an inmate of your
house—whatever, 1 may say, you
would desire to ask—she will not
refuse to tell you; nay, it seems to
me she would even wish it. Fare ye
well, nohle ladies, and Saint Mary
reward jou for your charitahle deed."
CnAPTER XIL—THE GUESTS OF RIVELSBY.
The Benedictine's thoughts, on his
homeward walk to Rivelshv, had
heen more husy with the trouhles of
others than with his own. He had
never hefore heen hrought into such
close contact with the hitterness of a
wounded spirit, and he was humhled
to think how little help or consola-
tion, lieyond the formal language of
his office, he had heen ahle to afford.
He was returning to the cloister,
which had heen the home of his
childhood, with a strengthened con-
viction that the world was indeed an
evil place. Holier and wiser than
himself were they who had called it
so; and he was even meditating some
little self-irop0sed penance hecause,
in the simple goodness of his own
heart, which had hitherto kept him
from seeing evil in others, he had
sometimes heen led to douht whether
that hroad assertion of the world's
wickedness were wholly true. He
was more thankful than ever that
those who had the care of him (he
had never known a father) had
dedicated him to the cloister in child-
hood, and so kept him safe from what
might have heen his own wayward
choice, and a secular life's temptations.
He walked slowly, and the hell
rang out for vespers while he was
yet at some distance from the monas-
tery. He stopped as the sound
ceased, and having reverently crossed
himself tbrice, proceeded gravely on
his way, reciting audihly 10 him-elf
the familiar words of the office. Thus
piuusiy engaged, he had got within
a short disiance of the ahhey gate,
when he was startled hy a rustling
movement in the low alder-hushes
close heside him. As lie turned, a
wild-looking half-clad figure crept
out, and stood in the pathway.
Ragged and stuhhly hair and heard,
eyes that glared fiercely out of hollow
sockets, and a haggard countenance
which might express either anger,
fear, or madness, made up an ap-
pearance at which the worthy monk
might well stand for a moment
aghas^ and repeat the holy sigu with
eager precaution. But it was soon
evident that the wretched ohject he-
fore him intended no hostile demon-
stration; and though Ingulph started
hack agHin a step or two when the
man tbrew himself forward, and,
dropping on his kuees, tried to clutch
the folds of his hahit, he soon re-
covered himself sufficiently to address
the suppliant, whose gestures were
more intelligihle than his words, in
a tone of kindues?.
"What do you seek of me, my son?"
The man made some unintelligihle


74
[July,
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part V.

reply, and did not move from his
position. The monk's first impres-
sion was, that he was some wander-
ing lunatic who had escaped from
the chains and torture in which
such miserahle heings were com-
monly kept, and though not seriously
alarmed, since he appeared harmless,
he paused for a few moments to he-
think himself of some approved form
of exorcism, in oase he might require
it But it was really none other
than Cuthwin, exhausted with hunger
and watching, who had heen en-
couraged hy the sight of the monaslic
garh to appeal tn its wearer for help
or protection. The Benedictine rule
of almsgiving was to give first, and
to ask questions, if need were, after-
wards; utterly unsound political
economy, hut having this advantage
over improved systems, that if the
questions were sometimes omitted,
the alms never were; and even if the
applicant's tale were sometimes false,
the charity was always genuine. The
story which the hasketmaker had to
tell was coufused and unsatisfactory,
hut hunger and suffering spoke plainly
in every line of his face; and the
monk at once hid him follow him to
the monastery, where his necessities
would receive due attention. Cuth-
win rudely hut earnestly expressed
his thanks, and followed his hene-
factor at a humhle distance, yet near
enough to claim his instant protec-
tion in case of need, and casting many
a watchful look hehind him, as if he
still dreaded pursuit. Old Peter,
dozing in his stone seat within the
gateway, opened his sleepy eyes wider
than usual to take coguisance of the
unsightly figure which limped after
hrother Ingulph; hut the poor and
needy lud too often crowded the
gates of Rivelshy for him to feel any
astonishment at such visitors, and
many an outcast wanderer hefore
Cuthwin had found there food, and
warmth, and shelter. He was soon
seated in the porch of the guest-hall,
whilst his new-found friend went in
search of the kitchener to provide for
his necessities.
Gervase, the lay hrother who hore
that office at Rivelshy, was engaged
at the moment in earnest consulta-
tion with some of his suhordinate
officials in the kitchen, and was in no
very amiahle mood. lle was not a
man of patient temper naturally;
hut indeed there had heen much to
try it that day. The fishermen had
come in with an unusually short
supply of what was one of the staple
resources of the community; the
prevalent thunderstorms of late, as
they declared, had driven the fish
into the deep waters, where no net
could reach them. Even the eels,—
of which the tenants of two farms
upon the river were hound to furnish
a certain numher weekly, — were
not fortheoming in full tale. And
the heans for the soup, just sent in,
were villanous; and what was worse,
it would hardly do to make any
serious complaint, inasmuch ss the
last supply had not yet heen paid for.
Brother Gervase was vexed to the
heart, for he was sure to he held
responsihle hy his hretbren for any
deficiency or unsavouriness in their
daily fare. And the monks of
Rivelshy, though they had little
opportunity of hecoming gourmands,
and were well content with the
simple dietary ordered hy their rule,
were marvellously nice in their dis-
crimination hetween good and evil in
such plain viands as they were accus-
tomed to. If a man drinks only water,
he hecomes a wonderful judge of its
quality, and detects the slightest tinge
of impurity where the palate which
is used to stronger potations swallows
all alike. A musty lentil in one of
their pittances was a grievance which
called for redress; and a hatch of
ill-salted fish had once well nigh
caused a domestic revolution. No
wonder, then, if, with such anxieties
weighing heavily on his mind, the
kitchener listened in no very patient
mood to his hrother monk who came
iunocently to add to his trouhles,
though the demand for food and
drink for a single starving man was
no very uureasonahle or formidahle
requisition. But it is the last straw
which is said to hreak the hack of
the much-enduring camel: Brother
Gervase had horne much that day,
and in the matter of the heans had
heen ohliged to hear it in ill-tempered
silence. Nor had he any great con-
fidence in the worthy lihrarian's dis-
cretion in selecting ohjects of charity.
"A pittance for a hungry wayfarer


1859.]
The L'tek of Ladysmede.—Part V.

saidst thou?" said the vexed official;
"mark me, good hrother, far he it
from me to put any slight upon the
Cbristian duty of almsgiving, and
for the hest of reasons; if matters go
on long as they have done of late, we
may all have to fare forth one day,
like a rascal herd of friars mendicant,
and heg charity of our neighhors."
"How now, hrother?" said Ingnlph,
"has any new mischief hefallen us?"
'' Nay," returned the other, "'tis
nothing new for us to lack money—it
has heen so ever since I first took of-
fice; hut 'tis one of those evils which
time will scarcely mend; and 'twill
he something new for my lord ahhot,
and for all of ye, to find howl and
platter set hefore ye empty—a con-
summation towards which, it seems
to me, we are wending fast.'
"What is the matter, hrother
Gervase?" asked Simon, the suh-
prior, in a good-humoured tone. He
had stolen down to the kitchen sur-
reptitiously to inspect the fresh ar-
rival of fish, in which he took a very
cordial interest.
"I am seeking an answer to a very
serious question, father," said the
kitchener, eyeing him as one of the
most determined consumers on the
estahlishment. "How many days in
the week, now, do you consider it
possihle to live upon prayers and
promises?"
It was a dietary on which the
suh-prior conld form no opinion.
"Because," continued the other,
"I am like to have nonght hesides,
that 1 can see, to provide the house
with till next St. Thomas's tide.
Here is our winter store of ling and
herring not yet laid in, and the fish-
eries falling short every day. See
here, what they hring me this after-
noon—scarce anything fit to furnish
forth the lord ahhot's tahle to morrow,
when he hath guests of rank to dine
with him."
"This is a goodly fish," said the
soh-prior, selecting from the heap on
the floor a large pike which had a
plumper look than the rest, and
weighing it in his hands admiringly.
"He is lunk in the withers," said
Gervase, with a glance of his more
experienced eye, "and hath hut
stuffed his maw with frogs, or some
such vermin."
One of the cook's assistants took
the fish from the suh-prior's hands
and performed a rapid act of dissec-
tion, which hrought forth convincing
proofs that the kitchener was correct
in his judgment.
"And what nohle guests is onr
reverend father expecting?" inquired
Ingnlph.
"Nay," replied Gervase, "hss not
Sir Nicholas le Hardi sent word that
he will come to-morrow in person to
receive our loyal contrihution to his
majesty's service? and has not my
lord ahhot sent to pray that Sir God-
frey will please to ride with him?
and shall we he niggard in our hospi-
tality to such gracious visitors?"
"Certes, 'tis a piece of the Cbris-
tian rule to feed our enemies," re-
marked the suh prior.
"Tea, and good worldly policy
likewise, hrother," said Gervase:
"catch your uuruly henst with good
oats—no need to waste them on your
tame one, whom you may take hy
the forelock when you will; hut
how to feed either friends or foes out
of an empty purse—there is a ques-
tion, now, which hrother Ingnlph
here, with all his lore, shall find hard
to resolve ns."
"I would rather at this moment,
good Gervase," said Ingulph, "that
you would hestow something on the
poor wayfarer I spoke of; neither
my philosophy nor thine will go far
to feed the hungry."
With a little grumhling, more af-
fected than real, the kitchener hid a
serving-hoy follow the monk with
some hroken meat for the ohject of
his charity.
"I will go see him eat it," said
hrother Simon, to whom the sight
appeared to promise a little gentle
excitement.
Cuthwin's eyes glared like a fam-
ished hound's at the food set hefore
him, and scarcely waiting to mutter
thanks to his henefactors, he applied
himself to it with a power of uppe-
tite which, fortunately for the kitch-
ener's calculations, was seldom seen
within the ahhey walls. It was not
to he wondered at; for ever since he
had heen in hiding from Sir Godfrey's
wrath, he had suhsisted on such wild
herries as the thickets ahout the
marsh could supply, with the eggs of


76
[July,
T'nt Luck of Ladysmede.—Part V.
water-hirds, and gnch of their young
as he could occasionally catch, and
which he had made no scruple of de-
vouring raw.
Brother Simon seated himself op-
posite the hungry man, and watched
his performance with much interest
and i,dinirnt.ioti.
"Poor soul!" said he, " 'tis a plea-
cure to see him eat 1 I will e'en go
fetch him another trencher," he added
good uaturedly, ohserving how ra-
pidly the first liheral supply was dis-
appearing.
Prom i his purpose, however, he was
dissuaded hy his hrother monk, hoth on
the ground that the kitchener might
fairly hold this second demand some-
what uureasonahle, and on account
of the danger—to say nothing of the
sin—of such an inordinate indulgence
of appetite. At this moment, too,
one of the novices entered, and, with
a respectful salutation, informed the
suh-prior that it was time to visit the
infirmary, which was one of the pe-
caliir duties of his office. Cuthwia
looked a little disappointed, hut the
hospitahle monk made what amends
he could to him hy filling again from
the fligon the little howl which had
contained his heer.
"If you he the lord ahhot, as I
guess,'' said Cuthwin, taking hreath
at lust, and looking gratefully upon
the suh-prior, whose placid features
and well-fed person hore ahout them
a certain look of comfortahle diguity
—" I could tell something it might
content your reverence to know."
"1 am not the ahhot," replied
hrother Simon, simple enough to feel
iunocently flattered hy the peasant's
mistak<—" hut you may speak to me
as well as to him, if it he aught that
concerns our house; I will report it
to the ahh.it, if there seem need."
The honest suh-prior had not the
least intention of intercepting any
private communication; hut he did
not expect that any communication
at all from such a quarter could he
of real importance. Cuthwin, how-
ever, was shrewder in his generation
than the churchman ; he was certainly
more cuuning. Shuffliug uneasily in
his seat, aud looking from one monk
to the other, he replied, "1 would
fain see the ahhot himself, so please
ye hoth."
"Thou art a hold knave," said the
suh-prior, with a little suort, ex-
pressing as much offended self-im-
portance as his ea-<y nature was
capahle of; "wouldst have the lord
ahhot hestow his time no hetter, I
warrant thee, than in listening to
every idle tale that such as thoa
hring to the gate?"
But the lihrarian, now that he
found that his uuprepossessing ac-
quaintance professed to have news
to communicate, did not choose to
have his importance underrated.
He looked upon him as a little wind-
fall of his own; and trusting to the
known kindliness of Ahhot Martin's
disposition, even should the man's
desire to speak to him personally
prove, as it well might, to he a mere
delusion, or a pretext to ohtain more
alms, he rose from his seat, and hav-
ing hid Cuthwin remain where he
was for the present, explained to the
suh-prior that he would at least go
aud inform their superior of this
persevering request.
The ahhot eat in his chamher, with
the young Ginlio on his knee. His
hand was playing with the fair curls,
and the hoy looked up to him with
a heaming smile of affection. In
many respects the little guest of
Rivelshy was greatly improved hy
his new companionship. Ahhot Mar-
tin had alrealy imparted something
of his own frank and hold nature to
tlie young spirit, whose ungenial
childhood hitherto had fostered some
of the finer sensihilities at the ex-
pense of those stronger qualities
which would he looked for in a hoy
of nohle hlood. There was still
enough of the soldier under the
churchman's rohes, to make him less
careful to encourage his young charge
in the clerkly learning for which he
already showed a taste and capa-
city far heyond his years, than to
instil into him all the nohler prin-
ciples of true chivalry which had
formed his own early training, and
in which Ginlio's character might
have run some risk of proving defi-
cient. He had quietly withdrawn
him as much as possihle from his
dearly loved sittings in the lihrary
and scriptorinm—for Ingulph would
soon have made his darling pupil as
accomplished in the arts of the pen-


1859.]
77
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part V.

man and illuminator as ho was him-
self; and though he never suffered
him to mix alone with the novices,
the youngest of whom were his elders
hy some years, yet he sent him, under
the special care of one of his chap-
lains, or some other of lhe fraternity
whom he could implicitly trust, to
he instructed in all such atbletic ex-
erettn as the wide precincts of the
ahhey afforded space for, and in which
all the younger hretbren were per-
mitted and encouraged to join, and
which, indeed, at Rivelshy formed a
regular part of the monastic training.
It was a source of constunt regret to
his kind protector that the present
apparent necessity for keeping his
place of refuge unknown, if possihle,
to the household of Ladysmede,
made it imprudent to take him as a
companion in the frequent excur-
sions to the distant manors and
granges helonging to the ahhey,
which formed at once part of Ahhot
Martin's duties and his favourite re-
laxation; for the doll routine of the
cloister life sometimes, it must he
confessed, sat heavy on an active
mind. He would gladly have had
him thus acquire that practical skill
in horsemanship (which he took care,
however, should not he wholly un-
taught him within the ahhey hounds),
and at the same time have given
mind and hody the advantage of
free range of air and scene. Still,
hoth promised to tbrive well under
this semi-conventual training; and
the young face which now looked up
into the ahhot's had lost nothing of
its intellectual heauty, while it had
gained much in healthy colour and
firmness of contour. The somewhat
quaint effect of his little monastic
hahit—for it had heen judged more
prudent to clothe him in the usual
drtss of the novitiate—was not ill-
suited to the child's regular features
and clear liquid eyes; and his friend
the lihrarian, who possessed consider-
ahle manual skill in the higher
hranches of illumination, hnd twice
endeavored surreptitiously to trans-
fer a resemhlance of his little favour-
ite to the hrilliant pages of a life of
Saint Wolstan, which was heing
copied at that time with lavish orna-
ment in the scriptorinm. It could
hardly he said that either attempt
was successful; for the younger
monks who were there employed al-
ways considered that the portraits
were intended to represent the saint
himself, who was never known to
wash, and died in the odour of sanc-
tity at a hundred and fifteen years.
Wolftrt the chaplain, who had
heen husy as usual near the window,
laid down the figurative weapons
with which he was husily mauling
the obuoxious canons, and replied to
Ingulph's modest knock. The hoy
sprung joyously forward when he re-
coguised the familiar face, and wel-
comed the lihrarian cordially. The
ahhot could hardly have heen found
in happier mood. Iupu'ph humhly
stated to his superior Cuthwin's
strange request for an interview.
'' The man hath a wild look ahout
him, reverend father," said he,"which
indeed is no gre^t marvel, if his tale
he true that he hath lived the life of
a hunted wolf some tbree weeks past;
he had done somewhat, if I caught
his meuning rightly, to displeasure
the knight of Ladysmede, his lawful
lord and master, and deems he goes
in peril of his life: will nigh famish-
ed I may dare swear he was, for
never did I see cbristened rnan swal-
low food so ravenously; hut his wit
is as sonnd, for aught I can see, as
such churls' wits are like to he; and
nothing will eerve him hut to see
my lord ahhot himself; having, as
he professes, some tidings that may
come to no other ears. The suh-
prior, who was hy, would have had
him speak out, hut the fellow said
nay ; and so I thought it hut right to
ask your worshipful pleasure in the
matter."
"He is some hondman of Sir
Godfrey, say yon T'
"Is or was; for he swore with an
unseemly oath, for which I rehuked
him, that he would enter into hond
with Sathanas—praying your reve-
rence's pardon—rather than have to
do with Sir Godfrey again."
''It were as well, perhaps, that I
saw him, since he stands so much
upon it," said the ahhot; "hring him
hither at once, if you will."
The monk howed and retired.
Wolfert, also, at a sigu from his su-
perior, withdrew from the chamher,
taking the hoy with him. In a few


78
[July,
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part V.
minutes Ingulph returned and in-
troduced the hosketniaker, who had
heen suhjected to some slight initia-
tory religious discipline in the way
of ahlution, and presented a less re-
pul>ive appearance than hefore.
The monk lingered at the door,
and recounted again at greater length,
for the ahhot's information, all the
particulars of his first meeting with
Cuthwin. He had some hope that
his presence might he required at
the interview in the character of
interpreter; for the peasant wore at
first an air of stolid ahashment which
did not promise to make his com-
munications very intelligihle. He
considered also that he had a lawful
claim to a share in the fortheoming
secret, such as it might he; and his
honest face put on a look of disap-
pointment and mortification when
the superior siguified to him a gra-
cious permission to withdraw.
Left alone with the ahhot, Cuthwin
appeared to employ himself at first,
as some animals will do under simi-
lar circumstances, in taking the
exact relative hearings of the apart-
ment and all iU furniture, from the
floor to the ceiling. The ahhot
wisely allowed him time to complete
his investigations, and recover his
self-possession as far as possihle,
merely expressing in a few hrief
words his pity fur what he under-
stood had heen his sufferings.
"And you fear, even now, to go
hack within Sir Godfrey's reach f"
said the ahhot, judging that he would
speak most readily of what concerned
himself; "you would have me plead
with the knight on your hehalf, I
douht not—is it not so?" The er-
rand which the man deemed of such
importance might, he thought, after
all, he no more than this.
"Curses light on him!" said
Cuthwin, hecoming eloquent in his
excited recollection, and gathering
courage perhaps from the good cheer
of the guest-hall, "he set his hands
on my woman yonder as she had
heen e'en a hrock or a foulmart."
(He had stolen hack to his hut
one dark and stormy night, and
had an interview with Swytha.) "If
ever I go nigh him or his again, may
the—"
But the ahhot raised a warning
finger, aod having had a lecture on
language already that afternoon, he
came to an ahrupt stop, which was
even more emphatic, and less ohjec-
tionahle.
"You wished to have speech of
me, as I have heen told," said the
superior, satisfied that the peasant
was now in full possession of all his
powers of speech and comprehension;
"speak if you will, honestly, and
without fear."
"Have ye a child of Sir Godfrey's
here among ye?" said Cuthwin in a
cautious voice."
"Nay, friend," replied the ahhot,
"I thought to hear somewhat from
thee; it were hardly my place to
answer every wayfarer's questions.
If that he all that I am called to
hearken to, I trow it were as well
for thee, having had food and drink,
to go thy ways again."
Cuthwin regarded the speaker with
a half-timid leer of low cuuning; he
saw, as he thought, that the ahhot
was fencing with him, and respected
him the more for a diplomacy which
just came within his own powers of
moral appreciation. But in fact,
though Ahhot Martin did not choose
to answer an interrogatory put in
such fashion from such a mouth,
he had not the slightest thought of
misleading his questioner, or en-
gaging him in a contest of evasions.
His suspicion at the moment was
that Cuthwin was an emissary of Sir
Godfrey's, who had procured ad-
mission into the monastery, under
pretence of seeking alms, and wad
now pursuing his inquiries with more
zeal than sbrewdness.
"Well," rejoined Cuthwin, "no
offence, I heseech thee, father ; they
have lost him from Ladysmede—that
much is certain, for there was stir
enough made ahout it for a while:
whether ye have him or no, matters
little to me; if all the hreed were
strangled, the earth were well rid of
them. In case the imp he not
amongst ye, what I have to say will
concern your reverence hut little;
hut the talk at Ladysmede is of
making search here for him."
The ahhot looked at his strange
visitor to judge whether he was
playing him false; hut Cuthwin's
features had resumed their usual


1859.]
79
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part V.

stolid apathy, and Ahhot Martin was
at hest no keen reader of counte-
nances.
"And how is it, friend," said he,
"that you—a hunted fugitive as I
hear—should he thus acquainted with
Sir Godfrey's intentions?"
Then Cuthwin, taking courage at
finding himself addressed as human
flesh and hlood—a mode of treatment
little in fashion with soch of his
superiors as he had hitherto made
acquaintance with — launched forth
into a long and somewhat confused
narrative. He had heen lying hid in
the swamp hy the roadside when Sir
Nicholas passed that day towards
"Willan's Hope; and the knight, di-
verging a little from the path, had
ridden so close to his lurking-place,
that when he suddenly stopped and
called to his esquire to adjust some
point that was wrong ahout his
horse's gear, Cuthwin, not daring to
move until they were gone, had over-
heard a conversation which had then
passed hetween them. Duhois had
told his master that he had now
learnt for certain that it was Sir
Godfrey's child whom he had seen at
Rivelshy: he was surely there, he
said, and from certain information
which he had gained, he knew that
he was in the ahhot's charge, and
lay in his chamher; and then Sir
Nicholas had laughed for joy, and
said that they would surely have the
hoy away on the morrow. And the
squire asked, would it not he well to
avoid all force, of which there should
he no need 1 for it were easy enough
for a trnsty few to seek the ahhot's
chamher while he was feasting with
his guests, and possess themselves of
the lad without stir or difficulty.
And so there had heen more talk
hetween them,—much that Cuthwin
did not hear, and much that he did
not understand or rememher; hut
what he had learnt he had thought
well to let the ahhot know.
"There were thanks due for thy
tidings and thy good-will," said the
ahhot, " could I only assure myself of
thy good faith; hut why one euch 88
thee should so concern thyself in our
matters—unless for some purpose of
thine own—I confess I understand
not"
"I had found a friend here in my
need, father," said the hasket-maker,
hlinking at the ahhot with his restless
eyes.
"True," replied the ahhot thought-
folly, scarcely satisfied.
"And I would go far to disappoint
mine enemy," added the other, and
the glance was steady for a moment,
gleaming with malice.
"In that I dare swear thou hast
said truly. I do not say I trust thee,
hut thou shalt remain in keeping
here awhile—so will it he the safer,
if thy tale he true, for all of us."
"I am well content," replied
Cuthwin.
Ahhot Martin summoned his chap-
lain from a neighhouring chamher,
and gave him charge to see the
peasant safely hestowed hut kindly
treated. "And hearken, Wolfert,"
he added, " send Gaston the Angevin
hither."
It wag the name of a foreigu monk,
rnde and illiterate, hut who had
served Ahhot Martin in his earlier
days, and was much in his confidence
where simple ohedience and fidelity
were required.
"Hark ye, Gaston," said he, when
the monk made his appearance—
"take a stout palfrey from my stahle,
to-morrow hefore dayhreak, and carry
the child Ginlio— whom you will find
ready here in my chamher—down to
Morton Grange: ahide there with
him until I come or send this ring,"
—and he showed the siguet on his
finger—" and, I need not say, he silent
and discreet."
If silence was a sure mark of dis-
cretion, the Angevin was the dis-
creetest of henchmen; for he said no
word in reply to the superior's charge,
hut made a low oheisance and with-
drew.
CHAPTER XIIL—CONFESSIONS.
What Ingulph had said at Willan's Elfhild's mind from those scruples of
Hope did not tend to diminish the in- true courtesy which had as yet with-
terest with which either lady regarded held her from entering upon any per-
their guest, whilst it served to relieve sonal inquiries. In the conversation


80
[July.
Hie Luck of Ladysmede.—Part V.

which followed hetween her and her
niece, she was fertile in speculations
upon a point which she now hoped
soon to he ahle to solve in earnesX.
Gladice, on the other hand, had
given up guessing, aud was more
than usually silent. Before they
parted, hoth had come to a resolu-
tion in their own minds, which
neither expressed in words to the
other: the elder, to take the first
favourahle opportunity to ohtain all
such information from Isola as she
might seem willing to give; and the
younger, to avoid as far as possihle
any confidences which their guest
showed imy desire to hestow upon
her. But the hest and most deliher-
ate human resolutions are liahle to
hecome the sport of very trifling
circumstances. The exacting domes-
tic cares of a large and hungry house-
hold—to which all interests ranked
second in the eyes of Elfhild—en-
grossed that excellent lady's atten-
tion for Ihe remainder of the day;
Judith and her suhordinates were
fully occupied in clearing off some
arrears of duty under the vigilant
eye of their mistrtss; and Gladice—
who, too willingly, it must he con-
fessed, lift the government of her
little kingdom to any minister who
would kindly take the responsihility
—found herself the only person suffi-
ciently disengaged to attend to Isola.
She had thought to content herself
with one or two hrief visits of inquiry
to the invalid's chamher; for she
felt that she was awkward and emhar-
rassed in her attempts at conversa-
tion; hut the melancholy face lighted
up with huch a glowing smile at her
approach, and teemed to watch her
departure with such a regretful gaze,
that Gladiee's kind heart was not
proof against what she interpreted
into a silent pleading for companion-
ship, and she felt that she could not
leave the stranger alone tbrough the
long evening. She therefore carried
with her up to the chamher that
iunocent falsehood, her emhroidery-
frame, and seated hy the narrow
eyelet which served there for a win-
dow, it supplied her with at least
ostensihle occupation and some ex-
cuse for silence. Isola indeed
showed no inclination to trouhle her
much with conversation; and alter
a very few words had passed at in-
tervals, hod closed her eyes, and
seemed to sleep. Gladiee's thoughts
also soon wandered to the land of
dreams; and forgetting for the mo-
ment that she was not alone, she let
her needle fall, leaving the flower,
which she had twice uupicked, to
grow, if it would, in its own rehel-
lious way, and hegan, as her hahit was,
to sing to herself in a low rich voice.
But her song, whether in unison with
her own feelings, or from an uncon-
scious sympathy with the sleeper,
was not so gay as usual. It was a
chant which she had heard the nuns
of Micham.tede sing at their vespers;
she had readily caught the sweet and
simple melody, and no one could
have found it in their hearts to he
over-critical ahout the Latin words.
She had continued it for some
minutes, when she started at recol-
lecting where she was, and turning
hurriedly to remark whether her com-
panion was still sleeping, saw that
her eyes were open, though they
were not turned on her, aud that
they were ready to overflow with
tears. She had ceased her singing
so suddenly that Isola could not fail
to understand the cause, though the
singer tried to appear unconscious of
her emotion.
"Why did you stop?" said Isola,
mastering her tears, and turning to
Gladice with an attempt to smile.
"Did it soothe you?" asked Gla-
dice, without meeting her glance; "I
will hegin again."
And with u less steady voice—for
she was unused to sing for others—
she resumed the chant as she hent
again over her needle.
"That is not an English melody,"
suid the stranger gently, after listening
for a while in silence.
"Is it not?" said Gladice; "it is
very heautiful; ut least jou could
hardly fail to think it so, if you had
heard it sung as I did.-' And she ex-
plained to her listener where she had
learned it.
"I kuow it well," said Isola, turn-
ing her face from her; ''it is an Ital-
ian chant. I have sung it mjself—
very, very often."
Her companion would willingly
have let the conversation drop, hut
she felt ohliged to make some kind
of reply. '• I should have hethought
me," she said with a smile," hefore


1859.]
81
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part V.

I was so free to essay my poor re-
memhrance of it; they say that your
country is the land of song."
'.Do not refuse me for a country-
woman," Isola replied; " I said that
I was half of English hlood; the
only parent I can rememher was my
sweet English mother; and I speak
your language—or I have heen falsely
told—as well as one horn in the land.
It may very well he so, for I heard
little else spoken in my infancy.
And it seems to me now—forgive
me for what I say—when I close my
eyes and listen while you speak, as
if I had woke from some hideous
dream, to find myself a little child
once more, and hear my mother's
English voice! Would God that it
could he!" She turned her face
away again, and made no effort now
to restrain or to conceal her tears.
Gladice could hnt try to soothe
her with some kindly words, though
she persuaded herself that they were
grave and formal. Perhaps the voice
was kinder than the words; perhaps
the ear upon which they fell had
heen too little used of late to any
tones of kindness; or perhaps the
qafak southern hlood that mingled
in the stranger's veins overhore with
its impetuous current the common
harriers of reserve.
"I have not known how to thank
you," said Isola, raising herself from
tier couch and dashiug away her
tears, and hreaking into that rapid
and impassioned utterance which
was almost the only trace of her
foreigu hirth and education—"I can
never thank you—for all your gene-
rous kindness—and even more, for
the nohle silence which has heen con-
tent to ask no questions, and to think
no evil. Such ouly comes out of the
depths of pure hearts; I had not
thought there were such angel spirits
upon earth!"
Gladice had almost involuntarily
risen from her task, and seated her-
self on the side of the couch, and
Isola had thjown her arm round her.
"Yon must have heen indeed un-
happy, then," she replied, "if com-
mon kindness seems so strange."
And for the first time she took the
stranger's hand.
"I would tell you something of
my story," said Isola; "something
VOL. LXXXVL
of my sin and of my punishment—
lest yon should think me even more
unworthy than I am."
"I seek to know nothing," said
Gladice hastily, and half-rising;
"nor have I judged yon harsbly,
even in thought; if you have siuned
as you say, God forgive you! we
only know that you are in distress."
"Nay," pleaded Fsola heseechingly,
"let me speak now, if only for my
own sake; I have horne my hurden
very long nlone, and thought to
have horne it still; hut your kind-
ness—it has stirred feelings in my
heart which have heen still for years.
I have horne scorn when I deserved
it not, hecause I was too proud to
speak; and honour when I deserved
it h>8,—a harder thing to hear; hut
now I feel that I must speak—this
once !"—for Gladice gave no token
of encouragement—" and I will trou-
hle you no more I to you I can speak
as I could not even to that good
priest!"
"My aunt, the lady Elfhild—"
Gladice heuan, in a colder voice, aud
with something of confused diguity.
"Oh no !—to you, to you I Surely
She to whom I pray daily—nightly
—hourly, when, siuner that I am, I
dare not pray to God—has heard me,
and sent you to save me from my-
self."
Still Gladice made no response.
"Lady I" said the other, in an
altered tone, removing her passion-
ate clasp from Gladice's hand and
turning half away, while the colour
flushed crimson to her temples—" I
am not what you think me!"
"No! no!" cried Gladice, catch-
ing her hand again, and speaking
with an imploring eagerness strongly
contrasted with her former emhar-
rassed tone—'- I did not mean—I did
not think—what am I in the sight
of Heaven, that I should judge
others? Forgive me if I have
pained you for an instant! But I
have heen used to live much alone,
and I eould cot—at least I think I
could not—open my own heart to
any one : it seemed to me, therefore,
as if I had no right to listen—and I
could give you no help; hut you
shall tell me anything—everything
—what you will, if it will he anv
comfort to you I"
6


82
[Jrfy,
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part V.

It would have heen hard to resist
the earnest voice, harder still the en-
treating eyes which now sought con-
fidence and forgiveness.
"Yes," said Isola quietly, without
raising her eyes—" I said it was right
that you should listen to me; I would
he thought neither helter nor worse
than I am. Right glad would I have
heen to have carried with me, when
I go hence, your love—your esteem;
hut not even this, if I must wear a
mask for it—never that again!" She
paused for a moment; her listener
only pressed her hand.
"There needs not to trouhle you
with much of my early life. I have
told you I never knewi my father;
hut he was an Italian gentleman of
good descent. My mother was Eng-
lish; he had met with her, as I re-
memher to have heard, when he was
sent upon some mission to the court
of your King Stephen. Well—she
too died soon; and we were left
alone in the world, my hrother and
I; young, and I suppose poor. He
always said that our inheritance was
seized unjustly hy our kinsmen. I
caunot tell—hut we were young, as
I said, and poor. We were hoth
given to the Church—a wortbless
gift, made in a selfish spirit; let
some share of the guilt, therefore, lie
upon those who made it! So I grew
up in the cloister life, which I was
taught to look forward to as my home
for ever. And so it might have heen;
and a peaceful and sinless home at
least, if not a happy one—hut for
one thing. There was a friend of
my father's, an Italian lady of the
pure hlood, as they call it, hat poor
like ourselves; and for that reason,
perhaps, she was the only friend we
had. While I was little more than
a child, I was allowed often to visit
her, and I loved her very much. In
my novitiate I was still allowed the
same permission, for the rule of our
house was scarce so strict as some. At
last the day came when I was to
make my last profession. I said I
could have heen happy enough to
have emhraced the cloister for ever,
hut for one thing—must I needs say
what it was? or"—
"Nay," said Gladice, colouring and
half smiling—" leave it unsaid."
"The day enme," continued the Ita-
lia;t, "and I had miserahle conflicts
with myself; I hnd to vow myself,
hody and spirit, to Heaven, when I
knew and felt that I had staked all
my hopes and thoughts upon—upon
earth I hut they were thoughts and
hopes I dared not hreathe to others
—not even to her who had hecome
almost a second mother to me. I
hardly confessed them even to my-
self. I strove—our Holy Mother
knows how sore and earnestly I
strove !—to master my own rehel-
lious feelings, to suhmit myself pa-
tiently to the lot which seemed ap-
pointed for me ; hut it was»of no avail.
Could I vow with my lips to 'fol-
low Heaven with my whole heart,'
when my whole heart was given to
a creature of earth? Should I ha-ve
done it?"
"No," said Gladice in a low voice,
when she found her companion waited
for her reply.
"But," said Isola, "still it was no
more than my own wayward fancy—
he had never spoken! what could I
say? what could I plead for not tak-
ing the veil?" Gladice was silent.
"I did not take it," continued
Isola; "I fled—fled to the only friend
I had, and she protected me, and
would not have my will forced. And
then another spoke; and he was
kind and nohle, and my kinswoman
loved him, and would have had me
wed him; and then what was I to-
do? for rememher, he of whom I
told you was gone now, and had said
no word; and all men againht me,
one poor helpless girl. Here was the
choice laid hefore me—a hushand, or
the cloister; and my heart far, far
away from hoth—which was I to
choose?"
"Neither!" said Gladice, her lips
set, and her eyes flashing—" neither!"
"Nay, hut, sweet lady, what could
I do?"
"I know not," said Gladice impa-
tiently—" not that!"
"Ay," said the other, looking at
her with a mournful admiration, as
the indiguant colour mounted just
high enough to enhance her heauty,
while the eye hurnt and the whole
lnxuriant form panted with courage-
ous pride—"truly and hravely said I
and, I do verily helieve, hrave and
true you would he in deed as in


1859.]
83
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part V.

word! God grant you he never tried!
But alas ! I was too weak — I chose
the cloister."
"Well," paid Gladice, hreathing
somewhat easier,—" it was the hetter
choice."
"To make myself a liviog lie 1 to
vow my heart, my thoughts, my
hopes to Heaven, when my whole
soul was sick with a love such as,
in your colder island, you may he
thankful if you never know."
"Yet it was a northern maiden, in
the lay, that was found floating dead
in the charmed hoat for the love
which she had never told."
"Is it even so ?" asked the Italian,
looking down into her companion's
face ; — " hut let me hasten on with
my wretched story. I took this lying
vow upon my lips—it was hest, you
say — I thought it so then; and
so it might have heen, hut — as a
punishment, it might he, for my false
oath to God—he came again; once,
and only once, we met, and I hroke
my vow. I fled with the man I loved
—hut as his wedded wife, rememher!
Ay, start as j ou well may — I, the
sworn hride of Cbrist, hecame an
adulteress to an eartbly passion!
That has heen my crime, vile and
hlack in mine own sight now as ever!
and yet so hlind am I, I know not
at this moment which was the great-
est falsehood and the deadliest sin,—
the making the vow, or the hreak-
ing of it!"
"God forgive you I" said Gladice
earnestly; "you were sorely tried."
"I was, I was! and I strove hard,
and prayed long; hut of what use
was it? My heart had heen full of
that one thought even while I spoke
those awful words of profession. I
had nursed it in the cloister, like a
despair; it seemed 80 hopeless that
I forgot the sin; and now it had
overmastered me, hody and soul;
what help could Heaven itself give
me?" She hid her face again, and
her whole frame shnddered with the
agony of rememhrance.
"And afterwards," said Gladice,
feeling that the truest relief would
he to lead her to continue her story,
—" your wedded life, I fear, has not
heen happy f"
"Happy 1" exclaimed the other
hitterly — " was it fit that it should
he? Xo—even in my worst folly, 1
never hoped or dreamed that. When
ever was peace or huppiness horn of
falsehood? Why should man vulue
the truth which has heen hroken to
God? A few short weeks of fever-
ish, painful joy—no happiness; a few
months more of wretched wander-
ing, coldness, and neglect; and then
—as was hut just — he left me, for
whom I had left God. Yes, lady, it
was even so j and if it were only so,
I might have horne it, and have heen
thankful that my sin had so early
found me out; hut there was an-
other, too, who fell in my fall — my
hrother, my poor Giacomo ;hut
I have told you all that needed to he
known; that which touches others
I must not tell, and it were idle for
you to hear. Oh! hut you would
needs pity me, sinful as I am, did you
only know half the agony of my
thoughts sometimes ! and of late more
than all, in my weakness. I have
had—whether waking or dreaming, I
caunot rightly tell—evils spirits chant-
ing in my ears the words of the vows
that have heen made and hroken,
and rejoicing over the souls which
I have given them!''
"Nay, nay," said Gladice, taking
hoth her hands in hers, and seeking
to calm her agitation—" it is not so
—you do hut dream—such fancies as
I have heard come oftentimes with
fever, and will pass away as you gain
streogth—think no more of them."
Yet she' felt herself tremhle as she
spoke.
"You have not asked me yet,"
said her companion, looking up,
"what it was that hrought me
hither?"
"I do not care to ask, or to know;
I think perhaps it was she to whom
j on pray so often."
"Ah! no," replied Isola, shaking
her head and colouring again, though
the kind words awoke a faint smile
of pleasure on her face for a moment;
,: alas I it was the old madness still;
I came with the hope to find him,
and look on him once more, if only
to he scorned again. I know that it
ia weakness, miserahle weakness, hut
it is my life—and it is not sin now;
there is hut one vow left me hence-
forth to keep, even if I would ; and
though it he all they tell me—mad,


84
[July,
The Luck qf Ladysmede.—Part V.
self-willed, unwomanly — I am not
wicked in this; yon would not tell
me so!"
The reply which Gladice wonld
have made was interrupted hy the
voice of her tirewoman Bertha, re-
questing admission to her young
mistress.
"An it please yon, dear Lady Gla-
dice," said Bertha, after a respectful
oheisance to hoth, "your presence is
desired helow."
"Pray thee spare me now, good
Bertha," said Gladice, forcing herself
to smile gaily, tbrough there were
tears npon her cheek; "what mighty
husiness is there afoot, which caunot
he compassed without my poor wit?
Go—say what is the truth, that I am
preparing a sleeping-draught for this
our guest, who has heen overwearied
and restless, and that I would fain
watch here a while." And she moved
towards the small tahle on which
were disposed all Dame Elfhild's
approved medicaments. But the tire-
woman still lingered in the chamher,
casting hesitating looks towards the
couch on which Lola lay.
"It was the lady Elf hild hid me
seek you," she said ; "there are guests
newly arrived, and her company will
hardly content them."
"Who is it?" Gladice asked, turn-
ing her face aside for a moment from
Bertha's meaning glance.
"Sir Nicholas le Hardi hath ridden
from Ladysmede."
Bertha spoke slowly and distinctly,
for she wished to attach some im-
portance to her words, and she was
watching their effect upon her young
mistress with kindly interest. But
on this point she had no opportunity
of satisfying herself. The words had
heen heard hy another. Isola had
started up with a sharp sudden cry,
and grasped Gladice's arm convul-
sively. Bertha was alarmed, and
hurried to her assistance, quite un-
conscious that she herself had heen
in any way the cause of the stranger's
emotion. Gladice was startled also,
and looked in Lola's face with in-
quiring wonder, douhtful whether
her exclamation arose from a sudden
spasm of pain, or from some fancied
terror of a fevered hody and over-
excited mind. With an effort at
calmness, while her grasp of the arm
she held tightened even to pain, the
Italian whispered — "He has found
me, then I"
"Who? what?" cried Gladice hur-
riedly, not sure that in the trouhled
gleam of the other's eyes she did not
read insanity, yet looking eagerly to
catch her next words.
Isola drew a long sigh, and closed
her eves again.
''What did you say?" repeated
her companion.
"One moment—and I will tell you
all." The tone was calm enough;
Gladice was the most agitated now.
"It was he of whom I spoke hut
now—my hushand."
The words were spoken very low,
hut they were plain to understand.
Her listener stooped for a moment
over the couch, and whispered —
*' Hn?h I" Then she rose, and husied
herself for a few seconds in adjusting
the cushions upon which the sick
stranger leaned. When she turned
round, she said to her attendant in a
quiet voice, "Go, Bertha! did I not
say that I had no leisure now? say
to mine aunt that I am needed here:
the lady, as you see, is sufifcring—
I caunot leave her."
The tirewoman's ears, as Dame
Elf hild many times complained, were
none of the sharpest, nor were her
mental perceptions the most acute.
She had withdrawn to a little dis-
tance, and the few words which she
had caught of what had passed he-
tween the others, had only served to
convey to her mind a confused and
alarmed notion of what she had he-
fore suspected, that the poor lady's
intellect was disturhed. But she
could not help noticing the unusual
pal lour on her young mistress's face;
and, anxious not to leave her to deal
with such a responsihility alone,
hegged her permission to remain in
the chamher.
"Leave us, Bertha!—did yon not
hear me?"
Never had her gentle lady spoken
to her so sternly. Humhled and won-
dering, the poor girl hastily with-
drew.
Then Gladice, no longer an un-
willing listener, hut pale and eager,
sought from her guest a full explana-
tion of her last words.
"Sir Nicholas le Hardi—tell me,"
sue said, " are you his wife?"
"I am, I am, Heaven help me! He


1859.]
85
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part V.

knows I am! His hy all the vows
with which holy church could hiud
ns! He may deny it; hut, lady, I
speak the truth—do you not helieve
me?" She looked into Gladice's
face, and started at what she thought
she read there. "What know you
of him I" she asked ahruptly, with an
cager, frightened look.
'. Nothing, I might almost say:
he is a guest with my kinsman Sir
Godfrey, of whom you have heard us
speak. I know naught heside." She
spoke calmly, hut her face was hidden
from Isola's interrogating gaze. Both
were silent for a while; then it was
the Italian who spoke.
"Yes — he is my hushand; how I
love him, I have told you: I have
left friends, crossed seas, trampled on
my woman's pride, horne scorn from
whom it was hardest to hear—all to
look on him once more—only to look
on him—for he hates me. I do verily
fear," she said, shuddering, "that my
life were hardly safe if I were in his
power alone. Now I have told you
all, and truly; so may God forgive
my sin! And you—what have you to
tell me?"
"Nothing!" said Gladice, raising
herself erect, and tbrowing hack the
mass of overshadowing hair that had
escaped its hounds as she stooped
over the sufferer's couch, while she
looked straight into the other's eyes
with a high-flushed cheek, and a
glance that seemed almost defiant —
"Nothingl"
Anxiously and searchingly Isola
looked into those truthful eyes. The
colour mounted higher and higher,
hut the steadfast look never quailed
again. Gradually the Italian's gaze
softened into a loving, trustful smile,
as she took hoth Gladice's hands in
her own.
"He is my hushand," she gently
said again; '• you will forgive me?"
"Forgive you ?"—and Gladice hent
ber head down upon the hands that
still clasped hers, and pressed her hoc
lips .upon them for a moment. If
tears dropped there, they were Isola's.
"You will not hetray me," said she,
with an appealing look to Gladice:
"he will not know that I am here?"
"Be sure he shall not," said Gla-
dice, her head still hent — "you are
safe with us. But you must rest
now," she continued, as she lifted her
face again, grave and calm — " I will
leave you for a while."
As she passed out at the chamher-
door she met Bertha, who had again
heen despatched in search of her.
The poor tirewoman had never heen
so emharrassed hy conflicting duties.
She could not disohey Dame Ell hild,
in whom was invested the chief autho-
rity de facto in the household ; and
she would not have vexed her dear
young mistress for the world.
"Indeed, sweet lady Gladice," she
hegan in a humhle deprecating tone,
"I was hound to seek you again,
chide me as you may, for Sir Ni-
cholas"—
"Say I will come; I do hut go to
hind mine hair."
Bertha would liave followed to
tender assistance as usual. "Nay,
go, dear Bertha — 1 do not need any
help; say that I will wait on them
presently."
Bertha was neither keen nor clever;
hut she was a woman, and she looked
after her young mistress, as she turn-
ed away, with wondering and sorrow-
ful eyes.
Grave and pale, hut never in more
commanding heauty, the lady Gla-
dice, after her hrief toilet, walked
into the solar where sat her good
kinswoman doing her hest to make
the long minutes of delay pass lightly
to the impatient Crusader. He seemed
to have little himself to tell this
morning, and had not heen listen-
ing, it is to he feared, with quite so
much interest as courtesy demanded,
to certain incidents of the lady's own
days of conquest. But his dark
hrow cleared as he glanced rapidly at
the opening door hy which the maiden
entered. He rose to greet her with
a courtesy graceful as his wont, and,
if it could he, even more respectful.
In part, it might he intentional ; hut
there was an indefinite majesty ahout
Gladice's presence at that moment
which would have in itself forhidden
any more presumptuous greeting. It
was no longer the rich maturity of
woman's loveliness which tempted
passionate admiration in every deli-
cate tint and rounded line; it was
the pale proud heauty of a marhle
Juno, living and moving, with a
Madouna's features. Before it, the


86
[July,
The Luck of Ladysmcde.—Part V.

hold gallant of 'he camp and court,
the practised man of the world, in
whose hreast the fires of youth hurnt
harilly less fiercely that they were
tempered hy the craft of ripened
years, stood chastened into an in-
voluntary reverence. She received
the Crusader's homage as a queen
might have done, with the stately
graciousuess which repels rather than
encourages; and though he took a seat
almost close heside her, she was as
far aloof from him as an angel. He
sought to win her atteution, as he-
fore, hy the wealth of converse upon
almost every suhject which he was
wont to have so readily at command;
hut he felt a spell upon him, and his
tongue had lost its cuuning. He tried
a lighter tone; a softly-worded jest,
a delicately-veiled hint of flattery;
hut he hit his lip with vexation as
the words fell forced and dead even
upon his own ear, for Gludiee's face
wore no answering smile. He hent
his eyes there inquiringly, again and
again; and though his natural tem-
per was hitter and impatient, there
was a tenderness in the reproachful
look too real to he a mere stratagem
in Ihe warfare of courtship. The
eyes which he sought did not always
sbrink from his; hut when he met
them, they hardly seemed the same
as those in which he hud bo often
looked hefore, in whose soft depths a
mighty unwakened love had seemed
alwajs sleeping Their hrightness
had horrowed something of the fahled
power of the dead Gorgon. It con-
quered him; for it chilled his pas-
sion, and unnerved his self-command.
Even Elfhild, who had heen ohliged
to maintain a far larger share in the
conversation than she had found
necessary on former occasions, and
who had shot a meaning look at her
niece from time to time to rehuke her
for her uureasonahle silence, found her
own keen glance quail hefore the in-
tensity of Glanice's expression, which
puzzled and alarmed her. But love, as
the elderly maiden supposed, was in its
normal state a chaos of inexplicahle
contradictions; nothing di>mayed,
therefore, and feeling that a douhle
duty was required of her, she con-
tinued to talk to hoth with great fer-
tility of words and with the hest
intentions. At last the Crusader
seemed to rally his spirit, and spoke
in an easier and lighter tone. His
jests grew holder, his language of com-
pliment was more decided, his laugh
rang louder and gayer, though he
addressed himself ol'tener to Elfhild
than to Gladice; and the elder lady
hegan to congratulate herself on hav-
ing infused a very desirahle cheerful-
ness into at least one of their little
party. If the jest hud sometimes
now more meaning in it than was
suited to modern maiden's ear, it
would have seemed purity itself ou
the lips of Sir Godfrey or his depart-
ed friend Sir Amyas; and Elfhild
had heen too much used to such
society to affect to he over-prudish in
such points. If his eye assumed a
somewhat free and defiant look as it
rested from time to time upon Gla-
dice, Elfhild did not seem to notice
it; and if a slight flush tinged for
an instant the paleness of the maid-
en's cheek, and showed that she was
conscious of his changed demeanour,
the knight might have read—and he
did—in the haughty lip and the in-
diguant eye which answered his, not
so much shame, as scorn and counter-
defiince. Maintaining this new tone
a while, until he had fuliy recovered
his ground in his own estimation, at
length Sir Nicholas rose to take his
leave. Yet, as at parting he took
Gladice's scarcely-offered hand, and,
hetiding low, raised it to his lips with
grave aud respectful courtesy, he said
some few words in a low voice, in his
old tone, and watched her face for
an answer with no freedom in his
look. Slight ahrupt words they were,
to which only a look and a tone could
give cohesion or meaning. Yet pos-
sihly, had they heen spoken hut an
hour ago, to the ear which alone
heard them, they might have had a
wondrous eloquence. But she made
no other answer than one of those
fixed searching looks from which he
hud half sbrank hefore, and the cold
hand struggled out of his grasp.
Again the evil defiant glance, this time
with something of a fierce meaning in
it., came up into Le Hardi's face; hut
Gladice did not notice it; almost he-
fore the door had closed upon him, she
too had left the chamher.


1859.]
67
Sentimental Physiology.
SENTIMENTAL PHYSIOLOGY.
Onb who loves to shape for him-
self the forms of events in the dark-
ness of the future, might he interest-
ed sod puzzled for a long time with
the momentous question, " What is to
hecome of Paris V" The prospects of
that great city seem sufficiently em-
harrassing, whether regarded from a
moral, religious, social, or political
point of view. Paris will grow, and
grow, and grow, and its ramifying
railroads will ace as so many arteries,
hringing the vital fluid into the great
central heart of France, and not re-
acting as veins to carry it hack.
Paris will certainly hecome congested
again as has happened often hefore,
and the next time matters mny he
worse than they yet have heen; the
expla-ion may he more tremend'us
in proportion tn the congestion. On
the face of things sacli a danger
would appear to tbreaten London
even to a greater extent. London is
larger than Paris, and expands every
day; hut that matters little. The
outward and visihle increase is ap-
parent rather than real. There is no
strong attraction of Englishmen to-
wards London as there is of French-
men towards Paris; hut the forces
of attraction and repulsion appear to
correct each other. England will
never he centralised in London as
France is to a certain extent in Paris.
"So one who has the shadow of a
settlement elsewhere counects the
feeling of home with our great me-
tropoiis, while the true Frenchman
is at home only in Paris. His feel-
ing- are those of Ovid in his exile
at Tomi, when husiness or health
take hint away from his heloved
capital,—
refer ttii. • -
"Cam mhtt tiling trlstlsslma noctia imago
Qua; mlhl anpremum tempos fa urhe fult."
Even in the glorious Alps of Dau-
phimi, or among the Pyreuees, moun-
tain scenery which he may revrl in
without putting his foot on foreigu
ground, and equal to any in the
world, he feels tunuyi at a short so-
journ, and sighs for the flesh-pots of
Egypt and "gross mud - honey of
town." It is far otherwise with the
Briton. Unless very young indeed,
nothing hut ster n duty will hind him
a day lunger in London than he can
possihly help. If he is an M. P., he
never nods in the House under the
infliction, of a long-winded speaker,
hut his dreams are of the gorse and
the grouse; if he is a merchant, he
takes delight only in the as-ociations
suggested hy the name of 'Change,
cursing the reality of the thing; if a
small tradesman, he is never hummed
into a sleepy reverie hy the flies in
his shop, hut he dreams of the suhur-
han hox whither, when times mend,
he may wend his way hy rail or omni-
hus ahout four in the afternoon,
leaving his late custom to an under-
ling; if a mechanic, his thougl,ts
tbrough the week are of his Sunday
holiday, and the hurden of his secret
prayers is that the day may he tioe
to enjoy it — in fact, from the per-
petual and growing antipathy of its
inhahitants, joined to the mia-ma of
the Thames, London is in danger of
disintegration, and seems in a fair
way to he transplanted piecemeal to
the several railroad stations in its
neighhourhood. It has even now,
with its furious and fevered life, hurnt
itself so hollow in the centre, that
proposals have heen made to trans-
plant into the suhurhs the metro-
politan churches to sites whither their
parishes have migrated. Paris, on
the other hand, hecomes daily more
packed and compact within the new
lines of its fortificaiions. Its environs
are dull — what place is duller than
Versailles? St. Germain, St. Denis, and
the rest, are the finest postrihle speci-
mens of deadly liveliness. In the
central parts of Paris and that part
of the Boulevards which is near them,
is alt the motion, all the life, all the
gaiety, and we may add. to a great
extent, all the heauty. The Place de
la Concorde is the focus from which
France radiates—the central point of
that peculiarly Attic civilisation in
J. Michelet. DeL'Amour. Paris: Hachettc.


88
[July,
Sentimental Physiology.

which Prance takes the lead of the
world. Standing there ahout the
fountains, we have often heen struck
with ihe idea that it was the hoss or
"umhilicus" of the world, hearing
the same relation to modern Eu-
rope that Delphi was supposed hy
the ancients to hear to their world.
There is something singularly open
and uplifted in the situation. The
splendid vista of the Rue de Rivoli,
terminated hy, or rather continu-
ing itself tbrough, the Arch of the
Star, looks like the High Street of
the world, and might well he sup-
posed to he the entrance of some
great cosmopolitan thoroughfare like
the Appian Way of old. The eleva-
tion of mountain isolated hy sur-
rounding ravines seems rather to up-
lift a man to heaven than to com-
mand earth. The elevation of the
Place de la Concorde is of that per-
fectly mundane and accessihle nature,
spreading every way into the horizon,
that it seems to symholise the all per-
vading influence of an imperial com-
munity. We have seen an excellent
photograph of that very place, in-
cluding the facade of the Louvre aid
the front of the Madeleine. The only
thing that struck us as unnatural
ahout that photograph was the entire
ahsence of all life: an omission, how-
ever, in actual fact, easily explain-
ahle, such photographs heing gene-
rally taken very early in the morning.
No human heing was to he seen,
either civil or military; no horse,
no vehicle. One great characteristic
of the spot, and that which espe-
cially gives it its cosmopolitan cha-
racter, is the constant circulation of
motley life around it; not in the
shape of excessive crowding, as seen in
the aneurisms of the arteries of Lon-
don, hut of a natural and healthy kind.
It is not to he wondered at that a
Frenchman is proud of Paris—loves
Paris; wonders whether a diuner or
a play is to he eaten or seen elsewhere
in the world; aifects or really has a
profound iguorance of every other
place and people hesides Paris and
its inhahitants. Any one who is in
the hahit of reading what we would
call par excellence the Cockney
Parisian literature of the day, will
see that we do not overstate this
case. The charge of Cockney ism may
he hrought with great force against
much of our own popular writings.
From the fact that the workshops of
newspapers and periodicals are in
London, London sights and sounds
are ohtruded too often and forcihly
on the eyes and minds of contrihu-
tors not to affect greatly their lucu-
hrations. Punch, for instance, cir-
culates everywhere where uniformly
excellent drawing and an occasional
good joke can he appreciated. Why
should almost all Punch's illustrations
and jokes he drawn from London
life—we had almost said spawned
in the mud of the Thames? is there
no fun in Yorkshire? A few more
jokes from the mining districts would
have heen most acceptahle. Is there
no wit north of the Tweed?—Maga
knows hetter—or west of the Irish
Chaunel? Or rather, is it not all wit
there when potatoes are plentiful?
And the great Times himself is em-
phatically a Londoner, hut he loves
it not. The English litterateur is a
Conckney hy compulsion; he caunot
help it. He kicks against it, goes
off to Scarhorough, sketches sea-side
crinolines; hut the necessity of his
craft is the mother of the inventions
of his hrain, and his imagination—
though his stomach revolts at it—is
Cockney and of Cockaigue. Not so
with the Frenchman. He does not
know whether he is a Parisian hy-
necessity or not, so thorougbly is he
so hy choice. He loves Paris, lives
in Paris, hreathes Paris, and sees all
the rest of the universe tbrough an
inverted Parisian lorguette.
The last development of Parisian-
ism, if we may use the word, is no
less than the discovery of the new
religion of Positivism, whose revela-
tions are to spread themselves ahroad
from Holy Paris as our now ohsolete
creed did from the Judaean Holy
Land. Cbristianity, forsooth, has
heen tried in the halance and found
wanting. It was found so hef.ire hy
Yoltaire and his school, hut they
were content to rest in negation.
The unhelieving part of the new creed
is of course not new. But hy the
evangelists of the Parisian Cockney
dispensation, our religion is set aside
not as false, hut as inadequate to the
advance of civilisation. Men are
assumed to have heen universally



1859.]
S!)
Sentimental Physiolagy,
excellent Christians since the year 1
A-n., and to have practised the new
commandment to lcve one another
until iu novelty completely wore off,
and the universal taste was cloyed
hy the excessive sweetness of its oh-
servance. All men and women, with-
out exception, having framed their
lives according to the New Testament,
and having found no happiness in
doing so, the New Testament is ac-
knowledged hy the greatest thinkers of
the Parisian Cockney school as super-
seded, and Monsieur Comte is to take
the place of the Divine Saviour our
iguorant infancy used to helieve in,
if not exactly as an incarnation of the
Deity (for this would have heen a
little too revolting), at least as the
great apostle of deified humanity.
Fortunately for France, in the view
of the Positivists, her Cbristianity has
taken the Roman Catholic develop-
ment, and her temples are supplied
with the very images ready-made hy
which Positivism represents the idea
of humanity—a young woman with a
child in her arms. The rest of the
Roman hagiology M. Comte declined,
setting up his own, so that, in that
respect at least, he resemhled Don
Juan, who
•Turn'd from grisly saints and martyrs
hairy,
To those sweet pictures of the Virgin
Mary."
Some sanguine Protestants may
imagine that hecause the Papal Chair
is at present propped up hy French
hayonets, it would instantly col-
lapse if they were withdrawn, and the
mind of Catholic Europe would pre-
sent a hlank sheet of paper, in which
their own ideas might he written at
will. If they had read history to any
purpose, they might have seen that,
on more than one occasion, the tem-
poral authority of the Pope has heen
jeopardised to almost if not quite as
great an extent as it would he hy any
contingent insurrection of the Roman
people. There is no reason to helieve
that the spiritual power of the Vati-
can would he shaken were the Pope
in exile at Aviguon. The possihility
of anything like Protestantism super-
verjing in the countries at present
devotedly papal, would suppose a
higher degree of education and intel-
ligence than the people in them have
as yet attained. Be this as it may,
we-caunot hut think that the fact
that the insane drivellings of the re-
ligion of Atheism should have had
any influence at all on the educated
mind of France, is a proof of the vast
power of the Roman Catholic Church
in that country, as well as its utter
inadequacy to cope with the social
requirements of the educated classes.
While the thinker of France can ac-
quiesce in nothing short of the utter
destruction of all traditional helief,
there is little hope that the middle
course, hetween faith and reason,
will he hit upon hy the unthinking
masses. And, indeed, the most en-
thusiastic platform orator of Exeter
Hall would allow, at least when
apart from his audience, that it is far
hetter the people should continue to
worship the Mother of our Lord, and
helieve in the Immaculate Concep-
tion, than say their prayers to their
own mothers, wives, and sisters, as
the representatives of humanity, and
have no hetter hope in death than
that of ahsorption or assimilation.
It may appear trivial to notice the
vagaries of Positivism, when speak-
ing of the current influences at
wotk on the literature of the day;
hut it is undeniahle that, though the
movement has reduced it-self to ah-
surdity in the endeavour to construct
a worship and a catechism, tne origi-
nation of which marked, we helieve,
the period of the failing of its
apostle's mind; yet that, in its com-
mencement, it has only heen the ex-
pression of the natural development
of materialistic philosophy, which
has always felt at home among the
savans of France, and has existed
in a modified form in the scientific
more than the literary world of our
own country. That phase of Posi-
tivism which consists in the refusal
to helieve except on scientific evi-
dence, and which rests on the posi-
tion, that though the existence of the
Unseen is possihle, and even the dog-
matic dishelief in it unwarrantahle,
yet that it is of no practical value
as far as regards human action and
human happiness, has undouhtedly
exercised a very strong modifying
influence on some of the most culti-
vated minds and popular writings


90
[July,
Sentimental Physiology.

hoth of this country and of France.
It haa heen far other than an ohstacle
to the reception of these doctrines
that they go, to a certain extent,
hand in hand with an enlightened
view of Divine revelation. There ia
something plausihle in the view, that
the true life of a good man consists
in making the most of nature, and
enjoying to the full, consistently with
moderation, every good that the
earth affords. It ia a protest against
the morhid religionism of the Middle
Ages, which worshipped asceticism,
and esteemed sanctity to consist
chiefly in a fierce ahstinence from the
good gifts of God, entirely forgetting
that "the Son of Man came eating
and drinking," and disdained not to
mingle with the joya as well as the
sorrows of mankind. But, while the
Cbristian denies that the mere mat-
ter of creation can he evil, hecause
God has pronounced it good, and re-
ceives all His good things as blessings,
and with thankfulness, the Positivist
knows no God heyond the material
world, though he does not deny that
He may exist, and worships alone
the facts and phenomena of nature
exactly in proportion as he himself is
ahle to comprehend them. In his
view, nut helief or resiguation, not
faith, hope, or charity, is the road to
virtue and happiness, hut inductive
philosophy. If a man would he good
and happy, he must he scientific
himself, or he content to acquiesce in
the " dicta " of those who are so. The
saints of this new Evangel are the
physiologists; the hishops, priests,
and deacons, are the other " ologists"
and "logian8," theologians alone
heing excluded, as repre.enting a
hranch of knowledge which is futile,
hecause it caunot he reduced to the
test of demonstrative science.
These remarks are necessary to en-
ahle the reader to comprehend the
drift and general character of a new
"Art of Love," which has emanated
from ihe pen of M. MieheleL The
hook is simply entitled L'Amour,
hut its suhject ia not ao precisely
"love" as marriage, and the art of
attaining and retaining happiness in
the married state. Compared with
other arts of love known to litera-
ture, it is an iunocent hook, and,
though undeniahly godless, its gene-
ral tendency ia pure. On the other
hand, it is no more tit to he laid on
a drawing-room tahle in Great Bri-
tain than a random copy of the Lan-
cet. It ia essentially a medical hook,
and enters into medical details with
a naivete and circumstantiality which
is only possihle in French. It is cer-
tainly a hook which, though it can-
not he read aloud in mixed society, can
do no one any harm in any point of
view, for, if it is not a religious hook in
any sense, it says nothing against reli-
gion, and furuiohes, in fact, hy the in-
adeq'iacy of the meana it proposes to
gain certain euda of human life, the
strongest possihle arguments in fa-
vour of the old-fashioned creed.
Its attempt to correct the aherrations
of human passion, hy falling hack on
the fscts ot nature, is quite as orthodox
as, and much' more logical than, the
cold philosophy of Paley, which pro-
fessed to ktep men virtuous hy setting
forth the extreme inconvenience and
uncomfortahleness of vice, and the
deplorahle results which are upt to
supervene on exaggerated indulgence.
As compared with another hook,
which has heen written in France
with professedly the same end, the
Fauny of Ernest Feydeau, it is dis-
cretion and propriety itself. No one
hut the Frenchman of the most hlase
kind could possihly feel a sympathy
with the mean little wretch who ia
the hero of Fauny, whose miseries
solely arise from the difficulties he
encounters in making a respectahle
household miserahle. Feydeau's little
nauseous puhlication is u display of
morhid anatomy from which healthy
human nature must sbrink hack in
shame and disgust, and yet it is put
forth in the shape of a nouvellete to
he read hy ladies on the sands of
O-tende, Dieppe, or Biarritz. We
may well ask what is to hecome of
Paris? Aa compared with Fanny,
L'Amour ia a healthy treatise on
physiology, and, regarded as such,
deserves our serious notice. While
it keeps out of sight the highest
motives of human action, it enun-
ciates certain home truths in its pecu-
liar mauner, semi-poetical, semi-medi-
cal, which it is quite as well that at
least the adult world should know.
There is an evident assumption, at


1859.]
91
Sentimental Physiology.
the outset, that the art of constancy
iD love is necessary to he studied,
from the weakness of the principles
which wonld foster it in the present
state of French, or rather, we may
hope, of Parisian society. The suh-
ject is thus introduced :—
"If we were to give a title to this
hoob, which would give in their en-
tirety its aim, sense, and hearing, it
would he this—
'Moral Enfranchisement hy means
of the Genuine Love.
"This question of love lies, im-
mense and ohscure, under the dep'h
of human life. It supports even the
hases of it, and the first foundations.
The family rests upon love, and so-
ciety ou the family. Thus love pre-
cedes everything. As is the state of
morals, so is the state of tho city.
Liherty is hut a word, if the morals
are those of slaves. Here the ideal
isS,'ugiit after, hut an ideal which
can he realised at the present clay,
not one which must he adjourned till
society hecomes hetter. Ic is the re-
form of love and of the family which
must precede all others, and make
them possihle."
Litde exception can he tnken to
this first statement. Why does liherty
seem hopeless in France, hut that the
morals of slaves prevail there, and
the foundations of society are sapped
in the indefiniteness and comfortless
nature of the family relations? But
it is of France principally, and per-
haps only, that M. Michelet ought to
speak, and here he displays, as most
Frenchmen do, an ignorance of all
the world heyond the hernire. But
here follows a passage of more general
application, and where we Britons
may find a cap to fit ourselves :—
fcOue eanuot shut oi.e's eyes to the
fact, thut the freedom of the will has
undergone in these last times import-
ant modifications. The causes of this
are numerous. I will invite special
attention to two only, moral and phy-
sical at the same time, which, strik-
ing the hrain directly, and enervating
it, tend to the paralysis of our moral
powers. For the lust hundred years
or so, a progressive invasion of alco-
holic stimulants and narcotics has
hetn invincihly gaining ground, with
different results with regard to differ-
ent populations — here darkening the
mind, and irretrievahly harharising
it; there hiting more deeply into the
physical existence, tainting the race
itself—hut everywhere isolating the
man, giving him even hy his fireside
a deplorahle preference for lonely en-
joyments."
There is no douht much of truth in
this. There is always a tendency,
especially with men of sedentary pur-
suits, to drink end smoke to excess,
and the classes engaged in these pur-
suits increase in numhers with civil-
isation. We would suhstitute for the
science of affection which M. Michelet
preaches, the advice to lead a more
muscular and manly life, for those at
all events who are ahle to aiford it;
for all those intensely interesting ex-
ercises which are the pride of Eng-
lishmen, with the exception perhaps
of cricket, are only for the compara-
tively rich. The rest may, to a cer-
tain extent, and under certain condi-
tions, take M. Michelet as an adviser.
To his general position with regard
to women we must entirely demur.
Woman, he argues, ought to he con-
sidered as a sort of holy invalid.
Man ought to accept all her vagaries
and caprices of taste and temper as
a mother would those of a child, or
rather, we should say, as the inhahit-
ants of the Valais show indulgence
to their cretins, looking on them
as after a manner sacred. He con-
siders the ehullitions of eccentricity
and strong-mindedness, of which our
latter days have aiforded some re-
mai kahle specimens, as the mere cries
of pain of a suffering creature, re-
quiring the constant help of man.
The fact we know is precisely the
contrary. Strong-minded women, so
called, are ouly weak-minded in he-
ing illogical. No sensihle man ever
disputed that woman was his equal,
on the Whole-—his superior in her
own province. But when she has
the misfortune to have a manly mind,
she makes the mistake of asserting
that she is man's equal in man's own
province. Of course there are excep-
tions. Female mathematicians have
heen known who did not neglect
their domestic duties, surpassing man
in his own province, and not neglect-
ing woman's; and it is said that the
King of Dahomey's corps d'eli'e is no
fahle, hut that his Amazons fight as


92
[July,
Sentimental Physiology.

hravely as Zouaves or Higblanders,
and with far more virulence and vi-
ciousue-s. The strong-minded wo-
man's appeal to puhlic opinion is not
a cry of pain, as M. Michelet asserts,
hut an illogical assertion that, he-
cause she herself can take a man's
place in creation in many things, all
other women are capahle of doing so
likewise. The heautiful moral of
Teunyson's Princess ought to settle
that question for ever.
"For woman is not undevelopt man,
But diverse: could we make her as the
man.
Sweet love were slain, whose dearest
hond Is this—
Not like to like, hut like In difference:
Yet in the long years liker must they
grow;
The man to more of woman, she of man;
He gain In sweetness and in moral height.
Nor loso the wresting thews that tbrow
the world;
She mental hreadth, nor fall in childward
care;
More as the douhle-natured Poet each:
Till at the last she set herself to man.
Like perfect music unto nohle words."
We question whether the high
spirit of our native women would not
revolt at M. Michelet's idea, that the
gentleman is to think no more of the
lady's ehullitions of temper than the
mother does of the two-year-old
child's. Certainly, such a plan of
proceeding would he favourahle to
matrimonial peace, and prohahly, if
universally carried out, ohviate to a
great degree the necessity of actions
for legal separation; hut some ladies
would certainly feel more compli-
mented hy their lords condescend-
ing to quarrel with them, even as
Shakespeure, the greatest of all Eng-
lishmen, is said to have quarrelled
with Aun Hathaway. Be>ides, we
have classical authority for helieving
that lovers' tiffs are the refreshment
of love. The assertion of the prin-
ciple, however, gives occasion for
the style of the hook to rise into elo-
quence and poetry, and we caunot
forhear to quote the passage in
which it is emhodied from the origi-
nal:—
"Les femmes et les enfants sont une
aristocratie de graco et de charme.* Le
servage du métier ahaisse l'homme et lo
rend souvent étroit et grossier. Lo ser-
vage do la femme n'est que celui de la
nature; il n'est autre que sa faihlesse,
sa 8ouflfrance, qui la rend attendrissante
et poétique.
"Le Correge peiguant toujours (et
insatiahlement) des enfants tres-jeûnes,
en moment ou la vie laitée, la vio phy-
sique et fatale, étant dépasséo, laissait
apparaître lo premier rayon de leur
petite liherté. Elle se révèlo alors dans
leurs jolis mouvements avec une in-
dicihle grâce. L'enfant est gracieux
parco qu'il se sent lihre et qu'il so sent
trèsaimé, parce qu'il sait d'instinct qu'il
peut faire tout co qu'il vent et que tou-
jours on l'en aimera davantage. La mère
n'est pas moins admirahle en ce premier
ravissement: 'Ah, q'i'il est vil I — ah,
qu'il est fort ! — Il est capahle do me
hattre 1' Ces sont ses cris. Elle est
heureuse; elle l'adore en ses résistances,
en ses charmantes révoltes
Est-ce qu'il en aime moins sa mère?
Elle sait hien lo contraire. S'il la voit
un peu lâchée, il se réjette en ses hras.
Comment l'homme, au premier élan do
la persounalité do la femme, n'a-t-il pas
été pour elle co qu'est la mère pour
l'enfant?"
Perhaps there is truth in the fol-
lowing remark, though it illustrates
a passage in the Anglican marriage-
service to which ladies are apt to
demur in practice :—
"Ce qui tourmente la femme, c'est
hien moins la tyraunie de l'homme que
sa froideur, hien moins d'ohéir que de
n'avoir pas occasion d'ohéir HUM. C'est
do cela qu'elle so plaint. Nulle harrière,
nullo protection étrangère. Elles ne
servent dit très-hien l'auteur, qu'à
hrouiller les époux, rendre la femme
misérahle. Rien no reste entre elle et
lui. Elle va à lui forte de sa faihlesse
et do son sein désarmé, do ce cœur qui
hat pour lui. . . .
"Voilà un guerre de femme. Le plus
vaillant sera vainco. Qu' aura mainten-
ant le courage de discuter n'clle est plus
haut ou plus has que l'homme. Elle est
tous les deo.c à la fois. Il en est d'elle
comme du ciel pour la terre; il est
dessous et dessus, tout autour. Nous
naquitnes en elle. Nous vivons d'elle.
Nous en sommes enveloppés. Nous la
respirons, elle est l'atmosphère, l'élément
de notre cœur."
His experiences in this delicate
hranch of human inquiry were glean-
ed, says the author, not so much
» J. P. Richter more heautifully says, "Children are the flowers of the human world."


1859.]
03
Sentimental Physiology.

from his own personal experience as
from the confessions of others. His
position as a puhlic instructor and
litterateur placed him in a social iso-
lation, the circumstances of which
induced sufferers to put confidence
in him, and avail themselves of his
sympathy, as that of a kind of lay
confessor.
"Beaucoup se reviSlerent a moi, ne
craiguaient pas de me montrer des
Measures cachees, apporterent leurs
cceurs saiguants. Des hommes toujours
fennes de defiance contre la derision du
monde s'ouvrirent sans diffienlte devant
moi fje n'ai ri jamais.) Des dames
hrillauts et mondaines, d'autant plus
malheureuses, d'autres pieuses, studi-
euses, ausu-res—le disai-jo? des rcligi-
euses, franchirent les vaines harrières de
eonvenance ou d'opinion, comme on
fait quand on est malade. Etranges,
mais très-precieuses, tres-touchantes cor-
respondances que j'ai gardens avec le soin
et le respect qu'elles meritent"
He gave his heart and no less,
as he avers, to that crowd of moral
patients. And what was the conse-
quence of this self-devotion? He
was ruining the places of puhlic
amusement hy his moral instruc-
tions, and those who gained their
livelihoods hy them actually com-
plained of him. A young man called
upon him one morning, entering his
study somewhat hrusquely.
"Monsieur, me dit-il, excusez mon en-
tree si insolite, mais vous n'en serez pas
fjehe. Je vous apporte une nouvelle.
Les maitres de certains cafes, de certains
maisons counues, de certains jardins do
hal, se plalguent do votre enseiguement
Leurs estahlishments, disent-ils, perdent
heaucoup. Log jeunes gens preiment la
manie des conversations serieuses; ils
ouhlient leurs hahitudes Enfin, ils
aiment aiileurs Ces hals risquent
de ferrner. Tous cenx qui gaguent
jusqu ici anx amuseuients des euoles se
croient menaces d'une revolution morale
qui, sans laute, les ruinera"
He is scarcely self-complaisant
enough to accept this as an unexag-
gerated statement, hut he justly oh-
serves that, if it were true that his
moral lessons deterred the youth of
Paris from a frivolous life, he should
feel it as a great trinmph. "Le jour
ou lea jeunes gens prendront des
moeurs graves, la liherte est sauvee."
The young man's visit caused him to
conceive the scheme of this work,
whose pretensions are in no less than
to he a kind of manual of morality—
"the hook of enfranchisements from
moral servitudes—the hook of true
love." Let ns endeavor to see how
far this work fulfils its very exalted
aspirations. On the whole, it pro-
fesses to mend society hy setting
forth, as an example, the relations of
a model hushand to a model wife,
and accompanying them as an in-
visihle spectator from hetrothal to
the grave. It hegins hy supposing
an impossihility in real life, forget-
ting that the gates of the garden of
Eden have heen closed since the fall,
hy the flaming swords of the guardian
cheruhim. It hegins hy premising
that woman is an invalid, as com-
pared with man, and to he treated
as such hy him. Evidently the arti-
ficial, sedentary, exotic Parisieune
is the heroine, not the hlooming lass
of the north, redolent of May morn-
ing, and rosy with mountain air,—
the Saxon or Scandinavian Hehe,
personifying, in her golden ptime,
perfect youth, perfect life, perfect
health, hound together in the cestus
of heauty. Wordsworth's pen was
otherwise inspired, when he, the true
poet of nature, descrihed the tbree
ages of woman.
'She was a phantom of delight
"When first sue gleamed upon my sight,
A lovely apparition sent
To he a moment's ornament!
Her eyes as st,rs of twilight fair.
Like twilight, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else ahout her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn;
A dancing shape, an linage gay,
To hannt, to startle, and waylay.
I saw her upon nearer view,
A spirit, yet a "Woman tool
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liherty:
A countenance in which did meet
Hweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too hright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles.
Praise, hlame, love, kisses, tears and
smiles.
And now I see with eye serene,
The very pulse of the machine;
A heing hreathing thoughtful hreath,
A traveller hetween life and dentil;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect woman, nohly plnnu'd,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit still, and hlight
"With something of an angel-light"


94
[July.
Sentimental Physiology.
And his song to "Louisa" is au-
other paean to Health and Activity.
"Though hy a sickly taste hetray'd.
Some will dispraise the lovely maid,
With fearless pride I say
That she is healthful, fleet, and strong;
Atul down the rocks can leap along
Like rivulets In Ma/.
And she hath smiles to wrath unknown;
Smiles, that with motion of their own
no spread, and sink, and rise;
Thut come and go with endless play,
Antl ever, as they pass away,
Are bldden in her eyes.
She love' her flre. her cottage home,
Yet o'er the moorland will she roam
In weather rough and hleak:
And, when sgslnst the winds she strains,
Oh! might I kiss the mountain rains
That sparkle on her cheek.
Take all that's mine' heneath the moon,'
If I with her hat half a noun
May sit heneath the walls
t If soOM old cave or moasy nook.
When up she winds along the hrook
To hunt the waterfalls."
It is excusahle to quote poems
so well known that stanzas of them
have hecome "household words,"
when it hecomes desirahle to impugu
hy a contrasted ideal the newfangled
theory that Woman is, or ought to he,
invested with valetudinarian privi-
leges to entitle her to deferential
treatment from Man. Rather it is
true that the ideal Woman is the
very incarnation of Health; for
Beauty is heautiful chiefly in that
it is the expression of Activity and
Life. It is a physiological fact that
the hloom on the cheek results from
the health that mantles in the veins
and shines tbrough the transparent
skin. Beauty may he transient, hut
so is Life itself; hut it is coeval with
Life. Ugliness goes hand - in - hand
with decay, sickness, and death.
Beauty is Health, and, hy all the
laws of romance, a heroine must he
heautiful, and therefore emphatically
healthy.
It is consolatory to he assured hy
our French author that "a peuniless
lass," with or without "a lang pedi-
gree," is to he preferred to " a lass wi'
a tocher;" for in real life tho great
majority of charming maidens hap-
pen to he dowerless. But the negation
of the proverh, that when Wealth
comes in at the door, Love flies out
at the window, certainly presents a
novel doctrine to the consideration
of " persona ahout to marry."
"I dared some twelve years ago to
put into shape that axiom which re-
ceives every day new confirmation,
'If you wish to ruin yourself, marry
a rich woman.' There is a danger
here greater than that of losing a
fortune—the danger of losing one's-
self—of changing the hahits which
have made you what you are, which
have given you whatever strength
and originulity you possess. In that
which they call a good match, you
will hecome a mere appendage of a
woman—a kind of prince consort or
the hushand of a queen. A very
heautiful widow, all amiahility and
honesty, said to a gentleman, 'Sir,
I have fifty thousand francs a-year,
quiet and unassuming hahits. I hke
you, and will do all you wi>h. You
are an old friend; do you know any
defect in me ?'—' You have only one,
njadam—you are rich.'"
The ideal fiancee ought not only,
like the candidates for an university
scholarship hefore the time of the
Royal Commission, to have the qua-
lification of poverty, hut she must
superadd that of nationality — she
must he French.
"The German is all sweetness and
love, endued with a purity, a child-
like freshness, which transports one
to paradise. The Englishwoman,
chaste, solitary, dreamy, clinging to
the hearth — so loyal, so steadfast,
and so gentle, is the ideal of a wife.
The passion of Spain penetrates to
the heart; and the Italian, in her
heauty and her morhidezza, her
vivid imagination, often in her touch-
ing candour makes resistance impos-
sihle—one is ravished, one is con-
quered. Yet, for all this, a man
wants a soul which can answer his
hy flashes of reason as well as of
affection—which can renovate his
heart hy a charming vivacity, hy
gaiety, hy courageous sallies, words
of woman or songs of hird—in fact,
he wants a Frenchwoman. The
Frenchwoman," he adds, "grows
handsomer after marriage, whereas
the northern maiden loses somewhat
of heauty, and often fades." He may
tell that to the marines.
The physiological romance pursues



1869.]
96
Sentimental Physiology.
its coarse, tbrough all the stages of
married life, with an even tenor, in-
dicating that it is true Love's own
fault if its course does not run
smooth to the end. The second
book is entitled "Initiation and
Communion," expressions horrowed
from the Cbristian or the Eleusinian
mysteries, we know not which; hut
these cahalistic words are the intro-
duction to the matter-of-fact suhjects
of woman as hride, wife, and mother,
including the whole management of
the nursery department. To retain
happiness, the happy couple must
not he too rich, must only keep a
maid-of-all-work until the hahy de-
mands a nursemaid also; the writer
helieving, according to the Spanish
proverh, "Los criados son enetnigos
psgados," that a multitude of domes-
tics is fatal to domesticity. Things,
however, must he so managed that
the hero, who is of course a writer
of hooks, must not he disturhed hy
the hahy; and in order that his head-
work may he effectual, the lady is to
pay particular attention to his diet-
ary. On the suhject of gastronomy,
the style of the remarks rises into
poetry worthy of that prince of epi-
cures, Brillat Savarin. But the un-
deniahle common-sense which under-
lies these remarks, showing that, as
we all know, they manage at least
culinary matters " hetter in Prance,"
is the chief merit of these passages.
"Cookery is medicine — it is the
hest of all medicines—that of the pre-
ventive kind. Thus it is the province
of the wife, who alone knows what
her hushand requires, who knows his
work, his expenditure of vital force.
She alone kuows and measures the
necessary reparation. In everything
which is clean and not disagreeahle
to her — in all that does not injure
the prettiness of her hand, in that
which must he touched hy the hand
itself—and, we must say it, neces-
sarily mingled .with emanations of
the person (!) — it is desirahle and
charming that she should operate.
Certain pastry, cakes, and creanis
can only he made hy one whom one
loves with an atlection of the nature
of hunger."
This is certainly the "ne plus
ultra" of epicurism, hut its exces-
sive delicacy merges into the indeli-
cate. The moral, however, is sound,
and those engaged in the education of
our young ladies would do well to
consider how far an insight into the
aesthetics of the kitchen might not
promote their happiness and that of
their hushands prospective.
As life goes on with the ideal pair,
the writer sets forth some of the
rocks on which the hark of happiness,
unless judiciously steered, is liahle to
split. The woman's occupations pre-
serve her ever a woman. The man's,
on the contrary, tend to specialise the
character. He hecomes in process of
time, the universal man no longer.
His profession or trade masters him,
and inflicts its stamp upou him,
wherehy, though he attain to the
particular eminence, the general ele-
vation of nature is lowered. "He
was a man when he was in the posi-
tion of a lover; ten or twelve years
later he is an eminent harrister, an
excellent physician, a great architect.
That is all very well. But, for the
woman, he was a far more interesting
person in heing a man; that is, in
heing everything, in possessing the
lofty thought of the universal, the
hope without hounds, and in soaring
over every suhject. Now, let the
woman, who gives happiness here he-
low, judge us with equity. What
would that man have hecome if he
had always soared, if he had not
come down to seize on the reality?
. . . . So, madam, you wish lor
glory, for success; you wish that
that man distinguish himself hy those
works which alone prove force. Only
you do not always take into consider-
ation the very difficult conditions, the
efforts ohstinate, sometimes violent,
extreme, and I may even say desperate,
hy which success is purchased.
"Of these conditions, the hardest
for that man is that he should he
marked hy the effort in the memher
which he makes most use of, and
thus that his heing should no longer
he harmonious. He who hammers
iron, were he even the genins of his
art, were he even a god, will infal-
lihly hecome too high in the right
shoulder. What would you do in
such a case? Suppress in him his
art, I suppose.
"And he who plies the forge in
any other department will also hear


96
[July,
Sentimental Physiology.

the mark of his craft — some moral
or physical deformity. The most
serious is that the faculties which
are not employed will suffer atrophy.
"If the artist dues not take heed
of this, hy constantly strengthening
a part till it hecomes colossal, and
leaving the others in a state of em-
hryo, he may possihly succeed in
hecoming a monster—a suhlime mon-
ster it is true.
"The man of antiquity remained
heautiful and strong, and the pro-
gress of age for him was a progress
in heauty. Ulysses, at fifty, returns
hack from Troy—returns from a long
and terrible voyage where he has
suffered all that he could suffer, and
is the same Ulysses, so completely so,
in fact, that hy himself he hends the
how which the young suitors can
scarcely lift. His Penelope recog-
nises him hy his strength, hy his
heauty, at once mHJestic and in-
creased hy misfortune. How should
that he so? He has kept himself,
preserved himself, hy the active use
of all the gifts he possessed. He
remains the harmonious man who
set out for the Trojan war.
"Now, take any modern man you
please, the hest horn and the hest
endowed, great in genins, in will,—
he fiods hefore him at twenty an im-
mense and terrihle machine, the suh-
division of the drawing-frames of
arts, sciences, professions, hy which
one must pass to arrive at anything.
The end of life is changed. Ulysses
was horn to act; he acted and re-
mained heautiful. This man is horn
to create; his specialty (the creating
machine) ahsorhs him; the work is
heautiful, and the man runs the risk
of hecoming ugly."
There is a great deal of truth in
these remarks, which it well hehoves
the man of the nineteenth century
to take to heart, that is, if he wishes
to preserve his complexion. But
even with a higher ohject, that of
living to the hest of his nature, it is
well that men should consider the
hest means of preserving "the sound
mind in a sound hody," for the good
hoth of the world and their own.
The mental productions of an un-
sound hody can he worth very little.
The sick frame makes a sickly hrain.
Now a man who sits in his study all
day, and smokes, suuffs, or chews
tohacco or opinm, eschewing his
constitutional gallop, or even his
constitutional walk, may huild up
wonders of cloud-land, hut no-
thing that he writes can ever tend
to increase happiness. The Greeks
of old were model men. Their civilis-
ation differed from ours in that it
had its spice of harharism in it:—
said we, from ours?—we rather meant
from that of France, whose popular
writers assume it to he the typical civ-
ilised country of our day. No, thank
Heaven! Britons yet are men. They
do not merely write or make speeches,
or plead causes, or heal patients, or
chant litanies, hut our legislators,
lawyers, doctors, our own correspond-
ents, even our parsons (and small
hlame to them), play cricket and
golf, shoot, hunt, dive, row, sail
yachts, and practise many other ex-
ercises which together are more than
equal to the gymnastics of the Greek.
Our ladies will say whether or not
they preserve their good looks. The fact
is that civilisation will soon hecome
putrescent, unless a pinch of the salt
of harharism is constantly put into
it. What makes the inhahitant of
the British Isle such an excellent
settler in new and wild countries, as
M. Michelet hears witness, hut that
he has retained to the last, in spite
of centralisation, much of the savage
and solitary nature? The French-
man, on the other hand, is too higbly
civilised to he happy anywhere hut
in the city. If he founds a colony, he
does not spread, hut remains in a
cluster like a swarm of hees. An
instance of the kind appears to have
occurred in New Zealand, where the
French colonists, instead of wander-
ing out and taking sheep-runs,
seem to have all clustered together
at a place called Akeroa, very pretty,
very snug, and hy a hay of the sea.
The same remark is applied to the
French diggers in California hy Mr.
Borthwick: they preferred sinking
at an old place, where there was plenty
of company and a cafe, to " prospect-
ing" in the wilderness, even with
the fair promise of rich reward.
As time advances in the romance
of real life painted hy our author,
the French hushand will he inevit-
ahly degraded in the eyes of his wife,



1859.]
97
Sentimental Physiology.
unless she is a thinking woman, hy
his specialty, and hecome a civilised
monster. Hence arise dangers to
her, and peculiar temptations to her
fidelity. One of the redeeming points
of this hook is, that it protests against
the mawkish representations of life'
given hy the most popular novelists
of Prance at the present day. "Why
do our gentlemen and lady authors
generally take as their heroes mere
good-for-nothings (excuse me that
strong and just popular expression),
idlers and children of luxury? Why?
Why 1 I ask, unless it he for the
weakness which cliogs to them, in
the midst of all their fine democratic
discourses, for the 'comme il faut'
world, for the 'gentleman' variety
of our race. I am sorry to see in our
times so much genins expended in
this dismal kind of novel, whose husi-
ness is to prohe and exasperate our
social wounds. The novel has taught
us to weep for ourselves; it has killed
the virtue of patience. It has gener-
alised miseries, moral deformities,
which only helong to certain, classes.
In thirty-six millions of French
people, thirty-five are entirely iguor-
ant of that which these great artists
have painted. For all this, this mor-
hid literature has no strong influence
on healthy minds. It renders none
diseased hut those already so. It
has no great dangers for the little
household which we are descrihing.
The young wife, who has in early life
escaped heing over-ripened, spoiled,
stung hy the worm of mysticism and
equivocal religion, is not prepared for
the novel. A love sound, loyal, and
strong, and then maternal affection,
two powerful purifying agents, have
preserved her from infection. She
would not have understood Balzac,
or if she did, she would generally
have rejected him as nauseous. His
hook on marriage, which he himself
calls a skeleton, she wonld have felt
to he a corpse. She will never he
gained hy haseness. The female friends
who feel her pulse and would destroy
her halance, do not fail to lend her in
secret some work of Madame Sand.
What does she see there?—that the
gallant is worth no more than the
hushand. The hushand is often un-
worthy, in her hooks, hut the illicit
lover is always pitiful; nay more,
vol. lxxxvi. 7
infamous, odious! Raymond closing
his door on the poor Indiana while
she is wandering ahout with no hope
of shelter hut death, is most certainly
the strongest thing that could possihly
he written to scare away the thought
of unlawful intrigue."
Our author proceeds to offer a sort
of half excuse for these female novels.
Women are disappointed with all
men, whether hushands or lovers, as
the men of artificial civilisation are
all degraded. Women love strength,
physical, moral, intellectual, and sigh
for its permanence in vain. The
wives of the fishermen of Granville
are not inconstant, though their hus-
hands live a life which enforces long
ahsences, sometimes even ruuning
over to Newfoundland. The reality
of life is too strong for them. Their
circumstances and occupations teach
them hut too truly that "men must
work and women must weep," to
admit any sentimental contagion into
their strong faithful hearts.
Female friends are the great ene-
mies of women, according to M.
Michelet; they pave the way, with
their inuendoes and gossip, for the
attacks of temptation. His model
heroine is tried, hut does not fall, he-
cause she has the courage to make
her hushand her confidant. There is
something peculiarly French in con-
sidering such an episode as a neces-
sary part of the history of married
life. Schiller, in his "Song of the
Bell," treats the suhject more poeti-
cally, and introduces nothing of the
kind. The family trouhles with him
are of a different kind—fire, ruin, war,
and the premature death of the wife.
Michelet, in painting his ideal house-
hold, makes the hushand die first.
Not only must men work and women
weep, hut men must die and women
weep. Before he comes to this he has
a chapter entitled " the Second Youth
of Women," proving very satisfac-
torily that youth is prolonged late in
life hy the assiduity of love and a
strict conformity to the conditions of
nature. There is also a heauty in
widowhood, its sacredness consisting
in a kind of worship of the memory
of the hushand. "The altar of the
just one, who has departed (viz., the
widow), remains to the new genera-
tions an ohject of religion. There is



98
[July,
Sentimental Physiology.
do young man who comes there hut
will honour the widow. They all
find a graceful woman, who is far
from recalling the lapse of time which
is suggested hy the story. That
which preserves her grace is the love
of which her heart is full, her good-
ness towards all, her sweet resigua-
tion her sympathy for the young,
and her wishes for their happiness.
She is stdl heautiful in her tender-
ness, and in the suhlime shadow which
dresses and envelops her. More
than one yonth of twenty laments
that he has heen horn so late, returns
to her presence in spite of himself,
retires from her regretfully, uphraid-
ing Time for amusing himself hy mak-
ing such separations, and saying from
the hottom of his heart, '0 woman,
that I might have loved.'"
We are sorry that we have heen
ohliged to omit, in a review of this
work, the consideration of that part of
it which is hy far the most important
—its medicine and physiology. With
respect to the social morhidity com-
plained of hy the author, perhaps it
suggests a kind of homoeopathic treat-
ment. Nothing can he said against
this part of the work. It is indeed
higbly moral, hut as yet it is impos-
sihle to present it in a popular form
in the pages of a British periodical,
and we hope that the impossihility
may continua It shows how far a
remedy for social disease can he ap-
plied hy human reason, with human
nature to work upon, and so far it is
complete in itself. But hy how vast
an interval is the moral philosophy
on which it rests separated from Pla-
tonism, not to say from the philos-
ophy of the Cross! Far higher is
the conception of love in the mind of
the Greek philosopher. Love exists
alone in perfection, according to him,
in the mind of God; and it is only hy
contemplating it there, to the utmost
of his power, that man can realise it
it in its truth. In the mind of Plato,
as in the minds of St. Paul and St.
John, there is no distinction hetween
the love of man for woman and vice
vend., and the great expansive feeling
which would emhrace God and his
creation, in return for His love to-
wards us. But physiology appears
competent only to deal with this spe-
cial manifestation. The deficiency is
one that we might expect in a philo-
sophy which is of the earth earthy,
and which does not illumine earth
with a light from heaven. And now
let us come to a little moral of our
own.
If it he a fact, as M. Michelet
states — and we have no reason to
douht his word—that persons suffer-
ing from the complications of social _
life, in an artificial state of civilisa-
tion, were glad to come to him as an
amateur confessor, and recount their
mental and moral diseases, and take
advice as to their remedy, how much
does such a fact militate against
the hoasted efficiency of the confes-
sional of the Church of Rome 1 The
Roman system, while all-powerful in
preserving its own organisation, and
keeping a hold on mankind, is power-
less for the moral regeneration of so-
ciety. The natural adviser in all such
cases, as M. Michelet indicates, is the
minister of religion, whether he he
called confessor, director, or hy any
other more Protestant name. But the
confessional of the Roman Church, or
its caricature in the Anglican, is ren-
dered ahortive as a moral agent hy
the destruction of spontaneity in the
patient, hy its heing made a matter of
form, and rule, and duty; and, se-
condly, hy the inahility of a celihate
clergy to understand questions affect-
ing that state of life from which they
are excluded. If Louis Napoleon
would leave the name of Great he-
hind him, and even eclipse his famed
uncle, he had much hetter think
no more of moves on the politi-
cal chesshoard of Europe, hut_ sit
down steadily and quietly to consider
the question whether he is not strong
enough to declare the Catholic Church
in France independent of the Papal
See, and allow the clergy of France to
marry according to their discretion,
withdrawing at the same time his
troops from Rome, and leaving the
Pope in the charge of his loving suh-
jects and his faithful Swiss. As he
appears to he under a constant ne-
cessity of doing something hoM and
eccentric to maintain his position,
he had hetter do this, and he will
glean golden opinions of all future
generations.
'',''



1859]
M
The Novels of Jane Austen.
*
THE NOVELS OF
For nearly half a century England
has possessed an artist of the highest
rank, -whose works have heen exten-
sively circulated, whose merits have
heen keenly relished, and whose name
is still unfamiliar in men's mouths.
One would suppose that great excel-
lence and real success would inevita-
hly produce a loud reputation. Yet
in this particular case such a supposi-
tion would he singularly mistaken.
So far from the name of Miss Austen
heing constantly cited among the
glories of our literature, there are
many well-informed persons who will
he surprised to hear it mentioned
among the hest writers. If we look
at Hazlitt's account .of the English
novelists, in his Lectures on the
Comic Writers, we find Mrs. Rad-
clif% Mrs. Inch hald, Mrs. Opie, Miss
Burney, and Miss Edgeworth receiv-
ing due honour, and more than is
due; hut no hint that Miss Austen
has written a line. If we cast a
glance over the list of English authors
repuhlished hy Baudry, Galiguani,
and Tauchnitz, we find there writers
of the very smallest pretensions, hut
not the author of Emma, and Mans-
field Park. Mention the name of
Miss Austen to a cultivated reader,
and it is prohahle that the sparkle in
his eye will at once flash forth sym-
pathetic admiration, and he will per-
haps relate how Scott, Whately, and
Macaulay prize this gifted woman,
and how the English puhlic has
hought her works; hut heyond the
literary circle we find the name al-
most entirely unknown; and not
simply unknown in the sense of hav-
ing no acknowledged place among
the remarkahle writers, hut uure-
memhered even in counection with
the very works which are themselves
rememhered. AVe have met with
many persons who rememhered to
have read Pride and Prejudice, or
Mansfield Park, hut who had alto-
gether forgotten hy whom they were
written. "Miss Austen? Oh, yes;
she translates from the German,
JANE AUSTEN.
doesu't she?" is a not uncommon
question—a vague familiarity with
the name of Mrs. Austin heing upper-
most From time to time also the
tiresome twaddlo of lady novelists is
praised hy certiin critics, as exhihit-
ing the "quiet truthfulness of Miss
Austin."
That Miss Austen is an artist of
high rank, in the most rigorous sense
of the word, is an opinion which in
the present article we shall endeavour
to suhstantiate. That her novels are
very extensively read, is not an opin-
ion, hut a demonstrated fact; and
with this fact we couple the para-
doxical fact of a fine artist, whose
works are widely known and enjoyed,
heing all hut unknown to the English
puhlic, and quite unknown ahroad.
The causes which have kept her name
in comparative ohscurity all the time
that her works have heen extensively
read, and her reputation every year
has heen settling itself more firmly
in the minds of the hetter critics,
may well he worth an inquiry. It is
intelligihle how the hlaze of Scott
should have tbrown her into the
shade, at first; heside his frescoes
her works are hut miniatures; ex-
quisite as miniatures, yet incapahle
of ever filling that space in the puhlic
eye which was filled hy his massive
and masterly pictures. But although
it is intolligihle why Scott should
have eclipsed her, it is not at first so
easy to understand why Miss Edge-
worth should have done so. Miss
Austen, indeed, has taken her re-
venge with posterity. She will douht-
less he read as long as English novels
find readers; whereas Miss Edge-
worth is already little more than a
name, and only finds a puhlic for her
children's hooks. But contemporaries,
for the most part, judged otherwise;
and in consequence, Miss Edgeworth's
name has hecome familiar all over
the tbree kingdoms. Scott, indeed,
and Archhishop Whately, at once
perceived the superiority of Miss Aus-
ten to her more fortunate rival ;* hut
"See the notices in Lockhaet's Life of Scott; and the reviews in the Quay-
erly, No. 27, hy Scott, and No. 48, hy Itr. Wh.ytely.


100
[July,
The Novels of Jane Austen,

the Quarterly tells ns that " her fame
has grown fastest since she died:
there was no Mat ahout her first ap-
pearance: the puhlic took time to
make up its mind ; and she, not hav-
ing staked her hopes of happiness on
success or failure, was content to wait
for the decision of her claims. Those
claims have heen long estahlished
heyond a question; hut the merit of
first recoguising them helong less to
reviewers than to general readers."
There is comfort in this for authors
who see the applause of reviewers
lavished on works of garish effect.
Nothing that is really good can fail,
at last, in securing its audience; and
it is evident that Miss Austen's works
must possess elements of indestructi-
hle excellence, since, although never
"popular," she survives writers who
were very popular; and forty years
after her death, gains more recogui-
tion than she gained when alive.
Those who, like ourselves, have read
and re-read her works several times,
can understand this duration, and
this increase of her famii. But the
fact that her name is not even now a
household word proves that her ex-
cellence must he of an unohtrusive
kind, shuuning the glare of popular-
ity, not appealing to temporary tastes
and vulgar sympathies, hut demand-
ing culture in its admirers. Johnson
wittily says of somehody, "Sir, he
managed to make himself puhlic
without making himself known."
Miss Austen has made herfdf known
without making herself puhlic. There
is no portrait of her in the shop win-
dows; indeed, no portrait of her at
all. But she is cherished in the
memories of those whose memory is
fame.
As one symptom of neglect we
have to notice the scantiness of all
hiographical details ahout her. Of
Miss Burney, who is no longer read,
nor much worth reading, we have
hiography, and to spare. Of Miss
Bronte, who, we fear, will soon cease
to find readers, there is also ample
hiography; hut of Miss Ao.iten we
have little information. In the first
volume of the edition puhlished hy
Mr. Bentley (five charming volumes,
to he had for fifteen shillings} there
is a meagre notice, from which we
draw the following details.
Jane Austen was horn on the 16th
Decemher 1775, at Steventon in
Hampshire. Her father was rector
of the parish during forty years, and
then quitted it for Bath. He was a
scholar, and fond of general literature,
and prohahly paid special attention
to his daughter's culture. In Bath,
Jane only lived four years; hut that
was enough, and more than enough,
for her ohserving humour, as we see
in Northanger Ahhey. After the
death of her father, she removed with
her mother and sister to Southamp-
ton; and finally, in 1809, settled in
the pleasant village of Chawton, in
Hampshire, from whence she issued
her novels. Some of these had heen
written long hefore, hut were with-
held, prohahly hecause of her great
diffidence. She had a high standard
of excellence, and knew how prone
self-love is to sophisticate. So great
was this distrust, that the charming
novel, Northanger Ahhey, although
the first in point of time, did not ap-
pear in print until after her death;
and this work, which the Quarterly
Review pronounces the weakest of
the series (a verdict only intelligihle
to us hecause in the same hreath
Persuasion is called the hest!), is not
only written with unflagging vivacity,
hut contains two characters no one
else could have equalled — Heury
Tilney and John Thorpe. Sense and
Sensihility was the first to appear,
and that was in 1811. She had laid
aside a sum of money to meet what
she expected would he her loss on
that puhlication, aud "could scarcely
helieve her great good fortune when
it produced a clear profit of £150."
Between 1811 and 1810 appeared her
tbree chefs-d'aeutre—Pride and Pre-
judice, Mansfield Park, and Emma.
The applause these met with, grati-
fied her, of course; hut she steadily
reiisted every attempt to "make a
lion of her," and never puhlicly
avowed her authorship, although she
spoke freely of it in private. Soon
after the puhlication of Emma,
symptoms of an incurahle decline
appeared. In the month of May 1817
she was removed to Winchester, in
order that constant medical advice
might he secured. She seems to have
suffered much, hut suffered it with
resiguation. Her last words were


1859.]
101
The Novels of Jane Austen.

"I want nothing hut death." This
was on Friday the 18th July 1817;
presently after she expired in the
arms of her sister. Her hody lies in
Winchester Cathedral.
One might gather from her works
that she was personally attractive,
and we are told in the memoir that
this was the case. "Her stature
rather exceeded the middle height;
her carriage and deportment were
quiet but graceful; her features were
separately good ;• their assemhlage
produced an uurivalled expression of
that cheerfulness, sensihility, and he-
nevolence which were her real char-
acteristics; her complexion was of
the finest texture—it might with
truth he said that her eloquent hlood
spoke tbrough her modest cheek;
her voice was sweet; she delivered
herself with fluency and precision;
indeed, she was formed for elegant
and rational society, excelling in con-
versation as much as in composition."
We may picture her as something
like her own sprightly, natural, hut
hy no means perfect Elizaheth Ben-
net, in Pride and Prejndice, one of
the few heroines one would seriously
like to marry.
We have no means of ascertaining
how many copies of these exquisite
pictures of English life have heen
circulated, hut we know that the
numher is very large. Twice or
tbrice have the railway editions
heen out of print; and Mr. Bentley's
edition is stereotyped. This success
implies a hold on the Puhlic, all the
more certainly hecause the popular-
ity is " not loud hut deep." We have
re-read them all four times j or rather,
to speak more accurately, they have
heen read aloud to us, one after the
other; and when it is considered
what a severe test that is, how the
reading aloud permits no skipping,
no evasion of weariness, hut hrings
hoth merits and defects into stronger
relief hy forcing the mind to dwell
on them, there is surely something
siguificant of genuine excellence when
hoth reader -and listener finish their
fourth reading with increase of ad-
miration. The test of reading alond
applied to Jane Eyre, which had
only heen read once hefore, very con-
siderahly modified our opinion of
that remarkahle work; and, to con-
fess the truth, modified it so far that
we feel as if we should never open
the hook again. The same test ap-
plied to such an old favourite as
Tom Jones, was also much more
damaging than we should have anti-
cipated—hringing the defects and
shortcomings of that much over-
rated work into very distinct promi-
nence, and lessening our pleasure in
its effective, hut, on the whole, coarse
painting. Fielding has greater vig-
our of mind, greater experience,
greater attainments, and a more ef-
fective mise en scene, than Miss
Austen; hut he is not only im-
measurahly inferior to her in the
highest department of art—-the re-
presentation of character—he is also
inferior to her, we think, in real
humour; and in spite of his "con-
struction," of which the critics justly
speak in praise, he is inferior to her
in the construction and conduct of
his story, heing more commooplace
and less artistic. He has more in-
vention of situation and more vigour,
hut less truth and suhtlety. This is
at any rate our individual judgment,
which the reader is at liherty to
modify as he pleases. In the course
of the fifteen years which have
elapsed since we first read Emma,
and Mansfield Park, we have out-
lived many admirations, hut have
only learned to admire Miss Austen
more; and as we are perfectly aware
of why we so much admire her,
we may endeavour to communicate
these reasons to the reader.
If, as prohahly few will dispute,
the art of the novelist he the repre-
sentation of human life hy means of
a story; and if the truest representa-
tion, effected hy the least expendi-
ture of means, constitutes the highest
claim of art, then we say that Miss
Austen has carried the art to a point
of excellence surpassing that reached
hy any of her rivals. Ohserve we
say "the art;" we do not say that
she equals many of them in the in-
terest excited hy the art; that is a
separate question. It is prohahle,
nay certain, that the interest excited
hy the Antigone is very inferior to
that excited hy Black-eyed Susan.
It is prohahle that Uncle Tom and
Dred surpassed in interest the An-
tiquary or Ivanhoe. It is proha-


102
[July,
The Novels of Jane Austen.

hle that Jane Eyre produced a far
greater excitement than the Vicar
of Wakefield. But the critic justly
disregards these fervid elements of
immediate success, and fixes his at-
tention mainly on the art which is
of eternal suhstance. Miss Austen
has nothing fervid in her works.
She is not capahle of producing a
profound agitation in the mind. In
many respects this is a limitation of
her powers, a deduction from her
claims. But while other writers
have had more power over the emo-
tions, more vivid imaginations, deep-
er sensihilities, deeper insight, and
more of what is properly called in-
vention, no novelist has approached
her in what we may style the "eco-
nomy of art," hy which is meant the
easy adaptation of means to ends,
with no aid from extraneous or su-
perfluous elements. Indeed, para-
doxical as the juxtaposition or the
names may perhaps appear to those
who have not reflected much on this
suhject, we venture to say that the
only names we can place ahove Miss
Austen, in respect of this economy of
art, are Sophocles and Moliere (in Le
Misantbrope). And if any one will
examine the terms of the definition,
he will perceive that almost all de-
fects in works of art arise from ne-
glect of this economy. When the
end is the representation of human
nature in its familiar aspects, moving
amid every-day scenes, the means
must likewise he furnished from
every-day life: romance and impro-
hahilities must he hanished as rigor-
ously as the grotesque exaggeration
of peculiar characteristics, or the
representation of ahstract types. It
is easy for the artist to choose a suh-
ject from every-day life, hut it is not
easy for him so to represent the cha-
racters and their actions that they
shall he at once lifelike and interest-
ing; accordingly, whenever ordinary
people are introduced, they are either
made to speak a language never
spoken out of hooks, and to pursue
conduct never ohserved in life; or
else they are intolerahly wearisome.
But Miss Austen is like Shakespeare:
she makes her very noodles inex-
haustihly amusing, yet accurately
real. We never tire of her charac-
ters. They hecome equal to actual
experiences. They live with us, and
form perpetual topics of comment.
We have so personal a dislike to
Mrs. Elton and Mrs. Norris, that it
would gratify our savage feeling to
hear of some calamity hefalling them.
We think of Mr. Collins and John
Thorpe with such a mixture of ludi-
crous enjoyment and angry con-
tempt, that we alternately long and
dread to make their personal ac-
quaintance. The heroines—at least
Elizaheth, Emma, and Catherine
Morland—are truly lovahle, flesh-
and-hlood young women; and the
good people are all really good, with-
out heing goody. Her reverend
critic in the Quarterly truly says,
"She herself compares her produc-
tions to a little hit of ivory, two
inches wide, worked upon with a
hrush so fine that little effect is pro-
duced with much lahour. It is so:
her portraits are perfect likenesses,
admirahly finished, many of them
gems; hut it is all miniature-paint-
ing; and having satisfied herself
with heing inimitahle in one line,
she never essayed canvass and oils;
never tried her hand at a majestic
dauh." This is very true; it at once
defines her position and lowers her
claims. When we said that in the
highest department of the novelist's
art—namely, the truthful representa-
tion of character—Miss Austen was
without a superior, we ought to have
added that in this department she
did not choose the highest range;
the truth and felicity of her delinea-
tion are exquisite, hut the characters
delineated are not of a high rank. She
helongs to the great dramatists: hut
her dramas are of homely common
quality. It is ohvious that the na-
ture of the thing represented will
determine degrees in art Raphacl
will always rank higher than Ten-
iers; Sophocles and Shakespeare' will
never he lowered to the rank of
Lope de Vega and Scrihe. It is a
greater effort of genins to produce a
fine epic than a fine pastoral; a great
drama than a perfect lyric. There
is far greater strain on the intellec-
tual effort to create a Brutus or an
Othello, than to create a Vicar of
Wakefield or a Squire Western. The
higher the aims, the greater is the
strain, and the nohler is success.


1859.]
103
The Novels of Jane Austen.

These, it may he said, are truisms;
and ho they are. Yet they need re-
statement from time to time, he-
cause men constantly forget that the
diguity of a high aim can not shed
lustre on an imperfect execution,
though to some extent it may lessen
the contempt which follows upon
failure. It is only success which
can claim applause. Any fool can
select a great suhject; and in gen-
eral it is the tendency of fools to
choose suhjects which the strong feel
to he too great. If a man can leap
a fire-harred gate, we applaud his
agility ; hut if he attempt it, without
a chance of success, the mud receives
him, and we applaud the mud. This
is too often forgotten hy critics and
artists, in their grandiloquence ahout
"high art." No art can he high
that is not good. A grand suhject
ceases to he grand when its treatment
is feehle. It is a great mistake, as
has heen wittily said, "to fancy
yourself a great painter hecause you
paint with a hig hrush;" and there
are unhappily too many hig hrushes
in the hand of incompetenca Poor
Haydon was a type of the hig-hrush
school; he could not paint a small
picture hecause he could not paint
at all; and he helieved that in cover-
ing a vast area of canvass he was
working in the grand style. In every
estimate of an artist's rank we neces-
sarily take into account the nature of
the suhject and the excellence of the
execution. It is twenty times more
difficult to write a fine tragedy than
a fine lyric; hut it is more difficult
to write a perfect lyric than a toler-
ahle tragedy ; and there was as much
sense as sarcasm in Beranger's reply
when the tragic poet Vieunet visited
him in prison, and suggested that of
course there would he a volume of
songs as the product of this leisure.
"Do you suppose," said Beranger,
"that chansons are written as easily
as tragedies 1"
To return to Miss Austen: her de-
lineation is unsurpassed, hut the
characters delineated are never of a
lofty or impassioned order, and
therefore make no demand on the
highest faculties of the intellect.
Such genins as hers is excessively
rare; hut it is not the highest kind
of genins. Murillo's peasant hoys
are assuredly of far greater excellence
than the infant Cbrists painted hy all
other painters, except Raphacl; hut
the divine children of the Madouna
di San Sisto are immeasurahly be-
yond anything Murillo has painted.
Miss Austen's two-inch hit of ivory
is worth a gallery of canvass hy emi-
nent R.A.'s, hut it is only a hit
of ivory after all. "Her two inches
of ivory," continues the critic re-
cently quoted, "just descrihes her
preparations for a tale in tbree vol-
umes. A village—two families con-
nected together—tbree or four inter-
lopers, out of whom are to spring a
little tracatserie; and hy means of vil-
lage or country-town visiting and gos-
siping a real plot shall thicken, and
its ' rear of darkness' never he scatter-
ed till six pages off finis The
work is all done hy half-a-dozen
people; no person, scene, or sentence
is ever introduced needless to the
matter in hand: no catastrophes, or
discoveries, or surprises of a grand
nature are allowed—neither children
nor fortunes are found or lost hy
accident — the mind is never taken
off the level surface of life — the
reader hreakfasts, dines, walks, and
gossips with the various worthies,
till a process of transmutation takes
place in him, and he ahsolutely fancies
himself one of the company
The secret is, Miss Austen was a
thorough mistress in the knowledge
of human character; how it is acted
upon hy education and circumstance,
and how, when once formed, it shows
itself tbrough every hour of every
day, and in every speech of every
person. Her conversations would
he tiresome hut for this; and her
personages, the fellows to whom may
he met in the streets, or drank tea
with at half an hour's notice, would
excite no interest; hut in Mies
Austen's hands we see into their
hearts and hopes, their motives, their
struggles within themselves; and a
sympathy is induced which, if ex-
tended to daily life and the world at
large, would make the reader a more
amiahle person ; and we must think
it that reader's own fault who does
not close her pages with more charity
in his heart towards uupretending, if
prosing worth; with a higher esti-
mation of simple kindness and sin-


104
[July,
The Novels of Jane Austen.

cere good-will; with a quickened
sense of the duty of hearing and for-
hearing in domestic intercourse, and
of the pleasure of adding to the little
comforts even of persons who rre
neither wits nor heauties." It is
worth rememhering that this is the
deliherate judgment of the present
Archhishop of Duhlin, and not a
careless verdict dropping from the
pen of a facile reviewer. There are
two points in it to which especial
attention may he given : first, The
indication of Miss Austen's power of
representing life; and, secondly, The
indication of the effect which her
sympathy with ordinary life pro-
duces. We shall touch on the latter
point first; and we do so for the
sake of introducing a striking passage
from one of the works of Mr. George
Eliot, a writer who seems to us in-
ferior to Miss Austen in the art of
telling a story, and generally in what
we have called the " economy of art;"
hut equal in truthfulness, dramatic
ventriloquism, and humour, and
greatly superior in culture, reach of
mind, and depth of emotional sensi-
hility. In the first of the Scenes of
Clerical Life there occurs this apo-
logy to the reader : —
"The Rev. Amos Barton, whose sad
fortunes I have undertaken to relate,
was, you perceive, in no respect an ideal
or exceptional character, and perhaps I
am doing a hold thing to hespeak your
sympathy on hehalf of a man who was so
very far from remarkahle,—a man whose
virtues were not heroic, and who had no
undetected crime within his hreast; who
had not the slightest mystery hanging
ahout him, hut was palpahly and unmis-
takahly common place; who was not
even in love, hut had had that complaint
favourahly many years ago. 'An utterly
uninteresiing character I' I think I hear
a lady reader exclaim— Mrs Farthingale,
for example, who prefers the ideal in
fiction; to whom tragedy means ermine
tippets, adultery, and murder; and
comedy, the adventures of sorne person-
age who is quite a 'character.'
"But, my dear madam, it is so very
large a majority of your fellow-country-
men that are of this insiguificant stamp.
At least eighty out of a hundred of your
adult male fellow-Britons returned in the
last cenhus, are neither extraordinarily
silly, nor extraordinarily wicked, nor ex-
traordinarily wise; their eyes are neither
deep and liquid with sentiment, nor
sparkling with suppressed witticisms;
they have prohahly had no hairhreadth
escapes or tbrilling adventures; their
hrains are certainly not preguant with
genins, and their passions have not
manifested themselves at all after the
fashion of a volcano. They are simply
men of complexions more or less muddy,
whose conversation is more or less hald
and disjointed. Yet these commouplace
people—many of them — hear a con-
science, and have felt the suhlime prompt-
ing to do the painful right; they have
their unspoken sorrows, and their sacred
joys; their hearts have perhaps gone out
towards their first-horn, and they have
mourned over the irreclaimahle dead.
Nay, is there not a pathos in their very
insiguificance, — in our comparison of
their dim and narrow existence with the
glorious poss,hilities of that human
nature which they share?
"Depend upon it, you would gain un-
speakahly if you would learn with me to
see some of the poetry and the pathos,
the tragedy and the comedy, lying in
the experience of a human soul that
looks out tbrough dull grey eyes, and
that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary
tones."
But the real secret of Miss Austen's
success lies in her having the exqui-
site and rare gift of dramatic creation
of character. Scott says of her,
"She had a talent for descrihing the
involvements, and feelings, and cha-
racters of ordinary life, which is to
me the most wonderful I ever met
with. The hig how-wow strain I can
do myself like any now going; hut
the exquisite touch, which renders
ordinary commouplace things and
characters interesting, from the troth
of the description and the sentiment,
is denied me. What a pity such a
gifted , creature died so early 1" *
Generously said; hut high as the
praise is, it is as much helow the real
excellence of Miss Austen, as the
"hig how-wow strain" is helow the
incomparahle power of the Waverley
Novels. Scott felt, hut did not de-
fine, the excellence of Miss Austen.
The very world " descrihing" is alto-
gether misplaced and misleading.
She seldom descrihes any thing, and ia
not felicitous when she attempts it.
* Lockhabt: Life of Scotl, viii. 292. Compare also vol. x. p. 143.


1859.]
105
The Novels of Jane Austen.

Bnt instead of description, the common
and easy resource of novelists, she has
the rare and difficult art of dramatic
presentation: instead of telling us
what her characters are, and what
they feel, she presents the people,
and they reveal themselves. In this
she has never perhaps heen surpassed,
not even hy Shakespeare himself. If
ever living heings can he said to have
moved across the page of fiction, as
they lived, speaking as they spoke,
and feeling as they felt, they do so in
Pride aoii Prejudice, Emma, and
Mansfield Park. What incomparahle
noodles she exhihits for our astonish-
ment and laughter! What silly,
good-natured women! What softly-
selfish men 1 What lively, amiahle,
honest men and women, whom one
would rejoice to have known I
But all her power is dramatic
power; she loses her hold on us
directly she ceases to speak tbrough
the persona; she is then like a great
actor off the stage. When she is
making men and women her mouth-
pieces, she is exquisitely and inex-
haustihly humorous; hut when she
speaks in her Own person, she is apt
to he commouplace, and even pros-
ing. Her dramatic ventriloquism is
such that, amid our tears of laugh-
ter and sympathetic exasperation at
folly, we feel it almost impossihle
that she did not hear those very peo-
ple ntter those very words. In
many cases this was douhtless the
fact. The hest invention does not
consist in finding new language for
characters, hut in finding the true
language for them. It is easy to in-
vent a language never spoken hy any
one ont of hooks; hut it is so far
from easy to invent—that is, to find out
—the language which certain charac-
ters would speak and did speak, that in
all the thousands of volumes written
since Richardson and Fielding, every
difficulty is more frequently over-
come than that. If the reader fails
to perceive the extraordinary merit
of Miss Austen's representation of
character, let him try himself to
paint a portrait which shall he at
once many - sided and interesting,
without employing any hut the com-
monest colours, without calling in
the aid of eccentricity, exaggeration,
or literary "effects;" or let him
curefully compare the writings of
Miss Austen with those of any other
novelist, from. Fielding to Thack-
eray.
It is prohahly this same dramatic
instinct which makes the construc-
tion of her stories so admirahle. And
hy construction, we mean the art
which, selecting what is useful and
rejecting what is superfluous, ren-
ders our interest unflagging, he-
cause one chapter evolves the next,
one character is necessary to the
elucidation of another. In what is
commonly called "plot" she does
not excel. Her invention is wholly
in character and motive, not in situ-
ation. Her materials are of the
commonest every - day occurrence.
Neither the emotions of tragedy, nor
the exaggerations of farce, seem to
have the slightest attraction for her.
The reader's pulse never tbrohs, his
curiosity is never intense ; hut his
interest never wanes for a moment.
The action hegins ; the people speak,
feel, and act; everything that is said,
felt, or done tends towards the en-
tanglement or disentanglement of the
plot ; and we are almost made actors
as well as spectators of the little
drama. One of the most difficult
things in dramatic writing is so to
construct the story that every scene
shall advance the denouement hy
easy evolution, yet at the same time
give scope to the full exhihition of
the characters. In dramas, as in
novels, we almost always see that
the action stands still while the
characters are heing exhihited, and
the characters are in aheyance while
the action is heing unfolded. For
perfect specimens of this higher con-
struction demanded hy art, we would
refer to the jealousy-scenes of Othel-
lo, and the great scene hetween
Celimene and Arsinoe in Le Misan-
thrope; there is not in these two
marvels of art a verse which does
not exhihit some nuance of charac-
ter, and therehy, at the same time,
tends towards the full development
of the action.
So entirely dramatic, and bo little
descriptive, is the genins of Miss
Austen, that she seems to rely upon
what her people say and do for the
whole effect they are to produce on
our imaginations. She no more


106 The Novels of Jane Austen. lJulyj

thinks of descrihing the physical ap- pathy. Other writers have wanted
pearance of her people than the dra- this element of popularity, hut they
matist does who Knows that his per- have compensated for it hy a keen
sons are to he represented hy living sympathy with, and power of repre-
actors. This is a defect and a mis- senting, the adventurous, the roman-
take in art: a defect, hecause, al- tic, and the picturesque. Passion
though every reader must necessarily and adventure are the sources of cer-
conjure up to himself a vivid image tain success with the mass of man-
of people whose characters are so kind. The passion may he coarsely
vividly presented; yet each reader felt, the romance may he ridiculous,
has to do this for himself without hut there will always he found a
aid from the author, therehy missing large majority whose sympathies
many of the suhtle counections he- will he awakened hy even the coars-
tween physical and mental organisa- est dauhs. Emotion is in its nature
tion. It is not enough to he told sympathetic and uncritical : a spark
that a young gentleman had a fine will iguite it Types of villany never
countenance and an air of fashion ; or seen or heard of out of hooks, or off
that a young gentlewoman was hand- the stage, types of heroism and
some and elegant As far as any virtue not less hyperholical, are
direct information can he derived eagerly welcomed and helieved in hy
from the authoress, we might ima- a puhlic which would pass over with-
gine that this was a purhlind world, out notice the suhtlest creations of
wherein nohody ever saw anyhody, genins, and which would even resent
except in a dim vagueness which the more truthful painting as dis-
ohscured all peculiarities. It is im- turhing its emotional enjoyment of
Cihle that Mr. Collins should not hating the had, and loving the good,
j heen endowed hy nature with The nicer art which mingles goodness
an appearance in some way herald- with villany, and weakness with
ing the delicious folly of the inward virtue, as in life they are always
man. Yet all we hear of this fatu- mingled, causes positive distress to
ous curate is, that '• he was a tall young and uncultivated minds. The
heavy - looking young man of five- mass of men never ask whether a
andtwenty. His air was grave and character is true, or the events pro-
stately, and his mauners were very hahle; it is enough for them that
formal." Balzac or Dickens would they are moved; and to move them
not have heen content without mak- strongly, hlack must he very hlack,
ing the reader see this Mr. Collins, and white without a shade. Hence
Miss Austen is content to make us it is that caricature and exaggeration
know him, even to the very intrica- of all kinds — inflated diction and
cies of his inward man. It is not dauhing ldelineation — are, and al-
stated whether she was shortsighted, ways will he, popular: a certain
hut the ahsence of all sense of the hreadth and massiveness of effect
outward world — either scenery or heing necessary to produce a strong
personal appearance — is more re- impression on all hut a refined audi-
markahle in her than in any writer ence. In the works of the highest
we rememher. genins we sometimes find a hreadth
We are touching here on one of and massiveness of effect which make
her defects which help to an explan- even these works popular, although
ation of her limited popularity, espe- the qualities most higbly prized hy
cially when coupled with her defi- the cultivated reader are little ap-
ciencies in poetry and passion. She preclated hy the puhlic. The
has little or no sympathy with what Iliad, Shakespeare and Moliere,
is picturesque and passionate. This Don Quixote and Faust, affect the
prevents her from painting what the mass powerfully; hut how many
popular eye can see, and the popular admirers of Homer would prefer the
heart can feel. The struggles, the naivete of the original to the epi-
amhitions, the errors, and the sins of grammatic splendour of Pope?
energetic life are left untouched hy The novelist who has no power of
her; and these form the suhjects hroad and massive effect can never
most stirring to the general sym- expect to he successful with the


1859.]
107
The Novels of Jane A usten.

great puhlic. He may gain the suf-
frages of the highest minds, and in
course of time hecome a classic; hut
we all know what the popularity
of a classic means. Miss Austen is
bucU a novelist. Her suhjects have
little intrinsic interest; it is only in
their treatment that they hecome
attractive; hut treatment and art
are not likely to captivate any except
critical and refined tastes. Every
reader will he amused hy her pic-
tures, hecause their very truth car-
ries them home to ordinary experi-
ence and sympathy; hut this amuse-
ment is of a tepid nature, and the
effect is quickly forgotten. Part-
ridge expressed the general senti-
ment of the puhlic when he spoke
slightingly of Garrick's "Hamlet,"
hecause Gairick did just what he,
Partridge, would have done in pre-
sence of a ghost; whereas the actor
who performed the king powerfully
impressed him hy sonorous elocution
and emphatic gesticulation: that was
acting, and required art; the other
was natural, and not worth alluding
to.
The ahsence of hreadth, picturesque-
ness, and passion, will also limit the
appreciating audience of Miss Aus-
ten to the small circle of cultivated
minds; and even these minds are
not always capahle of greatly relish-
ing her works. We have known very
remarkahle people who cared little
for her pictures of every-day life;
and indeed it may he anticipated
that those who have little sense of
humour, or whose passionate and in-
surgent activities demand in art a re-
flection of their own emotions and
struggles, will find little pleasure in
such homely comedies. Currer Bell
may he taken as a type of these. She
was utterly without a sense of hu-
mour, and was hy nature fervid and
impetuous. In a letter puhlished in
her memoirs she writes, — " Why do
you like Miss Austen so very much?
I am puzzled on that point. ... I
had not read Pride and Prejudice
till I read that sentence of yours, and
then I got the hook. And what did
I find? An accurate daguerreotyped
portrate of a commouplace face; a
carefully - fenced, higbly - cultivated
garden, with neat horders and deli-
cate flowers; hut no glance of a
hright, vivid physioguomy, no open
country, no fresh air, no hlue hill, no
houny heck. I should hardly like to
live with her elegant ladies and gen-
tlemen, in their elegant hut confined
houses."* The critical reader will
not fail to remark the almost con-
temptuous indifference to the art of
truthful portrait-painting which this
passage indicates ; and he will under-
stand, perhaps, how the writer of
such a passage was herself incapahle
of drawing more than characteristics,
even in her most successful efforts.
Jane Eyre, Rochester, and Paul Em-
manuel, are very vigorous sketches,
hut the reader ohserves them from
the outside, he does not penetrate
their souls, he does not know them.
What is said respecting the want of
open country, hlue hill, and houny
heck, is perfectly true ; hut the same
point has heen more felicitously
touched hy Scott, in his review of
Emma: "Upon the whole," he says,
"the turn of this author's novels
hears the same relation to that of
the sentimental and romantic cast,
that cornfields and cottages and mea-
dows hear to the higbly-adorned
grounds of a show mansion, or the
rugged suhlimities of a mountain
landscape. It is neither so captivat-
ing as the one, nor so grand as the
other ; hut it affords those who fre-
quent it a pleasure nearly allied with
the experience of their own social
hahits." Scott would also have loudly
repudiated the notion of Miss Aus-
ten's characters heing "mere daguerre-
otypes." Having himself drawn
hoth ideal and real characters, he \
knew the difficulties of hoth; and he
well says, "He who paints from le
heau ideal, if his scenes and senti-
ments are striking and interesting,
is in a great measure exempted from
the difficult task of reconciling them
with the ordinary prohahilities of
life; hut he who paints a scene of
common occurrence, places his com-
position within that extensive range
of criticism which general experience
offers to every reader. . . . Some-
thing more than a mere sigu-post
likeness is also demanded. The por_
'Life of Charlotte Bronte, ii. 84.


108
[July,
The Roods of Jane Austen.

trait must have spirit and character
as well as resemhlance; and heing
deprived of all that, according to
Bayes, goes to 'elevate and surprise,'
it must make amends hy displaying
depth of knowledge and dexterity of
execution."
-While defending our favourite, and
giving critical reasons for our liking,
we are far from wishing to impose
that preference on others. If any one
frankly says, '' I do not care ahout
these pictures of ordinary life: I
want something poetical or roman-
tic, something to stimulate my ima-
gination, and to carry me heyond the
circle of my daily thoughts,"—there
is nothing to he answered. Many
persons do not admire Wordsworth,
and caunot feel their poetical sympa-
thies aroused hy waggoners and
potters. There are many who find
no enjoyment in the Flemish pictures,
hut are rapturous ov.er the frescoes at
Munich and Berlin. Individual tastes
do not admit of dispute. The ima-
gination is an imperious faculty, and
demands gratification ; and if a man
he content to have this faculty sti-
mulated, to the exclusion of all
other faculties, or if only peculiar
works are capahle of stimulating it,
we have no right to ohject. Only
when a question of Art comes to he
discussed, it must not he confounded
with a matter of individual feeling;
and it requires a distinct reference
to ahsolute standards. The art of
novel-writing, like the art of paint-
ing, is founded on general principles,
which, hecause they have their pys-
chological justification, hecause they
are derived from tendencies of the
human mind, and not, as ahsurdly
supposed, derived from "models of
composition," are of universal ap-
plication. The law of colour, for in-
stance, is derived from the ohserved
relation hetween certain colours and
the sensitive retina. The laws of
construction, likewise, are derived
from the invariahle relation hetween
a certain order and succession of
events, and the amount of interest
excited hy that order. In novel-
writing, as in mechanics, every oh-
struction is a loss of power; every
superfluous page diminishes the ar-
tistic pleasure of the whole. Indi-
vidual tastes will always differ; hut
the laws of the human mind are uni-
versal. One man will prefer the
humorous, another the pathetic; one
will delight in the adventurous, an-
other in the simple and homely ; hut
the principles of Art remain the same
for each. To tell a story well, is
quite another thing from having a
good story to tell. The construction
of a good drama is the same in prin-
ciple whether the suhject he Anti-
gone, the Misantbrope, or Othello;
and the real critic detects this prin-
ciple at work under these various
forms. It is the same with the deli-
neation of character: however vari-
ous the types, whether a Jonathan
Oldhuck, a Dr. Primrose, a Blifil, or a
Falstafi —ideal, or real, the principles
of composition are the same.
Miss Austen has generally hut an
indifferent story to tell, hut her art
of telling it is incomparahle. Her
characters, never ideal, are not of
an eminently attractive order; hut
her dramatic ventriloquism and power
of presentation is little less than mar-
vellous. Maoaulay declares his opin-
ion that in this respect she is second
only to Shakespeare. "Among the
writers," he says, " who, in the point
we have noticed, have approached
nearest the mauner of the great mas-
ter, we have no hesitation in placing
Jane Austen, a woman of whom Eng-
land is justly proud. She has given
as a multitude of characters, all, in a
certain sense, commouplace — all such
as we meet every day. Yet they are
all as perfectly discriminated from
each other as if they were the most
eccentric of human heings. . . .
And all this is done hy touches so
delicate that they elude analysis,
that thoy defy powers of description,
and that we only know them to exist
hy the general effect to which they
have contrihuted.'"*
The art of the novelist consists in
telling the story and representing
the characters; hut hesides these,
there are other powerful though
extraneous sources of attraction often
possessed hy novels, which are due
to the literary talent and culture of
the writer. There is, for example,
* Art. on "Madame D'Arhlay," Edin. Rev., vol. lxxvii. p. 561.


1859.] The Novels of Jane Austen. 109

the power of description, hoth of all the purpose of creation. Bat
scenery and of character. Many whoever looks closely into this mat-
novels depend almost entirely on ter will see that literature—that is,
this for their effect. It is a lower the writing of thinking and accom-
kind of power, and consequently plished men—is excessively clieap,
much more frequent than what we compared with the smallest amount
have styled the art of the novelist; of invention or creation; and it is
yet it may he very puissant in the cheap hecause more easy of pro-
hands of a fine writer, gifted with a duction, and less potent in effect
real sense of the picturesque. Being This is apparently hy no means the
very easy, it has of late hecome the opinion of some recent critics, who
resource of weak writers; and the evidently consider their own writing
Erominent position it has usurped of more merit than humour and
as tended in two ways to produce invention, and who are aunoyed at
weariness—first, hy encouraging in- the notion of " mere serialists," with-
cotupetent writers to do what is out "solid acquirements," heing re-
easily done; and, secondly, hy seduc- garded all over Europe as our most
ing writers from the higher and het- distinguished authors. Yet it may
ter method of dramatic exposition. he suggested that writing such as
Another source of attraction is the that of the critics in question can
general vigour of mind exhihited hy he purchased in ahundance, whereas
the anthor, in his comments on the humour and invention are among
incidents and characters of his story; the rarest of products. If it is a
these comments, when proceeding painful reflection that genins should
from a fine insight .or a large expe- he esteemed more higbly than solid
rienee, give additional charm to the acquirements, it should he remem-
story, and make the delightful novel hered that learning is only the
a delightful hook. It is almost diffused form of what was once in-
superfluous to add, that this also vention. "Solid acquirement" is
has its ohverse; the comments too the genins of wits, which has hecome
often painfully exhihit a general the wisdom of reviewers,
weakness of mind. Dr. Johnson re- Be this as it may, we acknowledge
fused to take tea with some one the great attractions which a novel
hecause, as he said, "Sir, there is no may receive from the general vigour
vigour in his talk." This is the and culture of the author; and ac-
complaint which most he urged knowledge that such attractions form
against the majority of novelists: hut a very small element in Miss
they put too much water in their Austen's success. Her pages have
ink. And even when the talk is no sudden illuminations. There are
good, we most rememher that it is, neither epigrams nor aphorisms,
after all, only one of the side-dishes neither suhtle analyses nor eloquent ,
of the feast All the literary and descriptions. She is without grace
philosophic culture which an author or felicity of expression; she has
can hring to hear upon his work neither fervid nor philosophic com- x
will lend to give that work a higher ment. Her charm lies solely in the \
value, hut it will not really make it art of representing life and character,'
a hetter novel. To suppose that and that is exquisite.
culture can replace invention, or We have thus endeavoured to
literature do instead of character, is characterise, in general terms, the
as erroneous as to suppose that quatities which her works display,
archaeological learning and scenical It is less easy to speak with sulfi-
splendour can raise poor acting to cient distinctness of the particular
the level of fine acting. Yet this is works, since, unless our readers have
the common mistake of literary men. these vividly present to memory (in
They are apt to helieve that mere which case our remarks would he
writing will weigh in the scale superfluous), we caunot hope to he
against artistic presentation; that perfectly intelligihle; no adequate
comment will do duty for dramatic idea of them can he given hy a re-
revelation; that analysing motives view of one, hecause the "epeci-
with philosophic skill will answer men hrick" which the noodle in


110
[July,
The Novels of Jane Austen.

Hierocles thought sufficient, and
which really does suffice in the case
of many a modern novel, would
prove no specimen at all. Her char-
acters are so gradually unfolded, their
individuality reveals itself so natu-
rally and easily in the course of
what they say and do, that we learn
to know them as if we had lived
with them, hut caunot hy any single
speech or act make them known to
others. Aunt Norris, for instance,
in Mansfield Park, is a character
profoundly and variously delineated;
yet there is no scene in which she
exhihits herself to those who have
not the pleasurahle disgust of her
acquaintance; while to those who
have, there ia no scene in which she
does not exhihit herself. Mr. Collins,
making an offer to Elizaheth Ben-
net, formally stating the reasons
which induced him to marry, and
the prudential motives which have
induced him to select her, and then
adding, "Nothing now remains for
me hut to assure you, in the most ani-
mated language, of the violence of
my affection. To fortune I am per-
fectly indifferent, and shall make no
demand of that nature on your
father, since I am well aware that it
could not he complied with; and
that one thousand pounds in the
Four-per Cents, which will not he
yours till after your mother's de-
cease, is all that you may ever he
entitled to. On that head, therefore,
I shall he uniformly silent; and you
may assure yourself that no ungen-
erous reproach shall ever pass my
lips when we are married;" and
after her refusal, persisting in accept-
ing this refusal as only what is usual
with young ladies, who reject the
addresses of the man they secretly
mean to accept, " I am therefore hy
no means discouraged hy what you
have just said, and shall hope to
lead you to the altar ere long;"—
this scene, ludicrous as it is tbrough-
out, receives its exquisite flavour
from what has gone hefore. We
feel morally persuaded that so Mr.
Collins would speak and act. The
man who, on taking leave of his
host, formally assures him that he
will not fail to send a "letter of
thanks" on his return, and does
send it, is just the man to have
made this declaration. Mrs. Elton, in
Emma, is the very hest portrait of a
vulgar woman we ever saw: she is
vulgar in soul, and the vulgarity is
indicated hy suhtle yet unmistak-
ahle touches, never hy coarse lan-
guage, or hy caricature of any
kind. We will quote here a hit of
her conversation in the first inter-
view she has with Emma Woodhouse,
in which she edeavours to he very
fascinating. It should he premised
that she is only just married, and
this is the wedding-visit. She in-
dulges in "raptures" ahout Hart-
field (the sea.t of Emma's father), and
Emma quietly replies:—
"' When you have seen more of this
country, I am afraid you will think you
have overrated Hartfield. Surrey is full
of heauties.'
"' Oh 1. ye«, I am quite aware of that.
It is the garden of England, you know,
Surrey is the garden of England.'
"' Yes; hut we must not rest our
claims on that distinction. Many coun-
ties, I helieve, are called the garden of
England, as well as Surrey.'
"' No, I fancy not,' replied Mrs. Elton,
with a most satisfled smilo. 'I never
heard any county hut Surrey called so.'
"Emma was silenced.
"' My hrother and sister have promised
us a vwit in the spring, or summer at
farthest,' continued Mrs. Elton; 'and
that will he our time for exploring.
While they are with us, we shall explore
a great deal, I daresay. They will have
their harouche-landau, of course, which
holds four perfectly; and therefore, with-
out saying aaylhing of our carriage, we
should he ahle to explore the different
heauties extremely well. They would
hardly come in their chaise, I think, at
that season of the year. Indeed, when
the time draws on, I shall decidedly re-
commend their hringing the harouche-
landau; it will he so very much prefer-
ahle. When people come into a heauti-
ful country of this sort, you know, Miss
Woodhouse, one naturally wishes them
to see as much as possihle; and Mr.
Suckling is extremely fond of exploring.
We explored to King's-Weston twice last
summer, in that way, most delightfully,
just after their first having the harouche-
landao. You have many parties of that
kind here, I suppose, Miss Woodhouse,
every summer?'
"' No; not immediately here. We are
rathur out of distance of tho very strik-
ing heauties which attract the sort of
parties you speak of; and we are a very


1859.]
Ill
The Novels of Jane Austen.

quiet set of people, I helieve; more dis-
posed to stay at home than engage in
schemes of pleasure.
"' Ah! there is nothing like staying at
home for real comfort. Nohody can he
more devoted to home than I am. I was
quite a proverh for it at Maple Grove.
Many a time has Selina said, when she
has heen going to Bristol, "I really can-
not get this girl to move from the house.
I ahsolutely must go in hy myself, though
I hate heing stuck up in the harouche-
landau without a companion; hut Au-
gusta, I helieve, with her own good will,
would never stir heyond the park paling."
Many a time has she said so; and yet I
am no advocate for entire seclusion. I
think, on the contrary, when people
shut themselves up entirely from so-
ciety, it is a very had thing; and that it
is much more advisahle to mil in the
world in a proper degree, without living
in it either too much or too little. I per-
fectly understand your situation, how-
ever, Miss Woodhouse (looking towards
Mr. Woodhouse), your father's stato of
health must he a great drawhack. Why
does not ho try Bath ? — Indeed he
should. Let me recommend Bath to
yoo. I assure you I have no douht of
its doing Mr. Woodhouse good.'
"' My father tried it more than once,
formerly, hut without receiving any he-
nefit ; and Mr. Perry, whose name, I dare-
say, is not unknown to you, does not
conceive it would he at all more likely
to he useful now.'
"' Ah 1 that's a great pity; for I assuro
you, Miss Woodhouse, where the waters
do agree, it is quite wonderful the relief
they give. In my Bath life, I have soen
such instances of it! And it is so cheer-
fal a place, that it could not fail of heing
of use to Mr. Woodhouse's spirits, which,
I understand, are sometimes much de-
pressed. And as to its recommendation
to you, I fancy I need not take much
painS to dwell on them. The advantages
of Bath to the young are pretty generally
understood. It would he a charming in-
tmduction for you, who have lived so
secluded a life; and I could immediately
secure you some of the hest society in
the place. A lino from me would hring
you a little host of acquaintance; and
my particular friend, Mrs. Partridge, the
lady I have always resided with when in
Bath, would he most happy to show you
any attentions, and would he the very
peraon for you to go into puhlic with.'
"It was as much as Emma could hear,
without heing impolite. The idea of her
heing indehted to Mrs. Elton for what
was called an introduction—of her going
into puhlic under the auspices of a friend
of Mrs. Elton's—prohahly some vulgar,
dashing widow, who, with the help of a
hoarder, just made a shift to live !—The
diguity of Miss Woodhouse, of Hartfield,
was sunk indeed!
"She restrained herself, however, from
any of the reproofs she coald have given,
and only thanked Mrs. Elton coolly; 'hut
their going to Bath was quito out of the
question; and she was not perfectly con-
vinced that the place might suit her het-
ter than her father.' And then, to pre-
vent further outrage and indiguation,
changed the suhject directly.
"' I do not ask whether you are musical,
Mrs. Elton. Upon these occasions, n lady's
character generally precedes her; and
Highhury has long known that you are
a superior performer.'
',' Oh I no, indeed; I must protest
against any such idea. A superior per-
former 1—very far from it, I assure you:
consider from how partial a quarter your
information came. I am doatingly fond
of music — passionately fond; and my
friends say I am not entirely devoid of
taste; hut as to anything else, upon my
honour my performance is mediocre to
the last degree. Tou, Miss Woodhouse,
I well know, play delightfully. I assure
yon it has heen the greatest satisfaction,
comfort, and delight to me, to hear what
a musical society I am got into. I ahso-
lutely caunot do without music; it is a
necessary of life to me; and having
always heen used to a very musical so-
ciety, hoth at Maple Grove and in Bath,
it would have heen a most serious sacri-
fice. I honestly said as much to Mr. E.
when he was speaking of my future
home, and expressing his fears lest the
retirement of it should he disagreeahle;
and the inferiority of the house too—
knowing what I had heen accustomed to
—of course he was not wholly without
apprehension. When he was speaking
of it in what way, I honestly said that
the world I could give up—parties, halls,
plays—for I had no fear of retirement.
Blessed with so many resources within
myself, the world was not necessary to
me. I could do very well without it.
To those who had no resources it was a
different thing; hut my resources made
me quite independent And as to
smaller-sized rooms than I had heen
used to, I really could not give it a
thought. I hoped I was perfectly equal
to any sacrifice of that description. Cer-
tainly I had heen accustomed to every
luxury at Maple Grove; hut I did assure
him that two carriages were not neces-
sary to my happiness, nor were spacious
apartments. "But," said I, "to he quite
honest, I do not think I can live without


112
[July,
The Novels of Jane Austen.

something of a musical society. I con-
dition for nothing else; hut, without
music, lifo would he a hlank to me."'
"' We caunot suppose,' said Emma,
smiling, 'that Mr. Elton would hesitate
to assure you of there heing a very
musical society in Highhury; and I hope
you will not find he has overstepped the
truth more than may he pardoned, in
consideration of the motive.'
"'No, indeed, I have no douhts at all
on that head. I am delighted to find
myself in such a circle: I hope we shall
have many sweet little concerts together.
I think, Miss Woodhouso, you and I
must estahlish a musical cluh, and have
regular weekly meetings at your houso,
or ours. Will not it ho a good plan? If
we exert ourselves, I think we shall not
he long in want of allies. Something of
that nature would ho particularly desir-
ahle for me, as an inducement to keep
me in practice; for married women, you
know—thero is a sad story against them,
in general. They are hut too apt to
give up music'
"' But you, who are so extremely fond
of it—thero can ho no danger, surely?'
"'I should hopo not; hut really, when
I look around among my acquaintance,
I tremhlo. Selina has entirely given up
music;—never touches the instrument,
though she played sweetly. And the
samo may he said of Mrs. Jefferey s—Clara
Partridge that was — and of the two
Milmans, now Mrs. Bird and Mrs. James
Cooper; and of more than I can enu-
merate. Upon my word, it is enough
to put ono in a fright. I used to he
quite angry with Selina; hut, really, I
hegin now to comprehend that a married
woman has many things to call her
attention. I helieve I was half an hour
this morning shut up with my house-
keeper.'
"'But everything of that kind,' said
Emma, 'will soon he in so regular a
train—'
"' Well,' said Mrs. Elton, laughing, 'we
shall see.'"
Our limits force us to hreak ofF in
the middle of this conversation, hut
the continuation is equally humorous.
Quite as good in another way is Miss
Bates with her affectionate twaddle.
But, as we said hefore, the characters
reveal themselves; and in general
reveal themselves only in the course
of several scenes, so that extracts
would give no idea of them.
The reader who has yet to make
acquaintance with these novels, is
advised to hegin with Pride and
Prejudice or Mansfield Park; and
if these do not captivate him, he
may fairly leave the others uuread.
In Pride and Prejudice there is
the hest story, and the greatest
variety of character: the whole
Beunet family is inimitahle: Mr.
Beunet, caustic, quietly, indolently
selfish, hut honourahle, and in some
respects amiahle; his wife, the per-
fect type of a gossiping, weak-headed,
fussy mother; Jane a sweet creature;
Elizaheth a sprightly and fascinating
flesh - and - hlood heroine; Lydia a
pretty, hut vain and giddy girl; and
Mary, plain and pedantic, studying
"thorough hass and human nature."
Then there is Mr. Collins, and Sir
William Lucas, and the proud foolish
old lady Catherine de Bough, and
Darcy, Bingley, and Wickham, all
admirahle. From the first chapter
to the last there is a succession of
scenes of high comedy, and the
interest is unflagging. Mawfield
Park is also singularly fascinating,
though the heroine is less of a
favourite with us than Miss Austen's
heroines usually are ; hut aunt Norris
and Lady Bertram are perfect; and
the scenes at Portsmouth, when
Fauny Price visits her home after
some years' residence at the Park, are
wonderfully truthful and vivid. The
private theatricals, too, are very amus-
ing; and the day spent at the Rush-
worths' is a masterpiece of art If
the reader has really tasted the
flavour of these works, he will need
no other recommendation to read and
re-read the others. Even Persua-
sion, which we caunot help regarding
as the weakest, contains exquisite
touches, and some characters no one
else could have surpassed.
We have endeavoured to express
the delight which Miss Austen's
works have always given us, and to
explain the sources of her success
hy indicating the qualities which
make her a model worthy of the
study of all who desire to understand
the art of the novelist. Bat we have
also indicated what seem to he the
limitations of her genins, and to ex-
plain why it is that this genins,
moving only amid the quiet scenes of
every-day life, with no power over
the more stormy and energetic ac-
tivities which find vent even in every
: ac-
pery-


1859.] The Change of Ministry—What next? 113

day life, can never give her a high people, and sympathy with their
rank among great artists. Her place goodness, we have admitted an oh-
is among great artists, hut it is not jection which lowers her claims to
high among them. She sits in the rank among the great henefactors of
House of Peers, hut it is as a simple the race; and this sufficiently ex-
Baron. The delight derived from plains why, with all her excellence,
her pictures arises from our sympathy her name has not hecome a household
with ordinary characters, our relish word. Her fame, we think, must en-
of humour, and our intellectual plea- dure. Such art as hers can never
sure in art for art's sake. But when grow old, never he superseded. But,
it is admitted that she never stirs after all, miniatures are not frescoes,
the deeper emotions, that she never and her works are miniatures. Her
tills the soul with a nohle aspiration, place is among the Immortals; hut
or hrightens it with a fine idea, hut, the pedestal is erected in a quiet niche
at the utmost, only teaches us charity of the great temple,
for the ordinary failings of ordinary
THE CHANGE OP MIN1STKT—WHAT NEXT?
A change of Ministry has taken form, the Peelites and " old Whigs,"
place, at a critical time in the aifairs who now support Lord Palmerston,
of this country and of Europe, and were almost as much opposed to Mr.
under circumstances not only sin- Bright and the Radicals as the Con-
sular in the history of politics, hut servatives are; and even the Russell-
suggestive of grave difficulties in the ite section repudiated with disdain
future government of the country, the extreme view of the party of Lev-
The Factions have rallied again for a ellers. But as these rival sections of
great hattle, and, hy an insiguificant the Whig party, though united, fell
majority, have won it. It is just a far short of the strength of the Con-
year ago since they attempted a si- servatives, and could not regain office
milar comhination, and notahly fail- without the co-operation of the Radi-
ed. The pitched hattle which they cals, it hecame the policy of the
then fought with the Ministry on latter to keep their Whig friends in
the question of the Oude proclama- Opposition until the hunger for op-
tion terminated in one of the most fice should starve them into mote
humiliating discomfitures that ever "advanced" views. A year ago this
overtook an Opposition. It was the result had not taken place. The
first grand attempt of the Whig Whigs still imagined that, as wont,
chiefs to replace themselves in office, the Rsdicals would follow them un-
At that time they had only heen a conditionally, rather than hear to
few months on the shady side of the see the Conservatives in power.
House, and the pressure of adversity But the Radicals had increased their
had not yet tamed their spirit into strength, and would no longer act
acquiescence with the humiliating as the mere "tail" of the Whigs,
demands of the Radicals. Hence They knew their power, and al-
their failure. It is a fact which we though perfectly impotent of t hem-
do not seek to deny that the various selves to form an Administration,
sections of the House who style they resolved to hend others to
themselves "Liherals" outnumher, their will hy adopting the tactics
though only hy a small majority, the of ohstruction. After another
Conservative party. But hetween year's waiting, their tactics have
certain sections of the Liherals there heen crowned with success. The
is to he found a wider discrepancy Whigs, whose hunger for office is
of opinion than exists hetween one notorious, have heen starved into a
or two of those sections and the surrender. They have at length
Conservatives. At least such ims stooped to purchase the co-operation
the case. On the question of lie- of the Radicals hy an ahnegation of
vol. lxxxvl 8


114
[July,
The Change of Ministry—What next?

their own principles. The coalition
which tbree weeks ago overtbrew the
Conservative Ministry, involved the
death of the old Whig party. Hence-
forth the Whigs of 1832 are extinct;
or—as in the case of Earl Grey and
Lord Normanhy — they are to he
found fighting on the side of the
Conservatives. So goes on the march
of democraoy. Rather than endure
a farther exclusion from office, hoth
Lord Palmerston and Lord John
Russell have agreed to accept the
terms of alliance offered hy Mr. Bright;
and the result is a motley coalition
which has won a party trinmph which
it caunot follow up, and which can-
not fail to he injurious to the hest
interests of the country. What hut
peril to the constitution can result
from the wholesale apostacy of the
Whigs to the cause of democracy 1
What hut disunion and a fresh crisis
can he expected from a coalition which
professes to unite Bright or Cohden
with Palmerston, and Gladstone and
Sidney Herhert with Lord John Rus-
sell? What hut grievous detriment
to the national interests can result
from the premiership of Lord Palmer-
ston, who repudiates the neutrality
of the late Government, and gives an
open adhesion to the amhitious policy
of the French Emperor? The Whig
chiefs have always heen great in con-
cocting coalitions, not one of which
hitherto has ever prospered; hut on
the present occasion they have out-
done themselves in this respect, and
have produced the most comhustihle
of mixtures, which the least friction
will explode, and whose explosion
will cast fresh discredit upon our
system of constitutional government
For the last eight years the old
Duke's question, •' How is the Qacen's
Government to he carried on f has
every twelvemonth heeu acquiring a
more startling siguificance; and after
the vote of the 10th ultimo, and the
miserahle Coalition Cahinet which is
its consequence, every thoughtful
mind will naturally ask with anxious
forehoding, What next?
The mauner in which the factions
accomplished this success requires a
word of comment. To say that a
hurried vote of want of confidence in
the Ministry was the most adroit
move for the Opposition, is only giv-
ing the chiefs of the factions credit
for knowing how hest to play their
game. It was simply a struggle for
office, and they chose the most ad-
vantageous ground for fighting the
hattle. There was no real precedent
for moving such a vote of want of
confidence. The motion of Sir Rohert
Peel after the dissolution of the Par-
liament of 1841 is no parallel case.
The Ministry of Lord Melhourne had
received a sigual defeat in 1839, yet,
refusing either to dissolve or to re-
sigu, it continued in office for two
whole years, receiving fresh defeats;
and when at length it did appeal to
the country, it was Hpon a vote of
censure carried in its own Parliament
hy those who had originally
heen its supporters. The issue of
that appeal was to give an im-
mense accession to the ranks of the
Opposition; and therefore Sir Rohert
Peel, hy moving a vote of want of
confidence, was only giving effect to
the verdict of the country. The late
Ministry held a very different posi-
tion. On taking office, they found
themselves face to face with a Par-
liament elected under the premier-
ship of Lord Palmerston, but in
which, nevertheless, they constituted
the only party strong enough to form
a Government; and when they ap-
pealed to the country on their very
first defeat, the result of the appeal
was to give them twenty-five new
votes, and to take as many from the
Opposition. If, then, it was not re-
quisite for the Opposition to move a
vote of want of confidence in the last
Parliament, there was infinitely less
ground for them to do so in the new
one. But the growing confidence of
the country in the Conservative Gov-
ernment was one of the very reasons
why the Opposition were so anxious
to cut short the career of their an-
tagonists. And a hurried vote at the
outset was the hest means for accom-
plishing their factious purpose. All
sections of the Opposition were
smarting from the effects of the dis-
solution; and it was an adroit move
to take advantage of that irritation
while it was keenly felt. A vote of
waut of confidence was also the hest
means of securing unanimity amongst
the jarring elements of the Opposition.
They all styled themselves Liherals;


1859.]
115
The Change of Ministry—What next?

and this motion, appealing to them
under the common name of Liherals,
called upon them to say whether
they would prefer to have a Con-
servative Ministry or a Liheral one.
The tbreat was thus held over the
heads of all the memhers of the
Opposition, that if any one did not
support such a motion, he would
thenceforth he ostracised, and repre-
sented to his constituents as a traitor
or renegade. And in this way many
memhers were hooked into voting
against the ministry against their own
convictions and previous confessions;
so that the dehate presented the
curioog anomaly of some memhers
speaking in favour of the Ministry,
yet ending hy saying that they must
vote against them! This hurried
vote, too, at the very outset, was a
confession that the chiefs of the
Opposition despaired of finding any
actual and definite ground of fault
against the Ministry. Had they
really helieved that the Ministry had
hlundered in foreigu policy, or would
hlunder in domestic legislation, they
would have waited for the produc-
tion of the promised papers in the
one case, or for the commission of the
actual hlunder in the other. But
they were hopeless on the latter
point, and excessively anxious to fore-
stall the other. A dehate on the
foreigu policy of the Government,
after the production of the papers,
wonld at once have cut the ground
from under the feet of the Opposi-
tion, hy showing to the country that
the endless charges of hlundering
which the Liheral journals had heen
puhlishing against the Government
were pure fahrications, and that, in
fact, never at any time were difficult
negotiations conducted in a more
masterly mauner—as in the sequel
we shall show. The grand ohject of
the Opposition leaders, we repeat,
was to forestall inquiry, and ohtain a
verdict against the Ministry hefore
the facts of the case were known,
and while Parliament and the puhlic
were still under the influence of the
calumnies disseminated hy the Liheral
press. Yet what, after all, was the
result of those skilful tactics and un-
scrupulous proceedings? Their vic-
tory was a virtual dofeat. The ma-
jority of 39 which they had in the
former Parliament dwindled down
to only 13. In one of the very fullest
Houses on record they only mustered
323, while the Conservative muster-
ed 310—a narrow majority for the
Liherals at the hest, hut one entirely
neutralised hy the fact that, whereas
the Conservatives are a compact
phalanx, the Liherals are composed
of four incongruous sections (Palmer-
stonians, Peelites, Russellites, and
Radicals), never for a week in com-
plete harmony, and often at open
discord with one other.
In the very speeches hy which they
sought the overtbrow of the late
Government, the irreconcilahle differ-
ences of opinion which prevail in the
camp of the Liherals were clearly
manifested. For example, in regard
to that most important of all ques-
tions at present—namely, the policy
of this country with respect to the
war—we fiud Mr. Bright sueering at
the militia and rifle-corps, and de-
nouncing the additions to our fleet:
an indication that he and his friends
will press their quaker delusions
upon the new Ministry with might
and main. We find him, too, giving it
as his deliherately-formed conviotion
that the French are a singularly
peaceful people, who have not the
least desire to do anything unfriendly
to this country,—an opinion in which
few will concur, and which strikingly
recalls to memory the similar state-
ment of helief on the part of Mr.
Cohden only a few weeks hefore the
outhurst of the sanguinary revolution
of 1848. Mr. Bright, too—for once
agreeing with Lord Palmerston —
sympathises with France in her at-
tack upon Austria; although it
would he curious to know hy what
process he reconciles this opinion
with his out • and - out principle of *
peace and non - intervention. He
thinks it right for France to hegin a
war of amhition, yet denounces on
our part any precautionary measures
of defence. Sir James Graham,
again, although hitterly opposing the
Government, praised them for the
very measures of defence which Mr.
Bright, in his narrow wisdom,
thought fit to denounce. Lord
Palmerston, who made the poorest
appearance he ever did in his life,
although unahle to deny the practi-


116
[July,
The Change of Ministry—What next?

cul utility of those energetic measures
of defence, so grudged the Ministry
the credit of having made them, that
he cavilled at it as an unconstitu-
tional step, for which no precise or
sufficient reason had heen assigued.*
And while Lord John Russell and
Mr. Bright confessed that the war
was unavoidahle, Lord Palmerston,
with a recklessuess of assertion never
surpassed, maintained that it was
wholly attrihutahle to the hlun-
dering of the Ministry! To such
shifts was he reduced in his effort to
make out a case against the Govern-
ment. Moreover, at the very time
that Lord Palmerston was openly
sympathising with the French Em-
peror, and repeating in a modified
form the desire which he expressed
at Tiverton, namely, that Austria
should he driven out of Italy
hefore the year's end — his for-
mer colleague, the Duke of Argyll,
was emphatically declaring in the
Upper House that it was ahsolutely
necessary that memhers of the Gov-
ernment should in all their speeches
maintain an impartial tone to hoth
of the helligerent parties. "The
nohle Earl (Ellenhorough) has said
that in order to make our mediation
effectual in Europe, we must he armed
at home"—a position which even his
captious Grace could not deny had
heen ahly assumed hy the Conserva-
tive Government; "hut," continued
his Grace, "another necessity is im-
posed upon them—namely, that they
shall maintain at least some show of
impartiality of opinion." Lord Pal-
merston, at the close of the dehate,
must have heen very much shocked
to learn how he and his expectant Lord
Privy Seal had heen knocking their
heads together. It were tedious to
exhihit all the extraordinary diversi-
ties of opinion which marked the
speeches of the Liherals in this dehate:
hut what else could he looked for,
when the Opposition chiefs were not
only fundamentally at variance with
one another, hut had no common
ground of truth to go upon ?—each
forging fictions of his own wherewith
to assault the Ministry, and regain
the suuny side of the House.
"I know perfectly well," said Roe-
huck at Milford Haven, ''that there
is no party so admirahle in the use
of calumny as the Whig party; and
everything that calumny can desire,
or that lying can supply, will he
adopted hy that party." No hetter
instance of the ahsolute correctness
of this description of the Whigs could
he found than the recent speeches of
their leaders in Parliament, and the
vocifierations of their organs in the
press. Two sentiments were very
strong in this country on the suhject
of the war. One of these whs a
sympathy for the cause of Italian in-
dependence, and a consequent dislike
of Anstrio. The other and still
stronger feeling was one of deep-
rooted suspicion towards Louis Na-
poleon, and a vivid distrust of the
good understanding and manifest co-
operation which exist hetween him
and the Czar. These feelings proceed
from radically opposite views of the
main point to he attended to in the
present war. The first regards the
war only as it affects Austria and
the Italians, and thinks no more of
British interests than if we helonged
to another planet. The second and
, * The course which they pursued," said Lord Palmerston "was an unconstitu-
tional course, hecause to add materially to our naval and military estahlishments,
when Parliament was not sitting, unless they were called upon to do so hy some
overruling necessity, is not a measure consonant with the spirit of the constitution.
J. ow, what that overruling necessity was we have not heard." How very iguorant
the nohle Viscount con make himself at times! The Times, which certainly has
Do hias against Lord Palmerston or in hehalf of the late Government, takes a very
opposite view of the matter. '-Thero is no parallel," says the leading journal '- to
he found for the condition of the British navy nt the moment. It had never as Sir
John Pakington said, hean reduced to such a point hetore; and when, therefore, at that
crisis of accidental weakness, a terrihle European war hurst forth at our very doors,
it wag the hounden duty of Ministers to tbrow precedents to the winds, and see that
the State look no harm. That was their duty, and (hey discharged it. They poured
a reinforcement of 1300 shipwrights into our dockyards; they raised our fleet from
28 to 40 sail-of-theline, and they added 10.000 men to the naval forces of the coun-
try. All praise to them for thoir vigour and decision."—Times, June 13.


1859.1
117
The Changc of Ministry- JVliat next?

far juster sentiment of the popular frighten France from hostilities hy
mind looks primarily to our own holding it out to Europe that in the
interests: it wholly dishelieves the event of war hreaking out they would
prufessioos of the French Emperor, he found acting on the side of Aus-
and regards the present war simply tria, peace would he preserved and
as the first step in the carrying out of war woold he avoided." No wonder
those Napoleonic plans which have for that such daring calumnies, openly
their consummation the humiliation of advanced in the British Legislature,
England. But however radically in- should have elicited shouts of indig-
compatihle these different views of nant repudiation from the Ministerial
the war are, the Whigs, when they henches. The unscrupulous game
opened their customary hatteries of succeeded for the moment, and the
calumny, resolved to turn hoth these Factious won the prize of office for
phases of the popular sentiment which they had shown themselves
against their opponents. To meet ready to ahandon so many principles
the popular sympathy for the Ital- and invent so many calummes. But
ians, they charged the Ministry with already those calumnies are refuted
Laving tbroughout the negotiations and their effects dispelled; and when
favoured Austria and menaced France Parliament resumes its deliherations,
and Sardinia. To meet the still it must do so with the indiguant and
stronger sentiment of suspicion in humiliating conviction that a wrong
regard to the ulterior desigus of verdict has heen wrung from it hy
France and Russia, they declared duplicity and chicane, and that the
that the Ministry had heen wholly men who so duped it are now her
duped, and had heen culpahly iguo- Majesty's Ministers!
rant of the impending crisis; that That the volume containing the
they had heen overreached hy the diplomatic correspondence of the
French diplomatists, and helieved Government on the Italian question
that peace would he preserved, where- should he immediately laid on the
as war was a foregone conclusion of tahle of the House, was promised
Napoleon III. All tbrough the time on the very first night of the ses-
of the elections, the Liheral journals sion; and although the Liherals
rang their peals of calumny, ding- thought fit to shut their eyes to
dong, now advancing the one of these this until they had accomplished
incompatihle charges, now the other, their ends hy defeating the Govern-
The Whig chiefs in Parliament ment, that correspondence has now
played the same game. Eagerly heen carried to every reading-
ru>hing into the dehate hefore the room and fireside tbrough the me-
contents of the Italian despatches dinm of the newspapers, so that
could he known, Lord Palmerston, the puhlic are now in a position to
on the first night of the discus- judge of the matter for themselves,
sion, had the unscrupulous temerity In that hig volume of 400 pages, the
to repeat these calumnies as the negotiations are set forth with an
grand charge against the Ministry, uureserved fulness, which is exceed-
"It is quite plain," he said, " that ingly rare, and which of itself speaks
the Ministry were iguorant of the well for the manly confidence of the
real state of affairs; that they were late Ministry in the goodness of their
uninformed as to what was going on; cause. Such confidence is amply
that they were under a delusion as justified. Instead of heing hlind to
to the intention of the different what was coming, it appears that
parties." He also charged them in even hefore New Year's Day, when
the strongest and most explicit terms the French Emperor gave overt sigus
with having unduly favoured Austria of his wish to quarrel with Austria,
tbroughout the negotiations, and the British Government had descried
with having held out nothing hut the symptoms of coming trouhles,—
menaces to France and Sardinia, had counselled Austria to do all she
'The course they pursued," he said, could for the improvement of the
"hrought on the war, while a dif- internal condition of Central Italy;
ferent course would have prevented and informed her that, in the event
it . . Up to the very last moment, of war, Great Britain would not help
their helief was that if they could only her, hut would strictly maintain a


118
[July,
The Change 0/ Ministry—Wltat next?

position of neutrality* In accord-
ance with the astute policy of the
French Emperor, he had invited
Lords Palmerstnn and Clarendon to
Compile in Decemher last, and,
when there, had, we douht not,
sooght to talk over hoth of them
into approhation of his meditated
intervention in Italy. Lord Palmer-
ston—the ostentatious approver of
the coup d'etat and the author of
the Conspiracy Bill—testified his con-
tinued devotion to Louis Napoleon
hy adopting his ideas on this occa-
sion also, and now openly advocates
them in the British Legislature.
Lord Clarendon appears to have
thought differently. He made no
appearance whatever against the
Ministry on the 8th June, and not
improhahly—like another Whig diplo-
matist, Lord Normanhy—he entirely
dissents from that approval of the
Napoleonic policy which finds favour
with Lord Palmerston. However
that he, certain it is that, on return-
ing from Compiegue, Lord Clarendon
felt it to he his duty to apprise Lord
Malmeshury of the suspicious projects
entertained hy the French Emperor,
and in which it had heen attempted
to secure his own complicity. In
despatch No. 5, addressed to Lord
Cowley at Paris, Lord Malmeshury
(Jan. 10) thus alludes to the communi-
cation made to him hy Lord Claren-
don, and earnestly deprecates any re-
course to arms :—
"Foreigx Office, Jan. 10, 1859.
"My LorD,—Hor Majesty's Govern-
ment have heard from your Excellency
with deep concern, that the state of tho
relations hetween the French and Aus-
trian Courts is of a nature so unsatisfac-
tory, that in your own opinion, and that
of the puhlic of France, it might at any
moment lead to a still further and more
fatal estrangement. The speech of the
Emperor to M. Hiihner, on New Year's
Day, increased tho general alarm, which
has extended" to this country. . . .
"Her Majesty's Government must
state to your Excellency that, in the
evident ill-humour displayed recipro-
cally hetween France and Austria at this
moment, they can conceive no great
national question or interest involved
which can reasonahly cause such a feel-
ing. No portion of the territory of
either is tbreatened hy the other; no
commercial privileges are asked or re-
fused hy either; no point of national
honour is at stake in either country. . .
"I am aware from tho conversation
which Lord Clarendon held lately at
Compiegue with the Emperor, and
which his Lordship repeated to me, that
His Imperial Majesty has long looked at
the internal state of Italy with interest
and anxiety. It may he, although I
have no reason for helieving such is the
case, that he imagines that in a war with
Austria, and having Sardinia as an ally,
he may play the important part of tho
regenerator of Italy. If so, the treaties
of 1815 must he effaced, for such a re-
distrihution of territory could not ho
effected without the consent of the par-
ties to those treaties. But those com-
pacts have insured to Europe the longest
peace on record, and, In the opinion of
Her Majesty's Government, still answer
their original purpose in maintaining tho
halance of power.
"I would not, however, have your
Excellency helieve that Her Majesty's
Government are indifferent to the just
discontent which affects a large portion
of the Italian populations. Yet it is
not in a war hetween France and Aus-
tria that their relief is to he found. Such
a war may hring ahout a change of mas-
ters, hut assuredly it will not give them
independence, and without indepen-
dence, liherty is hopeless."
Having earnestly impressed these
wise views upon the cahinet of tho
Tuileries, Lord Malmeshury (Janu-
ary 12) wrote an equally explicit
declaration of opinion to our Amhass-
ador at Vieuna. In that despatch he
says :—
"Your Lordship will frankly tell
Count Buol that, should such a struggle
as we deprecate he the result of the pre-
sent estrangement hetween France and
Austria, England would remain a neutral
spectator of the contest. . . .
"Her Majesty's Government, sympa-
thising, as they unquestionahly do. with
the sufferings of the Italian population,
would gladly lend their hest efforts to
produce an amelioration in the existing
state of things. But they know that
such amelioration can never he effected,
with any certainty of permanency, hy
war. It may produce a change of mas-
* The correspondence is only given from the hegiuning of the year, hut this
previous correspondence is referred to and descrihed in despatch No. 8 of the puh-
lished series, addressed hy Lord Malmeshury to our amhassador at Vieuna.


1859.]
119
The Change of Ministry—What next?

ters, hut it will not confer independence:
it may, perhaps, contrihute to the eleva-
tion of some fortunate individuals, hut
it will insure the disorganisation of the
whole social system, and indefinitely re-
tard the material improvement of the
Italian population.
"On the othor hand, Iler Majesty's
Government entertain hut little douht
that if Austria and France — the former
an Italian, and hoth Roman Catholic
States — laying aside mutual suspicion,
were to join heartily with a view to pro-
mote, hy peaceful means, the regenera-
tion of Italy, their comhined influence
would speedily effect a change in the
present unhappy state of affairs, and
contrihute to estahlish confidence he-
tween rulers and their suhjects. . . .
"As the common friends, then, of
hoth parties, and as sincerely desirous
of the welfare of the Italian people, Her
Majesty's Government entreat the two
Imperial Courts to lay aside their ani-
mosities, and to act in peaceful concert
for that important ohject."
Could anything he more master-
ly and statesmanlike than these de-
spatches addressed to the two intend-
ing helligerents? But ohserve. In
his speech against the Ministry Lord
Palmerston roundly and repeatedly
charged them with having patronised
Austria and menaced France. "Their
idea was," he said, "that if they
could only hold language hostile to
France and Sardinia, and patronising
towards Austria, they would pre-
serve peace." The despatches, which
were to he immediately laid hefore the
House, and are now puhlished, prove
that the charge which he made so
unscrupulously has not a shadow of
foundation. The despatches prove
that the British Government pressed
moderation upon the Austrian Gov-
ernment quite as much as upon the
French; so much so, indeed, that
the Austrian Minister complained
that it was not right to hear so
hardly upon Austria, a power whose
only wish was to keep out of war.
Lord Loftus who communicated the
ahove dispatch to Count Buol, thus
descrihes what followed :—
"Count Buol expressed himself as
fully sensihle of the kind and friendly
motives which had moved her Majesty's
Government to offer their advice and
counsel at the present critical moment,
and he appreciated the cordial and sin-
cere interest which they evinced for
Austria. But he could not conceal from
mo his fears, that the opinions set forth
in your Lordship's despatch might pro-
duco more harm than good if these same
views and opinions had heen likewise
expressed at Paris and Turin. 'In fact,'
said his Excellency, 'I regret that you
have read that despatch to me; I regret
also that it has heen written. If,' con-
tinued Count Buol, 'you wish to preach
peace and to prevent war, address your-
self with firmness to France and Pied-
mont. We are not meditating war; we
shall not he the aggressors. Tell the
Emperor Louis Napoleon that Great
Britain will not passively look on if his
Majesty should commence hostilities.
Say to him that should he take such a
course it will he at his own risk and
peril. On the other hand, warn King
Victor Emmanuel that England will not
sanction any act of wilful aggression,
undertaken in full peace, hy Piedmont
against Austria. If Great Britain is pre-
pared to hold this language, no war will
arise.'"
Indeed, so far from the French
Government considering itself men-
aced hy any tbreats of British in-
tervention on the side of Austria, it
appears that, on the outhurst of war,
the Cahinet of the Tuileries actually
applied to our Government to co-
operate with it in the struggle! A
more arrogant piece of hypocrisy was
never acted even in the history of
diplomacy. Lord Malmeshury's re-
ply (May 5) is so full and masterly a
statement of the views and policy of
the Government, that we regret its
length forhids us to quote it at length.
We can only give the nohle Earl's
conclusions. He says :—
"Viewing i xpartially the conduct of
hoth Austria and Sardinia in regard to
Italy, and lamenting most deeply the
spirit hy which hoth have heen actuated,
her Majesty's Government can, never-
theless, have no douht as to the course
which it hefits them to pursue in the
present emergency.
"The British Government have always
recoguised as a sacred rule of interna-
tional ohligation, that no country has a
right authoritatively to interfere in the
internal affairs of a foreigu State, or,
with a sound policy, long withhold its
acknowledgment of any new form of go-
vernment which may he adoptod and
estahlished, without territorial usurpa-
tion or ahsorption, hy the spontaneous
wish of its people.


120
[July
The Change of Ministry—What next 7

"The British Government have shown,
for a long series of years, how steadily
they have ohserved these principles, and
they certainly caunot depart from them on
Hve present occasion. . . ,
"77k Government of the Emperor of
the French appears to anticipate that, not-
withstanding tfie ahhorrence with which
her Majesty's Government contemplate
the coming war, and the value which
they attach to the principle of non-inter-
ference, Oiey will yet he hrought to co-
operate with France on Hie present occa-
sion. The Imperial Government 1ms
had too many proofs, of lato years, of
the anxiety of the British Government
to act together with them in all mea-
sures calculated to lead to the general
advantage of nations, to suppose that it
is otherwiso than with sincere regret that
her Majesty's Government feel themselves
precluded, hy every consideration, from
associating inemselvcs with France in the
present struggle. They helieve that that
struggle will ho productive of misery and
ruin to Italy, and, so far from accelerat-
ing the development of freedom in that
country, will imposo upon it a heavier
hurden of present ruin and futuro taxa-
tion. . . .
"The aimost unanimous feeling of the
British nation at Viis moment is one of
disapprohation of the present war, and
an anxious desire to avoid any concur-
rence in Us progress. . . .
"Her Majesty's Government will watch
with the utmost attention the various
phases of the war; and if an opportunity
should present itself for pleading the
cause of peaco and reconciliation, they
will not wait to he invited, hut will at
once tender themselves as mediators, in the
sincere hope that Oieir offer may he ac-
cepted and lead to peace."
And on the previous day the Fo-
reigu Secretary thus repeated his
aunouncement to the Court of Berlin
of that policy of strict neutrality
which the British Government was
resolved to adopt:—
"As far as England is concerned there
are no immediate interests which neces-
sitate any direct action on her part, and
her Majesty's Government feel it to he
their duty to maintain a strict neutrality
hetwee'h e he lligerents. This is also the
feeling of the people of England, and it is
ohvious that any other course at present
would tend to complications which can
scarcely yet he foreseen."
These despatches entirely rehut
Lord Palmerston's charges against
the late Ministry, and place the new
Premier himself in a dilemma from
which he will find it difficult to ex-
tricate himself. They prove that
ever since Decemher, when Palmer-
ston was closeted with Louis Napo-
leon at Compiegue, the British Min-
istry were alive to the impending
danger, and exerted themselves to
the uttermost to ward it off. "Cer-
tain it is," wrote Lord Malmeshury
on the 13th January, "that hoth
France and Austria, are looking for-
ward to and preparing for the day
when their armies shall stand in
hostile array against each other on
the plains of Lomhardy." They fore-
saw the storm while as yet the cloud
on the horizon was no higger than a
man's hand, and hefore last year was
ended they were at work to prepare
for it. So masterly are these de-
spatches of Lord Malmeshury, that he
who runs may read in them the ex-
cellence of the foreigu policy of the
late Ministry. Their puhlication has
at once hrought down the whole scaf-
folding of calumnies hy which the
Whig chiefs climhed hack into power.
Even the Times, devoted to Liheral-
ism though it he, makes frank and
free admission of this, and renders to
the ex-Ministers their meed of praise.
"The correspondence to which we
now have access," says the leading
journal, "dissipates one illusion. It
is now perfectly clear that the war
which France is waging against
Austria is no sudden and unforeseen
struggle, precipitated hy imprudence
or wounded pride on either side.
. . . It caunot he douhted hy any
one who reads these papers, that Vie
extension of French influence hy the
expulsion of the Austrians from Italy
is a settled policy of the Second Em-
pire, and wis resolved upon prior to
and independent of any recent de-
monstrations in Italy." *
In this opinion we entirely concur.
It is precisely what, four months
ago, we gave reasons for helieving to
he the case. A warlike intervention
in the affairs of Italy was a fore-
gone conclusion with Napoleon III.
It was the same also with Sardinia.
Before the 1st of January the British.
* See leading article in the Times of 14th June.


1859.]
121
The Change of Ministry—What next?

Government felt it necessary to re-
monstrate with Sardinia on the war-
like spirit which its King and Min-
isters were fostering, and which could
have hut one ohject and end—a rup-
ture with Austria. On this po'iut it
is well to give the verdict of a nau-
tral or anti-Conservative authority of
such eminence as the leading jour-
nal. The Times (June 14), in an edi-
torial article on the Italian despatches,
thus narrates and comments:—" As
it appeared to her Majesty's Ministers
—and, indeed, to the world generally
—that Victor Emmanuel was dis-
posed to make the discontent of his
neighhours a pretext for extending
his own possessions, Sir James Hod-
son, under the directions of Lord
Malmeshury, remonstrated strongly
with the Sardinian Government. 'To
this hoth Count Cavour and the King
replied that no cause of offence had
heen or would he given hy Sardinia
to her neighhors. His Majesty added
that the political horizon was tbreat-
ening, hat, as far as he was concerned,
the House of Savoy would pursue its
old course of loyalty to its engage-
ments; and while he regretted cer-
tain matters in a neighhouring State,
he had no hesitation in saying that
neither intrigue nor revolution would
ever he countenanced hy his country.
Count Cavour said, that if people ex-
pected that Sardinia was going to
declare war they were likely to he
disappointed.' So much for Royal
and Ministerial assurances. While
the K ing was declaring that he would
countenance neither intrigue nor re-
volution, the marriage of his daughter
had heen arranged, and the eurol-
ment of refugees from every State of
the Peninsula was ahout to hegin."
This duplicity, we regret to say, was
quite io keeping with the act of
treachery hy which the same" Govern-
ment commenced its attack upon
Austria in 1848. When Napoleon
HI., who had himself heen carrying
on extensive military preparations
for some time previously, chose to
make it a suhject of complaint to
Lord Cowley that Austria was re-
inforcing her troops on the Sar-
dinian frontier, his lordship made
the very natural and cogent reply,
that he "could not forget that in
1848 Count Buol, heing then Aus-
trian Minister at Turin, received the
most solemn assurances from the late
King, Charles Alhert, that there was
no intention of attacking Lomhardy,
whereas, when his Majesty gave these
assurances, orders had heen actually
expedited to the Sardinian troops to
march and pass the frontier. It was
not astonishing that a Government
of which Count Buol is a memher,
with a recollection of this act of
treachery, should take care that Aus-
tria was not again surprised.' *
The project of this Italian war was
first sketched out when Count Ca-
vour visited the French Emperor at
Plomhieres last autumn; and the
pear seemed ripe, and the arrange-
ments were consummated hy the
marriage of Prince Napoleon with
the King of Sardinia's daughter, in
the hegiuning of the present year.
Immediately after, and in consonance
with the former of these events, the
French Government commenced to
make demands upon the Court of
Vieuna in regard to the affairs of
Italy — as soon appeared, not with
the ohject of ohtaining a peaceful
solution of the prohlem, hut in order
to find pretext for a rupture. "The
matter stands thus," wrote Lord
Cowley, descrihing the state of mat-
ters when he went to Vieuna —
"France had made certain proposi-
tions to Austria, to which counter-
propositions had heen offered; hut
Austria had never heen ahle to oh-
tain the opinion of the French Go-
vernment upon these latter. She
had more than once asked for that
opinion; and it remained with the
French Government to take the next
step."f But Napoleon III. would not
take that step; and the aversion of
the French Government from any
action in common with Austria, in
order to effect reforms in Central
Italy and the Pope's dominions, was
clearly expressed hy Count Walewski
in one of his interviews with Lord
Cowley. It hetter suited the Mac-
chiavellian policy of Napoleon III. to
prepare for war, than to continue the
* See the hlue-hook, despatch No. 24.
+ Despatch 106.


122
[July,
The Change of Ministry—What next?

negotiations which it lay with him
to resume.* And an open rupture
might actually have resulted imme-
diately, if the British Government
had not promptly, and with masterly
tact, interposed, hy directing Lord
Cowley to ohtain from the French
Emperor a categorical statement of
his demands, and thereafter proceed
to Vieuna in the interests of peace.
Austria had no motive for war. Her
whole circumstances and interests
counselled peace. Self-defence alone
would compel her to draw the sword.
Every statesman in Europe knew
that; and her conduct was in ac-
cordance with it—as these despatches
show. The following extracts give
the gist of Lord Cnwley's account of
his mission to Vieuna:—
"ViEtsA, March 9,1S58.
"My Lord,—Being on the eve of leav-
ing Vieuna on my return to England, I
am ahout to give your Lordship in this
despatch a general summary of the re-
sults of the confidential mission with
which I have heen charged. . . .
"Count Buol has shown tbroughout
the discussions which I have had with
him a sincere desire to avoid the extremi-
ties of war, and to meet the wishes and
advice of her Majesty's Government, as
fur as he thought he might do so without
compromising tho national honour of
Austria I may add, that similar feel-
ings were evinced hy the Emperor. . . .
[After stating that Count Buol assent-
ed at onco to the proposal for the evacua-
tion of the Papal States hy the French
and Austriau forces, Lord Cowley pro-
ceeds :] "With respect to the reforms of
administration to ho introduced into the
Roman States, Count Buol expresses him-
self willing either to resume the negotia-
tion which had heen commenced with
the French Government upon that suh-
ject in 1857, hut afterwards allowed to
drop hy that Government and not hy
him, or to fall hack upon the recom-
mendations made hy the five Powers to
the Pope in 1831-32.
"I come now to the fourth point men-
tioned in your Lordship's instructions—
namely, the ahrogation or modification
of the Austro-Italian treaties of 1841.
Even on this point, on which Austria is
naturally more sensitive than any other,
1 leave Count Buol not only prepared to
act with moderation and forhearance with
regard to the actual execution of those
treaties, hut disposed to examine whe-
ther they may he replaced, with the con-
sent of the other contracting parties, hy
somo other comhination, which, while
relieving Austria from tho necessity of an
interference the responsihility of which
is fully felt, would not risk the chance
of the Duchies hecoming a prey to revo-
lution and anarchy. . .
"Count Buol said that Austria re-
spected the right of all sovereigus and
nations to model their own institutions.
There was much of which he could not
approve in tho constitution of Sardinia,
hut he had never attempted to interfere
with it. On the same principle he had
refrained, and would still continue to
refrain, from all intervention in tho in-
ternal affairs of other Italian States." . .
"Before quitting altogether the suh-
ject of the separate treaties, I may men-
tion that Count Buol considers the secret
article in the Austro-Neapolitun treaty
of 1815, which hinds the King of Naples
not to alter tho institutions of the king-
dom without the permission of Austria,
to he a dead letter. . .
"I have the satisfaction of adding, in
conclusion, that great as is tho irritation
which, it caunot he denied, exists at this
moment against tho Emperor of tho
French, the Emperor of Austria and his
Government would accept, with a sincere
desiro to hring them to an honest con-
clusion, any overtures for a reconcilia-
tion with France, the acceptance of which
would not he incompatihle with their
honour."
Could Austria have done more
than this? Was not Lord Cowley
right to he satisfied with the conduct
of the Court of Vienna? In fact,
everything that the French Emperor
demanded or could demand was con-
ceded. Lord Cowley's mission was
entirely successful. And if it was
rendered of no avail, that was purely
• Louis Napoleon would neither rosume the negotiations, nor yet allow the
British Government officially to interfere. "Her Majesty's Government," wrote
Lord Malmeshury to Lord Cowley, 1 offered tho co-operation of this country, as far
as it could he aiforded with advantage, for hringing ahout an improvement in the
social condition of Italy. To tho sincere regret of her Majesty's Government—a
regret that has heen increased hy suhsequent events—Count Walewski informed
your Excellency, on the 14th of January last, that he did not think the moment a
favourahle one for executing their purpose."


1859.]
123
The Change of Ministry— What next?

and entirely the doing of the French
Emperor. He was hent upon war;
and when thns caught in the net of
peace so skilfully worked hy the
British Government, he immediately
sought a pretext to escape from his
own pledges and professions. He
found pitiful refage in the proposal
for a Congress, made hy Russia;
and which proposal, the Russian
Government now informs ns (see
Prince Gortschakoff's circular) was
made u in order to meet the wishes
of the French Oovernment!" So
the game went on. France tbrew
all ohstacles in the way of ne-
gotiations, and Sardinia continued
her policy of provocation — doing
so to the length of violating her
treaty with Austria, and con-
stituting a camis helli hy openly en-
rolling Austrian deserters in her
army. For several years past Sar-
dinia has heen crashing herself with
taxes in order to engage in this war
of aggrandisement Already her taxa-
tion amounts to the enormous pro-
portion of 54 per cent of the aunual
wealth of the country; whereas in
Modena (one of the states which she
is going to liherate hy incorporating
wiih herself!) the proportion is not a
tenth of that amount, or only 5 per
cent. What the financial pressure
on Northern Italy will he after the
expenses of this war are added to its
present hurdens, is frightful to con-
template. Poor Italy I "ever the
slave of those who make her free!"
"It was an evil hour for herself
and for Europe," wrote Lord Malmes-
hury when the war hroke out, " that
Sardinia lent herself to dreams of
amhition and aggrandisement, and
forgetful of the little sympathy shown
in 1848 hy the Milanese for her cause,
and their ingratitude for her gallant
actions, she has provoked the war in
which she is now engaged. By
violating her treaties of extradition
with Austria; hy fostering deserters
from her army; hy rallying in Pied-
mont the disaffected spirits of Italy;
hy menacing speeches against the
Austrian Government, and hy osten-
tatious declarations that she was
ready to do hattle as the champion
of Italy against the power and influ-
ence of Austria, Sardinia invoked the
storm, and is deeply responsihle to
the nations of Europe. Her Ma-
jesty's Government saw this dangor-
our policy with apprehensions which
have now heen realised, and they
caunot forhear from remarking that
the first and immediate effect of the
war which it has caused has heen the
suspension of constitutional govern-
ment in Sardinia itself."
If there he one man in this coun-
try responsihle for the present war
—and there is one—that man is Lord
Palmerston. By the sentiments
which he expressed, and the politi-
cal hlunders which he committed,
eleven years ago, he prevented a last-
ing solution of the Italian question
then, and sowed the seeds of future
war. Why did not so tremendous
a convulsion as the Italian revolu-
tion and war of 1848 lead to a per-
manent settlement of the affairs of
Italy? Why were so many thou-
sands of lives wasted then, and why
is so much hlood and treasure heing
sacrificed now? Chiefly hecause,
eleven years ago, Lord Palmerston
tbrew away the golden opportunity;
an opportunity not merely within
his reach, hut ahsolutely placed in—
nay, eagerly tbrust into — his hands.
And yet he would have none of it!
He hlundered, and the hour passed;
and when his eyes at length opened
to the truth, and he implored to have
the opportunity hack again, he found
that his own folly and insensate pre-
sumption had put it for ever heyond
his reach. As the dread sequel of
that folly and presumption, we have
the present war. Let us recall those
facts of 1848. At that time France,
torn hy internal revolution, could
take no part in the struggle going on
in Italy. England, free and strong
at home, was mistress of the situa-
tion. She alone could interfere with
decisive effect in the contest hetween
the Italians and Austria: her power
was so acknowledged that she held
in her hands the scales which weigh-
ed the fortunes of hoth parties. At
the height of the contest it needed
not the landing of a single red-coat
regiment on the Italian shores — it
needed not the hlockade of a single
port of Austria or of Sardinia. The
position of England, as related to
that struggle, was omnipotent. She
had hut to speak the word—if that


124
[July,
The Change of Ministry—What next?

word were spoken at the right time
—and her will was law. Yet when
the golden opportunity was offered
to her, pressed upon her, Lord Pal-
merston put it aside. At the very
outset of that contest, when the vast
military strength of Austria was still
unimpaired, and when not a whisper
of insurrection was yet heard in loyal
Hungary, a special message came
from the Court of Vieuna to Lord
Palmerston, offering to place at his
disposal the entire kingdom of
Lomhardy if England would inter-
pose as mediator in the strife.
Then indeed might the Italian ques-
tion have heen settled. But after
ten days' delay, his lordship replied
that his Government would not in-
terfere unless Austria would consent
to give up Venice alsO! The Aus-
trian Government, which then held
the whole Venetian ground with a
fine army and impreguahle forts, re-
fused. If they were to lose everything
hy the fortunes of war, they could not
possihly lose more than Palmerston
so presumptuously demanded. In
despair of meditation, Radetzki was
ordered to draw the sword: in a few
weeks the Sardinian and Italian
forces were driven like chaff hefore
the wind; the old warrior dictated
his terms within a march of Turin;
and the Italian questiou stood again
as hefore. In vain did Lord Palmer-
ston then implore Lord Normanhy
(our amhassador at Paris) to get the
French Government to persuade
Austria to repeat the offer which she
had previously made to him. Aus-
tria had heen forced hy .Palmerston
to hrave the risks of war; she had
hraved them, and had won,—and the
golden hour for mediation was past.
We now know what his lordship's
deliherate hlunder has cost Europe.
"It is impossihle," said Sir James
Graham, speaking a year after the
event, "to say what has heen the
effect of that act of the nohle Vis-
count. My helief is, that the insur-
rection of Hungary was the conse-
quence, and, what I regret as much
as any man, the intervention of Rus-
sia—the interference of that country
to crush the Hungarian insurrection
having thus heen rendered necessary.
. . . And has the nohle Viscount pro-
moted the cause of Italian liherty hy
the course he has pursued? Pied-
mont was twice in one year at the
mercy of the invading army of Aus-
tria. Rome is in possession of the
French army. Lomhardy is under
the military rule of Austria. Venice
was reconquered. And we caunot
forget the daring exploits in Naples,
which the nohle Viscount was so
anxious to uphold."
Sidney Herhert, the new Minister
of War, was another fierce critic of
Palmerston's Italian policy in 1848;
and as Lord Normanhy and others
who then supported Lord Palmerston,
have heen forced to declare against
him now, the hest wish that can he
formed for the new Premier is, that
he will get on hetter with his old
enemies than with his old friends!
It was not, therefore, merely the de-
votion which Lord Palmerston has al-
ways shown to the French Emperor
that pointed him out to the latter as
the hest agent for hringing round
the British Government to favour
this French intervention in Italy.
In 1848 Lord Palmerston had offi-
cially stated, when applied to hy
Austria, that the Italian question
must he left to the arhitrament of
the sword ;* and not yet tbree years
have elapsed since he made a naval
demonstration against Naples, which
proved not only an offence, hut a
laughing-stock to Europe, as the
French Emperor reduced it to a
mere ahortive parade. Napoleon
III., with his own plans for the
future already chalked out, wished
to get the British Government com-
mitted to the principle of armed in-
tervention in Italy, hut had no in-
tention that such intervention should
* In a despatch to our Amhassador at Vieuna (August 1848), Lord Palmerston
then said:—" I have to say that a question so important in itself, and so mixed
up with national feeling and with traditional policy as the question whether Austria
shall or shall not retain a portion of her Italian possessions, has seldom heen
decided simply hy negotiation and without an appeal to arms; and it seems now
to have hecome inevitahle that the fortune of war must, to a certain degree at least,
determine the mauner in which this question hetween Austria and the Italians is
to ho settled."


1859.]
125
The Change of Ministry—What next?

then take place—seeing that for him
the pear was not yet ripe; and that,
moreover, he purposed that all the
glory and advantage of such inter-
vention should accrue to Prance, to
the exclusion of England. Palmer-
ston has gone all lengths to favour
thi- second Napoleon. He showed a
culpahle haste in congratulating the
Dictttor after the cotip-d' elat; and in
needlesly expressing his earnest ap-
proval of that event, he did what no
British minister was entitled to do,
and what no other British Minister
would have done. Again, at the Con-
gress of Paris, did not Lord Palmer-
ston's envoy, and the representatives of
France, without any warning, sigu a
treaty compelling Belginm to modify
her free press according to the de-
mands that might he made upon her
hy the Government of France? A
most despotic measure, hy which
Napoleon III. and Lord Palmer-
ston consummated their entente cor-
dude at the expense of the law of
nations. A pretty pair of Liherty's
champions I The Conspiracy Bill
was a natural sequel to such con-
duct : and if that " sacrifice " also was
cot made to propitiate the French
Emperor, it was no fault of him who
was then, and again is, the Pre-
mier of this free country. It was
hy no accident, therefore, that, when
Napoleon had matured his plans for
the present war, he sent for Lord
Palmerston to Compiegue, to secure
once more his powerful assistance in
cajoling the British nation. How
faithfully his Lordship has acted up
to his engagements there made, is
written in all his actions—alike in
his speeches and in his intrigues—
during the last ten weeks. His
policy is not neutrality even in words.
He makes no secret of his enmity to
Austria, and his love for Napoleon.
"I hope the Austrians will he driven
out of Italy hefore the year is done,"
he says. And at the same time he
derides the idea that we have any-
thing to fear from France, and in-
vites us to accept as the hasis of our
future policy an unhesitating reliance
upon the good intentions of the
Second Napoleon. Is this a man in
whose hands the fortunes of England
can he safe? At such a crisis in the
affairs of Europe, and when the true
character of the Napoleonic policy
has at length hegun to manifest it-
self, can the British nation give its
confidence to a statesman who, hoth
hy his past policy and recent pledges,
has so closely united himself with
the French Emperor, and now openly
eulogises the policy hy which the
latter is paving the way to ulterior
desigus? For the last six months
Napoleon III. has heen counting upon
the accession of Lord Palmerston to
power; and the French journals
have never ceased to clamour for this
event, as the hest thing that could
happen for French policy. Barely
two months ago, when the elections
in this country were just concluding,
the Pays, (Prince Napoleon's organ),
in one of its customary as-aults upon
the Conservative ministry, rejoicingly
expressed its hope that Lord Pal-
merston would soon he again in
power, and that he would "repair
the fault" committed hy his prede-
cessors. "Everything," it continued,
"seems to lead to the opinion that
the return of Lord Palmerston to
power is near at hand; hut we will
speak of him as freely as of his
antagonists, and say—' What great
or good thing can a Whig Minister
come to perform, unless it he to re-
pair the fault committed hy the
Tories?' . . . A Whig Minister
may in a few days save the Continent
from a dangerous crisis, strengthen
the alliance of France and England,
and calm Europe with a word. If it
is not for this great and nohle end
that Lord Palmerston desires to re-
gain power, we caunot understand
his amhition." We hope the Brit-
ish nation will understand his
amhition too. It is on no slight
ground that Lord Normanhy now
withdraws from the Minister with
whom he so long co-operated, and
earnestly warns the country, "Do
not place at the head of the Govern-
ment a Minister who has expressed
sentiments inimical to rights which
we have ourselves hy treaty con-
ferred." The author of the Conspiracy
Bill has made many sacrifices of the
national honour and interests to pro-
pitiate the Emperor of the French;
and now he demands this one propi-
tiation more—that the free heart end
justly aroused spirit of the British


126
[July, 1859.
The Change of Ministry—What next?

nation shall fold themselves up in
hlank apathy and accept himself
again as Premier.
This new Coalition caunot last. It
contains within itself the seeds of its
own speedy dissolution. The two
years which, to its own great detri-
ment and humiliation, the nation ac-
corded to the Coalition of 1852, will
with this new Coalition he consider-
ahly shortened. The Russian war was
the natural consequence of the former
Coalition: who can fully tell what
will he the ultimate consequence of
the present one? When Lord Derhy
was expelled hy the Liheral factions
in Decemher 1852, the Czar Nicholas
rejoiced, sent his congratulations to
his ancien ami the Premier, and he-
gan to get his troops in hand for the
invasion of Turkey. When the fac-
tions again trinmphed, tbree weeks
ago, the French and Russian am-
hassadors openly rejoiced as they de-
scended from the gallery of the House;
and Louis Napoleon has already,
douhtless, sent his congratulations to
the author of the Conspiracy Bill on
his restoration to power. But the
British puhlic regard the new regime
with coldness and suspicion. The
new Ministry, it is true, are Liherals,
and their predecessors were Con-
servatives; hut it is something
deeeper than party-politics that Dow
occupies the mind of the nation. On
the memorahle night of the 10th
ultimo, when the Ministry had heen
defeated and the House was hreaking
up—even at that late hour crowds
tbronged every avenue to the House;
and for whom did those crowds re-
serve their special marks of favour?
Disracli, the fallen Minister, the
representative of the defeated Gov-
ernment, was loudly and warmly
cheered: while Lord John Russell
was hissed! The time has gone hy
when the puhlic will he hlindly led
hy party-names; and a critical period
has commenced in the history of this
country, when the nation will refuse
to tolerate the trinmph of heteroge-
neous factions at the expense of the
puhlic good. Lord Derhy retires
from office honoured hy an extraordi-
nary mark of his Sovereigu's favour,
and two others of the Cahinet have
heen justly distinguished hy unusual
proofs of the Royal esteem. The
country ratifies that verdict of ap-
proval. The Factions trinmphed hy
a stolen success. The Ministry was
expelled without heing heard. But
the truth is already hecoming hetter
known; and we are confident that
ere a year elapse the Coalition will
have ended in disgrace, and the eyes
of the country will turn again to the
Conservative chiefs as its safest
leaders in the hour of danger.


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BLACKWOOD'S
*
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
* -i , *:1,
No. DXXVI.
AUGUST, 1859.
Vol. LXXXVI.
LONnON ExniTlITIONS—CONFLICT OF TDK SCHOOLS.
The serene heaven of Art is rent
asunder hy civil war. The walls of
London Exhihitions are now, as it
were, the hattle-field upon which is
fought out the amhition and the con-
flicting theories of hostile schools.
The times in which we live are criti-
cal. This present moment would
seem, indeed, the turning point whence
either promised hopes may meet with
true fulfilment, or tbreatening fears
lead to still worse disaster. Much
prohahly, however, will depend upon
the praise or the censure which the
puhlic voice shall award to the works
suhmitted to its verdict. For our-
selves, we can fortunately confide in
the calm judgment of the educated
people of this country, whose final
and collective opinion, now at the
close of the London season, has heen
already sufficiently pronounced. Who
has not heard the exclamations—we
had almost said the execrations—of
the eager crowd of curiosity gathered
round the gaunt gravediggers of Mr.
Millais? In like mauner, we helieve,
such works as the "Return from
Marston Moor," hy Mr. Wallis—" Too
Late," hy Mr. Windus—and "The
King's Orchard," hy Mr. Hughes—
have for tbree long months attracted
curiosity only to incite disgust or
provoke to ridicule. Again we re-
peat we have full confidence that the
VOL. LXXXVL
verdict of the British puhlic will he
pronounced on the side of sohriety,
sanity, and the modesty of nature.
For a while the multitude may he
misled. Wild eccentricity—even the
unaccustomed strangeness of gross
maunerism — may for the moment
attract the puhlic gaze, hut in the
end we again find devotion centre
round the names which have long
heen worshipped — admiration again
revert to those works of the old trne
English school, which admits of pro-
gression while it decries revolution,
and is now und ever content to walk
hnmhly with nature, and suhmit to
the teachings of an ancient wisdom.
Thus, after the sensation of a not
uupleasing paroxysm, does the mind
again revert to its accustomed haunts
—seek grateful repose in the grey
stillness of a Creswick landscape, or
find recruited health in the hreezy
spray of a Stanfield shore. In com-
pany, too, with Mr. Roherts, we de-
light to row on the canals, and visit
the palaces of the sea-girt city, now,
as in days of old, ere The Stoneg
of Venice had reared their phantom
forms, and with mirage vapourings
misled the world. The world of na-
ture and of human nature is ever
new, and yet ever old; and thus the
corresponding world of art ever wan-
ders into new phases, and then again
9


128
[Aug.
London Exhihitions—Conflict of the Schools.

reverts to accustomed patlis. We
have wandered, indeed, widely and
wildly; and now, if we mistake not,
the ever-recurring reaction will once
again set in. As critics, it now he-
comes our duty more carefully to
mark the ehh and the flow of the
warring; tide, and especially to keep
good guard over those great land-
marks and heacons which have so
long and so well served for guidance
and saved from shipwreck.
The Royal Academy for the past
season will, in fufure years, he held
illustrious for a mediocrity among
the multitude, redeemed only hy a
startling eccentricity among the few.
Year hy year we again deplore the
ahsence of some of the greatest names.
It is now long since Sir Charles East-
lake has adorned the walls of the
Exhihition hy that tender yet queen-
like heauty, caught from the clime of
Iuly and the art of Venice. Maclise,
for the present year, enters an ap-
pearance only hy a small and unim-
portant work, "The Poet to his Wife,"
—" what a heaven on earth we'd
make it! * Herhert, engaged on his
great commission for the Houses of
Parliament, gives earnest of a coming
master-work only in a heartfelt study
of" The Magdalen." In like mauner,
Ward, more fully engrossed hy his
lahours at Westminster, finds time to
send to Trafalgar Square hut one small
yet faultless work. Frith recruits
himself with leisure after his great
lahour of "The Derhy," and pays
hut minor trihute to art and litera-
ture in the small yet speaking por-
trait of "Charles Dickens in his
Study." Wehster is wholly ahsent,
and Mulready is not at his hest; and
thus is it that portraits "of a gentle-
man," portraits " of a lady "—trihutes
to vanity, wealth, and mere position
—usurp the place of higher art, and
give to the Academy more than ever
the aspect of a shop. Great works
douhtless there are, which must fall
under our detailed examination, at-
testing what our good old English
school has heen and still is. Mon-
strous works, likewise, will call for
our special notice plainly hut sadly
showing to what excess of I'ollly the
new school has fallen—to what dire
results false doctrine has hetrayed
men once rich in healthful genins.
From the Academy of oils to the two
Galleries of water-colours the transi-
tion and the contrast is agreeahle.
Mr. Ruskin prohahly, is the only man
in England who, on entering these
two Exhihitions, could venture to
assert that "the Water-Colour So-
cieties are in steady descent." He is
naturally the only man who desires
to see the extravagance of his own
special views pushed to a consistent
and uniform ahsurdity. On the walls
of the Academy, year after year, he
lovingly dotes over the childish de-
tail, the puerile conceits, the distem-
pered colour, and the morhid fancy,
which, under his fostering oare, have
at length reached the utmost limits
of endurance. From this merciless
persecution of the eye loving tran-
quillity and decorum, refuge may
still happily he found within the
more sheltered retreats of water-
colour art. Even the French, strange
to say, can teach us lessons of mo-
deration and propriety. We shall
presently ask the reader to step into
the small gallery of French art, if
only to show that the hest colour
is often the most suhdued—that the
greatest strength may yet he found
in the simplicity of repose—the near-
est approach even to the infinity of
nature in a suggestive generality and
a pervading hreadth. Never was
there a time when English art was
so distracted. Every Exhihition is
as a house divided against itself.
The conflict of schools, the civil war
of opposing parties tbreaten the em-
pire of Art with hopeless anarchy.
For ourselves, we will not declare
peace where there can he no peace.
We proclaim a war, we preach exter-
mination hy the sword against those
enemies of all that is lovely in art,
who have rutblessly mutilated the
fair form of heauty, and dragged it
tbrough the dirt.
Let us seek, however, if only for a
moment, the hlessed repose of peace
as we contemplate the works of
honoured men sii 1 content to dwell
in the sohriety of simple truth. Eng-
land, a gem of gentlest ray set in an
emerald sea, an Eden of green fields,
and shady paths, and happy homes,
has ever given to English art her
heritage of the sylvan landscape, her
empire of the stormy sea. Mr. Cres-


1859.]
129
London Exhihitions—Conflict of the Schools.

wick in his "Coming Summer," a
river ford, a rnstic wooden hridge,
cattle in the cool stream, a village
church and farm nestling in the trees,
gives us once more that quiet peace-
ful nature which lies so near to our
hest affections. "Under the Old
Bridge," too, a sketcher's and a fish-
er's haunt, ivy-grown, tree-emhower-
ed, pehhle-strewn, is another example
of tluit simple and unadorned truth
which puts to shame the gaud and
the maunerism of masters eager only
for notoriety. Mr. T. Danhy, like-
wise, a name honoured for the father's
sake, claims a landscape deservedly
hung full upon the line, helonging to
the old and the good school, coming
in direct descent from the now much-
ahused Claude Lorraine. "Hills and
Dales in Wales," a calm retreat, shut
out in solitude from the clamBur of
the crowded world, a scene of un-
dulating heights rich in the golden
rohes of autumn, placid in the gentle
glow of evening sky, trees gracefully
symmetrical, slumhering in the twi-
light of the sinking sun, casting soft
shadows, in which peaceful sheep
repose, make together a simple yet
heauteous pastoral, which 8Iieaks of
the love which dwells in nature.
Of Mr. Lee, a name not without
honour, we would say little. His
"Bay of Biscay," .1 large pretentious
work, claiming attention chiefly hy
its size and prominent position, hus,
in its feehle literal handling, in its
opaque and leaden colour, nothing in
common with the dash and the roar
and the glory of an Atlantic storm.
In his "Coast of Cornwall" again,
we have nature in action and motion,
treated hy a painter emphatically
without emotion—a fruitless attempt
to huild up grandeur out of an in-
finity of feehle lahorious detail; one
example, among many, of a man who
has lost the characteristics helonging
to his original mauner under the old
school, without gaining as a recom-
pense that illusive imitation which is
the hoast and the privilege of the
new. ' Mr. Witherington must like-
wise he classed among the Academi-
cians who helong to the past. His pic-
ture of " Wharfedole," like the works
of the last-named painter, shows
nature in a certain garh of academic
propriety, with all that is uuruly and
rough tamed down to the soher lim-
its and lines of carefully-halanced
landscape-gardening. Oue of the
greatest evils incident to the present
management of the Royal Academy
is the prescriptive right possessed hy
every memher, whatever he the merit
of his pictures, to the choicest places
upon the walls of the Exhihition, ex-
cluding men and works who rightly
claim honour and distinction.
We can hoast of no artist more
thorougbly English than Mr. Stan-
field—so vigorous in hand, so manly
in sentiment, so wedded to ocean life
of stormy wave and rocky coast.
His picture of the year, "A Maltese
Xehec on the Rocks of Procida," the
island and castle of Ischia in the
distance, has all the characteristics,
of his hetter works. The dashing,
foaming sea, the shipwrecked craft
driven upon the rocky shore, storm-
clouds hurrying across the sky,
gulls huffeting against the wind, the
castle hanging from the rock, the
suow lying upon the distant moun-
tain, are elements of the grand and
the terrihle, as when nature enacts a
tragedy. But the ways of nature are
so manifold, the walks of art so
diversified, that we place no restric-
tive limits, upon suhject, mauner,
or treatment. Stanfield is admirahle,
hut fortunately, after all his lahours,
nature is still unexhausted. Out of
her infinite store come the storm and
the calm, the grey of morning, the
glow of sunset; each man, according
to his vision or his need, takes and
appropriates all that ho can; and
yet nature, like the infinity of space
or the houndless realms of time,
lies stdl hetore the artist and the
poet, oftering new and exhaustless
treasure. Thus is it that year after
year, on entering our Exhihitions, we
eagerly seek whether any new and
gitted man has opened for us a fresh
delight, penetrated more deeply into
untold mysteries, caught more of the
pathos, the joy, or the sorrow, which
dwells in evening skies or autumn
glow. A National Art, we take it,
as a National Church, shuuning all
sectarian narrowness, must emhrace
every aspect of the truth, and each
phase of varied intellect. A National
Art must he hroad as the universe,
progressive as science, expansive as


130
[Aug.
London Exhihitions—Conflict of the Schools.

civilisation, varied and manifold as
the workings of the human mind.
We rejoice, therefore, when from
time to time new schools arise, and
unaccustomed phenomena tell of some
fresh development. If we admire a
Claude, a Poussin, or a Salvator Rosa
of a past age, we would not seek to limit
our modern men to those days of com-
parative iguorance and inexperience.
Even in art, we stand upon the shoul-
ders of the Past, and can now see at
least further, if we do not always act
hetter. The once narrow sphere of
art, at all events, is widened. Madon-
nas and Holy Families are no longer
the limita of the sacred and the lovely
in human nature. The whole field
of history, with its nohle deeds of
patriotism and valour, all that in
man is great or in woman is gentle,
may now he hrought within the
widened emhrace of modern art.
Thus that fresh schools should from
time to time arise, wo hold to he in-
evitahle. That conflict and hattle
should ensue, we helieve to he hut
the condition of progression. Only
of this one thing let us he zealous,
that in the hattle now raging, truth
may not he worsted.
We shall have occasion to show
that reputations have heen already
wrecked, and that the present course
of events tbreatens with further dis-
aster. Yet we helieve it must he
admitted hy all candid ohservers,
that the new school has heen produc-
tive of some henefit. Even the pre-
sent Exhihition, given up to extra-
vagant excess, contains some works
of comparative moderation, marked
hy that truthful, close study of nature,
which necessarily hrings commensu-
rate reward. The works of the two
younetr I.iunells will perhaps he re-
ceived as the most favourahle ex-
amples of that lahorious detailed
study of nature, which now goes
strangely under the name of pre-
Raphaelitism. They offer to the world
a result somewhere hetween nature,
the pre-Raphaclites, and the works
of Mr. Liunell their father. From
nature they take their suhject, from
the pre-Raphaclites an excess of de-
tail not actually to he seen; and
from their father, a golden lustrous
colour. Thus do they love to paint
the golden "Harvest," fields ripe and
heavy with the waving corn gathered
in hy peasantry, set like lustrous
jewels in among the clustering
sheaves. Different in suhject, hut
allied in richness of colour and close-
ness of study, are the works of Mr.
Hook, taken from the field or flood.
His suhjects or compositions have all
the accidents and casual incidents of
uupremeditated nature. Arural lane
in Devon, crossed hy a rustic hridge,
flooded hy a ruuning stream tbrough
which a crazed cart is rattling and
jolting,—such are the topics which, hy
close study and rich colour, he works
up into glowing pastorals. Then,
again, he takes to ocean, launches
from Clovelly shore the rude fishing-
hoat, rowed hy the strong arm of
hardy storm-heaten tars, tbrough the
foam of an emerald sea suuned hy
rainhows. Incidents the most com-
mon, and suhjects the most homely,
are thus, hy admirahle painting and
richest harmony of colour, wrought
into poetic ardour and intensity.
Two other works also claim a passing
notice as favourahle illustrations of
the close study of nature which gives
to the present phase of our Eng-
lish school its surest promise. Mr.
Knight's "Barley Harvest on the
Welsh Coast" is certainly among the
more praiseworthy works executed
under so-called pre-Raphaclite in-
fluence, careful and truthful tbrough-
out; the detail of rock, field, and
wave kept duly suhordinate to an
unohtrusive general effect. We re-
coguise likewise in Mr. M'Callum's
"Monarch Trees of Windsor Park,"
an accuracy and firmness of drawing
till recently hut seldom found within
the province of landscape art.
The study of nature is of course the
only sure hasis upon which art can
rest, the only certain condition of a
healthful progression. Yet it will
always he a qnestion of some douht
and difficulty how the infinitude
which is in nature shall he hrought
within the limits of a canvass, how
the multitudinous detail of leaf and
herhage, or the illimitahle vastness
of earth and sky, the might of the
passing storm, the power of the dash-
ing wave, shall he hrought within the
inanimate surface of a few square
feet or inches. The very difficulty,
not to iay the impossihility of the


1859.]
181
London Exhihitions—Conflict of the Schools.

task, has proverhially led to a hold
compromise and surrender. Art has
thus in all countries and in all times,
under the consciousuess of ahsolute
inahility, renounced the pretension
to illusive and literal imitation,
taking refuge in the grand hreadth
of a sweeping shadow, and trusting
for the most part to a dexterous or
generalised execution for the sug-
gestion of an impracticahle detail.
This, we say, has heen the uniform
theory and practice of art in all
ages and countries. Bnt now in
these latter days has arisen a strange
and unheard-of attempt, which claims
consideration, on the one hand, hy
its conscientious effort, and on the
other hy its mischievous, not to say
ridiculous, results. Mr. Brett's "Val
d'Aosta" is the latest and most
astonishing attempt made in this di-
rection. Mr. Brett, we may presume,
is a pet protege of Mr. Ruskin. His
picture of last year, "The Stone-
breaker," ohtained in tho Notes the
special praise due to " the most per-
fect piece of painting." "If," says
Mr. Ruskin, "he can paint so lovely
a distance from the Surrey downs
and rail way-traversed vales, what
would he not make of the chest-
nut groves of the Yal d'Aosta! I
heartily wish him good speed and
long exile." Accordingly, in the
present Exhihition, Mr. Brett as-
tounds the world hy mountains and
chestnuts taken from this chosen
"Val d'Aosta," a work which the
laureate of pre-Raphaclite art greets
with these words: "Yes, here we
have it at last—some close coming to
it at least—historic landscape, pro-
perly so called—landscape-painting
with a meaning and a use." "His-
toric landscapes" indeed 1 An art of
as much diguity as the lahour of the
drill-plough, or the plodding of spade
hushandry, with its dotting-in of
seeds and its digging of furrows. A
mosaic of chopped stones, straw, and
ruhhle; a woreted-work tapestry of
"stitch-stitch-stitch," "work-work-
work," "till the heart is sick and the
hrain is henumhed, as well as the
weary hand." "Yes, here we have
it at last;" all that is small and in-
siguificant, moss-grown, dew-dotted,
needle-pointed ; chestnuts growing on
the distant trees, which yet you may
gather with the outstretched hand,
a vineyard lying down the valley-
slope, where you may count pole for
pole; a man in hlack hreeches and
white shirt tilling an arahle fiold at
half a mile's distance, dotted in so
sharp and near that you are sure he
would willingly walk into the fore-
ground, and thence out of the pic-
ture, did you hut call or heckon. Yet
after all this heartless drudgery of
weary days and nagging months, we
would ask Mr. Brett whether he suc-
ceeded in putting in one-tenth of the
leaves on every tree, one-twentieth
part of the herhege wherewith nature
clothes herself without thought or
toil. Did he not feel himself defeat-
ed even on his chosen ground; and
that nature, were it not for compas-
sion, would have disowned him for
her own? But it would appear that
the mercy of less faithful man already
fails him. With some heartlessuess
of cruelty, even Mr. Ruskin can de-
clare that the work is " wholly emo-
tionless." His kind patron hid him
seek long exile in Italy, and then,
when returning with his accomplish-
ed task, the hard lahour of weary
hours and days and weeks, endured
under the hurning sun, in the driving
rain, or the huffeting wind, at once
he is welcomed hy the rehuke, this
"is mirror's work, not man's" work.
Yes, assuredly. How could it have
heen otherwise? You sink your
artist into a drudge, a mere machine
to copy and manufacture. Take the
work, then, such as it is, and he con-
tent. But for mercy's sake say not a
word of the artist's soul. That, of
course, from the first you have re-
solved to sacrifice. In art there are
two kinds of lahour, the one of head,
the other of hand. You have chosen
the small stippling handicraft, the ac-
knowledged refuge of mental weak-
ness you have contracted for your
picture hy the square inch; and com-
mencing in the furthest corner, you
will find so many thousand or ten
thousand dots in the square foot.
You must take the work for what it
is worth, and only he too thankful
that it is not still worse. You have
made your choice, and henceforth
have nothing in common with the
man of passion, who sweeps in the
hroad shadow of the passing storm.


132
[Aug.
London Exhihitions—Conflict of the Schools.

You are wide as the world asunder
from those giants of large soul and
mighty hand, who, like Michacl An-
gelo, hewed Titons from the solid
rock; or, like Salvator among the
tempest-tost Apeunines, or Tintoret
in the vast ceilings of St. Roch, tbrew
upon canvass with rapid hand the
grandeur and dramatic intensity of
mountain and rock, sea and sky.
Train up a school to feeble servility
of hand, and these masterstrokes of
nature are heyond your reach.
The same melancholy tale is told
in other works. "The King's Or-
chard," hy Mr. Hughes, is ono of
the saddest examples of intellect
prostrated, and sound common-sense
turned to ridicule, which has ever
come within our notice. Apple-hlos-
soms for a landscape, and dolls for
the figures, may well convince Mr.
Rnskin that one man at least has
rightly understood the purport of his
teachings. Thanks, we presume, to
this manly tuition, the painter has
here given us an art hoplessly emas-
culate; silks and velvets dolingly dot-
ted with purposeless detail; child-
hood lifelessly lying on trunk of tree;
youth crippled upon knees maunder-
ing mawkish music. This is the
nohle art which has at length heen
secared to our English school; this
the fitting exponent of tinsel words
and hauhle eloquence—childhood
hopelessly childish—impotent in hody
to play or to sport, and in mind inci-
pient of idiotcy.
It is with deep regret that we have
to record still another reputation
wrecked in devotion to a cause which
has this year hetrayed its votaries
into even more than accustomed ex-
travagance. Mr. Wallis, honoured as
the painter of the " Chatterton," has
now dishonoured hoth himself and
his oause hy the " Return from Mar-
ston Moor." This artist, with others
of his school, would seem to hold that
genins is hest shown in the trans-
gres>ion of the limits and the laws
which all previous genins had hitherto
ohserved. The story and intention
of the picture are undouhtedly simple
and heartfelt. The return of a worn
and wounded knight to home and
anxious parents; the eager attitude
of the father rising to meet the son's
approach; the homeish housewife
mother, the model of domestic solici-
tude, are sufficient to show what
power of expression is within this
artist's reach, did he hut soherly
follow the simplicity of nature. The
imitation of nature which was once
the watchwanl of the school, is here
seen in colour the most outrageous,
and detail ahsolutely impossihle. The
hlaze of a sunset sky, red, green, and
saffron yellow, the knight's features
gory with hlood, or glowing from the
heat of hattle; roses and flowers of
hrazen face and staring eye, verily
hlind the soher vision, and darken
and dazzle hy excess of light. In in-
finity of detail the work is not less
distracting. The father's heard is
counted hair for hair; the swallow
swooping down with swift flight is
yet painted with all the detail of
heak, eye, and plumage; pigeons are
cooing on the distant dovecot; a
harn-door fowl is crowing hetween
the stirrup of the rider and the
horse's leg, and thus from centre to
furthest corner is every inch crowded
with incident, till the picture, like a
drop of Thames water is seen in the
oxybydrogen microscope, is am.izing-
ly wonderful, hut monstrously dis-
agreeahle.
There are other works—" Too
Late," for example, hy Mr. Windus,
and "The Burgesses of Calais"—
which might challenge our criticism,
did time permit. We must, how-
ever, at once hasten to the pictures
of Mr. Millais—the "Vale of Rest,"
and "Spring"—which, even after the
n jtorious "Sir Isumhras" and his
wondrous wooden horse, have taken
the world hy a fresh surprise. "The
Vale of Rest" of the present year is
undouhtedly a work of power, hut it
is the power of repulsion; it attracts
attention only to repel sympathy.
The crudest green of a grass-grown
churchyard; the unmitigated hlack,
conflicting with the chalky white of
the rmns' attire; the two nuns them-
selves, the one inveterate in lahour,
the other desperate in ugliness,—con-
stitute that high success which is not
to he distinguished from the depth
of failure. In the churchyard itself
is a certain hlack solemnity, in the
whole scene a shuddering horror: —
the hlack-white dress, the <lirty face
of the nun shovelling away the


1859.]
188
London Exhihition*—Conflict of the Schools.

murky mould of decayed mortal-
ity; the companion nun, seated on
tomhstone, with clasped hands and
mask-like face, as of a death's-head
skull, with large wandering eyes,
finding no rest even in this vale of
rest; nuns which seem in rohust,
rude, massive health and vigour,
fitted to win heaven hy physical as-
sault,—these certainly are sufficient
claims to attract round this astound-
ing work crowds of curious gazers,
who hasten with eager curiosity,
pause in murmuring dismay, linger,
and then at length steal away with
horrors of memory not to he wiped
out. This desperate attempt, which
insults good taste and outrages all
estahlished usage—which is painted
with a rude, coarse, and slovenly
haste, as if meant for a desigued re-
versal of former careful years of
study—retains yet some casual re-
miniscence of hetter days. The
sapphire of the evening sky, in
which a purple cloud silently floats;
the darkness of solemn trees, which
stand as mourning mutes around the
ahode of death; the earnest intent
of the grave-digging nun, tbrowing
ont the death-laden mould with the
earnestness of duty, as the servant
who, in George Herhert's poem,
swept a room to the glory of God,—
these are the only remnants of that
genins which ohtained recoguition in
the painting of "The Huguenots"
and "The Order of Release."
"Spring" is the second work in
which Mr. Millais has condescended
to arrest attention hy the ruin of his
previous reputation. Spring—yes,
spring with a vengeance — in the
rank growth of orchard grass, in the
heavy profusion of apple-hlossoms;
spring in the hudding, pouting,
flowery youth of eight yornig maid-
ens decked with garlands, junketing,
standing, kneeling, lying, in every
possihle posture of awkward uurest
and ill-humoured discontent. We
have often heard of truth versus
heauty; hut that even heing now a
worn-oqt novelty, a new surprise is
sought in the overtbrow of hoth
truth and heauty conjoined. Apple-
hlossoms of fourfold their natural
size—an execution in which consci-
entious lahour seems desiguedly set
at naught—are strange protests com-
ing from a man who, in his picture
of "The Huguenots," devoted, it is
said, tbree months to the painting of
a hrick wall. That avowed despisers
of heauty should at length degene-
rare into devoted disciples of ugli-
ness, is perhaps not so surprising.
Yet for so hold and so hald an expo-
sition of the theory, few prohahly
will have found themselves prepared.
Hair moulded of ruddy sand, lying
lank upon the shoulders as dishevel-
led rope-ends; features without form
or delicacy; lips pontingly pettish,
re-produced in eight examples of this
remarkahle family, constitute a sis-
terhood deliherately dedicated to the
ungraceful.
With these two desperate works
we close our notice of a school which
year hy year taxes the puhlic taste
to the utmost limits of endurance.
Starting, some seasons flow gone hy,
with all the aspects of a hostile yet
united schism from the old esta-
hlished faith, we now find at length
internal division reiguing within the
narrow limits of its communion. On
the one hand we have seen certain
men still servilely prostrated and
hound down to the mere letter and
dead detail of a miscalled nature,
wholly losing its larger spirit, and
forgetful of that greater life and
glory which rule within the elements.
This is the school of apple-trees and
cherry-hlossoms—the mere dotting-
in of primroses, hlue-hells, and fore-
ground flowers, at the dictation of a
critic whose service has at length he-
come an insufferahle tbraldom. We
protest against a tyrauny which
year hy year prostrates the strength
of our rising men, and has gone far
to hlight the promise of our English
school. Mr. Millais has, however, at
last hroken loose from the hinding
fetters, hut with a reaction so despe-
rate that shipwreck tbreatens on the
further shore. In this secession from
the honds of the once sacred " hro-
therhood," we see still further confu-
sion falling on the new school, now
left without its leader. For ourselves,
in this reiguing discord, we would
wish to inculcate the widest tolera-
tion. Nature, like heaven itself, has
room enough and to spare. Puhlic
taste, too, is so widely various as not
only to tolerate hut demand genins


184
[Aug.
London Exhihition*—Conflict of the Schools.

the most various, and art the most
diversified. Let every school of art,
then—every manifestation of honest
talent, hoth great and small—live aud
prosper. But what we specially re-
gret is this — that men, manifestly
meant to emhrace the universe,
should sell all that is great and
nohle within their souls to a petty
paltry calling, in which the slowest
and the weakest intellects must oh-
tain the greatest glory. What we
condemn most strongly is, that men
ricbly endowed as Mr. Millais, should,
to a mistaken and pretended truth,
sacrifice that eartbly, nay, heavenly
heauty, which, under the sway of
graces and muses, and even under
the later revelation of angels, has
heen ever the hrightest heritage of
art.
For some years past, the strength
of the English school has heen placed
on record, not upon the walls of the
Royal Academy, hut in the corridors,
the rohing-rooms, the ante-chamhers,
and the Royal Gallery of the Palace
at Westminster. What the cathe-
dral of Milan, with its crowd of
four thousand statues, has heen to
modern Italian sculpture, the new
palace at Westminster, with its sta-
tues of statesmen, and its grand
frescoes commemorative of great
deeds in English history, will he-
come to our national school of art,
giving that imperial patronage which
has ever, tbrough incited patriotism
and promised fame, stimulated the
artists of all times to their nohlest
works. We learn from the reports
of the Royal Commissioners that Mr.
Cope has received orders for eight
frescoes in the Peers' Corridor,
and Mr. Ward a similar commission
for the Commons corridor. Mr.
Dyoe has already executed in the
Queen's Rohing-room frescoes taken
from the legend of King Arthur, "The
Virtues of Chivalry," "Religion,"
"Courtesy,'' Generosity," "Mercy,"
—works which the Commissioners
have pronounced as " altogether sa-
tisfactory, whether regarded in their
general treatment, or as examples of
the method of fresco-painting." In the
last report, too, we find this entry:—
"We propose," say the Commission-
ers, " to commission Daniel Maclise,
R.A., to paint in frescoe one of the
suhjects in the Royal Gallery, at the
price of one thousand pounds." From
the seventh report we find that the
Commissioners intend to devote, the
Peers' Rohing-room to Scripture
history. This hall will comprise
tbree large and six smaller compart-
ments, two measuring 20 feet hy 10
feet, the third measuring 22 feet, also
hy 10 feet; and the six smaller com-
partments 7 feet wide hy 10 feet
high. "Your Committee," says the
report, "heing desirous to vary the
proposed decorations, and conceiving
that Scripture suhjects, as affording
scope for the highest style of desigu,
and as heing especially eligihle on
other grounds, should hy no means
he excluded, considered that the
ahove-named looality, in which the
principal compartments intended for
lwilting are of considerahle magui-
tude, would he well adapted for such
suhjects. Your Committee were of
opinion that the illustrations should
have reference to the idea of Justice
on earth, and its development in
Law and Judgment, and that the
following suhjects would he appro-
priate." These suhjects emhrace
"Moses hringing down the Tahles
of the Law to the Israclites," "The
Fall of Man," "His Condemnation
to Lahour," "The Judgment of So-
lomon," and "The Vision of Daniel."
From the last report we learn that
the large cartoon for the first of these
suhjects, "Moses hringing down the
Tahles of the Law," has heen com-
pleted hy Mr. Herhert, to " the entire
satisfaction" of the Commissioners.
In the magnitude and importance of
these projected or already accom-
plished works, taxing the energies of
our hest artists, the reader will find
sufficient explanation of the fact that
the Royal Academy, for this and
some previous years, has not reflected
the strength of our English school.
Yet never was there a time of
greater promise. A school hitherto
of small cahinet limits, suhservient
to mere private domestic wants, will
now take a wider range. Our artists
will he enlisted in the cause of our
country's glory; they will he called
upon worthily to record in painted
history those great deeds, those tri-
umphs of war, policy, or enterprise,
tbrough which now at length, in the


1859.]
135
London Exhihitioris—Conflict of the Schools.

progression of the centuries, England
finds herself free in constitution, great
in commerce and in wealth, rich in
all wherewith civilisation can reward.
A task more glorious than thus to
emhlazon a nation's history and ho-
nour in the palace of a people's legis-
lation, has never yet incited painter's
genins; and henceforth it will he seen
whether the school of English art can
rise to a diguity commensurate with
this duty.
But there are pictures fortunately
in the present Exhihition which give
assurance for the future. Mr. Her-
hert's " Mary Magdalen," a study for
a picture of " The Holy Women pass-
ing at Dayhreak the Place of Cruci-
fixion," helongs to that earnest and
spiritual school from whence arose
the religiouS works of the middle
ages. It is the grey of the early
morning, and with spices the holy
women pass the place of crucifixion
—deep sorrow, as of long watching
and weeping, is seen in swollen eye
and anguish-stricken mouth; yet
grief has not marred a heauty which,
though shadowed, still shines with
spiritual light. The careful and
serious work of Mr. Dyce helongs
likewise to the same earnest mauner.
"The Good Shepherd," carrying the
lamh in His hosom, enters hy the
strait gate into the sheepfold. The
sheep follow in His steps, for they
know His voice, and are known of
Him. This work is fitly raised hy a
severity of treatment and a spiritu-
ality of type ahove the ordinary
aspect and incidents of actual life.
The rohes are long, flowing, and
stately, the head is high and nohle
in form, the features are cast in the
purest spiritual type. It is an ideal
art, arising, like religion itself, from
an aspiration of the soul, seeking a
perfection not fully realized on earth.
Of the works executed hy other
Academicians, more onerously en-
gaged, as we have said, elsewhere,
we must take some passing notice.
Mr. Maclise, in "The Poet to his
Wife," gives some indication of his
accustomed merit and his well-known
maunerism. In Mr. Cope's " Cordelia"
we are treated to a refined drawing-
room picture of hright colours and
pleasing forms, where delicate heauty
is the type of iunooence, and liquid
tearful eyes the token of suffering.
Mr. Ward, too, in his small and care-
ful picture, "Marie Antoinette listen-
ing to the Act of Accusation," recalls
the rememhrance of honoured works,
and shows the full vigour of well-
known powers. Of other men it is
scarcely necessary that we should
speak, just hecause nothing new re-
mains to he added to long-reiterated
commendation. Stanfield, Roherts,
and Landseer are among the esta-
hlished institutions of the English con-
stitution, and we could only desire,
were it possihle, that their essentially
British art could last as long as
British liherties. Of course Mr.
Stanfield is still master of the sea,
fearing no foreigu invasion; Mr.
Roherts still rows his gondola at
Venice, as if no hostile fleet lay he-
yond the Lido; and Sir Edwin paints
deer and dogs, knowing that no talk
of war can lessen the love for Eng-
lish sport. When to this we add that
the sheep and cattle of Mr. Cooper
still repose under the shade of trees
or in the glow of sunset; that Mr.
Frank Stone, ever young in pereunial
love, still indulges in the soft sickli-
ness of a lacbrymose sentiment; that
at least one painter has again induced
Milton to do accustomed duty in dic-
tating poems to wife and daughters,
with all the variety of which the suh-
ject is now susceptihle;—when to all
this we assigu even more than usual
space to portraiture—heauties at hal-
conies, statesmen at columns, ladies
with vases of flowers hacked hy hack-
nied hackground of ponderous cur-
tains, we have prohahly said quite
sufficient to enahle the reader to
place himself in the midst of an Exhi-
hition hy no means remarkahle for
unaccustomed merit.
Yet we are doing some injustice to
an Academy which, with all its short-
comings, must still he accepted as the
great event of the current year. The
names of Creswick, Stanfield, Roherts,
and Landseer, of Ward, Maclise,
Cope, Herhert, and Dyce, have al-
ready heen mentioned. Others yet
remain who have this year appar-
ently made some effort to surpass
themselves. Mr. Pickersgill exhihits
two works of more than usual amhi-
tion, and more than ordinary success.
In the present material, literal, and


135
[Ang.
London Exhihitions—Conflict of the SehooU,

purely naturalistic aspect of our Eng-
lish school, when every head must
he an actual portrait, and every
ohject he marked hy the literal
fidelity of a photograph, it is almost
inevitahle that the more ideal and
imaginative efforts of Mr. Pickers;:ill
should meet with some disparage-
ment. His "Warrior Poets of the
South contending in Song," whatever
he its defects, is certainly one of the
most deliherate and successful of pro-
testa against the existing tendencies
of our schools. We hold it to he no
reproaoh that the rich, sumptuous co-
louring of Venice,the sensitive and vo-
luptuous heauty of Giorgione, the De-
cameron pienics of a poetic romance,
should find some sympathetic re-
sponse in the genins of England.
We can admire the painstaking
plodding of a simple art dedicated
to a cottage peasantry, hut imagina-
tion also loves to revel in glowing
phantoms of an ideal heauty, fair
maidens, luscious in the first hlush of
glowing youth, decked in the lustrous
glitter of richest rohes, heads gently
tMjuding to the sweet sound of song,
hands sensitive to the dying cadence,
and soft to the touch of amorous love.
This picture, then, though somewhat
conventional, helongs to a pleasing
poetic style, leading the fancy from
the actual walks of daily life faraway
into the fahled land of song. Some-
what allied in school is Mr. Watt's
"Isahella," a refined poetic head—a
sufficiently close nature study ele-
vated to an ideal heauty. Mr. Doh-
son's "Archers of Judah," likewise,
though not one of his hest works, is
still commendahle as helonging to
that careful school, not unmindful
of Italian heauty and tradition, which
seeks for an elevation ahove the ways
of common life. Mr. Goodall, too, is
this year specially great, if not in the
mauner of Italian art, at least with
the advantage of a well-chosen Italian
suhject. "Felice Ballarin reciting
Tasso to the People of Chioggia" has
heen deservedly one of the chosen
favourites of the present season.
Felice Ballarin, with raised hand and
with somewhat of Italian fervour,
recites to eager listeners those echoes
which Byron tells us in Venice are
no more. There is unity of purpose,
yet every variety of character, in the
gathered audience. The colouring
is rich, as of a suhdued lustre lighted
up hy the sparkle of sunshine. With
all the picturesque advantages of
Italian costume, the quickness and
intensity of Italian character, some
heads eagerly drinking in every
thought, others gaping in stupid
wonder, this work, without actually
rising to the highest rank, has yet
deservedly ohtained the attention
due to a telling suhject skilfully
treated. The two southern penin-
sulas have long heen hoth the hattle
and the sketching ground of Europe.
Whenever politicians need a griev-
ance, or painters a suhject, they have
long heen accustomed to go either to
Italy or to Spain, where they at once
find just what they want. Thus Mr.
Phillip takes us once again to the land
of flirting fans and witching eyes, and
in his somewhat trivial and purpose-
less picture, "The Hnff," treats us
with two houncing hlack-eyed Span-
ish heauties, sumptuously decked in
silk, and flowered shawl of wondrous
fringe and fahric We only regret
that perhaps the hest hit of painting
on the walls of the Academy should
take for its suhject trivialities of
dress ranking with the flounced
flutter of Parisian fashion.
But suhjects pretending to a higher
purpose have not always the advan-
tage of painting and treatment equal-
ly dexterous. Mr. Egg's "Night
hefore Naschy" is a hrown leathery
moonlight wholly unconscious of the
silvery sentiment—a Cromwell on
his knees asking God, as we natur-
ally supposed, to save him from his
friends, including the present paint-
er. Our English art loves to dwell
on the picturesque accidents and
circumstances of religion, instead of
reaching to its inward spirituality
or essence. In this it differs wholly
from the great religious school of
Italy. It paints Covenanters on
Scottish moor, Pilgrim Fathers on
the distant western shore, tbrowing
in the shadowing sorrow of exile,
driven from a loved home, rather
than the hrightening light of a new
spiritual life. Mr. Facd's "Sunday
in the Backwoods" is a most favour-
ahle example of this homeish senti-
ment hallowed into " practical piety"
—a kind of Wilkio school of art


1859.]
137
London Exhihitions—Conflict of the Schools.

haptised into a sort of camp-meeting
religion, painted in a plain honest
way, heartfelt and earnest, with a
practical Scottish eye looking lovingly
on the life which now is, while it
provides wisely for a life which is to
come. In English art the State
naturally goes hand-in-hand with re-
ligion, and thus trial hy jury has long
heen part and parcel of the constitu-
tional faith and pictorial resources of
the British people. Mr. Solomon's
well-known picture of a past year,
'" Waiting for the Verdict," now
finds its final issue in the companion
work "Not Guilty." This picture,
sufficiently vigorous and telling,
share:', however, the proverhial fate
attendant on the continuation of a
once-told story. The mind wrought
into the tbreatening fear of a tragic
doom, the plot once marshalled for
effect, each repeated echo palls upon
the ear, and what ought to end
in climax necessarily falls into an
expiring decadence. The same fate
has likewise hefallen Mr. O'Xeil's
"Home Again," the companion
picture to the "Eastward Ho!"
of the last season. The faces and
the figures which a year ago clam-
hered up the side of the out-
hound ship, are here seen streaming
down upon their return. The tears
ehed over the lost mingle with the
rapture of the welcome home. The
painting is vigorous, yet hoth in
spectator and artist is wanting that
ardour which first inspiration gives.
In art, moreover, a creature of the
imagination, the fear and the hope
of an untold future are more potent
than the prescrihed limits of a known
result.
We have as yet made no mention
of a man over whose gentle memory
the grave has now cast its shadow.
Mr. Leslie's pictures of the present
year, "Hotspur and Lady Percy,"
and "Jeanie Deans and Queen Caro-
line," showed somewhat painfully the
growing weakness of waning powers.
He had already reached his sixty-
fourth year, and declining health had
cast the pallor of a sicklied hue and
the feehleness of a faltering hand over
his later works. Fortunately, hoth
in the Vernon Gallery and at South
Kensineton, in such pictures as "My
Uncle Tohy and the Widow Wad-
man." "Sancho Panza." "Le Bour-
geois Gentilhomme," with other well-
known suhjects, the nation possesses
works whose immortality lies heyond
the touch of sickness or of death.
For refined sentiment pointed hy
quiet satire; for gentle comedy
where the loud laugh seldom enters;
for polite polished mauners of studied
stately propriety, hetraying yet some
pardonahle weakness quietly to he
enjoyed all alone hy spectators not
whispering a word—for these delicate
suhtleties of art the name of Leslie
will he long rememhered. Let it he
rememhered, too, that in thus de-
scending to amuse hy comedy, he
could yet improve mankind in purity
and sentiment.
On entering the French Exhihi-
tion, we come upon a fresh nation-
ality, and are at once specially struck
with the sohriety, and we may
say propriety, of colour and effect.
The French Exhihition, as contrasted
with our own Royal Academy, affords
repose for the eye, calm neutrality
of colour, softness of outline merg-
ing into the haze of ohseure dis-
tance, with, at the same time, a
total ahsence of the Millais school
of gravediggers, and Mr. Ruskin's
missal-painters of cherry-hlossoms.
French art, however, of course em-
hraces the usual diversity of suh-
ject and of mauner, corresponding
with the ever-varying aspects of
individual character and taste. The
Naturalistic school, for example, is
strong in such works as Prion's
"Raft upon the Rhine," and Mr.
Knaus's "Bavarian Policeman ar-
raiguing a Camp of Gypsies." On
the other hand, the school of a re-
fined and ideal spiritualism will he
at least rememhered, if now no longer
seen, in the works of Ary Scheffer,
an honoured name lost during the
past year from the ranks of French
and European art. High art is re-
presented hy M. Charles Louis Mul-
ler in a picture taken from the tragic
fate of Marie Antoinette, an artist
still hetter known in Paris as the
painter of the grand historic picture
in the Luxemhourg, "The Summons
of Victims in the Reigu of Terror,"
and yet more recently, hy the execu-
tion of a fresco ceiling in the state
apartments of the Louvre, oommemo-


138
[Aug.
London Exhihition*—Conflict of the Schools.

rative of the dawn and development
of civilisation under the reigu of
Charlemague and the dynasty of
Napoleon. Couture, too, sends a
small copy of one of the greatest
pictures executed in modern times,
"The Romans of the Decadence," so
remarkahle for its drawing, composi-
tion, supreme knowledge, and skilful
treatment, in all of which the French
school is avowedly uurivalled. In
light elegant suhjects of the toilet and
the drawing-room, often the mere ex-
cuse for silks, satins, and high finish,
Chavet's " Chess-Players," and Plas-
san's "Bouquet," attain perhaps, in
that department, all that can pos-
sihly he desired. The domestic hum-
hle walks of simple poverty caunot,
of course, he confided to hetter hands
than Edward Frere, whose "Cut
Finger," and "Evening Prayer," are
prohahly now as well known in Eng-
land as in France. In landscape
nature, Lamhinet, an accepted Eng-
lish favourite, is equally rustic, uupre-
tending, and simple. And lastly
Leys, a namo likewise honoured in
the arts, takes us, in his " Early Days
of the Reformation," far hack into
the quaint heartfelt times of Van
Eyck and Alhert Durer. Thus do
we see that French art is a world
complete within itself, comprising
every aspect of thought sacred or
secular—a world of conflict and of
hattle hetween opposing schools, all
growing up and nurtured together as
tares and wheat in one great field,
the evil warring against the good,
and all, it may he, working together
for some great end.
We have recently spent some
hours in the examination of the well-
nigh four thousand works hy living
artists this year exhihited in Paris.
Some, after the traditions of the
French school, are monstrous in mere
maguitude; many to the last degree
extravagant—a failing common to
French genins; others, of course,
without genins altogether; and,
taken for all in all, the present medio-
crity of French art under the second
Empire contrasts with those days of
liherty, eloquence, and expansive
genins, when Guizot, Cousin, Ville-
main, and others, lad the van of philo-
sophy and literature, and Delaroche,
Scheffer, Ingres, with other men now
no longer hefore the puhlic, gave to
the French school of art a supremacy
over Europe. Yet we must confess
that we never enter an Exhihition of
French works, even now in their com-
parative decadence,without heing con-
scious of a vigour, hreadth, and clever
versatility, which seem specially the
gift of that nation. It may he said
generally that the French succeed in
everything they attempt Horace
Vernet and Yvon paint pictures from
thirty to sixty feet long, while Meis-
sonior, Plassan, and Chavet, concen-
trate their more detailed genins on
the high finish of a few square inches.
Even the small hut select Exhihition
in Pall-Mail may tenoh our English
school many an unaccustomed les-
son. Strange as it may seem, we
may learn even simplicity from these
consummate masters of artifice. How
simple and unohtrusive are the hum-
hle works of Edward Frere, how suh-
dued and tender with the delicate
greys and dusky hues in which pov-
erty and the cottage home are fit-
tingly clad. Lamhinet, again, who
has heen claimed as a French pre-
Raphaclite—what gentle repose, what
heartfelt healing to the eye, in the
simple modest nature, in the retiring
hashfulness of shadowy greys, which,
in his small landscape pictures, seem
to uphraid our modern English school
of skies as of a consuming firma-
ment, and figures as if caught from
the furnace of Aheduego. Then we
pass from unconscious simplicity to
works of an affectation peculiarly
French, somewhat hetween the art-
less and the artful; nature waver-
ing inconstantly from a semi-nude
simplicity of toilet, to the full-
flounced fashion of the drawing-
room. Anon in ever-varying mood,
seized hy a fresh caprice, forsaking
epicurean elegance, a desperate
plunge is made into the wilderness
of rude untamed nature. In Brion's
"Raft upon the Rhine," for example,
we descend to the level of a lower
nature—men vigorous in arm, and
rough in garh, contending against the
elements—a work handled with a
certain slap and dash, marked hy
hroad yet pointed character, with all
that reckless effrontery of genins
which our more staid English pro-
priety seldom permits.


1859.]
139
London. Exhihitions—Conflict of the Schools.

The French again, unlike our Eng-
lish school, are not afraid of a low-
toned picture. Leys' "Scene from
the Siege of Antwerp" is shadowed
hy the deep solemnity of a Remhrandt
mauner. Brion's picture is dusky in
the ohscure grey of morning. Knaus's
"Gipsy Encampment" is sheltered
under the shade of trees, veiled from
the piercing eye of day, as if darkness
kindly shielded deeds which dare not
face the light. And, lastly, Rosa
Bonheur's small hut exquisite work,
"Sheep" hleating upon the sedgy
heath, is luminous in suhdued light,
toned down to the modest sohriety of •
nature. "Early Days of the Reforma-
tion," hy Leys, in many respects the
memorahle work of the present
season, may likewise teach a lesson,
and serve as a contrast to many mas-
ters in our English school. It is a
solemn low-toned picture, of shadowed
dusky colour, somewhat hard and
austere, purposely taking the specta-
tor hack to the art of Alhert Durer
and the garh and the times of the
German Reformation. Wiesseling,
the carpenter of Antwerp, is ex-
pounding the Scriptures to eager
listeners come together hy stealth.
Every countenance is marked hy
conscientious earnest truth-seeking;
an expression which is indeed car-
ried tbroughout the picture hy the
artist's careful and truthful execu-
tion. It is, indeed, hoth in art-
treatment and in suhject, a work of
Cbristian humility. We stand in the
midst of good, unselfish, unostenta-
tious people, simply clad in modest
colours, as if they thought little of
the outward adorning of the hody,
steadfastly seeking to know the truth,
and henceforth to conform their
lives according to its teachings.
What a contrast in the humhle
suhordination of this work to the
ostentatious and flagrant excess of
our English pre-Raphaclite pictures,
where every colour strives to kill
and hlind its' neighhour; where every
detail, instead of hashfully retiring
into shadow, protrudes its small con-
ceit. We have found, then, that
French art is marked hy moods and
mauners which, to our English eyes,
at once pronounce the houndaries of
a foreigu school. Of its thorough
and well-grounded instruction there
can he no question. In drawing it is
matcbless, even in its rough careless-
ness showing unwonted power. In
action it has the facile movement of
a people ever restless for adventure.
Even in its proverhial ahandon it
ohserves at least the laws imposed
hy artistic effect. Only in one thing
does it sin most grievously. It pos-
sesses no conscience, knows no pro-
priety, and too often seeks from
Satan a demon inspiration.
Water-colour art may he considered
as a school standing apart from all
others. To French art it constitutes,
hoth in material and treatment, a
marked contrast Even after our
English school of oils, as represented
at the Royal Academy, the two gal-
leries of water-colour drawings aiford
a quiet grateful retreat, where the eye
may rest from the persecution of
fiery colour, where good taste is no
longer insulted hy ungainly forms,
hut reposes in the satisfied enjoy-
ment of nature-loving heauty. At
the present moment especially it is
fortunate that in water-colours it is
not easy to he so decidedly disagree-
ahle as in oils. Broad liquid washes
reduce to pleasing unity and well-
toned harmony; the frequently too
ohtrusive detail of modern oil-paint-
ing is foreigu to a medinm of trans-
parent colour chiefly relying on har-
mony and purity of tone and hreadth
of general effect. Thus, while the
confines of disgust are narrowed, the
power to please and to minister to
refined and delicate delight is with-
out limitation. Gigantic size of sur-
face, colossal proportion of human
figure, are not suited to the material;
and just as the highest walks are
closed hoth to amhition and extra-
vagance, is the painter induced to
rely on the refinements and delica-
cies of his art, content to he simple
and heautiful and tranquil, to look
upon nature as a poem of tuneful
cadence, musical and harmonious—
a song to the affections.
Of the New Society it is perhaps
not necessary that we should say
much. We can only hope that our
readers are so well acquainted with
its merits as not to need our detailed
description. In the eye of criticism
the Gallery is perhaps chiefly remark-
ahle for the somewhat too amhitious


140
[Aug
London Exhihitions—Conflict of the Schools.

painting of suhjects which the paint-
ers themselves have never seen. Mr.
Warren, for example, delights in twi-
light dreams among the Pyramids,
which he has never visited. Mr.
Rowhotham, again, is ever and unon
in imagination crossing the Alps to
paint the heauties of Italy, which yet
he lias never seen with hodily eye.
In like mauner Mr. Corhonld rejoices
in his gorgeous "Dream of Fair
Women,'' an impossihle ideal which
not even his imagination has actually
seized—figures standing in an inde-
finite somewhere hetween the region
of phantom ghosts, and the dummies
of lay-figures stuffed with sawdust
and shavings, all stippled up to that
last excess of finish in which intellect
finds itself aunihilated. Douhtless
these works have all a merit which
will fairly secure them from ohliviou;
hut they helong to the style of a false
ideal, which, in the present conflict
of the schools, must cither take a
timely retreat into naturalism, or
save itself hy soaring into that true
and high ideal which demands hoth
closer study and wider generalisation.
The New Society of Water-Colours is,
however, redeemed from the stigma
of the vaguely visionary hy such
works as those exhihited hy Messrs.
Beunett, Cook, and ^Varreu junior.
The oaks, ferns, and forests of Mr.
Beunett, pure and transparent, free
from all intrusion of opaque, have
long heen known to all frequenters
of this Exhihition. Mr. Warren
junior, taking up a somewhat differ-
ent line, is so minute and detailed
that his studied trees have heen
taken for copied photographs. His
opaque colour is laid on m thick suh-
stance; and thus what he gains in
detail he loses in quality and tone.
His works, however, which are suffi-
ciently wunderlul, merit all the suc-
cess which they have so fortunately
found. The ever-lovely drawings of
Mr. Cook now urge additional claim
upon our notice; they oome hefore
us as his final leave-taking of the
world from which death has now
suatched him. It is only a few years
since first he came hefore the London
puhlic, and at once claimed a favour-
ahle notice hy the exquisite tone aud
glow, the refined sentiment and
poetry, for which his works have
always heen conspicuous. In the
present Exhihition his douhle ren-
dering of the same suhject under
the contrasted aspect of "The Close
of Day" and "Summer Morning"—the
one glowing in golden sunset, the
other grey in the early mist—have all
the tenderness and tone which can
well he won from the spirit that
dwells in nature.
The Gallery of the Old Water-
Colour Society, notwithstanding Mr.
Ruskin's pronounced doom of "steady
descent," is, wo think, admitted hy
general consent to have heen the
most satisfactory Exhihition of the
year. It is remarkahle for the union
of those merits which we have al-
ready desiguated as helonging to
water-colour art, as well as for that
individual diversity which helongs to
men who enter upon the study of
nature with hold independence. On
looking round the room, for example,
we caunot discover that Turner, or
Prout, or Copley Fielding has left
hehind a school of deliherate imita-
tors. Even Cox, so recently lost
from the ranks of art, has no one to
take his vacant place; and Mr. Hunt
in his "Bird's Nest and Primroses,"
aud his "Pine-Apple and Grapes,"
stands almost alone. This manly in-
dependence—more or less to he found
among all the exhihitors in this
Gallery—does not, we think, hetray
any lurking taint of untimely deca-
dence. It is, indeed, perhaps the
chiefest fault of this almost perfect
Gallery that the majority of the men,
without either descent or marked
progression, are still doing from year
to year just what they have always
done hefore. Mr. Topham is soft,
shadowy, aud refined, giving us ex-
actly so much of Spanish nationality
as is agreeahle to English tastes.
Mr. Frederick Tayler is still among
Scottish mountains, lakes, and glens,
wrapping his genins in Highland
mists and claunish tartan. Mr. Cox
still, to the latest moment of his life,
washed and hlotted and spla>hed in
greys, grandly hut vaguely. Mr. Gas-
tinoau soars amhitiously among the
tumult of sky and mountain. Mr.
Harding, with firmer hand and more
purposed knowledge, tbrows Alps
into distance, and torrent houldeis
into foreground, composing grandly


1859.]
141
London Exhihitions—Conflict of the Sehool*.

with all the ingenious contrivance
of a consummate workman. And,
lastly, Mr. Richardson at Sorrento,
in the hay of hlue seas and lateen
sails, and convent summits, is ever
pereunial in the suuny poetry of the
South.
The picture of highest intent is
Mr. Burton's "Widow of Woblm,"
kneeling upon church floor, prayer-
hook in hand, the little daughter of
childlike iunocence and heauty hy
her side. The mauner is evidently
closelj' founded upon the early Flem-
ish school of Van Eyck. The draw-
ing of the head and hands, the cast
of the drapery, the whole attitude
and purpose, indicate severe and care-
ful study. Though small, there is
not another picture of the year which
can assert stronger claim to the high
diguity of art. Then for suhtle har-
mony of colour, turn to that work
of exquisite delicacy and refinement,
"The Pet," hy Mr. Alfred Fripp.
How daintily do mother and child
and goat trip along the mountain
path; how the hlue of distant sky and
mountain, the golden autumn hrown
of heath-strewn ferns, find a harmo-
nious response in rustic peasant,
so that mountain, sky, heath, and
figures are all hlended into harmoni-
ous concert of delicate and delicious
colour. Among the few works which
we can stop to mention, Mr. Duncan's
"Life-Boat" must not he forgotten.
It is a scene of that clash and crash of
elements wherein life and death are
contending for mastery—the wreck
heaten upon distant shore hy wave
and wind—the life-hoat on the nearer
sands dragged seaward to the rescue.
No man has studied with greater
care the inconstant curves of the
stormy sea, dancing and dashing
with mad delight, rushing and roar-
ing upon rock and shore in waves
which holdly charge in with fury,
and then steal away in fear. From
scenes of ocean let us pass to moun-
tain masses, solid and resistless, as
painted hy Mr. Newton. For the
minute anatomy and articulation of
mountain ranges, the inward skeleton
of rock protruding tbrough the cloth-
ing verdure of heath and herhage,
these studies have never heen sur-
passed. His "First Approach of
Winter" on the hills of Inverness,
with their covering of light suow
hlowing in the wind, dust-like against
the sky—so thin that it lies as fila-
gree tracery hetween the rihs of the
dark rock—has deservedly heen re-
garded as a marvel of close nature-
study This is perhaps the hest ex-
ample of the detailed truth inau-
gurated under the new school,—a
detail here fortunately made suhor-
dinate to general grandeur of effect.
The drawings of Mr. William Turner
of Oxford, on the contrary—a name
which, merely as a name, seems to
secure at once Mr. Ruskin's inordi-
nate oommendation—these drawings
of Mr. Turner, hy no means an inhe-
ritor of the greater Turner's genins,
degenerate year hy year into that
utter feehleness of hand, that child-
ish detail of finish which recently
have hecome the more certain meaus
of securing the master's praise.
Of the collected works of David
Cox we had thus written :—" Here
is one of tho veterans of art, helong-
ing already almost to the past, ar-
rived at that period of life when
great men review their lahours, and
hegin to write down autohiographies.
This exhihition may indeed he re-
garded as almost hiographical, the
works here put on record heing some-
thing hetween thoughts written and
deeds enacted, the illustrated sum-
mary of a long life of loving lahour."
We had written thus much in our
note-hook when the news came that
David Cox had died, after an illness
of a few days, at his residence near
Birmingham, at the age of seventy-
six. His latest work indeed, at
the old Water-Colour Exhihition
of the present year, is as the expir-
ing tumult of a passion strong even
in death. A torrent of resistless
roar tumhles tbrough rocks ahrupt,
from the rude mountain and the
mossy wild. Hero, denying himself
the allurement of sunshine or of
colour, he is content to he grandly
grey, revelling in the hell of waters,
reducing nature to second chaos. We
all know this master's large hroad
sweep of a full hrush, held in a loose
hand, which of late years has failed
to define forms, recording only light
and shade in its plays across the
landscape, or the shadowy cloud as
it floats in the liquid Sky. In the


142
[Aug.
London Exhihitiont—Conflict of the Schools.

Exhihition, however, of his collected
works, we find that the drawings of
his hetter period were sufficiently dis-
tinct and definite in the statement of
forms and facts. In the "Vale of
Clywd" we come upon wheat-sheaves
and gleaners, and harvest-cart, and
round massive trees, leading however
at length into that wide distant field
of the unknown, in which even
landscape art is at length lost in un-
explored infinity. Here we have
great effects produced apparently hy
slight means, vast things shadowed
forth dimly, which we see hut in part,
needing, if we may say so, even here
in art the eye of faith. In this utter-
ance more seems intended than is
actually told. Looking at the stilly
greys, we seem as it were to he list-
ening to low whispers. The far dis-
tance slumhers, and is all hut lost in
far-off sky; upon the nearer mountain-
side trees dream in uncertain light;
and then, as we draw still nearer to
foreground life, there is as it were a
morning awakening, falling again fit-
fully into sleep, and losing itself in
deeper shadow, till at length we
reach the foreground, and find the
day fully awakened, hoys actually
gathering hlackherries in the hedges,
and 'flocks of sheep and herds of
cattle driven to pasture. Never was
the power and resource of modest
grey so deeply and so tonchingly felt.
It is like the voice, gentle and low,
which finds its way where the loud
shout or the glaring colour caunot
enter. The ear and the eye alike hang
on the modulations of low tones;
the faltering voice and the timid
hand tremhle in emotion till we feel
the melting touch of nature. The
loss of a man like this, who walked
so humhly and felt so deeply, must
long he mourned, for it is a loss
which can never he restored.
The conflict of sohools, of which
we have incidentally spoken, may
prove a hattle either of death, or
to more healthful life—of death, if
men sink still lower into feehleness,
fall still more hopelessly into second
childhood, fighting in foolishness
ahout the little ways and trifling in-
cidents of infancy, or falling into last
delirinm, uttering things to shame
sohriety of reason. But we hope
hetter things of that common-sense
which proverhially rules the genins
of our people. Even while denounc-
ing the ahsurdity which has found
its way to the walls of our Exhihi-
tions, we felt at least this consola-
tion, that the extravagance had at
length grown to such monstrous pro-
portions as almost to preclude its fu-
ture repetition. On the other hand,
we have rejoiced to recoguise in
many directions a growing fidelity to
nature, which promises to our Eng-
lish art a true and legitimate career.
The present conflict, indeed, of our
English schools may he hut the life
and the vigour which on all sides,
not only in art hut in science, and
every hranch of progressive know-
ledge, seek for a free and a wide de-
velopment. The hattle of which we
speak may he in fact hut the contest
of active minds fighting over the
wide territory of unappropriated
truth, each seeking, according to its
amhition and its wants, a dominion
it may call its own. Thus, so long
as the comhat is that of genins fight-
ing for the field of nature, the result,
we think, must end in victory for art.
Many extravagancies will of course in
the mean time he committed, and
many a reputation lost; hut nature
in the end will assert her rights, and
genins at the last ohtain her sway;
and so in this conflict of opposing
forces an art shall he moulded upon
the pressure of the times. Let us
hope that the Royal Academy has in
the present year seen its worst, that
a truce has heen sigued to extrava-
gance; that so the simple heauty
which is in nature, and the soher
strength which is in man, may he
won for our country's art.


1859.]
148
The Lueh of Ladysmede.—Part VI.
THE LUCK OF LAnYSMEnE.
CIIAPTEB XIT.—SIB NICHOLAS WOOING.
Fubiocsly driving the spurs into
his horse, Lo Hardi galloped hack
towards Ladysmede. Not so well
mounted, hat of lighter weight, the
Gascon squire contrived not to he
loft far hehind. Those who could
have looked into the face of the
knight would have seen there a storm
of contending passions which were
striving to find some imperfect vent
or relief in the impetuous speed with
which he dashed on over the hroken
ground. When within a mile or
two of the manor, he reined in to a
walk the gallant harh, panting in
every vein, hut yet chafing at the
restraint, and waited until Duhois,
whose steed, of meaner hlood, came
heaving and floundering on hy the
help of good spurs and judicious
handling, was near enough to hear
his master's voice.
"Duhois!" said he, turning sharp-
ly round on his saddle.
The esquire rode up to his side.
"Did you make inquiry as I hid
you?"
"I did, sir knight; I could learn
nothing."
"Did you mark the chaplain hy
the wood-side as we left yon tower
ahout a mile?"
Certainly, Duhois had marked
him; there were few things within
the scope of keen eyes and ready oh-
servation which he did not mark.
"Did it seem to you as though he
sought to avoid heing seen?"
The very same thought, it ap-
peared, had struck the esquire.
"Had he heen at Willan's Hope
think you ?" asked Sir Nicolas.
"Xay, that I caunot tell," replied
Duhois; "1 do not hear that he is
known there."
"'Tis s, strange fancy, Duhois,"
rejoined his master, " hut that man's
face seems to me always as one that
I have looked on oftentimes hefore;
yet never, to my knowledge, did I
meet with him until lately here at
Ladysmede."
"These foreigu priests, Sir Nicho-
las, wander from end to end of
Cbristendom; it may he like enough
VOL. LXXXVL
10
that you have met with him hefore,
especially since he calls himself
Italian."
"Where did Sir Godfrey make
acquaintance with him?" asked the
knight again.
"That, again, is more than I can
learn," replied Duhois; "hut he was
with him in France, and had charge
of the hoy there."
"The hoy I" replied his master,
starting as from some other suhject
of thought—" he is with the Ahhot
of Rivelshy, you say; keep your own
counsel in that matter for the pre-
sent."
Duhois howed and dropped hack
to his usual distance in the rear.
The knight spurred on again towards
Ladysmede, and had no sooner ar-
rived there than he at once sought
his host Sir Godfrey. The latter
was prepared to welcome his return
with something of his usual coarse
pleasantry, when the clouded hrow
and uupleasant smile which the Cru-
sader wore at his entrance checked
the familiar words upon his lips; and
it was Le Hardi who spoke first.
"The first siring of our how has
suapped short, do Burgh," were his
words. Ho laughed as he spoke,
hut not merrily.
"How now?" said his companion;
"what has gone wrong?"
"In good faith," said Sir Nicholas,
"that passes my understanding; hut
what I mean is this; yon fair cousin
of yours likes me not—will have
none of me." And he laughed again.
"What folly is this, Le Hardi?"
returned the other, starting up;
"you speak as if you were some
foolish hoy, to he discouraged hy a
girl's capricious fancy. I dare swear
she likes you well enough, hut for a
little maiden hackwardness, it may
he; or have you heen over-hasty
with her? for she has a flash of the
temper of our house ahout her, if it
he roused."
"Never fear," said the Crusader,
with a gesturo of something near
contempt; "I have scarce offended
her diguity hy any over-presumption;


144
[Aug.
The Luck of Ladytmede.—Part VI.

but I say she will have none of me;
there is no mistaking the lady's mind,
though the reason I pretend not to
have discovered; nor, indeed, do I
much care to seek it.
"Tush 1" said de Burgh, cooly;
"all will go right in time."
"I tell yon, no!" returned the
other, with an impatient movement
—not, at least, in the way you
mean."
"You aro surely somewhat faint-
hearted, to hold the hattle lost thus
early in the day," said Sir Godfrey
in a tone of hanter, though with
some uneasiness in his look; "lost,
indeed, it shall hardly he, as you
well know, with suoh stout friends
to hack you; hut I had fancied, if
I read your spirit aright, that in
these lists you would have chosen
rather to fight for your own hand."
Sir Nicholas turned and walked a
few steps to the other side of the
apartment. When he looked round
in his companion's face, it was with
an expression of countenance which
showed how little he was inclined to
reciprocate his host's attempts at
raillery.
"I shall hold you to our compact,
de Burgh," said he siguificantly.
"Now, hy the rood," said the other,
his hrow darkening in turn—"have
I given any token of flinching from
it?—all that one man may do for
another in such a matter, I have
done for you; and if I did not
straight siguify to my fair ward
that it was his majesty's good plea-
sure—and mine—that she shall wed
with yon, it was at your own request
that I forhore, if it will please you
to rememher so much. Take good
heart, friend—if I may presume to
say so to a champion of your pre-
tensions—lands and lady shall he
yours as sure as the sun shines in
heaven. Or, at the worst, if the
mistress fail you, I pledge you my
honour the lands shall not; and as
for the love—that, I take it, you
know how to find elsewhere."
"Mark me, Sir Godfrey," said the
other in a low determined voice, "I
will have hoth!"
"You shall, man, yon shall, rest
assured of it. What! our lovely
ward is hardly made of the stuff that
grows kindly in the cloister; I am
little skilled in wooing, it is true—
curse me if I could find patience to
sue an hour for any woman's favour,
were she paragon of womankind!—
hut this comes of making too much
of them; your high-flown courtesy
and compliment makes a wench
think, forsooth, that she may play
fast and loose with a lover as she
pleases. If I have to woo for you,
Sir Nicholas, I shall hegin in some-
what different fashion."
"I douht sbrewdly whether your
fashion is like to have much more
success than mine, in this case," re-
plied the Crusader with a contemp-
tuous smile; "hut if you he an ear-
nest in the husiness (as I am, mark
you) there is one form of wooing—
somewhat hold and impetuous, per-
haps, hut that will hardly seem a
fault in your eyes—which I have
known to he successful even under
more difficult circumstances."
"Speak your meaning out," said
Sir Godfrey, "if yon would have me
understand."
"Send for the Lady Gladice here
to Ladysmede: your chaplain, Fa-
ther Giacomo, hath enough of the
church's virtue ahout him, I chari-
tahly presume, to do his office in such
wise that no man may gainsay it;
and when priest and hridegroom aro
ready, and we have his majesty's
good pleasure and her guardian's con-
sent to plead, it should go hard with
us if maiden scruples stood long in
our way."
Sir Godfrey hardly responded to
this proposal in the spirit in which it
was made. There was unusual hesi-
tation and emharrassment in his man-
ner, as with a weak and forced at-
tempt at the loud laugh which
served him in the stead of argument
upon most occasions, he took up his
friend's last words.
"Maiden scruples! hy the Virgin,
if it he as you say, we have some-
thing more than maiden scruples to
deal with here; we have a woman's
will—a somewhat different matter,
trust me!"
"The more need of hrief and for-
cihle argument," replied Le Hardi.
There was no sympathy with his
companion's laugh, either in look or
tone.
"I thought," said the Knight of



1859.]
145
The Luck of Ladytmede.—Part {VI.
r^
lp»»iM' r
Ladysmede, "that you were one of
those who would have no woman's
love upon compulsion; hut look you
here—let me deal with my good
kinswoman, Dame Elfhild, concern-
ing this question, which requires
more delicate handling than mine;
she has a cordial liking for this
match, I promise yon, and with her
help all shall go well yet."
"Deal with whom you will, and
as yon will," returned Sir Nicholas,
"my wooing is over; hut listen to
me, de Burgh: this girl and her
lands might have gone their way for
me—it was you that pnt me on the
venture, and I have done my part
as a good knight should, and in such
fashion as you yourself thought hest;
hut heing put to it, I have no mind
to cry craven as a haffled suitor,
nor yet to play the slave to her
dainty caprices. Had she fallen ripe
into my mouth—as you seemed to
expect—I do not know whether I
should have had the good taste to
appreciate such a piece of fortune
as it deserved: hut as it has chanced,
this newly-discovered scorn of hers
—for scorn it is and nothing less—
hecomes her so mightily, that in this
mood, and no other, it is my plea-
sure to wed her, and I will. If you
repent of your promise, you are scarce
the man I knew in days past—you
will determine that as it may seem
hest to yourself; I will he true to
my purpose, I warn you; and may
chance to make it good, even though
friend as well as mistress play me
false."
The taunt awoke the fierce hlood
of Sir Godfrey, as his companion
prohahly intended it should.
"False to my plighted word!"
he exclaimed passionately—" have
you even dared to think it? unsay
the slander, or hy my knighthood!
yon shall answer it."
"What now!" said the Crusader,
with a slight careless laugh, though
his eye moved a little restlessly as
he met the glance from under Sir
Godfrey's knitted hrow—" What did
I say? Tush, we know each other
hetter than to quarrel for a foolish
girl; I have your word, as you say,
—none knows its worth hetter—and
you have mine. Only—since in truth
time presses with me—let me take
my own course now with your fair
ward; I promise yon it will end as
we hoth desire; help me so far as
you may, and I will not tax your
friendly offices for anything despe-
rate. Play the indulgent guardian
to the last, if you will: I will risk
all the pains and perils that await
the too ardent lover."
Easily roused, Sir Godfrey was as
easily appeased hy the altered tone
of his less impetuous companion.
Even hefore his passion had time to
cool, he rememhered that it hardly
suited his own views to fasten a
quarrel upon his guest. "What
is it you would have me do?" he
asked, rougbly.
"Merely that you should request
of your fair kinswomen to hestow
their company upon you here, on
any seemly pretext you may choose;
giving them to understand at the
same time—for I have a persuasion
it would he needful—that I have
completed my husiness here, and
returned to my good lord the king
—which, however, I trust not to do
until Fleave a fair hride to weep for
my compelled ahsence." There was
an easy smile on the knight's counte-
nance as he spoke, as if he felt an
honest and natural satisfaction in
the contemplation.
"And what is the rest of your
plan?" asked Sir Godfrey, with a
douhtful look. He was hut a clumsy
deviser of stratagems himself, and
had little confidence in the success
of others.
"That is all I ask of you; leave
the rest in my hands. As to this
Italian priest—gold will hny of him
such slight service as I shall need;
will it not, think you?"
He was watching de Burgh's face
curiously, though he passed his hand
over his eyes, and asked in a care-
less tone.
"I can say little as to that," re-
plied Sir Godfrey with hesitation;
"I am not sure that his idols are
of gold or silver, though that wor-
ship is common to his craft. Nor
is he, I fancy, a poor man—though
that makes little difference."
"Well—I think, perhaps, I can
deal with him," said Le Hardi,
thoughtfully—"I speak his language
passahly, as perhaps you know. At
i


140
[Aug.
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VI.

any rate, so please you to do your
part in the matter, and trust mo
not to fail in mine."
Sir Godfrey siguified his assent,
and confirmed it hy an oath more
hlasphemous than usual, He seemed
to require some such strong assevera-
tion to satisfy his own mind that he
was in earnest. Then he rose from
his seat, and stepping to a huffet on
which a flagon of strong wine stood
ready to his hand, he poured out
and handed a cup to his companion,
and then filled another for himself,
more than to the hrim, for the liquor
ran over on the floor. With another
oath, he drained it in great gidps, as
if with its contents he was swallow-
ing his conscience. Selfish and un-
calculating, he had resolved upon his
end, with little thought ahout the
means hy which it was to he attained,
and it was only now that he was
hegiuning fully to realise to his own
mind what these might he. Brutal
as his character had hecome in many
respects, from the uurestrained in-
dulgence of his worst passions, there
was enough still left of the- rough
animal kindness of his nature to
make him hesitate at inflicting, in
cold hlood, outrage and wrong upon
one who had never injured him.
Unahle to appreciate the higher
qualities of woman in his ward, he
could still admire her heauty and
spirit, and discovered that there was
a feeling towards her lurking in his
heart which scarcely deserved the
name of affection, hut which he him-
self tried hard, under present circum-
stances, to repudiate as a weakness.
He had contemplated her acquies-
cence in a marriage with Sir Nicholas,
he now felt, rather too sanguinely.
In one point only he had heen right;
that the mauners and hearing of the
Crusader, his polished address and
stores of conversation, his fame as a
soldier of the cross and his favour
with the king, were likely to present
to Gladice's eyes a favourahle contrast
with the two or tbree younger suitors
who had hitherto aspired to her
smiles, and, as Sir Godfrey had heard,
had reaped little hut contempt. He
thought that he was hut giving her
credit for ordinary good sense, in
assuming that she would prefer he-
coming the hride of such a man to
the entomhing herself in the cloister;
and he saw neither cruelty nor hard-
ship, and the world (not that its
opinions were much valued at Ladys-
mede) would surely have seen none,
when he intended to leave her no
other choice. Even now, as he set
the empty heaker down, he was try-
ing to persnade himself that all would
yet go well—that he was really con-
sulting his ward's interests as well as
his own, even though he should seem
at first sight to he using somewhat
strong compulsion. Still, the un-
pleasant truth forced itself upon his
mind, that in acceding to his com-
panion's last suggestion, he was do-
ing that at which even his rude sense
of honour recoiled as hase and un-
worthy. For Sir Nicholas, the sup-
posed ardour of his passion might
excuse the lover; hut for himself, even
his own conscience, not over sensi-
tive, had already suggested the name
of traitor.
There was consideration given, how-
ever, on the part of Sir Nicholas,
in the silent hond hetween them,
which was too precious in the eyes
of his accomplice to allow him to
recede; and in the conversation
which followed hetween them, all
was speedily arranged for the recep-
tion of Gladice and her aunt at the
manor. The lure treacherously held
out to insure a ready acceptance on
the younger lady's part of her
guardian's proposal that they should
he his guests for a few days, was
simple and well-devised. The lord
hishop of Ely, who, it has heen
already said, was Gladice's distant
kinsman, and had shown some kindly
interest in her in the earlier days of
her orphanhood, was known to he
now on his progress as legate of
the Holy See, in great state accord-
ing to his wont, and to he daily
expected in his own diocese of Ely.
Owing to this family counection, he
was not unknown to Sir Godfrey de
Burgh; and nothing was more pro-
hahle than that, when he made his
formal visitation of the Ahhey of St
Mary at Rivelshy, he might turn
aside hy the way to accept the ready
hospitalities of Ladysmede. The
repute of Sir Godfrey's mauner of
life there, if it had reached his
ears, was indeed scarcely such as


1859.]
147
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VI.

should have encouraged the visit of
any dignitary of holy church, unless,
indeed, he were so zealous a prelate
as to emhrace such an opportunity to
rehuke a host of evil life at his own
tahle; which, had Sir Godfrey heen
the ohject of it, might have heen
more likely to have added a martyr
to the church than a penitent. But
the realm had no such prelate in
William Longchamp. Jovial in his
humour, and maguificently prodigal
in his hahits, he was little likely to
utter an anathema at a feast, unless
it was evoked hy the quality of the
viands; and so long as the entertain-
ment was to his mind, would have
wasted no scruples on the morals of
his entertainer. The ohjection which
the churchman might really have
found to the sojourn which had heen
Au s imagined for him at Ladys-
mede, would have heen the in-
sufficiency, of its accommodation to
receive the numerous retinue of fol-
lowers of all ranks and descriptions,
who ministered either to his pomp
or his pleasures, and made his visits
more like the progress of a so-
vereigu prince than an apostolical
mission.
Their plans having heen so far set-
tled, it remained only to put them at
once into execution; and Sir Godfrey,
having fortified himself with another
draught from the flagon, sent to sum-
mon Raoul to his presence to he the
hearer of his message, early on the
following morning, to the tower of
Willan's Hope.
"Were it well, think you," said the
Crusader, when the serving-man had
gone in searcli of the young esquire,
"to trust that hoy on such a husi-
iwsr
"I have none that I may trust
hetter," replied de Burgh, ahruptly;
"my knaves are wont usually to do
my hidding."
He was in no pleasant temper with
himself or his companion; and if he
felt that there was some force in the
Pi Wader's hint, he was possihly for
that very reason the less inclined to
adopt it. He hnd submitted to dicta-
tion quite sufficiently within the last
half-hour.
■ There is some precaution to he
naed, rememher," continued Le Hardi
in as indifferent a tone as he coald
assume—for he understood tho other's
humour; "would not Gundred, your
chamherlain, have served hetter at
this time?"
"• Gundred I might trust well
enough, for that matter; hut I hardly
choose to use him in my errands to
ladies of such pretensions. There is
no risk of any suspicion in such a
simple thing; or if there were, the
sight of his face at Willan's Hope
would go far to raise it. Raoul is
young, hut he is honest."
"Is he the surer messenger for
that?" asked Sir Nicholas ;'hut he
saw his companion's ohstinacy, and
spoke in so low a tone, that Sir God-
frey appeared not to hear the ques-
tion. The other played with his
sword, and was silent until the young
esquire made his appearance.
His master gave him his charge in
a few hrief words, for he knew that
the youth himself had wit enough to
translate the invitation liherally into
courteous language. When he had
finished his instructions, and Raoul,
having duteously siguified his perfect
compression of them, was ahout to
withdraw, Sir Godfrey, looking at the
Crusader, and speaking as if from an
after-thought, with a clumsy attempt
at a careless tone which hetrayed em-
harrassment even to his young fol-
lower's uupractised ear, added as he
turned away—
"You will let it he understood at
Willan's Hope that Sir Nicholas parts
from us to-morrow; wo have prayed
him in vain to tarry until my lord of
Ely's arrival. It is so, I fear ?"—he
turned an appealing look towards his
guest, which Raoul followed with his
eyes.
"It must ho so," said Le Hardi;
"my husiness in other parts will
hrook no delay."
"Be sure that you make this un-
derstood, in the discharging of your
message," continued the knight of
Ladysmede; "there are especial rea-
sons why I would havo tho Lady Elf-
hild know it."
Raonl's open hoyish face might
have expressed some sort of puzzled
douht and surprise, for he was fully
aware of the arrangements made for
their visiting the Ahhot of Rivelshy
with all due state on the morrow,
and had heard that very day from


H8
[Aug.
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VI.
Duhois, that Sir Nicholas' departure
would not take place until the week
following: this sudden change of
plan awoke at once in his mind a
strange and undefined suspicion; but
it consisted neither with his duty nor
inclination to trouhle himself more
than he could help with his master's
secrets; he had nothing to do hat to
how his acquiescence, and to quit the
chamher.
"The lad will do his errand well
enough, you see," said Sir Godfrey,
with a short laugh which expressed
his own relief from some misgiving—
"hetter than if he had heen over-
cautioned, or over-trusted."
"Prohahly; I trust he will, for his
sake and for ours," replied Le Hardi,
who had marked the uneasy look
upon the young esquire's counte-
nance.
At the foot of the great stoue stairs
Raoul met the Italian. There had
sprung up of late something of a
more friendly intercourse hetween the
two than any other of the household
was inolined to venture upon with
the chaplain. Raoul at least did not
seem to share the scarcely concealed
dislike and dread with which he was
so generally regarded; and the sar-
donic smile and cutting tone which
commonly seasoned his communica-
tions with others, were softened into
almost a playful jest when he en-
countered the fearless smile of the gay
young esquire. Raoul would have
passed him hy now without more
than a silent recoguition; hut even
the slight cloud on that open hrow
attracted at once the chaplain's oh-
servant eye. He turned, and passed
some hrief light raillery upon it, in
something like the gentle voice he had
heen wont to use to Ginlio. And
though Raoul, not now disposed for
conversation, would have gone on his
way with a careless answer, the
Italian, who knew that he had just
come from Sir Godfrey's presenoe,
impelled either hy curiosity or hy some
stronger motive, prooeeded to ques-
tion him upon the suhject.
"Sir Nicholas quit Ladysmede, to-
morrow, say you?" he asked in a
tone of surprise, after listening with
fixed attention to the details of the
interview, for Raoul saw no reason
for concealment—"your ears have
surely played you false?"
"Nay, that may hardly he," re-
plied the esquire—" for I had special
charge to make it known at TVillan's
Hope."
"Ha!" said Giacomo, while his
keen eyes left the youth's face, and
seemed to search into the wall heyond
him. "Tell me, young friend—for I
saw Duhois talking with yon, and
youth is ever carious in such mat-
ters—how did Sir Nicholas speed in
his wooing to-day?"
"I know not, nor care," answered
Raoul shortly.
"I think peradventure I could
tell," replied the Italian. Then chang-
ing his tone, and laying his hand on
the youth's shoulder with a familiar
gesture most unlike his usual hearing
—"Say. Raoul, would'st rather do
the Lady Gladice a kindness or a
mischief? answer me truly."
Raoul started and reddened at the
ahruptness of the question, hut he
answered with hoyish vehmence, as
he drew hack a step from his com-
panion,—" Why ask me suoh a ques-
tion, father? the veriest churl even in
our graceless company migh give you
an answer; he dare not call himself
man who would harm her hy a care-
less word; he is no true gentleman
who would grudge his life to do her
service."
"Gallantly spoken!" said the
priest; "so youth speaks always,
hefore the rust and canker and hat-
tering wear of life eats into the hright
metal that rings so loud and true."
The smile with which he looked into
the hoy's glowing face had no trace
of mockery or hitterness. "If my
lips were made for hlessing, I would
pray heaven to grant you to die
young 1"
"I shall scarcely make hold to ask
your prayers, father, if they go to
that tune," said Raoul, trying to rally,
under cover of a light word, from a
confused consciousuess of his enthu-
siasm.
But the chaplain's present mood
was earnest. Laying his hand again
upon the young esquire's shoulder
—" If you would match fair words
with fair deeds." said he, "you will
hear your lord's message to Willan's


1869.]
149
The Luck of Ladytmede.—Part VI.
Hope, so far as it is a truthful one,
hut without coupling with it that
which he knows, and I know, to he
a falsehood. Sir Nicholas leaves not
so suddenly; he waits to urge here,
under her guardian's roof, a suit
which he already knows to he distaste-
ful to the Lady Gladice."
"How!" exclaimed Raoul his
first vague suspicion strengthening
rapidly as he listened to the chaplain.
"Would you have me helieve that Sir
Godfrey is seeking to palm a falsehood
upon her?"
"I say not what Sir Godfrey seeks;
I only warn you that the message
which you hear, so far as it touches
Sir Nicholas, is a false one; that
much at least I know of a certainty.
As to the ohject of it, it is true I
do hut guess. You or any other
may judge whether or no I guess
truly."
Perhaps hecause the interpretation
confirmed his own misgivings—per-
haps hecause there was an emphasis
of truth in his companion's tone—
perhaps hecause the young act rather
n-om feeling than calculation, Raoul
never douhted the good faith of
Father Giacomo for a moment. All
the evil stories which he had heard
of him were of no weight against
his own instinctive conviction that
he spoke and meant honestly now.
After a moment's thought he turned
short round, and hefore the chaplain
could have checked him, even had
he understood his intention, tan up
the stairs, and presented himself
again in Sir Godfrey's chamher. The
knight had warmed himself with
wine, and was in hetter humour now
with himself and those ahout him;
and though he stared with some
surprise at Raoul on his hasty reap-
pearance, he greeted him with a hluff
graciousness.
"What seek you here again, most
trusty squire?" he demanded; "now,
prithee, do not let me count thee one
of those uuprofitahle messengers that
need to have their tale told them
tbrice at the very least hefore start-
ing, and then hring the half of it home
again undelivered."
"I am here to say, Sir Godfrey,
that I pray to he excused doing this
errand,'' Raoul hegan, agitated and
out of hreath, with the flush com-
ing and going in his face—"I will
ride for you night and day, as I am
hound to do, in any other matter;
hut indeed—indeed—so please you to
put some one else on this service—I
may not do it."
"What?" exclaimed Sir Godfrey,
when the hoy paused, too much as-
tonished to interrupt him sooner—
"what!" It was hut a simple word,
hut the voice and glance gave it a
fearful emphasis.
"I caunot do it, Sir Godfrey," said
the esquire again, pale as ashes, hat
in a firmer tone.
The knights face grew purple with
rage; he rose from his seat, stepped
one great stride to where the hoy
stood, and struck him in the faoe
with the hack of his open hand so
fiercely, that he fell staggering hack
against the wall of the apartment,
and the hlood gushed in a stream
from his mouth and nose.
Sir Godfrey watched him until he
had recovered his footing, and seemed
inclined to repeat the hlow. Half-
stuuned, and reeling from its effects
—for many a stalwart man hod gone
down hefore that hack-handed stroke
of Sir Godfrey's—Raoul spat the
hlood from his mouth, and felt for the
hilt of the short sword at his girdle.
The Knight of Ladysmede was un-
armed, for he had laid his own
weapon on the tahle where he had
sat. Rut Le Hardi saw the hoy's
movement, and springing up, placed
himself hetween them, just in time to
prevent him from making a mad
spring upon his master.
"Out of my path, Sir Nicholas,"
said his host, "if you would not
anger me past my patience I This
gentle youth seeks further correction,
it seems, and he shall have his fill
of it. Stand from hetween us, I
say!"
Rut the Crusader maintained his
position, though he seemed to feel it
to he no very pleasant one. Cursing
Raoul for a young fool, while he held
him hack with one arm not without
difficulty, he expostulated at the
same time with de Burgh on the
unseemliness of such a quarrel. His
words might have had hut little
effect, when at that moment Duhois
entered the chamher so opportunely,
that although he hegan to address


150
[Aug.
T7ie Luck of Ladysmcde.—Part VI.
himself to Sir Nicholas with some
ordinary message, it seemed prohahle
that the loud and angry voice of de
Burgh had heen heard helow, and
that the esquire had anticipated some
quarrel hetween that knight and his
master.
"Here, Duhois!" cried Sir Nicho-
las, gladly availing' himself of his
appearance; "take this mad hoy out
of his lord's presence; there will he
hloodshed else."
Raoul struggled indiguantly in the
Gascon's grasp, and had half-drawn
his weapon; hut Duhois was too
strong for him. Twisting the hoy's
arms hehind him until he writhed
with the pain, and a suhdued cry
escaped him, he dragged him towards
the door, while the Crusader still in-
terposed his own person hetween Sir
Godfrey and the ohject of his vio-
lence.
"Let him he punished, de Burgh,
as he right well deserves; hut this
violence is needless—nay worse than
needless," he continued, in a lower
tone, as the Gascon, finding that
Raoul still gave him some trouhle in
forcing him tbrough the narrow door-
way, shouted to some of those in the
hall helow for assistance.
De Burgh contented himself with
exploding the rest of his fury in im-
precations, while two or tbree of his
serving-men ran up from helow ; and
Raoul, the first storm of his hoyish
passion over, desisted from his useless
struggles, and stood a prisoner in
panting and indiguant silence.
"What shall they do with him, Sir
Godfrey ?" asked the Crusader, anxi-
ous, as it seemed, to put an end as
speedily as possihle to this scene of
undiguified violence; "he is mad o'
the sudden, methinks."
"Bind him hand and foot, and
lodge him safe in the Falcon tower.
This pretty youth has heen too daint-
ly fed here, and the hot young hlood
grows malapert upon us: a little
cooler diet—or, indeed, some two or
tbree days' wholesdrne fasting—is
sound leecheraft for such disorders.
Body of me I hut he was marvellous
ready with the steel. He comes of a
strain much akin to mine own in that
respect."
"There was mischief enough in
him," said Le Hardi. "I thought he
would have struck at me, when I
haulked him."
"I could almost wish yon had not,"
replied his friend, his angry features
relaxing into a grim smile ; "I would
have risked a few ounces of hlood to
have seen his spring. 'Tis as well as
it is, though; for my eye and hand
are hardly what they once were."
"I do not commonly choose to see
a man stahhed hefore my face," said
Sir Nicholas; "hut since you profess
an especial fancy for it, 1 will hardly
spoil sport for the future."
"Nay, nay, sir champion; I am
hehoven to you in my most gracious
thanks; and so is the youth too,
mayhe, for that matter. But what,
in the fiend's name put him upon
such a wild fancy as to cavil at my
orders?"
"You had hest learn that from
himself, when his hlood has had time
to cool; hetter still, perhaps, if you
had waited to make that inquiry at
the first. There is surely something
in this which it were well for us to
know hefore we move further."
Sir Godfrey made an impatient
movement; hut he was conscious that
it was not the first time that his own
violent temper had disconcerted his
plans.
"Enough for the present," he said.
"I am hot, Sir Nicholas; let us forth
and taste the evening air."
OHAPTEB XV.—THE GUEST-HALL.
If a stranger had entered the lofty
guest-hall of Rivelshy ahout an hour
after noon on the following day, ho
would have seen around him nothing
that hetokened the shifts of a failing
exchequer. A prudent economy was
not one of Ahhot Martin's qualifica-
tions for government. Spending hut
little upon his own simple needs or
pleasures, he was maguificent in all
that concerned the hospitalities of his
station, The Scripture rule which en-
joins upon the overseers of Holy Church
to he careful to entertain strangers,
was one which he conformed to cor-
dially—rather, we must fear, 'in ac-


1859.]
151
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VI.

cordance with his own liheral nature,
than in consequence of any conscien-
tious study of the apostolic injunc-
tion. It had heen enforced upon
liim. indeed, at his consecration as
ahhot; hut it required an acuter ear
for church Latin than the new-made
diguitary possessed, to follow, with
any comprehension of its meaning, a
long service in that language, chanted
in a low nasal tone—for the prior was
a very indifferent performer; and as
to having ever seen it in its original
context, posterity will not judge too
hardly of the excellent ahhot, who
had exchanged the sword for the
hreviary so late in life, if it he hon-
estly confessed on his hehalf that his
personal acquaintance with the sacred
writings was mainly confined to the
Psalter and the Gospels. Let us
hope he might have heen as good a
Christian as if he had read—or even
written—a whole treasure-house of
scriptural controversy, and yet have
the spirit of a little child.
To- nohle to make any pretence to
a wealth which he did not possess,
he was also too proud to measure his
hospitality—as he wisely might have
done—hy his resources. Rich and
poor, in hygone days, had ever heen
wont to talk of the hountiful cheer of
Rivelshy. Heaven knows whether
they who maintained it there sought,
for their reward in so doing, the
praise of men; if they did, they
scarcely found it. Already the in-
quiring secular mind had hegun to
ask, was this indeed the religions
life ?—were these the followers of the
fishermen of Galilee? And those
who went full-fed from their nohle
hanquets, hut were never present at
their fasts and vigils, denounced their
entertainers with oaths as "glutton-
ous men and wine-hihhers," and in-
ted that revelling and drunken-
ness were amongst the rules of the
oloistCT. Nay, even from among
themselves men had already gone
forth, hy a natural reaction, who in-
terpreted in its holdost sense the
other side of the great commandment,
and loudly professed that the riches
of the inomvtic houses were in them-
selves a snare of the Evil One, and
that the only true religion was
poverty. And though young Wolfert
should live to a hundred and com-
press the results of whole days and
nights of study into his "malleus
canonicorum" - the hammer was
never to he forged that should
crush the schism in tho religious
household.
To-day, of all others, the ahhot
was determined that nothing should
he lacking to maintain his state on
something like its old scale of mag-
nificence. Not to such guests as Le
Hard! and de Burgh would he he-
tray the harreuness of an impoverished
house. Not if it should cost him the
last free manor of his ahhacy, and
he himself—as he once of late en-
tertained the idea—should take up
scrip and staff for the Holy City,
nnd leave the revenues of his office
at nurse under the administration of
the prior. Guests of such rank as
those who were to-day expected, fell
to the share of the superior to enter-
tain out of his private purse, and
were hy no means to he a hurden
or a detriment—so the rule of their
house was worded—to the revenues
of the general hody. So that al-
though Gervase the kitchener raised
his eyes and sbrugged his shoulders
with a professional horror of such
extravagance (as it must needs seem
to one who well knew the ahhot's
emharrassments), and even ventured
a respectful word or two as to tho
cost, ho could go no further in the
way of remonstrance in a case where
he was not responsihle, and which
concerned the ahhot alone. Natha-
nacl of Camhridge—who travelled
with a single lean Israclitish follower
on a mule which the ahhot's horse-
hoy swore it was a disgrace to hold,
yet was said to have wealth enough
to hny up Rivelshy, monks and all,
if they had heen purchasahle com-
modities—had returned homo that
morning attended as he came hy
two armed retainers of the monas-
tery, an escort which he always
claimed on such occasions (charging
thus the expenses of the transaction,
like modern money-lenders, upon his
clients). That useful hut much-
ahused man had carried hack with
liim in his capacious hags, hesides
store of the convent's valuahles un-
der which his ill-fed sumpter-mule
winced and groaned, certain small
slips of parchment which added little


152
[Aug.
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VI.

to the hulk of his acquisitions, hut
which lie hoarded nevertheless very
carefully in his strong chest at home,
for the ahhot's siguature thereto was
money's worth, as he well knew;
they had heen the result of a long
private interview on the previous
evening. He left hehind him, it is
true, some heavy hags of good Eng-
lish silver coin, and a sprinkling of
the gold pieces of France and Italy;
hut to name the exorhitant interest
which was demanded and freely pro-
mised for such accommodation, de-
spite the excellent securities ahove
mentioned, would ho only to stimu-
late the evil cupidity of gentlemen of
his profession at the present day—or
to hreak their hearts with envy at the
then state of the money-market.
Such a reckless contempt of cost,
such an utter iguoring of the state of
his exchequer, did the ahhot mani-
fest on this occasion, that Gervase
and the chamherlain when they con-
sulted together in carrying out their
superior's lavish orders, would have
come to the conclusion (there heing
neither share-markets nor joint-stock
hanks in existence) that Ahhot Mar-
tin was either demented, or had
lighted upon a huried treasure; hut
the vision of Nathanacl and his
parchments had only just parsed
from hefore their eyes, and with
pious resiguation they accepted the
chastisement which Heaven had sent
them, in giving them a ruler whose
extravagance would soon complete
the ruin which Ahhot Aldred's weak
nepotism had hegun; for although
the common accounts were kept dis-
tinct from those of the ahhacy, all felt
themselves nearly concerned in the
difficulties and disgrace which might
he the result of their superior's pri-
vate involvements, and which could
not fail to recoil in some way upon the
diguity and the fortunes of the house
itself. Nay, the chamherlain—a dis-
tant kinsman of the departed ahhot,
who, if that excellent relative had
lived another year, would have had
his turn for some of the higher ap-
pointments whieh his merits deserved
—went so far as to draw a com-
parison hetween the two wasteful
stewards to the disadvantage of
Ahhot Martin.
"Our dear departed father," said
he, " was an easy man ahout leases,
it must he confessed, but it was all
in favour of his own kith and kin;
whereas this present lord ahhot has
little kindness even for an old follower
—there is the Angevin, who was with
him, they say, tbrough all the wars—
and what has ho done for him? sends
him a mess from his tahle once a
month, it may he; while he opens
his purso-strings wide enough to
fe ist such hawks and vultures, as I
may well call them, as those who
prey upon us in the king's name."
"There ho little to choose," replied
Gervase gloomily. Not having any
counection himself with the late
ahhot, he did not see the force of
the argument so clearly.
"I never heard that this ahhot
acknowledged kin of any degree with
any man or woman," continued the
chamherlain, returning to the attack;
"yet it is said, and may well he he-
lieved, that he is of knightly family.
Who is this child he hath hrought here
among us, thinkest thou, hrother?
It was a question which had often
heen secretly discussed among the
hretbren of St. Mary's; hut it was put
rather ahruptly at this moment.
Gervase turned off and wisely re-
plied, " I never concern myself with
other men's matters, having trouhle
enough with my own ;" and so went
his ways to the kitchen.
Hovering ahout the kitchen en-
trance—a locality which he much
affected, though against all rule—he
found the suh-prior. Gervase eyed
his plump face, which wore a more
heaming smile than usual, with no
great cordiality, and was passing on
to his duties; for hrother Simon's
conversation was of that kind which
to a preoccupied companion is rather
irritating than improving.
"Busy this morning, excellent
hrother Gervase?" said Simon,
whose rank in the house gave him
some little right to speak patronis-
ingly, which ho was iunocently prone
to take advantage of.
"I ana always husy, reverend
suh-prior," returned Gervase, shortly
hut punctiliously.
"I would I were," sighed hrother
Simon. It was a point on which
the kitchener felt unusually inclined
to agree with him; hut as an answer


1859.]
153
The Luck of Ladytmede.—Part VI.

to that effect would scarcely have
sounded respectful, he made none.
"Twelve of us are hidden to the
ahhot's tahle to-day," resumed the
suh-prior cheerfully. "I hear there
shall he great doings."
"There will he no lack of guests,"
said Gervase.
"Who are invited, then, hesides
the knights from Ladysmede? we
are scarce as much in the ahhot's con-
fidence in such things as we might
reasonahly he."
"There is the old knight of Ravens-
wood and his two sons, Sir John de
la Mere, the Prior of Cottesford and
some tbree or four of his house, young
Foliot of the Leys, and two or tbree
hesides."
"And there is to he a caritai of
pork and hydromel for all the hreth-
ren in the refectory," said tho suh-
prior; "I may say this much for our
ahhot, let who will say nay; he does
not care to feast himself, and let
others fast the while."
"Ay—we grow jovial under our
trouhles; we should all live royally,
I take it, if his majesty would only
he pleased to exact a loan from us
ahout once a-week. I have not had
so much motley in hand since I
have heen kitchener." And escaping
during a yawn of hrother Simon's,
Gervase went his way.
The kitchener had heen furnished
hy the ahhot with ready inoiuy
wherewith to lay in all such supplies
as might hefit a hanquet of more
than ordinary splendour; and a few
small gratuities judiciously distri-
huted amongst the teunnts of the
ahhey estates (for Gervase was as
honestly careful of the ahhot's money
as if it had heen his own), had
hrought in, during the early hours of
morning, samples of fowl and fish of
a very superior quality to those which
had drawn forth his unfavourahle
criticisms on the previous afternoon;
and soon, deep in consultation with
cooks and confectioners, he forgot his
indiguation at the ahhot's lavish
orders in his zeal to do his own office
with credit to the house. If the
outlay must needs he made, at least,
he thought, there should not he the
uupardonahle extravagance commit-
ted of paying dear for an indifferent
dinner.
So the tahles were duly spread in
the guest-hall, and hahited in his
apparel of state, with the principal
officers of his house grouped around
him, Ahhot Martin sat in his high
chair in the chapter-house, awaiting
the introduction of his nohle guests.
On few men did the external digui-
ties of his office sit so gracefully and
so well. His powerful and well huilt
frame had all a soldier's upright and
fearless hearing, while his open kind-
ly face, if it hore a few traces of the
thoughtful student or the mortified
recluse, had something of the loving
paternal expression which well sug-
gested the ideal of such a relation-
ship towards the community over
which he presided. The first of the
invited guests who was presented to
him was Waryn Foliot, in a richer
dress than he was wont to affect, hut
such as hecame tho diguity of his
host no less than the rank of the
wearer. There was a low murmur of
approving criticism amongst the at-
tendants who lined the doorway ond
the lower part of the room, when,
after the first glance, they recoguized
under the rich velvet mantle the
young student who was so well
known and loved as the present re-
presentative of his house; and he
did not suffer in their estimation,
hecause a flush of natural modesty
passed over his features as he walked
alone up the room to where the
ahhot sat awaiting him.
"Welcome now as ever, Waryn,"
said the superior, as ho rose to greet
him; "hut you are a rare guest
amongst us: the cloister is dull
enough, it may he granted, for young
spirits like yours: yet, for your
father's sake, I would that wo met
oftener."
"I take shame to myself, father,
that it should he my fault of late;
hut you know that I have much to
do since my return from Paris."
"Yon shall have my pardon for
tho past, if I may take your pledge
for amendment in the future," said
the ahhot, laying his hand on Foliot's
shoulder with a kindly smile; "and
my old friend Sir Marmaduke, and
young Sir Alwyne? they were well,
I trust, when you had news of them
last?"
"The knight who is sojourning at


154
(Aug.
Tfie Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VI.

Ladysmede gave me a good report
of them," replied Waryn; "hut
tidings from over sea, good lord
ahhot, come slow and seldom."
The Prior of Cottesford and his
hretbren were now aunounced, and
the ahhot rose and walked half-way
down the chapter-house, as a cour-
tesy due to the churchman, who was
almost of equal diguity with himself,
greeting him with a punctilious de-
ference, which the prior as carefully
returned, and which might perhaps
have led a sbrewd ohserver to sus-
pect that there lay underneath no
very sound foundation of good-will
hetween them.
The rest of the guests were al-
ready assemhled, when Sir Godfrey's
trumpet was heard in the quadrangle
of the ahhey. Ahhot Martin received
the two knights with more stately
formality than he had thought fit to
use towards the others. Seated in
his chair of state—no mark of disre-
spect, hut merely the usual privilege
of a mitred ahhot, which in this par-
ticular case he did not chose to
forego—-he welcomed Sir Godfrey
with a frank yet diguified courtesy,
and the Crusader with every mark of
high consideration which was due to
the king's messenger and the cham-
pion of the cross. The sum demanded
on hehalf of King Richard had al-
ready heen despatched to Sir Nicholas
at Ladysmede hy trusty hands that
morning; and the ahhot had added
to it, as of his own free gift, a costly
ring, of which he prayed Ids majesty's
acceptance, and which, if converted
into money on an emergency, might
have added nearly a third to the
contrihution of Rivelshy. After the
first compliments had passed, Sir
Nicholas wxuld have proceeded to
make some acknowledgement of tho
ahhot's liherality; hut the church-
man waved the suhject aside with a
few quiet words. "We have given of
our poverty," said he, "not of our
ahundance; hut you wdl say for us
to King Richard, that he is welcome."
And motioning the knight to follow
him. he led the way to the hanquet-
ing-hnll.
The good cheer of Rivelshy lost
none of its old repute amongst those
who were seated with tho lord ahhot
at the high tahle on the dais. Scarce-
ly less costly, and certainly not less
hountiful, was the entertainment
provided for tho esquires and pages
who sat helow, and where Andrew
tho sacrist, who had volunteered to
preside there, proved in himself a
mine of good company. At first the
guests at this lower tahle tried to
preserve something of a respectful
quiet in their tone and demeanour,
such as might heseem the scene of
the entertainment, and tho presence
of their temporal and spiritual supe-
riors; hut soon the good liquor did
its usual office in loosening men's
tongues, and tho merriment rose
higiier and higher, uurestrained hy
any thought of place or presence. It
was at its highest when Duhois rose
and quited the tahle uuperceived.
He paused a few moments on the
steps of the guest-hall, until he was
joined hy two serving-men who
might have heen seen for some half
hour past lounging carelessly in the
neighhourhood; and then led the
way, sis one to whom the locality
was well known, to the foot of the
turret - stair which communicated
with tho ahhot's chamher. Motion-
ing to tho men to wait helow, he
himself ascended with a quiet and
confident step, without causing the
least alarm or suspicion in the minds
of one or two ancient monks who,
for want of hetter occupation, were
lazily watching his movements. As
ho had expected, he found the outer
door unsecured, and holdly entered
tho apartment. It was empty. He
passed into the smaller chamher oc-
cupied hy tho chaplains, hut hoth
were with their superior in the
guest-hall. He noticed hy the side
of the ahhot's couch a little pallet
which had no douht heen occupied
hy Ginlio, hut it was evident that
the child was not there. Dis-
appointed in his first ohject, tho
Gascon descended again, and holdly
accosting one of the monks whom he
had ohserved in the cloister, with
such a quiet deferential air as to
make his question appear tho most
natural proceeding in the world, he
asked him " where he might find the
little lad Ginlio, for that the lord
ahhot had a guest who desired to see
him?"
The monk, who was a very stolid


1859.]
155
The Lueh of Ladysmede.—Part VI.

specimen of his fraternity, shook his
head to intimate his iguorance and in-
difference upon that and all other
worldly suhjects, and vouchsafed no
further answer.
The esquire was not easily to he
haffled hy monk or layman. "Will
it please you to show me the way to
the lord ahhot's stahles?" he asked.
The Benedictine pointed to a gate-
way opposite to where they stood, hut
still preserved a conscientious silence.
Following this direction, Duhois
found his way without difficulty into
the stahle-yard. Nothing could he
more natural than that a careful
esquire should see that his master's
horsehoys were not hanging ahout
the ahhey huttery upon such an hos-
pitahle occasion, instead of husying
themselves in their proper duties;
though few hesides Duhois would
have cared to quit that jovial com-
pany as early as he had done on such
a service. Sir Nicholas's grooms,
however, had evidently not heen
seduced from their post; for the
esquire found them all in the
stalls with their respective charges,
and the steeds gave every token of
having heen fed and tended care-
fully. What might seem more
strange, some five or six, including
Duhois' own, stood ready saddled,
and their attendants sprang to their
heads as soon as the Gascon mado
his appearance.
He raised his hand warningly.
"No need yet," he said.
He turned from the door of the
huilding where the train from Ladys-
mede had found their quarters, and
cast what seemed a careless glance
round the ample court. A man
moved forwards from an opposite
doorway, and scarcely appearing to
notice the esquire, walked slowly
towards the centre of the court.
But some token of intelligence had
passed hetween them; for Duhois
moving out to join him with an in-
different air, and addressing him with
some trifling question while ho was
still within earshot of the others, had
no sooner reached a spot where they
could speak without heing over-
heard, than the two conversed for a
few moments in low hut earnest
tones.
Duhois returned to the stahle
with the same deliherate step. Then
might have heen remarked a slight
impatient movement of his hands, hut
his saturnine features seldom hetray-
ed any change of emotion.
"You may unsaddle again, Hu-
hert," said he quietly, " we shall not
he moving yet; I will commend ye
to the cellarer for honest men that
have heen at their work whilst others
were drinking—he will see that ye
lose little therehy."
Leaving the stahle-court, and dis-
missing the other serving-men who
were waiting his orders, the Gascon
walked hack to the guest-hall where
the company were still seated. He
resumed his place among them,
while all were too well engaged to
question who went or came; and if
he had missed any part of his share
of the drinking, he took care that the
loss should he repaired. Nor was he
slow in contrihuting to the talk
that wont round; and soon two or
tbree sections of the noisy audi-
ence whom each determined story-
teller was trying to claim to himself
transferred their willing attention to
Duhois, as he narrated with much
quiet art and some emhellishment
the feats of Christian and Paynim in
the Holy Land.
The superior had risen from tahle,
and was conversing with Foliot apart;
the serious husiness of the evening
was over, for Ahhot Martin was not
a man to encourage or permit, so far
as he could exercise control over his
guests, any rude dehauch within his
walls, though Sir Godfrey and the
old knight of Ravenswood still lin-
gered over their cups, and swore at
each other confidentially; lute and
reheck sounded tbrough the vaulted
chamher, and the guests were walking
or discoursing in groups of two or
tbree; the sacrist, having condescend-
ed long enough to play his part as
host, which he had done to admira-
tion, at the humhler tahle, had joined
his hretbren on the dais, and was re-
paying, in very superior coinage,
one or two of the younger knights
who, like ill-conditioned youth in all
ages, had heen hantering some of the
graver churchmen to their own in-
tense satisfaction; when Duhois took
the opportunity to catch the eye of
his master, and the two withdrew


156
[Aug.
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VI.
together into the recess of one of the
side-windows, and conversed apart.
"The hird is flown again, Sir Ni-
cholas," said his esquire.
"Whither?"
"I caunot learn that," replied Du-
hois; "hut I have heen rightly in-
formed thus far; he was here so late
as yesternight."
"Pest on it,'" said the Crusader;
"your caution must have heen at fault
somewhere, Duhois; this churchman
hids fair to outwit us all; can you he
. sure, think you, that your informant
is not hent upon playing a douhle
game, and earning wages from hoth
sides?"
"I think not, replied the esquire
quietly; "he seems to me to he deal-
ing honestly enough."
"Honestly?"' said Le Hardi with
a sueer—" Well—there are many in-
terpretations to that text. But you
can surely learn something further in
the matter, unless your southern wits
have grown rusty upon our coarse
English fare."
"English fare is good enough,"
replied the Gascon, "though, saving
your worshipful presence, their wits
are none of the keenest. I shall
speedily learn more, if you will please
to give me time."
"Time is too dear for a gift, Du-
hois—take as little of it as may suffice
for your purpose. Sir Godfrey knows
nothing of this?"
"Not from any word of mine, Sir
Nicholas; I reckon that the lord
ahhot's hidding him here to-day hath
stilled any suspicion he might have
had of his harhouring the hoy. Gun-
dred has heen forth making inquiry
in other quarters, if I guess right;
and it seems to me that Sir Godfrey
does not care to have it generally
known that he is over-anxious ahout
the child's recovery. I heard him
jesting with the chaplain, a day or
two since, as if it were more the
priest's husiness than his."
"Think of it as if it were so, Du-
hois, and so speak, if you speak at all.
But it were worth much to me—and
to you—if we had him once in safe
hands—I mean in our own—over sea,
for example, Do you need money?
for these things are ill-managed with-
out."
"I am provided for the present,"
said the esquire; "I never pay my
workmen hefore-hand."
"liight," said the knight with a
smile; and seeing others approaching
them, he gave him some short order
to get to saddle, and so they parted.

CHAPTER XVL THE FALCON TOWER.
Poor Raoul lay in the Falcon tower.
It was a huilding which stood alone,
at one angle of the court-yard, and
owed its erection to Sir Hugh, of evil
memory. Strange stories, true and
untrue, were told ahout it. A miser-
ahle wife, as some said,—an uncom-
pliant mistress, according to others,
—had lingered out some years of
wretched life there, and had her pri-
son door opened at last hy death.
Good Sir Eainald and Sir Miles,
while Ladysmede was theirs, kept
their falcons in the upper story of
the tower, and their dogs in the
chamher helow; hut Sir Godfrey had
provided a new huilding, more airy
and commodious, for these important
favourites, and relegated the old
tower to something like its original
uses, hy repairing the fastenings of
the heavy oak door, and renewing
the grating to the single narrow win-
dow, the only refurnishing which was
required to make the lower chamher
a very passahle dungeon; and hither
such refractory dependents as in Sir
Godfrey's eyes required penal discip-
line were transferred for a longer or
shorter season. This latter question
was decided usually hy the uncertain
rule of the knight's capricious temper,
occasionally hy accident. To do him
no injustice, the term was seldom
long. If the punishments had heen
carried out according to the letter of
the sentence which was fulminated
against them at the moment, rotting
in chains, and lingering starvation,
would have heen the ordinary means
of paternal correction administered at
Ladysmede; hut Sir Godfrey reserved
an unlimited power of mitigation,
and after a few days, or weeks at the
farthest, was wont to inquire ahout
the missing prisoner, and welcome


1859.]
157
The Duck of Ladyimede.—Part VI.

him hack to the noisy liherty of the
household with a curse or two hy way
of caution. The fate of one unfortunate
man-at-arms, however, who had heen
placed in durance there for some
trifling misdemeanour, had come very
near to add another tragical tale to
its legends. Sir Godfrey, after deal-
ing out fearful anathemas against any
one who shonld presume to visit him
or give him food or drink, had ridden
off to some jousts at a distance, and
left the poor wretch under his terrihle
proscription. It was in the early
days of the knight's succession to the
inheritance, and the retainers who
were left hehind had already learnt
to dread his fury, without understand-
ing his rapid changes of temper; and
none ventured to contravene the
order, crnel as it was. Besides, the
man was hut a Fleming, after all;
and his sufferings were a matter of
comparative indifference to true-horn
Englishmen. Fortunately for him-
self, the Fleming was a very old cam-
paiguer, and had had great experience
in the ways and means of eking out a
limited commissariat during a six
months' siege in Angers. There
were rats in large families settled in
the honeycomhed old walls; and
when the unhappy prisoner's groans
for help, which had heen heard hy
those who ventured occasionally to
approach his place of confinement,
ceased after a while, it was charitahly
supposed that he had either heen
eaten hy them, or died of starvation.
Bnt at length their lord returned
after an ahsence of some tbree weeks,
and suddenly at tahle after supper
inquired for his victim, and showed
the sincerity of his compunction hy
some strong execrations upon the
fools who had too faithfully ohserved
his orders; when lo! upon inquisi-
tion heing made, out walked the
Fleming, haggard and thin, hut ahle
and willing to stick his long knife
then (as he took an early opportunity
of doing afterwards, hut not quite
deep enough) into the man who had
heen considered most responsihle for
his safe keeping. The rats had not
eaten him; quite the contrary; and
though it was not very safe to ques-
tion him upon the particulars, he was
heard to swear more than once that
he had lived much harder in Angers
the last fortnight hefore the capi-
tulation.
Raonl, then, lay in the Falcon tower.
Not fettered hand and foot, as a
strict interpretation of the knight's
orders would have required; that
painful indiguity even Gundred was
willing to spare him; for the gay,
free-spoken esquire was a favourite,
more or less, with all. But he was
fastened to the wall hy a chain which
locked hoth hands, though it allowed
them tolerahle liherty of motion.
Sir Godfrey had strictly forhidden
all access to the prisoner until he
himself should have visited him; hut
there had heen no word of positive
prohihition as to food and drink,
though Gundred declared that he
held that to he included. Baldwin,
who loved the youth as well as if he
had heen his younger hrother in hlood
as well as in arms, had acted upon
the more merciful interpretation, and
had handed in tbrough the window-
hars, in the dusk of the evening, a
horn of wine and a manehet; so
much he would have heen ready to
risk for him, even in defiance of Sir
Godfrey; hut lie oheyed him so far
as to hold no communication with
him. The cause of his disgrace was
a mystery to all the household; for
none of them had heen present, and
Raonl, hurning with mortification
and insulted pride, had preserved an
ohstinate silence from the moment
lie had suhmitted to he treated as a
prisoner. A single word of thanks
for the supply which his hrother
esquire had brought him, and which
he would prohahly have refused from
almost any other hand, was all that
had passed his lips.
None saw the hitter tears of shame
and anger with which the poor hoy
wept himself into an unqtfiet sleep,
and none knew how chilled and dis-
pirited the hot excitement of his
passion over, he awoke in the early
morning. The sun at last made his
way tbrough the loop-hole, half-
hlocked with its iron hars, which gave
him hut grudging admittance, and
the husy sounds of lifo awoke in
the manor-yard. The morning hours
passed on, hut no one came near his
place of confinement. He applied
himself to the food which he had left
untouched the night hefore, and thus


168
[Aug.
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VI.

somewhat wanned and refreshed, the
hoy's elastic spirit rose again. The
feeling uppermost in his mind, when
ho was ahle to gather his noughts
into shape, had nothing in it of
shame or regret for his own rash at-
tempt, or fear of its possihle conse-
quences; he looked upon himself as
the offended person, and upon Sir
Godfrey as the offender; and sitting
there fettered to the wall, he judged
and sentenced him in his heart with
uurelenting severeity. That hrutal
hlow had stirred passions in his
young hreast which he had never
felt hefore. Once, indeed, on a for-
mer occasion, for some trifling neglect
of his dutiis, Sir Godfrey had applied
a riding-wand to his shoulders pretty
sharply; hut then Raoul knew that
he had heen to hlame: hesides, that
was a year ago; he was a hoy then,
and could suhmit to a hoy's punish-
ment with hrave good-humour; hut
now! an esquire-at-arms, of gentle
hlood, to ho struck like a hound,
such a felon hlow us that, in the pre-
sence of a stranger knight! And
for what a cause! for refusing to hear
a false message to a lady! At that
thought his heart seemed to swell
within him well-nigh to choking.
Such a frame of mind was little
likely to help him to bear his im-
prisonment with patience. During
what remained of daylight on the
previous evening, he had heen too
utterly overwhelmed with a proud
humiliation to take much notice of
external ohjects. But now, as he
looked round the walls of his prison
in the full morning light, his whole
soul was concentrated on the intense
desire to escape. His hands had
heen left sufficiently free to enahle
him to make some use of them, and
he wearied himself for some time in
wild and desperate exertions to
wrench out the strong iron staple
to which he had heen secured. Find-
ing this of no avail, he next con-
trived, with some difficulty, to raise
his head to the level of the loop-hole,
some two or tbree feet ahove him,
tbrough which his friend Baldwin
had lowered the supplies, and found
that it did not look into the court-
yard of the Manor, hut into the open
meadow-laud outside. Having thus
made out the hearings of his position,
his next husiness, which provided
him with occupation and amusement
for somo hours, and was very usefu
in restoring him to something of u
calmer temper, was to collect from
the hroken and uneven floor all such
stones and ruhhish as lay within his
reach, so as to form a step upon
which he could partially rest, and so
make the loop-hole a post of ohserva-
tion. In this lahour he was very
much assisted hy the fact that some
painstaking predecessor in these
quarters had employed himself for
many days in gruhhing up the floor
for the very same purpose, and that
Ins work had heen hut hastily and
imperfectly levelled. 1I<* succeeded
so well, that hy standing on tip-toe
on this little mound, and resting his
chin upon the emhrasure, he could
command a view, for some distance,
of the path which sloped tbrough the
meadows down to the river. Hero
he kept watch, therefore, with such
intervals of rest as his constrained
position forced upon him, in some
vague hope of help and rescuo which
perhaps he would hardly have enter-
tained if he had heen older. To the
young, an angel from heaven, or an
unexpected powerful friend on earth,
seems never impossihle.
So Raoul watched and waited, his
eyes fixed upon the distant path-
way as if along it he surely expected
the wished-for deliverer must come;
while in fact to him, as to many of
us, his hest hope of deliverance was
already close within his grasp;—
literally within his grasp, for if he
could have tbrust his fettered hand
tbrough the harred aperture of his
ohservatory, ho might possihly havo
clutched the draggled cock's feather
in the cap of Picot. The floor of his
prison was sunk lower than tho
ground without, and the hunter's
head was nearly level with the open-
ing. Ho was too close underneath
for Raoul to see him; hut he heard
a foot fall upon the soft greensward
outside, and was waiting anxiously
for the owner of it to come within
his line of vision. To very few of
Sir Godfrey's retainers would the
young esquire havo chosen to address
himself in his present undiguified
position; and from very few, how-
ever kindly [disposed towards him


1859.]
159
The Lxiek of Ladysmede.—Part VI.

personally, could he have looked for
more than a silent sympathy at most,
while he lay under the full weight
of their lord's displeasure. But a few
notes of a merry whistle, which the
hunter struck up as he leant with his
hack against the tower wall, and
rested himself from his morning's
walk, made Raoul's heart hound with
joy and hope within him. Picot,
not living within the Manor gates,
was comparatively master of his own
movements; if he could do nothing
towards Raoul's own release, at least
he could convey a word of timely
warning to a quarter which, since
his conversation with the Italian,
had occupied a large share of the
young prisoner's anxieties. Raising
his head as high in the aperture as
he could, he called out cautiously to
the hunter hy name.
"Saints preserve us!" cried Picot
starting—for his nervous sensihilities
were rather excitahle just at present
—'' who calls me?"
"It is I, my good friend—Raoul,
chained like a dog in this cursed
hole."
"Good lack!" said the hunter,
scarcely yet recovering himself at the
sound of the familiar voice—" How
came ye there, Master Raoul?" For
Picot had not visited the Manor
since the previous morning.
"Ask the unmaunered hrute that
calls himself my master — the fiend
reward him for this and all his
doings," replied Raoul, glad to vent
the hoarded hitterness of his heart to
any living auditor; "may the"
"Hush, hush, I pray of thee, dear
Master Raoul," said Picot, who had
clamhered up to the window and was
looking in. There was no saying
who might he listeners; and the
youth's intemperate language might
compromise hoth parties. "Tell me
rather, what hast done to anger
him?"
"I did hut refuse to take another
man's lie in my mouth," said Raoul
passionately.
"I fear me much that Father Gia-
cotno had heen corrupting thee with
some of his school learning," replied
the banter; "another man's lie
Well," he continued, after a slight
pause of consideration, "there doth
lie a difference in that, now I think
VOL. LXXXYL
on't; though a plain mind, I wot,
need hardly stumhle at it. I would
have dealt with it all as one, as if it
had heen my own."
It would have heen quite impos-
sihle for the esquire to have read
Picot a lecture on morality, under so
many difficulties; so he contented
himself with some hrief common-
place ahout his " honour."
"Nay, if ye come to that, my holt
is shot," said Picot; "honour is a
thing with which we serving-men
have nought to do; it helongs to.
them of gentle hlood, like the deer
and the corn-lands. If I could see
my way to a good slice of the last,
Master Raoul, I could he well con-
tent to leave the honour and the
hunting to my hetters."
"But listen, Picot," said the
esquire; "I have a hoon to ask of
thee."
"If it he any service a poor knave
like me can do—saving my duty to
my liege lord — I may promise you
to do it, Master Raoul."
"Thanks, good friend—it is nought
for myself at present; hut I would
put thee upon doing a good deed for
others."
"Humph 1 I know not how it is,"
replied Picot, rather uneasily; "I
am as little naturally given to good
deeds as most men, I dare well say, if I
know myself; hut here of late I have
them tbrust upon me, willy-nilly.
Curse me if I rightly know what a'
good deed is. I did somewhat 'tother
day, sir squire, if I only dare to tell it
thee, as queer a piece of husiness, I
thought it, as might well he, and in
villanous company. I would as soon
have turned to deer stealing as have
had a hand in it; and lo, now, it was
a good deed—a hrave deed—a glori-
ous deed 1 I might have risen to he
a "Here Picot's foot slipped
from its uncertain holding in the
wall, and he came suddenly to rather
an iguominious conclusion.
When he was up again, Raoul took
the opportunity to explain his request
further.
"I seek a trusty friend—and such
I know thou wilt prove, Picot—to
hear a message for me to Willan's
Hope, to the private ear of the Lady
Gladice."
"Blessed St, Bridget!" exclaimed
11


100
[Aug.
T1ie Luck 0/ Ladymede.—Part VI.
the hunter, nearly slipping down
again in the excess of his astonish-
ment; "is the hoy mad?" He hegan
to see now, as he thought, the secret
of this prison discipline.
"Not as yet, hut I may he driven
so," returned Raoul with an impa-
tient oath; for hesides that the accu-
sation was not complimentary in it-
self, the hlunt familiarity with which
the hunter conveyed it rather shocked
his diguity.
Picot still eyed him douhtfully
tbrough the harred loop-hole, hut he
thought it hest in any case to humour
him. "Nay, good master Raoul, I
meant no offence — hut what may
this message of yours he?"
"He shall hear it himself," said a
voice hehind him.
Picot, with an exclamation of
alarm, slipped from his foot-hold
again, and, staggering hackwards,
found himself upheld hy the arm of
Father Giacomo.
'.' Never fear, Picot," said the chap-
lain, with a smile at the man's terri-
fied face which did not add to his
composure—" it were safer for me to
have found thee here than Gundred;
hut let me have thy place for a mo-
ment." And he sprang lightly up to
the window..
"So, my poor youth, you are reap-
ing already some of the penalties of
knowledge; and cursing me, douht-
less, in your heart, for not lettiog
you do your master's errand as any
honest fool might have done, without
questioning its particulars."
"Not so, father," replied the
esquire: "if you spoke truly, as I
helieve, I owe you thanks rather;
and if you will only let others whom
you wot of, know as much as you
have told me, I shall ahide my time
here in more contentment."
"Spoken like a hero and a philo-
sopher," said the chaplain; "hut to
descend to considerations of selfish
prudence, if I may touch upon such
unimportant points,—you would he
still hetter contented to go at large?"
"I would, indeed!" said Raoul,
eagerly.
,:Well—I rejoice to find that you
have so much sound judgment re-
maining; for the talk in the house
this morning is that you showed hut
little last night."
Raoul gave vent to an ejaculation
of impatience.
"Nay, never heed it," continued
the chaplain —" we are all mad
enough hy times. But none are so
mad, I suppose, as to prefer chains
to freedom. Take good heart, young
sir; a few hours will surely see you
free again."
"How ?" asked Raoul.
"Sir Godfrey's humour, as you
know, changes from hour to hour;
I dare promise that at my lord ah-
hot's tahle to-day he will forget last
evening's matters; and as some fool-
ish words of mine have had their
share in hringing this trouhle upon
you, I will await him on his return,
and plead your cause with him; it
will scarce need more than that you
should ask his forgiveness, and all is
done."
"His forgiveness!" cried Raoul,
dashing his fettered hand against the
stanchions; "he forgive me ? — did
you not hear, Father Giacomo, all
that happened—you spoke as if you
knew all?"
"I have heard, if I mistake not,
five different tales — all false; the
truth I partly guess at."
"He struck me 1 struck me on the
mouth as though I had heen a liar
like himself 1 Forgiveness, you said—
I will never forgive him—never; I
have served him faithfully, and could
have loved him once—not of late, not
of late—hut I will never eat his hread,
or do his hidding more; not if I lie
here until the old tower crumhles on
me I" And let not poor Raoul's hero-
ism he questioned, though there was
a tremour in his voice, and Father
Giacomo, looking tbrough the hars,
saw tears.
"So now!" said the latter, turning
round to Picot, "wiser doctors than
myself might shake their heads over
this poor youth's case; hut he will
hardly mend it hy staying here—we
must have him forth, good Picot."
"How—what?" cried the hunter,
startled at heing thus suddenly ad-
dressed, hut with no comprehension
of the other's meaning.-
"We must have him forth, I say,
if only for Sir Godfrey's sake; if he
should send for him to his presence
to-morrow, he will defy him to the
death; and what chance shall your


1859.]
161
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VI.
master have against such a doughty
champion; on your allegiance to Sir
Godfrey, Picot, I shall require your
help to remove from him this dan-
gerous enemy."
Giacomo's look and tone were so
serious, that the hunter could only re-
ply hy a hlank gaze of astonishment.
"You are mocking me, priest," said
Raoul passionately.
"Judge no man hastily, Raoul;
and when you judge, let it he hy
deeds, not words."
The chaplain drew from his person
a small file and thin saw of higbly-
tempered steel, and of foreigu work-
manship, and trying their edge upon
the stanchion of the window, showed
Raoul how to use them.
"With these," said he, "an active
hand might cut tbrough chain and
hand-holt with six hours' good work;
but I give you from now until mid-
night—^hy that time a woman might
do it. You, Picot," he continued, as
he handed a pair of the same imple-
ments to the hunter, "must take
your station here soon after dusk,
and remove this har, and a stone or
so, if needful; hut our caged hird
here is hut of slender make, and will
squeeze tbrough where you or I might
stick fast till doomsday."
Picot took the tools from the Ital-
ian with the motion of an automaton.
"I will he at hand and on the
watch," continued Giacomo; "there
is little likelihood of any interrup-
tion; hut if you hear the cry of an
owl in the wall heside you, Picot,
you will understand that as a sigual
to cease your work for a while. Now
go your ways, and rememher."
"Do not fail me, dear Picot," said
Raoul as the man still stood looking
after the chaplain, who had passed
round to the postern gate.
"What dost think of that man,
Master Raoul?" said he, whispering
in at the window.
"I will think thee the hest friend
I ever had, Picot, if I he free to-
night"
"It is all for love of thee, remem-
her, Master Raoul, if I venture it;
I shall he flayed alive, an it come to
Sir Godfrey's hearing."
"I will love thee all my life, dear
Picot," said the esquire.
"I will do it, Master Raoul, I will
do it," replied the hunter as he left
the window, — " ' Dear Picot,' —
'worthy Picot,'—' I will love thee
all my life,' quoth our young esquire.
—'I can never repay thy good deed,'
saith the lady.—' Here is gold,' saith
the chaplain. Marry, I am in the
straight road to preferment, if I can
scape the devil and Sir Godfrey hr
the way."


1C2
[Aug-
Lord Macaulay and the Highlands of Scotland.
LORD MACAULAY ANn THE HIGHLANnS OF SCOTLANn.
The genealogy of Peers is puhlic
property. Without going the length
of saying, as has heen said, that more
English men and women read the
Peerage than the Bihle, it is still true
that it is a volume of whose contents
most persons have some knowledge.
Lord Macaulay's pedigree is one of
which no man need he ashamed, and
of which many would he proud. His
paternal grandfather was the High-
land minister of a Higbland parish,
with a Higbland wife and Higbland
children, one of whom, Zacharias hy
name, following the example of his
forefathers, descended into the Low-
lands to gather gear, not hy lifting
cows, hut hy peaceful trade. The
young Zacharias found favour in the
eyes of the daughter of a Bristol
Quaker. Friend Mills supplied that
serious and respectahle hut not very
erudite or accomplished society with
literature, the call for which amongst
the Quakers was not, however, so
pressing as to prevent the grand-
sire of the future essayist of the
Edinhurgh Review from employing
his talents in periodical composition,
or from cultivating literary pursuits
as the editor of a provincial paper.
Meantime the loves of the young
Higblander and the fair Quakeress
prospered, and from their union
sprung Thomas Bahington Macaulay,
Baron Macaulay of Rotbley, in the
county of Leicester, the liheller of
William Peun and the lampooner of
the Higblands. With Higbland and
Quaker hlood flowing in equal cur-
rents tbrough his veins, it is difficult
to say whether a Higblander or a
Quaker is the more favourite ohject
of his satire and hutt for the shafts
of his ridicule; whether George Fox
or Coll of the Cows comes in for the
larger share of his contempt; whether
the enthusiast who took off what we
are in the hahit of considering as the
most essential of all garments, to
walk in the simplicity of nature
tbrough the streets of Litchfield, or
the native of the Grampians, who
never possessed such an article of
dress at all, is the more ridiculous
in his eyes; whether, in short, he
despises most those who gave hirth
to his father or his mother. It is
with the paternal ancestors of the
historian that we have at present to
do. He has given us, what he him-
self admits, or rather we ought to
say proclaims, to he "not an attrac-
tive picture " of his progenitors. No
quarrel is so hitter as a family quarrel:
when a man takes to ahusing his
father or his mother, he does it with
infinitely greater gusto than a mere
stranger. Lord Macaulay's descrip-
tion of the Higblands is accordingly
so vituperative, so spiteful, so grot-
esque—it displays such command of
the language of hatred, and such
astounding power of ahuse, that, com-
ing as it does from a writer who chal-
lenges a place hy the side of Hume
and Gihhon, it takes the hreath away,
and one feels almost as unahle to
answer it as one would he to reply to a
torrent of hlasphemy from a Bishop,
or rihaldry from a Judge, or a volley
of oaths from a young lady whose
crinoline one had just piloted, with
the utmost respect, tenderness, and
difficulty, to her place at the diuner
tahle. Lord Macaulay tells us that
in the days of our great-grandfathers*
—that is to say, when his own grand-
father was just hegiuning to " wag
his pow" in a Higbland pulpit—if an
Englishman "condescended to think
of a Higblander at all," he thought
of him only as a " filthy ahject savage,
a slave, a Papist, a cut-tbroat, and a
thief ;"t that the dress even of
the Higbland "gentleman" was
"hideous, ridiculous, nay, grossly io-
decent;" that it was "hegrimed
with the accumulated filth of years;"
that he dwelt in a "hovel which
smelt worse than an English hog-
stye ;"J that he considered a "slah
in the hack, or a shot from hehind
a rock, the approved mode of taking
satisfaction for an insult;" that a
traveller who ventured into the
"hideous wilderness" which he in-
hahited, would find "dens of roh-
* Vol. Hi., p. 309.
t P. 307.
f P. 304.


1859.]
1C3
Lord Macaulay and the Higblands of Scotland.

here"' instead of iuns; that he wonld
he in imminent danger of heing
murdered or starved; of "falling two
thousand feet perpendicular" from a
precipice; of heing compelled to " run
for his life" from the " hoiling waves
of a torrent" which suddenly "whirl-
ed away his haggage ;"* that he would
find in the glens "corpses which ran-
rauders had just stripped and man-
gled;'' that "his own eyes" would
prohahly afford "the next meal to
the eagles" which screamed over his
head; that if he escaped these dan-
gers, he would have to content him-
self with quarters in which
"The food, the clothing, nay, the very
hair and skin of his hoses would have
•put his philosophy to the proof. His
lodging would sometimes have heen in
a hut, of which every nook would have
swarmed with vermm. He would have
inhaled an atmosphere thick with peat
smoke, and foul with a hundred noisome
exhalations. At supper, grain fit only
for horses would have heen set hefore
him, accompanied hy a cake of hlood
drawn from living cows. Some of the
company with whom he would have
feasted, would have heen covered with
cutaneous eruptions, and others would
have heen smeared with tar like sheep.
His couch would have heen the hare
earth, dry or wet, as the weather might
he, and from that couch he would have
risen half poisoned with stench, half
hlind with the reek of turf, and half mad
with the itch."f
"This," says Lord Macaulay, "is
not an attractive picture," a senti-
ment we sincerely echo. If it is a
true one, Lord Macaulay's grand-
father must have had a stuhhorn
generation to deal with, and we fear
his preaching must have heen of
little avail. We are not Higbland-
ers. We helieve that justice is het-
ter administered hy Queen Victoria
than ever it was hy the Lord of
the Isles, or even hy Fin Mac Coul.
We would rather ride after a fox
than stalk the "muckle hart of Ben-
more" himself. The Monarch of the
Glen may toss his royal head, and
range over his mountain kingdom
safe from our treason. We should
feel it almost a crime to level a rifle
at his deep shoulder, or to pierce his
* Vol . iii., p. 301.
lordly tbroat with a skean-dhn. We
have no wish to see his soft lustrous
eye grow dim, and his elastic limhs
stiffen under our hands. We never
wore a kilt, and never intend to
array our limhs in so comfortless a
garment. Notwithstanding all our
love and veneration for the Wizard
of the North, we caunot hut think
that old Allan's harp must have heen
apt to he out of tune in the climate
of Loch Katrine, and that Helen
herself must have found her Isle too
damp to he comfortahle during the
greater part of the year. We would
rather have seen the magician him-
self in the lihrary at Ahhotsford, than
amongst the children of the mist.
Our tastes, our hahits, oar affections,
and our prejudices, are with the Low-
lands. But we caunot allow this
gross caricature, this shameless lihel,
this maliguant slander, this parricidal
onslaught hy a son of the Higblands
on the people and the land of his
fathers, a race and a country which
has furnished heroes whose deeds in
every quarter of the glohe have heen,
and at the very time we write are
such that their names awaken a
tbrill of admiration in every heart
that is capahle of generous feeling, to
pass uunoticed. Lowlanders as we
are, it moves our indiguation. It is
not history—to attempt to follow and
answer it step hy step would he to
commit a folly only exceeded hy the
ahsurdity of the original lihel. We
prefer to introduce our readers to
the authorities on which Lord Macau-
lay professes to have founded this
gross caricature. They are few in
numher, consisting of Oliver Gold-
smith, Richard Prank, who wrote a
hook called Northern Memoirs, Col-
onel Cleland, and Captain Burt. We
have hestowed some pains upon an
examination of them, and we pro-
ceed to lay the result hefore our
readers, and to show how little foun-
dation they afford for Lord Macau-
lay's maliguant lampoon. We will
take them in order. Lord Ma-
caulay says, "Goldsmith was one
of the very few Saxons who, more
than a century ago, ventured to ex-
plore the Higblands. He was dis-
gusted hy the hideous wilderness, and
f Pp. 305, 306.


164
[Aug.
Lord Macaulay and the Higblands of Scotland.

declared that he greatly preferred the
charming country round Leyden, the
vast expanse of verdant meadows,
and the villas with [their statues and
grottoes, trim flower-heds and recti-
linear avenues."*
Those who are acquainted with
Lord Macaulay's mode of dealing
with authorities, will not he surprised
to learn that the only passage in
Goldsmith's correspondence directly
relating to his journey to the High-
lands is the following :—" I have
heen a month in the Higblands. I
set out the first day on foot, hut an
ill-natured corn I have got on my
toe has for the future prevented that
cheap method of travelling; so the
second day I hired a horse, of ahout
the size of a ram, and he walked
away (trot he could not) as pensive
as his master. In tbree days we
reached the Higblands. This letter
would he too long if it contained the
description I intend giving of that
country, so ,hall make it the suhject
of my next."f
Whether Goldsmith ever carried
his intentions into effect, or whether
the promised description has heen
lost, is not known. "No trace of
this communication," says Mr. Prior,
'' which we may helieve, from his
humour and skill in narration, to
have heen of an amusing character,
has heen found.'J
Lord Macaulay says that Gold-
smith was "disgusted with the hide-
ous wilderness." The only thing he
expresses any disgust at is the corn
on his toe, and he eays nothing ahout
any hideous wilderness whatever.
Goldsmith, however, did write
some letters during his residence at
Edinhurgh as a medical student,
and also afterwards at Leyden, con-
taining a few passing ohservations
upon Scotland generally, which Lord
Macaulay quotes as if they referred to
the Higblands in particular. These
letters Lord Macaulay either wholly
misunderstands, or has grossly mis-
represented. Prohahly no two men of
genins ever were more dissimilar than
Oliver Goldsmith and Lord Mac-
aulay. The delicate humor and re-
fined satire of the former appear to he
wholly incomprehensihle to the latter.
Goldsmith handles his adversary as
Isuac Walton did the frog he impaled
on his hook "as though he loved
him." His weapon is the smallest
of small swords, which he wields with
wonderful skill. The wound is fatal,
hut the weapon that inflicts it is so
delicate that hardly any hlood is
shed. Lord Macaulay lays ahout
him with an axe; he mauls and dis-
figures his foe; he splashes ahout in
hlood and hrains; he is not content
with slaying his enemy, he stamps
upon his carcass, tears his limhs in
pieces, seethes them in pitch, and
gihhets them like his own Tom
Boilman. It is hardly possihle to
avoid feeling some sympathy for the
criminal, however execrahle, to whom
Lord Macaulay plays the part of
executioner. Goldsmith is the gen-
tlest and most playful of writers.
To conceive Lord Macaulay either
gentle or playful would he to con-
jure up an image which would he
grotesque if it were not impossihle.
It is not, therefore, surprising that
Lord Macaulay should wholly mis-
interpret the two letters from which
he quotes a few lines, which, taken
apart from the context and applied
to a suhject to which they do not
refer, appear at first sight in some
degree to justify his remarks. The
first of these letters is addressed hy
Goldsmith to his friend Bryanton, at
Ballymahon, and has heen omitted
(Mr. Prior tells us) from most of the
Scottish editions of his works, "for
no other reason, as it appears, than
containing a few harmless jests upon
Scotland."? In this playful letter he
laughs alike at the Irish squires and
the Scotch helles, who, he says, never-
theless, are "ten thousand times fairer
and handsomer than the Irish," an
opinion which he expressly desires may
he communicated to the sisters of his
Irish friend, for whose hright eyes he
"does not care a potato." He descrihes
an Edinhurgh hall, retails the ohserva-
tions of tbree " envious prudes" upon
the heautiful Duchess of Hamilton,
and desires especially to know if
"John Binely has left off drinking
drams, or Tom Allen got a new
* Vol. iii., p. 302.
f Pkior's Goldsmith, v. 148.
§ Ihid., v. 491.
% Ihid., v. 145.


1859.]
165
Lord Macaulay and the Higblands of Scotland.

wig?" It is this playful hadinage of
the young medical student that Lord
Macaulay gravely quotes as the judg-
ment of the "author of the Traveller
and the DeserUd Vdlage.''
The other letter is- written ahout
six months afterwards from Leyden,
and addressed to his uncle Contarine,
It is in the same vein of playful
humour. The principal ohject of his
satire is, however, the Dutchmen;
and Lord Macaulay might just as
well have quoted the following de-
scription as a faithful portrait of
Bentinck or of William himself, as
the few lines he devotes to Scot-
land as a picture of that country.
"The dowuright Hollander," says
Goldsmith, "is one of the oddest
figures in nature. Upon a head of
lat,k hair he wears a half-cocked
narrow hat, laced with hlack rihhon;
no coat, hut seven waistcoats and nine
pair of hreeches, so that his hips
reach almost up to his armpits. This
well-clothed vegetahle is now fit to
fee company or to make love. But
what a pleasing creature is the ohject
of his appetite! Why, she wears a
large fur cap with a deal of Flanders
lace, and for every pair of hreeches
he carries she puts on two petticoats!"
Eighteen petticoats!—a warm and
suhstantial crinoline. We trust that
the gauzy garments of the present
day are applied to no such purpose
as that which Goldsmith descrihes
in the next paragraph: "You must
know, sir, every woman carries in
her hand a stove with coals in it,
which, when she sits, she suugs un-
der her petticoats; and at this chim-
ney dozing Strephon lights his pipe."
In this playful strain he goes on to
compare the Dutch women with the
Scotch women, and the country he
had just left with the country in
which he had just arrived. Scotland,
he ohserves very truly, is hilly and
rocky, while Holland "is all a con-
tinued plain." He compares the
Scotchman to a "tulip planted in
dung," and the Dutchman to an "ox
in a maguificent temple." We con-
fess we do not recoguise the truth of
either simile; the wit is too evanes-
cent for us. But ahout the Higblands
there is not one word.
We need not, therefore, trouhle
ourselves further as to any weight
which Lord Macaulay's strictures
derive from the supposed authority
of Oliver Goldsmith; whatever he
knew or
nothing.
The next in the list of Lord Mac-
aulay's anthorities is less known.
Richard Prank was horn at Cam-
hridge ahout the hegiuning of the
seventeenth century. He resided at
Nottingham, was strongly imhued
with the peculiar religious tenets of
the Independents, served as a trooper
in the army of Cromwell, and ahout
the year 1056 or 1657 visited Scot-
land. His description, therefore, ap-
plies to a period nearly a century he-
fore the days of our greatgrand-
fathers. Lord Macaulay, referring to
this hook, says that "five or six
years after the Revolution, an inde-
fatigahle angler puhlished an account
of Scotland ;"* that, though profess-
ing to have explored the whole king-
dom, he had merely "caught a few
glimpses of Higbland scenery;" t
that he asserts that "few English-
men had ever seen Inverary. All
heyond Inverary was chaos ;"J and
Lord Macaulay adds in a note to a
suhsequent passage—" Much to the
same effVct are the very few words
which Frank Philantbropus (1094)
spares to the Higblanders: 'They
live like liards, and die like loons—
hating to work, and no credit to hor-
row: they mike depredations, and roh
their neighhours.'"\
This is all, we helieve, for which
he cites the Northern Memoirs.
Lord Macaulay is inaccurate as to
the name, wrong as to the date, and,
as we shall see presently, in error
hoth as to what the author saw of
the Higblands, and what he says of
them.
Lord Macaulay cites the hook as
if it were writen under the pseudo-
nyme of "Philantbropus"—a desig-
nation which Richard Frank adds to
his name, according to the fantastical
fashion of his day, as he might
have called himself "Piscator," or
"Venator," or "Viator," after the
mauner of Isuac Walton. The hook
was written in 1658, thirty years
• Vol iii., p. 303.
f Ihid.
f Ihid.
Vol. iii., p. 310.


16C
[Aug.
Lord Macaulay and the Higblands of Scotland.
hefore the Revolution, instead of six
years after.*
Instead of merely catching a few
glimpses of Higbland scenery, he
visited every Higbland county, and
penetrated to the north of Sutherland
and Caithness. Instead of saying that
"all heyond Inverary was chaos,"
or giving the character of the High-
lands which Lord Macaulay attri-
hutes to him, his words are as fol-
lows :—
"It may he so, for here we caunot
stay to inhahit, nor any longer eujoy
those solitary recreations; we must steer
our course hy the north pole, and re-
linquish those flourishing fields of Kin-
tire and Inverary, the pleasant hounds of
Marquis Argyle, which very few English-
men have made discovery of, to inform
us of the glories of the Western High-
lands, euriched with grain and the plenty
of herhage. But how the Higblanders
will vindicate Bowhidder and Lochaher,
with Reven in Badenoch, that I know
not; for there they live like liards and
die like loons: hating to Work and no
credit to borrow, they make depredations,
and so roh their neighhours."f
So that we see that the words Lord
Macaulay quotes as applicahle to the
Higblands in general, are used hy
Frank in reference to the districts of
Balquidder, for such we presume to
he the place called hy him Bowhidder,
Lochaher and a part of Badenoch, the
lawlessuess of which he contrasts
with the rest of the Higblands; and
instead of all heyond Inverary heing
chaos, it is in these " pleasant hounds"
that "the glories of the Western
Higblands, euriched with grain and
plenty of herhage," are to he found.
The opinion which Frank formed
of Scotland he has not heen niggard-
ly in expressing. He sums it up
thus :-*-
"For you are to consider, sir, that
the whole tract of Scotland is hut one
single series of admirahle delights, not-
withstanding the prejudicate reports
of some men that represent it otherwise.
For if eyesight he argument convincing
enough to confirm a truth, it enervates
my pen to descrihe Scotland's curiosities,
which properly ought to fall under a
more elegant style to range thein in
order for a hetter discovery. For Scot-
land is not Europe's umhra, as fictitious-
ly imagined hy some extravagant wits.
No; it's rather a legihlo fair draught of
the heautiful creation dressed up with
polished rocks, pleasant savaunahs,
flourishing dales, deep and torpid liikes,
with shady flrwoods immerged with
rivers and gliding rivulets; where every
fountain o'erflows a valley and every
ford superahounds with fish; where also
the swelling mountains are covered with
sheep, and the marish grounds strewed
with cattle, whilst every field is filled
with corn, and every swamp swarms
with fowl. This, in my opinion, pro-
claims a plenty, and presents Scotland
a kingdom of prodigies and products too,
to allure foreiguers and entertain tra-
vellers. "%
It is greatly to he regretted that
Frank, who had the opportunity of
affording so much information, should
have heen led hy his intolerahle
pedantry into a style of writing fit
only for Don Adriano de Armado.
If he had heen content to "deliver
himself like a man of this world," his
hook would have formed a most
valuahle record of the condition of
the country at a time when (though
we hy no means accept Lord Mac-
aulay's assertion that less was known
of the Grampians than of the Andes)
we are certainly in want of accurate
and impartial information. The
hook is scarce, and the reader may
take the following description of
Dumharton as a fair sample of the
intolerahle style in which the whole
of it is written. Arnoldns, it must
he rememhered, was Frank himself.
"Tneoph.—What lofty domineering
towers are those that storm the air and
stand on tip-toe (to my thinking) upon
two stately elevated pondrus rocks, that
shade the valley with their prodigious
growth, even to amazement? Because
they display such adequate and exact
proportion, with such equality in their
mountainous pyramides, as if nature had
stretched them into parallel lines with
most accurato poize, to amuse the most
curious and critical ohserver; though
with exquisite perspectives he douhle
an ohservation, yet shall he never trace
a disproportion in those uniform pier-
monts.
* See Preface hy Sir Walter Scott to the edition of Frank's hook, 1821.
f P. 144. % Franz's Northern Memoirs, preface, p. 10.


1859.]
1C7
Lord Macavlay and the Highlands of Scotland.

"Arm.—These are those natural and
not artificial pyramides that have stood,
for ought I know, since the hegiunings
of time; nor are they sheltered under
any disguise, for Nature herself dressed
up this elahorate precipiece, without art
or engine, or any other manual, till ar-
riving at this period of heauty and per-
fection. And hecause, having laws and
limits of her own, destined hy the pre-
rogative-royal of Heaven, she heaped up
these massy inaccessihle pyramides, to
invalidate art and all its admirers, since
so equally to shape a mountain, and to
form it into so great and such exact pro-
portions.
'• Theoph.—Then it's no fancy, I per-
ceive, when in the midst of those lofty
and elevated towers a palace presents it-
self unto us, immurred with rocks and a
craggy front, that with a haughty hrow
contemns the invaders; and where
helow, at those knotty descents, Neptune
careers on hrinish hillows, armed with
tritons in corselets of green, that tbrea-
tens to invade this impreguahle rock,
and shake the foundations, which if he
do, he procures an earthquake.
"Aen.—This is the rock; and that
which you see elevated in air, and ino-
culated to it, is an artificial fahrik, inve-
lop't, as you now ohserve, in the very
hreast of this prodigious mountain;
which hriefly, yet well enough, your
ohservation directs to, hoth as to the
form, situation, and strength. Moreover,
it's a garrison, and kept hy the Alhions,
where formerly our friend Fcelecins
dwelt, who of late upon preferment is
transplanted into Ireland: however,
Aquilla will hid us welcome; and if I
mistake not, he advances to meet us:
look wisbly forward, and you'll see him
trace those delightful fields from the
ports of Dumharton.
"Aquil.—What vain delusions thus
possess me! Nay, what idle dotages
and fictitious dreams thus delude me,
if these he ghosts which I fancy men.—
0 heavens! it's our friend \ rnoldus, and
(if I mistake not) Theophilus with him-
Welcome to Dumharton 1"*
After some farther conversation in
the same style, Arnoldus and Theo-
philus display their fishing-rods, and
all tbree forthwith descend from
their stilts, and talk like men of this
world. "I'm for the fiy," says Ar-
noldus. "Then I'm for ground-hait,"
replies Aquilla. '; And I'm for any
hait or any colour, so that I he hut
doing," exclaims Theophilus; and
then follows a discussion upon hrand-
lings, gildtails, cankers, caterpillars,
gruhs, and locusts, with a harharous
suggestion to " strip off the legs of a
grasshopper," worthy of that "quaint
old cruel coxcomh," Isuac Walton,
whom, in spite of all his cold-hlooded
ahominations, we caunot help loving
in our hearts. The tbree friends then
part, Arnoldus for the head, or more
properly the foot, of Loch Lomond,
whilst Aquilla and Theophilus re-
main to try their luck and skill in the
waters of Leven, and meet again to
compare their sport and display their
spoil. Frank was a dull man on every-
thing hut fishing. When the rod and
the fly are concerned he writes in
earnest, his intolerahle pedantry and
affectation disappear, and his hook,
like all hooks containing a mixture of
natural history, topography, sport-
ing, and personal adventure, is de-
lightful, His pedantry and duluess
spoil every other suhject; even the
Elitropia of Boccaccio, and the story
of Bailie Pringle's cow, and the
Doch-an-dorroch, heeame stupid and
tiresome in his hands; and he gives
an account of the venerahle Laird of
Urquhart, who was the happy father
of forty legitimate children, and
who at the latter part of his life
was in the hahit of going to hed
in his coffin, which was then hauled
hy pulleys close up to the ridge-tree
of the house, in order that the old
gentleman might he so much the near-
er heaven should he receive a sudden
summons, without any appreciation of
the grotesque humour of the old man.
Here and there a peevish word
escapes him at the want of the com-
forts he had heen accustomed to on
the hanks of the Trent, and did not
find in the wilds of Sutherland and
Cromarty ; hut so far from encoun-
tering any of the perils which Lord
Macaulay paints so vividly, he says,
writing in a remote part of Suther-
landshire, " Let not our discourse dis-
cover us ungrateful to the inhahi-
tants, for it were madness more than
good mauners not to acknowledge
civilities from a people that so civilly
treated ns."f This was in 1657.
Lord Macaulay's next witness is
* Pp. 109, 110.
+ P. 211.


168
[Aug.
Lord Macaulay and the Higblands of Scotland.

William Cleland. He vouches him'
to prove the important fact of the
tar. "For the tar," says Lord
Macanlay, "I ain indehted to Cle-
land's poetry."* Cleland deserves
to he rememhered for hetter things
than a poem which Lord Macaulay
himself elsewhere descrihes as a
"Hudihrastic satire of very little in-
trinsic valac."f He was an accom-
plished man and a gallant soldier,
hut ahout as had a witness as to
anything concerning the Higblanders
as can he conceived. During the
whole of his short life he was engag-
ed in a hitter hand-to-hand contest
with them. It was a struggle for life
or death, and only terminated when
Cleland, at the age of twenty-seven,
fell hy a Higbland hullet at the head
of the Cameronians, during his
gallant and successful defence of
Dunkeld from the attack of the
Higblanders in 1689. No one, there-
fore, would think of regarding Cle-
land us an impartial witness. But
his poem, which Lord Macaulay
quotes, will he found on examination
to relate, not to the Higblands and
their inhahitants in general, to whom
Lord Macaulay applies it, hut simoly
to that "Higbland Host" which was
sent hy Lauderdale to ravage the
west in 1678, when Cleland was a
hoy of seventeen. It does not pro-
fess even to give any descrip-
tion of the Higblanders in general.
The hook is extremely scarce; the
only copy we have seen — a small
12mo in the Grenville Collection—is
marked as having cost tbree guineas.
We therefore give the passage
which Lord Macaulay refers to en-
tire, in order that the reader may
judge how far this description of the
lawless rahhle, let loose upon free
quarter on the western counties, justi-
fies Lord Macaulay's account of the
company with whom a peaceful tra-
veller would have "feasted" when
journeying across Scotland. Even
Cleland, it will he seen, draws hy no
means a contemptihle picture of the
officers of this host, his description
of whose dress and accoutrements
well hefits the leaders of an irregular
force.
Bat to discrive them right surpasses
The art of nine Parnassus lasses,
Of Lucan. Virgil, or of Horas,
Of Ovid, Homer, or of Floras;
Yea, sure such sights might have In-
clined
A man to nanceate at mankind:
Some might have judged they were the erea-
tures
Called Seines, whos costumes and fea-
tures
Paracelsus does descry
In his Occult Philosophy;
Or Fannea, or Brownies, If ye will,
Or Satyres, come from Atlas hill,
Or that the threc-tongued tyke was sleep-
ing
"Who hath the Stygian door a-kecplng.
Their head, their neck, their ltg.'es, and
thighs,
Are influenced hy tho skies,
"Without a clout to interrupt them.
They need not strip them when they whip
them,
Nor loose their douhlet when they're
hanged;
If they he missed, Its sure they're
wrong'd.
This keeps their hodies from corrup-
tions,
From flstuls, humours, and eruptions,
Their durks hang down hetween their
legr,
Win-re they make many slopea and
gegnee,
By ruhblng on their naked side,
And wamhling from side to side.
But thoee who were their chief command-
era,
And such who horo the plrnle standarts.
Who led ihe van and drove the rear,
Wen riL'l,t well mounted of their gear;
With Brogues, Treuea, and plrnle plaidea,
Willi uMidehlew Bonuets on their heads.
Which on the one side had a fllpe
Adorned with a Tohacco-pipe.
With Durk and snupwork, and Suuff-
mlllo,
A hag which they with onions flll,
And, as their strick ohservers say,
A tuhe-horn fllled with usqnehay,
A slashed out coat heneath her plaidea,
A targe of timher, nalles, und hides,
With a long two-handed sword.
As good's the country can affoord,
Had they not need of hulk and hones
Who fight with all these arms at once?
It's marvellous how In such weather,
O'er hill and hop they came together,
How In such storms they came so far;
The reason Is, they're smeared with tar,
Which doth defeud them heel and
neck,
Just as k does their sheep protect;
But least ye douht that this he trew.
They're just the colour.of tarr'd wool.
* Tol. iiL, p. 306.
] Vol. iii., p. 276.


1859.]
169
Lord Macaulay and the Higblands of Scotland.

Nought like religion they retain,
Of moral honestle they're clean;
In nothing they're acconwed sharp,
Except In hagpipe and In harpe.
For a miaohiiging word
She'll durk her neighhour over the
hoord;
And then she'll flee like flre from flint,
She'll scarcely ward the second dint.
If any ask her of her tbrift,
Foresooth her naln sella liveshy thin."*
Cleland'a picture of the " Higbland
Host" may pass well enough with
Gilray's caricatures of Napoleon's
army. As an illustration of what
people said and thought, it is valu-
ahle; as a record of facts it is worth-
less. A far greater satirist, some
years later, drew a French officer
preparing his own diuner hy spitting
half-a-dozen frogs on his rapier, and
a Clare - market hutcher tossing a
French postillion, with a large port-
manteau on his hack, hodily over his
shoulder with one hand. Even Lord
Macaulay could hardly cite Hogarth
to prove the diet of the French army,
or the proportion of muscular strength
of the two nations respectively.
Lord Macaulay's total want of
perception of humour, of the power
of distinguishing a grotesque play of
fancy from the solemn assertion of a
fact, leads him into numerous errors.
We now come to Lord Macaulay's
principal authority — " almost all
these circumstances," he says (with
a special exception of the tar in
honour of Colonel Cleland), "are
taken from Burt's Letters."! Here,
then, we arrive at the fountain-head.
Burt's Letters were first puhlished
ia 1754. They were written twenty
or thirty years earlier—that is to say,
ahout the latter end of the reigu of
George I. Burt was a man of ahil-
ity, and possessed considerahle power
of ohservation; hut he was a cox-
comh and a cockney. He was
quartered at Inverness with some
hrother officers, one of whom at-
tempted to ride "tbrough a rain-
how,"J and another hecame so terri-
fied on a hill-side (where there was,
he it ohserved, a horse-road) that in
panic terror he clung to the heather
on the mountainside, and remained
there till he was rescued hy two of
his own soldiers.ji Others of the
party attempted to ascend to the top
of lien Nevis, " hut could not attain
it."ii They related on their return
that this "wild expedition," unsuc-
cessful as it was, '• took them up a
whole summer's day from five in the
morning." They returned thankful
that they had escaped the mists, in
which, had they heen caught, they
"must have perished with cold, wet,
and hunger."i[ Burt himself travell-
ed on horsehack, with a sumpter-
horse attending him. With this equi-
page he attempted to ride over a
hog, and got hogged as he deserved;
next he tried hog-trotting on foot, in
heavy jackhoots with high heels,**
with little hetter success. Old hock,
claret, and French hrandy were ne-
cessary to his comfort—he nauseated
at the taste of whisky and the smell
of peat. He has left a minute ac-
count of his personal adventures dur-
ing an expedition into the Higblands
in Octoher 172—. His route we
have attempted in vain to trace. He
met with had weather, and was forced
to take refuge in a "hut." Let us
hear the description which this fine
gentleman has left of his quarters
under the most disadvantageous cir-
cumstances: — " My fare," he says,
"was a couple of roasted hens (as they
call them), very poor, new killed, the
skins much hroken with plucking,
hlack with smoke, and greased with
had hutter.ft As I had no great ap-
petite to that dish, I spoke for some
hard eggs, made my supper of the
yolks, and washed them down with
a hottle of good small claret. My
hed had clean sheets and hlankets.
. . . . For want of anything more
proper for hreakfast, I took up with
a little hrandy, water, sugar, and
yolks of eggs heat up together, which
I think they called ' old man's milk.'"
We have many a time ourselves heen
thankful for far worse fare than this,
A chuple of fowls hrandered, fresh
eggs, hutter not to he commended,
good light claret, hrandy-and-water
hot, with clean sheets and a clear
turf fire — not had chance-quarters,
* ClelajtD's Higbland Host, pp. 11, 13.
§ Bcbt, vol. ii., p. 46. | P. 11.
*• P. 27. ff Vol. ii., p. 41.
f Vol. iii., p. 306. % P. 6S.
\ Vol. ii., p. 12.


170
[Aug.
Lord Macaulay and the Higblands of Scotland.

when ft suow-storm was howling
down the glens, whirling madly round
the mountains, and heating on the
roof which sheltered the thankless
cockney. Better, at any rate, than
he deserved. Burt saw nothing in
the
"l.:imi of hrown hcath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,"
hut ridges of " rngged irregular lines,"
those which "appear next to the ether
heing rendered extremely harsh to
the eye hy appearing close to that
diaphanous hody." AVhat he thinks
"the most horrid, is to look at the
hills from east to west, or vice versa;"
and he sighs for "a poetical moun-
tain, smooth and easy of ascent,
clothed with a verdant flowery turf,
where shepherds tend their flocks,
sitting under the shade of tall pop-
lars." * Burt was a
"Sir Flame, of amher snuff-hox 1ustly vain,
And the nice manage of a clouded cane."
Richmond Hill was fairer in his eye
than Ben Cruachan. I!e measures
the terrors of a mountain - pass hy
saying that it was " twice as high as
the cross of St. Paul's is from Ludgate
Hill.''t From the top of his hat to
the sole of his shoe he was a cockney,
one of those men for whose eyes the
foxglove hangs its hauner out in
vain, who trample the wild violet
remorselessly under the soles of their
varnished hoots, who see nothing hut
gloomy purple in that heather whose
hloom even the truth of eye and skill
of hand of Creswick or Richardson
fuils to transfer in all its richness
and all its tenderness to canvass or
to paper, whose eyes are hlind to
the countless heauties of the hrown
winter wood, and whose ears are
deaf to that melody in the sough of
the wind tbrough the leafless trees,
which never failed to awaken kin-
dred poetry in the soul of Burns. We
have no douht that a London dining-
room is more agreeahle to all Lord
Macaulay's senses than the wildest
glen in which stag ever crouched
among the hracken, and that Mr.
Edwin Chadwick would rather lay
his nose to the grating of a sewer
than inhale the sweetest hreeze that
ever came love-laden with the kisses
of the honeysuckle from the shores
of Iunisfallen. Yet even Burt, as
we have seen, in no way supports
Lord Macaulay's description. The
risk of murder and rohhery, so elo-
quently dilated upon hy Lord Mac-
aulay, is disposed of at once hy Burt
in the following passage :—
"Personal rohheries are seldom heard
of among them. For my own part, I
have several times, with a single servant,
passed the mountain-way from henco to
Edinhurg with four or five hundred
guineas in my portmanteau, without any
apprehension of rohhers hy the way or
danger in my lodgings at night; though in
my sleep any one, with ease, might have
tbrust a sword from the outside tbrough
the wall of the hut and my hody to-
gether. I tvish we cxM say as much
of our own country, civilised as it is said
to he, though we cannot he safe in going
from London to Highgate,"
This is the witness Lord Macanlay
produces to prove the imminent peril
a traveller in the Higblands was in
of heing " stripped and mangled" hy
marauders, and his eyes given as a
meal to the eagles!
Neither Burt nor Prank intimate
that they were ever in the slightest
personal danger of this kind. The
precipices and the torrents, on the
dangers of which Lord Macaulay
dilates, are precisely the same now
that they were a hundred years ago;
the risk of falling from the former
depends on the quantity of whisky
the traveller may have imhihed, and
is no greater than it is on the top of
Sleive League or the pass of Striden
Edge. The perils of the ford de-
pend on the skill and care of those
who traverse it. We ourselves were
of a party, hut two years ago, in the
north of Ross, when two ladies, a
pony, and a hasket - carriage, were,
to use Lord Macaulay's maguiloquent
expression, "suddenly whirled away
hy the hoiling waves of a torrent."
The pony swam as Higblands ponies
know how to swim. As for the pre-
cious freight, they, like Ophelia,
"Fell In the weeping hrook; their cloaths
eproad wide,
And mermaid-like awhile did hear them
up."
* Br/BT, Vol . it, p. 13.
t Vol . ii., p. 45.
X Vol. ii., p. 217.


1859.]
171
Lord MacavXay and the Highlands of Scotland.

Thus happily rescued from "muddy
death," they shook down their long
wet tresses, wrung out" their gar-
ments heavy with their drink," and
joined heartily in the laughter which
followed close upon the momentary
alarm occasioned hy the adventure.
All depends, in these cases, upon
laying hold of the right handle. A
man whose head turns giddy at the
top of a precipice, who fears to walk
tbrough a stream up to his middle,
who caunot feed well and sleep sound
on such fare and in such quarters as
Captain Burt thought it a hardship
to he compelled to take up with a
hundred and fifty years ago, who
detests whiskey and peat-smoke, had
hetter keep out of the Higblands,
where he would he as much out of
place as Lord Macaulay attempting
to ride across Leicestershire with Mr.
Little Gilmour or Lord Forester.
The idea of making one's supper
upon a cake composed of oats and
cow's hlood is not agreeahle. But it
must he rememhered that this is
mentioned hy Burt* not as fare that
had ever heen set hefore himself or
any other traveller, hut as an expe-
dient resorted to " hy the lower order
of Higblanders" in seasons of extra-
ordinary scarcity; and after all, we
may fairly ask ourselves whether our
disgust is not more moved hy the
revolting description than hy the
actual diet itself. Did Lord Macau-
lay of Rotbley, in the county of
Leicester, never eat hlack-pudding or
lamh's tails? hoth of which, we can
assure him, are esteemed delicacies
in that part of the world. If he did,
what would he think of seeing his
repast descrihed in the following
mauner? "At diuner a pudding
composed of grain fit only for horses,
mixed with the hlood and fat of a
pig, and hoiled in a hag formed of
the intestines of the same unclean
heast, was set hefore him. This was
followed hy a dish composed of joints
cut with a knife from the hodies of
living lamhs, whose plaintive hleat-
ings, as they wriggled their hleeding
stumps within hearing and sight, did
not disturh the appetite of the guest.
Such was the diet which a Peer, a
poet, and a historian did not think
uupalatahle in the middle of the
nineteenth century."! One might go
on ad infinitum with similar illus-
trations. Sbrimps are esteemed uni-
versally, we helieve, to he delicate
viands, and are especially in favour
with the visitors at Margate and
Herne Bay, who call them " swimps."
What would he the effect upon Mr.
and Mrs. Tomkins, and all the Mas-
ter and Miss Tomkinses, as they re-
turn home hy the Gravesend hoat, if
they were told that they had feasted
for a week upon ohscene reptiles, fed
upon the putrid flesh of dead dogs
and drowned sailors, and packed in
earthen vessels covered with rancid
hutter? Lord Macaulay, we pre-
sume, does not visit Rosherville, hut#j
prohahly he eats "swimps" some-
where; and we have no douht that
he spreads the trail of a woodcock
upon a toast (first carefully extract-
ing the sandhag), and swallows it
with a relish which we should he
sorry to interfere with hy descrihing
how the fine flavour which delights
his palate is produced. It is ahsurd
to look too minutely into these mat-
ters, hut a very little reflection will
show that it is equally ahsurd to rely
upon them as heing necessarily indi-
cations of harharism.
That there were and still are huts
in the Higblands which swarm with
vermin, and whose inhahitants are
suhject to cutaneous diseases, we are
hy no means disposed to deny. Un-
happily the same thing may he said
with truth of every county in Eng-
land, nay, of every parish in London.
Within a stone's tbrow of St. James's
Palace, garrets may he found the in-
hahitants of which suffer from all the
maladies in Lord Macaulay's loath-
some catalogue, and more to hoot.
* Vol. ii., p. 109.
f This fact is alluded to in a heautiful hallad, some stanzas of which have heen
landed down to our own day, and which tells us that when
u Little Bo-peep had lost her sheep.
And didn't know where to find them;
She- found them Indeed,
But ll uiado lur heart hleed,
For they'd left their toils hehind them."


172
[Aug.
Lord Macaulaij and the Highlands of Scotland.

That outrages revolting to humanity
have heen, and as long as the pas-
sions and vices of human nature re-
main what they are, will again he
perpetrated in the Higblands, as well
as in every other place where man has
set his foot, we freely admit. Few
years have passed since, in the very
heart of London, a wretched woman
was hrutally murdered in the course
of her miserahle and degraded pro-
fession, and the murderer, for aught
we know, still walks the streets in
safety. Not many months ago, one
mangled corpse was dropped over
the parapet of Waterloo Bridge,
and another, stripped naked, was
tbrown into a ditch within five miles
of Hyde Park Corner; in neither
case has the murderer heen hrought to
justice. If we were disposed to paint
a picture of the state of London after
the mauner of Lord Macaulay, from
these materials (facts, he it remem-
# hered, recorded not in a lampoon or
satire, hat on the registers of the
police and the reports of coroners'
inquests), what a den of assassins,
what a seething caldron of vice and
profligacy, what an ahode of crime,
disease, misery, and despair, might we
represent the metropolis of the British
Empire to he 1
Burt, as we have said, was a
Cockney. Hia highest idea of sport
was a little quiet hare-hunting. It
was not until many years latter that
Somerville (to whose memory he all
honour paid) sketched a character
now happily not uncommon. It was
reserved for us in the present day to
see the keenest sportsman, the hest
rider to hounds, the most enduring
deer-stalker, and most skilful angler,
at the same time an accomplished
scholar, an eloquent writer, an orator,
and a statesman.* Amongst the wits
of the reigu of Queen Aune, the fox-
hunting country squire was the con-
stant suhject of ridicule. Burt aped
their mode of thought, and it will he
seen that his picture of the English
squire is fully as uupleasing as that
of the Higbland laird; it will he seen
also how little foundation the latter,
hostile and prejudiced as it is, affords
for Lord Macanlay's representation
of him as a filthy treacherous savage,
who held rohhery to he a calling
"not merely iunocent hut honour-
ahle," who revenged an insult hy a
"stah in the hack," and who, whilst
he was "taking his ease, fighting,
hunting, or marauding," compelled
his "aged mother, his preguant wife,
and his tender daughters" to till the
soil and to reap the harvest.t
Burt thus compares the English
fox-hunter and the Higbland lsird: —
"The first of these characters," (he
says) "is, I own, too trite to he given
you—hut this hy way of comparison.
The squire is proud of his estate and
affluence of fortune, loud and positive
over his Octoher, impatient of contradic-
tion, or rather will give no opportunity
for it; hut whoops and halloos at every
interval of his own talk, as if the com-
pany were to supply the ahsence of his
hounds. The particular characters of
the pack, the various occurrences in a
chase, where Jowler is the eternal hero,
make the constant topic of his discourse,
though perhaps none others are interest-
ed in it And his favourites, the tren-
cher-hounds, if they please, may lie un-
disturhed upon chairs and counterpanes
of silk; and upon the least cry, though
not hurt, his pity is excited more lor
them than if one of his children had
hroken a limh; and to that pity his
anger succeeds, to the terror of the
whole family.
"The laird is national, vain of the
numher of his followers and his ahsolute
command over them. In case of contra-
diction he is loud and imperious, and
even dangerous, heing always attended
hy those who are hound to support'his
arhitrary sentiments.
"The great antiquity of his family,
and the heroic actions of his ancestors,
in their conquest upon the enemy clans,
is the inexhaustihle theme of his con-
versation; and, heing accustomed to do-
minion, he imagines himself, in his u^ky,
to he a sovereigu prince, and, as I said
hefore, fancies he may dispose of heads
at his pleasure.
• That this is a true picture of a numerous class, will he admitted hy all. To
the minds of those who ever had the happiness to meet him, on the moor, in the
field, in the House of Commons, or at his own fireside, or who are acquainted with
his admirahle Essays on Agriculture, the late Mr. Thomas Gishorne of Yoxal Lodge
will at once occur as one of the most remarkahle examples of that class.
t Vol. lit, p. 305.


1859.]
173
Lord Macaulay and the Highlands of Scotland.

"Thus one of them places his vanity
in his fortune, and his pleasure in his
hounds. The other's pride is in his
lineage, and his delight is in command,
hoth arhitrary in their way; and this
the excess of liquor discovers in hoth.
So that what little difference there is
hetween them, seems to arise from the
accident of their hirth; and if tho ex-
change of countries had heen made in
their infancy, I make no douht hut each
might have had tho other's place, as
they stand separately descrihed in this
letter. On the contrary, in like mauner
as we have many country gentlemen,
merely such, of great humanity and
agreeahle (if not general) conversation;
so in tho Higblands I have met with
some lairds who surprised mo with
their good sense and polite hehaviour;
heing so far removed from tho more
civilised part of tho world, and consider-
ing the wildness of the country, which
one would think was sufficient of itself
to give a savage turn to a mind tho most
humane."*
It may perhaps he said that Lord
Macaulay makes amends to the High-
lands for his groundless slanders hy
his equally groundless flattery. That
the Higbland gentleman has no right
to complain of his stating that his
clothes were '• hegrimed with the ac-
enmulated filth of years," and that he
dwelt in a hovel that "smelt worse
than an English hogstye," hecause he
says in the next line that he did the
honours of his hogstye with a "lofty
courtesy worthy of the most splendid
circle of Versailles." That '• in the
Higbland councils men who would
not have heen qualified for the duty
of parish clerks" (hy which, if he
means anything, Lord Macaulay must
mean that they were not" men of sweet
voice and hecoming gravity to raise
the psalm," like the famous P. P. clerk
of this parish), "argued questions of
peace and war, of trihute and homage,
with ahility worthy of Halifax and
Carmarthen," and that "minstrels
who did not know their letters" pro-
duced poems in which the "tender-
ness of Otway" was mingled with
"the vigour of Dryden." What the
honours of a hogstye may he—-whe-
ther Halifax or Carmarthen could
"adventure to lead the psalm," or
exercised themselves in "singing
godly hallads," or what kind of verses
were produced hy minstrels who were
unahle to commit them to writing,
and whose productions have conse-
quently not come down to our day—
we know not. But, to quote a homely
proverh, two hlacks do not make u
white, and to call a man a thief, a
murderer, and a filthy, ahject, iguo-
rant, illiterate savage, in one line,
and to descrihe him as gracefel, dig-
nified, and fell of nohle sensihility
and lofty courtesy, with the intellect
of a statesman and the genins of a
poet, in the next, gives one ahout as
accurate a picture of his mind and
mauners as one would ohtain of his
features hy two reflections taken the
one vertically and the other horizon-
tally in the howl of a silver spoon.
Lord Macanlay's taste for, and, we
are hound lo add, his extensive
knowledge of, the most wortble>s
productions that have survived from
the time of the Revolution to our
own day, is amusing. It is a class
of literature, which would have made
Grandpapa Mills's hair stand on
end. It is enough to make the staid
old Quaker turn in his grave to
think of his graceless grandson flirt-
ing with Mrs. Manley and Afra
Bebu. From the latter lady he
cites fa" coarse and prophane
Scotch poem," descrihing, in terms
which he is too modest to quote,
"How the first Hielandman was
made." Possihly it is the same mo-
desty, and a feeling of reluctance to
corrupt his readers, which has in-
duced Lord Macaulay to cite a vol-
ume in which this poem is not to he
found. In that volume, however,
there happens to he a description of
a Dutchman equally indecent, and,
though Lord Macaulay may perhaps
not admit it, equally worthy of
helief. Porlraits of Irishmen, just
as authentic, ahound in the farces
which were popular a few years
later; and even now the English gen-
tlemen on the French stage, with his
mouth full of " Roshif" and "God-
dams," tbreatens to " sell his vife at
Smitfield."
If Lord Macaulay's New Zealander
should take to writing history afar
* BnnT, vol. iii. p. 247.
+ Vol. iii. p. 309.


174
[Aug.
Lord Macaulay and the Highlands of Scotland.

the fashion of his great progenitor, he
may perhaps paint the Welsh in col-
oars similar to and upon authorities as
trustworthy as those Lord Macaulay
has used and relied upon in his picture
of the Scotch. If he does, his descrip-
tion will he something of the following
kind :—
"In tho days of Queen Victoria, the
inhahitant of the Principality was a
savage and a thief. He suhsisted hy
plunder. The plough was unknown. He
suatched from his more industrious
neighhour his flocks and his herds.
When the flesh he thus ohtained was ex-
hausted, he guawed the hones like a dog,
until hunger compelled him again to
visit the homesteads and larders of
England. With all the vices, ho had
few or none of the virtues of tho savage.
He was ungrateful and inhospitahle.
That this was his character is proved
hy verses which still re-echo in tho nur-
series of Belgrave Square and along the
marches of Wales:—
'Taffy was a Welshman,
Taffy was a thief;
Taffy came to my house,
Stole a piece of heef.
I went to Taffy's house,
Taffy was from home;
Taffy came to my house,
Stole a luarrow-tone.'-1
This is every hit as authentic as
Lord Macaulay s description of the
Higblanders. Such history may he
supplied in any quantity and at the
shortest notice. All that is necessary
is a volume of cotemporary lampoons,
a hundle of political songs, or a
memory in which such things are
stored, and which may save the
trouhle of reference. The genins it
requires is a genins for heing ahusive.
The hanks of the Thames and the
Cam furnish ahundance of professors,
male and female, of the art of vitu-
peration, hut as Lord Macaulay, from
his frequent repetition of the same
terms of ahuse, seems to have ex-
hausted his "derangement of epi-
taphs," we would recommend him to
turn to Viner's Ahridgment, title
Action for Words, where he will
find one hundred and thirty folio
pages of scolding, from which he may
select almost any pbrase of ahuse and
vituperation, with the advantage of
knowing also the nice distinctions
hy which the law has decided what
words are and what are not action-
ahle, which may he used with im-
punity against the living, and which
mast he reserved for the safe slander
of the dead.


1859.]
175
Leaders of the Reformation.
LEAnERS OF IHE REFORMATION:
LUTHER—CALVIN—LATIMER—KNOX.
Principal Tulloch has given ua
here a masterly delineation of four
of the chief leaders, or heroes, of the
Reformation — Luther, Calvin, Lati-
mer, and Knox. In our judgment,
he has reproduced each one of these
characters with historical fidelity,
and accompanied his portraiture
with reflections of a higbly intelli-
gent and liheral description—liheral,
generous, and indulgent, hut such as
never compromise his own genuine
convictions, such as never sacrifice
truth to courtesy. Professor Tul-
loch very fairly represents the sin-
cere and enlightened Protestantism
of the nineteenth century. We have
only one difficulty in reviewing his
hook : we find so few opportunities
for dissent; we caunot pick a quarrel
with our author; we must content
ourselves with ohservations of a col-
lateral or explanatory character; we
may here and there extend or qualify
some of his remarks.
We wish that to the four names
he has selected our author had added
a fifth—that of Cranmer. We should
he sorry to lose the spirited sketch
of Latimer ; hut if any one man can
he said to represent the Reformation
in England, it is Cranmer; and if
the numher four was to he preserved,
and each of the four was to represent
his own nation, the Archhishop of
Canterhury ought to have occupied
the place of the sturdy preacher at
St Paul's cross. Moreover, our re-
forming Archhishop has heen lately
treated, hy more than one writer,
with undue severity; and we think
he would have received a fair measure
of justice at the hands of Principal
Tulloch: not that he would have
heen a favourite with the Principal
— we rather suspect not — hut we
should have counted on a generous
and considerate estimate of the man.
A reforming Archhishop who lived
much in courts, and who had to ad-
vance his cause hy influence with
monarchs, and not hy passionate ap-
peals to the puhlic, caunot he expect-
ed to display the straightforward
simple heroism of a John Knox, who
is seen standing at the head of a
quite repuhlican movement. Per-
haps he may still, at some future
time, fall into the hands of our im-
partial yet generous critic.
Of the four great names which, in
the meanwhile, stand here hefore us,-
Luther naturally takes the first place.
Of no man, perhaps, who ever lived
upon this earth, have so many and
such contradictory things heen writ-
ten ; no man ever had such applaud-
ing friends and such villifying foes;
and we may safely prophesy that, as
long as Cbristendom endures, his
name and fame will he the theme of
angry controversy. Not only is it
impossihle that the Catholic and the
Protestant should agree in their esti-
mate of this man and the work he
accomplished; hut even to Protest-
ants he presents so many phases of
character — he and his writings may
he seen under so many different
lights—that any steady uniform judg-
ment is almost unattainahle. We
have most of us felt how difficult it
is to preserve at all times that high
regard for the great German reformer
which we could willingly cherish, and
which we have prohahly received
from our earliest reading and from
standard historical authorities. There
is one course only to he pursued, hy
which we may hope to keep a stead-
fast judgment—it is the course which
our author pursues, and which, in-
deed, is generally pursued, only not
with sufficient consistency. We must
not at once compare him with con-
temporary scholars or philosophers,
nor must we merely turn over his
writings to estimate the man; we
must treat him historically. We
must hegin with the monk—with the
Leaders of the Reformation: Luther, Calvin, Latimer, Knox. By John
Tulloch, D.D., Principal and Primarins Professor of Theology in St. Mary's College,
St Andrews.
VOL. LXXXVL 12


170
[Aug.
Leaders of the Reformation:

peasant monk of Germany; and we
must not afterwards forget that this
was our starting-point. We have a
pions, poor, superstitious monk—the
son of a German peasant, and a man of
genins withal—and we have to watch
the development of such a one at an
era when learning was penetrating
into the monastery.
It is the development in this monk
of a form of Cbristian piety that we
have to watch — a form of what is
often called mystical piety developed
in defiance of the Church, extended
amongst the people, and comhated
for in the scholastic learning of the
times. It is not our intention to go
over the well-known hiography of
Luther, hut from the day when he
vows that "God willing, he will heat
a hole in Tetzel's drum," to those
last fretful years of his life when he
predicts the end of all things—sees
the whole world on the very eve of
destruction — nature herself in final
dissolution—hecause he, Martin Lu-
ther, with the epistles of St. Paul in
his hand, has not heen received hy
universal Cbristendom — we trace
tbroughout the continuous develop-
ment of one form of Cbristian piety.
This constituted the strength of the
Reformation. Our German monk,
a man of fervent genins, far outsteps
the religion of such priests and con-
fessors as surrounded him. He is
not satisfied with any attainahle
standard of moral rectitude. His
spirit seeks a union with the Spirit
of God, and he yearns after a purity
of heart which will justify such aspi-
ration. It is a form of piety which
appears in every epoch amongst soli
tary thinkers, with whom religious
meditation has hecome a passion. In
this instance it steps heyond the
cloister to do hattle with the church.
Eanke, the historian of the Reforma-
tion, states it well — "' Oh my sins,
my sins, my sins !' writes our monk
to Staupitz, who was not a little
astonished when he received the con-
fession of ho sorrowful a penitent,
and found that he had no sinful acts
to acknowledge. His anguish was
the struggle of the creature after the
purity of the Creator, to whom it
leels itself profoundly and intimately
allied, yet from whom it is severed
hy an immeasurahle gulf—a feeling
which Luther nourished hy incessant
solitary hrooding, and which had
taken the more complete possession
of him hecause no penance had
power to appease it, no doctrine
truly touched it, no confessor would
hear of it.''
When, therefore, it is popularly
said that the right of private judg-
ment was the principle estahlished
hy the Reformation, this statement
is only correct if we are speaking of
a great result of the whole move-
ment. It is plainly erroneous if we
are speaking of the principle which
animated Luther and other of the
early Reformers. That which ani-
mated tliem was a most dogmatic
assertion of their own great doctrine
of religion. In making this assertion
they gave, whether they intended it
or not, a conspicuous example of the
freedom of private judgment. But
left to themselves, they would very
willingly have limited this freedom
to those who would have used it in
exactly the same mauner as they did.
Principal Tulloch very ahly points
this out.
"It remains for us to inquire con-
cerning tho main thought that moved
Luther and animated him in all his
work. It requires hut little penetration
to discover that he was possessed hy such
a thought — that a profound principle,
a single inspiring spiritual idea, ran
tbrough the whole of tho great move-
ment, aud more than anything else gave
direction aud strength and trinmph to
it It was characteristically
a spiritual revolt — an n wakening of
tho individual couscienco in tho light of
the old Gospel, for centuries imprisoned
and ohscured in the dim chamhers of
men's traditions, hut now at length
hreaking forth with renewed radiance.
This was the life and essence of Luther's
own personal struggle, and this it rij
which formed the spring of all his la-
hours, and gavo them such a pervading
aud mighty energy. Tho principle of
moral individualism—of the free respon-
sihle relation of every soul to God—this
it is which stamps the movement of
Luther with its characteristic impress,
and more than any other thing enahles
us to understand its power and success,
It is nothing else than what we call, in
theological language, justification hy faith
alone, hut wo prefer to apprehend it in
this more general and ethical form of
expression."


1859.]
Luther— Calvin—Latimer—Knar.

But this individualism in religion,
as the Principal has desiguated it —
this personal union (as we should
prefer to descrihe it) with the Divine
Being as He exists in the second
person of the Trinity, could not he
taught as the sole essential, the ™m
and suhstance of Cbristianity, with-
out involving in itself a rehellion
against the Catholic Church. The
right of private judgment, or the
duty to think for ourselves, was ne-
cessarily mingled up with this doc-
trine of justification hy faith alone.
The man must dare to think in op-
position to the church who can hope to
he saved independently of the church.
And again, whilst he helieves that
his salvation is partly due to the
sacraments of the church, or to his
memhership of the visihle church as
it exists on earth, he can never ex-
tricate himself entirely from the do-
minion or authority of the hierarchy.
Thus this individual piety, which
set aside every species of human or
eartbly mediation, necessarily led to
a rehellion against all human or
priestly authority in the matter of
religious doctrine. But, continues
our author—
"It was very far from Luther's inten-
tions, even after ho had entered ou his
contest with Rome, to assert what has
heen called the right of private jndg-
ment in matters of religion. Even in
the end he did not fully understand or
admit the validity of this principle; and
yet so lar there was no other resting-
ground for him. He was drivon to
claim for himself freedom of opinion in
the light of Scripture as tho only posi-
tion on which, with any consistency, he
could stand. Accordingly, when press-
ed to retract his views at Worms, when
it was clearly made manifest that au-
thority, Catholic and Imperial, was
against him, he holdly took his ground
here in maguanimous and always me-
morahle words. For himself ho said,
'Unless I he convinced hy Scripture or
hy reason, I can and will retract no-
thing; for to act against my conscience
is neither safo nor honest. Here I
stand.' . . .
"It is too well known, howover, that
neither he nor any of his fellow-reform-
erg recoguised the full meaning and
hearing of this position. They knew
what their own necessities demanded,
hut that was all. They raised the en-
sigu of a free Bihle in the face of Rome,
hut they speedily refused to allow oihers
to fight under this hauner as well as
themselves. What Luther claimed for
himself against Catholic authority, he
refused to Carlstadt and refused to
Zwingle, in favour of their more liheral
doctrinal views. Ho failed to see that
their position was exactly his own, with
a difference of result, which indeed was
all the difference in the world to him.''
Most true: Luther issued from
his monastery with all the spirit of a
martyr for his faith; he was pre-
pared to die, if necessary, for his
faith. Right of freedom of inquiry
was not his cause. He defied the
Emperor and the Pope, not in the
name of humanity or the rights of
man, hut in the name of the ever-
living God. He looked direct to
God for his support. He was ready
to he a martyr for his faith — not
for the ahstract cause of freedom of
thought: that species of martyrdom
has yet to appear amongst us, if it
ever will.
"Scripture as a witness," thus Principal
Tulloch eloquently concludes his chap-
ter upon Luther, "disappeared hehind
tho Augshurg Confession as a standard;
and so it happened more or less with all
tho reformers. They were consistent
in displacing tho Church of Rome from
its position of assumed authority over
tho conscience, hut they wero equally
consistent all of them in raising a dog-
matic authority in its stead. In favour
of their own views, they asserted the
right of private judgmeut to interpret
and decide the meaning of Scripture,
hut they had nevertheless no idea of a
really free interpretation of Scripture.
Their orthodoxy everywhere appealed
to Scripture, hut it rested in reality
upon an Augustinian commentary of
Scripture. They displaced the medieval
schoolmen, hut only to elevate Augus-
tine; and having done this, they had
no conception of any limits attaching to
this new trihunal of heresy. Freedom
of opinion, in tho modern sense, was
utterly unknown to them. There was
not merely an ahsolute truth in Scrip-
ture, hut they had settled hy the help
of Augustine what this truth was; and
any variations from this standard were
not to ho tolerated. The idea of a free
faith holding to very different dogmatic
views, and yet equally Christian — tho
idea of spiritual life anil goodness apart
from theoretical orthodoxy — had not
dawned in the sixteenth century, nor
long afterwards. Heresy was not a


178
[Aog.
Leaders of the Reformation .
mere divergence of intellectual appre-
hension, hut a moral ohliquity—a statu-
tory offence — to he punished hy the
magistrate, to he expiated hy death. It
is the strangest and most saddening of
all spectacles to contemplate the slow
and painful process hy which the hu-
man mind has emancipated itself from
the dark delusion that intellectual error
"7s a suhject of moral offence and punish-
ment."
But while our author thus repudi-
ates the idea that the progressive
intellect of man, which God lias
created for forwtfrd and incessant
action, should he checked and limited
hy Augshurg Confessions, or any
articles or formulas of faith into
which Cbristianity was re-cast at the
time of the Reformation, he never
fails to do justice to the leaders of
that movement and the great work
they accomplished. We should will-
ingly follow him in his delinea-
tions of the personal character of
Luther, hut that other portions of
his hook present the attraction of
greater novelty. He does full jus-
tice to the geniality and warmth of
Luther's nature, to his holdness and
maguanimity, to his fervid genins;
and, on the other hand, he does not
spare the dogmatism that defaced
his later years, or the superstition
that accompanied him tbrough life.
But we turn from the German re-
former to one whose personal his-
tory and character, if less interesting,
are less generally known — to the
second on the list, Calvin.
Calvin is in many respects a con-
trast to Luther. Of cold temper,
suhtle and systematic in his theo-
logy, his office was to give order and
precision and completeness to the
doctrines of the new church. If
Luther may he represented as the
sturdy reaper entering first into the
field with his scythe or reaping-hook,
Calvin may he said to follow after,
hinding the scattered corn into sym-
metrical sheaves, which he leaves
standing there in due order in the
open field. Calvin must also have
possessed great administrative talent;
he was a man of action as well as
of thought; he governed a city, gave
laws to a repuhlic. He was the Per-
icles of Geneva; or let us say that
he was the Lycurgus of the Puritans.
One thing is noticeahle in Calvin's
education: we find him, in his youth,
alternately occupied with theology
and jurisprudence. He enters first
into the church, then transfers him-
self to the study of the law, appa-
rently at the desire of his father,
who, himself a notary, thought pro-
hahly that the legal profession would
lead his very ahle son to higher
advancement in life. This twofold
study of theology and jurisprudence
was training him for the part he
played of legislator and clerical ora-
tor of the repuhlican city of Geneva.
His religious convictions, however,
finally determined him to devote his
mind to theology, and these convic-
tions led him also gradually to take
his stand with the reformers.
"Slowly hut surely he passed over to
the Protestant ranks, in a mauner en-
tirely contrasted with that of Luther,
even ns his mind and character wcro so
wholly different We traco no strug-
gling steps of dogmatic conviction — no
profound spiritual agitations — no crisis,
as in the case of the German reformer.
Wo only learn that, from heing an ap-
parently satisfied and devoted adherent
of Popery, he adopted, with a quiet hut
steady and zealous faithfulness, the new
opinions. Ho himself, indeed, in his
preface, when commenting on the Psalms,
speaks of his conversion heing a sudden
one; and to his own reflection after-
wards it may have seemed that the clear
light hegan to dawn upon him all at
once; hut the facts of his life seem
rather to show it in tho light in which
we have represented it, as a gradual aml
consistent growth undor the influences
which surrounded htm, first at Orleans
and then at Bourges."
We apprehend that these great
changes of opinion may generally be
descrihed as hoth sudden and gra-
dual; that is, there was a gradual
preparation for the change, a shaking
here and there of old opinions, an
introduction here and there of new
thoughts and sentiments, and yet
there was also one epoch, one day
or hour, when the new point of
view was once for all adopted, and
the man suddenly hecame a cham-
pion of the very doctrine he had
heen contending against, perhaps
persecuting. He had heen zealously
arguing, zealously persecuting, up to


1859.]
179
Luther—Calvin—Latimer—Knox.

the last moment; many misgivings
had occurred to him; many admoni-
tions or suspicions that there lay
a great truth in the very creed he
was denouncing, had heen silenced
or rudely tbrust aside; hut his
thoughts were nevertheless arrang-
ing themselves after some new order,
and he suddenly hecame aware that
tin's was the doctrine, or the system,
that he must henceforth teach and
live hy. Calvin proceeded to Paris
(1533), which at that time, under the
teaching of Lefevre and Farel, had
hecome a centre of the reformed
faith. It was not long hefore he
made such manifestations of his opi-
nions as ohliged him to quit that
city, and he shortly afterwards set-
tled at Basle.
As it is not our intention to pro-
ceed with any of these hiographies
step hy step, we pass at once to Cal-
vin's counection with the city of Gen-
eva. This is related hy Principal Tul-
loch hriefly, and yet with sufficient
fulness to rer.der his account instruc-
tive and valuahle as an historical
summary. He descrihes in a few
words the political condition of Gen-
eva at this time. A student of the
middle ages might he delighted with
the complication this presents. We
have ihe feudal haron, the prince-
hishop, the free city, all asserting
their claim. Geneva was a free city
of the Empire; hut first its hishop
took the lion's share of the temporal
rnle; then the hishop does not exer-
cise his power directly, hut tbrough
ao officer called a Vidomme (vice-
dominus), and this officer or vidomme
hecomes hereditary in the dukes of
Savoy. In the hegiuning of the six-
teenth century we find the hishop
aiding the duke to destroy whatever
remained of the free city, or of the
liherties of the Genevese. The citi-
zens rose in arms. "By the help of
the free Helvetian states, particularly
Berne and Frihourg, the patriots
triumphed, the friends of Savoy were
hanished, the vidommate aholished,
and its powers transferred to a hoard
of magistrates."
The conduct of its hishops would
naturally alienate the Genevese from
the ancient hierarchy, and when the
reformer Farel made his appearance
in the city (1532), he found a large
party ready to join him. It was not
without a sharp struggle, however,
that the reformed faith had hecome
estahlished as the religion of the
repuhlic, and Farel and his coadjutors
were still heset hy many difficulties
when Calvin providentially came to
their aid. He came to Geneva for a
single day; he stayed to make a con-
fession of fnith for a whole city. He
came as a mere traveller, anxious
only to advance upon his journey;
he stayed to legislate for and to
govern a repuhlic
"His old friend Tillet, now in Geneva,
discovered who the traveller was, and
apprised Farel of his discovery. Situ-
ated as Farel then was, almost alone,
with the Reformation hut partly accom-
plished, and the elements of disturhance
smouldering around him, the advent of
Calvin seemed to him an interposition
of Divine Providence. He hastened to
see him, and set hefore him his claims
lor assistance, and the work of God so
ohviously awaiting him. But Calvin was
slow to move. He urged his desire to
study, and he serviceahle to all churches,
rather than to attach himself to any
one church in particular. He would
fain have yielded to the intellectual hias
so strong in him, and did not yet ac-
knowledge to himself the still stronger
instinct for practical government that
lay hehind his intellectual devotion. By
some strange insight, however, Farel
penetrated to the higher fitness of the
young slranger who stood hefore him;
and he ventured, in the spirit of that
daring enthusiasm which characterised
him, to lay the curse of God upon him
and his studies if he refused his aid to
the church in the time of need. This,
which seemed to Calvin a divine men-
ace, had the desired efi'ect 'It was,' he
said, 'as if God had seized me hy His
awful hand from heaven.' He ahan-
doned his intention of pursuing his jour-
ney, and joined eagerly with Farel in the
work of Reformation."
He was immediately elected as
Theacher of Theology. In a short
time, hoth as Preacher and as Coun-
cillor, his influence was supreme. It
is well known with what severity
our evangelical Lycurgus ruled his
repuhlic. Not only was vice pun-
ished, hut frivolity was restrained.
Dress and the diuner were laid under
strict regulations; all holidays, ex-
cept Sunday, if that could rank as a


180
[Aug.
Leaders of the Reformation i

holiday, were aholished. Even a hride
might not wear her flowing tresses,
nor was she to he welcomed to her
new home with noise and revelry. The
very numher of the dishes at the
wedding feast was made a suhject
of legislation. It is rememhered still
hy those who rememher nothing else
of Calvin, that he laid sacrilegious
hand upon the marriage feast. An
old man who pointed out to our au-
thor the supposed resting-place of the
reformer, seemed to have little other
idea of Calvin than as the man
who limited the numher of dishes at
diuner!
These unwise and vexations re-
strictions led to a reaction or rehellion
against the government of the re-
former. A party arose who hear the
name of the Lihertines, who succeeded
in chasing him out of the city. For
tbree years Calvin was a hanished
man. Iianished to his privacy and
his hooks, the exile was no douht
sufficiently content. He could do
without Geneva far hetter than
Geneva could do without him. The
Lihertines could not govern the city,
and Calvin was recalled. That party,
he it what it may, which can give to
a community the indispensahle hless-
ings of order and law, must rule.
The government of Calvin, whatever
its defects, was wanted at that mo-
ment. It has this palpahle justifica-
tion. He who alone can give a peo-
ple order—saint or siuner—Calvin or
Napoleon, steps hy right into the seat
of power. Nor when Calvin returned
did he ahate in the least the severity
of his rule; on the contrary, he re-
fused to respond to the invitation of
the citizens till lie had evidence of
their willinguess to suhmit to the
re-estahlishment of the reformed dis-
cipline.
"The great code of ecclesiastical and
moral legislation, which guided hoth the
consistory and council, was the produc-
tion of Calvio. It wis sworn to hy the
whole of tho people in a (treat assemhly
in St. Peter's, on the 20th Novemher
154l. It not only laid down general
rules, hut entered with the most r'.gorous
control into all the affairs of private life.
From his cradle to his grave the Genevese
citizen was pursued hy its inquisitorial
eye. Ornaments for the persoo, the
shape and leugth of the hair, the modes
of dress, the very numher of dishes for
diuner, were suhjected to special regula-
tion. Wedding presents are only per-
mitted within limits; and at hetrothals,
marriages, or haptisms, houquets must
not he encircled with gold or jewelled
with pearls or other precious stones.
"The registers of Geneva remain to
show with what ahundant rigour these
regulations were carried out. It is a
strange and mournful record, wiih ludi-
crous lights crossing it here and there.
A man hearing an ass hray, and saying
jestingly, 'II chante un heau psaume,' is
sentenced to temporary hamshment from
the city. A young girl in church singing
the words of a song to a psalm-tnue, is
ordered to he whipped hy her parents.
Tbree children are punished, hecause, dur-
ing the sermon, instead of going to church,
they remained outside to eat cakes."
And so the list goes on, intermin-
gled with some cases of terrihle se-
verity. Death itself is inflicted upon
a child where the rod has heen alwajs
held to he the appropriate punishment.
But since Calvin hased all his laws
on the authority of Scripture, where,
it may he asked, was the error he
committed? His consistorial discip-
line, and the like, he declares to he
"the yoke of Cbrist," and his whole
system of polity is presumed to rest
upon the Divine word—and ought not
this sacred authority to decide upon
every portion of our lives? Surely
there is a visihle church to he erected
on earth according to the pattern
of the invisihle church ahove—or, in
the language of St. Augustine, a
civitas Dei to he estahlished hy
Cbristians — else for what purpose
have men hecome Cbristians? How
many nohle spirits have lahoured and
thought over this civitas Dei, this
kingdom of God to he instituted on
earth — and could Calvin have heen
wrong in his attempt to model Geneva
into this civitas Dei? Certainly not.
Bnt the mistake of Calvin, as Principal
Tulloch will tell us, was, that instead
of seeking to infuse the spirit of
Cbristianity into all our relations of
life — instead of making the grand
fundamental principle of the religion
the ground of all his laws—he sought
for specific laws in texts of Scrip-
ture appropriate to other times, and
sought hy external regulations to
construct a kingdom of heaven which
must always grow from within.


1859 ]
18!
Luther—Calvin—Latimer—Knox.

"Did not Calvin estahlish his church
polity and church discipline upon Scrip-
ture?—and is not this a warrantahle
course? Assuredly not in the spirit in
which he did it The fundamental source
of the mistake is here: the Cbristian
Scriptures are a revelation of divine
truth, and not a revelation of church
polity. They not only do not lay down
the outline of such a polity, hut they do
not even give the adequate and conclu-
sive hints of one. And for the hest of all
reasons, that it would have heen entirely
contrary to the spirit of Christianity to
have done so; and hecause in point of
fact, the conditions of human progress
do not admit of the imposition of any
unvarying system of government, eccle-
siastical or civil. The system adapts
itself to the life, everywhere expands
with it, ornarrowswithit, hut is nowhere
in any particular form the ahsolute con-
difion of life. A definite outline of
church polity, therefore, or a definite
code of social ethics, is nowhere given in
the New Testament; and the spirit of
it is entirely hostile to the ahsolute asser-
tion of one or the other. Calvin, in
truth, must have felt this sufficiently in
his constant appeal to the spirit and de-
tails of the Old Testament legislation.
The historical confusion, in this respect,
in which he and all his ago shared, was
a source of fruitful error here as else-
where."
While, on the one hand, Calvin
had to contend for his government
and discipline with the citizens, he
had, on the other hand, to do in-
cessant hattle with theologians for
his doctrine. He had wrought the
Confession of Augshurg into a sys-
tem which, for a certain method and
consistency, has won the admiration
of all parties, hut which nevertheless,
in more points than one, has heen
often declared to offend the common-
sense of mankind, as well as to con-
tradict the general current of Scrip-
tural language. It coold not he ex-
pected that such a system should he
unassailed; nor can we he surprised
that, at a period of great mental ac-
tivity, others hesides Luther and
Calvin chose to adopt hold views of
their own. Yet our spiritual ruler
of Geneva seemed to think that every
heresy hut his own was a crime.
And it must he added that he had
put himself in such a position that
his government depended on the
predominance of his doctrine. It is
worth the consideration of those who
may still hanker after some civitas
hei, such as Calvin songht to estah-
lish, that if municipal laws are hased
on a system of divinity, the State has
put it out of its power to he tole-
rant; freedom of thought has hecome
too intimately associated with diso-
hedience to the laws.
Amongst the names of those whom
Calvin enters into controversy with,
there is one which will assuredly ar-
rest the reader: he will give his
trihute of compassion to the poor
scholar, Sehastian Castellio. The
poor scholar, distinguished for his
classical knowledge, hetook himself,
in an evil hour, to controversial divi-
nity. Bat helonging to neither of
the great factions, what couhi he-
come of the unhefriended layman?
Poverty was the lightest evi!, the
most lenient punishment, hy which
he could have heen visited. We
catch sight of him living alone, so
poor that he goes out at night to
pick up sticks for firewood on the
hanks of the Rhine. We must quote
a sentence or two ahout this Sehas-
tian Castellio.
"Calvin had hecome acquainted with
Castellio at Strashurg. They seem at
first to have warmly attracted one ano-
ther; and Calvin was, heyond all douht,
for some timo very zealous in his friend-
liness to the poor scholar, whose ingeni-
ous spirit and classical acquirements had
won his regard. On his return to Ge-
neva he invited him thither, and pro-
cured for him the appointment of regent
or tutor in the gymnasinm of the city.
In reality, however, there were hut few
points of sympathy hetween the two
men. Castellio's lesrning was intensely
humanistic; his classical tastes and
somewhat arhitrary criticism moulded
all that he did; and especially as he
aspired to he a theologian, and to carry
this spirit into his Scriptural studies, he
soon came into conflict with Calvin.
. . . Castellio desired to enter into
the ministry; hut Calvin advised the
Council that this was not expedient, on
account of sortie peculiar opinions which
he held. There were certain rationalistic
views as to the authenticity and charac-
ter of the Song of Solomon, the descent
of Cbrist into hell, and also ahout elec
tion. Irritated prohahly hy disappoint-
ment, he now vehemently attacked Cal-
vin. After a violent scene in church,
which is painted pertiaps with some ex,


182
[Aug.
Leaders qf the Reformation:

aggeration hy the reformer, he was
forced to leave the city. The two old
friends, now declared enemies, did not
spare each other henceforth. Castellio
retired to Basle, and amongst his other
employments husied himself with a free
criticism of the Calvinistic doctrines.
. . . It is hut a melancholy spectacle
of polemical hatred on hoth tides; hut
the truculence of the theologians, it must
he confessed, hears off the palm. Cas-
tellio was no match for them in strength
of argument or firm consistency of pur-
pose. He lived on in great poverty at
Basle, cultivating his garden with his
own hand, and without the means of
fuel, as he sat up at night to finish his
translation of the Scriptures. He died
in want in 1563, the same year as Cal-
vin; and Montaigue has given vent to
his expression of shame for his age, that
one so distinguished should have heen
left to die so miserahly. A regretful
memory lingers around his hlameless
scholarly life,—pinching poverty and sad
death, and especially the incident, so
touching in its simplicity, of his going
during the night to the hanks of the
Rhine to pick up pieces of drift-wood
for his scanty fire—a story which was
only elicited from him in answer to Cal-
vin's charge of his having stolen the wood
—a fact sufficient to prove ihe diegrace-
ful spnit in which these controversies
were conducted, and how deservedly
they are consigued to ohlivion."
But the name which heyond all
others has hecome inextricahly asso-
ciated with our Genevese reformer,
is that of Servetns. He, too, like
Calvin, came into Geneva for a single
day—came as a mere traveller, in-
tending to quit it on the morrow:
he stayed, hut not, like Calvin, to
have honour and power tbrust
upon him. Our traveller must needs
wander into the church; there his
great adversary was preaching. Some
one recoguised him, and carried the
news to Calvin. Servetus, who had
already hired a hoat to take him
across the lake on his route to Zurich,
was arrested and tbrown into prison.
He stayed to he tried for heresy, to
he convicted, and to suffer a cruel
death. "The wretched man was
fastened to a stake surrounded hy
heaps of oak-wood and leaves, with
his condemned hook attached to his
girdle. The wood was green, and
did not hurn readily. Some persons
ran and fetched dry faggots, while
his piercing sbrieks rent the air; and
exclaiming fioally, 'Jesus, thou Son
of the eternal God, have mercy upon
me!' he passed from the doom of
earth to a higher and fairer trihunal."
It is needless, as Principal Tulloch
remarks, to indulge in any further
outcries on this memorahle crime.
To contemporary theologians it
needed no defence: happily, to the
theologians of our day it admits of
no excuse. We can only excuse and
hitterly regret it, as a lamentahle
fruit of the errors of the age.
On the Institutes of Calvin, and
on his doctrinal system, our author
makes some excellent remarks, into
which we should very willingly fol-
low him if our space permitted. We
must proceed to take a rapid glance
at the two remaining Reformers on
his list—Latimer and Knox.
The Reformation emhraced two
movements — a reform in doctrine
and a reform in life. The two oh-
jects were constantly intermingled.
Still there were, some men who at-
tached themselves pre-eminently to
the new doctrines, whilst others saw
the Reformation chiefly in the light
of a revival of religion. Of this lat-
ter description was Latimer. Though
he had emhraced the "new learning,"
he stands out conspicuously as a re-
former of mauners and a teacher of
practical personal piety. His claims
to represent the Reformation in Eng-
land we have already glanced at.
Principal Tulloch, however, accepting
him as the most "typical man" of
his times, opens his hiographical
sketch with some very sound ohserva-
tions on the complicated nature of the
reformatory movement in England.
He justly ohserves that it was partly
political and partly religious, and
that the political opposition was the
earlier of the two. "All along from the
Conquest such an opposition marks
like a line of light the proud history
of England, the grandest, hecause
the richest in diverse historical ele-
ments, that the world has ever seen.
On from the memorahle struggles of
the reigu of Heury II., when the
political and ecclesiastical interests
stamped the impress of their fierce
contentions so strongly on the Eng-
lish character, Rome appears as an
alien and antagonistic power in the


1859.] Luther—Calvin—Latimer—Knox. 183

country." This is true, and we might his sackcloth, hut rehels, like a
go hack to an earlier period than Heury Titan or an old Norseman, against
II.: but it mnst he added that the the hand that emote him. He won't
opposition to Rome, or the ecclesias- he any the hetter for his chastisement,
tical power was carried on hy the "The Lord shall find no good in me,
monarch as often against as with the for all the evil He has inflicted on
current of popular feeling, and that me," says the incurahle heathen,
it does not always run exactly " like Can a greater contrast he found?
a line of light," On the contrary, Yet this William Rufus was at his
it is sometimes a mere dogged self- post, governing his harons and his
willed opposition. Nevertheless, one vassals, and keeping a free temporal
feels it was, on the whole, the right monarchy for England. Better this
thing—wholesome, and having a cer- rude government than to have the
tain rude reason in it. Let us trans- scholastic divine in the seat of the
fer ourselves to our first Norman civil mngistrate. If Anselm could
kings, and compare them with such have controlled, first his own cor-
prelates of the Church as Lanfranc rupt clergy, and tbrough them a rude
and Anselm. These latter represent and passionate people, this would have
whatever the age could hoast of heen a temporary advantage, to he
learning and of piety. We hail their followed hy all the depressing, ener-
influence on England and on its stern vating influences which attend upon
herons; yet we feel that their influ- a Cbristian priesthood when it as-
ence or power is such as might easily sumes municipal power. Anselm in
he carried too far; nor should we his contest with the king has to quit
choose to have it estahlished in their England and journey to Rome; we
successors. We feel that the resist- catch a glimpse of him on his tru-
ance of our rude Norman kings to vels; he stays a while at Lyons, and
these Italian hishops has a high there, savs Lappenherg, "he had the
meaning, a dim purpose, and, at all happiness of acting a distinguished
events, a good result. Our first wish part in the discussion of a point at
would prohahly he to give to these that time of vital importance,—whe-
representatives of learning, justice, ther the Holy Ghost proceeded solely
and piety, the utmost influence they from the Father." Very fit it was
could possihly exert over a Church that one of the most eminent theolo-
and a State hoth on the very verge of gians of the day should take part in
harharism; hut, on further reflection, a discussion then deemed of vital im-
we perceive that the cause of the portance; hut would it have heen well
civil against the ecclesiastical, the for England if a Byzantine theology of
temporal power against the spiritual, this description had heen supreme in
must in some way he upheld, if any its court and monarchy? We have no
free and manly life is to he preserved quarrel with Anselm as a divine or
for England. No historian has treated hishop, hut would it have heen de-
ihese early kings of England with sirahle if he and his successors could,
greater severity than Lappenherg; without etiot or limit, have emhodied
nor has any historian given a more their own views in, and impressed
liheral praise to these Italian hishops their own spirit on the laws and go-
and divines; yet even his simple vernment of this country?
narrative, as it proceeds, suggests to Huppily there has heen always in
us how unfit these men were to hold our island, either on the part of the
the predominant place in the govern- monarch, or of the people, or of the
ment of England. Anselm he de- lawyers, a determination to resist the
scrihea "as one of those heroes of encroachment of the Church over the
love and humility which Cbristianity State. , Thus we have never sunk
has produced in every age." William into the intellectual staguation which
Rufus, the contemporary sovereigu, Spain, for instance, has exhihited,
stands out hefore us as little hetter And thus it happens that in our Re-
than a hrutal tyrant, and a sort of formation a political resistance to
haptised heathen: he is penitent Rome plays a considerahle part, and
when sick and afflicted; when he that which was of a distinctly reli-
recovere, he not only tbrows aside gious character proceeds (as might he


184
[Aug.
Leaders of thc Reformation:

expected in a people comparatively
free) from many quarters at the same
time and assumes many various
forms. At no time do we see the
people rising simultaneously under
ooe common impulse. There are
reformers of all shades working to-
gether—from those who would only
reform within the Church to those
who would sweep away the old Ca-
tholic Church entirely.
Latimer, as we have said, saw in
the Reformation principally a re-
vival of religion. When we first get
any distinct view of him, he is at Cam-
hridge ahout twenty-five years old, a
most zealous supporter of the estah-
lished doctrines and services. "I
was as ohstinate a Papist," he tells
us himself, "as any in England."
He torments himself with scruples
whether he had mingled sufficient
water with the wine in performing
mass; he preaches against the Re-
formers—he takes every opportunity
of guarding the youth of Camhridge
against the infection of their pernicious
doctrines. But, as Principal Tulloch
well ohserves, we get our reformers
out of the zealous champions of "the
very Church that is to he reformed.
The cold and moderate man is sel-
dom open to great changes of opi-
nion.
"Here,'' he says, "we have the old
picture of youthful sacerdotal zeal. It
is the very highest qualities of the an-
cient system that the new spirit seizes
upon and consecrates to its service.
Young Latimer, hailed hy the clergy as a
rising champion of the Papal cause,and for
his talents and the excelling sanctimony
of his life preferred to he the keeper of
the university cross, is destined to he-
come the sharp reprover of the clergy,
and the great agent in carrying out the
religious change then tbreatening them."
Bilney has the merit of converting
Latimer; hut we must presume, of
course, that other influences were at
work. A curious story is told of the
mauner in which Bilney first con-
trived to pour the new doctrine into
the unwilling ears of the zealous
Papist He pretended a great desire
to he confessed, and, under the form
of his own confession, infused his
heresy into the priest. Latimer tells
the story himself in these few hrief
words: "Bilney heard me at that
time, and perceived that I was zealous
without knowledge; and he came to
me afterwards in my study, and de-
sired me, for God's sake, to hear his
confession. I did so; and, to say the
truth, hy his confession I learned more
than I did hefore in many years. So
from that time forward I hegan to
smell the word of God, and forsook
the school doctors and such fooleries."
We wonder whether this expedient
for getting the ear of a man has heen
often adopted. It was a rather haz-
ardous one: if Bilney had not found
a favourahle listener, he would have
gone away with a heavy penance.
Latimer now hecame a zealous
preacher of the new doctrines, hut
still his preaching must have heen
limited to a faithful exhihition of
positive truth: he could not have
waged war with the peculiar tenets
of Rome, hecause Heury VIII. ap-
proved the man, and appointed
him one of his chaplains; and Car-
dinal Wolsey also hefriended him,
supporting him against the censures
of Bishop West. Bishop West had
entered the church while Latimer
was preaching at Camhridge; and
when he and his retinue had taken
their seats, the preacher, ohserving
that a new audience required a new
theme, changed his text, and exposed
the fault s and shortcomings of the
clergy, in a mauner, we may he sure,
not very flattering to priestly ears.
For this and other like offences
the Bishop had forhidden him to
preach in the university; and when
Latimer took refuge in a church of
the Augustine friars, the hishop
made complaint to Cardinal Wolsey.
The cardinal, however, dismissed the
too faithful preacher with a gentle ad-
monition, and granted him a licence
to preach in any church tbroughout
England. "If the Bishop of Ely can-
not ahide such doctrine as you have
repeated," he said, "you shall preach
it to his heard, let him say what he
will."
A happy retort is here mentioned
of Latimer's against one Buckenham,
Prior of the Black Friars, who had
entered the lists against him. The
prior, in his sermon, did his hest to
prove the inexpediency of trusting
the Scriptures in English to the vul-
gar. The arguments and illustration


1859.]
185
Luther—Calvin—Latimer—Knox.

of the good prior were evidently not
of the highest order imaginahle. To
show what hlundering interpretations
the laity were exposed to, he cited as
an example that the ploughman who
read that "no man who layeth his
hand to the plough, and looketh hack,
is worthy of the kingdom of God,"
might peradventure dread to touch a
plough at all. The haker, also, who
read that "a little leaven corrupteth
a whole lump," might leave his hread
unleavened. Latimer had heen one
of his auditors, and had taken notes;
and hy-and-hy he is the preacher and
the friar a listener. Coming to this
point of the figurative language of
Scripture, he replied that it was as
easy of comprehension as the most
familiar sigus and symhols painted
on our houses and walls. "As, for
example," he continued, casting a
meaning glance at the friar, who sat
oppo-ite to him, "when men paint a
fox preaching out of a friar's cowl,
none is so mad as to take this to he
a fox that preacheth, hut know well
enough the meaning of the matter,
which is to point out to us what hy-
pocrisy, craft, and suhtle dissimula-
tion lieth hid many times in these
friar's cowls, willing us therehy to
heware of them." The contemporary
cbronicler adds that Friar Bucken-
hatn was so dashed with this sermon
that he never after durst peep out of
the pulpit against Master Latimer.
Id Latimer's life, years of persecu-
tion alternate with years of favour
and prosperity. Under Archhishop
Wareham he is in danger of impri-
sonment and excommunication, if no-
thing worse. Under his successor,
Cranmer, he is raised to a hishopric.
Then a reaction against reform seems
to have heen hrought ahout, partly hy
the northern insurrection, and Gardi-
ner and Buuner took the lead. Under
their influence articles were framed
which Latimer could not suhscrihe;
he resigued his hishopric, and sought
to live in privacy. Coming up to
London, however, for medical advice,
he was hrought hefore the Privy
Council, and cast into the Tower.
This happened just hefore the close
of Heury's reigu. On the acces-
sion of Edward VI. he was liher-
ated, and his hishopric again offered
him; hut he declined to reassume
the episcopal office, and devoted him-
self to preaching. He made it the
great purpose of his life to rouse all
classes to a practical reform in their
morals and religion. He was the
censor of his times, and sometimes
the pulpit satirist. He spared no
class, and he preached to all classes.
A well known picture represents him
with uplifted arm preaching in White-
hall Gardens, in front of the young
king, Edward VI., who is seated at
a window, whilst a dense crowd sur-
rounds the orator.
Of the merits of Latimer, whether as
preacher or divine, Principal Tulloch
gives, we think, a fair and unexagger-
ated estimate. He was no learned
theologian, and his eloquence was of
that rude, hlunt, uncompromising
character that appeals so successfully
to the populace. He delighted in in-
vective, and did not scruple to expose
individual instances of oppression that
came hefore him. Of the effect of his
sermons we must not judge hy the
impression they now produce on the
reader. Not to speak of the change
of mauners and of dialect, the effect
of popular eloquence depends, at all
times, chiefly on the voice and the
delivery. The following summary
aupears very just:—
'In mere intellectual strength, Lati-
mer cau take no place heside either Lu-
ther or Calvin. His mind has neither
the rich compass of the one, nor the sym-
metrical vigour of the other. He is no
master in any department of intellectual
interest, or even of theological inquiry.
We read his sermons not for any light or
reach of truth which they unfold, nor
hecause they exhihit any peculiar depth
of spiritual apprehension, hut simply he-
cause they are interesting, and interest-
ing mainly from the very ahsence of all
dogmatic and intellectual pretensions.
Yet, without any mental greatness, there
is a pleasant and wholesome harmony of
mental power displayed in his writings,
which gives to them a wonderful vitality.
There is a proportion and vigour, not of
logic, hut of sense and feeling, in them
eminently English, and showing every-
where a high and well-toned capacity.
He is coarse and low at times; his fami-
liarity occasionally descends to mean-
ness; hut the living hold which he takes
of reality at every point, often carries
him also to the height of an indiguant
and hurning eloquence."


186
[Aug.
Leaders of the Reformation:

We quote this passage hecause it
contains a hrief critical summary; hut
we must remark, in passing, that it is
not the most favourahle specimen of
Principal Tulloch's own style ; nor can
we extract the passage without some
gentle protest against a certain slip-
slop English into which the Principal
has here heen hetrayed ; it is a fault
quite unusual in him. Such expres-
sions, as "wholesome harmony,"
"high and well-toned capacity," re-
mind us of the jargon of the con-
noisseur prating over his pictures,
rather than the soher crisieism of an
accurate scholar. Let such jargon
remain with the counoisseurs of art,
who have a traditional right to talk
how they please ahout tones and har-
monies, no one hut themselves having
the least interest in what meaning
they affix to their words.
Litiroer could not play this dis-
tinguished part, tbrough the reigu of
Edward VI., of pulpit satirist and
preacher of the Reformation, without
heing called to severe account in the
ensuing reigu of Queen Mary. He
might have fled the country, and the
new government were not unwilling
that he should do so. He chose to
remain, and was accordingly com-
mitted to the Tower. But if his
enemies were willing he should
escape hy self-hanishment, they
spared him no severity when he was
within their power. They kept the
old man without fire in frosty
weather. With health hroken, they
transferred him to Oxford to under-
go examination, and hold disputa-
tions upon the mass, whereat Master
Smith of Oriel, Dr. Cartwright, and
divers others, "had suatches at him,
and gave him hitter taunts." After
this examination he was imprisoned
in the common jail in Oxford, where
he lay for more than a year. From
the jail he was again hrought to he
examined hefore commissioners. In-
firm and poor, it is a pitiahle spectacle
that is presented to us. "He wore
an old tbreadhare Bristol frieze gown,
girded to his hody with a peuny
leather girdle; his testament was
suspended from this girdle hy a
leather sling, and his spectacles,
without a case, hung from his neck
upon his hreast." His head was
hound ahout hy a complication of
night-caps, surmounted hy an old
horseman's cap, which, notwithstand-
ing Foxe's specific description, it is
very difficult to get any clear concep-
tion of. In this state, and his mind
half torpid hy " long gazing upon cold
walls," he is set again to dispute on
points of divinity with the Bishops of
Lincoln and Gloucester. They re-
proach him for his want of learning.
"Lo!" he exclaimed, according to the
report of Foxe, " you look for learning
at my hand, which have gone so long
to the school of ohlivion, making the
hare walls my lihrary; keeping me
so long in prison without hook, or
pen, or ink; and now you let me
loose to come and answer to articles.
You deal with me as though two
were appointed to fight for life and
death; and overnight the one,
tbrough friends and favour, is che-
rished, and hath good counsel given
him how to encounter with his enemy;
the other, for envy or lack of friends,
all the whole night is set in the stocks.
In the morning when they shall meet,
the one is in strength and lively, the
other is stark of his limhs and almost
dead for feehleness. Think you
that to run tbrough this man with a
spear is not a goodly victory?"
But the end of all was now at
hand. He and Ridley were con-
demned to the flames. At the closing
scene his spirit revived, and his was
that terse, vigorous saying, which has
heen so often repeated, " Be of good
comfort, Master Ridley, and play the
man; we shall this day light such a
candle hy God's grace in England, as
I trust shall never he put out."
As Principal Tulloch remarked in
reference to the martyrdom of Serve-
tus, so we may remark here, that it is
useless now to utter indiguant denun-
ciations against this crime of persecu-
tion, unless it should he thought neces-
sary to keep the example of past ages
hefore us, in orderto preserve ourselves
from lapsing into their errors. For it
was a crime of the age. All parties, all
sects, are seen at this epoch involved
in the same lamentahle error. As
individual men, we must even pity
the persecutors of olden times—pity
them for heing carried away hy one
common infatuation. If the Catho-
lics committed Latimer and Cranmer
to the flames, even Latimer is found


1859.]
187
Luther— Calvin—Latimer—Knox.

assisting at the martyrdom of Friar
Forrest, preacliing the puhlic sermon
oD the occasion, and thus sanction-
ing the act; and Cranmer, as is well
known, could send a helpless woman
to the stake. It has heen often said,
that the Protestants had less excuse
for their cruelty than the Catholics,
who were supporting an old-estah-
hshed system hy harsli measures,
which they deemed could he effective,
and which, in some instances, were
effective. And the Protestants would
have perhaps altogether escaped the
deep disgrace of having capitally exe-
cuted men and women for what they
called heresy, if it had not happened
that their hearts were hardened, and
their jadgments utterly perverted hy
that hahit (which Principal Tul-
loch has so ahly reproved) of looking
into the Old Testament for laws and
guidance. An appeal to Moses was
thought to decide the case. When
some poor woman was to he executed
for her nonsense, the young king
Edward was reluctant to sigu the
warrant "The ohject of the king's
compassion," says the historian Lin-
gard, "was the future condition of
her soul in another world. He
argued, that as long as she remained
in error she remained in sin, and that
to deprive her of life in that state, was
to consigu her soul to everlasting tor-
ments. Cranmer was compelled to
moot the point with the young theo-
logian. The ohjection was solved hy
the example of Moses, who had com-
pelled hlasphemers to he stoned; and
the king, with tears, put his siguature
to the warrant."
Of the last of these "Leaders" on
our list—the patriot reformer Knox
—we shall venture to say hut a few
words. Principal Tulloch's manly,
straightforward account of the repre-
sentative of the Reformation in Scot-
land caunot fail to please. There is
no undue partiality, there is no timid
admiration.
One notices tbree stages in the
opinion which Protestants form of
these great leaders of the Reforma-
tion. The first is one of unwise, un-
qualified laudation: the man is a
type for all times, his doctrine a
standard for our own faith. The se-
cond is a critical stage, where defects
of character and narrowness of intel-
lectual view are discovered, and the
idol is well-nigh displaced altogether
from its pedestal : there is a greater
disposition to hlame than to praise.
Then follows the third stage, in which
an ideal of excellence or of wi-dom
heing no longer sought, the hero is
reinstated in such virtues as he can
really claim: his conduct is not fault-
less, and his reasoning is not unim-
peachahle, hut he stands there to he
judged hy fair comparison with his
fellow-men, and according to the work
he had to accomplish. In this last
stage we presume the reading puhlic
are at present. They no longer wish to
idolise such a man as Knox. He had
his passions like other men; com-
mitted hlunders as do other men—all
that is understood; and now passiou
for passion, hlunder for hlunder, man
for man, how will you estimate him
as he stands there amongst his con-
temporaries? We, for our part, esti-
mate him very higbly, nor can we
lind any living man, of his own time,
who can, on the whole, take prece-
dence of him.
Some romantically-disposed people
think to exhihit Knox to great dis-
advantage hy hringing him hefore us
in contrast with Mary, the heautiful
queen of the Scots. Well does Prin-
cipal Tulloch remark, that such people
must he allowed "simply to please
themselves with their own delusions;"
they are plainly incapahle of any
grave historical criticism. They
should he condemned to read novels
eternally ; or, what might he a worse
penalty, to do nothing hut write no-
vels all their lives. A rude word!
Sermomsed the Queen! Why, this
heautiful lady would have sent John
Knox, if she had heen ahle, hack to
the French galleys, and she would
have governed a country, now mani-
festly Protestant, hy the influence of
her priests, and in the interests of the
Duke of Guise. Pass hy her person-
al frailties — let the woman he un-
touched — what sort of queen has
Scotland here? She is scarce a
Scotchwoman — she is more a Guise
than a Stuart. What good will the
nation get out of her pretty French
mauners, her sweet face, or her musi-
cal voice? Now, hring opposite to
her, front to front, our John Knox,
tried and hardened hy the fire of ad-


189
[Aug.
Leaders of the Reformation:

versity, whose religion has hecome a
grand patriotism, who stands there
the representative of a people who
have flung off the degrading govern-
ment of priests, who have hecome
each one his own priest in his rela-
tions to God, and who, thus free in
religion, must he free also in politics;
who mean henceforth, hoth in Church
and State, to he a self-governing
people. Contrast the two figures.
Choose hetween them. Choose a soft
face and treachery to the nation, or
the hard strong man, self-devoted to
a great cause.
If the Reformation in England was
singularly complex in its character,
in Scotland it assumed a form mar-
vellously simple. According to all
accounts, the old hierarchy had hy
its vices lost all hold of the affections
or the reverence of the people—the
monarchy had lost its controlling
power hy the untimely death of
James V. — the hurgher class, im-
pelled and united hy a religious move-
ment, hecame supreme — there was
not too much learning for unanimity
of opinion—the simpler faith of Pro-
testantism carried all hefore it, and
was destined to mould for centuries
the character of the nation.
The hurgher class, it must not he
forgotten, were fused with the moh,
eo to speak, hy the power of the
religious orator acting equally upon
all. There is no respect of persons
in this matter of religious doctrine.
The Reformation hecomes a strictly
democratic movement. Knox preach-
es a sermon at Perth on the idolatry
of the mass and of image-worship.
The whole multitude is stirred.
"At the close of the sermon," con-
tinues Principal Tulloch, "and while tho
people still lingered under the warm emo-
tion of the preacher's words, an encounter
took placo hetween a hoy and a priest,
who, with a singular deadness to the
sigus around him, had uncovered a rich
altar-piece, and was making preparations
to celehrato mass. The hoy tbrew a
stone, which overturned and destroyed
one of the images. The act operated
like a spark laid to a train. The sup-
pressed indiguation of the multitude
hurst forth heyond all control—the con-
secrated imagery was hroken in pieces
the holy recesses invaded—the pictures
and ornaments torn from the walls and
trampled in the dust—and, rising with
the agitation, the spirit of disorder
spread, and the 'rascal multitude,' as
Knox afterwards called them, having
completed their work of destruction in
the church, proceeded to the houses of
the Grey and Black Friars, and the Char-
ter-house or Carthusian Monastery, and
violently ransacked them and laid them
The spirit of destruction nowhere
raged so violently as it did in Scot-
land. Every man of taste must de-
plore the ruin and defacement of the
nohle structures of the old religion.
We should he thought Vandals our-
selves if we uttered a word of apology,
yet something might suggest itself to
a sturdy Protestant to reconcile him
to this act of Vandalism. Knox's plea
that the " hest way to keep the rooks
from returning, was to pull down
their nests," could apply only to the
first era of the Reformation; and the
hanished rooks would have returned,
if it had heen in their power, and re-
huilt their nests. Great shame and
scandal, it seems, to pull down a fine
old edifice, hut we know—and our
own age has in some measure shown
how this may he—we know that a
fine old huilding may, in its own
dumh way, preach from generation
to generation, till at length, aided hy
some propitious circumstances, it may
prove a very persuasive orator. Visit-
ors pace with enthusiasm the aisles,
let us say, of a York Minster; taste-
ful municipalities sustain, restore
the venerahle edifice; a desire might
grow, we do not say that it ever
has grown, that the worship, the
ceremonial, the music, should he in
harmony with the grand cathed-
ral, and a revived ceremonial is fol-
lowed, amongst the uureflective, hy
a revived doctrine.
The whole Reformation in Scot-
land has an extreme uncompromising
character, which the liheral and in-
telligent citizen of Edinhurgh caunot
at this day he supposed to approve.
No measure of justice was dealt
towards the old Catholic Church.
The contest was too violent to admit
of equitahle controversy, and the
crimes of a Cardinal Beatoun had
helped to raise a spirit almost as un-
cbristian as his own. Knox and his
companions were not content with


1859.]
189
Felicila.—Part I.

denouncing the Catholic Church as
corrupt; it was ahsolutely the work
of Satan; it was anticbrist. An
application of certain passages in the
Apocalypse, first introduced hy pole-
mical divines in the mere heat of
discussion, hecame a part of the
national faith in Scotland. All this
popular and unqualified animosity
caunot he admired hy us. But great
changes of this description never yet
were effected hy moderate equitahle
gentlemen. We have to ask ourselves
whether, upon the whole, our Reform-
ers did not accomplish their great
work as well and as wisely as the times
permitted.
We will not follow Principal Tulloch
any further in his account of Knox: we
should he only repeating what he has
more eloquently said. We would in-
vite our readers to a perusal of the
hook itself: they will find it hoth elo-
quent and instructive.
FELICITA.
-
PART L—CHAPTER L
"I TniNK, if you please," said Feli-
cia, slowly, " that I will prefer to go
to mv aunt."
"You shall do what you like," said
her interlocutor, rudely, "we're Eng-
lish — we are ; we don't constrain no-
hody. Go to your aunt, to he sure,
and make a French marriage with
whoever suits her. I promise you she
won't give in to a foolish girl's will as
we've done here."
"My aunt is not French," said the
girl, with a little pride.
"Oh no, only rather more so," said
the irritated cockney. "Good morn-
ing, Miss Antini—I'm husy, thank
you—don't hurry ahout your arrange-
ments, I heg—hut for me and my son,
our time is not our own, you under-
stand. We're hard-working people,
and ohliged to look after our husiness;
so 1 am compelled to say good-day;
hut don't hy any means let us hurry
yoo."
Thus dismissed, Felicia Antini
went her way, with feelings con-
siderahly mortified, and flushed
cheeks. Her way was an extremely
prosaic one; up tbree pair of stairs,
in a narrow London house stuck on
to a showy London shop, to a little
hedchamher which overlooked the
chimneys. Here she had lived for
tbree months, trying to he as cheer-
ful as a new-made orphan could he,
and making herself useful in the
"estahlishment" of the only relative
she knew anything of—a cousin of
her mother's; a life to which, in her
dearth of friends, and the simplicity
of her thoughts, she might very well
have accustomed herself, had not the
son and heir of the house fallen vio-
lently in love with his relative, and
persecuted her with all the persever-
ing attentions which were "the pro-
per thing " in this young gentleman's
sphere. It was so hard to persuade
the complacent and well-to-do young
cockney that her "no" was serious
—that Felicia's life for some time
hack had heen much unlike her name.
Now the amized resentment of her
wooer and of his father, who had
made up his mind to a maguanimous
stretch of generosity in consenting to
receive his poor cousin's daughter as
his son's wife, and whom her refusal
astounded heyond measure, had at
last lixed the thoughts of the solitary
girl on the only alternative which she
could see remaining to her. Her
education and former customs made
it hard for her to seek other employ-
ment of a similar kind—she had not
courage. Here it was impossihle to
stay; and the only thing practicahle
seemed to accept the invitation of
her Italian aunt. But Felicia was
at heart an English girl, with some
prejudices and many likings. It was
hut slowly and with reluctance that
she made up her mind to this neces-
sity. She knew nothing in the world
of her father's sister, save what could
he conveyed hy the odd yet kind let-
ter in which the invitation to his
orphan came ; and the long journey.



190
[Aug.
Felicita.—Part I.
the strange country, the life among
strangers, alarmed Felicia. She felt
little inclination to claim the offered
kindness so long as shelter and daily
hread could he found at home. Now,
though the daily hread was in little
danger, the shelter was no longer
tenahle, and Felicia's thoughts turned
like shadows hefore her to her father's
land.
Felicia Antini was the only child
of an Italian long resident in Eng-
land and his English wife. Her
father had heen a tolerahly success-
ful teacher of his own language, and
had not left his wife and child uupro-
vided; hut after his death Mrs. An-
tini had fallen into had health, which
much impoverished their little pro-
vision. Felicia had still something
when her mother, too, was gone; hut
she was lonely and homeless—a sorer
evil than poverty—and was glad to
accept the only protection of kindred
which was near enough to he offered
to her in her first solitude. Thus
she only cried and smiled over the
cranky characters and had spelling
of Madame Peruzzi's letter, which
moved her hy its Italian exuherance,
even while her own English reserve
sbrank from a full response to its
caressing expressions. Now she saw
nothing else remaining to her, and
took out once more her aunt's epistle
to decipher its quaint lines word hy
word, and to fancy herself, as far as
that was possihle, an Italian girl he-
neath Madame Peruzzi's matronly
wing. Felicia's father had heen one
of those attenuated, long - visaged
Italians with a chuckle always lurk-
ing in his hollow cheek, and a gleam
of fire and malice in his eye, who
never run into raptures of patriot-
ism, and caress their native land
rather hy stinging proverhs of affec-
tionate depreciation, than hy positive
praise; and as for Felicia's mother,
that excellent and homely woman
was distinguished hy nothing so
much as a fervent jealousy of every-
thing Italian, restrained in expres-
sion, hut all the more earnest in
thought. Had Mrs. Antini known
or suspected that the first-horn hahy
daughter of whom she was so proud
was to he the sole hlossom of the
family tree, nothing in the world
would have induced her to yield the
naming of the child to her hushand,
and forego the privilege of settling
her nationality in her cradle. As it
was, when the father added the ca-
ressing syllahles of an Italian diminu-
tive to the little girl's name, and
called her Felicita, the English mo-
ther asserted her independence of all
the laws of euphony hy cutting short
the pretty word into the Saxon
ahruptness of Fellie. Between these
two the girl grew up more disposed
to the mother's side than the father's,
a steady little Englishwoman. If
ever Felicia gave her mother a pang,
it was when she sang with her
father, exercising the voice which
she derived from him, in music which
was somewhat ahove Mrs. Antini's
comprehension, though she could not
well condemn it, or showed herself
fluent in the tongue which the
Italian's homely wife hod never suc-
ceeded in acquiring. The good wo-
man showed her aunoyance only hy
a little hustle ahout the house, and
pretence of indifference—a very little
additional irritahility of temper —
moods which hoth hushand and
daughter fully understood, hut which
were not serious enough to make
dispeace or discontent in the little
household which, on the whole, was
affectionate and happy. Then the
Italian died, and was laid in English
ground, and grew holy with all the
sacred recollections which sanctify
the dead ; and Mrs. Antini suhsided
out of her housewifely hustle into
the culm of widowhood, and then, as
if her strength followed her active
duties, into ill health and invalidism,
and Felicia's care. That time was
sad, hut still happy; for the two
women, who were alone in the world,
were still together, and took comfort
in their mutual affection as only mo-
ther and daughter can; and then
came a sore hlank, a heavier void,
and henceforth no one reduced the
sweet syllahles of Felicia's name into
that homely Fellie, which now would
have heen sweeter than any music to
the orphan's ear.
All this passed tbrough the girl's
mind as she sat in her little London
attio, among the smoke and the spar-
rows. She could not marry the
young shopkeeper. It was no use
trying to reconcile herself to the ne-


1859.]
1!tl
Felicita.—Part I.

!.
cessity— the thing was impossihle;
bo there remained to Felicia only her
father's distant relatives, her un-
known aunt, her paternal country,
and the Italian which she already
hegan to forget. After a time she
hegan instinctively to gather her
little property together, and prepare
for her departure. The house she
was leaving was not one to he much
regretted; hut when she took her
little wardrohe out of the drawers,
and knelt on the floor at her lonely
packing, the occupation was sorrow-
ful enough. She thought to herself—
as it was so hard to get out of the
hahit of tliinking—what would her
mother say? and felt a pang of dis-
tress cross her mind at the idea of
new hahits and associations, against
which that mother's prejudices and
antipathies would have heen so much
excited. The novelty at that moment
did not strike Felicia pleasantly—she
did not think of the delights of the
journey, of the change, of all there
was to see, and of the unknown
events to he encountered, which,
even hecause they are unknown,
please the youthful fancy. She was
going hy herself and for herself, she
who had heen all her life one of a
family — going from everything ehe
knew and was familiar with; so she
packed up the hlack dresses with
some few tears falling among them,
and many sigha.
A very few days after this, having
warned her aunt of her coming hy a
letter, Felicia set out with a sad
heart. She was attended to the rail-
way hy a little group of the young
women counected with her relative's
'• estahlishment," who had taken up
Felicia's cause with warm esprit de
corps, and who for various reasons
(partly hecause she was tacitly under-
stood to have rejected the young
master of the place—an assertion of
the female privilege which all women
more or less enjoy ; partly hecause of
her relationship to their employer;
partly for her lonely condition, and
even a little for her foreigu name and
hlood, and the undefined superiority
which the possession of another lan-
guage carried over her unlearned
companions) admired and protected
and copied Felicia. It was something
to look hack upon their faces as they
VOL. ixxxvi.
walked up and down hy the side of
the train hefore it started, and ran
after it to the very end of the rail-
way platform, kissing their hands,
waving their handkerchiefs, and
wiping their eyes. They had to walk
hack all the way from London Bridge
to Oxford Street, and I daresay did
it with a very good heart, and talked
of nothing ehe all day hut how she
looked, poor dear, and what her perils
on the journey might he. They were
but silly creatures, most likely, with
their little vanities and jealousies, hut
this forlorn young womun was glad
of their sympathy; the hench of hish-
ops could not have consoled her so
well.
We will not dwell upon the details
of Felicia's journey. A solitary girl
in hlack, sitting hack in the corner
of a carriage, with a thick gauze veil
over her face, is not a very unusual
traveller anywhere, and U perhaps
nowhere less interesting than on a
tourist's route ahroad, where one ex-
pects hright faces and lively interest.
Making her way tbrough France
with a few words of French, and all
the reserve yet self-dependence of
an English girl, was hard enough
work for Felicia. If she could have
travelled night and day tbroughout,
she might have done well enough ;.
hut the pause of a night was some-
thing from which the young traveller
sbrank with dread, and she would
rather have slept on the steps of the
railway or in any dark corner ahout,
than have ventured to enter the ter-
rihle hrightness of a hotel, and pro-
vide lodging and provision for herself,
as she had to do at Paris and Mar-
seilles. Then came the sea, and she
hreathed freely; hut up to that time
Felicia saw very little of the way,
ventured to enter into conversation
with no one, and found little comfort,
if it were not in the occasional gleam
upon her of a kind old French face
in a suow-white cap, which smiled
a silent encouragement to her lone-
liness. The young people—the hap-
py people—the travelling ladies in
their English perfection of travelling-
dresses, or the fine Frenchwomen
who dazzled all the eyes which could
eee with the graces of a Parisian
toilette, rather made the orphan
sbrink within herself; hut there was
13


192
[Aug.
Felieita.—Part I.

still an old woman, here and there,
to hearten her with that magic of
kind looks, which, somehow, old wo-
men — much helied species of hu-
manity — excel in when they will.
When she had reached the panting
steamhoat which was to convey her
to Italy, Felicia tbrew herself upon
the hard sofa in the little cahin with
a sigh of relief and comfort. No
more peril of hotels and railway
offices frightened her imagination —
her trouhles were almost over. She
was ill, hut she was safe; she had
recovered the gift of speech, and could
once more make herself understood.
So, venturing to take pleasure in that
hlue transparent sen, and wistfully
gazing as "the old miraculous moun-
tains heaved in sight," and the silence
hroke into all the noises of a port,
and opaque hoats danced upon the
water which heneath them seemed
made of sunshine, our lonely young
traveller approached to her father's
country. Later when the evening
fell, after great trials hy means of the
customhouse, Felicia reached Flor-
ence. She had heen less than a week
on the way, and when the city of
Dante hurst upon her in the evening
sunsMne, among its circle of hills,
she coald scarcely realise to hen-elf
the fact of heing so far away from
that familiar country which she fond-
ly called " home;" then of having no
home anywhere in the world; and
then, that what claim to home she
had was here. Home I there was not
even such a word in the language
which henceforth was to he her lan-
guage; henceforward her dearest re-
tirement conld he only in ensa (in
the house). Felicia drew her veil closer
over her lace as she drove across the
Arno, and with a certain indescrih-
ahle prejudice declined to he attract-
ed hy the heauty of the scene. She
would not see the quaint hridge that
spauned the river, the tall houses re-
flecting themselves in the magical
stream, the grey Apeunine heaving
up his mighty shoulders hehind the
city, and all the wonderful sunshine
and atmosphere which glorified the
Italian town. Then the vehicle
slackened its pace, and Felicia's heart
heat faster. They had plunged out
of the sunshine into the deep and
qoM shadow of the Via Ginguio,
where hy that time in the day sun-
light was impossihle, save that which
hlazed on the unequal roofs, and
dropped in downward lines aslant,
from the deep Tuscan cornice at the
corners of the lanes which fell into
this street. Then Felicia's conveyance
stopped hefore a great door, flanked
hy two large windows, strongly harred
with iron. After a little interval the
door swang open, and a maid-servant
appeared; a dumpy, cheerful little
Tuscan, hustling and good-temper-
ed, who conducted Felicia up-stairs
with a ruuning flood of words, to
which the stranger, in her nervous
agitation, found it quite impossihle to
attend. Some one met them on the
stairs, and Felicia's heart leaped to
her mouth. This must surely he her
aunt at last. She made an emhar-
rassed tremhling pause, hut the pas-
senger went on without noticing her.
So they continued up and up those
lengthy stairs, the heart of the young
stranger sinking more and more the
further she ascended. The staircase
was indifferently lighted, and closed
doors frowned on her upon the land-
ing-places. Poor Felicia ran over all
her life in her thoughts as she went
up these steps—the little suhurhan
house which was home, the fresh,
fair, tiny English apartments, the
kind mother, the familiar life. Now
she was htre among strangers, many
hundred miles away from every one
who knew her, and painfully douhtful
of her new relations, and the recep-
tion she should meet with from them.
Thus her whole peaceful past history,
with its melancholy ending of fare-
wells and deathheds, went hy her eyes
like a picture as she ascended these
stairs.
This house, from cellar to roof, was
Madame Peruzzi's—her property, al-
most her sole property; a little estate
in a town frequented hy the wander-
ing English and the other wealthy
nations who are given to travel. Her
own apartments were in the third
story, not quite the highest, hut next
to the attics—the third story, count-
ing hy legitimate floors, hur, including
entrcsah. somewhat more like the fifth.
When Felicia reached this elevation
she found her aunt at last awaiting
her, not much less nervous than her-
self, though Madame Peruzzi's age


1859.]
193
Felicita.—Pari I.

and diguity kept her in her own
apartments to await her visitor. The
old lady stood with her hand upon
the little marhle tahla hefore her, in
a somewhat agitated pose, as if she
had heen standing for her portrait.
She wore a hlack gown with a tight-
fitting jacket, and large mosaic
hrooch. Her scanty grey hair was
put up in a little knot at the hack
of her head, its colour and distri-
hution heing ahundantly evident
from the want of anything in the
shape of cap — a painful deficiency,
which puzzled her niece extremely
at the first glance, when it appeared
to her that something, she could not
tell what, was wanting in Madame
Peruzzi's toilette. The old lady's
ears were heavily weighted with
round hosses of mosaic to correspond
with her hrooch. She wore lace frills
ahout her wrinkled and yellow hands,
and the hollow chetk and gleaming
eye were less comely in Madame Pe-
ruzzi than they had heen in the fami-
liar face of Felicia's father. Still
there was sufficient resemhlance to
wake a flood of affectionate recollec-
tions in the orphan's mind. She
made a few hasty steps forward, half
shy, half eager, and then, with a mo-
mentary start of dismay, found her-
self suddenly clasped in her aunt's
arms. These arms were rather hony,
and gave a somewhat grim emhrace;
and as the long hrown face hent over
her, and the old grey uncovered head,
it may he forgiven to the stranger if
she felt this first ehullition of affec-
tion somewhat overpowering. Felicia
was glad to slide out of her aunts
arms, and drop into the first chair
which offered itself. Madame Pe-
ruzzi had a perfumed handkerchief
in her hand, and the least possihle
fragrance of garlic in her hreath.
She was overflowing with affection
for her heloved Antonio's child, her
deare^ niece, her sweet Felicita.
The flood of rapid words and caress-
ing expressions look away the poor
girl's hreath; she dropped softly
into a chair, holding her little tra-
vWling-hag clasped in her hand.
Madame Peruzqi seated herself he-
side. her, and poured out inquiry
after inquiry: How long had she
heen ou the way? — how wonderful
that she should have come so soon!
was not she happy to find herself in
Florence ?—were not the skies al,vnys
cloudy in England ?—how cnuld An-
tonio, poor Antonio! have existed so
long in that dismal country? And
to die without seeing Italy aeain!—
without leaving his child under his
sister's care! Ah, heavens! what a
fate 1 Such were the welcoming
words with which Madame Peruzzi
greeted her niece.
In the meantime, Felicia glanced
round her, and silently took in a little
picture of the scene. The room
fronted to the street, and had two
windows hung with fringed muslin
curtains—not so white as might have
heen desired; hetween them was a
marhle tahle, supported on feet which
had once heen gilded, and supporting
a long narrow mirror. This and the
round tahle, also topped with marhle,
on which Madame Peruzzi had heen
leaning, were the grand articles in
the room. The rest of the furniture
consisted of an old-fashioned sofa
with cushions, and chairs which were
not to correspond. The floor was
uncarpeted, and consisted of tiles,
dark-red and diamond shaped, on
which every footstep resounded. In
one corner, a stove made of terracotta
projected a little from the wall; some
pictures—very had copies from the
cheap Florentine manufactories of
such articles—were hung round the
room; hooks were not to he seen,
neither were there any materials for
woman's work, or the least trace o
that litter of life and occupation
which the tidiest of apartments un-
consciously and appropriately at-
tains ; everything was cold, hare, and
penurious. Felicia had seen many a
poorer room which had no such
meagre expression. The penury here
was not poverty of means alone, hut
poverty of life. As she looked, only
half conscious of ohserving, her
aunt's monologue went on. Madame
Peruzzi did not require much aid in
maintaining the conversation. She
plunged into a hasty description of
what were to he the future pleasures
of Felicia's life — the Casine, the
Pergola, the Casino halls, to which a
dear friend of Madame Peruzzi could
gain them admission, the approach-
ing delights of the carnival. Felicia
listened with silent dismay and he.


194
[Aug.
Felicita.—Part I.

wilderment. She did not compre-
hend the out-of-doors life descrihed
to her. These things, it was to he
supposed, were gaieties understood
to he generally agreeahle to people
of her age, hut they only chilled and
frightened the stranger, who, sadly
fatigued and worn out with her jour-
ney, startled hy new circumstances
and the change of every domestic de-
tail around her, would have heen
much more pleased to hear of a room
she could retire to, to rest a little,
and cry a little, aud make up her
mind to the novel condition in which
she found herself. This, at lust,
Felicia took courage to ask tor
timidly. Then Madame Peruzzi led
her hy an open door into a little
narrow strip of a room which opened
from the sitting-room, where a little
dressing-tahle stood hefore the win-
dow, aud a little hed occupied the
end of the apartment. "This is thy
apartment, Felicita mia; thou shalt
he very happy here," said Madame
Peruzzi, looking round with some
complacence. "See thou the sweet
Madouna over thy head, and the
hlessed water. These were my Re-
gina's, when the dear girl lived.
Thou art my daughter now, and I
have no other: he happy, my soul,
with thy hrother Angelo aud me."
Felicia sat down upon her trunk,
which had heen carried here, though
she had not ohserved it, feeling a
little faint. Even then she was not
left alone; and when the maid called
Madame Peruzzi from the ttla, the
door of communication was still left
open. Felicia did not move in her
first moments of loneliness, hut sat
still upon her trunk, with her eyes
fixed upon that open door. She
scarcely felt courage to rise and close
it; she sat gazing at it with a for-
lorn and dumh dismay. Looking at
that, she seemed to he looking at the
entire circumstances of her new life.
There was no other entrance to the
room, and all her English privacy
and individuality seemed to faint
away from her at this sight. She
had not even taken off her hounet, or
loosed from her weary shoulders the
cloak which was heavier than usual
with the weight of dust produced hy
an autumn day's journey. She could
not cry, she could scarcely hreathe;
she sat apathetic and miserahle, look-
ing at her exposed apartment. Here
was not the shelter which even her
London attic gave her. In this place
no one understood what was implied
in the idea of home. Then came an
interval of silence and quiet, which
could not he called repose; she heard
Madame Pernzzi's voice at some
little distance, giving orders to her
maid; she could hear, even without
wishing it, what Madame Peruzzi said:
and only roused herself to the desperate
possihility of clo>ing her door when
the colloqny seemed almost over.
Pure Tuscan, with all its resounding
syllahles and soft terminations, hut
certainly not the liquid Itnlian, the
melting accents which sentimental
travellers delight to record; on the
contrary, a couple of English scolds
at high words could not have made
more commotion than was created
hy the perfectly peaceahle conference
of Madame Peruzzi and her maid.
However, the old lady, hy an extra-
ordinary discretion, respected the
closed door of Felicia's room; and the
stranger, after some hreatbless listen-
ing, roused herself to change her dress
and shake off the weary travelling-
garments full of dust which weighed
her down. She had heen kindly re-
ceived; she had nothing to complain
of, and yet her heart sank. Her
aunt's words huzzed in her ears, like
painful indications of a life unknown
to her. What were the Casine and
the Pergola, the winter's halls and
carnival, to a soher English girl in
mourning, hrought up in the hum-
hlest section of the English middle-
class, and accustomed to reckon upon
things totally different as the most
important matters of life? Felicia
was not wise enough to he quite
ahove the fascination of such pro-
mises, hut to have these hopes held
out to her in the first hour of her
arrival, in a house so very moderate
in its pretensions, as matters of es-
sential importance, seemed to her
something so gravely and sadly ridi-
culou3, that, once out of Madame
Perruzzi's presence, she could scarcely
helieve her in earnest. She made
her simple toilette slowly, to gain a
little time to think; she persuaded
herself that it was impossihle to form
any proper idea of the life and house


1859.]
195
Felieita.—PaH I.

to which she had come, till time
should inform her fully on the suh-
ject ; she thought of her father and
the stories he used to tell her of his
own country. But her father had
heen long ahsent from his country,
had acquired other hahits and tustes,
and rememhered only the delights of
his youth, quaint rural customs, and
primitive pleasures, which in the
telling had seemed as delightful to
Felicia as to himself, hut which she
had connected with the luxuriant
vineyards and shadowy olive gar-
dens, the Italian farms with their
primitive wealth and lahours, and
which she was sadly at a loss to adapt
to these meagre apartments, where
everything was poor and unlovely,
and where no heauty made up for
the English comfort, which was out
of the question here. The result of
Fciioit's deliherations was, that she
hecame too much puzzled to deli-
herate further; and experiencing a
slight revulsion of pergonal comfort
when she had hathed her face,
hrushed out her hair, and changed
her dress, at last opened, with more
courage than she had felt in closing
it, the-door of her chamher, and found
herselrooce more in presence of her
aunt
"If Angelo had hut known thou
wert here," cried Madame Peruzzi,
"nothing would have detained him,
Felicita mia — not his most dear
friends—he is so anxious thou shouldst
he happy with us. Ah 1 he is good,
very good, my son. If Angelo had
stood in his father's place, we should
have heen people of fortune, my soul;
hut the Siguor Peruzzi was one of
feven sons, and that which is in seven
parts is less to each than if all were
one, like Angelo, thou knowest. But
he has good friends, very good friends
—he is not neglected : they rememher
that he is a Peruzzi, and thou shalt
have thy share of thy cousin's ad-
vantages, though thou and I, my
Felicita, are not nohle like Angelo.
Bat what then? we shall enjoy our
life the same, and he is a good son.
Bat tell me, Carina; thy father An-
tonio, did he never speak to thee of
me?"
"Many times, aunt," said Felicia,
faltering a little, for her father did not
always speak with enthusiasm of his
sister.
"And desired thee to come to us
when he died, the good Antonio! did
he not so?" continued the aunt.
"You forget my mother was then
alive," said Felicita, with sorrowful
pride: "while she lived, he could wish
me no other guardian."
"Thy mother, ah! who was thy
mother, carina ?" said the old lady,
raising a little her capless head;
"not a rich milor's daughter, Anto-
nio told us. I know not the customs
of thy country: if she was poor, and
he was poor, why then did they
marry? My poor Antonio! was it
not a sad life?
"They married hecause they were
fond of each other," said Felicia, with
a rising colour, "and my father did
not think his life sad: we were very
happy—more happy than I can tell
you; everything went well with us
then."
"He was always good," said Ma-
dame Peruzzi, " hut thou wilt pardon
me, Felicita, if to live in that cloudy
island, and to lahour all one's days,
seems to me a sad life. And Antonio
left thee a little fortune, did he not?
Thou art rich, Felicita mia? We
lahour hut for our children, my soul.
If they are well, all is well. Ah!
if I could hut see my Angelo rich, I
should die with joy."
"If Angelo thinks like me, aunt,"
said Felicia, quietly, " he would rather
have his mother than he rich. One
can work and live, hut one caunot
have a second father and mothfr."
"Carina mia! thou shalt have a
second mother — thou art my own
child I" cried the old lady, with a sud-
den emhrace. Felicia unconscious-
ly slid out of it with emharrass-
ment as eoon as she was ahle, and
did not feel so happy as might have
heen expected. Strangely enough, at
this pathetic climax of the inter-
view, two ludicrous ingredients in
the novelty of her position tempted
Felicia at the same moment to
laugh and to he slightly ill tempered.
One was a puzzling question, which
ran tbrough all her musings, and kept
her in an aunoying hut ludicrous un-
certainty—whether her aunt Peruzzi
had forgotten to put on her cap. and
was unaware of it? and the other
was a secret and hopeless longing for
that great feminine English luxury,
a cup of tea. She drew hack, uncon-


196
[Aug.
Felicita.—Part T.

sciously putting up her hand to the
crimped frill of her mourning collar,
which her aunt's emhrace had dis-
turhed, and feeling herself more and
more ohstinately and perversely
English in proportion as she per-
ceived how different everything else
was around her. In the midst of
huch questioning and such involun-
tary resistance, the afternoon wore
to an end. The impossihle tea ap-
peared not for the refreshment of
the young Englishwoman, and Ma-
dame Peruzzi, if she had forgotten it,
certainly did not discover the ahsence
of her cap.
A little hefore six o'clock Angelo
came home. Angelo was the only
son of his mother, a young Floren-
tine of two-and-twenty, hut looking
more youthful than he was, fresh,
adolescent, and heardless, with a face
which attracted his cousin's shy re-
gard in spite of herself. Good looks
are more common among the men
than among the women of Tuscany,
and Angelo Peruzzi's looks were sun-
ny and frank and candid, with a de-
gree of simplicity in the good humour
heaming from them, which an Eng-
lish youth of the same years could
hardly have exhihited. He was not
dark, hut simply hrown, with hezel
eyes, a laughing, carved upper lip,
and so entire an ahsence of any-
thing like care or thought in his face
that the grave young girl heside
him, although younger than he,
looked with a certain wistful envy-
ing and anxiety at his unclouded
countenance, feeling herself ages
older than he was, and wondering
over his inexperience. Felicia her-
self was not quite twenty, and, Eng-
lish though she was in feeling, had
one of those remarkahle Italian faces,
notalwavs heautiful, which it is not
easy to forget. Her eyes were hlue,
with a gleam of latent fire in their
depths; her hair of a colourless dark-
ness, like twilight, not hlack, hut
without light; her face long and
oval. When she grew old, she would
he like her father—a suggestion which
at the present moment was not very
complimentary, hut at present she
was something more than pretty,
though less than heautiful. The two
young people looked at each other
with mutual curiosity as young peo-
ple use; each was rather more a
mystery to the other than it is com-
mon for young men and young wo-
men to he, for the serious English
girl in her mourning was ahout as
great a puzzle to Angelo as the
thoughtless young Florentine was to
Felicia; hut they hegan their mutual
examination with mutual good-will.
Shortly after Angelo's arrival they
were called to diuner, which was
served in another apartment rather
more hare than the first, at the other
end of a long passage. Here Felicia
hegan her experiences of Italian house-
hold economy. The meal was long
and various, hut the stranger's plate
went away again and again untouch-
ed, and she was fain to plead extreme
fatigue as the cause of her want of
appetite. Poor Felicia! The diuner
was a grand diuner, made in her hon-
our. Soup, a compound of hot water,
grease, and maocaroni, made a rather
uupromising hegiuning. Then came
very thin slices of uncooked ham and
sausages, to he eaten with hread and
hutter; then a grand fntto—pieces
of disguised fish and vegetahle fried;
then a dish of meat hoiled out of
its senses, surrounded with extraor-
dinary vegetahles. Ahout this time
Felicia ceased to he ahle to ohserve
what was hrought to the tahle — a
whiff of garlic, a fragrance of cheese,
enveloped the apartment. Madame
Peruzzi kept up (without any slang)
a stuuning conversation with the
dumpy cheerful little maid, who
came and went perpetually with the
various dishes, and Angelo partook
of all with a cheerful gusto which
tbrew poor Felicia into dismay. She
sat looking at them all without heing
ahle to say a word. Oh for that im-
possihle cup of tea I oh to he ahle to
forget the flavour of that maceuroni!
hut it was as impossihle to ohtain the
one as to escape the other, and Feli-
cia sat silent, sick, and disgusted,
scarcely ahle to keep her chair till the
ceremonial was over, longing to he
alone, and fiod in rest the only com-
fort which seemed to remain for her.
Fortunately, however, nohody was
surprised ttiat she should wish to go
to rest immediately. She had more
than a traveller's license; it was evi-
dent that, traveller or no traveller,
there heing no amusement in tho way,


1659]
197
Felicita.—Part I.

that was supposed to he the most
sensihle thing ehe could do. Madame
Peruzzi herself retired to her own
room immediately. Angelo went out,
the house fell into profound silence,
and into a darkness as profound.
Felicia' looked out from her high
window; there lay the street, deep
down, with its faint glimmer of scanty
lamp- under the shadow of these lofty
houses, each defending itself, with its
deep overhanging corners, from any
invasion of light from the sky. The
sounds which from that depth reach-
ed Felicia at her high window were
drowsy and faint, as though the town
were dropping to sleep; hut the lights
were hrilliant in one great house
opposite, where carriages hegan to
arrive, and tbrough the open door of
which Felicia saw a vision of passing
ladies in all the glories of evening
dress; while in an apartment almost
opposite her own, thinly veiled hy
a muslin curtain, the lady of the
house was having her own toilette
completed to receive her guests. This
was the true Italian evening division
of the community; a'musement for
those who had amusement—for those
who had not, sleep. Angelo was at
his cafe and the theatre. His mother,
whom nohody cared to seek, and who
had consented to relinquish her hopes
of pleasure—his mother was in hed.
Such was the proper and natural ar-
rangement of things, as it seemed, at
Florence. Felicia lay down to her
rest an incipient rehel. Might it not
he possihle to change all that?
CHAPTER IL
"This is kind of thee, carina," said
Madame Peruzzi next morning, as
Felicia and she sat together over
their coffee. "Angelo is late in hed,
as he needs to he, for due rest, poor
hoy, after a pleasant night. He will
tell us of his pleasures when he wakes
—and now I shall no longer drink my
coffee alone. Thou wilt make a new
life, Felicita mia, for me."
"1 am glad you will like me with
you, aunt," said Felicia, who was,
however, puzzled hy the entire ahsence
of disapproval with which the old
lady mentioned her son's late hours.
"Is it Angelo's occupation which
keeps him out so late?"
"His occupation? What is that,
my soul?" asked Madame Peruzzi.
"Didst thou not hear him say he was
going to the Pergola to hear Norma?
He shall take thee one of these days."
"Does he go there often?" asked
Felicia, with still a trouhlesome ter-
ror lest she should hear her cousin de-
siguated as a conductor or memher
of the orchestra, an intimation which
would not have heen very delightful to
her. Madame Peruzzi put her hand,
with a playful momentary pressure,
upon Felicia's hand.
"For what dost thou take my An-
gelo, my child? Is he old? is he
past his pleasure? When there is no
hetter gratification, where should he
go hut to the theatre? And as for me, I
am old—my day is over—I go to hed."
"But Angelo, my aunt, has he
then command of his time?" said Fe-
licia, with timidity, glancing round
the apartment, which hore so many
visihle sigus of hare and meagre
poverty. "Has he not—employment
—does he not do anything? I mean
—in England the young men have
always something to do."
"My houI, we have enough," said
Madame Peruzzi, with a heaming
smile. "Why should Angelo weary
himself with lahour? In England I
have heard they are compelled to
work to keep off melancholy and
miserahle thoughts, hut thou knowest
not yet our Italy, where it U pleasure
to live. No, Felicita carina. My
Angelo has good hlood and a hrave
spirit. He takes his pleasure in his
youth, for youth is the season of
pleasure. At my age one heeds no
longer what comes or goes. A new
prima donna, or a grand spectacle, is
hut little to me. I should lose the
whole if I hut lost my spectacles, hut
it is different with Angelo and thee."
Felicia prudently kept silence and
made no rejoinder. She contented
herself with rememhering that, after
all, the country and its customs were
new to her, and that she was not quite
qualified, on twenty-four hours' ex-


198 Felteita.—Part I. [Aug.

perience, to revolutionize this house- made an odd contrast as they took
hold, and protest against its hahita of their seats together in the little
life—which was an unusual amount of hackney carriage—the old lady so
modesty and sense for a girl of nine- gay, and the young one so perfectly
teen to exhihit, as everyhody must plain and unadorned. As they drove
allow. Accordingly, for this day at down the Lung' Arno in the after-
lea.t, she was content to see what noon sunshine, Felicia no longer shut
should happen, and find out the na- her eyes to the heauty of the scene,
tural course of events in her aunt's As the houses disappeared, and they
house. Ahout twelve o'clock, Angelo passed out of the gate in full sight
made his appearance, and ate his of the hlue Apeunines, contracting
hreakfast good-humouredly, enter- their nohle link of enclosure towards
taining his mother and cousin with the west, and all the tender meadows
his last night's adventures; for An- ha,king in the sunshine in the low
gelo was as good a son as Madame Vale of Arno, her heart for the first
Peruzzi called him, and would not time was touched towards her father's
have done an intentional slight to hia country. These farmhouses softly
only relatives for anything in the seated among the verdant grass, with
world. Then the young gentleman the deep shady arch sometimes puss-
disappeared for the day; he had vari- ing under the entire huilding, and
ous engagements with various ac- the square tower raising its little
quaintancts, which, he honestly re- upper-story ahove the red-tiled roof,
gretted, prevented him this day hore a pleasant look of home which
from showing her ancestral town to comforted the longing in her inind.
his cousin. When he was gone the It was good to take refuge some-
old lady followed Felicia to her room, where. Italian homes might he in
Madame Peruzzi proposed to order a these rural houses: though an upper
carringe, and drive her niece to the floor in the Via Giuguio recalled
Cascine, where all the world spent its few recollections of the domestic
afternoon; and the careful aunt was sanctuary. As Felicia amused her-
sulicitotis to see what were the self with these imaginations, and
stranger's equipments, and if her Madame Peruzzi occupied her active
dress was satisfactory. She looked old senses in recoguising and identi-
a little grave over the poor girl's fying most of the persons they met
unvaried hlack. It was Do longer on the road, their carriage drove
necessary, she said, to wear so much along tbrough level lines of trees,
mourning,—no one knew in Florence flat and formal, with stretches of
who those sahle garments were worn green meadow-land on either side, to
for, and she disliked the dress for her an open space in front of the great
own part, though she wore it herself Dairy—a square hrick huilding, from
in the house, for economy's sake, which the place takes its name.
These remarks revived in Felicia a Here the Florentine world was at its
little temper, which she had always height of occupation. Here Madame
possessed. She had no desire to go to Peruzzi's carriage drew modestly in
the Cascine; she would much prefer to the ranks, and stood wiih the
seeing the town, the Duomo, the Cam- others in close square, contrihuting a
panile, the pictures of which her little rivulet to the stream of talk
father had told her. Madame I'eruzzi spreading around. Everyhody was
shook her head, and went away with talking, laughing, flirting, making and
smiling pertinacity. Then at four confirming engagements. Tbrough
o'clock the carriage came. The old the narrow lanes left hetween the
lady had done herself injustice when carriages, youths like Angelo, and
she said she was too old for pleasure, indeed Angelo himself—a sight toler-
She made her appearance now in a ahly welcome to the eyes of his
toilette which astonished Felicia, cousin—mingled with elder and less
with a very small ultra - Parisian prepossessing men; while ladies leant
hounet gay with artificial flowers, out of their carriages, making free
and a little parasol, like a hright- use of gesture, voice, hand, and fan
coloured hutterfly, and cream-colour- —ladies with miniature hounets, dis-
ed gloves, fresh and fragrant. They closing each a mass of glossy hlack


1859.]
199
Fdkita.—Part I.

hsir and a pair of jewelled ears—
ladies bo fine that a suspicion of pro-
vincialism clouded the maguificence
of their toilettes; hut not lovely, not
pretty—the least comely of Italian
women. When Angelo discovered
his mother's modest vehicle among
the crowd, he mode haste towards
her with a face glowing with pleasure
—the Countess Ficasola had just in-
vited him to diuner. His satisfaction
reflected itself with a douhle glow in
the countenance of his mother, who
hent over him with delighted looks.
"We shall not see thee to-night,
then, my Angelo ?" she said, pressing
her son's hand. Other loungers fol-
lowed Angelo, till Felicia, shy and
strange, hecame quite hewildered hy
the names and voices, and hy the
universal Italian, which had heen for
some years unfamiliar to her, and of
which the had not yet recovered the
hahitual use, in the midst of so much
conversation, without taking part in
it, with a dozen people talking across
her, and Madame Peruzzi halfstand-
ing in the carriage, and excited with
an indulgence evidently very unusual,
ready to respond to all, and answer-
ing tbree at a time. Felicia, who
might have heen amused at a great
distance, leant hack in her corner
quite overpowered, and longing to
escape from the confusion and crowd.
Then came the flower-women, with
their great flapping hats and pearl
necklaces, who tbrust little houquets
into her hand, to the extreme con-
fosion and dismay of the stranger,
who did not know the custom of the
place, and was equally reluctant to
take and afraid to offer money for
them. When they moved home-
ward at last, Felicia sighed with
relief, and Madame Pernzzi suhsided
in the highest state of gratification
into the corner of the carriage, and
hegan to explain to her niece what
great people were some of those who
had addressed her. It was all for
Felicia's sake that her good aunt had
undertaken this expedition; hut the
kindoer-s in the mean time was its own
reward.
The Via Ginguio, however, did not
look less meagre and gloomy than
hefore, as once more they ascended
the long stairs and reached their own
apartments. Everything picturesque
and hright out of doors — within,
poverty and plaiuness devoid of every
pretension to heauty; once more the
penurious chilly life, which found no
pleasure in itself, and, when left alone,
had no resource hut sleep. The
diuner of th.,t day was hy no means
so grand as the previous one ; Angelo
was douhtless a great deal hetter off
at the Countess Picasola's, not to
speak of the honour. The greasy
soup, the oily vegetahles, the hlack
dish of fried rice, the incomprehen-
sihle sweets and sours of the meal,
were once more too much for Fe1icia.
She retired hastily, as soon as with-
drawal was permissihle. Retired,
hut to what? There was not a
hook visihle, so that resource was
impossihle; and glad though she
would have heen to take her work
and spend her evening, as she had
spent many an evening with her
mother, Felicia found that equally
out of the question. Madame Peruzzi,
indeed, accompanied her niece to the
sola, and seated herself in a corner
of the sofa, yawning horrihly; hut
no lamp was hrought into the room,
nor did she ask for any, and the
twilight gathered quick and grey
over the apartment, in which at last
it was only possihle to perceive the
coloured fahric of Madame Peruzzi's
dress, and the white glimmer of Feli-
cia's work on the little murhle tahle.
Vainly the stranger tried to he amus-
ing, to interest her relative hy either
remarks or questions, cr to draw out
her curiosity concerning England and
the customs of that country. Madame
Peruzzi sat swallowing vast yawns,
nodding in her corner of the sofa,
answering in monosyllahles. Poor
Felicia was in despair. When she
hecame convinced that it was mere
cruelty to detain her aunt, she in her
turn hecame silent, and favoured the
escape of the unfortunate old lady;
hut when Madame Peruzzi had made
her escape, it was still scarcely nine
o'clock, and what was the solitary
girl to do? She had heen shy to ask
for light, expecting every moment the
advent of the maid Marietta, and
that tall Roman lamp with two
lights, which had reminded her on
the previous evening of the lamp of
a carriage, as swang in Marietta's
hand, and leaving her person invis-


200
[Aug.
Felicita.—Part I.

ihle. It came along the long passage
from the other end of the house, hut
no light came tbrough the darkness;
and when at last Marietta herself
appeared, it was but to ask if the
Siguorina wanted anything hefore
she went away for the niirht. With
hesitation and faltering, Felicia put
forward her humhle desire for a light.
A light!—there was only oil enough
in the lamp to light the Siguor An-
gelo to his own room, when he should
come in. What could Marietta do?
Yet the kind-hearted Tuscan conld
not leave the stranger without ex-
hausting herself with expedients to
supply what she wanted. At length
a sudden idea struck Marietta. She
darted hack to her odd little kitchen,
and reappeared in a few minutes with
an old hlue teacup in her hand,
which she placed on the tahle, to
Felicia's great amazement. Then
Marietta produced a matchhox,
struck a match, and lighted a little
floating wick which sailed on the
surface of a little pool of oil. "Eoerr,
Siguorina!" she cried trinmphantly.
Yes, hehold it!—the domestic lamp
—the evening illumination. The
good-natured girl could not he suffi-
ciently pleased with herself for the
idea, and went off in a little flush
of exultation, making the door ring
hehind her as she closed it to cele-
hrate her clever expedient, and the
extraordinary inclination of the Sig-
norina to sit alone tbrough the soli-
tary night.
When Marietta was gone, and
Felicia sat hy herself in that dreary
apartment, with her little light
twinkling feehly out of the tea-cup,
and herself and it gloomily reflected
out of the dark depths of the mirror
hetween the windows, Felicia's first
and momentary impulse was a laugh
of self-ridicule; hut the laugh soon
suhsided into very different feelings,
and hefore she was aware, her eyes
were surprised with heavy tears.
The gloom and solitude of the house,
where no one moved hut herself, the
total isolation in which she stood,
the apparent impossihility of making
any one understand her, oppressed
her heart. There was no sleep in
her young eyes or her restless mind,
and the only oceupation which oc-
curred to her for the moment was a
desperate fit of home-sickness and
longing, in which any refuge in her
mother's country, however miserahle,
seemed hetter than the condition in
which >he stood. That whs, however,
as foolish as it was vain. After a
little interval she dried her eyes, and
took up her unsteady taper to carry
it tenderly to her own room. There
she tried a little arrangement to keep
herself amused; and when her email
possessions were in perfect order—
order scarcely more perfect than that
which she disturhed, hut still some-
thing which amused and occupied
her—she took out a humhle little
piece of emhroidery, and tried to
work. But working hy that little
floating light in solitude, amidst the
gloomy shadows of the Via Giuguio,
was not so easy as some people
might suppose, especially when one is
haunted with recollections of a hright
family tahle, on which the lamp
hurned clear, and love w?s warm,
and father and mother smiled upon
their only child. Now all that re-
mained to her was Madame Peruzzi,
asleep in her room, and the young
Florentine, who did not know what
home or industry was, and who
managed to forget poverty and a
useless life hy the perpetual amuse-
ment of one kind or another, which,
in his mother's eves, was only natural
to his youth. Felicia's heart sank
as she sat in her dark hedchamher,
trying to do her emhroidery, and try-
ing still more to keep her thoughts
from interference in other people's
concerns. Her aunt and cousin
were poor, very poor, yet no thought
of occupation or employment seemed
to enter the mind of Angelo. What
henefit to him was the Countess
Picasola and her invitation? said
Felicia to herself. What was to he-
come of him if he did nothing, and
could do nothing?—and yet what
had she to do with it? She per-
plexed herself to such an extent that
she tbrew down her work, and went
to the window to refresh herself with
the fresh air. Just then a carriage
drew up at the great house opposite,
waiting for the great lady, whom
Felicia once more saw tbrough the
thin hlinds, finishing her evening's
toilette. Other ladies, young slen-
der figures in floating lace and


1859.]
201
Felicita.—Part I.

muslin, had joined her, ere she ap- ,ce, save the irregular line of lofty
peared helow at the door, to enter houses, aud far htlow an occasional
her carriage. Felicia looked on with passenger, but the air at least soothed
a certain wistfulnees, not envy, hut her. Then Felicia, with a low laugh
something more like wonder at the and a deep sigh, resigued herself to
differences of providence. When the the necessities of her position, and,
echoes raised hy their departure had unahle longer to resist the gloom, the
died away, she still stood leaning silence, and the solitude,'lay down at
out, looking up and down the deep last and went to sleep,
gulf of street. There was little to
'
CHAPTER IIL
In this monotonous and uncom-
fortahle life the weeks ran on rapidly
enough—slow as they passed, yet so
devoid of interest, when they were
gone, that they seemed no longer
than a common day. Felicia tried
hard to convey her own ideas to the
minds of her friends, hut without
much visihle success, and she csme
to modify her own opinions concern-
ing them, as she gained greater ex-
perience. Madame Peruzzi, though
she retired to rest at eight o'clock,
and suffered no litter of feminine
occupation to he visihle in her ,win,
was not the less a careful mother,
nor scorned to use her needle and her
shears for the comfort of her house-
hold, though Felicia found it almost
impossihle to persuade her aunt to
hring her mending and darning into
the sitting-room, or to share with
her those cheerful and sociahle do-
mestic lahours. It wis against
Madame Peruzzi's conscience to have
her private lahours suspected. She
would not for the world have had
one of her visitors discover her or
her young companion at work; and
as the old lady had greatly fallen out
of acquaintance—if she ever had any
acquaintance with the little Floren-
tine world of fashion — and was
visited only hy old ladies of her own
standing, it was not so easy to find
a willing and suitahle chaperone for
Felicia as might have heeu supposed,
and accordingly the projects lor tak-
ing her out and supplying amuse-
ment for her evenings, which the old
lady had heen eloquent upon at first,
soon dropped out of rememhrance,
and were mentioned no more. And
Felicia found that her cousin, though
living, after his kind, the life of a
young man of fashion, was neverthe-
less a good son, iunocent and without
guile, who did not hesitate to hestow
his full confidence on his mother, and
was entirely trusted hy her in return.
How it was that under these circum-
stances Angelo, without the slightest
idea of wrong-doing, was ahsent from
home every night, and how, in spite
of the extreme poverty of the me-
nage—a poverty which hecame more
visihle to Felicia every day—no idea
of doing anything for himself or his
family to improve his position, or to
provide for the future exigencies and
expansions of life, seemed ever to
occur to his mind, hecame less a
mystery to her as she hecame more
acquainted with her new sphere.
Felicia was, however, English enough
and woman enough to have a strong
inclination towards reform, and a
great impatience of those evils which
everyhody else seemed so contented
with. The cousins, were, moreover,
much attracted towards each other;
and ere they had heen long together,
the usual result to he hoped or ap-
prehended from the familiar inter-
course of a young man and joung
woman, hoth good-looking and well-
dixpositioned, seemed in a fair way
of coming to pass. Now and then
Angelo stayed at home, the lamp
was lit, Felicia produced her em-
hroidery, Madame Peruzzi dozed in
a corner of the sofa, and the meagre
little sain hrightened into a kind of
magical version of home, an impos-
sihility hrought to pass hy a dawn-
ing of something different from the
mild domestic aifections which are
suppo-ed to have their centre there.
And then conversations ensued—con-
versations unlike everything which
the young man had ever taken part
in hefore, and which they carried on


202
|Aug.
Felicita.—Part I.
alone, the mother heing pleasantly
ahsent and lost in dreams. On one
of these nights, pleasant to hoth, and
much lonyed for hy Felicia, Angelo
directed his inquiries in a somewhat
marked and siguificant mauner to
England and English customs, a little
to the surprise, hut much to the
satisfaction, of his cousin.
"I wish you could hut go to Eng-
land, Angelo," cried the young re-
former, determined not to lose her
opportunity ; "I caunot descrihe to
you how different everything is. I
do not suppose you can understand
me when I tell you — if any one had
told me, hefore I came here, what I
should find in Florence—"
'' Does Florence disappoint yon,
then, my cousin 1" asked the young
man.
"Yes, in some things," said Feli-
lia; "in others, no; hut you do,
Angelo."
"I ? and how?" said Angelo, with
a smile.
'• Because I do not know what is
the good of you," said the young re-
volutionary demurely.
'' Nor I either," cried her cousin,
who thought her frankness a sally of
humour. "Why should there he
any good in me? is that necessary
in your England'!"
"I did not say there was no good
in you; that is not true," said Feli-
cia. "But you are of no use, cousin;
you ought to he so different. Had
you heen hor n an Englishman, you
would have heen husy all day long—
lahouring, exercising your faculties,
helping on the work of the world.
Every man in England is trained to do
that, and knows it is his duty. You
would have gone out to work, and
come home to rest, if you had heen
horn an Englishman, Angelo."
"Should I have heen happier, my
cousin ?" said the young man.
"Happier !—what has heing happy
to do with it?" cried Felicia with a
little hurst of vehemence. "Does it
make you happy to go to your cafe t
are you happy when you are at the
Cascine or in the theatre? You know
quite well you are only amused; and
that is so different. Ah, Angelo I
that makes all the difference. People
in England do not think it necessary
to he always amused; hut we all try,
when we have the chance, to he
happy."
"But you do not all succeed, my
cousin?" said Angelo; "and your
Englishman, Felicita mia—your Eng-
lishman who goes out to work, and
comes in to rest—what shall he do
to he happy?"
The young Italian asked the ques-
tion with a certain hitterness and
personality; for Angelo was hy no
means acquainted with the instincts
of English womankind, and had not
sufficient experience to know that
the existence of the special English-
man, whom he suspected, would have
much moderated, in all prohahility,
his cousin's earnestness on his own
hehalf. Felicia, for her part, faltered
in her answer, hlushed crimson, and,
hy her hesitation, convinced the
young Florentine that his suspicions
had some foundation.
"I do not know—I—I caunot tell,"
she said with confusion, unahle to
shut out from her mind, at that
emharrassing moment, that English
youthful imagination which supposes
happiness to mean love and the
young home and household, which
is the first instinctive suggestion of
insular comfort and virtue. In spite
of herself. Felicia could not help
thinking if Angelo, instead of a Flo-
rentine man - ahout - town, had heen
that same imaginary Englishman of
whom they sppke, what visions of
some little surhurhan house might
have heen floating in his imagina-
tion, and what a fanciful little para-
dise— perhaps the Only refined and
heatified conception of his life -
might have risen to him out of a
little waste of imaginary tahles and
chairs. That, at least, was her wo-
manish conception of the suhject;
hut something sealed her lips, and
she could have done any other im-
possihle thing sooner than hetray to
Angelo the momentary suggestion of
her own heart.
"Then if you do not know, and
caunot tell, my cousin, I must tell
you of a happiness, or an amuse-
ment—I know not how you will call
it—which is falling to me," said An-
gelo, with gaiety which looked some-
what forced. "There is a country-
woman of thine, Felicita, on the
other side of the way, young, and


1859.] Felieita.—Part I. 203

rich, and pretty—a wilful little wo- '• I mean if the heiress marries
man; and she does me the honour me, my cousin," said the young
to smile upon me." man.
It was now Felicia's tarn to feel a Felicita was silent; her own un-
little involuntary hitterness. Though comfortahle sensations, and the inex-
she could have done any spite to plainahle mortification she felt in
herself the moment after, hy way of her heart, prevented her from any
punishment for her weakness, she word or hint of opposition. She
ftll a momentary hlank in her face, went on with her emhroidery very
and pang in her heart. But she swiftly and quietly, while Angelo,
vtry speedily regained the mastery, very well pleased with the impres-
and mnde an answer of congratula- sion he had produced, and with a
tion which seemed forced only to great deal of hoyish mischief and
herself. Angelo went on fluently self-complacency seconding some feel-
with his hrag and his description, ings more terious, was silent also,
The young lady of his story was one letting his laughing glance travel
of the slender white figures whom round the apartment, and finding,
Felicia had watched so often issu- with a rapid perception of the pic-
ing from the door of the house oppo- turesque, something rather attractive
site into the carriage which carried in the scene. The room not half
them away to nightly amusement or lighted, with its two unshuttered
daily airings. She was very young windows gleaming tbrough the mus-
— only sixteen — an orphan, and a lin curtains, and all the darkness of
great heiress, j-so much Angelo knew; the night heyond them; the tall
and, led on hy the evident interest, Roman lamp, with its two unshaded
and perhaps the slight pique ptrcep- lights shining steadily from the little
tihle in the toue of his cousin, the marhle tahle; Madame Pcruzzi, a
young man poured into her eager dark shadow in the corner of the
ears everything he had heard con- sofa, leaning hack upon her hard
eerning the young Englishwoman, cushions, with her grey head veiled
and perhaps a little more. hy the darkness; the whole darkly
"Very rich—a great heiress;—and gleaming in the narrow mirror,
how have you met her, Angelo?" which gave such strange depth to
asked Felicia, with an unconscious em- the shadows and prominence to the
phasis upon the ipu, which proved light. Then Angelo returned to the
that she considered great heiresses light, and the face it shone on, the
rather out of the young Pernzzi's point of highest illumination in the
way. picture. Felicia was making won-
"I have met her in society, my derful progress with her work ; her
cousin," said the laughing Angelo, hands moved as hands only can
who immediately quoted a list of move when the heart is agitated and
great names which still further con- the thoughts in full career. The
fused and trouhled Felicia. "We young man looked at her white clear
are poor, it is true—very poor," said forehead, on which the lamp shone,
the light-hearted Florentine; "hut at the graceful stoop of her head, her
that is not in Florence what it is in eyes cast down, and her lips firmly
thy country: the saints defend us, closed. The whole face was very
we are all poor 1 Yet they will ask grave, deeply silent, with that inde-
thy idle unfortunate cousin to their sorihahle disapproval and mute re
assemhlies, Felicita, while they see him sistance on its every feature which
still in possession of a tolerahle coat people ahroad are fond of character-
and a pair of gloves. Gloves, heaven ising as the insular look of stone.
he praised, are cheap in Florence, so, The expression struck Angelo: he
though I am poor, 1 can still see my could not flatter himself that there
heiress. And what sayest thou, Feli- was pique or personal offence in it;
cita? if all progresses, as, to say the somehow it seemed a dumh reproach
truth, all hears promise of progress- upon his levity, and touched, with a
ing, thy poor cousin may not long singular pain unknown to him he-
he poor." fore, the light heart in his Italian
"Do yon mean if you marry the hreast: higher things than helonged
heiress, Angelo?" asked Felicia. to kit life; virtues, and honours, and


204
Felicita.—Part 1.
[Aug.
heroisms unknown seemed somehow
to heam upon the wistful gaze of
Angelo out of that silent uncommu-
nicating face.
"Felicita ! sordid mia," he said,
softly, using the tenderest title of
kindred, which hy no means meant
the exclusive sister of our preciser
tongue —" you disapprove of me —
you think me wrong: shut not up
thy thoughts in thy lips — speak! I
will listen like a child."
"Why should I speak?" and Feli-
cia, availing herself, however, of the
permission with all the eagerness of
hitherto restrained eloquence—" why
should I speak? you do not under-
stnnd me. To me, hecause I know
you, and know that there are het-
ter things in you, it is terrihle to see
you tbrow away your life and dis-
honour it. Yes, dishonour it, Angelo!
Would her friends permit you to
marry this heiress? would she, do
you think, if she lived with us a
week, continue to think you her
equal? and hesides, women every-
where are ohliged to marry for for-
tune, and you pity and scorn them
for it; hut men, Angelo! men who
can work, is it possihle that you can
calmly think of doing the same
thing T"
"Why should not 11" said the
young man with an amused and
amazed smile. "My little English
cousin, does no one do as much in
your country? I am poor, you know
it only too well; and as for your
work, Felicita, I know not what I
could work at, nor how I should
learn, for here is nothing to do in
Florence. Why then must I refuse to
he enriched, should that good fortune
come to me, hy a good little wife f"
"Perhaps not, if she made love to
you, and you had only to accept
htr," said Felicia, with a little scorn;
"hut it is you v.ho mist woo and
say you love her. Do you love her,
Angelo?"
As she looked him in the face in
her frank indiguation, Angelo re-
sponded hy a hright intimidating
look, which took Felicia much hy
surprise. She did not repeat her
question, hut drooped her head with
a confused involuntary agitation, of
which she was mightily ashamed.
There was a panse, and then Angelo
answered with great composure and
laughing self-possession:
"You take this matter much too
gravely, my cousin. If she will
marry me, can I help it? In thy
country, is it not everyhody's duty
to he rich? And so long as one does
not steal nor cheat, does it matter
iow?"
"You do not know my country,
nor anything ahout it," said Felicia.
"There are men who hold such
sentiments in England, hut not such
men as yon."
"My cousin," said Angelo affec-
tionately, "what kind of man, then,
am I?"
"The men who say such thiog8,
and think such things," repeated
Felicia, "are men without iuno-
cence, without honour, without
heart — men who have tried the
world and failed — whom no one
loves nor trusts—who are shuuned
when they are successful, and scorned
when they are not No, Angelo—
nut Mich as yon."
"Ah, Felicita I you speak easily,"
said Angelo, growing grave; "you
think of your own country. Your
Englishman, who goes out to work
and comes home to rest, do you
think I do» not sometimes envy him?
—I and many more than me. But
what can I do ? — what is there in
Florence, in Italy, for any man 1—
mosaics and copies from the gal-
leries—porcelain. Shall I go to La
Doccia, my cousin, and learn that
craft ?—or would you have me work
in alahaster? I will he faithful and
ohedient, Felicita: which will you
hid me do V
Half affronted, half impressed, no
longer desirous to continue the con-
versation, and perhaps as anxious
hy this time to escape to her own
apartment as her aunt herself could
he, Felicia made no answer. Angtlo
had said very little; hut somehow
he had unsettled the confident and
certain standing-ground upon which
his cousin stood. She hegan to feel
confused and dizzy, and to under-
stand dimly, as theory always does
when it comes in contact with
reality, that arhitrary injunctions
are not much to the purpose, and
.TV"


1859.]
205
Felicita.—Part 1.

that more things than ahstract right
and wrong make up the sum of most
human matters. She was not great
in argument or reason, as girls of
nineteen rarely are; she was young
and arhitrary and imperative, as he-
longed to her youth, and impatient
of those vulgar external ohstacles
which stood in the way of what
onght to he. If there was nothing
for Angelo to do in Florence or in
Italy, that very fact was wrong.
Why was there not anything to do?
She was inclined to ask the question
angrily —1<, demand that somehody
should he pointed out to her to hear
the hlame. Whose fault was it? If
not Angelo's, at least that of the
people or the government. But some-
thing closed Felicia's lips; she was
vexed, confused, emharrassed—every-
thing was wrong.
In the silence which ensued, Ma-
dame Peruzzi gave sigus of reviving
animation. This old lady, who had
no knowledge nor conception of
Angelo's heiress, had desigus of
her own of a less amhitious kind—
desigus very prohahly not much
different from those which may he
entertained hy English mothers, hut
bo much honester and more iunocent,
that this matchmaker had not the
slightest conception of any harm in
them, or that it was at all necessary
to disguise or conceal her schemes.
Madame Peruzzi was simply and
ingenuously of opinion that Felicia's
tiny fortune should not he suffered
to go out of the family, and that
her fifty pounds a-year would make
a very comfortahle addition to the
income of her cousin. This idea re-
conciled her to sit up till ten, nay,
even till eleven o'clock — if her doze
upon the sofa could he called sitting
up—to encourage the tete-a-iete of the
young people. Their silence roused
her now, as their conversation had
not succeeded in doing. She raised
herself, a queer old figure, from her
corner of the sofa. Long hefore this
time Felicia had ceased to hope that
her aunt, unawares, had forgotten to
put on her cap. She got up with her
scanty grey hair falling into disorder,
ruhhing her eyes, which were dazzled
hy the light. "My children," said
Madame Peruzzi, " 1 love to see you
talking together. Ah, it is such hap-
piness when minds are sympathetic!
hut it is late."
"Yes," cried Felicia, with unusual
promptness, putting away her work;
"and we have kept yon up and dis-
turhed your rest, aunt. It is selfish.
I fear it is my fault ; for Angelo,"
she added, with a little girlish pique
and mischief, " Angelo is very happy
at the cafe, when there is no hetter
entertainment to he had."
"True, my soul," said the matter-
of-fact mother, gravely, " and well it
is thus. Yet he does not grieve to
lose his pleasure now and then for
thy sake. He is slow to commend
himself, my good Angelo; hut I
know he loves well to he with
thee."
This speech produced some awk-
wardness to hoth the persons con-
cerned. Felicia ehot a rapid, mis-
chievous, half-malicious glmce at
her cousin. He, the honest fellow,
meaning no harm, only laughed and
hlushed; for that he should he more
than half in love with his young
relation, as was very evident, and
yet confide to her his heiress hopes,
did not strike Angelo as anything
extraordinary. He did not quite
understand her scruples on the suh-
ject. The reluctance with which the
heroes of novels in England accept
the wealthy hands of heiresses, would
have heen simply and totally incom-
prehensihle to Angelo; and Felicia's
indiguation was entirely lost upon
a mind iunocent of any intention
which he would he ashamed to own.
He could understand somewhat het-
ter, and felt flattered hy the slight
spark of pique and malice which she
exhihited — that was jealousy, the
other was something myslerious and
unexplainahle. As for Madame Pe-
ruzzi, who had not heard a word of
the conversation, and who could not
suppose them to he on other than
the most satisfactory terms, she
looked on with great complacency
upon their good-night, and enfolded
her niece in a sleepy emhrace, with as
much fervour as was compatihle with
that comatose condition. She thought
her scheme was progressing famous-
ly, and she was exceedingly well con-
tent,
While Felicia sought her own
apartment with feelings much lefg


206
[Aug.
Felicita.—Part I.

satisfactory. What, if Angelo were
ever so industriously inclined, what
was the young man to do? True, it
was very easy to say that carving
alahaster or fitting together the tiny
morsels of mosaic was hetter than
idleness — hetter than the poverty
closely approaching want which ex-
isted, without any effort to remedy it,
in this household; hut, after all,
Felicia had learned to yield some
weight to the name of Peruzzi, and
even her own humhle antecedents did
not lend much countenance to the
idea of a handicraft. Angelo had no
genins; he was not a painter or a
sculptor or a musician horn, as a
young Italian having any counection
with romance had a right to he. He
had no counection with romance, the
honest fellow 1 He could read his
own language, and that was ahout the
scm of his education : if he spoke
pure Tuscan, that was hy virtue of
his hirthplace, and no credit to him-
self; and his few epistolary efforts
were not likely to impress any one
with high ideas of his attainments in
literature. Amhition in its humhlest
shape—even that power of "hetter-
ing himself," under the flattering in-
fluence of which the very maid-ser-
vants rejoice in England—was closed
to Angelo. He might condescend,
if Felicia succeeded in impressing
her own ideas upon him, to daily
lahour; hut no hope of enterprise or
possihility of amhition was there to
stimulate Angelo. It was the young
man's fortune to helong to a nation
caressed and admired and flattered
out of everyday existence. If An-
gelo was idle, lie whs no more idle
than his country; if Angelo con-
tented himself with those harren
amusemeuts which stood in the place
of life and happiness, he did hut
what all Italy was doing. Italy, like
Angelo, vegetated on the enough
which supplied her merest unavoida-
hle wants. Italy, like Angelo, did
her hest to content the higher part of
her with the past; and to make her
sunshine of climate, as ho made his
sunshine of youth, stand in the place
of all the real foundations of national
joy and prosperity. Generations of
such as Angelo had hlossomed and
degenerated on the same soil. How
then was Angelo to hlame?
Perhaps Felicia's cogitations were
neither so distinct nor so ahstract,
for Angelo Peruzzi was much more
present to her thoughts, aud more
immediately interesting, than any
vision of Ittdy; still they ran in this
chaunel, and perhaps she was not
sorry to find such excuses for her
cousin. However, heated and agi-
tated as she was hy the conversation
which had just ended, she was glad
to find her usual refuge from herself
at her window, where the wind re-
freshed her pleasantly, though H
was now nearly the end of Octoher,
and not so warm as it had heen.
It was a moonlight night, and moon-
light had a picturesque effect on the
Via Giuguio. Her eyes were caught
irresistihly hy the irregular line of
house-tops, the hroad white lights and
impenetrahle depths of shadow, where
here aud there a cluster of windows
shone like molten silver, and on
either side of them the high opposite
houses hlotted out the line, and left
hut a tall dark hlank of wall, mys-
terious and gloomy in the shade.
Presently Felicia's ohservation was
attracted hy something more imme-
diately interesting; her eyes turned
involuntarily to the house opposite
which she had watched so often, hut
from which her cousin's tale, if she
had heen perfectly mistress of herself,
would have turned her eyes now.
At the opposite window, almost on
a level with her own, was a little
white figure uurecoguisahle in the
darkness, for the high roof of the
opposite house kept Madame Peruz-
zi's hahitation in complete shadow.
This little figure, whoever it might he,
found out Felicia shortly after
Felicia discovered it, and straight-
way hegan to make siguals and
telegraphic gestures across the street,
waving a tiny hand out of a wide
white sleeve, nodding a little head,
and making every demonstration of
friendship possihle at the distance.
Dismayed, astonished, and perhaps
not without a more particular pang,
Felicia retired from the window.
Her first idea was that she had heen
taken for Angelo, and a flush of indig-
nation and pain, too strong for her
control, overpowered her at the
thought; hut when she sat down
with her hrow and her heart alike


1859.]
207
Tkt Master of Sinclair'* Narrative of the '15.

tbrohhing to think it over, Felicia
grew calmer. It must, after all, have
heen herself, and she alone, for whom
these salutations were intended.
Angelo's room was at the other side
of the house; Angelo must have
spoken to his heiress of his cousin.
Felicia's vexation and pain suhsided
gradually. She saw herself, however,
in a strangely emharrassing confi-
dential position hetween two people
whose incipient relations to each
other affronted her own self-regard as
much as they offended her judgment;
she felt herself involved in a clan-
destine correspondence, which most
likely, hecause her heart arid her own
affections were engaged in prevent-
ing it, her girlish pride and honour
would move her to encourage. What,
could ehe do? Felicia pressed her
hands against her hot forehead,
which tbrohhed and heat to their
touch, and with growing pain and
perplexity confused her hrain and
heart with thinking. A young woman,
a very young girl, an Englishwoman,
who ought not to he permitted to
fall into this suare, was the little
stranger who had just made these
eager salutations to her at the win-
dow. But if she undeceived this
almost child, if she did what real
honour and duty demanded of her,
the forlorn young creature tremhled
at the interpretation which might he
put upon her conduct. They would
say she did it hecause she herself
loved Angelo; they would say it was
jealousy, self-interest — things that
her face and her heart hurned to
think of. What could she do ?—
suffer the whole to go on, and " sacri-
fice herself," and, to save her own
pride, counive at the future misery
of all parties? Felicia lifted her face
from hetween her hands, and put out
her light, and crept softly to rest in
the dark, as if thus she could escape
from her own sight and thoughts.
She had seen hy a sudden prophetic
intuition what was coming upon her;
hut ns yet, thank heaven, there was a
little hreathing-time. The moment
when she was called to do anything in
the matter was not yet come.
THE MASTER OP SINCLAIR'S NARRATIVE OF THE '15.
It will he in the recollection of
many people that Sir Walter Scott
has more than once referred, in a
mauner calculated to excite a lively
interest, to a manuscript volume
written hy the Master of Sinclair.
Being an account of the affair of
"the fifteen" hy one who took an
active share in it, expectations of
instruction and interest might natu-
rally he emharked in such a produc-
tion, even though it were not thus
recommended, and came from the pen
of a stupid instead of a very clever
man. Scott, indeed, entertained the
idea of puhlishing the hook, and was
restrained, not hy any fear that it
would lack interest in the eyes of the
world, hut hy certain misgivings
ahout the propriety of letting loose
to acerh and spiteful an attack on
many men whose grandchildren were
alive. He wrote an introductory
notice to the work, which hegins as
if it were intended for the press, hut
ands with the following paragraph,
which shows that intention to have
VOL. LXXXVL
heen ahandoned: "The following
memoirs are written with great
talent and peculiar satirical energy.
They are intended as a justification
of the author's own conduct, hut
are more successful in fixing a charge
of folly and villany upon that of
others than in exculpating his own.
They will he a precious treat to the
lovers of historical scandal, should
they ever he made puhlic. The ori-
ginal memoirs, written hy the hand
of the author, are in the lihrary at
Dysart. But there are other tran-
scripts in private collections, though
some, I understand, have heen de-
stoyed to gratify those whose ances-
tors fall under the lash of the Master.
It is remarkahle that the style, which
is at first not even grammatical, he-
comes disengaged, correct, and spirit-
ed in the course of composition."
These mysterious Memoirs, with
Sir Walter's Introduction, are now
hefore us in a handsomely-printed
tolume, for which the reader will in
vain search the advertisements of the
14


208
[Aog.
The Master of Sinclair's Narrative of the '15.

puhlisher, or the shelves of the cir-
culating lihrary. The hest way, per-
haps, of concealing a thing in print
at the present day, is to put it into a
hlue hook, and have it " presented to
hoth Houses of Parliament hy com-
mand of her Majesty." A method
of accomplishing a reserved privacy
approaching, hut not reaching, such
concealment, is to print a work for a
select hook-cluh — a practice which
we must hy no means he held as con-
demning. It furnishes many a hook
of interest and instruction to the
limited circle who can appreciate that
interest and instruction ^ and if a
wider circle demand it, there is seldom
anything to prevent the work from
heing puhlished to them. The Mas-
ter's Memoirs have heen printed hy
a cluh, of which the small numher
predicates stringent selectnesa — the
numher of copies hrought into exist-
ence, is we helieve, precisely seventy-
five. It often damps the ardour of
the critic, who must write upon the
most prominent hook of the day, to
rememher that it has heen already
perused hy every reader of his re-
view ; that all have anticipated him
in their private criticisms, and that
he is, on that account, preaching to
an impatient and intolerant audience.
In gathering a few characteristic
flowers from the garden of the Mas-
ter's Narrative, we run no risk of en-
countering this cause of weariness,
whatever the reader may think of
the inherent merit of what we set he-
fore him.
The Master was a scholar—such as
were made, in those days, of well-
horn Scotsmen, partly hy home, and
partly hy Continental education:
they had not the precise learning
communicated hy the English uni-
versities, hut what they had was ex-
tensive and serviceahle His Me-
moirs are full of classical metaphors,
allusion-, and quotations. He had
genins, hut it ran to waste, or worse,
for it was ever driven ahout hy the
influence of a restless, scheming, in-
suhurdinate disposition. Within his
own sphere, he was a sort of Shaftes-
hury in capacity, intrigue, and vola-
tility — hut there was a touch of
ferocity in his hlood, coming out in
acts of sanguinary violence, which
were apart from the sphere of the
intriguing chancellor, and are indeed
more in character with the Ruthvens
and Bothwells of the sixteenth cen-
tury, than with an ofticer in Marl-
horough's wars.
A character such as this was natu-
rally surrounded hy many vivid at-
tractions to the greatest and the
most real of romancers, hut we do
not find the Master in hodily shape
among Sir Walter's characters. One
might fancy his fierce impetuosity in
Fergus MTvor, and his accomplish-
ments and suhtle malice in Rasbleigh
Oshaldiston; hut Scott was too great
an artist to copy in a full-length por-
trait from real life, and so disarrange
the nice adjustment of his grouping.
He showed his interest in the matter
not only in reference to the hook now
hefore us, hut in presenting, as his
contrihution to the Roxhurgh Cluh,
the official record of the great tragedy
of the Master's career—his trial he-
fore a court-martial for the slaughter
of two hrothers, memhers of the distin-
guished house of Shaw of Greenock.
There were tbree of these Shaws in the
army of Marlhorough—one died of
honourahle wounds in a siege, the
other two were slain hy the Master,
their hrother officer.
The cause of this tragedy was a
charge hy Shaw which no soldier
can endure with equanimity. At
the hattle of Wynendual he was
heard calling out in an admonitory
and imperious voice to the Master,
his superior officer, ne afterwards
said puhlicly that his reason for call-
ing out was, hecause the Master hent
or "ducked" to escape the halls.
The Master sent him a challenge;
hut Shaw postponed a meeting till
after he should visit his hrother, who
had heen mortally wounded hefore
Lille, and expressed a disinclination
to a duel unless it were forced upon
him, referring to a resolution which
he had adopted apparently on ac-
count of some fatal affair in which
he had heen previously engaged.
The Master, infuriated, sought him
out immediately. A soldier saw them
together, the Master striking Shaw
over the head—swords drawn, and
Shaw's sword hent and useless he-
fore he was despatched. The elder


1859.]
209
Tlu Master of Sinclair'/ Narrative of the '15.

hrother. Captain Shaw, it appears,
charged the Master with having
sheathed himself in a sort of paper
hreastplate which tamed the point
of the sword — an odd and not
very practicahle - looking expedient,
though Xenophon tells us of linen
tlttoraxe% or hreastplates among, the
Greeks. He spoke openly, too, of
the prohahility that the Master
would murder hin also. Sinclair
rode up to the head of the regiment,
and held fierce controversy with his
victim. He was heard to say that if
it were not for the risk of injuring
others standing near, he would shoot
him there. The words were no sooner
out of his mouth than he fired, and
the other hrother fell dead from his
horse. Sir Walter Scott says, " Both
these rencounters, as they are
called, were conducted without se-
conds, and would now scarcely he
thought to come within the forms
demanded hy the modern rules of
honour, though they do not seem to
have shocked the British officers of
the period, or to have given much
scandal to Marlhorough." The sen-
tence of the court was death, with a
recommendation to mercy. The re-
maining hrother strongly pressed
Marlhorough to refuse this recom-
mendation. The duke took the
matter with his usual lofty calmness,
and in a letter, without a word of in-
diguation or sympathy, said to Sir
John, "I was so much concerned,
that I would not venture so far as
has heen practised in the army on
the like occasion, without first con-
sulting and hearing the advice of the
attorney and solicitor general." In
the end it was found that the mercy
recommended could not he shown.
The Master, however, escaped hy
fleet riding. A traditionary anec-
dote descrihes him as encountering
a startling reminiscence of these
events in after life, when he was
revisiting his native country in dis-
guise. He wanted a swift-ruuning
footman — a valuahle commodity in
those days of slow coaches and had
roads. An aspirant to the office,
who did not identify his formidahle
interrogator, when questioned on
his qualifications, hy way of refer-
ring to an example of his prowess on
a notorious occasion, said he had
kept up with the Master of Sinclair's
hnrse when he fled for his life after
the murder of the Shaws. The
Master is said to have dropped down
in a fit; hut, hy his own account,
neither this nor anything else pressed
very heavy on his conscience. To-
wards the conclusion of his narrative,
he says that the cause of all his suf-
ferings was the perseverance of his
ancestors and himself in serving the
royal family faithfully though hon-
estly, and that the ungracious re-
ward he met with "was too mnch to
make any man hang himself"—an
odd effect of excessive ill-usage. '• I
vow to God," he continues, " I am
not sensihle as yet, nor was 1 then,
of any other crime except this of my
original sin; for I hope it is not that
of my having on all occasions pro-
fessed ane unhounded zeal for my
poor country, which I defy man and
the devil, and hoth their aides-de-
camp and agents, to make out that
I have not kept strictly up to in all
the course of my life."
Such was the position of the man
who occupied his leisure, and, as it
seems, his desponding heart, in writ-
ing a narrative of the unsuccessful
enterprise in which he had a con-
siderahle share. The affair of the
'15 has a much more important
place in history than that of the
45, though it must he admitted
to he fur less fruitful in romance.
The latter, coming upon a period of
profound tranquillity and security,
passed with the hrilliancy and also
the terrors of a meteor. It was
attended hy an amount of success
wonderful when compared with the
elements whence it arose; while its
predecessor, on the other hand, was
nearly as remarkahle for failure, in
conditions from which success might
have heen legitimately expected. A
desperate struggle hetween the two
great parties, on the death of Queen
Aune, was a thing to anticipated,
for as yet the stranger race had not en-
tered into possession; and although
they had the technicalities of a mi-
nute act of Parliament to plead in
their favour, it might he considered
yet douhtful whether the country at
large had acceded to the arrangement.


210
[Aug.
The Master of Sinclair's Narrative of the '15.

"When the other affair hroke out, there
had heen peaceful po>session for thirty
years. Adverse claims were almost
forgotten, at least hy the most acute
and practical of the English politi-
cians, and the supporters of the Han-
over succession covered a wide enough
area to possess within themselves
hoth a government party and a
powerful parliamentary opposition.
That during the thirty years so char-
acterised a Jacohite feeling should
have grown up in Scotland sufficient
to frighten the empire hy the march
to Derhy, can only he accounted for
in one way—hy the wrongs and
insults encountered at the hand of
the imperial government, owing to
the sway of rulers who were resolved
to overlook, or who could not see,
natioual affections and idolatries in
the country which had hecome one
with England tbrough the Union of
1707. In no other way is it possihle
to account for the Hanover succession
having survived the crisis of 1715,
and having heen actually suhjected
to greater perils in 1745.
But even admitting that many of
the events which created in Scotland
so protracted a Jacohite nationality
occurred in the period hetween the
two insurrections, it is impossihle to
look hack without wonder at the
complicated maze of difficulties and
dangers tbrough which our present
settlement passed scatbless. The
first faint and gradual departure from
the pure line of hereditary descent is
not in itself perhaps so remarkahle a
thing as it seems at this day. It is a
fallacy to suppose that principles like
those of hereditary succession were
hetter understood, and followed to
their conclusions, in former ages than
in the present. Like all other mat-
ters which admit of a complex and
suhtle development, the canons of
hereditary representation were refined
from time to time hy the clever
men who improved on the practice of
the day. It was long ere it hecame
ohvious that a grandson hy the eldest
was a nearer heir hy pure hereditary
descent than the secoud son himself.
When the failure of issue rendered
necessary a retrospect to the descend-
ants of some previous generation, it
did not seem of much moment how
far it went hack; and it was hard
sometimes to see why a grandmother's
descendant, who did not hear the
name, had a preferahle title to those
of a great-grandfather who did. The
wars of the Roses are a hloody testi-
mony to the incomplete settlement,
in their age, of the ahsolute principles
of hereditary representation.
The Revolution of 1C88 was of
course the first ordeal—it can scarcely
he called one of the perils — of the
Hanover settlement, since it is scarce-
ly possihle that any of its promoters
imagined that they were preparing a
tbrone for the descendants of the un-
fortunate Queen of Bohemia. That
that affair should have passed off so
easily must ever he a marvel, how-
ever successfully philosophical histo-
rians may set forth the political and
ecclesiastical causes of which it was
the effect. In the production of this
marvellous effect, indeed, some causes
operated of too trivial a nature to
receive encouraging comment from
philosophical historians. Prominent
among these—and so important as a
cause of the Revolution, that hut for
it that great event would, to all
hnman appearance, never have taken
place — was the fact that, down to
the middle of June in the year 1C88,
the Princess Mary was the heiress of
the British tbrone hy right of hirth,
and was expected to fill it hy all who
did not anticipate that a miracle would
he performed to defeat the claims of a
heretic princess, the wife of the heretic
ruler of the United Provinces. Her
hushand was the grandson of Charles I.
It is true that they had no children,
hut Mary was only twenty-six years
old, and the Princess Aune gave
promise of leaving a numerous pro-
geny. Nor was this state of mat-
ters much altered hy the hirth of a
son to King James. The warming-
pan story made matters the same as
if no son had heen horn: the story of
a spurious offspring was firmly he-
lieved. Perhaps there were states-
men who, knowing the contrary,
propagated this helief for their own
ends. But it would he as preposter-
ous now to maintain that the charge
was true, as to maintain that the
nation at large did not helieve that
goody Wilks had smuggled in at
a side-door the hahe passed off as
a royal infant. Now, inasmuch as


1859.]
211
The Master of Sinclair's Narrative of the 16.

to the Roman Catholics this infant
was the emhodied miracle of their
prayers, he was to the Protestant
pahlic the "Pretender" which lie
was afterwards desiguated in Acts of
Parliament. Thus the hirth of a
prince did not injure the Princess
Mary's claims to the succession, and
only tended to justify the policy of
letting her fill the tbrone hefore her
time. It seems clear that the Revo-
lution could not have heen curried—
at least without a civil war—hut for
the warming-pan story; and so it
was that a foolish lie removed the
first great impediment to the present
settlement The succession to the
crown did not then appear to he
changed ; its course was only slightly
anticipated, and there was no reason
to expect a fundamental departure
from the reiguing line. Mary, it is
true, had no offspring, hut she was only
twenty-six years old; and even should
she remain childless, there was her
sister Aune, the mother of many
children. When Mary died, it mat-
tered little that her hushand should
remain trustee for those who were to
come. The next ordeal of peril came
with the death of the Duke of Glou-
cester, the last of the children of
Aune. The fate of that family makes
every one who reads pause and reflect
on so sad and strange a memorial of
the wonderful ways of Providence.
We speak of the children of poverty
dying early from neglected ventila-
tion and insaluhrious food; and here
were seventeen princely children,
each an additional pledge for the
tranquillity of a mighty empire, and
one after the other each consigued to
the tomh—
*' Pallida more aequo pulsat pede panpcnim
tahernas
Begumque turres.''
After this last hope had departed,
the English Parliament set ahout, like
thorough men of husiness, to riud an
heir to the tbrone, and made their
selection of a royal family as dispas-
sionately as if they were selecting a
chairman of committee. The many
descendants of Charles I.'s daughter
—they now amounted to ahout thirty
or forty, seated on divers European
tbrones, great and small—were pass-
ed over, and for sufficient reasons the
choice fell on a family almost un-
known to Britain, since she who con-
nected it with the old royal family—
the danghter of the Scottish James—
had departed nearly a hundred years
hefore to share the unhappy tbrone
of the Palatinate. Nor were the
Parliament content to take the heirs
of this princess — a numerous group
— in the lineal order of succession.
Passing over her elder children, they
selected, for their Protestantism, the
descendants of her youngest daughter.
This remarkahle piece of legislation,
the Act of Succession, in virtue of
which our gracious Queen now worth-
ily occupies the tbrone, caused won-
derfully little discussion in Eng-
land. But it found an unexpected
enemy elsewhere. Scotland had not
heen consulted in the choice of a sov-
ereigu, and it was taken for granted
that she would with hecoming do-
cility follow England step hy step
tbrough that lahyrinthine genealogi-
cal path which led to the feet of the
Electress Sophia. But Scotland, in
the matter of Darien and other
things, had run up a score of grievous
injuries from her powerful neighhour,
and she vowed, in shape of an Act of
Parliament, that until these were re-
dressed the prince who might he
sovereigu of England should he dis-
qualified for the sovereiguty of Scot-
land. This was the great peril of
the Hanover settlement, for hoth na-
tions armed themselves and raised
troops, and a war hetween them
seemed inevitahle — a war in which
the Jacohite interest in England
might with good grace side with the
Scots. It was not until the pro-
tracted and perilous negotiations,
and the still more protracted and
perilous dehates in the two legisla-
tures, were crowned hy the Union,
that this peril was averted.
At the point which our history
reaches, eight years afterwards, we
would, if we read it for the first time
like a new novel, he prepared to see
the Stewarts' cause trinmphant, or ex-
cluded only hy a desperate struggle.
The old warming-pan story had died
the natural death of popular fallacies.
No one douhted that the hoy left hy
James II. when he died in exile was
his son, though it was the policy of
the legislature still to call him the
Pretender in Acts of Parliament.


212
[Aug.
The Matter of Sinclair's Narrative of the '15.

The venerahle Electress Sophia, the
daughter of a British princess, whose
mother had talked to her of the tradi-
tions of her own native land, and had,
indeed, in her days of adversity, gone
hack, and occupied a house in Drury
Lane, was dead, and the Parliament-
ary line of succession had gone a step
still farther away from the genealogi-
cal. Queen Aune, with all her devo-
tion to the Church of England, had
a secret favour—surely a natural one
—for her hrother's family; and acute
statesmen, such as St. John and Go-
dolphin, had calculated on the restor-
ation of the exiled house as so proha-
hle that they had carefully estahlished
an imerest there, and were ready to
serve it with all hecoming fidelity
when the proper time came.
But most unexpectedly to those
who, as the leading statesmen of the
day, should have known the puhlic
feeling hest, the fact came to he
apparent that the inhahitants of Bri-
tain, with hut few exceptions, liked
the Hanover succession. Had the
earlier monarchs of the race heen
hetter versed in British feeling, or
hetter advised, there would have heen
no insurrections to hreak in upon
the popularity of the settlement.
But George I., who had heen hrought
up at a little despotic court, had pro-
hahly less notion of constitutional
liherty even than the expelled Stew-
arts. He was naturally and hy
training a despot. But he had heen
trained in the handling of different
institutions, and consequently was
not so ahle as the Stewarts to work
the British system of government to
despotic ends. It was like setting a
general officer to command a fleet,
or an admiral to command an army.
With all the desire in the world to
he ahsolute, the misplaced leader
would hlunder in the tactics and
mishandle the material. In one
thing, however, George I. succeeded:
it was in treating all those who did
not side with the Court—the Opposi-
tion, in short—as enemies, if not trai-
tors. Fortunately for his own peace,
as well as the fortune of many emi-
nent statesmen, he knew not how
many of his most trusted advisers had
heen making terms with the Court
of St. Germains. But those whom
he saw in the position of palpahle op-
position he did all that was in his
power to drive into the position of
rehels, and with Fome he was suc-
cessful. The motives of men driven
to such a course hy irritated van-
ity or disappointed amhition are
neither nohle nor good. But the
world is the world — "the hlood will
follow where the pincers tear," and
the early Hanoverian governments
made their own enemies. In the
contest thus created, personal char-
acteristics are more interesting than
events, and the chief spirit of the
Master of Sinclair's hook is in its
personal sketches — the sketches of a
pencil deeply dipped in gall. With
all his crimes upon his head, how-
ever, he was hetter entitled than
many others to speak out Whether
it was pure choice or dire necessity
that sent him into the insurgent
camp, he was a memher of a stanch
Jacohite house, and had a legitimate
right to profess devotion to the cause
of the exiles. The only full personal
narrative of the '15 heretofore relied
on came from a far more polluted
pen—that of a perfidious prie*t, who
had heen chaplain to the army —
preached to it of the divine right of
kings, and the sacrilege of touching
the Lord's anointed; then at the
end turned, and gave evidence against
those who were hrought to the scaf-
fold, saying it was an atonement for
his sins in having countenanced the
uunatural rehellion against the happy
constitution and settlement; — such is
a hrief hut sufficient account of the
author of " The History of the late
Rehellion, with original Papers and
Characters of the principal Nohlemen
and Gentlemen concerned in it, hy the
Rev. Mr. Rohert Patten."
To return to the Master — his
characters are varied, hut chiefly,
as we have hinted, of a dusky
hue. In this as in other insurrec-
tions are to he found the iunumer-
ahle grades of character and conduct
that can find room hetween two very
far distant extremes. At the ex-
treme right we find the real honest
devotees — the men to whom their
caose is a religion, for which they are
emharked in a crusade — who count
it little less than profanation to cal-
culate results, hut love the cause all
the hetter for its hopelessuess. From


1859.]
213
The Matter of Sinclair's Narrative of the 15.

the hegiuning they have laid their
account with death, and what to
them is far worse than death — the
downfall of an ancient house, and the
scattering of their ruined offspring
over the earth.
On the extreme left again we have
those who have coolly calculated up-
on the outhreak, with all its cala-
mities to friend and foe, as a scheme
of personal aggrandisement, and have
wilfully fed the flames of honest
enthusiasm to serve their own hase
ends, providing in the mean time for
their ultimate safety, and even in
the midst of their insurrectionary la-
hours framing little counter-schemes
of treachery for profiting" hy the de-
feat of their machinations and the
ruin of their followers. History —
British history, at least — has very
few such men, hut among their small
numher must he counted Mar, the
great author of the insurrection, and
at the same time the representative
of an old heroic house. He had
heen one of the most successful
working agents in carrying that
Union, from which he afterwards
spoke of relieving his countrymen as
from a degrading hargain, in which
they had heen sold to an enemy.
He promoted an association among
the Higbland chiefs for the protec-
tion and promotion of the Hanover
succession, hoasting that they were
at his disposal for this acceptahle
end. He offered his services with
the most profuse adulation to the
new king, who treated him with im-
prudent scorn; and it was alter all
this that he raised his standard at
Bracmar, and spoke in their own
spirit of hrave enthusiasm to the
hrave enthusiasts who gathered round
it. He provided carefully for his pre-
sent safety, and in his long exile
made many an ahject offer of services,
and many a vain effort to he restored
to the favour of the Government.
The Master seems to have considered
it his great mission to exhihit this
man's character in all its attrihutes of
odiousness; and the unwearied relent-
less zeal wherewith he pureues this
task reminds one, hy the associa-
tion of contrariety, of the gilding the
refined gold and the painting of the
lily. Mar was deformed in person,
as one may see in the general set
of his duhious countenance, though
courtly painters have evaded the de-
fect. The Master, of course, does not
fail to make the hest of this misfor-
tune, which, he says, was inherited
from his mother, the countess. '• He
profited nothing hy her hut the
hump he has got on his hack, and
her dissolute, malicious, meddling
spirit." We are now fairly started
with Mar and his merits, and we get
on in this fashion: "Having no
ohligations to nature, and so few to
his father and mother, and none hut
that of deht to the rest of mankind,
so soon as he was capahle of any-
thing, he seemed to think himself
in a state of war with the whole;
for it has often heen ohserved that
those who are horn with such na-
tural defects, used to revenge them-
selves on Nature hy doing her as
little honour as she has done them;
which I helieve the reason for that
Lacedemonian law for destroying
these monstrous productions the
moment they were horn. His ori-
ginal sin hoth hy his father and
mother giving him as small title to
honour as estate, he soon gave him-
self up as hy instinct to his hereditary
and natural penchant — villany and
lying. The first act of hostility he
committed was defrauding of his
creditors." And here we have some
details of private matters not, if true,
very honourahle to him, until he
emerges into more illustrious feats in
private life. The Master, it will he
ohserved, in this sketch, follows the
method of the Newgate Calendar,
and the popular lives of eminent
malefactors, where the first symp-
toms of an evil disposition, displayed
in domestic life or private society,
afterwards expand into more conspi-
cuous and puhlic criminality. * As
he grew older," says the Master,
following these models, * his inherent
villany and his interested amhition
grew with him; he soon found that
when he had done his hest, the small
matter he could pilfer from his credi-
tors was hut a trifle to his extrava-
gance. He ahandoned himself to
the Court, and declared war against
his country. He truckled as an un-
derling till the Union, at which time
he was made Secretary of State for
Scotland, to which it was not the


214
[Aug.
The Muster of Sinclair's Narrative of the '15.

interest or influence he had in his
country, or the least good quality,
recommended him to the English
Court, hut the hardy disposition they
found in him to ruin and hetray his
country." Then again follow de-
tails which somewhat interrupt the
torrent of the Master's savage ahuse.
We pass over the specific services
which Mar performed for England, and
against his country, as we are told,
in carrying the Union, and content
ourselves with the Master's pithy
general opinion hoth of the measure
and the man.
"It is demonstrahle that his only
and great quality was that of under-
mining his country, and committing
the fin against the Holy Ghost, hy
treacherously, for a piece of money,
hetraying it; the hlackest and at-
trociousest of crimes, never to he
forgiven hy God Almighty, and I
think ought never to he forgiven,
and impossihle to he forgot, hy men;
for no day has passed since the
making of that dismal Union that
we have not found the sad effects of
it. And to show he never repented
so long as he received the least part
of the reward of his fratricide, at
the time of the pretended invasion
he was the great promoter in hring-
ing up to London, in trinmph, those
of the hest families of his country."
After this fashion the Master gives
the etory, with comments, of the
Earl's progress from the Union to
the insurrection which he instigated
and headed. It is difficult to know
what may he found in the iuner re-
cesses of a crooked mind. It has
often heen hinted that the Earl's mar-
riage, just hefore Queen Aune's death,
to a daughter of a great Whig house,
was one of his strokes of policy for
the purpose of strengthening his in-
terest with the Hanover party. But
the Master stands alone in his way of
giving voice to the supposition, and
shows on the occasion a facility in
using the slang of the cock-pit and
the race-course not often to he found
in print, at least in the last century.
After referring to the servile hut un-
accepted offer of his services to King
George, the narrator says: — "Be-
sides this letter to King George, he
made use of another precaution, which
was marrying an English lady some
time hefore, whose family interest he
was in hope might keep him in place
to reconcile the Whigs to him, and at
least get him of the ready to keep up
his credit for some time, in case the
Queen should happen to die, which all
foresaw, and he sent off grazing. To
hring that ahout, as I am told, he
was forced to give her in jointure all
that was called his estate. I have
some reason to think he cheated her,
hy pretending to give her what was
not in his own name, and if so, not
his own; and I am sure, if it was not
his own, it was cheating his sou and
family." His wife was the Lady
Frances Pierrepont, the daughter of
the Duke of Kingston. She nar-
rowly escaped a strange destiny, for
Mar's hrother, Erekine of Grange,
notorious for having kept his own
wife a prisoner in one of the distant
Hehrides, had put himself in posses-
sion of the legal means for conveying
Lady Mar to Scotland as an insane
woman. How she would have heen
dealt with we may infer from his
treatment of Lady Grange, and his
vindication of it on the ground that
there were no means of properly
treating insane people in Scotland.
The Countess's sister, no less a per-
sonage than Lady Mary Wortley
Montague, rescued her with a chief-
justice's warrant, just hefore she was
taken across the Border. The ori-
ginal cause of Lady Grange's ahduc-
tion was, that she knew some dark
secrets passing hetween Mar in exile
and her hushand, who, hy audacious
and vigilant hypocrisy, kept himself
on a slippery steep as a sound Whig
and Preshyterian. The plot against
the Countess seems to have had a more
purely sordid reference to reversion-
ary interests in house property.*
But this is digression. Let us come
hack to the Master, where we find
him exhihiting the Earl iguomini-
ously repulsed from the Court, and
turning his path northwards.
"But these precautions and suhmis-
sions did not serve his turn, heing so
odious to the English Ministry who had
so long known him, and the same who
had employed him formerly — who
"For an inquiry into tho plot against Lady Mar, see Magazine for Sept. 1849.


1859.]
215
The Master of Sinclair's Narrative of the '15.

treated him as those who make use of
poison do a venomous monster — after
squeezing, as they thought, the poison
out of him, tbrew him away, having no
farther occasion for him, and imagining
him sufficiently recompensed for hetray-
ing his country. Finding himself in a
most despicahle condition, and that there
was no mercy to he expected from him
either from the Court or his creditors, of
which there was no want in Scotland, as
well as in London, .... thus reason-
ahly looking on himself as one detested
and ahhorred hy all mankind, he could
not pardon his country and countrymen
the evils which he himself had done them,
and imagined their hatred proportioned
to his villany, and supposed they'd spare
him on no occasion if he did not hasten
to prevent them. On these considera-
tions did he douhle his diligence, and re-
solve to strike the iron while hot. Hav-
ing no other game to play — knowing
that the mohs and hroils in England had
roused the Scots Tories, who were very
attentive to all that passed there, which,
according to their laudahle custom, they
maguified to cheat themselves—he did
not know how far, with his management
and making use of bo favourahle a con-
junction, he might work them up hefore
things turned stale, and while their spirits
were in a ferment; if, hy the force of ly-
ing, and making them helieve he was
trusted hy the English Jacohites and the
King, he should succeed in raising them
—no matter what came of it—he should
lose nothing, not so much as a reputa-
tion."*
We are tempted to cull one other
little flower of rhetoric from this
garden; it comes in just after Mar
is represented as having acted a nohle
part in refusing to countenance a
capitulation after all seemed lost
Mar only gets credit for having nego-
tiated privately for himself, and ascer-
tained that he wonld not he included
in any indemnity. Hence, when he
acta the high-minded patriot who
will not dishonour his sacred cause
hy capitulation, his maguanimity
receives no hetter treatment than
this :—' ' But after all that scene of
villanies, his whole life, and the
iunumerahle lies and forgeries, the
impudence of such a wretch as
we knew him and represented him
to ourselves, was of all things the
most insupportahle. Nor did we
know what he was not capahle of,
after all he had done, for the same im-
pudence was a salve for all he could
do."f
But enough, perhaps, of this kind
of matter. Let us give at least one
instance to show that the Master's
rhetoric was not all devoted to vitu-
peration. In the portion of the insur-
gent army which fled at Sheriff-
muir fell the young heir of the house
of Strathmore—a youth of rare pro-
mise, the ohject of many eulogies, not
the least graceful of which, though
tinged hy classical pedantries, is this:
—"When he found all turning their (
hacks, he seized the colours, and per-
suaded fourteen, or some such num-
her, to stand hy him for some time,
which drew upon him the enemy's
fire, hy which he was wounded in the
helly, and going oil', was taken and
murdered hy a dragoon; and it may
he said, in his fate, that a mill-
stone crushed a hrilliant. He was the
young man of all I ever saw who ap-
proached the nearest to perfection,
and had a just contempt of all the
little lies and selfish tricks bo ne-
cessary to some, and so common
amongst us; and his least quality
was, that he was of a nohle ancient
family, and a man of quality. For-
tune seems to he invidious to those
of worth, since she gives a long life
with incapacity to some, and joins a
short life to great merit in others.
Those whose life is of any conse-
quence fall early, and those who
never will he good for anything are
eternal—either that they appear to he
so, or that comparatively wi'h the
others they ahsolutely are so. Chance
and death agree in forgetting one who
is good for nothing. "J
There is no occasion for expending
pity on those followers of Mar who
were to any extent like-minded with
himself, and led to the enterprise
either hy disappointed amhition or
self-interested calculation. Nor is
pity the proper trihute to the heroic
zealots who accepted the cause with
all its dangers and terrors, unless in-
deed that pity he so mingled with
admiration as to lose its ordinary
characteristics. But there was a
class—and, as it happened, the most
* Pp. 67; 75.
t P. 295.
$ P. 227.


216
[Aug.
The Master of Sinclair's Narrative of the '15.

valuahle to his purposes, and there-
fore to he gained at all cost—on whose
fate, sacrificed as they relentlessly
were to selfish amhition, it is im-
possihle to reflect without deep com-
passion. These were the Higbland
clans. Their peculiar institutions
were still fresh and vigorous among
them; hut these were so different
from the other institutions of the
empire, that the Celt was hegiuning
to stand helplessly apart — an agent
to he gained and used hy any hold
speculator. He could easily have
heen rendered a true and faithful
servant to the new dynasty ; he was
as easily rendered a trouhlesome
eacmy. Later events have shown
with what honest fidelity he has
horne the hard and dangerous work
of our national wars. Peculiarly he
was the child which a kindly paternal
government could have trained to all
good usee. But he found the es-
tahlished government harsh, exacting,
and suspicious; and so he fell a
prey to the tempter holding out
the right hand of fellowship and
treachery.
It infers no reproach to the chiefs
of clans to suppose that they were as
free to adopt the Hanover cause as
that of the Stewarts. Of allegiance,
in its modern acceptation, they had
no distinct conception. They were,
indeed, far too great in their own
eyes to he amenahle to such an ohliga-
tion. They treated with, rather than
gave allegiance to, governments
and dynasties. If they admitted
themselves to he suhsidiary to King
James or Queen Aune, yet they were
not exactly suhjects, hut rather suf-
fragans or electors. The side they
'might take in any monarchical dis-
pute was a matter more of policy
than of duty, and would he adjusted
hy such rules as those, for instance
which influenced a German grand-
duke or margrave in the disputed
election of an emperor. The extent
to which these chiefs possessed lands
and ruled over trihes, without any
title according to law, and in defiance
of adverse titles granted hy the sove-
reigu and sanctioned hy the courts of
law, is a curious chapter in British
history which has yet to he written.
Before the commencement of the
eighteenth century, most of the clans
conformed so far that their chiefs
nominally professed to hold their
lands of the Crown ; but even then
the power of the law was nut always
effective in giving it to the proper
representative of the house according
to the laws of feudal descent, if it
suited the policy of the clan that
another memher of the family — an
uncle or a cousin, perhaps—should
rule over them. There parses hriefly
across the Masters narrative one sept,
however, who, even down to the '15,
would not acknowledge the feudal
superiority of the Crown in any shape,
or hold their lands hy royal charter,
which they disdainfully called a
sheepskin title. This was the clan
of "rough Keppoch," who held sway
in the rugged recesses of Glen Spean
and in Glen Roy, renowned for its geo-
logic phenomenon. Since the family
which had virtually ruled this terri-
tory for centuries would not accept
of a feudal title from the Crown, it
was necessary, for the sake of unifor-
mity, that some one else should get it
—the law could no more put up with
unchartered lands than nature with a
vacunm. The fortune of ohtaining
the feudal investiture fell naturally to
the Huntly family, who, like the house
of Argyll in the south, were grad-
ually " hirsing out," as it was termed,
the smaller septs around them, es-
pecially those who were trouhlesome
from a hankering after Lowland
heef and mutton, which they con-
sumed without paying for. Kep-
poch and his clan were in some
measure protected in the exercise of
their old Higbland rights hy the
feudal owner of the soil, hut gradually,
as was hut natural, their traditional
rights were extinguished hy the title
supported hy law. The Master of
Sinclair, a Fifeshire man, with all the
iguorance of Higbland fashions natural
to a Lowlander of that age, tells us, in
this ungenial fashion, of the arrival of
Keppoch and his men to the insurgent
camp:—
"Keppoch, a Higbland chief, and vas-
sal, or rather tenant, of Huntlie, came
to Perth with two hundred and forty
men. He had never heen with us he-
fore; hut hearing of a hattle, and that
there was plunder, got his men toge-
ther, and rohhed the othor Higbland-
men who were going home straggling


1859.
217
The Master of Sinclair's Narratite of the '15.

with the pillage of our haggage, and
what they had taken out of the low
country. And having secured it, he and
his folks took an itching to see that
country where so many good things
were got, heing so oAen invited, and
heing told, hefore he left home, that we
were in a very good condition, having
hanged the enemy. Mar was extremely
civil to him, and knowing him to he
the man of the Higblands who is no less
famous than the others for his address
in rohhing and love to money, struck
instantly up with him, and he, in a day
or two, took no more notice of his mas-
ter Huntly than any of the others."*
This is not in exact conformity
with modern romance pictures of a
"rehel chieftain and his hand," hut
with a little tinge of the Master's
natural causticity in it, it is a fair
type of the light in which a Lowland
gentleman of that day viewed a
Higbland clan. He concludes this
episode of the Keppoch men hy say-
ing that "the leader stayed, and re-
ceived a good pay; hut the men went
home, the greater part of them a
few days after, and not long ere all
were gone, took what they liked hest
on the road, that they might not re-
turn empty-handed."
As the Higblanders were quite a
peculiar people in their social posi-
tion, so also were they distinct from
the rest of the British community in
the formidahle characteristic, that
they possessed arms and knew how
to use them. They were, in fact, the
only element out of which an army
could he improvised, and they were,
therefore, the most valuahle of all
adherents to those who were entering
on a contest with the estahlished
government, its army, and its re-
sources. Hence it was that the
Higblanders, when properly handled,
gained their surprising victories; and
that, whether as friends or foes, the
descendants of the Scottish horderers
and of the English yeomen, who had
sustained the glory of their respec-
tive districts in the toughest and
hloodiest contests of former centuries,
were useless lumher in the field, and
had either to he cut down or to
run away. Our European wars
ihowed then, and have proved in
many a conflict of later days, that the
• P. 267.
warlike spirit and the stuhhorn cour-
age of their ancestors still slumhered
in the sturdy frames of the Low-
land peasantry and the English yeo-
men. But ere these qualities could
have exercise, the men required in
the first place to have arms, and
in the second place to he disci-
plined and drilled. The Higblanders,
on the other hand, were masters of
their own peculiar discipline and
tactics — and these were of a kind
which, though not destined to per-
manent approval and adoption, were
memorahly formidahle to regular
troops not specially trained to cope
with them. They hrought at the
same time their own simple and
effective arms to the field, and in a
mauner they provided their own com-
missariat, without depending either
on suhsidy or military chest. The
Master, with all his social prejudices
against the Higblanders, could not
fail to see their transcendent value
as insurgent troops, especially in so
ill-regulated a camp as that of
Mar. Some little incidents in the
narrative show the difficulty and
often the hopelessness of hringing
fresh levies of Lowlanders into fight-
ing condition. Huntly raised among
the sturdy crofters of his Aherdeen-
shire domains a troop of light-horse
thus sketched off: "A troop of forty
or fifty great luhherly fellows in
hounets, without hoots or any such
thing, and scarce hridles, mounted
on long-tailed little horses less than
the men — who were hy much the
greatest animals of the two—without
pistols, with great rusty muskets tied
on their hack with ropes—and these
he called light horse. I must own
the grotesque figure these made
moved everyhody's laughter, and soon
got the other hundred and sixty horse
he hrought along with him the same
name of light-horse, though they did
not deserve it more than those who
came with Marshall, who were almost
all galloways as well as those who
came with Huntly."f The Master, as
a trained soldier in Marlhorough's
wars, and a man not much accus-
tomed to modify either his opinions
or the method in which he expressed
them, found ahundant opportunity
f P. 160.


218
[Aug.
Vie Master of Sinclair's Narrative of the '15.

for exercising his critical powers on
the ill-conditioned organisation of the
troops with which he required to act.
He gives a very sarcastic account of
the efforts to fortify the camp at
Perth, conducted hy an engineer whom
he desiguates rightly or wrongly a
French dancing-master. He has
now and then, too, the satisfaction of
recording such palpahle deficiencies
as the drafting in of tbree hundred
musketeers without flints. He told
their officers that "it was hetter to
have tbree hundred fewer, for the
moment they came to any action,
these men must run away, and hy
their example carry others with them,
and could not fail to ruin the whole,
or mutiny, for no man is so stupid hut
knows the want of a flint; and heing
low-country men, they neither had
swords nor pretended to make use of
any, which was the mad excuse when
it was complained the Higblanders
wanted firearms."* Between High-
landers with swords, and Lowlanders
with only flintless muskets, there could
he no rational comparison, however
mad the Master deemed the excuse for
not providing the Higblanders with
firearms.
The Master performed a rather
sigual and original feat in this war,
which he descrihes with singular
modesty. It was the capture of a
vessel hy a small fragment of a troop
of dragoons. The vessel contained a
supply of arms for the Government—.
the temptation of course to the cap-
tare. She lay in Burntisland harhour.
The ohject was to seize her hy a
detachment from the camp at Perth
—a difficult operation, while Argyll
was posted in great strength at Stir-
ling. The leader of the expedition
mounted a man hehind each dragoon
for the purpose of douhling his force,
and the cavalcade crept quietly along,
avoiding villages, to the margin of the
Forth. The master of the vessel was
quietly secured in an alehouse ashore,
and the capture was easily effected.
Trained, however, in the strictest
military school of the day, the Mas-
ter's spirit was much disturhed hy
the irregularities of his followers.
"We seized several small hoats the
minute we came into town, and after
placing a few sentries ahout the town
—which, hy the way, was no easy
task, since nohody cared to stand—
we forced some townsmen to go
along with ours to hring in the ships.
.. . Nor were there sentries to he got
to post ahout the town, or if any posted
would others relieve them; nor would
any hold the few horses of those who
had gone to seize the ships, who went
a-strolling tbrough the town and loosed
their hridles. It is not to he conceived
how those people's tongues, and other
uuruliness in going into alehouses,
confounds at all times, hut more at
night, the unlucky officer who has
the command of them; for there's no
want of advisers, sometimes twenty
speaking at onoe, and all equally to
the purpose, hut not one to ohey."
Then at last, when the vessel was
oecured, and the precious cargo of
arms had to he removed to the camp,
at Perth—the most serious part of the
expedition, from the risk that the
convoy would he intercepted hy a
detachment from Argyll's army—the
Master says of his grievances, and his
unceremonious remedy for them: " Of
the fifty haggage-horses, for we had
no more, none would load, or, if they
did, not ahove four firelocks. After
humhly hegging these fellows to put
in more to no purpose, I gave them
round, without distinction, a hearty
druhhing — the most persuasive and
convincing argument to those sort of
men." On the march hack "some of
the command went off without leave
to pay their respects to some minister,
whom they had a mind to tease; and,
as those irregular folks generally con-
trive it, they returned hefore hreak
of day with noise." When he had
reached Auchterarder, a village illus-
trious in ecclesiastical controversy, a
new difficulty awaited him, not from
the unwatchfulness of his Lowland
force, hut the too suspicious vigilance
of a hody of Higblanders who were
sent thither to meet him. Whether
from real misapprehension, or the
influence of some wayward caprice,
they refused to acknowledge him.
"I ordered," he says, " those to march
who I saw there; hut they were so
far from oheying that they pretended
they did not understand me, and
• P. 143.


1859.]
219
Tlu Master of Sinclair's Narrative of the '15.

most cocked their pieces arid present-
ed to shoot me, and some lay down on
their hellies to take the hetter aim.
If I could have spoken to them, I
would have offered myself prisoner:
had I offered to run away, I was a
dead man; hut hy forcing myself to
look pleased, and as a friend, I stop-
ped their fury till an officer came
who understood me." He told them
that the Duke of Argyll was within
tbree miles of them, and galloped
away; whereat, in rather cockneyish
grammar, he says, "It is incredihle to
helieve how them fellows run and
overtook the horse on heing told
that."
This little incident is one of the
many which exemplify the precarious
understanding hetween the Lowland
gentry and the Higblanders tbrough-
out the enterprise. Though these
were so invaluahle an element, as
we have seen, in an insurrectionary
force, and were numerous, there was
no one who knew how to handle them
after the example of Montrose and
Dundee. Though the chiefs might
he too great to exercise the vulgar
duty of allegiance, their followers had
an allegiance of a devoted and ah-
sorhing character. But it was due
neither to Stewart nor Guelph, hut to
their. native or adopted chief. Where
he went they went, without ulterior
question. Thus the Praser High-
landers had heen led out hy Fraser-
dale, the legal owner of the estates
on which they lived—a chief reluc-
tantly followed for want of a hetter.
But the chief of their adoption and
allegiance, the virtuous and gentle
Lovat, having in the mean time es-
caped from France, arrived at Inver-
ness, where he found it his interest
to take the Government side; and
his clan, whenever they heard of his
happy return, scampered off just
hefore the hattle of Sheriffmuir, and
gathered round him in their native
wilds of Stratheeriek. It was use-
less to officer the Higblanders other-
wise than tbrough their own patri-
archal hierarchy, and every attempt
to comhine clans together and tell
them off in companies and hattalions
under regimental officers was ruin-
ous. Mar's camp had a plethora of
gentlemen in comparison with the
proper material for rank and file,
and hut a small portion of them could
get commissions. "There was, in-
deed," says the Master, "a neces-
sity of giving those of following
commissions, for though not officers,
there was no other way of hringing
them into a form and suhordination
—a commission putting them under
the ohligation of oheying; and no
clan heing willing to lose their name
and join immediately under another
chief, every chief pretending to an
equality, they could not well have
less than that of colonel." Further on
is mention of another Higbland spe-
ciality, not to he easily reconciled with
the ordinary notions of military eti-
quette and discipline. There was under
consideration the propriety of sigu-
ing an association not to sue for terms
without the consent of the majority
of their hody. There were two drafts
of the document laid on the tahle;
and Mar, taking up one of them, said,
"it was neither English nor gram-
mar;" a remark which the Master,
who could not miss so good an
opportunity, calls "most impudent
in his lordship, who of all men knows
the least of either." He continues,
"I spoke first, and took exception at
that clause of hoth where we were
hound in honour never to accept or
sue for terms without the consent ot
the majority; and desired to have it
explained what was meant hy the
majority—whether it was the majority
of the siguers or the majority of the
whole gentlemen at Perth, or only
the majority of such as my Lord
Mar pleased to call. Sir John
M'Lean was not long of taking off
the mask, and very haughtily said,
'It was not left to the majority of
those my Lord Mar pleased to call;
his clan were all gentlemen, and they
had as good a title to judge of things
as others.' It heing not at all sale,
and of no mauner of good, to contra-
dict a point of that kind, it was
dropped, since it reached the whole
common Higblandmen at Perth, Sir
John having explained it very clearly.
Only some took the liherty of think-
ing it very hard that a clan, who
amongst them all had not one hun-
dred a-year, should pretend to seven
or eight hundred votes in an affair
of that consequence, which neither
related to their chief nor them; and


220
[Ang.
The Master of Sinclair's Narrative of the '15.

hy that meana the Higblanders—
who we durst not dispute were gen-
tlemen—mast henceforth determine
us."*
In one sense the Master seems to
have discerned with considerahle
sbrewdness the characteristics of a
Higblaud army—he knew the peculi-
arities which made had troops of them
in the hands of a leader who had not
sufficient military genins to discover
in these peculiarities, when well di-
rected, the elements of effective power.
When forecasting—which he did with
the henefit of knowing what it actu-
ally was—the fate of the enterprise, he
says, "The Higblandmen would rise
out of hopes of plunder, and would
do as they had always done, which
the history of Montrose, and, since
that, of my Lord Dundee, was enough
to convince anyhody of; which is,
they certainly desert in tbree events:
First, they'd weary and go home if
they could not come to action soon;
the second, if they fight, and get the
victory, plunder following, on that
they'd he sure to go home with it;
the third is, if they are heat they run
straight home. So, go as it would,
we of the low country must he left in
the lurch. The Higblandmen, on the
other hand, heing encouraged hy hav-
ing nothing to lose, and it not heing
worth anyhody's while to pursue them
into their hills, where an army must
he fatigued and rained with hunger
and cold, would soon make their
peace as they had always done, or
at least trust to it, when we would
fall the sacrifice, and he the jest of
all the people of common sense in all
Europe, hy not only losing our
estates, hut our honours, "f
The ,Master is not more gracious
to the individual character of some of
the Higbland leaders. Of the cele-
hrated Brigadier Macintosh of Bor-
lum, he says, "He had neither rank
nor any distinguishing thing ahout
him except iguorant presumption, and
an affected Inverness-English accent,
not common, indeed, amongst High-
landmen; and if I may he allowed to
quote the character that a lady gave
of him—who I wish most of our men
had resemhled either in sense or any
other thing—I meau my Lady Nairne,
who, regretting heartily her hus-
hand's heing concerned where Mac-
intosh was commander, said he had
heen herding of Higbland cattle
these eight-and-twenty years till he
was turned ox himself." Macintosh,
however, was the leader in the most
gallant enterprises of the insurgent
army. He carried a detachment
across the Firth of Forth in open
hoats, though it was jealously
watched hy vessels of war. He
estahlished himself in Leith Fort,
where, so long as it suited him to
remain, he hade defiance to the Duke
of Argyll. He managed again to
elude the vigilance of the enemy,
and evacuating the fort to march
southwards, joining the Borderers
under Kenmore, and afterwards the
Eoglish insurgents of the north
under Forster. He and his nigh-
landers imparted life and heroism to
the defence of Preston, and when the
lazy luxurious Forster made up his
miml to capitulate, the Brigadier and
his followers were still for fighting it
out, and dying in harness rather than
on the scaffold. Macintosh com-
pleted his hold adventurous career
hy escaping from Newgate with a
few of his followers, not tbrough
arrangement and counivance, hut hy
knocking down the turnkeys .and
reaching the open street.
It is said that the decorum of the
hench was somewhat disturhed when,
at the reassemhling of the court
next day, it was stated that the
prisoners who should have heen in
the dock had still to he caught.
Some of them were again appre-
hended, hut Macintosh and the
majority got clear out of London, a
feat more wonderful for Higblanders
than even the knocking down of the
officers of Newgate. The London
populace, though they were then
rather thirsty for Jacohite hlood,
have a ready sympathy with a feat
like this. Macintosh hecame popu-
lar among them, and they recalled
the various incidents of his intrepid
career. A street-hallad of the age,
which treats his colleagues with
small respect, hestows some charac-
teristic compliments on the rough
Brigadier. We are tempted to tran-
Pp. 275.
t P. 28.


1859.]
221
77ie Master of Sinclair's Narrative of the '15.

scrihe from it those stanzas which
have special reference to him:—
"Macintosh Is a soldier hrave,
And of his friends he took his leave;
Unto Northumherland ho drew,
And marched along with a jovial crew.
"With a fa, la, la, ra, da, ra, da.
Macintosh he shook his head
To see bls soldiers all He dead;
• It was not for the loss of those,
Bnt 1 fear we're taken hy our foes/
With a fa, la, Ac
Macintosh is a valiant soldier,
He carried a musket on hb shoulder;
'Cock your pistols, draw your rapper;
Damn you, Foster, for you're a traitor.'
\V kh a fa, la, <Stc.
My Lord Derwentwater to Foster did say,
• Thou hast proved our ruin this very day;
Tbon promlsedst to stand our friend,
Bnt thou hast proved a rogue in th' end.'
With a fa, la, ic.
My Lord Derwentwater to Lichfield did
ride,
"With coach and attendants hy his side;
lie swore if he died on the point of the
sword,
He'd drink a gude health to the man that
he loved.
With a fa, la, &c.
Then Foster was hrought In from our own
home.
Leaving our estates for others to come;
*Thou treacherous dog. ihou hast ue he-
trayed;
"We all are ruined,' Lord nerwentwater said.
With a fa, la, &c
My Lord Derwentwater he Is condemned,
And near unto bls latter end;
ills poor lady she did cry,
'My poor Derwentwater ihen must die.'
With a fa, la, d,e
My Lord Derwentwater he la dead.
And from his hody they took his head,
But Macintosh and others are fled.
To fit his hat on another man's head."
Had there heen many Macintoshes
in the insurgent camp—or rather had
tho-e in higher command shown the
same prompt audacity of resolve and
dashing rapidity of action—the tenor
of British history might have heen
to some considerahle extent changed.
Sir Walter Scott, who knew more of
the intricacies and remote sources of
his own country's history than any
other man, attached to his copy of
the Master's Memoirs a note on the
causes of the failure of Mar's attempt,
full of wisdom and truth. The opin-
ions it contains are perhaps to some
extent to he found in his ordinary
puhlished works, hut we are not
aware that anywhere in these they
are expressed in so condensed and
emphatic a shape.
"The same sound judgment which
dictated to the Duke of Argyll a pro-
crastinating and cautious train of opera-
tions, recommended to Mar vigour and
decision. An estahlished government
always grows stronger, while an insur-
rection gradually hecomes weaker; its
chiefs disagree, and its inferior memhers,
unsupported hy any regular system of
finance, desert for suhsistence, or render
themselves detestahle hy plundering. It
is vain to say that Mar waited for his
distant reinforcements, for the success of
a desultory army depends always more
on the celerity of its motions than on its
numerical force; and as success never
fails to strengthen its numhers, so in-
activity is sure to impair them. Forth
is proverhially said to hridle the wild
Highlander, hut it did not hridle Charles
in 1745, *nd should not have hridled
Mar in 1715. Mar's own arrival at Perth
shoald have heen concerted with a move-
ment of the western clans—Macdonulds,
Camerons, Stewarts, &c.—toward Atholl
and Ahetfoyle, and the heads of the
Forth, which these ready soldiers could
easily have seized, while the Duke of
Argyll could hardly have marched to-
wards them without exposing the pass
at Stirling hridge to the insurgents, who,
hy passing a hody of men at Mar's own
town of Alloa in lighters, could have
placed those left to defend the hridge
hetwixt two fires. If it had heen judged
necessary, the movement of the western
clans might have heen comhined hy a
corresponding march of the insurgent
calvary, under Wi'uton and Kenmore,
towards the Leunox, aud as far as Dry-
men. This would have heen more
judicious than their union with the
handful of Northumherland fox-hunters,
who seem never to have had any serious
thoughts of fighting, and soon sickened
of it."*
Sir Walter remarks that "when
the insurgents did at length move,
they seem to have heen shamefully
negligent of intelligence, and the
hattle of Sheriffmuir was on their
part a mere accident." This censure
Introductory Notice, xvi.


222
[Aug.
The Master of Sinclair's Narrative of the '15.

is amply supported hy incidents which
the Master tells with a sort of sarcas-
tic hrevity—as, for instance, the first
warning of Argyll's approach to
Sheriffmuir. "We continued in full
march till tbree of the afternoon;
ahout which time our quartermasters,
who had left us a little hefore, came
hack with a lame hoy, who had run
as hard as he could to tell us that
the Duke of Argyll was marching
tbrough Dunhlane with his whole
army towards us, and said the lady
Kippendavie had sent him, whose
hushand was in the army with us."*
They were at a loss how to act,
"hecause it looked mean to halt such
a hody of men on a foohsh hoy's
>tory, and yet it was dangerous not
to give credit to him." The next
envoy was scarcely of a more diguified
character. "I heard that fresh intelli-
gence was come, confirming the for-
mer message. I ran to hear what
was said, and finding it to the same
purpose with the former, and that
it was an old woman sent hy the
same lady, returned out of the crowd
after hearing Glengarry say that he'd
lay his life that since the Duke of
Argyll was came out, he'd give us
hattle next morning." Oddly enough,
hy the way, it was a clergyman taking
his morning walk, who, a few days
hefore, had given warning to the in-
surgents at Preston that Wills's army
was upon them.
On the porition taken up for the
night, the Master was more expres-
sively sarcastic; he recommended
the immediate crossing of the Allan,
and the guarding of all the fords
against the enemy; hut it was deter-
mined otherwise, the wading of the
river in a frosty night heing deemed
a hazardous experiment on the con-
dition of the troops. Sinclair with
the rest of the horse was posted in two
adjacent farmyards, deemed very con-
venient and strong, which perhaps
they would have proved as mere
posts of defence, hut as hivouacking-
ground for a portion of an army
theV afforded no room for deploying.
"These yards made the hottom of
the hollow; all the ground ahout
had a sudden rise from the houses
and yards for two hundred paces,
except towards the north, where we
were hard upon the river, which was
hehind us; for it can't he properly
said we had front or rear more than
it can he said of a harrel of herrings.
In this uneven ground, with a hol-
low way in it to hetter the matter,
were we packed in, and all the foot
round us almost as much straight-
ened as we." The Higblanders ad-
mired this method of screening the
troops, which the Master says, "he
could forgive Cossacks, Calmucks, or
Tartars to do." For his own part,
however, he protests he helieves
"eight thousand men—for we were
ahout that numher — were never
packed up so close together since
the invention of powder; and I can
take it upon me to desire the most
ingenious engineer, after a month's
thinking, to contrive a place so fit
for the destruction of men, without
heing in the least capahle to help
themselves. God knows, had we heen
attacked hy any tbree regiments of
foot posted on the high ground
ahout, they had cat ns to pieces or
drove us into the river."
The Master's inefficient execution
of his command in the hattle, laid
him open to heavy censure. The
Higblanders, who could not appre-
ciate professional ohjections to the
disposition of the army as a reason
for not fighting, suspected him of
treachery, and, as he maintained,
tbreatened his life. He withdrew
from the army soon after the hattle.
His motive does not appear to have
heen cowardice, for that was not
among his defects; nor could it pos-
sihly have heen treachery, for no
man had less chance of a welcome, or
even an idemnity, from the Govern-
ment. He found refuge in the Gor-
don country. Mar sent an order for
his return hy a navy officer, a mem-
her of a nohle house, and, hy repute,
a hrave and honourahle man. whom
the Master, on account of his dis-
agreeahle mission, introduces to the
reader with more than his usual
acerhity. This messenger, "as is
usual to sea captains, liked a safe
harhour and a howl of punch hetter
than heating the main in a storm;
and like himself, without thinking
* P. 204.


1859.]
223
The Master of Sinclair's Narrative of the '15.

of tlie husiness he was going ahout,
providently took in quadruple, or ra-
ther m<ve provision of punch, in case
of accidents, to carry him to the next
alehouse or town, where he never fail-
ed to he several days of careening, till
a neap-tide, whicli was want of liquor
or want of credit, ohliged him to
weigh anchor and set sail for another
port, where credit was fresh or liquor
ahounding.
Before the Master could he induced
to go southward^, the general scatter-
ing of the Jacohite army had hegun,
and his comrades flocked to his
northern retreat. All had to seek a
refuge still more remote, where they
could hide themselves until an op-
portunity came for leaving the king-
dom. His own choice of a temporary
refuge was Orkney. He descrihes
the terrors of the Pentland Firth, to
those who had to encounter it in
an open hoat, with some spirit; his
classical recollections, whether dur-
ing or after the passage, enahling
him to recall Virgil's description of
the waves assailing the stars hetween
Scylla and Charyhdis. After sundry
adventures, he and his fellow-fugi-
tives drift ashore somewhere on the
mainland of Orkney. They found an
Orcadian hut on the moor, which ho
thought might he the hothy of
a solitary shepherd, hut "found a
numerous family lived in it." On
his "creeping in, the whole swarm
were struck with amazement." He
wanted horses to convey the party to
Kirkwall, and, with his characteristic
suspiciousuess, says the father of the
family would not confess to having
horses until the large sum charged
for their hire was tendered; "and
asked a groat, which I was ohliged to
pay him heforehand, the only expe-
dient to persuade him to hring his
horses from the hill: his demand
heing so extravagant, he was in fear
I should not stand to my hargain."
The description of his journey with
General Ecklin and the other refugees
towards Kirkwall, has in it a touch of
humour, exceptional to everything of
the kind from the Master's pen hy
having no malice in it. To the au-
thorities at Tattersall's it must he left
to decide on the hreed of horses de-
scrihed hy him. "We mounted Eck-
lin on a strange species of a short-
leggcd, long-hacked, low-hellied, hig-
headed animal, which the fellow called
a horse: having saddled him with a
wisp of straw, and made stirrups and
hridle of the same, we put our hag-
gage on the others, and so hegan our
procession towards the capital, in
great douhts what to make of those
long-hodied low creatures in our
equipage, which furrowed the ground
with their noses, and seemed to creep
tbrough the heath, and which I was
rather inclined to helieve was a large
sort of reptile than what they were
called." Arrived at Kirkwall, he finds
"the melancholy prospect of the ruins
of an old castle, the seat of the old
Earls of Orkney, my ancestors;" and
in the gloom of an uncertain deten-
tion tbrough a drizzly spring, near
this mtmorial of the ancient princely
grandeur of his house, he has oppor-
tunity for moralising on the vanity
of human greatness, and the folly
of trusting to the maguanimity of
princes. The restless spirit of the
man is uppermost even in these
reflections. He caunot reconcile pas-
sive ohedience with temperaments
like his own. "I wish from my
soul," he says, "that God in His pro-
vidence had created us with such a
degree of knowledge as could only
make us suhservient to the will of
princes, and that there had heen no
other end of our creation; or, if it
must have heen too much trouble to
them even in that case to drive us
like so many cattle, that He had
heen pleased to put some distin-
guishing marks of greater know-
ledge and authority on some families
ahove them, to help them to drive
the great herd : we'd then he very
easy without any share of reason, and
these passions of amhition, glory,
vanity, love, revenge, and the like,
which disposes the soul to covet
things that nature tells us are use-
ful, and to persist in that will.''*
But though he could not find the
mark of the God to direct him to-
wards those he should ohey, he saw
distinctly enough the mark of the
heast in those hase elements of hu-
manity that were mado to serve.
TOL. LXXXVL
• P. 870.
15


224
[Ang.
The Haunted and the Haunter*; or,

'' Wliat," he says, "does an Irequois,
a Negro, a Laplander, a Scots West-
ern Islander, nay, a Higblandman,
think? Is it not hunting, fishing,
stealing, plundering, and revenging
themselves upon their enemies?
But without going further to seek
examples of the stupidity of men,
what does the greatest part of work-
people think? Of their work—of
eating, drinking, sleeping—to get
what's owing them—and a small
numher of other ohjects. They are
almost insensihle to all others, and
the custom they have of turning
in that little circle makes them inca-
pahle of conceiving anything out of
it. If you talk to them of honour, re-
ligion, or the rules of morality, either
they don't understand, or they forget
in a moment that which is said to
thorn, and return, the minute, into
that centre of gross ohjeots to which
they are accustomed." But the man
could rise ahove this sad materialism
at times, and with sincerity too; and
were there room, we might quote his
reflections over the scattering of the
enterprise, fnd the wortblessuess of
those lives which were all that could
he saved out of the wreck in which
the fortunes of a party had heen lost,
and the miseries of civil war inflated
on a people. But there must he an
end of his reflections, good or had.
Space presses here, and time presses
on the Master, and the avenger was
at hand, and he is inclined, on the
whole, to save his wortbless life. A
vessel is seized, and, after many hard-
ships and wonderful escapes, the little
party reach Calais, where the Master
makes his last of a multitude of quo-
tations from his favourite Virgil :—
"Per vartos casus, per tot discrlmina
rerum
Tendlmus in Latinm: sedes ubl fata
Osteudunt."
THE HAUNTEn ANn THE HAUNTERS \ OR, THE HOUSE ANn THE BRAIN.
A FrienD of mine, who is a man of
letters and a philosopher, said to me
one day, as if hetween jest and ear-
nest,—" Fancy! since we last met, I
have discovered a haunted house in
the midst of Loudon."
"Really haunted ?—and hy what?
—ghosts?"
"Well, I can't answer these ques-
tions; all I know is this—six weeks
ago I and my wife were in search of a
furnished apartment. Passing a quiet
street, we saw on the window of one
of the houses a hill, 'Apartments
Furnished.' The situation suited us:
we entered the house—liked the
rooms—engaged them hy the week
—and left them the third day. No
power on earth could have reconciled
my wife to stay longer; and I don't
wonder at it."
"What did you see?"
"Excuse me—I have no desire
to he ridiculed as a superstitious
dreamer—nor, on the other hand,
could I ask you to accept on my
aflirmation what you would hold to
he incredihle without the evidence
of your own senses. Let me only
say this, it was not so much what
we saw or heard (in which you
might fairly suppose that we were
the dupes of our own excited fancy,
or the victims of imposture in others)
that drove us away, as it was an un-
definahle terror which seized hoth of
us whenever we passed hy the door
of a certain unfurnished room, in
which we neither saw nor heard any-
thing. And the strangest marvel of
all was, that for once in my lite I
agreed with my wife, silly woman
though she he—and allowed, after the
third night, that it was impossihle to
stay a fourth in that house. Accord-
ingly, on the fourth morning I sum-
moned the woman who kept the
house -and attended on us, and told
her that the rooms did not quite suit
us, and we would not stay out our
week. She said dryly, 'I know why;
you have staid longer than any other
lodger. Few ever staid a second
night; none hefore you a third. But
I take it they have heen very kind to
yon.'
'They—who?' I asked, affecting a
smile.
'Why, they who haunt tie house,
whoever they are. I don't mind


1859.]
225
The House and the Brain.

them; I rememher them many years
ago, when I lived in this house, not
as a servant; hut I know they will
he the death of me some day. I
don't care—I'm old, and must die
soon anybow; and then I shall ho
with them, and in this house still.
The woman spoke with so dreary a
calmness, that really it was a sort of
awe that prevented my conversing
with her farther. I paid for my
week, and too happy were I and my
wife to get offso cheaply."
"You excite my curiosity," said I;
"nothing I should like hetter than to
sleep in a haunted house. Pray give
me the address of the one which yon
leit so uznomtnioosry."
My friend gave me the address;
and when we parted, I walked
straight towards the house thus in-
dicated.
It is situated on the north side of
Oxford Street, in a dull hut respect-
ahle thoroughfare. I found the house
shut up—no hill at the window, and
no response to my knock. As I was
turning away, a heer-hoy, collecting
pewter pots at the neighhouring
area-, said to me, "Do you want any
one at that house sir?"
"Yet, I heard it was to he let."
"Let!—why, the woman who kept
it i- dead—has heen dead these tbree
weeks, and no one can he found to
stay there, though Mr J offered
ever so much. He offered mother,
who chars for him, £1 a-week just
to open and shut the windows, and
she wonld not."
"Would not!—and why?"
"The house is haunted; and the
old woman who kept it was found
dead in her hed, with her eyes wide
open. Thev say the devil strangled
her."
"Pooh!—you speak of Mr J .
Is he the owner of the house?"
"Yes."
"Where does he live?"
» In G Street, No. —."
"What is he?—in any husiness?"
"Ho, sir—nothing particular; a
single gentleman."
I gave the pot-hoy the gratuity
earned hy his liheral information,
and proceeded to Mr J , in G
Street, which was close hy the street
that hoasted the haunted house. I
was lncky enough to find Mr J
at home—an elderly man, with in-
telligent countenance and prepossess-
ing mauners.
I communicated my name and my
husiness frankly. I said I heard the
house was considered to he haunted—
that I had a strong desire to examine
a house with so equivocal a reputa-
tion—that I should he greatly ohliged
if he would allow me to hire it,
though only for a night. I was
willing to pay for that privilege
whatever he might he inclined to
ask. "Sir," said Mr J , with
great courtesy, "the house is at your
service, for as short or as long a time
as you please. Rent is out of the
question—the ohligation will he on
my side should you he ahle to dis-
cover the cause of the strange phe-
nomena which at present deprive it
of all value. I caunot let it, for I
caunot evon get a servant to keep it
in order or answer the door. Un-
luckily the.house is haunted, if I
may use that expression, not only hy
night, hut hy day; though at night
the disturhances are of a more un-
pleasant and sometimes of a more
alarming character. The poor old
woman who died in it tbree weeks
ago was a pauper whom I took out
of a workhouse, for in her child-
hood she had heen known to some of
my family, and had once heen in such
good circumstances that she had rent-
ed that house of my uncle. She was
a woman of superior education and
strong mind, and was the only per-
son I could ever induce to remain in
the house. Indeed, since her death,
which was sudden, and the coroner's
inquest, which gave it a notoriety
in the neighhourhood, I have so
despaired of finding any person to take
charge of it, much more a tenant,
that I would willingly let it rent-free
for a year to any one who would pay
its rates and taxes."
•' How long is it since the house
acquired this sinister character?"
"That I can scarcely tell you, hut
very many years since. The old
woman I spoke of said it was
haunted when she rented it hetween
thirty and forty years ago. The fact
is that my life has heen spent in the
East Indies, and in tho civil service
of the Company. I returned to Eng-
land last year, on inheriting the for-


226
[Aug.
The Haunted and the Haunters; or,

tune of an uncle, amongst whose
Possessions was the house in question,
found it shut up and uninhahited.
I was told that it was haunted, that
no one would inhahit it. I smiled
at what seemed to me so idle a story.
I spent some money in repainting and
rooflrg it—added to its old-fashioned
furniture a few modern articles—
advertised it, and ohtained a lodger
for a year, He was a colonel retired
on half-pay. He came in with his
family, a son and a daughter, and
four or five servants: they all left
the house the next day, and al-
though they deponed that they had all
seen something different, that some-
thing was equally terrihle to all. I
really could not in conscience sue, or
even hlame, the colonel for hreach of
agreement. Then I put in the old
woman 1 have spoken of, and she
was empowered to let the house in
apartments. I never had one lodger
who stayed more than tbree days. I
do not tell you their stories—to no
*n two lodgers have their heen exactly
the same phenomena repeated. It
is hetter that you should judge for
yourself, than enter the house with
an imagination influenced hy previous
narratives; only he prepared to see
and to hear something or other, and
take whatever precautions you your-
self please."
"Have you never had a curiosity
yourself to pass a night in that
house?"
"Yes. I passed not a night, hut
tbree hours in hroad daylight alone
in that house. My curiosity is not
satisfied, hut it is quenched. 1 have
no desire to renew the experiment.
You caunot complain, you see, sir,
that I am not sufficiently candid;
and unless your interest he exceed-
ingly eager and your nerves unusually
strong, I honestly add, that I ad-
vise you not to pass a night in that
house."
"My interest is exceedingly keen,"
said I, "and though only a coward
will hoast of his nerves in situations
wholly unfamiliar to him, yet my
nerves have heen seasoned in such
variety of danger that I have the
right to rely on them—even in a
haunted house."
Mr J said very little more;
he took the keys of the house out of
his hureau, gave them to me,—and
thanking him cordially for his I'rauk-
ness, and his urhane concession to ray
wish, I carried off my prize.
Impatient for the experiment, as
soon as I reached home, I summoned
my confidential servant—a young
man of gay spirits, fearless temper,
and as free from superstitious preju-
dice as any one I could think of.
"F ," said I, "you rememher
in Germany how disappointed we
were at not finding a ghost in that
old castle, which was said to he
haunted hy a headless apparition ?—
well, I have heard of a house in Lon-
don which, I have reason to hope, is
decidedly haunted. I mean to sleep
there to-night. From what I hear,
there is no douht that something will
allow itself to he seen or to he heard
—something, perhaps, excessively
horrihle. Do you think, if I take
you with me, I may rely on your
presence of mind, whatever may
happan?"
"Oh, sir! pray trust me," answer-
ed F , griuning with delight.
"Very well,—then here are the
keys of the house—-this is the ad-
dress. Go now,—select for me any
hedroom you please; and since the
house has not heen inhahited for
weeks, make up a good fire—air the
hed well—see, ot course, that there
are candles as well as fuel. Take
with you my revolver and my dagger
—so much for my weapons—arm
yourself equally well; and if we are
not a match for a dozen ghosts, we
shall he hut a sorry couple of Eng-
lishmen."
I was engaged for the rest of the
day on husiness so urgent that I had
not leisure to think much on the
nocturnal adventure to which T had
plighted my honour. 1 dined alone,
and very late, and while dining,
read, as is my hahit. The volume
I selected was one of Maoaulay's
Essays. I thought to myself that I
would take the hook with me; there
was so much of healthfulness in the
style, and practical life in the suh-
jects, that it would serve as an anti-
dote against the influences of super-
stitious fancy.
Accordingly, ahout half-past nine,
I put the hook into my pocket, and
strolled leisurely towards the haunted


1859.1
227
The House and ike Brain.

house. I took with me a favourite
dog.—an exceedingly sharp, hold, and
vigilant hull-terrier,—a dog fond of
prowling ahout strange ghostly cor-
ners and passages at night in search
of rats—a dog of dogs for a ghost.
It was a summer night, hut chilly,
the sky somewhat gloomy and over-
cast, Still there was a. moon—-faint
and sickly, hut still a moon—and if
the ehmds permitted, after midnight
it would he hrighter.
I reached the house, knocked, and
my servant opened with a cheerful
smile.
'• All right, sir, and verv comfort-
ahle."
"Oh I" said I, rather disappoint-
ed; * have yon not seen nor heard
anything remarkahle?"
"Well, sir, I must own I have
heard something queer."
"What?—what?"
"The sound of feet pattering he-
hind me; and once or twice small
noises like whispers close at ray ear
—nothing more."
"Yon are not at all frightened?"
"I! not a hit of it, sir; " and the
man's hold look reassured me on one
point—viz. that, happen what might,
he would not desert me.
We were in the hall, the street-
door closed, and my attention was
now drawn to my dog. He had at
first ran in eagerly enough, hut had
sueaked hack to the door, and was
scratching and whining to get out.
After patting him .on the head, and
encouraging him gently, the dog
seemed to reconcile himself to the
situation and followed me and
F tbrough the house, hut keep-
ing close at my heels instead of hur-
rying inquisitively in advance, which
was his usual and normal hnhit in all
strange places. We first visited the
suhterranean apartments, the kitchen
and other offices, and especially the
cellars, in which last there were two
or tbree hottles of wine still left in a
hin, covered with cohwehs, and evi-
dently, hy their appearance, undis-
turhed for many years. It was clear
that the ghosts were not winehihhers.
For the rest we discovered nothing
of interest. There was a gloomy
little hack-yard, with very high walls.
The stones of this yard were very
damp,—and what with the damp,
and what with the dust and smoke-
grime on the pavement, our feet left
a slight impression where we passed.
And now appeared the first strange
phenomenon witnessed hy myself in
this strange ahode. I saw, just he-
fore me, the print of a foot suddenly
form itself, as it were. I stopped,
caught hold of my servant, and
pointed to it. In advance of that
footprint as suddenly dropped an-
other. We hoth saw it. I advanced
quickly to the place; the footprint
kept advancing hefore me, a small
footprint—the foot of a child: the
impression was too faint thorougbly
to distinguish the shape, hut it
seemed to us hoth that it was the
print of a naked foot. This pheno-
menon ceased when we arrived at the
opposite wall, no- did it repeat itself
on returning. We remounted the
stairs, and entered the rooms on the
ground floor, a dining parlour, a
small hack - parlour, and a still
smaller third room that had heen
prohahly appropriated to a footman
—all still as death. We then visited
the drawing-rooms, which seemed
fresh and new. In the front room I
seated myself in an arm-chair. F
placed on the tahle the candlestick
with which he had lighted us. I
told him to shut the door. As he
turned to do so, a chair opposite to
me moved from the wall quickly
and noiselessly, and dropped itself
ahout a yard from my own chair
immediately fronting it.
"Why, this is hetter than the turn-
ing-tahles," said I, with a half laugh
—and as I laughed, my dog put hack
his head and howled.
F , coming hack, had not oh-
served the movement of the chair.
He employed himself now in stilling
the dog. I continued to gaze on the
chair, and fancied I saw on it a pale
hlue misty outline of a human figure,
hut an outline so indistinot that I
could only distrust my own vision.
The dog now was quiet. "Put hack
that chair opposite to me," said I to
F ;"put it hack to the wall."
F oheyed. "Was that you,
sir?" said he, turning ahruptly.
"I—what?"
"Why, something struck me. I
felt it sharply on the shoulder—just
here."


228
[Aug.
The Haunted and the Haunters; or,
"No," said I. "But we have
jugglers present, and though we
may not discover their tricks, we
shall catch them hefore they frighten
w."
We did not stay long in the draw-
ing-rooms—in fact, they felt so damp
and so chilly that I was glad to get
to the fire up-stairs. We locked the
doors of the drawing-rooms—a pre-
caution which, I should ohserve, we
had taken with all the rooms we had
searched helow. The hedroom my
servant had selected for me was the
hest on the floor—<a large one, with
two windows fronting the street.
The four-posted hed, which took up no
inconsiderahle space, was opposite to
the fire, which hurned clear and
hright; a door in the wall to the left,
hetween the hed and the window,
communicated with the room which
my servant appropriated to him-
self. This last was a small room
with a sofa-hed, and had no com-
munication with the landing-place—
no other door hut that which con-
ducted to the hedroom I was to oc-
cupy. On either side of my fire-place
was a cuphoard, without locks,
flushed with the wall, and covered
with the same dull-hrown paper.
We examined these cuphoards—only
hooks to suspend female dresses—no-
thing else; we sounded the walls—
evidently solid—the outer walls of
the huilding. Having finished the
survey of these apartments, warmed
myself a few moments, and lighted
my cigar, I then, still accompanied
hy F , went forth to complete
my recounoitre. In the landing-
place there was another door; it was
closed firmly. "Sir," said my ser-
vant in surprise, "I unlocked this
door with all the others when I first
came; it caunot have got locked from
the inside, for it is a"
Before he had finished his sentence,
the door, which neither of us then
was touching, opened quietly of itself.
We looked at each other a single in-
stant. The same thought seized hoth
—some human agency might he de-
tected here. I rushed in first, my ser-
vant followed. A small hlank dreary
room without furniture—a few empty
hoxes and hampers in a corner—a
small window—the shutters closed—
not even a fire-placer—no other door
hut that hy which we had entered—
no carpet on the floor, and the floor
seemed very old, uneven, worm-eaten,
mended here and there, as was shown
hy the whiter patches on the wood;
hut no living heing, and no visihle
place in which a living heing could
have hidden. As we stood gazing
round, the door hy which we had
entered closed as quietly as it had
hefore opened: we.were imprisoned.
For the first time I felt a creep of
undefinahle horror. Not so my ser-
vant. "Why, they don't think to
trap us, sir; I could hreak that
trumpery door with a kick of my
foot."
"Try first if it will open to your
hand," said I, shaking off the vague
apprehension that had seized me,
"while I open the shutters and see
what is without."
I unharred the shutters — the
window looked on the little hack-
yard I have hefore descrihed; there
was no ledge without—nothing hut
sheer descent. No man getting out
of that window would have found
any footing till he had fallen on the
stones helow.
F , meanwhile, was vainly at-
tempting to open the door. He now
turned round to me, and asked my
permission to use force. And I
should here state, in justice to the
servant, that, far from evincing any
superstitious terrors, his nerve, com-
posure, and even gaiety amidst circum-
stances so extraordinary compelled
my admiration, and made me con-
gratulate myself on having secured
a companion in every way fitted to
the occasion. I willingly gave him
the permission he required. But
though he was a remarkahly strong
man, his force was as idle as his
milder efforts; the door did not even
shake to his stoutest kick.. Breath-
less and panting he desisted. I then
tried the door myself, equally in vain.
As I ceased from the effort, again
that oreep of horror came over me;
hut this time it was more cold and
stuhhorn. I felt as if some strange
and ghastly exhalation were rising
up from the chinks of that rugged
floor, and filling the atmosphere with
a venomous influence hostile to hu-
man life. The door now very slowly
and quietly opened as of its own ac-


1859.]
229
The House and the Brain.

cord. We precipitated ourselves into
the landing-place. We hoth saw a
large pale light — as large as the ha-
man figure, hut shapeless and unsuh-
stantial—move hefore us, and ascend
the stairs that led from the landing
into the attics. I followed the light,
and my servant followed me. It
entered, to the right of the landing,
a small garret, of which the door stood
open. I entered in the same instant.
The light then collapsed into a small
glohule, exceedingly hrilliant and
vivid; rested a mo nent on ahed in
the corner, quivered, and vanished.
We approached the hed and examined
it—a half-tester, such as is commonly
found in attics devoted to servants.
On the drawers that stood near it
we perceived an old faded silk ker-
chiaf, with the needle still left in the
rent half repaired. The kerchief was
covered with dust; prohahly it had
helonged to the old woman who had
last died in that house, and this
might have heen her sleeping-room.
I had sufficient curiosity to open the
drawers: there were a few odds and
ends of female dress, and two letters
tied round with a narrow rihhon of
faded yellow. I took the liherty to
possess myself of the letters. We
found nothing else in the room worth
noticing—nor did the light reappear;
hut we distinctly heard, as we turned
to go, a paltering footfall on the floor
—just hefore us. We went tbrough
the other attics (in all four), the foot-
fall still preceding ns. Nothing to
he seen — nothing hut the footfall
heard. I had the letters in my hand:
just as I was descending the stairs I
distinctly felt my wrist seized, and a
faint, soft effort made to draw the
letters from my clasp. I only held
them the more tightly, and the
effort ceased.
We regained the hedchamher ap-
propriated to myself, and I then re-
marked that my dog had not followed
us when we had left it. He wss
tbrusting himself close to the fire, and
tremhling. I was impatient to ex-
amine the letters; and while I read
them, my servant opened a little hox
in which he had deposited the wea-
pons I had ordered him to hring;
took them ont, placed them on a
tahle close at my hed-head, and then
occupied himself in soothing the dog,
who, however, seemed to heed him
very little.
The letters were short—they were
dated; the dates exactly thirty-five
years ago. They were evidently from
a lover to his mistress, or a hushand
to some young wife. Not only the
terms of expression, hut a distinct
reference to a former voyage indi-
cated the writer to have heen a sea-
farer. The spelling and handwriting
were those of a man imperfectly edu-
cated, hut still the language itself
was forcihle. In the expressions of
endearment there was a kind of roujjh
wild love; hut here and there were
dnrk unintelligihle hints at some
secret not of lave—some secret that
seemed of crimen "We ought to love
each other," was one of the sentences
I rememher, "for how every one else
would execrate us if all was known."
Again: "Don't let any one he in the
same room with yon at night—-you
talk in your sleep." And again:
"What's done can't he undone; and
I tell you there's nothing against us
unless the dead could come to life."
Here there was underlined in a hetter
handwriting (a female's), "They do!"
At the end of the letter latest in date
the same female hand had written
these words: "Lost at sea the 4th
of June, the same day as"
I put down the letters, and hegan
to muse over their contents.
Fearing, however, that the train of
thought into which 1 fell might un-
steady my nerves, I fully determined
to keep my mind in a fit state to
cope with whatever of marvellous
the advancing night might hring
forth. I roused myself—laid the
letters on the tahle—stirred up the
fire, which was still hright und cheer-
ing—and opened my vwlume of Mac-
aulay. I read quietly enough till
ahout half-past eleven. I then tbrew
myself dressed Hpon the hed, and
told my servant he might retire to
his own room, hut must keep him-
self awake. I hade him leave open
the doors hetween the two rooms.
Thus, alone, I kept two candles hurn-
ing on the tahle hy my hed-head. I
placed my watch heside the weapons,
and calmly resumed my Macaulay.
Opposite to me the fire hurned clear;


280
[Aug.
The Haunted and the Haunters; or,

and on the hearth-rug, seemingly
asleep, lay the dog. In ahout twenty
minutes I felt an exceedingly cold
air pass hy my cheek, like a sudden
draught. I funcled the door to my
right, communicating with the land-
ing-place, must have got open; hut
no—it was closed. I then turned my
glance to my left, and saw the flame
of the candles violently swayed as hy
a wind. At the same moment the
watch heside the revolver softly slid
from the tahle — softly, softly — no
visihle hand—it was gone. I sprang
up, seizing the revolver with the one
hand, the dagger with the other: I
was not willing that my weapons
should share the fate of the watch.
Thus armed, I looked round the floor
—no sigu of the watch, Tbree slow,
loud, distinct knocks were now heard
at the hed-head; mv servant called
out, " Is that you, sir?"
"No; he on your guard."
The dog now roused himself and
sut on his haunches, his ears moving
quickly hackwards and forwards.
He kept his eyes fixed on me with
a look so strange that he concentred
all my attention on himself. Slowly
he rose up, all his hair hristling, and
stood perfectly rigid,and with the same
wild stare. I had no time, however, to
examine the dog. Presently my ser-
vant emerged from his room; and if
I ever saw horror in the human face,
it was then. I should not have re-
coguised him had we met in the
streets, so altered was every linea-
ment. He passed hy me quickly,
saying in a whisper that seemed
scarcely to come from his lips,
"Run—run! it is after me!" He
gained the door to the landing,
pulled it open, and rushed forth. I
followed him into the landing invo-
luntarily, calling to him to stop;
hut, without heeding me, he hounded
down the stairs, clinging to the hal-
usters, and taking several steps at a
time. I heard, where I stood, the
street door open — heard it again
clap to. I was left alone in the
haunted house.
It was hut for a moment that I
remained undecided whether or not
to follow my servant; pride and cu-
riosity alike forhade so dastardly a
flight. I re-entered my room, closing
the door after me, and proceeded
cautiously into the interior chamher.
I encountered nothing to justify my
servant's terror. I again carefully
examined the walls, to see if there
were any concealed door. I could
find no trace of one—not one even a
seam in the dull-hrown paper with
which the room was hung. How,
then, had the Thing, whatever it
was, which had so scared 'im, oh-
tained ingress except tbroe* It y
own chamher.
I returned to my room, shut and
locked the door that opened upon
the interior one, and stood on the
hearth, expectant and prepared. I
now perceived that the dog had
slunk into an angle of the wail, and
was pressing himself close against it,
as if literally striving to force his
way into it. I approached the animal
and spoke to it; the poor hrute was
evidently heside itself with terror.
It showed all its teeth, the slaver
dropping from its jaws, and would
certainly have hitten me if I had
touched it. It did not seem to re-
coguise me. Whoever has seen at
the Zoological Gardens a rahhit fas-
cinated hy a serpent, cowering in a
corner, may form some idea of the
anguish which tlie dog exhihited.
Finding all efforts to soothe the ani-
mal in vain, and fearing that his hite
might he as venomous in that state
as if in the madness of hydrophohia,
I left him alone, placed my weapons
on the tahle heside the fire, seated
myself, and recommenced my Mac-
aulay.
Perhaps, in order not to appear
seeking credit for a courage, or rather
a coolness, which the reader may
conceive I exaggerate, I may he par-
doned if I pause to indulge in one or
two egotistical remarks.
As I hold presence of mind, or
what is called courage, to he pre-
cisely proportioned to familiarity
with the circumstances that lead to
it, so I should say that I had heen
long sufficiently familiar with all ex-
periments that appertain to the Mar-
vellous. I had witnessed many very
extraordinary phenomena in various
parts of the world—phenomena that
would he cither totally dishelieved
if I stated them, or ascrihed to super-
natural agencies. Now, my theory is
that the Supernatural is the Impos-


1859.]
231
The House and the Brain.
sihle, and thnt what is called super-
natural is only a something in the
laws of nature of which we have
heen hitherto iguorant. Therefore,
if a ghost rise hefore me, I have not
the right to say, "So, then, the su-
pernatural is possihle," hut rather,
"So, then the apparation of a ghost
is, contrary to received opinion,
within the laws of nature—i. e. not
supernatural."
Now, in all thnt I had hitherto
witnessed, and indeed in all the won-
ders which the amateurs of mystery
in our age record as facts, a material
living agency is always required. On
the Continent yon will find still ma-
gicians who assert that they can raise
spirits. Assume for the moment that
they assert truly, still the living ma-
terial form of the magician is pre-
sent; and he is the material agency
hy which, from some constitutional
peculiarities, certain strange pheno-
mena are represented to your natural
Accept, again, as truthful, the tales
of Spirit Manifestation in America—
musical or other sounds—writings
on paper, produced hy no discernahle
hand—articles of furniture moved
without apparent human agency—or
the actual sight and touch of hands, to
which no hodies seem to helong—still
there must he found the medium
or living heing, with constitutional
peculiarities capahle of ohtaining
these sigus. In fine, in all such mar-
vels, supposing even that there is no
imposture, thtre must he a human
heing like ourselves, hy whom, or
tbrough whom, the effects presented
to human heings are produced. It
is so with the now familiar pheno-
mena of mesmerism or electro-hio-
logy; the mind of the person ope-
rated on is affected through a mate-
rial living agent. Nor, supposing it
true that a mesmerised patient can
respond to the will or passes of a
mesmeriser a hundred miles distant,
is the response less occasioned hy a
material heing; it may he tbrough
a material fluid—cull it Electric, call
it Odic, call it what you will—which
has the power of traversing space
and passing ohstacles, that the mate-
rial effect is communicated from one
to the other. Hence all that I had
hitherto witnessed, or expected to
witness, in this strange house, I
helieved to he occasioned tbrough
some agency or medinm as mortal as
myself; and this idea necessarily
prevented the awe with which those
who regard as supernatural things
that are not within the ordinary opera-
tions of nature, might have heen im-
pressed hy the adventures of that
memorahle night,
As, then, it mas my conjecture that
all that was presented, or would he
presented, to my senses, must origi-
nate in some human heing gifted hy
constitution with the powerso to pre-
sent them, and having some motive
so to do, I felt an interest in my
theory which, in its way, was rather
philosophical than superstitions.
And I can sincerely say that I was
in as tranquil a temper for ohserva-
tion as any practical experimentalist
could he in awaiting the effects of
some rare, though perhaps perilous,
chemical comhination. Of course,
the more I kept my mind detached
from fancy, the more the temper fit-
ted for ohservation would he ohtain-
ed; and I therefore riveted eye and
thought on the strong daylight sense
in the page of my Macaulay.
I now hecame aware that some-
thing interposed hetween the page
and the light—the page was over-
shadowed: I looked up, and I saw
what I shall find it very difficult,
perhaps impossihle, to descrihe.
It was a Darkness shaping itself
out of the air in very undefined out-
line. I caunot say it was of a hu-
man form, and yet it had more re-
semhlance to a human form, or rather
shadow, than anything else. As it
stood, wholly apart and distinct from
the air and the light around it, its
dimensions seemed gigantic, the
summit nearly touched the ceiling.
While I gazed, a feeling of intense cold
seized me. An iceherg hefore me
could not more have chilled me; nor
could the cold of an iceherg have
heen more purely physical. I feel
convinced that it was not the cold
caused hy fear. As I continued to
gaze, I thought—hut this I caunot
say with precision—that I distin-
guished two eyes looking down on
me from the height. One moment
I seemed to distinguish them clearly,
the next they seemed gone; hut still


232
[Aug.
The Haunted and the Haunters; or,

two rays of a pale-hlue light frequent-
ly shot tbrough the darkness, as from
the height on which I half helieved,
half douhted, that I had encountered
the eyes.
I si rove to speak—my voice utter-
ly failed me; I could only think to
myself, " Is this fear? it is not fear 1"
I strove to rise—in vain; I felt as if
weighed down hy an irresistihle force.
Indeed, my impression was that of
an immense and overwhelming Power
opposed to my volition ;—that sense
of titter inadequacy to cope with a
force heyond men's, which one may
feel physically in a storm at sea, in
a conflagration, or when confronting
some terrihle wild heast, or rather,
perhaps, the shark of the ocean, l felt
morally. Opposed to my will was
another will, as far superior to its
strength as storm, fire, and shark are
superior in material force to the force
of men.
And now, as this impression grew
on me, now came, at last, horror—
horror to a degree that no words can
convey. Still I retained pride, if not
courage; and in my own mind I said,
''This is horror, hut it is not fejr;
unless I fear, I caunot he harmed;
my reason rejects this thing; it is
an illusion—I do not fear." With a
violent effort I succeeded at last in
stretching out my hand towards the
weapon on the tahle: as I did so, on
the arm and shoulder I received a
strange shock, and my arm fell to
my side powerless. And now, to
add to my horror, the light hegan
slowly to wane from the candles—
they were not, as it were, extin-
guished, hut their flame seemed very
gradually withdrawn: it was the
same with the lire—the light was
extracted from the fuel; in a few
minutes the room was in utter dark-
ness. The dread that came over
me, to he thus in the dark with that
dark Thing, whose power was so
intensely felt, hrought a reaction of
nerve. In fact, terror had reached
that climax, that either my senses
must have deserted me, or I must
have hurst tbrough the spell. I did
hurst tbrough it. I found voice,
though the voic - was a sbriek. I
rememher that I hroke forth with
words like these—" I do not fear,
my soul does not fear;" and at the
same time I found the strength to
rise. Still in that profound gloom I
rushed to one of the windows—tore
aside the curtain—flung open the
shutters; my first thought was—
light. And when I saw the moon
high, clear, and calm, I felt a joy
that almost compensated for the pre-
vious terror. There was thomoon,
there was also the light from the
gas-lamps in the deserted slumherous
street. I turned to look hack into
the room; the moon penetrated its
shadow very palely aud partially—
hut still there was light. The dark
Thing, whatever it might he, was
gone—except that I could yet see a
dim shadow, which seemed the sha-
dow of that shade, against the oppo-
site wall.
My eye. now rested on the tahle,
and from under the tahle (which was
without cloth or cover—an old maho-
gany round tahle) there rose a hand,
visihle as far as the wrist. It was
:i hand, seemingly, as much of flesh
and hlood as my own, hut the
hand of an aged person — lean,
wrinkled, small too — a woman's
hand. That hand very softly closed
on the two letters that lay on the
tahle: hand and letters hoth van-
ished. There then came the same
tbree loud measured knocks I had
heard at the hed-head hefore this
extraordinary drama had com-
menced.
As those sounds slowly ceased, I
felt the whole room vihrate sensihly;
and at the far end there rose, as
from the floor, sparks or glohules
like huhhles of light, many-coloured
—green, yellow, fire-red, azure, Up
and down, to and fro, hither, thither,
as tiny Will-o'-the-wisps, the sparks
moved, slow or swift, each at its
own caprice. A chair (as in the
drawing-room helow) was now ad-
vanced from the wall without ap-
parent agency, and placed at the
opposite side of the tahle. Suddenly
as forth from the chair, there grew a
Shape—a woman's shape. It was
distinct as a shape of life—ghostly
as a shape of death. The face was
that of youth, with a strange mourn-
ful heauty; the tbroat and shoulders
were hare, the rest of the form in a
loose rohe of cloudy white. It hegan
sleeking its long yellow hair, which


1859.]
233
The House and the Brain.

fell over its shoulders; its eyes were
not turned towards ine, hut to the
door; it seemed listening, watching,
waiting. The shadow of the shade
in the hackground grew darker; and
again I thought I heheld ihe eyes
gleaming out from the summit of
the shadow—eyes fixed upon that
shape.
As if from the door, though it did
not open, there grew out another
shape, equally distinct, equally ghast-
ly—a man's shape—a young man's.
It was in the dress of the last cen-
tury, or rather in a likeness of such
dress; for hoth the male shape and
the female, though defined, were
evidently unsuhstantial, impalpahle
—simulacra—phantasms; and there
was something incongruous, gro-
tesque, yet tearful, in the contrast
hetween the elahorate finery, the
courtly precision of that old-fash-
ioned garh, with its ruffles and hue
and huckles, and the corpse-like as-
pect and ghost-like stillness of the
flitting wearer. Just as the male
shape approached the female, the dark
Shadow started from the wall, all
tbree for a moment wrapped in dark-
ness. When the pale light returned,
the two phantoms were as if in the
gmsp of the Shadow that towered
hetween them; and there was a
hloodstain on the hreast of the
female; and the phantom-male was
leaning on its phantom sword, and
hlood seemed trickling fast from the
ruffles, from the lace; and the dark-
ness of the intermediate Shadow
swallowed them up—they were gone.
And again the huhhles of light shot,
and sailed, and undulated, growing
thicker and thicker and more wildly
confused in their movements.
The closet door to the right of the
fire-place now opened, and from the
aperture there came the form of a
woman, aged. In her hand she held
letttrs—the very letters over which
I had seen the Hand close; and he-
hind her I heard a footstep. She
turned round as if to listen, and
then she opened tlio letters and
seemed to read; and over her
shoulder I saw a livid face, the face
as of a man long drowned—hloated,
hleached—seaweed tangled in its
dripping hair; and at her feet lay a
form as of a corpse, and heside tho
corpse there cowered a child, a miser-
ahle squalid child, with famine in its
cheeks and fear in its eyes. And as
I looked in the old woman's face, the
wrinkles and lines vanished, and it
hecame a face of youth—hard-eyed,
stony, hut still youth; and the
Shadow darted forth, and darkened
over these phantoms as it had dark-
ened over the last.
Nothing now was left hut the.
Shadow, and on that my eyes were
intently fixed, till again eyes grew
out of the shadow—maliguant, ser-
pent eyes. And the huhhles of light
again rose and fell, and in their dis-
ordered, irregular, turhulent maze,
mingled with the wan moonlight.
And now from these glohules them-
selves, as from the shell of an egg,
monstrous things hurst cut; the air
grew filled with them; larvfe so
hloodless and so hideous that I can
in no way descrihe them except to
remind the reader of the swarming
life which the solar microscope hrings
hefore his eyes in a drop of water—
things transparent, supple, agile,
chasing each other, devouring each
other—forms like nought ever he-
held hy the naked eye. As the
shapes were without symmetry, so
their movements were without order.
In their very vagrancies there was
no sport; they came round me and
round, thicker aud faster and swifter,
swarming over my head, crawling
over my right arm, which was out-
stretched in involuntary command
against all evil heings. Sometimes
I felt myself touched, hut not hy
them; invisihle hands touched me.
Once I felt the clutch as of cold soft
fingers at my tbroat. I was still
equally conscious that if I gave way
to fear I should he in hodily peril;
and I concentred all my faculties
in the single focus of resisting, stuh-
horn will. And I turned my sight
from the Shadow—ahove, all from
those strange serpent eyes—eyes that
had now hecome distinctly visihle.
For there, though in nought else
around me, I was awaro that there
was a WILL, and a will of intense,
creative, working evil, which might
crush down my own.
The pale atmosphoro in the room
hegan now to redden as if in the air
of some near conflagration. The larvca


234
[Aug.
The Haunted and the Saunters; or,
grew lurid as things that live in fire.
Again the room vihrated; again were
heard the tbree measured knocks;
and again all things were swallowed
up in the darkness of the dark Sha-
dow, as if out of that darkness all
had come, into that darkness all re-
turned.
As the gloom receded, the Shadow
was wholly gone. Slowly as it had
heen withdrawn, the flame grew
again into the candles on the tahle,
acain into the fuel in the grate.
The whole room came once more
calmly, healthfully into sight.
The two doors were still closed,
the door communicating with the
servant's room still locked. In the
corner of the wall, into wliich he had
so convulsively niched himself, lay
the dog. I called to him—no move-
ment; I approached—the animal
was dead; his eyes protruded; his
tongue out of his mouth; the froth
gathered round his jaws. I took him
in my arms; I hrought him to the
fire; I felt acute grief for the loss of
my poor favourite—acute self-re-
proach; I accused myself of his
death; I imagined he had died of
fright. But what was my surprise
on finding that his neck was actually
hroken—actually twisted out of the
vertehra. Had this heen done in the
dark ?—must it not have heen hy a
hand human as mine ?—must there
not have heen a human agency all
the while in that room? Good
cause to suspect it. I caunot tell.
I caunot do more than state the fact
fairly; the reader may draw his own
inference.
Another surprising circumstance—
my watch was restored to the tahle
from which it had heen so myste-
riously withdrawn; hut it had stop-
ped at the very moment it was so
withdrawn; nor, despite all the skill
of the watchmaker, has it ever gone
since—that is, it will go in a stranga
erratic way for a few hours, and then
comes to a dead stop—it is worth-
less.
Nothing more chanced for the rest
of the night. Nor, indeed, had I long
to wait hefore the dawn hroke. Not
till it was hroad daylight did I quit
the haunted house. Before I did so,
I revisited the little hlind room in
which my servant and myself had
heen for a time imprisoned. I had a
strong impression—for which I could
not account—that from that room
had originated the mechanism of the
phenomena—If I may use the term
—which had heen experienced in my
chamher. And though I entered it
now in the clear day, with the sun
peering tbrough the filmy window,
I still felt, as 1 stood on its floor, the
creep of the horror which I had first
there experienced the night hefore,
and which had heen so aggravated hy
what had passed in my own chamher.
I could not, indeed, hear to stay
more than half a minute within those
walls. I descended the stairs, and
again I heard the footfall hefore me;
and when I opened the street door,
I thought I could distinguish a very
low laugh. I gained my own home,
expecting to find my runaway ser-
vant there. But he had not pre-
sented himself; nor did I hear more
of him for tbree days, when I received
a letter from him, dated from Liver-
pool, to this effect: —
"HonoureD Sir,—I humhly en-
treat your pardon, though I can
scarcely hope that yon will think I
deserve it, unless—which Heaven
forhid !—you saw what I did. I feel
that it will he years hefore I can re-
cover myself; and as to heing fit for
service, it is out of the question. I
am therefore going to my hrother-
in-law at Melhourne. The ship sails
to-morrow. Perhaps the long voyage
may set me up. I do nothing now
hut start and tremhle, and fancy it
is hehind me. I humhly heg you,
honoured sir, to order my clothes,
and whatever wages are due to me,
to he sent to my mother's, at Wal-
worth,—John knows her address."
The letter ended with additional
apologies, somewhat incoherent, and
explanatory details as to effects that
had heen under the writer's charge.
This flight may perhaps warrant a
suspicion that the man wished to go
to Australia, and had heen somehow
or other fraudulently mixed up with
the events of the night. I say no-
thing in refutation of that conjecture;
rather, I suggest it as one that would
seem to many persons the most pro-
hahle solution of improhahle occur-


1859.]
235
The House and the Brain.

rences. My own theory remained
unshaken. I returned in the even-
ing to the house, to hring away in a
hack cah the things I had left there,
with my poor dog's hody. In this
task I was not disturhed, nor did any
incident worth note hefall me, except
that still, on ascending and descend-
ing the stairs, I heard the same foot-
fall in advance. On leaving the
house, I went to Mr. J 'a. He
was at home. I returned him the
keys, told him that my curiosity
was sufficiently gratified, and was
ahout to relate quickly what had
parsed, when he stopped me, and
said, though with much politeness,
that he had no longer any interest
in a mystery which none had ever
solved.
I determined at least to tell him
of the two letters I had read, as well
as of the extraordinary mauner in
which they had disappeared, and
I tlan inquired if he thought they
had heen addressed to the woman
who had died in the house, and if
there were anything in her early his-
tory which could possihly confirm
the dark suspicions to which the
letters gave rise. Mr. J seemed
startled, and, after musing a few
moments, answered, "I know hut
little of the woman's earlier history,
except, as I hefore told you, that
her family were known to mine. But
you revive some vague reminiscences
to her prejudice. I will make in-
quiries, and inform you of their re-
sult. Still, even if we could admit
the popular superstition that a per-
son who had heen either the perpe-
trator or the victim of dark crimes
in life could revisit, as a restless
spirit, the scene in which those crimes
had heen committed, I should oh-
serve that the house was infested
hy strange sights and sounds hefore
the old woman died—you smile—
what would you say?"
"I would say this, that I am con-
vinced, if we could get to the hottom
of these mysteries, we should find a
living human agency."
"What! you helieve it is all an
imposture? for what ohject?"
"Not an imposture in the ordinary
sense of the word. If suddenly
I were to sink into a deep sleep,
from which you could not awake me,
hut in that sleep could answer ques-
tions with an accuracy which 1 could
not pretend to when awake—tell you
what money you had in your pocket
—nay, descrihe your very thoughts—
it is not necessarily an imposture,
any more than it is necessarily
supernatural. I should he, uncon-
sciously to myself, under a mesmeric
influence, conveyed to me from a dis-
tance hy a human heing who had
acquired power over me hy previous
rapport."
"Granting mesmerism, so far car-
ried, to he a fact, you are right. And
you would infer from this that a
mesmeriser might produce the extra-
ordinary effects you and others have
witnessed over inanimate ohjects—
fill the air with sights and sounds?"
"Or impress our senses with the
helief in them—we never having heen
en rapport with the person acting
on ns? No. What is commonly
called mesmerism could not do this;
hut there may he a power akin to
mesmerism, and superior to it—the
power that in the old days was called
Magic. That such a power may ex-
tend to all inanimate ohjects of mat-
ter, I do not say; hut if so, it would .
not he against nature, only a rare
power in nature which might he
given to constitutions with certain
peculiarities, and cultivated hy prac-
tice to an extraordinary degree. That
such a power might extend over the
dead—that is, over certain thoughts
and memories that the dead may
still retain—and compel, not that
which ought properly to he called
the Soul, and which is far heyond
human reach, hut rather a phantom
of what lias heen most earth-stained
on earth, to make itself apparent to
our senses—is a very ancient though
ohselete theory, upon which I will
hazard no .opinion. But I do not
conceive the power would he super-
natural. Let me illustrate what I
mean from an experiment which
Paracelsus descrihes as not difficult,
and which the author of the Curiosi-
ties of Literature cites as credihle:
—A flower perishes; you hurn it.
Whatever were the elements of thac
flower while it lived are gone, dis-
persed, you know not whither; you
can never discover nor re-collect
them. But you can, hy chemistry


236
[Aug.
The Haunted and the Haunters; or,

out of the hurnt dust of that flower,
ralao a spectrum of the flower, just
as it seemed in life. It may he the
same with a human heing. The
soul has as much escaped you as the
essence or elements of the flower.
Still you may make a spectrum of it.
And this phantom, though in the
popular superstition it is held to he
ilk' soul of the departed, must not he
confounded with the true soul; it is
hut the eidolon of the dead form.
Hence, like the hest-attested stories
of ghosts or spirits, the thing that
most strikes us is the ahsence of
what we hold to he soul—that is, of
superior emancipated intelligence.
They come for little or no ohject—
they seldom speak, if they do come;
they utter no ideas ahove that of an
ordinary person on earth. These
American spirit-seers have puhlished
volumes of communications in prose
and verse, which they assert to he
given in the names of the most illus-
trious dead—Shakespeare, Bacon—
heaven knows whom. Those com-
munications, taking the hest, are
certainly not a whit of higher order
than would he communications from
living persons of fair talent and edu-
cation; they are wondrously inferior
to what liacon, .Shakespeare, and
Plato said and wrote when on earth.
Nor, what is more notahle, do they
ever contain an idea that was not on
the Mrth hefore. Wonderful, there-
fore, as such phenomena may he
(granting them to he truthful), I see
much that philosophy may question,
nothing that it is incumhent on phi-
losophy to deny—viz. nothing super-
natural. They are hut ideas con-
veyed somehow or other (we have
not yet discovered the means) from one
mortal hrain to another. Whether
in so doing, tahles walk of their own
accord, or fiend-like shapes appear
in a magic circle, or hodyless hands
rise and remove material ohjects,
or a Thing of Darkness, such as pre-
sented itself to me, freeze our hlood
—still am I persuaded that these are
hut agencies conveyed, as hy electric
wiiwj to my own hrain from the
hrain of another. In some consti-
tutions there is a natural chemistry,
and those may produce chemic won-
ders—in others a natural fluid, call
it electricity, and these produce
electric wonders. But they differ
in this from Normal Science—they
are alike ohjectless, purposeless, puer-
ile, frivolous. They lead on to no
grand results; and therefore the
world does not heed, and true sages
have not cultivated them. But sure
I am, that of all I saw or heard, a
man, human as myself, was the re-
mote originator; and I believe uncon-
sciously to himself as to the exact
effects produced, for this reason : no
two persons, you say, have ever told
you that they experienced exactly
the same thing. Well, ohserve, no
two persons ever experience exactly
the same dream. If this were an
ordinary imposture, the machinery
would he arranged for results that
would hut little vary; if it were a
supernatural agency permitted hy the
Almighty, it would surely he for
some definite end. These phenomena
helong to neither class; my persua-
sion is, that they originate in some
hrain now far distant; that that
hrain had no distinct volition in any-
thing that occurred; that what does
occur reflects hut its devious, motley,
ever-shifting, half-formed thoughts;
in short, that it has heen hut the
dreams of such a hrain put into
action and invested with a semi-
suhstance. That this hrain is of
immense power, that it can set mat-
ter into movement, that it is malig-
naut and destructive, I helieve;
some material force must have killed
my dog; it might, for aught I know,
have sufficed to kill myself, had I
heen as suhjugated hy terror as the
dog—had my intellect or my spirit
given me no countervailing resistance
in my will.'"
"It killed your dog! that is fear-
ful! indeed it is strange that no ani-
mal can he induced to stay in that
house; not even a cat. Rats and
mice are never found in it."
"The instincts of the hrute crea-
tion detect influences deadly to their
existence. Man's reason has a sense
less suhtle, hecause it has a resisting
power more supreme. But enough;
do you compreheud my theory?"
"Yes, though imperfectly—and I
accept any crotchet (pardon the
word), however odd, rather than
emhrace at once the notion of ghosts
and hohgohlins we imhihed in our


1859.]
237
The House and the Brain.

nurseries. Still, to my unfortunate
house the evil is the same. What
on earth can I do with the house?"
"I will tell you what I would do.
I am convinced from my own internal
feelings that the small unfurnished
room at right angles to the door of
the hedroom which I occupied, forms
a starting-point or receptacle for the
influences which haunt the honse;
and I strongly advise you to have
the walls opened, the floor removed—
nay, the whole room pulled down.
I ohserve that it is detached from
the'hody of the house, huilt over the
small hack-yard, and could he remov-
ed without injury to the rest of the
huilding."
"And you think, if I did that—"
"You would cut off the telegraph
wires. Try it. I am so persuaded
that I am right, that I will pay half
the expense if you will allow me to
direct the operations."
"N"ay, I am well aide to afford
the cost; for the rest, allow me to
write to yon."
Ahout ten days afterwards I re-
ceived a letter from Mr. J , telling
me that he had visited the house
since I had seen him; that he had
found the two letters I liad descrihed,
replaced in the drawer from which I
had U,ken them; that he had read
them with misgivings like my own;
that he had instituted a cautious in-
quiry ahout the woman to whom I
rightly conjectured they had heen
written. It seemed that thirty-six
years ago (a year heforo the date of
the letters), she had married, against
the wi>h of her relatives, an Ameri-
can of very suspicious character; in
fact, he was generally helieved to
have heen a pirate. She herself
Wa s the daughter of very respectahle
tradespeople, and had served in the
capacity of a nursery governess he-
fore her marriage. She had a hrother,
a widower, who was considered
wealthy, and who had one child of
ahout six years old. A month after
the marriage, the hody of this hrother
was found in the Thames, near Lon-
don Bridge; there seemed some
marks of violence ahout his tbroat,
hut they were not deemed suffi-
cient to warrant the inquest in any
other verdict than that of "found
drowned."
The American and his wife took
charge of the little hoy, the deceased
hrother having hy his will left his
sister the guardian of his only child
—and in event of the child's death,
the sister inherited. The child died
ahout six months afterwards—it was
supposed to have heen neglected and
ill treated. The neighhours deposed
to have heard it sbriek at night. The
surgeon who had examined it after
death, said that it was emaciated as
if from want of nourishment, and the
hody was covered with livid hrnises.
It seemed that one winter night the
child had sought to escape—crept
out into the hack-yard—tried to scale
the wall—fallen hack exhausted,
and heen found at morning on the
stones in a dying state. But though
there was some evidence of cruelty,
there was none of murder; and the
aunt and her hushand had sought to
palliate cruelty hy alleging the ex-
ceeding stuhhoruness and perversity
of the child, who was declared to he
half-witted. Be that as it may, at
the orphan's death the aunt inherited
her hrother's fortune. Belore the
first wedded year was out, the Ame-
rican quitted England ahruptly,
and never returned to it. He oh-
tained a cruising vessel, which was
lost in the Atlantic two years after-
wards. The widow was left in afflu-
ence; hut reverses of various kinds
had hefallen her: a hank hroke—an
investment failed—she went into a
small husiness and hecame insolvent
—then she entered into service, sink-
ing lower and lower, from house-
keeper down to maid-of all-work—
never long retaining a place, though
nothing peculiar against her charac-
ter was ever alleged. She was con-
sidered soher, honest, and peculiarly
quiet in her ways; still nothing pros-
pered with her. And so she had
dropped into the workhouse, from
which Mr. J had taken her, to
he placed in charge of the very house
which she h:,d rented as unstress in
the first year of her wedded life.
Mr. J added that he had passed
an hour alone in the unfurnished
room which I had urged him to
destroy, and that his impressions of
dread while there were so great,
though ho had neither heard nor
seen anything, that lie was eager to



238
[Aug.
The Haunted and the Haunters; or,
have tho walls hared and the floors
removed as I had su3gested. He
had engaged persons for the work,
and would commence any day I would
name.
The day was accordingly fixed.
I repaired to the haunted house—we
went into the hlind dreary room,
took up tho skirting, aud then the
floors. Under the rafters, covered
with ruhhish, was found a trap-door,
quite large enough to admit a man.
It was closely nailed down, with
clamps and rivets of iron. On re-
moving these we descended into a
room helow, tho existence of which
had never heen suspected. In this
room there had heen a window and
a flue, hut they had heen hricked
over, evidtntly for many years. By
the help of candles we examined this
place; it still retained some moulder-
ing furniture—tbree chairs, an oak
settle, a tahle—all of the fashion of
ahout eighty years ago. There was
a chest of drawers against the wall,
in which wo found, hull'-rotted away,
old-fashioned articles of a man's
dress, such as might have heen worn
eighty or a hundred years ago hy a
gentleman of some rank—costly steel
huckles and huttons, like those yet
worn in court-dresses—a handsome
court sword—in a waistcoat which
had once heen rich with gold-lace,
hut which was now hlackened and
foul with damp, we found five guineas,
a few silver coins, and an ivory ticket,
prohehly for some place of entertain-
ment long since passed away. But
our main discovery was in a kind of
iron safe fixed to the wall, the lock
of which it cost us much trouhle to
get picked.
In this safe were tbree shelves and
two small drawers. Ranged on the
shelves were several small hottles of
crystal, hermetically stopped. They
contained colourless volatile essences,
of what nature I shall say no more
than that they were not poisons—
phosphor aud ammonia entered into
some of them. There were also some
very curious glass tuhes, and a small
pointed rod of iron, with a large lump
of rock-crystal, and another of amher
—alio a loadstone of great power.
In one of the drawers we found a
miniature portrait set in gold, and
retaining the freshness of its colours
most remarkahly, considering the
length of time it had prohahly heen
there. The portrait was that of a
man who might he somewhat ad-
vanced in middle life, perhaps forty-
seven or forty-eight.
It was a most peculiar face—a most
impressive face. If you could fancy
some mighty serpent transformed
into man, preserving in the human
lineaments the old serpent type, you
would have a hetter idea of that
countenance than long descriptions
can convey: the width and flatness
of frontal—the tapering elegance of
contour disguising the strength of
the deadly jaw—the long, large, ter-
tihle eye, glittering and green as the
emerald—and withal a certain ruth-
less calm, as if from the conscious-
ness of an immense power. The
strange thing was this—the instant
I saw the miniature I recoguised a
startling likeness to one of the rarest
portraits in the world—the portrait
of a man of rank only helow that
of royalty, who in his own day had
made a considerahle noise. History
says little or nothing of him; hut
search the correspondence of his con-
temporaries, and you find reference to
his wild daring, his hold profligacy,
his restless spirit, his taste for the
oooult sciences. While still in the
meridian of life he died aud was
huried, so say the cbronicles, in a
foreigu land. He died in time to
escape the grasp of the law, for he
was accused of crimes which would
have given him to the headsman.
After his death, the portraits of him,
which had heen numerous, for he
had heen a munificent encourager of
art, were hought up and destroyed—
it was supposed hy his heirs, who
might have heen glad could they
have razed his very name from their
splendid line, He had enjoyed a
v:ist wealth; a large portion of this
was helieved to have heen emhezzled
hy a favourite astrologer or sooth-
sayer—at all events, it had un-
accountahly vanished at the time of
his death. One portrait alone of him
was supposed to have escaped the
general destruction; I had seen it
in the house of a collector some
months hefore. It had made on
me a wonderful impression, as it
does on all who hehold it—a face


1859.]
239
The Home and the Brain.

never to he forgotten; and there
was that face in the miniature that
lay within ray hand. True, that in
the miniature the man was a few
years older than in the portrait I had
seen, or than the original was even
at the time of his death. But a few
years!—why, hetween the date in
which flourished that direful nohle
and the date in which the miniature
was evidently painted, there was an
interval of more than two centuries.
While I was thus gazing, silent and
wondering, Mr. J said,
'• But is it po8sihle? I have known
this man."
"How—where?" cried I.
"In India. He was high in the con-
fidence of the Rajah of , and well-
nigh drew him into a revolt which
would have lost the Rajah his domin-
ions. The man was a Frenchman—
his name de V—, clever, hold, law-
less. We insisted on his dismissal
and hanishment: it must he the same
man—no two faces like his—yet this
miniature seems nearly a hundred
years old."
Mechanically I turned round the
miniature to examine the hack of
it, and on the heck was engraved
a pentacle; in the middle of the
peutacle a ladder, and the third step
of the ladder was formed hy the
date 1765. Examining still more
minutely, I detected a spring; this,
on heing pressed, opened the haek of
the miniature as a lid. Within-side
the lid were engraved "Mariana
to thee—Be faithful in life and in
death to ." Here follows a name
that I will not mention, hut it was
not unfamiliar to me. I had heard
it spoken of hy old men in my child-
hood as the name horne hy a dazzling
charlatan, who had made a great
sensation in London for a year or so,
and had fled the country on the
charge of a douhle murder within
his own house—that of his mistress
and his rival. I said nothing of this
to Mr. J , to whom reluctantly I
resigned the miniature.
We had found no difficulty in open-
ing the first drawer within the iron-
safe; we found great difficulty in
opening the second: it was not
locked, hut it resisted all efforts, till
we inserted in the chinks the edge
of a chisel. When he had thus
VOL. LXXXVL
drawn it forth, we found a very
singular apparatus in the nicest
order. Upon a small thin hook, or
rather tahlet, was placed a saucer of
crystal; this saucer was filled with a
clear liquid—on that liquid floated a
kind of eompasg, with a needle shift-
ing rapidly round, hut instead of the
usual points ot a compass were -even
strange characters, not very unlike
those used hy astrologers to denote
the planets. A very peculiar, hut
not strong nor displeasing odour,
came from this drawer, which was
lined with a wood that we afterwards
discovered to he hazel. Whatever
the cause of this odour, it produced a
material effect on the nerves. We
all felt it, even the two workmen who
were in the room—a creeping tingling
sensation from the tips of the fingers
to the roots of the hair. Impatient
to examine the tahlet, I removed the
saucer. As I did so the needle of
the compass went round and round
with exceeding swiftness, and I felt
a shock thai ran tbrough my whole
frame, so that I dropped the saucer
on the floor. The liquid was spilt—
the saucer was hroken—the compass
rolled to the end of the room—and
at that instant the walls shook to
and fro, as if a giant had swayed and
rocked them.
The two workmen were so fright-
ened that they ran up the ladder hy
which wo had descended from the
trap-door; hut seeing that nothing
more happened, they were easily in-
duced to return.
Meanwhile I had opened the tah-
let: it was hound in a plain red
leather, with a silver clasp; it con-
tained hut one sheet of thick vellum,
and on that sheet were inscrihed,
within a douhle pentacle, words in
old monkish Latin, which are liter-
ally to he translated thus:—" On all
that it can reach within these walls
—sentient or inanimate, living or
dead—as moves the needle, so work
my will 1 Accursed he the house, and
restless the dwellers therein."
„, We found no more. Mr. J hurnt
the tahlet and its anathema. He razed
to tho foundations the part of the
huilding containing the secret room
with the chamher over it. He had
then the courage to inhahit the house
himself for a month, and a quieter,
ie


240
[Aug.
The Haunted and the Haunters; or,

hetter-conditioned house could not
he found in nil London. Suhse-
quently he let it to advantage, and
his tenant hns made no complaints.
l?ur my story is not yet done. A
few days after Mr. J had removed
into the house, I paid him a visit.
We were standing hy the open win-
dow and conversing. A vnn contain-
ing some articles of furniture which
he was moving from his former house
w.is at the door. I had just urged
on him my theory, that all those
phenomena regarded as supermun-
dane had emanated from a liuman
hrain; adducing the charm or rather
curse we had found and destroyed
in support of my philosophy. Mr.
J wns ohserving in reply, "That
even if mesmerism, or whatever
unnlogons power it might he called,
could really thus work in the ah-
sence of the operator, and produce
effects so extraordinary, still could
those effects continue when the
operator himself was dead? and if
the s rell had heen wrought, and,
indeed, tho room walled up, more
than seventy years ago, the proha-
hility was, that the operator had
long since departed this life;" Mr.
J , I say, was thus answering,
when I caught hold of his arm and
pointed to the street helow.
A well-dressed man had crossed
from the opposite side, and was ac-
costing the carrier in charge of the
van. His face, as he stood, was ex-
actly fronting our window. It was
the face of the miniature we had dis-
covered; it was the face of the por-
trait of the nohle tbree centuries
ago.
"Good heavens!" cried Mr. J ,
"that is the face of de V , and
scarcely a day older than when I saw
it in the Rajah's court in my youth!'
Seized hy the same thought, we
hoth hastened down stairs. I was
first in the street; hut the man had
already gone. I caught sight of him,
however, not many yards in advance,
and in another moment I was hy his
side.
I had resolved to speak to l.im, but
when I looked into his face I felt as
if it were impossihle to do so. That
eye—the eye of the serpent—fixed
and held me spellhound. And with-
al, ahout the man's whole person
there was a diguity", an air of pride
and station, and superiority, that
would have made any one, hahituated
to the usages of the world, hesitate
long hefore venturing upon a liherty
or impertinence. And what could I
sav ? what was it I would ask? Thus
ashamed of my first impulse, I fell a
few paces hack, still, however, fol-
lowing the stranger, undecided what
else to do Meanwhile he turned the
corner of the street; a plain car-
riage was in waiting with a servant
out of livery dressed like a valet-de-
ldace at the carriage-door. In an-
other moment he had stepped into
the carriage, and it drove off. I re-
turned to the house. Mr. J- was
still at the street dhor. He had
asked the carrier what the stranger
had said to him.
"Merely asked, whom that house
now helonged to."
The same evening I. happened to
go with a friend to a place in town
called the Cosmopolitan Cluh, a place
open to men of all countries, all
opinions, all degrees. One orders
one's coffee, smokes one's cigar. One
is alwnys sure to meet agreeahle,
sometimes remarkahle persons.
I had not heen two minutes in the
room hefore I heheld at tahle, con-
versing with an aqunintance of
mine, whom I will designate hy the
initial G , tho man—the Original
of the Mininture. He was now with-
out his hat, and the likeness was yet
more sturtling, only I ohserved that
while he was conversing there was
less severity in the countenance;
there was even a smile, though a very
quiet and very cold one. The dig-
nity of mien I had acknowledged in
the street was also more striking; a
diguity akin to that which inve>t-
some prince of tho East—conveying
the idea of supreme indifference and
hahitual, indisputahle, indolent, hut
resistless power.
G soon after left the stranger,
who then took up a scientific journal,
which seemed to ahsorh his attention.
I drew G aside—•" Who and
what is that gentleman?"
"That? Oh, a very remarkahle
man, indeed. I met him last year
amidst the caves of Petra—the scrip-
tural Edom. He is the hest Oriental


1859.]
241
The Home and the Brain.

scholar I know. We joined com-
pany, had an adventure with rohhers,
in which ho showed a coolnes that
saved our lives; afterwards he in-
vited me to spend a day with him in
a honse he had hought at Damascus
—a house huried amougst almond-
hlossoms and rosos-—the most heauti-
ful thing:! He had lived there for
some years, quite as an Oriental, in
grand style. I half suspect he is a
renegade, immensely rich, very odd;
hy the hy, a great mesmeriser. I
have seen him with my own eyes pro-
duce an effect on inanimate things. If
yon take a letter from your pocket
and tbrow it to the other end of the
room, he will order it to come to his
feet, and you will see the letter
wriggle itself along the floor till it
has oheyed his command. Ton my
honour 'tis true: I have seen him
affect even the weather, disperse or
collect clouds, hy means of a glass
tuhe or wand. But he does not like
talking of these matters to strangers.
He has only just arrived in England;
says he has not heen here for a great
many years; let me introduce him to
yon."
"Certainly! He is English then I
"What is his name?"
"Oh!—a very homely one—Rich-
ards.''
"And what is his hirth—his fa-
mily t"
"How do I know? What does it
siguify ?—no douht some parvenu, hut
rich—so infernally rich!"
G drew me up to the stranger,
and the introduction was effected.
The mauners of Mr. Richards were
not those of an adventurous traveller.
Travellers are in general constitu-
tionally gifted with high animal
spirits; titey are talkative, eager, im-
perions. Mr. Richards was calm and
suhdued in tone, with mauners which
were made distant hy the loftiness of
punctilious courtesy—the maimers of
a former age. I ohserved that the
English he spoke was not exactly of
our day. I should even have said
that the accent was slightly foreigu.
But then Mr. Richards remarked that
he had heen little in the hahit for
many years of speaking in his native
tongue. The conversation fell upon
the changes in the aspect of London
since he had last visited our metro-
polis. G then glanced off* to the
moral changes—literary, social, poli-
tical—the great men who were re-
moved from the stage within the last
twenty years—the new great men
who were coming on. In all this Mr.
Richards evinced no interest He
had evidently read none of our living
authors, and seemed scarcely ac-
quainted hy name with our younger
statesmen. Once and only once he
laughed; it was when G - asked
him whether he had any thoughts of
getting into Parliament. And the
laugh was inward—sarcastic—sinister
—a sueer raised into a laugh. After
a few minutes G left us to talk to
some other acquaintances who had
just lounged into the room, and I
then said quietly—
"I have seen a miniature of you,
Mr. Richards, in the house you once
inhahited, and perhaps huilt, if not
wholly, at least in part, in
street. You passed hy that house
this morning."
Not till I had finished did I raise
my eyes to his, and then his fixed my
gaze so steadfastly that I could not
withdraw it—those fascinating ser-
pent eyes. But involuntarily, and
as if the words that translated my
thought were dragged from me, I
added in a low whisper, "I have
heen a student in the mysteries of
life and nature; of those mysteries I
have known the occult professors. I
have the right to speak to you thus."
And I uttered a certain pass-word.
"Well," said he dryly, "I concede
the right—what would you ask?"
"To what extent human will in
certain temperaments can extendi'
"To what extent can thought ex-
tend? Think, and hefore you draw
hreath you are in China!"
"True. But my thought has no
power in China I"
"Give it expression, and it may
have: you may write down a
thought which, sooner or later, may
alter the whole condition of China.
What is a law hut a thought?
Therefore thought is infinite—there-
fore thought has power; not in pro-
portion to its value—a had thought
may make a hat] law as potent as a
good thought can make a good one."
"Yes; what you say confirms my
own theory. Tbrough invisihle our-


242
[Aug.
The Haunted and the Haunters; or,

rents one hnman hrain may trans-
mit its ideas to other human hrains
with the same rapidity as a thought
promulgated hy visihle means. And
as thought is imperishahle—as it
leaves its stamp hehind it in the
natural world even when tho thinker
has parsed out of this world—so the
thought of the living may have
power to rouso' up and revive the
thoughts of the dead—such as those
thoughts were in life—though the
thought of the living caunot reach
the thoughts which the dead now
may entertain. Is it not so?"
"I decline to answer, if in my
judgment, thought has the limit you
would fix to it; hut proceed. You
have a special question you wish to
put.''
"Intense maliguity in an intense
will, engendered in a peculiar tem-
perament, and aided hy natural
means within the reach of science,
may produce effects like those as-
crihed of old to evil magic. It
might thus haunt the walls of a
human hahitation with spectral re-
vivals of all guilty thoughts and
guilty deeds once conceived and done
within those walls; all, in short,
with which the evil will claims rap-
port and affinity,—imperfect, inco-
herent, fragmentary suatches at the
old dramas acted therein years ago.
Thoughts thus crossing each other
hap-hazard, as in the nightmare of
a vision, growing up into phantom
sights and sounds, and all serving to
create horror, not hecause those
sights and sounds are really visita-
tions from a world without, hut that
they are ghastly monstrous renewals
of what have heen in this world it-
self, set into maliguant play hy a
maliguant mortal. And it is tbrough
the material agency of that human
hrain that these things would ac-
quire even a human power—would
strike as with the shock of electri-
city, and might kill, if the thought
of the person assailed did not rise
superior to tho diguity of the origi-
nal assailer—might kill the most
powerful animal if uunerved hy fear,
hut not injure the feehlest man, if,
while his flesh crept,, his mind stood
out fearless. Thus, when in old
stories we read of a magician rent to
pieces hy the fiends he had evoked—
or still more, in Eastern legends,
that one magician succeeds hy arts
in destroying another—there mry ho
so far truth, that a material heing
has clothed, from his own evil pro-
pensities, certain elements and fluids,
iwually quiescent or harmless, with
awful shape and terrific force;—
just as the lightning that had lain
hidden and iunocent in the cloud
hecomes hy natural law suddenly
visihle, takes a distinct shape to the
eye, and can strike destruction on
the ol ject to which it is attracted."
"Yon are not without glimpses
of a very mighty secret," said Mr.
Richards, composedly. "According
to your view, could a mortal ohtain
the power you speak of, he would
necessarily he n maliguant and evil
heing."
"If the power were exercised as I
have said, most maliguant and most
evil—though I helieve in the an-
cient traditions that he conld not in-
jure tho good. His will could only
injure those with whom it has estah-
lished an affinity, or over whom it
forces uuresisted sway. I will now
imagine an example that may he
within tho laws of nature, yet seem
wild as the fahles of a hewildered
monk.
•' You will rememher that Alhertus
Maguus, after descrihing minutely
the process hy which spirits may he
invoked and commanded, adds em-
phatically, that the process will in-
struct and avail only to tho few—
that a man must he horn a magi-
cian!—that is, horn with a peculiar
physical temperament, as a man is
horn a poet. Rarely are men with
whose constitution lurks this occult
power of the highest order of intel-
lect ;—usually in the intellect there
is some twist, perversity, or disease.
But, on tlie other hand, they must
possess, to an astonishing degree, the
faculty to concentrate thonght on a
single ohject—the energic faculty
that we call will Therefore, though
their intellect he not sound, it is ex-
ceedingly forcihle for the attainment
of what it desires. l will imagine
such a person, pre-eminently gifted
with this constitution and its con-
comitant forces. I will place him in
the loftier grades of society. I will
suppose his desires emphatically



1859.]
243
The House and the Brain.
p
those of the sensualist— he has,
therefore, a strong love of life. He
is an ahsolute egotist—hia will is
concentred in himself—he has fierce
passions—he knows no enduring, no
holy affections, hut he can covet
eagerly what for the moment he de-
sires—he can hate implacahly what
opposes itself to his ohjects — he
can commit fearful crimes, yet feel
small remorse — he resorts rather
to curses upon others, than to peni-
tence for his misdeeds. Circum-
stances, to which his constitution
guides him, lead him to a rare know-
ledge of the natural secrets which
may ^ervo his egotism. He is a
close ohserver where his pas-ions
encourage ohservation, he is a minute
calculator, not from love of truth,
hut where love of self sharpens his
faculties,—therefore he can he a man
of science. 1 suppose such a heing,
having hy experience learned the
power of his arts over others, trying
what may he the power of will over
his own frame, and studying all
that in natural philosophy may in-
crease that power. He loves life he
dreads death; he wills to lite on. Ho
caunot restore himself to youth, he
caunot entirely stay the progress of
death, he caunot make himself im-
mortal in the flesh and hlood; hut
he may arrest for a time so prolonged
as to appear incredihle, if I said it
—that hardening of the parts which'
constitutes old age. A year may age
him no more than an hour ages an-
other. His intense will, scientifically
trained into system, operates, in short,
over the wear and tear of his own
frame. He lives on. That he may not
seem a portent and a miracle, he diet
from time to time, seemingly, to cer-
tain persons. Having schemed the
transfer of a wealth that suffices to his
wants, he disappears from one cor-
ner of the world, and contrives that
his ohsequies shall he celehrated.
He reappears at another corner of the
world, where he resides undetected,
and does not visit the scenes of his
former career till all who could re-
memher his features are no more. He
would he profoundly miserahle if he
had affections,—he has none hut for
himself. No good man would accept
his longevity, and to no men, good
or had, would he or could he com-
municate its true secret. Such a man
might exist; such a man as I have
descrihed I see now hefore me!—Duke
of , in the court of , divid-
ing time hetween lust and hrawl, al-
chemists and wizards; — again, in
the last century, charlatan and cri-
minal, with name less nohle, domi-
ciled in the house at which you gazed
today, and flying from the law you
had outraged, none knew whither;—
traveller once more revisiting Lon-
don, with the same eartbly passions
which filled your heart when races
now no more walked tbrough yonder
streets;—outlaw from the school of
all the nohler and diviner mystics;—
execrahle Image of Life in Death
and Death in Life, I warn yon hack
from the cities and homes of health-
ful men; hack to the ruins of de-
parted empires; hack to the deserts
of nature uuredeemed!"
There answered mo a whisper so
musical, so potently musical, that it
seemed to enter into my whole heing,
and suhdue me despite myself. Thus
it said—
"I have sought one like you 'or
the last hundred years. Now I I ave
found you, we part not till I 'now
what I desire. The vision that sees
tbrough the Past, and cleaves tbrough
the veil of the future, is in you at
this hour; never hefore, never to
come again. The vision of no puling
fantastic girl, of no sick-hed soiunam-
hule, hut of a strong man, with
a vigorous hrain. Soar and look
forth"!"
As he spoke I felt as if I rose out
of myself upon eaglo wings. All the
weight seemed gone from air,—roof-
less the room, roofless the dome of
space. I was not in the hody—
where I knew not—hut aloft over
time, over earth.
Again I heard the melodious whis-
per,—" You say right. I have mas-
tered great secrets hy the power of
Will; true, hy Will and hy Science
1 can retard the process of years:
hut death comes not hy age alone.
Can I frustrate the accidents which
hring death upon the young?"
"No; every accident is a provi-
dence. Before a providence suaps
every human will."
"Shall I dio at last, ages and ages
hence, hy the slow, though inevi-
.


244 The Haunted and the Haunters; or, The Haiue and the Brain. [Aug.
tahle, growth of time, or hy the
cause that I call accident?"
"By a cause you call accident."
"Is not the end still remote?"
asked the whisper, with a slight
tremor.
"Regarded as my life regards time,
it is still remote."
"And shall I, hefore then, mix with
the world of men as I did ere I
learned these secrets, resume eager
interest in their strife and their
trouhle—hattle with amhition, and
use the power of the sago to win the
power that helongs to kings?"
"You will yet play a part on
the earth that will fill earth with
commotion and amaze. For won-
drous desigus have you, a wonder
yourself, heen permitted to live
on tbrough the centuri&s. All the
secrets. you have stored will then
have their uses — all that now
makes you a stranger amidst the ge-
nerations will contrihute then to
make you their lord. As the trees
and the straws are drawn into a
m hirlpool—as they spin round, are
su 'ked to the deep, and again tossed
alo,' hy the eddies, so shall races and
tbrones he plucked into the charm of
your vortex. Awful Destroyer—hut
in destroying, made, against your
own will, a Constructor!"
"And that date, too, is far off?"
"For off; when it comes, think
your end in this world is at hand!"
"How and what is the end? Look
cast, west, south, and north."
"In the north, where you never
yet trod—towards the point whence
your instincts have warned yon, there
a spectre will seize yon. 'Tis Death!
I see a ship — it is haunted — 'tis
chased—it sails on. Baifled navies
sail after that ship. It enters the
region of ice. It passes a sky red
with meteors. Two moons stand on
high, over ice-reefs. I see tho ship
locked hetween white defiles—they
are ice-rocks. I see the dead strew
the decks—stark and livid, green
mould on their limhs. All are dead
hut one man—it is you! But years,
though so slowly they come, have
then scathed yon. There is the com-
ing of ago on your hrow, and the
will is relaxed in the cells of the
hrain. Still that will, though en-
feehled, exceeds all- that man knew
hefore yon, tbrongh the will you live
on, guawed with famine: And nature
no longer oheys you in that death-
spreading region ;—the sky is a sky
of iron, and the air has iron clamps,
and the ice-rocks wedge in the
ship. Hark how it cracks and groans.
Ice will imhed it as amher im-
heds a straw. And a man has gone
forth, living yet, from the ship and
its dead; and he has clamhered up
the spikes of an iceherg, and the two
moons gaze down on his form. That
man is yourself; and terror is on you—
terror; and terror has swallowed your
will. And I see swarming up the
steep ice-rock, grey griesly things.
The hears of the north have scented
their quarry—they oome near you
and nearer, shamhling and rolling
their bulk. And in that day every
moment shall seem to you longer
than the centuries tbrongh which you
have passed. And heed this—after
life, moments continued make the
hliss or tho hell of eternity."
"Hush," said the whisper; "hut
the day, you assure me, is far off—
very far! I go hack to the almond
and rose of Damascus!—sleep!"
The room swam hefore my eyes.
I hecame insensihle. When I re-
covered, I found G holding my
hand and smiling. He said, "You
who have always declared yourself
proof against mesmerism, have suc-
cumhed at last to my friend Rich-
ards."
"Where is Mr. Richards?"
"Gone, when yon passed into a
trance—saying quietly to me, 'Your
friend will not wake for an hour.'"
I asked, as collectedly as I could,
where Mr. Richards lodged.
"At tho Trafalgar Hotel."
"Give me yoar arm," said I to
G , "let us call on him; I
have something to say."
When we arrived at the hotel, we
were told that Mr. Richards had re-
turned twenty minutes hefore, paid
his hill, left directions with his ser-
vant (a Greek) to pack his eflwrs, and
proceed to Malta hy the steamer that
should leave Southampton the next
day. Mr. Richards had merely snid of
his own movements, that he had visits
to pay in the neighhourhood of Lon-
don, and it was uncertain whether he
should he ahle to reach Southampton


1859.]
245
The Peace—What it it f
in time for that steamer; if not, he
should follow in the next one.
• The waiter asked me my name.
On my informing him, he gave me a
note that Mr Richards had left for me,
in case I called.
The note was as follows:—" I
wished you to utter what was in your
mind. You oheyed. I have there-
fore estahlished power over yon. For
tbree months from this day you can
communicate to no living man what
has passed hetween us—you caunot
even show this note to the friend hy
your side. During tbree months,
silence complete as to me and mine.
Do yon douht my power to lay on
yon this command?—try to disohey
me. At the end of the third month,
the spell is raised. For the rest I
spare yon. I shall visit your grave
a year and a day after it has received
yon."
So ends this strange story, which
I ask no one to helieve. I write it
down exactly tbree months after I
received the ahove note. I could not
write it hefore, nor conld I show to
G , in spite of his urgent request,
the note which I read under the gas-
lamp hy his side.
THE PEACE—WHAT IS IT?
The war is over,—peace has return-
ed. But hefore we tbrow up our caps
and huzza, let us see how matters
stand. Is Europe as it was ?—or what
are the changes which this war has
wrought in the equilihrium of States,
and in our prospects for the future?
"I confess to you," said Lord Derhy
at the recent Conservative hanquet
in London, "that, from the informa-
tion we are at present in possession
of, I look to the state of affairs aris-
ing out of this peace as more critical
and dangerous than hefore." In these
words the nohle Earl had, apparently,
primarily in view the general dis-
satisfaction which the hroken pledges
of the French Emperor have pro-
duced in Italy: hut his voice of
warning had a wider siguificance,
He closed his review of foreigu affairs
hy declaring that "the keeping of our
fleet in a state of complete prepara-
tion is essential to the very existence
of this country. I say we desire to
remain at peace; hut the position of
France at this moment, with a
powerful army, with a large and in-
creasing navy, and the military spirit
and excitement awakened in the
people, may involve us in a war
which must ho injurious to the hap-
piness and interests of this country.''
Is this inference from the present
condition of affairs a correct one?
We entertain no douht that it is.
.The nohle Earl—hut yesterday Pre-
mier, and who may soon he Premier
again—could not openly, and as it
were officially, discuss the future of
the Napoleonic policy. But it is
most needful that this ho ddne, if
we would not have this country he
taken at disadvantage, and humhled
in the toils of the suhtlest and most
far-seeing of calculators that ever sat
on a tbrone, and who now wields
with consummate skill the entire
forces of the most military nation in
Europe. Let us see, then, what is
the state of affairs now that this new
Napoleon has ended his second war.
Peace has come, hut how? And the
Peace itself, what is it? Is it peace:
or hut the halt which the flood of
military amhition makes ere it hurst
into a n»w chaunel?
The Emperor of the French has
achieved this peace in the mauner
contemplated hy him from the first.
The war with Austria, which he
plauned and induced in his Cahinet,
lie has carried out successfully in the
field. It was his grand aim to local-
ise the war, and to make it a short
one; and in these and other ohjects
lit* has heen entirely successful. Eu-
rope stood hy, while ho played his
game in Italy: now the game is
played out, and few yet know what
it was. To us it seems that the im-
perial meeting at Villafranca will
prove hardly less memorahle than
its counterpart fifty-two years ago
at Tilsit. Napoleon III. has made
a hrilliant campaigu,—wiuning for


246
[Aug.
The Feace—What is it f

himself the renown of a victorious
General, and for his troops a prestige
rivalling that of the Stand Army in
the palmiest days of the First Em-
pire. And now, continuing his policy
of suhtle and far-reaching calculation,
he closes the war hy propitiating his
foe, and securing a groundwork for
fresh military and political comhina-
tions, of which he himself will he the
mainspring. Under the garh of gener-
osity and moderation, he has driven
the wedge into Europe, and is now in
a position to split up its States as he
desires. He has done much to alien-
ate Austria from Germany, and hoth
of these Powers from England. Thus
the great hulwark against the revival
of Napoleonism' is undermined. The
only Powers who had an interest and
the power to withstand the amhitious
projects of France and Russia are not
only alienated from one another, hut
one of them prohahly stands ready to
join the game on the other side. Be-
reft of Lomhardy, Austria already
looks to compensate herself hy joining
with Russia and France in the coming
dismemherment of Turkey,—leaving
Prussia to keep the Rhenish pro-
vinces from France, if she can, and
England the difficult task of guard-
ing her world-wide interests without
an ally. Such, it appean to us, will
prove to he the results of this war,—
a war which was so warmly ap-
plauded hy the greater part of the
Liherals in this cquntry, — which
Lord John Russell commended for
its disinterested generosity on the
part of France, and to which Lord
Palmcrston puhlicly wished success!
The Radicals—whose chiefs, as they
do not accept the responsihilities of
office, can afford to change their opi-
nions—have already hecome consi-
derahly disenchanted with the war,
and hegin to see that the imperial
despot of France was merely playing
with and trading on their sympathies.
But Lords Palmerston and Russell—
now hecome Premier and Foreigu
Secretary—have committed them-
selves too far in support of the
French Emperor to admit of any re-
caleitralion on their part. We shall
douhtless hear them eulogising the
generosity and moderation of their
good Mead and faithful ally the Em-
peror Napoleon,—proclaiming how
entirely the issue of the war has
disproved the charges of amhition
hrought against him,—and congratu-
lating Parliament on the gain which
hits accrued to Europe from this war
hy consolidating peace!
If words are to he accepted instead
of acts, Napoleon III. will give etery
support to his dupes in the British
Cahinet. Of diplomatic professions
of friendship and "reassuring " notes
in the Moniteur we douht not there
will he plenty. It is true that the
rapid increase of the French navy is
heing continued,—that the greatest
aotivity prevails in fortifying the
French coasts, especially the coasts
of the Chaunel,—and also, it is
affirmed that a large Channel fleet
is heing formed at Brest and Cher-
hourg, with gunhoats, and means for
emharking and disemharking troops.
All this is very tbreatening in a
Power like France,' which (unlike
England) hardly needs a fleet save
for the purposes of an offensive war.
Nevertheless the time is not yet
It is the interest of the Freuch
Emperor, for the present, to disarm
the suspicions of the British puhlic
hy professions of friendship towards
ourselves, and hy a wise moderation
as regards the affairs of Italy. Al-
though Austria is, we helieve, now
very much detached from Prussia and
from England, Napoleon rememhers
that Germany is still growling, and
he has no desire to fight Englaad when
there is still the prohahility of his
having at the same time to encounter
a German army on the Rhine. He
has little or nothing of his Uncle's love
of war. He can light, and fight well
—none hetter, apparently: hut he
will never appeal to arms until he
has heforehand secured the victory
hy the profound comhinations of his
diplomacy. Whenever he attacks a
country, depend upon it he has pre-
viously estranged its allies, or under-
mined its defences. Austria might
have won a hattle during this war;
hut with France and Italy against
her, and with Russia keeping off
Germany, and sowing disaffection in
her eastern provinces, she never at
any moment had a chance of emerg-
ing victorious from the contest
This is the art of war as practised
hy Napoleon III. He is a good sol-


1859.]
247
The Peace— lFVwzi u it t

dier, hut he has still more of the
statesman in Ms character. It wris
said of Lord Clyde in the Indian war,
that "he never sent a man where a
caunon hall would do as well;" and
at Lneknow he never let loose our
troops against the defences until the
artillery had done half the work.
Just so is it with Napoleon III.: lie
will never attack another State until
hi- diplomacy has prepared masked
hatteries sufficient to reader the ene-
my's position untenahle. We are weak
enough at present. With our army in
India, with our fleet just ahout equal
to that of France, and with all the
facilities for invasion which steam has
introduced, there is nothing in our
position to deter France (especially
as she is countenanced hy Russia)
from attacking us. The First Napo-
leon would not have hesitated a mo-
ment. But his nephew, is a man of
another stamp. lie will never enter
willingly on a long or douhtful war.
He has great schemes to accomplish,
hut he is resolved to accomplish them
piecemeal. In playing his profound
gime for the aggrandisement of
France, lie carefully hides his hand,
and shows only the single card that
suits his play for the moment. He
will not set all Europe in a hlaze, hy
puhlishing his whole projects at once.
While humhling Austria and extend-
ing French influence over Italy, it
would have heen madness for him to
aoQoanoe that ho is resolved upon
extending France to the Rhine at the
expense of Germany, and of curtail-
ing the maritime ascendency of Eng-
land, hy wresting from her Gihraltar
and the Ionian Islands. All that
will come in due course, if Napoleon
lives to play out his game. But for
the present it will hest suit him to
lull Europe into security again hy a
short peace, and hy a show of great
moderation as regards his conquests
in Italy. Hence, we repeat, we may
look for u re-assuring" notes in the
Moniteur, and for diplomatic assur-
ances of his Imperial Majesty's de-
sire to remain on good terms with
England. And, he it ohserved, he
can make such assurances, without
violating in any way the code of di-
plomatic truth. He doei desire peace
with England for the present. And
moreover, when a Government, or
even an individual says, "I desire
to he on good terms with you," such
words certainly hy no means pi
the speaker to he your friend when
your interests and his come to clash.
Napoleon III. does nothing hy acci-
dent or impulse. His uniform pro-
fessions of a desire to.maintain friend-
ship with this country, not only help
to maintain that friendship so long
as he desires it, hut, when the rup-
ture comes, they will greatly help to
tbrow the hlame off him upon us.
"When that time comes, we douht not
he will turn round upon us with
mist imperial coolness, and say,
"You are an ungrateful nation—all
along have I sought to propitiato
your friendship, hut now I cm hear
with you no longer." And in an im-
perial pamphlet he will appeal to
Europe whether ho har not hehaved
to us most loyally, and whether such
falseness and arrogance as ours can
he tolerated hy the cnmmonwcalrh of
nations! He will then take credit
for having stood hy us and saved us
during the war with Russia.—for
having remained, friendly to us
tbroughout the great crisis of the
Indian revolt,—and, even when our
press preached regicide, aud sympa-
thised with Orsini, for having re-
strained his infuriated army that
longed to invade the "asylum of
assassins," at a time when our army
was in India, and our fleet (thanks to
Lord Palmerston) was inferior to
that of France. He will pretend that
his conduct on these occasions was
so many friendly sacrifices on his
part (whereas they were necessary
links in his far-seeing policy), for
which England has requited him with
nothing hut ingratitude. Such is the
man with whom we have to do. He
fights from a vantage-ground. Ha is
not only hy far the ahlest head in
Europe, hut he can work towards his *
ends with a steadiness and secresy
which are impossihle to the Govern-
ment of this country. In a free coun-
try the Government caunot take a
step without the support of the na-
tion. The nation cannot he expected
to support a policy which it does not
understand; and in order that it may
understand, it must he supplied with
all the* information which the Go-
vernment possesses, and an explana-


248
[Aug.
Ths Peace—What m it t

tion of the policy upon which the
Government is acting. But as long
as war is not actually imminent, a
Government caunot well proclaim
its suspicions or convictions as to
the insincerity of other Powers: and
hence a great disadvantage to a popu-
la Government like ours. For while
a despotic monarch can maintain the
language and semhlance of peace
until his forces are actually ready to
march, the language of war must re-
sound tbrough this country for months
hefore Parliament will even vote
money wherewith a war-estahlish-
ment may he raised. This disad-
vantage on our part is more espe-
cially to he rememhered when we
have to deal with France under its
present ruler. In a long war, Great
Britain would easily prove more than
a match for any Power in the world;
hut, we repeat, it is short wars that
are the game of Napoleon lIL; and,
having humiliated us in the first rush
of the contest, it will he his policy to
make up matters again hefore the
war hecomes one d Voutrance. And,
he knows well, there is a strong party
in this country who, for the sake of
their yarns and calicoes, will he quite
ready to make peace in such circum-
stances. We make no special com-
plaint against Napoleon ill. Viewed
from the French point of view, his
policy is right enough. He is only do-
ing what any other ruler would do, if
possessed of the same genins. But
if the character of his policy he such
as we helieve it to he, it concerns this
country to he on its guard. And at
the present moment, . when puhlic
attention gives itself readily to the
suhject, it may he well to take this
Italian war as a text, and to direct
.attention to the light which it tbrows
upon the Napoleonic policy.
The first point which must strike
any one who has studied this war
from its origin is this—that Napoleon
III. is quite willing and ready to
make a war whenever it suits him
to do so. The Italian war, as the
late Government did not. hesitate
to proclaim, was " uunecessary." No
points were at issue which could not
have heen settled hy diplomatic ne-
gotiation. Austria had heen doing
nothing to provoke or attack France.
Austria was simply what she had
heen ever since Louis Napoleon he-
came ruler of France. Indeed, if she
gave no offence during the past years
of Napoleon's rule, she was giving
infinitely less now. Never hefore had
Austria showed herself so willing to
make concessions in Italy; indeed
(as Lord Cowley's despatch of 9th
March* shows), all that the French
Emperor professed to our Govern-
ment to require, the Austrian Govern-
ment was willing to concede. But
Napoleon was hent upon war. What
he wanted, was not administrative
reforms in Central Italy, hut a war
in which he might play the part of
"liherator " of Italy, and encircle his
hrows with some of his Uncle's lau-
rels. And so the war came. Second-
ly, as regards the war itself, it is im-
possihle not to note the lesson which
it gives us as to the extraordinary
development which the martial power
of France has undergone under the
present Emperor. When Austria,
during the negotiations, proposed a
general disarmament, the French
Government replied that it could not
do so as "Franco had never armed."
This assertion, of course, was very
far from heing strictly true—it was a
diplomatic quihhle hordering on a
lie. Nevertheless it is quite true
that France at that time had made
no extraordinary levies of men; yet,
within a month afterwards, what did
we see? The instant war was de-
clared, the Emperor was ahle to for-
ward into Italy an army capahle, in
conjunction with the Sardinians, of
overpowering in Lomhardy the whole
availahle forces of the great military
empire of Austria,—while a powerful
separate expedition of land and sea
forces entered tho Adriatic,—and an
army of 100,000, with 400 Cannon,
was ready under the Duke of Mala-
koff, not only to guard, hut, if neces-
sary, o assume the offensive on the
frontier of the Rhine. And all these
armies were supplied d merteil SB re-
gards commissariat and transport,—
were equipped with, and trained to the
useofthe newest improvements in war-
* The principal portions of this important despatch are quoted in last month's
Magazine, p. 122.


1859.]
249
The Peace—What is it t

tare, such as rifled artillery, the sword-
hayonet, &e.—and moreover, hy long
training in the Chalons and other
camps nt home, the soldiers were
ahle at tho very outset to deport them-
selves in tho field and hivouac as
veterans. We commend these facts
to the consideration of that well-
intentioned hut weak-minded party
amongst as who imagine that war is
incompatihle with the enlightenment
of the present age, and that this
country has nothing to fear if we do
not seek a quarrel of ourselves. The
fact that the French Emperor has
shown himself quite ready to make
a war when it suits him, and can i»i
the instant engage in it with such
powerful forces, is, we trust, a lesson
of the late war which will not he
quickly forgotten.
Of tho effects which this hrilliant
and victorious campaigu must have
in exciting the military passion of
the French nation, we need not
speak. Every one is aware of it,
and We need not waste time in estah-
lishing a point which nohody ques-
tions. But the mauner in which the
war lias heen closed suggests some
reflections which may escape the ordi-
nary ohserver. That the war was
terminated so ahruptly, in no way
surprises us. It is simply what we
expected and had foretold. Fire
months ago (writing ten weeks he-
fore the outhurst of hostilities, and
when most people did not helieve
there would he a war at all), we ex-
uitwjsjtl our certain conviction that
Napoleon was hent upon war,—that
his aim would he to localise the con-
test in Italy, and that with the support
of Russia "he would ho ahle to do so;
that he would make it a short war;
and that he wonld not drive Austria
to extremities, hut would suuh Sar-
dinia and tho Italians, and end hy
propitiating Austria, as formerly he
had propitiated Russia.* That he
has suuhhed Sardinia, the terms of
peace and the resiguation of Count
Cavour sufficiently testify. Austria
is not driven out of Italy; Modena,
which the Sardinian Government
had puhlicly aunexed, is handed
over to its former ruler; Tuscany is
given hack to its Austrian Grand-
duke; and no stipulation whatever
has yet heen made in regard to those
"See the March numher of the Magazine, where (t. g.), at p. 390, the actual
course of the war was thus predicted to the letter:
"Napoleon III. will aim at making this war a short one; and it will also he one
of the first requsites in his eye* thut it he not allowed to overpass the limits of
Italy, and assume a European character, giving rise to unforseeuhlc conjunctures.
He must wish it to he an Italian war confined to Italy; and he will seek to insure
this hy a previous understanding with Russia, the influence of which great Power,'
exerted in unison with the ohjects of France, will wholly neutralise the influence
of Great Britain and Prussia on the other side. . . . The French Emperor,
coolly assuring these Powers that he is fighting merely to 'consolidate the peace of
Europe,' hy removing one of the disturhing conditions, will prosecute his game to
itsclose. . . And prohahly it is on the tbreat of a naral alliance hetween France
ami Russia against us, if wo venture to interfere, that he reckons most confidently
to secure our non-intervention. . . . This war with Austria he regards as a neat
little enterprise which can he carried on while the rest of Europe "is at peace; and
now is the time when it may he executed most successfully. AW, when Russia is
willinL' to see Austria weakened, and when none of the other Powere can well
interfere, is the time for the French Emperor to win hrilliant renown for himself
as the ' Liherator of Italy,' and also to gain a powerful position in the Italian
mis, such as nmy he turned to good account in the further and grander
strife that is likely to ensue when the Ottoman empire falls to pieces, and the
Powers of Cbristendom quarrel as to the distrihution of the spoil. . . .
"Napoleon 111 will not seek to push Austria to extremities (his policy is never
to push nuv power to extremities); and Sardinia and the Italians may rely upon
it tliut he will stop short in the enterprise wdienevcr it suits himself, and compel
them ul>O to do the same, lust as he refused to go along with England and Turkey
in the war with Kussia, after the Erench anus had heen 'covered with glory' hy
the capture of 8ehastopol, so assuredly wdl the Italians find him resolved to stop
short m tho ' liheral ion of Italy' as soon as he thinks hest for himself. Trinmphs
hy short wars and diplomacy are the means upon which he relies to aggrandise
himself."


250
[Aug.
The Peace—What is it T

reforms in the Papal States, a de-
ininKl for which Napoleon made the
pretext for his quarrel with Austria.
Lomhard? has heen aunexed to Sar-
dinia; hut the very mauner in which
this has heen done shows how impe-
riously Napoleon III. deals with that
"Italian liherty" of which it suited
hun to assume the championship.
One might have thought that the
extremely sensitive regard for liherty
which hrought Napoleon and his
army across the Alps, would have
shown itself hy consulting the wishes
of the Lomhards and others in re-
gard to their future government.
Nothing of the kind happened.
Lomhardy was handed over hy
Francis Joseph to Napoleon III.,
who in turn made a present of it to
the King of Sardinia, Moreover, in
what condition is this gift when thus
presented! It is a garden without
a wall, it is a territory without a
frontier. Or, to express the truth
still more exactly, it is a garden
hounded hy a wall and gateways
which helong to another and un-
friendly proprietor. Venetia still
helongs to Austria, and with it the
famous quadrilature of Austrian
fortresses which dominate Lom-
hardy from the east, Not only the
strongholds of Verona ami Leg n ago,
hut the fortresses of Mantua ami
l\'M'liicea. which stand actually in
the middle of the houndary-stream
of the Mincio, remain in the posses-
sion of the Austrians; while Lom-
hardy is tbroughout a level plain,
without a single fortress that can
stand :i siege, or any natural harriers
that could ohstruct the advance of
an army. Napoleon III. has too
perfect a coup-d'oeil, alike in military
and political matters, not to have
heen perfectly aware of the defence -
lessues> of the gift which he thus
made to Sardinia. But in all respects
it hest suited him to make the
aggrandisement of Sardinia suhject
to this great drawhack. Not only
was the retention of these fortresses
hy Austria indispensahle to that
early close of the war which Napo-
leon had in view from the first; hut
hy handing over Lomhardy to Sar-
dinia without any frontier-hulwarks,
he renders Sardinia even more de-
pendent upon France than hefore.
"The union of Lomhardy to Pied-
mont," says the Emperor in his
address to his army, "creates for us
on this side of the Alps a powerful
ally, who will owe to vs his indepen-
dence.'' This is the simple truth.
The new Lomhardo-Sardinian king-
dom is nothing more than an outpost
of France, dependent upon France
for its existence, and tbrough which
French arms and influence may ad-
vance to other conquests, whether
military or diplomatic.
It has ever heen the policy of the
new Napoleon to impress the world
with an idea of his great moderation.
The vivid recollection which Europe
has of his Uncle's insatiahle amhition
and career of conquest has hitherto
heen the most formidahle ohstacle to
the Nephew's success. Hence, since
ever he attained the supremo power
in France, it has heen his grand aim
to ohliterate those recollections, and
to disarm the suspicions of Europe.
Hence his ostentatious declarations
that "the Empire is peace,"—that
"the age of conquests is past,"—
"woe to him who shall first interrupt
the peace of Europe!" <fcc &c. By
these and other means he succeeded
in impressing a considerahle portion
of the European, and especially of
the British, puhlic with the helief
that ho was essentially a man of
peace, who was thankful to he ahle
to keep possession of his own tbrone
without disturhing the possessions of
his neighhours,—and that, to use his
own pbrase, all his conquests were to
he at home, in improving the Insti-
Uitions and developing the resources
of France. Having consolidated his
power, however, he now finds himself
strong enough to emerge from his no-
viciate, and to hegin to realise those
schemes of amhition which he has long
meditated in secret. Yet now more
than ever will he seek to surround him-
self with the prestige of moderation.
And it is not a mere hypocrisy,—it is
I policy. Ho knows that nowadays
it is impossihle to make conquests in
the old style. To have openly an-
nexed an Italian province to France
would, to use Talleyrand's phrase,
have heen "worse than a crime—it
would have heen a fault," At the
outset of his plans for remodelling
the map of Europe, it hecomes him



1859.]
251
The Peate— What is it t
to he especially careful in his proceed-
ings. After the new system is fairly
set agoing, hy Russia and Anuria
appropriating provinces of Turkey,
the rounding of .France hy the an-
nexing of Savoy and the R'lenish
provinces will appear a small matter.
But moderate as Napoleon III. pro-
fesses to he, and makes a show of
heing, at present as regards this
Italian war, Europe will he far wrong
if it helieves his version of matters.
France has given Lomhardy to Sar-
dinia, and Sardinia will have to
pay to France the expenses of the
war. And for these expenses Napo-
leon III. will have taken a hond
over Savoy, or perhaps over the
island of Sardinia,—the latter an
acquisition which Italy would not
grudge, and which, standing along-
side of Corsica, would greatly aug-
ment the pdwer of France in the
Mediterranean. Of all this Europe
will at present hear nothing. The
hond will only transpire when a con-
venient season has come for acting
upon it. Meanwhile Napoleon III.
will continue to proclaim to Europe
his extreme moderation, and his de-
sire to he on good terms with every
one—knowing this to he the hest
means for gradually working his way
to the goal of his amhition.
And meanwhile that amhition
works. At Villafranca it entered
upon a new phase. The first stage
of overt Napoleanism hegan with tho
fall of Sehastopol, when the French
Emperor succeded in gaining Russia
as a confidential ally and ahettor oi
his ulterior plans. In similar fashion
now, we helieve, he ends the Italian
war hy gaining over Austria to his side.
When the future historian descants
upon the matcbless skill of the Na-
poleonic policy, he will dwell long
npon the imperial moeting at Villa-
franca, and upon the secret negotia-
tions which attended the close of the
Crimean war. Therj is a striking
similarity in the policy of Napoleon
III. on these two occasions. In the
Crimean war he had in England an
ally as powerful as himself, and whose
wishes he conld not openly disre-
gard: therefore he resolved to carry
his point hy secret negotiations. On
the fall of Sehastopol, it was often
asked why the great army of the
Allies did not follow up its success,
when another victory must have in-
sured the destruction of the Russfen
army. That was precisely the reason
why it was not allowed to follow up
its success. Immediately on the fall
of Sehastopol, and when Pelissier
and the Allies were already extend-
ing their right wing to turn the Rus-
sian position on the heights of Trak-
tir, we helieve there is no douht that
secret orders from Paris caused the
movement to he recalled, and en-
joined the French Marshall to main-
tain the status quo. In truth the
Emperor had already hegan those
private conferences with Baron See-
hach, which resulted in the mission
of that diplomatist to St. Petershurg
with those secret overtures and pro-
mises from Napoleon which led the
Czur to assent to negotiations for
peace. The work thus hegun was
continued at Paris during the Confer-
ences, and wis completed hy the spe-
cial mission of Count de Morny to tho
Court of St. Petershurg. The result
we now see in the part which Russia
has taken in'supporting and covering
France in her present intervention
in Italy. This Italian war has heen
closed in the same manner as the
Russian one. As soon as success had
crowned the arms of France, and the
contest had reached the point where
a further prosecution of it would
have converted it into a war a Vou-
trance. Napoleon III. stopped short,
and was tlie first to make advances
for peace. Just as England, then at
length in good fighting order, and
clamorous for another campaigu,
found herself circumvented into
peace hy her ally after the fall of
Sehastopol, so has Sardinia, though
in style more imperious, heen forced
to pause in mid career now. Eng-
land had heen preparing for a grand
attack on the arsenals of Russia in
the Baltic, and for wise rensons
longed for the destruction of the
Russian fleet; Sardinia longs for the
formation of a United Italy, and the
total expulsion of Austria from the
peninsula. But Napoleon III. de-
sired neither of these ohjects, and in
hoth cases thwarted them. He de-
sired to make an ally of Russia, and
saw that the preservation of her
fleet was necessary to his future


252
[Aug.
The Peace—What u it f

plana, a~ a checkmate upon that of
Ei gland : in like mauner now, he de-
sires to make an ally of Austria also
in his ulterior projects, and sees that
hermainti nance in the Venetian ter-
ritory will comport well with his
plan for ex ending her at the ex-
pense of Turkey along the eastern
side of the Adriatic. This is the
hrihe hy which he lias reconciled the
proud young Kaisar to the loss of
I.omhardy. He has in confidence
opentd to him the second (and yet
uupuhlished) chapter of the Napo-
leonic policy,—-iri which is shown
how Austria may more than repair
her losses in Italy hy gains in north-
western Turkey—how the feud he-
tween Austria and her terrihle neigh-
hour Russia may at once he closed—
and how these Powers in alliance
with France may henceforth securely
make such revision of the European
Treaties as will henefit each of them,
and comport with the interests of
them all. in that room at Villa-
franca, Napoleon with diguified
courtesy would point out to his
hrother Emperor how little he asked
in order that the war might he
closed,—how that, after gaining two
great victories, ho was willing to ac-
cept the terms which, when proposed
hy Austria herself in 1848, Lord
Palmerston refused to listen to —and
that when his Lordship, now Pre-
mier of England, was openly declar-
ing his wish to see Austria entirely
expelled from Italy, he (Napoleont,
after all his successes, was content
that Austria should retain the whole
territory of Venice, with its impreg-
nahle hulwark of fortresses on the Min-
cio and Adige. Indiguant at his deser-
tion hy Prussia, and at the avowed hos-
tility of the iSritish <<"Vernment,Fran-
cis-Joseph would need little argument
to prove that henceforth it would he
hestfor him to leave these Powers to
look after themselves, and to seek
new provinces for himself, hy joining
•with Russia and France in tearing
up the treaties of 1815. Such we
helieve will prove to he the under-
standing upon which peace has heen
made hetween the French and Aus-
trian emperors at Villafranca. A
memorahle interview, which, though
the projects discussed at it may not
have heen of so sweeping a kind as
those of Tilsit, yet may take as en-
during a place in history, owing to
the greater prohahility of these pro-
jects heing successfully accomplished.
One most important change in the
course of the Napoleonic policy ma-
nifested in this Italian war is this,—
that he now assumes to himself the
championship of national liherty in
Europe. This will prove, especially
as regards the position of our rnvn
country, a fact of great consequence
in afl'eeting the future of European
politics. It is not a change (in the
ordinary sense of the word) in tho
Napoleonic, policy,—it is simply a de-
velopment of it. It is a farther step
in that far-seeing courso which the
reviver of Imperialism in France has
marked out for himself. Nor ought
it to have como upon Europe entirely
unexpectedly. A watchful ohserver
of tho conduct of Louis Napoleon
may mark this,—that hefore he ever
makes any of these sudden strokes
or developments of his policy which
so surprise the general puhlic of
Europe, he has previously lei fall (as
it were) sayings or declarations of
principle to which he can refer hack
in explanation and justification of
his-new course. These sayings are
dropped, as if hy the hye, in the
course of private conversations with
puhlic men, or in puhlic speeches, or
in those manifestoes of policy hy
which he so assiduously propitiates
the puhlic opinion of Europe. They
are not meant to attract notice at the
time, and when they occur in puhlic
manifestoes, they seem mere ohiter
aieta or rhetorical flourishes. But
Louis Napoleon never utters an un-
premeditated word, nor one which he
does not desigu to he of use to him
either at the moment or with an eye
to the future. Thus, in regard to the
present point, it is several years
since, in one of his manifestoes dur-
ing the Russian war, he introduced
the words, " The eyes of all who suffer
turn to France." And at the Con-
ferences at Paris tbree years ago, his
representative introduced the affairs
of Italy, without any view to imme-
diate action in the matter, hut with
a view to appropriate to himself the
grounoj, in case circumstances should
permit of his turning the Italian ques-
tion to account. We could point


1859.]
253
The Peace—Wuit i* it?

out other instances of the mauner
in which Napoleon paves the way
for plans which, at the time of his
speaking, have no ostensihle exist-
ence, and live only in the veiled re-
cesses of his own mind. But what
is more important at present is to
point out the mauner in which this
new phase of Napoleonism will af-
fect the position and influence of
England. England, as a military
Power, can play hut a small part in
the affairs of Europe. But hitherto
her moral power has heen very great.
Her rivals on the Continent are
despotic governments, all of them
more or less in dread of revolution-
ary movements in their own or .-id-
joining countries. England held the
mutch which could explode some of
those revolutionary volcanoes; and
once one of them is fairly in action,
there must ever he a great likelihood of
the others hlazing up too. This was
the sword of Damocles with which
Cauning once tbreatened the Conti-
nental Powers when they inclined
to carry matters against ns with a
high hand; and unquestionahly,
however loth to loso it, it has always
heen a weapon in our armoury which,
if pushed to extreuuties, we could
use with terrific force. Now the
case is somewhat changed. Napo-
leon, who knows the power of this
weapon hetter than any one, has
heen working successfully to get it
out of our hands. He caunot make
much use of it himself, hut he de-
sires to get it out of the hands of
England. However much he is our
friend and ally at present, he know>,
full well that his policy and ours
must clash in due time; and he
justly dreads to have such a weapon
turned against himself. A despot at
home, he seeks to reach his ends piece-
meal hy short wars, and hy flattering
hoth imperialism and democracy with-
out hreaking with either. And he
dreads exceedingly a general war,
which might hecome a war of opinions,
exciting the democracy of France and
imperilling his position, hy compel-
ling him to hecome the open foe either
of liherty or despotism.
This new phase of the Napoleonic
policy is amply expressed hy the
altered tone of the imperial manifes-
toes. For a long time the hurden of
these manifestoes was, "the Empire
is peace,"—'' tho age of conquests is
past,"—"woe to him who first disturhs
the peace of Europe!" Now it is
quite different. Napoleon III., in
his speech to, the Chamhers on Feh.
7, proclaimed that it is not only jus-
tifiahle hut hefitting on his part to go
to war, "for the defence of great na-
tional interests" (which, in another
document, are aunounced as compris-
ing "religion, philosophy, and civili-
sation"); and that "the interest of
France is everywhere where there is
a just cause, and where civilisation
ought to he made to prevail." And
in a Ministerial circular issued a few
days afterwards, the prefects were
instructed to apprise the journals
that the policy of his imperial Ma-
jesty of France "is ready to mani-
fest itself wherever the cause of jus-
tice and civilisation is to he assisted."
This is just the propagandism of the
Repuhlic of 1792, accommodated to
the ear of the present ago. Tho
championship of "justice and civili-
sation, religion and philosophy (!)," is
certainly as vague a progamme of
policy as ever was suhmitted to the
world. The words may mean no-
thing or everything. They may he a
mere rhetorical flourish, or a prospec-
tive declaration of war against every
Government in Europe—or anywhere
else. Europe will find that they do
not mean nothing,—and that the
vagueness is quite intentional on tho
part of his suhtle Majesty of France.
There is not anything in the actual
words which caunot he diplomatically
explained into nothinguess; and yet
they contain, and are meant to con-
tain, the germ of as many aggreeioni
upon other States as Napoleon may
find himself in a position to earn-
out. Will not the championship of
"civilisation" justify Napoleon in
supporting Russia and Austria in
aggrandising themselves at the ex-
pense of Turkey? Perhaps, also, of
incorporating Portugal, the ally of
England, with Spain, the friend of
Franco? Will not the plea of "jus-
tice" entitle him to attack Germany
in order to win for France the Iron-
tier of the Rhine, and to aim a hlow
at the maritime ascendancy of Eng-
land, hy demanding the cession of
Gihraltar to Spain, and of the Ionian


254
[Aug.
The Peace—What is it f

Islands to the possessor of the ad-
joining coast? Will not the defence
of "national rights" justify him in
siding with the Viceroy of Egypt
against the Sultan, and, in this way,
secure the. predominance of French
influence on the Isthmus of Suez?
And as for "religion," will it not he
a plea for him seeking to excite re-
volt in Ireland, whenever it may suit
him to apply a hostile pressure to
Great Britain? Not that he cares a
straw for the Catholics of Ireland;
hut he would make a tool of them
for the moment in order to concuss
the British Government more expe-
ditiously into his terms. Just so did
he act in this late war, with respect
to Kossuth and the Hungarians. We
never thought that a man of Kos-
suth's calihre could have so hefooled
himself. He has heen thorougbly
duped hy the French Emperor, and
has shown himself hat a child when
face to face with this new Napoleon,
—who used him for tbree hrief
months, then tossed him aside like
an old glove. Nor can we any longer
give to Kossuth even the trihute of
our pity. He was not only duped
himself, hut he made himself an ac-
complice with Louis Napoleon in
duping this country. When the war
in Italy seemed approaching, Kos-
suth opened communications with
the French Emperor (a man whom
he had always hated and puhlicly
reviled); and as the first mode of
turning him to account, Napoleon
got him to travel up and down Eng-
land, employing his eloquence in dis-
arming the suspicions of the English
puhlic, and in playing upon their
sympathies with liherty, with the
view of persuading us to look quietly
on while the Emperor commenced his
game of tearing up the Treaties of 1815,
and driving in the wedge hy which
• he hopes to split up Europe to his
liking. We repeat it, Kossuth, while
hefooling himself, has entirely for-
feited the sympathy of Englishmen.
His own private letters to friends in
this country (recently puhlished in
the newspapers) show that he had
great misgivings as to the intentions
of the French Emperor. But in
spite of this, ho did not hesitate, at
the hidding of the latter, to make
himself a tool of the French policy,
hy delivering a series of lectures and
addresses in England in favour of
the Italian war. When one foreiguer
at the hidding of another foreiguer—
when a Hungarian exile to please
Napoleon III., sets himself to inter-
fere with our private concerns, and
avails himself of the sympathy we
have so freely granted him as a
means of secretly playing into the
hands of a foreigu potentate, we
have done with him. As for his
treatment hy the Emperor Napoleon,
what else could he expect? He had
persistently reviled the Emperor as
a puppet and a villain; and when
he went to take service under him,
he could only have done so with the
intention of making him a tool.
Instead of that, it was himself who
was made the victim. The result
showed that Kossuth, with all his
ahility and eloquence, was hut as
an infant in the hands of the extra-
ordinary man who rules France, and
who now holds in his power the
fortunes of Europe. Even from this
little fact we can afford to learn a
lesson: for never until the old popu-
lar ideas of Louis Napoleon are dis-
placed, and until the British puhlic
recoguises in him one of the most
powerful and suhtle intellects that
the world has ever seen—a man
gifted with tho power of calculation
that amounts to prescience, joined
to a hand that never flinches and a
tongue that never reveals,—never,
we say, until the British puhlic so
learns to appreciate this new Napo-
leon, will it he possihle for our Gov-
ernment to cope with his policy,
and make head against those new
comhinations which will date their
hirth from the momentous inter-
view at Villafranca.



-
BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. DXXVII.
SEPTEMBER 1850.
Vol. LXXXVI.
HORSE-nEALING IN SYRIA, 1854.
A bright hlue sea with small leap-
ing waves ; a cloudless sky ; and small
rugged islands rising all around, some
showing against the hlue sky mere
*ilhouettet of pearly grey; some fainter
still; some nearer, catching the sun-
shine on their jutting points, and
displaying a mass of harren rocks
covered, as if hy landslips, with frag-
ments of hroken stone and ruhhish;
no verdure, no cultivation; and, ex-
cept once where a strange <lead-look-
ing white town, more resemhling a
collection of white fragments of rock
than an ahode of men, was seen
perched on the top of a high hill,
no sigus of life. So showed the
"Isles of Greece," as we looked on
them from the deck of the " Emperor"
of Hull, on the afternoon of the 9th
May 1854.
Myself and my companion, the
latter the principal and myself the
assistant in a horse-purchasing ex-
pedition sent into Syria hy the Brit-
ish authorities previous to the inva-
sion of the Crimea, had emharked
at Constantinople two days hefore.
After heing delayed hy the commis-
sariat, who were required to, and of
course had not, come down with a
certain amount of cash hy an ap-
pointed time, we had got on hoard
hy half-past 9 p.m. on the 7th; had
VOL. LXXXVL 17
reached the Dardanelles the next
night at an hour at which, according
to all rule and regulation, we ought
to have heen fired into if we at-
tempted to pass; had run the gaunt-
let, justly confident in the propensity
of Turkish hatteries to fire at nothing
that they ought to fire at; and, at
the moment indicated in the hegin-
ning of this chapter, found ourselves
steaming pleasantly down the Archi-
pelago.
To a man fresh from dirty Con-
stantinople and filthy Widdin, the
change was a pleasant one. The
"Emperor," huilt and long used as a
passenger ship of high class, had a
gorgeous papier-mache" saloon; sleep-
ing-cahins with marhle wash-hand
hasins gushing water mysteriously
at the touching of a spring; clean
sheets; port-wine that made one
think one's-self in an English mess-
room; a remarkahle assortment of
Yorkshire hams; a captain from
Bridlington; a steward from Hull;
"Hull" painted on every hoat; and
hroad Yorkshire talked all over the
ship. Though only temporarily at-
tached to her Majesty's service, she
carried out rigorously that maxim of
international law which says that a
ship of war is an extension of the
territory to which she helongs. She
J& .


256
[Sept-
Horse-Dealing in Syria, 1854.

was an extension of the East Riding
of Yorkshire; unspeakahly refreshing
after a winter's residence amongst
those hogs of Turks!
With u profound respect for the
many good qualities which one can-
not hut acknowledge in the Turks, I
always find myself instinctively, and
hefore my first impulse is tempered
hy reflection, qualifying them hy some
such pleasant epithet as that.
Next morning when I came on
deck I found that we were anchoring
in the gulf of Iskenderoon, a deep
hay of little heauty, except such as
it derived from its calm hlue and
purple water. Of the town of Isken-
d Toon or Alexandretta—a congrega-
tion of harn-like houses with red-
tiled roofs, occupying a little, nasty,
green, swampy-looking hottom delv-
ing into the range of high, hroken,
harren hills that skirt the sea—the
most remarkahle circumstance that
I am ahle to relate is the fact that a
Christian man of sound mind could
he got for any sum of money to live
in it. There was one there—the
British Consul—and we went to see
him.
A concourse of a score or so of
Mn-sulmans and a few dirty Franks
awaited our approach. As we scram-
hled out of our hoat we found our-
selves instantly opposed hy two of
the former, one of whom was armed
with a pair of tongs and the other
with a stick, with which they strove
in the first instance to "fend off"
ourselves, and failing in that, to fend
off from us the hy-standers, upon
whom they hestowed progs and digs
and taps on the hack in a summary
mauner. The reason, it appeared,
mi this: Alexandretta is frightfully
unhealthy—so deadly, in fact, that
navigation hooks warn "mariners"
that if they stop there to refit they
may reckon upon losing one-third of
their crew. Under these circum-
stances the people of Alexandretta,
thinking (or their governors thinking
for them) that it would he too had
to have foreigu maladies added to
those already indigenous, have es-
tahlished a strict quarantine, in ohe-
dience to the laws of which they
were thus poking one another away
from us as though our contact would
have hrought on a crisis of that
jungle fever from which I helieve
they suffer. As for us, we marched
on resolutely, forming as we moved
the nucleus of a sharp skirmish he-
tween the quarantine men and the
hy-standers, the latter closing round
us to stare, and the former rushing
in all directions administering cor-
rection with the tongs and stick.
At last the guardians of the puhlio
health succumhed, and left us to
carry contagion wherever we pleased.
To the hest of my helief, however,
the people of Alexandretta caught
nothing from us. I have never heard
that they have heen found talking
Yorkshire, using clean sheets, or
washing themselves, any more than
they did hefore we went there.
There is one noteworthy thing at
Iskenderoon. On the far side of the
hay, just visihle from the windows
of the consul's house, might he seen
what looked to me like the dilapi-
dated hrick or stone gate-posts of a
ruined Irish gateway, with a low
"stone gap "* hetween them, rising,
at no great distance from the water's
edge, from the stony shingly hase of
the mountains that skirt the sea.
This, it appears, marks the precise
8lX>t where Jonah was cast up hy the
whale.
Far away out to sea, a headland
shows low and dim in the distance.
Rising gradually as it approaches,
with the rihs and angles of its hlack
rocky summits peeping tbrough the
suow, it hears straight on till the sea
ceases to wash its hase, and then,
away inland, gradually sinks from
sight. At an angle with this a low
ridge, green as from a mass of trees
or sbruhs, and scarped at hase into a
line of low cliffs, juts out to sea. A
scattering, gradually thickening to a
cluster, of white and yellow houses,
hot and flaring under the hlazing sky,
hreaks the green line of the lesser
ridge, and finds passage tbrough a dip
in the cliff' down to the edge of the
hlue water. This is Beyrout.
Beyrout possesses two ruined forts,
memorials, they say, of an English
homhardment; a stone quay of small
A loose stone wall stopping what, hut for it, would he a gap.


1869.]
257
Horse-Dealing in Syria, 1854.

dimensions, suited to the commerce
of hum-hoats; and dirt'' little ha-
zuars, and Turks, and Franks, and
stinks, and coffoe-houses, and every-
thing else hefitting an Oriental town.
It chiefly pleaded me hecause it dis-
played all these properties in a some-
what mitigated form. I think that
it is perhaps the least Oriental, and
therefore the least intolerahle town
that I know in the Turkish domin-
ions. ^
On the morning of the 14th May,
myself, my companion, an Italian
horse-dealer whom we had picked
up as interpreter, stud-groom, and
general assistant, and his servant,
mounted on horses that we had
hought in Beyrout, were toiling along
high up on the steep path that picks
its way up the rugged face of the
overhanging range of Lehanon. I
must try to give an idea of the view
that hreaks upon you here at every
turn. Mulherry groves rise all
around, springing from terraces
worked for their reception over the
mountain's face; and from out their
sun-checkered shade, the eye, rang-
ing out into a hrilliant atmosphere,
first rests on a mountain village—its
flat-topped houses looking in the dis-
tance mere cuhes of yellow stone—
lurched on a rounded point that
peeps ahove the surrounding foliage;
then, gazing yet heyond, catches grey
distant ridges of the Lehanon. This
is the world you are in; hut far
helow lies another world. Wide
and yet wider as you mount, the
deep purple-hlue expanse of sea
spreads out heneath you—not the
hlue strip you look on from a heach,
hut a far stretching sheet of deep
yet hrilliant lustre, specked with a
white dot, the canvass of a far-off
ship; with the horizon-line so high,
so hazy, and so distant, that hut for
its deep tinge, sea might hardly he
told from sky. How it gleams in,
tbrough a hreak in the mulherries!
It almost makes one think that here,
up in these mulherry shades of Leha-
non, is the Happy Land where, hop-
ing nothing, fearing nothing, strug-
gling for nothing, doing nothing, one
might he content, gazing upon that
sea and tbrough that sky, to sit, and
gaze, and rest in peace for ever.
The houses met with in these
mountain villages are of very simple
construction. Across four plain
stone walls are laid some large rough
timhers; these, covered with a deep
layer of earth, form a flat terrace-*
like roof, to which access is given hy
a series of projecting stones planted
as steps in the outer face of one of
the walls. One, which we entered to
get hreakfast, was very clean and
neat; and all had an air of comfort
which contrasted strongly with the
appearance of the miserahle and
filthy Wallaohian and Bulgarian huts
that formed the last specimens I had
met with of the rural ahodes of the
Turkish Empire. The inhahitants,
too, were very different from any of
the Christian suhjects of Turkey
whom I had hitherto seen. The
Maronites—I offer the following in-
formation, in full confidence that an
enlightened puhlic has no clearer
idea of them than that they are al-
ways quarrelling with the Druses—
are a large trihe occupying parts of
the Lehanon; Arah in language;
Roman Catholic in religion; not un-
warlike in character; and possessed,
I helieve, of an amount of independ-
ence that entitles them to he called
a free people. In outward appear-
ance they are not to he distinguished
from the other trihes of the country,
hut show a much greater disposition
to he civil to Franks than is evi-
denced hy the Mussulmans, and sel-
dom pass one without saluting hy
laying the hand first on the hreast
and then on the forehead. They
have the reputation of heing the
greatest rascals in Syria—a character
which can scarcely have heen fixed
on them hy any one who had enjoyed
the advantage of an acquaintance
with the Bedouins; hut no matter-
rogue or honest, they are free, and
carry a different atmosphere with
them from that which surrounds the
well-kicked peasants of Turkey in
Europe. One never knows what
freedom means til! one has seen those
who are not free. Oh, the virtue
that there is in heing free, if only to
go to the devil one's own way! A
nation can never sink itself so deep
into his realms as a conqueror can
trample it.
As we ascended yet higher the


258 Horse-Dealing in Syria, 1854. [Sept.

mulherry plantations grew scarce, works on to you and makes yon
though they still, together with little sticky too, communicate a sympa-
plotsofcorn, struggled to hold their thetic heat and weariness. And as
ground wherever a vein of fertile the ascent grew yet steeper a new
earth gave them the chance. Pine trihulation assailed me, and I got
.trees, usually small and stunted, crasser still. My heast was of the
hegan to appear, mingled with grey trihe called "herring-gutted," and
crags; and then the cultivation dis- no kind of girthing would keep his
appeared, and next the pine trees saddle where it ought to he. Half
vanished; and then we found our- my time was spent in replacing it,
selves in a region of wild white grey the other half in hanging on to the
crags hroken into fantastic forms, mane till the saddle, gradually work-
and covering the ground far and ing its way hack, oscillated on the
near with their crumhled fragments, very point of the croup, and made
Cliffs and towers of grey rock stood instant evacuation indispensahle,
out against the sky; and a deep All this time the horse-dealer's Ma-
gorge, with a torrent dashing down ronite servant, a squalling, scream-
it, presented a perpendicular cleft ing, exclamatory kind of man, was
whose sides were lined with wild riding in my rear and addressing to
forms of the same cold grey stone, me expostulations in Arahic and
Large glacier-like patches, yet un- Italian, none of which I understood
melted, of the suow which, just ahove further than to know that they con-
ns, covered the very summits of the veyed those exhortations and re-
Lehanon, stretched across our path proofs which people are fond of ad-
and crunched under our horses' dressing to one for something that
feet; while little dashing streams of one can't help and would he only
suow-water were pouring down in too glad to avoid if possihle; while
all directions. And here, amongst I, in the intervals of my struggles,
these wild mountain-tops, at ahout execrated the tiresome noodle oft' the
seven hours' march from Beyrout, stern of my horse in a style which I
we took our last look at the Medi- must hope conveyed to him some at
terranean, now scarcely distinguish- least of the sentiments that animated
ahle from the sky, so faint and hazy me. This little dispute was finally
in the distance had it grown, so ended hy my saddle giving a hack-
streaked hy clouds which, tbrown ward elide which only just allowed
heneath its horizon-line hy the eleva- me time to scramhle out of it hefore
tion from which we looked on them, it went fairly over the tail. Happily
appeared to rest upon its surface, at this crisis I was inspired with a
Then, turning the ridge, we com- hright idea. I girthed the saddle
meneed our descent. hy one girth and passed the other
All this time, no matter how this round the horse's chest hy way of
glorious view might spread itself hreast-hand. This device produced
hefore me, I was extremely cross, a hewailing squall from my friend
Every now and then I pulled up my the Maronite, who was justly indig-
horse on some commanding promi- nant at seeing a girth applied as
nence, and, whilo he took wind, neither he nor his fathers had ever
cooled myself down and waked to seen a girth applied hefore; hut
the heauty that was around; and nevertheless it kept me on my horse's
then, as he renewed his toilsome hack, and hrought me, hot, wrathful,
scramhle up the steep path, relapsed and higbly desirous of kicking the
into heat and fnme,—just as in the Maronite, to the summit of the
wanderings of fever one struggles pass.
up to a momentary consciousuess Our downward road was short
of where one is, and imperceptihly and easy. At no great distance
glides hack again into the same ill helow, the plain of Baalhee, a hroad
dream. The straining, the fagging, valley, checkered with cultivated
the stumhling of a tired horse up patches of hright green or hrown,
such a path as this, the clammy wound its way hetween the heights
sweat that makes him damp and we stood on and the harren suow-
sticky, and that in course of time sprinkled ranges, of the Auti-Le-


1869.]
259
Hor*e-Dealing in Syria, 1854.

hanon. At the foot of the nearer
slope, in a narrow ravine which
dinted the mountain-side and wound
down to the plain helow, lav our
halting-place, the Maronite village,
or, as one might almost call it, town
of Zacbleh, surrounded hy vineyards
of trailing vine-plants, and prettily
overhanging a small river, which,
cool and grey in the shadow of a
dense poplar grove, rushed and rip-
pled over its shallows like an Eng-
lish trout-stream.
Close to Zacbleh stands a great
ohject of Mussulman veneration and
pilgrimage,—Noah's tomh. A long
low ridge of mortar or stucco tra-
verses the whole length of the floor
of a long and very narrow apart-
ment in a poor-looking house. Noah
lies heneath. His precise height, as
we are told hy the venerahle Mus-
sulman that guards the tomh, was
40 arshoon or ells. His figure (if
wo nmy assume that his hreadth as
well as length is indicated hy the
mound raised over him) was exactly
that of a gas-pipe.
If anything could, hy force of con-
trast, make Damascus heautiful, it
would he the road that leads to it.
Early on the 16th May we left Zach-
leh. Away, heyond the plain of Bual-
hec and the mountains that hound its
further side—neither plain nor moun-
tain heautiful—we wound, hy a nar-
row track, tbrough a grim pass
whose sides, oumhered with great
houlders and fragments of rock that
strewed even to the very centre of
the defile, rose steeply on each hand
to a crest of great jagged hlocks of
strange form, that fused in the centre
of the pass into huge grey cliff-like
masses. Then we emerged into har-
ren hrush-wood tufted hills, inter-
sper-*<l with small dried-up seruhhy-
herhed plains, wild, hut devoid of
heauty. It was a dreary scene, and
a weary ride. The sky was clouded,
gloomy, and dusty, with hlack and
white vultures sailing in it. The
heat was great, and a high wind
hlew, cooling nothing, hut raising
clouds of dust. Looking hack from
any one of the eminences we were
slowly creeping over, we heheld a
dreary panorama of hrown hill-tops,
ridge heyond ridge, their dull colour
varied only hy one ohain of gritty
white. No sooner were we over one
dusty hill than we were on to another
dustier; no sooner quit of one desolate
plain than into another, where we
jogged and jogged away without the
rearward hills appearing to recede
or the further to approach. Some-
times we passed slow-pacing drovi-s
of laden camels, accompanied hy
their little woolly camel-colts. Be-
yond these and the vultures, I re-
memher no living things.
At last, looking hetween two hrown
haked hill-tops, which, stretching
widely apart light and left, formed,
as it were, the lwrtals to something
heyond, we perceived helow us a wide
plain, hounded on the one side hy
the heights on which we stood, on
the other hy a chain of distant moun-
tains, slanting away to the left till
lost in the dull haze. Nearer, at the
hase of the hills from which we gazed,
lay a wide expanse of daikgreeu
foliage, whose richness was dimin-
ished hy a grey cast given to it, as
we afterwards found, hy the plentiful
admixture of a certain white-leaved
tree. Winding tbrough this wood, in
a direction parallel to the valley's
oourse, appeared a streak of green
sward; and in the centre oj' all rose
a distant mass of white huildings,
domes, and minarets—Damascus.
Pretty, hut uo more; to me, at
least, decidedly disappointing. Mo-
hammed looked on it and turned
aside, saying that one paradise was
all that could he allowed to man.
The last French writer of rodomon-
tades pronounces it something the
plus fierique that the mind of
man can conceive. Puhlic opinion,
intermediate hetween those two ex-
tremes, has given the same verdict.
I confess to a provoking faculty of
disappointment in everything that I
have heard praised heforehand. I
may have heen hilious when I saw it.
Kim hilir?—who knows?
Damascus was once famous for hig-
otry and a ferocious spirit of intoler-
ance. This spirit has left the human
inhahitants, or at least its manifesta-
tions have heen checked hy a grow-
ing dread of the European power, and
hy the influence of the European
consuls; hut it survives in full force


260
[Sept.
Horse-Dealing in Syria, 1854.

amongst the dogs. When we entered
the town we had a hlack Syrian grey-
hound with us; and the appearance
of this unfortunate animal was the
sigual for a general rising of the whole
dog population. Every street in Da-
mascus swarms with ours, and all
the curs in the street were on him at
once, wiih a tumult of yelling and
harking that was really stuuning.
Their hehaviour was curiqusly like
that of men mohhing somehody. Al-
though they were in force enough to
have eaten him hodily, and left no
trace hehind, and apparently all ani-
mated hy the most rancorous feel-
ings, no one animal could make up
his mind regularly to "go in" at him;
hut, hanging on his heels, they all
made savage rushes and suaps which
just fell short, and never that I saw
achieved anything more deadly than
getting hold of the long hair of his
fringed tail; the victim all the time
trotting along with the most thorough-
ly demiss aspect, sometimes, in ex-
tremity, rescuing his tail hy a suap
at the assailant. What his fate
might have heen, if he had heen alone,
I do not know; as it was, we were
engaged during the whole of our pro-
gress in hringing him off hy riding
over his persecutors. It is not easy,
without having heard it, to imagine
the infernal nature of the uproar.
Every dog in the street, with a sharp,
steady, uuremitting hark, joined in
producing a din that fairly rang
tbrough one's head; and not only
was the tumult swelled hy every cur
at hand, hut we could hear it spread-
ing like wildfire into far streets,
where dogs, as yet unconscious of the
precise nature of the row, took up the
hark to show their watchful readi-
ness for whatever might turn up.
And so, clattering and slipping on
the narrow stones, wheeling round
for constant charges on the dogs, the
ohject of the clamour of the can-
ine, and the stares of all the human
population of Damascus, and the
centre of an ahsurd and vexatious
row that was really enough to drive
one crazy, we jostled tbrongh the
narrow hazuars, till in the "Street
called Straight," called to this day
the Strada Diritta hy the Franks, we
found peace and iced lemonade in the
II Hotel de Palmyre."
When a Mussulman town has ones
heen descrihed, it is not very easy to
descrihe another, except hy repetition.
All the minute shades of difference;
the greater or less picturesqueuess of
a hazasr; the greater or less filth of
a street; the more or less hlank
strangeness of the mud walls which
the houses present to the outer world;
all that so much gives or detracts
from interest in realitv, is not to he
conveyed hy words. So I shall at-
tempt no description of Damascus,
except of the shortest. Damascus
is perhaps more picturesque, more
thorougbly Oriental, than other East-
ern towns. I think, too, that perhaps
it stinks more. If it is not prejudice
on my part (founded perhaps on tho
proverh of their countrymen, whieh
says that every Damascene is a scoun-
drel), such insolent-looking, surly-
looking, or rascally-looking Mussul-
mans as the inhahitants — or such
Mu>sulmans comhining all tbree
looks—are rarely met with.
Damascus is not externally splen-
did, any more than any other Eastern
town of my acquaintance. Damascus
silks and Damascus hlades do not
pervade the scene as they ought. As
for the hlades, they scarcely exist.
Any amount you like can he shown
you, with the traces of time ou their
once gorgeous enamelled hdts—the
whole concern, including the traces
of time, made, I suspect, in Birming-
ham. But if you inquire spitefully
for the genuine article, you will meet
it only in rare instances, and pre-
served as an antiquity. Woven fahrics
there are, hut not of a satisfactory
nature. A numher were hrought to
us at our hotel, scarfs and what not,
the product of a manufactory helong-
ing to our landlord. They were
promising enough at first sight;
emhroidered all over with Arahio
sentences which I immediately pro-
posed to myself should mean Glory to
God and the Prophet! or some simi-
lar poesy of Arahiun Night-like cha-
racter, which the traveller on his
return from Moorish lands might
expound with applause and credit.
But when investigated, the legend
simply proved to he "Made hy Gero-
ninto"—hy our great, fat, good na-
tural, chuckle-headed Armenian
landlord,—a man of powerful frame
hut timorous spirit, hahited in a


1859.]
261
Horte-Dealing in Syria, 1854.

petticoat and long white stockings
like a great cookmaid, and possessed
with a great dread of the swaggering
fire-eating Mussulmans, who, he said,
drew swords on him if he so much as
winked at them.
However, if I could take hy the
scruff of the neck a friend thirsting
for Eastern romance, and, like the
Diahle Boiteux, fly with him whither
I would, I think that perhaps I would
land him in Damascus. He would
find, if no maguificence, at least pic-
turesque heauty in the lofty, com-
pletely-roofed streets, whose shaded,
chamher-like asptct gives a strange
theatrical air to the horsemen that
slowly ride tbrough the crowds he-
neath; and in the interior of Damas-
cus houses he would see one of the
very few things of the real East of
to-day that recall the East of poetry
—the East imagined in the childish
days and dreams, when
"The tide of time flow'd hack with me,
The forward-flowing tide of time;
And many a sheeny summer morn,
Adown the Tigris l was horne,
By Bugdat's sbrines of fretted gold,
iligh-wall'd gardens green and old;
True Mussulman was I and sworn,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alrasehid."
Splash, splash, the never-ceasing
water flows into the stone hasin in the
centre of the marhle floor. Bright
with helts of red, white, and hlue,
and pierced with windows tier ahove
tier, the lofty walls rise to a roof
hrilliant in a mosaic of red, hlue, and
gold. Without, a suuny stone-paved
court, with trees and tank, and water
jets splashing in the hot sunshine;
within, cool shade and calm unhroken
hut hy the cold dropping of the water,
as it may have heen in that enchanted
hall of the Alhamhra hefore its foun-
tain hegan to huhhle and to shape its
spray into the figure of the unfortu-
nate princess Zorahayda.
Fieas did not exist in the jolden
prime of Haroun Alrasehid. That
just Caliph, it is helieved, had decreed
a general cracking of them, and serve
them right too. But in these days
of decay and weakness they have
recovered themselves, and even in-
vade the stately chamhers I have just
heen descrihing. Night after night
I used to dust the sheets of my hed
with a Patent Infallihle Flea-destroy-
ing Powder, till I felt like a pulver-
ising fowl in the full exhihition of its
interesting instincts. The field in the
morning was found sprinkled with
the corpses of the slain ; hut they died
not unavenged—confound them I
We were received with great ci-
vility hy the Turkish authorities.
Even the old white-hearded Civil
Governor, said to he a dreadful old
fool and fanatic, put away his folly
and fanaticism (if he ever possessed
them) for the occasion, and was per-
fectly polite and reasonahle. The
first use to which we contrived to
turn their favourahle disposition was
a somewhat unfortunate one. Think-
ing that it would he convenient to
have a private place where wo might
try such horses as were hrought to us,
we got permission from the authorities
to use one of their harrack-yards for
that purpose and, next morning, when
several horses wero hrought to the
hotel door, told their masters to take
them to the harracks and wait for us.
The owners answered "very good,"
and straightway went—home, 1 sup-
pose. They certainly did not go to
the harracks, for when we arrived
there, neither horse nor man was
visihle.
We naturally inquired into the
reasons of this proceeding, and re-
ceived, in explanation, from a man
whose statement we could not douht,
the following short exposition of the
system upon which the Turks rule
Damascus. When soldiers are want-
ed, said our informant, and recruits
are scarce, a review is given. A
numher of ingenious manoeuvres are
executed hy the troops, which result,
first, in the spectators finding them-
selves enclosed in a square, and next,
in the ahle-hodied ones heing marched
off as conscripts to the Padisha's
army. When this device gets stale,
another measure is adopted, not cal-
culated, one would think, to promote
the hetter ohservance of the Sahhath
in Damascus; soldiers are sent to the
doors of the mosques to catch all
who may he inside. When this in
turn hegins to fail, and the Damas-
cenes will neither attend reviews
nor to to church, the authorities fall
hack on a plan of simple efficacy, and


262
[Sept
Hor*e-Deeding in Syria, 1854.

send soldiers to kidnap people in their
houses at night.
Such a paternal system of govern-
ment necessarily fosters and hrings
forth, on the part of the governed,
an astute and prudent spirit, to
whose suggestions (representing that
the proposed arrangement was a mere
trap for their horses) we now owed
the ahsence of our horse-dealers.
This misadventure made ns more
prudent, and ever after we made a
practice of pouncing at once upon
such horses as were hrought to us;
examining and trying them in front
of the hotel door, and tbrowing l1 j«_-
whole street into an uproar. The
ordinary course of the transaction
was something like the following:—
A numher of horses are hrought
to the hotel door and tethered hy
their masters right across the foot-
path. The ohstruction that results
is a matter of the smallest conse-
quence, for two reasons. In the first
place, to offer standing room for
every horse or donkey that anyhody
may want to tie up, is one of the re-
coguised functions of the Damascus
foot way; in the second, all possihle
inconvenience from hucIi a cause is
merged in the general hlockade of
the street that shortly follows.
Everyhody in Damascus is lazy and
inquisitive, and all the idlers in the
quarter are densely crowding round
our horses. Pushing, jostling, and
stretching their necks round the
quadrupeds; pressing with the most
intense curiosity round ourselves;
following and hampering every move-
ment with the closest scrutiny; pok-
ing inquisitive noses hetween our-
selves and every ohject of examina-
tion,—they constitute us and our pro-
posed purchases the isolated centre
of attraction to distinct circles, and
seem to see no reason why we should
ever he hrought into contact. In
short, they make themselves a nui-
sance which only one thing in the
whole world has the smallest influ-
ence in ahating; and that is, for a
horseman to prepare to show the
paces of his animal. Then, partly
to enjoy this, the crowning spectacle,
and partly to escape heing ridden
over, the moh presses itself hack in
two dense lines on the footpaths,
leaving clear the central horse-way,
a road so narrow that it frequently
gives harely room for two horsemen
to ride ahreast. To appreciate Da-
mascus horsemanship it is necessary
to understand Damascus streets. The
footpath, amongst its other curions
offices, holds that of general slaughter-
house. All the mutton in Dnmasens
is killed and skiuned there, and the
resulting filth comhines with various
other filths to grease the large smooth
slightly convex stones which pave
the street, and to render them as
slippery and dangerous a course as I
havo often ridden on. Reckless of
this, however, the rider, raising his
right arm ahove his head with a
half-ahsurd opera-dancing kind of
grace (a ceremony whose meaning I
do not understand, hut which seems
to he quite essential to acts of horse-
manship in Damascus), sticks in the
corners of his shovel stirrups and
dashes off at a furious kind of neutter,
to the alarm of any respectahle old
grey-hearded Turk who may find
himself hestriding a hare-hacked
donkey in the road; and then, pulling
his faor*e sharp on to his haunches,
comes into his goal sliding and slip-
ping, with the horse almost down
on his hocks in the effort to stop
himself suddenly on the slippery
stones. I never saw an accident
happen—an illustration of the lengths
to which perfect pluck and reck-
lessuess will carry a man success-
fully. "Foids rush in where angels
fear to tread," and get tbrough too,
while the cautions angel sits
pounded on the wrong side of the
fence.
The action of the Oriental horse
which 1 have descrihed hy the word
ncutter is a curious one. It is the
result of an effort to comhine speed
with readiness to ohey instantly the
check of the powerful hit; and
resemhles somewhat the spasmodic
scurry in which a cat dashes at
its prey.
Kalesh Bey, a Turkish gentleman,
out of pure kindness, was moved to
assist us in procuring horses, and,
as the first step in that direction,
offered us some of his own. He was
a smooth-faced man, with a long
hooked nose and a retreating chin,
wearing the usual dress of the mo-



1859.]
268
Horn-Dealing in Syria, 1854.
dern Turkish Bey—a stupendously
ill-made coat and trousers, the latter
professedly of European cut, hut
very loose and wonderfully shapeless,
and rehelling against the straps
which endeavoured to confine them
under the hoot, hy sticking out over
the foot in strange folds, reminding
one of an ill-furled sail. He was
never without a rosary of heads in
his hands. Prayerful man! The
modes in which he tried to swindle
us were various. He did not suc-
ceed. I am proud to think that
amongst his sweet experiences was
not vouchsafed to him that of leg-
ging the infidel on this particular
occasion; hut he tried hard. Pro-
ducing a horse which, viewed with
retVrence to the numher of legs it
had fit for work, might he called a
hiped, ho sought to convince us of
its soundness hy as stout a hit of
lying as a considerahle experience in
horse-dealing has jet hrought under
my notice. It is interesting to oh-
serve how in all parts of the world
the true gentleman is the same!
The chief distinction that I have
heen ahle to draw hetween the Ori-
ental and the Englishman in respect
of horse-dealing is that the former,
with the prejudice which leads all
nations to underrate foreiguers,
gauges your folly and gullihility
coarsely and clumsily, and so hetrays
himself into ahsurdly transparent
rogueries, which your esteemed coun-
tryman, with the high feeling which
di>tinguishes him, knows hetter than
to "try on."
I had the honour of assisting at a
wedding held in the house of a Jew
merchant of the middle class. I
made my appearance at the place of
entertainment in great state, arrayed
in a wodding garment the like where-
of, I flatter myself, is not commonly
seen in those parts—the stahle-jacket
of the —th Hussars—and preceded
hy two of the consular cavasses, who
strutted hefore me with great silver-
headed sticks. The open court-yard
which, as usual with Damascus
houses, occupied the centre of the
huilding, was musical, as I entered,
with the violent drummings and
twiddlings of four native musicians
who sat perched on a raised hench
under a small tree, in a style which
reminded me of a picture I once used
to study of the Kirds' Orchestra fid-
dling at the wedding of Cock Rohin
and Jeuny Wren, and was filled with
guests and spectators, including a
large party of Turkish women in their
sbroud-lik' white garments who,
clustering together at the far side of
the tank and mingling with none of
the others, looked on apart. Pass-
ing tbrough this tbrong, I entered
the reception-room. It was a mode-
rate-sized apartment of Damascus
fashion, with the floor of the iuner
half raised ahove the level of the
entrance so as to form a kind of
sanctum, around the tbree sides of
which ran a low divan. Seated on a
chair placed on this divan, and
appuyi against the centre of the
liriek wall of the room just opposite
to the entrance, was what appeared
to he a stiff painted ship's figure-
head, towering ahove everything else
like an idol on an altar. Around
hut lower down, occupying the divan,
squatted a party of Mayday chimney-
sweeps, figged out in all their finery.
That, at least, was the first impres-
sion produced; the real fact was
that the figure-head was the hride,
and the chimney-sweeps her lady
friends—all the heauty and fashion,
in fact, of the Jewish portion of
Damascus. This, however, did not
dawn on ray weak mind for some
time, for I was so perplexed hy the
astonishing nature of the vision; so
additionally confused hy heing in-
stantly presented to all the hig-wigs
of the estahlishment, to whom I
howed right and left, in a state of
ohfuscation which left me for the
moment no clear discrimination he-
tween sixteen years in paint and
petticoats and suuffy sixty in a heard
and turhan, that I did not at first
feel myself capahle of any investiga-
tion into the phenomenon, hut turned
all that remained of my faculties to
lowering myself gingerly on to the
low divan. This was not easy.
English trousers at the hest are ill
adapted to the performance. Mine,
unhappily, were unduly tight, and in
the struggle I carried away a hutton,
fortunately concealed in part hy my
waistcoat. Even when fairly down
I made had weather of it. The divan


264
[Sept.
Bor*e-Dealing in Syria, 1854.

1s hroad and very low. The natives,
male and female, sit perched upon it
with their legs coiled under them:
the Englishman, whose legs mid
trousers alike oppose themselves to
such a proceeding, may sit on the
edge till he hreaks his hack for want
of something to lean against, or may
push himself kick for the support of
the trail, and then finds his unhend-
ahlo legs ahsurdly presented straight
to the front like two pieces of artil-
lery,—in which last position I was
waited upon, according to Jewish
etiquette, hy the ladies of the house-
hold, and received a long pipe, and
lemonade, and candied sweetmeats
perplexing to handle, and a small
"go" of a pale pink liqueur which I
must say was nasty, at the hands of
damsels each one more extraordinary
than the other.
Tluro is a great deal that is grace-
ful in the dre>s of the Jewish women.
A silk or satin jacket, open in front,
shows a quantity of fine lace or
mu-lin covering the hreast; the
sleeves, moderately tight, are cut
open at the wrist and hang loose,
together with a flood of lace repre-
senting, I suppose, an interior sleeve.
A long straight petticoat (perhaps
there exists a slit up its front which
might, in the eye of the scientific zoo-
logist, rank it in an aherrant group
of the great family of coat-tails), of
very rich materials, white and gold,
hlue and gold, and the like, without
gather and without a trace of crino-
line, flows straight down to the
ground, unhroken hy flounce or other
ornament. Round the waist, so low-
hung as just to catch on the hips,
a large rich sash is twisted in one
heavy fold; and heneath all, when
the petticoat happens to rise, peep
out voluminous muslin trousers and
tnrned-up yellow slippers. So far
nothing could he hetter; hut here all
heauty ends. The lady's face is
simply frightful. The eyehrows are
clean eradicated, and in their place,
hut taking a course which no real
eyehrow could have followed, a thick
hard line of the deadest hlack paint
is drawn in a tremendous arch, he-
giuning in the little pit that forms
tie junction of nose and forehead,
and ending heaven knows where he-
yond the opposite corner of the eye.
Inside and outside, the edges of the
eyelids are hlackened, so as to form a
deep smudged horder all round; and
from the outer corner of the eye the
paint is carried out in a thick line,
intended, no douht, to increase the
apparent length of the opening. The
head-dress is worthy of the head. Its
groundwork is something resem-
hling a large fez with an excessively
long tassel. Round this is folded a
handkerchief or scarf, much after the
fashion of French tamhourine-women;
and over this again, wherever there
is room to stick them, flowers, dia-
monds, sprigs of pearl, and incon-
gruous decorations of every kind, are
dotted higgledy-piggledy, in a Style
which reminds one of au entomolo-
gist's sheet of cork with hutterflies
piuned on it. Little plaits of hair,
iooped up in divers directions, flow
from heneath; and a regular cataract
of tails, each equal in maguitude to
that of a cow, comes down hehind,—
all, I was told, of false hair, in the
rase at least of the married women.
Jewish proprieties in Damascus for-
hid a married woman to show a
particle of her own hair, so she
shows somehody else's.
But the spectacle of spectacles was
the hride. Her dress, in general
style much what I have descrihed,
VII of course as splendid as her
friends could make it. She was
covered with a long and perfectly
transparent veil. Round her neck
and descending into her lap was a
series of gold chains, some of them
with gold coins attached, so numer-
ous as to form something like a
hreastplate of chain armour. Her
hands were completely covered with
a hlack pattern produced hy caustic,
the hack heing stamped with a small
figure such as might he printed on
culioo, and the fingers ringed with the
same colouring till they looked like
nasty suakes. She sat perfectly
motionless, slightly leaning hack in
her chair, her eyes closed and her
hands in her lap. This deportment, I
was told, was symholical of modes-y.
The effect, as I said hefore, was that
of a ship's figure-head. If the Mary-
Aun of North Shields were to in-
dulge in a representation of herself
in a state of virgin hashfnlness, exe-
cuted hy the ship's carpenter with an


1859.]
2M
Hone-Dealing in Syria, 1864.

unlimited allowance of paint and
gilding, the result would he not un-
like this Jewish hride.
After a considerahle pause, occu-
pied in the reception of fresh guests,
and hroken hy the solemn entranoe
of the hridegroom's mother at the
head of a column of ladies utter-
ing sbrill cries not unlike view-hollas
—we were marshalled into a great
open alcove adjoining the court. The
hridegroom was now hrought on
the scene. He was an underhred-
looking young man with a fez,
a downy trace of a mustache, and
a long purple-crocus-coloured gown,
and looked the higgest fool I ever
saw in my life. Along with him ap-
peared the efficiatisg Rahhis, tbree
or four in numher, fat clerical per-
sons in turhans and dark gowns,
who, taking their stand in the centre
of the floor, commenced the service.
I forget the exact order of the cere-
monies. There was a good deal of
chanting in a singsong tune; then
the chief Rahhi read the marriage
contract in a species of rapid jah-
her that was evidently not meant
or wanted to he understood, and next,
taking a glass of wine in his hum!—
the glass was a thin ill-made tumhler,
and the wine of a pale sour-looking
red, more suggestive of stomach-
aches than of the generous plenty
and fertility of which I was told
it was emhlematical—he chanted
again, and finished hy taking a sip
himself and giving one to each of the
happy couple. The latter, during nil
this chanting, had heen standing
face to face, partly concealed hy a
sheet held over their heads hy the
ladies of the house. In spite of this
covering I had a pretty good view of
them. The hride with her eyes still
shut—I never saw her open thein
from first to last—resemhled a ship's
figure-head as much as ever; the
hridegroom, happy man, looked as
mnch emharrassed as his stupidity
would allow him, and kept making
little futile digs with his hands at
his hreeches pockets. These he al-
ways failed to hit; hut still, under
the influence of mautaise horde and
the spell-hound inahility to move
which it creates, would feigu to have
found them, and at some trouhle
to himself would keep his hands
in the suitahle position as though
ho was luxuriating in the desired
depths. I must warn the reader that
"hreeches pockets" is a figure of
speech. In strict truth, the apertures
so anxiously sought were in the cro-
cus-coloured gown; hut they occu-
pied so exactly the position of
hreeches pockets—not only locally,
hut spiritually, as a refuge and a sol-
ace—that I was unwilling to sj oil
the heautiful picture I was drawing
hy stopping at that moment to define
them otherwise.
The ceremony ended with that sip
of wine. The spell that held him
was hroken, and the hridegroom,
turning his hack on hride and com-
pany, went straight to earth. Whe-
ther, when they next wanted him,
they smoked him out, or dug him
out, or holted him with a Rahhi, I
am sorry that I caunot state.
Before we took our departure, some
of the ladies of the household showed
us a Jewish dance. It was a pas neul,
hegiuning with a slow motion, which,
as you wanted to he complimentary
or the reverse, you might call gliding
or shuffling, accompanied hy hweeps,
a little too stiff and angular to he
graceful, of each arm alternately.
Occasionally, raising her hands clasped
together in precisely the position
adopted hy children when they make
"rahhits" on the wall, the performer,
drawing one finger over another with
a peculiar art, produced a sound not
unlike that of castanets; and then,
wanning upon her work, she further
emhellished her steps with a kind of
rapid wriggling, as though she wanted
to create a friction hetween herself
and her dress.
On the 21st May we left Damas-
cus. Our immediate destination was
a camp of "sedentary Arahs" lying
south of that town, on the very hor-
ders of the Desert, and in the vicin-
ity of the tracts which were known
to he at that period occupied hy
those Bedouin trihes, with whom to
put ourselves into communication
was the ultimate ohject of our expe-
dition.
We started in grand cavalcade.
Two irregular horsemen, furnished
hy the Turkish Government, led the
way. Ourselves—that is, the two


206
[Sept.
Hone-Dealing in Syria, 1854.

original emissaries and a gentleman
attached to the consulate—followed,
immediately preceded hy one of the
Consul's cavn-'ses in solemn pomp
wkh a htfge silver-mounted stick, and
attended hy my friend, or enemy, of
the Lehanon, the horse-dealer's Ma-
ronite, riding a vicious hlack which
spilled him hefore he was well out
of the town. Seven or eight more
horsemen hrought up the rear. On
the outskirts of Damascus we drop-
ped the cnvass and the silver stick,
and wended our way tbrough tree-
studded fields of luxuriant corn,
pretty in spite of the high and ugly
mud walls that fenced them; down
a hroad flat corn-hearing valley,
hounded hy low mountains oddly
crumpled hy the twisting ravines that
hroke their surface; then again over
a wide, flat, and most Indian looking
plain, hearing at first green vcteh-
iike crops tbrough which we could
perceive a hurnt, cracked soil, hut
finally merging into mere stone-
sprinkled harreuness. We had he-
gun our journey later in the day than
we ought. The result whs that night
found ns still on the road,—a road
that wound over clusters of stones
and declivities, and was ill travelling
hy dark. Ahout 8 p.m. light showed
ahead, proceeding from our tents,
pitched, as we found when the next
morning's light dawned, hy a small
fortified village.
This village was not the first of
its kind that we had met with. Dur-
ing the preceding evening's march
we had passed a striking specimen.
At a spot where the monotony of the
wide and harren plain I have men-
tioned was hroken hy a small rush-
ing stream with a few cultivated
fields hy its hanks, stood a small
square fort with one low door and
loop-holes in the walls. This, it ap-
peared, was the village. A cluster
of villagers surrounded the door-
way, and two or tbree squatted on
the top of the wall as if taking the
air. A pleasant life they must lead
where such villages are in fashion!
Next morning we resumed our
inarch across a pleasant cultivated
plain, hounded hy mountains show-
ing, in spite of the Syrian sun, long
streaks of suow hearing downwards
from their summits. Our escort, fresh
from the night's rest, hroke out into
a series of tournaments. A horseman
rushed out at a gallop, hrandishing
his spear, a gigantic heam topped
with an enormous hlade that looked
as if meant for a shovel; another, ac-
cepting his challenge, dashed out to
meet him. The two antagonists, not
couching their l:mees after the man-
ner of European horsemen, hut carry-
ing each his weapon grasped javelin-
fashion, and raised ahove the head at
the stretch of the arm, charged, shak-
ing their spears till the long shafts
quivered and hent like reeds—a ma-
noeuvre intended, douhtless, to per-
plex the enemy as to the real point
aimed at; and then, avoiding colli-
sion hy a sudden turn, exchanged
sham tbrusts. One after another the
horsemen joined in the fray, till, with
the long housing ta-sels and fringes
streaming hehind their galloping
horses, and the curtain-like fall of the
riders' hright lvd-and-ycllow head-
coverings floating in the wind, our
whole escort was flying over the
plain, firing shots and exchanging
tbrusts.
I think the head-dress I have just
referred to is the most heautiful I
have ever seen worn hy man. It
consists of a silk handkerchief of
hroad red-and-yellow stripe, tbrown
over the head so as to fall loosely on
the shoulders, and hound round the
temples hy a small turhan. Thus
hahited, tnounted on an Arah like
horse, that he wheels and circle- well
on the haunches, and carrying a long
lance with a ruff of hlack short
ostrich feathers round the shaft he-
neath the hlade, a Syrian horseman
is as warlike and picturesque a figure
as I have ever met with.
We had a long hot ride that day.
Our track led us among the outlying
spurs of a mountain ridge, covered
with clumps of what appeared to he
dwarf oak and wild holly, together
with white hawthorn as sweet-smell-
ing as if growing in an English lane,
and raising ideas oddly at variance
with that liot Syrian hill-side. Then
quitting these undulations, hut still
skirting their hase, we traversed level
stoneless grassy plains, where distant
flocks and herds, groups of half-a-
dnzen mares and foals in little
swampy plashy nooks in the hill-


268
[Sept.
Horte-Dealing in Syria, 1854.

and the whole edifice varies in size
from perhaps thirty paces hy six or
seven, when it helong to a chief,
down to a very small kind of keunel,
when it helongs to a poor man. I
rememher heing amused once at see-
ing the children of a sheikh of the
Anazeh taking a ride on the ridge of
their father's tent. They had climhed
up, tbree or four of them, and there,
leaning all of a row across the rope
which counected the summits of the
tent-poles, with their feet on the
slope of the roof, and with counten-
ances expressive of the greatest satis-
faction, were dancing most furiously
up and down with the spring which
the tent-poles, hending to their
weight, communicated to the rope.
The prospect of having house and
home and a cluster of children hrought
flat on his head in a pancake, appa-
rently had no terrors for the son of
Ishmacl that sat heneath. I should
like to see some civilized papas of my
acquaintance in the same situation.
Merj Kotrani, the site of our pre-
sent ahode, was close to the camping-
ground ol' the Wulad-Ali, a trihe of
the great Anazeh nation. As the
news <!f our arrival and ohject spread,
their men came into our camp in
gradually increasing numhers; and
hefore long we had ohtained a very
fair opportunity of judging of at least
the outward appearance of the desert
Arah and his horse.
Most people, I think, picture to
themselves the former as not perhaps
hearing in his aspect the traces of
high civilization, hut as at all events
something far removed from the
savage. This is a mistake. A more
perfect savage in appearance, a more
thorougbly dirty wild man, it would
he difficult to find. As the Anazeh
stands hefore you, yon see a littlo
Hottentot-like figure of a dirty hrown
all over. A dirty clont, falling loose
on his shoulders, is fastened round
his head hy a hand of camel's hair
or else hy a hit of common rope; a
loose garment, apparently of sack-
cloth, reaches to helow the knee, and
is covered again hy a coarse cloak.
Beneath appear hrown naked shanks
without either trousers or shoes, with
sometimes one spur, consisting of a
single spike or else of a thing like a
mitmeg-grater with two serrated
ridges, strapped on the hare heel.
Possihly the articles of dress, if yon
inspect them with a microscopic eye,
may he detected to have once pos-
sessed colour; the handkerchief may
have had tlie red and yellow stripe
so common amongst the Syrians, and
the cloak will once have exhihited
stripes of hrown and white; hut all
have heen toned down to one uniform
dirt colour, and the former existence
of hrighter tints is merely a fact re-
warding the investigations of the phi-
losopher, and not in the least affect-
ing the present appearance of the
wearer.
When, penetrating heneath the
dirty savagery that overlays his as-
pect, you look closely at the features
of the Anazeh, yon often find them
good: not always, for they fre-
quently verge upon the coarse sensual
savage face, with projecting orang-
outang-like lips and great ragged
fangs of teeth. But, on the other hand,
they are sometimes remarkahly fine
and delicate. The colour is a deep
hrown; the eyes dark hazel, with a
tinge of hrown in the whites; the
nose aquiline, with the nostrils slop-
ing much upwards, leaving it sharp
at the point, and then curling and
expanding uear the face. The teeth
are often small and heautifully white
and regular; tholmir dead hlack, some-
times growing in little short corkscrew
curls, sometimes plaited on each side
of the face into a long hand and
tucked away under the handkerchief.
The horses are smail, not rising in
general ahove fourteen hands oneinch;
hut they are fine, and l:ave great power
aud size for their height. I do not
suppose that they would he much ad-
mired hy a purely English horseman;
in fact, we see every day that Arahs
hrought into England don't fairefor-
tune, and experience teaches one that
the English and the Arah horse look
each ahsurd hy turns, as the eye has
grown accustomed txxthe other. But
to my eye, used for some time to rest
on nothing hut the Eastern horse,
they seemed to exceed all that I had
yet seen in point of heauty. Stal-
lions used to he led into our camp,
looking like horses in a picture; the
limhs flit, hroad, and powerful, deep
helow the knee, small and fine ahout
the fetlock, of a cleauness and heauty



1859.]
269
Horac-Dealing in Syria, 1854.
of outline enongh alone to stamp
hlood on their possessor; the neck
light, hut yet arched; the flanks
closely rihhed up; the tail carried
out with a sweep like the curve of a
palm hranch; and the small head
terminating in large nostrils always
snorting and neighing. It was a
heautiful sight to see one of them
when lie got wind of another stallion,
draw himself up with his neck arched,
his ears pointed, and his eyes almost
starting out of his head; his almost
rigid stillness for the instant con-
trasting curiously with his evident
readiness to hreak out into furious
action. Watching such a horse at
such a moment one feels the truth
of the figure of speech hy which the
horse is called nohle Nohle, knight-
ly, heroic, he seems less a hrute than
an incarnation of high hlood and fiery
energy; a steed that Saladin might
have mounted, and that would well
have matched his master.
Grey of various shades, hay, chest-
nut, and hrown, are the ordinary,
and it may almost he said the only,
colours of the Arah horse. The com-
monest of all colours is one which I
recollect as heing very frequent
amongst the Arahs met with in In-
dia, a dark, uniform, nutmeg grey.
Light grey verging upon white, is
neither rare nor peculiar to old
horses. Next to grey in frequency
come hay and chestnut, hoth fine and
rich in quality, and the latter so
prized ahove all other colours hy the
Arahs that they have a saying that
if you ever hear of a horse perform-
ing any remarkahle feat, you will be
sure to find, on inquiry, that he is a
chestnut. Browns are not unfrequent;
and in my register of horses houyht
from the Anazeh, I find one hlack.
But so rare is that colour, that, if I
had merely trusted to my recollection,
I should have said that I never saw
a hlack horse in the desert. Of
other colours I saw none, except in
the solitary instance of a skew hald;
and I caunot at this moment under-
take to say whether he was an Ana-
zeh or helonged to some of the trihes
where the purity of the hreed can
less he depended on.
Sometimes the Anazeh, especially
the chiefs or men of wealth, ride
with Turkish saddles and hits. But,
with poorer men, the horse appoint-
ments are much on a level with the
dress of the rider. A coarse pad of
ragged dirty cloth or had thin lea-
ther, slightly stuffed to form a sort
of pommel and cantle, girthed with a
hit of coarse weh and sometimes
with another hit of the same pass-
ing round the horse's chest to form a
hreast-haud, ai:d without any kind
of stirrups, forms the saddle. The
hridle consists of a simple halter
with a nose-hand of rusty iron links,
without hit, and, in fact, without
means of action of any sort upon
the horse's mouth. A single thong
or end of rope is attached to this,
and serves to tether the horse, or,
passing on one side of the horse's
neck and held in the rider's hund,
acts as rein. A curious addition to
this was sometimes used, in the
shape of a piece of rope attached to
the headstall hetween the ears and
held hy the rider. The explanation of
this appendage which suggested it-
self to me at the time, was, that it
was intended to steady the horse-
man's sent: whether this was the
fact or not I have no means of say-
ing positively. These accoutrements
were often perfectly hare of all orna-
ment, hut, on the other hand, were
sometimes decorated with long hlack-
and-white tassels of the size of those
of an old-fashioned hell-pull, sus-
pended from the saddle hy ropes
which allowed them almost to sweep
the ground; with red cloth and tufts
of ostrich feathers stuck all over the
headstall; and, most frequently of
all, with a little short frizzy hlacle
plume set up hetween the ears.
When armed for war the horse-
man carries a light lance of twelve
feet or more in length, with a long
tapering four-sided spike much like
a great nail with each of its four
edges hulging out at the hase into
a flat lohe, tbrough which is passed
an iron ring supporting a little flat
tinkling hit of metal, intended, I
suppose, to givo ornament and musio
simultaneously. This is the great
and universal weapon, and 1 sup-
pose that the Anazeh does not exist
who does not possess one. Swords
and pistols are seen in the posses-
sion of individuals; and almost
every man, when walking ahout his


270
[Sept.
Horse-Dealing in Syria, 1854.
private affairs, carries a stick cut, I
fancy, out of a root, and much re-
semhling a shillelagh, except that it
is further fortified hy a tremendous
knoh at the end as hig as one's
fist.
When riding unarmed, the Anazeh
always carries a small short stick
with a crook at the end like a walk-
ing cane, with which he appears to
guide the horse. His horsemanship,
when he chooses to display it, is very
striking and curious. He puts his
horse to the gallop; leaning very
much forward, and clinging with
his naked legs and heels round the
flanks, he comes past you at speed,
his hrown shanks hare up to iho
thigh, his stick hrandished in his
hand, and his ragged rohes flying
hehind; then, checking the pace, he
turns right and left at a canter, pulls
up, increases or diminishes his speed,
and with his hitless halter exhihits,
if not the power of flinging his horse
dead upon his haunches possessed
hy the Turks and other hit-using
Orientals, at all events much more
control over the animal than an Eng-
lish dragoon attains to with his heavy
hit. On these occasions it appeared
to me that the halter served to check
and the stick to guide; hut I have
seeu the same feats performed when
the horseman was carrying the lance,
and consequently was without his
stick. When I say that our purchases
in the desert amounted to one hundred
horses, it may he supposed that the
numher of horses I saw tried and
ridden was considerahle; amongst
the whole, I never saw one attempt
to pull or show the least want of
docility.
I think that most horsemen will
admit that this is an extraordinary
performance, and that none will
allow it more readily than those who
are acquainted with the Arah horse
as he appears in our hands In India,
where—so far as I may trust my own
experience—he is liot and inclined to
pull. Why should he display this
failing with us, and not with his
original masters? My own impres-
sion is that the secret lies in the
different temper of the English and
the Bedouin horseman. The Bedouin
(and every other race of Orientals
that I am acquainted with seems to

possess somewhat of the same quality)
exhihits a patience towards his horse
as remarkahle as the impatience and
roughness of the Englishman. I am
not inclined to put it to his credit in
a moral point of view; I do not he-
lieve that it results from affection
for the animal, or from self-restraint;
he is simply without the feeling of
irritahility which prompts the Eng-
lish horseman to acts of hrutality.
In his mental organisation some
screw is tight which in the English
mind is loose; he is sane on a point
where the Englishman is slightly
cracked, and he rides on serene and
contented where the latter would go
into a paroxysm of swearing and
spurring. I have seen an Arah
stallion, hroken loose at a moment
when our camp was tbronged with
horses hronght for sale, turn the
whole concern topsy-turvy and re-
duce it to one tumult of pawing and
suorting and helligerent screeching;
and I never yet saw the captor, when
he finally got hold of the halter,
show the least trace of anger, or do
otherwise than lead the animal hack
to his pickets with perfect calmness.
Contrast this with the "joh" in the
mouth, and the kick in the rihs, and
the curse that the English groom
would hestow under similar circum-
stances, and you have in a great
measure the secret of the good temper
of the Arah horse in Arah hands.
But at the same time, giving every
weight to the reason which I have
just assigued, the fact of the Bedouins
making a practice of riding such
horses in such a fashion is surprising
to me. Douhtless the nature of the
country assists them. There are no
carts to run against, no gate-posts to
smash a horseman's knee-pan, no
plate-glass windows to holt tbrough;
if a horse did decline to stop, I sup-
pose the rider would have a fair chance
of letting him go till he was tired,
without damage to either party. But
how it is that that most untrustahle
animal the horse does not find some
opportunity for mischief—how it is
that he does not sometimes rush into
hattle with a hostile stallion, hearing
his rider nolens toUns into the fray
•—how it is that he never seizes a
chance of holting over the tent-ropes
of a camp, picking out the sheikh's


1859.]
271
Horse-Dealing in Syria, 1854.

hy preference—I do not pretend to
understand. Perhaps ho does all
these things occasionally, and the
Arah mind is resigued thereto: all I
know is, that I never saw him.
Our manege riders have a great
idea of the direct mechanical power
which they have over the horse, as
opposed to the indirect power op-
tained hy acting upon his will
tbrough the medinm of his intelli-
genca They " aid," they " support,"
they "halance," they " collect" him;
hy the action of hit and leg they
induce a carriage which confers upon
him an agility which he would never
liave possessed without; in short, they
render the animal so much assistance
that it hecomes douhtful whether Col-
onel Greenwood was not mistaken
when he laid it down as an axiom,
"that the horse carries the rider, and
not the rider the horse."
The Anazeh, hitless, and almost
reinless, destitute of the very main-
spring of all his mechanism, with
his horse as uncontrolled in his car-
riage as a wild animal—heats them.
Now, if their system is really as
efficient as they helieve it—if they
really have these powers in their
hands, and are yet heaten hy a man
destitute of them, or at the hest pos-
sessing them imperfectly—it is clear
that they must lahour under some
counterhalancing inferiority some-
where. Where does this inferiority
lie? Not, certainly, in the power of
inflicting pain, for the Englishman
rides with gigantic curhs, and the
Anazeh with an inefficient halter.
Does it lie in the moral ascendancy
of the rider over the horse? If so, our
manege riders must stand low in that
great quality of a horseman, when
compared with the Arah.
To a certain extent I helieve this
to he the case. As I have said hefore,
I helieve the Englishman to he infe-
rior to the Oriental in point of
temper. But it may he douhted
whether his natural inferiority is so
great as fully to explain why, pos-
sessing so powerful a system, he yet
rises no higher in the scale of horse-
manship. And precisely as you choose
to raise your estimate of his natural
capacity, must you lower your esti-
mate of his system; until, finally, if
you shall determine to raise the Eng-
VOU LXXXVL
lish capacity as equal to that of the
Anazeh, you must lower the English
system of "aiding" the horse hy
mechanical power to something less
than the similar powers of "aid"
possessed hy the Anazeh — which,
considering that the latter" has not a
hridle, caunot he great.
I think myself that a comparison
hetween our manege riders and the
Arah does not assigu to the former a
position so perfectly trinmphant and
satisfactory hut that they might ven-
ture on an experiment or two to see
if they could not mend it. And the
chaunel into which I should he in-
clined to turn experiment would he
this: To ascertain whether the direct
power of the rider over the horse has
not heen much overrated, and whether
an exaggerated helief in it has not led
our riders to waste their efforts on the
hody of the horse, when they ought
to have heen directing them upon the
mind.
As I do not wish to give exagger-
ated ideas of the powers of the Be-
douin horseman, 1 will state more
clearly in what I consider his superior-
ity over our manege rider to consist.
Put the latter inside the four walls of
a school, or even in an "open manege .
where the horse has heen schooled till
the very aspect of the ground has
hecome associated in his mind with
"right turn" and '' left turn;" in
fact, put him in a place where
the influence of hahit and the ah-
sence of extraneous excitement com-
hine to dispose the horse's mind to
ohedience; and he will ride with a
precision and dexterity which the
Anazeh may or may not he ahle to
equal. I never saw him exhihit un-
der circumstances in any degree simi-
lar, and therefore caunot speak to this
point. But get the same rider into
the open country; make him put up
his horse's temper hy a sharp gallop
on the turf; then tell him to repeat
his riding-school feats, and watch the
result. See how frequently the scene
hecomes one of plunging and fighting
against the hit on the part of the
horse, and of pulling and hauling on
that of the rider: ohserve the unwill-
ing and imperfect ohedience rendered
to such a horseman, and then com-
pare him with the Anazeh, wheeling
and sweeping like a swallow on the
13


272
[Sept.
Horse-Dealing in Syria, 1 - 54.

win?, as if man and heast were in-
spired hy one will. Then it is lhat
you see that the Arah is a real rider,
and the other a school rider in the
fullest acceptation of the term—good
in the school, and good for nothing out
of it.
If I speak disrespectfully of English
horsemanship, I must he understood
to refer only to that particular style
which our minige riders attempt.
The Englishman seems unahte to
command that instantaneous and will-
ing ohedience which tell in single
comhat, and which make the horse to
the rider as the hoxer's legs are
to the hoxer. But if it is a ques-
tion of going straight ahead, of taking
a horse headlong over every ohstacle
with a skill mingled with perfect
recklessuess of hoth the rider's
neck and the horse's, I never saw
the nation—Parthians, or Merfes, or
Elamites, or the dwellers in Mesopota-
mia—that was ahle to " hold a candle to
him."
The horses hrought to us, hand-
some as they were, showed an amount
of hlemish—chiefly consisting of curhs
and enlargements of the knee and fet-
lock, and not perhaps, in the majority
of instances, amounting to unsound-
ness of a disahling nature — which
surprised me. The only cause I can
suggest for this is the universal prac-
tice" of riding horses at a very early
age; for the style of horsemanship to
which they are suhjected is, as far as
my ohservation goes, hy no means
calculated to produce unsoundness.
If you meet a Bedouin travelling, he
is never at any other pace than a se-
date walk ; he never pinffes, never ex-
cites his horse to uunecessary action;
the sharp straining halts upon the
haunches, practised hy other Orientals,
are rendered impossihle to him hy
the ahsence of hit ; and so generally
averse is he to '• knocking his horse
ahout" that, even for the purposes
of sale, it is often difficult to get him
into a gallop, and, where the ground
is had, impossihle. Of course, in
making these statements, I refer only
to what I saw. Arah horseman-
ship may, at other seasons and un-
der other circumstances, he very dif-
ferent.
The aversion of the Arah to gallop-
ing for the satisfaction of an intend-
ing purchaser, is sometimes strength-
ened hy other feelings than those of
mere dislike to exacting unnecessary
exertion from his horse. Oue motive
that I helieve to he pretty strong with
him is, simply a sulky ohstinacy and
disinclination to do anything he is
asked ; hut I have known him ohject
upon religious grounds. A very fine
horse was one day hrought to us. I
had some idea of huying him for my-
self, and told the rider to let me see
his paces. He declined, on the ground
than the Franks never, when they
admired anything, took the precau-
tion of averting from it the conse-
quent dangers (that of the curse of
the Evil Eye) hy the use of the word
"Mashallah I"—an introduction of the
name of God which is supposed to
hreak the evil spell; and that he
could not venture to expose his horse
to the unsanctioned admiration which
his paces could not fail to call forth.
I am inclined, at this present speaking,
to wonder why I did not immediately
volunteer to chant "Mashallah"
tbroughout the whole of the per-
formance. I did not do so, hut
walked straight off. rather pleased
to let the pious Mussulman know
that he had spoiled the sale of his
horse.
Most persons have read stories of
the astonishing endurance of the
Arah horse in his native deserts. I
do not undertake to contradict these
statements, as my acquaintance with
the animal was not sufficiently pro1
longed to allow me to speak to his
powers under circumstances other
than those in which I saw him, and
as, ahove all, my acquaintance with
the mares was hut small. But I saw
nothing to confirm them. All the
horses that I saw during my stay in
the desert (a period commencing with
the 22d May and ending the 16 th
June), were plainly incapahle of any
great exertion, from an over-fatness
produced hy the grass-feeding which
they got at that time of the year,
comhined with the practice of never
pntting them out of a walk. In the
winter, we are told, they are fed on
harley and camels' milk. Perhaps a
change of treatment may accompany
this change of food, and the Arah
horse may, for anything I know,


1859.]
273
Felicita.— Conclusion.

he in hard condition then. He cer-
tainly was not when I saw him.
The Bedouins fortunately gave
very little evidence of skill in con-
cealing hlemishes. The deception
most commonly attempted upon us
lay io disguising a rejected animal in
the hope that he might he taken on
fresh inspection. A horse makes his
appearance in the morning in a plain
halter and Bedouin saddle. If he is
not accepted, towards evening he ap-
pears in the character of a fresh ar-
rival, with long heavy tassels hung
all over the saddle, and with a hreast-
hand whose fringe covers all the fore-
arm. If this again fails, next morn-
ing he is hrought in a gorgeous red
hraided saddle with a padded sad-
dle-cloth that conceals nearly all hut
the head and tail. I recollect only
one instance in which another mode
of deceptien had heen adopted. A
horse was hrought to us with his legs
all plastered with mud as if he had
passed tbrough a quagmire up to his
helly. The owner was, of course, re-
quired, as a preliminary to husiness,
to wash his horse's legs; and when,
finding that otherwise there was no
hope of sale, he complied, there Ap-
peared a heautifully fired fetlock,
seamed all over in a mauner which
indicated some severe disease.
(To he continued.)
FELICITA.—COXCLCSION.
CHAPTER IV.
Ik the next morning's cheerful
daylight Felicia smiled at herself
over her night's trouhle. She was not
called upon, surely, to arrange or to
prevent her cousin's marriage. There
was no need for her arhitration one
way or other; how foolish she had
hee'n! But perhaps the smile had a
little hitterness in it; and it is cer-
tain Felicia felt very lonely (more
lonely than she had felt since her
first arrival) as she glanced out at
the window—and it was astonishing
how often that impulse moved her
—at the opposite house.
As for Angelo, he continued to he
rather trinmphant and in high spirits,
pleased with the thoughts of hecoming
suddenly a rich man, and also, with
extraordinary inconsistency, not per-
ceiving how one thing contradicted
the other, pleased with the idea of
having made Felicia a little jealous,
and piqued her into hetraying some-
thing of her own feelings. Perhaps
this was the real occasion of his glee;
hut the sight of her cousin's satisfac-
tion made Felicia withdraw more
and more into herself: his kindness
affronted and offended her; his levity
stnick her with sharp pain and im-
patience; she took refuge in her own
room, and shut her door, and hetook
herself to some homely matters of
dressmaking. Felicia had to he very
economical with her little income.
It was not in her nature to retain
anything in her own hands which
any one heside her seemed to want.
She had already silently expended
her own little funds to increase, as
much as such a trifle could, the com-
forts of the household, and of her
poor old aunt. She would gladly
have worked, if she could, for the
same purpose, with the hest heart
and intention in the world, hut not
without some idea of shaming An-
gelo into the way he should go.
However, Felicia did not find even
in dressmaking sufficient attraction
to counterhalance her excitement ot
thought. She had hy no means
completed the proper round of sight-
seeing which ought to he accom-
plished hy a stranger in Florence;
and after wandering ahont the house
restlessly for some time, interfering
with the orders for diuner, intruding
into Madame Peruzzi's room, carry-
ing off the greater proportion of the
work there to relieve the old ludy's
eyes and fingers, and generally ex-
pressing her restless and dissatisfied
condition hy all the means in her
power, Felicia at length prevailed
upon her aunt to conduct her to the
Pitti Palace, and leave her there to


274
[Sept.
Felicita.— Conclusion.

wander among the pictures at her
leisure. This grand indulgence was
one which Madame Peruzzi was very
douhtful ahout. She greatly feared
that it was not quite proper; hut
with a wilful English girl, who feels
quite competent in hroad daylight
and a puhlic place to protect herself,
what can a tremulous old lady do?
Felicia accordingly strayed ahout
at her own sweet will among the
pictures, finding them very generally
unsatisfactory, and in a perverse
m<,od forsook the realities for the
shadows, and lingered hehind the
copiers who had possession of the
finest pictures in the room, wondering
over that hranch of industry. If
Angelo, for instance, worked at that,
would his critical cousin he satisfied?
She answered herself, No, no! her
heart making indiguant thumps hy
way of echo against her hreast; and
so indiguantly vowing to let Angelo
alone — surely she could find some-
thing hetter to do than a constant
speculation ahout Angelo? — went
lingering round the room making
unamiahle criticisms in her discon-
tented mind. She was standing op-
posite that pale Judith — pale with
passion and exhaustion, and yet hear-
ing a hectic touch of shame, ahusing it
to herself, when eomething happened
to Felicia. Here eyes were hy no
means fixed upon the picture, hut
had sidelong glimpses of passing
figures round her. Thus she saw
somtthing dart from hehind the great
overshadowing easel of an industrious
artist—something which moved in a
flutter and a hound, noiseless foot
and clouds of noiseless muslin. This
something fell^upou her suddenly, and
grtsped hoth her hands. Agitated,
hut not alarmed, knowing instinc-
tively who it was, yet instinctively
assuming a look of surprise and
iguorance, Felicia (who, herself, was
not very tall) looked down upon a
pretty little wilful face, half child
half woman, radiant with smiles, and
eager to speak. Following this
figure was an old French maid look-
ing kind and curious, who investi-
gated Felicia's face and dreFS with a
most attentive inspection, and drew
as close to her mistress as decorum
would allow. The little girl held
Felicia's hands clasped in hers, and
looked very much as if she meant to
kiss her. "Oh, you are Felicita !" she
cried, out of hreath—"Angelo's Feli-
cita! I know you are; do not deny
me. I am so very glad to see
you here."
"And you?'' said Felicia, looking
down upon her, perhaps without the
cordiality which such a hright little
creature was accustomed to meet,
and permitting without returning
the pressure of her hands.
"Has he not told you of me?"
said the stranger, with a momentary
look of disappointment.
"My cousin Angelo has told me of
." Felicia was ahout to say
something rather cruel. She checked
herself suddenly, perceiving the atro-
city of her impulse; she was going
to say " of an heiress," and paused to
think of another word.
"Of somehody!" said the little
stranger; "and I am somehody. Yes,
look at me I he has told me of you,
and I love you already, Felicita. I
think of you quite as his sister. We
shall he such friends. Come, An-
nette speaks only French; she will
not understand a word we say; and
I have a hundred things to tell you
—come."
Somewhat amazed and taken hy
surprise, Felicia, who had only her
own vague reluctance to oppose to this
imperious friendship, was hurried on
ere the knew what she was doing;
and, hewildered hy the flood of words
which immediately overpowered her,
as her new acquaintance clung to
her arm, and, keeping half a step he-
fore her, looked up into her face,
was for the moment entirely suhju-
gated and taken captive. The two
strayed along the grand galleries of
the Pitti, Do longer looking at the
pictures, making a stray dash at one
here and there, most frequently a
wortbless little miniature — if any-
thing is wortbless in that collection
—which the little hutterfly could not
see perfectly without rushing to it,
and exclaiming, " Oh, look — do yon
know what this is?"—isu't it pretty?"
while she pulled Felicia hriskly along
with her hy the arm. To all these girl-
ish vagaries Felicia quietly suhmitted,
feeling, after a while, in her elder wo-
manly gravity, a touch of that charm
of rememhrance which makes one


1859.]
275
Felicita.—Conclusion.

girl just oat of her childhood indulgent
to the freaks of unother who ia still
in that rejoicing time. This girl was
bo mnch gayer, finer, more self-con-
tident than Felicia had ever heen;
so much of the conscious power of
wealth, and the freedom of one to
whom nothing she wished for had
ever heen denied was in her air,
and mauner, that the sight of her
was a kind of apotheosis of girlhood
and its privileges to Felicia. She, a
woman nearly twenty, tried hy the
early calamities of a life which had
heen hard upon her, could no longer
venture to walk with that free step,
to talk with that uurestrained voice,
to say, " What does it matter if the
people look at us?—let them look!"
as defiant sixteen did, who was
afraid of nohody. Felicia was even
shy of heing visihle to passing eyes
in that close iet s a. tele of confidential
friendship. She smiled at herself
and hlushed and dropped her veil,
and hurried her companion past the
little groups of picture-gazers All
this the lively hlue eyes perceived
and understood, and made their own
interpretation of.
"What are you afraid of?—people
looking at us?'' said the young lady.
"Never mind the people, Felicita;
I want to tell you something. Call
me Alice, will you, please? I am so
disappointed and mortified and dis-
gusted that yon did not know my
name. To think that Angelo should
have told me so mnch ahout you,
and never mentioned my name! I
shall scold him so to-night. But do
call me Alice, please; and then I
will tell you my darling little
scheme."
"I must call you Miss Clayton.
You and I are not equals," said Feli-
cia gravely; "you are younger than
I am, and I ought not to yield to
you what I know is wrong. 1 scarcely
see how we can he friends, so differ-
ent is your place and mine; hut at
least we are not, and never can he,
equals, so I must not call you hy
your Cbristian name."
The little girl looked up with her
face overcast and wondering. "But
—hut yon are as good as 1 am," she
said, pressing Felicia's arm.
"Perhaps," said Felicia smiling;
"I did not speak ahout heing as good;
it would he sad work if the highest
were to he the hest as well: hut we
are not equals; you understand
what that means?"
"Yes—hut you are—what the ser-
vants call gentlefolks," cried Alice.
"Angelo told me he was poor; I
know that very well; hut I know
that people of good family despise
those who are only rich. Is that
what you mean ?—do you mean he-
cause my father was only a moneyed
man that I am not good enough for
you ?—or what do you mean ?—for
I know very well that Angelo is a
gentleman, and you are his cousin;
and unless you have taken a dislike
to me, or don't think me good enough
for him, I don't know what you wish
me to understand, Felicita!"
"I am not speaking of Angelo. I
helieve he is of good family hy his
father's side; hut I am not a Peruz-
zi," said Felicia. "If I were at home
in England, I could not hy any chance
associate with such as yon. I will
not deceive any one here. I am not
your equal. I caunot he comfortahle
to meet you and call you Alice, and
hear you talk of all your friends and
your cousins, so very, very different
from mine. Do you know," said
Felicia, raising her head with quite
an unusual effusion of pride, '• I am
much more on a level with your maid
than with you?"
"Nonsense; I don't helieve it!"
cried Alice energetically; then the
little girl made a pause, and changed
her tone, evidently following out
this new question in her own mind,
and arranging it to suit her other
ideas in respect to Angelo's family.
"I suppose your father was the
naughty son, was he? and ran away
and married somehody he fell in love
with—oh, no; I mean your mamma,
Felicita, Oh, I do so love these
stories; and they have sent for you
here to take care of you, and make
you like their own child? Now tell
me; I want to know one thing: is
she a very sweet person, Angelo's
mother?"
A very sweet person! Felicia's
lip tremhled with almost irrepress-
ihle laughter. Little Alice thought
it was restrained feeling; she fancied
that the poor niece's gratitude and
admiration were too much for speech,


276
[Sept.
Felicita.—Conclusion.

and ran on in her own convenient
rattle, without leaving her new ac-
quaintance time to answer.
"She does not care for society now
—she never goes out anywhere, the
dear old lady I "said Alice ;" and I sup-
pose it is hecause you are not quite
ho nohle as they are that I have
never met you in society. Angelo
says you are so good and so attentive
to his mother, Felicita. Oh! don't
you think you could smuggle me in
sometimes, and let me help to amuse
her?"
"I don't think it is possihle," said
Felicia laconically.
"How dreadfully English you are
—how uncivil 1 You are not a hit
like an Italian. You never say a
word more than you can help, and
look as if you meant it all. I really
do think I shall hegin not to like
you," cried Alice; "hut I do like you,
mind," she added, once more pressing
Felicia's arm ; "and I never will he
content till you love me — do you
hear ?" — and there was a renewed
pressure of the arm she held—" he-
cause if it comes true, and — and
happens, you know — we shall he
quite near relations, Felicita; and I
never had a sister in my life."
Unconsciously to herself, Felicia
sbrank a little at once from the idea
and from her companion. "Don't you
like to think of it 1" cried the quick
little girl instantly. "Felicita, would
you rather that Angelo did not love
me?"
"I have nothing to do with it,"
said Felicia, tremhling a little. "An-
gelo is almost a stranger to me, though
he is my cousin. Do not ask me,
pray. I shall he glad to see him
happy, and you also; hut now you
must let me go. Some one will come
for me presently to take me home."
"Oh 1 hut 1 want to speak to you
first," said Alice, clinging only the
more closely to her companion's arm.
'• Will you he quite sure not to he
offended? Will you forgive me if I
am going to say something wrong 1
Oh, Felicita 1 I want to know you,
and see you often. And you tell me
you are poor. Will you he my parla-
tr-icc, dear? Now it is out, and I
have said it: will you, Felicita? I
shall love you like my own sister,
and we can have such delightful long
talks, and I'll get on so quick with
my Italian. Dear Felicita, will you?
It would make me so happy."
With this hright littie creature
standing hefore her, pleading with
her hlue Saxgn eyes, her rosehnd
face, her affectionate words, looks,
and smiles and syllahles, each more
wiuning than the other — the first
person who had spoken to her in her
own language since she came to
Florence — Felicia found re-istance
very difficult. The little girl was
clothed in that irresistihle confidence
of heing uurefusahle which so seldom
lasts heyond childhood, and was so
radiant in her iguorance of disap-
pointment that it was far harder to
say nay to her than it would have
heen to deny a hoon really needful
to a careworn suppliant. Little
Alice was not presumptuous either
in the strength of her inexperience.
She did not helieve she could he
denied, hut asked with her whole
heart notwithstanding, and with the
most sincere importunity. Felicia
could not look at her unmoved;
somehow the little face, in its hright
iguorance, touched her more than a
snd one could have done. She said
something, she scarcely knew what,
ahout heing quite uuprepared for
such a proposal, and thinking it over
when she got home, and added once
more that she must go, as somehody
waited for her. Already she felt
conscious of a momentary duplicity.
Why did she not say, "My aunt is
coming for me," as under any other
circumstances she would have done?
Poor Felicia! who had so little heart
or inclination to further this delu-
sion. Yet she Watched with instinc-
tive terror lest Madame Peruzzi's
gaunt shadow should appear at one of
the doors.
''And we can have such delightfol
talks—all ahout Angelo," said Alice,
with a laugh and a hlush—"only
don't tell him. I would never let
him know we mentioned his name.
Oh, look, Felicita I is that dreadful
old woman heckoning to you ?—is
that Madame Peruzzi's maid? Never
mind her. Aunette will go and tell
her you are coming. Aunette—Oh,
Felicita! what is wrong?"
And Alice stood amazed and in
dismay as her new friend hurst from


1859.]
277
Felicita.—Conclusion.

her ahruptly, and made all the haste
Ciihle across the room to where
lame Peruzzi stood hy the door,
looking for her niece. The light
came fall from a side-window upon
that tall hony old figure, and upon
the face grey with age and seamed
with deep wrinkles, where the dust
of time lay heary. Madame Peruzzi
wore a hounet of very fashionahle
shape, though dingy material, and
had fsome artificial flowers encircling
that oval of grey hair and leathern
cheek. Old age was not lovely in
Angelo's mother. She had no com-
plexion, and rather too much feature
even in her youth, and the features
now hore too great a resemhlance to
the eagle physioguomy to he at all
fjir to hehold. She wore her usual
tbrifty household dress of hlack, with,
however, a coarse gay-coloured shawl;
and even a spectator more ohservant
and of calmer judgment than Alice
Clayton would have found it hard to
discover anything like gentility in the
old woman's figure. She carried a
little travelling-hag in her hand—a
hag of Felicia's to which her aunt
had taken a fancy—which was stuffed
with homely purchases, and, con-
tracting her grey eyehrows over her
eyes, stood waiting for her niece, and
contemplating Alice with curiosity
scarcely less keen than her own. Alice
Clayton made a very different vision
to the eyes of Madame Peruzzi. Her
pretty face, which was characteristic
of little heyond English good health
and good temper, and the hloom and
heauty of extreme youth, the old
lady hestowed hut little attention
upon; hut the pretty perfection of
her morning dress, the many-flounced
muslin, gay and light, the delicate
falls of emhroidery ahout her neck
and wrists, the dainty hat, were not
lost upon Madame Peruzzi. She
saw a sight not unfamiliar to Floren-
tine eyes—the English girl perfectly
equipped in everything appropriate
to her youth and condition, whose
appearance testified, heyond a douht,
to the wealth and luxury rof her
family. There she stood, with her
French maid close hehind her, gazing
with all her eyes at Madame Peruzzi,
full of curiosity, murmuring to her-
self, "What an old witch!" resolute
to ask Angelo who that extraordi-
nary figure helonged to, and if it
was his mother's faithful hundred-
year-old traditionary maid. "If she
were not such a hideous old creature,
what fun it would he to have her
tell us stories 1" said the unconscious
Alice to herself, as she gazed at her
lover's mother, and at Felicia in her
hlack dress hastening to join her;
while Madame Peruzzi in return,
gazed at Alice, speculating on who
she was, and whether Felicia's ac-
quaintance with her might he au
opening into '' society" for her niece,
and an enlargement of counection
for her son. Between the two, Feli-
cia, with a flutter and pang, ran
across the spacious room, and caught
at her aunt's arm, and drew her hast-
ily away. She felt so hurried and
anxious to escape that she could
scarcely hear or understand the ques-
tions with which Madame Peruzzi
assailed her, and certainly had neither
hreath nor inclination to answer
them. She hurried the old lady
down the stairs at a most unusual
pace, and could not help looking
hack again and again to see if they
were followed or ohserved, and yet
she could not have explained to any
one why she did it Certainly it was
nothing to her, and it is quite douht-
ful whether Angelo, under the same
circumstances, would have taken any
pains to conceal his mother. But
Felicia could not resist her impulse. She
only felt safe at last in the Via Ging-
nio, within the shady portraits of their
own lofty house.
Then Madame Peruzzi was much
dissatisfied with the very hrfef reply
which our niece gave to her ques-
tions — "a young Englishwoman,
whom she knew." The old lady had
ocular demonstration that her niece
knew the little stranger, and that she
was English; hut who was she ?—and
how had Felicia hecome acquainted
with her ? — and how long had she
heen in Florence ?—and of what de-
gree were her friends?—and where
did she live?—and altogether who
was she? The result was so much
the less satisfactory, that Felicia
could not have answered if she would,
and would not if she could. On the
coutrary, the restrained herself care-
fully, and did not even confess that
she did not know. Angelo himself


278
[Sept.
Felicita.—Conclusion.

she said to herself, somewhat hitterly,
must tell his mother. She had heen
sufficiently vexed already without
that. The consequence was that the
day passed somewhat uncomfortahly
in Via Giuguio, where Madame
Peruzzi's curiosity lasted long, and
was mixed with some jealousy and
aunoyance in the thought that her
English niece meant to keep this
fine acquaintance to herself, and was
not disposed to share with Angelo
the further advantages it might
hring. The old lady laid up in her
mind every particular of what she
had seen, to tell her son. Perhaps he
could succeed hetter with Felicia than
she had done, and at least it was right
that he should know.
While Felicia, for her part, a little
sulky and solitary, in her own room,
pondered the interview, and watched
at her window hehind the curtains,
to see Alice in undisguised solicitude
watching for her from the opposite
house. Amidst all the disagreeahle
feelings which this little girl had
excited in her mind, she still felt a
certain indescrihahle melting towards
the sweet English face and English
tongue, of the confidential and frank
accost of the stranger. She was so
voung, after all—only sixteen—that
Felicia's womanly dissatisfaction at
her unconcealed liking for Angelo
would have very speedily given way,
had Angelo heen nothing more than
a mere relative to Felicia. As it
was, her conscience and her imagina-
tion tormented her the whole day
long. What was Angelo to her—
why should she ohject to anyhody
preferring him, or saying so? Why
should not the wealthy orphan hestow
her fortune on Angelo if she pleased?
Then Felicia's mocking fancy taunted
her with helieving Alice her rival;
and with a stinging hlush and hitter
humiliation, she flew from her window.
Her rival! All Felicia's work, and
all the haste she made ahout it, and
all her other resources of thought
and speech, could not drive that
humiliating suggestion out of her
head. Her hlush and her discom-
fort lasted the whole day. She had
not a word to say, nor a look to
hestow on Angelo, though she forced
herself to sit rigidly opposite to him
while his mother recounted every
detail of the appearance of Alice, and
complained that Felicia would not
tell her who the stranger was. An-
gelo had no such delicacy. He dis-
closed all that he knew with the
frankest equanimity. She was very
rich, the little Englishwoman, and
pretty, yes—and was extremely gra-
cious to himself, he added with a
laugh and look which sent Madame
Peruzzi's amhitious hopes hounding
upwards. This occurred in the
afternoon, when it was still daylight,
the young man having appeared this
day much earlier than his wont. He
stood at the window as he spoke,
with something of the pleased hesi-
tation and fan of a young girl de-
scrihing a conquest, looking down
upon the windows where Alice cer-
tainly was not visihle, though Felicia
suspected otherwise. Madame Pe-
ruzzi sat on the sofa, asking questions
and admiring him, as, indeed, was
not wonderful, for he looked all the
handsomer for looking pleased, while
Felicia sat hy looking on with the
most intolerahle impatience in her
mind. She could not hear to see
him smiling with that womanish
complacency. She was too much
interested for .his credit to tolerate
it. The look disturhed her heyond
measure in her imperative youthful
thoughts. She was ushamed for him
—he who was happily and totally un-
conscious in his own person of hav-
ing anything to he ashamed of, and
at lust joined in the conversation
when too much provoked to hear any
longer her spectator position.
"Miss Clayton wishes me to he her
parlatrice," said Felicia. "I would
not decide, aunt, hefore consulting yoo.
Should you ohject?"
She glanced at Angelo as she
spoke, and saw that he started
slightly, hut not that he was discom-
posed or mortified.at the thought of
his little lady-love knowing a rela-
tion of his to he in circumstances
which could justify such an offer.
Angelo was not a schemer—he was
content to marry the heiress as a
very proper and legitimate means of
promoting his own interest, hut not
to deceive her into a marriage with
him. Felicia, in the iguorance of her
insular notions, having done him
more than justice at one time, and


1869.]
279
Felicita.— Conclusion.

given him credit for exalted senti-
ments impossihle to the atmosphere
in which he lived, did him less than
justice now. He would have hrought
in the astonished Alice into this very
aula if he could have done it with
propriety, as smiling and good-
humoured as now.
' • My soul," said Madame Peruzzi,
faltering a little—for she could not
forget that, until ten minutes hefore,
her hopes had heen fixed on Felicita
as her son's wife, and the prudent
old lady still rememhered that a hird
in the hand was more satisfactory
than a dozen in the hush—" My soul,
you have no need to give yourself
trouhle. You have enough, Felicia
mia—and—it might harm our AD-
gelo, thon perceivest, my life!"
"Nay; hut Felicita has no friends
— this siguorina longs to know her,
and loves her already," said Angelo:
"he not hindered, my cousin, hy any
thonght of me."
"You do not know the English,"
said Felicia, turning to him quickly
with a siguificance of meaning which
Angelo could not even guess at.
'• Should I have preseuted Miss Clay-
ton to your mother, Angelo?"
"And why not?" said Angelo,
turning his eyes from Felicia to his
mother—then, perhaps, he coloured,
slightly. "They saw each other,''
he said; "I will tell Mees Aleece who
it was."
"Nay, my son," said Madame
Peruzzi, "they are proud, these
English, as Felicita says. I had hut
my household dress, and was not
like thy mother. Say it was thy old
nurse, or thy mother's maid. Thy
rich heiress shall never scorn thee, vay
life, for thy mother's sake."
Angelo crossed over quickly to her
sofa, and kissed Madame Peruzzi's
hollow grey unlovely cheek. "Who
scorns my mother scorns me," he said,
with a glance towards his cousin, who
looked on with amazed and uncompre-
hending eyes.
Felicia was totally discomfitted.
She "gave it up" in complete hewil-
derment; she could no more under-
stand how fortune-hunting was a
perfectly honourahle and laudahle
occupation, and could he pursued
honestly without guile or conceal-
ment, than Angelo could understand
the self-delusions of Alice concerning
himself, nor how utterly dismayed
that young lady would he could she
see the reality of his domestic ar-
rangements, and know his mother as
she was.
CHAPTER V.
But when Angelo next encount-
ered Alice Clayton, and was accosted
hy her with eager questions ahout
his cousin, and inquiries concerning
the " frightful old witch" who hurried
Felicia away, the young man hegan
to understand what his cousin meant
when she said he did not understand
the English; and the hlue eyes fixed
upon him took away his courage.
He did not answer holdly that it
was his mother, as he meant to do,
hut faltered, and found himself assent-
ing at last when Alice suggested his
mother's maid. When he had done
this a great revolution of feeling he-
fell Angelo. He was half disgusted,
half stimulated hy the deception. It
was no longer a jesting matter to
him. Now, in mere vindication of
himself to himself, it hecame neces-
sary to press his suit and hecome
serious in it; while the more he did
so, the less he liked his little heiress;
and a certain sense of guilt in his
conscience, and the dishonour of de-
nying his nfother, gave a hitterness
to every thought of her, which hy no
means promoted his happiness as a
lover. Meanwhile Felicia, who dis-
approved of him and watched him,
and seemed to perceive hy intuition
his sentiments and his actions alike,
hecame more and more interesting to
Angelo. He was flattered hy that
constant noiseless watchful regard
which he knew she hestowed upon
him. He felt that she found him out,
and saw the change in his mind ; and
feeling, for the first time in his. life,
pain and dissatisfaction with himself,
Angelo, instead of heing offended hy
her unexpressed perceptions, felt a
relief in grumhling vaguely to her


280
[Sept.
Felicita.— Conclusion.

over all those vague miseries upou
which youthful people revenge the
vouthful pangs of their own hegiuning
'life.
While things were in this condi-
tion, Alice Clayton lost no opportu-
nity to improve her acquaintance
with Felicia. She watched from the
windows when she went out, and
followed her; she continued to en-
counter her in all sorts of unlikely
places; she took that girlish violent
f'aney for the elder young woman,
which is generally every girl's first
love: — indeed, hut for the greater
force and excitement of what Alice
supposed to he real love—the love
which would hlossom into hridal
cake and orange hlossoms — it is
extremely douhtful whether the little
girl liked Angelo hetter than his
cousin; and at last, hy persistence
and entreaties, she gained her end.
Felicia, tormented hy constant peti-
tions, and full of an indescrihahle curi-
osity ahout the progress of affdirs he-
tween Angelo and the little stranger,
consented at length to hecome her
p'irlntrice. This peculiar cfhVe was
one excellently well adapted for
making her acquainted with every-
thing which passed in or flashed
tbrough the volatile and girlish mind
of Alice. A parlatrice is a talking
teacher—a shoot from the great
governess tree—from whom no ac-
complishment is required, hut a good
accent and tolerahle command of her
own language, and whose duty is
simply to talk with the individual
under instruction. An easy task to
all appearance, hut not so easy as
it seems when it is the pupil who
is hent upon talking, aud whose
thoughts flood into ahundant rivers
of English instead of ttrait streams
of Italian. It was now winter, and
winter is not much more gracious in
Florence than in England; hut while
the weather grew colder and colder,
Madame Peruzzi's stony rooms re-
mained iunocent of fire, and perhaps
Felicia found an additional induce-
ment in the warm comfort of the
carpeted apartment which was Alice's
dressing-room, and where she could
warm her chilly English fingers at
the sparkling wood-fire and recall
insular comforts without rehuke.
Here she heard all ahout the ante-
cedents, prospects, and limitations
of her young companion's life. Alice
Clayton was the only child of a rich
man, who had left her nothing much
to hoast of in the way of family con-
nections on his side, and no relative
on her mother's save a proud aunt,
who could scarcely forgive her sister's
low marriage, and yet was not indis-
posed to accept the guardianship of
a young lady with a hundred thou-
sand pounds. This, however, Mr.
Clayton had strictly guarded ngainst.
The guardian of Alice was a London
solicitor — an excellent man, who
lived in Bedford Row, and was the
most iunocent and inexperienced of
old hachelors. Mr. Elcomhe, totally
iguorant what to do with her, had
coufided her her to the care of his sis-
ter-in-law, a semi-fashionahle widow of
these regions, and under the maternal
cure ot Mrs. George Elcomhe the
young heiress had come to Italy, and
at sixteen fhad made her appearance
in the society of Florence. "With
her fortune," her accommodating
chaperon saw no advantage in re-
taining Miss Clayton in girlish hond-
age. It did not matter to her hrw
early she came out. Here, accord-
ingly, the child well - pleased hnd
come into all the privileges of the
woman, had met Angelo Peruzzi, and
pleased with his good looks, and
flattered with the novelty and frolic
of the whole matter, had fallen in
love, according to her own showing,
at first sight. Falling in love had
no sentimental influence upon Alice.
She thought it the he*t fun possihle,
and enjoyed, ahove all her other plea-
sure, that delightful secret which
she could only discuss with Felicia,
and which, "for all the world," must
never he mentioned to anyhody else.
One drawhack, however, remained to
her happiness. Till she was twenty-
one she was under her guardian's
authority. She could neither marry
nor do anything else of importance
without his consent
"But ahout Angelo?" cried Feli-
cia one day, astounded to hear of
this hindrance—''does he expect to
satisfy your guardian? or what is to
he doner"
"That is just what he asked me
the other d,iy," said the laughing
Alice; "and I told him, to he sure,


1859.]
281
Felicita.— Conclusion.

he mast wait. Oh, 1 am not in a
hurry at all, I assure yon—J can
wait very well till I come of age."
"But if you wait till you come of
age," said Felicia quickly, "you will
not marry Angelo."
"Felicita!" cried her little com-
panion indiguantly. "Do you mean
to suppose that I will he incon-
stant? or do you think he will for-
get me 1"
"I do not- know," said Felicia—
"perhaps one, perhaps the other;
hut you caunot expect Angelo to
wait for four—five years."
"The knights long ago nsed to
wait for scores of years," said Alice,
indiguantly.
"I hope they were very happy at
the end," said her grave senior, with
a smile; "hut there are no such
knights nowadays. And Angelo is
very different, and you are so young:
you two will never wait for each
other tbrough five long years."
"We will, though!" cried Alice.
"Felicita, I do helieve you don't like
us to he fond of each other. I al-
ways thought so from the first Some-
thing is wrong : either you dou't ap-
prove of it, or you don't like me,
or something. You are always Eng-
lish and dowuright on other things,
hut you are a regular Italian here—
you never say right out what you
mean."
"I am sorry you think so," said
Felicia with a sadden painful hlush
and paleness imaiediately succeeding
each other, which would have he-
trayed her to a more skilled ohserver
of human emotions; "hut I have
nothing to do with it, and no right
either to approve or disapprove. Be-
sides, we are speaking English," she
added immediately in Italian, "and
that is quite contrary to our purpose.
If you are going to speak English,
Miss Elcomhe will he a hetter parla-
trice than me."
'• Oh, never mind the pirlatrice.
Imagine me speaking to Maria El-
comhe of Angelo 1" cried Alice, with a
little hurst of laughter. Felicia, who
sat with her hack to the door, could
not understand how it was that the
little girl's cheeks suddenly flushed
crimson, and an injured sullen look
of anger came upon her face. Half
afraid to look round, and guessing
the domestic accident which had
happened, Felicia did not turn her
head, hut watched the course of
events in her companion's face. She
knew, hy the look of Alice, that
some one was approaching; and
though she heard no footstep, was
scarcely surprised hy Mrs. Elcorahe's
distinct slow voice close at her ear.
"Who was it, Miss Clayton, miiy I
ask, whom you could not speak of to
Maria?"
Alice was greatly discomfited, and
first of all she was angry, as was
natural to a spoiled child. "I am
not ohliged to speak to Maria of
everyhody I know," she said, with a
pout and a frown. Mrs. Elcomhe
was still invisihle to Felicia, who sat
motionless, sunk in a low easy-chair,
with the colour fluctuating rather
uneasily on her own cheek, and her
eyes fixed upon the hlushing, pout-
ing, discomposed face hefore her.
Then an authoritative rustle of silk
made itself heard in the apartment,
and Mrs. Elcomhe, gliding round
hehind Felicia's chair, seated her-
self heside Alice, and took the af-
fronted little girl's hand affectionate-
ly into her own.
"By no means, my dear child!
Speak to Maria of whom you please,"
said this sensihle woman, rememher-
ing that young ladies of Alice Clay-
ton's endowments demand other
treatment from ordinary girls of six-
teen. "You know how glad I al-
ways am when you make nice friends
—friends whom I can approve of;"
and here the slightest side-glance in
the world made a parenthesis of Fe-
licia, and excepted her; "hut you
are my little ward at present, my
love. l am responsihle to my hro-
ther for so precious a charge, and
you must forgive me for inquiring,
my sweet Alice. I heard what
seemed to me a gentleman's name—
a gentleman's Chnntinn name. Most
prohahly I know him also, and think
him charming; hut, my love, you
can surely speak of him to me."
This appeal tbrew Alice into the
greatest confusion and dismay, and
had a still more painful effect upon
Felicia, whose presence Mrs. Elcomhe
studiously iguored after that one
glance, hut for whom it was much
less easy to suppose herself a piece


S82
[Sept
Felicita.—Conclusion.

of furniture than it was for that
respectahle woman of the world to
conclude her to he. Felicia was all
the more humiliated and ahashed
that she felt herself to have no real
standing-ground here. She was no
parlatrice, though she filled that
office. She had no claim whatever
to consider herself an equal or com-
panion — not even the imaginary
claim of nohility; the few drops of
long-descended hlood which made
Angelo a Peruzzi. Felicia's hlood
was of a very mediocre Italian qua-
lity, diluted hy intensely common-
place English. Any one with a pre-
judiced eye, like Mrs. Elcomhe, find-
ing her here so familiarly installed,
and investigating her claims, must
infallihly conclude her an accomplice
of her cousin's, the agent of a clan-
destine correspondence; and Felicia,
who had so little sympathy with this
correspondence, felt her hreast swell
and her cheek hurn, while smooth
Mrs. Elcomhe, the pleasanlest of ma-
ternal women, went on, wooing the
confidence of her heiress with every
appearance of helieving herself to he
alone with Alice, and having lost
sight entirely of the presence of a
third person in the room.
In the mean time Alice, faltering
and ashamed, half disposed to cry,
and half to he angry, did not know
what to answer. She was not crafty
or wise hy any means, though she
was an heiress, and the English
fashion of answering honestly a fair
question was strong upon the little
girl. She could not tell what to do;
she looked at Felicia, hut it awed
even Alice for the moment to see
how her diguified chaperone iguored
Felicia's presence. Then a little
indiguation came to her aid; she
hegan to pluck at the corners of her
handkerchief, and pout once more.
Then her answer came reluctantly,
heing a suhterfuge. '- I know no-
hody, Mrs. Elcomhe, that you do not
know as well. I don't know any
gentleman in Florence" (here the
hreath and the voice quickened with
rising anger) "whom I have not seen
with yon."
"Precisely, my love; I am quite
aware of that," said Mrs. Elcomhe,
cheerfully; "therefore, Alice, I am
sore, when you think of it, you can
not have the slightest ohjection to
tell me whom you were speaking of.
I have the most perfect confidence in
you, my dear child; you don't sup-
pose that I don't trust you; hut I
confess I am curious and interested
to know who it was."
Here followed another pause, then
Felicia rose. "Perhaps I may go
now," she said hurriedly. "You
will not want we again this after-
noon, Miss Clayton; and you can let
me know afterwards when I am to
come again."
"Oh, hy all means, my love, let
the young person go," said Mrs. El-
comhe, looking up as if she had dis-
covered Felicia for the first time.
"We are going out to make some
calls presently. Surely, Miss Clay-
ton does not require you any longer
to-day; it is a pity to detain her,
wasting her time. I hope you have
a good many pupils. Oood-d&y. I
never like to detain such people, my
dear, alter I have done with them,"
said the excellent matron, in audihle
consideration, "for their time, you
know, is their fortune."
"But, Felicita, Felicita, stop! Oh,
Mrs. Elcomhe, you mistake—she has
no pupils!—she is quite as good as
we are," cried Alice, rising in great
distress; "she only comes hecause it
is a favour to me. Felicita, stay! I
caunot let you leave me so."
"I heg the young lady's pardon,"
said Mrs. Elcomhe; "hut 1 think it
is always a pity to have things done
as a favour which you can pay money
for, and get the proper persons to do
—I don't mean anything in respect
to the present instance, hut as a
general rule, my dear Alice, I think
you will f1nd it useful to rememher
what I say. The young lady is
Mademoiselle Antini, I think; hut,
perhaps, as we were hegiuning quite
a private conversation, my love, we
need not detain her now."
Alice ran to Felicia, put her arms
round: her, and kUsed her eagerly.
"Don't he angry, please—I shall not
tell her anything—oh, Felicita, dear,
don't he vexed!—and promise you
will come again to-morrow!" cried
Alice, in a whisper, close to Felicia's
ear.
"Tell Mrs. Elcomhe aaything you
please; you surely caunot suppose I


1859.]
283
Felicita.—Conclusion.

want anything concealed from her,"
said Felicia, quietly; '• I should not
have come to all, bur, as I supposed,
with her perfect concurrence; and
I will ask to see her if I come to-
morrow."
So saying, despite the frightened
and deprecating look with which
Alice replied, and the gesture she
made to detain her, Felicia went
away — her heart heating quicker,
and her pride, such as it was, sore
and injured. After all, everything
Mrs. Klcomhe had said was quite
true: she was in an undeniahly false
position — her cousin's agent! and
the conversation that might ensue
touching Angelo was sure to hear
fruit of one kind or other. She went
away, accordingly, with some com-
motion in her heart.
Angelo lingered at home that even-
ing. Angelo himself was dissatisfied
and out of sorts. The saucy com-
posure with which his little heiress
had aunounced to him that she was
not at all in haste, and that he must
wait five years, confounded the young
man. Hopes of sudden wealth are
not good for any one; and Angelo
felt a certain share of the gamhler's
feverishness and contempt for ordin-
ary means and revenues. There are
circumstances under which the pretty
sauciness and assurance of" pretty
little girls like Alice Clayton are
exceedingly captivating and delight-
ful; hat there are other circumstances
which give quite a different aspect
to such coquettish girlish imperti-
nences. Angelo had never made very
desperate love to the little English-
woman—she did not require it. Fun
and good-humour, and a general in-
clination to ahet all her frolics and
do what she wanted him, were quite
enough for the sixteen-year-old
heauty. But to wait five years!
What would hecome of that youth-
ful flirtation in five years? The
young Florentine was very sulky,
sufficiently inclined to talk over his
trouhles, hut ashamed to enter upon
the suhject with Felicia, who alone
could understand him. The sola
that evening was less comfortahle
than it had used to he in summer.
January in Florence is January with-
out any equivoque; and though
Madame Peruzzi had a stove in
the room, she was an old-fashioned
Italian, and was not in the least in-
clined to use it, not to speak of the
high price of wood. The old lady,
accordingly, less pleased than ever
to sit up tbrough the long cold even-
ing, sat in her usual sofa corner,
wrapped up in a large ancient faded
shawl, heneath which she wore so
many old jackets and invisihle com-
forters that her leauness was rounded
into very respectahle proportions.
Close heside her, under her skirts,
only visihle when she made some
movement, was a little round earthen-
ware jar with a handle, within which
a little heap of charcoal smouldered
in white ashes. Madame Peruzzi
would have scorned the hrightest
coal-fire in all England, in compensa-
tion or exchange for that unwhole-
some little furnace under her skirts;
hut with all her shawls huddled
round and her pan of charcoal, she did
not look quite au impersonation of
that suuny, glowing, fervid Italy of
which we read in hooks. Everything
looked cold to-night — poor Felicia,
working at her needlework with hlue
fingers, and hegiuning to repent of
her stuhhorn English resistance to
the pan of charcoal—Angelo leaning
his arms on the chilly marhle tahle
with discontent and disappointment
on his face. Even Angelo felt the
cold pinch his feet upon those dis-
consolate tiles, which no carpet ever
had covered, and huttoned his great-
coat over his hreast with a physical
sensation which seconded his mental
discomforts and increased them.
Felicia wore the warmest winter
dress she had and a shawl, which
rather shocked her English senti-
ments of home - propriety, hut was
quite indispensahle. Thev were a
very dreary party under the two
hright steady lights of their tall lamp.
It was a kind of Italian interior un-
known to strangers, and novel in its
way.
"I wish," cried Angelo, at last, in
a sudden hurst as if his thoughts
had heen going on in this strain, and
only hroke from him when he could
restrain himself no longer—" I wish
that this Firenze had never heen ' la
hella.' I wish we had no Dante, no
Giotti, no fame, Felicita 1 The past
murders us. la there so much power


284
[Sept.
Felicita.— Conclusion.
in a mas? of stone and marhle, in a
line of pictures, that they should
trample the life oat of generations of
men? I wish these strangers, these
travellers, these wandering English,
wonld find some other place to visit
and admire and degrade. I wish they
would hut leave us our own country,
to make the hest of it for ourselves.
They would degrade us all into cooks,
and couriers, and hotel-keepers. It
should not he—it is shame!"
""What have the English done,
that you should speak bo?" cried
Felicia, somewhat indiguantly; for
her national prejudices were very
easily roused, and this unexpected
attack astounded her heyond mea-
sure.
"Done I—oh nothing very had;
they have taken my mother's house,
floor after floor, and made up our
income," said Angelo, with an angry
laugh. "They have done nothing
wrong, my English cousin. Why
should they do every thing, I say?
Why are they doing a thousand
things everywhere, every one, £.11
over the face of the earth, except
Italy 1 Why must we never live out
of hearing of those frogs who croak
to us of their present and our past?
Ah, shall we never have anything
hut a past 1 You stare at me, Felicita;
you think me mad, I who am nseless
and idle as you say, hut I too am an
Italian. I think of my country as
well as another. I could he a revolu-
tionary, a politician as well as another;
and if I say nothing, it i3 for my
mother's sake."
"But your mother would not hin-
der yon from making a revolution
in yourself, Angelo," said Felicia,
philosophically, improving the oppor-
tunity.
Angelo laughed. "Insatiahle mor-
alist 1" he said, sbrugging his shoul-
ders, "I have already hsd the hon-
our of telling you -what are the
only things I could do, copying pic-
tures, carving alahaster, making por-
celain. Then there are the Govern-
ment hureaus, it is true; hut I have
no interest, Felicita mia; what shall
I do?"
'• You only mock me, Argelo," said
Felicia. "You never think seri-
ously, much less speak seriously.
You want to he rich and have every-
thing that pleases yon, hut you don't
want to work for it. A great many
people are like that—it is not singular
to \oo."
- Her tone stung her cousin deeply.
"And you — you despise me!" he
paid. '' Because I care more for what
you think than for what all the
world thinks, therefore you scorn
me."
"Do not say so," said Felicia quick
ly; "Alice Clayton's opinion ought
to he, and is, a great deal more im-
portant to you than mine. She thinks
you always Tight; I do not; hut that
is no fault of mine."
"Alice Clayton is a child," said
Angelo; "her opinion is what pleases
her for the moment How should she
judge of a man? she knows less of me
than Marietta does. I am a stranger
to her disposition, to her little experi-
ence, and to her heart."
"Then why, for heaven's sake,'' said
Felicia, hefore she was aware of what
she said—then she paused: "I do not
understand what you mean."
"But I understand it perfectly,"
said Angelo, with pique. "Little
Mees Aleece can play with me, she sup-
poses, hut she shall see otherwise.
If she had me in her power, this lit-
tle girl, it shall he hut once and no
more."_
"Angelo," said Felicia, "I am not
a proper adviser on such a matter—
I am not a proper confidante. Pray
he so good as to say no more to me.
I can understand the other suhject of
your complaints, hut not this."
"Yet it is the same suhject, Feli-
cita," cried the young man : "can I,
who do nothing, and have no hope—
can I have a wife like your English-
man? Can I ask any woman to live
as my mother lives—she who is old
and contented with her life, and an
Italian? What must I do? You tell
me work; hut unless I make me an
exile, there is nothing to work at;
and, my consin, if I marry little Alice,
I will he good to her. I will not love
her, hut she shall have nothing to
complain of me. Why should not I
marry her ?—hat I will not wait five
years."
"Cousin Angelo," said Felicia,
rising ahruptly from the tahle, "I
wish you good-night; you oppress
me, and I will Dot hear it. I have


1859.]
285
Fdicita.— Conclusion.

nothing to do with your marrying or
your love. I am only a pluin Eng-
lish girl, and I do not understand
them—I hid you good-night."
And with a hurried step and voice
that faltered slightly, she went away,
not in a very comfortahle condition of
mind, poor girl; tried on hoth sides
heyond what was hearahle, yet al-
ready hlaming herself for her ehul-
lition of impatience, and fancying
sue had hetrayed feelings which she
would havo given the world to hide.
Yet, inconsistent es human nature
is, this sudden and angry departure
of his cousin somehow cheered and
exhilarated Angelo. His cheek took
a warmer glow—he looked after her
with a gleam in his eyes which had
not heen there a moment hefore. He Angelo, it
was not aifronted, hut encouraged, race, the
and made Felicia's excuses to his
mother, and sat hy himself when the
old lady was gone, with fancies which
warmed his heart, hut in which no
though of Alice Clayton interposed.
He was not sorry nor concerned—he
took no new resolution on the mo-
ment — he considered nothing — hut
in the pleasure of the moment hasked
like a child and took no further
thoncht.
While, as for Felicia, she laid down
her head upon her hed, till even that
homely couch tremhled with her re-
strained trouhle. She was humi-
liated, grieved, oppressed; hetween
these two her judgment was per-
petually shocked and her heart
wounded. To-morrow even opened
to her a new variety of trial. To-
morrow the chances were that ac-
cusations against her as a secret
agent of Angelo's courtship would
he hrought wi'h unanswerahle logic;
and Alice, when they were alone,
would once more toss her little head
in saucy trinmph, and talk of leading
Angelo, like a second Jacob. a will-
ing wooer for five long years. Yet
while this had to he looked for, she
was the person whom Angelo himself
offended with looks and suggestions
of love, and to whom he did not
scruple to confess his carelessuess for
Alice. She scorned him, she despised
him, she turned with proud disgust
from his unworthiness; yet, poor
girl 1 leaned her head upon her hed,
devouring sohs whose hitterness lay
all in the fact that he was unworthy,
and defending him against herself
with a hreaking heart. It was not
was his education, his
atmosphere which sur-
rounded him. The one sat smiling
and dreaming in one room, pleasing
himself in the moment, and taking
no thought for the morrow; the
other, on the other side of the wall,
kept her sohs in her heart, thinking
with terror of that inevitahle to-mor-
row, and helieving that she would he
content to give her own life, ere the
day hroke, only to wake the soul of
Angelo to hetter things, and open his
eyes to honour and truth. -Poor Fe-
licia ! and poor Angelo !—hut it was
very true her greater enlighten-
ment did not make her happier.
The young Florentine went smiling
to his rest, and slept the sleep of
youth half an hour thereafter; while
his English cousin, chafing and griev-
ing herself with that most intolerahle
of trouhles, the moral ohtuseness of
the person most dear to her in the
world, wept tbrough half the night.
CnAITKR VL
Brightly this day of Felicia's trial
hroke upon Florence — hright with
all the dazzling sheen of winter—a
cloudless sky, an unshaded sun, every-
thing gay to look at, hut the sbrill
Tramontana whistling from the hills,
and winter seated supreme in the stony
apartments of Italian poverty. In
this morning's light Madame Peruzzi's
shawled figure, encumhered with all
its wrappings, was even more re-
markahle than it had heen at night.
A woollen knitted cap tied over her
ears—a dark-hrown dingy article, hy
no means improving to her com-
plexion — worsted mits on the lean
hands, in which, tbroughout the house,
wherever she went in her morning
peramhulations, the old lady carried
her little jar of charcoal, and her
shawl enveloping the entire remain-
der of her person, left much to the
imagination, hut did not stimulate
that faculty with very sweet sugges-


286
[Sept
Felicita.—Conclusion.
tione. While in the dazzle of the
sunshine, everything in that hare
little tala shone so hitterly and re-
morselessly cold, that it is not won-
derful if Felicia, who was only in her
first Italian winter, and not quite
inured to the domestic delights of
that season, felt chilled to her heart.
Possihly this chill was Do disadvan-
tage at that crisis, for the extreme
physical discomfort she felt not only
hlunted her feelings a little to future
mental suffering, hut held up hefore
her, with an aspect of the most irre-
sistihle temptation, the cosy fire and
warm interior of Alice Clayton's
room.
Thither accordingly, a little after
mid-day, Felicia hetook herself, with
no email flutter in her heart. She
did not enter as usual, and make her
way to the apartment of Alice. She
asked for Mrs. Elcumhe, and was
ushered up with solemnity into the
drawing-room, to have that audience.
Mrs. Elcomhe, though she was not a
great lady at home, could manage to
personate one very tolerahly at Flo-
rence; and, to ttll the trnth, Felicia
had so little experience of great ladies
that she had entire faith in the pre-
tensions of her little friend's guardian
and chaperon. With Mrs. Elcomhe in
the drawing-room was seated an elder-
ly gentleman, looking much fatigued,
heated, and flustered, if such a femi-
nine adjective is applicahle to elderly
gentlemen. He looked precisely as
if, vexed and worried out of his wits,
he had escaped from some unsuccess-
ful conflict, and tbrown himself, in
purer exhaustion, into that chair.
Seeing him, as she hegan to speak,
Felicia hesitated, and made a pause.
Mrs. Elcomhe hastened to explain—
"This is Mr. Elcomhe, Miss Clayton's
guardian, my hrother. He is newly
arrived, and naturally very anxious
ahout his previous young charge.
Pray tell me with confidence any-
thing yon may have to say."
"1 have nothing to say, except to
know whether — as I supposed from
what you said yesterday — you have
any ohjection to my visits to Miss
Clayton," said Felicia. "I would
have given them up at once; hut —
indeed I have not many friends in
Florence, and it is a pleasure to see
her sometimes; hesides, that she
wants me; hut I thought it right in
the first place, hefore seeing her again,
to see yoo."
'•I am much ohliged — it is very
judicious—pray he seated, mademoi-
selle," said Mrs. Elcomhe. "I am
puzzled, however, to know in what
capacity you visit my young ward.
I had supposed as her parlatriee? She
engaged you, as I imagined—indeed,
I rememher, finding you to he per-
fectly respectahle so far. as I could
ascertain, that I gave my consent to
make an arrangement; hut accord-
ing to what you say, I should sup-
pose your visits to he those of friend-
ship, which mades a difference. May
I ask which is the case?"
"Certainly I have come to speak
Italian with Miss Clayton," said
Felicia, hlushing painfully; "hut I
have not taken money from her, and
never meant to do so. I came he-
cause she entreated me."
"And how did she know you, may
I ask i" continued the great lady, fix-
ing upon Felicia her cold and steady
eye?.
"I helieve tbrough my cousin,
whom she has frequently met," said
Felicia as steadily, though her heart
heat loud, and the colour, in spite of
herself, fluctuated on her cheek.
"So I I helieve we are coming to
the hottom of it now," cried Mrs.
Elcomhe, turning to her hrother-in-
law with a look of trinmph. "Your
cousin is Angelo Feruzzi; he knows
our poor child's fortune, and in case
his own suit should not prosper suf-
ficiently of itself, he has managed to
place you ahout her person, to convey
his messages and love-letters, and so
forth; and to make her suppose a
heggarly Florentine idler to he a
young Italian nohleman 1 Oh, I see
the whole! Can you dare to look in
my face and deny what I say?"
Felicia had hecome very pale; the
was still standing, and grasped the
hack of a chair unconsciously as Mrs.
Elcomhe spoke, half to support her-
self, half to express somehow hy an
irrepressihle gesture the indiguation
that was in her. "I will deny no-
thing that is true," she saiJ, com-
manding herself with nervous self-
control. "Angelo Peru2zi is my
cousin. Because he had spoken of
me to her, Miss Clayton claimed my


1859.]
287
Felicita— Conclusion.

acquaintance one morning in the
gallery of the Palace. That is all my
cousin has to do, so far as I am aware,
with our acquaintance. If Angelo
jver wrote to her, I am iguorant of it.
I have never horne any message
whatever hetween them. I have no-
thing to do with what he wishes, or
what she wishes. They are hoth ahle
to answer for themselves. Now will
yon he good enough to answer my
question — I have answered yours.
l)o you ohject to my visits to Miss
Clayton? May I heg that you will
tell me yes or no?"
Mrs. Blcomhe stared at her ques-
tioner with speecbless consternation.
She expected the presumptuous
young woman to he totally con-
founded, and lo! she was still ahle
to answer. "I see you will not lose
anything for want of confidence,
mademoiselle," she said with a gasp.
•' To dare me to my very face I Do
you suppose I helieve your fine story?
No! this poor child shall not he
sacrificed to a foreigu fortune-hunter
if I can help it. I prohihit your
visits to Miss Clayton—do you hear?
I will give orders that you are not to
he admitted again."
"Stay a moment," said the dis-
tressed elderly gentleman, who all
this time had heen recovering hreath
and looking on. "The young woman
seems to me to have answered very
sensihly and clearly — very different
from that little fury in the other room
— not to say that you have exposed
your case uupardonahly, sister, as in-
deed was to he expected. May I ask
how it is that you, heing an Italian,
speak English so well?"
"lam English," said Felicia; she
had no hreath lor more than these
tbree laconic words.
"Ah, indeed; and what service,
then, were you likely to he to Alice
Clayton, when you went to her as her
park — parla — what-do-you-call-it?
Eh, can you answer me that?"
'• My lather was an Italian—the one
language is to me as familiar as the
other," said Felicia, quietly.
"Horn—ah. What do you know,
then, ahout this courtship husiness?"
said the stranger. "Girls are al-
ways intrusted ahout such matters.
Tefl us in confidence, and he sure /
vol. r.xxxvi.
shan't hlame yon. What hand have
you had it? Eh?"
"None whatever," said Felicia.
"Well, well; that is not precisely
what I mean. What do you knOw
ahout it? That will satisfy me!"
"I know nothing at all ahout it,"
said Felicia with some ohstinacy—
then she paused. "I am English,
and I am not a waiting-woman. I
neither will nor can repeat to you
all that Alice Clayton—a little girl
of sixteen—may have said to me. I
am not aware of any duty which
could make me do that; hut so far
from wishing to help on what you
call a courtship hetween them, the
idea is grievous to me. I have every
reason in the world to oppose it," said
Felicia hurriedly, giving way, in spite
of herself to her natural feelings. "My
cousin's honour — his whole life
But it is useless to tell you what I
think on such a suhject. May I see
Miss Clayton? I have no further con-
cern with the matter."
"Sister," said the lawyer, whoso
eyes had heen fixed on Felicia while
she spoke, "I see no reason to douht
what this young lady says. Let her
go to Alice, and as often as she will.
I helieve she speaks the truth."
"As you will! The unfortunate
child is your ward ; let her he sacri-
ficed," cried Mrs. Elcomhe. But Fe-
licia did not wait to hear the end of
her oration; she made a little curtsy
of gratitude to her defender, and hur-
ried away.
r The half of it was over; now for
Alice, whose saucy girlish hrag of the
impatience of her lover, and deter-
mination to make him wait, was
perhaps rather more aggravating
than even the douhts and interro-
gatories of her friends. But Alice
today was neither saucy nor tri-
umphant; she lay sunk in a great
chair with her hands over her face,
s6hhing sohs of petulant anger, shame,
and vexation — a childish passion.
Felicia was entirely vanquished hy
this strange and unexpected trouhle.
She did not helieve the little girl
could have felt any thing so much,
nor did she understand what was the
occasion of her sudden grief. Some-
thing in which Angelo on the one
side and her newly-arrived guardian
14


288
[Sept.
Felkita— Conclusion.

on the other, had to do, was evident;
hut all Felicia's personal indignation
was quenched at once hy the sight of
her tears. What had she to do weep-
ing, that hright little happy creature?
There are certainly some people in the
world who are not horn to weep, and
whose chance sufferings strike with a
sense of something intolerahle the sad-
dest spectators who see them. Little
Alice Clayton, with her sixteen-year-
oldheauty, was one of these.
"What has happened? what is the
matter?" cried Felicia, sitting down
heside her, and drawing away the
little hands from her face. "Let me
make jour mind easy hy telling yon
that Mr. Elcomhe himself has just
given mo permission to come. I am
not here under disapproval. Your
guardian has sent me; and now tell
me what is wrong?"
"Oh, Felicita," cried Alice sud-
denly, tbrowing herself upon Felicita's
shoulder, "I will depend upon you,
I will trust to you; though all the
world should deceive me, I know you
will tell me the truth; and if he really
loves me, Felicita, I will wait for him
ten, twenty—I do not mind if it was a
hundred years I"
Felicia involuntarily drew herself
away. "A hundred years is a long
promise," she said, with a tremhling
smile.
"But that is no answer," cried
Alice, recovering her animation. "I
said I would depend on you, and
helieve whatever you said; and I
will, Felicita! They tell me Angelo
wants my fortune, and does not care
for me. They try to make me helieve
nohody could love me at my age:
that is a falsehood, I know !" cried
Alice, with sparkling eyes, which
flashed tbrough her tears: "they
might as well say at once that no-
hody could ever love a girl that had
a fortune, for that is whut they
mean; hut never mind, Felicita I It
is of Angelo they were speaking—
Angelo, your cousin, who is very fond
of you, and tells you what he thinks,
I know he does. If you will say you
arc sure he loves me, Felicita, I will
wait for him, I tell you, a dozen
years!"
This serious appeal took Felicia hy
surprise. She grew red and grew
pale and drew hack as her young
companion hent forward, with a pang
which she could not express. For
the moment she felt guilty and a
culprit, with the hlue eyes of Alice
gazing so earnestly and unsuspi-
ciously in her face. How could she
answer? — she who rememhered, no
further gone than last night, those
looks and words of Angelo's which
sent her tbrilling with mortified
pride, yet tenderness inextinguish-
ahle, to the solitude of her own
chamher. When that first natural
shock was passed, and when she sup-
posed she could detect a sharper
and less earnest scrutiny in Alice's
eyes, the poor girl once more grew
indiguant. Bad enough that she
should he accused of ahetting a
wooing so little to her mind. Now
must she he called upon to answer
for him, and pledge her own sincerity
for his? If Felicia had heen a young
lady in a novel, she would douhtless
have recoguised in this the moment
for self-sacrifice — the moment in
which to make a holocaust of her
own feelings, and transfer, with the
insulting generosity of a modern
heroine, the heart which she knew to
he her own, to the other less fortu-
nate woman who only wished for it.
But as she was only a plain girl,
accustomed to tell the truth, this
climax of feminine virtue was not to
he expected from her. And happily
for herself she grew angry, resentful
of all the perplexities forced upon
her. She drew quite hack from her
little friend, or little tormentor.
She rose up, and gathered her cloak
ahout her with haste and agitation.
She would go away—she was safe only
in flight.
"It is not a question which can he
asked of me," she said, with so much
more than her usual gravity that
Alice thought her stern, and grew
quiet unawares. "Only one perjon
can or ought to answer yon. You
must not repeat to me such wordj.
No, you do me wrong; it is cruel to
put such a question to me—"
"Why? you ought to know hest.
You are not going away, Felicita?
Oh, don't go away! oh, I do so want
you," cried Alice, rising and tbrowing
herself upon her friend's arm. "I
have everything to tell you, and I
want to know what I should do, and


1859.]
289
Felicita—Conclusion.

I want to ask ahout Angelo, and I
want—oh, Felicita, don't you care at
all ahout me? Won't you stay?"
"I care a great deal ahout you,
hut I will not stay," said Felicia
firmly. u I can neither advi8e yon
what to do, nor tell you ahout
Angelo. Ask Angelo himself, he is
the proper person to speak to; and
do what you think hest. I will
come hack when you please; hut I
will not answer any questions: and
now I caunot stay."
Saying which she led the little
girl hack to her seat, and with a
swiftness and silentness which half-
frightened Alice, left the room and
the house. The little heiress eat
still in her chair, startled into posi-
tive stillness. She could not hear
Felicia's retreating footstep, hut knew
she was gone; and this new incident
and new idea gave a new turn to the
thoughts of Alice. Her tears dried
of themselves, and her passion suh-
sided. She no longer thought of her
guardians, or Mrs. Elcomhe, or even
of Angelo; hut puzzled with all her
amazed hut sbrewd little faculties
over the new, ahstruse, and mystcri-
ious question, What could Felicia
mean?
While Felicia, sick at heart and
utterly discouraged, went away hy
the quietest streets she could find to
the other end of Florence. She had
nothing to do there, and it would
have greatly shocked her aunt's
prejudices to see her alone so far
from their own house; hut Felicia's
secret vexations were too much at
the moment for any consideration of
her aunt, or indeed for considerations
of anything. She was not thinking;
her utmost mental effort was to re-
memher, and sting herself over again
with those words and looks, ques-
tions and implications, from which
she had already suffered so cruelly;
and when, returning home, having
tired herself completely, she saw at
a little distance, unseen herself, the
laughing careless face of Angelo
amidst a group of other such at
the cafe door, her patience entirely
forsook the English girl. What had
she done to have her quiet footsteps
so hopelessly entangled in a volatile,
hopeless, inconsequent, Italian life
like this?
That night she and her aunt spent
alone in their usual fashion — which
is to say that Madame Peruzzi
went to hed, and that Felicia, with
one feehle wick of the lamp lighted,
hewildered herself with a hook which
she had not sufficient power of self-
possession to understand, and watched
from the window when Mrs. Elcomhe's
carriage drove up to the door oppo-
site, to see Alice glide into it with the
others in a mist of floating white.
That morning's passion did not hinder
the little heiress. She was there as
usual, and douhtless quite as smiling
and hright as usual. Felicia said to
herself with a momentary hitterness
—" But what was it all to her?" She
went hack to the tahle, and he-
wildered herself for the rest of the
evening with her hook of Italian pro-
verhs, scarcely seeing what she read,
and certainly not comprehending it.
That was how she spent the night.
Next morning Felicia rose with a
craving anxiety in her heart, dimly
feeling that something must have
happened overnight, dimly dreading
something which might happen to-
day. She felt little douht that
Angelo had encountered Alice and
seen her guardian; hut Angelo was
late, and did not make his appear-
ance. It was with the greatest diffi-
culty that she could manage to pre-
serve enough of her usual cxluniess
to save her from emharrassing in-
quiries, and sitting hy while Madame
Peruzzi sipped her coffee, Felicia was
too much occupied in keeping down
a convulsive shiver, half physical,
half mental, comhined of cold and
anxiety, to he ahle for anything
else. When the ungenial meul was
over, and she had to occupy herself
with her usual female work, the
mending and darning of which she
had insisted upon relieving her aunt,
with the whole hright cold hours of
the day hefore her, and that tbrill of
expectation in her whole mind and
frame, the strain upon her hecame
still harder. It was while she sat thus
vainly endeavoring to restrain her
thoughts, and assuring herself that,
however the matter ended, she had
nothing to do with it; and while
Madame Peruzzi, in her great shawl,
and with her pan of charcoal under
her skirts, sat carefully surveying


290
[Sept.
Felicita— Cor,dution.

some very old much-worn UDcn, to
ascertain where it was practicahle to
apply a patch, that a sudden noise
at the door startled Felicia. Angelo
was not yet up, and the house a mo-
ment hefore had heen perfectly still.
Now Marietta's voice, in active dis-
cussion with intruders, made itself
audihle. Marietta was endeavouring
to impress upon some ohstinate
visitors, first, that the Siguora did
not receive, and, secoud, that it was
quite inconvenient, and out of the
question, to attempt to make good
their entrance at such an hour.
Madame Peruzzi listened with an
anxious flutter, sweeping up in her
arms the heap of linen ; while Feli-
cia, perfectly still, heard the noise of
English voices, and yet could scarcely
hear them for the tbrohhing of her
hreast. But then, an indisputahle
reality, rang the girlish tones of Alice,
speaking to some one who answered
her in a voice which could helong
to nohody hut an elderly English-
man, douhtless Mr. Elcomhe. An-
other colloqny, and the two had
swept trinmphantly in, Alice drag-
ging after her her reluctant and
trouhled guardian. Felicia started
to her feet as this astounding vision
appeared at the door. Madame
Peruzzi, who had half lisen, dropped
hack into her chair, scattering the
linen at her feet in her nervous he-
wilderment. There stood the little
heiress in her flutter of pretty flounces,
not muslin this time, hut more costly
siik; and there sat at the household
tahle " the frightful old witch," whom
she had ridiculed to Angelo, and who
could he no other than Angelo's
mother. Alice, who had come in
very hriskly, aud on first sight of
Felicia had heen ahout to rush into
her arms, checked herself at this
sight She made a little frightened
curtsy, grew very red, and stood
gazing at Madame Peruzzi as though
she had eyes for nothing else. The
old lady rose immediately, unques-
tionahly a very odd figure, and "re-
ceived" her visitors with as much
equanimity as she could muster, and
the utmost exuherance of Italian
politeness. But Alice's fright had
startled all her Italian out of her
little girl's head, and Mr. Elcomhe,
stumhling forward, upset the char-
coal pan and its white ashes, cover-
ing himself with confusion, and add-
ing, if {possihle, to the awkwardness of
the scene. Nohody spoke a word at
first hut Madame Peruzzi, and only
Felicia understood what Madame
Peruzzi said: hut when Mr. Elcomhe
hegan to stammer and apologize in
English, and in the utmost emhar-
rassment, the old lady, discovered
so terrihly out of toilette, and in em-
ployment so commouplace, addressed
herself in incomprehensihle explana-
tions to him. But that the younger
persons of the group were moved hy
much more serious feelings, the com-
hination would have heen simply
ludicrous; hut Alice, who had come
in with all the energy and earnest-
ness of a purpose, was so utterly con-
founded and dismayed hy the sight
of Madame Peruzzi, and Felicia was
so anxious and so painfully excited,
that they added quite a tragical ele-
ment to the other hy-play, and pre-
sently swept its lighter current into
the course of their own stronger
emotion. Singularly enough, the
first idea which struck Alice was
horror and disgust, not at the ap-
pearance of her lover's mother, hut
at her own unintentional levity and
cruelty in speaking of her to Angelo;
and all the youthful kindness to-
wards Angelo which she diguified
hy the name of love, sprang up in
douhle force in the warm rehound of
her generous feelings. She had done
him wrong—she returned with vehe-
mence and earnestness to the idea
which had hrought her here.
"Felicita," she cried, "heg Ma-
dame Peruzzi to forgive us for in-
truding on her. Tell her we speak
no Italian; do tell her, pray 1 I
can't think of the words, and there
is no time.—Have you told her?—
does she understand you, Felicita?
Oh, thank you! If she only knew
how wicked and cruel I once was
ahout her, she would hate me; hut
how could I tell it was his mother?
She is not like [him—not the least in
the world. Felicita, we watched at
the window and saw Angelo go out,
and then we came to yoo. Mr. El-
comhe says he will trust what you
say; and so should I, if it were for
my life. Oh, Felicita, this time you
must answer me! Mr.Elcomhe says


1859.]
291
Felicita— Conclusion.

it shall he as you say. If you say
Angelo loves me, he will give his
consent; if you say it, I will wait for
him, if it should he a dozen years!"
Felicia uttered a little cry of im-
patience and anger. "I said yester-
day this question was not to he
asked of me. I said I could not
answer it—I will not answer it I It
is cruel 1 Why do you come again
to me?"
"Felicita! have I any one else
whom I can ask?" cried Alice, tak-
ing her reluctant hand and caressing
it, as she looked up with her girlish,
coaxing, entreating looks in Felicia's
face. "You said yoa liked me—you
said you were fond of me; and when
it may make me happy or unhappy
all my life, you will never have the
heart to refuse me now."
"There is hut one person who can
answer such a question; let him
speak for himself. Can I tell what
is in Angelo's heart ?" said his cou-
sin with a kind of despair. "I told
you so hefore; you must ask him-
self, and not me. Am I a spy to
know what is in his heart?"
"But I have asked Angelo, and I
caunot tell whether he is in jest or
earnest," said Alice, with a plaintive
mingling of pique and humility.
"Felicita, Felicita 1 I do not know
what to do, or what to trust to, if
yoa do not tell me; and it is for all
my life!"
"For all your life! You are only
sixteen; you do not know what life
is," cried Felicia.
"And that is all the more reason
you should tell me," said Alice, steal-
ing once more to her side. "Mr.
Elcomhe says I might pledge my
whole life, and then find out Fe-
licita I I trust only in you!"
"She says truly; the young man
of course must preserve his consist-
ency," said Mr. Elcomhe. "Speak to
her; you are reasonahle, and know
—for his sake as well as tiers. She
will he content with nothing else."
"Felicita! tell me," cried Alice,
cla-ping her hands.
Felicia had risen up, and stood
drawing hack into the corner of the
room — her face hurning, her eyes
glowing, an indiguant despair pos-
sessing her. All this time Angelo's
mother had heen looking on amazed
and uncomprehending; even her
presence was some support to the
poor girl. Now Madame Peruzzi,
strnck hy a new idea, and stimulated
hy the frequent sound of Angelo's
name, the only word she understood,
left the room hurriedly. Felicia
stood drawing hack, holding up her
hands to defend herself from the ad-
vance of Alice, saying she could not
tell what—eager disclaimers of heing
reasonahle and ahle to tell, indiguant
appeals against heing asked. Her
voice grew sbrill in her trouhle.
What had she to do with it? She
had always said so !—she had never
stood hetween them ! — why should
she answer now?
"Because you are my friend," cried
Alice, suddenly tbrowing herself into
Felicia's arms, hreaking down her
defences, and clasping her appealing
hands—" hecause I have no one to
trust hut you — hecause I take you
for my sister. Felicita! does Angelo
love me?"
"No! Alice, go away from me—
you will kill me. No ! — he loves
me.'" cried poor Felicia, with a soh
and cry. Then she sank down with-
out further word or thought upon
the floor — her head tbrohhing, her
heart heating, insensihle to every-
thing hut that forced utterance,
which came with no trinmph, hut
with a pang indescrihahle from the
hottom of her heart She felt that
some one endeavoured to draw her
clasped hands from her face, and
raise her from the ground; hut she
resisted, and kept there crouching
down into her corner, tbrilling with
a passion of indiguant shame, hitter-
ness, and undeserved suffering. Why
was this extorted, wrung from her?
—why was she driven to confess it,
as though she was the culprit? She
desired no more to raise her eyes to
the light; she was sick of scrutiny,
sick of questions, conscious of no
wish hut to disappear from every-
hody's eight, and hide herself where
neither Alice nor Angelo should see
her more. She had said it, hut she
had no pleasure in it. She heard a
murmur of voices, without caring to
hear what was said or who was
speaking. She had no longer either
friend or cousin. Alice and Angelo
were alike lost to her now. Nothing


292
[Sept,
Felieita— Conclusion.
in the world seemed to remain visihle comfort hut the dreary consciousuess
to her tbrough those eyes hlind with of having separated herself from
tears, and covered with her hands, everyhody she cared for, hy that
save a flight somewhere into some hurst of plain-speaking, the inevit-
unknown solitary country, and no ahle truth.
CHArTER VIL
Five years afterwards, a little Eng-
lish village had hrightened to a puh-
lic holiday. The place was a tiny
hamlet of some twenty cottages,
hearing conspicuous tokens of heing
close to somehody's lodge-gates who
was pleased with pretty cottages, and
wealthy enough to encourage the cul-
ture of the same. It was as easy to
predicate, from the state of the gar-
dens, that a flower-show and prizes
were somewhere in the neighhour-
hood, as to conclude that the holder
of the curacy under whose care that
tiny Gothic chapel and schoolhouse
had sprung into existence, wore a
long priestly coat, and waistcoat
huttoned up to the chin, and was
slightly "high." The little village
street was gay with a trinmphal arch
of houghs and flowers, for the five
years were slightly exceeded, and the
season was May. The sky was douht-
ful, uncertain, suuny and showery —
an airy, hreezy, variahle English
morning, with no such steady glory
in its light as the skies of Italy; and
anything more unlike the lofty houses
of the Vio Ginguio than those low
rural cottages could not have heen
supposed. Along the road, where the
sunshine and the shadows pursued
each other, a hright little procession
came irregularly along, with the
flutter and variahle movement which
helongs to a feminine march. It was
a cbristening party, headed hy an im-
portant group of womankind guard-
ing and encircling the one atom of
weak humanity disguised in flowing
muslin skirts, who was the hero of
the day. Behind, at a little distance,
were the ladies and gentlemen, god-
fathers and godmothers, papa and
mama. The little mother in thanks-
giving rohes of white, with delicate
roses on her soft cheek, and sweet
lights of womanly trinmph and gra-
titude in her eyes, called herself still
Alice, hut not Alice Clayton, and had
hlossomed out into a cordial and
sweet young womanhood, prettier in
her mother-pride than at saucy six-
teen, when all her life, as the child
supposed, hung upon the question,
whether Angelo Peruzzi loved her.
or sought only her fortune. Small
thought of Angelo Peruzzi was in
that sunshiny existence now. Be-
hind Alice and her hushand—yet not
hehind from any wish of theirs, or
any distinction made hy them—came
a young woman alone. More marked
in her characteristic Italian features
than she used to he, five years older—
perhaps, if no longer moved hy active
agitation, graver than formerly — it
was still Felicia; "a young person"
whom Alice's country neighhours
could not comprehend—who did not
choose to accept the entire equality
which her friend would fain have
forced upon her, and whose position in
the young and gay household which
called Alice mistress was a grave,
douhtful, half - housekeeper position,
in which she found Do inconvenience,
and which suited Alice perfectly, hut
did not satisfy the excellent neigh-
hours, who had difficulty in making
out whether or not Miss Antini was
"a person to know." Felicia in
Holmsleigh was twice as Italian as
Felicia in Florence had heen, and
looked hack strangely enough to that
uncomfortahle and agitating period
of her existence with sighs and smiles,
and recollections which touched her
heart. Madame Peruzzi's cold rooms
no longer chilled her, and she was no
longer repelled hy that unlovely un-
homelike life of which memory pre-
served only the hrighter parts. Vet
nearly five years had passed since
Felicia had either heard or seen any-
thing of her Italian friends; The day
on which she had made that confes-
sion which Alice extorted from her—
a confession which she found after-
wards, to her greatly increased horror,


1859.]
293
Fehcita—Conclusion.

to have heen made in the very pres-
ence of Angelo, and immediately
confirmed hy him—had ,heen her last
day in the Via Ginguio. Alice, who
hore her disappointment maguani-
mously, if disappointment it was,
and who felt greatly shocked at the
evident and extreme suffering of
Felicia, had half entreated, half com-
pelled, the poor girl to accompany
her home. Felicia could scarcely he
persuaded to see her cousin again;
when she consented at last, she too
had her caprice. He whom Alice
would no longer wait for, must either
relinquish Felicia too, or wait the
full five years for his humhler and
less wealthy love: perhaps other con-
ditions were added which neither of
them mentioned — hut it was thus
the cousins had parted. In the mean
time Madame Peruzzi died, and
when Felicia mentioned Angelo at
all, she spoke of him as a relation
whom she should never see again.
But the five years were past, and
sometimes, unawares to herself, she
started at an unusual sound in the
house, and tremhled and grew pale
at an unexpected arrival A possi-
hility, however stoutly one may deny
it, is still so powerful over that uuruly
imagination which is aided and ahetted
hy the heart.
Thus she went lingering along the
road, after Mrs. Alice and her hand-
some hushand, to the heir of Holms-
leigh's cbristening, thinking, she
would have said, of nothing in parti-
cular — of the passage of time, and
the slow yet rapid progress of life—
wonderfully grave and philosophic re-
flections, quite hecoming to the inau-
guration of the new generation, as any
one aware of them would have natu-
rally said. But when the cbristening
was over, and there was nothing hut
rejoicing in the house and park,
where all the villagers, and a little
crowd of other tenants, were feasted
outside, and the great people had a
grand diuner in the evening, Felicia
continued wistful and contemplative
still. The continual arrival of the
carriages startled her, and kept her
uneasy. She could not help a linger-
ing idea that some one or other of
them some day — this evening or an-
other—might hring that stranger to
Eolmsleigh, whom she professed
never to expect. There was no reason v
in the world to think of him to-night;
hut the noise and commotion and per-
petual arrivals startled her; she was
uneasy and anxious, and could not tell
how it was.
At last the arrivals were over—the
diuner was over. That moment of
repose, which the ladies spend alone
in the drawing-room — hlissful mo-
ment after the trouhles of a grand
diuner—fell calm and grateful upon
Felicia. She was past heiog suuhhed
hy her friend's fine neighhours ; she
was quite sure of her position, if no-
hody else was; and people hegan to
know as much. She sat in her usual
quiet place, with her usual cheerful-
ness recovered. Another arrival I
she was surprised and vexed to find
how the sounds of these wheels
ringing tbrough the evening quiet
disturhed her composure again. Of
course it was somehody invited for
the evening; coald nohody come or
go without a fever on her part?
She sat douhly still, and husied herself
all the more with the prose of her next
neighhour hy way of self-punishment,
and would not look up when the
door opened to see who entered the
room.
Would not look up for the first
moment,—then she did look up. The
person who entered was a gentleman
alone—a soldier—the only man in the
room, and he certainly had not
heen at diuner. Felicia was much
too iguorant to know what his uni-
form was. It was not an English
red coat; hut she caught at the dis-
tance the gleam of a medal, the fa-
miliar Crimean medal, well enough
known to her, on his hreast. He had
not heen aunounced, hut had sent his
name to Alice, who was quite at the
other end of the room. It was a very
long apartment, stretching across the
entire side of the house; the door
was quite at one end, and Alice,
as it happened, quite at the other.
Felicia could not hear a word her
neighhour was saying to her, hut she
could hear her own heart heat, and
she could hear the slightest stir of
motion the stranger made; the
stranger, hrown, hearded, and medal-
led, whom certainly she had never
seen hefore, and did not know. Just
then a little cry of joy and amaze-


in
[Sept.
Felicita— Condution.

ment from Alice struck her ear.
Looking up, she saw the little mis-
tress of the house ruuning past her,
with her girlish curls dancing ahout
her ears, and her foot as light and un-
restrained as though no responsihili-
ties of wifehood or motherhood lay
on her hright little head. Alice's
face was flushed with surprise and
pleasure, and her eyes fixed upon the
stranger. Involuntarily, and hy an
impulse she could not restrain, Felicia
rose. She did not know him 1 she
had never seen him hefore ; and yet,
when Alice ran to meet him, she could
not keep her seat. Alice ran with
hoth her hands held out. When she
met the stranger, Felicia hent forward
with a face like marhle. "Angelo!"
It was not Angelo; and yet that was
his name.
When Felicia came to herself she
was in another room, with only Alice
hending over her, and somehody he-
hind in the twilight, who was not dis-
tinguishahle save hy some gleams of
reflection, especially one which shone
over Alice's head strangely like the
medal upon that soldier's hreast.
Felicia did not answer the tender
inquiries of her little friend; she
turned towards this undiscernihle
figuro and pointed almost imperiously
—" Who is it?" she cried, and
the foolish little kind creature hy
her side kept hold of her hands, and
kissed her, and wasted a world of ca-
ressing words " to hreak it to her."
"Who is it?" cried Felicia: and then
the stranger took matters into his
own hands, — lor to he sure it was
Angelo — Angelo himself five years
older, a Sardinian soldier, though a
Tuscan poor gentleman, with a heard
and a captain's commission, and her
Britaunic Majesty's Crimean medal
upon his hreast. As the tbree stood
together in the twilight, or at least a
minute later, when only two stood to-
gether, and the little mistress of the
house had returned to her guests, Feli-
cia was ahle to forgive Alice for her
anxiety not to startle her, and her care
in "hreaking" the news.
But what had he to do with arms,
that pacific Florentine? and with the
Sardinian uniform and foreigu wars?
"You rememher how I told yon
there was nothing to do, Felicita,"
explained the returned soldier days
after, when Alice and her hushand
listened too ; "hut men who can do
nothing else can fight, — it is an
idler's natural profession. Every
Italian like me has not an English
cousin; hut time is doing your work,
Felicita, and some time or other the
rulers in our country will learn at
last to know that men who are good
for little else are very good for sol-
diers; and that people who may not
work will fight."
Plain polities—not hard to under-
stand ; and Felicia, perhaps, was less
hard to please than hefore, and found
great comfort in that Crimean medal.
What natural consequences followed
this visit to England of Captain An-
gelo Peruzzi it may not he necessary
to particularise, nor where they went
to live, nor what kind of menage was
their Anglo-Italian one; hut it was
a hetter ending to Angelo's iunoceut
fortune-hunting than if Alice had
made him master of Holmsleigh, and
waited for him five years.


1859.]
295
Voluntary and Involuntary Actions.
VOLUNTARY ANn INVOLUNTABY ACT IONS.

It seems an easy thing to distin-
guish a voluntary from an involun-
tary action; and yet this seemingly
easy thing sorely perplexes the cun-
ning of philosophy. It seems also an
easy thing to distinguish hetween an
animal and a plant; yet when we
come to seek for the one distinctive
characteristic which marks the ani-
nal nature, and separates it decisively
from the vegetahle world, we are
sorely puzzled. There is no difficulty
in saying that a cow is an animal,
and a cahhage is a plant : hut when
we descend to the simpler forms of
animal life, we find them so nearly
allied to vegetahles that our classifi-
cation is trouhled. Still greater is
our perplexity when the simpler
actions are presented for analysis;
positive as we may he that some
actions have a volitional element, we
are at a loss to mark out what that
element is.
If the reader will he a gentle and
a patient reader to the length of a
few pages, we will endeavor to illu-
minate this dark suhject; and in so
doing, introduce to his notice the
very ahle and suggestive treatise in
which Mr. Bain discusses it, and
other important topics. The volume
now hefore us is entitled "The Emo-
tions and the Will," and with its pre-
decessor, n The Senses and the Intel-
lect," it forms a hody of psychological
doctrine, the fruit of long meditation,
aod well worthy the meditation of all
students.
Mr. Bain does not attempt to de-
fine the Will, hut to explain what is
the nature of a voluntary action, and
how it grows up from certain natural
germs in our constitution. He is
silent as to involuntary actions; hut
we may assume that they are impli-
citly explained in the explanation of
volitions. While we helieve that he
has tbrown a steady light on the
physiological and psychological pro-
cesses involved, the light seems to us
occasionally to flicker; and therefore,
hefore expounding his views, we will
ask attention to a little preliminary
explanation.
In popular language, those actions
are called voluntary over which we
can exercise control, either in the
way of restraining or prompting
them. I can move my arm, or keep
it motionless, if I will to do so. Bu
there are other actions which are he
yond control ; no effort of Will suf-
fices to prompt, or to restrain them
The heart heats without my control
The eyelid winks, the wounded mus
cle quivers, the stomach digests,
involuntarily. I can control the
movement of my arm, unless a sharp
pain forces me to withdraw it, and
when I withdraw it under sudden
pain, the action is said to he involun-
tary.
This is a rough classification which
suffices for our daily needs. We want
a term to mark a certain group, and
the term voluntary satisfies that want.
But the severer exigencies of Science
are not satisfied so easily. A rigor-
ous examination shows that in most,
if not in all, the so-called involuntary
actions (as we shall see presently) this
very volitional element of control
may find a place. Although hreath-
ing is an involuntary act, it can he,
and often is, restrained or accelerat-
ed hy the will; hut the controlling
power soon comes to an end—we can-
not voluntarily suspend our hreath-
ing for many seconds, the urgency of
the sensation at last hears down the
control. In like mauner, we can par-
tially, hut not wholly, restrain the
sbrinking and tremhling which ac-
company pain and terror. It has heen
said that these partial influences of
control are due to the fact that the
apparatus involves some of the volun-
tary muscles, and these are, of course,
under the control of the will; hut
that inasmuch as the apparatus is
not wholly constituted hy voluntary
muscles, it is not wholly under con-
trol. Yet this ia only a re-statement
The Emotions and the Will. By Alex. Bain, A. M., Examiner in Logic and
Moral Philosophy in the London University.


Voluntary and Involuntary Actions.
[Sept

of the fact in different terms. The
muscles are styled voluntary, hecause
they are under control. Neverthe-
less, it is easy to prove that an appa-
ratus of purely voluntary muscles
will furnish an involuntary act — an
act quite heyond all influence of the
Will. The act of winking is an ex-
ample. It is performed hy voluntary
muscles, and may he a purely volun-
tary act—as when we wish telegra-
phically to warn one of our hearers
that we are jesting. Yet this act,
which is as purely voluntary as any
we perform, is hahitually an involun-
tary act; the contact of the air with
the eye causes a loss of temperature
hy evaporation, and the sensation
caused hy this dryness, urgently in-
sisting on heing remedied, we wink.
Not only is winking one of the typi-
cal examples of involuntary action, hut
we find that it occurs in spite of the
most ohstinate effort to restain it: no
resolution on our part not to wink, will
prevent our winking, after a certain
time, or if a hand he passed rapidly
hefore the eye.
This example shows that the par-
tial control which the will exercises
over what are called involuntary acts,
does not depend on the nature of the
muscles involved. The same action
which is voluntary at one moment,
will he involuntary at another, ac-
cording to the urgency, or intensity,
of the stimulus. We laugh hecause
we are tickled, or hecause some ludi-
crous image presents itself; hoth of
these are involuntary actions, al-
though hoth are capahle, within cer-
tain limits, of control; hut we may
also laugh hecause we pretend to he
tickled at the great man's joke —
secretly felt to he a very feehle effort*
of humour. We cough hecause there
is a tickling in the tbroat; and we
also cough hecause we desire to drown
the too huoyant platitudes of a re-
morseless orator. We yawn hecause
we are weary, and we yawn hecause
we determine to set others yawning.
It seems clear, therefore, that the
volitional element we are in search
of, caunot lie in the act iteelf, hut in
something which precedes or accom-
panies the act. According to the
popular opinion, an act is called vol-
untary if the mind has determined
it hy a conscious conception of the
ohject to he attained; and if we were
to say that volition is an action
determined hy a distinct idea, we
should express the current opinion
pretty accurately. Is that opinion
tenahle?
It is not tenahle, hecause on the
one hand actions may he determined
hy distinct ideas and yet he "in-
voluntary ;" and hecause on the
other hand actions may he voluntary,
yet not determined hy distinct ideas,
hut determined simply hy sensations.
Let a friend pass a finger rapidly he-
fore your eye, and although he has
solemnly assured you that he will
not touch you, and you have pro-
found confidence in his word, yet no
effort of Will prevents your winking.
It is in vain you resolve to he firm—
the eyelid drops as the finger ap-
proaches. This winking is assuredly
an involuntary act, since it is per-
formed in spite of the will; yet it is
an act determined hy an idea, the
idea of danger; and the proof of
this is seen when you approach a
finger to the eye of an animal, or in-
fant, in whom no such idea of danger
is excited: it does not wink. Nor do
you wink when you approach your
own finger to your eye, hecause then
the idea of danger is ahsent. We
have here an action eminently con-
trollahle, and ohviously determined
hy an ideal stimulus, having there-
fore the two cardinal characters of a
voluntary act, yet heing unmistak-
ahly involuntary. To reconcile such
a contradiction we must suppose that
the Will oscillated—one instant it
resolved that winking should not
take place, and the next instant re-
solved that it should. This explana-
tion would, however, force the admis-
sion that the act of winking was not
involuntary; after which, it would he
puzzling to say what acts are invol-
untary. If the will can thus oscillate,
and thus rescind its orders, why may
it not in all the assumed cases of in-
voluntary action he in a state of
oscillation?
What is the process of control?
Every action is a response to a sensi-
tive stimulus. Muscles are moved
hy motor-nerves which issue from
nerve - centres; these nerve - centres
are excited hy impressions carried
there, either hy sensory nerves going


1859.]
297
Voluntary and Involuntary Action*.

from a sensitive surface, or hy impres-
sions communicated from some other
centre. A stimulus applied to the
skin excites a sensation, which heing
reflected on a muscle excites a con-
traction. This is the much-talked-of
Reflex Action. In the opinion of the
present writer all nerve - actions
whatever are reflex: when a sensa-
tion plays upon a muscle, there
is reflex - action; when a sensa-
tion is reflected on a nerve - centre,
instead of on a muscle, there is reflex-
feeling. This secondary or reflex
sensation, may either play upon a
muscle, or upon some other centre,
and thi* will excite an action. Thus
it is that the same external stimulus
may issue in very different actions.
We decapitate a frog, and half an
hour after prick or pinch its leg: the
frog hops, or suddenly draws up its
leg. We now prick, or pinch, an
uninjured frog, in the same way, and
we mostly (not always) ohserve that
its leg is motionless; it does not hop
away, it only lowers its head, and
perhaps closes its eyes; a second
pinch makes it hop away. In the
decapitated frog, the action was re-
flex; the stimulus transmitted from
the skin to the spinal chord was
directly answered hy a contraction of
the leg. In the uninjured frog, the
stimulus was also transmitted to the
spinal chord; hut from thence it ran
upwards to the hrain, exciting a re-
flex - feeling of alarm; hut though
alarmed, the animal was not forced
into any definite course of action to
secure escape; and whilst thus hesi-
tating, a second prick came, and the
urgency of the sensation then caused
it to hop away. The hopping was
reflex, hut it was indirectly so; it
was prompted hy the reflex - feeling
which in lurn had heen excited hy
the original sensation. In like man-
ner, if a dog's tail he pinched hy a
stranger, the dog cries out, and turns
suddenly round to hite his tormentor.
If the tormentor happens to he the
dog's master or friend, the dog will
cry out, start away, or perhaps even
turn round to hite—hut he will not
hite; should he get so far as to seize
the hand with the teeth, he checks
himself in time. This control is often
touchingly seen in removing a thorn
from a dog's foot; the pain causes a
reflex-action which hrings the dog's
head down upon the operator's hand;
hut instead of hiting, the grateful ani-
mal licks that hand.
These are cases of control. They
are possihle only hecause reflex-feel-
ings are excited; one sensation heing
rapidly followed hy another, bo that
hefore one action, directly reflex, can
occur, another action is set going,
which interferes with it, controls it
An examination of the Nervous Sys-
tem discloses a numher of centres,
all capahle of independent action, yet
all counected with each other, and
thus hrought into some dependence
on each other; it is tbrough this
dependence that control hecomes
possihle. A sensation instead of
issuing in the action which usually
follows it, sometimes issues in an-
other sensation, this in turn may
issue in a third sensation, instead of
in an action; just as, when a row of
hilliard halls is struck, the impetus
is transmitted from one hall to the
other, the last in the row flying off,
and all the others remaining in their
original position. At some point or
other, could we follow its course, we
should ohserve that the original
sensation issued in an action, al-
though, hecause the final stimulus to
this said action is a reflex feeling, the
action itself is very unlike what it
would have heen if directly reflex.
Tickle the face of a sleeping man, and
hy a reflex-action his hand is raised
to ruh the spot; tickle the face of that
man when awake, and instead of this
reflex - action, there will he one of
vocal remonstrance, or perhaps one
guiding a pillow in its descent upon
your head.
Inasmuch as all actions whatever
are the products of stimulated nerve-
centres, it is ohvious that all actions
are reflex — reflected from those
centres. It matters not whether I
wink hecause a sensation of dryness,
or hecause an idea of danger, causes
the eyelid to close: the act is equally
reflex. The nerve-centre which sup-
plies the eyelid with its nerve has
heen stimulated; the stimuli may he
various, the act is uniform. At one
time the stimulus is a sensation of
dryness, at another an idea of danger,
at another the idea of communicating
hy means of a wink with some one


293
[Sept.
Voluntary and Involuntary Actions.

present; in each case the stimulus is
reflected in a muscular contraction.
Sensations excite other sensations;
ideas excite other ideas; and one of
these ideas may issue in an action of
control. But the restraining power
is limited, and caunot resist a certain
degree of urgency in the original
stimulus. I can for a time, restrain
the act of winking, in spite of the
sensation of dryness; hut the reflex-
feeling which sets going this restrain-
ing action will only last a few se-
conds; after which the urgency of
the external stimulus is stronger than
that of the reflex-feeling—the sensa-
tion of dryness is more imperious than
the idea of resistance—and the eyelid
drops.
If a knife he hrought near the arm
of a man who has little confidence in
the friendly intentions of him that
holds it, he will sbrink, and the
sbrinking will he "involuntary"—in
spite of his will. Let him have con-
fidence, and he will not sbrink, even
when the knife touches his skin.
The idea of danger is not excited in
the second case, or if excited, is at
once hanished hy another idea. Yet
this very man, who can thus repress
the involuntary sbrinking when the
knife approaches his arm, caunot re-
press the involuntary winking, when
the same friend approaches a finger
to his eye. In vain he prepares him-
self to resist that reflex-action; in
vain he resolves to resist the im-
pulse; no sooner does the finger ap-
S roach, than down flashes the eyelid,
[any men, and most women, would
he equally unahle to resist sbrinking
on the approach of a knife : the asso-
ciation of the idea of danger with
the knife would hear down any pre-
vious resolution not to sbrink. It is
from this cause that timorous women
tremhle at the approach of firearms.
An association is estahlished in their
minds which no idea is powerful
enough to loosen. You may assure
them the gun is not loaded ; "that
makes very little difference," said a
naive old lady to a friend of ours.
They tremhle, as the child tremhles
when he sees you put on the mask.
These illustrations show that the
urgency of any one idea may, like
the urgency of a sensation, hear
down the resistance offered hy some
other idea; as the previous illustra-
tions showed that an idea could re-
strain or control the action which a
sensation or idea would otherwise
have produced. According to the
doctrines current, the Will is said to
he operative when an idea deter-
mines an action; and yet all would
agree that the winking which was
involuntary when the idea of danger
determined it, was voluntary when
the idea of communicating with an
accomplice in some mystification de-
termined it.
The reader will have gathered al-
ready that we admit no real and
essential distinction hetween volun-
tary and involuntary actions. They
are all voluntary. They all spring
from Consciousuess. They are all de-
termined hy feeling. It is convenient,
for common purposes, to desiguate
some actions as voluntary; hut this
1s merely a convenience; no psycho-
logical, nor physiological, insight is
gained hy it; an analysis of the pro-
cess discloses no element in a volun-
tary action, which is not to he found
in an involuntary action. In ordi-
nary language it is convenient to
mark a distinction hetween my rais-
ing my arm hecause I will to raise it
for some definite purpose, and my
raising it hecause a hee has stung
me; it is convenient to say "I will
to write this letter," and " this letter
is written against my will—I have
no will in the matter." But Science
is more exacting when it aims at
heing exact; and the philosopher,
analysing these complex actions, will
find no element answering to the
"will," in one, which is ahsent from
the other : he will find this only, that
in each case certain muscular groups
have heen set in action hy certain
sensational or ideational stimuli.
It is a very general mistake to sup-
pose that every act of volition im-
plies a distinct idea of its ohject.
Unless such an intellectual element
he present, guiding the movement,
the voluntary character is said to he
wanting. But we agree with the emi-
nent physiologist, Jonaun Von Muller,
that "the ultimate source of volun-
tary motion caunot depend on any
conscious conception of its ohject;
for voluntary motions are performed
hy the foetus hefore any ohject can


1859.]
299
Voluntary and Involuntary Actions.

occur to the mind—hefore any idea
can possihly he conceived of what
the voluntary motion effects. . . .
The foetus moves its limhs at first,
not for the attainment of any ohject,
hut solely hecause it can move them.
Since, however, on this supposition
there can he no particular reason for
the movement of any one part, and
the foetus would have equal cause to
move all its muscles at the same
time, there must he something which
determines this, or that, voluntary
motion to he performed. The know-
ledge of the changes of position
which are produced hy given move-
ments, is gained gradually and Only
hy means of the movements them-
selves. . . . The voluntary excita-
tion of the origins of the nervous
fihres, without ohjects in view, gives
rise to motions, changes of posture,
and consequent sensations. Thus a
connection is estahlished in the yet
void mind hetween certain sensations
and certain motions. When suhse-
quently a sensation is excited from
without, in any one part of the hody,
the mind will he already aware that
the voluntary motion, which is in
consequence executed, will manifest
itself in the limh which was the teat
of sensation ; the foetus in utero will
move the limh that is pressed upon,
and not all the limhs simultaneously.
The voluntary movements of animals
must he developed in the same man-
ner. The hird which hegins to sing
is necessitated hy an instinct to in-
cite the nerves of its laryngeal mus-
cles to action; tones are thus pro-
duced. By the repetition of this hlind
exertion of volition, the hird at length
learns to counect the kind of cause
with the character of the effect pro-
duced. The instinct of this dream-
like and involuntary-acting impulse
in the sensorinin has some share in
the production of certain movements
in the human infant, which are in
themselves voluntary. In the sen-
sorinm of the newly-horn child there
is a necessitating impulse to the
motions of sucking; hut the different
parts of the act of sucking are them-
selves voluntary movements."*
In this passage, Mtiller calls cer-
tain actions voluntary which writers
usually consider to he reflex (involun-
tary), and reflex-actions with them
mean actions without sensation;
hut as Mr. Bain in his former volume
remarks, "it may he hy a reflex-
action that a child commences to
suck when the nipple is put hetween
its lips; hut the continuing to suck
so long as the sensation of hunger is
felt, and the ceasing when that sen-
sation ceases, are truly volitional acts.
All tbrough animal life, down to the
very lowest sentient heing, this pro-
perty of consciousuess is exhihited,
and operates as the instrument for
guiding and supporting existence.
To whatever lengths the purely re-
flex instincts, or the movements di-
vorced from consciousuess, may he
carried on in the inferior trihes, I
can with difficulty admit the total
ahsence of feeling in any heing we
are accustomed to call an animal;
and with this feeling I am ohliged
also to include this property, wldcK
links the state of feeling with the state
of present movement." f It is this link
of feeling with action, which accord-
ing to Midler, constitutes Volition.
Mr. Bain has developed this idea with
remarkahle skill in the volume now
under notice; and has furnished
more suggestive and instructive con-
trihutions than any psychologist we
are acquainted with, to the difficult
and still unsolved prohlems of the
Will.
Mr. Bain never alludes to the Will
as an independent Entity, not even
as a separate Faculty. He treats it
as the generalised expression of our
power to perform voluntary actions;
and voluntary actions he distin-
guishes from those which are in-
voluntary, hy _ their counection with
certain sensations: whenever a link
is estahlished hetween a sensation
and one particular action, that action
is voluntary. He points to the in-
disputahle fact that a sensation of
pain excites the active organs. An
animal in pain struggles till it has
escaped, or tbrown its hody into
such a posture that the pain ceases.
These writhings, excited hy pain, are
involuntary; and they are so hecause
* Muller : Physiology, hy Baly, ii. 835.
f Bais: The Senses and the Intellect, p. 296.


300
[Sept.
Voluntary and Involuntary Actions.

heyond definite control, heyond the
guidance of any one feeling; they
helong to what Mr. Bain calls the
"diffusive wave of emotion ;" whereas
voluntary actions are isolated, and
directed to a particular end. In
the course of its struggles, the animal
accidentally makes one movement
which is followed hy an alleviation
or cessation of the pain; this makes
it discontinue all the other move-
ments, and continue that which alle-
viates. If any of the other move-
ments are set going, the pain recurs,
and warns the animal to cease. The
continuance of an alleviating move-
ment, Mr. Bain regards as the voli-
tional element.
"We must in the first instance clearly
and hroadly separate the diffusive wave,
accompanying all emotions as their ne-
cessary emhodiment, from the active in-
fluence now under discussion. This is
the more necessary as the two classes of
movements are very apt to coexist. A
hlow with a whip, inflicted on a sentient
creature, produces, as a part of the emo-
tinal effect, strictly so called, a general
convulsive start, grimace, and howl; it
also produces, in the case of the mature
animal, an exertion in some definite course
to avoid the recurreneo of the infliction.
The first effect is entirely untaught, pri-
mitive, instinctive; heing intimately and
indissoluhly counected with feeling in
the very nature of it. The other effect
is hased likewise on an original property,
hut hrought into the shape that we usu-
ally find it in, after some experience and
considerahle struggles. The element
just mentioned, of aim or purpose, in no
sense helongs to the movements of the
diffused wave, or those constituting the
manifestation or expression of the men-
tal state. The ecstatic shout of hilarious
excitement, the writhings of pain, are
energetic movements, hut they helong
neither to the class of central sponta-
neity ahove descrihed, nor to the volun-
tary class now under consideration."
When a very young infant is in
pain it struggles aud squalls. That
is all it can do ; it does that lustily.
Mr. Bain considers it due to the dif-
fused wave of emotion. Suppose the
cause of the pain to he a needle
pricking its foot; the child will make
no effort to remove that needle, he-
cause the link hetween such a pain
and such an action has not yet heen
estahlished, and this voluntary ef-
fort caunot he made. Before it
can make such an effort it must have
learned to localise its sensations.
Every surgeon knows that the
young infant may he allowed to
have his hands free, when operated
on, hecause it caunot with its hands
interfere with the knife, not as yet
knowing where the seat of pain is.
When, later on, it has learned to lo-
calise its sensations, it may learn
what actions alleviate them. A hahy
in discomfort from some itching of
the nose is at first simply restless;
it learns to ruh that nose with its
little fist, only after much experience
of ruhhings.
Let us pause here, in the exposi-
tion of Mr. Bain's views, to notice a
point respecting the nature of the
Will, as understood hy two different
schools. Those who hold that the
Will is not simply the generalised ex-
pression of all voluntary actions, hut
exists independent of these, though
manifested hy them, may consider
that the helpless infant has the same
Will as the older infant who can per-
form certain voluntary actions; hut
although he has the Will—and it is
hy this that he makes those incohe-
rent efforts to free himself from the
pain — he has not yet learned what
actions will relieve him. There is
no logical ohjection to this conclu-
sion ; hut there is the very fatal oh-
jection, that if the struggles and
squalls of an infant are true volun-
tary actions (i.s. prompted hy the
Will), there can he no actions that are
involuntary: a conclusion we accept,
hut one energetically repudiated hy
the doctrine now in question. Those,
on the other hand, who hold that the
Will simply means the power of per-
forming voluntary actions, will deny
that the infant has any Will until
that power has heen developed in
him; and how it is developed Mr.
Bain endeavours to expound. Let us
follow him in this endeavour.
He takes for his hasis the primary
fact that when pain coexists with
an accidental alleviating movement,
or when pleasure coexists with a
pleasure-sustaining movement, such
movements hecome suhject to the
control of the respective feelings
which occur in their company. _ It
is a primordial law that we sbrink
from pain and cling to pleasure; as


1859.]
301
Voluntary and Involuntary Actions.

long as the pain is unalleviated, move-
ments are kept up; as soon as one
particular movement hrings cessation
of pain, that movement is kept up.
An infant lying in hed has the painful
sensation of chilliness. This feeling
produces the usual emotional display,
namely, movement, perhaps cries and
tears. In the course of a variety
of spontaneous movements of arms
and legs, there occurs an action that
hrings the child in contact with the
nurse lying heside it; instantly
warmth is felt, and this alleviation
of painful feeling hecomes immedi-
ately the stimulus to sustain the
movement going on that moment.
That movement, when discovered, is
kept up, in preference to the others.
ID this way the child learns to con-
nect certain sensations with certain
movements, and at a year old will
draw close to its nurse whenever
the sensation of cold comes on, even
during sleep. "It is an original
property of our feelings to prompt
the active system one way or another,
hat there is no original counection
hetween the several feelings and the
actions that are relevant to each par-
ticular case. To arrive at this goal,
we need all the resources of sponta-
neity, trial and error, and the adhe-
sive growth of the proper couples,
when they can once be got together.
The first steps of our volitional edu-
cation are a jumhle of spluttering,
stumhling, and all hut despairing
hopelessuess. Instead of a clear
curriculum, we have to wait upon the
accidents, and improve them when
they come."
No one will withhold his assent
from the proposition that a pain in-
creasing in company with any move-
ment must tend to cause the arrest
of that movement; or that pleasure
increasing in company with a move-
ment most tend to cause the continu-
ance of that movement
"The spontaneous action thai hrings
a limh into a painful contact, as when
the child kicks its foot upon a pin in its
dress, is undouhtedly from the earliest
moment of mental life arrested. With-
out this I see no possihle commencement
of voluntary power. So a movement
that mitigates a pain already in opera-
tion is maintained, as long as the crea-
ture is conscious of diminished suffering.
In this way, the arms, hands, and fingers
work for ahating sharp agony, provided
only the right memher has found its way
into action. No provision, as I have
often said, exists at the dawn of life for
getting tho right memher into play. The
infant heing must go tbrough many a
cycle of aunoyance, hecause, among nu-
merous stimulants to action that have
occurred, tho right one has heen omitted.
But the true impetus once arising, the
mind is alivo to tho coincidenco of this
with decreasing or vanished pain; just
as, on the other hand, wo must suppose
it alivo to tho coincidence of some other
movement with an aggravation of the
evil. Tho greater tho pain, the more
strongly is tho alleviating movement
sustained when once under way. For
tho next stage of tho process, the esta-
hlishment of a counection hetween the
pain and tho special action, wo must fall
tack upon the foundation of all our ac-
quisitions, namely, the force of contigu-
ous association. The concurrence of a
particular sensation, as a prick in tho
arm, with that retracting movement
which rids us of tho pain, leads to tho
rise of an adhesivo hond hetween tho
two, if a sufficient numher of repetitions
have occurred. Wo caunot say how
many instances of chance conjunction
aro requisite to generate an association
so strong as to tako away tho uncertain-
ties attending the spontaneous discharge;
all tho circumstances governing the ra-
pidity of contiguous adhesion would
have to ho taken into account in this
case. Tho excitement of strong pain on
the one hand, or of strong pleasure on
the other, is a favourahle moment for
the growth of an association: and pro-
hahly not a great numher of those occa-
sions would he necessary to convert an
inchoate into a full-formed volition. Full-
formed, I say, hecause when the sup-
posed pain can hring into play the pro-
per movement, in the ahsence of all
spontaneous tendency, we have a case of
voluntary power complete for all tho
purposes of the living heing. Tho ex-
ample that I am now discussing, namelv,
the retractation of any part of tho hody
from a painful contact, implies a very
numerous set of coincidences hetween
local pains and local movements. For
all contacts on the hack of tho hand,
there must he an association with tho
muscles of flexion; for the palm, the
extensor muscles must he aifected. For
the outside of the arm, tho tendency to
draw it towards tho sido has to he
prompted. And so in like mauner for
every part of tho hody, under an irri-
tating smart, there must he a formed


302
[Sept.
Voluntary and Involuntary Actions.

counection hetween painful sensation
arising in tho locality and the corre-
sponding movements of retractation. This
is one department of voluntary acquisi-
tion, and consists cf a multitude of
couples of individual sensations and in-
dividual movements, joined hy associa-
tion, after heing commenced hy sponta-
neity. For the class of acute pains sup-
posed tho acquirement is perfect, owing
in a great measure to the simplicity of
tho case. It is not so with many of
those muscular pains, which we are pro-
fessedly considering at present, although
in tho foregoing illustration we have de-
parted from them, and somewhat anti-
cipated tho suhject of sensation at large.
The cramps of tho limhs do not ordin-
arily suggest tho alleviating action. Ow-
ing partly to the rarity of the feeling,
wo have not usually a full-formed voli-
tion which enahles the state of suffering
to induce the alleviating action, and con-
sequently wo are tbrown upon the pri-
mitive course of trial and error. This
instance shows, hy contrast with the pre-
ceding, how truly our voluntary powers
result from education. Au estahlished
link hetween a cramp in the hall of the
leg, and the proper actions for doing
away with the agony, is quite as great a
desideratum as drawing up the foot
when the toe is pinched or scalded; yet
no such link exists, until a melancholy
experienco has initiated and matured it.
Tho counection in the other case is so
well formed from early years, that al-
most everyhody looks upon it as an in-
stinct, yet why should there ho an in-
stinct for the lighter forms of pain, and
nona for the severest? Tho truth is,
that tho good education.in tho one is en-
tirely owing to our heing more favour-
ahly situated for making the acquisi-
tion."
Hitherto we have seen voluntary
notions under the guidance of sensa-
tions only; let us now ohserve the
ideal element. A child is seated at
tahle with us. He places his hand
upon the hright teapot, and the pain
of the hurn makes him withdraw his
hand; again the hrightness attracts
his curious fingers, and again the
pain makes him desist. After a cer-
tain numher of trials the idea of the
pain is so associated with that of the
teapot, that the child no longer hurns
himself. But he has tbrnst his hand
into the hiscuit-plate, and finds this
action rewarded with a hiscuit in-
stead of a hurn. On repeating it he
is scolded, or slapped, or put into
the corner—made to suffer pain; and
if this pain he alwayn inflicted when
he acts thus, he will soon learn to
restrain those forays upon the his-
cuits. This link which is estahlished
hetween an action and a pain, is an
ideal link, and finds its place in
memory; it is nearly as firm as a
sensational link. The supposition,
however, that this ideal link makes
the action voluntary, as distinguished
from an action which is guided hy a
sensational link, will not withstand
criticism.
At first our actions are guided hy
sensations; then hy the ideal repre-
sentatives of those sensations.
"Instead of an actual movement seen,
we have for the guiding antecedent a
movement conceived, or Jn idea. Tho
association now passes to those ideal
notions that we are ahle to form of our
various actions, and counects them with
tho actions themselves. .All that is then
necessary is a determining motive, put-
ting the action in request. Some plea-
sure or pain, near or remote, is essential
to every volitional effort, or every change
from quiescence to movement, or from
ono movement to another. We feel, for
example, a painful state of tho dijrerth 0
system, with the consequent volitional
urgency to allay it; experience, direc-
tion, and imitation, have counected in
our minds all tho intermediate steps,
and so the train of movements is set on.
On the tahle hefore us we see a glass of
liquid; the infant never so thirsty could
not make the movement for hringing it
to tho mouth. But in the maturity of
the will, a link is formed hetween the
appreciated distance and direction of the
glass, and tho movement of the arm up
to that point; and under the stimulus
of pain, or of expected pleasure, the
movement is executed."
It often happens that we are con-
scious of " an interval of suspense he-
tween the moment of painful urgency
and the moment of appeasing action;"
hecause the reflex-feelings are many,
and these cross and recross each
other, so that no one of them issues
in action. This was the case with
the frog to which we previously ad-
verted; instead of hopping away
when pinched, it cowered and seemed
hesitating as to its escape. And this
leads us to consider how thoughts,
no less than actions, can he con-
trolled; how the mind has power


1859.]
303
Voluntary and Involuntary Action*.

over its actions, no less than over the
actions of the hody. The fact that
we can, in some degree, control the
thoughts, is indisputahle; how we do
so is not so clear. Mr. Bain, if we
do not misunderstand him, has heen
led into some confusion on this point,
hy his error of limiting the Will to
the regiou of the voluntary muscles.
"As we can under an adequate motive
ohserve one point in the scene hefore
us, awl neglect everything else; us we
can single out one sound and he deaf to
the general hum ;—as we can apply our-
selves to the appreciation of one flavour
in the midst of many, or he aware of a
pressure on a particular part of the hody
to the neglect of the rest; so in mental
attention we can fix one idea firmly in
the view, while others are coming and
going unheeded. On the supposition,
that the influence of the will is limited
to the region M the voluntary muscles
and parts in alliance therewith, some-
thing needs to ho said in explanation of
this apparent exception to the rule. It
is not ohvious at first sight that the re-
tention of an idea in the mind is operated
hy voluntary muscles. Which moving
organ is put in force when I arn cogitat-
ing on a circle, or keeping my attention
wedded to my recollection of St. Paul's t
There can he no answer given to this,
unless on the assumption that the men-
tal, or revived, image occupies the snmo
place in the hrain and other parts of the
system,as the original sensation did: a
position supported hy a numher of rea-
sons adduced in my former volume,
which need not he repeated. I have
shown that there is a muscular element
in our sensations, especially of the higher
senses, touch, hearing, and sight; this
clement must somehow or other have a
place in the after rememhrance or idea;
otherwise.the ideal and the actual would
he much more different than we find
them. The ideal circle is a restoration
of those currents that would prompt the
sweep of the eye round a real circle; the
difference lies in the last stage, or in the
stopping short of the actual movement
performed hy the organ. I know of no
other distinction hetween the remem-
hered and the original, except this stop-
page or shortcoming of the current of
nervous power, which is no douht an
important one in several respects, hut
still permitting the power T>f voluntary
control."
This explanation is far from satis-
factory. The principle whioh Mr.
Bain has so well illustrated respect-
TOL. IXXXVL
ing the guidance of our actions, is
surely ample to explain the guidance
of our thoughts. The power of keep-
ing up one train of thought, is ana-
logous to that of keeping up one
course of muscular action. We cling
to certain ideas hecause they are
pleasant, or interest us, or hecause
some remote pain or pleasure stimu-
lates us; and we repress all other
thoughts as they arise, just as we
should repress movements which dis-
turhed a pleasurahle sensation. It
is notorious that we caunot call up
any one idea at will; hut having
once got hold of the idea, we can
keep it hefore the mind. What Mr.
Bain has said when treating of the
intellectual process named hy him
"constructive association," seems to
us the true explanation of all com-
mand over the thought :—
"When Watt invented his 'parallel
motion' for the steam-engine, his intel-
lect and ohservation were kept at work.
going out in all directions for the chamv
of some suitahle comhination rising to
view; his sense of the precise thing to
he done was the constant touchstone of
every contrivance occurring to him, and
all the successive suggestions were ni-
rested, or repelled, as they came near
to, or disagreed with, this touchstone.
The attraction and repulsion were pur. -
ly volitional effects; they were the con-
tinuance of the very same energy that,
in his hahybood, made him keep hi-
mouth to his mother's hreast while
he felt hunger unappeased, and with-
drew it when satisfied, or that made
him roll a sugary morsel in his mouth,
and let drop or violently eject what was
hitter or nauseous. The promptitude .
that we display in setting aside or ig-
noring what is seen not to answer our
present wants, is volition, pure, peren-
nial, and unmodified; the power seen in
our infant struggles for nourishment
and warmth, or the riddance of acute
pain, and presiding over the last enden
votirs to case the agonies of suffering.
No formal resolution of the mind, adopted
after consideration or dehate, no special
intervention of the 'ego,' or the person-
ality, is essential to this putting forth of
the energy of retaining on the one hand,
or repudiating on the other, what is felt
to he clearly suitahle, or clearly unsuit-
ahle, to the feelings or aims of the mo-
ment. The inventor sees the Incongruity
of a proposal, and forthwith it vanishes
from his view. There may he extraneous
15


304
[Sept.
Voluntary and Involuntary Actions.

considerations happening to keep it up
in spite of the volitional stroke of repu-
diation, hut the genuine tendency of the
mind is to withdraw all further consi-
deration, on the mere motive of un-
suitnhility ; while sonie other scheme of
an opposite nature is, hy the same in-
stinct, emhraced and held fast. In all
these new constructions, he they me-
chanical, verhal, scientific, practical, or
ajsthetical, the outgoings of the mind
are necessarily at random; the end
alone is the thing that is clear to the
view, and with that there is a perception
of the fitness of every passing suggestion.
The volitional energy keeps up the at-
tention, or the active search, and the
moment that anything in point rises
hefoM the mind, springs upon that like
a wild heast on its prey."
We have now laid hefore the reader
the cardinal positions of Mr. Bain's
theory of the Will, or, as he calls it,
of voluntary actioo. It differs, as is
evident, from current theories; hut
a careful study of the arguments hy
which it is supported will convince
the reader that, if not the whole truth,
it is no inconsiderahle step towards
a true explanation. We have not
urged the ohjections which might he
urged against some of his views, he-
cause we wished our limited space
to he occupied with exposition rather
than criticism; hut our reticence
must not he construed into acqui-
escence. There is one point, how-
ever, which we desire to notice, in
order that some carious physiolo-
gical facts may he laid hefore the
reader.
Nowhere has Mr. Bain expressed
himself categorically respecting the
difference hetween voluntary and in-
voluntary actions; hut he assumes
the difference, and, implicitly at
least, he makes it depend on the
estahlishment of the link of feeling.
"Voluntary actions," he says, in the
nearest approach to a definition we
can recall, "are distinguished from
reflex and spontaneous activity hy
the directive intervention of a feeling
in their production.'' In denying
the intervention of sensation in re-
flex-actions, he only follows estah-
lished theories; hut unless he sepa-
rates the involuntary from reflex
and spontaneous actions, he falls
into manifest contradiction with his
own principles in making the inter-
vention of feeling the mark of a
voluntary act. We have endeavoured
to show that hoth voluntary and
involuntary actions are reflex, fol-
lowing upon the stimulus given to
their centres, that stimulus heing sen-
sational or ideational. Nor is this
all: they are hoth capahle of heing
hrought under control — that is to
say, of heing restrained or originated
hy the influence of sorne other centre.
That we do not hahitually control
(that is, interfere with) the action of
the heart, the contraction of the iris,
or the activity of a gland, is true:
it is on this account that such ac-
tions are called involuntary; they
ohey the immediate stimulus. But
it is an error to assert, as all physio-
logists and psychologists persist in
asserting, that these actions caunot
he controlled, that they are alto-
gether heyond the interference of
other centres, and caunot hy any
effort of ours he modified. It is an
error to suppose these actions are
essentially distinguished from the
voluntary movement of the hands.
We have acquired a power of definite
direction in the movements of the
hands, which renders them ohedient
to our will; hut this acquisition has
heen of slow lahorious growth. If
we were asked to use our toes as we
use our fingers—to grasp, paint, sew.
or write with them, we should find
it not less impossihle to control the
movements of the toes in these direc-
tions, than to contract the iris, or
cause a hurst of perspiration to hreak
forth. Certain movements of the
toes are possihle to us; hut unles-
the loss of our fingers has made it
necessary that we should use our
toes in complicated and slowly ac-
quired movements, we can do no
more with them than the young in-
fant can do with his fingers. Tet
men and women have written, sewed,
and painted with their toes. All
that is required is that certain links
should he estahlished hetween sensa-
tions and movements; hy continual
practice these links are estahlished;
and what is impossihle to the ma-
jority of men, hecomes easy to the
individual who has acquired this
power. This same power can he
acquired over what are called the
organic actions; although the hahi-


1859.]
305
Voluntary and Involuntary Actions.
tual needs of life do not tend towards
such acquisition, and without some
strong current setting in that direc-
tion, or some peculiarity of organisa-
tion rendering it easy, it is not ac-
quired. In ordinary experience the
numher of those who can write witli
their toes is extremely rare, the ur-
gent necessity which would create
such a power heing rare; and rare
also are the examples of those who
have any control over the movement
of the iris, or the action of a gland;
hut hoth rarities exist.
It would he difficult to choose a
more striking example of reflex action
ttmn the contraction of the iris of the
eye under the stimulus of light; and
to ordinary men, having no link
estahlished which would guide them,
it is utterly impossihle to close the
iris hy any effort of their own. It
would he not less impossihle to the
hungry child to get on the chair and
reach the food on the tahle, until
that child has learned how to do so.
Yet there are men who have learned
how to contract the iris. The cele-
hrated Fontana had this power,
which is possessed also hy a medical
man now living at Glasgow — Mr.
Paxton-*-a fact stated on the autho-
rity of no less a person than Dr.
Allen Thomson* Mr. Paxton can
contract or expand the iris at will,
without changing the position of his
eye, and without an effort of adapta-
tion to distance.
To move the ears is impossihle to
most men. Yet some do it with ease,
and all can learn to do it. Some
men have learned to "ruminate"
their food; others to vomit with
ease; and some are said to have the
power of perspiring at will.f That
many glands are under the influence
of the Will—in other words, that we
can stimulate them to secretion hy a
mere ideal stimulus — is too well
known to need instance here. Even
the heating of the heart can he
arrested. The heart has its own ner-
vonssystem. The minute ganglia im-
hedded in its suhstance regulate its
rhythmic movements; and long after

death the heart is seen to heat. But
although thus independent, it is also
dependent; its nervous system is in
counection with the spinal chord and
hrain; and influences from these will
act upon it. Thus it is that emotions
agitate the heart; the disturhance of
its movements comes from the inter-
ference of hrain or chord. Now, if
once we recoguise a chaunel of sen-
sation, we recoguise a possihle source
of control; and if the daily needs of
life were such that to fulfil some
purpose the action of the heart re-
quired control, we should learn to
control it. Some men have, without
such needs, learned how to control
it The eminent physiologist, E. P.
Weher of Leipzig, found that he
could completely check the heating
of his heart. By suspending his
hreath, and violently contracting his
chest, he could retard the pulsations;
and after tbree or five heats, unac-
companied hy any of the usual
sounds, it was completely still. On
one occasion he carried the experi-
ment too far, and fell into a syncope.
Cheyne, in the last century, recorded
a case of a patient of his own who
could at will suspend the heating of
his pulse, and always fainted when
he did so.
It thus appears that even the
actions which most distinctly hear
the character recoguised as involun-
tary — uncontrollahle — are only so
hecause the ordinary processes of
life furnish no necessity for their
control.' We do not learn to control
them, though we could do so, to
some extent; nor do we learn to
control the motions of our ears and
toes, although we could do so. And
while it appears that the involuntary
actions can hecome voluntary, it is
familiar to all that the voluntary
actions tend, hy constant repetition,
to hecome involuntary, and are then
called secondarily automatic.
The conclusion at which we arrive
is this: Popular language conve-
niently classes actions as voluntary
when « distinct conception of the
ohject to he achieved accompanies
* We learn this from Brown Sequaro's Journal de la Phytiologie 1859, p. 2S7,
who cites the Glasgow Medical Journal, 1857, p. 451.
f Mayer: Die elementarorganizalion des Seelenorgans, p. 12, is the authontj-
for the last statement.


306
[Sept.
Voluntary and Involuntary Actions.

or originates them. Bat Psychology
and Physiology, descending deeper
than such classifications, and ana-
lysing the process which takes place in
the organism, declare that all actions
whatever are the responses of organs
to the stimulus of their nerve-centres.
Whether the action he the movement
of a muscle or the secretion of a gland,
it is finally determined hy the centre
from which the organ is supplied.
This centre may he stimulated hy a
sensory nerve going from the surface
— as when the salivary gland pours
out its secretion, or the limh con-
tracts, after the stimulus of food, or
pain. The centre may also he stimu-
lated hy the action of some other
centre; as when the idea of food
causes a flow of saliva, or the irrita-
tion of the salivary gland causes a
flow of gastric juice. But whether
the action result from a direct or an
indirect stimulus, it is always the
same response of an organ to its
centre; whether the starting - point
he an idea or a sensation, the final
issue is an excitation of the particular
centre, and the response of a parti-
cular action. We caunot separate
some actions from others, and call
them voluntary hecause they are
dependent on a link of feeling, since
all actions are dependent on sensa-
tion. And if any reader ohjects to
such a conclusion on the ground that
it makes the Soul animate the whole
hody, and preside over all its actions,
not simply over a few of them—if he
ohjects that we are therehy retro-
grading towards the doctrine of Stabl
—our reply is : we must follow Logic
whither Logic leads. Any reader who
is uncomfortahle at the idea of retro-
grading, who is unwilling to helieve
that all the phenomena of his sensi-
tive organism have one common
source, one kindred nature, and one
common name—the soul—is at per-
fect liherty to try and reach some
other conviction which, hesides he-
ing more agreeahle to his feelings,
will hetter explain the facts. It
is a topic on which no man will
wisely dogmatise. The veil of mys-
tery will never he lifted. We who
stand hefore that veil, and specu-
late as to what is hehind it, cau
hut huild systems; we caunot see
the truth.


1859.]
307
The Luck of Ladgsmede.—Part VII.
THE LUCK OF I, A D Y S X E n E .
CHAPTER XVIL—THE WARNING.
Dame ElfhilD and her niece occu-
pied their usual seats in the polar
window. Isola, too, at Gladice's
persuasion, had left her chamher;
and the change of scene, and the
natural efforts which the made to
appear cheerful in the company of
her kind entertainers, were not with-
out their good effect upon her health
and spirits. Still, with the excep-
tion of the elder lady, they were hut
a silent party. Gladice's eyes might
have seemed, as usual, to have heen
counting the stones in the old wall
opposite, or the hlades of withering
grass in the court helow; there was
the same dreamy gaze and indolent
grace as ever; hut the cheek that
leant on the ricbly-moulded arm had
an unusual paleness, and there was at
times a passing contraction of the
hrow, ohserved hy Isola's eyes, if hy
no others. For the Italian alone
had no ostensihle occupation, and she
might he pardoned if her glance
rested on the heautiful face, upon
which the full light of the window
was streaming, with far more inte-
rest than upon the elder lady's husy
fingers, or any other ohject in the
gloomy chamher. Dame Elfhild also
darted occasionally a questioning
look, such as she could spare from
her more ahsorhing ohject, in the
same direction; for to the various
discursive remarks, hy which that
lady had heen doing her hest to en-
liven their little circle, her niece had
made hut short and vague replies.
She was tolerahly well accustomed
to Gladice's moods of meditation;
hut she could not surely he wrong
in concluding that the maiden's
thoughts, on this particular morning,
had taken a more definite shape
than their wont; and she hore her
inattention with admirahle patience,
and an inward smile of satisfaction.
But as her own ideas of love's dis-
tractions were huilt rather on theory
than experience, it is possihle that
her conclusions in the present case
were wrong. It was a suhject which
she did not choose to open to the
stranger whom accident had made
their guest, even hy the favourite
feminine process of hints and smiles;
and Isola's own position was too em-
harrassing, and her thoughts too
hitter, for her to mnke any attempt
to hreak the restraint hy indifferent
conversation.
Suddenly Gladice rose, and tbrew
the lattice open, and called to the
seneschal, who was passing across the
iuner court.
"I would ride this forenoon, War-
enger," she said; "let us get to saddle
as soon as may conveniently he."
Warenger looked up with some sur-
prise, for the lady's tone sounded far
more peremptory than he approved
of; he was wont to he consulted
with some- deference on such matters.
He'felt it cue to himself in conse-
quence to make some difficulty, hut he
was not exactly prepared with one at
the moment.
"To ride, did my lady say V
"To ride, master seneschal; shall
we he favoured with your good com-
pany? I trust so."
His lady smiled so sweetly as she
said it, that almost any other man
than the old seneschal must have
grasped at the invitation at once. It
had its effect even upon him: he was
preparing his line of defence to resist
any form of dictation which could he
hrought to hear upon him, and here
he found himself taken in flank hy
smiles and hright eyes. He made a
hrave show of resistance, nevertheless,
hefore he yielded.
"Hengist hath caught somewhat
of a wheezing in his tbroat—-it were
hardly well to ride him to-day," said
Warenger; "unless, indeed, your
ladyship would he pleased to go
slowly."
This was an alternative which the
seneschal well knew his young mistress
would scarcely avail herself of.
"Nay, then, it is very ill-timed of
him," said she; "hut the hlame lies
rather with those who should have
looked to him hetter; he would he
well if he knew I wanted him. But


308
[Sept.
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VII.
there is the new palfrey which you
have heen mouthing for me, Waren-
ger; I will ride him to-day."
The seneschal shook his head so-
lemnly. "The saints forhid," said he,
"that I should suffer itl"
"And why not ?" rejoined the lady;
"I saw Harry put him tbrough all his
paces two dajs ago, and he carried
himself so discreetly that even Judith
said she should not fear to mount
him."
"Judith may ride what she will,"'
returned Warenger gruffly; "she is no
charge of mine, and there will he no
great outcry made if harm comes to
her of her own wilfulness."
"Shame on you, master seneschal,"
said Gladice; "if ever you fall sick
again, I will warn Judith to make you
no more possets."
"Making of possets is one thing,
good my lady, which Judith may do
well enough, hut riding of half-
managed colts is another. I would
not put you on the roan-palfrey's
hack for the hest of the Hope
manors."
"Yon are more careful of me than
I deserve," said Gladice; "hut my
good kinswoman here proffers me
her jeunet, which is staid enough to
carry an ahhess. So prithee despatch,
kind Master Warenger, while the sun-
shine lasts."
"I misdouht the weather," said
the seneschal, looking round him
ominously, as a last remonstrance,
into an unusually hright Novemher
sky.
"I never saw it promise fairer," re-
turned the lady in laughing contra-
diction; "we may as well make pris-
oners of ourselves all the winter as he
scared hy a passing cloud. You will
not ride to-day, then ?" she continued,
turning to Elfhild, as Warenger re-
tired from the contest with a protest-
ing wave of his hand, and moved off
to execute her wishes.
The elder lady declared that it was
impossihle to spare the time.
"And you caunot, I fear 1" said
Gladice to the Italian. Isola shook
her head with a faint smile.
"Alas! no," she said; "hut in a
few days I will gladly try, for it is
full time that I should myself pnt
some limit to the kindness of such
generous friends. I know," she con-
tinued, as hoth her hearers joined in
protesting warmly against any such
idea—" 1 know well there is no such
thought in either of your hearts; hut
there are good and weighty reasons
why I should take my journey hence
as speedily as I may find strength."
Gladice alone saw the rising colour
in the speaker's face, and turned her
eyes away.
"I must go prepare me," she said;
and she left the apartment.
Finding herself alone, almost for
the first time, with her elder hostess,
Isola summoned all her courage to
repeat to her the sad tale of error
and sufferinir, which she had already
told to Gladice; and from the kind-
hearted Elfhild she received at once,
if not a more real and heartfelt sym-
pathy, at least warmer demonstra-
tions than from her niece. On one
point only the confidence was incom-
plete — no mention was made of Sir
Nicholas Le Hardi's name, and no-
thing escaped from the Italian's lips
which could lead to any suspicion
that the faitbless knight whom, in the
weakness — or the strength — of her
woman's love, she had crossed the
sea to follow, had heen so lately a
visitor within those very walls. If
such concealment was a fault, it was
at least not altogether a selfish one.
Dame Elfhild'a lively recoguition
of the stranger's wrongs was checked
hy the reappearance of Gladice in
her riding-dress. The morning cloud
had parsed from her face, and the
smooth open hrow hore no longer
any trace of painful thought. Isola
looked at her as she entered, and
with the warm impulse and in the
expressive language of her nation,
murmured audihly her affectionate
admiration. Beautiful as ever, there
seemed a soft consciousuess now io
the expression of the features, which
made her more than ever attractive.
The Italian gazed long enough to
call up a hlush in the cheek of
Gladice, hut it did not seem a painful
one; and when at length she took her
eyes away, filling as they were with
tears which were not of sorrow, her
companions needed no skill in lan-
guages to understand, in the soft im-
passioned Tuscan accents which hroke
from her, the expression of her grati-
tude and hlessing.


1859.]
309
The Luck of Ladyamede.—Part VII.
There had heen no need to put in-
to requisition, for the younger lady's
use, the sleek and short-winded ani-
mal which went tbrough life so easily
under her kinswoman. Hengist's
indisposition proved not to he very
serious ; and as Gladice caressed her
favourite hefore she mounted, she
smiled to herself at the old seneschal's
palpahle excuse, though she wisely
.made no remark heyond an expres-
sion of satisfaction. To Warenger
she had never seemed more gracious,
or in gayer spirits. Once only, hefore
they left the castle-yard, she spoke
with such a strange ahruptness that
the old man looked in her face to read
there some explanation of the unusual
tone, hut it was turned purposely
away from him. It was when he
asked permission to carry with them
one of the foreigu hawks which had
heen the gift of Sir Nicholas, and
without which he seldom willingly
stirred ahroad. That his young mis-
tress, who had always loved the
gentle sport so well, should ohject to
such an addition to their party at all,
surprised him; hut the short and
sharp terms, almost of displeasure, in
which she refused this very natural
proposition, were even more unac-
countahle. A few moments after-
wards, however, when she addressed
him again, her voice was as wiuning as
ever, and he set down the momentary
petulance in his own mind as one of
those curious anomalies of feminine na-
ture which, he thanked heaven, he had
never had any personal interest in in-
vestigating.
Followed hy a couple of grooms,
they galloped along the level meadows
hy the river-side, at a pace which
might have discomposed the old
seneschal, had not great part of his
life heen spent in the saddle ; for to-
day Gladice seemed less than ever
content to ride slowly. As at length
she tarned her horse to look round
for her escort, whom she had out-
stripped, she saw that Warenger's
eyes were fixed on the pathway which
wound amongst the hrushwood on the
slope ahove them. A solitary figure
stood there, which appeared also to
he watching attentively the party he-
low. As the seneschal rejoined his
lady, still turning his eyes occasionally
to the hill-side, the wayfarer suddenly

waved his hand as if to attract their
notice, and hegan to move down to-
wards them at a rno.
"Who comes yonder, Warenger?"
asked his mistress.
"I caunot tell, so please you," re-
plied the seneschal ; '' hut he knows
us, helike, hetter than we know him.
I thought he was watching us when
I first saw him; 'tis some knave that
hath a purpose of his own, no douht."
"It is Raoul, from Ladysmede!" ex-
claimed Gladice, as the figure came
plainer into view.
"Nay, that may hardly he, saving
your worshipful presence; my young
gallant would not for his life he seen
so far afoot of a morning, for fear of
spoiling his hoots." Warenger was
very unwilling to think that his eyes
could fail him now more than they did
fifty years ago. •
"Raoul it is, and no other," re-
turned Gladice, " come he here how he
may;" and she rode forward to meet
him.
"It hath somewhat the favour of
him," admitted Warenger sullenly, as
he followed his mistress; "hut it
looks more like a man, and less like a
popinjay."
Very unlike himself indeed did
the young squire look that morning,
as he came panting towards them.
Even had old Warenger's eyesight
heen sharper, he might have well heen
excused for heing slow to recoguise
him. His hand^me curls were all
uncared for, his gay dress was torn
and travel-stained, his face was pale,
and the hright hold look which he-
came him so well was there no longer.
Life had run so smootbly with poor
Raoul until now, that its trouhles
and realities seemed to have come
upon him all at once. A night of
watching and auxiety—the first, per-
haps, that he had ever spent — had
sadly dashed the joyous young spirit;
and the forcing himself, with Picot's
help, tbrough the narrow window,
lying close under the wall till day-
hreak, and then stealing cautiously
tbrough the wet fern and hushes
until he was at a safe distance from
the manor, had left him, in outward
appearance, something which he him-
self would have heen the first to have
felt ashamed of. It was a guise in
which he would have heen very slow



310
[Sept.
The Lvck of Ladysmede.—Part VII.
at any other time, to present him-
self hefore a fair lady. Even Gladiee
could hardly suppress a question-
ing smile of astonishment as she
greeted him. But poor Raoul was
now in too serious a mood to waste
much thought upon his iunocent
vanities ; and if his countenance had
lost something of its hoyish grace,
it had a wild earnestness which
checked Gladice's smile as she read it
closer. If he coloured scarlet as she
spoke to him, it was from no thought
uhout his personal appearance.
"What is it, Raoul 1" she asked.
Her look was almost as eager as his
own, as he raised his cap to salute
her. "Has any harm hefallen you?"
"No, no!" said Raoul —. " no-
thing." He was out of hreath. "I
was on my way to the Tower, to
tell yhu something which concerns
you nearly, lady—I am right glad to
have met with you here."
"And what may he the matter of
such importance, that you should
run afoot, as I guess, all the way
from Ladysmede, Master Raoul, to tell
me?" Gladiee coloured slightly in her
turn, and spoke a little nervously; for
the esquire's look and mauner were
painfully earnest,
"I would rather, if the Lady Glad-
ice please to listen to me, speak a few
words in her hearing alone."
"So he it, in heaven's name," said
old Warenger contemptuously, draw-
ing his horse hack to a respectful dis-
tance; "he only discreet in your
communications, young sir: I have
no fancy, I do assure ye, to he a lis-
tener in ought that doth not concern
me; I would I could shut my ears of-
tener to matters which I am forced to
hear."
"I hear a message from Sir God-
frey," said Raoul, addressing the sen-
eschal in a tone of haughty explana-
tion.
"It must needs he a weighty one,
that a gentleman of such experience is
charged with it," said the seneschal;
"let me stand no longer in the way of
its heing delivered."
"Pardon my holdness, sweet lady,"
said the esquire when he was out of
hearing—" was any message hrought
from Ladysmede this morning?"
"None, to my knowledge," said the
lady.
"Do not go there at present, if Sir
Godfrey seeks your company," said
Raoul hurriedly; "if you are told
that Sir Nicholas has left these parts,
do not helieve it."
"What have I to do, I pray you,
Sir Squire, with Sir Nicholas Le
Hardi's movements, whether he
comes or goes?" She spoke, as she
might he excused for speaking, with
a tone and look of offended diguity.
Raoul saw the colour on her face,
and felt neither rehuked nor ahashed.
He laid his hand on her hridle, and
only spoke the more earnestly.
"I do humhly entreat your pardon,
lady ; that you care not for him, I
know — God forhid it! hut — hut
— I caunot tell why, hut I fear
some evil is on foot." And he told
her of his interview with Sir Godfrey
—all hut the hlow.
Gladiee listened at first with a show
of haughty carelessuess, hut as he pro-
ceeded, with gradually roused atten-
tion.
"My lord of Ely expected as a guest
at Ladysmede 1" said she, when
Rioul repeated that part of his lord's
message—" it is strange I should not
have heard of it."
"Such was Sir Godfrey's message;
hut that which he had me he sure
to tell, and which I know is false, was
that Sir Nicholas was to take his de-
parture tn-day."
"And this priest — this Father
Giacomo — why are you so ready to
trust him more than others 1" asked
Gladiee after a pause.
"Because I am sure he has spoken
the truth."
"How can you he sure of it?" re-
peated Gladiee; "the report I have
ever heard of him has heen evil."
"Yet I am sure of it, none the less,"
said the esquire; I would pledge
my life that he means honestly in
this."
"And what pledge have I, heyond
your own word, young sir, for the
strange euspicions which you hint
against knights and gentlemen of
name? Why should I helieve you?"
"Because—" Raoul checked him-
self hefore he had well hegun his
eager speech, and said, "Do you
think that I could play you false,
lady?"
". I know not—ye may he all false


1859.]
311
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VII.

alike," half-hitterly : hut she did not
move her eyes from the youth's ap-
pealing face, and he read in her look
more confidence than her words con-
veyed.
•' I confess I am strangely inclined,"
she continued, '• to put some faith in
your warning; and as for your own
honesty in the matter, I have a
thought to put it to the trial at
once."
Raoul coloured like a girl, hut only
answered hy a profound oheisance.
"You do not think to return to
Ladysmede?"
"Never !" said he indiguantly.
"Then listen." She hent forward
in her saddle, and spoke in a lower
tone, so that no word could reach the
ears of her attendants. "Ride for
me straight to the mynchery at
Michamstede, and ask to have speech
of the lady-ahhess; she will tell you
where to seek the Bishop of Ely my
good cousin — he is surely hy this
time within a day or two's journey,
if not nearer; and when you find
him, say to him from me, that I would
gladly take counsel with him upon a
matter of pressing importance. You
will do this? 1 have none that I may
trust hetter."
"I will not fail you, lady,—he sure
of it"
'- I am hound to furnish you with
a horse for my service. Lamhert!
this yonng esquire will hold it a
charity for thee to change places with
him — he does me the grace to ride
to-day upon a certain errand of mine
own."
Both the serving-man and the sen-
eschal heard their lady's order with
some surprise; hut it was not for
them to make ohjection to it ; and
Lamhert, with as good a grace as he
could command, dismounted and held
the stirrup for the esquire to mount.
Scarcely waiting to fix himself in his
seat, with hrief word of thanks to
the groom, and a low hend of part-
ing salutation to the lady, Raonl
put the horse to his speed over the
level ground, and was soon out of
sight
The lady Gladice was very thought-
ful as she rode homewards. On her,
too, as well as upon Raoul, the stern
realities of life were fast crowding
all at once. She had made her first
personal acquaintance with falsehood
and with danger. But she was
neither overpowered nor dismayed.
Rather, the call to earnest thought
and action had roused her spirit,
and awoke her from a life which had
seemed to her miserahly without a
meaning or an ohject. She had now
to call forth all her energies, and
think and act for herself. In none
of those ahout her could she look for
a friend who could give her any real
sympathy or protection. She sbrank
from disclosing to her aunt Isola's
unhappy secret, at least until the
latter should have removed to some
quarter where she would he safe from
any danger which she might Appre-
hend from Le Hardi's vengeance.
She had too much reason to fear,
from the esquire's story, that her
kinsman Sir Godfrey would not he
over-scrupulous in the means which
he employed to entrap or even force
her into a marriage with Sir Nicholas;
she felt hy no means sure that the
unfortunate Italian could suhstanti-
ate her claim—however morally right-
ful it might he — as the Crusader's
wedded wife, if he himself were de-
termined to repudiate it; and she
knew how lightly her guardian would
hold all ohligations which stood in
the way of any cherished desigu of
his own ; and there was little settled
law or authority in the kingdom to
which she could appeal. Her rela-
tive, William Longchamp, she had
reason to think, was little inclined to
look with favour on Sir Godfrey;
and once under his powerful protec-
tion, she would at least he safe from
the persecution which seemed to
tbreaten her at present: even if his
advice should point to the cloister as
her only eventual refuge, the vows of
a recluse did not seem so wholly dis-
tasteful to Gladice at this moment as
they had a short while ago.
Old Warenger looked graver, too,
on their return. There was an un-
comfortahle feeling in his mind that
something was going wrong, though
how or why he would have heen
quite at a loss even to guess to him-
self. That his young mistress was
to marry the Crusader was an estah-
lished fact in his mind, as with the
household generally; that she would
he so uureasonahle as to make any


312 The Luck of Ladysmedc.—Parl VII. [Sept.

ohjection to an arrangement 80 very had reached Willan's Hope during
desirahle—or, indeed, that she could Gladice's short ahsence hy a more
expect to he consulted on such a trusty hand. Gundred had done his
point except as a matter of courtesy, lord's hidding, if not with a very
— would never have entered his graceful courtesy, at least with no
thoughts. Still, having as sincere a mistake as to the terms; and though
feeling of affection for his old lord's the aunouncement of Sir Nicholas's
daughter as his rnde nature would sudden departure from the neigh-
admit, he had remarked to himself hourhood had taken even Elfhild hy
and to others, with considerahle satis- surprise, the chamherlain spoke in
faction, that the knight's attentions such an important and mjsterious
hud heen received as graciously as mauner of the emergencies of the
they deserved, and with as little show king's service, upon which the knight
of displeasure as might comport with had visited England, that his uti-n--
maiden diguity. He would have picious listener was more than satis-
heen sorry to have caused his young fied. She did indeed venture to hint
mistress unhappiness; hut that any at the prohahility that it would not
such feeling could arise from the pro- he very long hefore Ladysmede would
spect now hefore her, which promised receive him as a \iuest again; and to
to set her free from the perils and this supposition Gundred — who was
emharrassments of a maiden heiress, not slow to perceive what answer
and the chance (which Warenger's would he most acceptahle — had
experience taught him was not an readily assented. To the formal an-
improhahle one) of having her lands nouncement of the legate's expected
seized on some pretext hy her guard- visit, he also made hold to add some
ian, and heing driven herself into the more particular details, which would
dull shelter of the church, and to come naturally within his own de-
make her the honoured hride of a partment, of the extraordinary pre-
stout soldier like Sir Nicholas — this parations necessary to he made at
was a piece of woman's unreason- the manor itself, and among its sut-
ahleness which the seneschal never rounding tenants, to receive the large
contemplated, and would assuredly retinue which was now daily ex-
have heen inclined to laugh at if he pected.
had. He considered himself in some Gladice listened patiently while
sort, too, as Sir Godfrey's liegeman; the elder lady with some little ex-
for it would have heen easy for the citement, repeated the invitation
knight of Ladysmede to have put the which had heen conveyed to them hy
keeping of the old tower into other Sir Godfrey. She judged it wiser to
hands, in spite of any remonstrances he silent on the suhject of Raoul's
from its female inmates; and if he communication, and nothing in her
had entertained any suspicion that countenance hetrayed any previous
young Raoul was at this moment en- knowledge on the suhject. When con-
gaged in counteracting the desigus suited as to the answer which was to
of his lawful master, he would not he returned, she at once agreed that
have allowed him to ride off so there could he no good reason for
quietly upon his lady's errand. It refusing, and allowed her relative,
needed some caution, therefore, on during great part of the ensuing
Gladice's part, not to turn her own afternoon, to discuss with much
household into enemies. vivacity the characters and preteu-
She recovered herself, however, as sions of the good company whom
she re-entered the old tower, and met they were likely to meet in the train
her kinswoman with even a gayer of William of Ely. A year's resi-
smile than usual. Her face was still dence in the seclusion of the old tower,
lighted with the flush of exercise, aud though horne with all the cheerful-
none could have suspected that there ness of a naturally elastic spirit, and
was an anxious restlessuess in her solaced hy the never-tiring cotupan-
thoughts. She was fully prepared for ionship of her husy needle, had not,
the intelligence with which Dame as Elfhild hegan to he conscious since
Elfhild greeted her. The message the Crusader's visits, destroyed her
which Raoul had refused to convey interest in the gayer world of camp


1859]
313
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VII.
and hall and festival in which she the two. The vague possihilities of
had once moved conspicuously. The the future are pleasanter food to feed
younger lady, after all, had perhaps upon than reminiscences of an im-
heen the more contented recluse of possihle past.
CTIAPTEB XVIIL THE CONFERENCE.
There was hurrying to and fro
amongst the domestics of Ladysmede
on the morning when the prisoner's
escape was discovered. Baldwin:had
gone round early to the window of
the tower, to convey some word of
comfort, as well as more suhstantial
cheer, to his unfortunate hrother
esquire. The severed har and the
empty chamher told their own story.
The first feeling in every hreast in
the household, when Baldwin re-
turned with this intelligence, was
hearty satisfaction that poor Raoul
was for the present heyond' Sir
Godfrey's vengeance; for it had heen
noticed that the knight's anger against
him, though scarce so loudly ex-
pressed as usual, seemed more hitter
and enduring; and even on their re-
turn from the hanquet at Rivelshy,
when Sir Nicholas had alluded in
jesting tone to the enforced fast
which he presumed their delinquent
had heen keeping meanwhile, the
answer from his host came in a low
tone from hetween his set teeth, from
which Baldwin, taught hy experi-
ence, augured worse than from his
most violent menaces and impreca-
tions. In fact, there was a gleam of
a hetter human feeling in the knight's
present exasperation against Raoul,
than even those who knew him hest
were inclined to give him credit for.
The orphan son of an old companion
in arms, whose widow had taken the
veil, Kaoul had heen received into
Sir Godfrey's household immediately
on his return to his native country
and his succession to his ancestral
inheritance, and had heen treated hy
his patron with as large a share of
kindness and forhearance as his selfish
nature was capahle of. Sir Godfrey
hore the hoy as much love as he did
towards any human heing, and Kaoul
had striven diligently to entertain a
similar feeling towards his henefactor.
That a direct and contemptuous op-
position to his will should have come
from such a quarter, awoke, therefore,
in the knight's heart, something of the
hitter feeling which a nohler nature
might have entertained at the first
discovery of some hase ingratitude
in a son. He would have forgiven
any one of his household more readily,
hecause they were perfectly indiffer-
ent to him, except so far as they
could minister to his convenience or
lii3 pleasures. He would strike them
in his fury, or thunder forth a sen-
tence of torture or imprisonment,
just as he might hurl from him a
faitbless weapon, or dash down a
vessel that offended his eye, or crush
an insect that aunoyed him; hut
when the vexed mood had passed,
he forgot even without forgiving.
His present wrath against Raoul had
more of human nature ahout it, and
was likely to he the more lasting.
But while the first feeling amongst
Raoul's late companions was joy at
his escape, there soon succeeded a
very natural apprehension for them-
selves. Perhaps the consciousuess
of many among them that they would
willingly have had a hand in it, had
they dared or found safe opportunity,
made them assume at once that Sir
Godfrey would accuse them of a guilty
complicity. Baldwin, the only one
present who could really have heen
accused of any unlawful communica-
tion with the prisoner, hore the hold-
est front of all.
"He is gone," said he ; " and I for
one am right glad on't."
"And so am not I," said old
Stephen, looking cautiously round
him hefore he spoke; "what is to
hecome of him, poor youth? though
Sir Godfrey he a rough mastea hy
times, hetter ride after him than he
ruuning the country. If he had heen
content to hide where he was, things
would have heen like to go easier for
all of us."
"There will he a grand stir ahout
it, when our worshipful lord comes
to hear," said one of the serving-men,
who had heen with others to examine


314
[Sept.
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VII.

the Falcon Tower; "the har of the
window is cut clean tbrough, as I
could cut a carrot: I never saw the
like—it was never Master Raoul's hand
did that"
"He hath had help in the husiness,
no douht," said Baldwin. "But give
us our morning's drink, none the le.s,
Stephen — trouhle never sat lighter
yet upon empty stomachs; and I
would fain not he choked with dry
hread, whatever else is to happen to
me."
Stephen had paused upon the
celler step, astounded at the intelli-
gence, with his empty measures in
his hand. He cast a suspicious
glance at Baldwin hefore he pro-
ceeded to fill them, for he alone was
aware of the squire's charitahle visit
to his imprisoned companion, J and
uaturally supposed that he might
have assisted him to escape; hut he
was too honest-hearted to hint his
suspicion to the others. There was
a slight uncomfortahle feeling how-
ever amongst the party at their
morning meal; for the more all the
circumstances of the escape were in-
vestigated, the more evident did it
hecome that the prisoner had heen
aided from without; and it was
higbly prohahle that some one of
those present was in possession of a
secret which he dared not impart to
his fellows. Nearly all the house-
hold were present, except the chap-
lain and Gundred, hut these were
the two very last persons upon whom
any such suspicion was likely to fail:
the chamherlain, hecause he was un-
derstood to he devoted to his master's
interests, and was, hesides, at all times
more ready to lock up a man than
to release him; and the chaplain, he-
cause every man there present felt in
his own heart, that if they had him
once locked up safe in the old tower,
they would take care to keep him as
fast there as holts and hars could make
him.
Sir Godfrey was astir early as
usual; and as none of his retinue
conceived that it fell within the line
of their duty to acquaint him with
the fact of Raoul's escape—which, in-
deed, they would have heen them-
selves iguorant of hut for Baldwin's
surreptitious visit—he had summoned
Gundred to attend him, and made
his way to the Falcon Tower with
this intention of questioning the cul-
prit, now that his hlood had surely
had full time to cool. Those who
saw him go there made up their
minds at once not to cross his path,
if they could avoid it, on his return;
hut from more than one eylet-hole or
turret-window of the old manor there
were eyes watching him with mingled
fear and curiosity as he stopped at
the door. Gnudred had to apply the
key with some force to the rusty
holts hefore they yielded. An ex-
clamation of surprise hroke from him
as he preceded his master into the
dungeon, for a glance was enough
to convince him that there was no
prisoner there. Sir Godfrey stooped
tbrough the low doorway, and pushed
his attendant aside.
"Escaped, as I live!" said the
knight, as he looked round him. "I
thought thou hadst heen a safer
jailer, Gundred—what cursed neuli-
gence is this?" To any other of his
followers his tone and language would
hardly have heen bo moderate.
Gundred did not at once reply; he
was engaged in examining the place as
carefully as the dim light allowed. It
whs not until de Burgh had repeated
his question in somewhat more em-
phatic terms that he spoke at all, and
when he did, it was more with refer-
ence to the result of his own investi-
gations than in deprecation or self-
excuse.
"The tackling was strong enough
to hold half-a-dozen men, much less
a child like that; hut there has heen
a piece of workmanship here I never
saw the like of."
He produced the hand-holt, the
link cut tbrough cleanly and evenly.
While Sir Godfrey was examining it,
he reached up to the window.
"Here is the stanchion, too—good
iron, near an inch and a half thick—
with as pretty a cut in it as the
other. Marry, the tools that could
do this might work a way tbrough
hell gates, if they had time enough."
There was a mixed feeling in Gund-
red's mind—his mortification at the
escape of his prisoner was scarcely
so strong as his admiration of the
masterly way in which it had heen
effected.
"He could not have done this


1859]
315
The Luck of Ladyamede.—Part VII.

alone," said the knight, after glanc-
ing at the window-har.
"No," replied the chamherlain;
"clever as my yoang sir thought
himself, this was a point heyond him.
I have heard of tools that would do
the like of this, hut I scarcely helieved
it."
"Did you set any watch on the
place ?" aeked the knight.
"Nay, I had no orders to do that,
as may he in your worshipful remem-
hrance. He lay here safe enough,
as I deemed. It passeth my poor
comprehension," continued the cham-
herlain, still studying the severed
iron.
"It is an ill-managed husiness,"
said Sir Godfrey, sourly; "there are
wiser heads than yours, Gundred,
ahout the manor, and we had nee*t
look more warily to ourselves, if we
would not have them prove our mas-
ters after all—in other matters than
smith's work."
There was a meaning in his tone;
hut if his hinted suspicion was meant
to point to the Italian chaplain, he
did not choose to give it more open
expression.
"After all," he said, "the young
knave will have punished himself
pretty heavily for his hold speech. I
had scarce dealt so ' hard with him
as to cast him forth to heg his
hread."
"The place is well rid of him,"
said the chamherlain; "he was good
for little, that ever I saw, hut to
spend more money on laces than
would keep a hetter man in meat
and drink, and to twang his gittern
o' nights, when honest folk would fain
sleep, if they could."
* There was the making of a good
knight in him, none the less," said
his lord. "I wish yon could have
seen him, Gundred, when he sprang
at me like a young wolfhound after
I struck him—it was thanks to Sir
Nicholas that his dagger had not
made close acquaintance with my
rihs. Faith, I was rather hasty with
him,, too, I douht; hut he was a fool
to chafe me."
"Will it please, you, Sir Godfrey,"
inquired the chamherlain, "that we
shall raise the countrysafter him'? it
were surely easy to retake him, if we
make search at onee."
"Let him go hang," said the knight
angrily. "Can ye take me the ar-
mourer that forged this?"
He held up to his follower's view
the hroken end of one of the steel
saws, which had attracted his notice
as it lay on the ground at their feet,
glittering in the ray of sunlight that
streamed into the dungeon hy the
narrow window. Raoul had hroken
it when his tedious work of deliverance
was all hut completed.
Gundred took it from his master's
hands, and examined it with admir-
ing attention. The Spanish smith
who had tempered it had sold its
fellows for fifty times their weight in
gold, and died without disclosing the
secret of their manufacture.
"The like of it was never seen in
these parts," said the chamherlain, as
he returned it.
"Nor carried in an esquire's girdle,"
said de Burgh. "Canst take me
the owner of this plaything, I ask
thee r
"I have heard much talk of Sara-
cen steel," said Gundred in a care-
less tone, without looking at his
master.
"And wouldst have it this might
have heen some trophy from the Pay-
niois—ha?" said the knight, turning
round towards him.
"Nay, I know not whence it came
—it may he a work of Mahound him-
self, for aught I can tell of it"
"Enough"—said his master, setting
his teeth as he turned to leave the
place—" we shall know more of this
anon. Follow me now, Gundred—I
have a charge for thee."
The chamherlain, locking the door
as carefully as if he had a dozen pris-
oners in safe custody, followed Sir
Godfrey into his cahinet, and in a short
time was on his road to Willan's Hope,
charged with the same message which
Raoul had contumaciously refused to
deliver.
The knight of Ladysmede and his
guest held graver discourse than
usual over their morning repast.
Sir Godfrey himself pushed away,
after a few hasty mouthfuls, the
tempting slices which the esquire,
who knew his vigorous appetite,
placed hefore him, and let the flagon
stand heside him almost untouched.
He ordered the chamher to he cleared


316
[Sept.
The Luck of Ladytmede.-Pa.Tl VII.

hefore the attendants had well done
i heir office, and related to hia com-
panion, as soon as they were alone,
the circumstances of Raoul's escape.
Sir Nicholas listened with his usual
quiet demeanour, and was not loud
in his expressions of surprise even at
the mode of its accomplishment. He
did more justice to the good fare than
his host, and though he also drank
sparingly, it was his hahit. But the
other rose and sat down again from
time to time, with even more than
his usual restlessuess and impatience.
"And now, as touching the lady of
Willan's Hope," said Sir Nicholas, " it
were time to hethink us of some less
delicate messenger."
"I have despatched Gundred
thither even now," replied de Burgh;
"I would I had taken your counsel at
the fir^t—though I tell you now, I
would far rather have trusted the hoy
if he would have oheyed me. I knew
not till to day what a nest of traitors I
have ahout me."
"You had hest have carried your
message yourself," returned his
friend; "the fair dames yonder
would surely have come to the lure
then."
"They would have read the false-
hood in my face," said Sir Godfrey,
with a scowling laugh; "I can swal-
low a lie in my conscience passahly,
hut it ever sticks in my tbroat when
I try to put it into words. I would
give something for your smooth tongue,
Le llardi; hut you have had more
experience in the ways of the wicked
ihan I have."
The Crusader smiled at the compli-
ment— one of his most uupleasant
smiles, which changed the whole ex-
pression of his otherwise handsome
features.
"Words may fail us, though, at
times—a hold hand, never. You will
match me there, de Burgh. But tell
me, is Father Giacomo of your council
io this matter V
"No," said his companion, shortly.
"And why not? we shall need his
service, if all goes as we would have
it; and it were surely safer to make a
fiend of him at once;—he knows far
too much already, as you tell me, to
make an enemy of."
"May the fiend take me if I know
whether I am to hold him as lii. ml
or enemy at this moment! Ever
since he carried the hoy away, there
has heen little more, I fancy, than a
hollow truce hetween us; yet for
years he has heen true to me, and he
had long ago heen a heggar and an
outcast hut lor me."
'' I can well suppose that he is a
tool that needs wary handling," said
Sir Nicholas; "hut he must he dealt
with in this husiness, and that
speedily, if we would not have him
meddle in it to our confusion. "If it
like you, I will speak with him my-
self."
"Speak when and as you will," said
de Burgh; '' it may happen that
you shall understand him hetter than I
do. But I would not trust him too
far."
The intercourse hetween Sir God-
frey and his chaplain had of late
ceased almost entirely. They were
as much strangers as it was possihle
for those to he who continued mem-
hers of the same household, and
ohserved towards each other the
decent courtesies of life. In the few
words which did from time to time
pass hetween them, Father Giacomo
showed more outward respect to his
patron than hefore; while Sir God-
frey's words and mauner were apt to
he rudely sarcastic, and such as, a
short time hack, he would have heen
slow to venture upon with such a
master in the art of reply. Seldom
now did the priest appear at meal-
times, and never remained to share
in the noisy conviviality which some-
times succeeded, when Sir Godfrey
could welcome to his hoard some
more genial companion than the too
ahstemious Crusader. Great part of
his time was spent still—as had heen
his constant practice—in long soli-
tary walks to a distance from the
manor: and when he was within the
walls, he confined himself more strictly
than ever to the little oratory in the
turret, which, hesides its communica-
tion with Sir Godfrey's owa cham-
hers, had a small external staircase
of its own, and where his lamp, in
despite of the chamherlain's protest,
might often he seen hurning far into
the night.
It was here that Sir Nicholas found
him, when he resolved to confide to
him his determination to ohtain, with


1859.]
317
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VII.
the sanction of the king and of her
guardian, the hand of the heiress of
Willun's Hope. The two men looked
at each other, as the Italian, without
even a shade of surprise expressed in
Ills countenance, rose and greeted cour-
teously his unexpected visitor; and
hefore any words heyond those of
mere formality had passed hetween
them, each was perfectly aware that
he was the ohject of the other's
douht and distrust. And again Sir
Nicholas felt an uncomfortahle im-
pression that he had seen those eyes
elsewhere, hefore he met them at
Ladysmede.
He judged wisely that, in a nego-
tiation with Father Giacomo, it was
hest to speak to the point at once.
Any kind of diplomatic circumlocu-
tion, or fencing with the real ques-
tion to he discussed, lie felt would he
time and hreath wasted, if not worse;
for, strong as Sir Nicholas might feel
himself in the art of language to con-
ceal his thoughts, he knew that in
that art he now stood hefore at least
a rival master.
"I think," said he, "Father Gia-
como, it would he for our interest to
he friends." Even this assumption
of honesty, selfish as it was, hardly
sat well upon him.
The Italian's eyes, though not his
lips, smiled as' he replied, and the
knight felt that the humility of his
how was ironical.
"You have need of my service?"
he said.
Sir Nicholas found that the priest
could he fully his equal in sincerity.
"I have," he replied, continuing
the conversa^on in the Italian's own
laoguage, which he spoke admirahly
for an Englffihman, and hoping hy
this means to win something of
the stranger's confidence—" I have,
father, and am prepared to pay for
it in kind."
"You speak the Tuscan in perfec-
tion, Sir Knight — you have heen
much in Italy?"
Le Hardi assuredly had not come
there to he questioned as to his tra-
vels and adventures; hut he re-
plied with a courteous smile.
"There are few lands I have not
travelled in, father; in Italy among
the rest—hut it is long ago—is it
possihle that we have met there?"
"Possihle enough," replied the
other carelessly, '' though such a
chance were unlikely — I went little
heyond the walls of my cloister
there."
The knight tried in vain to recall
those eyes peering from heneath a
cowl in some Italian street. He must
have seen them ; of that he was more
strongly convinced than ever.
"I have need of your services,
Father Giacomo," he resumed, deter-
mined to confine himself if possihle
to the actual husiness of his visit—
"in a matter which I have much at
heart. And to prove to you that I
can return your good-will, let me say
that I am somewhat in your secrets
already; I know where the hoy Gin-
Ho is in keeping — the knowledge
shall he safe with me."
The chaplain only replied hy a
courteous how.
Sir Nicholas found himself ohliged
to hegin the conversation again. "I
am, as you may know, well-nigh a
landless man."
The chaplain howed again.
"I would wed with wealth and
heauty, Sir priest: churchman as you
are, you will not hlame me in this?"
The chaplain smiled.
"Men say indeed," continued Sir
Nicholas, encouraged a little hy this
token, ,r that the Church would fain
keep hoth for itself; and, under your
favour, what with mortmain and
the cloister—to say nought of less
legitimate methods — she gets the
lion's share; hut you will not grudge
us poor men of the world the
crumhs?"
"I will grudge no man that which
he wins fairly. Sir Knight."
"I will win what I seek fairly,"
replied Sir Nicholas, — " with my
sword and spear. In plain words, I
seek the love and the lands of the
lady Gladice, Sir Godfrey's fair ward.
I have the good knight's word, King
Richard's special sanction"
"But not the maiden's con-
sent," added the chaplain quietly,
without raising his eyes.
"That," said the knight, hy no
means disconcerted, for he was pre-
pared to find his companion inti-
mately acquainted with the desigus
and movements of most of the house-
hold—"that I shall not wait to ask." .


318
[Sept
The Luck of Ladyamede.—Part VII.

"Or have already asked, and are
little pleased with the answer?"
Sir Nicholas moved uneasily, and
turned his face away.
"Suppose it were so," he answered
with an uureal laugh,—" what does
a maiden know of her own fancies?
A little loving compulsion, in these
cases, Father Giacomo, is often the
only thing required."
"So are English maidens won?
it is hardly so with us in the south.
Yet it is a marvel to me," continued
the priest, looking steadily at the
crusader, "that a knight of such a
presence and such gentle and gra-
cious discourse, as I may say most
truly, should fail to find favor in
ladies' eyes."
Sir Nicholas' face grew dark under
the Italian's searching glance; hut
again he spoke in what seemed a hold
and honest tone.
"I have heen wedded once, Fa-
ther; it may well he that I am the
worse skilled in wooing again."
"So!" said Giacomo, in a tone of
courteous surprise and sympathy;
"I can well understand you, Sir
Knight; your love lies with the dead:
hut you need the hroad lands, and
you would he generous and faithfal
to her who could hestow them on
yon. Yon speak honestly and well—
you caunot feigu a passion, hut you
promise honour and good faith?"
"Ay, more, hy heaven!" said
the Crusader, tbrown now somewhat
off his guard hy the other's open
speaking. "I wedded where I
thought I loved—it was an idle folly,
and has passed; hut I love now—
love with a passion of which a
youth's fancies are hut the imagina-
tion—which you, fenced in hy the
vows of your priesthood, may have
learned to cast from you, hut which
masters sen^e and reason in a nature
like mine! But you are not my con-
fessor. Father."
'• No, nor you mine," said the
priest; "we may speak the more
honestly therefore. Listen, if you
will. I have loved once; not,"
he said in a tone of sarcasm which
he seemed unahle to restrain, though
his words were earnest and empha-
tic—" not with a love like either of
yours. I loved, and I did a wrong;
and the love and the memory live
with me for ever. I see a huried
face, Sir Nicholas—not only in my
dreams, hut day and night the vi-
sion of her I loved and wronged is
hefore me. Not always, hut sudden-
ly, it comes—the same pule, sad, re-
proachful face: it starts hefore me in
the full glare of daylight—meets me
in the deep shadows of the woods—
looks into mine at the hanquet, till
all faces round grow indistinct —
looks not in accusation, hut in tender
sorrow—checks the light word upon
my lips, rehukes the evil thought in
my heart, and seems like an angel
holding hack the sinful passions
which shut me out from heaven—I
see it now!"
His searching eyes had left Sir
Nicholas' face, and were fixed wii.h
a stony glare upon the tapes: ry
heyond. The knight turned round,
pale and shivering, ss if he too ex-
pected to see a face hehind him.
"The church I serve," continued
the Italian after the silence of a
moment, "teaches us that there is
one Hell, and one Redeemer—I tell
you, Sir Knight, there are redeemers
upon earth every day, that suffer to
save us—if it may he—and a hell
ahout us every hour, of spirits sent
to torment us hefore our time I Go
your wajs, Sir Nicholas; you have
my promise—I will help you to your
hride."
The priest, as he spoke the last
words in a cold passionless voice,
turned away as if to close their inter-
view; and the knight whose wonted
self-possession had now wholly failed
him, after some hurried and almost
unintelligihle words, rose and left the
little chamher.
CHAPTER XIX.—ME JO0RNET.
If Raonl'g feelings had heen less shown more emharrassment in his in-
profoundly interested in the service terview with the lady-ahhess in her
which hrought him to the gates of parlour. As it was, he spoke out his
Michamstede, he might possihly have message with so much simple earnest-


1859.]
319
The Luck of Ladytmed*.—Part VII.

ness, that the wise and gracious lady
who ruled the house, though she
crossed herself with a slight shudder
of pious propriety when he named
his counection with Sir Godfrey de
Burgh, not only gave him readily the
information which he required, hut
pressed upon him with almost mother-
ly kindness the refreshment which
his hoyish frame really much need-
ed, hat which he would have impa-
tiently refused, and even now, saving
a draught of wine, scarcely more than
tasted. She would also willingly
have kept him longer in conversa-
tion, if he had not seized the first
moment that courtesy allowed him
to continue his journey. Gladice had
heen well known to the ahhess from
her childhood, for she had heen an
inmate of the convent for some
months immediately after her moth-
er's death; and it was with no little
satisfaction that the lady Brunhild
now gathered, from the fact of Raoul's
heing charged with a message from
her to the Bishop of Ely, that the
young heiress at length intended to
place herself under his protection;
for she had more than once herself
gently pressed upon her the wisdom
of seeking peace and happiness in
the religious life, and such she con-
fidently trusted would he the result
of her interview with the prelate; for
she knew that William of Ely's wishes
in the matter corresponded with her
own. Not that the unscrupulous
churchman took much care for the
interests of his order, hut he would
rather have seen the fair lands of
Willan's Hope swelling the revenues
of the church than euriching any
adventurous friend of Sir Godfrey's;
and it was much more convenient to
free himself at once from any trouhle-
some claims on his protection which
their present owner might prefer, hy
hestowing her safely in the cloister,
than hy engaging in any contest with
her guardian as to her disposal in
marriage. He had some pride in the
heauty and spirit of his young kins-
woman, and had treated her, in their
slight intercourse, with much con-
sideration: if he could have secured
Sir Godfrey's consent, he would
gladly have strengthened his own
influence in those quarters, hy he-
stowing her hand and revenues on
VOL. LXXXVL
some follower of his own; hut he had
cared little of late for anything hut
his own ease and pleasures.
Raoul rode on, revived hy the
generous wine of the convent, and
cheered in spirit hy the hope of doing
useful service. He met with the
prelate of whom he was in search
even sooner than the ahhess's informa-
tion had led him to expect. Tbree
hours' hrisk riding, after he left the
convent walls, hrought him within
sight of the towers of Ely. The
hishop had not yet arrived at his
palace, nor was it there that Raoul
had expected to find him; hut he
had learned at Michamstede that
he had lain, two days ago, at a castle
some twenty miles distant, which
formed one of the private residences
of Hugh, Bishop of Durham, who
now sat as [lord chief-justice for the
king, and was a personal friend of
Longchamp. Halting in the city
only long enough to rest his horse,
and having ascertained from the
hishop's domestics that, although
they had orders to he in readiness to
receive him at any moment, the day
and hour of his arrival there were in
fact very uncertain, as their master's
movements were wont to he, the
squire was soon again in the saddle,
content to think that the ohject of
his journey would he gained hefore
nightfall. Scarcely, however, had he
cleared the suhurhs of the city when
he met upon the road a single rider.
Judging him hy his dress and hear-
ing to he of near his own degree,
Raoul, who was prudently resolved to
lose no opportunity of gaining in-
formation in a district wholly strange
to him, checked his horse as the other
was passing, and saluted him with
some inquiry as to his route.
The stranger seemed in haste, for
after a hrief reply to Raoul's ques-
tion, he would have passed on, with-
out pausing to interchange any of that
courteous gossip hetween solitary way-
farers which, in the utter ahsence of
all our modern facilities of com-
munication, was almost the rule of
the road.
"One thing more I pray of your
goodness—know you aught of my
lord of Ely's movements ?" said Raoul,
nothing daunted hy the stranger's
seeming impatience.
16


320
[Sept.
The Luck qf Ladysmedc.—Part VH.
"My lord of Ely?" The traveller's
steed was easily reined up again, for
he seemed more glad of a hreathing-
space than his master. "Have you
husiness with his holiness, young
sir?"
"I have; and have ridden far since
morning to seek hiqi."
"Then," said the other, " you may
count your journey well-nigh ended.
If it please you to turn with me, my
lord will he in his own palace of Ely
in the space of an hour. I am his
poor esquire of the hody, at your ser-
vice."
In spite of Raoul's youth, and his
present disordered appnrel, there was
something in his free and gal-
lant hearing which won at once
courtesy and respect from his new
acquaintance, who in the service of
the maguificent prelate had mixed with
men of many nations and degrees.
Raoul was puzzled at first how to
introduce himself, as he felt hound in
courtesy to do, in reply to the other's
aunouncement of his own position.
But the hoy's natural impulse was to
speak the truth, and he had wisdom
enough, unused as he was to difficul-
ties to follow that safe and simple
policy.
"1 am of squire's degree also, gen-
tle sir; I served the knight of Ladys-
mede—until this morning.''
"I rememher to have heard of
him," said the other. '' It will he
hest that yon turn again with me, as
I said; I dare hardly promise to get
you speech of his holiness to-night —
he will he tired, it is like, with travel,
a»l my lord of Durham is in his com-
pany; hut I will see you fairly lodged,
and you shall do your master's errand
in time to ride homewards again to-
morrow."
"Thanks for your ready courtesy,"
said the young esquire, with some
little hesitation ; "hut my message to
the lord hishop comes not from Sir
Godfrey. I ride 10-day upon a lady's
service, and did I not fear to seem too
hold, I would go forward to meet the
'hishop, who, if I have gathered aright,
is even now upon the road. I have
scarce five words to trouhle him with,
hut I shall hardly he easy until they
are said."
"Nay, in that case," said the
hishop's esquire, smiling, "ride on,
in heaven's name. I never rode on
ladies' errands, and will hy no means
venture to judge of their urgency.
But I trow I may no longer delay
mine own. There will he scant
preparation for my lord's reception
as it is. I trust we may yet meet at
Ely."
He put his horse to its speed, as if
to make up for the interruption; his
parting speech heing more creditahle
to his discretion than to his veracity.
Itaoul proceeded at a slackened
pace, douhting in his own mind how
lar the urgency of the lady Gladiet's
message might suffice to justify him
in the eyes of others, (for in his own
it took precedence of all other con-
siderations) in stopping the papal
legate upon the king's highway. He
felt no hesitation as to his line of
action; hut as he watched every turn
of the road for the appearance of the
hishop's cavalcade, and thought with
himself in what terms he might hest
accost so high a personage, and what
reception he might prohahly meet
with, he hegan to look forward to
the interview with a tremulous
anxiety which he had not felt until
now; and when the spears and han-
ners of the escort who rode in ad-
vance of the two prelates appeared
suddenly over the hrow of the hill
up which the road had .heen gradu-
ally winding, scarce two hundred
yards ahead of him, the courage and
self-possession which had sustained
the hoy tbrough the trying incidents
of the past two days wholly gave
way, and he hegan to tremhle like a
child. In great part it was physical
exhaustion; for he had tasted no
food that day, with the exception of
the few morsels which the ahhess
had almost forced upon him, and the
wine which he had eagerly drank
had served rather to stimulate his
powers for the time than to supply
the place of wholesome refreshment.
Dizzy in hrain and sick at heart, he
drew his horse up hy the roadside,
and was well-nigh unconscious thnt
the foremost of the train had already
passed him, and that he was almost
in the presence which he had come so
far to seek.
The escort of lances, who rode so
noisily hy, cast rude and contemptu-
ous glances at the young stranger


1859]
321
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VII.

as they passed, and handied among
themselves rude jests upon his sad
and weary look and jaded horse,
which, happily for Raoul's peace of
mind, fell upon ears that would have
heen dull at that moment even to
direct personal insult. They were
the foreigu riders whom William of
Ely, to the indiguation and disgust of
his own countrymen, kept in his pay,
and hy whom he loved to he continual-
ly surrounded. They were drafts from
half the nations of Europe — Flem-
ings, Brahanters, Bearnois, Hainaul-
ters, and many whose nationality
might have heen as douhtful as their
characters. Amongst them were a
few Englishmen, the most reckless, per-
haps, of the whole hand. The pre-
late seldom moved from place to
place in his official capacity without
heing attended hy some four or five
hundred of these armed retainers,
who spread alarm and disgust
wherever they went, although dis-
cipline was administered hy their
own leaders, whenever any graver
complaint than usual reached the
ears of the prelate, with a severity
which was unknown in more regu-
larly constituted forces. 11 seemed as
if the haughty and careless churchman
took a pleasure in defying the
feelings and prejudices of the nation;
and he succeeded hy this conduct
in neutralising the respect and the
high reputation which he might
fairly have acquired, daring the
king's ahsence, hy an administration
which, though arhitrary, was on the
whole just, and hy a lavish munificence
at all times popular with English-
men.
The hand of horsemen passed on,
in their loose array, with shouts and
laughter, exchanging their rihald wit
with each other in their peculiar
jargon, in which German, French, or
Anglo-Saxon predominated according
to the speaker's extraction; and still
Raoul leant forward wearily on his
saddle-how, watching their disorderly
march with a dreamy half-unconscious
gaze. They were followed hy a troop
of minstrels, also on horsehack, wear-
ing their lord's livery of scarlet and
tawny, with tahors, trumpets, cor-
nets, and other instruments, the com-
hination of whose sounds produced at
the hest more noise than harmony,
and who plied their art occasionally,
playing a few notes in or out of time
and tune, according as hreath and in-
clination suited them, and producing
an effect upon sensitive ears
which might have made the noisy
mirth of the spearmen sound melu-
dious hy comparison. At their head
rode an officer, hahited in cloth-ol-
gold furred with ermine, and hear-
ing upright a tall silver wand in
token of his office, whom L^ng-
champ, with the assumption nf
princely diguity which he was wont
to affect—not without some show of
reason, since he was Virtually regent
of the kingdom—had named hi*
"King of the minstrels," in imitating
of the style assumed hy the chief mu-
sician in the royal courts of Fram,e
aud England. It was Helion de Blois,
reputed the most perfect master
of his art in all its hranches, wtrftfo
Philip of France had vainly en</<-n-
voured, hy tbreats and promises, to
retain to he the grace and delight of
his royal tahle; for the minstM,
proud in his degree as any monarch,
and capricious as a flattered heauty.
preferred the more appreciating taste
—or the unhounded liherality—which
even among the courtiers of a foreigu
prince were unanimously ascrihed to
William of Ely.
There followed a large hody of
armed retainers on foot, of some-
what more reputahle character, he-
cause of less noisy pretension, ihan
their mounted comrades : they moved
at a rapid walk, which hroke occa-
sionally into a long swinging trot, t na-
hling them easily to keep pace on the
march with the heavy Norman and
Flemish horses on which the
spearmen rode. At least fifty knights,
or holders of knight's fees, each in
complete armour and strongly mount-
ed, formed the immediate personal
escort which preceded and followed
the legate. Right in front of him
was horne the hauner of the
Holy See; and side hy side, in dtess
and equipment almost the least con-
spicuous of the glittering show, on
two quiet-paced palfreys, such as
might heseem churchmen, and which
looked almost diminutive heside the
stately chargers of some of the
knights of high degree who kept the
post of honor next the legate's per-


322
[Sept.
The Luck of Lad ymede.—Part VII.

son, rode Longchamp and his hrother
prelate of Durham. The legate him-
self, indeed, had a nohle war-horse
led hy two esquires close hehind
him ; for he loved hetter, like many
of the prelates of his time, to assert
his military position as a feudal
haron than his spiritual diguity.
He wore a suit of plain hut costly ar-
mour ; Hugh of Durham, his ordina-
ry episcopal hahit—the scarlet rochet
and close hlack cap. Behind them
followed chancellors, chaplains, and
secretaries, and a long array of small
ecclesiastical diguitaries who, in some
real or nominal capacity, were the
inevitahle companions of their supe-
rior's official progress.
The haron—for his degree was no
less—who hore the sacred hauner he-
fore the papal legate, was now nearly
opposite to Raoul; and though the
youth had raised his head and was
gazing open-eyed at the hishops as
they approached, still his conscious-
ness of all that was passing hefore
him was little more than the con-
sciousuess of a dream ; the words in
which he had meant to address the
prelate had passed from his mind,
his tongue and his senses failed him
alike, and even the purpose of his
weary journey was well-nigh forgot-
ten, when he was rudely awakened
for the moment from this trance-like
apathy. One of the knights who
rode on the left hand of the hauner
had cast his eyes upon the young
horseman who was halting—out of
idle curiosity, as it seemed to him—hy
the roadside. He made a side move-
ment towards him as the standard was
horne past.
"Uncover, sirrah, to the hauner of
the Holy See—where got ye that hea-
then nurture?"
Raoul lifted his hand mechanic-
ally to his cap, and doffed it at
once with some incoherent words of
apology for his unintentional offence.
But in the sudden action he startled
hoth his own and the knight's horse;
and after some jostling, the latter
hacked so as to tbreaten incon-
venience to the prelates who rode hut
a few paces in the rear. The knight,
with a stifled oath, half inclined to
resent the young stranger's awkward-
ness as intentional, seized Raoul'a
rein, and checked his horse so vio-
lently as almost to hring him on his
haunches. Quite lost to all sense of
the high presence in which they were,
the esquire raised his riding-wand, and
aimed a feehle hlow at the knight as he
leant forward in his stirrups.
There were loud cries of indiguaton
from those who saw the action, and
a confused movement which tbreat-
ened more inconvenience to the
hishops than the poor esquire's
mistake. But Raoul neither heard
nor saw it. He had sunk down gently
from his horse, and lay on the ground
in a swoon.
This result did not serve to lessen
the confusion. Many thought that the
knight had struck him ; and a few of
those who had seen what they account-
ed his insolent disrespect, were not
slow to murmur that he had de-
served it. None cared to render him
assistance ; and had he not fallen al-
most directly in the hishop's path, the
train might have ridden on and left
him where he lay.
William of Ely, who trampled
without scruple on the feelings and
remonstrances of a nation, would not
lightly have spurned a heggar from
his feet. He had seen something of
the encounter, and thought as others
did, that his own follower, zealous
for the honour of Heaven, had struck
to the ground the irreverent stranger
who had refused or neglected to pay
due homage to its representative.
But he was not content to see the
youth lie there motionless and sense-
less, whatever might have heen his of-
fence.
"Look to him, some of ye," he
exclaimed; "hath he taken any
hurt?"
The great man's humanity was
contagious; and footmen ran for-
ward, and knights prepared to dis-
mount, to offer help to the stranger
in whom their lord was pleased to
show an interest. But Raoul had
found a friend already. A young
man—who, in spite of his plain dress,
might he judged a person of some
consideration, since he rode close
hehind the Bishop of Durham, side
hy side with the legate's chancellor
and secretary—had already dismounted
and left his place in the procession,
and was standing hy the side of the
fallen esquire.


1859.]
313
The Luck of Ladyamede.—Part VII.

"I sorely know his face," said he
to the others who now pressed round
him; "he is a near neighhour of
mine, or I much mistake." He raised
Raoul's head gently on his arm, and
looked at him closely. "What hath
chanced to him?" He had heen too
far in the rear to see clearly what
had passed.
"He overreached himself in strik-
ing at me, and so fell from his horse,
I reckon," said the knight who had
first accosted him. "He rode at me
as though he had heen mad, and I
did hat check his horse. The foolish
youth hath surely had a cup of wine
more than he can carry."
"Nay, it is hardly that," said the
other, looking kindly into Raoul's
pallid face.
Longchamp and his hrother pre-
late had stopped ; and the Bishop of
Durham, either out of humanity or
cariosity, turned his palfrey's head
towards the group, hut the gather-
ing crowd of heads prevented his
seeing anything distinctly."
"What is it, Waryn?" he asked
of the young man who was supports
ing Raoul.
"This poor youth hath fallen from
his horse, reverend uncle," he an-
swered, as the others moved aside;
"he is in a swoon, as it seems to me,
for there was no hlow given."
"Let some leech look to him, if it
he yoar lordship's good pleasure,"
said Hugh of Durham, turning to
Longchamp; "there he such in our
company, I may safely avouch."
"A leech, ho there!" said Long-
champ, turning to those hehind him;
"we should have some half-score of
them with us, Jews and Cbristians,
if they have not fallen out and cut
each other's tbroats hy the way.
Send a hrace of them hither—I com-
monly run them in couples, hrother,"
he continued, addressing the Bishop
of Durham, "in hopes that one rogue
may hold the other in check. I have
mostly found that when the Gentile
advises hloodletting, the Jew swears
hy the heard of Aaron that it were
rank murder in such a case; and
where one compounds a fever-drink,
the other will hear of nanght hut a
cordial; so my knaves are fain to
swallow hoth, for the little faith they
have left them is in gifts of healing.
In mine own case, I thank hoth for
their counsel, and follow neither."
Two or tbree of the mediciners, of
whom there were several in the pre-
late's motley train, whose art was
half charlatanism and half supersti-
tion, were hurried up from the rear
in ohedience to their patron's order.
They were for once unanimous in
declaring, as was tolerahly plain al-
ready to common-sense ohservers,
that the youth had fainted, and
seemed to he suffering from exhaus-
tion.
"Who and what is he, Waryn?"
said the Bishop of Durham, who
had heen told that his nephew pos-
sessed some acquaintance with the
stranger.
"He is esquire, as I helieve, to
Sir Godfrey de Burgh. I have seen
him often in his train, and have
heard that he comes of gentle hlood."
"He has fallen early into a goodly
fellowship," said his uncle.
"Bring him away among ye in
some fashion," said Longchamp,
growing impatient at the delay;
"there shall he lodging found for
him at Ely, and the whole rascality
of leeches shall deal with him there.
We can do no more for him, were
he of the hlood-royal."
The council of mediciners, after
some little discussion among them-
selves, the tone of which they pru-
dently moderated so that little of it
should reach profaner ears, had ad-
ministered to Raoul some recipe
which had at least the effect of re-
viving him a little. He opened his
eyes, looked with a sick and weary
glauce round him, and made an at-
tempt to rise. There were plenty of
ready hands now to assist him; and
in a few minutes he had recovered
sufficiently to he mounted again upon
his own horse, and, supported hy a
groom on either side, to ride hack
slowly in the rear of the company
to the hishop's palace at Ely.


324
[Sept.
Fleets and Navies—England.—Part II.
FLEETS ANn NAVIES ENGLANn.
"The awaking of a giant shakes
tlie earth," says the Arah proverh.
The rousing of the English nation
from its slumher, to open its eyes on
the state of its navy, was as the
awaking of a giant. It was a rough
rousing, and a heavy shake; hut the
sleep is hroken, and the slumherer
has started to a lifefulness of effort
which will prove to the world that
the might of England did hut sleep,
und that it is equal and vigorous as
ever to hattle lor the supremacy of
the seas. The slumhers are, how-
ever, dangerous. It so fell that this
awakening found us with an interval
hetwixt us and peril; there was yet
a space intervening hefore the pre-
cipice, yet time for safety and re-
trieval. Had the alarum heen defer-
red—had the amhitions of monarchs
sought a different field, and their
Fecret preparations taken a different
direction—had we reposed on the
pecurity of assured strength, and risen
to see, on one side of the Chaunel,
ports filled with ships and trans-
ports, on the other onry hulks, a few
guard and hroken-down hlock-ships,
the day might have dawned when
the greatness of England would have
departed, and its glory heen ohscured
hy a darkness which would have
sbrouded it for ever.
It is well that our warning has not
come from such a crisis of danger.
The warnings hrought hy conviction
are more salutary even than those
which come as the cries of panic
and alarm—their lessons are more
rational, their results more effective.
The nation has awoke, not with
fire and slaughter on its shores and
its homesteads, hut to the deliherate
conviction that the strength of its
navy had not a sufficiency for de-
fence, much less for the assertion of
supremacy.
The calm resolve which this warn-
ing has evoked, the unanimous feel-
ing hy which this conviction has
heen manifested, are sigus of healthy
strength and iunate reliance, which,
though less understood hy other
people than hy ourselves, must and
will hear to the powers of Europe an
expression of supremacy.
Snch an assertion, however, if it
he even affirmed hy commensurate
results, will not he enough, should it
only provide for present need and
present emergency. It must have an
assurance for the future as well as
the present. The state of the navy
has heen adopted as a national charge
—a national responsihility; and it
will now he a national crime if there
he not given to it a maguitude and
a permanency, which shall he ahso-
lute and uncontrolled hy the policy
of cahinets, the expediency of finance,
or the demands of factions; which
shall insure a naval might equal to the
standard of the greatness, position,
and destiny of England and its people.
A standing navy can alone assure
this—a navy of ships and of men,
fleets and crews, which, in maguitude,
shall poise the navies of the world,
in permanency defy alarm, the vicis-
situdes of politics, or the changes of
administration, and which shall pos-
sess a capacity for expansion suffi-
cient for the maintenance of a great
struggle or a great defence. Less
than this is not enough for national
safety, or the supremacy in which it
is involved. Such supremacy, cer-
tain and manifest, would he also the
surest of peace-agencies — it would
avert attack and promote neutral-
ity, which can only he maintained
with diguity when it is maintained
in strength. The nation which fears
not war, and is prepared to meet it,
has always a power to avoid it; in
weakness lies the danger and the
difficulty of neutrality.
The first, the only aim, how-
ever, of naval supremacy with us, is
national security and defence, and
this can never he attained except hy
the union of all the conditions we
have named. The will of the nation
will certify a sufficient maguitude to
the navy for the present, hut the na-
Bee art. "Fleets and Navies—France," in our June Numher.


1859.]
325
Flett s and Navies—England.—Part 11.

tional will ia apt, after a great exer-
cise, to nod and doze in complacency
over its products. Then a time may
come — as it has heen hefore, so will
it he again—when the tactics of party
demand a reduction in the hudget,
and then, in the lull, when few are
caring, few ohserving, ships will he
dismantled, seamen dispersed, arti-
sans dismissed, dockyards reduced to
the lowest ehh of retrenchment, and
the national will, if aroused hy any
crisis or menace, would find, perhaps,
that it had scarcely means to resist
an invasion of gun-hoats, and that in
the construction of a fleet or navy it
must hegin the work over again.
A great navy, without assured per-
manency, would he only a delusion
and a danger. Men trust much in
the past; they would know that there
had heen a strong naval force, and
helieve that it still existed ; and should
any douhts or suspicions arise, they
would he soothed and comforted hy
statistics and totals which would
confound real ships with skeletons,
and conceptions represented merely
hy a few planks, or a hoard with a
name painted thereon.
The navy should he the navy of the
country, of the people, not of a min-
istry or government—a certain fact,
which could not he altered in its suffi-
ciency for defence without the know-
ledge and approval of the nation—a
fact which, in maguitude, might defy
comparison or danger, in permanency
he estahlished heyond the power of
reduction helow the standard of safety
—in expansion he equal to the needs
of the future, or the tbreats of ag-
gression. What should he the stand-
ard of its maguitude? What the
conditions of its permanency 1 What
the extent of its expansion? These
are questions all pressing vitally on
us, and which must he solved whilst
there is time for practical issues,
whilst the direction of the strength
of our competitors on other projects
offers the opportunity of advance, the
vantage of progression. What should
he the maguitude of our navy, must
he a question of comparison and of
national position.
The position is that of the first
naval power of the world—the com-
parison involves all the fleets and
navies which singly or in comhina-
tion conld dispute or overtbrow that
position. To he the first naval power
is, as we have said elsewhere, the
condition of the existence of Eng-
land as a great power. It is no pre-
sumption of amhition, no desigu of
aggression, hut the rightful assertion
of her own place among nations. To
he less is to he nothing — to decline
from this point of supremacy is to
endanger the commercial ascendancy
which makes her wealthy, and to
ahandon the colonial imperialism
which makes her great. This posi-
tion of supremacy is life, very life to
England. Let its vitality staguate,
or its sources fail, let it droop or
wither from neglect or maltreatment,
and the old name, which has heen a
power and a glory among men, may
hecome a hyword and a reproach.
The strength which can uphold this
life and maintain this supremacy,
must he equal or superior to all the
forces which can imperil or tbreaten
it. The forces which can thus he pos-
sihle foes are the navies of the world.
They have heretofore heen arrayed
in hostility to us. The present phase
of the world's politics gives no assur-
ance that such a contingency may
not occur again—and the maguitude
of our navy must; as a necessity of
safety, match the united maguitude
of those which can unite to attack
as. Since they last challenged us,
the navies of the world have very
much altered their classification,
and now there are two only whose
comhination of line-of-hattle power
would he dangerous. France and
Russia are the two great rivals who,
hy the construction of steam navies,
are still asserting a pre-eminence as
first-class naval powers. America is
strong in frigates, in the armaments
and size of her different ships, and in
her management and knowledge of
steam; and the other navies which
have not progressed in the application
of the new power, would still present
a formidahle contingent of ships and
seamen. It may not he prohahle that
these may he all at the same time our
enemies; hut in a matter so vital,
we may not depend on prohahilities,
we must prepare for possihilities.
The life or death of a nation caunot
he left to the chances or casts of
politics.


326
[Sept.
Fleets and Navies—England. —Part II.

To determine the maguitude, there-
fore, of the navy of England, we
must return to an estimate of its pos-
sihle opponents. France, as we stated
in a former paper, numhers 31 line-
of-hattle ships, afloat, and 37 frigates,
and in the year I860 contemplates
possessing a total force of 40 steam
liners, 6 iron-plated frigates, 30 screw
frigates, 19 paddle-wheel frigates, and
20 steam transports.
Russia, though checked in her ef-
forts hy the loss of two divisions of
her fleet, and the "treaty ohligation
not to re-estahlish a naval arsenal at
Sehastopol, is devoting her naval re-
sources to increase her Baltic fleet,
which will in the course of the next
year amount to 40 steam-ships of the
line, all the sailing ships heing con-
verted into steamers." *
The Austrian, Swedish, Dutch,
Danish, and Spanish navies have as
yet, we helieve, only two screw
liners — one Austrian, one Dutch
— and few steam-ships of a large
size; hut they could muster an ag-
gregate of ahout 30 sailing line-of-
hattle ships; not all, perhaps, very
efficient. Some of these, the Dutch
especially, are in a state of progress,
and the Northern States would he
always strong in the numhers and
quality of their seamen. Thus,
should England stand once again
against the world in arms, she would
enter the lists against comhined fleets
which in different quarters might
assail her. With 82 screw and
ahout 50 sailing lineof-hattle ships,
supported hy large hodies of heavy
frigates, and swarms of smaller ves-
sels, a naval war would scarcely
hegin with such a coalition; hut in a
conflict with one or two of the great
powers our resources would he too
heavily taxed to admit of the pre-
parations necessary to meet an in-
crease of foes. The nation which may
stand against the world in arms
must have arms for the world. The
navy which is to the safeguard of
England and the protector of her
destinies, should he equal in numhers
or power to the collective fleets of
war-ships which float on the seas,
and should have a capacity of expan-
sion which would enahle it to com-
pete with the growth of new navies
or the revival of old ones. Is it at
present equal to this high require-
ment? There are now floating on
the seas or in the harhours of Eng-
land, 40 screw liners and 35 sail-
ing ships, which perhaps, until they
are made more valuahle as converted
liners, may nearly halance the sailing
force which would he opposed to
them. At the commencement of the
financial year 18C0, it is calculated
that we shall have 50 line-of-hattle
ships and 34 frigates ready for ser-
vice. France, at the same time, would
command 40 screw liners, 4 iron-
plated ships, and 46 steam-frigates.
Thus, single-handed, navy to navy,
people to people, we need not sbrink
from comparison or fear the issue.
But the halance is so even, so well-
poised, that the alliance of another
navy on one side or the other would
turn the scale, and it hehoves us to
see how the comparison would stand
Bhould the fleets of Russia he joined
to those of Franca We helieve that
the estimate given of them hy Sir H.
Douglas is overrated. In 1854-55,
Russia had only 2 screw liners; and
resolute as that power has ever heen
in the pursuit of a purpose, it is giv-
ing too much credit to its energy to
suppose that in four years, and those
years following on the exhaustion of
a disastrous war, it could produce 38
ships, even hy the conversion of old
material. Should the numher he
much less, and not exceed 15 or 20,
which would he ready during the
next year, as stated hy the reports of
eye-witnesses who have returned from
Cronstudt this summer, the comhina-
tion of such a force with the navy of
France would estahlish a preponder-
ance which might give it the com-
mand of the Chaunel, leave our ports
open to attack, our shores to in-
vasion. Should even oar fleets exhi-
hit an equality in numhers, their ne-
cessary dispersion to guard our colon-
ies and our military stations would
prevent a concentration sufficient for
our home defences. Both these rival
naval powers, also, possess the means
of equipping and mauning their ships
on the instant, and their neighhour-
hood would enahle them speedily to
* Howard Douglas.


1859.]
327
Fleets and Navie*—England.—Part 11.

follow the word hy the hlow — the
menace hy the action. The disad-
vantage, too, under which Russia
would operate, in single comhat, from
having her ports closed hy the ice for
many months in the year, would he
aunulled were she in alliance with a
country which could offer her ships
a harhourage in the "cinque pons
militaires."
Such comhinations, such coalition,
may he sueered at, laughed down hy
politicians, especially now that it is
the fashion to repose on the faith
and good intent of sovereigus; hut
the people of England, with the ex-
perience of New-year's greetings, se-
cret treaties, and secret preparations,
might prefer to rely on a formidahle
navy and stalwart seamen, rather than
put their trust in princes.
The present age and the policies of
the age give no warranty to England
to confide her safety and immunity
to aught save her own power of de-
fence. What, then, should he the
maguitude of the navy which would
insure such defence?
One hundred sail of the line was
the old stand-point of England's
naval might. It often rose ahove,
sometimes on emergency douhled
itself, hut never fell helow until
peace agitations and financial expe-
dients tampered with our strength
and staguated our resources.
The standard of the old times
should he the standard of the present.
A hundred screw liners, and sixty
or seventy powerful frigates — the
smaller craft and gun-hoats are al-
ready in proportion to such a force
— would only constitute a navy cor-
responding with the responsihility
of a nation whose destiny it is to
uphold against the world the supre-
macy of the seas. We have seen
that our navy is helow — miserahly
helow this standard. The next point
is to see whether it has inherent in
itself an expansion which may attain
it It is aunounced, and aunounced
too as a sort of trinmph, that next
year we shall have 50 line-of-hattle
ships afloat, and that in 1861 the
numher will he increased to 50. We
shall then have arrived at the end of
our material, huilt, huilding, con-
verted, and convertihle. We shall
have wrought out the new, and used
up the old. This result, however, in-
spires confidence in statesmen, they
exult in it, hrandish it as a defiance
to the call of the country for defence.
Even a gallant admiral has stated
that " with 50 sail of the line in two
divisions—one ready for sea, and one
in a forward state — we might defy
the world." Such confidence sup-
poses that we should have only one
power to encounter, and hetrays a
rather hazy experience of the past,
and a hlind forecast into the future.
In what great naval war have we
ever heen allowed to hattle with any
one navy single-handed? What is
there in the aspect of present poli-
tics to encourage a helief that, in the
event of another, we should not ho
challenged to join issue with a com-
hination? After our late essay of
strength especially, it would he only
a coalition which would dare to
attack us, and such a contingency,
now that ahsolutism wields the
might of the great military peoples,
is neither contrary to prohahilities,
nor to the principles hy which the
policies and amhitions of empires havo
heen direoted.
Our prosperity U an offence, our
constitution a reproach, our supre-
macy a harrier to existing systems
and existing doctrines of govern-
ment; and spite of the confiding
faith of politicians and peace-dogma-
tists in the soft-tongued pbrases and
affectionate assurances of powers and
diplomats, we know that there has
heen and is a feeling among the
mighty ones of the earth, which
would lead them to regard our humi-
liation as a trinmph, and our decline
among nations as a victory to the
principles and systems they repre-
sent. There are few, if any, of these
mighty ones who have not suffered
defeat or foil from us — few in whom
it has not left a hitter memory—few
in whom this memory has not hred
an impulse to avenge and retaliate.
This is a consideration which must
enter into our calculations.
Fifty sail of the line may enahle
us to defy France, to defy Russia, hut
they are not enough to defy hoth —
not enough to defy the world. They
would harely suffice, according to the
statistics given hy great authorities,
to form a first line against a junction


328 Fleets and Navies—England.—Part II. [Sept

of these two great navies, leaving no hut only for keeping up to a certain
reserve to redeem a reverse or con- existing standard. At this rate the
summate a success. Our hlock-ships, stand - point could not he reached
despised and rejected as they are in in Ift years, as out of the 45 liners
all classifications—regarded as neither which would have heen then con-
fish, flesh, fowl, nor even good red structed, 10 at least would he re-
herring, would douhtless, where there quired to fill the places of those
was an approximation to equalitv, which had hecome ineffective from
turn the tide of hattle; otherwise age aud service. Thirty years is the
and even then they would swell the estimated duration of a ship, and
numerical force without giving a many of our present fleet would ere
corresponding reality of strength, and the period named have reached the
thus detract from the honour of allotted terms. This is, however,
victory or multiply the disgrace of only a calculation of maintenance;
defeat. Our flotilla of gun-hoats, too, that of extension would he much
might exhihit a power of war un- greater, and require a large increase
known in the tactics of the past, of means und appliances. Our dock-
which would halance the superiority yards present a huilding-space equal
of a line of hattle, hut this would to the effort. They occupy altogether
depond on the skill with which they an area of 866 acres, and contain 32
were handled and on the projectile docks and 44 huilding-slips. Of
force of their armament. But the the slips, 25 or 26 are adapted for
honour, the safety, the life of such line-of-hattle-ships of different classes,
an empire as England may not he According to French authority, a
trusted to makeshifts, or calculations liner occupies two years in huilding-
of new war-forces, or the ingenious under the most favourahle eircum-
views of diplomacy; they must he stances, and generally four or five j
hased on the surest and the strongest our returns show that of the ships
reliances in inherent strength and which are promised in '60, " one was
resources. It may he good diplomacy laid down in '55, two in '56, one in
to court the favoure of foreigu '57, and four in '58," so that as far as
potentates hy weakness, and to de- regards huilding-space we might in
pend on the forhearance of allies, hut two years, counting from 1860, when
it is hetter patriotism to provide for the slips would he empty, attain the
every possihility of attack, and pre- grand stand-point of England's navy,
pare every means of defence. But will the huilding-power cor-
Neither the present state, then, of respond with the huilding-space?
the British navy, nor its prospec- The Secretary of the Admiralty
tive state in '61, can he accepted as has aunounced that with the pre-
a finality. Fifty-six line-of-hattle sent lahour - power the dockyards
ships caunot he the limit of our pre- can turn out in one year 46,000
parations, hut as this numher will tons of shipping, and that if we
represent the total in process of con- were pressed for ships, hy giving
version and construction, it will he the shiphuilders a four months'
well to see what are the means of start they would he ahle to huild
expansion hy which this numher can half-a-dozen very large corvettfs
he extended to reach the old stand- per month in the merchant yards,
point of one hundred ships of the and the steam machinery that
line. The Surveyor of the Navy has could he produced would he in pro-
stated, "that the force in the dock- portion. Thus, under an emergency
yards hefore the last increase of ship- —and the present is an emergency—
wrights and apprentices was not the construction of corvettes, gun-
more than sufficient to huild tbree hoats, &c., might he left to the private
line-of-hattle ships, tbree frigates, yards, and the whole power of the Go-
and six sloops per aunum, hesides vernment estahlishments he concen-
executing the necessary repairs; and trated on liners, or the class of ships
that this numher ought to he pro- which would supply their place, and
duced every year, merely to maintain the very large frigates. The average
the navy on a proper footing." This, tounage of a modern screw line-of-
however, provides not for an inorease, hattle ship is ahout 3500 tons, that


1859.] Fleets and Navits—England.—Part II. 329

of a first-class frigate ahout 2400; bo sion out of eighty-eight afloat, and
that our huilding-power would repre- this numher included guard-ships, and
sent ten liners and five heavy frigates flag-ships on foreigu stations. The
aunually, hesides those of the latter defence of our shores was left to two
class which could he huilt hy contract, war-ships. Our navy will never
Thus the work of expansion, with the again fall to this low mark, hut
present disposahle agencies, would should it ever he reduced to what
extend over four years, or five—mak- politicians recoguise as a peace estah-
ing allowance for a fair start. This is lishment, and should some word or
a longer period than we should wish to pbrase he tbrown at our plenipoten-
see intervene hetween what is and tiary hy a great potentate, on some
what ought to he the state of our New - year's morn or other great
navy, and we would fain see it dimi- auniversary, which would show us
niched hy extra efforts; hut even at war looming in the distance, though
this rate we should have the satisfac- like a cloud no higger than a man's
tion of seeing the proportions every hand, how could our peace arma-
year increasing towards fulfilment, ments he converted into war ones,
The cost of this expansion is the next so as to meet the crisis? Ships do
consideration. A tbree-decker, in not spring into existence in a few
construction alone, without counting weeks or months; men are not col-
her masts, &c, and machinery, costs lected from the four quarters of the
£106,000 in mere lahour and material glohe in an instant; and the economy
-—a second-rate would he less, of which left England uuprepared or
course — so that the completion of defenceless, would thus strike at the
ten liners might he calculated as very heart of her life. What mourn-
under £1,000,000 a-year. This would ing would there he tbroughout the,
he douhtless a tremendous item, as land should the gazettes of victory
the whole cost of lahour (including even aunounce such holocausts of
superintendence and material at the slain as we have lately read of! What
dockyards at home and ahroad) for indiguation, what humiliation would
huilding, repairs, &c, amounted only there he, should this hlood have
in 1858-1859 to nearly tbree and a- heen poured out in defeat! What
half million. But the outlay would long faces and hitter hearts there
he only one of anticipation in its would he in Liverpool and Hull,
great excess; for in future years, after should it he told that our merchant
the stand - point had heen reached, ships had heen stopped on the seas
there would he solely the cost of and carried into foreigu ports! What
maintenance and repair, and that, wailing and guashing of teeth in
with ships comparatively new and Manchester, when tidings came that
efficient, would he light enough: we our ports were closed and our trade
helieve, too, that outlay is not the suspended 1 Would there not he
great question at present—that the then general sorrow and remorse
will of the nation is defence, and that that the country had not insured
it is willing to possess at any cost peace at a war cost, rather than
Financiers and peace - apostles peace estimates paid for in slaughter,
would douhtless denounce this as a spoil and ruin? The delusion that
war estahlishment. But it is hard to mankind will fraternise over cotton
say what, in the present day, is a hales, and that hills of exchange and
peace and what a war estahlishment, hills of lading shall he the -future
or how soon the one may he changed tokens of hrotherhood, has heen
into the other. The question is, rudely dispelled; and it is now a
whether we should have peace with forced fact, that if we would sit
a war cost, or a peace cost with under our own vine and our own
the constant risk and panic of war. fig-tree — if we would send forth
The time to which economists refer our ships in safety on their missions,
with the greater unction as the gold- if we would insure product for our
en age of peace and retrenchment industry, prosperity and progress for
is the latter part of the year '44 or our people, it must he under the
the hegiuning of '45. We had then shadow of great armaments. Thus
nine line-of-hattle ship* in commis- it is, must ever he, when despotisms


330
[Sept.
Fleets and Navies—England.—Part II.

hold the halances of peace or war.
There is no security save in strength.
When strong men arm, he who would
keep his house must he stronger than
they. The maguitude of the material
force of the navy ought not to he, and
caunot he safely, helow this old stand-
point of one hundred sail of the line.
Bat even should this he achieved,
how is its permanence to he assured?
How is it to he preserved, strong and
intact, against the iuroads of economy
and political tactics? There seems
only one. means—puhlicity. The na-
tion has assumed to itself the respon-
sihility of its defence, and it has a
right to demand a knowledge of the
state and disposition of the means
which it has provided for that pur-
pose. The Navy List is at present a
mystification—a puzzle to the unin-
itiated as great as a tahle of loga-
rithms, or a Bradsliaw's Guide, or an
Egyptian scroll. The uninitiated may
wade through columns of Sphynxes,
Bulldogs, Alarms, &c, without know-
fcg more of the real strength of the
navy at the end than at the hegiuning.
It need not he so. The Navy List
might he an open hook, which all who
run may read.
Let the screw - ships of the line
actually afloat and fit for service he
included in one list according to their
classes, not alphahetically—those in
commission heing noted as usual.
The screw frigates, smaller vessels,
and gunhoats, might follow in the
same order. Then ehould appear
separate lists of the liners (steam),
frigates, &c, which were in progress,
the state of forwardness and the
prohahle date of completion heing
noted under each. The summary
might he closed hy a return of the
sailing - vessels, guard - ships, hulks,
&c, which are rather accessories to
our strength than realities. Thus
even the most newly - fledged legis-
lator might inform himself of the
state of the navy without references
to secretaries or officials, and the
country know fully and surely on
what it might depend in the hour of
danger. The great ohjection to this
plan has always heen that it would
give too accurate knowledge to for-
eigu powers. This implies a confes-
sion of weakness. Strength needs no
concealment or mystification. The
fact is, that we caunot and do not
mystify foreigu cahinets. The hu-
reaus of France, Russia, and all the
governments which desire it, can get
and do get as accurate information
of the state of our ships, our dock-
yards, the numher of our seamen,
and our war resources, as is possessed
hy the Lords of the Admiralty them-
selves. Any mystery or unintelligi-
hility will only keep in the dark those
who require to have the fullest light
on the suhject—the people of Eng-
land.
The maguitude of our navy should
then, as a necessity of national safety,
he equal to the aggregate navies of
the world; and its permanency in
quantity and efficiency of material can
he only assured hy its actual, real state,
in these respects, heing made patent
and plain, that the country may have
the responsihility and power of its own
defence.
The great import of this maguitude
and permanency is increased, too,
hy the fact that, though our main
strength may lie in producing ma-
terial, aud our difficulty he the rais-
ing of man - power, any sources of
war strength are more quickly and
readily developed, and hrought into
reserve, than ships: any exhaustion
or deficiency in these may, in a parti-
cular emergency, he fatal. In a race
of construction we could outhuild
any or all maritime people; hut, to
commence the competition, we should
start on equal terms with them all.
Possessed of a numher of ships suffi-
cient to meet every possihle attacking
force, we might send forth fleet after
fleet,—for in such a crisis, with the
great resources of our mercantile
marine, it might he easier to find men
for our ships than ships for our men,—
and then rely on our great product-
power to increase our superiority and
maintain supremacy.
In the present state of foreigu
navies and foreigu policies, we helieve
that 100 ships of the line, huilt, afloat,
and ready for commissioning, would
he essential for this purpose; and we
helieve that it is a force which the
country would rejoice in, and will-
ingly create. The hurden now im-
posed on us hy the "reconstruction
of our navy" will he horne unmur-
muringly; its continuation for two


1659.]
331
Fleets and Navies—England.—Part

or tbree years more would render de-
fence no longer a question or a douht.
For' such a result the nation would
not hesitate to give. It has less re-
luctance to give than financiers to
ask; it has less sympathy than is
supposed with pinched and pared
hudgets, when these mean also cur-
tailed armaments. It will give, when
it knows how and for what it is
giving; when it knows that it is
giving for realities and not chimeras
—that it is giving for real fleets and
armies, seamen, soldiers, ships, guns,
engines, which may defend its shores,
and uphold its empire, and not shams
and idealities which would hreak
down and disappear at the first shock
of war.
If we may not he content with the
maguitude of the navy, there is great
satisfaction in considering the pre-
sent constitution of its elements, and
the desigus and principles on which
it is heing constructed. Of the fifty
liners which are to he afloat in 1860,
there will he four tbree - deckers
carrying 131 guns, tbree having 800
horse . power, and one 700 — tbree
of 121 guns, two hearing 1000, and
one 500 horse-power — one of 102
guns and 400 horse - power — seven
two-deckers of 100 guns and up-
wards, with horse - power varying
from 600 to 800. "Thus England
has 15 ships of 100 guns and up-
wards, carrying collectively 1694
guns, and engines of 10,800 horse-
power." She will have 23 or 24 of
90 or 91 guns, with horse-power vary-
ing from 400 to 800. The rest are
80-gun ships of 400 horse-power,
9 of which are converted. Of this
force 27 have heen converted from
sailing-ships, and 23 huilt for screws.
Of the former it is needless to say
much; they were necessities: they
presented material ready for conver-
sion in much less time, and at much
less cost, than new ships could he
huilt, and were therefore seized upon
to meet the demand of a steam-
navy. They helong to different sys-
tems and schools, which of course
varied in the adaptahility of their
desigus to the new power. Many
are good, strong ships, carrying their
guns and engines well; and as these
are not proposed as models, hut
merely provided as exigencies, and
as, in case of a naval war in the pre-
sent time, they would he opposed to
an equal or rather greater proportion
of ships of the same class and style
in the navies of Russia and France,
they may he regarded as fairly
answering the purpose for which
they were intended.
The creations of the present school
of naval architecture are, we helieve
(as was stated in a former paper), to
he models of excellence — that is,
ships huilt of timher and encased in
iron are henceforth to he a line-of
hattle power in naval warfare. It
would he scarcely profitahle to trace
the progress of the systems hy which
we have advanced step hy step to
our present science of shiphuilding.
Some of the old principles nave heen
retained, others, especially those of
the school immediately preceding the
state of transition, have heen ahan-
doned as inapplicahle to present
modes and requirements: all, how-
ever, even the most faulty, are iden-
tified with some improvement. "The
changes which our navy has under-
gone emhrace not minor variations
merely, hut entire and uuprecedented
transformations, consequent mainly
upon the introduction of steam."*
It was necessary that the dimen-
sions of our ships should he much
enlarged, and that the tounage
should he largely increased; "this
difference arose partly from the in-
troduction of the engines and fuel,
hut it is also due to a wise increase
in the carrying power of the ship,
independent of her steam requisites."
Again, "the form of our present ships
has heen adapted hy the introduc-
tion of fine lines to the circumstances
attendant on screw propulsion, so as
to insure those high speeds for
which our navy has lately hecome
remarkahle." f These advantages
were, however, to he united to others
— mohility, stahility, stowage, fight-
ing - room, the power of carrying a
large armament, a steady platform
for guns, and extreme handiness. In
the war of which we have lately
heen receiving the records, the vic-
tory was ever gained hy projectile
* ReeD's Lectwe.
flhid.


332
[Sept.
Fleets and Navies—England.—Part II.

force and mohility. The same prin-
ciples, we helieve, must prevail
afloat. Handiacss of movement will
and mast have great effect in naval
actions and naval tactics. It will
he a question of raking or heing
raked, of giving or receiving a hroad-
side ; and that, with the present arma-
ments, will he a question so vital
that the ship which can turn most
quickly, and answer her helm most
readily, wonld have superiority,
which, if properly nsed, wonld he
equivalent to victory. The new
projectiles will all require greater
accuracy of aim and steadiness of
fire; so that a stahle platform, to
give due effect to the long ranges,
will he an indispensahle quality.
This comhination of fighting with
motive power, of size with mohility,
of tounage with speed, has, we he-
lieve, heen happily achieved in the
construction of our new ships: even
Dow, however, the Surveyor of the
Navy has declared thut the proceed-
ings of naval architecture must he
hased on experiments, and experi-
ments alone, and that "there are a
few great points yet to he fixed for
future guidance." Among these the
principal are the determination of
the amount of steam-power required
for each ship, and the advisahility of
ohtaining speed under steam hy
means of length and fine lines. The
firet is heing estahlished hy repeated
experiments; and with regard to the
latter, the Surveyor states, "until it
shall have heen satisfactorily ascer-
tained that the great length which is
necessary to high speed under steam
alone does not materially interfere
with the ready performance of the
evolutions which may he required of
men-of-war under any circumstances,
it would not he prudent to depart
otherwise than gradually, and after
sufficient experience, from the dimen-
sions and forms of the ships which
have heen found to possess every
good property."* The experiments
on this point have heen tested to the
utmost in the ships, especially the
frigates which have heen lately
built. The Orlando, carrying 50
guns, has 1000 horse - power and is
300 feet in length—that is, 50 more
than the Renown or Diadem. High
speed is douhtless of paramount im-
portance in the present day, hut it is
a question whether handiness and
mohility can he safely sacrificed to
it. Ships of this extraordinary length
would have a difficulty in turning,
except in a great space, and their
utility in operating under hatteries,
in narrow chaunels, or even in an
action, would therehy he much less-
ened. However, this point is in
safe hands. The men who are de-
ciding it are not theorists or intui-
tive architects, hut men to the mat-
ter horn, who have made it a science
and a study, and hased it on experi-
ments of trial and practice. There
is one other result, and no mean one,
which has heen directly or indirectly
caused hy these changes, and that is
the great improvement in ventilation
and accommodation. When we look
at the old ships, in which a man of
average height could only creep he-
twixt decks, see the narrow space,
and feel the stifling atmosphere in
which men were formerly compelled
to exist, we caunot hut rejoice in
the accession of health and comfort,
which, hy the great increase of air,
room, and light, must he afforded to
the seamen in ships of the new
class.
Yet these nohle vessels, we are told,
must shortly give place to a new
power, and the Donegals, Renowns,
and Dukes of Wellington hecome
ere long as ohsolete as the Victories
and Impreguahles of a former time,
Heneeforth, according to new tluo-
ries, the ships must he smaller, carry
fewer and larger guns, he coated
with or huilt of iron; and it is sup-
posed that these, stationed at long
distances, would effectually dii)nbie
or sink line-of-hattle ships of greater
size, and hearing greater numher of
guns, This supposition is hased on
the relative force of projectiles, and
of resistance possessed hy each, and
does not at ail take into considera-
tion the influence or eflect of the
man-power and the man-spirit which
must ever direct the motions, and
determine the action, of an en-
gine of war. This idea of hattles
settled hy long halls, and at distances
• Extracted from Mechanic's Magazine.


1859.]
Fleets and Naciet—England.—Part II.

where the comhatants could scarcely
see one another, reminds ns of the
mode adopted hy Peruvian and
Chilian armies for arranging fighting
matters a la distance, though it was
prohahly less hloodless and destruc-
tive. When the rival troops came
in sight of one another, the drummers
on each side marched to the front,
and hegan with all their might to
heat a point of war, and the soldiers
shouted with all their might and main,
until one army manifested a great
superiority in the power of lungs
and drumstick, and the other then
withdrew, leaving the field to the
conqueror.
As long as pluck and daring are
elements of human nature, men will
never suhmit to he mowed down or
sunk, at an interval of miles, without
attempting to close, if they have the
power. It was said that rifles and
rifled caunon would decide military
operations at long ranges, and that a
close encounter, a hand-to-hand fight,
or a hayonet-tbrust, would he a thing
unknown in modern comhat; and yet
in these late hattles the hayonet has
done more deadly work than ever,
and positions have heen carried hy
the rush of men. Unless these
armour-ships have some marvellous
speed which enahles them to keep
their foes at their own distance,
there will he closing too in naval
actions, and then, spite of plates and
coating, size and hroadsides will
tell: the traditions, too, of hoarding
still remain, .and the iron sides would
he little proof against seamen swarm-
ing over the nettings, or dropping
from the fore yardarm, cutlass in hand,
as in the time of old.
If we are sometimes slow in in-
vention, and in adopting ideas, our
mechanical skill and energy enahle
ns to emhody them hetter when we
see their 	ility or necessity, than
even the projectors or originators.
If not first in invention, we are
generally hest in adaptation. Our
Enfield is a decided improvement on
the Minie conception; the Armstrong
is an advance on the Napoleon rifled
caunon; and we are ahout to give
the experiment of the "fregatea
hlindoes" a much fuller development
in the steam ram. The French trial
of proof-armour has heen confined to
sheathing ships huilt with the scant-
ling of tbree-deckers, or old ships
razeed with thick iron plates, and pro-
viding them with engines 800 or 900
horse - power. We are carrying it
much farther. The steam ram is to he
"a wrought-iron vessel of great size,
strength and steam-power." "Her
length will he 380 feet; her hreadth
58 feet; depth 41 feet six inches;
and her tounage will he 6000 tons."
This monster of the deep is to he
propelled hy engines of 1250 horse-
power, at the rate of sixteen knots
an hour. The attempt at impene-
trahility is carried to the utmost in
her construction, and' must he fairly
tested now if ever. "The keel is
to he of immense slahs of wrought
iron, and the rihs which spring from
it are of the same material; the iron
plates, which commence 5 feet he-
low the water-line, are placed over
heams of teak 1$ feet thick, are
15 feet long hy 3 feet hroad, and 4|
inches thick." "The main and
upper decks will he of iron, and
will he carried on heams of wrought
iron, to which hoth rihs and decks
are jholted; while along the whole
vessel, from stern to stern, are im-
mensely solid wrought-iron heams at
intervals of 5 feet inside the rihs,
which are again crossed hy diagonal
hands, tying the whele together in
a perfect net-work. The iron plates,
however, shield only the fighting
portion of the vessel, ahout 220 feet
of the hroadside; and the how and
stern are coated only with wrought-
iron plates of H inches in thickness
over 2 feet of teak; hut hoth how
and stern are so crossed and re-
crossed in every direction with water-
tight compartments, that it is a
matter of perfect indifference whether
they get riddled or not, and each of
these ends is shut off from the en-
gine-room and fighting portion of
the ship hy continuous massive
wrought-iron transverse hulk-heads,
so that, supposing it possihle that
hoth stem and stern should he shot
away, the centre of the vessel would
remain complete and impenetrahle
as ever, still offering in all 24 inches
of teak coated with 5 inches of
wrought iron to every shot."* —
Times, June 30.


334
[Sept
Fleets and Navies—England.—Pari II.

This would seem the very model of
resistance, a defiance to projectile
power. We must rememher, how-
ever, how man attained the perfec-
tion, as it was supposed, of impene-
trahility hy casing himself in iron,
and how he was driven out of his
armour hy its own unwieldiness and
the new force of projectiles. This
monster tortoise - ship is also to he
very formidahle in her offensive qua-
lities, and is to carry thirty-six of
Armstrong's guns of 100 lh., twenty-
eight on her main deck, and eight
on the upper. Of the upper-deck
armament there will he two pivot-
guns forward and two aft. Inde-
pendent of these she would he ahle
to tbrow in a hroadside a ton and a
half of metal, if 100 lh. he the real
and not the nominal weight of the
shot. • . .'
Thus we have a tremendous repre-
sentation of offensive and defensive
power. Here is a mass from which
shot of 100 lh. could he tbrown at a
distance of nearly five miles, and
which would at such range he im-
penetrahle to any missile or projectile
which might strike her. It could
move, too, at the rate of sixteen
knots an hour,.a rate which might
enahle it to keep whatever position,
with regard to other ships, might
he required. Is there any draw-
hack? The ram would weigh, when
fully equipped, armed, stowed, and
provisioned, 9000 tons; and this, to-
gether with her extreme length, sug-
gests unwieldiness. It is not known,
too, how she would carry her guns
in the sea way, what water she would
draw, or how manageahle she might
prove in had weather or in narrow
chaunels. On her possession of these
qualities would depend her great
superiority as an attacking force.
It must he admitted that the ram,
constructed according to plan, would
he impervious to shot or shell fired
at a long range; nothing save a
direct fire could nurt her. It is also,
we helieve, as certain that at. close
quarters her impenetrahility would
not he proof against a concentrated
hroadside of heavy wrought - iron
shot. The question, then, will he,
whether this tortoise - vessel can he
constructed with speed and mohility
enough to keep the distance at which
she is impreguahle, and take up the
position which would enahle her to
give full effect to her projectile
power: if so, wooden ships must
hecome an ohsolete force. This is
the prohlem which has yet to he
solved ere we" ahandon oar present
ships as useless, fit only to rot, or he
cut down and sheathed in iron. It is
an important, it is also a very difficult
one.
The aggressive capacity is not to
he confined to projectiles. There is
also to he the ram power. It is
desigued that she shall not he ahle
only to hatter ships at a distance,
hut to crush and sink them hy run-
ning at them. "The mode in which
she attacks will he to run straight
at the enemy, taking him, if possihle,
in the stern or quarter;" and it is
then supposed that, with the great
weight and speed, she might sink a
line-of-hattle ship in tbree minutes.
The how is made strong enough to
hear the shock of the encounter; " her
howsprit is to he made telescopic,
in order to he housed on hoard he-
fore striking the enemy." To escape
any share of the injury she would
inflict, " her crew are to he prepared
to retire to the stern to avoid injury
from her own masts and spars, which
would certainly fall hy the hoard;
the engineers are to stand hy to re-
verse the engines, in order to clear
her of the wreck of her antagonist."
This sounds very theoretic, very com-
plex and uupractical. So much de-
pends on so many conditions. The
hlow must he struck in the right
place; the engines must he reversed
exactly in time to escape not only
from falling spars and wreck, hut
from the vortex which a sinking
ship would make; and she could not
have the full services of her crew at
the time of encounter. That she
would sink the line-of-battle ship
under the proposed conditions is
possihle enough; hut it is not to he
supposed that the line-of-hattle ship
would .remain fixed like a wall to
receive the hlow wherever she was
most vulnerahle, and where her foe
chose to inflict it. Being in all pro-
hahility mora mohile, she might he
so handled that the ram might miss
the mark, and he then exposed to a
crushing, smashing hroadside. There


1859.]
335
FUett and Xaviet—England.—Part II.

is a plan now very much practised,
if not universally, in men-of-war,
hy which all the guns of a hroad-
side can he so trained as to tbrow
their concentrated fire within a
space of twenty feet; and we he-
lieve that nothing made of wood or
iron, which could float, would resist
such a weight of metal projected at
close quarters. It is well to say
that this ram, even if how or stern
were shot away, would still he im-
preguahle. She might he impreg-
nahle, hut she would also he unman-
ageahle. Once unmanageahle, she
would he powerless—would he at the
mercy of an enemy, or might he left
to drift helplessly away. Against a
crippled ship the ram would he fatal,
hut in that case it would he as easy
to take as sink her; and sinking a
ship, like hanging a man, is ahout
the worst use to which it can he put.
It is also helieved that, in the con-
fusion of an action, one of these
armed vessels might run successively
into ships engaged with an enemy,
and so render them hors de com-
hat. In order that such a plan should
succeed, the character of the vessel
must he disguised, or the commander
of the opposing fleet too iguorant or
too negligent to foresee or provide
against such a danger. No admiral
would dare to lead his ships into
action without having fairly assured
himself against the risk of having
them helplessly rammed down. This
calculation, like many others of the
day, assumes that mechanical science
is to he all in all; that the work of
war oven is to he regulated hy me-
chanism, and that genius and courage
are henceforth to count as nought.
None will dare now, with the ex-
perience of the past, to denounce any
new power as an impossihility or an
impracticahility. A learned man
staked his fame on the impossihility
of steam-ships crossing the Atlantic;
another talented one opposed, with
might and main, the introduction of
the screw into the navy; soldiers
of war experiences scouted the rilio
and mime hullet. It would there-
fore he dangerous and unwise to say
that this steam ram will not ho a
power in modern warfare. It will ho
douhtless a power, hut whether so
great and overwhelming a one as
to supersede the present linoof-hattle
ships, remains a question of experi-
ment. There are as yet many pros
and cons. The ram property will,
we helieve, prove a fallacy. As an
attacking force which, at the distance
of tbree, four, even five miles, can
tbrow its shot and shell with accu-
racy, and with impunity to itself, it
must he formidahle and dangerous;
hut how dangerous, must depend
much on its stahility and manage-
ahleness. Guns fired at such dis-
tances must have great accuracy in
order to render their fire effective,
and the vessel that is intended to
command a position must he capahle
of heing readily and rapidly moved.
If it should prove, therefore, that
these armour-ships are unsteady and
uneasy, and could only fire their guns
accurately in smooth water, or that
they are unhandy, their redouhtahle
character would he much diminished.
There is one respect, however, in which
they must he ever a power, and that
is, in assailing forts or arsenals,
stationary ohjects which caunot move
out of their way, and would there-
fore require little change of position,
or ships lying in a harhour or road-
stead. Against such ohjects they
would launch destruction, and them-
selves defy reprisals.
One of the fallacies invoked hy
these new inventions is, that the
great accession of mechanical appli-
ances in war will diminish the neces-
sity of man-power and nullify sea-
man skill. A leader of the Man-
chester school proclaims that "war
depends not, as heretofore, on indivi-
dual hravery, on the power of a man's
nerves, the keeuness of his eye, the
strength of his hody, or the power of
his soul; hut it is a mere mechan-
ical mode of slaughtering men."
Whence comes this deduction?
Not surely from the experience of
the manufacturer? Does he find
that steam-power and mechanical
science do away with the require-
ment for skilful lahour, and that a
humpkin from the plough or a lad
from the streets would ho as use-
ful as an experienced artisan? We
have heard, and helieve, that skilled
lahour is of more account and more
need in manufactures than ever since
the introduction of steam-machinery.
VOL. LXXXVI.
22


836
[Sept.
Fleets and Navies—England.—Part II.

It is the fate, however, of this pro-
phet to make his denunciations and
deliver his oracles at times when the
patent facts and experiences of the
day contradict and helie them.
There was never a period when
strong nerves and keen eyesight
were of such import as now. With-
out them the rifled musket and the
rifled caunon would he merely useless
tuhes, from which projectiles would
he cast into empty space. In former
times, the dasli of a rush or the
solidity of endurance were the quali-
ties essential in soldier nature. Now,
the direction of most powerful pro-
jectiles requires nerves steady as iron,
limhs which shall not quiver, an eye
which shall not falter, and which
shall extend its vision to thousands
and thousands of yards. Let the
fields of Magenta and Sulferino say
whether "individual hravery and
power of soul " are no longer soldier
virtues—no longer powers in warl
We helieve that the greater the
power, especially if it he mechanical,
the greater the skill required to wield
and direct it. Thus this steam ram,
instead of heing under-mauned,
would require to he full-handed, and
to he mauned hy the most ahle men,
hoth g;mners and steersmen. Even
if the sliip were impervious to shell
striking her, or falling on her decks
from a distance, this would not ex-
tend to her crew. The shell which
would not penetrate her sides, or
force tbrough her decks, would yet
scatter death amid the crews of her
guns. Therefore it would he neces-
sary that she should he possessed of
relays, and the nicety of htr hand-
ling" and the pointing of her guns
would demand the most skilled aud
experienced hands.
The ram, as it comes f. rth from
our workshops, will represent the
principle of impreguahility and resist-
ance. Betwixt it and the Armstrong
gun will rest the question of the
power of attack and the power of
defence. The "fre"gates hlindees"
are comparatively very inferior con-
ceptions—they have engines only of
800 horse-power, move only at the
rate of five or six knots, and are sup-
posed to ho unwieldy; they would
thus fail in the two forces which
could alone make them formidahle
—mohility and velocity.
Our weapons of war have necessi-
tated this change in the construction
of our war-ships, and these changes
of construction again demand an
alteration in our existing armaments.
At present, spite of the assertions of
the "Conversations-Lexicon," our
ships are well and efficiently armed
to meet the existing exigencies of
war, and we helieve, in guns, fit-
tings, and fighting equipments, are
superior to the French. The com-
mon armament of our ships consists
of 32-pounders, 8-inch guns, tbrowing
56-lh. hollow shot, 10 inch guns, and
68-pounders. The 10-inch gun has
heen generally condemned, and will
prohahly he shortly disused; the 68-
pounder, on the contrary, has heen
as generally approved of, thongh its
great weight (95 cwt.) would pre-
vent its heing largely used as a hn lad-
side gun. As a pivotgun it is most
efficient and effective, hoth with shot
and shell. The 32-pounders of diffe-
rent dimensions and weight, and the
8-inch gun, are for present purposes
well approved of. A great ohjection
against the latter will, however, he,
that it caunot tbrow solid shot, which
alone would take effect on iron-coated
ships, and therefore in such warfare
it would he reduced solely to the ac-
tion of a shell-gun, and in a clu-o en-
counter, a very formidahle part of a
hroadside would thus he lost. These,
however, must and will give way to
rifled caunon and Armstrong guns,
and may therefore he considered
only as exisiing until their successors
are ready to take their places. In
the interim, hetwixt the creation of
the war-engines which shall super-
sede them, and the armour-ships
which necessitate an increase of pro-
jectile force to halance the power of
attack and defetice, they may he re-
garded as a very sufficient armament,
and equal to any which may he op-
posed to it. The armament of the
first-class French liners consists now
of six 84's, sixty long 30-pounders, and
fifty-lour 30-pounder Paixhans. Ouo
of our tbree-deckers would carry 8-
inch guns on her lower deck, 32's on
her middle, main, and upper decks,
and a 68-pounder pivot-gun on the
forecastle. So that, according to the
old war-estahlishment, there would
ho little inequality in the relative
armaments. But the French have


1859.]
837
Fleet* and Nana—England.—Part II.

already gained a stride ahead In this
respect, hy introducing rifled caunon
into their ships. Ttiey have employ-
ed and provided for the interreguum
whilst the new inventions and the
new powers are in their cradleship,
hy rifling their old ordnance, and
thns, unless we adopt the same plan,
will, as they did in the construction
of their steam navy, achieve an ad-
vance in the arm-power of their
ships.
The Armstrong gun is no douht,
as yet, the most advanced stage of
projectile development. Though its
principles and construction are only
partly known, and the experiments
have heen conducted privately, yet
there exists a general conviction that
in rang?, accuracy, and lightness, and
all the cidef requisites of an engine of
war, it is the model gun of the times,
and initiated and uninitiated alike
accept it as such. Indeed, a gun
which at a distance of 5000 yards
can make first-rate practice at a tar-
get nine feet square, and which
weighs scarcely half as much as guns
of the same calihre of the old pattern,
may fairly, in the present state of pro-
jectile science, challenge pre-emin-
ence among the arms of the world.
Its adaptahility as a ship gun has
not heen questioned; its adoption as
such will he an era in naval warfare.
The conception and suggestion of it
have already caused a great change
in the system of defence, and its suc-
cess will initiate a complete revolu-
tion in the tactics of actions at sea.
We know too little at present of the
details to determine whether the
100 pounder will he availahle as a
hroadside - gun. This will depend
much on the space it would require,
and the nature of the carriage on
which it will he mounted. The
weight will he no ohjection, as it will
scarcely exceed that of the present
8-inch gun, if it hear any proportion
in that respect to those already pro-
duced; nor will the length; and the
hreech-loading principle will of course
save exposure and manual lahour in
loading and firing. The idea, how-
ever, that its introduction will enahle
us to have smaller ports in our ships,
and to diminish the strength of a
gun's crew, is, we helieve, a fallacy.
The ports caunot ho contracted with-
out interfering with the ventilation,
the escape of the smoke, the facility
of taking aim; and the difficulty
which the contracted limits of the
port-hole as an emhrasure will at
present place in the way of ohtain-
ing the necessary training and eleva-
tion to give full efficacy to its power
of range and precision, will require
to he overcome hy some new expe-
dients. Nor do we helieve that the
diminution of the manual lahour in
handling the gun will justify a de-
crease of its crew. The attention
required hy an arm of such nicety
must he most minute and incessant,
and would demand the superintend-
ence hoth of well-trained and full-
handed skill. However, its adoption
as a hroadside gun, irrespective of its
merits, must he some time deferred
in consequence of the limited supply;
and its first test will douhtless he as
a pivot gun, and in that capacity it
is confidently anticipated that it will
exhihit a new and high phase of pro-
jectile progress. The experiments of
the effect of the Armstrong holt on
iron-cased ships were not so perfect
or satisfactory as to estahlish the
ascendancy of the power of attack
over that of defence, hut it is yet to
he aso.rtained what will he the pene-
tration and force of the heavier and
larger holt; and should it he found
to have the requisite penetration, its
property of hursting alter entering
would make it an uupleasant visitor
on the decks of a ram or tortoise.
We are told that one hundred of
these guns may he ready at the he-
giuning of the next year, and two
hundred more in the ensuing. At
this rate, it will he several years ere
they can he supplied in numhers suf-
ficient to folly, or even partially,
arm our ships and forts, and in ahout
the same time prohehly the ram
prohlem will attain a solution. Then
Greek may meet Greek. In the
mean time there are other Greeks to
he met—the rifled cannon of France.
We have a profusion of material—
plans enough, workman skill, work-
man power enough for the purpose.
We suppose that the means thus at
our disposal are heing used to place
us on a footing with our rival. It
caunot he otherwise—we caunot lag
hehind. Competition in such a race


S38
[Sept.
Fleets and Navies—England.—Part II.

is not n choice, it is a necessity.
Plans are not, will not, he wanting.
Inventive genins, inventive skill,
would with ns equal the mechanical,
were it not so nullified, so clogged,
fettered, perverted, deadened hy cir-
cumlocution offices and red-tapist
prejudices, that it grows tired of
heing shuttlecocked from hand to
hand, and heing docketed and pigeon-
holed, takes flight to more con-
genial spheres, and gives the ini-
tiative to other governments. The
invention, neglected and overlooked
among us, hecomes a power, and we
are compelled to imitate where we
might have originated, to follow
where we might have led.
The plan for rifling guns, now car-
ried ont in France, was, we helieve,
first proposed to us. So were many
others, which have heen allowed to
remain in aheyance. The idea of the
minie hullet lay ensconced for half a
century in the dust of pigeon-holes
and the notes of Havana; and our
neighhours have since reproached us
that wo did not give our discovery
to the world, if we were not disposed
to develop it ourselves.
Official routine, official system, is,
perhaps, the strongest thing in Eng-
land. It has a vitality, endurance,
and tenacity greater than any other
system or principle existing among
ns. Though hearing all the sigus of
decrepitude, decay, weakness, it yet,
like Sinhad's old man, can override
the puhlic will, and control the mili-
tary genins of the nation.
How long shall these things he?
How long? Until they cease to he,
England wdl ever he striving hy
forced strides to make up for halts
and false steps—will ever he strug-
gling for the vanguard, instead of
assuming it as an assured and right-
ful position.
Before closing our remarks on the
material of our navy, we must notice
a force which we helieve would play
a conspicuous part in any future
naval war, and which will not he
superseded or rendered ohsolete even
hy rams, and that is the gun-hoats.
We hwlieve (as was stated hefore) that
their importance has heen overlooked
in the estimate of our strength, and
that they will he formidahle auxi-
liaries to a line-of-hattle, and that the
navy which possesses them in the
greatest perfection and the greatest
strength will have a great vantage
in all the preliminaries and details of
operations where larger ships could
not act.
England numhers now 13 gun-
vessels, varying from 40 to 160 horse-
power, and 185 gun-hoats, varying
from 20 to 60 horse-power.
This force, armed with the Arm-
strong gun, acting as a light hody in
an aciion, would douhtless emharrass
the evolutions of the hostile fleet—
would tease slow ships, and prevent
the es.ape of crippled ones—would,
from their drawing so little water,
he very efficient in recounoitring in
shallow chaunels, in cutting out ves-
se's, and in aunoying and consider-
ahly damaging a fleet at anchor in a
roadstead; whilst they, mere specks
themselves, ami constantly in motion,
would suffer little from an enemy's
fire.
To he thorougbly effective, how-
ever, as a light force, these vessels
should have not only mohility, hut
velocity—should he ahle not only to
shift and change their position, hut
to maintain safe distance. Our gun-
hoats possess the requisite mohility,
as was well shown at Sveahorg and
elsewhere; hut, constructed as they
were on an emergency, and for a cer-
tain purpose, the speed was not so
much considered. Their average speed
is harely eight knots, and that would
not enahle them to command the ne-
cessary distance fiom ordinary hne-
of-hattle ships or frigates. We are
promised, however, vessels of this
class of a superior description, and
trust they will not ho stinted in
numher, and will comhine the neces-
sary velocity and mohility. They
would then ho in naval warfare what
the voltigenr, chasseur, and Zouavo
forces have proved to an army in a
campaigu, and would give to a mari-
time power or naval commander the
means of taking the initiative in a
war or hattle.
Thus, in the material of a navy,
we have, prospectively, at least, the
power of a supremacy. We have the
power of producing ships in a less
time than any other country; wo
possess inventions and plans which
might enahle us to take the lead In


1859.] Journal of a Cruiti on the Tanganyika Lake, Central Africa. 3S8

the armament, machinery, and the
armour of ships; we command re-
sources of finance which should in-
sure us the folfilment of every project
and the advance in every detail and
principle of naval efficiency necessary
for the national position and the na-
tional defence; we can challenge the
workman-power of the world; we
are assured of the will of the nation
to employ all its resources, to put
forth all its strength, to estahlish the
maritime supremacy which is to it
legitimate defence. And yet why is
it, with all this, that there are ques-
tions of defence? Why is it? Can
it he that there exists a suspi-
cion that the intent of Government
accords not with the will of the
nation?
A return to the old stand-point of
our navy—the assured possession of
a force equal to the united marine of
the world—can alone allay this suspi-
cion, and estahlish a confidence undis-
turhed hy periodic alarms and panics;
and we might then exhihit to the
world the grand spectacle of a people
repudiating war and aggression as
false to its policie* and interests, re-
pelling attack hy the might of its
defence, seeking peace and ensuring
it hy the demonstration and con-
sciousue-s of its strength.
So much for material: in that re-
spect the prospect is hopeful. There
remains the more serious and difficult
question of the supply of man-power
—the certain and instant command
of crews for our ships. It is too
difficult, too serious, to he discussed
at the end of an article; we must
reserve it for another occasion. It
is the most important prohlem we
have heen called upon to solve for
mnny generations. It is one which
will involve and determine the future
of England.
JOURNAL OF A CRUISE ON TIIE TANGANYIKA LAKE, CENTRAL AFRICA.
[Jordant, Taunton, August 1859. My Dear BlackwooD, — As a
great numher of friends, hoth here and in India, have expressed a warm
desire to he made acquainted with my late journeyings in Africa, as well
as with the social state and general condition of the people whom I found
there, I send for puhlication in your Magazine the accompanying Journal,
which I kept when travelling alone in Africa. Very numerous inquiries have
heen addressed to me hy statesmen, clergymen, merchants, and more
particularly geographers; and I hope the appearance of the Journal in your
widely-circulated pages will convey to them the desired information; although,
heing more of a traveller than a man of the pen, I feel some diffidence as to
my own powers of narrative. The country which I have recently dis-
covered hy the influential aid of the Royal Geographical Society, invites
our attention hy the commercial tendencies of the inhahitants, and the
desire shown hy them to improve their present fearfully degraded position.
For the hetter comprehension of my Journal, I hegin with a short introduc-
tory sketch of the country tbrough which I passed, conducting you from
Zanzihar to Ujiji, on the horders of the Tanganyika Lake, lying in lat. 5° S.,
and long. 29° E. During this early part of the journey the Journal was
kept hy my commandant, Captain Burton, I taking only the suhordinate
office of surveyor, and applying myself solely to mapping, entering topo-
graphical remarks, and shooting for the pot. You must, therefore, look else-
where for details of this stage of the journey. Anyhody desirous of hecoming


340
[Sept.
Journal of a Cruitt on
fully acquainted 'with the geographical features of these regions would do
well to ohtain those Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society which
have heen lately puhlished, and will eventually he contained in the Society's
volume for this year.—Yours very truly, J. H. Speke.]
Many may rememher the excite-
ment produced hy an extraordinary
map, and a more extraordinary lake
figuring upon it, of a rather slug-like
shape, which drew forth risihle oh-
servations from all who entered the
Royal Geographical Society's rooms
in the year 1856. In order to ascer-
tain the truthfnlness of the said map,
the Royal Geographical Society ap-
pointed Captain Burton to investi-
gate this monster piece of water, re-
presented as extending from the equa-
tor to 14° S. latitude, as having a
hreadth of two to tbree hundred miles,
and as lying at a distance of seven hun-
dred miles inland west from Zanzihar.
As Captain Burton and myself
had heen engaged on a former occa-
sion exploring the Somali country in
Eastern Africa together, he invited
me to join him in these investiga-
. tions. Having, therefore, ohtained
the necessary equipments in the scien-
tific and other departments in Eng-
land and India during 1856, we
left Zanzihar at the end of June
1857, in a vessel of war, lent hy
Sultan Majid, to convey us across to
Kaole", a village on the mainland, a
little south of the Kingani river.
Colonel Hamerton, late British Con-
sul at Zanzihar, accompanied ns
there, to support us hy his pre-
sence in case anyhody should en-
deavour to .oppose our starting; a
precaution whioh he thought neoes-
sary, hecause the only European, a
young Frenchman, who had ever
tried to enter Africa hy this route,
was harharously murdered hefore he
had penetrated one hundred miles;
and up to the present time, although
his assassin is well known, nohody
will divulge who the instigators of
the murder were. Our caravan con-
sisted of an Arah called Shaykh Said,
the Ras-cafila (head of caravan); some
Belooch soldiers lent us hy Majid
Sultan of Zanzihar, some porters of
the Wanyamue"zi trihe (people of the
Moon), negroes who inhahit a large
portion of central Africa, and a host
of donkeys for riding and carrying
our spare kit. Besides these we
hired, tbrough the medinm of an
Hindi merchant called Rainji, a
numher of the slaves of certain Di-
wans (headmen) living on the main-
land opposite to Zanzihar, to carry
muskets in the mauner of guards, as
well as to do odd johs. Leaving
Kaole,, we paased the Mrima, a low
hilly tract of coast-line, diversified
with flats and terraces, well peopled
and cultivated, and rich in tree-
forests and large tropical vegetation,
and following the course of the Kin-
gani river tbrough the districts of the
Wazeramos and Wakhutus, we reach-
ed in ahout a hundred and ten miles
the first great elevation of Eastern Af-
rica, which we shall, for distinction's
sake, call the East Coast Range. This
hilly district is ahout ninety miles
hroad, is composed chiefly of granite
and sandstone, formed into groups
and lines, intersected transversely
and otherwise hy considerahle rivers
—such, for instance, as the Eingani
and Lufiji—which, rising far in the
interior, flow east to the Indian
Ocean. This—a longitudinal range
extending from 9C N. latitude down
nearly to the Cape of Good Hope
—attained, where we crossed it, alti-
tudes varying from tbree hundred to
six thousand feet ahove the level of
the sea. It is occupied hy the Wasa-
gara trihe—a people who live in
lightly constructed conical huts of
grass and wicker-work, tend cattle,
and cultivate extensively when not
disturhed hy the slave-hunters, who
live nearer to the coast, and fre-
quently make excursions here to
supply the Zanzihar market with
human cattle.
On descending its western side, we
found an elevated plateau of rather
poor land, hearing more wild forest
than cultivation, and more wild


1859.]
Ml
the Tanganyika Lake, Central Africa.

heasts than men, and not very many
of either, excepting near some con-
genial springs, the fountains of Afri-
ca's glory. This plateau extends
westwards two hundred miles. Its
average altitude is from twenty-fire
hundred to four thousand feet, and it
is occupied hy the Wagogo and the
Wanyamuezi trihes, who live in huts
of a very civilised appearance, and
far more comfortahle than those pos-
sessed hy any other interior clans.
The conception for huilding on eo
grand a scale was prohahly first oc-
casioned hy the travelling hahits of
the Wanyamuezis having hrought
them earlier than any other people
into contaot with the coast, where
square rooms divided hy mud walls,
constructed much on the same prin-
ciple as the common East-India ones,
are the prevailing fashion. These
men are industrious for negroes,
mostly occupying their time in
trafficking with the coast, or tilling
ground and tending cattle; many of
them again are rope-makers, smiths,
or carpenters and weavers. Here, in
the centre of this latter trihe's coun-
try, at an Arah depot called Kazeh—
in south latitudes0 and east longitude
83°, the immediate district of which
is cdled Unyanyemh6, and which we
might well desiguate the great em-
porinm of Eastern Interior Afrioa,
for to this place most of the caravans
come hefore diverging off to the
respective places north, south, and
west, when carrying on their ivory
transactions with the more remote
negro trihes—our porters took their
discharge, and dispersed to their
homes. The Arahs we found col-
lected here were extremely ohliging,
especially one called Shaykh Snay,
who gave us a house, looked after
our wants, and assisted in procuring
fresh porters not only for that occa-
sion, hut every other; in short, we
estahlished him our agent, and found
him a most creditahle one. After
waiting a month or so reforming our
caravan, we proceeded westwards
in the height of the monsoon, and
passed tbrough a higbly cultivated
country, which, hy determining with
the thermometer the temperature
at which water hoiled, I found
gradually declined as we proceeded
west, and in 145 miles made a
remarkahle descent of 1800 feet.
In this region, differing greatly
from the first and greater part
of the preceding one (where great
droughts act detrimentally on the
crops), rice, sugar-cane, and all
Indian productions, grow in great
profusion, and the people weave
their cotton into loin cloths. After
travelling along this decline ahout
one hundred and fifty miles, w»
hegan to ascend at the eastern
horn of a large crescent-shaped
mass of mountains overhanging the
northern half of the Tanganyika Lake,
which I am now ahout to descrihe to
yon.
This mountain mass I consider to
he the trub Mountains of thk
Moon, regarding which so many
erroneous speculations have heen
ventured. I infer this hecause they
lie heyond Unyamufezi (country of
the moon), and must have heen first
mentioned to geographical inquirers
hy the Wanyamuezi (people of the
moon,) who have from time out of
mind visited the coast, and must have
heen the first who gave information
of them. I am the more satisfied of
the correctness of this view from re-
memhering the common Greek prac-
tice of ohanging siguificant general
names into equivalents in their own
tongue, and the consequent proha-
hility of their calling these mountains
after the men who live near them.
Indeed, modern geographers, I am
inclined to think, would have cbrist-
ened them in similar mauner, since
neither they nor any other places in
Negroland hear general names to dis-
tinguish them hy. Some must he
originated; and nothing more ap-
propriate conld in this case have heen
found for this group than that which
Ptolemy has given, as the mountains
form a crescent overhanging the
north end of the lake, large and deep
in the hody to the north, and taper-
ing to horns as they stretch south-
wards down the east and west sides
of the lake. Our line of march,
ahout six hundred rectilinear geo-
graphical miles, had heen nearly due
west from Zanzihar. Here you may
picture to yourself my hitter disap-
pointment when, after toiling tbrough
so many miles of savage life, all the
time emaciated hy divers sicknessei


342
[Sept.
Journal of a Cruite on

and Weakened hy great privations of
food and rest, I found, on approach-
ing the zenith of my amhition, the
Great Lake in question nothing hut
mist and glare hefore my eyes. From
the summit of the eastern horn the
lovely Tanganyika Lake could he
seen In all its glory hy everyhody hut
myself. The fact was that fevers and
the influence of a vertical sun had re-
duced iny system so, that inflamma-
tion, caught hy sleeping on the
ground during this rainy season,
attacked my eye*, hrought on an
almost total hlindness, and rendered
every ohject hefore me enolouded as
hy a misty veil.* Proceeding on-
wards down the western slopes of the
hill, we soon arrived at the margin
of the lake, and hired a canoe at a
village called tTkaranga to take us to
Uj"ji, the chief place on the lake
which Arabs frequent, with which
namo we had long heen familiar, and
hy which they ca!led this lake. This
modo of nomenclature is quite in ac-
cordance with the usual custom of
semi-civilised people, as we see in
Arahia, where the Arahs call the Red
Sea hy the names of the different
ports which they frequent. Thus for
instance, at Jeddah, it is called hy
them the Sea of Jeddah, whilst at
Suez it is the Sea of Suez, &c. &c.
As in its present state your atlas
presents a hlank instead of one of the
most heamilul inland seas in the
world, you would he glad, perhaps,
to know its position and dimensions,
which will enahle you to lay it down
on the map yourself. The Tangany-
ika Lake, lying hetween 3° and 8*
south latitude, and in 29" east longi-
tude, has a length of tbree hundred
miles, and is from thirty to forty
hroad in its centre, hut tapers to-
wards each end. The surface-level,
as I ascertained hy the temperature
of hoiling water, is only eighteen
hundred feet, and it appears quite
sunk into the lap of these mountains.
It lies in a trough-like or synclinal
depression, draining the waters of all
the surrounding districts into its own
hosom. Its waters are very sweet,
and ahound with delicious fish in
great variety. Its shores are thickly
inhahited hy numerous trihes of the
true Kegro hreed, amongst which the
most conspicuous are the Wahemhe
caunihals, into whose territory no
Arahs durst ever venture. Bomhay,
my interpreter, descrihes them as
heing very dreadful matures, who
are "always looking out for some of
our sort." The port we finally
arrived at is called Kawele, a small
village in the Ujiji district. Here we
found ourselves in the hands of a
very ill-disposed chief, called Kan-
nina, tyraunical, and, as such savages
invariahly are, utterly uureasonahle.
We paid a heavy trihute for the
advantages of this savage monster's
protection, and were too short
of heads and cloth to search
out for and pay another chief of
more moderate inclinations. This
* On my return to England, Dr. Bowman, after inspecting my eyes, sent me
the following explanation of the causes of this hlindness :—
"5 ClifforD Street, May 12.
"Dear Sir,—I have much pleasure in replying to vour inquiry as to the nature
of the a; tuck from which you suffered in Africa. The dimness of sight resulted
from an inflammation of a low type affecting the whole of the interior tunics of
the eyes, particularly the iris, the choroid coat, and the retina. I find in one of
the pupils positive proof as to the existence at a former period of the inflamma-
tion of the iris, known as iritis, there heing a deposit of some of the hlack pig-
ment of the iris on the front of the lens. The gauzy films which flit hefore your
sight, depend on delicate microscopic wehs in the vitreous humour floating hefore
the retina, and casting their fine shadows upon it. They are fortunately not
thick or dark enough to impede vision in any serious degree. They may in time
disappear hut 1 do not know that the medical art can supply any remedy for
them. They are one of the resalts of the low inflammation of which I spoke.
"This whole attack, such as j ou descrihe it, resemhles what I have occasion-
ally witnessed in persons whose hlood has heen impoverished. I saw some coses
of it in officers who had gone tbrough the Crimean winter of 1854-5.—Yours very
sincerely, "W. Bowman.
"Captain Speke, Ac."


1859.]
the Tanganyika Lake, Central Africa.

was a serious misfortune, for, hav-
ing once entered his dominions, and
estahlished our headquarters there,
we could not very well leave them, the
more especially as we could not have
removed our camp to any distance—
Ujiji heing the only district where
canoes are ohtainahle. This was the
more distressing as comfort, pleasure,
and everything is at the mercy of
these headsmen's wills, and we were
destined for a long sojourn here. To
war with these chiefs is like "cut-
ting off the nose to spite the face."
Nohody, let his desire he what it may,
dares assist you without the chief's
full approhation, and Kaunina's aus-
tere government we had occasion to
feel from first to last. Our first oh-
ject on arrival was to get hoats for
the survey of the lake; hut here arose
a difficulty. Hostilities were rife
with nearly all the horder trilies, and
the little cockle-shell canoe-i, made
from the hollowed trunks of trees,
are not only liahle to he driven ashore
hy the slightest storm, hut are so
small that there is hut little stowage-
room in them for carrying supplies.
The sailors, aware of this defect, fear
to venture anywhere except on cer-
tain friendly heats, and therefore their
hoats were quite unfitted for our work.
This dilemma made us try to hire
a dhow or sailing-vessel, helonging to
Shaykh Hamed hin Sulayyim, living
at Kasengd Island, on the opposite
or western shore, as it was the only
hoat afloat on these waters fitted for
carrying provisions, and moving
ahout independent of the horder
clans. On arriving here, we were
so disahled hy sickness — Captain
Burton utterly, and I suffering from
ophthalmia, and a weakness in the
lower extremities resemhling par-
alysis — that we at first proposed
sending our Ras-cafila, Shaykh Said,
across the lake to hargain for the
dhow, and applied to Kaunina for
the means of transport. At first he
seemed inclined to treat, though at
an exorhitant rate; hut when we
came direct to terms, he hacked en-
tirely out We fortunately ohtained
a hoat and crew from another chief,
at the extortionate charge of four
kitindis and four dhotis American,
hesides the usual sailors' fee. The
dhoti is a piece of American sheet-
ing measuring eight cuhits. The
cuhit is still the negro's yard, the
same as was adopted at the time of
the Flood; they have no other mea-
sure than that with which nature
has provided them—viz. the first
joint of the arm. These kitindis
are a sort of hrass wire hracelet
worn on the lower arm hy the
negro females, coiled up from the
wrist to the eihuw, like a wax
taper circling up a stick or stem.
Sometimes this wire is re-formed and
coiled flat out round the neck to a
hreadth of ahout eight inches, and
gives the wearer's head much the
appearance of John the Baptist's
standing in the middle of a charger.
These necklaces are never taken off,
so at night, or restimr-time, the
wearer, on lying down, places a hlock
of wood or stone heneath his head,
to prevent the wire from galling.
This concession of the chief was
given under the proviso that Kan-
nina would not ohject, which, strange
to say, he promised not to do, and
hopes were entertained of an early
departure. However this, like every
other eartbly expectation, especially
in these hlack regions, was des-
tined to he disappointed. In the
first place, an African must do every-
thing hy easy stages, nor can he en-
tertain two ideas in his head at the
same moment. First a civw hud to ho
collected, and when collected to he
paid, and when paid, the hoat was
found to he unseaworthy, and must
he plugged; and so much time elapsed,
and plans were changed. But after
all, things, it happened, were wisely
ordained; for the time thus wasted
served to recruit my health, as I em-
ployed it in hathing and strolling
gently ahout during the cool of the
mornings and evenings, and so gained
considerahle henefit. There is a curi-
ous idea here with regard to the hath-
ing-place, in fancying the dreaded cro-
codile will ohey the mandates of a
charm. They plant the hough of u
particular tree in the water ahout fifty
yards from the shore, which marks
the line of safe hathing, for within it
they say the animal dares not venture.
At noon, protected hy an umhrella, and
fortified with stained-glass spectacles,
I usually visited the market-place,
with heads in hand, to purchase daily


844
[Sept
Journal of a Cruise on

supplies. The market is held hetween
the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., near
the port, and consists of a few tem-
porary huts, composed of grass and
hranches hastily tied together. Most
of these are tbrown up day hy day.
The commodities hrought for sale are
fish, flesh, tohacco, palm-oil, and
spirits, different kinds of potatoes,
artichokes, several sorts of heans,
plantains, melons, cotton, sugar-cane,
a variety of pulse and vegetahles,
and ivories, and sometimes slaves.
Between these peramhulations, I
spent the day reclining with my eyes
shut. At length, after eightoen days'
negotiations, improved hy these con-
stitutional diversions and rest, and
longing for a change, especially one
that led across the sea, and afforded
the means of surveying it, I pro-
posed to go my>elf, and treat di-
rectly with Shaykh Hamed. This
intention soon reached the ears of
Kaunina, who, fearing that he might
thus lose mnch cloth, tbrew ohstacles
in the way, and most unjustly de-
manded as large a passport fee for
my crossing, as had heen given to the
other chief; which demand we were
ohliged to comply •with, or the men
would not take up an oar.
The Journal
Sd March 1858.—All heing settled,
I set out in a long narrow canoe,
hollowed out of the trunk of a single
tree. These vessels are mostly huilt
from large timhers, growing in the
district of Uguhha, on the western
side of the lake. The savages fell
them, lop off the hranohes and ends
to the length required, and then,
after covering the upper surface with
wet mud, as the tree lies upon tlio
ground, they set fire to and smoulder
out its interior, until nothing hut a
case remains, which they finish up
• hy paring out with rougbly con-
structed hatchets. The seats of these
canoes are hars of wood tied trans-
versely to the length. The kit taken
consists of one load (60 lh.) of cloth
(American sheeting), another of lurire
hlue heads, a magazine of powder,
and seven kitindis. The party is
composed of Bomhay, my interpre-
ter, Gactano, a Gooanese cook-hoy,
two Belooch soldiers, one Nakhuda or
sea-captain, who sometimes wore a
goat-skin, and twenty stark naked
savage sailors: twenty-six in all. Of
these only ten started, the remainder
leaving word that they would follow
down the coast, and meet us at a
Ichumhi (encampment), tbree miles dis-
tant, hy 12 o'clock. The ten, how-
ever, sufficient for the occasion, move
merrily off at 9 a.m., and in an hour
we reached the rendezvous, under a
large spreading tree on the right
hank of the mouth of the river Ruche".
The party is decidedly motley. The
man of quaintest aspect in it is Sidi
Maharak Bomhay. He is of the
Wahiyow trihe, who make the hest
slaves in Eastern Africa. His hreed
is that of the true woolly-headed
negro, though he does not repre-
sent a good specimen of them
physically, heing somewhat smaller
in his general proportions than
those one generally sees as fire-
stokers in our steamers that traverse
the Indian Ocean. His head, though
woodeny, like a hurher's hlock, is lit
up hy a humorons little pair of pig-
like eyes, set in a generous henigu-
looking countenance, which, strange
to say, does not helie him, for his
good conduct and honesty of pur-
pose are without parallel. His
muzzle projects dog-monkey fashion,
and is adorned with a regular set
of sharp-pointed alligator teeth,
which he presents to full view as
constantly as his very ticklish risihle
faculties hecome excited. The tohac-
conist's jolly nigger stuck in the
corner house of ... . street, as it
stands in mute hut full grin, tempt-
ing the patronage of accidental pass-
engers, is his perfect counterpart.
This wonderfid man says he knows
nothing of his genealogy, nor any
of the dates of the leading epochs
of his adventurous life,—not even
his hirth, time of captivity, or re-
storation. But his gener.il history
he narrated to me as follows, which
I give as he told it me, for this
sketch mayhe of interest, presenting,
as it does, a good characteristic ac-
count of the mauner in which slavo-
hunts are plauned and carried into
execution. It must he truthful, for
I have witnessed tragedies of a simi-
lar nature. The great slave-hunt-
ers of Eastern Africa are the Sowa-
hili or coast people; formerly slaves


1859.]
345
the Tanganyika Lake, Central Africa.

themselves, they are more enlight-
ened, and fuller of tricks than the
interior people, whom they now in
their turn catch. Having heen once
caught themselves, they know how
to proceed, and are consequently very
cautious in their movements, tnking
sometimes years hefore they finally
try to accomplish their ohject. They
first ensuare the iguorant unsuspi-
cious inlanders hy alluring and en-
tangling them in the treacherous
meshes of deht, and then, hy cap-
turing and mercilessly selling their
human game, liquidate the deht,
insinuatingly advanced as an irre-
sistihle decoy to allure their con-
fiding victim». Bomhey says, " I am
an Uhiyow; my father lived in a
village in the country of Uhiyow (a
large district situated hetween the
East Coast and the Nynssa Lake, in
latitude 11° 8.) Of my mother I
have hut the faintest recollection;
she died whilst I was in my infancy.
Our village was living in happy con-
tentment, until the fated year when
I was ahout the age of twelve. At
that lieriod a large hody of Sowa-
hilis, merchants and their slaves, all
equipped with sword and gun, came
suddenly, and, surrounding our vil-
lage, demanded of the inhahitants
instant liquidation of their dehts
(cloth and heads) advanced in for-
mer times of pinching dearth, or
else to stand the consequences of
refusal. As all the residents had
at different times contracted dehts
to different memhers of the hody
present, there was no appeal aguinst
the equity of this sudden demand,
hut no one had the means of pay-
ment. They knew fighting against
firearms would he hopeless; so after
a tew stratagems, looking for a good
opportunity to holt, the whole vil-
lage took to precipitate flight. Most
of the villagers were captured like
myself; hut of my father, or any
other relatives, I never more gained
any intelligence. Ho was either
shot in endeavouring to defend him-
self, o'r still more prohahly gave leg-
hail, and so escaped. As soon as
this foray was over, all the captives
were grouped together, and tethered
with chains or ropes, and marched
off to Kilwa, on the east coast (in lati-
tude 9° S.) Arrived there, the whole
party emharked in dhows, which, set-
ting sail, soon arrived at Zanzihar.
We were then driven to the slave-
market, where I was hought hy an
Arah merchanr,and taken off to India.
I served with this master for several
years, till hy his death I ohtained my
liheration. My next destination was
Zanzihar, where I took service in
the late Imaum's army, and passed
my days in half-starved inactivity,
until the lucky day when, at Chongwo",
you saw and gave me service."
Shortly after we had encamped
under the rendezvous tree, and he-
gun our cooking, some villagers
hrought ivories of the elephant and
hipIKrpotainus for sale, hut had
to suffer the disappointment of
meeting a stranger to merchandise,
and straightway departed, folly con-
vinced that all Mzungus (or wise, or
white men) were mere fools for not
making money, when they had so
good an opportunity. Noon and
evening passed without a sigu of the
hlack captain, or the remaining men.
We were in a wretched place for a
halt, a sloping ploughed field; and,
deceived hy the captain's not keep-
ing his promise, were uuprepared for
spending the night there. I pitched
my tent, hut the poor men had no-
thing to protect them; with the
darkness a deluge of rain descended,
and owing to the awkwardness of
our position, the surcharged earth
poured off a regular stream of water
over our heds, haggage, and every-
thing alike. To keep the tent erect
—a small gahle-shaped affair, six feet
high, and seven hy six square, made
of American sheeting, and so light
that with poles and everything com-
plete it harely weighs one man's
load — I called up the men, and
for hours held it so hy strength
of arm. Even the hippopotami, to
judge hy the frequency of their suorts
and grunts, as they indulged in their
devastating excursions amongst the
crops, seemed angry at this unusual
severity of the weather. Never from
the 15th of Novemher, when the rainy
season commenced, had we experi-
enced such a violent and heavy down-
pour.
4th.—Halt. The morning is no
improvement on the night. The
captain now arrives with most of the


316
[Sept.
Journal of a Cruuse on.

remaining crew, fears the trouhled
waters, anrl will not put out to sea.
In consequence of this disappoint-
ment, a messenger is sent hack to
Kawele, to fetch some fresh pro-
visions and firewood, as what little
of this latter article can he gather-
ed in its saturated state is useless,
for it will not hurn. During the
afternoon the remainder of the crew
keep dropping in, and at nightfall
seventeen hands are mustered.
5th.—At 3 a.m. the sea suhsides,
and the hoat is loaded. To pack so
many men together, with material,
in so small a space as the canoe
affords, seems a difficulty almost
insurmountahle. Still it is effected.
I litter down amidships, with my
hedding spread on reeds, in so short
a compass that my legs keep flip-
ping off and dangling in the hilge-
water. The cook and hailsman sit
on the first har, facing me; and he-
hind them, to the stern, one half the
sailors sit in couples; whilst on the
first har hehind me are Bomhey and
one Belooch, and heyond thern to the
how, also in couples, the remain-
ing crow. The captain takes post in
the hows, and all hands on hoth sides
paddle in stroke together. Fuel,
cooking apparatus, food, hag and
haggage, are tbrown promiscuously,
under the seats. But the sailors'
hlankets in the shape of grass mat-
ting, are placed on the hars to render
the sitting soft. Once all properly
arranged, the seventeen paddles
dash off with vigour, aud s*eering
southwards, we soon cross the mouth
of the Ruche. Next Ukaranga, the
last village on this line down the
eastern shore, lying suugly in a hay,
with a low range of densely wooded
hills ahout tbree miles in its rear, is
passed hy dawn of day, and ahout
suurise the hay itself is lost to sight.
The tired crew now hug a hluff shore,
crowned with dense jungle, until a
nook familiar to the men is entered
under plea of hreakfasting, Ik-re all
hands land, fires are kindled, and the
cooking-pots arranged. Some prepare
their rods and nets for fishing, some
go in search of fungi (a favourite
food), aoil others collect fuel. My
cook-hoy, ever doing wrong, dips his
cooking-pot in the sea for water—a
dangerous experiment if the tradi-
tions of Tanganyika hold good, that
the ravenous hosts of crocodiles sel-
dom spare any one hold enough to ex-
cite their appetites with such dregs
as usually drop from those uten-
sils; moreover, they will follow and
even hoard the hoats, after a single
taste. The sailors here have as great
an aversion to heing followed hy
the crocodile as our seamen hy a
shark, and they now display their
feelings hy looks and mutterings, and
strictly prohihiting the use of the
cooking-pot on that service again.
Breakfast ready, all hands eagerly
fall to, and feast away in happy
iguorance of any danger, when sud-
denly confusion enters the camp,
and with the alarming cry that foes
are coming, some with one thing,
some with another, all hurry-skurry
for the hoat. The greater part of the
kit is left upon the ground. A hreath-
less silence reigus for several minutes.
Then one jumps off and secures
his pot; another succeeds him, and
then more, till courage is gained to
make a search, aud ascertain the
cause of the alarm. Sneaking, crawl-
ing in the hush, some peering this
way, others listening that, they
stealthily move along, until at length
a single man, with arrow poised, in
self-defence I suppose, is pounced
upon. His story of why ho came
there, who and how many are his
comrades, what he wants in such
a desert place, and why he carries
arms, though spoken with a cuuning
plausihility, has no effect upon the
knowing sailors. They proclaim him
and his party, some eight or ten
men, who are clamorously squah-
hling in the jungle at no great
distance, to he a rough and lawless
set of marauders, fearing to come out
and show themselves on heing chal-
lenged, and further insist that none
ever ventured into such wilds who
had not got in view some desper-
ate enterprise. In short, it was
proverhially men of their sort who
were the general plunderers of hon-
est navigators. They therefore seize
his weapons, cut and hreak his how
and arrows, and let him go; though
some of the crew advocate his life
heing taken, and others, that the
whole party should he chased down
and slaughtered. The sailors then


1859.]
847
the Tanganyika Lake, Central Africa.

return to the canoe, ench vaunt-
ing his part in this adventurous
exploit, and handing congratula-
tions in the highest spirits. They
are one and all as proud of this suc-
cess, and ench as hoastful of his prow-
ess, as though a mighty hattle had
heen fought and won. On starting
again we pass alongside another bluff,
hacked hy small well-wooded hills, an
extension of the aforesaid east horn
of the Moon, and cross a little hay,
when the lazy crew, tired hy two
hours' work, hear in with the land,
and disemhark, us they say, to make
some ropes, or find some creepers
long and strong enough for mooring
this mighty canoe. It is now eleven
o'clock; there is more rest than work,
a purely negro way of getting tbrough
the day; tbree hours went in idle-
ness hefore, and now five more are
wasted. Again we start, and after
crossing a similar small hay, con-
tinue along a low shelving shore,
densely wooded to the water's edge,
until tho Malagarazi river's mouth
is gained. This river is the largest
on the eastern shore of the lake, and
was previously crossed hy the cara-
van on its way from Kazeh, in small
hark canoes, much rougher, hut con-
structed something similar to those
of the Americans. Each of these
canoes contains one man and his load,
hesides the owner, who lives near
the ferry, and poles the vessel across.
Still to the eastward we have the
same tree-clad hilly view, heauti-
ful in itself, hut tiresome in its con-
stant sameness. After a stretch,
and half an hour's pipes and hreath-
ing, we start afresh, and cross
the hay into which the river de-
houches. Here tall aquatic reeds
diversify tho surface, and are well
tenanted hy the crocodile and hip-
popotami, the latter of which keep
staring, grunting, and suorting, as
though much vexed at our intrusion
on their former peace and privacy.
We now hug the shore, and con-
tinue on in the dark of night till
Mgiti Khamhi,* a heautiful little
harhour hending hack away amongst
the hills, and out of sight of the lake,
is reached at 11 p.m. Could hut a
little civilised art, as white-washed
houses, well-trained gardens, and tho
like, vary these ever-green hills and
trees, and diversify tho unceasing
monotony of hill und dale, and dale
and hill—of green trees, green grass—
green grass, green trees, so wearisome
in their luxuriance, what a puradiso
of heauty would this place present!
Tho deep hlue waters of the lake
in contrast with the vegetation and
large hrown rocks form everywhere
an ohject of intense attraction; hut
the appetite soon wearies of such pro-
fusion, without the contrast of more
soher tints, or the variety incidental
to a populous and inhahited country.
There are said to he some few scat-
tered villages concealed in these
dense jungles extending away in the
hackground, hut how the shores
should ho so desolate strikes one
with much surprise. The naturally
excessive growth of all vegetahle
life is sufficient proof of the soil's
capahilities. Unless in former times
this heautiful country lias heen ha-
nded hy neighhouring trihes, and
despoiled of its men and cattle to
satisfy tho spoilers and sell to dis-
tant markets, its present state ap-
pears quite incomprehensihle. In
hazarding this conjecture, it might
he thought that 1 am taking an e.x-
tremo view of the case; hut when
we see everywhere in Africa what
one slave-hunt or cattle-lifting party
can effect, it is not uureasonahle to
imagine that this was most prohahly
the cause of such utter desolation
hero. These war-parties lay waste
the tracks they visit for endless time.
Indeed, until the effects of slavery
and the so-called free lahour are sup-
pressed in Africa, we may expect to
find such places in a similarly melan-
choly state.
Immediately on arriving here I
pitch my tent, and cook a meal;
whilst tho sailors, as is usual on
arrival at their encamping-grounds,
divide into parties,—some to catch
fish, others to look for fongi, whilst
many cook the food, and the rest
construct little huts hy planting
houghs in a circle in the ground and
fastening the tops together, leaving
the hut in tho shape of a haycock,
to which they further assimdate it
Khamhi—Encampmeut.


348
[Sept.
Journal of a Cruite on

hy tbrowing grass ahove; and in
rainy weather it is further covered
hy their mats, to secure them
against getting wet. As only one
or two men occupy a hut, many of
them, for so large a party, have to
he constructed. It is amuoing to see
how some men, proud of their supe-
rior powers of inventiveness, and pos-
sessing the knack of making pleasant
what would otherwise he uncomfort-
ahle, plume themselves hefore their
hretbren, and turn them.to derision:
and it appears the more ridiculous, as
they all are as stark naked as an
unclothed animal, and have really
nothing to hoast of after all.
6th.—The following morning sees
us under way, and clear of the
harhour hy suurise; hut the gath-
ering of clouds in the south soon
cautions the weather-wise sailors to
desist from their advance. Timely
is the warning; for, as we re-st
on our oars, the glimmer of light-
ning illuminates the distant hills;
whilst low heavy rolling clouds of
pitchy darkness, preceded hy a
heavy gale and a foaming sea, out-
spread over the wholj sontherc wa-
ters, rapidly advance. It is an ocean-
tempest in a miniature, which sends
us light ahout to our former herth.
Some of our men now employ
themselves in fishing for small fry
with a slender rod, a piece of string,
and an iron hook, with a hait of
meat or fish attached; whilst others
use small hand-nets, which they
placo hehind some reeds or other
cover, to secure the retreating tUh as
he makes off on heing puked out of
his refuge on the opposite side hy a
wand held for that purpose in the
sportsman's other hand. But the
majority are occupied in gathering
sticks and cooking hreakfast till
1 p.m., when the sea ahates, and the
journey is resumed. During this
portion of the journey, a slight
change of scenery takes place; the
chain of hills ruuning parallel with
the shore of the lake is hroken, and
in its stead we see some small de-
tached and other short irregular
linos of hills, separated hy extended
plains of forest, thickly clad in ver-
dure, like all the rest of the country.
Alter two hours' paddling, we stand
opposite the Luguvu river, and rest
awhile to smoke; then start again,
and in an hour cross the mouth of
the little river Hehwe. Unfortu-
nately these streams add nothing
to the heauty of the scenery; and
were it not for the gaps in the hdls
suggesting the prohahle course of
rivers, they might he passed without
notice, for the mouths are always
concealed hy hulrushes, or other tall
aquatic reeds; and inland they are
just as closely hidden hy forest vege-
tation. In half an hour more we
enter a small nook called Luguvu
Khamhi, very deep, and full of cro-
codiles and hippopotami. On land-
ing, we fire the usual alarm-guns—
a point to which our captain is ever
strictly attentive—cook our din-
ners, and turn in for the night.
Here I picked up four varieties of
shells—two unis and two hivalves—
all very interesting from heing quite
unknown in the conchological world.
There were numhers of them lying on
the pehhly heach.
7th.—VVe started at dawn as
usual; hut again at suurise, the
wind increasing, wo put in for the
shore, for these little cranky hoats
can stand no sea whatever. Here a
herd of wild huffaloes, horned like
the Cape ones, were seen hy the men,
and caused some diversion; for,
though too hlind myself to see the
hrutes at the distance that the others
did, I l.iaded and gave them chase;
whilst tracking along, I saw fresh
prints of elephants, which, judging
froln their trail, had evidently just
heen down to drink at the lake,
and sprang some antelopes, hut could
not get a shot. The sea going
down hy noon, we proceeded, and
hugged a hluff shore, till we arrived
at Insignzi, a desert place, a little
short of Kahogo, the usual croasing-
point. Although the day was now
far advanced, the weather was so
promising, whilst our prog was run-
ning short, that impatience sug-
gested a venture for the opposite
shore to Kivira, an island near it,
hearing hy compass S. 65° W.,
and which, with the Uguhha Moun-
tains in the hackground, is from
this distinctly visihle. This line
i4 selected for canoes to cross at,
from containing the least expanse
of water hetween the two shores,


1859.]
349
the Tanganyika Lake, Central Africa.

hetween Ujiji and the south end.
The Kahogo Island, which stands
so conspicuously in the map that
hung on the Royal Geographical
Society's walls in 1856, and, as
already mentioned, the accuracy of
which we were sent out to investi-
gate, is evidently intended for this
Kahogo or starting-point, near which
we now are, and is so far rightly
placed upon their map as represent-
ing the half-way station from Ujiji
to Kasenge, two places on opposite
sides of the lake, whither the Arah
merchants go in search of ivory. For
Kahogo, as will he readily seen on a
corrected chart, lies just midway on
the line always taken hy hoats tra-
velling hetween those two ports—the
rest of the lake heing too hroad for
even these adventurous spirits. In
short, they coast south from Ujiji
to Kahogo, which constitutes the
first half of the journey, and then
cross over. On the passage I
carefully inquired the names of
several points and places, to take
their hearings, and to learn the geo-
graphy of the lake, hut all to no
purpose. The snperstitious captain,
and even more 8uperstitious crew,
refused to answer any questions, and
earnestly forhede my talking. The
idea was founded upon the fear of viti-
ating their uganga or "church," hy
answering a stranger any questions
whilst at sea; hut they dread more
especially to talk ahout the places of
departure or arrival, lest ill luck
shoald overtake them, ami deprive
them of the chance of ever reaching
shore. They hlamed me for tbrowing
the remnants of my cold diuner over-
hoard, and pointed to the hottom of
the hoat as the proper receptacle for
refuse. Night set in with great
serenity, and at 2 a.m. tho following
morning (8th March), when arriving
amongst some islands, close on tho
western shore of the lake—the
principal of which are Kivira,
Kauizia, and Kasenge, the only ones
inhahited—a watch-hoat helonging
to Sultan Kasanga, the reiguing
chief of this group, challenged us,
and asked our mission. Great fra-
ternising, story-telling, and a little
pipe ensued, for every one loves
tohacco; then hoth departed in
peace and friendship; they to their
former ahode, a cove in a small un-
inhahited island which lies due
south of Kivira, whilst we proceeded
to a long narrow harhour in Ki-
vira itself, the largest of all these
islands. Fourteen hours were oc-
cupied in crossing the lake, of which
two were spent in hrawling and
smoking. At 9 a.m., the islanders,
receiving intelligence of our arrival,
came down the hill of which this
island is formed, in great numhers,
and held a market; hut as we were
uuprovided with what they wanted,
little husiness could he done. The
chief desideratum was flesh of fish
or heast, next salt, then tohacco,
in fact anything hut what I had
hrought as market money, cloth
and class heads. This day passed
in rest and idleness, recruiting from
our late exertions. At night a vio-
lent storm of rain and wind heat
on my tent with such fury that its
nether parts were torn away from tho
pegs, and the tent itself was oidy
kept upright hy sheer force. On tho
wind's ahating, a candle was lighted to
rearrange the kit, and in a moment,
as though hy magic, the whole in-
terior hecame covered with a host of
small hlack heetles, evidently at-
tracted hy the glimmer of the cmdle.
They were so aunoyingly determined
in their choice of place for peregrin-
ating, that it seemed hopeless my
trying to hrush them off the clothes
or hedding, for as one was knocked
aside another came on, and then an-
other, till at last, worn out, 1 ex-
tinguished the candle, and with dif-
ficulty—trying to overcome the
tickling annoyance occasioned hy
these intruders crawling up my
sleeves and into my hair, or down
my hack and legs—fell off to sleep.
Repose that night was not destined to
he my lot. One of these horrid little
insects awoke me in his struggles to
penetrate my ear, hut just too la e:
for in my endeavour to extract him,
I aided his immersion. He went his
course, struggling up the narrow
chaunel, until he got arrested hy
want of passage-room. This impedi-
ment evidently euraged him, for he
hegan with exceeding vigour, like a
rahhit at a hole, to dig violently
away at my tympanum. The queer
sensation this amusing meature


350
[Sept.
Journal of a Cruitt on

excited in me is past description. I
felt inclined to act as our donkeys
once did, when hmt hy a swarm of
hees, who huzzed ahout their ears
and stung their heads and eyes until
they were so irritated and confused
that they galloped ahout in the most
distracted order, trying to knock
them off hy treading on thoir heads,
or hy rushing under hushes, into
houses, or tbrough any jungle they
could find. Indeed, I do not know
which was worst off. The hees
killed some of them, and this heetle
nearly did for me. What to do I
knew not. Neither tohacco, oil, nor
salt could he found; I therefore tried
melted hutter; that failing, I applied
the point of a penknife to his hack,
which did more harm than good;
for though a few tbrusts kept him
quiet, the point also wounded my
ear so hadly, that inflammation set
in, severe suppuration took place,
and all the facial glands extending
from that point down to the point of
the shoulder hecame contorted and
drawn aside, and a string of huhos
decorated the whole length of that
region. It was the most painful
thing I ever rememher to have en-
dured; hut, more aunoying still, I
could not open my month for several
days, and had to feed on hroth alone.
For many months the tumour made
me almost deaf, and ate a hole he-
tween that orifice and the nose, so
that when I hlew it, my ear whistled
so audihly that those who heard it
laughed. Six or seven months after
this accident happened, hits of the
heetle, a leg, a wing, or parts of its
hody, came away in the wax.
It was not altogether an unmixed
evil, for tho excitement occasioned hy
the heetle's operations acted towards
my hlindness as a counter-irritant
hy drawing the inflammation away
from my eyes. Indeed, it operated
far hetter than any other artificial
appliance. To euro the hlindness I
once tried ruhhing in some hlistering
liquor hehind my ear, hut this unfor-
tunately had been injured hy the
journey, and had lost its stimulating
properties. Finding it of no avail, I
then caused my servant to ruh the
part with his finger until it was exco-
riated, which, though it proved in-
sufficiently strong to euro me, was,
according to Dr. Bowman, whom I
have since consulted, as good a suh-
stitute for a hlister as could have heen
applied.
'Jth.—The weather still remain-
ing too rough for sailing, I strolled
over the island, and from its sum-
mit on the eastern side I found
a good view of the lake, and took
hearings of Ujiji, Insigazi, and a dis-
tant point southwards on the eastern
shore of the lake, called Ukungwe.
Kivira Island is a massive hill, ahout
five miles long hy two or tbree
hroad, and is irregularly shaped. In
places there are high flats, formed in
terraces, hut generally the steeps are
ahrupt and thickly wooded. The
mainland immediately west is a pro-
montory, at. the southern extremity
of the Uguhha Mountains, on the
western coast of the Tanganyika;
and the island is detached from it hy
so narrow a strip of water that, un-
less you ohtained a profile view, it
might easily he mistaken for a head-
land. The population is considerahle,
and they live in musbroom huts, situ-
ated on the high flats and easier slopes,
where they cultivate the manioc,
sweet potato, maize, millet, various
kinds of pulse, and all tho common
vegetahles in general use ahout tho
country. Poultry ahounds in the vil-
lages. The dress of the people is sim-
ple, consisting of small hlack mon-
key skins, cat-skins, and the furs of
any vermin they can get These are
tucked under a waist-strap, and, ac-
cording to the numher they possess,
go completely or only half-way round
the hody, the animals'heads hanging
in front, and the tails always depend-
ing gracefully helow. These monkeys
are easily captured when the maize is
ripe, hy a numher of people stealthily
staking small square nets in conti-
guous line all round the fields which
these animals may he occupied in roh-
hing, and then with screams and yells,
flinging sticks and stones, the hunt-
ers rnsh upon the affrighted thieves,
till in their hurry and confusion
to escape, they hecome irretrievahly
entangled in the meshes. But few of
theso islanders carry spear or how,
though I imagine all possess them.
They were most uupleasantly inqui-
sitive, and hy their stares, jahher, and
pointings, incessantly wanting me to


1859.]
851
the Ta/nganyika Lake, Central Africa.

show them everything that I possess-
ed, with explanations ahout their va-
rious uses, quite tired out my pa-
tience. If I tried to got away, they
plnguingly followed after, so at last I
dodged them hy getting into the hoat.
To sit in the tent was the worst place
of all; they would pull up the sides,
and peer under like so many monkeys;
and if I turned my head aside to avoid
their gaze, they would jahher in the
most noisy and disagreeahle mauner
in order to arouse me.
10th.—We quit Kivira early, and
paddling S. 25° W., making the fam-
ous fish-market in tho little island
Dahizia, just in time to hreakfast
on a fresbly-caught fish, the cele-
hrated Singa,—a large, ugly, hlack-
hacked monster, with white helly,
small fins, and long harhs hut no
scales. In appearance a sluggish
ground-fish, it is always immoderately
and grossly fat, and at this season is
full of roe; its flesh is higbly esteemed
hy the natives. This island is very
small, with a gradual rising slope
from the Jf.W. extremity: and at the
S.E. eud assumes the form of a hull's
hump. There is hut one village of
twenty odd musbroom-shaped huts,
chiefly occupied hy fishermen, who
live on their spoils, and hy selling
all that they caunot consume to the
neighhouring islanders and the vil-
lagers on the mainland. Added to
this, they grow maize and other ve-
getahles, and keep a good stock of
fowls. I tried every mode of induce-
ment to entice the crew away to
complete the journey, for the place of
my destination, Kasenge", was in sight;
hut in vain. They had tasted this to
them delicious fish, and were deter-
mined to dress and lay hy a good
store of it to carry with them. Ahout
noon Shaykh Khamis, a merchant
from Kasenge, hound for Ujiji, ar-
rived, and kindly gave me a long
needle to stir up the heetle in my ear;
hut the insect had gone in so far, and
the swelling and suppuration of the
wounds had so imhedded him, that
no instrument could have done any
good. Khamis, like myself, was very
anxious to complete his journey, and
tried every conceivahle means to en-
tice his crew away, hut he failed as
sigually as I did. On the mainland
opposite to this, we see the western
horn of these concavely-disposed
mountains, which encircle the north
of the lake, and from hence the horn
stretches away in increasing height
as it extends northwards. Its sea-
ward slopes are well wooded from
near the summit down to the water's
edge; hut on the top, as though
strong currents of air prevailed, and
prevented vegetation from attaining
any height, grass only is visihle.
Westward, hehind the Island of Ka-
senge", and away to the southward,
the country is of a rolling hilly for-
mation, and devoid of any ohjects of
interest.
11th.—The morning wind was too
high for crossing from Kahizia to
Kasenge", hut at noon we emharked,
and after paddling for ninety minutes
S. 80° W., we arrived at the ktter
island, my destination. Shaykh Ha-
med hin Sulayyini, with many atten-
dants and a host of natives, was
standing ready to receive me. He
gave us a hearty welcome, took my
hand, and led me to his ahode, plac-
ing everything at my disposal, and
arranging a second house for my fu-
ture residence. These worthy Arah
merchants are everywhere the same.
Their warm and generous hospitality
to a stranger equals anything I have
ever seen elsewhere, not forgetting In-
dia, where a cordial welcome greets
any incidental traveller. Hamed's
ahode, like all the semi-civilised ones
found in this country, and constructed
hy the Sowahili (or coast people), is
made with good suhstantial walls of
mud, and roofed with rafters and
hrushwood, cemented together with a
compound of common earth, straw,
and water. The rooms are conveni-
ently partitioned off for domestic con-
veniences, with an ante-room for gen-
eral husiness, and sundry other en-
closures for separating his wives and
other helongings. On the exterior
of the house is a palaver platform,
coyered with an ample verandah, un-
der which he sits, surrounded hy a
group of swarthy hlacks, gossiping
for hours together, or transacting
his worldly husiness, in purchasing
ivory, slaves, or any commodities
worthy of his notice. The dhow I
had come for, he said, was lying at
Ukaranga, on the eastern shore, hut
was expected in a day or two, and
VOL. lLXXXVL
2:;


362
[Sept.
Journal of a Cruise on

would then he at my service. Indeed
he had sent a letter hy Khamis, whom
I met at Kahizia, offering it to Cap-
tain Burton, as soon as ever he had
heen made acquainted (hy native re-
port, I imagine) with our desire of
ohtaining her. He thought, however,
that there might he some difficulty in
forming a crew capahle of managing
her, as this craft was too large for
paddles, and no natives understood
the art of rowing, and, moreover, like
all Easterns, they are not disposed to
learn anything that their fathers did
not know heforethem. His own men
were necessary to him, for in a few
days he intended marching to Uruw-
wa, ahout a hundred miles south-west
of this island, a territory helonging to
Sultan Kiyomho. During that trip,
every one of the dhow sailors (who
are Sowahili slaves, and the Arabs'
gun-hearers) would he in requisition.
But he thought, if I had patience to
wait, he might he ahle to prevail on a
few of the dhow's present crew, men
in his temporary employ, to take ser-
vice with me. My host gave me a full
description of the lake. He said he
had visited hoth ends of it, and found
the southern portion hoth longer and
hroader than the northern. "There
are no islands in the middle of the
sea, hut near the shores there are se-
veral in various places, situated much
in the same way as those we are
amongst; they are mere projections,
divided from the mainland hy shoals
or narrow chaunels. A large river,
called Marungu, supplies the lake at
its southern extremity; hut except
that and the Malagarazi river on
the eastern shore, none of any con-
siderahle size pour their waters
into the lake. But on a visit to
the northern end, I saw one which
was very much larger than either
of these, and which I am certain
flowed out of the lake; for although
I did not venture on it, in conse-
quence of its hanks heing occupied
hy desperately savage negroes, inim-
ical to all strangers, I went so near
its outlet that I could see and feel
the outward drift of the water." He
then descrihed an adventure he once
had when going to the north, with a
hoisterous harharous trihe called Wa-
rundi. On approaching their hostile
shore, he noticed as he thought a great
commotion amongst the fishing-hoats,
and soon perceived that the men were
concocting a plan of attack upon him-
self, for they concentrated forces, and
came at his dhow in a hody of ahout
thirty canoes. Conceiving that their
intentions Were hostile, he avoided
any conflict hy putting out to sea,
fearing lest an affray would he pre-
judicial to future mercantile trans-
actions, as stains of hlood are not
soon eflaced from their hlack me-
mories. He further said he felt no
alarm for his safety, as he had thirty
slaves with guns on hoard. My
opinion of this story—for everyhody
tells stories in this country—is, that all
he stated with regard to the southern
half is very near the truth, for it is
an exact corrohoration of many other
evidences. But I feel convinced that
he was romancing when talking of
the northern river's flow, not only
hecause the northern end of the lake
is encircled hy high hills—the con-
cave of the Mountains of the Moon
—hut hecause the lake's altitude is
so much less than that of the adjacent
plateaus. Indeed, the waters of the
lake are so low as to convey the im-
pression that the trough they lie in has
heen formed hy volcanic agency. With
reference to tlie time which it would
take us to traverse the entire lake,
he said he thought we should take
forty-six days in going up and down
the lake, starting from Ujiji. Going
to the north would take eight days,
and going to the south fifteen. As
the Shaykh had said nothing ahout
the hire of the dhow, though he had
offered it so willingly, I thought it
prohahle that shame of mentioning
it in puhlic had deterred him from
alluding to the suhject—so hegged a
private conference. He then came to
my house with Bomhay and a slave,
a confidant of his own, who could
also speak Hindustani, and was told,
tbrough my medinm Bomhay, exactly
what things I had hrought with me.
and requested to speak his mind
freely, as I had called him especially
for husiness, and we were now alone.
His reserved nature had the mastery
over him, and he still remained mule
ahout the price; hut again saying I
could have his dhow whenever I


1859.]
353
the Tanganyika Lake, Central Africa.

chose, he asked permission to retire,
and departed. Puzzled at this pro-
cedure, I sent Bomhay to ohserve
him, and find out if he had any secret
motives for shirking so direct an ap-
peal, and empowered him to offer
money in case my cloth and powder
did not afford sufficient inducement.
Bomhay soon returned as much puz-
zled as myself, unahle to extract
any hut the old answer—that I was
welcome to the dhow, and that he
would try and procure men for me.
As a hint had reached me that the
Shaykh cast covetous eyes on my
powder-magazine, I tried enticing
him to take some in part payment
for her, hut he replied that he did
not require anything in payment,
hut would gladly accept a little pow-
der if I had any to spare. To this
I readily assented, as he had heen
so constant and liheral in his atten-
tions to me ever since I landed on
the island and hecame his guest, that
I felt it was the least I oould do in
return for his generosity. Indeed, ho
was constantly ohserving and inquir-
ing what I wanted, and supplied
everything in his power that I found
difficult to ohtain. Every day he
hrought presents of flesh, fowl, ducks
(the Muscovite, hrought from the
coast), eggs, plantains, and ghee
(clarified hutter).
The island of Kasenge" is ahout one
mile long, a narrow high ridge of land
lying nearly due north and south, and
is devoid of trees, and only a small
portion of it is under cultivation.
The lake washes its north-western
end; the remainder is encircled hy a
girdle of water ahout eighty yards
hroad. It appears, from heing so
imhedded in the land, to he a part of
the coast to anyhody approaching it
from the sea. The population is very
considerahle, more so than that of
the other ports. They are extremely
filthy in their hahit-, and are inces-
santly inquisitive, as far at least as
gratifying their idle curiosity is con-
cerned. From having no industrial
occupations, they will stand for hours
and hours together, watching any
strange ohject, and are, in conse-
quence, an infinite pest to any
stranger coming near them. In ap-
pearance they are not much unlike
the Kaffir, resemhling that trihe hoth
in size, height, and general hearing,
having enlarged lips, flattish noses,
and frizzly woolly hair. They are
very easily amused, and generally
wear smiling faces. The women are
hetter dressed than the men, having
a cloth round the hody, fastened
under the arms, and reaching helow
the knees, and generally heads, hrass
necklaces, or other ornaments, while
the latter only wear a single goat-
skin slung game-hag fashion over the
shoulder, or, when they possess it, a
short cloth tied, kilt fashion, round
the waist. They lie ahout their huts
like swine, with little more anima-
tion on a warm day than the pig
has when hasking in a summer's
sun. The mothers of these savage
people have infinitely less affection
than many savage heasts of my
acquaintance. I have seen a mother
hear, galled hy constant fire, oh-
stinately meet hat death, hy repeat-
edly returning 'under a shower of
hullets, endeavouring to rescue her
young from the grasp of intruding
men. But here, for a simple loin-
cloth or two, human mothers eagerly
exchanged their little offspring, de-
livering them into perpetual hondage
to my Belooch soldiers.
Talking ahout slaves hrings to
recollection the ahsurd statements
that have heen appearing in the
newspapers and in parliamentary
discussions, regarding the French
and Portuguese slave transactions in
the. Mozamhique Chaunel: leading
people still to suppose, who know
nothing ahout the internal condition
of Africa, that such a state of society
can exist there as would induce the
negroes to leave their easy homes and
seek for hard service ahroad. Nothing
is more foreigu to their inclinations.
Nor can men he found willing to
exile themselves as free lahourer) in
any part of these African regions.
In the first place, tho negro has as
great an antipathy to work as a mad
dog lias to water; ho will avoid it hy
every stratagem within his power.
It is true that the slaves whom the
Arah merchants, or other men, have
in their possession, never forsake
their master, as if they disliked their
state in hondage; hut then, when we


354
[Sept.
Journal of a Cruite on

consider their position, what plea-
sure or advantage would they derive
hy doing so? During the slave-
hunts, when they are caught, their
country is devastated, their friends
and relatives are either killed or are
scattered to the winds, and nothing
hut a wreck is left hehind them.
Again, they enter upon a life which
is new to them, and is very fascinat-
ing to their tastes; and as long as
they do remain with such kind mas-
ters as the Arahs are, there is no ne-
cessity for our commiserating them.
They hecome elevated in their new
state of existence, and are hetter off
than in their precarious homes, ever
in terror of heing attacked. But
under what is miscalled the Free-la-
hour system the whole matter is en-
tirely changed. Instead of living, as
they in most part do, willingly with
the families of the Arahs, men of a
superior order, and doing mild and
congenial services, they get trans-
ported against their will and inclina-
tions to a foreigu land, where, to live
at all, they must lahour like a heast;
and yet this is only half the mischief.
When a market for free lahourers is
once opened, when the draining poul-
tice is once applied to Africa's exte-
rior, then the interior will assuredly
he drained of all its working men,
and hecome more a waste than ever.
To supply the markets with those
free cattle hecomes so lucrative a
means of gain that merchants would
stick at no expedient in endeavouring
to secure them. The country, so full
as we have seen it of all the useful
necessaries of life, ahle to supply our
markets and relievo our people hy
cheapening all commodities, would,
if slavery was only permitted to in-
crease, soon he devastated for the very
minor consideration of improving a
few small islands in the Indian Ocean.
On the contrary, slavery has only
to he suppressed entirely, and the
country would soon yield one-hun-
dredfold more than ever it has done
hefore. The merchants themselves
are aware of this, for every Hindi on
the coast with whom I ever spoke
on the suhject of slavery, seemed
confident that the true prosperity of
Africa would only commence with
the cessation of slavery. And they
all say it would he far hetter for
them if slavery were put down alto-
gether than allowed to remain as
it is, suhject to limited restriction;
for hy this limitation many incon-
veniences arise. Those who were
permitted to retain slaves, have a
great and distressing advantage over
those who could not. They ar-
gue, and very properly, that in con-
sequence of these slave-hunts the
country is kept in such a state of
commotion that no one thinks it
worth his while to make accumula-
tions of property, and consequent-
ly, the negroes now only live for
the day, and keep no granaries,
never thinking of exerting them-
selves to hetter their condition.
Without douht it is mainly owing
to this unfortunate influenco of
slavery on African society, that
we have heen kept so long iguor-
ant of the vast resources of Eastern
and Central Africa—a vast field full
of resources, which would he of so
much value to Zanzihar and neigh-
houring India, were it only pro-
perly developed :—hut I have heen
digressing, and must again return to
Kasenge.
The village is very large and
straggling, and consists of a collec-
tion of haycock-looking huts, framed
with wood or houghs, and covered
over with grass. Kasanga's palace
is the grandest one amongst them.
This monarch is a very amiahle des-
pot, . and is liked in consequence,
He presented me with a goat and
some grain, in return for which I
gave a kaltongo (or trihute-fee) of
tbree Dhotis, two Kitindis, and two
Fundas, equal to twenty necklaces
of large hlue heads. The food of
these people consists chiefly of fish
and fowls, hoth of which are very
ahundant. All other articles of con-
sumption, except a very little grown
on the spot, are imported from the
mainland, and are, in consequence,
dear. The surrounding country,
however, is very higbly cultivated—
so much so, that it exports for the
Ujiji and other distant markets.
The Africans have no religion, un-
less Fetishism may he considered
such. They use charms to keep off
the evil eye, and helieve in fortune-
tellers. Their church is called Ogsn-
ga, and the parson Mganga, the plural


1850.]
355
the Tanganyika Lake, Central Africa.

of which, priests, changes to Wng-
enga. The prefixes U, M, and Wa,
are used uniformly tbroughout this
land from Zanzihar, to denote re-
spectively, U, country or place, M,
an individual, and Wa for plurality,
as in trihe or people: thus, Uganga,
Mganga, Waganga, or Unyamuezi,
Mnyainuezi, Wanyamuezi.
13th.—The dhow came in this
evening, hringing cows and goats,
oil, ghee, and other articles' of con-
sumption not found immediately
in this neighhourhood. She looked
very graceful in contrast to the
wretched little canoes, and came
moving slowly up the smooth waters
of the chaunel decked in her white
sails, like a swan upon "a garden
reach." The next day the Shaykh
declared himself endeavouring to se-
cure some men, hut none appeared.
The day following he told mo that
the dhow was out of repair, and
must he mended. And the succeed-
ing day he coupled shifts and ex-
cuses with promises and hopes, so
likely to he further deferred, that
my patience was fairly upset; and
on the 17th, as nothing was settled,
we had a little tiff. I accused him
of detaining nu in the hopes of
getting powder, for as yet his ar-
mourer had not succeeded in opening
my chest, from which I knew he
wanted some; at any rate, I could
see no other cause for his desiring my
further stay there, when even Bom-
hay had notified his displeasure at
these long-continued procrastinations.
The Shaykh, however, very quietly
denied the imputation, declaring that
he desired nothing hut what I might
frankly give, and continued his for-
mer kindnesses as though nothing
had happened. I then hogged his
counsel as to the hest mode of
proceeding, upon which he advised
my returning to Ujiji, where an
Arah inerchant called Shaykh Said
hin Majid, with many men of the
sort I required, was reported to he
arriving. In the meanwhile, during
his ahsence at Uruwwa, he would
authorise his agent to make the
dhow over to me whenever I should
come or send for it. It is needless
to say how easily, had my hands
now heen free to act, I might have
availed myself of this tempting op-
portunity of accompanying Shaykh
Hatned on his journey to Uruwwa,
and have thus nearly counected this
line from Zanzihar with the Portu-
guese and Dr. Livingstone's routes to
Loando on the western coast. Tho
Shaykh descrihes the roads as easy
to travel over, for the track lay
across an undulating country, in-
tersected hy many small insiguifi-
cant streams, which only contrihute
to fertilise the land, and pre-
sent no ohstacles whatever. The
line is cheap, and affords provi-
sions in ahundance. It may appear
odd that men should go so far into
the interior of Africa to procuro
ivory, when undouhtedly much is to
he found at places not half so dis-
tant from Zanzihar; hut the reason
of it is simple. The nearer coun-
tries have hecome so overstocked
with heads and cloth, that ivory
there has risen to so great a price, it
does not pay its transport. Hence
every succeeding year finds the Arahs
penetrating farther inland. Now, it
will he seen that the Zanzihar Arahs
have reached tho uttermost limits of
their tether; for Uruwwa is half-way
across the continent, and in a few
years they must unite their lahours
with the people who come from Loan-
do on tho opposite coast. As to ohtain
the dhow would, in our hampered
state, have heen of much importance
—for our cloth and supplies were all
fast ehhing away—I did not yet
give in applying for it, and next day
tried another device to tempt this
wily Arah, hy offering 500 dollars, or
£100, if he would defer his journey
for a short time, and accompany us
round the lake. This was a large,
and evidently an unexpected offer,
and tried his cupidity sorely; it pro-
duced a nervous fidgetiness, and he
hegged leave to retire and con the
matter over. Next day he said he
was sorry that he must decline, for
his husiness would not stand defer-
ment, hut declared himself willing
to sail with us on his return from
Uruwwa, tbree months hence, if we
could only stay till then.
Feeling now satisfied that nothing
would prevail upon the Shaykh to let
us have the dhow, I wished to quit


356
[Sept.
Journal of a Cruue on

the island, and return to Ujiji, hut
found the crew had taken French
leave, and gone foraging on the main-
land, where, all grain heing so much
cheaper than at Ujiji, they wanted
to procure a supply. I therefore
employed the day in strolling all
over the island, and took hearings of
some of the principal features of the
lake; of Themhwe, a distant pro-
montory on the western shore south of
this, which is occupied hy a powerful
sultan, and contains a large popula-
tion of very hoisterous savages; of
Ukungwe", on the east shore, and
the island of Kavira and Kahizia. I
could also see two other small
islands lying amidst these larger
ones, —too small for hahitation.
Though my canoe arrived on the
20th, had weather prevented our
leaving till the 22d morning, com-
pleting twelve days at Kasenge". I
now took leave of my generous
host, and hidding adieu to Kasenge",
soon arrived and spent the day at
Kihizia.
23<Z.—We crossed over to Ki-
vira, and pitched the tent in our
former harhour. Next day we haited
from stress of weather; and the fol-
lowing day also remaining hoisterous,
we could not put to sea; hut to
ohtain a hetter view of the lake, and
watch the weather for choosing a
favourahle time to cross, we changed
Khamhi for a place farther up the
island.
2ith.—We moved out two miles
in the morning, hut returned again
from fear of the weather, as the
sailors could discern a small hut
very alarming-looking cl«ud many
miles distant, hanging on the top
of one of the hills, and there was
a gentle hreeze. In the evening,
as the portentous elements still
frowned upon us, the wise crew sur-
mised that the vganga (church)
was angry at my endeavouring to
carry across the waters the goat
which the Sultan had given me, and
which, they said, ought never to
have left the spot it was presented in
alive; and declared their intention
of applying to the mganga (priest)
to ascertain his opinion hefore ven-
turing out again. As the goat had
just LgiveH a kid, and produced a
good supply of milk, I was anxious
to hring her to Ujiji for my sick
companion, and told the sailors
so; yet still they persisted, and
said they would run away rather
than venture on the water with the
goat again. Then fearing detention,
and guessing their motive was only
to ohtain a share in the eating her,
I killed hoth kid and mother at
once, and divided them amongst my
party, taking care that none of the
crew received any of the flesh. At
night we sallied forth again, but
soon returned from the same cause
that hindered us in the morning.
And I did not spare the men's feel-
ings who had caused the death of
my goat in the morning, now that
their superstitious fears concerning
it, if they ever possessed any, were
proven to he without foundation.
27th.—We took our final depar-
ture from Kivira in the morning,
and crossed the hroad lake again
in fourteen hours, two of them, as
hefore, heing spent in pipes and rest.
I have now measured the Lake's
centre pretty satisfactorily hy trian-
gulation, hy compass in counection
with astronomical ohservation, and
twice hy dead-reckoning. It is
twenty-six miles hroad at the place
of orossing, which is its narrowest
central part. But alas that I should
have omitted to hring a sounding
line with me, and not have asjer-
tained that higbly interesting fea-
ture—its depth. There is very little
douht in my mind hut that its hed
is very deep, owing to the trough-
like formation of it, and also hecause
I have seen my crew haul up fishing-
haskets, sunk in the sea near to the
shore, from very considerahle depths,
hy long ropes with trimmers at-
tached. For the henefit of science,
and as a hint to future travellers, I
will mention that had I hrought
a lead, I might, as if hy accident,
have dropped it in the sea when
they wero resting—have tapped the
hottom and ascertained its depth—
whilst the superstitious crew would
have only wondered in vain as to
what I was ahout. Let easy-chair
geographers now take lesson hy
this passage across the lake of
twenty-six miles, and know for the


1859.]
357
the Tanganyika Lake, Central_Africa.'

future, that if they will have
lakes of great and imaginative
hreadth, they should stnd them
with islands at distances not more
than thirty miles asunder; for no
Nagoe canoes dare ever venture
on a hroader sheet of water than I
have now crossed. And if they
caunot hear of islands on a sheet of
water as hroad as the Slug alluded
to hefore—which they affirmed was
crossed hy negroes—let them pause
hefore descrihing anything ho ridicu-
lous.
28 {A.—We started up coast early,
and at 10 a.m. put in amongst
some reeds opposite the Luguvu
river, as the wind, rain, and waves
had very nearly swampsd the hoat,
and drenched us all from head to
foot. I pitched the tent in the
canoe, to protect me from the storm,
hut it only served to keep the wind
from hlowing on my wet clothes and
chilling me, for wave after wave
washed over the gunwale, and kept
me and all my kit constantly drench-
ed tbrough. Tbree lingering miser-
ahle hours were passed in this
fashion; for there was no place to
land in, and we could not venture
forward. The sea ahated in the
afternoon, and we gained Mgiti
Khamhi. After a day's halt, the
weather heing stormy, and every-
thing heing wet and comfortless, we
hailed with delight the succeeding
suuny day, and making good our
time, reached the old tree on the
right hank of the mouth of tho
Ruch6 hv 9 p.m.
31rf.—We arrived at Ujiji hy
hreakfast-time, when I disclosed to
Captain Burton, then happily a little
restored, the mortifying intelli-
gence of my failing to procure the
dhow. This must have heen douhly
distressing to him, for he had heen
led to expect it hy Khamis, whom I
passed at Kahizia, and who had de-
livered Hamed's letter, stating that
the dhow was at his service. The
Shaykh's manoeuvring with the dhow
hears much the appearance of one
anxious to ohtain the credit of gen-
erosity, without incurring tho at-
tendant inconvenience of its reality.
Otherwise I caunot divine what good
his procrastinations and the means
he took for keeping me near him s0
long oould have heen to him; for he
made no overtures to me whatever.
Bomhay now thought, when it was
too late, that if I had offered to give
him 500 dollars' worth of cloth,
landed at his house, he could not
have resisted the offer. I give this
notice for the advantage of any fu-
ture explorers on the lake. I could
not form a true estimate of the
lake's positive hreadth, in conse-
quence of the numherless hays and
promontories that diversify the regu-
larity of its coast line; hut I should
say that thirty to forty miles is pro-
hahly near the trnth.
This concludes my first indepen-
dent travel in Central Africa; and
next month you shall have my
second journey to what I helieve to
he the fountains of The Nile.
J. H. Sreke,
Captain 4,6th Bengal K J.


358
[Sept.
A Dream of the Dead.
A nBEAM OF THE nEAn.
I DkeameD that I found my-
self suddenly in a placo which im-
pressed me with an instantaneous
sense of strangeness; it was liko
nothing I had ever seen. I then he-
came aware that my own state of
feeling was like nothing I had ever
felt. It was a sensation of inex-
pressihle physical relief; all ailment
to which I had heen familiarised, was
gone—gone all weariness, heaviness,
inertness of muscle, of nerve, of spi-
rit. Time and its effects palpahly—
ahruptly—lifted from mo as a load
may he lifted from the shoulders of a
tired and sinking man. I was con-
soious of an elasticity and lightness of
frame, to which that of a vigorous
sohoolhoy hounding into the play-
ground can he hut inadequately com-
pared. My first idea was that I
was made young again; my second
idea, which flashed on me as convic-
tion, made mo aware that I was dead.
I said to myself, "I am dead, and
amongst the dead." With that con-
sciousness came no awe, no fear, only
tho sensation of unutterahle strange-
ness, and a sentiment of intense ourio-
sity. The placo in which I stood was
the far end of an immense hall or
chamher,—so immense that it haffles
all attempt to convey a notion of the
space. Its walls were proportion-
ahly lofty, it was without roof;
ahove it a dull hlue sky, without
cloud, without sun, moon, or stars.
Along this hall human heings, dressed
as we dress in life, wore hurrying in
various groups or detachments. But
so vast was the place, that though I
was aware there were millions of
such heings within the walls, they
appeared like tiny rivulets ruuning
on tbrough a mighty plain. I hast-
ened towards one of these detach-
ments, accosted a man, and said,
"Ttll me, is it true that I am
dead?"
"You are dead, of course," said
the man impatiently, without stop-
ping. "And you, too? " I asked.
"All here are dead! We are Tho
Dead."
I caught tho man hy the arm,
which I felt inquisitively. I won-
dered to find it so material, contrary
to all my preconceived notions.
"But you are no spirit?" I said;
"this arm is flesh and hlood. Can
you explain?"
"Nothing is ever explained here,"
interrupted the man, shaking me off.
He hurried on after the rest, and dis-
appeared within what may he called
a doorway; hut there was no door.
There were many openings as for
doors in the hall—none of them had
doors. This also excited my curiosity.
Why no doors? I walked lightly
across the floor, pleased at the hrisk-
ness of my own step, and again I
accosted a fellow-inmate of this
strange place.
"I heg pardon," said I courteously,
"hut why is this hall left unfinished;
why no doors where these lofty open-
ings are left?"
"Find out for yourself; no explan-
ations are given here."
"Stop one moment, I am a
stranger just arrived. Many dear
friends have come here hefore me.
Tell me, I pray, how I am to find
them?"
"Find them 1 This is Infinity.
Those who move on never return to
the same place; those who come
after never catch up those who have
gone hefore."
"What! shall I never see even my
own mother?"
"Never. This is Eternity; once
lost, for ever lost."
"But my owu mother I What has
hecome of her? whither has she gone?"
"How do I know!"
"But I thall overtake her," I ex-
claimed angrily.
"And if you do?" said the man
drily, "you would not know each
other—you do not tear the same
hodies as you did in life. Perhaps
vou and I were intimate friends once.
You do not know me now, nor I yon.
No knowledge of each other amongst
The Dead."
The man hurried on tbrough the
opening. I was so amazed at what
he said that I awoke.
"This is the most extraordinary
dream," I said to myself, when awake.


1859.]
859
A Dream of the Dead.

"How I wish that I could continue
it!" In a few minutes I was asleep
again, and there I was—exactly in the
same place in that hall where the
man had left me, near the opening.
I followed a string of passengers
tbrough that opening into a narrow
corridor-—the same height of wall,
the same dull hlue sky overhead.
"How light it is," I said to a man
in the tbrong, "and yet there is no
sun, and no moon, and no stars. Is
it always as light here, and is this
day or is it night?"
"Neither day nor night. No day,
no night, to the dead. Time here is
dead too!"
I tried in vain to keep this man
in conversation. I tried in vain
to make friends with others; all
answered curtly and impatiently,
shaking me off and hurrying on.
What now hegan most to perplex
me, was the utter ahsence of all social
intercourse. No one seemed to talk
to another; no two persons walked
arm-in-arm. I said to myself—" In
any city on earth one stranger may
accost another, and get some infor-
mation what he is to do—where he
is to find a lodging. Society seems
dissolved here—every one for him-
self. It is well at least that I feel so
strong and so young."
I passed my hands over my limhs.
Yes, I was flesh and hlood. Sud-
denly I hegan to feel hungry. This
amazed me. Again I accosted one of
the tbrong. "Can it he true that one
feels hunger here? do the Dead know
hunger?"
"Hunger! of course; you have a
hody, have not you?"
"And how can one get food?"
"Find out for yourself."
"Stop, must one pay for it?"
"Pay! of oourse, of course; you
canuot roh The Dead." The man was
gone.
I hurried on with the hurrying
tbrong, and hegan to feel in my
pockets. In my right tronser pocket
I found a sovereigu and twelve
shillings in silver, exactly the sum
that I had in my pocket when I
went to hed the night of that dream.
Again I hegan to wonder, "How did
I hring this money with me, why no
more? Can I get no more money?
Is this all that is to provide for me
tbroughout eternity?" Several of
the crowd now stopped hefore a re-
cess in the corridor; in this recess
persons were serving out coffee,
which I ohserved those who took
paid for. I longed for the cofiee, hut
1 was seized with a prudent tbrift.
I thought, "I must not fritter away
any part of so small a sum, until I
know at least how to get more." I
resisted the coffee-shops, and con-
tinued to rove on—always in a huild-
ing, always in a lahyrinth of halls,
and chamhers, and passages. I oh-
served that none of them seemed
formed for residence, none of them
were furnished, except here and there
was a thin comfortless hench against
the tall undecorated wall. But
always, always a huilding—always,
always as within a single immea-
surahle house. I was seized with
an intense longing to get out. "If
I could hut find my way into the
fields," said I to myself—" if I could
hut wander into the country, I have
heen always so fond of nature."
Again I accosted a man. "How
can I get out of this huilding?"
"You can't get out of it, you are
dead."
"Yes, I know I am dead; hut I
still long to see Nature."
"There is no Nature here. Nature
is finite—this is infinity."
"But is infinity circumscrihed to
this huilding?—no escape from these
walls I Explain."
"Explain 1" interrupted the man
with great anger, as if I had uttered
something wicked; "nothing is ever
explained here. Wretch, leave me."
And the man hroke away.
I continued to stride on tbrough
the huilding, always trying to escape
out of it. Miles and miles, and
leagues and leagues, I went on —
always hetween those lofty walls,
under that unchangeahle sky. And
I could never get a peep into what
lay heyond; for to those walls there
were no windows.
I said to myself^ "If I were alive I
should have dropped with fatigue; hut
1 feel no fatigue—not the least tired.
Still, if I am to remain here, I should
like to have a quiet lodging to my-
self. Where can I rest?"
So again I stopped a man—I say
a man; for hitherto I had seen only


860
[Sept.
A Dream of the Dead.

men, no women—men much as one
sees every day in Oxford Street or
Cheapside. I stopped a man, say I?
The expression is incorrect: no man
ever stopped at my hidding, hut
walked on while I spoke, and only
walked faster when ho escaped. And
never again did I oome up to the
same man. Well, then, I accosted a
man :—" What are the rules of this
place? Can one have a home as on
earth ?—can I have a lodging to my-
self somewhere?"
"Of course yon can."
"Where shall I go for one ?—how
am I to contrive—?"
"Find ont for yourself; no one
helps another here."
"But stay. I have only got ahout
me one pound twelve. Is there dif-
ference of fortune in this place?—are
there wealth and poverty ?—do some
people come with more riches than
others?"
"To he sure."
"And is it as good a thing to he
rich here as it is on earth?"
"Better. Poverty here is dread-
ful; for here none lend, and none
give."
"I left a great deal of money he-
hind me; can't I get at it now?"
"Certainly not; you should have
hrought more."
"Alas 1 I did not know I was
coming here. But I am quick and
hardworking: I could make money
easily enough in the earth I came
from. Can money he made here?"
"Yes 1"
"How—how?"
"Find out for yourself."
The man escaped me.
I woke a second time, revolving
all I had seen in my dream, and
much struck hy the prosaic and
practical character of the whole.
"So very odd," I said, "that money
should he of use amongst the dead.
I will write down this dream to-
morrow morning;" and I hegan to
impress all its details on my memory.
While so employed I fell asleep
again, and again found myself ex-
aotly in the same spot on which I
had last stood in this singular dream.
I felt my pockets—only one pound
twelve still. "What a fool was I
not to take advantage of my waking,
and hring more money with me!" I
said with a sigh.
I now came into a desolate han-
quet-hall: in the midst was an im-
mense tahle, and several thousand
persons were sitting down to a feast.
I ohserved ornaments of plate on the
tahle, and great profusion of wine.
I approached; the tahle was full;
there was no room for me. And in-
deed, though still hungry, I had no
desiro to join the hanqueters. 1 felt
as if I were not of them; no social
sentiment hound me to them. But
now, for the first time, I perceived
women—women at the tahle. That
sight gave me pleasure. I hegan to
count them. At first I only distin-
guished one or two; gradually the
numher grew—so many that I ceased
to count. "Well," I said, "now I
shall see something like gallantry
and gaiety and affection amongst
The Dead." I was soon undeceived;
people ate and drank as on earth,
hut without mirth or talk — each
helping himself. The men had no
care for the women, the women had
no care for the men. A dreary con-
sciousuess that love existed not
Htnt The Dead came over me,
and I left the hanquet-hall. I now
came into another corridor, at the
end of which, to my great joy, I de-
scried what seemed a more open
space. I caught a glimpse of green
trees. A great tbrong was hurry-
ing towards this space. I pressed
forward in advance of the tbrong, and
entered first; hut I was disappoint-
ed: the space was still within the
huilding, the walls round it; only it
resemhled what the French call a
Place d'armcs. The trees, planted in
a formal row on either side, as they
are in a Place d'armeit, were small,
stunted, and the foliage clipped.
Looking more narrowly, I perceived
that they were not real trees, hut of
some painted metal; and 1 thought
of the words, "There is no nature
here." While I was thus gazing on
the trees, the lower end of this
court had hecome filled with the
crowd; and suddenly, from an open-
ing opi,osite to that hy which I and
the orowd had entered, I heard a re-
gular tramp as of the quick march
of soldiers, and presently a defile of


1859.]
361
A Dream of the Dead.

armed men came into tho Place—so
quickly that I had only time to draw
on one side to escape heing trodden
down. They hastened to the upper
part of the Place, and formed them-
selves at the word of command.
Then, for the first time, I felt fear;
for these soldiers did not seem to
me so human as all I had hitherto
seen. There was something preter-
human and ghastly in their aspect
and their movements. They were
armed with muskets. In another
moment, to my inconceivahle sur-
prise and horror, they fired upon
the crowd at the far end, and then
charged with the hayonet. They
came so close hy me, that I felt one
of the soldiers graze me. But I did
not recede; on the contrary, I put
myself somewhat in the way of the
charge. For my predominant senti-
ment tbroughout all this dream was
curiosity, and I wished to know if I
could he capahle of hodily wound or
hodily pain. But the soldiers spared
me, and charged only on the crowd
helow. In an instant the ground
was covered with victims—hruised,
wounded, groaning, sbrieking. This
exploit performed, the soldiers de-
parted down the passage they had
entered, as rapidly as they had
marched in.
It seemed to me that I felt no pity
for the crowd and no resentment
against the soldiers.- I only felt an
exceeding surprise. However, I ap-
proached the sufferers and said, "But
are you sensihle of wounds, heing
already dead?" A man, mangled
and lacerated, answered impatiently,
"Yes, yes—of course."
"But still, heing dead, you caunot
he killed, and that is some comfort."
I got no answer to this remark.
The sufferers gathered themselves up,
no one helping the other; and, limp-
ing and groaning, dispersed. I then
addressed a man who was one of the
few who were unhurt. He was taller,
of hetter mien, and with a less husy
and anxious expression of counte-
nance than those I had hitherto
questioned. He gave me the idea of
a person of rank.
"Sir," said I, insinuating into my
mauner all the polite respect I could
convey to it, "the appearance of
soldiers here has startled me; for
where there are soldiers there must
he law and Government. Hither-
to I have seen no trace of either.
Is there, then, a Government to
this place? Where can one see it?
Where does it reside? What are the
Laws? How can one avoid displeas-
ing them?"
"Find out," answered the man, in
the same form of words which had so
often chilled my questions, hut in a
milder voice.
"At all events, then, there is a
law of hrute force that prevails here
as on the earth," I said in extreme
wonder.
"Yes; hut on oarth it is under-
stood. Here nothing is explained."
"Can I know even why that
crowd was punished; whence the
soldiers came; whither they have
now gone?"
"Search—this is infinity. You
have leisure enough hefore you; you
are in eternity."
The man was gone. I passed very
timorously and very wistfully along
tho passage from which the soldiers
had emerged.
The ohject of my curiosity now
was, to get at tho seat of that Law of
Force which was so contrary to all
my preconceived opinions. I felt a
most awful consciousuess of uncer-
tainty. One might then, like that
crowd, at any time he punished;
one did not know wherefore. How
act so as to avoid offence? Whilo
thus musing the atmosphere seemed
darker, and I found that I was in a
very squalid part of the huilding; it
resemhled, indeed, the old lanes and
courts of St. Giles's (only still within
the mansion), and infinitely more
wretched.
"So then," I said, "I do see
poverty here at last," and I felt with
proud satisfaction my one pound
twelve. A miserahle-looking lad now
was heside me. He was resting on a
heap of hroken ruhhish. Looking at
him I ohserved that he was deform-
ed, hut not like any deformity I
had seen in the living. I caunot de-
scrihe how the deformity differed,
except that he showed me his hands,
and they were not like human hands,
hut were distorted into shapeless


86S
[Sept.
A Dream of the Dead.

knots and lumps. And I said, "No
wonder you are poor, for you caunot
work with those hands. Man's phy-
sical distinction from the hrutes is
chiefly in the formation of his hand.
Your hand is not the hand of man."
And the lad laughed, and that was
the first laugh I had heard amongst
the dead.
"But are you not very unhappy?"
said I in amaze.
"Unhappy 1 No! I am dead."
"Did you hring your infirmities
with you, or did you contract them
here?*
"Here!"
I was appalled.
"How? hy what misfortune or
what sin?"
The lad laughed again, and jump-
ing off his hlock of ruhhish, sidled
away, mocking at me as he went
with a vulgar gesture.
"Catch me at explaining," said he,
and was lost.
Now a sort of despair, hut an in-
tellectual despair, seized me. I say
intellectual, for with all my amaze
and all l11y sense of solitude in that
crowd, I never felt sad nor unhappy;
on the contrary, I kept constantly
saying to myself, "After all, it is a
great thing to have done with life.—
And to feel so well and so young!"
But my intellect oppressed me; it was
in my way; my curiosity was so in-
tense, my perplexities so unsolved,
even hy conjecture.
I got out of the squalid part of the
huilding; and in a small lohhy I
encountered a solitary heing like
myself. I joined him.
I said, "You and I seem hoth
alone in this vast space. Can we not
explore it in company?"
"Certainly not; my way is not
your way, nor yours mine. No two
have the same paths tbrough in-
finity."
"But," said I, angrily, "I always
understood on the earth, that when
we left it we should come into a re-
gion of spirits. Where are the angels
to guide us? I see them not. I
have seen poverty and suffering, and
hrute force. But of hlessed spirits
ahove mankind, I have heheld none.
And if this he infinity, such spirits
must he here."
"Find them out for yourself then,
as I must find them out for myself.
This is my way, that is yours."
"One word more; since I caunot
discover those who have gono hefore
me, whom I loved, I will wait for
some one whom I have left on earth,
and he will he my companion, for he
will he as strange to this place as I
am, and will want a friend, as I
want some one. Tell me where I can
watch and see the dead come here
from life."
"Yes, that J can tell yon. There
are plenty of places in which you will
see the dead drop down — there is
such a place close hy. You see that
passage; take it, and go straight
on."
I did as the man told me. I came
to an open space always hetween
hlind walls, hut the outer wall seemed
far loftier, soaring up, and soaring
up, till the dull hlue sky that rested
on it appeared immeasurahly re-
mote.
And down at my feet from this
wall dropped a man. '' You are one
of the dead," said I, approaching
anxiously, "just left the world of
the living?"
He seemed hewildered for a mo-
ment; at last he answered, ruhhing
his eyes, and in a kind of dreamy
voice, "Yes, I am dead."
"Let us look at each other," said
I; "perhaps we were friends in
life."
We did look at each other with-
out recoguition. But, indeed, as
I had heen told, not amongst the
myriads I had met, had I recog-
nised one heing I had ever known on
earth.
"Well," said I, " this is the strangest
place! There is no getting on in it
alone; no one will put you into the
way of things. Let you and I he
friends now, whatever we were hefore.
Tnla, my arm; we caunot fail to he
more comfortahle if we keop to-
gether."
The man, who seemed half asleep,
took my arm, and we went on to-
gether. I was very much pleased and
exceedingly proud to have found at
last a companion. I told him of all I
had witnessed and experienced, of all
my douhts and perplexities. He li:-t-


1859.]
363
The Election Petitions.— Who doe* the Brihery?

ened with very little interest or atten-
tion, still I was glad that I had got
him safe hy the arm.
"I don't think it is such a had
place," said I, "if one could once get
into the way of it. Bat the first
thing is to find a lodging to our-
selves; and are you not hungry? I
am. By the hy, what money have
you hrought with you?"
Thereon my man looked at me sus-
piciously, and extricating himself
from my arm, hroke off; and though
I hastened to follow him, he was lost
la the infinity, and I felt that I was
once more amidst infinity—dead and
alone.
So I awoke, and I wrote down this
dream just as it happened; and at-
tempting no explanation, for no ex-
planation was given to me.
I1ermiDks.
THE ELECTION PETITIONS.
WHO nOJS TBE sRIsERY i
The country is hegiuning to find
out what it owes to the Coalition
Cahinet and its motley mass of Lihe-
ral supporters. In order to replace
the Whig chiefs in office,—in order
that Louis Napoleon might again see
the author of the Conspiracy Bill at
the head of the British Government,
—and in order that Lord John Rus-
sell might once more exhihit how
easily he is overreached hy foreigu
diplomatists,—for these several rea-
sons, of which the first is of course
the chief, the Liheral party oomhined
to cut short the career of the Con-
servative Administration, and there-
hy flung hack into the void the many
excellent measures, of legal and other
reform, which that Administration
had introduced. For this the coun-
try has had no equivalent. As re-
gards foreigu affairs, every one knows
in what a hlundering and offensive
position the peace of Villufranca has
placed the British Government in
the eyes of Europe. And if we turn
for compensation to home affairs,
what do we find? Nothing. Not a
single measure has heen proposed hy
the new Cahinet. They do not appear
to have given a single successful
thought to the work of internal im-
provement. Possihly the occupants
of Downing Street had too much to
do in keeping on good terms with
one another, to have any sparo
strength left to devote to the inte-
rests of the puhlic. Yet the session,
after all, has not heen wholly uupro-
fitahle. It has cleared the puhlic
apprehension upon something more
than the administrative incapacity
of the Ministry; for it has made
plain, also, the disgraceful corruption
of the Liheral party and the hypo-
critical effrontery of the Liheral
chiefs. The session has heen short,
hut it has served to exhihit the Lihe-
ral party in an aspect which the coun-
try will not soon forget. It hegan
amidst a chorus of Liheral invectives
against the Conservative Ministry for
corrupting the constituencies; it has
ended amidst a wail of the Liherals
over lost seats, lost money, lost repu-
tation; and some of them, professors
of most Pharisaic purity, are now go-
ing ahout in a state of moral unclean-
ness which no amount of whitewash-
ing will ever cover any more. Even
the house of Bright has fallen into a
lamentahle state of impurity. And
that Brutus of politics, so implacahle
towards the fahulous failings of his
opponents, ought now to stand forth as
the moral executioner of those of his
own household. It is a pretty spec-
tacle for those who have hitherto he-
lieved that the purity of the Liherals
corresponded with their glowing pro-
fessions. The Liheral journals are
silent on the suhject. It is a disgrace
too deep to he apologised for—the
facts are too indisputahle to he ex-
plained away. In some quarters, in-
deed, it is faintly suggested that this
is the first time Liheralism has lost
her virtue. But the examination made
hy the Parliamentary Committees de-
monstrates authoritatively that this
is no virgin lapse, and that the illicit
counection hetween Liheralism and
hrihery has heen carried on for a long
time. The evidence of this is so


364
[Sept.
The Election Petitions.— Who does the Brihery t

strong, that the Daily News prefers
to make a clean hreast of it. With
a naivete that certainly horders on
the coolest effrontery, it admits that
"the old system of management has
hroken down!"—and that the "seats
lost to the Liherals hy the decisions
of the Committees" show plainly that
some other kind of "management"
must he had recourse to. Are the Jo-
seph Surfaces of Liheralism at length
going to open their eyes to the truth
that honesty is the hest policy, and
that instead of professing so much
virtue they would do hetter to prac-
tise a little of it?
"Organised calnmny," as Roebuck,
who knows them well, has told us, is
the forte of the Whig party. It is
an engine of party which they have
ever worked most assiduously, and
upon which they place great reliance
in all their contests with their rivals.
It is their Armstrong gun, hrought
ont on all occasions when the tide of
hattle tbreatens to go against them.
And its volleys, it must he admitt -d,
are very effective; for as long as a
party which panders to the masses,
and whose grand professions of prin-
ciple have not heen found out to he
hut a whitewash over corruption, fills
the journals with calumnies against
its opponents, the puhlic seldom fails
to helieve the greater part of what it
is told. Four months ago the Liheral
party were in a most excited state of
mingled hope and desperation. They
had heen looking forward to the Min-
isterial Reform Bill as a question
which would surely reinstate them in
power; hut after playing their trump-
card upon it, they found themselves
sent hack to their constituencies, witli
the puhlic mind showing symptoms
of its inclination to turn against them.
In this emergency their Armstrong
gun of calumny was hrought out as
usual, and Sir James Graham took
upon himself to fire the first round.
How, consistently with any feeling of
personal integrity, Sir James Graham
could conduct himself in the mauner
he did, we do not pretend to explain.
On the hustings of Carlisle, elated at
his nephew's heing returned to Parlia-
ment along with him, one would have
thought that the milk of human kind-
ness would havo displaced for a mo-
ment that soured and hitter spirit pro-
duced in him hy his recent political
isolation. Not so. His old friends,
Lord Derhy and the Conservatives,
hade fair to win the day; and with an
intensity of hate which none hut an
apostate can feel, Sir James roused
himself to spoil their triumph. Call-
ing to his aid the most daring ca-
lumny, and appealing to the iguorant
prejudices of tho masses, he accused
the Government of the most flagi-
tious practices for corrupting tho
constituencies. Hundreds of thou-
sands of pounds, he told his audience,
had heen suhscrihed hy the Tories to
hny votes and "foully pack the new
Parliament." Lord Derhy himself, he
said, hoasted that he had suhscrihed
£20,000 for that iniquitous purpose.
Sir John Pakington, as First Lord of
the Admiralty, was making an extra-
ordinary expenditure of the puhlic
money for the purpose of securing ad-
ditional votes in the seaports. Gen-
eral Pool, the Secretary at War, was
huilding useless harracks at Berwick,
in order to hny up that constituency;
and, in order to secure the totes of the
puhlicans and iunkeepers all over the
country, the rate of hillet-money, said
Sir James, had heen trehled, hy an
arhitrary act of the Government.
Fiftbly, a compact had heen made
with the Pope, hy the promise of
another Catholic University in Ire-
land. And sixtbly, there was the
Galway contract, of which Sir James
said—"It would have heen cheaper
for the people of England to give the
Government £100,000 capital to he
expended as secret service money in
huying up the Galway votes and de-
hauching the voters, rather than this
£70,000 under contract for seven
years 11" We do not know where to
find a parallel to the exhihition which
this hitter and unscrupulous old man
made on the hustings of Carlisle. He,
a Privy Councillor of her Majesty,
dared openly and ostentatiously to
charge the Government, collectively
and severally, with acts of gross
political corruption, practised with a
view "foully to pack the now
Parliament:" and yet every charge
which he made was, to use Dis-
racli's well-merited epithet, "an im-
pudent fahrication." Lord Derhy
had never suhscrihed £20,000, nor
£10,000, nor £5,000; and the fahulous
sums alleged to have heen suhscrihed
hy the Carlton Cluh existed nowhere


1859.]
3 Co
The Election Petition*.— Who does the Brihery?

save in the heated and rancorous
imagination of the veteran Memher
for Carlisle. The huilding of har-
racks at Berwick, and the extraor-
dinary expenditure of the Admiralty,
were pure inventions. An "Inde-
pendent Liheral" himself came for-
ward to approve most higbly of the
Gal way contract; not a trace of
hrihery was alleged to have taken
place at the Galway election, and the
town returned an oppositionist as
hefore. No promise had heen made
of a new university to Ireland; and
as to the compact with the Pope, the
election riots at Limerick (of which
we shall speak hy-and-hy) at once
sent that calumny into ohlivion.
Lastly, as regards the increase of the
hillet-money—which Sir James de-
clared had heen made hy an arhitrary
and unjustifiahle act of the Govern-
ment, and with a view to influence the
elections,—that increase had heen re-
commended hy a Parliamentary com-
mittee, and had actually heen intro-
duced into the Mutiny Act, and voted
hy the House of Commons, hefore
there was any expectation of a disso-
lution at all I Such were the fahri-
cations set afloat hy the Knight of
Netherhy, and which were assiduous-
ly kept up as long as possihle hy the
Liheral journals. No one envied Sir
James Graham's position when Par-
liament reassemhled. He had heen
called to account hy Sir John Paking-
ton and General Peel, and had to
withdraw his calumnies in the news-
papers; and on the very first night
of the session Lord Uerhy gave him
an equally flat contradiction, which
he had likewise to swallow with
whatever grace was left him. No
wonder, then, that when at length he
rose in his place, smarting under the
cutting sarcasms of the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, and complained of his
"painful position," and of Mr. Dis-
racli's remarks as a hreach of "the
estahlished rule among gentlemen"
he was met hy the scornful laugh of
the House, and was only tolerated to
a close on account of his age and long
service in the councils of the nation.
Lord Palmerston likewise took up
the cry of corruption against the Min-
istry,—confining himself, however,
with due caution, to a vague allega-
tion, and avoiding that " condescend-
ing upon particulars " which hrought
the reckless Knight of Netherhy to so
much grief. In concert with his
party, the nohle Visoount took his
part in the plan of " organised calum-
ny" directed against the Conservative
Ministry. And when Parliament
met, those who were present on the
night of the 7th June will rememher
the grand how-wow mauner in which
the present Premier gave the House
to understand that if he did not ut-
terly overwhelm the Ministry with
proofs of their electoral corruption,
it was only hecause he was merciful,
and would not do so just yet. "The
dissolution," he said, " was a culpahle
proceeding,—it was sacrificing what
might eventually have heen great
national interests, in order to scram-
hle for a few votes at different hus-
tings. The right hon. gentleman
spoke with great levity of the charges
made against the Government for
irregular practices at the elections in
certain parts of the country. I am
not going to enter into that question
now. But I will venture to tell him
[here the nohle Viscount gave a most
meaning and mysterious shake of the
head and right arm] that, hefore any
great length of time has passed, there
will he plenty of occasions—many
more, perhaps, than will he agree-
ahle to hon. gentlemen opposite—
when that suhject will he hrought
under our notice." It stands recorded
in the 'Times that the only ostensihle
effect which this produced in the
House was "a laugh"—which we
are free to admit came from the Con-
servatives, who knew that it was all
hlank-cartridge work, desigued to
make a noise and smoke for the mo-
ment. That stanch Whig official,
Mr. Wilson, followed suit, and in
hueking up the inueudoes_of his chief,
made special allusion to the hardship
which the "sinful" Ministry had in-
flicted upon himself. "He main-
tained that the dissolution was a sin-
ful and unworthy act. In his own
case (he said) the whole weight aud
strength of the Government were
hrought to hear to induce his consti-
tuents to return a verdict in their
favour; and it might he his duty to
hring hefore the House the mauner
in which the whole strength of the
Government had heen hrought to
hear against him." Mr. Wilson's
opinions of duty apparently altered,


360
[Sept.
The Election Petitions.— Who doe* the Brihery t

for he never favoured the House with
any further allusion to the hardships
which lie had so patriotically endured
and trinmphantly overcome. But,
as the hest comment on his com-
plaint, we may mention that when
a new election shortly afterwards
took place, the Conservatives stood
higher on the poll than hefore; so
that whereas in April, the Liherals
were ahead hy 123, at the election
after the new Ministry was in power
the majority of the Liheral candidate
was only 49!
Little as the Derhy Administration
and its supporters cared for these
charges, knowing them to he a mero
sham on the part of their opponents,
yet the sham served Lord Palmer-
ston and hia Whig friends very well.
It was known that there were a good
many waverers in the Liheral camp;
and how could they he hetter secured
than hy daring them to vote for a
Ministry which had exercised such
extraordinarily gross corruption, and
whose majority, if they were even to
get one, would soon he turned into a
minority hy the damaging exposures
hefore the Election Committees? Mr.
Laing honestly confessed that he
voted against the Ministry with the
greatest reluctance, and only httHH
he thought himself hound hy personal
honour to vote with his party; and
many others voted in a similar frame
of mind—the only issue pre>en.ted to
them hy their leaders heing, whether
they would have a Liheral Govern-
ment, or, in the face of the country,
show themselves supporters of a Tory
Ministry which had heen hrihing
right and left, and dehauching the
constituencies? As the result of these
tactics the Conservative Ministry was
outvoted hy 13,—a narrow majority
at hest, hut worth nothing as a stahle
source of strength, seeing that while
the Conservatives form a compact
phalanx, the Liheral party is split
into most discordant sections. But
ere the session ended, that majority,
small as it was, had all hut sunk to
zero. It soon hecame evident that
memhers had voted against the Min-
istry on the 10th of June who had no
right to vote, or even to he in the
House at all. No sooner did the
Election Committees hegin their
work than the "deil's dozen," who
had placed Lord Palmerston in
power, were found to he "men of
straw "—most of them having got
their seats hy the most shameless
hrihery. And on the 11th of Await
—exactly two months after the Lihe-
ral journals aunounced the'defeat of
the Conservatives, the same journals
had to confess that eight of the Lihe-
ral majority had heen unseated for
hrihery, and that two of the seats thus
rendered vacant had heen gained hy
Conservatives; while the elevation of
Mr. Lahouchere to the peerage had
given another gain to the Conserva-
tives at Taunton! In other words,
exactly two months aiter the Liherals
had replaced themselves in otiieo hy
a majority of 13, that majority had
heen reduced hy the dcci-ions of
committees and new elections to only
one; and the Liherals who had heen
so hoastful of their own virtue, and
so profuse in charges of corruption
against their opponents, were them-
selves found to have heen the very
chief of siuners 1 Well might the
Daily Al'ics, on the twelfth of Au-
gus , thus lament over the havoc, that
was then taking place, not on the
moors, hut in the committee-rooms!
"It is pretty clear that the pMseBt
s_\-tein of what is called managing
elections, as far as the Liheral party
is concerned, will never do. Seat
after seat has heen lost to the Lihe-
rals hy the decisions of commit-
tees, while the Conservatives have
hitherto managed to ese.ipe. And
what is far worse, of the new elections
that have taken place, two out of
tbree have resulted in the suhstitution
of adversaries for friends. In a word,
the old system of management has
hroken down." "For the lirst time in
half a century Taunton is now repre-
sented hy two opponents. As for
Dartmouth, after a vain show of
fight, it was unaccountahly ahandoned
to the enemy. We caunot refrain
from asking plainly, why was this?
The last election for Dartmouth was
declared void on account of hrihery:
Wa s it thought inexpedient to risk
another show-up next session?"
There was little doing in the House
of Commons during the last fortnight
of the session, hut any one was well
repaid for his tronhle who, during
that period, visited the committee-
rooms. .We say trouhle, for the
thing had its discomforts as well as


1859.]
367
The Election Petitions.— Who does the Brihery t

its amusement. If one of the puhlic,
and not of the privileged few who
had access within the harrier, after
squeezing yourself in at the door,
you found yourself in the midst of
a perspiring crowd filling one side
of a spacious chamher overlooking
the pestiferous Thames. At a tahle
within the harrier sit the memhers
of the committee, and facing them the
legal gentlemen, and the unhappy
witness whom for the time they
happen to have upon the rack. The
greater part of the petitions against
the return of the Conservatives had
heen withdrawn. They were got up
merely with a view to direct preju-
dice against the Conservative Minis-
try at the opening of the session, and,
having served this purpose, were im-
mediately ahandoned. Therefore it
was Conservative petitions against
Liheral memhers that formed the hulk
of the first cases tried. And foremost
on the list is the Wakefield petition,
charging Mr. Bright's hrother-in-law,
W. Ii. Leatham, with having unlaw-
fully ohtained the seat hy means of
hrihery. Here the Committee heg
the hon. gentleman to inform them
whether it is the case that £1100
have heen spent in securing his
return, and make inquiries as to
who were the fortunate recipients
of this "liheral" dishursement. To
which the hrother-in-law of the
immaculate Mr. Bright replied that
"he had paid Mr. Wainwright (his
agent) two cheques—one for £200,
and the other for £500; in addition,
the expenses accounted for to the
auditor were upwards of £400; and
he helieved there were some small
accounts still unsettled." As to how
the money had gone, was a very pain-
ful hranch of the inquiry; and the
stanchest old Tory could hardly have
helped commiserating this "advanced
Liheral" in his humiliating dilemma.
On the famous 10th of June Mr. W.
H. Leatham could not constrain him-
self to give a silent vote against the
Ministry. A Reformer so illustri-
ously counected as he, and speoially
deputed to second his hrother-in-law
in his crusade against aristocratic
influence and corruption, he must
tell tho House why he condemned
the Ministry. "As a new memher,"
he said, "he felt the grave responsi-
hility of the vote he was called upon
to give. But he was sent to Parlia-
ment on one question—that of politi-
cal reform ; and on the ground of
that question ho must vote against
the Government. They failed in
their measure of Reform, and he he-
lieved the forty-shilling freeholders
would never forget the insult which
that measure put upon them." Here,
then, was a special champion of Re-
form—one whose deputed mission it
was to free the constituencies from
the hrihes, and the country from the
rule, of the corrupt Conservatives.
But very uncomfortahle does he look
now, though seated in the softest of
easy-chairs; and those who look on
hegin to understand why he should
he so eager a champion of the horough
freemen—those heing notoriously the
class of all others most accessihle to
hrihes. Wakefield is ono of the
horoughs created hy the Reform Bill
of 1832, and Mr. Leatham is a politi-
cal puritan of the most " advanced"
school—a relative and chosen lieu-
tenant of Mr. Bright's; yet what do
we find proved of this Reform
horough and Reform champion?
Tho evidence adduced hefore the
Committee clearly estahlished the
prevalence of the most disgraceful
corruption on the part of the Liheral
memher—the tariff of hrihery ranging
from £10 to £30 for a vote, accord-
ing to the hour of the day and the
aspect of the poll. And the Com-
mittee found and declared, "That
it was proved to them that Thomas
Beaumont has heen hrihed hy the
payment of £10; that John Jackson
has heen hrihed hy the payment of
£30; that John Cousins has heen
hrihed hy the payment of £25; and
that George Senior has heen hrihed
hy the payment of £30." And their
unanimous decision is, "That William
Heury Leatham was hy his agents
guilty of hrihery at the last election
for the horough of Wakefield;" that
therefore "he is not duly elected to
serve in the present Parliament;" and
"that the last election for the said
horough is a void election." While
this exposure was overwhelming
the house of Bright, in another room
another committee was pronouncing
a similar sentence upon another Li-
heral,—declaring that Mr. Schenley
VOL. LXXXVL
24


368
[Sept.
The Election Petition*.— Who doe* the Brihery t

was not <Inly elected for Dartmouth,
hecause he also, hy his agents, had
heen guilty of hrihery. Ahout the
same time two of the petitions pre-
sented hy the Liherals against Conser-
vative memhers /ailed,—at the same
time involving another Liheral in the
sentence of corruption: Mr. Astell was
declared duly elected for Ashhurton;
and for Ayleshury, Mr. Bernard and
Mr. Smith (Conservatives) were also
found duly elected; while the elec-
tion of Wentworth (Liheral) was pro-
nounced void, as hrihery had heen
practised hy his agent.
The Gloucester case cost the
Liherals two more seats, and more
disgrace. The disclosures were droll
as well as startling. It appears that
the state of parties in Gloucester is
nearly halanced, andjj the hetter class
of Liherals had resolved not to at-
tempt to monopolise hoth seats. But
there is a Reform Cluh in Gloucester,
and this resolve did not tally with
their wishes—whatever their wishes
may have heen. A deputation from
the cluh accordingly proceed to Lon-
don, and under their patronage Mr.
Monk icame down to canvass the
horough. The tactics adopted on his
side appear to have heen very simple.
It was openly proclaimed that "if
money couid do it, Mr. Monk would
win;" and the local journal on the
Liheral side siguificantly aunounced
that, in addition to his other pre-
eminent excellences, Mr. Monk had a
father-in-law who was a milliounaire,
and from whom great things might
he expected if Mr. Monk were re-
turned. A great change now took
place on the part of the leading
Liherals, who had hitherto kept aloof
from the intruder; and Mr. Price,
their candidate—and who might still
have heen one of the memhers for
Gloucester hut for this suicidal step
—now camo forward to "sail in the
same hoat" with the long-pursed Mr.
Monk. From this time up to the
election, tbreats, hrihes, and per-
suasive supplies of drink were em-
ployed on the side of the Liherals,
who talked openly of the necessity of
"fighting the Tories with their own
weapons!" Their method of doing
this was to hand over large sums to
several trusted individuals, each of
whom was expected to secure a
given numher of votes—the residue
of these large sums (if any) apparently
going into the pockets of the trusted
individuals. The chief persons who
figured in this process of "farming"
hritiery were a grocer, a hookseller,
a Mr. Wilton, "doctor to the Reform
Cluh," and a Mr. Jacohs "of the
'Little Dustpan.'" These individuals
seem to have found that it was no
easy matter satiating the love of lucre
on the part of the free and indepen-
dent Liherals of Gloucester; for we
find in the evidence that the grocer
soon professed himself run dry, that
the surgeon was hled to exhaustion,
and the "Little Dustpan" quite
cleaned out. In this extremity an
agent, Clark, from London, arrived
on the scene, and with him a Mr.
Thompson, who was a very suh-
stantial existence for the time, hut
who has now vanished into a mere
golden myth,—nohody knowing what
has hecome of him, and Mr. Monk
deponing that ho never once heard of
him hefore? This mythical heing,
however, hrought with him fresh
supplies of "the needful," and re-
vived the exhausted hopes of the
local agents hy assuring them that
he can get £1000 more than he
hrought with him: and among other
dishursements, Mr. Clark depones
that after the first hour's polling,
"Thompson paid Wilton £50 more."
We need not go farther into the
curious details of this shameless cor-
ruption; hut we have shown enough
of it to satisfy any one that the Com-
mittee did not judge harsbly when
they decided that the election was
null and void, and that hoth of the
Liheral sitting memhers had heen
guilty of hrihery tbrough their agents.
The case of Norwich was equally
damaging (costing them two votes)
and disgraceful to the Liheral party.
Here we shall content ourselves with
quoting the decision of the Committee,
which ran as follows:—
"That Mr.IL W. Schneider is not duly
eleoted a citizen to serve in the present
Parliament for the city and the county
of the city of Norwich. That the Hon.
W. Coutta Keppel, commonly called
Lord Bury, was not duly elected at the
election held on the 3atii of April 1859,
a citizen to serve in the present Parlia-
ment for the said city and the county of
the said city of Norwich. That the said
H. W. Schneider and Vitcount Bury


1859.]
369
The Election Petitions.—Who does the Brihery*

were, hy their agents, guilty of hrihery at
the last-mentioned election. That it was
proved to the committee that Sterner had
heen hrihed hy the payment tf £5, and
tltat several other persons had heen hrihed
with various amounts; hut it was not
proved to the committee that the ahove-
mentioned hrihery was committed with
the knowledge and consent of the said
H. W. Schneider and Viscount Bury.
That it appears to the committee that
Rohert French voted for H. \V. Schnei-
der in expectation of receiving a contri-
hution, hy witnesses alleged to have
heen promised to him hy the said H. W.
Schneider, towards losses incurred hy
his hrother at a fire. That H. W. Schnei-
der did, hy a letter dated the 28th of
May, suhsequent to the election, under-
take to forward tbrough his agents a
contrihution to the said Rohert French;
hut that no contrihution was actually
paid. The committee are not satisfied,
however, in the ahove-mentioned evi-
dence, that the ahove was intended as
a corrupt agreement on the part of the
said II. W. Schneider."
The Beverley case also was one in
which the Conservative petitioners
were successful. In this election the
Liherals conducted their hrihery
more cautiously, and chiefly hy pay-
ing freemen of the horough exor-
hitant wages for doing nominally
the work of messengers. Also the
polling-clerks, who were voters, were
paid tbree guineas, while those who
were not voters received only one
guinea. In this case Mr. Walters,
the Liheral, was ejected, and Major
Edwards, the Conservative, main-
tained his seat.
Let us now glance at some of the
cases in which hrihery was proved
against the Liherals, yet the Memhers
were allowed to retain their seats.
And first on this list, as on the former
one, comes a hrother-in-law of Mr.
Bright—Mr. E. A. Leatham, hrother
of the ejected Memher for Wakefield,
and sitting himself for Huddersfield.
Brihery here took rather a comical
form—much of it heing done hy
giving overprices for pigs, and
hy making anti-temperance pre-
sents of harrels of heer I The
deoision of the committee was as
follows: "That it was proved to your
committee that George Moxon and
John Chapman were hrihed to vote
for Edward Aldham Leatham hy
Jahez Wells, hy the payment of £10
more than the market value of some
pigs. That Joseph Crossley had heen
hrihed hy one Edward Frith to vote
at the last election, under a promise
that part of his house would he used
as a committee-room. That Godfrey
Hudson, a puhlican, had heen hrihed
hy Jahez Wells for a like purpose.
That Heury Partridge had heen
hrihed hy John Wilson for a like pur-
pose. That Joseph Hohhison had
heen hrihed for the like purpose.
That Aquila Priestly had heen hrihed
with half a harrel of heer. That there
was no evidence that such acts of
hrihery had taken place with the
knowledge of E. A. Leatham," and
therefore that he "was duly elected."
After the elections, Mr. Bright, in the
fulness of his heart, hoasted that he
would now walk into the House of
Commons with a hrother-in-law on
each arm. He little thought how
soon one of these relations was to he
walked out of the House in a very
summary and humiliating way; and
how the other, though escaping ejec-
tion, must ever he ridiculous to the
risihle, and offensive to the moral,
faculties of the House, on account of
the han-els of heer and the corrupt
traffic in the "unclean animal" to
which he owed his election. The
Maidstone case was another in which
the Liheral Memhers escaped in a
mauner not very creditahle to tho
Committee, and very discreditahle
to them. For the Committee testi-
fied that it was proved to them
"that Heury Smith, an elector, was
hrihed on his own confession hy a
sum of £10; and that Richard Rose
and J. Honey, two other electors
who voted for the sitting Memhers,
were paid 25s. each after voting, for
travelling-expenses; hut that none
of the transactions referred to were
done with the knowledge or consent
of the sitting Memhers or their
agents!" How disinterested in their
corrupt expenditure some Liherals
mnst he, when they hny up votes
without having the least counection
with the candidate or his agents!
The scandal of these cases was
great; hut—mai^el of marvels!—
who should come forward to vindi-
cate them hut the immaculate John
Bright himself. And this is the


870
[Sept.
The Election Petitions.-*Wlw does the Brihery?

way in which lie seeks to whitewash
the soiled reputation of his two re-
latives and their fellow-siuners:—
"A man comes into this House—a
great many men can hardly tell how
they get here—and he finds that
some friends of his, in their zeal and
in the heat of the contest, have done
things which are imprudent. I ad-
mit that many Memhers who are
presumed to know very little do
know a great deal of these matters.
At the same time, a numher may he
returned hy means which a Parlia-
mentary Committee would not sanc-
tion, and yet he iguorant of those
means having heeu exerted." Of
course, as an hypothesis, this is not
altogether impossihle. But certainly
it is not often that a man's friends
will draw cheques and spend money
on his hehalf without giving him
even a hint of their henevolence.
Only fancy a pure and incorruptihle
Liheral of the "advanced" type,
who is resolved to fight the hattle
on the highest principles, and yet—
in his despite and without his know-
ledge—his friends go ahout spending
their money on his hehalf, tbrusting
pound-notes into teapots and other
odd places, exhilarating the voters
hy presents of harrels of heer, and
making purchases of pigs at trehle
their value! To complete the hur-
lesque of all prohahility, it only need-
ed that John Bright should thus
come forward to champion the cause
of those Memhers, whom he helieves
to have suffered so much from the
ohstinate over-heuevolence of their
friends. The case of his two hrothers-
in-law appears to have touched his
heart.
Petitions again>t Conservative
Memhers, we have said, were ahan-
doned wholesale-; and in the cases
which were proceeded with—namely,
those of North Leicestershire, Ash-
hurton, Ayleshury, and Beverley, the
Conservatives came off in trinmph.
The only case in which a Committee
decided against a Conservative Mem-
her, was that of Hull. Mr. Hoare,
who was returned for that horough at
the Geneial Election, is descrihed hy
the matter-of-fact l)od as "a very
moderate Conservative;" hut appa-
rently the committees were glad to
get hold of any sort of a Conservative,
in order that it might not he said that
while so many Liherals fell, not a
single Conservative shared their fate.
Mr. Hoare, it seems to us, had a very
scrimp measure of justice dealt out
to him. And in saying this, we do
so deliherately, and with express
reference to parallel cases in which
Liheral memhers were allowed to
retain their seats. In Mr. Hoare's
case no direct acts of hrihery were
even alleged; hut it was charged
against him that too many "mes-
sengers, canvassers, hooth-clerks, and
check-clerks, were employed hy his
party." The canvass and elec-
tion contest was a pretty long one,
lasting nearly tbree weeks, and dur-
ing that time these messengers, <fcc.,
were employed, some for two, tbree,
or four days, others for the whole
time, at the not very exorhitant wage
of from 2s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. a-day. Their
numher also was less than that em-
ployed during the same period hy the
Liheral side—that is to say, hy Mr.
Clay, Mr. Hoare's Liheral colleague,
who was allowed to retain his seat,
and hy Mr. Lewis, the defeated Lih-
eral candidate, whose friends thus
petitioned against Mr. Hoare's re-
turn. Nevertheless Mr. Hoare lost
his seat,—and this although the
committee declared that the em-
ployment of this undue numher of
messengers, &c, was not done "hy
or with the consent of the said
Joseph Hoare, Esq., who shoved great
anxiety to check any illegal pro-
ceedings in respect to the said elec-
tion.'' Now compare this decision
with those of the committees on the
Maidstone and Huddersfield election
cases. The Maidstone committee
decided that "Heury Smith, who
voted for the sitting memhers, was
proved, on his own admission, to
have heen hrihed hy the sum of £10."
And the Huddersfield committee
decided that "it was proved that
George Moxon and John Chapman
were hrihed to vote for E. A. Lea-
tham, hy Jahez Wells, hy the pay-
ment of £10 more than the market
value of some pigs; that Joseph
Crossley had heen hrihed hy one
Edward Frith to vote at the last
election under the promise that part
of his room should he used as a com-
mittee-room; that Godfrey Hudson,


1859.]
371
The Election Petitiont.—Who does the Brihery t

a pnhlican, had heen hrihed hy Jahez
Wells for a like purpose*; that Heury
Partridge had heen hrihed hy John
Wilson for a like purpose; that
Joseph Hohhison had heen hrihed
for the like purpose; that Aquila
Priestly had heen hrihed with half
a harrel of heer." But they held that
Mr. Leatham -was "duly elected,"
on the ground "that there was no
evidence that such acts of hrihery
had taken place with his knowledge."
Thus then, at Maidstone and Hud-
dersfleld, tbree Liheral Memhers were
held to he duly elected, although
most flagrant cases of hrihery were
committed on their hehalf; whereas
at Hull Mr. noare was unseated
simply for having had too many hired
messengers, &c, although this was
not done "hy or with his consent,"
and although the Committee were
forced to add (what was not said for
the Liheral Memhers for Maidstone
and Huddersfield), that Mr. Hoare
"showed great anxiety to check any
illegal proceedings in respect to the
said election" This Hull case was
one of the very last decided; and it
seems impossihle to douht that the
Committee entered upon its lahours
with a predetermination, if possihle,
to offer up one Conservative—even
though only "a very moderate" one
—to the manes of the eight advanced
Liherals who had heen unseated.
The result of the new election at Hull,
however, has proved how entirely in-
dependent either of hrihery or of Gov-
ernment influence was Mr. Hoare's
success; for not only has a Conser-
vative heen again elected, hut the
Conservative majority, which was 310
in April, has now swelled to 489!
Let us give one glance more at
theso election-cases. Take the Lim-
erick case, in which the Conserva-
tives petition to have the election
declared void on account of the vio-
lent riots which took place, hy which
many Conservative voters were pre-
vented from polling. Mr. Spaight
was the Conservative candidate,—
Major Gavin was the Liheral one;
and the proceedings show that, what-
ever Lord Granville chose to say to
the contrary, if any party in Parlia-
ment had hought the support of the
Roman Catholics, it certainly was
not Lord Derhy's Government. At
the very outset of the contest the
spirit of religious higotry was in-
voked to defeat the Conservative,
and the following placard was posted
all over the town :—" Catholics!
unite, now and for ever. Down with
Protestant ascendancy. Down with
Spaight and the Orange jury-packing
Government of Lord Derhy. Hur-
rah for Gavin!" And the chairman
of Major Gavin gave vent to his re-
ligious sentiments hy proposing to
deal thns ferociously with the Con-
servative candidate :—" I will have
your Orange liver out of your hody,"
ho said, " and have it tbrown into
the Shaunon!" On the election day
there were in Limerick nearly 2000
horse and foot, hesides 500 of the
well-trained military police of Ire-
land; yet the rioting was so serious
that this force, or the authorities
who directed it, wore quite unahle to
preserve order. The hridges over
the Shannon—especially the one
called after Father Mathew—were
strategetieally -seized hy the moh;
the cars conveying the Conservative
voters were assailed hy showers of
stones, and direct violence was era-
ployed to prevent electors voting for
Mr. Spaight. Major Gavin, riding
on horsehack at the head of the
moh, drove the police from Mathew's
Bridge, where Mr. Spaight's voters
had to cross. Captain Burgess, who
was in command of a detachment of
the 9th Regiment, hears witness
thus :—" The greatest crowd was
ahout one o'clock. Saw the moh
pelting stones at cars. Major Gavin's
name was on his cars, and Mr. Rus-
sell's on his. Gerrard and witness's
men were struck with the stones
from twelve to one o'clock. Major
Couner was in command of all the
company of infantry. He ordered
witness to take a division of his com-
pany and clear the hridge. Marched
to the hridge. Wore pelted all the
way there. Several of witness's men
were struck and their firelocks in-
jured. Was injured himself, and
compelled to get exemption from
duty for five or six days. Was lame
for a month afterwards. It was a
very violent pelting, and stones very
large. Never saw such violence at
an election hefore. Had attended
several in Ireland." Mr. Wurhurton,


372
[Sept.
The Election Petition*.— Who does the Brihery?

who commanded the constahulary,
testified that his men had to fix
hayonets hefore they could force a
passage at Mathew's hridge; and
several electors deponed that they
found themselves in such danger that
they had to retire without voting for
Mr. Spaight. Mr. Gamhle, a Catholic,
and supporter of the Conservative
candidate, said :—" Went with Mr.
Spaight in his canvass, and a violent
moh immediately collected round
them. Witness's house was attacked
and hroken into hy the people, and
all the shop windows smashed. Wit-
QeM saw a voter named Ryan in the
hands of the moh on the day of poll-
ing. The people were dragging him
along the street. He once escaped
and was re-captured. The moh even-
tually put him in a car and drove
him to tho polling-hoth. Ryan had
promised his vote for Spaight. After
the polling was over witness shut
up his shop. The moh then came
and hroke hetween sixty and seventy
panes of glass in his house. They, in
fact, continued hreaking them till the
filing hegan. The police came to wit-
ness's house after the windows were
hroken, and remained there for ahout
ten days." And all tbrough the elec-
tion-day, as was proved hy several
witnesses, Major Gavin headed the
rioters at every point, conspicuous on
a white horse. Yet the decision of
the Committee was that there was no
evidence that the cavalier of the
white horse instigated tho rioting;
and also that it was not proved that
the riots " were of such a duration or
of such a character as to prevent the
votes of the electors heing recorded."
Duration I Why, the riots lasted not
only till the poll closed and all tho
afternoon—till the soldiers had to
fire on the moh; hut the houses of
some of Mr. Spaight's supporters had
to he guarded hy the police for ten
days afterwards! And yet the elec-
tion was passed as a valid election;
and the Liheral Major is still Memher
for Limerick!
Such in hrief were the disclosures
of hrihery and intimidation made
hefore the election-committees, for
which eight Liherals were unseated,
and for which certainly other four
should have heen similarly punished.
Tho facts speak for themselves. They
need no fine peroration to hring
home to the country a sense of the
uuparalleled shamelessuess and cor-
ruption of the Liheral party. What
men to he the champions of electoral
reform! After all their calumnies
against the Conservatives, to he so
convicted themselves, while their op-
ponents appear purity itself hesido
them 1 Well might Roehuck, him-
self a Liheral, thus indiguantly de-
nounce the conduct of his party :—
"Some time ago the puhlic were warn-
ed that great corruption had heen prac-
tised hy gentlemen sitting on these (the
Opposition) henches; hut I am sorry to
say that, hy discoveries recently made,
it has heen found that corruption has
taken place on that (the Ministerial) side
of the house. And the remarkahle fea-
ture of the case is, that nohle lords and
right lion, gentlemen are sitting on the
henches opposite in consequence; for I
helieve that pretty nearly the whole
numher of their majority have heen dis-
franchised since inquiries have heen in-
stituted, and that they have heen dis-
franchised hecause of hrihery. Whv,
sir, the whole country was startled,' the
isle was frighted from its propriety,' hy
the statement which was made hy the
virtuous gentlemen opposite. It was
said that a nohle lord and right hon.
gentleman had suhscrihed, comhined,
and conspired for the purpose of hring-
ing a majority into Parliament. Upon
which side does the imputation rest
now l Why, the statements which have
heen made within the last ten days he-
foreCommittees of this Houseare enough
to shock the feelings of the country at
the conduct of a party which calls itself
Liheral, and a great numher of whom I
recollect in the year 1830 raising a great
outcry against the corruption of the an-
cient Parliaments. \Vhy,sir, there was no-
thing ever done in the ancient Parlia-
ments worse than has heen done in this.
I do say, then, that it hehoves this House
to take into its most serious considera-
tion how it can hy any possihility stop
this evil, and I entreat lion, gentlemen
who are sitting on pur committees to
have the courage to he honest, and not
to add hase hypocrisy to the horrihle
corruption that now prevails."
What is to come next? Will the
Lihorala now ahandon their assumed
monopoly of Purity, and confess that
their professions have heen no hetter
than a ruse to cover their own mal-
practices, and that their clamour
against the Conservatives is simply


1859.]
873
The Election Petition*.— Who docs the Brihery t

a parallel to the dodge hy which a
pickpocket seeks to tbrow suspicion
off himself hy calling "stop thief!"
Nay, will they not attempt to torn
their very sins to account, and quote
the electoral corruption of their own
making as a proof in favour of the
Ballot? Are the recent exposures of
the hrihery practised hy the Liheral
party at Gloucester, Norwich, Wake-
field, Ayleshury, Dartmouth, Bever-
ley,—not to speak of Huddersfield
and Maidstone—to he converted into
powerful arguments for the adoption
of a demoralising and un-English sys-
tem of secret voting? Mr. Cohden,
to whom the opinion of an American,
or a paragraph in a New York news-
paper, has hecome the highest of
all authority, gives as his newest and
hest argument in favour of the hallot,
the opinion of a Philadelphian, who
says, that he has heen "for fifty
years counected with political move-
ments in Philadelphia, and never
knew a vote hought or sold." Mr
Cohden was so struck with this acci-
dental statement, that he requested
the speaker to put it in hlack and
white, in order that he might quote
it as a elencher in England. It did
duty for the first time at the hanquet
at Rochdale; and douhtless we shall
have the whole letter read in extenso
next spring, in Parliament. "Now,"
added Mr Cohden, "the gentleman
would not have told mo, 1 am sure,
that elections in America are pure in
every respect, nor that all their elec-
tions are carried on peaceahly and
tranquilly; hut ho mentioned the
fact that the hallot presents such an
ohstacle to hrihery, that nohody cares
to hny a vote,"—that is to say, in
Philadelphia, and so far as he knew.
As to the existence of hrihery and
corruption in the United States, it is
not nine months since the President
himself, in a puhlished letter, openly
confessed the existence of these evils
on so great a scale, that in his opinion
they imperil the very existence of
the Union. What is the worth of the
statement of Mr Cohden's gentleman
compared to this? Besides, even if
the hallot did render hrihery imprac-
ticahle in the United States, has
there not arisen there in its place a
still worse form of the evil? If voters
are not hrihed, are they not attacked
and intimidated hy hired ruffians at
the hooths? Do not the rival parties
set themselves to find out the politics
of all and sundry, and then hire
shoulder-hitters, rowdies, and hlud-
geon-men to' maltreat and ohstruct
their opponents as they go to the poll?
Is this any improvement on hrihery?
Rather than see agents slipping a £5
note into a voter's hand, or doing
other aots of electoral henevolence,
would Mr Cohden prefer to have
hludgeon-men hired to hreak people's
heads? Does he think that it shows
more purity on the part of the candi-
dates, and more freedom and inde-
pendence in the community, that an
election should he gained hy hreak-
ing heads instead of hnying votes?
One word in conclusion. Lord
Asbley, in the dehate at the opening
of the session, said that he would
give his vote against the Ministry, in
order that they might he replaced hy
"a strong and sagacious Administra-
tion, that would carry weight in the
councils of Europe, and command,
the respect of the people in England."
And so said many others. Well,
what have they got? Instead of
carrying weight in the councils of
Europe, the British Government is
as nearly isolated as it has ever heen
for the last fifty years; and instead
of commanding respect at home, the
disclosures hefore the election-com-
mittees have revealed the shameless
tactics hy which the Liheral chiefs
ohtained that slender majority which
placed them in office, as well as the
haselessuess of those calumnies with
which they so hasely sought to dis-
credit their opponents. And finally,
as to the "strong Government"
which Lord Asbley and others reck-
lessly sought to ohtain, where is it?
Thirteen was the pitiful majority of
the Coalition party at first—what is
it now? Not ahove half that num-
her. "Six or seven," says Mr Coh-
den; and Conservatives say tbree or
four!


8T4
[Sept.
Jersey to the Queen.
JERSEY TO THE QTJEES'.
Come, tbrough seas of summer calm,
Come, tbrough airs of summer halm,
Greeted with the nation's psalm,
Victoria!
Tears of love from eyelids pressing,
Followed hy the people's hlessing,
Wealth untold in hearts possessing,
Victoria!

Small, though ancient of renown,
Eldest heirloom of thy crown,
Caesarea's isle and town—
Victoria t
Bids thee come and come again,
Cheers thee hlithely ten times ten,
Queen of islands! Queen of men!
Victoria 1
How unlike on yonder coasts,
Paeans rise for slaughtered hosts,
Bought hy fifty thousand ghosts,
"Viotoria!"
Matron, Mother, Monarch good!
Stand thy tbrone as it hath stood,
Strong hy love, not haths of hlood t
Victoria!
'Tis hecause the Crown we count
Honour's jewel, Freedom's fount,
That our voices skyward mount,
Victoria!
Now we tell that soldier-slavo,
Be he hravest of the hrave,
Freedom's shield and God will save,
Victoria!
Bauners wave, and caunon hoom.
Lights like glow-worms in each room,
Rockets flash round Pierson's tomh,*
Victoria!
Beams adieu the fair full moon,
Thunders in the midnight noon
Echo, " Come again right soon,
Victoria!"
G. C. SWATNE.
Jersey, Avgutt 15, 1859.
* Monument to a gallant young soldier, Major Pierson, who fell heading the
successful defence of St. Heliers, in January 178l, when the last attempt was
made hy the French to ohtain possession of the Chaunel Islands.


1859.]
375
Foreign Affairs—the Disarmament.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS THF nISARMAMENT.

Paei.iamf.nt has closed its work
for the year, find the time is come
when the national Mind, wearied of
much thinking, usually goes to sleep
for a while upon all matters of puhlic
importance. The grouse and the red-
deer have heen hunted for a fortnight
on the Scottish, moors; and now the
joyous morn has arisen when all the
stuhhle-fields of England will he re-
sonant with the whirr of the partridge
and the crack of the fowling-piece.
The mental conflict of words and of
ideas is heing lulled to rest hy the
strong physical exercise of the moors
and the chase. Owing to the reoent-
ness of their accession to office, and
to the adroitness with which they
have spent two months in doing
nothing, her Majesty's Ministers do
not this year attract puhlic sympathy
as the men most deserving of this
autumnal rest. And the events of
the ten weeks which have succeeded
their advent to power have heen of
such a character that the memhers of
the Government will now do well to
spend a portion of their leisure in
reviewing them, and in pondering
the results. The puhlic has more
questions to ask than Parliament
had; and sooner or later, in one form
or in another, the puhlic will exact
from the Ministry an account of its
stewardship. When getting ready our
rifles and rifle corps, we want to know
more ahout the management of our
Foreigu policy. We want to know
why Lord John.Russell should have
heen so elahorately clever in his
despntches to disgust Prussia. We
want to know how he and the Premier
should have played into the hands of
the French Emperor hy a superfluous
irritation of Austria. And what ahout
this talked-of Disarmament? When
Parliament meets again, are we to
find that the works of national de-
fence have heen countermanded, out
of courtesy to the professions of the
French Emperor, or out of deference
to the pacific tastes and financial
difficulties of Mr. Gladstone? What
is this French disarmament? What
is its. extent, and what its motive?
Is it, on the part of the Emperor, a
definite shutting of the temple of
Janus; or is it merely a new and
adroit device for the accomplishment
of the next step in the Napoleonic
policy?
The Whig Ministers, in a very un-
justifiahle mauner, departed from
the strict neutrality of their pre-
decessors. Both the Premier and
the Foreigu Secretary openly ex-
pressed their desire to see the Aus-
tin ans wholly expelled from Italy.
Such language, had they heen in office
six months ago, would have heen
equivalent to a declaration of war
against Austria. And what is it now
hut an actual and official repudiation
of the Treaties of 1815, which form
the sole hasis of the territorial settle-
ment of Europe, and which Napo-
leon has commenced to remodel for
the moral and material aggrandise-
ment of France? We already have
had a humiliating specimen of the
evil resulting from the ahandonment
hy her Majesty's Ministers of the
principle of strict neutrality. It
lias disgusted Prussia and alien- •
ated Austria; and has made the
British Government appear a di-
plomatic tool in the hands of the
French Emperor. Taking advantage
of their professions, Napoleon III.
has made Lords Palmerston and Rus-
sell dupes and agents for tho'accom-
plishment of his suhtle ends. He
has used them, as he used Kossuth,
simply as a means of frightening
Austria into peace, and then has
tossed them disregardingly aside. In
his address to his suhjects, the Empe-
ror of Austria justified the peace con-
cluded at Villafranca hy stating that
he found he could get hetter terms
from his enemy than from his natu-
ral allies! This appeared a startling
statement to the uninitiated puhlic;
hut soon afterwards more light was
tbrown on the suhject hy a correspon-
dent of the Trieste Zeitung, who gave
a detailed account of what took place
prior to the meeting of the Emperors
at Villafranca. Napoleon III. was
urgent for a personal interview,—
Francis-Joseph was resolutely averse
to it. What, then, hrought it ahout?


876
[Sept.
Foreign Affair*—the Disarmament.

On the 10th, "a long letter was re-
ceived from the Emperor of the
French, in which the military and
political reasons why the Emperor of
Austria ought to make peace were
given with equal force and lucidity;"
and in which "his Majesty commu-
nicated some curious information re-
lating to the policy of the neutral
Powers. The impression produced hy
the letter in question was such that
the Emperor Francis-Joseph at once
agreed to the proposed interview."
From this and other sources of in-
formation it is well known that, in in-
ducing Austria to make peace, Napo-
leon relied, and relied successfully,
upon making known to his antagon-
ist some information which he pos-
sessed relative to the policy of the
neutral Powers. What had he to
tell? Part, and ohviously the worst
part of the matter, still lies hid in
those despatches which the Govern-
ment, tbrough Lord Granville, re-
fused to lay hefore Parliament. But
independently of what is still kept
a veiled secret in Downing Street,
let us see how Lords Palmerston
and Russell allowed themselves to
ho led hy the nose hy the French
Emperor, tbroughout the secret ne-
gotiations. That Lord Palmerston
was duped hy Napoleon at the very
outset of this "Italian question,"
during the Visoount's visit to Com-
piegue, is too certain—as, e. g., appears
from his declaration on the 8th ult.,
"that- he had always set his face
against violently altering the rela-
tions of Europe." He never expected
there would he any war,—never
dreamt that the grey redingote was
to he put on, and that another Napo-
leon and Grand Army would he
sweeping across Italy. He looked
forward at most to a Congress, where
England, of course, would maguify
herself hy sporting "liheral sympa-
thies" for the Italians; and where
the reforms for the Papal States,
which Napoleon made his sole ground
of quarrel with Austria, would he
easily adjusted. He little foresaw
that Napoleon had resolved to draw
the sword, for the special glosifica-
tion of France; and that he would
snuh the Italians, and instruct his
penman Cassaguac, to sueer at the
"liheral sympathies" of England as
soon as he had attained his ends.
One of Palmerston's own colleagues
—now made Finance-Minister for
India—thus writes in his (Mr. Wil-
son's) newspaper, the Economist:—
"It is now as clear as the day that
the great aim of the Napoleonic
movement has heen to secure for
France a paramount influence in the
politics of Italy. Anything that will
augment that influence he is likely to
support—anything that curtails it he
will oppose, even though it seem to
inorease the power of Austria, since
he well knows that, in the present
state of Italy, the fear of Austria is
the advantage of France."
So has ended this French interven-
tion in Italy, which Lord Palmerston
did so much to champion. Duped at
the outset, ho and his Foreigu Secre-
tary are now grumhling at the results
of the intervention which they pre-
tiously patronized; and they were
eager to tako part in the Congress at
Zurich, in the puerile hope that their
verhal vapouring and protests would
have the slightest influence when
weighed against the Gallic sword.
Napoleon III. has made good use of
Lords Palmerston and Russell, and
can now afford to do without them.
The first illusion which he palmed off
upon them, as to the ohject of the
war, was not very creditahle to their
discernment; hut the mauner in
which he made tools of them at the
end (though they he naturally averse
to confess it), they will never for-
get. The recollection must he all the
more galling inasmuch as the affair
implies no dishonesty on the part of
tho French Emperor—only folly and
hlundering upon theirs. Napoleon
outgeneralled them. He handed them
a copy of terms of peace, which (like
those proposed hy Lord Palmerston
in 1848) required that Austria should
wholly ahandon her possessions in
Italy, and her interest in Tuscany and
Modena, and hegged that they would
communicate these terms to Austria.
They looked at the terms, and accept-
ed tho commission. Indeed, the en-
tire expulsion of the Austrians from
Italy is just what Lord Palmerston
openly expressed his wish to see.
By so doing, they homologated the
terms proposed hy France. This is
not merely the "understanding of the


1859.]
877
Foreign Affair*—the Ditarmament.

matter in the diplomatic world, hut,
in truth, there was no moaning in the
act at all, unless the British Govern-
ment wished to show that it approved
of the conditions of peace thus offered
hy France to Austria. France needed
no foreigu medinm tbrough which
to open negotiations with Austria.
A staff-offh-er with a flag of truce
was quite sufficient. In point of fact,
Napoleon not only found it perfectly
easy to open communications in this
way with the Austrian headquarters,
hut did he not even in this way oh-
tain an interview with the Austrian
Emperor himself? When he sent his
first terms of peace tbrongh the Brit-
ish Cahinet, it was with a view to
ohtain the moral weight of our Go-
vernment on his side; and whatever
Lords Palmerston and Russell may
now say, hy accepting the task of
transmitting these overtures, they
testified a general approval of their
terms. This of itself would have jus-
tified Francis-Joseph in his declara-
tion that he had ohtained hetter
terms from his foe than from his na-
tural allies. A pretty spectacle it
was, truly, to see the Ministers of a
country which professed "strict neu-
trality" requiring' from Austria f:ir
more than Austria's foe proved him-
self content to ohtain! Lord John
Kussell was led into this false posi-
tion hy the superior finesse of the
French Emperor: he has nothing to
complain of so much as his own folly.
Napoleon has only to say—though
whether he can say so truly is another
question — "These were the lowest
terms which I would accept, hut
now events have induced me to ac-
cept muoh less." It might have so
happened that events would have
taken such a turn as to justify Napo-
leon in this change of mind. And
hence this great hlunder on the part
of the British Cahinet might have
heen committed without any attempt
on tho part of Napoleon to overreach
them. But that they were over-
reached, purposely led into a suare,
hy the French Emperor, no one can
douht. Culpahly ahandoning the
principle of neutrality, the British
Premier had avowed his desire to
have Austria expelled from Italy;
and Napoleon made use of this to
serve his own purpose. The hattle
of Solferino had given him another
victory; and neither himself, nor his
official penman in the G'cmttitutiounel,
can allege any adequate reason for
his sudden change of programme.
But that he never meant to push
Austria to extremities is what we
have all along helieved and stated.
And the forwarding of these extreme
demands tbrough the British Govern-
ment was just desigued to render
Austria more ready to accept tho
milder terms ahout to he offered hy
himself; and moreover, it was an
excellent means of tbrowing the ani-
mosity of Austria upon England,
while reaping all the glory of the war
for himself.
The French Emperor has heen too
successful in his schemes to openly
hoast of his success. Like every wise
man, it is a maxim with him never to
make a needless enemy. And he
could not at present hoast of the
full extent of his success without
making a mortal enemy of England,
whom he has played with and over-
reached. Hence, since the peace, he
affects the air of one who was un-
ahle to carry out his plans. He
pretends that if he did not adhere to
the programme which lie puhlished
to the Italians, and which he got the
British Government to homologate,
it whs only hecause he could not
carry it out. And shortsighted peo-
ple in this country chuckle at the
thought that for once the Emperor
has to confess himself haffled 1 Vain
conceit. Depend upon it, if the Em-
peror had really heen haffled, he
would have heen the last to acknow-
ledge it. The unjust suspicions of the
other Powers, and the strength of the
Venetian fortresses, are the two great
ohstacles which the Emperor says
caused him to stop. And Caseaguac,
in the Covstitutiounel, with more de-
tail, justifies the peace on the ground
that to have stormed the quadrila-
ture and driven Austria out of Vene-
tia " would have cost long sieges, new
hattles, new loans, an immediate war
on the Rhine, disturhances in Central
Italy, insurrections in Hungary and
elsewhere, which it would have heen
necessary to tolerate, perhaps to en-
courage: in a word, it would have
cost the ahandonment of the princi-
ples of order, and the adoption of the


378
[Sept.
Foreign Affair*—the Disarmament.

principles of revolution and agitation,
for the present, and an ahyss for the
future." As if all that was not as
plain hefore the sword was drawn
as it was two months afterwards!
What had changed in the five weeks
hetween the puhlication of the Milan
manifesto and the siguing of peace
at Villafranca? Nothing hut the
hattle of Solferino, and the change of
Ministry in England,—nothing hut
another great victory to the French
arms, and the advent to power in
England of a Ministry specially fa-
vourahle to the Italian war. Napo-
leon made peace at Villafranca simply
hecause he had no desire to carry the
war further, or convert it into a con-
test d Vmilrance. His communicat-
ing to the Emperor of Anstria the
views of the neutral Powers may
have heen—as M. de Scbleinitz, the
Prussian Minister, in his sore indig-
nation, says it was—an unjustifiahle
violation of the etiquette of diplo-
macy; hut that was nothing to Napo-
leon: he merely made use of an ad-
vantage which his superior adroitness
had ohtained from the shortsighted
hlundering of the British Ministers.
And it must he allowed he turned
that advantage to remarkahle ac-
count. It not only enahled him to
close the war while tho strength of
his adversary was still unhroken, hut
it also enahled him to ingratiate him-
self with Austria at the expense of
England and Prussia. That he has
done this is heyond question. The
Austrian Emperor himself, in his
manifesto to his suhjects, has de-
clared that the Emperor of the French
has acted a more friendly part towards
him than his natural allies; and every-
day is revealing more plainly the
schism thus introduced amongst tho
German States, and hetween these
States and England. Of the success
with which Napoleon has driven the
wedge into Germany hy the peace of
Villafranca, every day's newspapers
show fresh proof. Unfortunately it is
not a merely ephemeral irritation;
on the contrary, it has heen growing
stronger every week. The political
letters from Berlin of 25th July, puh-
lished in the Journal des JJehats,
speak of the " confusion created every-
where" hy the recent events. "The
Cahinet of Vieuna," they say, "re-
proaches Prussia for its treasonahle
policy; and the German States say
openly that Prussia saw with secret
satisfaction the misfortunes of Aus-
tria, and watched the propitious mo-
ment for taking advantage of them,
so as to ohtain right and left the ag-
grandisement she covets." As a con-
sequence of this disoord, it is added,
that u tbroughout all Germany people
are hegiuning to raise questions which
will ho sure to endanger its federal
constitution." And ten days after-
wards (Aug. 4), the Times' Berlin cor-
respondent shows how serious the
danger is growing, hy stating that
there is "almost a rupture" hetween
Austria and Prussia; and that the
princes of the smaller German States,
seeing the hopelessuess of looking for
protection from the most powerful
memhers of the Bund, are turning
their thoughts towards Parix.* At
Frankfort, too, fighting and hlood-
shed have occurred hetween the
Prussian and Austrian troops. We
trust the danger to the equilihrinm
of the Continent will not go so far as
this; hut those who rememher—and
who does not t—the success with
which the first Napoleon won over
several of tho German States, erect-
ing them, under the title of the Rhen-
ish Confederacy, as a salient hastion
of France against the rest of the
Fatherland, caunot regard this new
* "This rupture—for it is almost a rupture—hetween Austria and Prussia,
presents great dangers to Germany. The princes of the smaller States, seeing
the hopelessuess of looking for protection from the most powerful memhers of
the Bund, are turning their thoughts towards Paris. The representatives of
some of them are already ruhhing their noses on the Imperial tbreshold, and
applying in very loud whispers for pardon. In Darmstadt the police have
ordered all works offensive to France to he removed from the hooksellers' win-
dows. In Wiirtemherg the prohihition to export horses has heen repealed with-
out consulting the other States of the Zollverein. The King of Wiirtemherg was,
a few weeks ago, the most eager for war of all the German princes; he is now,
therefore, the more anxious to make his peace with the conqueror."—Berlin
Correspondence of the " Times," of date Anguat i.


1859.]
370
Foreign Affair*—the Disarmament.

crisis in Germany without grave ap-
prehensions.
And how stands the case as regards
onr own country? What is the
result of Lord Pahnerston's open
animosity to Austria, and of Lord
John Russell's insulting despatches
to Prussia? What is to he thought
of a British Minister who, when
Prussia, as spokesman for all Ger-
many, communicated its apprehen-
sions lest this Italian war should
prove the hegiuning of a policy on
the part of France which would en-
danger the equilihrinm of Europe,
thought it sufficient reply to ask with
flippant sueer, "If Germany would
he any safer hecause Parma and
Modena were ill-governed!" In a
suhsequent despatch (that of 7lh
July) our Foreigu Secretary con-
tinues to display that mingled pert-
nc-s, nhtuscuess, and self-sufficiency,
of which he gave so melancholy an
exhihition in his hlundering mission
to Vieuna in 1855. In a despatch
dated 24th June, Karon Schleinitz
had informed the British Govern-
ment that "the Prince-Regent of
Prussia looks with anxiety to the
maintenance of the halanco of power
in Europe; and Prussia has con-
sidered it necessary to place herself
in a position to control a course of
events which may tend to modify
the halance of power, hy enfeehling
an empire with which Prussia is con-
federated, and hy affecting the hases
of European rights laid down in acts
to which Prussia was a party." What
reply did Lord John make to this?
With characteristic pertness and
platitude he rejoins:—" Let us ex-
amine this matter. The halance of
power in Europe means, in effect, the
independence of its several States.
The preponderance of any one Power
tbreatens and destroys this inde-
pendence." And having thus en-
lightened the Prussian Minister on
a point which certainly did not re-
quire any elucidation, Lord John
tersely settles the question to his
own satisfaction, hy adding—" But
the Emperor Napoleon, hy his Milan
proclamation, has declared that in
this war he seeks neither conquest nor
territorial aggrandisement." This is
all his redargument of Prussia's ap-
prehensions I Lord John Russell
evidently regards the Emperor Nap-
oleon as a man who "wears his heart
on his sleeve for daws to peck
at;" and in answer to the appre-
hensions of Germany, ho thought
it quite sufficient to mako a quot-
ation from the Milan manifesto!
What does his Lordship think of
that manifesto now? Has it not
heen utterly departed from hy
its imperial framer himself? The
Prince-Regent of Prussia and his
Minister must certainly, on receipt of
that despatch, have wondered what
sort of iunocent mountehank had
got into our Foreigu Office. It is to
he remarked that the ohject of Lord
John Russell in these despatches
was to prevent Prussia taking part
in the war, even after the Mincio had
heen crossed hy the French. He noti-
fied to Prussia that the British Govern-
ment (repeating Lord Palmerston's
policy in 1848), "in the present state
of affairs, are averse to any interposi-
tion;" and he eagerly pressed upon
Prussia that she ought to do nothing
too. In this, as in other things, he
and Lord Palmerston were simply
playing the game of tho Fronch. Em-
peror, and with the greatest impolicy
were interfering with the free action
of the Germanic Confederacy. Sup-
pose the apprehensions of the Pills-
dan government prove ultimately
correct, and that Napoleon hy-and-
hy attack Germany after having
alienated from her the support of
Austria, what answer then will our
Government he ahle to make to the
reproaches of Prussia? "We fore-
saw the drift of this Napoleonic
policy," Germany may then say,
"hut when we wished to make
common cause with Austria against
it, you, England, prevented us. It is
you who are responsihle for our di-
lemma, and when your own turn
comes, you will ricbly deserve it"
There is another paragraph of this
despatch of Lord John Russell's
which we caunot pass without com-
ment. "Her Majesty," he says,
"used her utmost efforts, consistent
with peace, to maintain tho faith of
treaties." This was perfectly true of
the late Ministry, hut it is strange
to find the present Government
taking credit for such a policy, see-
ing that the Premier and Foreigu


380
[Sept.
Foreigu, Affair)—the Disarmament.

Secretary have heen foremost in sup-
porting the very opposite course, and
were "averse to any interposition,"
even at the time that Napoleon was
siguing peace at Villafranca! Prus-
sia, as well as all Europe, knows that
they have eagerly supported the
French intervention in Italy, and are
only angry that it has not gone
further; and the Cahinet of Berlin
must laugh in contempt to see tltem
taking credit for the support to
treaty rights which was given hy
their predecessors. Moreover, as if
to show how much iguorance, as well
as pertness and insequency, could he
exhihited in one despatch, Lord John
makes the following gross hlunder
as to facts. "Austria," ho says,
"hegan the war and invaded Pied-
mont. Austria overstepped the fron-
tier laid down in the treaties of 1815;
and it could no longer he expected
that those treaties would he regarded
as hinding hy Franco and Sardinia."
Here is a pretty Foreign Secretary I
So far from Austria having hegun
the war hy invading Sardinia, and
overstepping the frontier laid down
in the treaties of 1815, the overstep-
ping of the frontier and violation of
treaties was all on the other side. The
French troops crossed the frontier
and entered Savoy five days hefore
the Austrians crossed the houndary-
stream of the Ticino; and the van-
guard entered Susa (within an hour's
travel of Turin), and the French
fleet landed Bazaino's division at
Genoa, more than tbroe days hefore
the Austrians made a single step
across their frontier. In fact, as we
pointed out at the time,* there were
70,000 French troops in Sardinia;
and Parma, Modena, and Tuscany
were all in revolt hy Sardinian agency,
hefore ever the Austrian army cross-
ed the Ticino. Surely, on so grave
and important a point as this, it is
intolerahle that the Foreigu Minister
of England should commit so gross
an outrage upon the truth. What
will some future historian think of
our statesmen when he sees in our
state-papers so egregious a mistake?
And how will Austria and the Ger-
manic States relish that a British
Minister should puhlish so entire a
misrepresentation of the actual com-
mencement of the war? Ixrrd John
says that Austria and Germany can-
not expect the treaties of 1815 to he
maintained, seeing that Austria was
the first to hreak them hy crossing
the Ticino; whereas the actual fact
is, that it was France which first
hroke the treaties, hy overstepping
her frontier five days hefore an Aus-
trian soldier set foot in Piedmont
So much for Lord John and his
despatches, He made it his special
task to disgust Prussia; let us now
see what lie and Lord Palmerston
together have done to incense Aus-
tria. The Conservative Government
held that the war was "uunecessary
and unjustifiahle," and they assumed
the attitude of an armed neutrality
with the avowed intention of putting
a stop to it as soon as possihle.
The Whig Ministry acted very
differently. Instead of protesting
against the violation of treaties
and of the peace of Europe, they
gave the fullest encouragement to
the Napoleonic policy, and pro-
claimed their desire to see Austria
deprived of her whole Italian territo-
ries. And now they are only angry
at Napoleon for not having carried
on the war so long as they wished 1
What a curious position is this!
Here is our Government encouraging
another Government in a war against
a State with which we profess to he
at peace, and angry hecause the war
against that State was not carried
far enough! Is this neutrality 1 Is
it not actual hostility to Austria;
and although Lords Palmerston and
Russell dared not ask the country to
draw the sword, have not the de-
clarations of those statesmen against
Austria amounted to an unmistak-
ahle casus helli t Well, what is now
found to he the consequence of such
a policy? Just this—that England
has drawn upon herself all the odi-
um of Austria and her friends, while
France has got all the glory of the war.
The Emperor of the French hat cir-
cled his hrows with laurels, has he-
come the Liherator of Italy, and has
converted Sardinia into a stanch
ally or vassal State; and at the
same time he has, hy the folly of
* See the Magazine for June, p. 740.


1859.]
381
Foreign Affair*—the Disarmament.

our Whig Ministers, heen ahle to
tbrow all the odinm of the contest
off himself upon the British Gov-
ernment. He has shown that he,
the victor, is a hetter friend to Aus-
tria than the British Government,
represented hy Lords Palmerston and
Russell, who, though sueakingly
keeping out of the war, pursued
Austria with a hostility of spirit far
exceeding that of her actual foe. The
late Government, as Lord John
Russell admits, "used their utmost
efforts, consistent with peace, to
maintain the faith of treaties," and
they strongly protested against the
Italian question heing appealed to
the sword. The present Govern-
ment, however, only protest against
the war heing stopped, and complain
that treaties have not heen suffi-
ciently violated 1 Since they demand-
ed that Austria he driven out of
Italy, why did they not openly de-
clare war, and try to do it themselves?
Surely that was the only consistent
course; hut they knew well it was one
which they dared not encounter. It
was one, too, which has already made
our policy despicahle, and our posi-
tion douhly precarious. The French
Emperor has made the Palmerston-
ian policy a mere engine for the ac-
complishment of his own trinmph,
and for the diverting upon England
of that hatred from Austria, which
in other circumstances must havo
fallen upon himself.
The French Emperor hardly need-
ed the interviews at Compiegue to
assure him that Lord Palmerston
would fall into his suare. It was
Lord Palmerston's hlundering in 1848
which paved the way for this French
intervention in Italy; and it was
upon his Lordship's preposterous de-
mands upon Austria at that time that
Napoleon counted for securing him
as an ally, and then leaving him a
dupe, in the recent war. What Pal-
merston, then at peace with Austria,
refused to accept in 1848, Napoleon,
victorious over Austria, has accepted
now. The terms of peace which
Palmerston rejected as inadmissihle
when the Sardinians and Italians
were attacking Austria on the Min-
cio in 1848, have heen accepted as
sufficient at the same point of the
struggle now, although in addition to
her former foes Austria was attacked
hy the whole military and naval forces
of France. This conduct of Lord
Palmerston in 1848 was severely de-
nounced in Parliament at the time,
and it is admitted on all hands now
that it was a fatal hlunder. Even
the present Ministry repudiate it,
and Mr. Gladstone has heen put up to
explain it away. Facts which Lord
Palmerston himself dare not deny,
vanish, it would seem, into thin air
hefore the potent fancy of his Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer. In the de-
hate on the 28th of July, Mr. Disracli
thus stated the charge against the
Ministry:—
"Her Majesty's Government has, in
fact, committed the same mistake which
they committed in 1848. At that time
a proposition was made hy the Aus-
trian Government similar lu terms to
those which have now heen, tbrough
the influence of the French Emperur,
accepted. A proposition was made to
close the disturhances which then ex-
isted hy the relinquishment of Lomhar-
dy, precisely ideutical with the terms
which are now made the hasis of the
treaty of peace. Her Majesty's Govern-
ment—I may say the identical Govern-
ment, for these affairs come under the
same two memhers of the Cahinet, the
First Minister of the Crown and the
Foreigu Secretary of State—the only
difference of responsihility in these
Minsters heing that the nohle lord the
Foreigu Secretary was then the First
Minister, and the First Minister was
then the Secretary of State. Let the
House ohserve, then, if the statements I
have made he true, they have fallen into
exactly the hlunder which they made in
1848. Then they repudiated the propo-
sition of Austria, and said that \ enetia
must he a part of the territory relin-
quished hy Austria; in fact, they made
that a fine qua non of the settlement. In
the present instance the proposition,
which was so slightly touched on and
noticed hy the nohle lord, was conceived
in precisely the same spirit. He would
not—this neutral power, this natural
ally of the Emperor of Austria—would
not mediate, except on the severe terms
I have noticed. But, in the mean
time, the enemy of the Emperor of
Austria made terms to him, which he
accepted, and the affair was settled with-
out our interference, and without having
ohtained the terms which we recom-
mended."
Whether in his Homeric or in his


3S2
[Sept.
Foreign Affairs—the Disarmament.

Parliamentary dissertations, Mr. Glad-
stone lias a peculiar way of viewing
things, and frequently rears his most
elahorate rhetoric upon the most ah-
surd premises. On the present occa-
sion he replied to Mr. Disracli's charge,
hy asserting that the offer which Lord
Palmerston refused in 1848 was "not
the offer of Austria at nil, hut a do-
cument drawn ' up hy Baron Hnm-
melauer, expressing only his indivi-
dual opinion." Eleven years have
elapsed without so hright an idea as
this occurring to any one, and it has
heen reserved for Gladstonian acumen
to make the discovery. And what
is his proof? Baron Hummelaner
made two alternative and successive
proposals to the British Government.
The first of these, on the 23d of May,
proposed that Austria should retain
Venetia and Lomhardy, hut under a
popular and entirely separate admin-
istration from the rest of the empire.
Even Mr. Gladstone allows that this
was an official communication made
hy the Baron in the name of his Gov-
ernment. On this propWal heing
rejected hy Lord Palmerston as in-
sufficient, the Baron, after a day's
delay, produced the other proposal,
which was as follows:—
"That Lomhard;/ would cease to he-
long to Austria, and would he free either
to remain independent, or to unite her-
self to any other Italian state she herself
might choose. She would take upon
herself, on the other hand, a proportion-
ate share of the Austrian national deht,
which would ho transferred definitively
and irrevocahly to Lomherdy. The
Venetian state would remain under the
sovereiguty of the Emperor; it would
have a separate administration, entirely
national, settled hy the representatives
of the country themselves, without the
intervention of the ImperialGovernment,
and represented at the Central Govern-
ment of the monarchy hy a minister
whom it would maintain there, and who
would conduct the relations hetween it
and the Central Government of the em-
pire. The Venetian administration
would he presided over hy an Archduke
Viceroy, who would reside at Venice as
the Emperor's lieutenant."
This is the very arrangement that
has heen accepted and settled at Vil-
lafranca,—with this great difference in
favour of the arrangement proposed
in 1848, that no stipulation was made
for the restoration of the Austrian
grand-dukes to Modena and Tus-
cany. It is universally admitted—
it stands upon record in the hlue-
liook—that Lord Palmerston rejected
that proposal; hut, says Mr. Glad-
stone, it was not an official proposal.
This plea, it is to ho ohserved, does
not lessen Lord Palmerston's want of
judgment in rejecting the proposal, it
only seeks to lessen his responsi-
hility for the consequences which
flowed from the non-adoption of the
proposal The proposal, says Mr.
Gladstone, "was not the offer of
Austria, hut only of Baron Hummel-
auer;'' and therefore, ho argues, we
have no certainty that it would have
heen acted upon, even though Lord
Palmerston had not rejected it. This
argument, so poor of itself, rests upon
a premise entirely illusory, and op-
posed to the facts. "Now I will
give the proof," said Mr. Gladstone;
hut that "proof" consisted in little
else than in asking — "Does the
right honourahle gentleman suppose,
or will the House suppose, when
Baron Hummelauer had nude one
proposal on the part of the Austrian
Government on the 22d of May, he
was authorised to make a totally
different one on the 24th V What is
incredihle in such a supposition?
Does Mr. Gladstone hold the meeting
of the Emperors at Villafranca to he
a myth, hecause Napoleon liroposed
two widely different projects of peace
(not in two days, hut) in the course of
a few minutes? The French Emperor
came to that interview prepared to
propose a second set of terms if his
first ones were rejected; and this is
precisely what Baron Hummelauer
was sent to London hy his Govern-
ment to do in 1848. So far from the
Baron's second proposal heing unoffi-
cial, it is the very one which the Aus-
trian Cahinet tbrough our amhassador
at Vieuna most pressed upon the at-
tiou of the British Government.
On the 12th of May, hefore Baron
Hummelauer had set out on his mis-
sion, Lord Ponsonhy, our amhassador
at Vieuna, wrote as follows to Lord
Palmerston: "Count Ficquelmont
has heen with me, and has stated
that the Austrian Government is
ready to grant to the Lomhards the
complete enjoyment of their indepen-


L859.]
883
Foreign Affairs—the Disarmament.

dence, upon conditions which will he
fully communicated to your lordship
hy Baron Humtnelaner, who will
leave Vieuna to-morrow for London."
And ho adds, "There were two pro-
jects mentioned hy Count Ficquel-
mont offtcieusement to me hy order
of the Imperial Government." And
that there may he no duhiety as to
the identity of these two projects
with those made hy the Austrian
envoy on his arrival In London, we
shall quote Lord Ponsonhy's descrip-
tion of them:—" The first is (lie says)
the ahandonment of all the Austrian
rights in the Lomhardo-Venetian
kingdom, upon an agreement he-
tween the two parties. The second,
the total unconditional ahandon-
ment hy the Austriant of the Lom-
hard territories, and the concentra-
tion of their forces in the strong
position of Verona, &c, and the con-
tinued occupation of the Venetian
territories, making a declaration that
they wonld not take any part in the
affairs of the rest of Italy, and would
limit themselves strictly to defensive
measures." What has Mr. Gladstone
to say to this? Here we have distinct
proof that, prior to the arrival of the
Austrian Envoy, Lord Palmerston
was apprised that the envoy had two
different projects to propose, hoth of
which were official; and he was ap-
prised also of the precise nature of
hoth of these projects. If, thus ap-
prised heforehand, Lord Palmerston
had rejected the first project for the
sake of ohtaining the second and
more liheral one, he would have done
wisely, for his own credit and for the
interests of this country and Italy.
But he rejected the second also,—
doing so in the following terms,
which show that he was quite aware
of the official character of hoth pro-
posals :—" It appears from the com-
munications which you [Baron Hum-
melauer] have made to me, that the
Austrian Government would he will-
ing to treat for an arrangement hy
which Lomhardy should he set free
to dispose of itself as it might choose;
hut the Austrian Government wishes
to propose an arrangement hy which
the Venetian provinces will still con-
tinue to hold a modified counection
with the Imperial crown. Such an
arrangement might in many respects
he advantageous, not only to Austria,
hut even to the Venetian province
itself. But Her Majesty's Govern-
ment fear that, however reasonahle
such a proposal may he in itself,
things have now gone too far to allow
of there heing any prohahility that
such an arrangement would he ac-
cepted hy the Venetians. Her Ma-
jesty's Government, therefore, would
he unwilling to enter upon a negotia-
tion which, in their opinion, offered
no prospect of success." This was
on the 3d of June. On the 9th the
Austrian Government still pressed
the suhject; for a despatch of Lord
Ponsonhy's, dated on the night of the
9 th, contains the following remark-
ahle proof of the desire of Austria to
make peace on any terms that were
not ahsolutely preposterous:
"At a late hour this afternoon I had
the honour of a conversation with his
Imperial Highness Archduke John, and
I have only time to repeat to your lord-
ship very hriefly the main points. After
having passed in review the existing
state of the circumstances of the Empire,
the question of Lomhardy was deter-
mined hy the declaration of his Imperial
Highness that peace is to he made; and
his reply to my inquiries as to its terms,
'that they were not to he considered.'
His Imperial Highness said that the
Lomhards might have the ahsolute dis-
posal of their own fate; they might take
Charles Alhert for their king, or any
other person, or do what they liked as
to their Government. I referred to a
well-known pbrase, and said,' Your Im-
perial Highness, then, will accept peace
quand mime V to which he replied, 'Yes,
so far as Lomhardy is concerned; hut
we must keep Verona and the line of
the Adige; it is necessary in order to
protect Trieste, which is a key to our
Illyrian provinces.'
"I presume (adds Lord Ponsonhy to
Lord Palmerston) that what I have
stated may afford grounds for prelimi-
nary steps, if it should he your lordship's
wish to forward a pacification. I am un-
willing to ohtrude my opinion at any
time upon any suhject, hut Iwill say that
I think the Archduke is right, hoth in
leaving the Lomhards free to take their
own measures, and in tht desire to retain
the territories within the line of the Adige;
for I helieve that a cession of those would
lead to a renewal of the contest in that
part of Italy where it is so desirahle to
estahlish peace on some solid hasis.
TOL. LXXXVL
25


384
[Sept.
Foreign Affair*—the Disarmament.

The Lomhards, hy the retreat of the
Austrians from all interference, will he
at liherty to complete the union of the
duchies of Parma and Modena with the
Milanese. All pretence for jealousy of
Austrian aggression will cease, hecause
Austria will have no interest to cause
it; and there will not he, I am inclined
to think, any strong feeling in the Vene-
tian kingdom against the proposed ar-
rangement."
Lord Ponsonhy, with hetter judg-
ment than his chief, thought that
trA terms offered hy Austria ought
to he approved of hy the British
Government, and he considered that
there would he no difficulty in getting
the Italians to accept of them. Again
and again he returns to the suhject;
and the Austrian Government goes
all lengths to testify its readiness
to treat upon these terms. On the
12th June Lord Ponsonhy writes to
Lord Palmerston: "I have the hon-
our to report tft your lordship the suh-
stance of my conversation with Baron
Wessenherg this day. The Baron
told me that the Austrian Govern-
ment ... is ready to agree to the
ahsolute independence of the Milan-
ese, and to treat with them for ami-
cahle arrangements hetween the two
countries; and in, confirmation of
this pacifio disposition and intention,
that this evening full powers should
he sent to Marshal Radetsky to make
an armistice with the Lomhards. . . .
Baron Wessenherg assured me in the
most positive terms that if the Vene-
tian province should remain con-
nected with Austria, the Imperial
Government would admit of the
estahlishment there of a constitution
upon the most liheral hasis: 'ex-
tremely liheral' were the words ho
used, and he repeated them." But
all would not do. Lord Pahnerston
did not wish to forward a pacifica-
tion. And on the 20th June he wrote
to Lord Ponsonhy reaffirming his
former rejection of Anstria's pro-
posals for peace:—
"I have now to say to your excellency
that. . . things seem now to hare gone
too far to admit of the practicahility of
such a plan. Hitherto [lie admits] the
military forces of the contending parties
have heen nearly halanced, and though
the general result of the war has heen
in favour of the Italians, there has heen
no great advantage gained hy them in
any hattle. But the Austrians are acting
at a distance from their resources, and
in a country the population of which is
universally hostile to them. The Italians
are at home, and are hacked and aided
hy all the inhahitants of the country;
large levies are forming in Lomhardy,
which will soon he ready to take the
field in conjunction with the troops
already under the command of the King
of Sardinia; and time is in favour of the
Italians and against the Austrians. . , .
If the war continues, the prohahle result
will he that the Austrians will he driven
entirely out of Italy, and that they will
ohtain no compensation of any kind for
their loss of territory."
To conclude the story. Four weeks
afterwards (17th July), as the Aus-
trian Government still clung to the
hope that their most reasonahle and
liheral offers would induce the Brit-
ish Government to come forward as a
mediator, Lord Palmerston cut short
their importunities hy again refusing
to mediate; and hy declaring " that
the fortune of war mint, to a certain
degree at least, determine the man-
ner in which this question hetween
Austria and the Italians is to he
settled:'
What are we to think of such con-
duot on the part of one who is now
Prime Minister of our country?
What are we to think of his judg-
ment who refused these offers of
Austria, at a time when, as he him-
self admits, the opposite forces were
"nearly halanced," and the Italians
had gained "no great advantage in
any hattle?" And what are we to
think of his discernment, when he
confidently expected the Austrians to
he driven over the Alps; whereas in
a few weeks afterwards Radetsky,
compelled hy Palmerston to draw the
sword, was driving the Italians hefore
him like chaff, dictated peace at Turin,
and could have inarched with ease all
over the peninsula? Had Palmerston
acted with ordinary sense, and as
Lord Ponsonhy advised him to do in
1848, the Italians for eleven years
would have heen enjoying all and
more than all that they have now
ohtained hy means of this new war
and French intervention,—Napoleon
would not have got this fair oppor-
tunity for the development of his
suhtle policy,—and England would
not have found herself in the pre-


1859.]
385
Foreign Affairs—the Duarmament.

dicament of having alienated her
natural allies, the Germanic Powers,
and of having heen made first the
dupe and latterly the discarded tool
of the French Emperor. In 1848
England might have ohtained for the
Italians all that France has done
now, and would have heen thanked
hy Austria for her intervention;
whereas hy their conduct then and
now, Lords Palmerston and Russell
have at once transferred the friend-
ship of Austria from us to Napoleon,
ami have also allowed France to he-
come the champion of nationality,
and master of the position in Italy.
The short and sharp crisis which
has passed over Europe has not left
England as it found her. Its first
effect was to reveal a portentous
scheme of co-operation—in fact, an
offensive and defensive alliance—he-
tween Franco and Russia; its second
effect has heen to hreak up the Anglo-
Germanic alliance hy which alone
these two colossal Powers can he held
in check; and the third has heen to
make Austria, in disgust at the deser-
tion of her natural allies, join herself
to France and Russia with the view
to a project for remodelling Europe
in the mauner most advantageous to
these tbree great Powers. In con-
sequence, England is now isolated.
Prussia is the only Power which
still has a leaning towards us, and her
Lord John Russell has done every-
thing possihle to disgust. We he-
lieve that it is the intention, as it is
the interest of the French Emperor
to give to Europe a short peace.
Possihly circumstances may impel
him to war again sooner than he me-
ditates; hut in any case it hehoves
this country to look well after its
naval and military defences. Lord
Lyndhurst—the venerahle statesman
upon whom more than any other has
descended the senatorial influence of
the "old Duke" — has warned the
country of its danger, and called upon
Parliament and puhlic to do their
duty, if they would notjsee a calamity
overtake this country such as will
never he forgotten in the world's his-
tory. In the Lower House Mr. Hors-
uian's motion was a well-timed prac-
tical application of the views so elo-
quently enforced hy Lord Lyndhurst.
Seeing that the safety of our great
arsenals and dockyards is indispens-
ahle to the maintenance of our inde-
pendence, and that hy universal ac-
knowledgment these ports and ar-
senals are not properly defended,
and, according to the present system
of procedure, would not he so for
twenty years (!), Mr. Horsman moved
that the sum required should he
raised hy the Government at once,
so that the necessary works of de-
fence he completed with the least
possihle loss of time. The Govern-
ment, prohahly out of deference to
the financial ideas of Mr. Gladstone,
excused themselves from following
the course suggested in the motion.
Indeed, it is a great though unavoid-
ahle disadvantage of the frequent
changes of Ministry in this country,
that each Chancellor of the Exche-
quer looks only to his single year's
Budget, and seeks his own fame
to the detriment of imperial inte-
rests hy endeavouring to postpone
any extraordinary expenditure, how-
ever much needed, in order that it
may fall upon his successor in office.
We think it most important that some
such course as that suggested hy Mr.
Horsman should he adopted hy the
British Government. Sir J. Paking-
ton ohserved :—
•' A most striking illustration of the
necessity for such precautions is afforded
hy the harhour of Portland, which, al-
though it is constantly resorted to hy
our fleets,is ahsolutely without defences,
and, according to the Secretary for War,
it will take twenty years to complete the
defences. I regret that the right hon.
gentleman hns not expressed hie concur-
rence in the spirit and scope of the mo-
tion. In my opinion, it is not wise to
spend money in drihlets, which would
extend over twenty years. If the
money must he spent, the sooner the
hetter. As regards the strengthening of
the navy, I caunot help expressing my
anxious hope that the Government
will not he contented with resting
where they are. Notwithstanding his
figures, the hon. memher for Rochdale
is much mistaken if he supposes that
the navy of England is nowwhat it ought
to he."
Lord C. Paget—who promises to
he an active head of the Admiralty,
if his colleagues will let him—thus
descrihed the relative position of


886
[Sept.
Foreign Affair)—the Disarmament-

the British, French, and Russian
navies:—
"The last information which we have
from Brest shows that, although the
French have such a large force at sea,
they have no less than 30(Ht sailors in
their harracks at Brest, perfectly ready
for war if they should he wanted. The
real state of the French navy, if war
should unfortunately arise, is twenty
line of-hattle ships in commission and
twelve in reserve, which latter might
put to sea in a very few days. Therefore
the French have thirty-two line-of-hattle
ships. Turning to England, it appears
that so far from her having what his hon.
friend (Mr. Cohden) called her fair pro-
portion—that is to say, one-third more
ships than any other country—her pro-
portion is certainly not more than that
of Fiance. We have twenty-six sail of
the line in commission and nine hlock-
ships, which, though not strictly speak-
ing line-of-hattle ships, are, 1 admit,
capahle of doing good service. Uniting
those two together, the two countries
are pretty nearly equal. With respect
to frigates, however, I will not deceive
the House. The French are stronger
than the English in that respect. I
do not wish to create any alarm, hut I
wish the House to know the truth of the
matter. Bnt in addition to the French
there is another nation or two making
great progress in preparations for naval
war. Kuseia has eight screw line-of-hat-
tle ships, six screw frigates, four paddle
frigates, nine corvettes, one transport,
seventy-five gunhoate, and eighteen
small steamers. That is a large force,
and one which we must not forget is in
existence."
It is to he horne in mind that this
steam-fleet of Russia, at least so far
as regards screw vessels, has heen
wholly created within the last tbree
years. It is impossihle for this coun-
try, to hehold with indifference the
great, continuous, and systematic
efforts which hoth France and Russia
are making to augment their power
at sea. It was the rapid increase of
the French navy which forced us
to do likewise. These Powers must
have an ohject in their present extra-
ordinary efforts: And what can that
ohject he, hut to attain a maritime
supremacy, and therehy compel Eng-
land to neutrality while they proceed
with their contemplated revision of
the map of Europe? It is very well
for Mr. Cohden to say that we ought
not to huild more ships hecause im-
provements are going on, and ohanges
are likely to take place in the art of
naval warfare; and it is very well
for the Ministry to excuse themselves
from proceeding rapidly with the
fortification of our ports and arsenals
on the plea that the science of forti-
fication has not yet reached perfec-
tion. These are pleas which do not
surprise us from the mouth of Mr.
Cohden, and which perhaps are not
inappropriate to a Cahinet whose
finance is presided over hy the
Minister who starved the Russian
War. But we need hardly say, such
an argument is entirely out of place,
as long as our defences are so
far helow what they ought to he.
As soon as we have made ourselves
safe, let not a single ship more he
huilt, nor a single sovereigu more he
expended on fortifications, until we
are sure that we are working upon
the hest possihle plans. But at pre-
sent we caunot afford to wait for
more light than we have. We know
as much as our French and Russian
rivals do,—and that will suffice. It
is true that powerful corvettes, car-
rying hut one tier of heavy guns,
may hy-and-hy supplant the present
tbree-decked line-of-hattle ships, —
and the sooner we see ahout this the
hetter; and it is true also that new
engines of war may necessitate new
methods of fortification. Bnt whilst
we inquire, we must work. We can-
not afford to wait idly upon theories
and speculations when the safety of
the commonwealth is at stake. Very
likely we shall ere long see electricity
taking the place of guupowder on
the hattle-field, and new projectiles
supplanting the rifled caunon: hut
srely guupo wder and Armstrong's
guns will do in the mean time. We
must make the hest of what we have
—and that promptly. For the aspeot
of the times is tbreatening; and it
will never do to see our docks and
arsenals fall, for want of defences,
into the hands of an enemy, and
undergo the destruction which only
tbree years ago we dealt out to
Sehastopol.
Mr. Cohden, in his speech on Mr.
Horsman's motion, said that he was
ready to vote a hundred millions if
he saw any Power preparing to attack


1869.]
887
Foreign Affairs—the Disarmament.

this country. "We douht not Mr.
Cohden was in earnest when he made
that profession. Even Mr. Bright, we
helieve, with all his milleunial ideas
ahout peace, would he ready to
shoulder a musket if the French were
hesieging his flaunel-mills. The pa-
triotism of these gentlemen is, we
daresay, sound enough, if one could
only get at it. But unfortunately it
lies stowed away hehind hlinding
prejudices and hales of crotchets, far
heyond the reach of ordinary use.
We all see things in the light of our
dominant ideas. And a mental tele-
scope that is very good for showing
some things, may he very had for
showing others. If one is wrapt up
in dreams of milleunial peace, and in
theories which maintain that the na-
tions have grown too wise to go to war
any more, it is very hard to get such
a one to see facts, however patent,
which run counter to his ideas. The
Philistines will he upon him hefore
he will helieve that they have laid
aside their ploughs and their pruning
hooks. He has no ear for the distant
rumhle of muffled caunon, nor for the
sound of the enemy working under-
ground; and "the chance is that the
masked hatteries will open, or the
mine will explode, hefore it occurs to
him to take steps to meet the danger.
The talked-of disarmament on the
part of France is a thing especially
calculated to attract the thoughts
of such men. It is a disarmament—
it is a step which professes to he a
carrying out of their principles; and
tney will not he unduly anxious to
inquire into its real ohject or extent.
Passing hy for the moment the ohject
of this disarmament, let us see its
extent. And first of all let it he
horne in mind that France and
England are in very different posi-
tions at present as regards warlike
estahlishments. France has just
emerged from an aggressive war, and
her naval and military estahlish-
ments are on a war-footing. It is
otherwise with England. So far from
heing ahle to engage in an aggressive
war, England is not at present strong
enough even for a war of defence.
Hence there is quite margin enough
for a disarmament on the part of
France. Indeed, as his forces are at
present on a war-footing, it would he
equivalent to a declaration hy the
Emperor of his intention to continue
a military policy, if he did not issue
orders for a disarmament of some
kind. In the next place, let it he
noted that a French disarmament is
a very different thing from a dis-
armament with us. When England
dishands her soldiers and sailors, they
are lost to her. She has no ma-
chinery for recalling them to her flag.
If she ohtains their services again, it
is in the same way as she would oh-
tain the services of ordinary recruits.
And when we lay hy our ships, we
partially dismantle them. It is very
different in France. There, the dis-
handed soldiers and sailors are liahle
to he recalled to their standards at a
week's notice; and the ships, when
taken out of commission, are carefully
repaired, and are "laid in ordinary
all standing." The crew is dishanded
—that is all; and the crew can he
had again on a few days' notice.
French soldiers are discharged upon
a renewahle furlough—they caunot
marry, nor leave the military district
to which they helong, without per-
mission, and they are inspected hy a
General of Division once a-month.
In the naval service it is the same:
the sailors who are dismissed to their
smacks and fishing-hoats are always
within hail of some commissary of
the maritime conscription. As re-
gards the present case, the Gazette de
France states that the "peace foot-
ing" of France must he understood
to comprise the ahility to have 560,000
under arms at a month's notice; and
that, with a view to the extension of
France's colonial possessions, there
must he a constant progress in the
development of her fleet, which, says
the Gazette, is already "the finest
naval force in the world." And as
respects the practical application of
this "disarmament," the Paris cor-
respondent of the Morning Herald
says:—" A portion of the soldiers
and sailors—of the men who fight
the hattles and man the ships—are
sent home on furlough, nothing more.
And those who huild and rig the ships,
cast the guns and ammunition, and
raise earthworks along the coast, it
is not contemplated to diminish; in
fact, I have reason to know that their
numher has received an increase.


888
[Sept.
Foreign Affairs—the Disarmament.

Extra numhers of mechanics and
riggers have heen engaged at Roche-
fort and Brest. At Cherhourg and
Brest coals and ammunition are heing
stored to an extent that denotes a
wish to he prepared against any
emergency; and at the former place
(Cherhourg) the forts are heing armed
with rifled guns. The greatest acti-
vity prevails in the arsenals, where a
large supply of these rifled caunon has
heen and is heing prepared; and the
ships which are heing put out of com-
mission, in consequence of the (so-
called) reduction of the navy to a
peace-footing, are forthwith to un-
ship their old guns and to take on
hoard the formidahle canons rayes,
and the old spherical shot and shell
are to he recast, as the new ordnance
only fires conical shot."* Admiral
Fourichon's squadron at Brest, and
four frigates and some smaller vessels
at Toulon, constitute the portion of
the fleet which is to he withdrawn
from commission in order that the
ships may he fitted with the formida-
hle new artillery. In plain English,
to this, and to nothing more, does
the so-called naval disarmament of
France amount. Both hy land and
sea, this "disarmament" is a wise
step on the part of the French Em-
peror, whatever may he his plans for
the future. By it he saves the wages
of a certain numher of soldiers, sailors,
and marines, whom notwithstanding
he can recall in a week's time to their
flag; and as it is only old hands,
trained men who need no further
drill, that are heing thus dismissed
on furlough (no one heing dishanded
who has not served five years), the
army and the crews of the fleet
are in noways impaired in their effi-
ciency. Moreover, the ships which are
thus "temporarily deprived of their
crews are when "in ordinary,"to he fit-
ted up with the new artillery,—so that
nothing is lost hy their present with-
drawal from commission. As regards
the arsenals, foundries, fortifications,
and ship-huilding, the work goes on
hrisker than ever. In short, the only
reduction which Napoleon is mak-
ing on the war-footing of France is
one which, without impairing the effi-
ciency of his crews and regiments, will
save some money; which money ia
heing expended in increasing the
fortifications and productions of war,
in huilding more ships, and in fitting
up as many as possihle with the new
rifled artillery.
Such, and no more, is Napoleon's
disarmament. It is a wise and prudent
step, we repeat, even though he meant
to resume warfare hefore another
year has passed. This must strike
every one who inquires and considers
the matter. But what is not so ohvi-
ous is the political hearing of the
"disarmament," especially as regards
the future. The masses are ever im-
pervious to ideas unless such as are
expressed hy suhstantial facts. The
dishanding of soldiers and seamen,
and the laying-hy of some ships of
war, constitutes an ohvious fact
which all classes will note, and which
will he appealed to as a patent
proof of the Emperor's desire and
intention to return to a regime of
peace. By this Napoleon seeks to
attain a douhle purpose. In the
first place, sagacious and provident
of the resources of France, he desires
to reassure the commercial and in-
dustrial classes, and to engage them
in turning the present period of peace
to full account, so that when war re-
curs the resources of France may he
in the hest possihle condition. His
second ohject is to lull England hack
into her old sense of security, and
induce us to pause in those military
and naval preparations which are es-
sential to the safety of this country.
It would he a great point if he could
make us come to helieve that our
present apprehensions are a mere
haseless panic, and so produce a re-
action of puhlic sentiment, of which
he knows the leaders of the Peace
party are ready to take full advant-
age. But if he can hut keep us as we
are, it will serve his purpose. Even
Mr. Cohden allows that Great Britain
ought to have a third more ships than
any other power; whereas at present
our fleet is not more than equal to
that of France. If, then, "reassur-
ing" notes and manifestoes in the
Moniteur should persuade us to re-
main as we are, a union of the French
and Russian fleets could at any time
* Morning Herald, August 2.


1869.]
389
Foreign Affairs—the Disarmament.

compel us to neutrality, wholly ex-
cluding our intervention from Eu-
rope; or, in the event of war, could
molest our shores and cut off our
commerce. Instead of this heing only
a prohlematical danger, it is one which
this country has felt already. For all
our diguified talk ahout neutrality
and non-intervention during the late
war, the simple fact is, that we dared
not interfere. Our Government knew
that if we had interfered on hehalf of
peace, and for the maintenance of
treaties, we should have hrought
down upon ourselves the French and
Russian fleets: and our navy was
quite uuprepared for such a contest.
»Had the naval power of England
been as it was wont to he, there
would have heeu no war. Our Gov-
ernment would not only have said,
as they did say, "the war is uune-
cessary and unjustifiahle," hut they
would have said also—We are quite
against the settlement of such a ques-
tion hy force of arms, and we shall
lend the whole weight of our material
power against whichever government
tbrows ohstacles in the way of main-
taining peace. Prussia and Germany
would at once have joined us, and
there would have heen no war. But
Napoleon, who knows the state of
our fleet as well as we do, knew that
we were not sufficiently strong at sea
to he ahle so to act. And so, while
Central Europe was concussed hy
Prince GortschakofFs open tbreat that
Russia would attack Germany if Ger-
many attacked France, England was
equally reduced to inaction hy the
known existence of a secret treaty
hetween France and Russia—a "writ-
ten agreement," of which our states-
men prohahly know more than they
care to tell. In assuming an armed
neutrality the British Government
did all that it was in its power to
do. We repeat it—however Ministers
might (and very wisely) put a good
face upon the matter, and however
the puhlic at large might pride it-
self upon our neutrality, we really
had no choice. Neutrality may have
heen a virtue,—assuredly it was a
necessity.
Now, the time is evidently ap-
proaching when Russia and Franco
will he very happy if they can play
that game over again with equal suc-
cess. The next chapter of the Napo-
leonic policy will open in Turkey.
Long hefore the Italian war hegan,
we not only pointed out that it was
coming, hut, while showing hefore-
hand the ohjects which Napoleon
sought to accomplish hy the war, we
stated that one of these was, to seoure
the future co-operation of Austria, hy
holding out to her the prospect of
compensating her losses in Italy hy
gains in Turkey. When this new
chapter of Napoleonism opens—and
it will not he long delayed—France
will then do for Russia what Russia,
during the late war, has done for her.
France, if things go smootbly, will
take no direct part in the war. Her
task will simply he to prevent Eng-
land from interfering. And Russia,
hy pushing forward a corps towards
Herat, will he ready (in the event of
our contumacity) to occasion fresh
uneasiness in our Indian empire, with
a view to prevent our drawing any
material reinforcements from that
quarter. In these circumstances, what
is the choice presented to us? We
may, if we choose, continue the sys-
tem of passive neutrality, we may
see a Russian army at Constantinople,
as we have seen, and yet see, a French
army in Italy; and we may still hug
ourselves in the helief that we are
astonishing the world hy an exhihi-
tion of all the utilitarian virtues.
But that will soon have had its day.
France and Russia are hoth hent
upon hecoming great naval powers
in the Mediterranean; and although
Napoleon III. well knows the useful-
ness of moderation, and ever offers a
salve where he demands a sacrifice,
he certainly has it in view to strip us
of vantage-ground in the Mediterra-
nean, which we will never consent to
ahandon of our free will.
We are not painting a distant fu-
ture, hut one at hand. The present
peace will not last long. And in the
mean time the French Emperor will
do his hest to "reassure Europe,
and to reinstate himself in his old
character as a friend of peace. He
wishes peace for the present; and he
still more wishes to he thought to
wish it. He occasioned the last war,
hut it is Russia that will occasion the
next one. Therefore Napoleon may
continue most fervent in his pacific


390
[Sept. 1859.
Foreign Affairs—the Disarmament.
professions to the last, seeing that
all the hlame will fall on the hroad
shoulders of the northern Colossus,
whom he will nevertheless side with
in dne time. "We shall not fully ap-
preciate the character of Napoleon's
present disarmament, if we do not
view it in relation to these schemes
for the future. Napoleon not only
wishes peace for the hour, hut he has
no intention to take any direct part
in the next (*. e. Turkish) war. All
that he will have to do then, is to
keep England from interfering. Pos-
sihly the Grand-Duke Constantino of
Russia—who has visited in succes-
sion the French Emperor, the King
of Greece, and the Sultan, and who
is now on a visit to our own country
—may at this moment he unfolding, in
confidence to our Government, some
scheme hy which England may he
propitiated into approval of, or at
least passive acquiescence in, the ap-
proaching iuroad upon Turkey. But
if we refuse to. he so propitiated, to
the navies of France and Russia it is
already relegated to tame our pride,
and chain us up in our island home.
No Englishman can desire to see
such a scheme crowned with success.
Whatever form the European question
take, let us he prepared to hear our
part in it in a mauner hefitting the
diguity of a great country. If wo
choose neutrality, let the choice he
voluntary, and not of compulsion. If
we have to choose war, let us he ready
to face its dangers, and strong enough
to trinmph over them. The present
is ours,—if we neglect it, the future
will be Napoleon's.
»
-
i

II
.


BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. DXXVIII.
OCTOBER 1859.
Vol. LXXXVI.
CAPTAIN- J. H. SPEKE S DISCOVERY OF THE VICTORIA NYANZA LAKE,
THE SUPPOSEn SOURCE OF THE NILE. FROM HIS JOURNAL.
PAST IL
After my return from Kasenge, we
had no other resource left us hut to
proceed with the investigation of the
Lake in common canoes; for we oould
not wait any longer, as our supplies
were fast on the wane. I was sorry for
it, as 111j' companion was still suffering
so severely, that anyhody seeing him
attempt to go would have despaired
of his ever returning. Yet he could
not endure heing left hehind. Travel-
ling in canoes, as I could now testify
from my late experiences, is, without
joke, a very trying husiness to a sick
man, oven in the hest weather; and
here we were still in the height of the
monsoon, a season of rain just as
severe as the great Indian Barsar.
Negotiations for the means of carry-
ing out our ohject (of proceeding
to tho north of the lake, survey-
ing it, and ascertaining whether
Shaykh Hamed's story ahout a large
river ruuning out of it was hased
upon a true foundation) were then
commenced upon, and Kaunina was
applied to. He likewise, it appeared,
had a plan in view of carrying on
some ivory transactions with the Sul-
tan of Uvira, governing a district at
VOL. LXXXVL
20
the northern end and western shore
of the lake, and agreed to take us
there, and also show us the river in
question. It was settled that we
should go in two canoes; Captain
Burton, with Kaunina, in a very
large one, paddled hy forty men,
at once, and I in another consider-
ahly smaller—our party to pay all
expenses; and, in fact, to do Kan-
nina's husiness in consideration of his
protection. This we did do, and no
more; for, after arriving at Uvira,
nothing could induce him to take us
to the river at the end of the lake, al-
though the remaining distance could
have heen accomplished in ahout six
hours' paddling. His reason, which
he must have known hefore, was,
that the savages resident there, the
Warundi trihe, were inimical to his
people, the Wajijis. This was a sore
disappointment, though not so great
as it would have heen, had we not
ascertained hy other means that
Shaykh Hamed's story was a mere
fahrication; and that a large river,
called Rusizi, did run not out of
hut into the lake. Tho Sultan's
son, who visited us immediately


392
[Oct.
Captain Spehe's Discovery of the Victoria Nyama,

on our arrival at Uvira, told us that
the river drained the high mountains
encircling our immediate north, and
discharged its waters into the lake.
I should not have heen satisfied with
this counter-statement alone (know-
ing, as everyhody must who travels
amongst unenlightened men, that they
have a proverhial hahit of descrihing
a river's flow to he the opposite of
what it is), had I not ascended some
neighhouring heights, and ohserved
the mountains increasing in size as
they extended away to the north-
ward, and effectually closing in this
low lake, which is not quite half the
altitude of the surface-level of the
general interior plateau, and caunot
therefore, under any circumstances,
have an overflow of water. Al-
though wrong in this respect, the
Shaykh was right ahout the dis-
tance the lake's northern end lay
from Ujiji; for, properly divided,
it takes eight days, the time he spe-
cified, exactly. Had he not answered
my question ahout perceiving the
draw of the water near the river's
escape, I should have imagined
that he told his story in reverse
order, from sheer iguorance and ina-
hility to explain his knowledge ahout
it. On coming up the lake, we tra-
velled the first half up the east coast,
then crossed over to the end of a
long island called Uhwari, made for
the western shore, and coasted up it
to Uvira. I have now mapped the
northern half of the lake, and have
so many evidences ahout the south-
ern portion, all corrohorating one
another so satisfactorily, that the di-
mensions and position of the lake,
which I gave you in my former letter,
I feel satisfied are very near tho
truth. It would have amused any
one very much to have seen our two
canoes racing together up the lake.
These naked savages were never tired
of testing their respective strengths.
They would paddle away like so
many hlack devils ;—dashing up the
water whenever they succeeded in
coining near each other, and delight-
ing in drenching us with the spray.
The greatest pleasure to them, it
appeared, was torturing others with
impunity to themselves. Because the
Mzungus had clothes, and they had
none, they cared not how the water
flew ahout; and the more they were
asked to desist, the more ohstinately
they persevered. For fear of misap-
prehension, I must state that though
these negroes go stark naked when
cruising or working during a shower
of rain, they all possess a mantle or
goat-skin, which they sling over
their shoulders, and strut ahout in
when on shore, and the weather is fine.
It is a curious sight, when en-
camped on a showery day, to see
every man take off his skin, wrap it
carefully up, and place it in his mo-
zigo or load, and stand, whilst his gar-
ment is thus comfortahly disposed of,
cowering and tremhling like a dog
who has just emerged from a cold
pond.
This part of the lake is almost a
reflection of the other, hut the dis-
trict is higbly cultivated, and has very
large cattle, hearing horns of stupend-
ous size. They are of a uniform red
colour, like our Devonshire hreed,
hut attain a very much greater
height and size. As the mountains
run higher on either side the lake
on their extending to the north-
ward (and as they gradually close to-
gether until they form a harrier to
the lake at its northern end, where
they attain their greatest altitude),
the view is not nearly so extensive
as in the southern portions, hut still
is very heautiful. On returning to
Ujiji after a rather protracted so-
journ at Uvira, occasioned hy Kan-
nina's not completing his work so
quickly as had heen anticipated, we
found our stock of heads and cloth,
which had heen left in charge of the
Ras-cafila, Shaykh Said, and under
the protection of the Belooches and
our Wanyamnezi porters, reduced
to so low an ehh that everyhody felt
anxious ahout our future move-
ments. The Shaykh, however, I
must add, on a prior occasion, very
generously proposed, in case we felt
disposed to carry on the survey of
the lake, to return to the Arah
dep6t at Kazeh, and fetch some
more African money, to meet the
necessary expenses. Though admir-
ing so maguanimous a sacrifice on
the part of this energetic Shaykh, it
was voted, in consequence of my com-
panion's failing health, as well as
from the delay it would occasion,


1859.]
093
the tuppoted Source of the Nile.—Part II.
that we should all return at once to
Kazeh, where we expected to meet
our reserve supplies. This once
agreed upon, I then proposed that,
after reaching Kazuli, we should travel
northwards, in search of a lake, said
hy tlie Arahs to he hoth hroader and
longer than the Tanganyika, and
which they call Ukerewe", after the
island where their caravans go for
ivory. This lake has no siguificant
name. The negroes, in speaking of
it, merely say Nyanza (or, the Lake).
-,- My companion was, most unfortu-
nately, quite done up, hut very gra-
ciously consented to wait with the
Arahs and recruit his health, whilst
I should proceed alone, and satisfy
the Royal Geographical Society's de-
sires as far as possihle ahout all the
inland seas, the ohject for which they
sent us, and which it was, therefore,
our utmost desire to accomplish. Just
as we were preparing to leave Ujiji,
hy great good fortune some supplies
were hrought to us hy an Arah called
Mohiuna, an old friend whom we
formerly left at Kazeh, and who had.
now followed us here to trade in
ivory. Had this timely supply not
reached us, it is difficult to conceive
what would have heen our fate, left
as we should have heen with a large
amount of non-trafficking property,
and having numhers of people to feed,
whilst my companion was unahle to
move without the assistance of eight
men to carry him in a hammock,
we heing totally without the means
of purchase in the territory of one
of the most inhospitahle of all the
trihes with which we have had
counection. This timely supply was
-\ one of the many strokes of good for-
tune which hefell us upon this jour-
ney, and for which we have so
much reason to he grateful. Help
had always reached us at the time
when least we expected it, hut when
we most required it. My health had
heen improving ever since I first
reached the lake, and enjoyed those
invigorating swims upon its surface,
and revelled in the good living af-
forded hy the market at Ujiji. The
facilities of the place giving us such
a choice of food, our powers in the
culinary art were 'tried to their full-
est extent. It would he difficult to
tell what dishes we did not make
there. Fish of many softs done up
in all the fashions of the day—meat
and fowl in every form—vegetahle
soups, and dishes of numherless
varieties—fruit-preserves, custards,
custard-puddings, and jellies—and
last, hut not least, huttered crum-
pets and cheese, formed as fine a
spread as was ever set hefore a
king. But sometimes we came to
fault, when our supply of milk
was, on the most foolish pretexts, .
stopped hy Kamiina, who was the
only cow-proprietor in the neigh-
hourhood. At one time he took
offence hecause we turned his im-
portunate wives out of the house, in
mistake for common heggars. On
another occasion, when I showed
him a cheese of our manufacture,
and hegged he would allow me
to instruct his people in the art of
making them, he took fright, de-
clared that the cheese was something
supernatural, and that it could never
have heen made hy any ordinary ar-
tifice; moreover, if his people were
shown the way to do it one hundred
times, they would never he ahle to
comprehend it. He further showed
his alarm hy forhidding us any more
milk, lest, hy our tampering with it,
we should hewitch his cows, and
m.ike them all run dry. A year's ac-
climatisation had hy this time pro-
duced a wonderful effect on all the
party: so that now, with our fresh
supplies, most of us marched away
from Ujiji in hetter condition than
we had enjoyed since leaving the
coast. The weather was very fine,
the rainy season having ceased on
the 15th May ; wo marched rapidly
across the eastern horn of the
mountains hack to the ferry on the
Malagarazi, hut hy a more north-
erly route than the one hy which
we came. We reached this river
in early June, and found its ap-
pearance very different from what
it was on our former visit, at the
hegiuning of the monsoon. Then its
waters were contained within its
hanks, of no considerahle width; hut
now, although the rains had ceased
here long ago, the river had not only
overflowed its hanks, hut had suh-
merged nearly all the valley in which
it lies, to the extent at least of a mile
or more. As the prevailing winds


394
Captain Spele's Discovery of the Victoria Nyanza, [Oct.

tbroughout the year ure from the
eastward, and as rains usually come
up against it, we may infer, as we see
hy the state of the river, that its
source heing situated to the north-
ward in the greater heights, the axis
of these mountains is later affected
hy the discharge of the monsoon
than these more southern regions,
where the hills are less high, and
consequently have less attractive
power on the clouds and rains. This
reasoning is also applicahle to the
swelling of the rivers which are he-
yond this mountain group, and which
shed their waters to the northward,
into the Nile. After crossing the
river, we hurried along hy a more
southerly and straighter road than
we formerly came hy, and reached
Kazeh towards the latter end of
June. Here Shaykh Snay, the prin-
cipal Arah merchant of the depot,
received us with his usual genuine
hospitality, arranged a house espe-
cially for our use, and with him
we again estahlished our headquar-
ters. This man, when we were for-
merly detained here to form our
second caravan on our journey west-
wards, housed us, and carefully at-
tended to our wants. He took charge
of our kit, provided us with porters,
and finally hecame our agent. Living
with him, surrounded hy an Arah
community, felt like living in a civil-
ised land. For the Arah's mauners
and society are as pleasant and
respectahle as can he found in any
Oriental family. Snay had travelled
as much as, or more than, any person
in this land; and from heing a
sbrewd and intelligent inquirer,
knew everyhody and everything. It
was from his mouth, on our former
visit to Kazeh, that I first heard of
the Nyanza, or, as he called it, the
Ukerewe" Sea; and then, too, I first
proposed that we should go to it in-
stead of journeying westward to the
smaller waters of Ujiji. He had
travelled up its western flank to Ki-
huga, the capital of the kingdom of
Uganda, which I consider, deducing
my conclusions from a large mass of
information, to he in 2" north lati-
tude and 31° east longitude. How-
ever, I will give you his own words,
and you may judge for yourself.
Shaykh Snay informant: "I was
once tbree years ahsent on a visit to
King Suuna, at his capital, Kihuga, in
the Uganda kingdom, occupied hy a
trihe called Waganda. Starting from
Unyanyemhe (latitude 5° south and
longitude 33° east), it took me thirty-
five marches to reach Kitangura
(hearing N.N.W.), and twenty more
marches going northwards, with the
morning sun a little on my right
face (prohahly north hy east), to ar-
rive at Kihuga. The only people that
gave me any trouhle on the Way are
the Wasoe, situate at the hegiuning
of the Karagwah district; hut that
was only trifling, and lasted hut tbree
or four marches. The Karagwah dis-
trict (a mountainous tract of land,
containing several high spurs of hill,
the eastern huttresses of these Lunaa
Montes, and washed on the flanks
hy the Ukerewe Sea) is hounded on
the north hy the Kitangura river,
heyond which the Wanyoros' terri-
tory (crescent shape) lies, with the
horns directed eastwards. Amidst
them, situate in the concave, or lake
side, are the Wagandns, to whose
capital I went. Anyhody wishing
to discover the northern houndary of
the lake should go to Kihuga, take
good presents, and make friends with
the reiguing monarch; and, with his
assistance, hny or construct hoats on
the shore of the lake, which is ahout
five marches east of his capital.
North, heyond the Wagandas, the
'Wanyoros are again met with; and
there quarrels and wars were so rife,
from a jealousy existing among them,
that had these lieoplo known of a
northern houndary, 1 still might not
have heard of it. On crossing the
Kitangura river, I found it emanat-
ing from Urundi (a district in the
Mountains of the Moon), and flowing
north-easterly. My impression is that
it falls into the lake. The hreadth
of the river is very great, I should
imagine some five to six hundred
yards, and it contains much water,
overflowing as the Malagarazi does
after rains. There are also numer-
ous other little streams on the way
to Kihuga, hut none so great as the
Katonga river. This, like the rest,
comes from the west, and flows to-
wards the lake. It has a span of two
thousand yards—is very deep when
full; hut sinks and is very sluggish


1859.]
395
the suppoted Source of the Nile.—Fart II.

in the dry season, when water-lilies
and rushes overspread its surface,
and the musquitoes are very aunoy-
ing. The cowrie shell, hrought from
the Zanzihar coast, is the common
currency amongst those northern
trihes; hut they are not worth the
merchant's while to carry, as heads
and hrass (not cloth, for they are
essentially a head-wearing and naked
people) are eagerly sought for and
taken in exchange. Large sailing
craft, capahle of containing forty or
fifty men, and mauned and navigated
after the fashion of ocean mariners, are
reported hy the natives to frequent
the lake* in a north-easterly direc-
tion. We Arahs helieve in this re-
port, as everyhody tells the same
story; hut don't know how it hap-
pens to he so, unless it is open to the
sea. The Kitangura river is crossed
in good-sized wooden canoes; hut
the Katonga river can only he passed
in the dry season, when men walk
over it on the lily leaves; cattle, too,
are then passed across in certain open
spaces, guided hy a long string,
which is attached to the animals'
heads."
Other Arah and Sowahili merchants
have corrohorated Snay's statement,
as also a Hindi merchant, called Musn,
whom I especially mention as I con-
sider him a very valuahle informant
—not only from the straightforward
way he had of telling his story, hut
also hecause we could converse with
one another direct, and so ohviate
any chance of errors. After descrih-
ing his route to the north in minute
detail, stage hy stage, with great pre-
cision, and to the same effect as all
the other accounts, he told me of
a third large river to the northward
of the Line, lying northward heyond
Uganda; it is much larger than the Ka-
tonga, and generally called the Usoga
River, hecause it waters that district.
Although he had recently visited
Kihuga, and had lived with Sultan
iltesa, the present reiguing monarch
in place of Suuna, who died since Snay
was there, he had no positive or defi-
nite idea of the physical features of any
of the country heyond the point which
he had reached; hut he produced a
negro slave of the Wanyoro trihe who
had heen to Usoga, and had seen the
river in question. This man called
the river Kivira, and descrihed it as
heing much hroader, deeper, and
stronger in its current than either
the Katonga or Kitangura river; that
it came from the generally acknow-
ledged direction of the lake, and that
it intersected stony, hilly ground on
its passage to the north-west. This
river Kivira, I now helieve (although
I must confess at first I did not), is the
Nile itself. For on a suhsequent occa-
sion, when talking to a very respect-
ahle Sowahili merchant hy name
Shaykh Ahdullah hin Nasih, ahout
the Nyanza, he corrohorated the
story ahout the miners, who are
said to ke6p logs and use sextants,
and mentioned that he had heard of
a trihe called Bari, living on the
Kivira river. Now, the Bari people
mentioned hy him are evidently
those which have long since heen
known to us as a trihe living on the
Nile in latitude 4° north, and longitude
32' east, and descrihed hy the different
Egyptian expeditions sent up the Nile
to discover its source. M. Ferdinand
"Werne (says Dr. Beke) has puhlished
an account of the second expedition's
proceedings, in which he took part;
and which, it appears, succeeded in
getting further up the river than
either of the others. "The author
states that, according to Lacono,
King of Bari, the course of the river
continues thence southwards a dis-
tance of thirty days' journey." This,
hy Dr. Beke's computation, places the
source of the Nile just where I have
since discovered the Nyanza's south-
ern extremity to he, in the second
degree south longitude, lying in the
Unyamuezi country.t Here we see
how singularly all the different in-
formers' statements hlend together,
in suhstantiating my opinion that
the Nyanza is the great reservoir or
fountain-head of that mighty stream
that floated Father Moses on Ids
first adventurous sail — the Nile.
Even Ptolemy, we see, is right in stat-
ing that the Nile is fed hy the waters
* Query—The Nile, as Bahari, the word they use for lake, is also used to ex-
press a large river.
f See Dr. Beke's paper on "The Sources of the Nile," printed 1849.


396
[Oct.
Captain Spate's Discovery of the Viotoria Nyama,

coming from the Mountains of the
Moon: and though lie has not placed
those mountains exaotly where they
should he on his map—from not un-
derstanding the true disposition of
the various physical geographical
features which ocoupy that part of
Africa—still it is wonderfully near the
truth for an hypothetical prod notion.
I hegan the formation of the new
oarnvan for exploring Northern Unya-
. umezi immediately after our arrival,
hut found it difficult to do things
hurriedly. There was only one man
then at Unyanyemhe, who knew
the Sowahili language, and would
consent to act as my Kirangozi ;•*
and as he had come all the way from'
Ujiji with ns, he required a few days
to arrange things at his home, in a vil-
lage some distance off. Whilst he was
ahsent nothing could go on; hut the
Arahs paid us daily visits, and gave
many useful hints ahout the journey
in prospect. One hint must especially
he regarded, which was, to take care,
on arrival at the lake, that I did not
enter the village of a certain sultan
called Mahaya, to whose district
Muanza, at the southern extremity
of the lake, they directed me to go.
This precautionary warning was ad-
vanced in consequence of a trick the
Sultan had played an Aral,, who,
after visiting him in a friendly way,
was forcihly detained until he paid a
ransom for himself; an unjust mea-
sure, which the Arahs pointedly ad-
vert to as destructive to commercial
interests. To lose no time whilst the
Kirangozi was away—for I had a long
husiness to do in a very short spaco
of time—I intimated to the Shaykh,
our Ras - cafila, and the Belooch
guards, my intention of taking them
with me to the lake, and ordered
them to prepare for the journey hy a
oertain date. The Shaykh demurred,
saying he would give a definite an-
swer ahout accompanying me he-
fore the time of starting, hut suh-
sequently refused (I hear, as one
reason), hecause he did not con-
sider me his chief. I urged that
it was as muoh his duty as mine to
go there; and said, unless he changed
his present resolution, I should cer-
tainly recommend the Government
not to pay the gratuity which the
consul had promised him on condi-
tion that he worked entirely to our
satisfaction, in assisting the expedi-
tion to carry out the Government's
plans. The Jemadar of the Belooch
guard, on seeing the Shaykh hold
heck, at first raised ohjections, and
then hegan to hargain. He fixed a
pay of one gora, or fifteen cloths per
man, as the only condition on which
I should get their services; for they
all declared that they had not only
heen to Ujiji, the place appointed hy
Sultan M.ijid and their chief hefore
leaving Zanzihar, hut that they had
overstayed the timo agreed upon for
them to he ahsent on these travels.
Considering tho value of time, I ac-
oaded to this exorhitant demand;
moreover, the dry season had now set
in, and the Arahs at this period cease
travelling, from fear of heing caught
hy droughts in those deserts whioh lie
hetween this place and the east-coast
range, where, if the ponds and pud-
dles dry up, there is so little water in
the wells that travelling hecomes pre-
carious. Further, I had not only to
go tbrough a much wilder country
than we had travelled in hefore, two
and a half degrees off, to discover and
hring hack full particulars of the
Nyanza, hut had to purchase cattle
sufficient for presents, and food for tho
whole journey down to the coast,
within the limited period of six weeks.
The Arah depot now came into play
to satisfy this sudden and unexpected
oall upon our store of cloths. There
were ten Belooches fit for service,
and for each of them a gora was
hought at the depot, at a valuation
of 10 dollars each, or 100 the lot.
In. addition to this, they received
an advance of 15 maunds of white
heads in lien of rations—a rate of 1 lh.
per man per diem for six weeks.
The Kirangozi now returned with
many exouses to escape the undertak-
ing. He declared that all the roads
were rendered impassahle hy wars;
and that it was impossihle for him
to undertake the responsihility of es-
corting me in so dangerous a country.
After a good deal of hothering and
persuading he at length acceded, and
hrought fifteen pagazis or porters
* Kirangozi—loader of a caravan.


1859.]
397
the supposed Source of the Nile.—Part II.

from his own and some neighhouring
villages. To each of these I gave fire
cloths as hire, and all appeared ready:
hut not so. Bomhay's Seedi nature
came over him, and he would not
move a yard unless I gave him a
month's wages In cloth upon the spot.
I thought his demand an imposition,
for he had just heen given a cloth.
llir, wages wereoriginally fixed at five
dollars a month, to accumulate at
Zanziher until our return there; hut
he was to receive daily rations the
same as all the other men, with an
occasional loin cloth covering when-
ever his shukka might wear out. All
these strikes with the Belooches and
slaves, were in consequence of their
having hought some slaves, whose
whims and tastes they could not sa-
tisfy without our aid; and they knew
the*e men would very soon desert
them unless they received occasion-
al alluring presents to make them
contented. But finessing is a kind of
itch with all Orientals, as gamhling
is with those who are addicted to it,
and they would tell any lie rather
than gain their ohject easily hy the
simple truth, on the old principle that
"stolen things are sweetest." Had
Bomhay only opened his heart, the
matter would have heen settled at
once, for his motives were of a supe-
rior order. He had hought, to he his
adopted hrother, a slave of the Wah-
ha trihe, a tall, atbletic, fine-looking
man, whose figure was of such excel-
lent proportions that he would have
heen remarkahle in any society; and
it was for this youth, and not himself,
he had made so much fuss and used so
many devices to ohtain the cloths.
Indeed, he is a very singular charac-
ter, not caring one hit ahout himself,
how he dressed, or what he ate; ever
contented, and doing everyhody's
work in preference to his own, and of
such exemplary honesty, he stands a
solitary marvel in tho land; he would
do no wrong to henefit himself—to
please anyhody else there is nothing ho
would stick at. I now gave him five
cloths at his request, to he eventually
deducted from his pay. Half of them
he gave to a slave called Mahruk, who
had heen procured hy him for leading
Captain Burton's donkey, hut who
had not, in consequence of had he-
haviour, reverted to my service. This
man he also desiguated "hrother,"
and was very warmly attached to,
though Mahruk had no qualifications'
worthy of attracting any one's affec-
tions to him. He was a sulky, dogged,
pudding-headed hrute, very ugly, hut
very vain; he always maintained a
respectahle appearance, to cloak his
disrespectful mauners. The remain-
der was expended in loin-cloths, some
spears and a fez (red Turkish cap),
the wearing of which he shared hy
turns with his purchased hrother,
and a little slave child whom he had
also purchased and employed in look-
ing after the general wardrohe, and
in cooking his porridge diuner, or
fetching water and gathering sticks.
On the line of march he carried
Bomhay's sleeping-hide and water-
gourd.
And now I am ready to lead you
over my second voyage of discovery
—the ono which, to my mind, is
hy far the most satisfactory, and I
trust it will he so to you; for it tokos
you into the richest part of Africa,
and discloses to yon the prohahle, and
I helieve true, source of that mighty
stream the Nile; and has almost,
if not entirely, solved a prohlem
which it has heen the first geographi-
cal desideratum of many thousand
years to ascertain, and the amhition
of the first monarchs of the world to
uuravel.
nISCOVEBY OF TnE VICTORIA STANZA.
KiZEh, UNTAHTUisk, UNTAmnCSI, tth July, 1858.
consisting of one Kir- who carried one of Captain Burton's
douhle rifles, an eight-hore hy W.
Richards. I took witli me for sport-
ing purposes, as well as for the defence
of the expedition, one large five-hore
elephant gun, also kindly lent hy
Captain Burton; and of my own, one
The caravan
angozi, twenty Pagazis, ten Belooches
as guard, Bomhay, Mahruk, and Gac-
tano, escorting a kit sufficient for six
weeks, left Kazeh to form camp at
noon. The Belooches were all armed
with their own guns, save one,


398
[Oct.
Captain Spikt's Discover;/ of the Victoria Nyanta,

two-grooved four-gauge single rifle,
one polygrooved twenty-gauge dou-
hle, and one douhle smooth twelve-
hore, all hy John Blisset of High
Holhorn. The village they selected to
form up in was tbree miles distant on
tho northern extremity of this, the Un-
yanyemhe" district. I commenced the
journey myself at 6 p.m., as soon as
the two donkeys I took with mo to ride
wero caught and saddled. It was a
dreary hegiuning. The escort of Be-
looches who accompanied mo had
tbroughout the former journeys heen
•held in great disgrace, and were in
consequence all sullen in their man-
ner, and walked with heavy gait and
downcast countenances, looking very
much as if they considered they had
sold themselves when striking such
a heavy hargain with us, for they evi-
dently saw nothing hefore them hut
drudgery and a continuance of past
hardships. The nature of the track
increased the general gloom; it lay
tbrough fields of jo wari (holcus) across
the plain of Unyanyemhe". In the sha-
dow of night, the stalks, awkwardly
lying across the path, tripped up
the traveller at every step; and whilst
his hands, extended to the front, were
grasping at darkness to preserve his
equilihrinm, the heavy howing ears,
ripe and ready to drop, would hang
against his eyes. Further, the heavy
soil added not a little in ruffling tho
temper; hut it was soon over, though
all our mortification did not here
cease. The Pagazis sent forward had
deposited their loads and retired home
to indulge, it is suspected, in those
potations deep of the universal pomhe
(African small heer), that always pre-
cede a journey, hunt, or other adven-
ture—without leaving a word to
explain the reason of their going, or
even tho time which they purposed
heing ahsent.
10th July.—The ahsence of the
Pagazis caused a halt, for none of
them appeared again until after dark.
The had example set hy Shaykh Said
in shirking from this journey, is dis-
tressingly evident in every counte-
nance. The Belooches, gloomy, de-
jected, discontented, and ever grum-
hling, form as disagreeahle a party as
was ever the unfortunate lot of any
man to command.
11th.—We started on the journey
northwards at 7 a.m., and, soon clear-
ing the cultivated plain, hade adieu
to Unyanyemhe". The track passed
down a hroad valley, with a gentle
declination, which was full of tall hut
slender forest trees, and was lined
on either side hy low hills. We passed
some pools of water, and also two
Wasukumas caravans, one of ivory,
destined for the coast, and tho other
convoying cattle to tho Unyanyemhe
markets. Though the country tbrough
which we passed was wild and un-
inhahited, we saw no game hut a
troop of zehras, which were so wild
that I could not get near them. After
walking fifteen miles, we arrived at
the district of Ulekampuri, entered a
village, and I took up my quarters in
a negro's hut. My servants and por-
ters did the hest they could hy pig-
ging with the cattle, or lying in the
shade under the eaves of the huts.
Up to this point the villages, as is the
case in all central Unyanmezi, are huilt
on the most luxurious principles. They
form a large hollow square, the walls
of which are their huts, ranged on all
sides of it in a sort of street consist-
ing of two walls, the hreadth of an
ordinary room, which is partitioned
off to a convenient size hy interior
walls of the same earth-construction
as tho exterior ones, or as our Sepoys'
lines are made in India. The roof is
flat, and serves as a store-place for
keeping sticks to hurn, drying grain,
pumpkins, musbrooms, or any vege-
tahles they may have. Most of these
compartments contain the families
of the villagers, together with their
poultry, hrewing utensils, cooking ap-
paratus, stores of grain, and any-
thing they possess. The remainder
contain their flocks and herds, prin-
cipally goats and cows, for sheep do
not hreed well in the country, and
their flesh is not much approved of
hy the people. What few sheep there
are appear to he an offshoot from the
Persian stock. They have a very
scraggy appearance, and show hut
the slightest sigus of the fat-rumped
proportions of their ancestors. The
cows, unlike the nohle Tanganyika
ones, are small and short-horned, and
are of a variety of colours. They
carry a hump like the Brnhminy hull,
hut give very little milk. In front of
nearly every house you see large slahs


1859.]
399
the 8uppoied Source of the Nile.—Part II.

of granite, the stones on which the
jowari is ground hy women, who,
kneeling hefore them, ruh the grain
down to flour with a smaller stone,
which they hold with hoth hands at
once. Thus ruhhing and grinding
away, their hodies sway monoton-
ously to and fro, while they cheer
the time hy singing and droning in
cadence to the motion of their hodies.
The country to the east and north-east
of this village is said to he thinly
peopled, hut, as usual, the clans are
much intermixed, the two principal
heing Wakimhus and Wasagaris.
I here engaged a second guide or
leader for five shukkas (small loin-
cloths) Amerikan, as a second war,
different from the one he had heard
of and spoken ahout at Kazeh, had
hroken out exactly on the road I
was pursuing, and rendered my first
leader's experience of no avail. The
evening was spent hy the porters
in dancing, and singing a song which
had heen evidently composed for the
occasion, as it emhraced everyhody's
name counected with the caravan,
hut more especially Mzungu (the
wise or white man), and ended
with the prevailing word amongst
these curly-headed hipeds, "Gruh,
Gruh, Groh." It is wonderful to see
how long they will, after a long fa-
tiguing march, keep up these festivi-
ties, singing the same song over and
over again, and dancing and stamp-
ing, with their legs and arms flying
ahout like the wings of a semaphore,
as they move slowly round and round
in the same circle and on the same
ground; their heads and hodies
lolling to and fro in harmony with
the rest of the dance, which is always
kept at more even measure when, us
on this occasion, there were some
village drums heating the measure
they were wont to move hy.
12th. — The caravan got under
way hy 6 a.m., and we marched
thirteen miles to a village in the
southern extremity of the Unyain-
hewa district. Fortunately tempers,
like hutterflies, soon change state.
The great distractor Time, together
with the advantage of distance, has
produced such a salutary effect on the
Belooches' minds, that this morning's
start was accomplished to the merry
peals of some native homely ditty,
and all moved hriskly forward. This
was the more cheering to me hecause
it was the first occasion of their hav-
ing shown such sigus of good feeling
hy singing in chorns on the line of
march. The first five miles lay over
flattish ground winding amongst low
straggling hills of the same formation
as the whole surface of the Unyam-
uezi province, whioh is diversified
with small hills composed of granite
outcrops. As we proceeded, the
country opened into an extensive
plain, covered, as we found it at
first, with rich cultivation, and then
succeeded hy a slender tree forest,
amongst which we espied, some ante-
lopes, all very wary and difficult of
approach. At the ninth mile was a
pond of sweet water, the greatest
lnxury in the desert. Here I ordered
a halt for half an hour, and made a
hearty hreakfast on cold meat, pot-
ted Tanganyika sbrimps, ronelle
jelly, with other delicacies, and
coffee. The latter article was honght
from the Kazeh merchants. Towards
the close of the journey a laughahle
scene took place hetween an ivory
caravan of Wasukumas* and my
own. On nearing each other, the
two kirangozis or leaders slowly
advanced, marching in front of tho
single-file order in which caravans
worm along these twisting narrow
tracks, with heads awry, and eyes
steadfastly fixed on one another, and
with their hodies held motionless and
strictly poised, like rams preparing
for a fight, rushed in with their heads
down, and hutted continuously till
one gave way. The rest of the cara-
van then hroke up their order of march,
and commenced a general melee. In
my iguorance—for it was the first
time I had seen such a scrimmage—
I hastened to the front with my knoh-
hed stick, and hegan reflecting where
I could make hest use of it in divid-
ing the comhatants, and should no
douht have laid to, if I only could
have distinguished friend from foe;
hut hoth parties, heing hlack, were
so alike, that I hesitated until they
* Sukuma means north, and the Wasukumas are consequently nortlimen, or
northern Wonyamuezi.


400
[Oct.
Captain Spike'* Ducovery of the Victoria Nyaraa,

stopped to laugh at my excited
state, and assured me that it was
only the enactment of a common cus-
tom in the country when two strange
caravan - leaders meet, and each
douhts who should take the supremacy
in choice of side. In two minutes
more the antagonists hroke into hroad
laughter, and each went his way.
The villages ahout here are numerous,
and the country, after passing the
forest, is higbly cultivated, and
affords plenty of provisions; hut un-
fortunately as yet the white heads
which I have hrought have no value
with the natives, and I caunot hny
those little luxuries, eggs, hutter, and
milk, which have such a powerful
influence in making one's victuals
good and palatahle; whereas there is
such a rage for coloured heads that if
I had hrought some, I might pur-
chase anything.
13th.—The caravan started at
6.80 a.m., and after travelling eight
miles over au open, waving, well-cul-
tivated country, stopped at the last
village in Unyamhewa. The early
morning hefore starting was wasted
hy the Pagnzis "striking" for more
cloth, and refusing to movo unless I
complied with their demand. I per-
emptorily refused, and they then tried
to wheedle me out of heads. In
demanding cloth, they pretended that
they were suffering from the chill-
ing cold of night—a pretence too
ahsurd to merit even a civil reply. I
then explained to my head men
that I would rather anything hap-
pened than listen to such imposture as
this; for did the men once succeed hy
tricks of this sort, there would never
he an end to their trying it on, and
it would ultimately prove higbly
injurious to future travellers, espe-
cially to merchants. On the route
we had nothing to divert the atten-
tion, save a single Wasukumas cara-
van proceeding southwards to Un-
yanycmhe. A sultana called Ungugu
governs this district. She is the first
and only female that we have seen in
this position, though she succeeded
to it after the custom of the country.
I imagine sho must have had a worth-
loss hushand, since every sultan can
have as many wives as he pleases, and
the whole could never have heen har-
ren. I rallied the porters for pulling
up after so short a march, hut could
not induce them to go on. They de-
clared that forests of such vast extent
lay on ahead, that it would he quite
impossihle to cross them hefore the
night set in. In the evening I had a
second cause for heing vexed at this
loss of time, when every mile and
hour was of so much importance;
for hy our halt the sultana got news
of my arrival, and sent a messenger
to request the pleasure of my com-
pany at her house on the morrow.
In vain I pleaded for permission to
go and see her that moment, or to do
so on my return from the Nyanza;
her envoy replied that the day
was so far spent, I could not urrive
at her ahode till after dark, and she
would not have the pleasure of see-
ing me sufficiently well. He there-
fore hegged I would attend to the
letter of her request, and not fail to
visit her in the morning.
The lazy Pagazis, smelling flesh,
also aided the deputy in Ins en-
deavours to detain me, hy saying
that they could not oppose her ma-
jesty's will, lest at any future time,
when they might want again to pass
that way, she should take her revenge
upon them. Though this may he
considered a very reasonahle excuse,
I douht much, if their interests had
lain the opposite way, whether they
would have heen so cautious. How-
ever, it was not difficult to detect their
motives for hringing forward such an
urgent reason against me, as it is a
custom in this country that every
wealthy traveller or merchant shall
pay a passport-fee, according to his
means, to the sultan of the country
he travels tbrough, who, in return,
gives a cow or goat as a mark of
amity; and this is always shared
amongst the whole caravan.
\ith.—The sultana's house was
reported to he near, so I thought to
expedite the matter hy visiting her in
person, and thus perhaps prohahly
gaining an afternoon's march. Other-
wise to have sent the Jemadar with
a present would have heen suffi-
cient, for these creatures are pure
Mammonists. Vain hope, trying to
do anything in a hurry in Negroland!
I started early in the morning, unfor-
tified within, and escorted hy two
Belooches, the Kirangozi, tbree por-


1S59.]
401
the suppoted Source of the Nde.—Part II.
ters, Bomhay, and Mahruk. The
necessary presents were idso token:
these consisted of one hareati,* one
dhoti Ainerikan,t and one shnkka
kiniki.J This latter article was to he
kept in reserve, to tbrow in at last and
close with, as further demands heyond
what is iriven are invariahly made.
After walking six miles over a well-
cultivated plain, I felt anxious to
know what they meant hy "near,"
and was told, as usual, that the house
was close at hand. Distrustful, hut
anxious to complete the husiness as
speedily as possihle (for to succeed in
Africa one must do everything ono's-
self), I followed the envoy across one
of the waves that diversify the face
of the country, descended into a well-
cultivated trough-like depression, and
mounted a second wave six miles fur-
ther on. Here at last, hy dint of per-
severance, we had the satisfaction of
seeing the palisadoed royal ahode.
We entered it hy an aperture in the
tall slender stakes which surround
the dwellings and constitute the pali-
sading, and after following up a pas-
sage constructed of the same material
as the outer fence, we turned suddenly
into a yard full of cows—a suhsti-
tute for an anteroom. Arrived there,
the negroes at once commenced heat-
ing a couple of large drums, half as
tall as themselves, made something
like a heer-harrel, covered on the top
with a cow-skin stretched tightly over,
hy way of a drum-head. This drum-
ming was an aunouncement of our
arrival, intended as a mark of regal
respect. For ten minutes we were
kept in suspense, my eyes the while
resting upon the milk-pots which
were heing filled at mid-day, hut I
could not get a drop. At the expira-
tion of that time, a hody of slaves
came rushing in, and hastily desired
us to follow them. They led us down
the passage hy which we entered, and
then turned up another one similarly
constructed, which hrought us into
the centre of the sultana's estahlish-
ment—a small court, in which the
common negro musbroom huts, with
ample eaves, afforded us grateful shel-
ter from the hlazing sun. A cow-skin
was now spread, and a wooden stool
wt for me, that I might assume a het-
ter state than my suite, who were
squatted in a circle around me. With
the natal precaution of African nohles,
the lady's maid was first sent to
introduce herself—an ugly halting
creature, very dirtily garhed, hut
possessing a smiling, contented face.
Her kindly mien induced me, starv-
ing and thirsty as I was, after my
twelve miles' walk, to ask for eizgs
and milk—great luxuries, considering
how long I had heen deprived of them.
They were soon procured, and de-
voured with a voracity that must
have astonished the hystanders. The
maid, now satisfied there was nothing
to fear, whether from ghost, gohlin,
or white face, retired and hrought her
mistress, a 'short stumpy old dame,
who had seen at least some sixty
summers. Her nose was short, squat,
and flahhy at the end, and her eyes
were hald of hrows or lashes; hut
still she retained great energy of
mauner, and was hlessed with an
ever-smiling face. The dress she
wore con-isted of an old harsati,
presented hy some Arah merchant,
and was if anything dirtier than her
maid's nttire. The large joints of all
her fingers were hound up with small
copper wire, her legs staggered under
an immense accumulation of ank'ets
made of hrass wire wound round ele-
phant's tail or zehra's hair; her arms
were decorated with huge solid hrass
rings, and from other thin hrass wire
hracelets depended a great assortment
of wooden, hrazen, horn, and ivory
ornaments, ent in every shape of talis-
manic peculiarity. Squatting hy my
side, the sultana at once shook hands.
Her nimhlo fingers then first mani-
pulated my shoes (the first point of no-
tice in these hare-footed climes), then
my overalls, then my waistcoat, more
particularly the huttons, and then my
coat—this latter article heing so much
admired, that she wished I would pre-
sent it to her, to wear upon her own
fair person. Then my hands and fin-
gers were mumhled, and declared to

* Barmti—a coloured cloth,
-f One dhoti — 2 shukkas; 1 shukka r
rican sheeting).
| Kiniki—a thin indigo-dyed cloth.
i 4 cuhits, or 2 yards Amcrikan (Arae-


402
[Oct.
Captain Speke's Discovery of tht Victoria Nyanza,

he as soft as a child's, and my hair
was likened to a lion's mane. " Where
is he going?" was the all-important
query. This, without my understand-
ing, was readily answered hy a dozen
voices, thus: "He is going to the
Lake, to harter his cloth tor large
hippopotami teeth." Satisfied with
this plausihle story, she retired into
privacy, and my slave, taking the
hint, soon followed with the kuhon-
go,* duly presented it, and hegged
permission in my name to depart.
But as she had always given a hul-
lock to the Arahs who visited her, I
also must accept one from her, though
she could not realise the fact that so
scurvy a present as mine could he
intended for her, whose pretensions
were in no way inferior to those of
the Unyanyemhe Sultan. An Arah
could not have offered less, nnd this
was a rich Mzengu I Misfortunes
here commenced anew: the hullock
she was desirous of giving was out
grazing, and could not he caught
until the evening, when all the cattle
are driven in together. Further, she
could not afford to lose so interesting
a personage as her guest, and volun-
teered to give me a shakedown for
the night. I hegged she would con-
sider my position—the ahsolute neces-
sity for my hurrying—und not in-
sist on my acceptance of the hullock,
or he offended hy my refusing her
kind offer to remain there, hut per-
mit our immediate departure. She
replied that the word had gone forth,
so the animal must he given; and if I
still persisted in going, at any rate
tbree porters could remain hehind,
and drive it on afterwards. To this
I reluctantly consented, and only on
the Kirangozi's promise to march the
following morning. Then, with the
usual farewell salutation, " Kuahere,
Mzungu," from my pertinacious host-
ess, I was not surry to retrace my
steps, a good five hours' walk. We
re-entered camp at 7.20 p.m., which
is long after dark in these regions so
near to the equator. All palaces here
are like all the common villages he-
yond Unyamuezi proper, and are usu-
ally constructed on the same prin-
ciple as this one. They consist of a
numher of musbroom-shaped grass
huts, surrounded hy a tall slender
palisading, and having streets or pas-
sages of the same wooden construc-
tion, some winding, some straight,
and others crosswise, with outlets at
certain distances leading into the dif-
ferent courts, each court usually con-
taining five or six huts partitioned off
with poles as the streets are. These
courts serve for dividing the different
families, uncles and cousins occupy-
ing some, whilst slaves and their
relatives live in others. Besides this,
they have their cattle-yards. If the
site of the village he on moist or soft
ground, it is usual, in addition to the
palisading, to have it further fortified
hy a moat or evergreen fence.
loth.—We left Fnyamhewn at
7 a.m., and reached a village in
the Ihanda district, having marched
seven miles over flat ground, growing
fine crops in some places, with the re-
mainder covered hy the usual slender
forest trees. The road was very good
and regular. In the afternoon the
tbree porters arrived with the sul-
tana's hullock, and were attended hy
her nephew and managing man, and
hy some of her slaves as drivers.
The nephew asked first for some
more presents in her name; as this
was refused, he requested something
for the drivers. I gave them a cloth,
and he then pleaded for himself, as
he had sacrificed so much time and
trouhle for me. I satisfied him with
one fundo of heads (a hunch of
heads sufficient to form ten khetes
or necklaces), and we parted; a full
khete is a string of heads douhle
the length of the fore-arm, or suffi-
ciently long to encircle the neck
twice. The Belooches, finding that
nothing hut the coarsest grains were
ohtainahle with the white heads they
had received, petitioned for and oh-
tained a shukka, hut under the pro-
viso of their always assisting me to
urge on the lazy porters. This they
not only agreed to do, hut also de-
clared themselves willing to execute
any orders I might give them; they
looked upon me as their Ma,
Bap (mother und father, a Hin-
dostani expression, siguificant of
everything, or entire dependence on
one as a son on his parents), and
"Kuhongo—present.


1859.]
403
the supposed Source of the Kile.—Part II.

considered my interests their inte-
rests.
16^.—We started at 6 a.m., and
travelled eleven miles to Uk tmha, a
-village in the district of Msalala,
which is held hy a trihe called Wa-
manda. Tho first four miles lay over
the cultivated plain of Ihanda, till we
arrived at the foot of a ridge of
hills which, gradually, closing from
the right, intersects the road, and
runs into a hilly country extending
round the western side of the afore-
said plain. We now crossed the
range, and descended into a coun-
try more closely studded with the
same description of small hills, hut
higbly cultivated in the valleys and
plains that separate them. Ahout
twelve miles to the eastward of
Ukamha live a trihe called Wasongo,
and to the west, at twenty miles' dis-
tance, are the Waquandas. To-day
was fully verified the ahsolute futility
of endeavouring to inarch against
time in these wild countries. The
lazy Pagazis finding themselves now,
as it were, in clover, a country full
of all the things they love, would
not stir one step after 11 a.m.
Were time of no consequence, and
coloured heads in store, such travel-
ling as this would indeed he pleasant.
For the country here, so different
from the Ujiji line, affords not only
delightful tood for the eyes, hut
ahounds in flesh, milk, eggs, and
vegetahles of every variety. The
son of the Msene" Sultan, who lives
hetween Unyanyemhe" and Ujiji, and
hecame great friends with us when
travelling there, paid mo a visit to-
day. He caught me at work with
my diary and instruments, and heing
struck with veneration at the sight
of my twirling compass and literary
pursuits, thought me a magician, and
hegged that 1 would cast his horo-
scope, divine the prohahle extent of
his father's life, ascertain if there
would he any wars, and descrihe the
weather, the prospects of harvest,
and what future state the country
would lapse into. The sbrewd Bom-
hay replied, to save me trouhle, that
so great a matter required more days
of contemplation than 1 could afford
to give. Provisions were very dear
when purchased with white heads,
for they were not the fashion, and the
people were indifferent to them. I
paid him one loin-cloth for four fowls
and nine eggs, though had I had
coloured heads I might have pur-
chased one hen per khete (or neck-
lace). Had this heen a cloth-wear-
ing instead of head-decorating na-
tion, I should have ohtained forty
fowls for one shukka (or loin-cloth),
that heing the equivalent value with
heads, and, according to Zanzihar
money, would he one dollar. It is
always foolish to travel without an
assortment of heads, in consequence
of the tastes of the different trihes
varying so much, and it is more
economical in the long-run to pur-
chase high-priced than low-priced
heads when making up the caravan
at Zanzihar, for every little trader
huys the cheaper sorts, stocks the
country with them, and thus makes
them common.
17th.—This day, like all the pre-
ceding ones, is delightful, and worthy
of drawing forth an exclamation, like
the Indian Griff's, of "what a fine
day this is again!" We started at
7 a.m., and travelled thirteen miles,
with tine hracing air, so cold in the
morning that my fingers tingled with
it. We were ohliged here to diverge
from the proper road via Sarengd to
avoid a civil war—the one hefore
alluded to, and to escape which I
had engaged the second guide—he-
tween two young chiefs, hrothers of
the Wamanda trilie, who were con-
tending for the reins of government on
the principle that might ought to give
the stronger right. Our new course
led us out of the Msalala into the
Uyomho district, which is governed
hy a sultan called Mihamho. He
paid me a visit and presented a sheep
—a small present, for he was a small
chief, and could not demand a ku-
hongo. 1 gave in return one shukka
Amerikan and one shukka kiniki.
Here all the people were very husily
engaged in their harvest, cutting
their jowari, and tbrashing it out
with long sticks. The whole country
lies in long waves crested with crop-
ping little hills, thickly clad with
small trees and hrushwood. In the
hollows of these waves the cultiva-
tion is very luxuriant. Here I un-
fortunately had occasion to give my
miserahle Goanese cook-hoy a sound


404
[Oct.
Captain Spekt* Ditcovery of the Victoria Nyanza,

dressing, as the only means left of
checking liis lying, ohstinate, de-
structive, wasteful, and injurious
hahit of intermeddling. This raised
the creature's choler, and he vowed
vengeance to the death, seconding
his words with such a fiendish,
murderous look, his eyes glistening
like an infuriated tiger's, that I felt
ohliged to dump his temerity and
freedom of tongue hy forther chas-
tisement, which luckily hrought him
to a proper sense of his duty.
18th.—We left at 7 a.m., and
travelled ten miles to Ukuni. The
country still continues of the same
rich and picturesque character, and
retains daily the same unvarying tem-
perature. On the road we met a
party of Wayomhos, who, taking ad-
vantage of the Wamandas disturh-
ances, had lifted some forty or fifty
head of their cattle in perfect se-
curity. I saw two alhinos in this
village, one an old woman with grey-
ish eyes, and the other young, who
ran away from fright, and concealed
herself in a hut, and would not show
again although heads were offered
as an inducement for one moment's
peep. The old lady's skin was of
an unwholesome fieshy-pink hue. and
her hair, eyehrows, and eyelashes
were a light yellowish white. This
march was shortened hy two Pagazis
falling sick. I snrmised this illness
to he in consequence of their having
gorged too much heef, to which they
replied that everyhody is sure to
suffer pains in the stomach after eat-
ing meat, if the slayer of the animal
happens to protrude his tongue and
clench it with his teeth during the
process of slaughtering. At last the
white heads have heen taken, hut at
the extravagant rate of two khetes
for four eggs, the dearest I ever paid.
19th.—The caravan proceeded at
6 a.m., and after going eight miles
re-entered the Msalala district's Iron-
tier, where we put up in a village
tbree miles heyond the horder. The
country tbroughout this march may
he classed in two divisions, one of
large and extensively cultivated plain-,
with some fine trees ahout; and the
other of small irregularly disposed
hills, the prevailing granitic outcrops
of this region. There is no direct line
northwards here, so we had to track
ahout, and hit upon the lines he-
tween the different villages, which
enhanced our trouhle and caused
much delay. At this place I wit-
nessed the odd operation of hrother-
making. It consists in the two men
desirous of a hlood-tie heing seated
face to face on a cow's hide with
their legs stretched out as wide to the
front as their length will permit, one
pair overlapping the other. They
then placa their hows and arrows
across their thighs, and each holds a
leaf; at the same time a third person,
holding a pot of oil or hutter, makes
an incision ahove their knees, and re-
quires each to put his hlood on the
other's leaf, and mix a little oil with
it, when each anoints himself with the
hrother-salve. This operation over,
the two hrothers hawl forth the names
and extent of their relatives, and
swear hy the hlood to protect the
other till death. Ugogo, on the high-
way hetween the coast and Ujiji, is a
place so full of inhahitants compared
with the other places on that line,
that the coast people quote it as a
wonderful instance of high population;
hut this district astonished all my re-
tinue. The road to-day was literally
tbronged with a legion of hlack hu-
manity so exasperatinglv hold, that
nothing short of the stick could keep
them from jostling me. Poor crea-
tures! they said they had come a
long way to see, and now must have
a good long stare; for when was
there ever a Mzungti here hefore?
20th.—We hroke ground at 6 a.m.,
and after travelling tbrough high
cultivation six miles, were suddenly
stopped hy a guard of Wamandas,
sent hy Kurua, a sultan of that
trihe, and chief of the division we
were marching in. Their husiness
Wtm to inform us that if we wished
to travel to the Lake, the sultan
would give directions to have us
esc Tied hy another route, as his
eldest hrother was disputing the
rights of government with him along
the line we were now pursuing; and
added, that our intentions would
he only known to him hy the part
we uught choose to take. These
constant interruptions were hecom-
ing very trouhlesome; so as we
were close to the confines of these
two malcontents, I was anxious to
force our way on, and agreed to
do so with the Belooches. But the


1859.]
405
the tupposed Source of the Nile.—Part II.

tiresome, lazy, flesh-seeking Pagazis
saw a feast in prospect hy the sul-
tan's arrangement, and would not
move an inch. Further, the Kiran-
gozi requested his discharge if I was
otherwise than peacefully inclined.
The guard then led lis to Mgogwa,
the sultan's village a little off the
road. Kurua is a youn^ man, not
very handsome himself, hut has two
heautiful young wives. They secured
me a comfortahle house, showed many
attentions, and sent ine a howl of
fre-h sweetmilk, the very extreme of
savage hospitality. In the evening
lie presented me with a hullock. This
I tried to refuse, ohserving that flesh
was the prime cause of all my hin-
drances; hut nothing would satisfy
lam; I must accept it, or he would
he the laughing-stock of everyhody for
inhospitality. If I gave nothing in re-
turn, he should he happy as long as
his part of host was properly fulfilled.
Suit, according to the sultan, is only
to he found here in the same efflo-
rescent state in which I saw it yester-
day—a thin coating overspreading
the ground, as though flour had heen
sprinkled there.
27< h.—Halt. I gave the sultan, as a
return present, one dhoti Amerikan
and six cuhits kiniki, w hat I thought
to he jnst the value of his hullock.
His kindness was undouhtedly wor-
thy of a higher reward, hut 1 feared to
excite these men's cupidity, as there
is no end to their tricks and finesse,
whenever they find a new chance
of gain, and I now despaired of ac-
complishing my task in time. How
ever, Kurua seemed quite happy un-
der the circumstances, and considered
the exchange of kuhongos a hond of
alliance, and proclaimed that we were
henceforth to he hrothers. He then
said he woidd accompany me hack to
Unyanyemhe, on my return from the
Lake, and would exchange any of his
cows that I might take a fancy to for
powder, which I said I had there. The
quantity of cattle in Msnlala surpasses
anything I have seen in Africa. Largo
droves, tended hy a few men each,
are to he seen in every direction over
the extensive plains, and every vil-
lage is filled with them at night. The
cultivation also is as ahundant as the
cattle are numerous, and the climate
is delightful. To walk till hreakfast,
9 a.m., every morning, I find a luxury,
and thence till noon I ride with plea-
sure; hut the next tbree hours,
though pleasant in a hut, are too
warm to he agreeahle under hard ex-
ertion. The evenings and the morn-
ing*, again, are particularly serene,
and the night after 10 p.m., so cold
as to render a hlanket necessary. But
then you must rememher that all the
country ahout these latitudes, on
this meridian, 33° east, is at an alti-
tude of 3500 to 4000 feet. My diuner
to-day was improved hy the addition
of tomatoes and the hird's-eye chili
—luxuries to us, hut which the ne-
groes, so different from Indians, never
oare ahout, and seldom grow. The
cotton-plant is as fine here as at
Unyanyemhe or L'jiji, and anything
would grow with only the trouhle of
tbrowing down the seed. It is a great
pity that the country is not in hetter
hands. From all I can gather, there
is no fixed revenue paid to these
sultans; all their perquisites are oc-
casional kuhongos received from tra-
vellers; a per-ceutago on all foreigu
seizures whether hy hattle or plun-
der; and a certain part of all wind-
falls, such as a share of the sports-
man's gamehag, in the shape of ele-
phant's tusks or flesh or the skins of
any wild animals; otherwise they live
hy the sweat of the hrow of their
slaves, in tilling their pound, tending
their cattle, or trafficking for them in
slaves and ivory. It seems destined
that I should never reach the goal of
my amhition. To-day the Jemadar
finds himself too unwell to march, and
two other Belooches say the same.
This is an effectual ohstacle; for the
guard declares itself too weak to
divide, and the sultan hlows on the
fire of my mortification hy saying
that these are trouhled times, and
advises our keeping all together. He
says that his differences have heen
going on these five years with his
eldest hrother, and now he wishes
to hring them to a crisis, which he
proposes doing after my return, when
he will ohtain powder from me, and
will have the preponderating influ-
ence of Arah opinion hrought to hear
in his favour hy the aid of their guns
—an impressive dodge which Africa
has of proving right in its own way.
22rf.—After much groaning and


1859.]
407
the supposed Source of the Nile.—Part II.

offered to furnish us with a guide to
the Lake and hack, saying that he
would send one of his own men after
us to a place he appointed with my
Kirangozi. I expressed my gratitude
for his thoughtful conrederation, and
we parted with warm regard for
one another. Unfortunately, Bom-
hay, who is not the clearest man
in the world in expressing himself,
stupidly hungled the sultan's ar-
rangement, and we missed the man.
To keep tho Pagazis going was a
matter of no little difficulty: after
the fifth mile they persisted in enter-
ing every village that they came
across, and tbrowing down their
loads, were hent upon making an
eeav day's work of it. I, on the
contrary, was equally persistent in
going on, and neither would allow
the Belooches to follow them nor
entered the villages myself, until
they, finding their game of no avail,
quietly shouldered their loads, and
suhmitted to my orders. This day's
journey was twelve miles over a
higbly-cultivated, waving country,
at the end of which we took up our
ahode in a deserted village called
Kahama.
25th.—We got under way at 7 a.m.,
and marched seven and a half hours,
when we entered a village in the
district of Xindo, nineteen miles
distant. After passing tbrough a
helt of jungle tbree miles hroad, we
came upon some villages amidst a
large range of cultivation. This
passed, we penetrated a large wilder-
ness of thorn and hush jungle, having
sundry hroad grassy tiats lying at
right angles to the road. Here I
saw a herd of harteheests, giraffes,
and other animals, giving to the
scene a truly African character. The
tracks of elephants and different large
heasts prove that this place is well
tenanted in the season. The close-
ness of the jungle and eveuness of
the land prevented my taking any
direct ohservations with the compass;
hut the mean oscillations of its card
showed a course with northing again.
This heing a long stage, I lent my
ass to a sick Belooeh, and we accom-
plished the jommey, notwithstanding
the great distance, in a pleasant and
spirited mauner. This despatch may
in part ho attrihutahle to there heing
so much desert, and the heloved
"gruh" and the village lying ahead
of us luring the men on.
26th.—We hroke ground at 7 a.m.,
and after passing the village cultiva-
tion, entered a waterless wilderness
of thorn and tree forest, with some
long and hroad plains of tall grass
intersecting the line of march. These
flats very much resemhle some we
crossed when travelling close to and
parallel with the Malagarazi river;
for hy the cracked aud flawy nature
of the ground, now parched up hy a
contnnt drought, it shows that this
part gets inundated in the wet season.
Indeed, this peculiar grassy flat for-
mation suggests the proximity of a
river everywhere in Africa; and I
felt sure, as afterwards proved true,
that a river was not far from us. The
existence of animal life is another
warranty of water heing near; ele-
phants and hufl'aloes caunot live a
day without it. Fortunately for my
mapping, a small conical hdl over-
topped the trees in advance of our
track, at twelve miles from the start-
ing-point. We eventually passed
alongside of it, and travelled on
six miles farther to a village in the
cultivated plain of Sulawe, a total
distance of eighteen miles. The whole
country ahout here was covered with
harvest-workers, who, on seeing my
approach, left off work and followed
me into the village. As nothing
proves hetter the real feelings and
natural propensities of a nation than
the impulsive actions of the children,
I will give a striking instance, as it
occurred to me to-day. On seeing a
child approach me, I offered him a
handful of heads, upon which the
greedy little urchin suatched them
from my hand with all the excited
eagerness of a monkey. He clenched
tight hold of them in his little fists,
and, without the slightest? show of
any emotions of gratitude, retired,
carrying his well-earned prize away
with a self-satisfied and perfectly
contented air, not even showing
the heads to his parents or play-
mates. I called Bomhay's atten-
tion to this transaction, and con-
trasted it with the joyful, grateful
mauner in which an English child
would involuntarily act if suddenly
hecomo possessed of so much wealth,
VOL. LXXXVL
27


408
[Oct.
Captain Spehe's Discovery of the Victoria Nyanza,
hy hurrying off to his mamma, mid
showing what fine things the kind
gentleman had given him. Bomhay
passed on my remark with a twelve-
month's grin upon his face, to his in-
quiring hrother, Mabruk, and then ex-
plained the matter to his sooty friends
around, declaring that such tnmma
(avaricious) propensities were purely
typical of the Seedi's nature. At
the usual hour of departure this
morning, the Kirangozi discovered
that the Pngnzis' feet were sore from
the late long marches, and declared
that they could not walk. To this
the Jemadar replied that the hest
asylum for such complaints was on
ahead, where the sahih proposed to
kill some goats, and rest a day. The
Kirangozi replied, "But the direct
road is hlocked up hy wars; if a
march must he made, I will show
another route tbree marches longer
round." "That," answered the Jema-
dar, "is not your husiness; if any
trouhles arise from marauders, we,
the Belooches, are the fighting men—
leave that to us." At last the Kiran-
gozi, getting quite disconcerted, de-
clared that there was no water on the
way. "Then," quoth the energetic
Jemadar," were your gourds made for
nothing? if you don't pack up at
once, you and my stick shall make
acquaintance." The party was then
off in a moment. On the way we
met some herdsmen driving their
cattle to Unyanyemhe, and inquired
from them the state of the road.
They said that the country heyond
a certain distance was safe and
quiet, hut corrohorated the Kiran-
gozi's statement as to warriors heing
in the immediate neighhourhood, who
came and visited this place from the
west, where is the northern extremity
of the Msalala district. Several va-
rieties of antelopes were seen, and
the Belooches fired at an ostrich.
As in the last place, no milk could
he ohtained, for the people, fearing
the Wamandas, had driveu off their
cattle to the northward. It is evident,
from the general nakedness of the
people, that cloth or heads do not find
their way much here, which is ac-
counted tor hy so few merchants ever
coining this way. Hardly a neck
here is decorated, and they seldom
wear anything hut the common goat-
skin covering, hung over the shoulder
hy a strap or string like a game-heg,
which covers only one hip at a time,
and might as well he dispensed with
as far as decency is concerned; hut
at night they take it off, and spread
it on the ground to protect them-
selves from the cold and moisture of
the earth. This district is occupied
hy a trihe called Wanmha; to the
east of it, thirty miles distant, are the
Wanatiya, and thirty miles westward,
the Wazinza trihes.
21th.—At 6 a.m. we crawled
tbrough the opening in the palisading
which forms the entrances of these
villages, and at once perceived a tall,
narrow pillar of granite, higher than
Pompey's at Alexandria, or Kelson's
Monument in Charing Cross, tower-
ing ahove us, and having sundry huge
houlders of the same composition
standing around its hase, much in
the same peculiar way as we see at
Stonehenge, on Salishury Plain. This
scene strikes one with wonderment
at the oddities of nature, and taxes
one's faculties to imagine how on
earth the stones ever hecame tilted up
in this extraordinary position; hut
farther on, ahout five miles distant,
we encountered another and even
higher pillar, that quite overtop-
ped the trees and everything ahont
it. This and the former one served
as good station-marks for the whole
journey, the latter heing visihle at
eight miles' distance. After the first
eight miles, which terminates the cul-
tivated district of Salawe", the track
penetrated a waterless desert of thorn
and small tree forest, lying in a hroad
valley hetween low hills. As the sick
Belooch still occupied my steadier
donkey Ted, 1 was compelled to
mount the half-hroken Jeuny—so
plnyful with her head and heels, that
neither the Shaykh nor any other
man dared sit upon her. The man's
sickness appears to he one of those
eccentric complaints, the after-effects
of African fevers: it was attended
with severe pain, and swelling ex-
tending over the stomach, the right
side, the right arm, and the right half
of the neck, depriving him of sleep
and repose. In every position, whe-
ther sitting, lying, standing, rising
up, or sitting down, he complained
of aching muscles. I purchased a


1859.]
409
the supposed Source of the Nile.—Part II.

goat and sheep for the men for ouo
dhoti Amerikan.
28th.—Halt. This stoppage was
for, the restoration of wounded feet,
the Pagazis' heing all hlistered hy
the last four long marches. I now
slaughtered and gave the two pur-
chased animals to the men, as no one
grumhled at my refusing the last
hullock, a recoguised present for the
whole party, though nominally given
to the Sahih. These people, like the
Arahs, and all those who have many
wives, seem to find little enjoyment
in that domestic hliss so interesting
and heautiful in our English homes.
Except on rare occasions, the hus-
hand never dines wiih his wife and
family, always preferring the exclu-
sive society of his own sex; even the
hoys, disdaining to dine with their
mothers, mess with the men; whilst
the girls and women, having no odier
option, eat a separate meal hy them-
selves.
29 th.—Wo started at 6 a.m, and
inarched thirteen miles to a village
at the northern extremity of the dis-
trict. The face of the country is still
very irregular, sometimes rising into
hills, at other times dropping into
dells, hut very well cultivated in the
lower portion; whilst the hrown
granite rocks, with trees and hrush-
wood covering the upper regions,
diversify the colouring, and form a
pleasing contrast to the scene; added
to this, large and frequent herds
graze ahout the fields and amongst the
villages, and give animation to the
whole. Amongst the trees, palms here
take a prominent part. Indeed, for
tropical scenery, there are few places
that could equal this; and if the
traveller, as he moves along, sur-
rounded hy the screeching, howling,
inquisitive savages, ruuning rudely
ahout, and hoisterously jostling him,
could only divest himself of the idea
that he is a hear haited hy a yelping
pack of hounds, the journey would
he replete with enjoyment. Crossing
some hills, the caravan sprang a covey
of guinea-lowls, and at some springs
In a valley I shot several couple of
sand-grouse, darker in plumage than
any I ever saw in Africa or India, and
not quite so hig as the Thihet hird.
The chief of the village offered me a
hullock, hut as the heast did not ap-
pear until the time of starting, I de-
clined it. Neither did I give him
any cloth, heing convinced in my
mind that these and other animals
have always heen hrought to me hy
the smaller chiefs at the instigation
of the Kirangozi, and prohahly aided
hy the rest of the flesh-loving party
in general. The Jemadar must have
heen particularly mortified at my way
of disposing of the husiness, for he
talked of nothing else hut flesh and
the animal from the moment it was
sent for, his love for hutcher-meat
amounting almost to a frenzy. The
sandstone in this region is higbly im-
preguated with iron, and smelters do
a good husiness; indeed, the iron
for nearly all the tools and cutlery
that are used in this division of
Eastern Africa is found and manu-
factured here. It is the Brum-
magem of the land, and has not
only rich hut very extensive iron-
fields stretching many miles north,
east, and west. I hrought some spe-
cimens away. Cloth is little prized
in this especially head country, and
I had to pay the ridiculous sum of
one dhoti kiniki for one pot of honey
and one pot of ghee (clarified hutter).
80/A.—The caravan started at 6
a.m., and travelled four miles north-
wards, amidst villages and cultiva-
tion. From this point, on facing to
the left, I could discern a sheet of
water ahout four miles from me,
which ultimately proved to he a
creek, and the most southern point
of the Great Nyanza, which, as I have
said hefore, the Arahs descrihed to
us as the Ukerewe Sea. We soon
afterwards descended into a grassy
and jungly depression, and arrived
at a deep, dirty, viscid nullah (a wa-
ter course that only runs in wet
weather), draining the eastern coun-
try into the southern end of the creek.
To cross this (which I will name Jor-
dan for future reference), was a matter
of no small difficulty, especially for the
donkeys, whose fording seemed quite
hopeless, until the Jemadar, assisted
hy two other Belooches, with hlows
and tbreats made the lazy Pagazis
work, and dragged them tbrough the
mud hy sheer force. This operation
lasted so long that, after crossing,
we madofor the nearest village in
the Uvira district, and completed a


410
[Oct.
Captain Spike's Discovery^/ the Victoria Nyama,

journey of eight miles. The country
to the eastward appeared open and
waving, hut to the north and far
west very hilly. The ground is fer-
tile, and the flocks and herds very
ahundant. Hippopotami frequent
the nullah at night, and reside there
during the rainy season; hut at this,
the dry half of the year, they retreat
to the larger waters of the creek.
Rhinoceroses are said to pay nightly
visits to fields around the villages,
and commit sad havuc on the crops.
The nullah, ruuning from tho south-
east, drains the hind in that direc-
tion; hut a river, I hear, rising in
the Maalala district, draws off the
water from the lays we have recently
heen crossing, to the westward of our
track, where its course lies, and emp-
ties it into the creek nn the opposite
side to where the nullah dehouches.
31st.—On hearing that a shorter
track than the Sukuma one usually
frequented hy the Arahs led to Mu-
anzn, the place Shaykh Snay ad-
vised rny going to, I started hy it
at 8 a.m.; and after following it west-
ward down the nullah's right hank
a few miles, turned up northwards,
and continued along the creek to a
village, eight miles distant, at the fur-
ther end of the Urima district, where
we took up our quarters. The country
has a mixed and large population
of smiths, agriculturists, and herds-
men, residing in the flats and de-
pressions which lie hetween the
scattered little hills. During the
rainy season, when the lake swells,
and the country hecomes super-sa-
turated, the inundations are so great
that all travelling hecomes suspended.
The early morning was wasted hy
the uureasonahle Pagazis in the fol-
lowing ahsurd mauner. It will he
rememhered that, on starting from
Unyanyemhe", these cuuning rascals
hegged for cloth as a necessary pro-
tection against the cold. This seemed
reasonahle enough, if they had not
just hefore that received their hire in
cloth: for the nights were so cold
that I should have heen sorry to ho
as naked as they were; hut their
real motive for asking was only to
increase their stock for this present
occasion, as we now shall see. Two
days ago, they hroke ground with
great difficulty, and only on my as-
suring them that I would wait at
the place a day or two on my re-
turn from the lake, as they express-
ed their desire to make a few halts
there, and harter their hire of cloth
for jemhes (iron hoes), to exchange
again at Unyanyemhe, where those
things fetch douhle the price they
do in these especially iron regions.
Now to-day, these dissemhling
creatures, distrusting my word as
they would their own hretbren's,
stoutly refused to proceed until their
husiness was completed,—suspecting
I should hreak my word on return-
ing, and would not then wait for
them. They had come all this way
especially for their own henefit, and
now meant to profit hy their trouhle.
Fortunately, the Jemadar and some
other Belooches, who of late had
shown great energy and zeal in pro-
moting my views, pointed out to them
that they were really more hound to
do my husiness than their own, as
they had ongaged to do so, and sine©
they could never have come there at
all excepting tbrough my influence
and hy my cloths; further, if they
hought their hoes then, they would
have to carry them all the way to
the Lake and hack. The Kirangozi
acknowledged the fairness of this
harangue, and soon gave way; hut
it was not until much more arguing,
and the adoption of other persuasive
means, that the rest were induced to
relinquish their determination.
1st August.—This day's march,
commenced at 6 a.m., differs hut
little from the last. Following down
the creek which, gradually increa>ing
in hreadth as it extended north-
wards, was here of very consider-
ahle dimensions, we saw many little
islands, well - wooded elevations,
standing holdly out of its waters,
which, together with the hill-dotted
country around, afforded a most agree-
ahle prospect. Would that my eyes
had heen strong enough to dwell, un-
shaded, upon such scenery! hut my
French gray spectacles so excited tho
crowds of sahle gentry who followed
the caravan, and they were so hois-
terously rude, stopping and peering
underneath my wide-awake to gain
a hetter sight of my douhle eyes,
as they chose to term them, that
it hecame impossihle for me to


1859.]
411
the supposed Source of the Kile.—Part II.

wear them. I therefore pocketed
the instrument, closed my eves, and
allowed the donkey I was riding to
he quietly pulled along. The evil
effects of granting an indulgence to
those who caunot appreciate it, was
more ohvions every day. To secure
speed and contentment, I had indulged
the Pagazis hy hiring doublo numhers,
and giving each only half a recoguised
hurden; hut what has heen the re-
turn? Yesterday the Pagazis stopped
at the eighth mile, hecause they said
that so largo a jungle was in our
front that we conld not cross it dur-
ing daylight. I dishelieved their
story, and gave them to understand,
on suhmitting to their request, that
I was sure their trick for stopping
me would tarn to their own disad-
vantage; for if my surmise proved
true, as the morrow would show,
I should give them no more indul-
gence, and especially no more meat.
On our arrival to-day there was a
great huhhuh amongst them, hecause
I ordered the Jemadar and Kirangozi,
with many of their principal men, to
sit in state hefore me; when I gave
a cloth to the soldiers to hny a goat
With, and, turning to the Kirangozi,
told him I was sorry I was ohliged
to keep my word of yesterday, and,
their story having proved false, I
must depart from the principle I
had commenced upon, of feeding hoth
parties alike, and now they might
feel assured that I would do nothing
further for their comfort until I conld
see in them some desire to please me.
The screw was on the tenderest part;
a hlack man's helly is his god; and
they no sooner found themselves de-
prived of their wonted feast, than
they clamorously declared they would
he my devoted servants; that they
had come expressly to serve me, and
were willing to do anything I wished.
The village chief offered me a goat;
hut as it came at the last moment he-
fore starting, I declined it. To-day's
track lay for the first half of the way
over a jungly depression, where we
saw ostriches, flonikans, and the small
Saltiana antelope-s; hut as their shy-
ness did not allow of an open ap-
proach, I amused myself hy shooting
partridges. During the remainder
of the way, the caravan tbreaded he-
tween villages and cultivation lying
in small valleys, or crossed over low
hills, accomplishing a total distance
of twelve miles. Ilere wo put up at
a village called Dkumhi, occupied
hy the Walaswanda trihe.
Id.—We set out at 8 a.m., and
travelled thirteen miles hy a tortuous
route, sometimes close hy the creek,
at other times winding hetween small
hills, the valleys of which were
thickly inhahited hy hoth agricultu-
ral and pastoral people. Here some
small pereunial streams,, exuding
from springs hy the hase of these hills,
meander tbrough the valleys, and
keep all vegetahle life in a constant
state of verdant freshness. The creek
still increases in width as it extends
northward, and is studded with
numerous stnall rocky island hills,
covered with hrushwood, which,
standing out from the hosom of the
deep-hlue waters, reminded me of a
voyage I once had in the Grecian
Archipelago. The route also heing
so diversified with lulls, afforded
fresh ohjects of attraction at every
turn, and to-day, hy good fortune,
the usnally trouhlesome people have
attended more to their harvest-mak-
ing, and left me to the enjoyment of
the scenery. My trusty Blissett made
a flonikan pay the penalty of death
for his temerity in attempting a
flight across the track. The day's
journey lasted thirteen miles, and
hrought us into a village called Isa-
miro.
3d.—The caravan, after quitting
Isamiro, heiran winding up a long
hut gradually inclined hill—which,
as it hears no native name, I will
call Somerset—until it reached its
summit, when the vast expanse
of the pale-hlue waters of the
Nyanza hurst suddenly upon my
gaze. It was early morning. The
distant sea-tine of the north horizon
was defined in the calm atmosphere
hetween the north and west points
of the compass; hut even this did not
afford mo any idea of the hreadth of
the lake, as an archipelago of islands
(tide map, Bengal Archipelago), each
consisting of a single hill, rising
to a height of 200 or 300 feet ahove
the water, intersected tho line of
vision to tho left; while on the right
the western horn of tho Ukerewe"
Island cut off any further view of


412
[Oct.
Captain Speke'e Discovery of the Victoria Nyanza,

its distant waters to the eastward
of north. A sheet of water—an
elhow of the sea, however, at the
hase of the low range on which
I stood—extended far away to the
eastward, to where, in the dim dis-
tance, a hummock-like elevation of
the mainland marked what I under-
stood to he the south and east angle
of the lake. The large and import-
ant islands of Ukerewe and Mzita,
distant ahont twenty or thirty miles,
formed the visihle north shore of this
firth. The name of the former of
these islands was familiar to db as
that hy which this long-desired lake
was usually known. It is reported
hy the natives to he of no great ex-
tent; and though of no considerahle
elevation, I could discover several
spurs stretching down to the water's
edge from its central ridge of hills.
The other island, Mzita, is of greater
elevation, of a hog-hacked shape,
hut heing more distant, its physical
features were not so distinctly visi-
hle. In consequence of the North-
ern islands of the Bengal Archipel-
ago hefore mentioned ohstructing
the view, the western shore of the
lake could not he defined; a series
of low hill-tops extended in this
direction as far as the eye could reach;
while helow me, at no great distance,
was the dehouchure of the creek,
which enters the lake from the south,
and along the hanks of which my last
tbree days' journey had led me. This
view was one which, even in a well-
known and explored country, would
have arrested the traveller hy its
peaceful heauty. The islands, each
swelling in a gentle slope to a rounded
summit, clothed with wood hetween
the rugged angular closely-cropping
rocks of granite, seemed mirrored in
the calm surface of the luke; on which
I here and there detected a small hlack
speck, the tiny canoe of some Muanza
fisherman. On the gently shelving
plain helow me, hlue smoke curled
ahove the trees, which here and there
partially concealed villages and ham-
lets, their hrown thatched roofs con-
trasting with the emerald green of
the heautiful milk-hush, the coral
hranches of which cluster in such pro-
fusion round the cottages, and form
alleys and hedgerows ahout tho vil-
lages as ornamental as any garden
sbruh in England. But the pleasure of
themere view vanished in the presence
of those more intense and exciting
emotions which are called up hy the
consideration of the commercial and
geographical importance of the pros-
pect hefore me. I no longer felt any
douht that the lake at my feet gave
hirth to that interesting river, the
source of which has heen the suhject
of so much speculation, and the oh-
ject of so many explorers. The
Arah's tale was proved to the letter.
This is a far more extensive lake
than the Tanganyika; "sohroad you
could not see across it, and so long
that nohody knew its length." * I
had now the pleasure of perceiving
that a map I had constructed on Arah
testimony, and sent home to the Royal
Geographical Society hefore leaving
Unyanyemhe, was so suhstantially cor-
rect that in its general outlines I had
nothing whatever to alter. Further,
as I drew that map after proving their
first statements ahout the Tangan-
yika, which were made hefore my
going there, I have every reason to
feel confident of their veracity rela-
tive to their travels north tbrough
Karngwah, and to Kihuga in Uganda.
When Shaykh Snay told us of the
Ukerewe, as he called the Nyanza,
on our first arrival at Kazeh, pro-
ceeding westward from Zanzihar, he
said, "If you have come only to see
a large hit of water, you had hetter
go northwards and see the Ukerewe;
for it is much greater in every respect
than the Tanganyika*," and so, as far
as I can ascertain, it is. Muanza,
our journey's end, now lay at our
feet. It is an open, well-cultivated
plain on the southern end, and lies
almost flush with the lake; a happy,
secluded-looking corner, containing
every natural facility to make life
pleasant After descending the hill,
we followed along the horders of the
lake, and at first entered the settle-
ment, when the ahsence of hoats
arousing my suspicions, made me
inquire where the Arahs, on coining
to Muanza, and wishing to visit
Ukerewe, usually resided. This, I
heard, was some way further on; so
This maguificent sheet of water 1 have ventured to name Victoria, after our
gracious Sovereigu.—J. H. S.



1859.]
413
the supposed Source of the Nile.—Part II.
wi* •.
with great difficulty I persuaded the
porters to come away and proceed at
once to where they said au Arah
was actually living. It was a singu-
lar coincidence that, after Shaykh
Snay's caution as to my avoiding
Sultan Mahaya's village, hy inquir-
ing diligently ahout him yesterday,
and finding no one who knew his
name, the first person I should
have encountered was himself, and
that, too, in his own village. The
reason of this was, that hig men
in this country, to keep up their
diguity, have several names, and thus
mystify the traveller. 1 then pro-
ceeded along the shore of the lake in
an easterly direction, and on the way
shot a numher of red Egyptian geese,
which were very numerous; they are
the same sort here as I once saw in
the Somali country. Another goose,
which unfortunately I could not kill,
is very different from any I ever saw
or heard of; it stands as high as
the Canadian hird, or higher, and
is hlack all over, saving one little
wlite patch heneath the lower man-
dihle. It was fortunate that I came on
here, for the Arah in question, called
Mausur hin Sulim, treated me very
kindly, and he had retainers helong-
ing to the country, who knew as much
ahout the lake as anyhody, and were
of very great assistance. I also found
a good station for making ohserva-
tions on the lake. It was Mansur
who first informed me of my mistake
of tre morning, hut said that the evil
reports spread at Unyanyemhe ahout
Mahaya had no foundation; on the
contrary, he had found him a very
excellent and ohliging person.
To-day we inarched eight miles,
and have concluded our journey
northwards, a total distance of 226
miles from Kazoh, which, occupying
twenty-five days, is at the rate of
nine miles per diem, halts inclusive.
ith.—Early in the morning I took
a walk of tbree miles easterly along
the shore of the lake, and ascending
a small hill (which, to distinguish it,
I have called Ohservatory Hill), took
compass-hearings of all the principal
features of the lake. Mansur and a
native, the greatest traveller of the
place, kindly accompanied and gave
rne every ohtainahle information.
This man had traversed the island,
as he called it, of Ukerewe from north
to south. But hy his rough mode of
descrihing it, I am rather inclined to
think that instead of its heing an
actual island, it is a counected tongue
of land, stretching southwards from
a promontory lying at right angles
to the eastern shore of the lake, which,
heing a wash, affords a passage to the
mainland during the fine season, hut
during the wet hecomes suhmerged,
and thus makes Ukerewe temps-
rarily an island. If this conjecture
he true, Mzita must he similarly
circumstanced. Cattle, he-says, can
cross over from the mainland at
all seasons of the year, hy swim-
ming from one elevation of the .
promontory to another; hut the
Wurudi, who live upon the eastern
shore of the lake, and hring their
ivory for sale to Ukerewe", usually em-
ploy hoats for the transit. A saltan
called Machunda lives at the south-
ern extremity of the Ukerewe, and has
dealings in ivory with all the Arahs
who go there.One Arah at this ti me was
stopping there, and had sent his men
coasting along this said promontory
to deal with the natives on the main-
land, its he could not ohtain enough
ivory on the island itself. Considering
how near the eastern shore of the lake
is to Zanzihar, it appears surprising
that it can pay men to carry ivory all
the way round hy Unyanyemhe. But
the Masai, and especially those trihes
who live near to the lake, are so hos-
tile to travellers, that the risk of
going there is considered too great to
he profitahle, though all Arahs con-
cur in stating that a surprising quan-
tity of ivory is to he ohtained there
at a very cheap rate. The little hill
alluded to as marking the south-east
angle of the lake, I again saw; hut
so indistinctly, though the atmosphere
was very clear, that I imagined it to
he at least forty miles distant. It
is due east of my station on Oh-
servatory Hill. I further draw my
conclusions from the fact, that all the
hills in the country are much ahout
the same height—two or tbree hun-
dred fe t ahove the hasial surface of
the land; and I could only see the
top of the lull like a hazy hrown spot,
contrasted in relief against the clear
hlue sky. Indeed, had my attention
not heen drawn to it, I prohahly
should have overlooked it, and have
thought there was only a sea horizon


414
[Oct.
Captain Spehe's Dincorery of ths Victoria Kyama,

hefore me. On facing to the W.N.W.,
I could only see a sea horizon ; and on
inquiring how fhr hack the land lay,
was assured that, heyond the island
of Ukerewe, there was an equal ex-
panse of it east and west, and that it
would he more than douhle the dis-
tance of the little hill hefore allnded
to, or from eighty to one hundred
miles in hreadth. On my inquiring
ahout the lake's length, the man faced
to the north, and hegan nodding his
head to it; at the same time he kept
tbrowing forward his right hand, and,
making repeated suaps of his fingers,
endeavoured to indicate something
immeasurahle; and added, that no-
hody knew, hut he thought it proha-
hly extended to the end of the world.
To the east of the Ohservatory, a six
hours' journey, prohahly fourteen or
fifteen miles, the village of Suku-
ma is situated, and there ennoes are
ohtainahle for crossing to Ukerewe,
which island heing six hours pad-
dling, and lying due north of it, must
give the firth a hreadth of nhont
fifteen miles. Whilst walking hack
to camp, I shot two red geese and
a florikan, like those I once shot
in the Somali country. This must
have heen a dainty dish for my
half-starved Arah companion, who
had lost all his property on first
arriving here, and was now living on
Mahaya's generosity. It appears that
nine months ago he wub enahled, hy
the assistance of Mahaya, to hire
some hoats and men at S ikuma, and
had sent his property, consisting of
fifteen loads of cloth and 250 jemhis
or hoes hy them to Ukerewd, to ex-
change for ivory. But hy the advice
of Mahaya, and tearing to trust him-
self as a stranger amongst the island-
ers, he did not accompany his merch-
andise. Sultan Machunda, a man of
the highest character hy Unyanyem-
he" report, on seeing such a prize enter
his port, gave orders for its seizure,
and will now give no redress to the
unfortunate Mansur. All Mahaya's
exertions to recover it have proved
ahortive: and Mansur has therefore
heen desirous of taking his revenge
hy making an attack in person on
Ukerewe, hut the "generous" Mahaya
said, "No, your life is yet safe, do not
risk it; hut let my men do what they
can, and in the meanwhile, as I have
heen a party to your losses, I will
feed you and your people; and if I
do not succeed in the tnd, you shall
he my guest until lean amass suffi-
cient property to reimhurse your
losses." Mansur has all this time
heen living, like the slaves of the
country, on jowari porridge, which is
made hy grinding the seed into flour
and hoiling it in water until it forms
a good thick paste, when master and
man sit round the earthen pot it la
hoiled in, pick out lumps, and suck
it off their fingers. It was a delicious
sight yesterday, on coming through
Muanza, to see the great deference
paid to Sich Belooch, Shadud, mis-
taken for the great Arah merchant
(or Mundewa), my humhle self, in
consequence of his riding the donkey,
and to perceive the stoical mauner
in which he treated their attentions;
but, more fortunate than I usually
have heen, he escaped the rude peep-
ing and peering of the crowd, for he
did not, like his employer, wear
"douhle eyes." During the last five
or six marches, the word Marahu,
for Arah, instead of Mzungu, Euro-
pean, has usually heen applied to me;
and no one, I am sure, would have
discovered the difference, were it not
that the tiresome Pagazis, to increase
their own diguity and importance
generally, gave the clue hy singing
the song of " the White Man." The
Arahs at Un_\ anyemhe had advised
my douning their hahit for the trip,
in order to attract less attention: a
vain precaution, which I helieve they
suggested more to gratify their own
vanity in seeing an Englishman lower
himself to their position, than for any
henefit that I might receive hy doing
so. At any rate. I was more comfort-
ahle and hetter off in my flaunel shirt,
long togs, and wide awake, than I
should have heen, hoth mentally and
physically, had I degraded myself,
and adopted their hot, long, and par-
ticularly uncomfortahle gown.
Sultan Mahaya sent a messenger
to say that he was hurt at the cava-
lier manner in which I treated him
yesterday, and, to show his wounded
feelings, gave an order to his suh-
jects 'hat no man should supply me
with provisions, or render mo any
assistance during my sojourn at
Muanza. Luckily my larder was


1859.]
415
the supposed Source of the Nile.—Part II.

well supplied with game, or I should
have had to go supperless to hed,
for no inducement would prevail on
the people to sell anything to me
after the mandate had heen pro-
claimed. This morning, however, we
settled the difference in the most
amicahle mauner, thus: previously
to my departure for Ohservatory Hill,
I sent the Jemadar, the Kirangozi,
and a large deputation of the Beloo-
ches and Pngazis, to explain away the
reason of my having left his house
so rudely, and to tender apologies,
which were accompanied, as' an
earnest of good-will, with a large
kahongo, consisting of one harsati,
one dhoti Amerikan, and one gora
kiniki, as also an intimation that I
would pay him a visit the next day.
This pleased him excessively; it was
considered a visit of itself; and he
returned the usual hullock, with a
notification that I must remain where
I was, to enahle him to return the
compliment I had paid him, for he
intended walking out to see me on
the morrow.
5ih.—As my time was getting short,
I forestalled Mnhaya in his intentions,
and changed ground to the Sultanat, a
rural-looking little place, perched on a
small rocky promontory, sbrouded hy
green trees, facing the N.W. side of the
lake. Mahaya received me with great
courtesy, arranged a hut comfortahly,
and presented a numher of eggs and
fresh milk, as he had heard that I
was partial to such fare. He is a
man of more than ordinary stature,
a giant in miniature, with massive
and muscular hut well-proportioned
limhs: he must numher fifty years
or more. His dress was the ordi-
nary harsati; his arms were set off
hy heavy hrass and copper ornaments
encircling the Wrists, and hy num-
herless samho, or thin circles made
from the twisted fihres of an aloetic
plant, on each of which a single infi,
or white porcelain head resemhling
a little piece of tohacco-pipe, was
strung.; these ranged in massivo rows
down the whole of his upper arm.
Just ahove his elhow-joints sat a pair
of large ivory rings. On his forehead
two small goat or deer horns were
fastened hy thin talismanicornaments
of thotig for keeping off the evil eye;
and, finally, his neck was adorned
with two strings of very coarse
hine heads. Mahaya has the fame
of heing the hest and most just
sultan in these quarters, and his
henigu square countenance, lit up
with a pleasing expression when in
conversation, confirms this opinion,
though a casual ohserver passing
hy that dark, hroad, massive face,
still more darkened hy a matting of
short, close, and tightly-curled-up
ringlets, would he apt to carry away
a contrary impression. Before leav-
ing Kazeh, I notified my intention of
visiting Ukerewe", supposing I could
do so in tbree or four days, and ex-
plained to my men my wishes on this
point. Hearing this, they told loth
Mahaya and Manser, in direct terms,
that I was going, and so needlessly
set them to work finessing to show
how much they were in earnest i n their
consideration of me. However, they
have hoth heen very warm in dis-
suading me from visiting Ukerewe",
apparently quite in a parental way,
for each seems to think himself in a
measure my guardian. Mnhaya thinks
it his duty to caution those who visit
him from ruuning into danger, which
a journey to Ukerewe", he considers,
would he. Mansur, on the other hand,
says, as I have come from his Sultan
Majid, he also is hound to render
me any assistance in his power ; hut
strongly advises my giving up the
notion of going across the water. I
could get hoats from Usukuma, he
said, hut there would he great delay
in the husiness, as I should have
first to send over and ask permission
from Machunda to land, and then
the collecting men and hoats would
occupy a long time. As regards the
collection of hoats taking a long
time, these arguments are very fair,
as I know from experience; hut
the only danger would consist in the
circumstance of the two sultans
heing at enmity with each other,
as in this land any one coming
direct from an enemy's country is
suspected and treated as an ene-
my. This difficulty I should have
avoided hy going straight to Sukuma
(where the hoats, I am inclined to
think, usually do start from, though
all concur in stating that this is
their point of departure), and there
ohtaining hoats direct. However,
r


416
[Oct.
Captain Speke's Discovery of the Victoria Nyanza,

I told them that I should hava
gone if I had found hoats ready at
once to take me across; hut now 1
saw the prohahility of so much
delay, that I could not afford to waste
time in trying to ohtain hoats, which,
had I succeeded in getting, I should
have employed my time not in going
to Ukerewd, hut to the more elevated
and friendly island of Mzita, this heing
a more suitahle ohservatory than the
former. These negroes' manoeuvres are
quite incomprehensihle. If Mahaya
had desired to fleece me—and one can
hardly give a despotic negro credit
for anything short of that—he surely
would have tried to detain me under
false hope*, and have thus necessitated
my (pending cloths in his village,
while, on tjie contrary, he lost all
chance of gaining anything hy giving
advice, which induced me to leave
him at once, never to return again
to see him.
At my request, Mahaya assemhled
all his principal men, and we went
into a discussion ahout the lake, hut
not a soul knew anything ahout its
northern extremity, altnough people
had sometimes travelled in canoes,
coasting along its shores hy the Kar-
agwah district to as far, I helieve, as
the Line. His wife, a pretty, crummy
little creature of the Wanyoro trihe,
came farther from the north than
anyhody preseut, and gave me the
names of many districts in the Ug-
anda country, which, she says, lies
along the sea-shore. She had never
heard of there heing any end to the
Lake, and supposed, if any way of
going round it did exist, she would
certainly have known it. It is re-
markahle that the Arahs should not
he hetter acquainted witlt the ground
that lies to the eastward of Kihuga,
which evidently shows us that there
must he some insurmountahle diffi-
culties hetween that place and Kiku-
yu, whither the Arahs go trading via
Momhas from Zanzihar; for if a pas-
sage were open hy which they could
get to Kiknyu, exactly one-third of
the distance which they now travel
via Unyamue"zi to Zanzihar would
he saved. This suggests a proha-
hility that the Lake expands consi-
derahly as it continues north to the
norl h ward of the Line, and is so hroad
that canoes caunot cross it there, as
they can to the southward of the equa-
tor. It is well known that there is no
communication hetween the east and
west shores of the lake, excepting hy
a few occasional canoe-parties coast-
ing along the southern end, hecause
the waters are so very hroad they
dare not venture. That there can he
no high mountain-range intersecting
the Nyanza from the water-courses
which we hear of north of the equa-
tor, as some people have supposed,
is evident from the numerous ac-
counts given of the kingdom of Ug-
anda heing so flat and marshy from
the equator to 2° or 3° north latitude;
whilst I must have seen any, did they
exist, on the south side of the equator,
heing only 100 miles from it when
standing on its southern shore. Now,
judging from all the information given
us hy the several Egyptian expedi-
tions and missionaries sent up the
Nile, who came across hills of no
great elevation in 4^° north latitude
and 31° or 32° east longitude, which
are intersected hy the Nile in the same
way that the east coast-range is inter-
sected hy the interior plateau rivers,
as we saw on our passage inwards
from Zanzihar; and further, hy the
Arahs telling us that all the country
on the same meridian, from the Line
up to the second parallel north lati-
tude, is flat and full of water-courses;
and then again, hy knowing the re-
spective heights of the Nyanza on
the one side heing nearly 4000 feet,
and the Nile's hed in latitude 4° N.,
or heyond the small hills alluded to,
heing under 2000 feet,—it would in-
deed he a marvel if this lake is not
the fountain of the Nile. The reason
why those expeditions sent up the
Nile have failed in discovering the
Nyanza, is clearly attrihutahle to the
important rapids which must exist in
cousequence of this great variation of
altitude hetween the north end of the
Nyanza (which, let us suppose, is on
the equator), and the position, in 4° 44'
north latitude, at which the expedi-
tions and missions arrived, their fur-
ther progress heing stopped hy these
rapids.
Indeed, hy all accounts of the
country lying hetween the Nyanza,
as seen hy the Arahs in Uganda and
let us say Gondokoro, a mission sta-
tion on the Nile, in north latitude


1859.]
417
the *uppoted Source of the Kile.—Part II.

4:° 44', which was occupied hy two
Austrian missionaries, Knohlecher
and Dooyak, we find it is analogous
in every respect to what we ohserved
hetween the low Mriina or maritime
plain in front of Zanzihar, and the
high interior plateau, divided from
one another hy the east coast range,
which is of granitic formation, the
same in its nature exactly as those
which they descrihe, and interseoted
hy rivers so rapid and hoisterous
that no canoes can live upon them ; as,
for instance, we found the Kinyaui
and Lufiji rivers were when passing
over the east coast range. There
the land dropped from 2000 or more
feet to less than 300 in the short dis-
tance of ninety miles.
I will now proceed to give, first,
the missionary account in 4° 44' N.,
and then the Arah one in 2° N.—
a dehatahle hit of ground, extend-
ing over 2° 44', or 160 English miles.
Talking of the missionaries, "these
two men," says Dr. Petermaun, " kept
an aunual hygrometrical and meteor-
ological register with great precision
and scientific regularity. They had
various instruments with them; they
fixed their station, Gondokoro, at
4° 44' north latitude hy astron-
omical ohservations, and determined
the altitude of the Nile's hed to
he only 1603 feet ahove the sea,
hy numerous good harometrical oh-
servations. . . . Gondokoro is
surrounded on tbree sides hy small
granitic hills, ranging from 2000 to
4000 feet, which are intersected hy
the Nile coming from the south, as
the king of the Iiari country says,
from 200 to 300 miles;" which is
equivalent to saying from the Nyanzn,
as it lies exactly on the plana he* di-
rects us to. "The mean aunual tem-
perature there is 83M Fabr. The wet-
test months in the year are Fehruary,
March, April, May, and August. Thun-
der accompanies nearly all the storms,
and earthquakes are prevalent. The
Nile hegins to rise at Gondokoro in
May, and keeps increasing till Septem-
her. The country from Gondokoro
southwards entirely changes from the
swampy nature which exists north-
wards of it, and the people there
hegin to talk a different language to
those in the north, and are very fond
of eating mice. The winds prevail
from the east, rarely coming from the
west."
As the Arahs do not keep thermo-
meters, scientific instruments, or pro-
perly distrihuted months and seasons,
I must say for them that from 2° to
6° south latitude we found the mean
temperature in the hottest month,
August, to he only 80°; that Uganda
must he quite 4000 feet, to he higher
than the lake which it horders; that
the height of the rainy season is dur-
ing the months of Fehruary, March,
April, and May; and that the rivers,
as we see hy the Malagarazi, increase
more after than hefore that date.
Though it appears that the preces-
sion of the rain tends from the south-
ward to the northward, the same in-
fluence that swells the Mid igarazi
would. also affect the Uganda rivers,
as they rise merely on opposite sides
of the axis of the same mountains.
The Arahs say, as we also have found
it, "that thunder accompanies nearly
all the storms, and the lightning there
is excessive, and so destructive that
the King of Ugauda expresses the
greatest dread of it—indeed his pa-
lace alone has heen often destroyed
hy lightning. The Kitangura and
Katonga rivers are affected hy the
rainy season in the same propoi lion as
the Malagarazi, and flow north-east-
erly towards the lake. There the El-
vira river (see maps), in north latitude
3°, of which they hring information,
flows somewhere to the northward,
and is not a slow sluggish stream like
the other two, hut is rapid and hoister-
ous, showing that the country drops
to the northward." Now here, in
3° north latitude, where this river is
said to flow, I think will he found
the southern hase-line of those small
hills, from 2000 to 4000 feet high,
lying to the south of Gondokoro,
as trie missionaries descrihe them;
though these hills, to any one looking
at them from the northern side,
where the land is low, might appear
a harrier to the waters of the lake
lying heyond them. This idea
would not occur to any one stand-
ing on the southern side, where
the land is nearly, if not quite as
high as these hills themselves. In-
deed, from the levels given, the two
countries ahout Kihuga and Gondo-
koro may he descrihed as two land-


418
Captain Spekt's Discovery of the Victoria Nyanza, &c. [Oct

ings, with the fall hetween them re-
presenting a staircase forme'l hy the
hills in question. The country in
latitudes 2 and 5° is therefore ter-
raced like a hanging garden.
The Nyanza, as we now see, is a
large expansive sheet of water, flush
with the hesial surface of the country,
and lies hetween the Mountains of
the Moon (on its western side), hav-
ing, according to Dr. Krapff, suowy
Kaenia on its eastern flank. KrapfT
tells us of a large river flowing down
from the western side of this suowy
peak, and trending away to the north-
west, in a direction, as will he seen hy
the map, leading right into my lake.
Now, returning again to the western
side, we find tliat the Nyanza is
plentifully supplied hy those streams
coming from the Lnuae Montes, of
which the Arahs, one and all, give
such conristent and concise accounts;
and the Sowings of which, heing north-
easterly, must, in course of time and
distance, commingle with those north-
westerly off-Sowings, hefore mention-
ed, of Mons Kaenia. My impression
is, after hearing everyhody's story on
the matter, that these streams enter
at opposite sides of the lake, on the
northern side of the equator, and are
consequently very considerahle feeders
to it. To help at once in the argu-
ment that the Nyanza exists as a large
sheet of water to the north of the
equator, I will anticipate a story in
my diary, hy adverting to it hefore its
order or succession. On the return to
Unyanyemhe, a native of Msalala told
me that he had once travelled up the
western shore of the Nyanza to the
district of Kitara, where, he says, it
is a corrohoration of the Arahs' stories
that coffee grows, and which place,
hy fair computation of the distances
given as their travelling rates, I he-
lieve to he in ahout 1° north lat. (see
map). To the east of this land, at no
great distance from the shore, he de-
scrihed the island of Kitiri as occupied
hy a trihe called Waiiri, who also
grow coffee; and there the sea was of
such great extent, and when winds
hlew was so hoisterous, that the
canoes, although as large as the Tan-
ganyika ones (which he had also seen),
did not trust themselves upon it.
Now supposing, for instance, that
there is no overflow of water at the
north end of the Nyanza, still, from
its altitude heing so great in com-
parison with the Nile at Gondokoro,
it must he a considerahle contrihutor
to that river's volume, if only hy the
ordinary process of percolation. If
further proof is required ahout the ex-
tent of the Nyanza, all the Arahs say
that, on passing tbrough the Karag-
wah district, in latitude 1° south, they
can see from the summit of a high
mountain its expansive and houndless
waters extending away to the east-
ward as far as the eye can reach.
The lake has the credit of heing very
deep, which I caunot helieve. It cer-
tainly hears the appearance of the
temporary deposit of a vast flood
overspreading a large flat surface,
rather than the usual characteristics
of a lake or inland sea, lying in deep
hollows, or shut in, like the Tan-
ganyika, hy mountains. The islands
ahout it are low hill tops, standing
out like paps on the soft placid
hosom of the waters, and are precisely
similar to those amongst which I have
heen, travelling; indeed, any part of
the country inundated to the same ex-
tent would wear the same aspect. Its
water appears, perhaps owing to the
disturhing influence of the wind, of a
dirty-white colour, hut it is very good
and sweet, though not. so pleasant to
my taste as the very clear Tanganyika
water. The natives, however, who
have wonderfully keen palates for
detecting the relative distinctions in
.such matters, differ from me, and
affirm that all the inhahitants prefer
it to any other, and consequently
never dig wells on the margin of the
lake; whereas the Tanganyika water
is invariahly shuuned, nohody ever
drinking it unless from necessity; not
so much hecause they consider it
to he unwholesome, as hecause it
does not quench or satisfy the thirst
so well as spring-water. Whether
this peculiarity in the qualities of the
waters is to he attrihuted to the Ny-
anza lying on a foundation chiefly
composed of iron, or whether the one
lake is drained hy a river, whilst the
other is staguant, I must leave for
other and superior talents to de-
cide. Fish and crocodiles are said to
he very ahundant in the lake; hut with
all my endeavours to ohtain some
.specimens, I have succeeded in seeing


1859.]
419
Eorte-Dealing in Syria, 1854.—Part II.

only two sorts—one similar to those
taken at Ujiji, of a perch-like form,
and another, very small, resemhling
our common miunow, hut not found
in the Ujiji market. The quantity of
musquitos on the horders of the lake
is perfectly marvellous; the grass,
hushes, and everything growing there,
are literally covered with them. As I
walked along its shores, disturhing
the vegetation, they rose in clouds,
and kept tapping in dozens at a time,
against,my hands and face, in the
most disagreeahle manner. Unlike
tho Indian musquito, they are of a
light dun-hrown colour. The Muanza
dogs are the largest that I have yet
seen in Africa, and still are not more
than twenty inches high; hut Mahaya
says the Ukerewe dog is a fine animal,
and quite different from any on the
mainland. There are hut very few
canoes ahout here, and those are of
miserahle construction, and only fitted
for the purpose they turn them to—
catching fish close to the shore. The
paddle the fishermen use is a sort of
mongrel hreed hetween a spade and
a shovel. The fact of there heing no
hoats of any size here, must he attri-
huted to the want of material for
constructing them. On the route
from Kazeh there are no trees of
any girth, save the calahash, whose
wood is too soft for the purpose
of hoat-huilding. I hear that the
island of Ukerewe has two sultans
hesides Machunda, and that it is very
fertile and populous. Mahaya says,
"All the trihes from the Wasukimias
(or Northern Wanyamuezis, Sukuma
meaning the north), along the south
and east of the lake, aro so savage
and inhospitahle to travellers, that it
would he impossihle to go amongst
them unless accompanied hy a large
and expensive escort."
(To he coniinved.)
HORSE-nEALING IN SYRIA, 1854. PART IL
BesiDes the Arahs, there was ano-
ther race whose tents might he found
in our neighhourhood; the Wander-
ing Turcomans, a nomadic people
very similar, hoth in mauner of life
and in dress, to the sedentary Arahs.
Their history, as it was related to me,
is this. They helong to the great Tur-
coman race from which the Osmanlis
sprang, and which still exists towards
the north of Persia. Their fore-
fathers came into Syria to help to re-
sist the Crusaders, and have re-
mained there ever since; and the
language which they to this day
speak is not, as with the other people
of Syria, Arahic, hut Turkish.
They possess camels, goats, cattle,
and horses. The latter are very poor.
They are not, I think, superior in
height to the Arah, and in every
other point are so inferior that, seen
hy his side, they seem fit for little
else than pack-horses. They aro
heavy and clumsy, with coarse heads,
staring coats, very drooping hind-
quarters, legs long in the shank, and
coarse, draggling, ill-carried tails. In
temper they are very shy, and al-
though almost all geldings, are com-
monly ohstinate and vicious when
mounted. The mares, hy reason of
finer coats and greater age (for hoth
Arahs and Turcomans sell their horses
very young), are hetter looking, hut
are still coarse and Flemish.
Before we had heen long at Merj
Kotrani, the news of our arrival
spread in all quarters, and hrought
such numhers of hoth Anazeh and
Turcomans, that our encampment
assumed the aspect of a horse fair.
The groups that presented them-
selves at every turn, and indeed the
whole scene, were most picturesque.
In the hackground were the suow-
streaked mountains of the Druses;
to our front a wide grassy plain,
dotted with flocks and herds. Com-
ing over some distant ridge might he
seen a party of monkey-like Anazeh,
their long spears over their shoulders,
and their high-hred horses coming on
at a quiet easy walk. Near at hand,
hy tiie hlack tents of the encampment,
a party of their kinsmen sat squatting
in a circle, with their horses tethered
and their lances stuck in the ground
heside them hy the sharp point which
terminates the hutt; or a group of


420
[Oct.
Hor*e Dealing in Syria, 1854.—Part II.

Turcomans, distinguished hy greater
size and more oomplete and cleaner
(or it might he hetter to say, loss
dirt)) clothing, held ugly mares and
uglier geldings accoutred with hirgo
rugs or saddle-cloths covering the
croup, gaudily-coloured worsted
headstalls with Mameluke hits, and
saddles with high pommel and can-
tie and heavy shovel stirrup-irons.
Arahs at speed showed off the slash-
ing stride of their horses; Turco-
mans, amhitions of doing the like,
urged theirs into a comparatively
stiff and lumhering gallop, or, less
successful, contended against the pig-
gish ohstinacy of their cro.s-grained
hrutes, who, sidling and hacking in
every direction hut the right, or
standing stock-still with most ohsti-
nate-looking shakes and tosses of the
head, showed a determination to
kick if driven to extremity, which
the riders generally seemed to hold
in somo respect. All around, tethered
to pegs, stones, or tent-ropes, stood
horses, mares, and colts of every
imaginahle kind, from the handsome
Arah to the wretched undersized
sore-hacked hrute that had evidently
served as a pack-horse and was
clearly never destined to do anything
hetter; some already hought hy us,
some still for sale; some standing
motionless; some stretching their
necks to get a suort and a scream
with their neighhours; some, per-
haps, hroken loose and tbrowing the
whole camp into confusion.
All the horses offered to us for sale
hy the Bedouins were stallions. I do
not at this moment rememher having
ever seen a gelding in their posses-
sion; and although they frequently
rode mares into our camp, they never
offered them to us. The last circum-
stance, I helieve, is owing to the es-
timation in which they hold their
mares as a source of national wealth,
and to the fact of " puhlic opinion"
having set itself so strongly against
letting the hreed fall into other hands
hy selling them, that no individual
ventures to do so. Sentimental or
affectionate feeling, I should imagine,
is very little concerned in the matter.
I never saw the slightest trace of any
feeling of dislike on the part of the
Arah to parting with his horse, pro-
vided the price was good. Once let
him see a satisfactory heap of gold,
and he turns his heast over to you,
and his whole faculties to-seeing that
you do not cheat him of the tenth
part of a piastre on the hargain; and
never, in all prohahility, cists a look
on his horse again, unless with the
ohject of instituting a squahhle as to
whether or not he is to carry off the
halter.
None of the people of these parts
are easy to deal with; hut the Ana-
Zeh are the most difficult of all. Sup-
pose that yon ask the price of a horse.
If the owner condescends to put a
price upon him, it is ahout tbree times
what he means to take; frequently
he refuses to do it at aM, hut tells
you to make an offer. You do so:
he receives it with contempt, and
the wo-d "Beid"—"Far off"—pro-
nounced with a lengthened emphasis,
"Be-i... d," that sets strongly hefore
you the enormoas inadequacy of your
proposal. You raise your price, and
a contention of hargaining ensues,
which is terminated hy the owner
riding off with his horse as if he never
meant to come hack any more. After
a time greater or less—in an hour or
two, to-morrow, or the day after—
yon find that he has come hack. A
fresh hattle ensues, which (if it is not
interrupted hy a second riding off)
ends in the price heing fixed. All is
settled; the owner seems quite con-
tent; you proceed to mark the horse,
when, lo! his late master, suddenly
stung hy the intolerahle thought that
ho has perhaps got less than he pos-
sihly might, seizes and drags off his
heast in a fury, mounts and goes off
again. Again he returns, and again,
finding you inexorahle, agrees for the
same sum. Again you want to mark
the horse; and now he raises a dread-
ful outcry to he paid first. You con-
sent and call him into the tent. In
he comes, attended hy one or two
friends and counsellors, sages sup-
posed to he learned in Frank coins,
and wide awake to the ring of a had
piece. All solemnly squat on the
ground, and you proceed to count out
the gold. An awful difficulty now
arises. The price has heen agreed
on in Ghazis (pieces of 21i piastres
each), and has to he paid in English
money. The Aunzeh is not strong in
arithmetic, and caunot he satisfied


1859.]
421
Horse-Dealing in'Syria, 1854.—Part II.

that the gold amounts exactly to the
stipulated sum; and it is not till he
has had the pieces counted a dozen
times into his hand, and till he and his
friends have looked like owls over it
for tbree-quarters of an hour, that his
douhts on this head can he at all
assuaged. At length he departs;
evidently with misgivings. In a few
minutes he is hack again. One of
the gold pieces given him ia an old-
fashioned sovereigu, hearing the de-
vice of the George and the Dragon,
and therehy differing from the more
modern ones which he commonly
sees; and this he declares of inferior
value, and wishes to return. This
hrings on a fresh dispute of extreme
hitterness; and when you have finally
quieted him and sent him off lialf-
Batisfied on this score, he very likely
goes offprivately to your companion,
who is perhaps standing somewhere
outside, and hegs to he informed
whether you have not emhezzled a
little of his due.
The " huffiness" exhihited hy the
Bedouins in their horse-dealing tran-
sactions, though perhaps not alto-
gether affected, hut in great iru a-ure
the honest ehullition of an insolent
and overhearing nature, is yet unahle,
in the majority of instances, to stand
its ground permanently against the
greater strength of their passion for
money. Of a hundred men that rido
off in a fury, as if they were resolved
never again to set eyes on such a suoh
as yourself, ninety-nine will come
hack again. The hundredth perhaps
will not. I rememher a Bedouin
hringing a grey horse of extraordinary
size (tor an Arah) into our camp. I
did not myself see very much to ad-
mire in the animal, and thought him
far Inferior to many I had seen of
less height; however that may he,
a sum equivalent to £100 was offered
for him. The owner—a hreecbless
savage, in a garment like a dirty
night-shirt—turned away in wrath,
and we never saw him again.
As a general rule, it may he said
that those who have the hest horses
are the touchiest to deal with.
During our stay at Merj Kotrani,
and still more when we afterwards
got into the camp of the Anazeh, our
great perplexity was to get the money
required for our purchases. The
authorities who sent us out, ordered
us, in the fulness of their wisdom,
on no account to pay for horses
otherwise than hy hills on divers
consuls and hankers; opining, no
douht, that Mutlak or Marzouk the
Anazeh would, in the first instance,
with a fine feeling of commercial con-
fidence, accept our hills, and that, in
the second, they would trust them-
selves within the clutches of the
Turkish Government in the process
of going to claim the money. Now
Mutlak and Marzouk, feeling pretty
strongly what would he the result if
they could get hold of anyhody's
horse hy the giving of a promissory
note, valued hills as so much waste
paper; and even if they could have
heen convinced of their value, would
have seen the whole British Govern-
ment in everlasting infelicity hefore
they would have trusted themselves
within hail of anything like a Turkish
official. We soon saw that dealing
on the terms prescrihed to us was
pretty much like going fishing with
your hook haited witli a hill on
your hanker for a worm, and found
ourselves compelled to resort to cash
payments; and the keeping of tho
large sums of money required, and
when they were spent, sending for
more, was a source of endless trouhle
and anxiety to us in that land of
thieves. We should never have got
on at all hut for a strong guard of
armed Druses which, soon after our
arrival in the desert, we suhstituted
for our original escort of horsemen,
and whoso chief was of great service
in hringing the money from Da-
mascus.
On one occasion we were on the
verge of a row which might have
terminated seriously. We were stand-
ing looking on at the group of Arahs
and others surrounding the tents,
when we hecame aware of a scuffle
in process of performance, and pre-
sently, in the thick of the little crowd
which it instantly collected, perceived
the second chief of the Druses vigor-
ously cuffing an Anazeh, who, horne
hack hy the greater force of his an-
tagonist, was yet kicking and holla-
ing in return with great energy. In
a moment all the camp was in con-
fusion. The Anazeh rushed together;


422
[Oct.
Worse-Dealing in Syria, 1854.— Part II.

those who had horses sprang on their
hacks, while iho Druses cocked their
guns and ran to the support of their
chief; and the prospect of a general
scrimmage seemed to he of the
fairest. It appeared, however, that
some of the cooler on each side felt
an interest in keeping the peace, for
the helligerents were separated, and
the Anazeh, crowding round their
irate friend, seemed to he forcing
him hack and restraining him; and
the two hostile parties drew hack
from each other. The Arahs, how-
ever, were desperately angry, and
moved ahout like a cluster of angry
wasps, hrandishing their hig knohhed
sticks ami cluhs, and striking them
against their lances, and jahhering
furiously; while the Druses, on the
other hand, stood their ground re-
solutely. How the quarrel arose was
a thing which I never precisely
understood. Tbree "jthazis," claimed
from us hy the Anazeh, lay somehow
at the hottom of it, and hy the pay-
ment of the same we fortunately suc-
ceeded in quieting the dispute; hut
the Anazeh immediately alter left the
camp, and for some time kept so
clear of us that I hegan to fear that
they had taken huff and cut us for
good.
Ahout this time the supply of
horses hegan to fail at Merj Kotrani,
so we returned to Damascus. Here
we arranged plans for an expedition
to the camp of a trihe of the Wolad
Ali; and having communicated with
their chief, Mohammed Doukhy, and
received his permission to visit him,
we set out after live days' stay in
Damascus, for his camp in the
desert.
We again passed tbrough Merj
Kotrani; and then hore straight away
for the centre of the wide plain which
I have hefore descrihed as lying to
the front of that camp. After this
our journey lay pretty much in a
straight line. The plain, at first
gra-sy hut stone-sprinkled, as we ad-
vanced gradually lost in the former
and gained in the latter quality, till
at last the slight ridges which inter-
sected it were seen densely covered
with stones, while the intervening
flats, stony too, hore little herhage
hut a half-dried yellowish-green
grass. Sometimes for a space this
vegetation would give place to a
tutted herhage spotting the dried
ground; and this again wonld he
varied hy what at the "first glance
looked like a small pool of hazy hlue,
really a luxuriant plot of a hlue-
flowered fragrant plant of the wild-
thyme nature. Far off, a small
winding streak of a hrighter green,
dotted with the forms of distant
animals, showed us where some com-
paratively moist hottom gave pastur-
age to sheep and camels. Very soon
after leaving Merj Kotrani, wo had
fallen in with scattered tents of the
Anazeh; and here their hahitations,
in clomps of four, five, up to as man;
as seven together, were scattered over
the whole face of the country, whilst
their flocks of ugly flat-tailed sheep
grazed all around, tended hy little
hrown dirty savages of Anazeh hoys,
or perhaps hy a higger hut equally
dirty herdsman with a pistol in his
helt. Small ponds, or chains of little
pools imhedded in hlack rocks, were
not uncommon; and once we came
upon a small rocky dell with a narrow
stream, foaming and rapid, hut yet
hlack, dirty, cumhered hy tangled
trails of weed, and more like staguant
than ruuning water, rushing over the
stones which ohstructed it, and fer-
tilising its immediate hanks into a
crop of long green grass. This was
the desert.
That the whole of this country has
once heen comparatively well popu-
lated, and that hy a people not
utterly savage, is proved hy the
ruins of stone-huilt villages found in
all directions. In one instance we
met with a still stronger evidence of
former civilisation, in the shape of a
well-huilt though dilapidated old
stone hridge of tbree arches, spauning
a rocky stream still deeper in the
desert. Now, not a populated village
exists, and not a human heing is to
he seen hut the Bedouins.
Our march hitherto had heen
monotonous enough. The snow-
speckled mountains of the Druses
had always risen on our rear, while
our onward progress had done little
to vary the view ahead, heyond ex-
changing the contracted horizon pre-
sented hy one swell of stony ground
for that presonted hy another. But
y


1859.] Horse-Dealing in Syria, 1854—Part II. 423

I
now the scene changed slightly. At section of the Anazeh), and heing
a level somewhat lower than oar own, told that we did not, he volunteered
a wide plain lay hefore us; stony the statement that he was a kdh, i. e.
indeed, hut less so than what we had a dog.-
heen traversing; in color yellow- The sheikh was rich, and among
green, streaked with lines of a richer other sources of wealth had that of
lint where the grass grew hetter; heing contractor to the Turkish
dotted in the middle distance with a Government for the large supply of
few isolated hills of mole-hill shape, camels (five or six thousand, they
and then sweeping away to a far say) required each year for the Hadj
horizon. Far and near the whole or Pilgrimage hetween Damascus
face of the land was covered with and Mecca. This circumstance gave
camels, of all colours, from smoky him a certain security amongst the
hlack to pure white, and of all sizes, Turks, and he occasionally went on
down to the little woolly foal of a husiness into Damascus ; a proceeding
few months old. They appeared to that other Bedouin chiefs, I am told,
he casting their winter coats, for the are very shy of.
long woolly hair still adhered to We were several times honored hy
them; sometimes disclosing tbrough his visits in our own tent. When he
its rags the finer coat heneath, and came in the daytime, we could offer
sometimes completely covering the him nothing in the way of refresh-
upper part of the animal, hut stop- ment, as it was Ramazan; hut after
ping ahrnptly on the flanks in a well- sunset he would take pipes and coffee,
defined line, helow which the only If we happened to he aware of his
covering was a short smooth hair, coming, we used to make for him a
Flocks of sheep and hlack goats were kind of divan on the floor with a
plentiful ; and cattle too were there, mattress and cushions; otherwise he
thoutrh in smaller numhers. sat on one of the heds. He was
Here stood the camp of the Anazeh; always attended hy one or two dirty
a widespread village of hlack low maguates of his trihe: our Druse
tents, clustered hy seven or the dozen chief and one or two of the head
together, with large intervals hetween men of the escort used, hy virtue of
the groups. A tent higger hut no their rank, to assist at ihe ceremony;
hundsomer thau the rest was the and a circle of Arah spectators, not
dwelling of the chief, and there we of dignity sufficient to entitle them
dismounted and saluted the great to a place in the tent, used to squat
sheikh, Mohammed Doukhy. He outside and peer in tbrough the
was a not ill-looking, hut at the same door. It was romantic to sit at
time not over-hright-looking man, night in a tent on a wide Syrian
with his right arm, which had heen plain with a real Bedouin sheikh;
disahled hy a lance-wound some hut it was not to he denied that it
years hefore, hidden in his cloak. He was also a hore,
seated us on the hest carpets of his Suppose us to he sitting after din-
tent, and gave us coffee; civilly ner; hot and lazy, wishing only to he
enough, quietly, and without em- let alone. It is aunounced that the
pressement or much show of interest sheikh ia coming; and presently he
in us or in our ohject. He had never and his train come noiselessly and
heard of the English, he'said—anas- sol(rooly. We rise, and, in accordance
sertion which was prohahly a mere with Eastern etiquette, remain stand-
piece of hrag, intended to impress ing till the sheikh is seated on his
upon us that the great Mohammed mattress. Then all seat themselves;
Doukhy was far too much occupied we on our chairs, the others on the
with the weighty affairs of his own ground. We give coffee and as many
vast realm to have time to know of pipes as the estahlishment affords;
small and far-off nations. Besides the sheikh talks slowly and without
this, he made only one remarkahle animation, with frequent and long
communication. First asking us pauses. He hehaves quietly, and
whether we knew the secretary of without the awkwardness which an
.Sheikh Feysel (chief of a rival trihe, uneducated European tbrown into un-
helonging to the Rowallas, another accustomed society would show;
vol. lxxxvl 28
A


424
[Oct.
Horse-Dealing in Syria, 1854.—Part 11.

hut the conversation is evidently
made hy effort, and not flowing
spontaneously. All—at any rate, all
of our party—got awfully tired. The
only one of us who knows Arahic is
tired hy the constant manufacture of
small talk required of him; the rest
of us hy our inahility to talk at all.
Our visitors are perhaps assisted hy
Oriental laziness and love of doing
nothing, and the visit is usually
pretty long; at last, however, the
sheikh suddenly rises, salaams, shuf-
fles into his red hoots, which are
standing outside the door, and van-
ishes as silently as he came. Sundry
fleas, not to say hugs, and even a few
lice, remain hehind.
We gathered in the course of con-
versation with the sheikh that the
following was the aunual round of
migration of his trihe. Ahout the
middle of Septemher they leave
Syria; and hy a circuit which leads
them successively into the neighhour-
hood of Bussora, Bagdad, Aleppo,
Horns, and Hama, return to Syria
early in July. In the year of our
vi>it, as the reader has seen, they
were found there in May; hut this,
the sheikh said, was an unusual oc-
currence. He descrihed their rate of
travelling as very irregular, and vary-
ing from two up to twenty-lour hours
in the day—the latter only under cir-
cumstances of emergency; and told
ns that on the march they fed their
horses with harley, which they carried
with them.
Every morning, at suurise, the
herds of camels helonging to the
camp marched out to graze in dense
hodies, which at a little distance
looked like regulated squadrons.
Shortly hefore sunset they might he
seen, far and near, returning from
all quarters ; on far-off ridges, show-
ing like small pyramids against the
evening sky; or close at hand, with
head up, neck curved, and hump
shown in fine profile, solemn and
very like the camel in the picture-hook.
This, at least, is the demeanour of
the more aged and respectahle ones;
the younger, and especially the half-
grown camels, execute curious gam-
hols as they come home at night. Some
one of them, taking a sudden fancy,
tarts off as hard as he can go, fling-
ing his legs out violently at each
stride as if to make a caricature of
an animal at speed, and stretching
along at a pace you could hardly
expect of him. This inflames an-
other, who, wishing to indulge in a
still more frolicsome caper, adopts
a yet ahsurder gait; executing a
peries of jumps in which he exhihits
all the motions of the most extreme
speed, tbrowing his legs out with
desperate exertion, hut in reality
spending all his efforts in jumping
off the ground rather than in getting
over it; his tail curled upwards like
a terrier dog's, and his long recurved
neck working up and down in unison
with the spasms of his legs and the
rocking motion of his hody, till he
looks like nothing hut a jointed toy-
heast cut out in card-hoard and
twitched hy strings. Another and
then another takes up the gamhol,
till the whole train, catching the lire,
hurst out into capers, all hut the
very hig and reverend camel:i, who
stalk in groaning lamentahly.
I will try to place hefore the
reader the evening scene I used to
watch from one of the camping-
grounds of the trihe. It is just sun-
set I am sitting perched on the
ruined gray wall of a deserted village
close in rear of our tents. A few
small light clouds hang low down in
the sky, hut the whole zenith is of
the clearest light-hlue, touched, near
the setting sun, with a gleam against
which ,tand out, clearly cut, a few
isolated round hills, their shoulders
fringed with an edging of small trees.
Behind these I catch a glimpse of the
scow-streaked range of the Druse
Mountains, pearly grey and distant.
Turning in the opposite direction—
to the east, to the heart of the desert
— I see the yellow-hrown plain
streaked with strata of hlack stone,
its nearer edges catching a gleam of
hright yellow and its further a tinge
of purple in the setting sunshine,
stretching away, hroken only hy a
small hili or two till it fades in the
far distance. Close at hand, the
centre of the panorama, lie the low
hlack tents of the Anazeh, overtopped
hy a line of high white one-poled
teuts helonging to a party of Damas-
cus traders who have come and set
up a sort of temporary hazuar; and


1859.]
425
Horse-Dealwg in Syria, 1854.—Part U.

nearer still are our own tents, with a
line of thirty and more horses pick-
eted in front of them. From all
quarters camels are flocking in, with
a slow solemn stalk; those already
arrived standing patient and motion-
less. All around rises their strange
cry—a sound resemhling, in quality,
a grant, hut with a prolongation that
gives it the character of a hellow;
mingled with the cries of the dark
herdsmen, who, sometimes on foot
and sometimes perched on the top of
a hig camel, admonish their flocks
with frequent hollas. "Whoa-hup!
whoa-hup! wlioa-hup ! — Yah 1" —
cries the herdsman; and, with a
curious variety of woe-hegone and
despairing tones, the camels answer
in strange chorus. First camel, very
gutturally, "Oo-o-ooo;" second
camel, wrathfully," Wa-ow-ow-ough;"
third camel, most pitifully, as if it
was really too had, "Oo-o-l Eu
gh," winding up wiih an accent of dis-
gust.
Mohammed Doukhy had, or pro-
fessed to have, a right to a monopoly
of trade with the Damascus mer-
chants; and an infringement of this
privilege hy another trihe, who had
inveigled off soine of the Damascenes
and therehy deprived him of the tax
which he levied on all goods sold in
his camp, stirred him up to seek
summary redress. One evening we
were shown four camels in our camp,
with their hales of merchandise pack-
ed on the ground hy them. It ap-
peared that ihe Wulad Ali had heen
reading a lesson to the sinful traders.
That morning they had sallied forth,
and nahhed a party of the delinquents
on their way to the camp of the
enemy, Sheikh Feysel of the Rowal-
las, and had thought fit to chasten
them hy walking off with their goods
and camels. This, as it was repre-
sented to us, was not precisely a
rohhery, hut was only a vigorous line
of action in support of a principle;
for it was declared that the owners
might have their goods again hy pay-
ing a small ransom, and consenting to
sell their stock in the camp of the
Wulad Ali. In fact, it was a laudahle
and patriotic movement for the pro-
tection of Wnlad-Alian commerce;
hut we did not feel quite easy in our
minds ahout it all the same. Sheikh
Feysel, no matter what his ri^rht may
have heen, was supposed to have
might; and we were not without
fears that he and his long lanced
free-traders might involve the pa-
triotic protectionists in a " difficulty"
which, to tell the truth, would have
heen nowise disagreeahle to us, except
from the certainty that we should he
involved in it too.
Birring the chance of a lance-point
in my own viscera, there is nothing
I should hetter like to see than a Be-
douin skirmish.
Every reader who has followed me
thus far knows pretty accurately how
long I was in the desert, and what op-
portunities I had of ohserving its
inhahitants. I shall therefore leave
it to him to form his own judgment
as to how far my experiences may
he considered competent data from
which to draw inferences as to the
character of a nation. All that I
mean to do, is to give the impression
produced on me hy my experiences,
such as they were; and that impres-
sion distinctly is, that the Anazeh are
a disgusting race of heings, and that
apurt from their fine horses, they have
no more claim to our interest or admi-
ration than Hottentots. In person
they are filthy. I never saw the
slightest sigu of a change of raiment
heing possessed hy any of them, and I
certainly do not helieve that the
practice of washing is known, even hy
tradition. Their moral peculiarities
are not more agreeahle than their
personal. They are as destitute of
any feeling of discretion or decency
in regard of intruding upon the tra-
veller, as the traveller might he in
point of disturhing the privacy of the
orang-outang at the Zoological Gar-
dens ; and, once inside his tent, un-
less told in very plain terms to get
out, will squat there from morning to
night, amusing themselves with the
contemplation of his hahits. As for
keeping them from staring in, we
found that utterly impossihle. It
was the commonest thing in the
world to have a couple of them lying
on their chests on the grass, just in
front of the door, with their chins
resting on their elhows, calmly sur-
veying us and all oar proceedings;


426
[Oct
Hone-Dealing in Syria, 1854.—Part II.

and if any one of them was admitted
on husiness, a whole troop flocked in
with him, squatting themselves down
all round till the tent would hold no
more, aud the rest were ohliged to
sit outside, peeping over each other*s
shoulders tbrough the door. They
used to steal horses' nose-hags out
of the servants' tent, and head stalls
from our horses as they stood at their
pickets; and if a saddle or other
piece of furniture was given in with
a horse, used to scuffle for it with
such vigour as to put all chance of
our getting it quite out of the ques-
tion. One Ilumdan, the second great
man of the trihe, and the sheik's
iocum-tenens, was an especial repro-
hate. He used to he very officious
in hidding for horses, professedly to
assist us, hut, as we felt certain,
really to run up the price and go
shares with the seller in the profits.
One day we found him claiming in
our name, from the late owner of a
horse we had just hought, a grand
red saddle and saddle-cloth that had
heen nowise included in the hargain,
with the intention of appropriating
them. He was always hegging for a
little tohacco or a little sugar to re-
fresh himself after the lahorious
fast he was then keeping for Rama-
zan; and always hanging ahout us
accompanied hy a little chi.ld of his,
whom he was constantly privily in-
stigating to come up and kiss our
hands ; the child afterwards hashfully
hiding its face in its father's gown,
and the lather looking aifectionately
amused at the child's simplicity, as
if the whole manoeuvre had not heen
got up with a view to further tohacco.
To sum up, the Auazeh are hores,
thieves, heggars, swindlers, and ex-
tortioners of the most shameless
nature, and if they possess, in any
hut their relations to their horses,
any good quality whatever, certainly
never showed it to me. So much
for the results of my own ohserva-
tion. Backed as we were hy thirty
stout Druses, and further protected
hy the interest which the sheikh had
in keeping well with the Turkish
Government, it was not likely that
the trihe would give us the chance
of having anything much worse to
urge against them. But I never yet
met with a man who knew anything
of the Bedouins who had a single
good word to say for them, except
on this one head. They are not, it
is said, hloodthirsty, unless pro-
voked. A limited virtue ; for when
you come to investigate, you find
that " provocation," as they interpret
it, means pretty nearly every difference
of opinion which an honest man may
entertain with a ruffian, and that
their merit amounts to ahout this,
that provided you eat with satisfac-
tory resiguation all the dirt they may
please to offer you, they had rather
strip you and turn you loose to live or
die as Heaven pleases, than settle yon
with a lance-point at once. A limit-
ed virtue indeed, hut one for which—
rememhering the pleasure that much
of mankind has in cruelty for its own
sake-—let us give them every credit,
and see that at our hands, at least,
the devil does not come short of his
due.
Before we left the Wulad AH, we
had an opportunity of seeing the
trihe on the march. It was an-
nounced one evening that, for the
sake of hetter grass and water, they
were going to shift their ground on
the following day. Early next morn-
ing the camp was filled with camels
receiving their loads ; and in a short
time all the tents were struck and
packed, and the whole mass in mo-
tion. They filed off without any per-
ceptihle attempt at order or regular-
ity, each family starting apparently
at its own convenience ; and were
soon seen trailing over the plain in
several irregular streams or columns
separated hy considerahle intervals.
I stood hy our tents as the servants
struck them and prepared for the
march, and watched each column as
it passed in procession. The most re-
markahle ohjects were camels hearing
saddles of the following curious con-
struction. A kind ot cup-like nest
or seat, scarcely capahle, I should
think, of holding more than one per-
son, was perched on the very top-
most peak of the camel's hack, where
it was retained hy a species of frame-
work encircling the hump, and hy
divers girths. From the front of this
nest, and at right angles to the line of
the camel's hack, there projected on
each side a horizontal outrigger of


1859.]
427
Horse-Dealing in Syria, 1854.—Part II.

great length; the united two forming,
as it were, one cross-har. From each
extreme end of this cross-har a
shorter piece was hrought into the
lower part of the seat; and the frame
thus formed, covered with leather,
presented an appearance much like
what might have resulted if you had
cut out an enormous triangle, ex-
cessively wide hased and low, and
fixed it, ha°e uppermost, to the seat,
with the two wings or acute angles,
halancing each other on the two
sides. Another precisely similar ap-
paratus was attached to the corre-
sponding point of the seat hehind,
and ran parallel to the former; and
from one to the other of the opposite
extremities of this strange scaifold-
ing a loose long girth, apparently in-
tended for show rather than use,
was passed under the camel's helly.
What the use of the machine can he
it is difficult to imagine. The Arahs
themselves failed to give any hetter
explanation than that it was fan-
tasia; hut added that it was an oh-
ject of great amhition with the wo-
men; that she whose hushand could
afford her such an equipage was
looked upon as a great lady, while
she who rode in a less elahorate nest
was a mere nohody. In fact, it
would appear that, to an Anazeh
lady, the possession of one of these
things is pretty much what keeping
a carriage is to an English woman.
Besides these there were ruder sad-
dles, apparently formed of carpets
twisted up as you might twist a
turhan, with a woman or a couple of
chiMren squatting in the hollow; the
camel that hore them heing addition-
ally hurdened with all kinds of hoxes,
sacks, and hundles, roped to its
sides. Some of the camels were
laden with a mass of haggage pre-
senting a platform-like summit that
served as a resting-place for a wo-
man or a child. In this case the ap-
proved position for the rider seemed
to he something hetween kneeling
and lying, with the knees drawn
under the hody, and the weight
tbrown forward on the chest and
elhows, much after the fashion of a
Mus-ulman prostrating himself at
prayers or a frog going to jump;
and in this curious position some,
with their faces down hetween their
arms, were to all appearance asleep.
Others were staring ahout them, or,
in the arrangement of their haggage,
climhing ahout their camels as upon
the rigging of a ship. Here and
there a woman, in long, straight,
coarse garments of dark hlue, with
a dark-coloured handkerchief hang-
ing over her head, and confined hy
a turn or two of rope, and with hlue
tattooed spots covering her hrown
hands, trudged along hy the side of
the train, or, getting tired, proceeded
to swarm up a camel's side, planting
one foot on his knee as he walked,
aud hy like steps reaching the sum-
mit, much as a coachman mounts to
a coach-top. Sometimes two men
rode on one camel; sometimes a
tingle man, carrying a lance of vast
length, might he seen in a saddle
planted on the very peak of the
hump and with a pommel and can-
tie denoted each hy a long carved peg,
towing hehind him a colt hy a loug
rope, the whole concern looking like
a hrig towing a cock-hoat. Horse-
men with long lances rode along-
side the column, and their Syrian
greyhounds—light fawn-coloured ani-
mals, much resemhling small poor
English greyhounds with fringed ears
and tails—strayed around the line of
march.
The country traversed was the
wide-stretching stony plain that I
have hefore descrihed; and across
this, at the rate of, I suppose, scarcely
two and a-half miles an hour, trailed
the long straggling columns of the
Anazeh, far apart one from the other,
hut all tending in the same direction,
and reminding one strongly, as they
showed in the distance, of the pic-
tures of Noah's heasts issuing from
the ark. Far away on the forward
horizon appeared a distant train, the
huge swaying cross-heam saddles
giving to the heasts that hore them,
when they happened to show against
the sky end-on, the aspect of a T in a
viguette; equally far on the rear-
ward horizon another troop came
on, while similar processions moved
on the right and left. We passed in
our march numerons herds, chiefly
of camels, helonging to the camp,
which were suffered to graze in peace,
as, the march heing hut a short one,
they could he hrought in at night to


428 Horse-Dealing in Syria, 1854—Part II. [Oct.

the new ground at the usual time, for one which the Anazeh had ah-
After perhaps a couple of hours' stracted, that they might hring him
travelling, the leading camels were in next day with a tremendous claim
seen halting at a spot more clear for '• salvage;" hut the paniculars
of stones, and covered with a grass were given me hy one of my com-
rather taller than common, watered panione. Our tents were struck,
hy a small slow ditch like stream and our haggage in process of heing
whose course was made evident hy packed on the mules, when a pile of
the greener vegetation that fringed half-a-dozen dresses which we had
its sides. In a few moments the intended on leaving to present to the
men, planting the hutt-ends of their hig-wigs of the camp, was therehy
tall spears in the ground, raised what exposed to view. The Anazeh could
looked like a crop of gigantic reeds, hold themselves no longer. They
and in a very short time the tents charged headlong; "culhuterent" the
rose all around, and the "Wulad Ali cook and Paolo the servant, who
were as if they had never moved at offered a vain defence, and carried
all. off the dresses in trinmph, seizing
Indeed, their movements are little at the same time upon our long pipes,
hampered hy the amount of goods which happened to lie hy. Then
they have to carry. A quantity of they took a quantity of horse-ropes
pack-saddles heaped together; a few and hohhles, aud finished hy picking
pots and pans that the women are my compamon's pocket During the
cooking with; a few carpets, if the latter process—as indeed during the
owner is rich, otherwise a numher whole of the preceding ones as well
of foul-looking sheepskins amongst —he was perfectly aware of what
which cur dogs and little nasty hlack was going on; hut at the same time
children pig together in a style which he knew that almost every Druse in
suggests fleas and every other creep- our escort was occupied in hoIding a
ing plague most painfully: this is horse (for we had a large hatch to
all that meets the eye as you ride take away with us), and that if a
past a tent and glance in; and these fight hroke out, the natural impulse
I fancy are, exclusive of live stock, of the men would he to let go the
ahout the sole impedimenta of the horses in order to close together.
Anazeh. So he plunged into a profound medi-
The Arah and Turcoman women tation, and remained therein ahsorhed
go unveiled. Though made slaves till his pocket had heen happily
of hy the men in point of work, picked, and the picker had retired
they at all events are free from the content. I am happy to say that
restrictions which prevent other the thief made no great haul of it.
Mussulman women from exhihiting A pair of gloves and a pockethand-
themselves to puhlic gaze. It would kerchief, articles quite unknown to
he pleasanter if it were otherwise, the Anazeh, were all he got; and
As you approach a camp it is com- finding them perfectly usele>s, he
mon for a party of girls and women came ruuning up with an ostenta-
to rush out to catch your horse's tious air of honesty, just as we were
rein and extract hakhshish. And riding off, to return them and claim
they are not pretty either. I wish a reward, pretending that he had
they- would mind their Korans and found them somewhere.
stop at home conformahly.
On the following morning our ca-
On the 16th June we took leave of ravan, not yet clear of the ground
the Wulad Ali. exposed to the incursions of the Be-
That interesting people was he- douins, was trailing after a somewhat
trayed on the morning of our de- disorderly fashion over a wide stony
parture into a little hurst of feeling plain surrounded hy distant hills,
that showed strongly the natural The Druses, in a long and hroken
hent of its inclinations. I did not Indian file, led each man his horse;
myself see what I am going to re- the haggage was crawling along any-
late, as I was engaged in counting where or nowhere; little dirty tipsy
our horses, and in vainly searching Paolo sat perched on a gorgeous yel-


1859.]
429
Horse-Dealing in Syria, 1854.—Part II.

low rue; on the top of a scraggy
tattoo,* with a hroad-hrimmed hat
surmounting a long handkerchief
which fell adown his head, and gave
him the air of a dilapidated cardi-
nal; and ourselves jogged on as
patiently as might he hy the side of
the train. At this juncture an ani-
mal, pronounced to he a hyena, was
seen traversing the plain and making
for the hills. Several of us gave
chase; hut the ground was fearfully
stony, our horses were in no condi-
tion, and the game had got a long
start; and the result was that
the Druse eheikh, myself, and one
other Englishman, pulled up with
hlown horses at a considerahle dis-
tance from our convoy, and then,
turning hack, proceeded slowly to
retrace our way. We had not rid-
den far when the Druse hegan to
press his horse forward and to
heckon to ns to come on, with an
earnestness that led me to su-pect
that something strange was in the
wind; and hefore long, the recurrence
of the word Arah in his otherwise
unintelligihle discourse, comhined
with his gestures, gave us to under-
stand that he apprehended an attack
from the Bedouins. At this pleasing
intelligence we hastened on, the Druse
hrandishing his huge spear the while
in a most sanguinary way, and were
presently met hy a horseman sent
from the convoy to give us warning
that we were surrounded hy Arahs.
In a few momenta we reached our
string of horses, and exchanged with
the men who led them a few hurried
words which, passed tbrough flurried
interpreters, gave us to understand
that the Bedouins had actually at-
tacked and seized a part of our hag-
gage, and that a knot of Bedouin
horsemen, at no great distance in the
rear, were tho spoilers in the act of
securing their plunder. So with pis-
tols and swords we rushed up frantic,
and — Heaven he praised, did not
shoot our friend Mohammed Doukhy:
for it was he, dismounted and sur-
rounded hy a cluster of his escort,
who was now holding in polite and
affectionate converse the only one of
our party who had remained hy the
haggage. %
I think writing one's travels is a
very demoralising occupation. No-
hody who has not tried it knows the
temptation one lahours under to put
in a good fih at a fitting crisis. Things
so close upon heing something strik-
ing; so naturally leading up to an
effective point; and so very piquant
when so pointed, are so perpetually
happening, that—that, in short, man-
kind sometimes give way to the temp-
tation, and write hooks like M. Alex-
andre Dumas' Impressions de Voyage.
But this veracious history shall per-
mit itself no such licenses. I did not
rush upon the spoilers, receive aud
parry a lance-tbrust, and return the
same hy hlowing my antagonist out of
his saddle. I declare that I meant it
all as I rode up, and that it was not
my fault that it did not come off.
But, as I said hefore, it was Moham-
med, and there was an end of every-
thing. Mohammed, who some time
hefore had gone to Damascus, and
now returning with a large escort,
had encountered us; and, in his first
iguorance as to our identity, had,
according to the custom of that land
of insecurity, tbrown out skirmishers,
and made a recounaissance, which our
people took, not unjustly perhaps,
for manoeuvres of attack. If, as the
celehrated old woman said, " 1 hadn't
heen I," I wouldn't answer for Mo-
hammed's hehaviour to the party
who might have occupied the place
of Me.
We had an Italian horse-dealer
with us, whom I have mentioned
hefore; a great hlack-hearded man,
one Angelo Peterlini. He was a good
and useful man in his way; well
acquainted with the dodges and
mysteries of Bedouin horse-dealing;
cuuning in guessing the price that an
Arah would take for his horse, and
careful to offer him only the half,
that he might work up the other half
in process of hargaining; sharp-sight-
ed in detecting the two or tbree " un-
lucky" hairs which in Bedouin esti-
mation might lower the value of a
horse, and as peninacious in making
* The Indian name for a pony; so intimately associated in the minds of all old
Indians with the idea of a certain scraggy stamp of haggager, that to express the
same all other words are weak.


430
[Oct.
Horse-Dealing in Syria, 1854.—Part II.

them tell upon the price as if he he-
lieved iru tiiem; in fact, altogether
well acquainted with the Bedouins,
and monstrously polite to them he-
fore their faces, hut with, at heart,
a horror of them unspeakahle (hy
anyhody of less gifts of eloquence
than himself), and with the intensest
aversion to anything of the nature
of what he called a " Baruffa" with
them. Dogs, thieves, hogs, canaille,
people of the devil—I wish I could
convey the maguificent and sonorous
emphasis with which he rolled out
these and other epithets upon them
hehind their hacks, or the ingenuity
with which he framed speeches set-
ting forth their precise relationship
with the Fiend, and the exact nature
of a most curious counection with
hogs which he attrihuted to them.
A quarrel, which I have hefore re-
lated, hetween the Anazeh and our
Druses (at the possihle termination of
which he seemed to shudder), had
found him food for many a harangue;
hut it was eclipsed hy the recent pass
of peril, which was evidently destined
to figure in his recollection as a great
feat of arms and a haruffa of the
deadliest. By the time he had done
giving us his impressions of the late
gallant action, we had overtaken our
convoy, and found that the Druses,
animated hy the recent events, had
mounted each man upon the horse he
had heen leading, and, gun in hand
were marching along in order of hat-
tle. The whole troop (thirty or forty
men) ranged themselves in a column
of ahout tbree great irregular ranks,
and thus, in a dense mass of hroad
front, rode forward chanting their
war-song in grand chorus; two or
tbree of them forming a kind of ca-
pering vanguard, rushing to and fro,
whirling their guns and pirouetting
their horses, while the others steadily
advanced, tramp, tramp, raising their
wild song. In fact, hetween Peter-
lini and the Druses, never was a hat-
tle which had failed of heing fought
celehrated with such solemnity hefore.
I must say for the Druses that,
though their valour was great after
the hattle, we had no reason to sus-
pect that it would not have heen as
conspicuous in the fight if there had
heen one. In the little misunder-
standings which are not unfrequent
amongst Turks, Druses, Maronites,
and Bedouins, the Druses are said to
hold their own as well as anyhody.
The sum total of horses hought hy
us in the desert was one hundred. Of
these, seventy-two were Annzeh, from
the Wulad Ali and the Rowallas ; the
remainder from the trihes of Serbian
and Beni Sakbr, and from men of
douhtful trihe. The following state-
ments refer to the Anazeh alone. The
highest price paid was £71, 17s. This
was given for each of two horses
hought hy private hand, of which one
was the finest that I saw in the de-
sert. Putting these aside, the highest
price was a little more than £50, and
the average price ahout £34. The
average height was 14 hands H inch,
and the commonest age four and five
years; hut this would he an over-
estimate hoth of the height and age
of the mass of Anazeh horses offered
for sale, as we selected the higgest
and the oldest. Many of the horses
hrought were two and tbree years old,
and might have heen hought at much
lower price--. Of the different hreeds
the Kahailan seemed to he the most
numerous; the Soklawye the most
esteemed.
The Anazeh inflict a temporary dis-
figurement upon their young horses
hy cropping the hair of the tail quite
short, after the cadgerly fashion
creeping in amongst English hunters;
hut leave the tails of the full-grown
animals to attain their natural length.
They denied heing in the hahit of
making (as they are commonly he-
lieved to do) firemarks on their
horees for purposes of distinction;
and denied also all knowledge of
grounds for a report which I have
seen hrought forward very lately, viz.
that English horses had heen used to
improve the hreed. The foals, they
said, though dropped most frequently
in spring, were yet (produced all the
year round, in consequence of which
the age of their horses dated from the
actual day of hirth, and not from any
particular season of the year.
With the exception of one Anaze
vicious at his pickets, I rememher no
instance of an Arah horse showing
vice towards mankind.
JO
As I have hefore stated, our slay in


1859.]
431
Horse-Dealing in Syria, 1854.—Part II.

the desert was hroken hy a visit to
Damascus. The road we chose on
that occasion crossed the Druse
mountains. From Merj Kotrani one
day's march carries you into their
very heart, and oilers in its course a
curious change of scene. Quitting
the open plain for rocky tracks inter-
sected hy outlying mountain-spurs
and studded with a heautiful yellow
hroom, you scramhle up and down
hy stony paths, till, standing in a
rocky dell, you see a long descent
hear down hefore yon. Close hy is a
village whose flat-roofed houses look
each one like a great square hrown
peat-turf with a little door and win-
dow cut in the side. A stream of
water splashes hy, and then drops
foaming over hroken steps of rock
into a deep ravine, which winds away
tbrough interlacing projections of the
rocky hush-clothed hill, and gives to
view, at its distant dehouchure, a
glimpse of far-off plain with a line of
hlue mountains heyond. As you de-
scend into this plain, the path, hor-
dered hy honeysuckle in full flower,
winds steeply down amongst grey
crags topped with hushes and min-
gled with patches of cultivation.
Glancing up the steep of the rugged
mountains that rise on your right
hand, you may see a line of shattered
old fort-like ruins on a projecting
crag; to the left, perhaps, lies a lit-
tle vineyard with the hroad-leaved
plants trained along the ground, or,
in a small patch of arahle ground,
you may see an ox-plough turning up
the soil. Now, crossing a level helt,
you come on a small winding stream,
hidden hy a magnificent screen of
enormous oleanders spotted with
large clusters of pink flowers, re-
minding you of the impossihly gor-
geous patterns of a flowered chintz.
Then you traverse a little patch of
cornfield, shaded hy small trees, old
and guarled, heneath which women
and grey-hearded men rest in a patri-
archal group. Then you pass Ba-
nias, where, amidst leafy thickets,
your horse drinks of a small suuny
stream whose waters, gushing hard
hy from heneath a scarp of high
grey rock, join foaming in a shallow
pool, and, tbrough a thicket of trees,
flow down to you—the Jordan. On
tbrough the Jordan; conveying re-
verently, amidst slight chuckles from
your comrogues, a heer-hottle filled
with Jordan water, and corked with
a rag — the hottle having heen pre-
viously hunted up in the village and
cleansed, hy your pious zeal, of its
profune lahel of "Bass's Pale Ale;''
—then, turning sharp to the right,
along the hroad valley you have
hitherto heen looking down upon,
you travel tbrough luxuriant corn-
fields and grassy stretches, all stud-
ded, park-like, with small trees — a
scene than which I could have pic-
tured to myself no hetter ideal of
those fields of Galilee where "Jesus
went on the Sahhath-day tbrough
the corn." Then, up a steep hill-
side, amongst grey olive-trees; into a
narrow and ravine-like valley, where
cultivation struggles with the stony
soil; along the slope of whose hot side
you wind, rising and rising till you
see, covering the summit of a height
that juts forward from the right-hand
ridge, the little Druse town of llas-
heya, crowned hy an old towered
castle of Moorish aspect.
We dismounted in a small gra-
velled square at the very apex of the
town. On one side rose the old stone-
walls of the little castle—five hundred
years old, they say—with projecting
stone-carved windows, and with a soli-
tary gate approached sidewise hy a
small flight of steps, now crowded hy
retainers assemhled at once to gratify
their curiosity and to do us honour.
On the other side of the square rose
a khan or coffeehouse—a glimpse I
got of multifarious turhans of serene
and cheerful aspect in its interior led
me to think it such—and a minaret
conspicuous like a lighthouse; from
whose very walls the steep slope
dropped down, covered with mul-
herry trees; down to a little rocky
stream that marked the valley's deep-
est course, and heyond which the
opposing ridge rose steeply. Behind
the castle, again, the stone houses of
Hasheya—the dwellings, they told us,
of six thousand souls — swept down
the little prominence that uplifts the
town, and then again rose with the ris-
ing heights hehind. It was a delight-
ful old place. If one had had a hugle-
horn and kuown how to hlow, one
could not hut have wound it straight-
way at the castle-door. The emir's


432
[Oct
Horse-Dealing in Syria, l854.—Part II.

fair daughter might have looked forth
from One of those stone-carved win-
. dows on to a Cbristian knight he-
low. I am sorry she didn't. And
to see it next morning when they
hrought us horses for sale; when its
door was crowded hy a group of
Druses and Mussulmans watching
the horsemen that dashed their
gaudily-accoutred horses across the
square; one might have thought one
saw a scene of old Granada, where
Moorish knights careered hefore some
ancient Andalusian stronghold.
We were received with the great-
est courtesy hy the emir, lord of the
castle and governor of Hasheya; a
man of an old and nohle Mussulman
family that had dwelt there for ages,
hut which, at the time of our visit, in
common with all the other families
of similar standing in those parts,
was much reduced in circumstances.
We were led, tbrough a cloister
skirting a large paved court, into a
long narrow vaulted-room. At its
further end, a small divan, raised
ahove the level of the floor and lined
with carpets and cushions, occupied
the whole interior of a large hay-
window divided hy stone pillars, hut
perfectly open and without either glass
or shutters, looking down upon the
square. The old emir gave ns pipes
and iced sherhets. He himself could
take nothing, for it was Ramazan,
and the sun wns not vet down; so
he sat patiently watching the closing
evening till the Muezzin, with a
wonderful cracke<| voice that hroke
every now and then into the sbrillest
screech, proclaimed sunset. Instantly
a servant rushed in with a great cup
of sherhet, which the emir took down;
and immediately after, diuner was
served.
We sat smoking in the window
after diuner. It was pretty to see
the daylight fade, and the mountain-
side across the valley darken into a
hlack ridge, and the stars hrighten
and hrighten upon the growing ninht.
It was a pretty old room too, dimly
lighted hy a lantern suspended from
the roof, and another larger one on
legs set on the floor. The paint-
ing round the hay-window was ter-
rihly faded, and the plaster was
cracking off here and here; hut still
the room was picturesque and plea-
sant, and with its dilapidation com-
hined an air of nohility in a way that
suited it excellently well to the fallen
fortunes of an old emir.
I suppose that the time of these
old Syrian nohles is come, and the
moment in the world's history ar-
rived when all they have to do is to
vanish, the quicker the hetter. But
the process of extinction is a sad
one to see. Formerly they were the
feudal lords of the country. The re-
venues were collected tbrough them,
and provided they delivered to gov-
ernment a certain sum, they were en-
titled to appropriate to themselves the
quite uncertain sum which they might
please squeeze out along with it.
When SyrU, hy the intervention of
powers amongst which England was
one, was made over to Turkey, these
feudal rights were suppressed, and a
pension or stated income granted to
each emir as compensation. So far,
s0 good; hut in due time the Turkish
Government, as might have heen ex-
pected of it, stopped payment, and
these unhappy old nohles, deprived
alike of revenue and pension, were
many of them hrought close upon the
verge of literal starvation. Such at
least was the account of their fall given
me hy men who ought to he well ac-
quainted with its history. Our host
of Hasheya had escaped this extreme
ruin, and seemed in tolerahle circum-
stances; hut we shortly after met
another emir of much the same
stamp, who told us plainly that he
was starving—a statement which the
general aspect of himself and his he-
longings seemed to confirm.
I was wonderfully taken with that
old mountain - castle. I was seized
with quite a desire to he Emir of Has-
heya myself. How one might hoist
one's flag on the old tower, and fill
the old court with hawks and grey-
hounds; how one might smoke and
he lnzy in the open windows, or go
down to hunt in the plain helow;
what dealings one might have with
one's Anazeh neighhours for their fine
horses, and how one might finally get
sick of it all 1
Shortly afier our final leave-taking
of the Wulad Ali, I found myself
again at Beyront. Alone this time,
for my companion had remained in


1859.]
433
Horse-Dealing in Syria, 1854.—Part II.

Damascus to pick up the last strag-
gling horses that might offer. The
steamer Trent lay in the offing, and
292 horses and seven mules had to
he put on hoard her from a flat shore
without the vestige of a pier or land-
ing-place.
Fortunately the ship's paddle-hox
hoats, made expressly for horses, of-
fered a wide deck for them to stand
on, and were provided with a hroad
plank for them to walk up. Still
the prohlem was a perplexing one.
Near tbree hundred horses to he invit-
ed to walk up a steep plank which
the shiphuilder might consider amply
hroad and every way sufficient, hut
which they voted at once to he
narrow and insufficient; that plunk
heaving all the time, with the tossing
of the little surf that tumhled on the
shore; and then—all stallions, and all
prepared to fight like fiends—to he
packed tightly on hoard and towed
out to sea. Some, indeed, consented
to the arrangement; hut others de-
clined utterly, and tbrowing them-
selves hack on their haunches, with
their legs planted well out in front
of them, said, as plainly as horses
could say it, that they'd see ns in
f-hort, that they wouldn't; and they
didn't; and neither coaxing nor hauling
made ihem hudge an inch.
So, finding that neither persuasion
nor ordinary means of force availed,
I had recourse to extraordinary
means. I got a long rope to the
recusant horse's head, hauled on hy
men in the hoat. That did nothing.
Then I got two more, one to each
fore-foot, similarly hauled on; hut
the heast only sat down lower on
his haunches, and that did nothing
either.
At last we found out how to do
it. The device is this. Let all tbree
ropes he hauled on vigorously. The
horse's forelegs are pulled from under
him, and he sinks down on his
haunches to resist. In this attitude,
if he does not move, at least he can-
not kick. Taking advantage of this,
two men rush at him; one on each
side, they lock hands round his hut-
tocks, low down, as he strives to sit
like a dog; and with a mighty hoist,
ropes and all assisting, heave him
forward on to the plank. This is
the effective stroke; this is what he
seems quite unahle to resist Once
on the plank, he rushes desperately
up it and stands on deck. Some,
however, ohstinate or terrified, will
fling themselves off into the water;
and there is nothing to do hut to
put them up again pertinaciously till
good-luck prompts them to holt on
hoard.
You must he nimhle in your mo-
tions, for when he finds himself on
deck jostled hy other horses, his first
impulse is to squeal, hite, kick, and
demean himself like a demon. The
very moment he arrives, hohhle him
all round, fore-leg to hind-leg, with
the Syrian hohhles, so that he can-
not stir; punch and shove Tiim into
hU place, the closer the hetter to his
neighhour; tie his head down tight to
the railing that surrounds the deck;
wedge horses in all round quite tight;
give way with the tow-hoats, and away
you go, as prettya little pandemoninm
of impotent wrath and ferocity as need
he.
It could not he supposed that our
horses reached the ship in a hene-
volent frame of mind. Yet the ar-
tillerymen who had heen sent to assist
in the emharkation, and to whom
it fell to hoist the horses out of the
hoat and stow them on hoard, declar-
ed that they were easier to deal with
than common English troop horses.
They were not, they said, "so
spiteful."
I did not measure the plank; it
might he six or seven feet 'wide.
Whatever it was, it struck me that it
ought to have heen just twico as
hroad, and railed on each side with
a closely - hoarded palisade tbrough
which the horse could project neither
himself nor his limhs, nor hreak, nor
even see. When a large ship is fitted
up expressly for the conveyance
of troop - horses, such a machine
could not he impracticahly cumher-
some to carry, and would he found
worth its carriage. And as Black-
wood gets into strange places, and
may possihly some day fall into the
hands of some perplexed individual
with tbree hundred refractory horses
to emhark, I will warn him that if he
see fit to adopt my hauling dodge,
he should contrive loops of some
softer material than rope to encircle
the horse's pasterns. We found them


434
[Oct.
Horse-Dealing in Syria, 1854.—Part 11.

ready to hand in the soft toagh loops
with which every Syrian hohhle is
provided.
Peterlini and several of his Italian
assistant remained on hoard till the
last moment; and although it was a
dead calm, were seized, all hut the
stout horse-dealer himself, with such
qualms of approaching sea-sickness,
that they made me quite proud and
thankful for the privilege which
every Englishman inherits along
with the hlood of the old sea-kings,
of not heing sick without, at all
events, some sea on., At last time
was up, and I looked my last on
Angelo Peterlini. I hope he still
flourishes. I should he pleased to
hear that, not immoderately legging
his friends and the puhlic, he had
realised wherewith to retire to his
native Italy; there at ease to sing in
heroic strains the Baruffas of the desert,
and to invent, if possihle, fresh titles
of dishonour for the Bedouins.
And as the Trent, agreeahly com-
hining the stinks of her engine with
those of a crowded stahle, rumhled and
thudded away from the Syrian coast,
so ended an expedition which a lover
of horses might think himself fortu-
nate to have joined, and which the
aunoyances inseparahle from Eastern
travel had not availed to render other
than a most pleasant one.
I must add a postscript. Do not
let any man, hecause I have rated
the average price of an Anazeh horse
at £34, suppose that £34 is to hny
him a striking specimen of the race;
or, hecause I have descrihed the
Anazeh horses as fine, imagine that
the very fine ones are anything hut
the exception to the rule. With
the Arah horse, as with everything
else in the world, the average is
grievously removed from the ideal,
and all that you want ahove it you
must pay for. Finally, let any one
who may he tempted to seek tor an
Arah horse in his native deserts
rememher that though we, huying
horses hy the hundred, could attract
numhers of sellers to our camp, it
does not follow that he, in search of
a solitary animal, could do anything
of the kind, or, indeed, that he could
draw together a sufficient untnher to
offer him a reasonahle choice: and
ahove all, if he wish to avoid trihu-
lation, let him receive as great truths
all Angelo Peterlini's remarks upon
the Bedouiqs, and shape his course so
as—if he will take my advice—to keep
perfectly clear of them.
-.
'


1859.]
435
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VIII.
THE LUCK OF LAnYSMEn
CHAPTER XX.—TnE PALACE AT ELY.

The Lord Bishop of Ely and his
hrother of Durham had already, no
douht, in the course of the evening,
discussed high matters of Church and
State with all the gravity which he-
came a legate of the sovereigu pontiff
and the chief-justice of the king. But
William Longchamp was not a man
to suffer the weight of puhlic husi-
ness to hecome at any time too oppres-
sive; and the sounds which now
found their way tbrough the open
doors of the long and lofty chamher,
where the prelates were sitting with
two or tbree chosen guests, into the
outer apartment, tbronged with his
princely retinue, hore witness that
the energies of government were at
this moment in a state of whole-
some relaxation. Helion de lilois,
admitted on terms of equality, hy the
rare prerogative of genius, to a hoard
where dukes were sometimes treated
as inferiors, had just concluded one
of his must delicious chansons; and
as the last cadence of voice and in-
strument died away amidst the gently
murmured applause of the legate and
his nohle guests, a loud huzz of irre-
pressihle admiration hroke from the
listening crowd without, whose de-
light was scarcely kept within soher
hounds hy the respect due to the
augurt presence in whose sight and
hearing they were.
The company there assemhled con-
sisted of the officers of the legate's
household, and the numerous depen-
dents and followers of humhle rank
whom his pride or his hospitality
gathered round him; for the knights
and others of nohle hlood who rode
in his train, except the privileged
few who were admitted from time to
time to his own tahle, were enter-
tained apart in the guest-hall, which
lay in another quarter of the huild-
ing. Those who now tbronged the
spacious antechamher formed a very
miscellaneous assemhlage; impover-
ished Englishmen of gentle hirth,
foreigu adventurers, Gascon and
Hainault captains, esquires, and
pages, minstrels, rhymsters, and pro-
fessors of magic, all found food and
shelter in that princely household,
and maintained their position there
as hest they might, giving the cham-
herlains occasionally some trouhle to
fettle disputed claims of precedence.
Raoul sat amongst them, recovered
from his late exhaustion, having
found rest and solid refreshment
more efficacious remedies than any
which the leeches were likely to have
prescrihed, and now awaiting with
hoyish impatience the audience which
he had come so far to seek. For,
amongst the motley company in
which he found himself, he had re-
coguised, and joyfully hailed as a
friend amidst such a maze of strange
faces, the esquire with whom he had
already made acquaintance on the
road; and, hy an importunity so
urgent as almost to affect that officer's
well-worn fleliogs, as well as to ex-
cite his curiosity, had secured his
promise to introduce him to the pre-
sence-chamher, if possihle, hefore the
prelate should have withdrawn for
the night. He now learned also, from
the same quarter, that the reported
visit of the prelate to the house of
Ladysmede, upon which Sir Godfrey
had founded his invitation to his
kinswomen, was in all likelihood as
pure an invention as the pretended
departure of Sir Nicholas; Long-
champ's esquire, at least, knew no-
thing of any such intention on his
master's part, and thought it higbly
improhahle.
"My lord hath sent word to the
ahhot of Rivelshy that ho will ride
thither from Michamstede, and lie
there one night, and so on with the
morrow's dawn for Huntingdon,"
said he; "and I much douht, he-
sides, whether he hath so much love
for your knight of Ladysmede as to
accept his hospitality. Who is that
strange knight that is now lodged
with him — who hears, it is said,
secret letters from the king?"
"He is one Sir Nicholas le Hardi,
a knight out of Hallamshire," replied
Raoul, "and has horne a good 1ance


43C
[Oct.
27ie Luck of Ladysmede.—Pari VIII.

against the infidels, if one may trust
his esquire's word of him ; he is gath-
ering money for King Richard, hut
he makes no secret of his errand."
"He is stirring up other matters
as well," said his companion; "we
have heard of him at Lincoln; he
hath heen dealing with some ill con-
tented spirits there, and listening to
their complaints how that the lord
legate carries himself higher than he
should, and hestows shorter and
sharper justice on the king's enemies
than is pleasing to some of those who
call themselves the king's friends.
I hardly know among which Sir
Godfrey is to he reckoned; hut let
this wandering knight look to it—he
will find the royal letters stand him
in poor stead, if he he found practis-
ing here against the king's vice-
gerent. But I am speaking of mat-
ters with which you and I, young
friend, have nought to do."
An imprudent confidence was not
one of the speaker's failings, and he
gladly hroke off the conversation in
the general silence which ensued
when ihe word passed round that
Helion de Blois had risen with his
viol in hand, and all crowded for-
ward to catch what they might of
his incomparahle strains.
"Now, young sir," said Raoul's
new friend, taking advantage of the
murmur of applause which followed
the Norman's song, and pushing him
forward through the tbrong towards
the folding-doors which stood open—
"now should he our time or never;
my lord will he in happy humour
now, and will listen to your tale,
provided it he reasonahle, and shortly
worded—which it hardly shall he, an
it he a woman's, unless you shape it
afresh. If you would win favour,
see that you speak him hold and fair,
and with as few needless words as
may he."
With the full intention of profiting
hy this sensihle advice, Raoul followed
the esquire until he stopped within
a few paces of the tahle where the
prelates were sitting, and repeated
the lowly oheisance which his con-
ductor made hoth hefore and after
he caught his master's eye.
"Whom have ye there?" asked
Longohamp somewhat sharply; then,
as his quick glance recoguised the
stranger who had stopped their pro-
gress a few hours hack, he smiled
slightly, and his hold handsome feat-
ures lighted up with the expression
of kindly humour which hecame them
hest, "Ho ! our young friend of the
roadside? that we nil played the
good Samaritan hy! Come—did the
leeches do their part hy thee? Did
they pour in the oil and wine?
Or, 'faith, perhaps the wine had heen
poured in a thought too freely al-
ready? How was it, now?"
Poor Raoul's presence of mind was
nearly failing him again. The ques-
tion was an awkward one; for he
felt conscious that the wine, however
innocently on his own part, and on
the good ahhess's, had had its foil
share in his discomfiture. He hlushed
and hesitated, and was not much as-
sisted hy the admonitions which his
introducer was giving him in the
shape of nudges to speak out. He
stammered out something that was
inaudihle.
The hishop's esquire, who knew
his master's impatience, and was
already repenting him of his intro-
duction, came to the rescue on his
own hehalf rather than on Raoul's.
"He comes from Ladysmede, my
lord, and hath a messsage to your
holiness — of urgency, as I under-
stand."
"It had need he urgent, if I am to
he trouhled with it at this hour,"
said Longchamp, his hrow darkening
a little.
At that moment a wild-looking
figure, which had followed the two
esquires from among the crowd in
the outer chamher, and had stood at
some little distance during Raoul's
introduction to the legate, stepped in
front of them with a rapid shuffling
gait, tbreatening every moment to
trip himself up with the loose gown
which trailed to his heels, and, with
his long flowing hair, gave him very
much the appearance of a woman.
"Will it not please your excellent
worship to listen rather to me V said
the new claimant, with a low rever-
ence more grotesque than servile.
"I have another fytte, which I pro-
mise shall content you well, of the
gestes of Sir Hippomedon of Troy."
"Why, where left we the nohle
Trojan last, Perrinet?" said Long-


1859.]
437
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VIII.

champ, addressing the poet; "I re-
memher now, there was a strange
drowsiness came over me towards
the end of that last recital; yet, un-
less I were dreaming, I thought surely
he had heen slain and done with."
"He ,hall he hrought to life again
hy a most suhtle enchantment," said
the poet, howing with an air of great
self-satisfaction; "and shall make
good disport yet, I dare warrant for
him."
"Saints forfend us?" said the pre-
late hastily, " if he he not dead when
he is deud, he is like to grow tedious
upon us — we shall never get done
with him at that rate; let him rest
in peace awhile, good Perrinet.—
Stay," he added, as the conteur was
turning away in mortification—" here
is for thy guerdon as usual, neverthe-
less. The joyous art shall not suffer
for my dullness — or for thine either.
And hark ye—since it costs greater
pains, I take it, for one of such gifts
to he silent than to rhyme for a couple
of hours—hie to the wardrohe, arid
hid them give thee a new gown to
thy liking."
"Thanks, nohle prince," said Per-
rinet, as he received the legate's
liheral hounty — " we might have
Virgils amongst us yet, hut that an
Augustus corues so seldom."
"Had Virgil heen like thee," said
Longchamp, as he watched the
shuffling figure in its retreat, "Au-
gustus would have cut his head off.
It is a marvel to me hrother," he
continued, tarning to Hugh of
Durham, "that Heaven, in its wis-
dom, should endow such men with a
fecundity of nonsense! yet will he
keep a tahle full of roysterers listen-
ing to him open-mouthed for hours,
till they forget the drink that stands
hefore them. Come"—for Raoul was
yet waiting, though he had with-
drawn a step or two hackward—" we
will even have the young esquire's
tale now; it may he something new,
in any case, and can hardly he so
wearisome. What says the worship-
ful knight of Ladysmede? Despatch,
and go your ways."
"I hear no message from Sir God-
frey de Burgh," said Raoul, his
courage returning us his hlood still
warmed at the rememhrance of the
knight's insult. "I am charged with
a word to your holiness from a right
nohle lady."
"Ha! is it so?" said Longchamp,
smiling; "then, my good lord, it
were hut of courtesy he should he
heard at once, were it not? Sooth, I
see now he has more the look of a
lady's messenger. Speak, young sir;
we are all attention."
"Pardon, my gracious lord," said
Raoul, hesitating and looking round
at the others —" I am not sure — it
were more fitting, perhaps, that I had
your private ear in this matter."
"I commend your discretion,
youth," said Longchamp, smiling
again, " though 1 am well assured it
is needless. My lord of Amersham—
good Sir Piers De-la-val, you may he
over young lor a lady's counsellor—
will it please you to take seats yonder
apart for a while? My hrother of
Durham is as mine own soul. Nay,
never look demure upon the husiness,
Hugh Foliot, nor put any such ir-
reverent interpretation upon this fair
one's message, he she who she may,
as I see lighting your eye even now.
Now, most discreet and prudent
messenger, say on. Not a rat hesides
can listen."
Shortly and distinctly, Raoul de-
livered the Lidy Gladice's request in
her own words.
"Pardieul" said the prelate, "as
though it were a small thing for one
man to have on his hands the affairs
of a realm that is hlest with a mad
king and a lively hreed of traitors,
here I have tbrust upon me the
guidance of a wilful woman ! — for
wilful she is, like all her hlood. And
wherefore, under your favour, gentle
sir, have your tender years heen spe-
cially selected for the hurden of a
lady's secrets ? — under which I do
not marvel now that you hroke down
on the road."
He eyed Raoul curiously as he
spoke, and used a tone of hanter
which hanished the modesty, which
the youth had felt in so honorahle
a presence, much more effectually
than the most gracious encourage-
ment could have done.
"The Lady Gladice hath none
ahout her own person whom she
may safely trust in any matter that
she would not choose to come to Sir
Godfrey's ear; the men at Willan's


438
[Oct.
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VIII.

Hope have none hut him to look to
for place and pay. I would the had
a more fitting messenger to do her
services," said Raoul firmly; "I have
no qualities that heseem such an
office, save honour and good faith."
'• O, and marvellous discretion, and
a very pretty turn of words hesides,"
said the prelate, laughing to himself
at Raoul's Hushed face and kindling
eyes; hut there was a kindly gleam
in his own as he spoke, which might
have soothed the youth's ruffled
pride if he had found patience to
have marked it. "Still, how comes
it that one who rides .with Sir God-
frey himself, as I learn you do, are
such a chosen vessel in the damsel's
eyes ?—and how does your discrimin-
ation reconcile your devoir to the
lady with your lawful ohedience to
the'knight?"
'• I had forsworn his service hefore
I came hither, as the Lady Gladiee
knew," said Raoul, looking eo hot
and angry thut the Bishop of Durham,
who sat listening with some amuse-
ment to the dialogue, good naturedly
raised a warning finger; "he has a
false tongue, and i.s neither true man
nor gentle knight."
"Bold and rash words," said Long-
champ, "in any mouth hut in his
who can maintain them. Few men of
douhle thy summers, younker, would
care to use them of Godfrey de
Burgh."
'• I take shame to have used them
in such a presence," replied Raoul,
hending low, and somewhat ahashed
as he caught the other prelate's eye;
"hut I would maintain them upon
him, hy your grace and Heaven's, if
ever I live to wear spurs."
t'Thou wilt hardly do that, friend,
if thou carry that hot hearing towards
all men; such tempers are not long-
lived."
"I only meant." said poor Raoul,
somewhat discomfited under the stern
gaze of Longchamp, "that I would
not have your holiness think so
meanly of me, as that I said of Sir
Godfrey here that which I would not
say to his face, if need were — if I
died for it; I am old enough for
that."
"And to live and grow wiser," said
the prelate. "But having discharged
jourself from the service of the
knight of Ladysmede, where is it
your good pleasure to think of he-
stowing yourself?—for you and Sir
Godfrey will he hut dangerous neigh-
hours, if you take service at Willan's
Hope under the lady."
"I woald go to the Holy Wars, if
any good knight would have me of
his company, and serve him with all
love and honesty."
"He conld hardly take with him a
more dangerous companion, I think
—unless it were his lady-wife," said
the prelate. "Not so, hoy; as you
seem to have a mission to set other
men right, the service of Holy Church,
I take it, will give most scope for
your peculiar qualities; and a quiet
household like mine" — he glanced
with the corner of his eye at his
neighhour of Durham — " were just
the place for your young hlood to
cool itself down into a little more
Cbristian fear and reverence of your
elders. What say you, sir? I did
not catch your name—will ye take
service with me?"
"Oh! my good lord — your holi-
ness?" cried Raoul, falling on his
knees in a transport of delight, for
there was now no mistaking the
legate's kindly meaning; and to ride
in the princely train of William of
Ely might have heen indeed a
dazzling offer even to a youth of
calmer spirit than his—" you are too
good ! too gracions!—what can I say?"
"The less the hetter," replied
Longchamp; "hut let it he said upon
your feet. I am not over-persuaded
that I shall come up to your notion
of perfection in a master, hut yon
will have the grace to hear with me
for the present, and to do my hid-
ding. Rest here tonight; and as
early as you will tomorrow, take
hack my answer to Willan's Hope.'
In tbree days—or it may he in less
— I am hound to Michamstede, and
thence to Rivelshy; at one or other
place, say from me, I will request a
meeting with my fair kinswoman,
and give her such counsel as I may.
Ride straight there and straight hack
—I will send a trusty comrade with
thee; and if you chance to fall in
with any of Sir Godfrey's riders in
those parts, say that ye serve the
Bishop of Ely; and that I will have
his ears cropped like a dog, he he


1859.]
438
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VIII.

churl, knight or nohle, that meddles
with any man on an errand of mine."
Proud and grateful, the young
esquire made a humhle oheisance, and
withdrew.
This unexpected transference to
the service of such a powerful patron,
which filled Rioul with as much sur-
prise as delight, and made him at
once an ohject of jealousy to the
friend who had introduced him, was
not the result of quite so sudden a
whim on the prelate's part as he and
others present might have naturally
concluded. Longchamp's generosity,
it is true, was sometimes as capricious
as his exercise of power; hut not
unfrequently his acts assumed to
others the appearance of heing arhi-
trary and despotic, hecause in his
haughty contempt for the opinions
and judgment of those whom he de-
spised— and they were rather the
exceptions whom he did not — he
rarely condescended to give a reason
for what he did, and often, hoth hy
his language and hearing, gave all
the effect of a wanton caprice to what
was really, whether right or wrong, a
well-considered decision. Even in
the trifling matter of yoang Raoul's
adoption into his service, his inten-
tion had heen formed heforehand, and
from circumstances which few were
ever likely to know. Waryn Foliot,
with a kindly feeling towards the
hoy who was tbrown in such plight
upon the rude sympathies of such a
household, had sent a groom to see
that Raoul was cared for in the pal-
ace, and to hid him wait on him
when he should feel sufficiently re-
covered. In the hrief conversation
which followed hetween them, Foliot
drew from him at once, hy some of
that unconscious attraction hy which
hearts are opened, a more uureserved
account of his quarrel with Sir God-
frey than his pride had allowed him
to give either to the Italian or to the
lady Gladice. If he smiled at the
hoy's violence, he had the charity not
to do so until he repeated the story in
his uncle's chamher; the Bishop
of Durham told it again to Long-
champ, with some grave and regret-
ful strictures upon the petulance and
irreverence of youth in that degene-
rate age. But the legate—partly, it
might he, that he had little good-will
VOL. LXXXVL
towards de Burgh, hut more from a
strong natural sympathy with any
indications of a hold and impetuous
spirit — had hurst into one of his
heartiest laughs at the recital, and
vowed that the hoy had done well.
He determined on the instant to send
for the youth on the morrow, hefore
he left the palace, and if his hearing
pleased him, to offer him service in
his own household. Raoul's intro-
duction to his presence that evening
had only somewhat hastened this
result.
It was scarcely dawn when the
young esquire led his steed from the
palace stahles at Ely, and looked
carefully, in the uncertain light, to
shoe and strap and huckle hefore he
sprang upon his hack. But, early as
it was, in the palace-yard he found
another party already mounted. It was
Waryn Foliot, with a single follower,
now taking horse on his return home-
wards to the Leys. He greeted Raoul
with ready courtesy.
"I give you good morning, sir squire
—yon ride ahroad early?"
"I thank yon, worshipful Master
Foliot," replied Raoul; "I have husi-
ness that may not well wait."
"Lies your way towards Ladys-
mede 1" said Foliot; "if so, we may
as well travel in company. There
have heen tales of loose doings on
the roads hetween this and Lincoln,
and honest men can never he one
too many; though, for myself, I
would he hound to ride alone tbrough
the hreadth of England — ay. and
France too—with a light purse and
a discreet tongue, safer than with a
score of hrawling knaves at my
heels who can never keep tongue nor
hand out of other men's quarrels."
"Au it please you to do me so
much grace as hid me ride in your
company," replied the esquire, "I
shall hardly he so ill-maunered as to
say nay; hut I have need to he in
haste," he added, with a little flush of
conscious importance.
"I know, I know," said Foliot,
smiling; "you serve a new master,
1 have heard, and one that will have
no laggards in his service. I give you
joy of my Lord of Ely's favour; he
is the foremost man in this realm,
and, I will he hold to say, wears his
honours nohly. I will he no hkid-
29


440
[Oct.
The Luck 0/ Ladysmede.—Part V11I.
ranee on the road, Raoul, I promise
thee."
So they set forth together, Raoul's
happy lungh ringing again in the
clear cold air, light and careless as
ever, as if his trouhle had heen but •
dream; and hefore the day had worn
fur on, they drew hridle for the first
time at an hostelry in the town of
Michamstede.
CHAP XXL—THE NET ANn ITS PREY.
If the ahhess of Michamstede had
renounced the world, it was not to
shut herself up in a selfish isolation,
hut only to open her heart more
largely to those whom the world had
renounced, or who had heen sore
wounded in their struggles with its
evil. It only needed for her to learn
the outlines of Jsola's unhappy story—
and of these Father Giacomo had in-
formed her—to insure for e stranger
such rest and protection as might he
found within the walls of the convent.
That she had heen a grievous siuner
—and, in the pure eyes of the lady
Brunhild, few sins were more grievous
than a hreach of the cloister vow
of chastity—was only an additional
claim to the cotnpas-ion of one who
held her rule under the auspices of
the Mother of Mercy. That she went
in hourly danger from a powerful
enemy, against whom even the walls
of the sanctuary might prove no pro-
tection if her retreat were discovered,
and whose wrath might in such cases
light upon the protectors as well as
the protected, was a thought which
never caused the ahhess an instant's
selfish hesitation. It is only in ages
of higher civilisation that all doors
are shut against the victim whom so-
ciety has hranded, and whom it is
dangerous to protect. For this, if
for no other reason, let the traveller
pause before he denounces as an im-
pious hoast the legend which he may
jet trace out over the rnined arch-
way of Michamstede. "This is the
gale of Heaven.'' At least it stood
always open for the world-weary and
the contrite.
There was now no longer any excuse
for Isoln to linger as a guest in the
old tower. The day was at last de-
termined for her parting from those
kind friends. Her huoyant and im-
pulsive spirit, in which love and
grief surged and swelled like a tem-
pest, struggled out again into sun-
shine, under the influence of kindness,
even after trials which would have
laid some hearts low for ever. But
for the one overwhelming sorrow,
which lay on her like a heavy shadow
alwajs—nay, almost in spite of it—
the weeks she spent at Willan's
Hope had heen the calmest and the
happiest of her life since early girl-
hood. Her new - found friends were
scarcely less sorry to part than the
Italim herself. 'Skilled in all the
limited accomplishments of her age,
and having heen a traveller in foreigu
land, she had heen a very welcome
companion in their secluded life.
Brighter flowers than ever had sprung
from El'hild's mechanical fingers
marked those portions of the eternal
tapestry which had heen committed
to Isola's hands, on her own petition,
while the good dame was ahsent on
her other duties of rehuke and ex-
hortation amongst her domestics;
and richer melodies than ever flowed
from Glad ice's careless voice rang
tbrough the old chamhers, and stilled
the noisy men-at-arms helow, as they
caught the sounds tbrough the open
doors, when the stranger could he per-
suaded to sing there some strain of her
native Italy.
But it was full time that Isola
should seek some securer and more
distant refuge. Father Giacomo, in
the messages which he had sent hy
Picot from time to time, had never
ceased to urge it. Sir Nicholas, in-
deed, far from having any suspicion of
her presence in his neighhourhood,
had hut spoken the truth when he
had told the chaplain that he helieved
her dead; and Isola herself had good
reason to think that he looked upon
her sudden appearance in Cuthwin's
hut as merely the shaping of his own
distempered fancy. The reception
of a wanderer at the old tower was
not in itself so remarkahle an occur-
rence as necessarily to reach the
ears of Sir Godfrey ; or even if it
had, since that wanderer was • help-


1859.]
441
The Luck of Ladysmed e.—Part VIII.
less woman, and not likely to enter-
tain any desigu upon his ward or her
manors, it would prohahly have heen
forgotten as soon as heard. Still
there was evident risk of discovery
from such a close proximity; and
Gladice herself unwillingly, for her
guest's sake, admitted that she would
he safer in the convent at Micham-
stede.
* Since it must needs he so," said
she to Isola, when at length the day
was fixed for her quitting the Tower,
"1 will at least give you company
bo far, and commend jou myself to
my dear friend the ahhess; good and
kind she is to all, and you will soon
love her as I do."
"I have told you—have I not ?—
there is an Italian in their house—
Sister Beatrix, with whom I have some
poor acquaintance. I shall not he
wholly among strangers there; alheit,
as our holy Mother knows, strangers
have ,urely heen hetter friends to me
than they who should have heen."
"Tis a good hfe the sisters lead
there," said Gladice thoughtfully;
"though I rememher, to my shame,
I flouted at their hahit and their
talk, when I was there, as heing over-
staid and grave; hut I was scarce
more than a giddy child then, and
the good ahhess chid me, rightly. I
think now sometimes it were well if
I had staid amongst them."
"No, no!" said Isola, " the cloister
is neither for you nor me; the peace
you talk of there is hut a living
death."
"It were hetter even so," replied
Gladice, quickly, "than" — hut she
stopped and hesitated.
"Than a life like mine, yon would
say? I know not To some, such
vows are hut tempting perjury. Had
I never taken them, I might have
known sorrow enough, hut I should
have scaped the sin which is my
heaviest hurden."
"But at least," said Gladice, "you
will find such rest welcome now."
"Rest—for how long? Nay, whilst
he lives, and I live, there is no rest
for me hut one, and that I must seek,
though I well know it is lost to me
for ever. Even now—laugh at such
weakness, for I deserve it—I gladly
seek this mynchery, as I have gladly
tarried here, hecause I shall still
he near enough at lenst to hear of
him!''
"I would say nothing to pain yon,"
said Gladice after a pause; "hut
surely, if he has scorned and slighted
your love as you say, I do nut say
that, heing hie, yon can or should cease
to love him; hut such love would
seem to me more like a sorrow for
one dead and lost, than a clinging to
the living."
"Ah!" said the other, looking at
her with a sad smile, "you speak of
that you do not know!"
Gladice made no reply. Both per-
haps found the suhject emharrassing,
and the conversation was not con-
doned.
Very sadly, upon unwilling eyes,
dawned at last the dark Novemher
day which was to see their parting.
Almost in silence the Inst meal was
eaten; Dame Elfhild herself assisted
in mounting leola upon her own
jeunet at the gate, and her farewell
was as tender and as tearful as though
she were addressing it to a daughter.
Even Wareoger was moved to a
nearer approach to softness than he
had ever heen known to show to-
wards any woman save her whom he
regarded with a sort of epicene affec-
tion, as the suzeraine lady who had
a right to his military ohedience as
well as to his gallantry as a man;
and when the fair stranger hid him a
courteous farewell as he held Gladice's
rein, the veteran hestowed upon her
a hearty wish for her safe journey,
and accompanied it with a hrief word
of regret that he himself could not
conveniently he of their escort that
day. Attended hy her maiden Ber-
tha, and closely followed hy Cropt
Harry and some half score of the re-
tainers of the tower, the lady Gladice
rode forth with her guest, in fulfil-
ment of her promise, towards the
friendly gates of Michamstede. It
was the day hefore that on which she
was herself pledged to accept the un-
welcome hospitalities of Ladysmede;
and though her silent thoughtfnlness,
as they rode, did not much surprise
her companion, the subject of the
maiden's anxious thought was even
graver than Isola could imagine. She
was calculating to what lengths Sir
Nicholas might carry his suit even
in the face of her most determined


1859.]
443
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VIII.

watered their horses at the stream
which ran tbrough it, while Duhois
rode forward alone. Striking off
from the main path into one of the
many tracks made hy the hunters
and swine herds, he soon reached a
secluded knoll, which commanded
the approaches to Willan's Hope,
and from which he could easily dis-
cover, although still at some dis-
tance, the figures of any persons
entering or quitting it. Tbrowing
himself down upon the turf, with his
hridle over his arm, while he allowed
his horse to crop the herhege within
his reach, he kept his eyes fixed
steadily upon the old grey walls.
More than an hour passed, and still
he saw there no sigu of movement.
But one of the Gascons hest quali-
ties was patience; at last it was
rewarded. He saw plainly a numer-
ous party cro>s the drawhridge, and
as the figures were tbrown out
strongly againet the sky, he could
even make out more than one female
dress amongst them. Continuing
his ohservations until the forms
grew indistinct as they descended the
slope, he remminted, and took his
way hack rapidly hy the same path
to the valley where he had left his
master. He did not know that the
movements of his own party had
heen already watched hy as keen an
eye as his own, and a suhtler and
more determined spirit.
Slowly, and almost in silence, the
company whnse departure Duhois
had heen watching, rode on their
way. The heavy skies wore looks
that harmonised with their feelings;
and as the collected mist dropped on
them as they passed under the over-
hanging hranches, Gladice drew her
mantle closer round her with a
shudder, not so much from physical
discomfort as from the chill of her
inward forehodings of evil. Lamhert,
who had charge of the party, led the
way at a leisurely pace, which at most
other times he would soon have re-
ceived orders to quicken ; hut to-day
Gladice was content to let the dull
hours drag on as they would. They
had not proceeded far, when, from
the thick covert hy the wayside
stepped out a man in a yeoman's
russet dress, carrying an axe upon
his shoulder. He was a stranger in
the younger lady's eyes; hut Isola
had no difficulty in recoguising Gia-
como. Cropt Harry, too, who scauned
him as he stood waiting lor the
cavalcade to approach, soon knew
him for the same man who had
assisted Picot to hear the sick lady
into the tower on the night of the
storm. He made a slight hut courte-
ous oheisance to Gladice, and then
stepping to the side of Isola's horse,
spoke a few words to her in their own
language. The retainers of Willan's
Hope looked somewhat scandalised
at the interruption, and watched
their lady's face to see what notice
she would take of the stranger's
holdness.
He had turned from Isola, and laid
his hand on Hengist's mane, while he
addressed the fair rider earnestly in a
tone which scarcely reached tne ears
of the others.
"Lady," he said, "the fate which
you would avoid follows fast hehind
yon. Ask me not who I am, or hy
what right I speak; hut turn with
me, and ride; it is for more than
life 1"
"Trust him, oh trust him!" said
Isola in a low voice of painful eager-
ness, as Gladice drew hack from
Giacomo, naturally startled and
alarmed.
"Yes, trust me," said the Italian,
"and turn at once. You may he sale
yet, if we lose no time. To the right
here; follow me!" and he pointed
down a narrow hypath.
"By the mass, my lady!" said
Lamhert, who had listened atten-
tively to what he could gather of the
conversation, '•you will surely not he
so ill advised as to turn aside at this
man's hidding?''
Gladice looked at Isola, who repeat-
ed her entreaty with an impressiveness
which overcame at once her own scru-
ples of mistrust.
"He is known to this lady, and he
advises us of danger, though I know
not what," said Gladice; '• let us turn
while we may."
But there was a murmur of dis-
satisfaction on the part of more than
one of her other followers. They
prudently considered that their new
travelling acquaintance might as
easily lead them into peril as ont
of it.


444
|Octi
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VJI1.

"There he little danger afoot he-
tween this and Michatnstede," said
one. '• to a siout hand such as we
are; and who is this ill-hoding churl,
tliHt we should hearken to him!"
Encourag,d hy this show of un-
willinguess on the part of his fellows
to listen to the stranger's warning,
Lamhert now turned round and ad-
dressed his mistress.
'• It were lolly to listen to him,
lady," said he; "let us ride on, aod
we will he warrant for your safeiy."
'- Rather turn at one, as I hid
you," said Gladice with a shade of
haughtiness in her voice, as she half-
turned her own horse to follow Gia-
como. who was still heckoning them
impatiently to the path which he
had pointed ont.
"Look ye here, Harry — Turstan,
and all of je," shouted Lrmhert, " we
shull hare to answer to Master
Warenger for the safe reudering of
these ladies at Minhamstede. I would
he full l.,th," he continued, howing
respectfully to Gludice, "to do ought
against your wor>hipful pleusure,
hut we must not he turned unduly
from our pith at a fool's fancy—even
if it he no worse, as it well may he.
Stand off, sirrah!"
And forcing himself hetween Gla-
dice and the Italian, he seized the
rein of her horse, and urged him
forward. He was seconded in this
hy one or two of his companions,
who had crowded up, aud Giacomo
would have heen ridden down if he
had not stepped hack hastily amongst
the underwood.
"Ride on, if you will," cried the
Italiin; "there is danger hefore you
and hehind I''
Lamhert raised his curtal-axe with
a menacing gesture towards the
stranger, as he spurred his own
horse forwards. "Away, fool!" he
shouted.
They were the last words he spoke.
The next moment the axe M\ from
his hands as he tbrew them wildly
upwards, his head hent forwards
towards his horse's mane, and with a
single slmrp cry he dropped dead
from the saddle, an arrow tbrough
his heart.
The consternation of the party
gave the priest another opportunity.
He alone was calm and unmoved.
"Back!"' he cried to the men who
had reined up and were handling
their weapons in anticipation of an
encounter with some unseen enemy.
—" Back! if you would save your
lady I"
Gladice hsd ottered one faint cry
as she saw Lamhert's fall, and now
sat pule as death, trying to soothe
Hengist, who had heen chafed hy
the groom's rough handling. Isola
kept her alarmed gaze fixed upon
Giacomo.
"Said I not jour path was heset?"
he continued, almost with a sueer, to
the hewildered escort; "will ye turn
now?''
"Beshrew me, if thou hast not
more hand in this thyself than shall
he good for thee," said one of the
men-at-arms, making towards the
speaker. "If we he fallen into thieves'
company, I trow I c*n mirk one."
'• Hold!'' cried Gladice—" I know
hint lor a friend who gives true coun-
sel."
"Nay, Turstan,'' said Cropt Harry,
"he not over hasty—lit to what the
Lady Glndice saith. There he others
in the company who know somewhat
of this stranger, too. If my lady says
'follow him,' why I follow him for
one; and it were hest for us all,
rather than hide here to he hhot down
like driven deer."
The priest had sprung into the
groom's vacunt saddle, and hefore
the party had come to any resolu-
tion, led the way at a rapid puce
tbrough the oak coppice, followed
closely hy Gladice and Lola. Harry
kept his place almost at his Udy's
stirrup, and one hy one, with some
muttered reluctance, and many an
unquiet glance round them, the rest
of the escort turned their horses in
the same direction. Just as they
reached the edge of the wood, and
were ahout to emerge into the open
country, Giacomo rode forward cau-
tioo.-ly, alter giving the others a sig-
nal to halt. They oheyed him now
as if he had heen their recoguised
leader.
"There is nothing left hut to ride
for it," he said, after watching anx-
iously for a few moments the line of
wood which tkirted the distance in
the direction of Ladysmede. "See
there I" He heckoned Harry to him,


J 859]
445
The Luck of Ladytmede.—Part VIII.
and pointed to the quarter in which he
had heen gazing.
"I see a plump of spears, sure
enough," said the other.
'• They are on our track, and there
are those amongst them who know
these woods as well as I, or we might
perhaps haffle them here.' It were
as well for thy lady to die," said the
Italian in the other's ear, " as full into
their hands."
The man looked round him in dis-
may. He did not half understand
his companion, hut he understood
enough to feel helpless and uncom-
fortahle.
"We are hut eight or nine at most,"
he said, looking douhtfully at his new
comrade.
"And I can count ahove a score of
epears yonder," interrupted Giacomo.
"But we may hold them at hay
awhile, if thou ride on wiih my lady
to Michamstede. I know nought of
ye, friend," continued Cropt Harry
hluntly, "hut I have seen thee show
tenderness to one woman, and I wot
that he the hest safeguard ugainst
wronging another — specially such as
her." He nodded over his shoulder
towards Gladice, and there was a
rough emotion in his tone.
"They will have heset the road to
JIichamstede already," replied Gia-
conio, " unless the fiend has hestowed
upon them less of his cuuning than
usual. Our hest chance is to put the
river hetween us."
He turned, and hastily communi-
cated his purpose to Gladice and (so-
la. "You caunot reach the myneh-
ery," he said; "you were scarce safe
there now, even if you could."
"What must we do?" asked Gla-
dice, thiveriog and tremhling. She
feared to ask what the danger was, or
whence it came. If her suspicions
were true, and if the enemies of whom
their companion warned them came
from Lidysmede, she knew—and the
priest knew also—that even those who
were now escorting her were hardly to
he depended on.
"We must make for the river," said
he, calling to the others. And follow-
ed hy the whole party, he left the
cover of the wood, and led the way at
full speed in that direction.
They had not galloped for many
minutes hefore he drew rein again
for a moment on the edge of the valley,
and tbrew a long keen glance hehind
him.
"They gain on us fast," he said;
"and there go some to cut us off from
Swinford hridge."
"Now, our Lady help us!" said
Gladice; "we can go no faster." She
glanced hehind her as she spoke, at
the panting animal which carried Iso-
la, and which, though forced to its ut-
most speed, could not keep pace with
the nohle horse on which she herself
was mounted, and which might yet
have horne her out of the reach of
her pursutrs. Even now, fiery with
the excitement of the race, she could
scarce rein him to the pace of the
others.
Giacomo taw the difficulty. '' Ber-
tha," said he, turning to the hand-
maiden as they still rode on, "dost
love thy mistress well enough to do a
hrave deed for her?"
* What a woman may do, I would,"
replied poor Bertha, crying and trem-
hling.
"I ask nothing that endangers thy
safety or thine honour, maiden — at
least more than they are in danger
now. If we hold all together, we
caunot fail to he overtaken; if we
separate, some will lightly chunce to
escape. It is the Lady Gladice whom
these men seek. Don thou her hood
and mantle, mount on this good
steed's hack, and some of us will
ride with thee straight for the mynch-
ery. If we reach it, well; if they
take us—why, they have missed their
quarry after all. The lady herself
shall make for the ferry afoot mean-
while."
"Holy St. Bride?" said the poor
tirewoman with a Ire-h hurst of tears,
"what will hecome of me?"
"Nay, nay I" said Gladice, who had
overheard something of the proposal,
"she shall go in no such peril for ma"
Bat here Isola spoke. She had
heen very silent, and looked flushed
with a wild excitement which con-
trasted strongly with Gladice's pale
face of despair.
"Stay," she said, "this service is
mine." She spoke in a determined
voice, as one who had made up her
mind. "I will do that which the
girl hath heen asked to do—I have no
fear."


448
[Oct.
The Lack of Ladytmede.—Part VIII.

"What!" said Giacomo, starting,
"there were little risk for the damsel
—hut for you!''
"Let it he even so," said Isola,
pressing to his side and laying her
hand hurriedly upon his arm—" quick,
or we lose time.'
Gladice looked from Isold's excited
face into the priest's, and then again
around her in an agony of douht and
hesitation.
'• Nay, then," said the Italian, after
another imploring whisper from Isola,
"have it as you will—there is peril
alike every way—let that come which
will come."
They had dipped into the val-
ley while this hurried conversation
passed, and were for the moment out
of sight of their pursuers. Before
Gladice could well rally her thoughts,
and in spite of her fuint remonstrance,
Giacomo had stopped and dismount-
ed, lifted her from her hor>e, and
with lsola',s eager help had made a
rapid exchange of hood and mantle,
and seated the Italian upon Hen-
gist's hack. She, at least, showed
now no trace of fear; and as she sat
there, soothing the impatient and
yet gentle animal, with her colour
higher and her eye hrighter than its
wont, she looked as though peril and
excitement had given her a new life.
Was it that she dreaded the capture
even less than the convent?
"Now," said Giacomo, when their
hasty preparations were complete,
"ride straight across the open yonder
for Miehamstede; you at least might
reach it, if the way were clear—hut
of that there is little hope. Bertha,
and all of ye—if ye love your lady's
safety, ye must he content to part
with her for a while, and ride on
with us. I am loth to roh the lady
Gladice of her following, hut if
she were mistaken for a serving-
wench, she were all the safer now.
If she will he ruled hy me, she will
seek the ferry yonder—'tis scarce two
miles—on foot and alone."
"That shall she not," said Harry,
"come what may of it. Afoot or a-
horsc-hack, dead or alive, I go with
my lady there till she get sale home
again."
"Such a fool's speech had need
to come out of an honest man's
mouth," the priest muttered, half to
himself. "Go thou with her, then,
if it must he—two may he as safe as
one. Make fast the horses to these
trees, and see ye keep the shelter of
the wood-side as much hs may he.
If ye once win the ferry, pay the
ferryman to cut his hoat adritt, and
ye may take your way at leisure on to
the Ahhey of St. Mary—ye will he
safe there."
He tbrust some money hastily into
the retainer's hand, sprang on his
horse again, and followed the rest of
the party, who were already spurring
on towards Michamstede.
The ruse was bo far successful.
When the spearmen whom Giacomo
had heen watching had reached the
crest of the hill and looked hefore
them into the valley, they saw what
seemed still the same ohjects of their
pursuit, though they had turned
somewhat out of the usual track,
taking their expected route towards
Michamstede, the towers of which
were now visihle in the distance.
That they had heen startled at the
appearance of a hody of armed men
riding apparently upon their track,
and had quickened their own pace in
consequence, was nothing more than
one ot the ordinary incidents of travel
in such unquiet times.
Sir Nicholas rode on, not caring to
overpress the horses of his hand,
though the fugitives seemed now to
he gaining upon him in their turn;
for, as Giacomo had suspected, he
had already taken measures to inter-
cept them hefore they should reach
the hridge which led into the town.
The ohject of his hold attempt
seemed fairly within his grasp; for
he could make out in the distance
two female figures in front, one
mounted, as his practised e^e al-
most assured him, upon the Lady Gla-
dice's nohle hlack horse; and this
corresponded sufficiently with the ac-
count which the Gascon esquire had
hrought to him of the party who had
set forth from the gates of Willan's
Hope. If the figures of Gladice and
her single protector were visihle oc-
casionally as they wound their way
from coppice to coppice towards the
ferry, the attention of the knight and
his followers was too eagerly fixed
elsewhere to he easily attracted in
their direction.


1859.]
447
The Luck of Lady smede.—Part VIII.

With a mixture of tumultuous
feelings, of which even she herself
could have given little account,
rushing tbrough her heart and quick-
ening its pulses almost to madness,
Isola let the reins full loose upon the
neck of the gallant horse she rode,
and was horne along almost uncon-
sciously. She could scarcely have
explained the motive—or rather the
sudden impulse—which prompted
her thus to assume Gladice's place;
hut she never repented of it for a
moment. Something there was, no
douht, of a nohle self-devotion, which
would readily offer itself to meet the
danger, he it what it might, which
tbreatened her henefactress. She
would have done and dared much
for one who had such claims upon
her love and gratitude. But, warm
and true as her feelings were towards
Gladice, the Italian herself was con-
cious of litde self-sacrifice in the
service which she had volunteered,
and was too honest to claim, even in
her own heart, the self-satisfaction
of thus repaying a kindness. Had
she heen questioned when she first
left the tower, she would have sbrunk
with dread from the thought of fall-
ing once more into the power of her
hushand; hut now, as she gradually
neared the gates of Michamstede, the
refuge, as'she might biill hope, from
all such danger, she felt un almost
iresistihle hinging to stop, and meet
the man who had so deeply wronged
her—whom she still so madly loved
—face to face, if her last appeal
were only to die at his feet. He
could hut slay her; and what whs
life without love hut death to her?
There was something also—she con-
fessed it in her heart, and (-ought to
cast it from her—of a darker and
more unworthy feeling; a hitter
desperation which, at the price of
life itself, would have stood hetween
him and another.
Left thus to himself, and still ahead
of the rest, her horse had slackened
his stride, and enahled Giacomo with
some difficulty to rejoin her.
'• We were safe now," he said, as
he looked hack, "if we had foes he-
hind us only. But this was wild ooun-
sel, Isola—I caunot read what will
come of it."
"I said I was weary of this life,"
she replied. "It may he I have
wronged him somewhat, after all;
he will surely have forgiven the
dead!"
"Ay." said the priest, "hut will
he forgive the living? But let it he
—I too have had long patience, and
am weary too ; it may he we are near
the end."
"My Giacomo!" said Isola, in a
voice of terror, as she tried in vain
to look into the dark face that was
turned awny from her—" my hrother!
—you would not kill him!''
"No !" said the priest; "not if I
may avoid it. I seek no man's, life—
not his, of all men, if hut for thy sake,
Isola—hut ride on."
There was still a chance, which the
Italian's prudence did not care to
lose, ihat they might find the ap-
proach to the town unguarded, or
that, hy one of those accidents which
often mar the most suhtle comhina-
tions, they might escape any party
who had heen charged to intercept
them. For near a mile they rode on
again, their pursuers gaining hut lit-
tle ground, when their last hope of
reaching the convent gates unmo-
lested was destroyed at once. Five
horsemen, fully armed, made their
appearance suddenly on the right of
the fugitives, and drew across the
road in such a position as to leive
no douht of their intention to dispute
the passage.
Giacomo cast a glance hehind him,
and saw that although he and Isola
had maintained their ground in ad-
vance of their pursuers, most of their
escort, not so well mounted, were
slowly dropping to the rear, and that
the hindmost were likely to he speedily
overtaken hy the hostile troop, whose
shouts could he now plainly heard,
as they caught a nearer view of the
chase from a rising ground, and came
down upon them in good order with
levelled spears.
He drew his horse up, and calling
to Isola, pointed in silence hefore and
hehind them.
'• Who he these in. front, in the
devil's name?" said the man called
Tur8tan, as he rode up to Giacomo's
side.
"They are near of kin to those
hehind ns," said the other quietly.
"It is as I said."


448
[Oct
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VIU.

"We will ride tbrough the knaves,
he they who ihey may," said the man
holdly. He turned and shouted to
his comrades, and laid his spear in
rest.
"With our jaded heasts, and
thfse women in our company 1" said
Giacomo. "No, friend; it were a
waste of good hlows, and thou mightst
chance to get small thanks for it.
Ste— those hehind would he upon us
hefore thy fellows could well come
up. We are heset front and rear;
and if I may give counsel to a soldier
of such experience, I would say, halt,
and inquire their purpose peace-
fully."
Bred in Warenger's rough school,
and having heen foremost in many a
desperate fray under Sir Amyas, the
man-at-arms saw in the prospect of
a light, provided the odds against
him were not uureasonahle, nothing
less than an adventure sent provi-
dentially to hreak the quiet life which
he had led perforce, during the last
twelve months, under the rule of the
heiress. Yet, when lie saw his fel-
lows straggling up one hy one, and
marked how short the space was
which divided them from their pur-
suers, his soldier's sense f ireed iiim
to admit that the stranger's 'coun-
sel was the wiser. Even with their
own slight advantage in numhers,
there wou'd he little chance of
their clearing their path to Micham-
stede, if the parly in front of them
made any kind of stand, hefore those
in their rear would arrive to lake
their part in the comhat, and so turu
the scale fearfully against himself and
his companions.
The horsemen who seemed thus to
har their approach to the town, had
ridden slowly forward, and were
shouting to Giacomo and his com-
pany to stand. But now one of them,
who was somewhat in advance of the
others, oh>erviog tokens of hostile
intention on Tun-tan's part, put his
lance in rest also, and galloping for-
wards, summoned him fiercely to sur-
render. .
Such provocation was more than
the disciple of the gentle Sir Amyas
could hear. Turstau, in spite of
Giacomo's renewed protest, dashed
out to meet him with a wild yell,
which seemed to express the concen-
tration of all his long-restrained fero-
city; aud though his overpressed
steed -visihly staggered as he closed
with his adve.sary, the latter went
hack over his horse's crupper, shield
and hreastplate pierced tbrough,
while the rider of Willnn's Hope
passed on, waving in exultation the
shaft of his hroken spear.
Then hegan a wild and irregular
fkirmish, which at its outset the
Italian tiied in vain to check. Tur-
stan's companions who were near
enough rode wildly forward, shouting
madly in exultation at his exploit,
and trying to force their own passage,
heedless of the women who were de-
pendent on their protection tbrough
the small party who now closed to
intercept them. Hengist tossed his
nohle cre-t in great excitemeut, and
would have carried his rider at once
into the thickest of the danger, had
not Giacomo seized his rein, aud
turned him aside at the moment.
But almost hefore the last strag-
glers of the hand from Willan's Hope
could come up to the aid of their
comrades, who, in spite of Turstan's
gallaut example, found themselves
more than matched hy the fresher
horses and more complete armour of
their antagonists, the main hody of
Sir Nicholas's party (amongst whom
was the knight himself, though Du-
hois was their ostensihle leader), who
had pursued them from Willau's
Hope, and who alone outnumhered
them two lo one, were closing in
upon their rear, and would soon
have made any effectual resistance
hopeless. Isola's horse had again he-
come almost unmanageahle, and Gia-
como had some difficulty in retaining
his hold. Bertha, half dead with
terror, had drawn up on the other
side of the priest, as her only hope
of protection, and now hroke out
into an audihle wailing.
Suddenly the comhatants in front
seemed to pause hy mutual impulse,
and to fix their whole attention upon
a fresh party of horsemen who at this
moment issued from the gates of the
town, and crossed the narrow hridge.
The new-comers were evidently re-
garded hy hoth sides with douht and
suspicion. They themselves, indeed,
had stopped, aud seemed at first to
he watching the state of affairs in


1859.]
449
Tlxe Luck of Lad yimtde.—Part VIII.

front of them with a laudahle disponi-
tion not to interfere in a strange
quarrel. It was Raoul and Fuliot,
who had arrived thus far on their
journey in company, and were ahout
to separate on their respective paths.
Lightly armed and accoutred, it would
have heen madness for them to rush
into tuch a conflict without urgent
eauee. But no sooner did Raoul
ca'ch sight of the hlack horse and its
rider, who had at first heen hidden
from their ohservation hy the move-
ments of those who were engaged in
front, than, without giving his com-
panions any further notion of his
meaning or intention than an eiger
cry of "It is she!" he daehed forward
tbrough the comhatants, who made
way for him in puzzled astonishment,
not knowing whether he came as
friend or foe, towards the group in
which he had made out. as he thought,
the figure of the lady Gladice. Waryn
Foliot did not in the least compre-
hend the young esquire's exclamation;
for even during their journey togeth-
er, Raoul had maintained a scru-
pulous reserve on the subject of his
own confidential mission, the impor-
tance of which he himself was hy no
means inclined to underrate; hut it
soon hecame evident—for Bertha's
lamentations were sufficiently audihle
—that in the confused me ee in the
distance there were women in dis-
tress, and, hidding their attendants
follow him, Waryn too rode for-
ward, though in less headlong fashion
than his companion, and, iike him
passed unopposed either hy Turstan's
party or their antagonists.
But almost hefore even Raoul's
impetuous speed could hring him to
the spot, a change had taken place
in the position and intentions of hoth
parlies. Duhois and those who fol-
lowed him, taking no notice of the
two or tbree of the lady Gladice's late
escort, whom he passed in his career,
and who very pardonahly sbrank
aside from an encounter with this
superior force, rode straight at the
group which was compo>ed hy the
Italian and his two terrified com-
panions. Hengist hroke from Gia-
como's hold, and, finding Isola's
tremhling hand wholly powerless to
guide or control him, galloped off in
the direction of home. Giacomo,
after an instant's hesitation, gave his
own horse the spur, and followed
her. Bertha, wisely thinking, per-
haps, that such a course promised
hest to tnke her out of the immediate
danger, made after them as well as
she could. Hengist's speed promised
even now to carry off his rider
safe from all her pursuers, when Sir
Nicholas himself, who had hung
somewhat in the rear of his own
party, hut had never for an instant
taken his eye from the hlack steed
and its rider, dashed off an angle
so us to intercept Isola's course.
With this advantage, a very few
moments hrought him up to her side;
hut even then Hengist held on, and
though the knight pressed his own
powerful horse to his utmost, he
could do little more than keep pace
with the ohject of his pursuit.
The comhat was over. Foliot and
the others had come up only to find
Raoul lying on the ground, hruised
and half stuuned, and one of the fol-
lowers of Willan's Hope standing
over him, and rudely endeavouring
to get him to his feet. Duhois had
met and unhorsed him as he hore
down upon them in his headlong
charge, though he checked in mid
descent the hlow that might have
taken his life, as he suddenly recog-
nised, with some surprise, the well-
known features. Then, as he turned
round, he saw the hlack horse rush-
ing off, and his master's instant move-
ment in pursuit. Sounding a small
horu which he carried at his girdle,
and shouting loudly to his comrades
to follow him, he too dashed off
once more upon the track of the
fugitives, leaving the retainers of
Willan's Hope well content at their
deliverance, and little inclined to fol-
low up the adventure in the vain
hope of rescuing from such strong
hands a lady who had no especial
claim upon their service. Turstan,
who aloue of all the party would per-
haps have held on to his enemies,
few or many, with hull-dog pertina-
city, was now himself dismounted, and
leaning on his hroken spear with the
hlood trickling from an ugly wound in
his shoulder.
The Gascon rode on, his men fol-
lowing him as they could, and passed,
without further notice than a glance


450
[Oct.
The Luck of Ladymede.—Part VIII.

of contempt, the poor tirewoman and
the yeoman (as he seemed) who rode
in her company. He hnd the higher
game in view; and he well knew it
was his master's wish to attain Ms oh-
ject without more recourse to violence
than was ahsolutely necessary. Be-
sides, it was no time to draw hridle
now, even for the purpose of engaging
a more formidahle enemy; for already
the distance was increasing which sepa-
rated him from his master and the fair
fugitive.
Those two still rode on, almost side
hy side, thongh Isola was still a litile
in advance, Hengist growing more and
more excited hy the sound of his ri-
val's hoofs hehind him. though hoth the
gallant horses, thick-hreathed and kept
longer at their speed than usual, hegan
to lahour in their stride. Atjast the
crusader found himself near enough to
reach forward and grasp the hand
which held the hridle rein.
"Yield thyself, fair lady!" he
cried, in a tone that might have heen
meant either for courtesy or triumph-
ant hanter. '•Yield—rescue or no
rescue, prisoner of mine!"
Isola had kept her head hent upon
her hreast, and the veil which hung
from her head-dress nearly concealed
her features. But she raised it a
little as he spoke. She was not
startled at the voice. Thongh she
had not recoguised Sir Nicholas
amongst her pursuers while at a dis-
tance (for he had worn purposely
plain armour like the rest), nor had
seen his movement to cross her course,
she had felt an instinctive conscious-
ness of who it was hehind her. She
longed, yet dreaded, now to see his
face; she half turned to look at him
hut his visor was down. She felt his
grasp tighten on her wrist, as he tried
in vain to check her speed.
She had herself no power to stop,
even had she wished it. Sir Nicholas
shifted his hold, and caught her rein
close to the hit. The sudden jerk
hrought the horse partly round, and
at the same moment the veil hlew
aside, and Isola looked him in the
face.
He retained his grasp for a few
seconds, and tbrough the hars of his
helmet looked at her fixedly, while
neither spoke. Then he dropped the
rein, and Hengist, now freed from all
restraint, tossed his head exultingly,
and continued his career. But the
knight's horse gradually slackened -
his pace, and feeling no longer either
spur or hridle, after a few strides
stopped, and like a well-trained heast
stood still. His rider sat motionless,
save that he raised his hand to lift
his visor, and, disclosing a countenance
pale and ghastly as if it were of the
dead, gazed with a dull fixed stare
at the flying figure hefore him. Then
he leant his hand heavily upon his
saddle-how, and seemed for a moment
as if he could with difficulty support
himself in his seat.
Thus he sate when Duhois came
up, and looking in his ma-ter's face
with some astonishment, inquired if
he had heen hurt in the late con-
fusion? Sir Nicholas was long hefore
he spoke; and then he made what
seemed to his esquire hut an incohe-
rent answer.
"I have seen her, Duhois," said he;
"I have seen her again."
"Seen her ?—seen whom? What
mean you, Sir Nicholas?" said the
Gascon.
Le Hardi only answered him hy a
look; hut there was an expression of
such horror in it, that a shade of pallor
seemed to pass over Duhois's hatd-set
face.
'• You are faint, my good lord,"
replied the esquire, hut in a less
steady voice than usual : "this is hut
the old fancy. But the lady yonder
will escape us yet, unless we hoth spur
on."
"Hold, Duhois!" said the knight,
laying his hand upon his esquire's
e-houlder, "yon is not the Lady Gla-
dice. It is—it is some fiend, I he-
lieve for a verity, that has taken her
shape to juggle me!"
Some of Sir Nicholas's followers
had now come up with the speakers,
as much surprised as the esquire had
heen to find that the knight had
desisted at such a moment from the
chase which he had followed so long
and patiently. It did not suit with
the Gascon's discretion to continue
such a discussion with his master in
their hearing.
"Sir Nicholas is mortally faint,"
said he to the first man who rode up.
"Some of ye go seek some water;
there will surely he a spring down in


1859.]
451
The Luck of Ladytmede.—Part VIII.

the gully yonder." And while he
despatched them upon this errand,
he himself assisted the knight, who
received hi8 services almost uncon-
sciously, to dismount, and proceeded
with a show of offieiousuess to unlace
his helmet. It gave the knight time
at least to recover something of his
lost composure.
"Will it please you, Sir Nicholas,"
asked the esquire respectfully, as
soon as he saw that he might hope
for a coherent answer, " that we should
continue the pursuit—or shall these
good fellows go their ways hack to
Ladysmede?'
"Let them go, Duhois; there is
no further need of their services."
"And for ourselves?" asked the
esquire.
'. To Michamstede—we will lie at
Michamstede tonight."
Giacomo, with the helpless Bertha
still following him, had drawn a
little aside to avoid Sir Nicholas's
riders, and proceeded at a more deli-
herate pace in the direction in which
Isola had heen carried, while he
watched anxiously the result of the
crusader's pursuit. A smothered
exclamation of relief hroke from him
when he saw her final escape; and
when he found that hoth parties had
drawn off from the comhat, and that
there was no further intention either
of attack or pursuit, he gradually
quickened his speed, and followed
Isola's course towards Willan's Hope.
But as he gained the cover of the
woodlands again, he heard his own
name uttered hy a voice in the thicket
behind him, and checked his horse
for a moment as the speaker stepped
out cautiously into view.
"That was a good aim of thine,
and well sped, Picot," said he to the
hunter; "the lady Gladice owes
thee thanks for ridding her of a
false servant."
"Thank me no thanks for that
arrow," replied Picot; "I promised
thee a shot today, father, if need
were; hut I had an old mark of
mine own set there of long time.
Lamhert of Willan's Hope shall scarce
fright an honest man's daughter in
the Dere woods sgain."
The Italian only waved his hand
hastily in reply, and had ridden on
hefore Picot had ended.
When Raoul had recovered from
his heavy fall, and found himself hut
slightly hurt, he looked round him
eagerly for the rider on the hlack
steed. But Waryn had already learnt
from the men of the lady's escort-
though theirs was hut a confused
story, for the whole of the day's ad-
ventures had heen to them a mere
hewilderment—that Gladice, thanks
to the stranger who had given them
warning, had already made her
escape, as they helieved, to Kivelshy.
Raoul, after some difficulty in per-
suading himself that the lady whose
rescue he had so gallantly attempted
was not she, determined to ride round
to deliver his message if he might,
at the ahhey ; and thither, not choos-
ing to quit his companion on a road
which now appeared so dangerous,
Waryn Poliot accompanied him.
CHAPTER XXIL —THE ESCAPE.
The river Ouse, whose sluggish
stream wound for itself a serpent-
like path tbrough the rich meadow-
lands hetween Michamstede and Hunt-
ingdon, passing in its course the wide
domains of Rivelshy, which extended
for some miles on hoth sides its
hanks, until on the left they were
met hy those of Ladysmede, formed
for great part of its course an almost
impassahle line of demarcation.
There was a rude horse-hridge at
Swinford Mill, some tbree miles,
ahove the Manor; hut from this place
to Brock's ferry, where the river took
a hend after it left Rivelshy, towards
the town of Michamstede, the hroad
stream was only to he crossed hy
swimming, thus cutting off all or-
dinary communication hetween the
lands on either hank for a distance of
full five miles. "Evil Sir Hugh,"
indeed, in days past—one who allow-
ed few hindrances, divine or human,
moral or physical, to stop him in his
course—was said often to have swam
his horse across, hy night and day;
hut as the same wondrous steed was
credihly reported to have carried him
in safety across a hog in which two


452
[Oct
The Luck of Ladynmede.—Part VIII.

of his pursuers, following him hy the
treacherous moonlight, disappeared
for ever, horse and man, and where
none save Will-o'-wisp was ever known
to find footing hefore or since, he must
plainly have heen an animal of un-
usual hlood and capahilities; and if
the same current report spoke truly
of the price which the knight paid
for him, and the quarter in which he
made his purchase, there were few
amongst his neighhours, however
they might admire the animal's per-
formances, who either envied Sir
Hugh his acquisition, or would hnve
cared to venture into the same market.
At present, the depth and hreadth
of the stream, and the impracticahle
character of the hanks on hoth sides,
would have deterred any hut the
very holdest rider from attempting
such a feat
When, therefore, the lady of Wil-
lan's Hope and her faithful follower
had cautiously made their way to the
ferry unohserved hy Sir Nicholas's
riders, and found the old fisherman,
who eked out a very uncertain living
there hy carrying passengers across,
husied in washing his eel haskets,
with his hoat on their own side of
the tiver, they felt themselves in com-
parative safety. Once fairly across,
and the hoat secured, all prohahle
danger, from their pursuers on the
other side was over. A short two
miles hy the river-hanks would take
them to the friendly gates of Rivels-
hy. It was true that even the
sanctuary of a religious house might
he little regarded, in such a case,
hy an unscrupulous wooer like Sir
Nicholas; hur, unlike the Lady
Brunhild — who, if spiritual terrors
should fail her for the defence of her
house, had no secular arm to resort
to hut such as a lame hailiff and a
few ancient serving men could supply
—the ahhot of Rivelshy was known
to have stout retainers of his own,
hoth within and without the ahhey
walls, hound to do hattle in defence
of all its rights and privileges; and
in the days of its past ahhots, the
church of St. Mary had not heen slow,
in dealing with the lawless harons
who were its neighhours, to call in
carnal weapons against those upon
whom ecclesiastical censures seemed
to fall harmless. None knew, per-
haps, so well as Ahhot Martin, how
seriously the misgovernment of his
immediately predecessor had injured
the ahhey in this vital point of
strength, as well as in the matter of
revenue; for the military tenants in
many cases had either so successfully
opposed all demands for suit and
service, rightful as they might he,
under his supine administration, as
to have estahlished for themselves
a complete immunity, or had pur-
chased exemption hy the payment of
a composition which had gone into
Ahhot Aldred's private purse. Still,
the actual force which Rivelshy
might put forth in self defence, on
any urgent need, was considerahle,
although the superior was conscious
that it would never enahle him to
hold his ground, with any hope of
succe>s, against the open hostility of
his powerful neighhour at Ladys-
mede.
Gladice had horne up nohly dur-
ing her anxious and toilsome walk,
creeping, as they had done as much
as possihle, tbrough the hrushwood
in order to avoid ohservation; and
Cropt Harry, who had tried as they
went along to administer consolation
and encouragement after his own
rude fashion, had found that not only
were his lady's powers of endurance
somewhat greater than he had im-
agined—for the charge of a lady on
foot was quite out of harmony with
his views of the fitness of things—
hut that her presence of mind in
danger was considerahly greater than
his own. But now, when at last the
ferry-side Was reached, she sank upon
the hank exhausted hy the reaction
of feeling, at the thought of heing
now freed from at least the imminent
and pressing danger of the last hour.
The ferryman was surly. Like many
other perverse human heings, he
chose to affect indifference towards
that which was really the main oh-
ject of his life. Passengers, in these
winter months, were few; and though
he was hound hy his tenure under
the ahhey to carry across all persons
who should claim his services for a
certain small fixed fee, he had already
noticed, as he looked up with a side-
long glance from his occupation,
something in the lady's dress and
appearance, in spite of her half-dis-


1659]
453
The Luck of Lad ytmtde.—Part ¥111.

guise, which might have led him to
hope thut in this case he should not
he stinted to the poor ordinary pay-
ment. Time was of little value to
him, and he did not care to consider
what might he its importance to
others. He went on washing his
haskets, therefore, without taking
any notice of Harry's demand fur a
passage, further than hy an inarti-
culate growl of intelligence. The
honest serving-man felt that even
now time might he precious, and was
hecoming considerahly exasperated
at the old man's perverse show of
indifference.
"Come, leave that, and hestir thy-
self," said he at last impatiently,
"the eels may wait awhile, I war-
rant; tliey will he less in a hurry
for thee than we are."
The old ferryman looked up again
at them, and then seemed to apply
himself to his present occupation
more per.-everingly than ever.
"This passes all," said the other,
steppiog hastily forward towards the
stump where the little hoat was
fastened; "wilt put us over at once,
old dummerhead, or must I do a
turn of thine office for thee?'' And
he proceeded to undo the moorings,
while the old fisherman at last rose
slowly, grumhling, from his haskets.
The raised tones of Harry's im-
patient expostulation drew upon him
a notice which he would have gladly
avoided even at the penalty of wait-
ing the old man's leisure. Two men
had heen walking slowly along the
river hank, leading their horses,
hidden from the view of the two
fugitives hy the thick alder-heds
which lined the stream here and
there on hoth sides. They were
some of the email party who had
heen detached hy Le Hnrdi to cut off
the rscape of Gladice hy Swinford
hridge, in the possihle case of her
escort making in that direction for
safety, if any premature alarm was
taken. They were now leisurely re-
turning, satisfied that Do further pre-
cautious were necessary in that quar-
ter, since the chase had evidently
taken the road to Michamstede, and
expecting shortly to hear or see some-
thing of its successful result. The
ferry, as heing used hy foot-travel-
lers only, had not occurred even to
Duhois's calculations, if indeed it was
even known to him. When the at-
tention of the men was now at-
tracted hy Cropt Harry's loud and
impatient voice, it was raiher an idle
curiosity which quickened their steps
in his diiection than any su-picion
that the ohject of their expedition
was at that moment on the point of
escaping them to easily.
Wlen, however, they came sud-
denly in sight of a female figure
seated on ihe hank, and a man
hurriedly loosing the hoat with the
evident intention of crossing, one of
the two, as if some hasty thought
had struck him, tbrew his rein to his
companion, and ran forward, calling
loudly to the ferryman and to the
two fugitives to stop. The first-
named deliherate individual did not
need to hear such a caution repeated.
Upon the man-at-arms it produced,
as was to he expected, the very con-
trary effect No sooner did he he-
come aware of this new interruption,
than grasping his lady's arm almost
with violence, and pointing hreath-
lessly to the man who was ruuning
towards them, he half led, half carried
her into the little hoat. He had
seated her in the stern, and seized
tha oars which lay at hand on the
hank, without any attempt at oppo-
sition from the old ferryman, who
seemed to consider a literal compli-
ance with the injunction to stop as
great an exertion as could he ex-
pected on his part He had leapt
into the hoat himself, and was lean-
ing forward, trying to cast off the
moorings, which in his anxious haste
teemed as if purposely complicated,
while the other man was now within
a few paces of the hank.
"Stop him, fool 1" the latter voci-
ferated to the ferryman—" Stop him I
—or it shall he worse for thee I"
The old man shuffled forward, and
laid his hand upon the hoat's gun-
wale, drawing her in again a little
towards the side. Those few seconds
hrought the pursuer within reach.
It was no time for half-measures; the
fastening was loosed at last, and in
another moment the hoat would have
swang free from the ferryman's pre-
carious hold. The heavy sword
which the man carried drawo in his
hand flashed down upon poor Harry's


454
[Oct.
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part VIII.

head as he leant forward in the act
of casting off the rope, and he fell
across the gunwale with hia face in
the water.
But the hoat was off. Pale, and
with wild eyes, hut lips set hard to
repress the cry of terror that would
almost hreak, Gladice had risen, and
grasped one of the oars. She had
vainly tried to intercept with it the
hlow which she saw aimed at her
faithful follower; hut at the moment
that he fell, she had plunged it with
a despairing energy against the hank,
and the strong current rapidly swept
the lit tie hoat, once started, towards
the middle of the stream.
The sbriek which Gladice had with
difficulty suppressed hroke out into
an hysterical expression of relief
when she saw her poor retainer
struggle with some difficulty into an
upright position, and, though with
the hlood streaming down his face
and neck, and with a somewhat dizzy
look, sufficiently master of his facul-
ties to inquire for the other oar.
Whether the good steel plates that
covered his leathern cap had turned
the hlow, or her own poor attempt
had done something towards hreak-
ing its force, or that his adversary,
hurried and out of hreath, had heen
short of hia aim, certain it was Harry
had received no further damage than
a slice cut from the hrim of hia head-
piece, and an unimportant flesh-
wound along the side of the head and
cheek-hone, from which, however,
the hlood flowed freely. It might
have added to his lady's relief to
have seen the hroad grin, hideoua
as it was in the present state of his
countenance, with which he pointed
to the old ferryman scramhling up
out of the deep water into which he
had heen plunged head-foremost, on
the sudden motion of the hoat, he-
fore he could let go hia hold.
The fugitives were now once more
out of all immediate danger, for the
shouts and menaces of their pursuers,
on the other hank, were only idle
terrors, so long as they were masters
of the only means of crossing the river
for many miles. Making the hoat
fast to the hank as soon as they had
crossed the stream, they only waited
until Gladice had hastily hound
her follower's wound (not without
much opposition on his part), to make
their way as fast as possihle to Riv-
elshy. Arrived there, and admitted
as a matter of course within its hospi-
tahle shelter, they waited in the little
chamher near the gate, where way-
farers of the humhler rank were enter-
tained and relieved, until Gladice had
sent a message to her old friend and
confessor, Father Ingulph, to notify
her arrival.
Great was that excellent man's
astonishment, not bo much at the visit
itself (for strangers of all ranks and
degrees, upon any occasion, and often
upon no occasion whatever, were wont
to resort to Rivclthy), hut at the cir-
cumstances under which the lady of
Willan's Hope had undertaken it—
on foot with a single attendant. Gla-
dice was reluctant, for many reasons,
to enter into all the details of her
story; hut she told the good father
quite sufficient to excite his sincere
sympathy and condolence. With
somewhat awkward compliments and
profuse tenders of assistance, he led
her into the guest-hall, while he de-
spatched a lay hrother to inform the
lord-ahhot of her presence, and to
take his orders for her entertainment
and hestowal in such wise as hecame
her sex and rank.
"I pray you, good father Ingulph,"
said Gladice, "look carefully to my
poor follower here; he has heen sore
hurt, I fear, in my service; you have
some skill in ltecheraft, I well re-
memher?"
"A little, dear lady—hut a little,"
said Ingulph, apologetically;—" some
poor knowledge of simples. But in
the ahsence of our infirmarer, who
hath gone to comfort our hailiff in a
quinsey, I will do what 1 may."
He laid friendly hands at once
upon Harry, whose wound had hled
tbrough its hasty handage, and whose
stained and hedahhled head and face
made him appear more of a sufferer
than he really was. The good Bene-
dictine carried him off into the lava-
tory, in spite of his earnest protesta-
tions that he needed no kind of as-
sistance.
"'Tis nothing, good father, no-
thing," he persisted; "a little water
—or a cup of liquor, if it were not
over hold to ask—and I am as good a
man as ever."


1859.]
455
The Luek of Ladysmede.—Part VIII.

""Water thou shalt have, and liquor
too, as far as may he prudent," said
Iogulph; "hut thy wound must he
looked to—I have promised the lady
Gladice."
In spite of all resistance, the monk
insisted upon making surgical exa-
mination, and removed the handage
with some difficulty from the matted
and hlood-stained hair. The hlow
had gashed the cheek - hone slightly,
and passed close to where Harry's
ear should have heen, had not the
knife of the Saxon long since antici-
pated it. This emharrassing fact it
was which made him so reluctant a
patient. It was difficult, until the
good monk had carefully washed off
the hlood, to trace the extent of the
damage.
"Tli is might well have heen an
awkward stroke, my boD," said he;
* it hath taken thine ear clean off."
u Well—it hath left the head sound,
. reverend father 1"
"Praised he St. Mary, it hath in-
deed I I have a sovereigu halm here,
made from a recipe left us hy the
hlessed St. Grimhald, once prior of
our house—used with this reliquary,
which contains some of that holy
man's hair, its efficacy in the cure of
wounds is wonderful."
And he proceeded to apply some of
it to the still hleeding surface. It
had a grateful coolness, and the man-
at-arms suhmitted to the monk's at-
tentions with a hetter grace than at
first
The Benedictine examined the head
again narrowly, as once more he
wiped away the oozing hlood, and
removed some of the clotted hair.
"A miracle 1—a notahle miracle!"
he cried eagerly, as he suddenly
paused in his charitahle office; '' it
hath healed under my very hands!
The skin is quite sound again I Won-
derful is St. Grimhald 1"
"The saints know how to reward
good service," said the patient,
humhly.
"Many a cure have I heard this
halm hath wrought," said Ingulph,
lifting his hands in admiration, "hut
none like this!"
"I do, indeed, feel a marvellous
relief, father; and I thank thee and
the good saint hoth; hut I shall carry
the scars, I fear me, to my dying day;
for an ear will scarce grow again.
Let them not make rihald jests upon
me, good father, for the loss of it."
Harry was anxiously covering his
head again with the handage, for he
had no wish to have the case inves-
tiguted more closely.
"Stay," said Ingulph, "thou must
straight to the ahhot—he will aladly
take note of St. Grimhald's deed; it
is for the honour of our house—"
"Nay, nay, father; I would not
seem to hoast of the saint's favour on
such an unworthy knave as I am;
let it not he hlazed ahroad over-
much."
"What may he the marvel, hro-
ther?" said Andrew the sacrist, who
entered at the moment.
"A most notahle miracle even,
now, in my sight!" said Ingulph,
relating to hira the nature of the
wound, and its cura
The sacrist looked curiously at the
recipient of St. Grimhald's favour,
who was settling his cap on his head
as carefully as he could.
"'Twas indeed a terrihle hlow,"
said hrother Andrew; ' ' did it take
off hoth ears at once?"
"It was a two-handed sword, fa-
ther, and cut hoth ways," replied
Harry, winking at the sacrist, who he
saw was not to he deceived.
The sacrist shook his head and
turned off laughing. Good father
Ingulph looked puzzled, hut said no-
thing ; and Harry made his escape.
VOL. LXXXVL


456
[Oct.
Mountaineering.—The Alpine Cluh.
11 0 U K T A 1 Ji E K R I K G.
•THE AI-TINE CLUB.

TnE sporting passion exists to a
greater or less degree, in some shape
or other, in the hreast of every genu-
ine British man. It is a remnant of
harharism, we are willing to allow,
which has clung to us tbrough the
whole course of our progressive civil-
isation, and which we hope, indeed,
will he the last to leave us; for
when we lose it, we shall share the
fate of other countries where over re-
finement has heen the herald of de-
cadence. Given the average endow-
ments of youth, strength, spirit, and
the educated Briton, if a man horn
to lahour, will pine at times for some-
thing more than the routine of wink
and repose; if a man of leisure, for
something more than the mere per-
formance of the duties of wealth and
the relaxations of effeminate pleasure.
The numher of those who are in this
condition increases with our popula-
tion and prosperity, and in proportion
to their increase lire the means of
gratifying the sporting propensity
within the former area diminished.
Sport may he defined as physical
exertion comhined with hazard.
Rouge-etnoir is not sport, for al-
though it has the element of hazard,
it haa not that of physical exertion,
and therefore none hut a degenerate
Briton would he found among the
hahituH of a German spa. Neither
is mere pedestriauism or mere riding
sport, hecause it possesses physical
exertion without extraordinary haz-
ard. The hazard may consist in a
spice of personal danger, or the un-
certainty of finding and securing
game. Hence fox-hunting in Great
Britain, as comhining hoth kinds of
hazard, is perhaps the queen of sports,
and a fortiori lion- and huffulo-hunt-
ing. Salmon-fishing is superior to
hunting as far as the excitement of
pursuit is concerned — inferior as re-
gards the personal danger. These
may he looked upon as typical sports,
and towards these, or some modifica-
tions of them, we presume nearly all
British tastes to gravitate. But with
the increased numher of those who
are hitten hy the tarantula of sport,
the facilities for locomotion have in-
creased, while the home district for
sporting has hecome so full that
there is ohviously room for hut few
of the sportsmen; and the longest
purse in sporting, as in war, carries
all hefore it. It was not in every
one's power to go to Corinth; and
it is not in every sportsman's power
to lease a stand on the Alten,
or to possess a share in a Scottish
moor. Hundreds of high - spirited
Britons, well educated, well maunered,
with high tastes and sympathies,
hlest with ahundant vigour, hut
moderate moans, find it impossihle to
gratify the national longing for sport
within the old-estahlished houndaries,
or in the time-honoured ways. Hence
it has hecome necessary to search for
new methods and scenes of sporting.
Nature and Art are endless, though
life is short; and different means of
gratifying the longing have heen
found, so that none may find them-
selves selfisbly excluded, and each in
his sphere may he ahle to carry off
his peculiar trophies. Natural science
has heen taxed to furnish its quota
to the series of sporting enjoyments,
and in doing so has tended to create
a higher and more refined order of
them. And Art has pointed to
walks in which the artist never trod
hefore, and which to follow he must
possess in some degree the physical
energy, and contempt of fatigue and
danger, of the sportsman. The lovers
of hotany have long confessed to a
kind of excitement, like in kind to
that of the sportsman, attending the
hunt for rare or strange or previously
undescrihed specimens; aud the sea-
side lounger is encouraged to enlighten
his idleness hy groping, at low tides,
in the marine store-shop of nature, hy
the sportsmanlike zest exhihited in
that department in the writings of
Lewes or Kingaley. According to
these authorities, the pursuit is not
so deficient in actual danger as some
'Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers: A Scries of Excursions hy Memhers of tits Alpint
XJluh. London: Longmans, lSG'.i.


1859.]
457
Mountaineering.—The Alpine Cluh.

might suppose, if carried out enthu-
siastically; and hroken shins, from
slippery tangle over rocks, and a
pleasant uncertainty ahout heing cut
off hy the returning tide, may do
much to compensate for the want of
the popular perils of a cross country
gallop. But the great discovery of
the day is a species of sport to which
its devotees have given the not unapt
name of Mountaineering. This is con-
nected with science so far that every
description of a new ascent of a peak,
or remark on some hitherto unvisited
glacier, may he considered as a con-
trihution, however humhle, to the
great and growing study of physical
geography. It possesses the two
great elements of hazard—viz., dan-
ger and uncertainty, in the perils to
which climhers of high mountains
are liahle, and the uncertainty of an
undiscovered way, the discovery of
which is the prize sought for. As
the old kinds of sport had their
Jockey Club. Royal Yacht Cluh,
Four-in-hand Oluh, Ac, so is this
new kind represented hy its Alpine
Cluh, the date of the foundation of
which may he supposed to give a
local hahitation aud a name to the
new national sport. Peculiar advant-
ages helong to this new kind of
amusement which are foutid in no
other. Tne scenes where it is car-
ried out give the idle or working
man of the over-civilised world the
greatest attainahle change, He is
transported from the reek of cities
and the dull air of plains, to regions
of freshness and vitality, where the
air itself seems to produce a kind of
iunooent intoxication. He is curried
away hy those railways, which are in
general inimical to the hardy physi-
cal life, as hy magic, in a few hours,
and at small cost, into the grandest
regions of the earth, for the differ-
ence hetween the Alps aud Hima-
layas can he only one of scale. The
effects of either on the spirit of man
must he that of suhlimity unap-
proachahle hy his intelligence, lie
is waited from all the vulgar petti-
ness, the little social aunoyances and
tyraunies, the inexorahle prose of our
everyday associations, into a world
which is not of this world—where
God and Nature is all in all, and
Man is next to nothing; and from
whose summits of tranquil glory, if
they could he seen in the distance,
the vast hosts who contended at Sol-
ferino would appear indeed, as the
Times' correspondent descrihed them,
like two heaps of miserahle ants
struggling for the possession of a
miserahle ant-hill. He flies to a.
region of eternal liherty, fir ahove
politics or polemics, where only those
who never will he slaves find them-
selves at home. Suchare the Switzer,
the Norseman, and the Briton; and
such are the nohle Tyrolcse, though
nominally suhjects of a master.
"In den Bergen 1st Freiheit, der Uanch
der Gruflo
Steicret nteht tn die schrlnen Lufre;
— l,i*, Welt 1st vollkoinmen f,her nil,
"Wo der Meuach nkht Ulnelnkuinmt mil
seluen QuaL"
"Tn the Hills is Freedom, tne reek of dtlls
Cllmheth not to those hreezy fldk '-
The world is huilt on perfection's plan,
Where, fretting and fretful, Intrudes
not man."
The lines, we helieve, were written
hy the late great naturalist and
mountaineer, Alexander Von Hum-
holdt. If not hy him, hy some one
who felt as he did. We might al-
most have wished that the Alpine
Cluh had named themselves after
that great cosmopolitan philosopher,
who made mountains rather than
men his study, hut who conferred no
small henefit on his species in im-
pressing on the minds of men the
maguificence of mountains, those oh-
jects which, more thau any others in
nature (those heavenly hodies which,
from distance, we caunot understand,
not excepted), give the impression to
the human mind of tbrones of the
Eternal. By hetter acquaintance
with their dangers, they have lost
much of the mysterious horror in
which the first ages ensbrouded
them, hut there has heen an incalcu-
lahle gain to the human soul in the
contemplation of their superh loveli-
ness. We will venture to say that
the first impression of a suowy rauge
on the eye of a traveller, as soon us
he has realised that it is not cloud.
is not one of fear or sbrinking, hut
the acknowledgment of the presence
of an incredihle heauty, and the <Je-
sire to he amongst those wonders,
and see more of them as soon zi


Mountaineering.—The Alpine Cluh.
[Oct.

possihle. For ourselves, we shall
always count it as one of the great
days of life, when, on turning an
angle of forest near Schaffhausen,
the range of the Bernese Oherland,
well known in the names of its peaks,
first hurst into view. No scene seen
hefore or since ever seemed to excite
us equally. Yet in grandeur the
view of Mont Blanc from the Jura is
superior.
The aim and end of the Alpine
Cluh is a nohle one. By its puhli-
cations it enahles different indivi-
duals among its memhers, hy the
simple and faithful account of their
mountaineering experiences, to com-
hine a record whose testimony will
he of especial value to science, hesides
firovoking in our youth a nohle emu-
ation, and giving them a taste for
the higher kinds of relaxation. Any
memher, however humhle, who is
satisfied, without theorising, to put
down what he sees with his eyes,
and what he has gone tbrough and
done, contrihutes to the general re-
sult; and the general result is a
knowledge which is its own reward,
in the elevation of character it con-
fers on those who ponder on the
marvels of God's creation, and fami-
liarise themselves with those pheno-
mena which appear to the eye alike
of the poet and the philosopher, the
Shekinah of our modern world, the
visihle manifestation of the presence
of the Almighty.
The circumstances of the founda-
tion of this Cluh are given in the
preface to this its first puhlication:—
"Of late years an increasing desire has
heen felt to explore the unknown and
little-frequented districts of the Alps.
The writings of Professor J. D. Forhes,
those of M. AgaSslz and his companions,
and of M. Gottlieh Studer, led many, in
whom the passion for Alpine scenery
was hlended with a love of adventure
and some scientific interest in the results
of mountain-travel, to strike out new
paths for themselves, and especially in
the higher suow-region, which had hefore
heen almost completely shuuned hy ordi-
nary travellers. Practice has developed
the powers of those who undertook such
expeditions; experience showed that
the dangers counected with them had
heen exaggerated; while, at the same
time, it taught the precautions which are
really requisite. The result has heen to
train up among the foreigu visitors to
the Alps, hut especially amongst our own
countrymen, many men as familiar with
the peculiar difficulties and risks of ex-
peditions in the high Alps, and as com-
petent to overcome them, as most of the
native guides.
"The powers thus acquired have heen
chiefly directed to accomplishing the
ascent of the highest summits, or effect-
ing passes across the less accessihle por-
tions of the Alpine chain; and within
the last five years the highest peak of
Monte Rosa, the Dom, the Great Comhin,
the Alloleinhorn, the Wetterhorn proper,
aud several other peaks never hefore
scaled, have heen successfully attacked
hy travellers, most of whose names will
he found among the contrihutors to this
volume. In the accidental intercourse
of those who have heen engaged in such
expeditions, it has heen perceived that
the community of taste and feeling
amongst those who, in the Ufe of the
high Alps, have shared the same enjoy-
ments, the same lahours, and the same
dangers, constitutes a hond of sympathy
stronger than many of those hy which
men are drawn into association; and
early in the year 1858, it was resolved to
give scope for the extension of this
mutual feeling amongst all who have ex-
plored high mountain regions, hy the
formation of the Alpine Cluh. It was
thought that many of those who have
heen engaged in similar undertakings
would willingly avail themselves of oc-
casional opportunities for meeting to-
gether, for communicating information
as to past excursions, and for plauning
new achievements; and a hope was en-
tertained that such an association might
indirectly advance the general progress
of knowledge, hy directing the attention
of men, not professedly followers of
science, to particular points in which
their assistance may contrihute to valu-
ahle results. The expectations of the
founders of the Cluh have not heen dis-
appointed; it numhers at the present
time nearly a hundred memhers, and it
is hoped that the possession of a per-
manent place of meeting will materially
further the ohjects which it has proposed
to itself."
In referriug to the Atlas to identify
the scene of the exploits of those
memhers of this Clnh who have puh-
lished an account of their excursions,
we find that it is chiefly limited to
the highest region of the Swiss Alps.
Adventures in this region compose
the hulk of the volume. An interest-
ing account of the primeval glaciers


1859.]
459
Mountaineering.—The Alpina Cluh.

in the region of Snowdon in North
Wales follows; and one of the most
active contrihutors, Mr. Hardy, gives
an account of an ascent of ^Etna with
the following preamhle:—
"iEtna! Whet husiness has an ascent
of jfitna in the cbronicle of the doings
of the Alpine Cluh? jEtna is not in the
Alps; nor is it 13,000 feet high, as the
Catanians vainly pretend. Let me tell
the ohjector that the Alpine Cluh, while
it derives its name from one familiar
group of mountains, is thorougbly ca-
tholic in its principles, and already sees
visions of a hauner with a strange device
floating on the summit of Popocatepetl
and Dhawalagiri, and is hoping hy the
influence of its enlightened memhers to
drive out the last remnants of the wor-
ship of Mighty Mumho Jumho from the
Mountains of the Moon."
Thus we may hope that, if this
hook meet with the success it de-
serves, it will he the first of a long
series which in time will emhrace
accounts of expeditions to all the
principal mountain-chains in the
world, and unite in one great work
the various isolated narratives which
have heen puhlished hy scientific tra-
vellers and others; such as was, for
instance, Dr. Hooker's account of the
mountains of Sikkim in the Hima-
laya range, which is replete with valu-
ahle ohservation; and amongst other
facts mentions the deposition of
Dhawalagiri and the coronation of
"Kinchinjunga," now, we helieve,
within the dominions of her Britan-
nic Majesty, as "the monarch of
mountains, according to present
knowledge. If we look at the map
of the world, we see that at least
two of the great continents are held
together, as it were, hy a huge ridge
or hackhone of mountain eleva-
tion, which, although in the case of
the eastern hemisphere suffering
partial interruption, may he rougbly
descrihed as continuous from one
ocean to the other. In Africa the case
does not appear to he quite so clearly
made out, for the precise centre of
that continent seems never to have
heen explored. Dr. Livingstone's re-
searches only emhrace the centre of
the southern lohe of that great con-
tinent, and he appears to have estah-
lished there not the existence of a
supposed chain of mountains, hut a
tolerahly elevated tahle-land with a
hasin in the middle, from the edges
of which descend the rivers Congo
and Zamhesi. It is not impossihle
that in Africa also, at its widest part,
there is a similar hackhone hegin-
ning not far from Sierra Leone in
the west, and losing itself in the
east in the mountains of Ahyssinia.
In America, the mountain-spine, as is
well known, trends north and south,
while in Europe and Asia its direc-
tion is east and west. It hegins
with the mountains of Biscay in
Spain, passes on tbrough the Py-
renees with a slight interruption into
the high Alps, which tbrow off
the important spur or rih of the
Apeunines; thence it divides into the
Balkan and the Carpathians, which,
not heing quite so high, appear to
have distrihuted the forces of eleva-
tion. We trace the chain next in the
Caucasus and the mountains of Arme-
nia, in Persia, with the interruption
of the Caspian Sea, passing into the'
Hindoo Koosh and Himalaya, where
are found the highest known moun-
tains. Hence the chain forks and takes
a direction with its spars north and
south, the great hulk of the em-
pire of China appearing on the map
of Asia, as a kind of huge delta,
formed hy the ramifications of mighty
rivers, and' raised out of a primeval
sea.
As the Himalayas are the culmin-
ating region of this vast system in
Asia, so do the Swiss and Pied-
montese Alps form its highest
ground in Europe. If we turn to
the map of Switzerland, we find that
the primary and secondary Alps of
that interesting country comprise
ahout half of its whole area, and
there it is that we must look for the
hroadest part of the great European
spine, the elevation of the secondary
mountains, or suhordinate chain, ap-
pearing in the peaks of the Bernese
Oherland nearly as great as that of
the primary, which may he consi-
dered to numher among its peaks
Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, and the
Matterhorn, and to carry over its
summits the frontier line of Switzer-
land and Italy.
Switzerland may he rougbly divid-
ed into two halves, one of which,
from north - east and the lake of


460
[Oct
Moimtainiering.—The Alpine Cluh.

Constance to south-west and the lake
of GenevH, comprises nearly all the
ground that a model farmer would
care to have in his hands, much of the
country in the north closely resem-
hling England, and the Pays de Vaud
resemhling the richest part of France.
But even this comparatively cham-
paigu country is cut up and confused
with minor ranges and peaks, and
studded with lakes, and its largest
plains are rather hroad valleys or
elevated tahle-lands, such as that on
which the cily of Berne is situated.
The other half, hounded hy the Lake
of Lucerne on the north, and Lago
Maggiore on the south, hy the Tyrol
on the east, and Savoy on the west,
Triptolemus Yellowley would hardly
take as a gift; and yet to the poet,
the artist, the man of science, and
the lover of daring adventure, it is hy
far the most valuahle part of Europe.
In the neutral ground hetween these
two portions, and where they insen-
sihly hlend with each other, is the
cradle of Swiss liherty, the four so-
called forest cantons Of Schwytz, Ury,
Unterwalden, and Lucerne. Round
them as a nucleus, in course of time,
the other cantons have clustered, a
source of strength in a military and
political point of view, and yet in
some sense a source of weakness, as
/presenting to tho eye of an invader
fertile plains easily accessihle, which
may he held as a pledge for the suh-
mission of the whole confederation.
Britons have natural sympathies
with Switzerland and the Swiss.
They love heautiful scenery, and they
still look upon the Swiss mountains
os a "fortress formed to Freedom's
hands," — a lighthouse-rock in the
ocean, round which a sea of despotism
may surge in vain. Sir Walter Scott,
in Aune of Geierstcin, has compared
Scotland with Switzerland as to na-
tional characteristics. We may fur-
ther compare the two countries as to
natural configuration; the higblands
and lowlauds of each are divided hy
an imaginary diagonal line ruuning
N.E. to S.W.; hut in Scotland the
mountains lie to the north of that
line, and the plains or comparative
lowlauds to the south; in Switzer-
land vice vcrtd. The principal scene
of the exploits of our Alpine Cluh is
in the central and southern part of
the higblands of Switzerland, with
occasional detours in the neighhour-
hood, in that vast ice-and-rock world
which lies on either side of the val-
ley of the Rhone, which divides the
Bernese Oherland from the Peunine
range.
The first paper which meets the
eye is sigued Alfred Wills, and re-
lates '• the Passage of the Fenetre de
Salena, from the Col de Bahne to
the Vul Ferret, hy the Glacier du
Tour, the Glacier de Trient, and the
Glacier de Salena." The position of
the scene of this expedition shows
how futile is the common complaint
of travellers, that certain mountain
districts are so hackneyed and fa-
miliar as to have exhausted all inter-
est. It lies close to Chamouny—that
"den of thieves," according to one of
the contrihutors—that little London
of the High Alps, as we may call it
—and diverges from the route of the
Col de Bulme, which is traversed
every year hy hundreds of tourists of
different nations—the Oxford Street
or Strand of the Alps. Our expe-
rience has led us to the ohservation,
that although, in heautiful scenery of
world-wide celehrity, the streams of
tourists follow each other like sheep
tbrough certain paths and passages,
hy diverging a little to the right or
left of these, even where, except to
the adventurous, no ice-region pre-
sents insurmountahle ohstacles, the
solitudes of nature may he entered,
full of new and endless heauties,
where human foot "hath ne'er or
rarely trod." The Bhine country
perhaps furnishes our strongest in-
stance, where, hy following the lateral
valleys, the genuine lover of nature
may have nature to himself quite as
perfectly, except in idea, as in the
wilds of Sutherland or of Norway.
This passage of the Fenetre de Salena
was full of grand impressions, and
higbly spiced hy adventure. A ridge
was reached overhanging the Glacier
de Trient, in descending from which
one of the party nearly met with a
fatal accident.
"We found some rocks jutting out
hero and there along this ridge, which
greatly facilitated oor progress. It was,
however, a matter of considerahle diffi-
culty, for the iee was hard and very
slippery, and the suow not deep enough


1859.]
461
Mountaineering.— The Alpine Cluh.

to he of much service. The descent that
lay hefore us was the nearest approach
to the last arite of the Wetterhorn that
I have ever met with. After hreaking
tbrough un overhanging cornice of fro-
zen suow, wo hegan our descent with
much caution, making free use of the
ropes. Afier a while we came to two
rocks, ahout fifteen or twenty feet apart,
each upon the very edge of the ridge,
which was hero somewhat deeply cov-
ered with snow. Baimat and I wero
the first, and we thought that we might
venture to slide from one rock to the
next, and so avoid the lahour of step-
cutting, and the tedious precaution of
using the ropes. We reached the lower
station in safety, hut B., who came next,
lost his direcfion, and was going over to
the left, down a fearful slope of ice tbree
or frur hundred feet high, too steep for
us to see in what it ended, hut separated,
in all prohahility, hy a hergschrund from
the Glacier de Trient; for wo found one
at the foot of the gentler slope on the
right. It was a terrihle moment, as
there was only one chance. It was
utterly impossihle for him to stop him-
self or for either of the men to help him.
Balmat wa» already some distance helow
cutting steps, and Cachat was engaged
with W. twenty or thirty paces higher
up. R. showed great presence of mind.
lie did not utttr a word, hut tbrew him-
self on his right tide, so as to pass as near
to the e,jrje as possihle, and stretched out
his arm for me to grasp. Fortunately he
passed just within my reach, and I was
ahhs to catch lus hand and arrest his pro-
gress, otherwise it might have heen a sad
day for all of us."
That lahorious day was followed
hy a very uncomfortahle hivouoc, re-
minding the reader of a narrative of
the Peninsular War, when the detach-
ment was hrought to a stand-still in
the middle of a ploughed field, and
the order was issued that they should
make themselves comfortahle for the
night,—an order, as the writer char-
acteristically remarked, most difficult
to ohey.
"The slope on which wo were en-
camped was so steep, that no one who
was not fortunate enough to find a hole
in which to nestle could keep himself
from slipping, especially as the hilherry
hushes on which we lay were soaking
wet with the heavy dew. W., who is
great at sleeping, with admirahle instinct
found a most eligihle hollow close against
the fire, where the only danger ho in-
curred was that of heing scorched; hut
it was the only place of tho kind; and,
after trying every spot which seemed to
give tho slightest promise of support,
and finding that nowhere could I keep
myself from slipping down except hy
clinging to the wet hushes, I was ohliged
to desert tho fire, and hetake myself to
tho under side of a houlder ahout thirty
yards off, whero I had the douhle advan-
tage of a hollow to sit in and a hack to
lean against. Here I tied my handker-
chief over my head, and tried to think I
was very warm and comfortahle; hut I
was not so successful hut that I was very
glad when Balmot hrought mo a large
stone, which he had heated in the em-
hers of our liro, to sit upon."
Those who are not, like the gentle-
man in his narrative, 'great at
sleeping," always find, that how to
get the proper amount of rest at
night is a great difficulty in long
mountain excursions. For ourselves,
we confess that we have never sce-
ceeded in sleeping much in an elevated
hivouac. We have often slept on the
hard deck of a steamer, as one
memorahle instance reminds us, when
we were awakened hy the sacre nom
of a French sailor who tumhled
over what he supposed a hale of
goods wrapt in a plaid, on a fine
night in the Bay of Biscay. The ex-
citement and novelty of the scene,
and the certain amount of cold that
it is impossihle to exclude, we have
generally found fatal to sleep. We
recollect a glorious hivouac on the
Alp of the Watzmaun, in the Salz-
hurg Mountains, where we lighted a
fire of pine wood, which we had the
suhsequent satisfaction of knowing
awakened interest at a great distance.
There were German students and a
numher of mountain maidens who
sang their provincial songs, having
heen attracted hy our fire, and con-
sequently plenty of hilarity, hut very
little sleep. The result was, that
mo-it of us fell asleep on the very
narrow summit of that mountain at
9 a.m. the next morning. In fact, it
is much easier on these excursions to
ohtain rest, which is as nccessury as
food, at mid-day, than at midmght.
Whence we would always prefer
making such excursions as nearly as
possihle on the longest days of the
year. And thus it is ohvious that
among the Scandinavian mountains,
where the day in summer is nearly


462
[Oct.
Mountaineering.—The Alpine Cluh.

continuous, open-air sleeping is more
easily managed than in the Swiss
Alps.
The "Col du Geant" is a well-
known pass, and in the regular pro-
gramme of the Chamouny guides, hut
to those who swerve a little from the
heaten track, plenty of adventures
present themselves in tbreading the
siracs or castellated masses of glacier
ice. Here is one of them:—
"Looking now to the right, I suddenly
hecame aware that high ahove us, a mul-
titude of crags and leaning columns of
ice, on the stahility of which we could
not for an instant calculate, covered the
precipitous incline. We were not long
without an illustration of the peril of
our situation. We had reached a posi-
tion where massive ice-cliffs protected
us on one side, while in front of us was
a space more open than any we had yet
passed; the reason heing (hat the ice ava-
lanches had chosen it for tfteir principal
path. We had just stepped upon this
space when a peal ahove us hrought us
to a stand. Crash! crash I crash I nearer
and nearer, the sound hecoming more
continuous and confused, as the descend-
ing masses hroke into smaller hlocks.
Onward they came I houlders half a ton
and more in weight, leaping down with
a kind of maniacal fury, as if their whole
mission was to crush the seracs to pow-
der. Some of them, on striking the ice,
rehounded like elastic halls, descrihed
paraholas tbrough the air, again madly
smote the ice, and scattered its dust like
clouds in the atmosphere. Some hlocks
were deflected hy their collision with
the glacier, and wero carried past us
within a few yards of the spot where we
stood. I had never hefore witnessed an
exhihition of force at all comparahle to
this, and its proximity rendered that
fearful which at a little distance would
have heen suhlime. My companion held
his hreath for a time and then exclaimed,
'(Test terrihle I il faut retourner.' In
fact, while tho avalanche continued, we
could not at all calculate upon our safety.
When wo heard the first peal, we had
instinctively retreated to the shelter of
the ice hastions; hut what if one of
these missiles struck the tower heside us I
would it he ahle to withstand the shock?
We knew not. In reply to the proposal
of my companion, I simply said, 'By all
means if you desire it; hut let us wait
a little.' I felt that fear was just as had
a counsellor as rashness, and thought it
hut fair to wait until my companion's
terror had suhsided. We waited accord-
ingly, and he seemed to gather courage
and assurance. I scauned the heights,
and saw that a little more effort in an
upward direction would place us in a
less perilous position, as far as the ava-
lanches were concerned. I pointed this
out to my companion, and we went for-
ward. Once, indeed, for a minute or
two, I felt anxious. We had to cross in
the shadow of a tower of ice, of a loose
and tbreatening character, which quite
overhung our track. The fresbly-hroken
masses at its hase, and at some distance
helow it, showed that it must have par-
tially given way some hours hefore.
'Don't speak, or make any noise,' said
my companion, and although rather
sceptical as the influence of speech in
such a case, I held my tongue, and escap-
ed from the dangerous vicinity as fast as
my legs and alpenstock could carry me."
We caunot say that we are inclined
to share the scepticism of Professor
Tyndall,* the author of this account,
as to the effect of the voice in hring-
ing down small or great avalanches,
whether of stones or ice-hlocks. It
is the last ounce that hreaks the
camel's hack, and the least vihration
of the air may originate a movement
which was only suspended hy the
perfect stillness of the atmosphere.
It is not more extraordinary that the
slight shake of the voice should pre-
cipitate a ton of just halanced mat-
ter, than that a little touch of the
hand should set the Logan-stone
rocking. We rememher once stand-
ing immediately under the glacier of
the Hinter-rhein, and on a sudden
calling out to the guide, who had fol-
lowed us from the village of Spliigen,
and who was at a little distance
hehind us. The first words served
to awake stones which were sleeping
on the face of the ice, and set tnem
hounding over the slope. We went
on speaking, our guide answering
nothing, hut making frantic gestures
instead, until a larger hlock than
u,mal, coming as from a catapult
wi'.hin a few feet of our heads, inter-
preted his meaning, which was, that
there was only safety in silence. As
soon as we ceased to speak, the
* We see hy the Times th at this gentleman has ascended Mont Blanc this »w»
mer, and succeeded in passing twenty hours on the summit.


1859.]
4G3
Mountaineering.— llie Alpine Cluh,

mitraille from the glacier ceased hassiere!" The remarks which con-
also, chide this moat interesting account
The paper next in order contains an of high ramhles will meet with a
account of excursions on the western ready response from all sympathetic
side of Mont Blanc, including the readers.
Col de Miage, hy Mr. Vaughan
Hawkins. This paper is valuahle
as portraying difficulties experienced
in consequence of the Alpine travel-
ler's great enemy, "stormy weather,"
and at the same time from showing the
"To those who feel wearied—as who
does not at times ?—with the ceaseless
mill-work of England, in the nineteenth
century, there is no medicine so soothing,
hoth to mind and hody, as Alpine travel,
affording as it does interesting ohserva-
expedients to which courage and pre-j tion and healthy enjoyment for the pre-
sence of mind may resort to make"
the hest of it, preventing others from
extreme discouragement under cir-
cumstances which are sufficiently
common, in all mountainous districts.
Mr. VV. Matthews, jun., is the next
writer. He gives an account of most
interesting explorations in " the moan-
tains of Bagues, with the ascents of
the Velan, Comhin, and Graffeneire,
sent, and pleasant memories for the time
to come. . . .
"Very many happy days have I spent
among the 'peaks, and passes, and gla-
ciers ' of the Alps, hut I look hack upon
none of them with feelings of such great
satisfaction as upon those in which I
wandered among the unknown fastnesses
of the 'Montagues de Bagues.'"
Within the four last years the
and the passage of the Col du Mont popularity of Chamouny has heen
Rouge." This mountain lahyrinth lies eclipsed hy that of Zermatt, chiefly,
to the right of the historic pass of we suppose, in consequence of the
the great St. Bernard, and the great
height at which the Hospice is situ-
ated makes it a most eligihle start-
ing-point for excursions into it.
"There are few parts of Switzerland
which more ricbly reward the lovers of
Alpine scenery, and which have heen
hitherto so utterly neglected, as the
maguificent mountain-ranges which en-
close the savage defile of the Val de
Bagues. Six great glaciers pour their
frozen streams into this valley, one of
them famous as the cause of the melan-
choly inundation of 1818; and from the
chain of the Comhin, which forms its
western harrier, and occupies the tri-
neighhourhood of the still unsealed
Matterhorn. Whether this mountain
will remain or not the real Jungfrau
of the Alps, is a quet'tion which will
douhtless soon he resolved.
By comparing the narratives given
in this volume, we ohserve that almost
all the more important peaks have
heen scaled, or are considered scale-
ahle, from sorne side or other. These
very glaciers and suow-fields which
festoon the sides of the aiguilles, and
present so many dangers and diffi-
culties to the traveller, have never-
theless furnished him with paths
which, though seldom easy, are gener-
^ffn^n8! • fiW v,ranfl ally practicahle. We have ohserved
of the Dranse, rises a great alp a hundred in '„£„„ nWwl rnpk<,_nnf mm,ntn;n,,
feet higher than the Fmsteraarhorn. Yet
not one in every hundred of the crowds
of tourists, who flock every year to the
St. Bernard Hospice, turns aside at Sem-
hranchier into the Val de Bagues, and
of these scarcely any one has explored
the suow-hasin of Corhassiere, or wan-
dered over the ice-fields of Chermontane;
while those writers who have made the
passage of the Col de Fenutre, have in-
variahly descrihed the 'inaccessihle pre-
in many places rocks—not mountains
—of the same character of the Mat-
terhorn. We speak here at second-
hand, never having seen the Matter-
horn ourselves hut at a great dis-
tance. The Matterhorn is rather a
rock than a mountain—the highest
rock in Europe, as Mont Blanc is the
highest mountain. Its precipices
appear to he practicahle only hy the
same process hy which precipices of
cip.ces of the Comhin' with the sort of equai ^pe are 8arm0unted or passed
hopeless feeling with which they might when th congist of ice or nic£_
orNerul" * that is- fr cuttinS steP8 in them-
^' But, as in the case of the Matterhorn,
The "inaccessihle" Comhin was the prohlem seems to he how to climh
surmounted hy Mr. Mathews "in six biieer sUipa of nearly smooth rock;
hours Of easy walking (?) from Cor. the process would, he a most djfficqft


464
[Oct
Mountaineering.—The Alpine Cluh.

and ted ions one. Some one must of
necessity go first, and, after catting
as many steps as possihle at a time,
come hack the way he came. It
might he possihle to plant the pin of
a rope securely in some chink, or to
drive it into the solid rock; and the
next ascent mieht he made with help
of the rope. We shall doohtless hear
of something of the kind heiog done
or attempted soon, for there is a cer-
tain class of British travellers who*
would risk life for the sake of a
successful ascent of the Matterhorn.
Whether the result would justify the
perd, is a question for their deter-
mination, not for ours. If to risk life
for mere national or personal glory he
justifiahle, we should prefer such a
path to tilory to that one which lay
over the hecatomhs of Solferino. The
fifth chapter of our hook contains an
account of a journey from Zermatt to
the Vol d'Auniviers, hy the Trift
Pass, hy Mr. Hincbliff. The great
difficulties of the ascent of the Col
were successfully surmounted, and
the party found an anchorage on an
open plateau of neve on the descent.
"The provision knapsacks were emp-
tied and used as seats; hottles of red
wine were stuck upright in the suow;
a goodly leg of mutton on its sheet of
paper formed the centre, garnished with
Lard eggs and hread aud cheese, round
which we ranged ourselves in a circle.
High festival was held under the deep-
hlue heavens; and now aud then, as we
looked up at the wondrous wall of rocks
which we had descended, we congratu-
lated ourselves on the victory with a
quiet nod indicative of satisfaction.
if. Seller's heautifal oranges supplied
the rare luxury of a dessert> and we
wore just in the full enjoyment of the
delicacy when a hoomiug sound, like
the discharge of a gun far over our
heads, made us all at once glance up-
wards to the top of the Trifthorn.
Close to its craggy summit hung a cloud
of dust like dirty smoke, and in a few
seconds another and a larger one hurst
fortli several hundred feet lower. A
glance tbrough the telescope showed
that the full of rocks had commenced,
and the fragments were leaping down
from ledge 10 ledge in a series of cas-
cades. Each hlock dashed off others at
every point of contact, and the uproar
heeain* tremendous; thousand of frag-
luwtn, mailing evriy va,ictj- of uoieo
Recording to their size, and producing
the effect of a fire of musketry, and
artillery comhined, thundered down-
wards from so great a height, that we
waited anxiously for some considerahle
time to see them reach the suow-field
helow. As nearly as we could estimate
the distance, we were five hundred yards
from the hase of the rocks, so that we
thought that come what might we were
in a tolerahly secure position. At last
we saw many of the hlocks plunge into
the suow after taking their last fearful
leap; presently much larger fragments
followed, taking proportionahly larger
hounds. Tho noise grew fiercer and
fiercer, and huge hlocks hegan to fall so
near to us that we jumped to our feer,
determined to dodge them to the hest oi
our ahility. 'Look out!' cried some
one, and we opened our right and left
at the approach of a monster, evidently
weighing many hundredweight, which
was coming right at us like a huge shell
fired from a mortar. It fell with a heavy
thud not more than twenty feet from
us, scattering lumps of scow into the
circle where we had just heen dining;
hut scarcely had we hegun to recover
from our astonlshment, when a still
larger rock ilew exactly over our heads
to a distance of two hundred yards
heyond us. The malice of the Tritthorn
now seemed to have done its worst.
The fact was that the fall had taken
place too near to the line of our descent
for tho rememhrance of it to he alto-
gether pleasant."
The situation in which Mr. Hinch-
liff and his companions stood under
fire on this occasion, hrings to our
memory an occasion when two tour-
ists, standing on the plateau which
counects the two Glydera in North
Wales, hy unthinkingly rolling a
small stone over the hrink of a pre-
cipice ahove Llyn Idwal, were the
agents of a similar catastrophe. As
it grew to a climax, they felt as if
the guilt of hlood would he on their
heads should any adventurous wight
he exploring the very sequestered
valley helow, and made a solemn
resolution never again to repeat a
similar experiment The effects were
much those so graphically descrihed
hy Mr. Hincbliff.
The next excursion—" Pass of the
Schwarze Thor from Zermatt to
Ayas," hy the editor—is one of the
most interesting in the whole hook,
and there i) great trcohnou and
originality in the descriptions,


1859.]
465
Mountaineering.— The Alpine Club.

"Tho view from the western slope of
the Rifl'el, now well known to most Swiss
tourists, includes the range of peaks
from the Matterhorn to the Weisshorn,
with the glaciers hy which they ore he-
girt. -The moon had risen; the valley
helow, and all the lesser hollows, were
filled with a hluish haze that stretched
across to the hase of the opposite peaks,
not forming, as clouds do, an opaque
floor on which they could seem to rest,
hut rather a dim mysterious depth, into
which tliey plunged to an immeasurahle
distance. The great peaks and glaciers
shone with a glory that seemed all their
own; not sparkling in the hroad moon-
light, hut heaming forth a cahn ineffahle
hrilliance, high aloft in the ether, far
ahove the dwellings of mankind. Chief
of them all, the astounding peak of the
Matterhorn, that stupendous ohelisk
whoso form defies tho holdest specula-
tions of the geologist—gleaming moro
hrightly for some fresh suow that rested
on every furrow of its surface—towered
upward into the sky. All men, even
the least poetical, are variously im-
pressed hy such scenes as these, and the
mind is involuntarily carried hack to
eomo scene of wonder and mystery that
in early life has fixed Its image on tho
imagination. My own fancy on that
night recalled a half-rememhered tale ot
the Scandinavian Sagas, wherein the
mythical hero hreaks into the assemhly
of the gods, where they sit in solemn
conclave, fixed in deep slumher, with
long white heards descending to the
ground. Some such night-scene, amid
the wild mountains of Norway, may
have suggested the picture to the old
northern hard."
Ohservations follow in a spirit as
well poetic as scientific on colour
and twilight and certain mountain
effects, the like of which we remem-
her to have seen in the short sum-
mer nights of Scandinavia. The fact
K that the elevation of the High Alps
places the ohserver nearer the sun,
and makes the day longer in propor-
tion to the latitude. In the Alps,
altitude, and not latitude, determines
in a measure the day and night, as
place as well as time determines the
season of the year. It is summer at
Chamouny when it is mid-winter on
the summit of Mont Blanc. Even
the ordinary tourist who has slept
on the Righi or the Faulhorn, atd
ohtained a favourahle suurise, is ac-
quainted with the lovely phenome-
non called the Alpine rose.
"Just hefore suurise we had reached
the Rothi Kumme, the steep slope over
the Gomer Glacier, whence the rango of
Monto Rosa is visihle in its whole extent,
when a new ohject of intorest presented
itself. To the eye, tho air round us
had appeared perfectly clear, and with-
out the slightest tinge of vapour, when
suddenly the lower zone hetween us and
tho opposito rango hecame suffused with
a rosy Hush that was accompanied with
an evident diminution of transparency;
this appeared to he strictly limited with-
in a definite thickness of the atmosphere,
extending to a height of ahout 15,000
feet. At the moment when the change
took place, my eyes were turned to the
s0ulh-west, over tho Matterjoch, as if a
gauze veil had suddenly heen placed he-
tween the eye and the distant sky, and
clearly showing that the tint was pro-
duced in the lowor and not the upper
regions of the atmosphere. Most travel-,
lers in mountain countries are familiar
with this phenomenon, hut few have had
so favourahle an opportunity to ohserve
it in the region where it is produced. It
appears to me to ho one amongst numer-
ous indications, that vapour contained
in the atmosphere in a state of rest has
a tendency to dispose itself in horizontal
strata of unequal density. The exquisite
lint which is seen in tho Alps ahout ten
minutes after sunset, and less commonly
hefore suurise, may prohahly ho caused
hy the reflection of the sun's rays from
the under surface of some of theso strata
lying considerahly ahovo the level at
which the rosy glow hecomes visihle."
Well may the author of this passage
enthusiastically exclaim—
"What enjoyment is to ho compared
to an early walk over one of these great
glaciers of the Alps, amid the deep
silence of Nature, surrounded hy some
of her suhlimest ohjects, the morning air
infusing vigour and elasticity into overy
nerve and muscle, the eye unwearied, tho
skin cool, and the wholo frame tingling
with joyous anticipation of the adven-
tures that the day may hring forth 1"
And there is music as well as paint-
ing and poetry in the ice-world.
"On a sudden, as if from somo prodi-
gious distance, there fell upon my ear
the sound of musical instruments, pure
and clear, hut harely distinguishahle.
I halted and listened: there could he no
douht, there was the heafing of a drum,
and from time to time tho sound of
nm:*, i,.struaients. I asked Ma**t*i
who now camo up, what he thought ot
it, hut he had no idea of tho cause.


1859]
467
Mountaineering.—The Alpine Cluh.

or imply Dom, denotes. Mr. Davies
speaks with great rapture of tho
view from the top.
"Those who speak slightingly of the
advantages to he gained hy ascending to
the highest points, do not know what it
is to see mountain-tops spread out he-
neath you, almost like the stars of heaven
for multitude. The greater ranges rise
in mighty curves and hackhones, ridged
with shining points, and give distinction
to the scene; hut in that country of Alps,
wherever you look, there is a field of
mountains: the higher you rise, the more
maguificent is the panorama you com-
mand."
The Alleleinhorn lies to the south
of Mr. Davies' route, and is descrihed
hy Mr. Ames, who also masters the
Pletschhorn, "Do douht familiar in
appearance, if not hy name, to those
who have crossed the Simplon Pass
in fine weather." As a little change
from the heauties and suhlimities of
Mr. Ball and others, we may extract
some facetiae from Mr. Ames's narra-
tive. The incidents in question oc-
curred on passing a night in a chalet
on the Trift Alp, where the travellers
found a merry party.
"My companions were half undressed,
and I was finishing a cigar outside, when
I hecamo aware of suppressed whisper-
ings and titterings in tho immediate
neighhourhood — sounds which, on fur-
ther investigation, proved to emanate
from a juvenile group of the female
population collected at the corner of the
next hut, and apparently watching with
great interest the mysterious process of
going to hed, as practised hy the English
nation generally. After a little compli-
mentary 'chaff,' and one or two songs
from them, very fairly sung, and con-
taining invariahly some reference to a
'echatzli' (sweetheart), I joined the rest
of tho party, undressed, and, heing the
last, according to the good old rule, put
out the light No sooner had I stepped
into hed than a crash ensued, and I sud-
denly found myself half-huried under a
chaotic heap of disorganised hedclothes,
the holster occupying the post of honour
on the top of my head. The treacherous
fahric had given way at the foot of the
hed, owing, no douht, to the suhstratum
of logs having heen arranged in some
position of unstahle equilihrium. A mo-
mentary silence of astonishment was fol-
lowed hy peals of laughter from my more
fortunate companions, till two guides, at-
tracted hy the noise, made their appear-
ance with a lantern, and commenced
the work of restoration, which was soon
completed in a more solid and trust-
worthy form, not, however, without sun-
dry incursions of the fair sex, whose cu-
riosity was proof against my extreme
deshahille. The situation, as revealed hy
the sudden light of the lantern, was no
douht supremely ludicrous, hut was not
precisely the kind of spectacle for the
contemplation of female friends, and they
were repelled accordingly. It did not
occur to me at the time, hut I have my
suspicions, that those iunocent damsels
were privy to the catastrophe, and had,
of malice prepense, unsettled the founda-
tions of the couch."
This incident strongly reminds us
of some of our frieods' Scaodinavian
experiences. Mother Eve's daughters
have a family likeness all over the
world.
The next narratives lead us across
the valley of the Rhone to the well-
known (at a distance) Bernese Oher-
land. Every Swiss tourist knows the
maguificent panorama seen from the
high places ahout Berne, and deriv-
ing its chief interest from the range
of suowy peaks in the south, with
their high - sounding and romantic
names. Yet these old'acquaintances
of the traveller have even yet some un-
explored recesses, and Messrs. Ander-
son, Ball, Hardy, and Bunhury show
hy their narratives how much that is
new may he found hy men possess-
ing legs, hands, and eyes, and wit to
nse them, even in the most familiar
country. This range would douhtless
have heen hetter known hefore, hut
that its recesses have heen protected
hy what Tacitus would have called
"ancient superstition." People ceased
to trouhle themselves ahout what was
universally regarded hy the natives
as utterly inaccessihle. Our country-
men have now accustomed them-
selves to receive the accounts of the
natives "cum grano salis," and rely
upon themselves for ohtaining accu-
rate information, since they have
found that Englishmen, many of
them leading in general the sedentary
lives of cities, have heen ahle to show
the horn mountaineers the way over
their own mountains. Mr. Hardy has
scaled the Peak of Daikness, and
drawn aside the veil; and the great
Aletsch glacier, one of tho most re-
markahle polar regions in the tem-
perate zone, has heen traversed and


468
[Oct.
Mountaineering.—The Alpine Cluh.

ohserved by more than one tourist,
There is no reason it should not he
thoroughly explored hy scientific men,
as it seems to present fewer difficul-
ties, comhined with finer characteris-
tics, thou most other glaciers. Mr.
Hincbliff has seen the wonders of the
WiMstruhel and Oldenhorn, the lat-
ter heing the principal peak of the
remarkahle Diahlerets. This moun-
tain is well rememhered hy us, as
contrasting with its rugged grand-
eurs the Arcadian Scenery of the Val-
lee des Ormons, which is ascended
from Aigle in the valley of the
Rhone, and than which there is not
a region of more peaceful loveliness
in the whole of Switzerland. Messrs.
Keunedy and Hardy next astonish
us with the fact of their having sur-
vived "a night-adventure on the
Bristenstock," a mountain overhang-
ing the entrance to the St. Gothard
Pass ahove Amsteg, where the ad-
venturous tourists were ohliged to
sleep hy turns locked in each other's
arms, to avoid their falling over a
precipice—like the hahes in the wood,
hut without the wood, the rohins, or
the leaves. Lastly. Mr. Porster takes
a flight to the little-known Alps of
Canton Glarus, making the haths of
Stach>lherg his headquarters, and
visiting the famous Martinsloch or
Martin's Hole, n round tuunel over
the Segues Pass, tbrough which a
heam of the sun descends into the
valley at certain seasons. Ehel, he
says, imagines the name to he a cor-
ruption of Martis Loch, " hecanee the
sun shines tbrough it on the steeple
of the church at Eim, in the months
of March and Septemher." But we
should rather counect it with the ad-
ventures of St. Martin, who gives his
name to the Martinswand in the Aus-
trian Alps, and who, from the high-
flying propensities of his Holiness,
ought certainly to he adopted as their
patron hy such memhers of the Alpine
Cluh as happen to he of the Roman
Catholic persuasion.
Rather valuahle to geologists than
mere travellers are the remarks on
the old glaciers of Switzerland and
North Wales. All Switzerland must
once have presented a scene like that
seen in the extreme north-west hy
Kane, and mentioned in his Arctic
Explorations, where the stupendous
glacier called hy Humholdt's name is
supposed to hridge Greenland and
America; and North Wales must once
have heen, with lower elevations,
much what Switzerland is now. Be-
ing directed to, the facts mentioned
in this chapter, the most superficial
ohserver may verify them, as we can
attest from our own experience. The
glens of Cwm Trifacn and Cwm
Llafar are especially interesting, as
showing the paths of old-world gla-
ciers, and thus North Wales is the
complement to Switzerland, discover-
ing the features of those glacier hases
which arc as yet uurevealed to human
eye. The chapter on Etna, hy Mr.
Hardy, concludes the narratives of
excursions, hy way of showing the
catholicity of the aspirations of the
Alpine Cluh; and Mr. Ball ohligingly
puhlishes suggestions for Alpine tra-
vellers, as to measures of precaution
and equipment, which show that the
Cluh have no wish to restrict the
enjoyment of their higbland pre-
serve. There is an even level of good
writing in this hook, hecause the
writers write from the ahundance of
their hearts, and apparently, with a
geueral ahsence of intellectual effort,
descrihe the physical exertions they
have made. The real secret of good
writing, as we all know, is to have
something to write ahout. Then there
will he no necessity of raising a ques-
tion of Latin or Saxon pbraseology.
The idea will clothe itself of itself in
the most appropriate form of verna-
cular. With regard to the outward
form of the volume, we may say that
the first-horn of the Alpine Cluh en-
cases a sound mind in a sound hody;
and more than this, that its outward
favour is decidedly prepossessing. It
is equally a hook for the drawing-
room or lihrary tahle. To give an idea
of the pains hestowed on it, we have
only to mention that it contains nine
maps, eight ebromo-lithographs, and
twenty-tbree woodcuts, all of merit,
especially the maps. The cbromo-
litographs, though good, are hard-
ly adequate to the expression of
the vastness of Alpine scenery; hut
it must he remembered that this
heautiful hranch of art is still in its
infancy; and where so much depends
on the faintest nuances of colour and
chiarooscuro, the wonder is that so
much has heen clone with so compa-
ratively unhandy materials.



1859.]
469
Mountaineering.— The Alpine Cluh.
We could have wished to have
heen ahle to include in the same re-
view, some others of the host of
Alpine hooks that have heen lately
presented to the puhlic) and if we
had hefore ns Mr. Coleman's Scenes
from the Snow-fields, we might he
ahle to judge still hetter than from
the uupretentious illustrations of
Peaks, Passes, and Glnciers, what art
has heen ahle to achieve in tones
as yet nearly unvisited hy the pro-
fessional artist. But the hook in our
hands suffices to show how engrossing
is the passion for mountain-climh-
ing, and how fast our countrymen
are hecoming hitten with the delight-
ful infection. Without thought of re-
sults, the movement has taken place,
hut douhtless great results may flow
our home mountains. And counected
with these low elevations there is a
pleasure scarcely known at inaccess-
ihle heights, or where the continuity
of altitude is hroken. We maan the
long upland walks, along the crests
of hills. Such u walk we accom-
plished on a glorious day in the sum-
mer of 1858, with delight never to
he forgotten. It hegan with the as-
cent of Sea Fell Pikes from Wastdale
Head, and then continued over the
crest of Langdale, .hehind Lungdale
1'ikes, over BorroWdale Fells, down
Esdale, to Grasmer*. The little dif-
ficulty of finding tie way over the
Fells gave a fillip of excitement to
the walk. But the purity of the air
was not to he surpassed. It seemed
all oxygen or ozone. Another such
out of it. For this end. organisation walk preceded it hy two days, he-
is necessary, and is found in the pro-
spectus of the Alpine Cluh* We pro-
phesy that, amongst men of intelli-
gence as well as spirit, this will soon
he one of the most popular of all the
cluhs; though whether, as it has the
free entree of all the mighty palaoeg
of nature, it will care to huild itself a
house made with hands in Pall Mall,
may long he a question.
giuning with a steep climh of the
Red Pike from Buttermere, aud tak-
ing the tops in succession to Sty
Head Pass. In North Wales, also,
we recollect many such ramhles, the
finest of which was the tours of
Carnedd David and Llewellin, and
the tops of the Glyders, following
the heights to Capel Cwrig. In the
Alps and Pyrenees we have ever
There is another way of visiting A I- found the greatest delight in visiting
pine regions, which the Alpine Cluh,
with their lofty aspirations, would
prohahly despise, hut which is more
attractive to ordinary people, and even
to those who love, to a certain de-
gree, danger and difficulty, possesses
the least-trodden routes, although
these were not always the more dan-
gerous. Alpine dangers are not to
he encountered alone, or without cer-
tain precautions which reduce them
to a minimum. A melancholy in-
peculiar advantages, especially in the stance has just occur^d, recorded in
matter of independence. Mr. King's
Italian Valleys of the Alps, and the
Lady's Tour round Monte Rosa,
prove how much may he seen in
places not inaccessihle to ladies; and
we know well that to the really
poetic or artistic insight little is
gained hy novelty or strangeness,
hut that the universe itself is ever
novel and strange in all its aspects
to those who keep their eyes open.
We know nothing more charming
than unencumhered and unattended
pedestrian excursions in mountain
regions, no medicine for mind or
hody of more universal efficacy. The
charms of nature increase to the
lovers of nature as time goes on,
and do not grow old with their age.
And the splendours of Alps and
Pyrenees have only served to give us
a fresher zest in the enjoyment of
the Times hy a correspondent whose
letter hears date, Zermatt, August
18. A Russian gentleman, hy
name Ednuard de la Grotte, has
perished miserahly in a crevasse on
the Findelen glacier. He was at-
tended hy two Zermatt guides, hut
scornfully refused to take an alpen-
stock; and though a rope was passed
round his hody, it only appeared to
have heen looped round the arms of
the guides. According to the guides'
account, he slipped into a crevasse,
and the rope hreaking short at each
side of him, they were not ahle to
recover him. The crevasse was of
peculiar form, narrow at the top,
then widening and then contracting
again farther down. The unfortu-
nate man appears to have fallen some
sixty feet, and then to have hecome
wedged with his head somewhat


470
[Oct.
Mountaineering.—The Alpine Cluh.

lower than his hody. "While the
clumsy guides were trying to reach
him with too short a length of rope,
having heen at the trouhle to make
two journeys for them, the poor man
died, having heen gradually and con-
sciously frozen to death. The warmth
of his hody had occasioned at first
his sinking a few feet farther, and
then the cold of the glacier overcom-
ing him, he was frozen in, and as he
would then have heen slowly crushed
hy the expansion of the ice, it is hoped
that death terminated his sufferings
hefore this last torture. The guides,
whose conduct appears tbroughout
to have heen characterised hy care-
lessuess and want of presence of
mind, appear to have laid themselves
open to suspicion on account of the
appearance presented hy the hroken
ends of the rope. It is possihle that
their negligent hold of the traveller
gave way at once to the weight of
his hody, and that they cut the rope
at the places where they said it had
heen hroken, to save their reputation
for trustworthiness* This accident
was followed at no long interval hy
one still more distressing to home
readers, as the suhject of it was an
eminent memher of the University
of Camhridge. We allude to the
melancholy death of Archdeacon
Hardwieke, hy falling down a steep
place in the Pyrenees, near the Ba-
gucres de Lnchon. Having prohahly
heen over the ground ourselves in
returning hy a hy-way from the
Port de Venasque, we caunot think
that the accident was caused hy any
peculiar dangers or difficulties exist-
ing there. The venerahle gentleman
was an experienced Alpine traveller,
and the apparent ease of his route
may have rendered him less cautious
than usual.
The former instance, which seems
more to the purpose, would he any-
thing hut discouraging to real Alpine
travellers. It simply shows what
security may he attained hy certain
precautions, the neglect of which may
easily he fatal. It is astonishing,
considering the appearance and real
nature of these difficulties, how very
few accidents have hitherto occurred
in the high Alps. Nevertheless, it is
to he esteemed a national honour,
that most of those peaks hitherto
considered inaccessihle, and many of
those passes hitherto considered im-
passahle, have yielded to the courage
and perseverance of those islanders,
whose still more daring and enduring
countrymen have passed the continu- •
ous night of the Arctic winter in dark-
ness and suffering, to solve prohlems
not much more important; or endured
the torture of thirst in the hurning
deserts of Central Africa, with an end
and purpose avowedly and really high-
er, hut in no dissimilar spirit. While
Prance, actually more old-fashioned
in her ways, still pants for that md-
itary fame of which the world has
heard so much hefore, Great Britain
strives for newer and hloodless lau-
rels, and seeks, according to the
Creator's sanction, to assert the su-
premacy of Man less over his hro-
ther than over material Nature.
* Since this article was written, a letter has appeared in the Times, from one of
the memhers of the Alpine Cluh, whose remarks seem to corrohorate our conjecture
as to the death of the Russian gentleman at Zermatt:—"He fell down hecause
there was not a sufficient length of rope. The fact of the shortness of the rope is
sufficiently proved hy the mauner in which they used it. They tied the gentleman
round the hody, as is usual; hut instead of fastening themselves in the same mauner,
they, evidently with the intention of making the rope cover agreater space of ground,
simply held it in their hands, each taking one end of it Now, sir, is it not almost
certain, that supposing the man in the middle to fall, the other two are unahle to
hold on to the rope, and it slips from their hands with the jerk? And, this, I helieve,
happened in this particular case. The rope was too short, so the guides held the
ends of it in their hands, and when the gentleman hetween them fell, they were
unahle, in consequence of the jerk, to keep their hold. They say the rope hroke.
I am inclined to douht it" There is, however, an ohvious difficulty in this theory
as to how it came to pass that the rope was not carried into the crevasse with the
gentleman. It may have slipped from the hand of one guide first, then, heing
loosely hound, have detached itself from the hody, or the guides may have neglected
to tie the traveller at all.



1859.]
471'
The Seaside in the Papal States.
IMKat -f,...
THE SEA-SInE IN THE PAPAL STATES.
Among the many delusions preva-
lent in the ordinary imagination,
there are few more groundless than
the popular Northern idea of Italian
climate—that idea which neither fact
nor descriptions can dissipate, and
which every honest English fancy
helieves in devoutly, let travellers
say what they will. Thus we go on
with melancholy persistence, hut
faith unfailing, carrying the delicate
hlossoms we love hest to hrave out
the huffets of winter amidst the
countless cross - draughts and chill
paved floors of Italian apartments,
where our complaints are set down
to the score of English egotism and
helplessuess hy a. people much more
given to the savage placidity of en-
durance than to any possihility of
reform. But if Boreas hlows sbrill
in the Tramontara at one season,
and suffocates his hreatbless victims
with the sirocco at another, there is a
steady spring hrilliance in the Italian
sky which restores One to that half-
forgotten enjoyment of May, which
our grandfathers used to have, or to
say they had, hut of which we, in our
island, have certainly of late days
lost all security. July and August
in Italy are months to he gasped
tbrough, and endured as one hest can.
But there is a May—the fact is indis-
putahle—and for those who love that
month of the poets, it is something
to know that it survives somewhere.
May, hright, fresh, serene, and sweet,
with skies of deep untrouhled azure,
steadily shining tbrough starry night
and suuny day—familiar honeysuckle
and wild roses hursting upon all the
hedges — the rich red glow of the
pomegranate hlossom hurning amidst
its cool deep shade of leaves—the corn
ripe and golden — the vines tender
and young, the grey sweet olives
lending a singular calm and com-
posure to the landscape with their
mild neutral uncertainty of tone—and
not a cloud, save now and then a
suuny puff of white, like the wing or
the rohe of some chance angel, upon
the untrouhled depth of sky. Such
was the Roman May which shone
this year over all the melancholy
VOL. LXXSVI.
.
plain and rich hills that surround
the everlasting city. Distant echoes
of French caunon, and proguostica-
tions of Italian tumult, not yet real-
ised so far south, had darkened the
air with its annual enormous swal-
low-flight of home-returning tourists
rather more precipitately than usual;
and "Rome was empty," something
as London is in Septemher, when we
took our early way to the sea-side.
The emptiness of Rome makes itself
visihle hy the shutting np of great
hotels, and the dismantling of shops
frequented hy those Forestieri or wan-
dering harharians who hring toll to
the old mistress of the world, hy the
languor and leisure of certain streets
recoguised as the foreiguers', or rather
the English, quarter—and not least
hy the total desertion of all the
sights which a leisurely pilgrim,
unappalled hy visions of malaria,
may enjoy if he wills with all the
privacy and leisure of their owner,
now that the season is over, and
Murray no longer drives along the
Corso, a sacred ensigu, in one out of
every two or tbree carriages, and
marches into church and gallery
under everyhody's arm. We did not
remain, however, to enjoy this mono-
poly of some of the hest things in the
world; hut as we were not going to
England with all the rest of the har-
harous people, we went to the sea-side.
Our way lay across the Campagua
in all the early glory of the May
morning. The nohle de-iolate arches
of the old aqueduct striding over the
wonderful flat hefore us, and the fields
on either side aglow with all the col-
ours which nature unassisted puts
into her Bowers. No great things of
flowers either—hrilliant red poppies,
purple mallows, dainty wreaths of
the tiny convolvulus — white - hells
of nameless maguificence growing
upon coarse weed-hushes, and this-
tle-heads purple and yellow, hut so
matted and grown together, with
their minute invisihle under-layer of
pimpernel and celandine, that the
whole looks like a close carpet of
varied colour. There is scarcely a
tree in the landscape, save those dia-
31 «


472
[Oct.
The Sea-side in the Papal States.

tant clouds of foliage upon the hills,
and a chance seedling here and there
ahout some ruin—nor a house save
the pathetic fragments of houses,
huilt in the times hefore malaria,
when people were not afraid of the
Canipagua ;—hut if there are neither
houses nor trees, there are shadows
. falling aod flitting, and changing hy
some unseen agency, stretching in
long hlue lines into the disiance,
flying like some invisihle hreath over
the great silent plain, where nothing
else, save here and there a troop of
grey wild cattle, seems to move or
hreathe. The white towers of the
Alhan hills glance out among their
trots at half a-dozen different alti-
tudes, one appearing after another as
the road turns. Such is the first half
of the way; then we are turned adrift
at an Osteria for a couple of hours
while the horses rest, and the heat of
noon suhsides. The Osteria is a farm-
steading as well, and wealthy in its
way. Upstairs there is a Camera di
Franzo, with a great heap of corn in
one corner, and some rude tahles and
chairs at the other, where we have
maccaroni, hread and hutter, thin
wine, and anchovies set out for us,
in such fashion as a wayside " puhlic"
uses in the Papal States. The next
room is a dark hedchamher, without
any means either of light or ventila-
tion save the door. Eutering here on
a voyage of discovery, you are he-
wildered hy a sudden gleam of eyes
and flickering motion. It ia not a
pigeon—the pigeons are in the third
room, the hest hedroom, in company
with a promising family of chickens.
If yon open the door a little wider,
you will see on that enormous hed, hig
euough to contain a fumily, and high
enough for a funeral couch of state,
two smallest hahies, One, poor little
sonl! hroad awake as only hahies kuow
how to he, unhelievahly good and
contented in its dark prison, its
hright eyes twinkling towards the
welcome light—the other decorously
asleep. There they lie, the poor little
twiti?, whom a liheral Providence has
hestowed upon the husy hostess of
Pontana di papa. What can the
good woman do? She has tbree- aud
four-year olds downstairs, at the age
of mischief, who must he looked after
to a certain extent—not to say all
her farm, and her guests, and her
maccaroni to attend to. So the
hahies are wisely hestowed in the
vast parental hed, no fear of vigorous
kick or tumhle alarming the mother,
who has done them up in swaddling-
hands this morning, and left them in
the dark till it is time to attend to
their reasonahle necessities. If they
choose to cry uureasonahly for
amusement or "distraction," they
are happily too far off to distract the
domestic quiet. They must wait till
they are old enough to •'distract"
themselves, the small unfortunates,
when they will have their revenge.
But there is no poverty in this old,
hare, savage house. The walls of the
dark room are hung with the many
articles of a suhstantial wardrohe—
hright - coloured gowns, and shawls,
and hodices worthy a landlady. Out-
side spread the rich vineyards hask-
ing in the noon, which keep the wine-
hutts full in the Osteria; hehind, the
corn is taking its last perfection of
golden ripeness. The hees are mak-
ing honey—every thing tbrives and
looks plentiful, and most likely they
will get on very well these simple
people, the hahies in the dark includ-
ed, without ever finding out what
comfort means.
It was evening when we came to
our sea-quarters, a serene afternoon,
inclining towards sunset. Imagine
a deep Mediterranean hay, hluer than
the heavens, one corner of its crescent
tipped like an arrow-head with the
gleaming line of a little seaport
striking out sharp into the water,
with one tiny tower of defence, and
a little crowd of picturesque lateen
sails lying along its tiny quay; the
deep curve falling far into the dis-
tance on the other side, with the half-
visihle tower of Astura dropped on
the water's edge, to mark the outline;
and stepping holdly out into the sea,
half-way across the semi-circle, that
lion-headed promontory, white and
magic, where Circe and her syrens
sang; while deep in the light of the
hay, serene aud commanding, lies
what links like a great mediaeval
fortress, turning its line of jealous
towers aud stout defences towards
the sea. Behind all, the nohle line
of the Volscian hills slope vast and
distant towards the invisihle ocean


1859.]
473
TIte Sea-side in the Papal States.

on the other side of the Circean
headland; and the pleasant suuny
slopes of a rural country, vineyards,
and pasture-lands, and gardens, with
villas and convents sown among
them, and a fringe of hreezy downs,
complete the landscape. Bold cliffs,
yellow and rugged, with nodding
plumes of hroom on their crest, and
dark fragments of ancient masoury
at their feet, defend the coast as it
curves and deepens towards that
great old stronghold which frowns
upon the hay. It is into the peace-
ahle heart of that same ancient
strength and place of defence that
this peaceful road leads us, winding
hetween its hedgerows; for these
towers and ramparts are only ranges
of humhle tenements and dwelling-
houses nowadays; and Xettuno is
no longer a palace-fortress of the
middle ages, picturesque and lawless,
hut a little populous Italian town,
where a swarm of dark-skiuned
people live and multiply among the
old decaying turrets, without a suspi-
cion that their little dusty noisy sun-
shiny sea-village is one of the most
picturesque comhinations of old walls,
and towers, and hastions, to he found
even in this country, where every
thing is picturesque that is aged, and
decaying, and forlorn.
Everyhody turns out to gaze, of
course, as we drive into the deep mo-
mentary gloom of that archway, just
within the ancient gate where the
old Colouna palace strides across the
narrow way, and erects its little
tower in ready defiance of any hostile
stranger; hut they sell onions and
lettuces to-night at the door of the
Colounas, and it is ahout this arch
that the villagers swarm, and under
its shadow that the hutcher, most
important, hut most coy of trades-
men, as we shall find hereafter, hangs
ont his iron hooks and hars his
greasy shutters. And now here is
the Piazza Colouna, with its forlorn
little column to identify it; a pictu-
resque square, with traces of fair old
architecture here and there, and an-
other palace opening its hig door and
desolate vestihule at one side. The
men are in the larger piazza outside
the gate, where are likewise the
cafes — those indispensahle Italian
necessities; hut the women are at
all the doors and windows, and the
children are everywhere. No fear
that his Holiness shall lack for suh-
jects. Heaps of hoys tumhled ahout
in all the corners — shoals of hahies
in leading-strings, tilted up from the
rough causeway hy premature little
women ahout twice as high as them-
selves; and younger hahies, helpless
little fishes, with two flickering hands
in motion, distrihuted among the
mothers at the doors. However, we
have our way to make to our tempo-
rary hahitation, which is not to he
approached hut on foot. We go with
a train in WHiting, curious to learn all
ahout us—and here at last is our
house.
It would no douht he very prosaic
in comparison to live upon a Marine
Parade; so let us climh with equani-
mity this stair, which is like a very
steep ladder, and investigate our ac-
commodations. These consist of a
range of hedrooms, a sda, and an
eating-room, down stair, the hed-
chamhers overlooking, and the
dining-room opening upon, an ohlong
piece of terrace or loggia, the narrow
end of which overlooks the sea. The
said hedchamhers are partially floor-
ed with tiles, and partially with a
terrihle concrete, curiously studded
with small pehhles, which any un-
wary individual, stepping upon it
with a shoeless foot, is not likely to
forget. Each has an enormous hed,
piled high, with hard rustling mat-
tresses stuffed with the dried leaves
of the maize, into, or rather on to
which it is necessary to climh hy
means of a chair, and where there is
space enough for a whole family to
dispose themselves for the night. The
furniture, of an admirahly stoical
contrivance, serves the hare uses of
necessity, hut pretends to nothing
more; and the only ornamental
articles visihle are simple tureens of
common earthenware, one of which
stands on almost every tahle hy way
of decoration. After all, when one
looks round upon the forlorn apart-
ment— the hnrd eminence of that
hed, the ingeniously miserahle chairs,
the dusty painted deal tahle, oue
thinks with a little compunction of
the marine parades and sea-view ter-
races which one has ahused at home.
However, diuner waits helow.


474
[Oct.
The Sea-side in the Papal States.

There is a family of father, mother,
and feur hlack-eyed little girls in
these lower rooms, all of whom
hivouac for the night in an apart-
ment next to our salle-d manger,
tbrough one side of which, separated
hy an improptu partition of semi-
transparent canvass, we have to pass,
with such enlightening peeps of that
congregation of heds, and such odours
as are indispensahle. Diuner appears
at hroken and irregular intervals—
soup desperately hot, with floating
hells of grease on its surface, and a
mass of tbready home-made maccar-
oni helow; then little anchovies and
slices of uncooked ham and Bologua
sausage; then the J'ritto — where
are other slices of ham curiously
gummed into an enclosure of hread,
and accompanied hy fried arti-
chokes and vegetahle, marrow and
halls of rice; then a dish of pease
once more, with prosciutto, small
slices of ham appearing amid the
hroken and dusky green of the un-.
happy vegetahle; then the umido, or
stew, a piece of overcooked meat laid
upon a hed of rice which has ah-
sorhed the gravy; then a pair of
roasted pigeons of antique age, the
patriarchs of the race; then tiny
Alpine strawherries and cherries;
and so the meal is concluded, and
we have eaten, or are supposed to
have eaten, " a real Italian diuner!"
as somehody assures us with exulta-
tion—not a hotel diuner, cosmopoli-
tan and uncharacteristic, and adapted
to the tastes of strangers, hut unso-
phisticated and individual cookery,
native to the soil — with perhaps
only a little less oil, vinegar, onion,
and tomato than the good people
would have had for themselves.
That is pleasant to know, certainly;
hut we are not over-effusive in our
gratitude. Let us go out upon the
loggta when the quick twilight has
fallen, and the moon rises over the
sea. The loggia has no hetter pave-
ment than the pehhly concrete which
forms a portion of our hedroom floors,
and has the clothesline still sus-
pended across it, on which the Sora
Mariauna, our landlady, has had her
"washing" hung out to dry — not
to say that it is encumhered with
various household and kitchen uten-
sils not generally regarded as orna-
mental: however, these are very
secondary matters in this part of
the world. From the low wall which
hounds one side, we look down upou
a little triangular piazza, with pic-
turesque outer-stairs, and deep arches
of darkness under them, where there
is an old house which has heen
a great house some time, and which
still retains, like a solitary jewel, the
prettiest delicate Gothic window,
divided hy a little twisted pillar.
Opposite that is a dim picture of the
Madouna, with a twinkling feehle
lump newly lighted hefore it; and
while we look down in the soft
purple gloom of the night, over the
great hlack gulf of steps which leads
from a corner of the little piazza to
the fountain, there suddenly hreaks
out a measured chant, led hy a
woman at one of the doorways, and
responded to hy others round, till
every door hears its part in the
response, as the inmates appear upon
the high "stairheads," or under the
lower arches. With the high houses
shutting in that morsel of space—the
"little span of sky, and little lot of
stars," which is all that is visihle of
the vast heavens from that enclosure
—the half-seen figures at the doors,
the twinkle of the lamp hefore the
sbrine, and the fainter irregular
lights in the windows, the scene is
as picturesque as could he imagined;
while still the one voice rises with
a certain rude solemnity, and the
chorus answers with a homely, irre-
gular sincerity of response, till the
litany ends in a "Viva Maria,
Maria Viva!" sung in an altered
time and quicker chorus, which
hrings all the silent inhahitants to
the windows to join in, and ends
the nightly ohservance. The voices
were not very sweet, nor the music
very entrancing; hut that was how
they sang the Ave Maria, with the
soft hoom of the Mediterranean
echoing in, the work-day over, and
the vilhge clocks sounding the first
hours of the night
Other sounds, however, not bo
pleasant, came at other hours from
that same piazza, as at this present
moment. They issue, still nearer,
froms hehind the canvass screen which
parts our steps from the Sora Ma-
riauna's domestic sanctuary. Ihere


1859.]
475
The Sea-side in the Papal States.

is a child, just heyond the early un-
reason of hahvhood, equalling with
an unceasing, hopeless length of cry,
which nothing hut early swaddling
and an Italian mother's patienza
could possihly hring ahout. Any-
thing like the dreary persistence and
long-windedness of those little lungs
is certainly not to he heard in credit-
ahle houses anywhere hut in Italy:
however, she does not mind it very
much, — that hustling sbrill-tongued
little woman, who knocks ahout her
elder girls like so many pieces of
furniture, scolds her maids—lor she
has two, and is a wealthy person—
chatters with her guests, and, if Do-
hody else offers, with her hushand,
and evidently feels herself in very
satisfactory circumstances. Peep into
that other room hefore we go up-
stairs. Girolamo is at supper, his
wife taking her seat and her morsel
hy times, as occupation or inclina-
tion permits, and a hrother or friend
haaring the goodman steadier com-
pany. The tahlecloth is not very
white, hut the chances are it is clean
enough. Perhaps there is a dish of
French heans, stewed out of all
possihle colour, with indescrihahle
sauces—perhaps a salad, possihly a
plate covered with slices of salami,
cut so thin as to he transparent.
There they sit in high content and
enjoyment, with an inordinate sup-
ply of dark-complexioned hread, and
a great flask of wine, cool and fresh
from the "grotto" — wine of their
own growing, and no contemptihle
hrowst—lighted hy the tall Roman
lamp upon the tahle. The only light
in this apartment during the day
comes from a small square grated
window high up in the wall; and an
English cottager would think the
place a desert, with its total lack of
furniture, except the tahle and chairs
in immediate nse; its tiles, which,
daring all their existence, have never
known of such domestic implements
as mop or scruhhiug-hrush; its hare
uuplasiered walls, and ahsence of
light. If the Sora Mariauna had
heen an Englishwoman, she would
have furnished a drawing-room hy this
time, and sent her daughters to a
hoarding-school; hut perhaps, on the
whole, it is just as well for Teta and
Angelina that no such idea could
possihly enter their mother's head.
The goodman of the house is very
"well put on," in comfortahle, un-
characteristic garments which such
a man might wear anywhere; hut
the padrona appears in the com-
monest of cotton gowns, such as an
English maid ofallwork would scorn
"of an evening ;" hut which is cleaner
than it looks, douhtless, though that
is not saying much. There is no
prettier costume to he seen anywhere
than the characteristic costume of
Nettuno; hut that is only for festas
and great occasions. Mariauna's hair,
though it clearly has not heen un-
done or hrushed to-day, is twisted
into two thick plaits with an inter-
woven rihhon, and wound round her
head, on the front of which the hroad
ends of rihhon are tied in a how—a
pretty fashion enough, though it
shows to no great advantage on these
dusty locks. There she sits chatter-
ing with her sbrill tongue, perfectly
confident in herself, and feeling no
lack to the satisfaction of her amour
propre. Shall we say, as so nvmy
people say—forhid it, heaven!—that
civilisation and railroad should
penetrate hither, and put amhitious
thoughts in the heads of these good
people? It is difficult to decide.
Are they hetter there, in their dark,
uncleansed, unsavoury houses, than
they would he in the grand, vulgar,
new drawing-room which Mariauna
would assuredly set up if her lot
were cast in an English country
town instead of an Italian one?
Heaven knows! Between sham re-
finement and real savagery, perhaps
there is not much to choose.
However, there is an odd reality
of cleanliness, totally indifferent to
the appearance of it, among these
people. Their linen is rough and
dusky, without a shadow of that
gloss, whiteness, and fragrance which
Hnen washed in clear ruuning water,
and dried in the hlazing hleaching
sunshine, with pure hreezes hlowing
it ahout, and not a "hlack" within
a hundred miles, ought to show.
"Washed in the fairy-well water, and
hleached on the hounie white gowans,"
it hears a natural sentiment of radiant
poetic cleanliness which the common
Italian mind would seem totally des-
titute of. And to descend to homelier


476
[Oct.
The Sea-side in the Papal States.

particulars, that most useful and un-
ohtrusive of domestic machines, a
mangle, is an unknown refinement of
civilisation here, so that the house-
hold linen makes its appearance in
the condition known to English
housekeepers as " rough-dried." Not-
withstanding, those rough napkins
and tahlecloths are clean after their
fashion; so are the heds, though
there is neither polish nor freshness
in the feel of the linen; and the
same thing holds with the under-
garments of the villagers, which,
hidden under an exterior appearance
an)thing hut cleanly, are neverthe-
less, as a general rule, very tolerahly
clean. A like principle rules in the
kitchen, where a universal hegrimed,
engrained dirtiness prevails, hut
where the pots and pipkins, ahun-
dant as they generally are, seem in-
variahly well cleansed within, what-
ever may he their appearance out-
side. This fundamental virtue, over-
laid with every possihle invention of
carelessuess and easy indifference
to appearances, is an odd peculiarity
of a people so fond of appearance and
show, and so little careful of real-
ity; hut it is comforting in its way.
Discomfort duskier and more grimy
than that which existed in the kitchen
of Sora Marinuna, it has seldom heen
our luck to see. The entire surface
of the apartment and of its scant fur-
niture was hopelessly hlackened; a
grim, contented, immovahle soil had
grown into the very nature of every
article in the place. One corner was
fenced off with a low rail for the
poultry, which did not much improve
the matter. The fireplace, like most
other kitchen fireplaces here, con-
sisted of a hroad shelf of stone, con-
siderahly higher than a tahle, with
two little ha>ins made of iron hars
sunk into it for the charcoal, and a
possihility hetween the two of kind-
ling upon the flat stone, when ne-
cessary, a fire of wood. But dark as
was everything else surrounding this
primitive kitchen-range, the copper
saucepans and earthenware pipkins
which jostled each other over those
tiny glowing pits of charcoal, were
unapproachahle in their cleanliness;
and ihe great vase of water hard hy,
fresh drawn from the fountain, as
spotless and clear as it was cool and
refreshing. It would he unjust to
pass over this soul of goodness in
things evil. It is the redeeming pos-
sihility of the humhler Italian domes-
tic life.
There are few things more ridicu-
lous than the mishaps of a party of
travellers in a village out of the way
of such invasions; hut one does not
laugh with good-will while one is un-
dergoing these hardships, or is likely
to fall into the same unfortunate
plight speedily again. We opened
our eyes next morning in our igno-
rance and iunocence, helieving that
we had come to enjoy the sea and its
hreezes, and perfectly easy in our
mind, despite last night's cookery,
on the suhject of diuner, notwith-
standing the truth was that we had
come to fight for our living, and that
the purveyor of the party had a sore
and trouhlous life of it, and little
comfort in the existence which was
held under such a dismal responsihil-
ity. The sea lay so close to us that
we could have dropped pehhles into
its ripply edge all day long over ihe
low wall of our loggia, consequently
fish was all hut impossihle — as im-
possihle as though a railway hnd
reached to that margin of salt water
to carry away its glittering spoils to
the higger markets of the city. Early
sunshine of the summer morning saw
the goatherds milking their heanled
flocks in the piazza, in preparation
for a long day's ahsence on the pas-
turage, aud groups more picturesque
were never painted; hut, alas, if
memory or calculation failed at that
one precious moment to lay in sture
enongh for the necessities of the day,
with a liheral margin for accidents,
what was to hecome of the unhappy
children helonging to us till sunset
hrought the flock home again with
their tinkling hells, and made the
humhle luxury of a cup of milk a
possihle indulgence? Vegetahles, in
the shape of French heans and vast
onions, were usually practicahle, and
now and then a chance windfall of
potatoes made our hearts rejoice;
hut the hutcher remained the uns-
tery and misery of our existence.
We rose up with vain hopes of im-
possihle lamh and heef, hut sank into
despondency hefore we had swallowed
our spare hreakfast, aud with eyes of


1859.]
477
The Sea-side in thePapal Stales.

terror and dismay looked forward to
the diuner-tahle, where everything,
save the houillon, was a lottery. We
at Nettuno and the good people yon-
der on the horn of this hay-crescent,
at Porto d'Anzio, killed hut a lamh
hetween ns, and, it is to he presumed,
slew greater animals only in quar-
ters, not to say that a fatal ogre of a
Prince Borghese, lord of the manor
and universal owner of the soil, eat
remorseless in his villa, midway he-
tween the two hapless little towns,
with a watchful cook, who pounced
upon all the hest pieces hefore the
rest of the world had opened its eyes.
The hest pieces! as if one had leisure
to dream of a hfst, when any piece
was a wonderful example of good
fortune, and when, morning after
morning, early or late, the same dis-
consolate harred shutters and vacant
hooks of greasy iron dismayed our
souls within us as we dived under
the deep shade of the arch, with vain
hopes and anxioas pulses. Alas! as
if one's struggle tbrough existence
was not hard enough without a per-
eunial struggle for one's diuner !—as
if it were not sufficiently trouhlesome
to collect those paltry hits of gold
and silver to pay for the same, with-
out the hootless agonies afterwards
of hunting up an impossihle some-
thing where there was uothing to
hny! Perhaps the sympathetic
reader may suggest "poultry" in
this melaucholy dilemma. Did not
we also sugges', it pathetically, and
with many an iteration, to the ohdu-
rate ear of Sora Mariauna? who, at
last, after much entreaty, with sbrill
laughter and puhlic exhihition of the
ugliest living hirds of the neighhour-
hood, derisively offered to our choice.'
accorded us a gallmo, which turned
out to he no yallino, hut an old, old
hird, douhtless as well skilled in the
ways of the world, after his fashion,
as those ancient cocks of greater re-
known whom Fundi and the world
wot of. We were also permitted a
certain provisionary and prohlemati-
cal claim upon a couple of ducks, the
forefathers of the hamlet, who wad-
dled under our windows all day long,
perfectly easy in their venerahle
minds, and happily unconscious that
Slariauna, with shrill eclats of laugh-
ter, declared over their heads that
though uneatahle otherwise, they
might still make very good soup. We
did not, however, disturh the placid
existence of these patriarchs. By dint
of lying in wait for him, and finding
out his haunts, and the locality of
the " grotto" where he kept his per-
ishahle store, when he had any, we
at last made a conquest of the coy
merchant of heef aud mutton, and
hy degrees impressed upon the
minds of our hostess and her
maids that the British temper does
not always yield to the soothing
influence of a "patienza.'" and
that the pleasing uncertainty in
point of hours and provisions which
seems to answer very well for these
localities, does not suit with northern
hahits. It is not, however, so easy
to impress this upon the recollection
of a household which can always
make its vegetahle messes sumptu-
ous hy an impromptu introduclion of
prosciutlo, salami (to wit, ham and
Bologua sausage, cut into trans-
parent slices), or anchovies, which
dainties require no cooking, nor even
(excepting the last) preparation of
any kind, and which incite the Italian
appetite to an enormous consump-
tion of hread and wine, the two
staples of existence. These excellent
people, who preach to our own poor
women at home over the disadvan-
tages of had cookery, and are so fond
of adducing continental example,
might learn something, perhaps, if
they would, hy a little real study of
continental cookery, as it is found
among the class whom they address.
To he sure nohody gives Italy much
credit for dainty dishes, though we
douht greatly whether the French
workman's pot au feu, his hread and
apples or hread and grapes, would
strike the English workman as any
improvement upon his own more suh-
stantial fare. However, the principle
of cookery among the Italian lower
classes is very clear and apparent;
that is hest which gives lenst trouhle:
the vegetahle stew which cooks it-
self quietly hy the fire till it is little
more than a mash of discoloured pulp;
the soup which hoils after the same
easy fashion—which has simply to he
filled up with water as the quantity
diminishes, and made into greasy
porridge when everyhody is ready for


478
[Oct.
The Sea-side in, the Papal States.

diuner, hy the sudden plunge into
it of a lieap of rnaccaroni; aud for
"kitchen" or relish, when such is
necessary, a reference to the infallihle
hacon-shop, where the officiating
artist gives them a half-pound of
ham or sausage in a score of half-
visihle slices, and has store of the
pungent ewe-milk cheese, which
flavours all their dishes. Such is
the domestic science of the humhle
kitchen here. Perhaps it would
he safe to say that the pure natural
flavour of fresh food, undisguised,
and retaining its natural suh-
stance and appearance, is a thing
generally unknown upon the Con-
tinent—all very well at a good
Parisian restaurant, or costly family
tahle; hut no amount of progress is
likely to make a poor English house-
wife into a French chef de cuisine,
and for anything less it seems ex-
tremely douhtful how far a morsel of
meat or a mass of vegetahles, stewed
totally out of their senses, and in that
state of inanition disguised with some
foreigu flavour of cheese or vinegar,
is hetter than the rich heefsteak, a
little scorched perhaps, or the cot-
tager's heans and hacon. Pardon the
digression, hountiful reader! and re-
memher charitahly how much philan-
tbropical nonsense has heen spoken
on this suhject for the last half-dozen
years ; and if there is a great deal to
he said for the heefsteak and the
hacon, think of the utter ahsurdity of
discoursing ruhhish ahout continental
cookery to the honest woman who
sets hefore her hushand and children
that monarch of soups, the hroth of
Scotland! which, hy the way, is na-
tive to Leicestershire, and most likely
to various other English counties, as
well as heyond the Tweed.
However, it is so generally under-
stood that one does not go to Italy to
he comfortahle, that the matter needs
no insisting upon, although we per-
sist in taking our invalids there, to
make an end of what morsels of ap-
petite and opportunities of comfort
they may have. In this rude little
town on the Mediterranean's edge,
with its ancient hastions facing sea-
ward, and its steep and lofty scarp
surmounted still hy the old wall and
line of towers—a wall no longer
hattlemented or defensive, hut filled
up with poor little house:', the small
windows of which hreak in irregular
lines tbrough the old nnsoury, and
which are reached hy picturesque
dilapidated staircases, and a nr,ss-
grown terrace,—there is ahundant
store of the characteristic attractions
which do hring strangers to this
country. It is impossihle to turn up
the merest little alley, or enter the
narrowest line of street, without fall-
ing upon some corner which would
make a picture. Talk of Gothic
architecture heing inapplicahle to the
uses of modern life, as if nairow win-
dows and heavy mullions were a
principle of Gothic architecture, in-
stead of the merest details and par-
ticulars of one of its periods! Look
at the ease and grace, amid all its
rudeness, with which this Gothic
fortress and stronghold of the middle
ages has turned itself into a town,
and infused its own leading rule of
necessity and ready adaptation into
the humhle houses which have clus-
tered up ahout it, that leading prin-
ciple evidently heing plain use and
need, and nothing less or more. Down
that hroad flight of steps you come
at the fountain, with a lofty nohle
vaulted roof sheltering its great
hasins and its silvery spring, where
the women wash and chatter over
their work, and where a procession
of water-carriers, with great vases on
their heads, are always coming and
going. But the sweep of those arches,
so cool and deep in shadow, is not
more characteristic than the turns
and elhows of this outside stair,
ascending just as the convenience of
its old inmates had suggested, with
arched openings in the wall to give it
light, and hreaks of sudden sunshine
among its shadows. There the people
look out in the early evening dark-
ness to lend their chorus to the Ave
Maria, and there they cluster when
there is anything to he looked at —
for the curiosity of Nettuno is easily
awakened, forming in their own
groups and positions a sight much
more worthy of heing looked at than
most of the spectacles which interest
them. What a world of picturesque
use and homely gracefulness lies in
that outside stair! True, they inter-
fere a little with a level line of street,
hut fortunately there is here no line


1859.]
479
The Sea-side in the Papal States.

of street to he interfered with, only a
recurrence of hreaks and openings,
and graceful corners, at every possihle
kind of angle, as convenienqe once
dictated—convenience to which lime,
aud that hold evident grace of use
and necessity plainly visihle upon
all these irregularities, has given a
wonderful fascination. Now and
then, looking in tbrough an open
door, you catch a glimpse of an
apartment on which two or tbree
hundred years have made no change
—not very light, certainly, with its
window high in the wall, aud rude as
its inmates, hut cool and spacious,
and perfectly adaptahle to all domes-
tic uses, even hy a master more re-
fined than the industrious cohhler
who sits outside all day long with his
little stand of materials, and sings,
and gossips, and lahours, with a
merry heart. Standing hack a little,
hut not from any hauteur or dis-
dain of its neighhours, stands an old
palace, the deserted hahitation of a
nohle Roman family. If you are wise,
you will lodge yourself there when
you go to Nettuno, though the land-
lord is not a nohle DoriaPamfili, hut
only a jolly haker. Down that deep
archway at the side, how the mults
come and go with their flour-sacks,
one swang on either side like a don-
key's pauniers; hut within, tbrough
the wide vestihule and grand stair-
case, dirty, and dusty, and in sad
degradation, hut nohle notwithstand-
ing, you come into a lofty hall in
perfect preservation, the common
dining-room of the modern haker's
collection of sea-hathing guests, as it
was the common room douhtless of
the princely household tbree hundred
years ago. It is perfectly suitahle to
its present use, with a certain cheer-
ful, nohle, human simplicity that
adapts it to the shelter and comfort
of human creatures under all circum-
stances—a kind of place in which one
walks loftier, and hreathes freer hy a
natural instinct;—and yet would he
as perfectly in keeping with the new
turn of circumstances were nohility
and wealth to return to it with all
the arts of decoration to-morrow. A
line of hright apartments opens from
this hall fronting direct upon the sea,
with nothing intervening to hreak
the effect, tbroning out halconies
over the tideless Mediterranean surf,
and commanding the whole hlue
sweep of that wide hay, with its great
headland looming out to sea; and,
standing upon one of these halconies,
with the strong old walls helow tak-
ing hold upon the rocks, and washed
hy the sea spray, seeing nothing of
the surrounding population, hut only
how the line "of huilding rounds at its
ends into those great towers, and
widens downwards to its invulner-
ahle rocky hase, it is easy to imagine
that we stand on some piunacle of a
great individual fortress, and that
it is no little municipality, hut some
single factious nohle, who holds
against all assailants this castle hy
the sea.
Let us make haste, however, out of
doors, for here is a procession ahout
to pass, and the Piazza Uolouna has
decked itself for the occasion. Some-
thing ornamental hangs from every
window. Look I so long ns there is
a pretty hit of colour to he had, we
are not particular in Nettuno as to
appropriateness of the drapery. One
or two superior and higbly virtuous
people have, it is true, the correct
and proper article—a crimson cloth
with a yellow fringe or hinding; hut
the mojority are not so well provided.
The good women accordingly turn to
their personal wardrohes; here it is
a red shawl, grand and fiery; there,
a gauzy pink one, spread over some-
thing more suhstantial, and fluttering
lightly in the hreeze. Next window
has a gorgeous tahle-cover of red and
hlue cotton hanging forth, decorous
and steady; the next, some nonde-
script hit of coloured stuff, with one
of the pretty emhroidered necker-
chiefs, worn in the local costume,
spread over it—a graceful contriv-
ance. Then we fall lower to coloured
aprons, and furtive skirta of dresses,
and even cotton handkerchiefs—ev-
erything which has colour enough to
make a little show; and nondescript
as the exhihition is, the general effect
is undeniahly pretty, lively, and gay,
with a touch of the whimsical, which
does no harm to its picturesque qua-
lities,—the summer air playing in the
odd disguises, the sunshine touching
all it can reach into hright reflec-
tion. The women clustering at doors
and windows; the route of the ap-


4S0
[Oct.
The Sea-side in the Papal States.

proaching procession marked along
the little square hy sprigs of hox and
sweet-smelling myrtle, strewed in an
impromptu carpet, and a pleasant stir
of expectation animating the whole.
The litile chapel door stands open;
it-i interior, dark in shadow, contrast-
ing with all this out-of-doors light
and sunshine, and the faint candles
twinkling on the altar. Yonder
conns the procession, defiling slowly
tbrough the deep shadow of that old
arch; a very commonplace proces-
sion certainly, with the usual crosses,
the usual lamps, the ordinary chant,
and the poor little yellow candles
melting in the daylight, or puffed
out in a sweeter mockery hy the May
hreeze. However, close hehind the
priestly hearer of the host, to hail
whose coming the crowd suhsides
upon its knees, is hy much the most
interesting portion of the train — a
score or so of Nettuno women in their
heautiful costume, scarlet or crim-
son dresses, nohly iguorant of crino-
line, falling in long, close, graceful
plaits to their feet, with closely-fit-
ting jackets of the same colour and
material, gorgeously trimmed with
gold and silver lace (as it appears),
and glittering in the sunshine. Great
white muslin aprons, heautifully em-
hroidered; handkerchiefs correspond-
ing, which are worn round the neck
like large rich collars, and the pret-
tiest indescrihahle head-dres-—a kind
of short cotton scarf, fringed at one
end with stripes of colour, and glit-
tering hars of gold tbread, underneath
which, over each ear, is introduced a
how of rihhon, completes the dress,
without mentioning the long pendant
earrings, the necklaces of coral, the
hig gold hrooches, and pretty fans,
which add so many decorative par-
ticulars to the graceful toilette, which
must he almost as cost!yas it is grace-
ful. Some of the women in this cortege
have their dresses made of crimson
satin, the rich soft clinging folds of
which suit its fashion admirahly; the
majority are of woollen stuff; hut the
resplendent trimming of the jackets,
and the heautiful needlework of their
kerchiefs aud aprons, wonld make
any fashion costly, with, of course,
the reservation that these articles of
local co..tume, seldom worn, and in-
variahle in form, last out a lifetime,
or pass from one generation to an-
other, and form an important part
of the primitive property and capital
of their humhle owners, As they
come trooping down from under the
deep shadow of the arch, the pretty
ones gaining a certain modest diguity
from that pretty head-dress, coming
into the light with their vivid red
rohes, and glittering ornaments, and
suowy puffs of sunshine, the dress
conferring a rustical and primitive
refinement upon all, and their daily
hahits qualifying them famously for
taking their part in a procession—a
prettier sight could not he imagined;
the men with their pink tippets and
staggering crosses, who lead the way,
or even the careless priesis who form
the main hody, have no chance against
the majestic step and hearing of their
female followers, trained hy daily
water-carrying, thongh their atten-
dance is undouhtedly ex gratia, and
they have no legitimate husiness
there.
It is somewhat amusing, however,
to watch them as the procession takes
its place in the little church. Each
individual, as she sinks upon her
knees, calmly unfurls her fan, ar-
ranges her drapery, and, in that
attitude of devotion, looks on with
diguified composure, fauning herself
till it is time to get up again and fol-
low the train once more. The process
is the same even on occasions of more
individual devotion. The good wo-
man who comes to church of her own
inclinations to make her own private
prayers, drops first upon her knees,
then sets her fan in motion; then
draws her rosary in a leisurely com-
fortahle fashion from her pocket, and
carries on the spiritual exercise and
the physical one at the same moment,
with a steady composure and gravity
sufficiently amazing; so much so,
that if one did not see the fan gliding
tbrough her fingers on lighter occa-
sions, one might suppose that pretty
piece of vanity was somehow a re-
ligious implement, and gave force or
sanctity to the prayers.
But the procession passes, the can-
dles glare hack again on their way to
make another call upon the presid-
ing saint of another chapel, and the
draperies are taken down from the
windows in the Piazzi, Nothing re-


1859.]
481
The Sea-side in the Papal States.

mains hut a faint aromatic odour of
the evergreen sprigs, hruised on the
pavement, and a whiff of incense; but
everyhody hurries to the next point
where the train is appointed to stop,
as if a religious procession did not
pass that same way some hundred
days in the >ear. They march slowly,
thut venerable cortege, and it is worth
while glancing in to see the decora-
tions of the other little church to
which they are hound. Here there
is a flowery carpet spread for them,
elahorately decorative us it approaches
the altar, and stretching along almost
the whole area of the little nave; a
carpet, formed of the shed leaves of
wild-flowers — the yellow hroom, the
purple mallow, the scarlet poppy,
and other of the commonest wayside
hlossoms—not the flowers themselves,
hut the petals, strewed lightly in a
tasteful intermixture, or in distinct
lines and fringes of colour, with the
prettiest effect in the world ; the upper
portion displaying a golden chalice
made of the yellow petals of the
hroom, with appropriate horders and
accessories. To he sure the feet of
the approaching procession inuat
efface that pretty show in a few mo-
ments; hat the material is of the
cheapest, and the light petals leave
no stnin hehind them; and it is edi-
fying to remark how carefully the
inferior memhers of the procession,
entering firPt, avoid disturhing it;
how they push hack the little choris-
ters, and take their own place at the
side, and leave the freth glory of the
flower-carpet for the priestly feet
which follow. Perhaps some of them
have had a hand in its construction;
and-the children have certainly had
more than one holiday gathering the
flowers.
For therehy hangs a tale—worthy
to take its place in the, anecdotical
aunals of the landscape art. An art-
ist of our party had chosen with care
and pains, a day or two hefore, his
point of view for a sketch. A very
pretty point of view it was, showing,
over a picturesque foreground of cliff,
covered with thickets of hroom and
hrushwood, the fortress front of the
little town, with the hlue Volsciuns
hehind and the hlue sea hefore. The
sketch had made very good progress,
and had reached that point when the
features of a foreground hecome pre-
cious, and the peculiar poise of those
golden plumes of hroom grow import-
ant—when lo! a rustle among the
underwood, a tremulous quiver of all
the hushes! What is it? Crash in-
to the little thicket come schoolhoy
footsteps and voices, intent on some-
thing. Our artist makes a pause of
dismay. Are they hirds-nesting? or
chasing some tiny suake or hig lizard?
Worse than that! There they go,
dragging down the hranches, making
wild scramhly leaps at our precious
peunons of hroom! The next mo-
ment, to the utter amaze of the spec-
tator, who is not sketching, and
whose peculiar property is not men-
aced, the sketch-hook is dashed
upon the grass, ahd the painter
plunges furious into the hrushwood,
with despairing exclamations, "My
foreground!" Down among the
unconscious schoolhoys descend the
strokes of his wrath, and the invad-
ers fly hefore the vigorous English
tbreats, of which they do not under-
stand a word, and the pantomime,
which is perfectly expressive and
intelligihle, and not to he mistaken.
But what have they done? Tlieij fly
in total iguorance of their crime, and
the artist returns with shouts of
laughter at the dreadful peril which
has just passed, and his own wrath
and trinmph; hut has scarcely re-
sumed his tools when a mild Fran-
ciscan appears, douhtful and inquir-
ing, to know what the hoys can have
done to excite the wrath of the Siguor
Forestieri? How the explanation
managed to he made, and how the
English painter, with his dozen words
of Italian, and the astonished priest,
who knew not a word of any other
modern language, succeeded in un-
derstanding each other, we do not
pretend to explain; hut the good
Franciscan withdrew his troop to
other coverts, — where nohody as-
serted the rights of Art, or stood up
in defence of a foreground,—with
smiling, if only hall'-sutisfied polite-
ness. Here was the sacred purpose
for which these unconscious little
invaders exposed themselves to Art
indiguant. Fortunately, miles of
hroom - hlossoms lay at their will;
and we only looked at each other
with a laughahle association when


1859.] The Sea-side in the Papal States. 483

the wealth which once looked glo- streets of Porto d'Anzio, like a fath-
rious over those unwitnessing waters erly and good humoured divinitj—
—nothing hut the stern foundations, there are gayer doings to follow,
outliving use and heauty—the hard, One of the vessels in the harhour
imperious marks of human authority, has a gay little flag set tip upon the
and traces of human toil. eud of a greased pole, which projects
While little Porto d'Anzio yonder over the water from its hows; and
hreaks hright and smiling into the the sea-games are ahout to cm-
sea, with her little fortress carrying mence. In the sloop, which is the
one gun — a gun of renown, which scene of action, cluster a crowd of
ouce defied an English squadron— supple, muscular, hrown figures,
aud her little fleet of lateen sails, her most primitively arrayed with
fishing-hoats, and Neapolitan traders, short drawers, and no other garment,
and her Pope's villa, yellow and im- The man of them who can keep
portant, like an erection of paste- his footing on the greasy pole far
hoard, or a slice from the Crystal enough out to suatch the flag, is to
Palace done into stone, presiding have a purse of scudi for his prize,
placidly over the pleasures of the The competitors are mostly youths,
lesta which agitates the little sea- fishermen or sailors helonging to
port. There goes the procession forth the vessels in port, with a swarm
from the church doors already, under of little amphihious wretches, from
salute of the great gun, aud with ten years old to fifteen, at present
din of hells and flourish of trumpets amusing themselves hy diving like
from the local hand. Forth along so many fishes head foremost into
the pavement of the quay with the the hlue water, while the elder and
dead sullen remnants of Hercules' more serious hand complete their pre-
great temple on one side of them, parations. The day is splendid, the
and Apollo's huried splendours on water hlue as sapphire, the sum-nine
the other, march the peaceahle fishers dazzling. Maguificent visitors from
and tradesmen of to-day — hearing Nettuno in their uniform of scarlet
aloft id unsteady state the holy and gold, Porto d'Anzio women
image of St. Antonio of Padua, hefore with gauzy pink shawls over their
whose sickly wooden smile and hene- dark hair, sea-hathing visitors in gay
diction all good Cbristians go down toilettes, cover the line of the quay
upon their knees. After all, great and every availahle point of view;
ghosts and phantoms of the imperial the urchins of the port drop head-
times, how much is he hetter, this long, like a shoal of silvery herrings,
imhecile, wooden St. Antonio, than into the hlue water; the sloops in
your Apollo and Hercules? They the harhour are in a flutter of fiag*,
can only choke up the old maguifi- and the spectators in a tbrill with
cence of your harhours with foolish expectation and excitement Then
attempts to hetter them—these well- the competitors hegin to make cau-
intentioned processionists and the tious approach to the slippery hoom;
priests that ordain their doings—and and for something more than an
will never leave any such trace he- hour a succession of ludicrous fail-
hind of their lives of iguohle leisure, ures and plunges into the deep water
as those stern elhows of hrick and heneath kept the audience amused,
mortar, hristling from your ancient It was a comical scene enough cer-
coasts. However, it is still the living tuinly—a few staggering unsteady
dog that is hetter than the dead lion steps, a desperate halance of arms
—hetter hecause it has still the light in the air, a drop or a plunge,—one
and the air ahout it, and cau enjoy figure disappearing so elose to the
itself, and make the hest of its poor spot where another figure a moment
little pleasures in this perfectly use- hefore had disappeared, that a colli-
less and commouplace hut amusing .sion and crash of skulls in the water
and sunshiny to-day. seemed no unlikely accident,—then a
When St. Antonio has done his gradual reappearance of the dripping
yearly duty as patrou saint, and dis- head, a few vigorous strokes, and a
pensed his feehle wooden henedic- universal»scramhle hy all the stray
tion around him tbrough all the ropes atrainahle, to regain a place


484
[Oct.
Tlie Sea-side in the Papal States.

on the deck, and try once more. Like
amphihious creatures at piny in an
element quite as natural and familiar
to them as the firmer ground, those
supple, elastic figures plunged, scram-
hled, and twisted ahout each other,
with an agility and daring so com-
mon and equal, and a failure so in-
evitahle, that the contest had not
sufficient excitement to keep up its
interest — till at last, the hoom of
course getting gradually cleared of
its slippery coating, one lucky fellow
achieved a step farther than the rest,
and managed to scatch the little
pennon along with him on his hun-
dredth plunge. That sport heing
over, the water, hecame in a few
minutes alive with hoys, amongst
whom the master of the ceremonies
plunged a flock of struggling, fright-
ened ducks. To swim like ducks
is very inadequate praise, as it ap-
peared, for the lads of Porto d'Anzio.
The ducks had no chance against
the urchins; the flutter of wings—
the long skim across the water, with
a dozen wet heads and gleaming
arms in desperate pursuit—the cap-
ture, with its gohhle of terror and
shout of trinmph, excited the liveliest
interest among the spectators. One
little fellow made his appearance,
scramhling up a loose rope into a
hoat, with tbree victims in his arms
— himself lookiog scarcely higger
than the sbrieking fowls he had cap-
tured, as he rose dripping and joyous
out of the sea ; and the swarm of lithe,
little, wet half-naked figures swarm-
ing up everywhere, hy the mo?t pre-
carious hold to which schoolhoy fin-
gers could cling, was the most odd
sight imaginahle. As this ended,
some gay hoats appeared a little dis-
tance out upon the hay—a hoat race
—save the mark !—of ahout half of
a quarter of a mile, won hy a laho-
rious crew, which could not have
kept up for two strokes with any
wherry on the Thames; hut as the
ten minuies' performance sufficed to
produce a new variety of dress and
colours, nohody found any fault with
it. With this the GUwclu di Mare
terminated; and the hrightrcoloured
crowd poured aloug the quay to the
Piazza, to lose its wits in the excite-
ment of a grand Tomhola- with a
prize of some hundreds cr scudi;
passing hy all the attractions of the
cafes, the ices, the gingerhread stalls,
the haskets of Wishing pink cherries,
and round Ciamhilli hiscuits, for the
greater charm of that desperate hat
pleasant piece of gamhling, where
the excitement of the spurt must
repay the five hundred suhscrihers,
and only one can gain the prize. A
paper ticket, with fifteen numhers,
flutters in everyhody's hand, value
twelve haiocchi—a day's living; and
there wave the red hangings from the
important halcony, and the mystic
numhers come out of the hag, and
show solemn on the great hoard one
hy one, amid the huzz, the eager
strain of ohservation, the desperate
pricks and pencil-marks of a thoa-
sand fingers in the crowd. When
this unfailing game and excitement
is over, then is the time for the cafds
— for there are still fireworks and
illuminations, as the evening darkens,
to conclude the great feast of St.
Antonio di Padova, who hy this time
has retired into his cuphoard hene-
volent and unselfish; and for another
year will he heard of no more on the
streets of Anzio—loudly as they lion-
our their venerated patron now.
These are our amusements in the
Italian vdlaggiatura — amusements
never failing with all the varieties
of locality and country custom; for
that would he a strange month in the
southern calendar which did not lend
the name and holy memory of a Saint
Somehody to authorise a procession
and justify a tomhola. It is safe to
say that something of the kind hap-
pens somewhere in every country-side
ahout once in the fortnight: and
these hy no means unorthodox and
hlamahle festivities, discountenanced
hy the authorities and frowned on hy
the clergy, like our rural fairs in Eug-
lund, hut higbly laudahle and praise-
worthy enjoyments, to the special
glory of the saints and honour of re-
ligion; which makes a vast difference,
as everyhody must perceive—a dill'er-
ence which, perhaps, haa something
to do with the more important dif-
ference which exists hetween our
national character and that of our
continental neighhours generally.
Our pleasures have rarely any sanc-
tion of authority, or encouragement
of principle; hut holidays and plea-


1859.]
485
. The Sea-side in the Papal States.

sure mnking are always legitimate,
laudahle, an<l to he encouraged here;
perhaps safer than work, certainly
safer than thinking, that foolish and
trouhlesome exercise proper only to
carhonari and revolutionaries, which
is not good for the health of a con-
tented people. So all the world
amuses itself virtuously for the honour
of St. Antonio of Padua, and religion
is honoured in the village tomhola,
and everyhody is at ease. ,
Alas! not everyhody. The " strick-
en deer" must go weep while "the
harts ungalled play," even in the indul-
gent atmosphere of the Papal Slates,
Though it is rather the striking than
the stricken who at this moment call
foroursyiupathies. Look at them,poor
fellows, clustering dark and sullen
like a cloud round their square prison-
window, with its strong iron hars, as
we return in the twilight tbrough
the gate into the solitude of Nettuno,
deserted hy every living creature save
a few grandmammas, hahies, and re-
pining maids. They have a merry,
idle life enough on ordinary occasions,
these good fellows hehind the grating,
and are served with their afterdinuer
coffee hy the caffetiere opposite, and
smoke their cigars, and play the odd
cards of the country, at the iuner
window-sill, in sight of the admiring
puhlic, which makes hourly calls
upon them with perfect apparent
relish of their existence. There is
always a little levee at that prison
window — friends from the country,
picturesque hrown lads with hus-
kii.nl legs and sugar-loaf hats, who
have had, or will have their own turn
in that leisurely retirement some
time; honest peasant women, no-
ways ashamed of their friends in
trouhle; the gossips of the village,
all and sundry, not excluding now
and then a passing friar. Why should
not they he countenanced hy every-
hody? You don't suppose they are
there for stealing, or any such mean
and petty misdemeanour? No, poor
fellows I They have each of them
stahhed his man, that is all; and the
interest and sympathy of the country
naturally goes with that picturesque
and suggestive species of misfortune.
But the poor lads! they are melan-
choly to-day. An empty coffee-cup
t ands on the outer sill there, pushed
tbrough the hars hy the consumer
inside; hut even the caffetiere has
gone to Porto d'Anzio to enjoy him-
self, and nohody has come so much
as to take the cup away. Nohody
has heen there to talk to our virtuous
friends in prison since they witnessed,
with doleful eyes, the whole popula-
tion trooping off in holiday garh to see
the Ginochi di Mare, and try its luck
at the tomhola, a possihility from
which adverse ftte has deharred
themselves. Poor fellows! is it pos-
sihle ' to he otherwise than sorry for
them? They pick up courage a little
at eight of ourselves, who are among
the earliest of the home-returning
crowd, and one of them touches his
hat mournfully with some idea of
compensation, and a delieate re-
mainder to the Fortstieri that here is
a hox for the poor prisoners ; hut let
every feeling heart think what must
have heen the sufferings of their soli-
tude to-day ! tantahsed hy thoughts
of all the fun and festivity going on
so near them, and gazing out for so
many hours upon the deserted hit of
street sloping under that dark arch-
way. Such honourahle culprits, too!
respected hy the whole community;
hut justice must he administered,
alas! even hy the tender hand of a
paternal government. And a town
which has a Governatore and a
Priore, and one caunot tell how
many other magistrates, must not he
over-Indulgent; still for their sad
solitude and affliction, when all the
world has heen enjoying itself, poor
virtuous lads of spirit, let us not re-
fuse a sympathetic,tear!
However, here we are at home,
making forcihle entrance, Sora Mari-
auna heing still hehind us, and thc
house deserted. Guests, too, coming
after us; venerahle preti. for whom
it is necessary to he well prepared.
Apropos of our prison sympathies,
and of the respectahle Mayistura of
this municipality, let us hear our
Franciscan, who is fond of story-
telling, delivering himself of a some-
what tragical little tale, helonging
not to this immediate neighhour-
hood, hut to the adjoining country,
not very far away—which, told hy a
peaceahle Italian monk, uncontra-
dicted hy Italian auditors, gives one
rather a dismal idea, not to say sorne
r



-l86
[Oct
The Sea-side in the Papal Stales..
thing of a chill and shiver, when one
thinks of justice and its adminis-
trators in this rural country. Sup-
pose us in our hare little eating-
room, not an article of furniture or
decoration in the place hut the chairs
we occupy and the tahle spread for
our early evening meal, two tall
Roman lamps, some flasks of wine,
and a green howl of salad standing
for ornament — hut the door open,
with a glimpse of the sea and rising
moon, and the last chorus of the Ave
Maria ringing out of our little piazza.
Around all the picturesque gloom
of the fortress-village — the hlack
darkness of that gulf of stairs lead-
ing to the fountain, the very spot
for an assassination close hy—and
the surrounding community very re-
spectful and sympathetic with those
excellent young men within the hars
of the prUon window,—and then
imagine the good monk with his
hald placid forehead and hlack skull-
cap telling his agreeahle little tale.
"It happened not long ago," said
the holy father, "and it is very well
known, and I myself have heard it
in several different versions -hut of
course I have many means of know-
iris the truth, and I can answer for
my own. It was a steward of Tor-
Ionia, or some other of the great
people who have those vast farms on
the Pontine Marshes; he was sent
with a great sum in scudi to pay the
lahourers and herdsmen on the farm
— a very prudent loan — a worthy
man. He took every precaution,
thuugh they did not turn to account.
He was compelled \o pass the night
in the town of Braccielo. I know it
very well. I knew the good padre,
who came hy his end. Ah, he was
a good man. Torlonia's steward he-
ing prudent, as I say, instead of go-
ing to the Osteria, and taking the
usual risk of travellers, went to the
Governatore, as seemed wise, and
told him of the danari he carried,
and that he feared to he plundered.
The Governatore, after commending
his prudence, and thinking it over,
sent him to the house of the Padre
Roherto—a man much heloved—
where the father received him will-
ingly, and gave him his hest cham-
her. They supped, and all was well;
and the stranger, with his treasure
and his pistols, went to rest. Ahout
the middle of the night, some one
came knocking violently to the
Padre's door; the housekeeper rose
to ask who it was—for the house of
a priest must he ever open to the
demands of his flock. It was some
one in the town who would see the
priest, and was dying, said the an-
swer; upon which, as necessary, the
woman opened the door. But I
must tell you that, hefore Dow, the
steward, sleeping lightly, as men do
who carry treasure, was awake and
listening. It was dark—he had no
light—and his chamher was to the
opposite side of the house; hut he
could still hear. The next sound
that came to him in the darkness,
after the unharring of the door, was
the sound of a pistol-shot—a sound
one docs not mistake when one hears
it in the depths of the night This
sound roused the steward to draw
forth his own pistols, and harricade
his door with the furniture. Then
he heard the good Padre come forth
to ask why he was wanted, and
what the commotion was. Then
sounded another pistol-shot, and an-
other groan, and the steward knew
he now could have no hope hut to
defend himself. Shortly he heard
the steps of the assassins. They knew
where he was lodged, and assailed
his door, which he had locked and
harricaded, with any loss of time.
At a venture he fired, taking alt the
aim he could from the sounds he
heard,—for he was hold and in de-
spair. Twice he fired, and twice a
groan and a fall showed him that it
was not in vain. When he had
waited a little, and heard nothing,
he withdrew his harricade, and
rushed out Two men lay there
hefore his door."
"And these men?" cried one of
the listeners, eager to forestall the
story.
''Hush!" said the friar, waving his
hand, "do you think he paused to
look at that moment? He rushed
forth out of the house, leaving, alas 1
the good Father Roherto dead or
dying helow, with the poor woman,
hesides the rohhers, ahove. He
rushed to the house of the Governa-
tore to claim protection. When he
had roused some one to answer him,


1859.]
487
The Sea-tide in the Papal State*.

the Governatore was not to he found
—he was ahsent; then the poor man
hastened to the Secretario. The
Secretario was gone also. Great
trouhle and fear came upon the
people, for hy this time many were
disturhed, what with the sound of
knocking, what with the pistol-
shots, and the people hegan to un-
derstand that something had hap-
pened to their good Padre Roherto.
The steward returned tojiio house
at last with lights and a hfJRy of the
townsfolk. There lay Padre Roherto
dead, and his housekeeper; and
ahove-stairs were the two men, one
of them still living, with muffled
faces. When they had uncovered the
rohhers, there lay the Governatore
and Secretario; that was the explan-
ation of the mystery. The living
rohher went to the galleys. E' vero,
Siguor Antonio? You have heard
the tale as well as I."
Nohody contradicted the monk:
there were diverse opinions as to
some of the details; the second
villain heing reported hy one as an
inferior priest, instead of tlio secre-
tary of the Magistura. Bat the
story stood untouched in all its
facts—a tale horrihle enough to
scire a stranger—and of a kind
which, told in any other place, hy
any other person, would most likely
have provoked more incredulity, if
not indiguation. But the ground
was fertile, heing hroken; one anec-
dote followed another, if not of the
soma description, yet sad enough
and unhelievahle enough, consider-
ing how far we are on in the history
of the world. Yet the same good
friar, who told in all simplicity this
lamentahle incident, mourned in the
same hreath over the dreadful inva-
sion of that railway to Naples, which
should shortly pass within sight and
hearing of this very coast, and ahridge
the Pontine Marshes with its iron
highway. Alas for those religious
villages, with their evening echoes of
the Ate Maria, where one could hear
the sound of the simple folk at their
prayers, as one pondered one's pet
theological difficulty—those delicate,
safe difficulties which the church
permits to her faithful children! The
excellent Padre lifted his mild eyes
to heaven in horror as he proguosti-
cated how the village devoutness
would take wings to itself—how the
prayers would cease, and the con-
fessionals fall empty, hefore the
dread march of civilization, and its
terrihle line of rails. He forgot
those virtuous municipal authorities
who figured in his own gruesome
tale, as he unfolded these forehodings
to our skeptical British ears; hut
the good country priest, with his
limited local horizon and small ex-
perience, was not alone in this odd
forgetfulness. And it is nothing
unusual to hear an ecclesiastic of
more cultivated mind and expansive
knowledge, even a man who may
happen to have heen horn an Eng-
lishman and to have lived in another
atmosphere than that of a convent,
altogether unmindful of the tales he
himself has just heen telling you—
tales of family intrigue, or social de-
pravity, or mendicancy incurahle;
turn from that theme to proclaim his
alarms over a half-dozen miles of
railway, or an arrival of hooks for-
hidden hy the Index Expurgatorius;
and inform you, with unhelieva i
simplicity and good faith, of all
papal expedients for keeping -
devil out of those sacred ami care-
fully guarded territories without, so
far as appears, the faintest idea that
the strongest ecclesiastical hody in
the world might do something in the
way of fighting am! ousting the sane
devil when he whs in. As if he
could only travel nowadays in a rail
way carriage, that wise old serpent!
as if he could not put up with an
Ave Maria and have a gentlemanly
admiration of the picturesque in re-
ligion like his neighhours!—or as if
he had not heen a very old estah-
lished and well-acquainted resident
in the Papal States, as in every other
quarter, since hefore Rome and the
Caesars, hefore the earliest history or
memory of man!
This sort of life, however, let ns
assure all sympathetic readers, is
infinitely more original than that
of Brighton or Scarhorough. It is
piquant to get up in the morning in a
stato of dramatic and interesting un-
certainty whether you will he ahle
to have anything for diuner; it is
delightful to make your toilette un-
der a gigantic white umhrella, in a
VOL. LXXXVL
82


1859.] King Loutit Page. 489
The faithful one he listens, there needs hut a word to the wise,
So, leaping into the saddle, to Brittany he hies;
Leagues an hundred and thirty stretch thera 'twixt Paris and where he is
hound,
But two days and a night to the Breton childe suffice to cover the ground.
'Neath the Dais, at the hoard presiding, in her gaily-lighted hall,
Sat the fair Dame of Bodinio, amid the nohles all;
To pour the wine from the gohlet her lily hand was raised,
As, with startled mien, as he entered in, she on the rider gazed.
"Oh, gentle page, what tidings, that your cheek is ashen grey,
And your panting hreast is heaving high, just like a stag's at hay?"
"My tidings, lady, I fear me, will cost thee many a sigh,.
Bring sorrow to thy hosom, and tears into thine eye:
Thy hrother's life is forfeit, at the cruel King's decree,
And his sinking heart for comfort turns only now to thee /"
The lady's hand it tremhled, and in hlood-drops like the rain
Fell the red wine, sad omen! the suowy cloth to stain.
"Ho there! grooms, quickly saddle twelve horses for our flight;
If I founder one at every stage, I'll he In Paris ere night 1"
The King's young page in the mean time to the scaffold, alas! is hound,
And he sighs as he sets his lingering foot on the ladder's lowest round!
"I had reck'd hut little of death, if my kindred had heen near—
If I had hut friends around me, and saw hut my sister dear!
Every day, every hour she'll miss me, and call on her hrother in vain—
Oh! for sight of my sweet sister! and tidings of fair Bretague!"
Thus murmurs the hoy, as, step hy step, th»ladder he ascends—
"Would I had heard, hefore I died, of my country and my friends I"—
But ''Blark!" he exclaims, as he stands at length on the fatal platform
high,
"I hear the pavement ringing, 'tis my sister drawing nigh!—
Tis my sister come to see me!—in God's name grant delay 1"—
"Thy head must fall ere she nears thee," did the cruel Provost say.
"While yet he spoke, Bodinio's dame is asking all she meets,
"Ye men of Paris! why these crowds that hlock up all the streets?"
"'Tis hut the head of one poor page the traitor Lonis takes."
She gazes up, her hrother sees, and tbrough the press she hreaks,
Comes just in time his kneeling form, hent o'er the hlock, to see;
Leaps, at full gallop, off her horse—cries, " Archers! let him he!
One hundred crowns of gold, and of silver too I'll give,
If ye will hold your cruel hands, and let my hrother live!"
Just then, her hrother's severed head falls down the hlock heside,
And, spouting o'er her dahhled veil, runs down the crimson tide.
"I come to ask ye, King and Queen, together on your tbrone,
"What made ye seek my hrother's hlood?—what evil had he done?"
"In hroil, without his monarch's leave, his hasty sword he drew,
And in my court, hefore my face, my fav'rite page he slew."
"Not without cause, full well I know."—" Cause still assassins claim."
'' No gentleman of Brittany e'er hore that hateful name;
For France I will not say as much—'tis known your wolfish hrood
Like hetter far to spill and take, than risk your precious hlood 1"
"Hold, dame! forhear I if ye would live, home scatbless to return!"
"I reck not if I go or stay, my Brother since I mourn;
But should all kings on earth say nay, his reasons I will know."
"Well! since his reasons ye will have, I'll tell them ere ye go:—
He sought a quarrel with my page, just for the well-known line,


490 Breton Ballad*— [Oct.
That Brittany, instead of men, rears only savage swine V
"If that's a saying fraught with truth, another hear from me—
You're hut a sorry jester, King Louis though you he.
But for that jest, 'twill soon he seen, if you may not grow pale,
When to my Breton countrymen I've shown my hlood-stain'd veil.
Then will ye see if savage hoars our woods indeed contain,
When the "hest hlood of France your deed shall cause to flow amain!"
Few weeks had pass'd; into the court came letters sealed with red—
As read the King, his deep hlack eyes roll'd fiercely in his head;
Roll'd like the wildcat's in a trap, as hy his saints he swore,
That, had he known, that haughty dame had ne'er seen Bretague more.
"Ten thousand crowns! ten thousand lives!" exclaimed he in his rage;
"A pretty price to pay, forsooth—for the life of one poor page!"
Note.—The family of Bodinio was ancient and distinguished, as was that of the
John (or Jaunik) of the hallad, a page of Louis the Eleventh. Be the cause of
it accurately handed down or not, the vindictive incursion of the Bretons into
France, which took place under Louis the Eleventh in 1465, is matter of history.

THE CRUSAnERS RETURN.
[On the suhject of the following hallad (a somewhat hackneyed one, and
one of the few not peculiar to Brittany) it will he seen that the local
colouring has heen shed; and that while the hero and heroine are strictly
historical personages, the suhstitution of dialogue for narrative, so character-
istic of Breton national poetry, lends spirit to the native simplicity of the
incidents.]
"Who'll keep for me my ladye dear?"
The hold Crusader cries;
"Intrust thy ladye dear to me,"
His hrother false replies.
"Trust her to me; in secret hower
She'll with my damsels stay,
Or sit in hall with lordly dames,
And fare as well as they."
Few days had pass'd, and gay to view
Was Faonet's courtyard fair,
All filfd with mounted Red-Cross Knights,
Whose hauners stream'd in air.
Ere far had rode that castle's lord,
His spouse had learn'd to weep!
"Doff those proud rohes for hodden grey,
Go forth! and tend my sheep!"
"Oh! hrother dear, the sheep to tend,
Alas 1 I know not how."
"If to tend sheep thou'st never learn'd,
My lance shall teach thee now I"
Seven live-long years heside her sheep,
The sad one wept in vain;
At seven years' end, forgot to weep,
And sweetly sung again.


1859.] The Cnuader't Return,. 491
As with her songs the mountains rung,
A knight came riding near,
And to his page the reins he flung,
Cries, "Whose that voice I hear ?—
i
"That silver voice! seven years have past
(Seven weary years, I trow),
Since in mine ears it sounded last,
Even as I hear it now 1
"Good-morrow to thee, mountain maid!
Thy carol sounds so gay,
Methinks thou hast, to sing so clear,
Breakfasted well to-day I"

'* Fared well I have—to God he thanks
For what He gave and took—
• Though on a crust I hroke my fast.
And dipped it in the hrook."
"Tell me, fair damsel! can I lodge
At yonder lordly hall?"
"Oh, yes! you'll find fair lodgings there,
Your steed a knightly stall;
"A couch of down will wait your rest,
Such as I once could share,
Ere, hanish'd with the flocks to dwell,
I shared the watch-dog's lair!"
"And where, my child, then, is your spouse?
Your wedding-ring I see."
"My spouse, my lord, is at the wars,—
He'd fair long locks like thee!"
"If long and fair his locks like mine,
Might we not he the same?"
"Oh, yes! you are my love, my lord,
And I Faouet's dame 1"
"Leave thou the flocks! my halls to reach
With fiery haste, I hurn!
Brother I all hail! my ladye's weal
From you I long to learn?"
"Still fair as hrave!—Rest, hrother, rest!
Your ladye fair has gone
To Quimper, to a wedding feast,
But she'll he here anon."
"Thou liest, wretch! thy sheep to feed,
On mountains lone and hare,
Thou sent'st my dame, in servile weed;
Lo! she stands sohhing there!
"Go! hrother cursed, and hide thy shame!
Not one more lying word!
Wer't not our parents' hallow'd hearth,
Thy hlood had stain'd my sword l"


493 The Legend of Barney & Carroll fOot.
THE LEGENn OF BARNEY 0 CARROLL.
Out there where the hig waves is hreakin'
An' dancin' an' foamin' like mad,
On a heautiful warm autumn evenin'
Was strollin' a young fisher-lad;
For the place where the say is now foamin',
Was then just as hare as your hand;
An' where that hlue wather is curlin,'
Was only a hroad yellow strand.
Well, the fisher-hoy, Barney O'Carroll,
Was hot—he kem down for a dip;
An' as he was peelin', hehould you!
He seen a most charmin' young slip
In a state that was mighty provokin —
She'd only stepped out of her clothes;
An' there she was singin', while comhin'
Bright hair that flowed down to her toes.
"Blur an agers," ses Barney, "what is she 1
Or where does she come from at all 1
Be the mortial, I'll ax iv she's marred—
Ah! she isn't—I'll give her a call."
So stalin' up close to the colleen.
He hid her the time o' the day;
When turnin', she glanced at hould Barney,
An' pop! she was undher the say.
"She's only a mermaid," thought Barney,
An' pondherin', shoreward he goes,
As he picked up a green cloak, exclaimin',
"She'll surely come hach for her clothes."
"Oh give me my cloak," cried a sweet voice,
That seemed to come up from the wave—
But Barney ran home like a say-lark,
The cloak an' his hody to save.
That night there was tempest, an' Barney
Put off with some lads to a wreck;
But only one heautiful maiden
Remained of the crew on the deck.
She was saved hy the courage of Barney;
An', as a reward for her life,
Became, ere the autumn fruit withered,
His fond an' endearin' young wife.
Now all things were tbrivin' with Barney,
Not forgettin' "herself" an' twin hoys,
But the fool couldn't keep his tongue quiet;
An' hy way of expandin' his joys,
He tovld her ahout the fair mermaid,
An' how he tuk care of her cloak;
"The story," ses she, "you hosihoon,
Is no more nor a hottle o' smoke."
"0 that I may lose you this miunit,
But it's tbruth that I'm tellin' to you."


1850.] The Legend of Barney ff Carroll. 493
"Why then, show me the cloak," sea the darlin',
"For I'm sure it's a thing you can't do."
"Arrah, can't I?" ses he; "just come this way,
An' say did you e'er see the match
For eomplateness, an' splendour, an' heauty,
With what I've ahove in the thatch?"
He stepped on a tbree-legged creepeen,
An' just where the thatch met the wall,
Tuk down what appeared a toy-caddie,
With its varnish, an' paintin', an' all:
An' he opened the lid—when his fut slipped,
An' so$, he came down on the flure—
Then, I'm tould, that the look that she gev him
Was what you might call hill or cure.
"O he all the salt waves in the ocean,"
Ses Barney—" Don't curse," ses the wife;
"For the time I've to stay with you, Barney,
Let us have no hot wather, nor strife:
You have heen very kind to me, darlin'-—
But thit cloak o' mine you tuk away."
"Ohl murdherl" cried Barney, "'twas yon then
That spoke to me out o' the say."
"Tbroth it was," ses she: "I am the mermaid
That called to you out o' the wave—
What's more, I'm the heautiful creathur
You kern tbro' the tempest to save.
An' as long as my cloak you kep from me,
A mermaid I ne'er more could he."
"Oh 1 iv I knew that, I'd have pledged it,"
Ses Barney—" Acusbla macbree 1
"You're no mermaid at all—sore no mermaid
Or other maid ever had hoys—
Here childher "—he turned for a moment
Contavin' he heerd a quare noise—
A noise like the hoom o' the ocean
When gently it kisses the shore.
Now Barney has pressed to his fond heart
The sweet wife he ne'er shall press more.
"Farewell, I must lave you, acushla;
Don't you hear how they call me away?"
Ev'ry tbread of her green cloak that miunit
Melted into a wave o' the say!
An' surgin', an' singin'such music—
No wild harp was ever so sweet—
Came a tbroop of young mermen an' mermaids,
An' hore her elane off ov her feet 1
The nate little cottage had vanished,
An', floatin' away in a shell,
Went herself an' the childher—poor Barney
Could hardly spake more nor "Farewell—
Won't you lave me one hoy for a keepsake?"
But afore he had said one more word,
Each child left the side o' the mother,
An' changed to a lovely say-hird 1


494 Sir William Hamilton. [Oct.
An' foldin' their hright wings, an' nestlin'
On Barney's hand, shoulder, and hreast—
Just as ir\ they wor still his dear young ones,
He kissed them; while fondly he pressed
The sweet gentle things to his sad heart,
A.n' kissed them again; then away>
With the mother an' mermen an' mermaids
The little hirds flew o'er the say!
"Why thin, Barney, what ails yon, you spalpeen t
An' what's this you have in your fist—
A hottle!—ov coorse nothin' in it—
No, nor in this dhndeen that you've kissed.
Or what (an' the tide makin' swiftly)
Possessed you to lie on the strand?"
'. I was loohin' at somehody dhrinkin',
An' so / Kfo wather at hand:
"But ov all the stbrange sights an' adventures
That ever you heerd—an' they're tbrue—
I seen "—and he ris up and tould me
The story I've just tould to you,
"An'," ses he, "what do you think ahout it?"
"An'," ses I, "dbrunk or not, you're the same;
An' your tale, iv not tbrue, sure it's pleasant,
An' not at all had for a dhrame"
Dublin. J. D.
SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON.
• How often do we hear it remarked frequently true, that those who feel
that men of extensive and accurate urged to an independent exercise of
erudition rest upon knowledge ac- their powers of reasoning, are im-
quired from hooks, and rarely ex- patient of tho toil of acquiring know-
ercise their own powers in an original ledge from many hooks, or of accu-
search after truth. Such men may rately determining what other men
have a remarkahle perspicacity, and hefore them have thought and said,
he as distinguished for their quick Books are chiefly valued hy them as
apprehension as for their retentive they give hints or stimulant to their
memory; they understand all they own minds, and when some huge
read and repeat, and are armed at folio is closed, they can tell you what
all points for every species of con- they, hy its assistance, have gained
troversy; hut, if they finally emhrace for themselves; hut trust them not
any one scheme of philosophy, it as expositors of the volume itself,
will have heen given to them hy Such division of lahour seems gener-
others; they will not have elahorated ally to ohtain amongst the studious
it for themselves; its unity or har- portion of mankind. If we are of
mony will not he due to any archi- the erudite species, we find, or we
tectural or creative skill of thtir own; imagine, that everything that can he
they will have added no new gen- thought has heen thought and said
eralisation to those of their prede- already; if we do not swear hy any
cessors; they will he students to the one master, we pronounce that all
last of the works of others. And the possihle opinions have heen long ago
counterpart statement is also so very exhausted, and shared amongst the
Lectures on Metaphysics, hy Sir William Hamilton, Bart. Edited hy.the Rev.
H. L. Mansel, B.D., Oxford, and John Veitch, M.A., Edinhurgh.


1859.]
495
Sir William Hamilton.

master spirits of ancient or modern
literature. We tell the young aspir-
ant for the honour, or the nohle toil,
of original thinking, that he will only
reproduce what already exists in form
more perfect than he can hope to
give it; we tell him that Plato has
anticipated his finest discoveries cen-
turies ago—that Leihnitz had deter-
mined this, and Des Cartes had settled
that,—and that even the despised
schoolmen of the middle ages had
seen very clearly the distinction he
is harpiing on, and had stamped it
on their philosophical vocahulary.
There is nothing for him to do. Each
fresh inquirer hegins hy acting the
mediator hetween disputants whose
controversy he comes to settle, and
ends hy hecoming one of the count-
less disputants himself, and helps
still further to "emhroil the fray"
—if that he possihle. The young
aspirant, heing of modest nature, is
prohahly reduced to silence, hut still
he answers to himself:—"it matters
not what others have done, I must
think it all over again for myself. I
caunot find what I want in Plato, or
Leibuitz, the Schoolmen, or Des
Cartes; it may he there, hut it is
hidden away in corners, or in com-
mentaries. I must discover it in
some other way hefore I can even
discover that it is there; and I, too,
have the world hefore me, and my
own mind—I, too, will philosophise.
I may not go so fur as Plato did some
centuries ago, hut whether far or
not, there is hut one mode of pro-
gression hy which I can advance at
all: I must feel the earth heneath my
feet, and move forward hy such in-
ternal energies as Heaven has en-
dowed me with."
Such division of lahour, such dif-
ferences in intellectual character or
power, may ho generally ohserved.
Nevertheless, amongst the highest
order of minds we find extraordin-
ary erudition sometimes united with
powers as remarkahle of original re-
search. One of these pre-eminently
gifted men has lately departed from
amongst us. Sir William Hamilton
knew, or, to our square of vision,
seemed to know, whatever mortal
man had written, in any age or
language, on the suhjects of philo-
sophy. But this marvellous know-
ledge had not deterred him from an
independent course of inquiry, nor
hlunted his powers of research. He
comhined with accurate and exten-
sive erudition an unahated energy
of thought; and the result is, that
we have, in his speculative writings,
the happy union of strength and
holdness with a singular hreadth of
view. He was too well read to omit,
or pass over, any region of inquiry,
and had too vigorous an intellect to
he contented with recording the oh-
servations of others, He carried the
torch with his own hand, and ex-
plored every recess himself. With-
out professing to do so, he has given
ns the most thorougbly eclectic sys-
tem of any man in Europe.
For that which, ahove all, dis-
tinguishes the series of lectures he-
fore us is the wide range of philo-
sophic thought they emhrace. At
one extremity the materialist will
feel the ground taken from under
him, hecause the truths he most
insists on are ahsorhed into the
system of the metaphysician; and
here the physiologist will find him-
self at home, hecause he will he ahle
to rise from his own special know-
ledge of the organs of sense to a
metaphysical theory of coguition,
which he has often pronounced him-
relf unahle to do under the guidance
of Sir William Hamilton's prede-
cessors in the chair of Edinhurgh.
At the other extremity the Kantian
or Coleridgian will find that his own
"high a priori'' road has also heen
travelled, and that his own peculiar
modes of thought have not heen
iguored. Here those who delight in
the distinction hetween Understand-
ing and Reason—meaning hy the first
a faculty judging according to sense,
and hy the second a faculty which
is the source of truths of a higher
character than those which are infe-
rences from, or generalisations of,
experience—will at all events dis-
cover that they have a place allotted
to them; whether or not they may
he satisfied with that place we will
not undertake to say. On hoth sides
Sir William Hamilton has expanded
the arena of what is known under
the vague name of Scotch philoso-
phy. These who, without disputing
that they are living spiritual souls,


496
[Oct.
Sir William Hamilton.

very ohstinately helieve that they are
also living organised hodies, moving
in a world which has marvellously
educated them tbrough the senses,
and which is continually educating
them (tbrough their ohserving and
recording powers) to further and
wider knowledge, will find in these
Lectures a scheme of metaphysics
which admits them to hold this their
ohstinate faith on an intelligihle
hasis. Scotch philosophers, notwith-
standing their clamorous appeal to
common sense, had set this plain oh-
stinate faith on so strange and nar-
row a hasis, that, to the last, it
seemed rather a concession to the
weakness of man than his great pre-
rogative. Those, on the contrary,
who delight chiefly to dwell on the
a priori truths, or modes of thought,
essential to experience itself, or who,
while they admit that the external
world educates us, and is still from
age to age more higbly educating us,
hy its perceived order and harmony,
still assert that there are truths in
their very nature ahove those of ex-
perience, enunciated hy some iuner
faculty within us, of a higher kind
than that which judges according to
sense—will also find that this, their
complementary faith, has not heen
forgotten. We are far from saying
that thinking men of all schools will
he equally satisfied—that they will
meet here and fraternise. It is not
given to any human power to put
forth a scheme of philosophy which
will content all existing parties. • It
is sufficient for us to notice and ap-
plaud the wide and catholic views,
and the great range of topics, these
Lectures unfold.
Speaking criticallj', we value more
higbly the earlier portion of his ex-
position, in which Sir William Ham-
ilton treats of perception, and of that
trinity of sense, memory, and judg-
ment which enters into every cogui-
tion, and indeed into every state of
consciousuess which can he sum-
moned up for reflection,—we value,
we say, this portion of his Lectures
more higbly than the later parts,
where, under the title of the Regula-
tive Faculty, he treats of necessary
truths not the product of experience,
and fraternises with Leibuitz and
other German philosophers. We do
not find his statements under this
head of Regulative Faculty either
luoid or consistent with themselves.
But although he enters here into the
shadow of that ohscure doctrine
which leads to the attempted dis-
tinction hetween Reason and Under-
standing, we are happy to notice
that we have the weight of Sir Wil-
liam Hamilton's authority against
those who not only draw a distinc-
tion hetween these two faculties, hut
who set them at variance; deducing
truths from the Reason which are
contradicted hy the Understanding.
The very end of all philosophy, as of
all science, is to harmonise our con-
victions into one consistent whole:
he who therefore sets faculty against
faculty, truth against truth, virtually
asserts that there can he no philo-
sophy, and no truth. Speaking of
those who enunciate the law of cau-
sation in one hreath, and the next
moment free the will from this law
hy some conflicting intuition, he
writes thus:—
"They say that it is unconditionally
given, as a special and positive law of
intelligence, that every origination is
only an apparent, not a real commence-
ment. Mow, to exempt some pheno-
mena from this law, for the sake of our
moral consciousuess, caunot validly he
done. For, in the first place, this would
he to admit that the mind is a comple-
ment of contradictory revelations. If
mendacity he admitted of some of our
mental dictates, we caunot vindicate
veracity to any: 'Falsus in uno, falsus
in omnihus.' Ahsolute scepticism is
hence the legitimate conclusion. But,
in the second place, waiving this conclu-
sion, what right have we, on this doc-
trine, to suhordinate the positive affir-
mation of causality to our consciousuess
of moral liherty!—what right have we,
for the interest of the latter, to derogate
from the universality of the former!
We have none. If hoth are equally
positive, we have no right to sacrifice
to the other the alternative which our
wishes prompt us to ahandon."*
It may help to set ns clear with
our readers, if we here at once oh-
serve that there is a class of neces-
* Vol . ii. p. 411.


1859.]
497
Sir William Hamilton.

sary, or a priori or iunate truths,
against which we have no contro-
versy whatever. They are such as
are essential to experience, not con-
tradictory, nor contradictory to each
other. For instance, the ideas of
Existence and of Space, as we now
speak of them, are generalisations of
experience, hut in order that any
perception or judgment should he
possihle, the mind must have had an
iunate capacity for giving forth these
ideas. It is difficult to shape lan-
guage to suit the emergency in which
we here find ourselves, and different
terms have heen used hy metaphysi-
cians to desiguate this original capa-
city. Sometimes we hear of " modes
of thought," "modes of sensihility,"
"categories," "laws," "ideas;" hut
hy whatever name we distinguish it,
there is this iunate or original capa-
city to give forth or receive such
ideas as Existence, Space, Time, and
the like; and heyond this our analy-
sis caunot he carried. We mention
this at the' outset, that there may
he no confusion hetween necessary
truths essential to and one with ex-
perience, and necessary truths ahove
and contradictory to experience.
These Lectures are far from heing,
or pretending to he, a complete ex-
position of a system of metaphysics.
The circumstances under which they
were composed, and perhaps an im-
patience of the author in dealing
with elementary or introductory
statements, prevented them from
having the completeness of a system
in which all parts of a great suhject
are equally developed. The editors
give us, in the preface, an interesting
account of the mauner in which the
lectures were originally written. Sir
William Hamilton was called to tho
Chair of Logic in the University of
Edinhurgh in the year 1836. He was
at this time in the maturity of intel-
lectual power, in the possession of vast
stores of knowledge, and already dis-
tinguished for his philosophical spe-
culations. The duties, therefore, of
his post could not take him hy sur-
prise; and as the appointment was
made in July, and his class would not
assemhle till Novemher, he had some
months for preparation. But, as one
might foresee would inevitahly he
the case with a metaphysician, these
months were wasted in general sur-
veys of the great topics over which he
might, or might not, extend his lec-
tures—in revolving, in short, what
he should lecture upon, not in writing
any of the lectures themselves
When his class met in Novemher, he
had not put pen to paper. "He was
in the hahit," we are told, "of deli-
vering tbree lectures each week, and
each lecture was usually written on
the day, or more properly on the
night, preceding its delivery. The
course of metaphysics, as it is now
given to the world, is the result of
this nightly toil, uuremittingly sus-
tained for a period of five months."
Some additions or interpolations were
occasionally made in suhsequent
years, hut they were never recast or
materially altered.
We are not surprised, after receiv-
ing this account of their composition,
to find that these lectures are unequal
in excellence, and incomplete as a
series. Viewed as a systematic or
elomentary course for the tuition of
youth, they must he allowed to have
some defects. Sometimes the author
indulges in the spirit of controversy,
where a calm exposition of his own
and of others' opinions would have
heen more acceptahle and appropri-
ate; sometimes he disports himself,
as learned men will do, with a multi-
tude of quotations which might
illustrate the history of philosophy,
hut which advance us little in the
suhject under discussion. Sometimes
tho space is filled up hy translated
extracts from French and German
writers. These are nover wholly
unwelcome; they are often curious or
novel; hut they very seldom forward
the exposition, or render it more
lucid. Sir William Hamilton appears
to have lacked the patience, and per-
haps the tact and skill, requisite for an
elementary or systematic exposition
—such an exposition as leads from
the simpler to the more ahstruse,
neither sparing the student the most
difficult and toilsome heights, nor
failing to conduct him to them hy
the most facile tracks which lead up-
ward from the plain.
But notwithstanding these draw-
hacks and deficiencies, we do not
hesitate to say that these Lectures are
incomparahly the hest manual or


498
[Oct.
Sir William Hamilton.

guide which could he placed in the
hands of the metaphysical student.
He should not, however, require a
quite elementary work; lie should he
acquainted at least with the writings
of Sir William's predecessors, Brown
and Stewart: thus prepared, he will
find in these Lectures the most
advanced thinking of the soundest
and safest school of philosophy. 80
far as the mature render is con-
cerned, we suspect that even the
very qualities which we have noticed
as rendering these Lectures some-
what defective for the purposes
for which they were originally de-
sigued, will only render them the
more attractive to him. The di-
gressions of tho erudite man, or of
the suhtle disputant, are precisely
what will interest him most. To all
readers who prize sound and earnest
thinking, we recommend these vol-
umes.
In justice to the memory of the
author, it will not he forgotten that
these Lectures come hefore us under
the disadvantages of a posthumous
work, not prepared, and not even in-
tended, for puhlication. Nor, on
the other hand, must we forget to
mention, that nothing has heen
omitted which careful editorship
could effect to remedy these disad-
vantages. The learning and in-
dustry and good taste of the editors
are displayed tbroughout. Without
any officiousness we have aid given
us wherever it was possihle to procure
it. The present puhlication extends
only to the course on Metaphysics:
two other volumes are to follow, con-
taining Yhe course on Logic.
The term Metaphysics is used in
the title page in its general and
popular sense, as including whatever
appertains to the analysis of the
human mind, or whatever is gen-
erally understood hy mental philo-
sophy. More technically speaking,
these Lectures chiefly concern the de-
partment of Psychology; hut we
think tho editors perfectly correct in
retaining the older and more familiar
name. In the technical language of
some writers, Psychology is said to
treat of the phenomena of conscious-
ness, of tho laws of their recurrence,
and the process of their develop-
ment; while the term Metaphysics
is res'ricted to certain discussions on
the nature of Being in itself, of Cause
or Power, of tho Ahsolute, and other
the like profundities. The distinction
may have its use to those who are
engaged in the exposition of ideas: it
is not one of a fundamental character.
Metaphysics, in this restricted sense,
caunot he divorced from psychology;
nor can any scheme of psychology
he given which shall not, hy implica-
tion, pass judgment on these meta-
physical questions. One writer may
he desirous of dismissing from his
mind, or sweeping from his path,
a class of topics which to him are
especially ohscure, and, under some
such title as Metaphysics or On-
tology, he leaves them to he discussed
hy others; whilst those who are
exclusively devoted to these more
ahstruse discussions are willing, under
the name of Psychology, to dismiss
from their care what seems to them
a more familiar, more popular, and
less important class of topics. But,
in reality, no one can address himself
to either class of topics without hav-
ing virtually passed an opinion on the
other. When the Psychologist draws
his distinction hetween phenomena
and heing in itself, he must he pre-
pared to justify this distinction,—he
must deal with this idea of real
existence, and tell us what it is, and
how it contrasts with phenomenal
existence. And when the Metaphy-
sician or Ontologist (if such a word is
permissihle), puts forth his views on
the profound questions of Being and
Power, and what are thought the
diotates of a Reason acting inde-
pendently of the senses, and on alto-
gether a higher level, he too must he
prepared with some scheme of psy-
chology which shall he in accordance
with his views. Every thinker must
aim at unity or harmony, that is,
the comhination of all that is in
the human consciousuess into one
harmonious whole. We, for our own
part, should prefer to retain for the
familiar term of MeUiphyaia the
wide siguification generally given to
it, and leave the terms Psychology
and Ontology for such divisions of his
suhject as uny expositor thinks fit to
make.
In reviewing two volumes such as
these, of solid matter, and of so wide


1859.]
499
Sir William Hamilton.

a range of thought, we should he
losing ourselves entirely if we did
not set some distinct limit to the
topics on which we touched. Sir
-William Hamilton, after a general
discussion on the nature of human
consciousuess, adopts the tbreefold
and familiar division of,—"1. The
phenomena of Coguition; 2. The
phenomena of Feeling; and, 3. The
phenomena of Conation, or the Will."
We shall limit ourselves to the first
of these great suhjects—that of Cog-
nition or Human Knowledge. It is
a-suhject as vast as it is important,
and we do not promise, or rather we
do not tbreaten our readers that our
remarks will extend over the whole
of it But we will attempt to follow
Sir William Hamilton tbrough the
heads of his analysis or exposition,
so as to give an outline of his doc-
trines.
It must seem strange to the uniniti-
ated or unsophisticated man that the
hattle of philosophy should rage, and
should still rage, round what seoms
to him so simple and undeniahle a
fact as the perception, hy his hand
or hy his eye, of an external ohject,
But the unsophisticated man no
sooner enters himself into the task of
philosophy—the task, hy analysis and
synthesis, to construct, of his know-
ledge, one harmonious and consistent
whole, in which all the parts shall
cohere—than he too fiuds there was
a grave difficulty in the sophistry
that he laughed at. If he hegins his
account of human knowledge with
the ohjective, as he has learned to call
it, with the external world, viewed as
a suhstantial reality, and then threads
his way from the inorganic to the or-
ganic, he feels himself in danger of
heing landed in materialism. If he
starts from the suhjective, from his
mind or Ego, viewed as source of his
knowledge, he feels himself heing
entbralled in some system of Ideal-
ism. Sir William Hamilton will
point out to him the hest and safest
method, or commencement,—though
we will not guarantee him from all
difficulties, even under the guidance
of Sir William,—he will show him
that he must hegin at once with hoth,
with the ohject and the suhject, with
the ego and the non-ego; for hoth
are at once involved, as two indis-
pensahle terms, in one simple act of
perception.
This is what Sir William has called
lhe Presentutite theory, in opposition
to the Representative; which lost
proceeds on the supposition that the
mind caunot he immediately con-
scious of anything hut its own states,
its own feelings or thoughts, and
therefore descrihes the mind as having,
in the first place, some image or idea
of its own, which represents the world
to it. Sir William comhats this re-
presentative theory, and descrihes the
sensations themselves, as felt hy the
mind in its union with the hody, as
the direct ohjects in our perception.
But mere sensations hy themselves
do not form a coguition, or a percep-
tion. With the sense-given is in-
volved also a perception of relations,
an act of judgment, idea", if you
choose so to call them, of Existence,
Space, Time. These together form
what we recoguise as the ohject of
perception.
As the element of Time enters
into every coguition we can call up
hefore us, and as even the calling it
up for reflection implies an act of
memory, Sir William Hamilton is
justified in saying that the simplest
coguition involves memory also.
Sense, Memory, and Judgment, or
perception of relation, are elements
of the simplest coguition.
We proposo to say a few words
under each of these heads, Percep-
tion, Memory, and Judgment; hut
the reader will always hear in mind
how intricately involved the tbree
topics are, and how especially the
simplest ohject of perception involves
relation of parts; the apprehension
of which relationship receives here
'and in other metaphysical works the
name of Judgment.
Perception.—Sir William Hamil-
ton has heen long known, hy his
aunotations to Reid, as an iuno-
vator on the Scotch philosophy, in
its explanation of the primary fact
of our knowledge of the external
world. His controversy with Brown
on the suhject is familiar to all
who take an interest in these dis-
cussions. Brown accused Reid of
not understanding the philosophers
whom he criticised; Sir William
Hamilton accuses Brown of not


500
[Oct
Sir William Hamilton.

understanding Reid. We need not
cuter into the controversy whether
Reid's system was Preventative,
or virtually Representative; it differs
considerahly from that of Sir Wdliam
Hamilton, inasmuch as it does not
regard the sensation plus the act
of judgment, as the primary oh-
ject of perception, hut constantly
regards the sensation as a mere
sigual to the mind on which it gives
forth its perception, or receives some
instructive knowledge of the ohject.
Brown put forward a refined system
of Representation. With no disposition
to overlook the claims of the senses,
he held himself hound to the axiom
that the mind could apprehend no-
thing hut its own states. Certain
of these states were recoguised as
representations of an external world.
If we asked how we were to he
certified that they were such repre-
sentations—of things to us other-
wise unknown,—we were referred to
the irresistihle intuitive helief of an
external world. But, as Sir William
Hamilton ohserves, this intuitive
helief says nothing of a Representa-
tion; the intuitive helief is precisely
this, that we have an immediate
knowledge of the external world.
How can we justify our reliance on
this helief at one moment, and our
contradiction of it at another? How
justify our reference to this helief in
support of a theory which is mani-
festly discordant with it? For we
only helieve the external world ex-
ists hecause we helieve we immedi-
ately know its existence.
This readiness to call in the testimo-
ny of consciousuess at one moment,
and to reject it at another, is power-
fully exposed in the following passage.
And as it is a fault which metaphysi-
cians are under a strong temptation
to commit, we caunot do hetter than
give the quotation in full:—
"Dr. Brown maintains the common
doctrine of the philosophers, that we
have no immediate knowledge of any-
thing heyond the states or modificatious
of our own minds.—that we are only
conscious of the ego,—the non-ego, as
known, heing only a modification of
self, which mankind at large are illu-
sively determined to view as external
and different from self. This doctrine
is contradictory of the fact to which
consciousuess testifies,—that the ohject
of which we are conscious in perception,
is the external reality as existing, and
not merely its representation in the
percipient mind. That this is the fact
testified to hy consciousuess, and he-
lieved hy the common sense of man-
kind, is admitted even hy those philo-
sophers who reject the truth of the
testimony and the helief. It is of no
consequence to us at present what are
the grounds on which the principle ia
founded, that the mind can have no
knowledge of ought hesides itself; it is
sufficient to ohserve that, this principle
heing contradictory of the testimony of
consciousuess, Dr. Brown, hy adopting
it, virtually accuses consciousuess of
falsehood. But if consciousuess he false
in its testimony to one fact, we can
have no confidence in its testimony to
any other; and Brown having himself
helied the veracity of consciousuess,
caunot, therefore, again appeal to this
veracity as to a credihle authority. But
he is not thus consistent. Although he
does not allow that we have any know-
ledge of the existence of an outer world,
the existence of that world he still
maintains. And on what grounds 1 He
admits the reasoning of the idealist,
that is, of the philosopher who denies
the reality of the material universe,—he
admits this to he invincihle. How,
then, is his conclusion avoided I Simply
hy appealing to the universal helief of
mankind in favour of the existence of
external things,—that is, to the autho-
rity of a fact of consciousuess. But to
him this appeal is incompetent. For. in
the first place, having already virtually
given up, or rather positively rejected,
the testimony of consciousuess, when
consciousuess deposed to our immediate
knowledge of external things,—how can
he even found upon the veracity of that
mendacious principle, when hearing evi-
dence to the unknown existence of ex-
ternal things i I caunot hut helieve that
the material reality exists; therefore,
it does exist, for consciousness does not
deceive us,—this reasoning Dr. Brown
employs when defending his assertion
of an outer world. I caunot hut he-
lieve that the material reality is the
ohject immediately known in perception;
therefore, it is immediately known, for
consciousuess does not deceive us,—this
reasoning Dr. Brown rejects when estah-
lishing the foundation of his system.
In the one case he maintains,—this he-
lief, hecause irresistihle, is true ; in the
other case, he maintains,—this helief,
though irresistihle, is false. Conscious-



1859.]
501
Sir William Hamilton.
ness is veracious in the former helief,
mendacious in the latter. I approhate
the one, I reprohate the other. The in-
consistency of this is apparent. It he-
comes more palpahle when we consider,
in the second place, that the helief which
Dr. Brown assumes as true rests on,—is,
in fact, only the reflex of,—the helief
which he repudiates as false. Why do
mankind helieve in the existence of an
outer world i They do not helieve in it
as in something unknown; hut, on the
contrary, they helieve it to exist, only
hecause they helieve that they immediately
know it to exist. The former helief is
only as it is founded on the latter. Of
all ahsurdities, therefore, the greatest is
to assert,—on the one hand, that con-
sciousuess deceives us in the helief that
we know any material ohject to exist;
and, on the other, that the material
ohject exists, hecause, though on false
grounds, we helieve it to exist"*
The mind, says Brown, can he
conscious only of its own states;
hut the mind, replies Sir William
Hamilton, is united to the hody,
permeates it, and in this its union,
feels the sensation there where the
nerve is. Our sensations are thus
immediately felt in space, the rela-
tion of position is felt with them,
and we thus are conscious of our
extended hodies—conscious of their
movement, and of the extension and
resistance of other hodies. Meta-
physicians have, in general, held
themselves hound not to recoguise
the existence of their own hodies
till they had evolved the knowledge
of them out of the states of feeling
of an incorporeal, indivisihle, spirit-
ual essence. Sir William Hamilton,
trusting to that conviction of an ex-
ternal world which must he ulti-
mately relied upon, thinks himself
at liherty to look at once at this
human hody, in order that, hy the
mind's union with it, he may he ahle
to give some account of this irresist-
ihle conviction. The immediate oh-
ject of consciousuess he finds to he
the sensations in, or at, the extremity
of the nerves, felt under the relations
of position and sequence—space and
time—which you may say the mind
gives for* as necessary truths, or
may descrihe as felt relations or acts
of judgment.
There is not the least approxima-
tion to materialism in the doctrine
of Sir William Hamilton. As dis-
tinctly as he avers an external real-
ity, so distinctly does he proclaim
the internal reality, or the spiritual
Ego. The two heliefs ure, according
to his exposition, involved directly
in the one act of perception. Thus,
the fullest justice is done, if we may
nse such an expression, to the ohjec-
tive and the suhjective reality. We
arc at once a spiritual Ego, in a ma-
terial world.
This is a great advance on the
previous expositions of the Scotch
philosophers. What were precisely
the opinions of Reid, and how far
Brown was really in error in ascrih-
ing to him a form of the representa-
tive theory, we will not undertake to
determine. To us it seems that
Reid, driven in one direction hy a
fear of materialism, and in another
hy his desire to have the common
sense of mankind upon his side,
never had ohtained for himself a
clear intelligihle ground on which to
stand. Refusing to see in the sensa-
tion itself one of the two great ele-
ments which constituted a percep-
tion—treating the sensation as a sort
of sigual wherein a perception enters
the mind—it was almost impossihle
for him not to fall into some modi-
fication of the representative theory.
Be that as it may, we may congratu-
late Scotland on having at length
put forth a system of Dualism, in
which the organs of sense play their
legitimate part—a system which may
he a common ground for the physio-
logist and the metaphysician. Every
reader must have felt, hoth in the
polished pages of Stewart and the
ingenious discussions of Brown, that
there was no harmony hetween their
teaching and the simplest truths of
physiology. The laws of the organic
heing were iguored for fear due hon-
our should not he given to the laws
of the inorganic and immaterial es-
sence which we presume to animate
and to live within it. Now this want
of harmony ceases to he felt in the
expositions of Sir William Hamilton.
Here we are permitted, though spirits,
to walk on the solid earth, with solid
• Vol. i. p. 278.


502
[Oct.
Sir William Hamilton.

hodies. What is given us hy the
nerve is allowed to he felt there
where the nerve is. It follows that
the relations felt hetween the several
parts of an object of perception, or
hetween several ohjects of percep-
tion, are themselves ohjective as well
as suhjective. The relation of . posi-
tion is a reality, without, as well as
within, our mind. We are spirits;
hut we are also organised creatures,
living in an organised world. We
could quote many passages from the
predecessors of Sir William Hamilton
(hut that we have too much upon our
handst, which would prove that while
earnestly insisting on the reality of
the external world, and oven tbrow-
ing a patronising glance on the truths
of physiology, they were in fact he-
wildering themselves and us with a
species of idealism*
It will illustrate this tendency to
disparage the senses, and reduce to
the minimum what is directly oh-
tained from them (a tendency, how-
ever, which has heen hy no means
limited to the Scotch philosophers),
if we take notice of the mauner in
which the great organ of sight has
heen treated. That an extended sur-
face could hecome an ohject of cogui-
tion Immediately tbrough tho organ
of vision was resolutely disputed. A
sensation of colour was imagined
which originally had nothing to do
with extension; mere hahit, mere
association of ideas, converted the
impression originally given us hy the
eye into that of an extended and
hounded surface. Both Stewart and
Brown are very distinct in their an-
nouncement of this theory. Both
admit that it is impossihle for us at
present to separate, hy the utmost
effort of thought, colour from exten-
sion, yet hoth assert that a sensation
which it is impossihle to conceive is
the only endowment of the sense of
vision. That we derive from the
sense of touch our knowledge of com-
parative distances, may he very true,
thougli even here the readiness with
which the young of most animalr
discriminate distances, leads us to
suspect that in the human heing the
organ of sight is not quite so depen-
dent as is generally supposed on tho
sense of touch; hut that extension,
in one direction, that of mere surface,
is not given us immediately hy the
eye, or that there ever was a sensa-
tion of colour separahle from exten-
sion, is what we have always heen
utterly unahle to helieve. It is a
inero hypothesis, and the utter in-
conceivahility of a sensation of colour
separated from extension is sufficient
with us to condemn it. What Sir
William Hamilton urges in the fol-
lowing paragraph rather illustrates
this inconceivahility, than adds any-
thing more to the argument. He
shows that the comparison hetween
any two colours could take place
only in space. Those who deal with
inconceivahle sensations, would pro-
hahly suggest that there were incon-
ceivahle modes of comparing them.
Sir William says:—
"It can easily he shown that the per-
ception of colour involves the percep-
tion of extension. It is admitted that
we have hy eight a perception of co-
lours, consequently a perception of the
difference of colours. But a perception^
of the distinction of colours necessarily
involves the perception of a discriminat-
ing line; for, if one colour ho laid he-
side or upon another, we only distin-
guish them as different hy perceiving
that they limit each other, which limi-
tation necessarily affords a hreadtbless
line,—a line of demarcation. One co-
lour laid upon another, in fact, gives a
line returning upon itself, that is, a
figure. But a line and a figure are modi-
fications of exteusion. The perception
of extension, therefore, is necessarily
given in the perception of colours."f
We will add, too, that this exten-
* Brown, speculating on infinite exteusion and infinite divisihility, says—
"What we term a hody, however minute, is a multitude of hodies, or, to speak
more exactly, an infinite numher of hodies, which appear limited to us, indeed,
hut may perhaps appear in their true character of infiuity to heings of a higher
order, who may he ahle to distinguish as infinite what our limited senses allow
us to perceive only as finite. They areone, not in nature hut in our thought." The
unity and harmony of all these finites does not exist, then, in the world itself,
only in ouV minds. Beings of a higher order would have, it seems, the marvel-
lous privilege of seeing infinite atoms where we see order, form, and organisation.
t Vol. ii. p. 165.


1859.]
503
Sir William Hamilton.

sion caunot he originally felt (as Sir
W. Hamilton in one passage implies)
as touching the organ of vision. The
wish to find in all our sensations
a modification of touch leads him
to this supposition. It may he ori-
ginally felt near the eye, hut surely
outside the eye—not on the retina,
where it must he felt to render the
analogy complete hetween the sense
of vision and the sense of touch—or
rather to justify the reduction of all
our senses to modifications of touch.
The various sensations as given us
hy the nerves, and as related together,
form-the primary ohjects of our con-
sciousuess, as Sir William Hamilton
has well explained; hut these sensa-
tions must he accepted in the most
faithful and simple form in which
we can apprehend them: nothing is
gained hy falsifying their nature in
order to approximate them to the
sense of contact.
A question may he asked, whether,
in perception, the mind proceeds from
minute parts to huild up a whole,
or rather descends from some large
and vaguely emhraced whole to an
examination of the minuter parts.
We think that it descends to the
more simple and minute hy analysis;
that is, that there is a certain medinm
of largeness and complexity which
may he descrihed as first in order of
time. Sir William gives the weight
of his authority to this view. He
puts the question thus:—"Whether,
in Perception, do we first ohtain a
general knowledge of the complex
wholes presented to us hy sense, and
then, hy analysis and limited atten-
are first apprehended. Slight degrees
of difference in sensations, small dis-
tances hetween the parts affected,
require, we find, a practised atten-
tion in order to he appreciated. Be-
sides which, the impressions we first
receive are those of the last com-
plexity; we seize upon some whole
as thus presented, and know it first
in this its entirety hefore we take
coguisance of the separato parts. To
adopt the illustration of our author,
we may know the face of our friend
as a whole—may he "familiar with
its expression, with the general re-
sult of its parts;" hut when we
would analyse this ohject that lives
so vividly in our memory, when we
would "descend from a conspectus
of the whole face to a detailed exa-
mination of its parts," we may not
he ahle to determine what is the
colour of the eyes, or the form of the
lips.
We must refer to the work it-
self hefore us for a fuller defence
and explanation of the I'resentative
theory of Perception as distinguished
from the Representative. Of course,
no foreigu hody can he known to us
hut hy its effects on us; hut what
Sir William maintains is, that it
is precisely these effects which
are the immediate ohject in our.
coguitions; the soul linksd to its
organism feels in that organism
the effects produced ou it hy other,
hodies. Meanwhile, in every cog-
nition, whether of our own or of
other hodies, there is the invari-
ahle term of the Ego—the / of all
consciousuess—without which no.
tion, ohtain a special knowledge of consciousuess is conceivahle:. "Wa
their several parts; or do we not
first ohtain a particular knowledge of
the smallest parts to which sense is
competent, and then, hy synthesis,
collect them into greater and greater
wholes?"
The second alternative is that
which has heen most favoured hy
analytic writers. Having conducted
their analysis to the minutest dis-
tinctions in our knowledge, it was
natural to commence their synthesis
from these. But it does not appear
that nature proceeds in this mauner:
the most minute distinctions, or parts,
of our knowledge are not those which
vol. lxxxyi. 33
may therefore lay it down," says our.-
author, "as an undisputed truth, that
consciousuess gives as an ultimate
fact, a primitive duality;—a know-
ledge of the Ego in relation .and con-
trast to the Non-ego; and a know-
ledge of the Non-ego in relation and,
contrast to the Ego. The E#o and
Non-ego are thus given in an original
synthesis, as conjoined in the unity
of knowledge, and, in an original
antithesis, as opposed in the con-
trariety of existence. In other words,.
we are conscious of them in an in-
divisihle act of knowledge together
and at once,—hut we are conscious


504
[Oct.
Sir William Hamilton.

of them as, in themselves, different
and exclusive of each other."*
We accept this account of percep-
tion as the clearest which metaphy-
sics has hitherto given us. We are
certainly incapahle of summoning up
the simplest perception, without at
the same time heing conscious of
ohject and suhject—the non-ego and
tho ego. But we must remark that
in the mature human heing this ego
never does represent simply the one
term in a solitary perception. Such
solitary perception can never he re-
called. Memory, or the senso of past
and continuous existence, is insepar-
ahly comhined with this ego or per-
sonality: it is the / that has lived,
that is now living thus or thus. Tho
personality, as we are conscious of it,
is only fully developed hy memory.
Memory.—If a philosophical writer
wished to choose some one point, or
some one faculty of the mind, from
which to survey all our mental opera-
tions, ho could not do hetter than
take his stand on the memory. Here
our perceptions first hecome a verita-
hle knowledge; here those compari-
sons or felt relationships which are
involved, as elementary parts, in all
our perceptions, can he repeated, can
he named, can he classified; from tho
memory we can look hackward to
the simplest sensations, and for-
ward to the widest generalisations
of science or p! ilosophy. A full dis-
sertation upon Memory might very
legitimately emhrace the whole do-
main of thought—that is, the whole
phenomena of the mind might he
advantageously explained hy their
reference to this great faculty; for
all that we popularly call thinking,
is either memory or hased on me-
mory.
There still exist some curious ques-
tions concerning the memory, which
our psychologists have not satisfac-
torily answered. Some of theso will
he found more fully discussed in the
present Lectures than in any hook at
least in English literature. Others
aro rapidly dismissed. Upon tho
whole, we should have to repeat
here what we have said of tho entire
Lectures: the exposition is not com-
plete or always satisfactory, hut it is
nevertheless the most comprehensive
and the most instructive to which we
could direct the student of metaphysics.
The analysis of Memory which Sir
William Hamilton presents us with
—into the suhordinate faculties of
Retention or Conservation, Repro-
duction, and Representation—wears,
to our apprehension, a somewhat
clumsy appearance. It encumhers
the ground with useless or merely
verhal distinctions. Tho one fact is,
that we reproduce or represent the
perception of the senses: what is
Retention hut another expression for
this power to reproduce? and what
can Reproduction mean hut a power
to represent? Memory is an act of
the mind, or of the mind in conjunc-
tion with the hrain: this act is re-
peated according to certain laws, and
its repetition no douht depends on
oertain conditions of the mind and
hrain: hut the fact of repetition ac-
cording to definite laws is all that
psychology has to recoguise. Re-
tention is merely a metaphorical ex-
pression siguificative of a continuous
power, on all fitting times, to repeat
the same act. Knowledge has no
existence except in the act of know-
ing. But we must quote Sir Wil-
liam's statement.
"Tbrough the powers of External and
Internal perception we are enahled to
acquire information—experience; hut
this acquisition is not of itself independ-
ent and complete; it supposes that we
are also ahle to retain the knowledge
acquired, for we caunot he said to get
what we are unahle to keep. The faculty
of acquisition is, therefore, only realised
tbrough auotlu-r faculty—the faculty of
Retention or Conservation. Here we
have another example of what I have
already frequently had occasion to sug-
gest to your ohservation,—we have two
Faculties, two elementary phenomena,
evidently distinct, and yet each depend-
ing on the other forits realization. With-
out a power of acquisition, a power of
conservation could not he exerted; and
without the latter the former would he
frustrated, for we should lose as fa>t as
we acquired. But as the faculty of Ac-
quisition would he useless without the
faculty of Retention, so the faculty of
Retention would he useless without the
faculties of Reproduction and Represen-
Vol. i. p. 292.


1859.]
505
Sir William Hamilton.

tation. That the mind retained, heyond
the sphere of consciousuess, a treasury
of knowledge, would he of no avail, did
it not possess the power of hringing out,
and "of displaying, in other words, of re-
producing and representing, this know-
ledge in consciousuess. But hecause the
faculty of Conservation would he fruit-
less without the ulterior faculties of Re-
production and Representation, we are
not to confound these faculties, or to
view the act of mind which is their joint
result, as a simple and elementary pheno-
menon. Though mutually dependent on
each other, the faculties of Conservation,
Reproduction, and Representation, are
governed hy different laws; and in dif-
ferent individuals are found greatly va-
rying in their comparative vigour. The
intimate counection of these tbree facul-
ties, or elementary acl ivities, is the cause,
however, why they have not heen distin-
guished in the analysis of philosophers:
and why their distinction is not pre-
cisely marked in ordinary language." *
Wo are at a loss to see the pro-
priety of the suhdivisions here intro-
duced. It may he true that the sim-
ple fact of Reproduction is not the
only one we have to take notice of
in a full explanation of the memory.
How, for instance, the reproduced
image hecomes associated with the
past, may require explanation. But
this suhdivision refers only to the
one general fact, that we have this
power of reproduction. This fact,
or power, is merely expressed under
different terms. What is Representa-
tion hut another word for Reproduc-
tion?—not perhaps a word of quite
so wide application, hecause in some
cases, as in the memory a verhal
proposition, reproduction would he
felt to he a more appropriate term
than representation. Sir William
Hamilton says that two men may
rememher the same incident, hut the
one represents it to his mind more
vividly; hut hoth men do, in fact,
represent it to their minds; this is
only saying that there is a difference
in the vigour with which it is repro-
duced. And what, again, is Reten-
tion or Conservation, hut this very
fact of Reproduction viewed as a
power, or hahit, n quality more or
less permanent? We speak fami-
liarly of retaining knowledge, hut
what we retain is the power of repro-
ducing it. Sir William Hamilton
would he the first to tell us that it is
merely a convenient metaphor when
we speak of memory as a store-house
or treasury of ideas; no one supposes
there can he any such thing. There
may he permanent conditions of the
suhstance mirid, or of the cerehral
organ on which such power of repro-
duction depends—hut speaking as
psychologists, we can only take notice
that such a power or hahit exists.
It is open to the physiologist to de-
termine, if he he ahle, those cerehral
conditions on whicli memory depends.
But a similar inquiry could not he
prosecuted with regard to modifica-
tions of the ens or suhstance we call
mind. In our present state of know-
ledge there is hut the one fact of
reproduction, and when we say that
a man retains his ideas, this is merely
a convenient mode of asserting that
he can again and again reproduce
them. Sir William Hamilton says—
"In the first place, then, I presume
that the fact of retention is admitted.
We are conscious of certain coguitions as
acquired, and we are conscious of these
coguitions as resuscitated. That, in the
interval.when out of consciousuess, these
cognitions do continue to suhsist in the
mind, is certainly an hypothesis, hecause
whatever is out of consciousness can onlv
he assumed; hut it is an hypothesis which
we are not only warranted, hut neces-
sitated, hy the phenomena, to estahlish.
I recollect indeed that one philosopher
has proposed another hypothesis. Avi-
cenna, the celehrated Arahian philoso-
pher and physician, denies to the human
mind the conservation of its acquired
knowledge ; and he explains the process
of recollection hy an irradiation of divine
light tbrough which the recovered cog-
nition is infused into the intellect." •)•
Was it really necessary for our
erudite philosopher to introduce to
us here the Arahian Aviceuna, with
his " irradiation of divine light?" We
do not find that the alternative
lies hetween Sir William Hamilton
and Aviceuna. The fact of retention
is indisputahle; hut can we mean
anything more hy retention, than the
repetition, from time to time, of
a given act? A muscle retains the
* Vol ii.,p. 205.
f Ihid. p. 209.


506
[Oct.
Sir William Hamilton.

power to move; we do not say that
a series of movements are retained
in the muscle. Sir William also oh-
serves, that in popular language we
distinguish hetween a retentive and
a ready memory, or one that repro-
duces with rapidity. This is only
saying that in some people the repro-
ductive power endures longer than in
others: in some it is rapid and evan-
escent. In general, the persistent
memory depends on the strength of
the original impression, or the effect
of attention originally paid; whilst
the readiness of memory, or the viva-
city with which our ideas chase each
other, is hut one phase of the energy
of life. We see in old men how slow
the movements of mind and hody
generally hecome. Some people are
old men all their lives.
We have said that it lies altogether
ont of the limits of human inquiry
to enter into the conditions of the
human mind viewed as an ohjective
entity. We have no other concep-
tion of the mind than as that which
is conscious, and the analysis of the
phenomena of consciousness is all
that can pertain to the psychologist.
Take away exteusion from matter
and there is nothing; take away con-
sciousuess from mind and there is
nothing. The physiologist may legi-
timately speculate on those condi-
tions or modifications of the hrnin
that are necessary to memory, or for
peculiar hahits of memory, hut no
similar discussion, as to the modifica-
tions of the mind, lies open to the
metaphysician. Sir William Hamil-
ton, however, does not acquiesce in
this, which has heen the ordinary
conclusion of 'his predecessors, He
thinks that in order to explain cer-
tain phenomena of memory, and of
association of ideas, it is necessury,
as far as we are ahle, to take account
of the unconscious modifications of
the mind. It is a curious specula-
tion, and as it is rather novel in our
country, though, we are assured,
familiar to tho Germans, we shall
take a glance at it.
But first we must carefully draw
tho distinction hetween this hypo-
thesis of unconscious modifications,
and the well-known and very current
hypothesis that many states of con-
sciousuess pass so rapidly and slightly
that they are never recalled or repro-
duced, and therefore the next instant
are to us as if they had never heen.
We caunot speak of them, for wo
have not rememhered them; we
merely conclude, from the circum-
stances of the case, that they took
place. When, in popular language, we-
speak of "sensations" of which we
were not "conscious," we do not, and
caunot mean that the sensations
were not felt (for this would he a
manifest contradiction); we mean
that we are not conscious now of
having felt them; that we never re-
memhered them, and that they were,
the instant after, as if they never had
heen. We know that the clock
struck, and we know that we did not
hear it, or hear it for the purpose of
knowing now that it struck; and we
conclude that, in these caseSj there
was a sensation produced, hut so
slight and evanescent as to make no
impression on the memory. Meta-
physicians have availed themselves
of a conjecture of this description,
applied to thoughts as well as sensa-
tions, to explain certain phenomena
of association of ideas: states of con-
sciousuess that pass so rapidly they
caunot he recalled, may yet introdnce
other states which can he remem-
hered and reflected on.
This very generally received hypo-
thesis Sir William Hamilton rejects,
and prefers to introduce us to modi-
fications of the mind altogether un-
accompanied hy consciousuess, hut
which serve as links in the chain
with those which are so accompanied.
Now it appears to us here that we
are attempting to walk where there
is ahsolutely no ground to tread on.
The mind is united with the hody;
we say there aie unconscious condi-
tions of the hrain necessary to the
function of memory, and we may
conclude that the mind in some way
participates in such affections of the
hrain even when not conducting im-
mediately to consciousuess. But
still we must rest, after all, at these
modifications of the hrain, for they
are the only unconscious phenomena
in the operations of thought wo can
form any conception of. We do hut
materialise the mind when we at-
tempt to regard it as the suhject o?
such modifications.


1859.]
507
Sir William Hamilton.

Sir William Hamilton was amongst
the first who drew attention to the
siguificance of certain curious cases
of cerehral disease or cerehral excite-
ment: those in which some abuor-
mal condition of the hrain is followed
hy an abuormal activity and power
of mind or memory. The rudest oh-
servation had taught us that old age,
and many forms of ill health, affected
the memory prejudicially; these curi-
ous cases where people in certain
stages of fever rememher what in
other times they were utterly inca-
pahle of recalling, demonstrate that
an abuormal activity of the hrain
may he accompanied hy an abuor-
mal activity of the memory. Thus
we have a douhle proof given us that
there are certain physical conditions
or functions of the hrain indispens-
ahle to the memory. Can we, in this
direction, seek further? And (/any
hypothesis is requisite, would it not
he sufficient to say that the functions
of the hrain which are counected
with consciousuess are not always
carried on with an energy adequate
to produce consciousuess in the iniad
—whose sole known attrihute is con-
sciousuess? Such operations of the
hrain, not themselves producing con-
sciousuess, may lead to others that
do.
But the reader will wish to see Sir
William Hamilton's own statement
of an hypothesis which may perhaps
he somewhat novel to him. It is in
the first volume, and where treating
of consciousuess in general, that the
suhject is fully discussed.
"I pass now to a question in some
respects of still more proximate interest
to the psychologist than that discussed
in the preceding lecture; for it is one
which, according as it is decided, will
determine the character of our explana-
tion of many of the most important phe-
nomena in the philosophy of mind, and,
in particular, the great phenomena of
memory and association. The question
I refer to is, whether the mind exerts
energies, and is the suhject of modifica-
tions, of neither of which it is conscious.
This is the most general expression of u
prohlem which has hardly heen men-
tioned, far less mooted, in this country;
and when it has attracted a passing no-
tice, the supposition of an unconscious
action or passion of the mind, has heen
treated as something either unintelli-
gihle or ahsurd. In Germany, on the
contrary, it has not only heen canvassed,
hut the alternative which the philoso-
phers of this country have lightly con-
sidered as ridiculous, has heen gravely
estahlished as a conclusion which the
phenomena not only warrant hut enforce.
The French philosophers, for a long
time, viewed the question in the same
light as the British. Condillac, indeed,
set the latter the example; hut of late a
revolution is apparent, and two recent
French psychologists have marvellously
propounded the doctrine, long and ge-
nerallyestahlished in Germany, as some-
thing new and unheard of hefore their
own assertion of the paradox.
"This question is one not only of im-
portance, hut of difficulty; I shall endea-
vour to make you understand its pur-
port hy arguing itupon hroader grounds
than has hitherto heen done, and shall
prepare you, hy some preliminary infor-
mation, for its discussion. I shall first
of all adduce some proof of the fact, that
the mind may, and does, contain far
more latent furniture than consciousuess
informs us it possesses. To simplifj- the
discussion, I shall distinguish tbree de-
grees of this mental latency."*
The first of these degrees of mental
latency is that ordinary retention of
our knowledge which we have already
canvassed. We know n science or
language at all times, and not only
when we are making use of our
knowledge. In our author's own
words, "the possessions of-our mind
are not to he measured hy its present
momentary activities, hut hy the
amount of its acquired hahits."
These acquired hahits, then, are the
first degree of latency: that is, there
is some latent condition of mind or
hrain on which these hahits depend.
The second degree of latency is
where the mind "contains certain
systems of knowledge, or certain
hahits of action which it is wholly
unconscious of possessing in its ordi-
nary state, hut which are revealed to
consciousuess in certain extraordinary
exaltations of its powers." For evi-
dence of this, we are referred to the
class of cases we have already alluded
to, where knowledge is revived in
fever, or delirinm, or somnamhulism,
which apparently had hecome extinct.
• Vol. i. p. 338.


508
[Oct.
Sir William Hamilton.

Sir William oses rather large words
when he speaks of " systems of know-
ledge and hahits of action" heing re-
vived under such circumstances;
nevertheless, the facts are curious
enough and siguificant enough to de-
mand our attention. After making
due ahatement for that exaggeration
of statement which invariahly attends
upon novel and marvellous facts, even
where scientific men are our witnesses
(for the imagination excited hy the
wonderful sees more than was ever
presented to the senses), this class of
cases demonstrates that a startling
exaltation of some of our powers
may result during an abuormal state
of health. We apprehend that in no
such cases the whole intellectual or
mental heing is improved—there is
some more than compensating weak-
ness. A man repeats verses in his
fever, and caunot recoguise his friends
who are perhaps standing hy and
wondering at this unusual display of
memory. But, however remarkahle
such cases, we caunot need two ex-
planations of them. Involuntary
reminiscences, involuntary trains of
thought, as little guided hy will, or
purpose, as our dreams, may well ho
remitted to the hrain as their im-
mediate prompter. Its operations
prompt thorn in the conscious heing,
the mind. The hrain acts here like
an internal sense. And though wo
have in these cases extraordinary
examples, we have no new law or
operation, cerehral or mental. In
ordinary memory a slight impression
on the senses may, after a long in-
terval, he unexpectedly revived. It
is a matter of degree. So, also, in
what we call a state of health there
are different degrees and various
causes of cerehral excitement, and a
cup of coffee may do for us, to a cer-
tain degree, what a fever does in a
far higher degree.
The interesting case which Cole-
ridge made so extensively known hy
recording it in his BiugrapMa Litem-
ria, is quoted here. A young girl who
had formerly lived with a learned
divine, whose hahit it was to walk
ahout tho house reading aloud his
favourite authors, Greek, Latin, and
Hehrew, fell ill of a fever. It was
many years since she had lived with
this divine, nor had she heen known
in her health to repent any of tho
learned words she had heard; yet in
her delirinm she was "incessantly
talking Latin, Greek, and Hehrew in
very pompous tones, and with most
distinct enunciation." The instance
is extraordinary; hut as no experience
has enahled us to set a limit to the
powers of memory—as we caunot
say how slight an impression may he
revived, or at how long an interval—
we have no new law presented to us,
we have simply an act accomplished
under the excitement of fever, which
could not have heen accomplished
without that excitement.
The third degree of latency is that
ahout which our question is raised—
modifications or operations of the
mind not resulting in consciousuess—
of which consciousuess is not (as is
generally understood of operations of
the mind) the sole exponent.
"The prohlem, then, with regard to
this das" is, are there, ia ordinary, men-
tal modifications—i.e. mental activities
and passivities—of which we are uneon-
8cious,hut which manifest their existence
hy effects of which we are conscious!"
Of course we caunot directly know
that of which we are unconscious,
hut we may infer the existence of it;
the supposition may he necessary in
order to explain the existence of what
we do know. But here, how are we
to conceive modifications in an im-
material suhstance i It may he said,
that if we refuse to accord such mo-
difications, we shall he compelled to
attrihute so much to the modifications
and operations of the hrain, as to
drive us towards materialism. But,
on the other hand, if we introduce
any conceivahle modification in the
mind, we must assimilate it to a mate-
rial suhstance. Let us see some of
the grounds from which our ingenious
author infers the existence of these
unconscious modifications.
"Let us take our first example from
Perception—the perception of external
ohjects—and in that faculty let us com-
mence with the sense of sight. Now,
you either already know, or eau he at
once informed, what it is that has oh-
tained the name of minimum visii'dr.
Vou are, of course, aware, in general,
that vision is the result of the rays of
light reflected from the surface ot oh-
jects to the eye; a greater numher of


510
[Oct.
Sir William Hamilton.
this curious topic, and indeed must
leave several interesting questions
touching the memory hehind us, and
pass on to the next great element of
coguition.
JuDgment.—We must again re-
mind our reader that an exposition
of ideas frequently requires us to
mention in an order of time things
which are coexistent and inseparahle.
In every memory, and in every per-
ception, there is involved some judg-
ment, some feeling of relationship, of
space, or time, or similarity, or con-
trast. In the earliest coguition we
can summon up, there are related
things; and if we try, in our philoso-
phical analysis, to think some mini-
mum of matter, we still find that we
have parts and d relation of position.
So far is it from heing true that
we never think of more than one
thing at a time, that, in fact, we can-
not think of any one thing, without
relating it to some other. All its
qualities consist of such relations.
This Sir William Hamilton very dis-
tinctly states when, aiter treating of
the presentative faculty (Perception),
and the representative faculties (Me-
mory and Imagination), he proceeds
to treat of the Judgment or Reason,
which he divides into the Elahorotive
and Regulative Faculties. It is thus
ho descrihes what we popularly call
Judgment or Comparison.
"The faculties with which we have
heen hitherto engaged, may he regarded
as rsuhsidiary to that which we are now
ahout to consider. This, to which I gave
the name of the ElahorativeFaculty—the
faculty of Relations—or Comparison—
constitutes what is properly denominated
Thought It supposes always at least
two terms, and its act results in a judg-
ment; that is, an affirmation or negation
of one of these terms of the other. You
will recollect that, when treating of Con-
sciousuess in general, I stated to you
that Consciousuess necessarily involves a
judgment; and, us every act of mind is an
act of Consciousuess, every act of. mind
consequently involves a judgment . . .
So far from Comparison or Judgment
heing a process always suhsequent to the
acquisition of knowledge (tbrough per-
ception and self-consciousuess), it is in-
volved in a condition of the acquisitive
process itself. . . .
"In opposition to the views hitherto
promulgated in regard to Comparison, I
will show that this faculty is at work in
every, the simplest oct of mind; and
that, from the primary affirmation of
existence in an original act of conscious-
ness to the judgment contained in the
conclusion of an act of reasoning, every
operation is only an evolution of the same
elementary process—that there is a dif-
ference in the complexity, none in the
nature of the act; in snort, that the
various products of analysis and syn-
thesis, of ahstraction and generalisation,
are all merely the results of Comparison,
and that the operations of Conception, or
Simple Apprehension, of Judgment, and
of Reasoning, are all only acts of Com-
parison in various applications and de-
grees "*
We are quite prepared to acquiesce
in this wide generalisation of Sir
William Hamilton's. In all our know-
ledge—in all our reasoning—we see
a similar act of judgment exercised
on simpler or more complex terms.
B«t we find it essential to take
notire here, that if we regard Com-
parison or Judgment, not only as a
process suhsequent to the acquisition
of knowledge, hut "involved as a
condition of the acquisitive process
itself," we must include two different
things under this head of Judgment.
We must not only include what is
popularly understood as Comparison
(where the properties of two hodies
are compared), hut that elementary
faculty—that fundamental law, or
iunate idea, as it is sometimes called
—which, in the first instant, makes
us coguisant of the property. For
instance, when we compare two
hodies as to their magnitude, there
must he, heside the act of compari-
son, the fundamental ideas of exist-
ence or space. Whatever we choose
to call it, which makes us for the
first time coguisant of the relation
of position, must he included in this
act of Comparison or Judgment.
The distinction of these two ele-
ments in the one act of judgment may
at first sight appear a needless suhtle-
ty; hut it is from overlooking it that
we expose ourselves to the iunumer-
ahle suhtleties and perplexities of the
old controversy ahout iunate ideas or
a priori judgments. These fundamen-
• Vol . i. p. 277.


1859.]
511
Sir William Hamilton.

tal ideas or modes—as space, exist-
ence, time—render all experience
possihle, and yet are known to us
only in that experience. Metaphy-
sicians have generally preferred to
assigu these two elements of the
one act of judgment to separate facul-
ties; Sir William Hamilton classes
Existence, Space, Time, amongst the
necessary truths of his Regulative
faculty. We have no opposition to
make to' this classification; we would
only ohserve that, in point of fact,
they are inseparahle from the act of
judgment, or a perception of rela-
tions. To perceive the relations of
position and of sequence, is to have
the ideas of space and time, and they
enter the mind in no other way.
We may now he said to have all
the elements hefore us of a complete
coguition—sense, memory, and judg-
ment. Each ohject of coguition hears
various relation with other ohjects;
new groups of these ohjects are per-
petually heing found tbrough memory
or imagination, and new relations he-
tween these groups are perceived.
Language intervenes with its mar-
vellous assistance, and the generalisa-
tion of senses, or those which hear
the name of social, moral, and poli-
tical truths, take their place in the
human mind. Nor is knowledge
limited only to the senses, or gener-
alisations ultimately founded on the
senses: we can infer much. Having
estahlished certain laws of nature,
we can infer unseen causes from
known effects; we can infer for the
future of man and the human soul
purposes yet uurealised.
Have we reached the termination
of our analysis, or is there yet some
source of knowledge overlooked? Sir
William Hamilton has one remaining
division which we have only par-
tially taken into our summary—that
which he denominates the Regulative
Faculty. Here we have arrived at
that other end of the scale where,
as we said, our author fraternises
with Leibuitz, and approximates to
what is loosely descrihed amongst
us as the German school of philoso-
phy. At this point it will he well
to extract the tahular view of Sir
William Hamilton's classification of
our faculties of coguition: it will he
seen how far we have travelled with
him, and what of the journey remains
to he taken.
"1. Presentative
2. Conservative
3. Reproductive
4. Representative
5. Elahorative
0. Regulative
{External — Perception.
Internal — Self-consciousuess.
— Memory.
( Without will — Suggestion.
\ With will — Reminiscence.
"=, Imagination.
—» Comparison,—Faculty of Relations.
— Reason,—Common Sense."*
It will he seen at a glance that
the five first of these, and a portion
of what is included in the sixth,
have heen emhraced hy us under the
heads of Perception, Memory, Ima-
gination, and Judgment. Under the
head of Judgment we took notice of
those fundamental ideas, or modes,
or laws of thought, which are essen-
tial to all comparisons, which render
all experience possihle, hut which
we were unahle to separate from the
act of judgment. Besides these, are
there any other "necessary truths"
which we are hound to recoguise
und set apart under the title of the
Regulative Faculty?
We will here quote the hriefest
passage we can select in which Sir
William Hamilton descrihes and dis-
tinguishes these two departments or
faculties—the Elahorative and the
Regulative—into which he has divid-
ed what is popularly known as the
one faculty of reason, judgment, or
understanding:—
"The Elahorative Faculty has only
one operation, it only compares—it is
Comparison—the faculty of Relations.
It may startle you to hear that the
highest function of mind is nothing
higher than comparison, hut, in the end,
I am confident of convincing you of the
paradox. . . . Generalisation, which
Vol. ii. p 17.


512
[Oct.
Sir William Hamilton.

is the result of synthesis and analysis,
is thus an act of comparison, and is pro-
perly denominated Conception. Judg-
ment is only the comparison of two
terms or notions directly together: Rea-
soning only the comparison of two terms
or notions with each other tbrough a
third. Conception or Generalisation,
Judgment and Reasoning, are thus only
various applications of Comparison, and
not even entitled to the distinction of
separate Faculties. . . .
"This is thought, strictly so called;
it corresponds to the &iitua of the
Greek, to the Discursus of the Latin,
to the Vcrstand of the German philoso-
phy: and its laws are the ohject of logic.
"But in the sixth and last place, the
mind is not altogether indehted to ex-
perience for the whole npparatus of its
knowledge—its knowledge is not all
adventitious. What we know hy expe-
rience, without experience we should
not have known; and as all our experi-
ence is contingent, ull the knowledge
derived from experience is contingent
also. Kilt there are conditions in the
mind which are not contingent—which
are necessary—which we caunot hut
think—which thought supposes as its
fundamental condition. These cogui-
tions, therefore, are not merely gener-
alisations from experience. Hut if not
derived from experience, they must he
native to the mind. . . . These na-
tive,—these necessary cognitions, are
the laws hy which the mind is governed
in its operations, and which afford the
conditions of its capacity of knowledge.
. . . On the power possessed hy the
mind of manifesting these phenomena,
we may hestow the name of the Regu-
lative Faculty. This faculty corre-
sponds in some measure to what, in the
Aristotelic philosophy was called NoSs,
—i"<tj; (intellectus, 7nens), when strictly
employed, heing a term, in that philoso-
phy, for the place of principles—the
loots principiorum. It is analogous,
likewise, to the term Reason, as oc-
casionally used hy some of the older
English philosophers, and the Vernunft
in the philosophy of Knot, Jacohi, and
others of the recent German metaphy-
sicians. It is also nearly convertihle
with what I conceive to he Reid's, and
certainly Stewart's, notion of Common
Sense."*
If now wo turn to the 38th Lec-
ture, headed The Regulative Faculty,
we shall find ft more complete enu-
meration and account of these neces-
sary truths—we shall find that the
list of them not only emhraces those
which we have already descrihed, as
essential to experience, hut others,
which, if not generalisations from
experience, might, at all events, he
taken for such, aud are hy many con-
sidered as such.
"The derivative coguitions are of our
own fahrication; we form them after
certain rules; they are the tardy result
of Perception and Memory, of Atten-
tion, Reflection, Ahstraction. The primi-
tive coguitions, on the contrary, seem to
leap ready armed from the womh of
reason, like Pallas from the head of Ju-
piter; sometime» the mind places them at
the commencement of Us operations, in
order to have a point of support and a
fixed hasis, without which the opera-
tions would he impossihle; sometimes
they form, in a certain sort, the rroiening
—consummation, of all the intellectual
operations The primitive and
general notions are the root of all prin-
ciples—the foundation of the whole edi-
fice of human science. . . .
f Leibuitz is the first hy whom the
criterion of necessity—of the impossi-
hility not to think so and so—was esta-
hlished as a discriminative type of our
native notions, in contrast to those which
we educe from experience, and huild up
tbrough generalisation. The enounce-
ment of this criterion was, in fact, a
great discovery in the scienee of mind;
and the fact that a truth so manifest,
when once proclaimed, could have lain
so long uunoticed hy philosophers, may
warrant us in hoping that other dis-
coveries of equal importance may still
he awaiting the advent of another Leih-
nitz."!
Wo should readily receive this cri-
terion, if the application of it could
have heen agreed upon. Ideas or
heliefs, which are manifestly essential
to all experience, and are thus in
reality one with experience, we can
as readily receive as necessary truths
of the Regulative Faculty, as under
any other description. But when
the necessary truth is descrihed as
"sometimes crowning" our intellec-
tual efforts, and when we find at-
tempts made to determine philoso-
phical disputes hy an appeal to a
"necessary truth," we hegin to feel
that we are treading on very inse-
cure ground. The moment we extend
the list heyond such fundamental con-
ceptions (like existence, space, and
* Vol. ii. p. 15.
f Vol. ii. p. 352.


1859.]
513
Sir William Hamilton.

time), as are necessary to any know-
ledge whatever, we find that the
"necessary truth" hecomes a suh-
ject of controversy. Some admit,
some reject; and, owing to the ad-
vance of science, what has heen as-
serted as a necessary truth in one
age, has heen deserted as a mere pre-
judice in the next. It was once a ne-
cessary truth that a hody caunot act
hut where it is. The doctrine of at-
traction or gravity has reconciled us
to the idea of hodies acting on each
other at a distance. If the pheno-
mena of gravitation should he re-
duced (hy the interposition of a suhtle
ether, and the application of our the-
ories of electro-maguetism) to a form
of motion hy impulse, we may go hack
again to the old "necessary truth."
Every strong conviction seem* to
certain minds impossihle to contra-
dict, and thus may always aspire
to the rank of a necessary truth.
Sir William Hamilton classes the he-
lief that the total amount of matter
does not increase or diminish in the
universe amongst necessary truths,
which surely is a result of ohser-
vation, and a truth which should ho
limited to the sphere of ohservation.
On the other hand, he descrihes the
helief in God as a truth of inference,
which hy many men would he placed
in the first rank of necessary truths.
This suhject has, of late, heen discuss-
ed very ahly hy Mr. Whewell on the
one side, and Mr. J. S. Mill on the
other. The valuahle " discovery " of
Leibuitz does not seem even yet to he
recoguised hy all philosophers.
But what is peculiar to Sir Wil-
liam Hamilton in his treatment of
this part of his suhject is, that he
divides these necessary truths into
two classes, those of a Positive Ne-
cessity, and those of a Negative Ne-
cessity. This last class he refers to
what he calls a principle of weak-
ness or impotence. The mind comes
to a point where it meets two con-
tradictory propositions which admit
of no middle term, which are mu-
tually destructive of each other, yet
of which one must he true.
Some course must he taken out of
sheer necessity; hut this is a nega-
tive necessity—tho necessity of an
alternative, not the necessity of a
positive truth. As Sir William
Hamilton dwells upon this distinc-
tion with something of the fondness
of an original discoverer, and as it
has heen lately hrought rather con-
spicuously forward in certain theolo-
gical discussions (relating to our con-
ceptions of tho Infinite), it is impos-
sihle for us to pass it over in sdence;
although it seems very clear to us
that if there are such contradictory
propositions as are here descrihed, we
have hefore us simply a case of neces-
sary ignorance, not of necessary
truth. So far as speculation is con-
cerned, and unless some human inte-
rest or desire gave its weight to one
of the two propositions, there would
he simply a suspension of judgment,
and no helief or conviction, and cer-
tainly no knowledge, at all.
"It is agreed that the quality of ne-
cessitv is that which discriminates a na-
tive from an adventitious clement of
knowledge. When we find, therefore, n
coguition which contains this discrimi-
native quality, wo are entitled to lay it
down as one which could not have heen
ohtained as a generalisation from expe-
rience. This I admit. But when philoso-
phers lay it down not only as native to
the mind, hut as a positive and immedi-
ate datum of an intelleetunl power, I de-
mur. It is evident that the oualitv of
necessity in a coguition may depend on
two different and opposite principles,
inasmuch as it may either he the result
of a power, or of a powerlessuess, of the
thinking principle. In the one case it
will he a Positive, in the other a Nega-
tive necessity." *
After giving some instances of tho
Positive necessity, as the notions of
existence, the intuitions of Timo and
Spaoe, he continues:—
"But hesides these, there are other
necessary forms of thought which, hy all
philosophers, have heen regarded as
standing precisely on the same footing,
which to me seem to he of a totally dif-
ferent kind. In place of heing the re-
sult of a power, the necessity which
helongs to them is merely a consequence
of the impotence of our faculties."
And then he proceeds to state some
instances of this " Contradiction and ,
Excluded Middle." But first, we are
Vol. ii., p. 366.


514
[Oct.
Sir William Hamilton.

not told why experience should not
he a sufficient guide to the recogui-
tion of a limit to our knowledge, or
to the recoguition of these contradic-
tions; and, secondly, we do not feel
that he has made out his cases of
contradicting propositions. We do
not find, for instance, two contra-
dictory propositions as to the Infinite
or the Eternal.
As Sir William Hamilton's philo-
sophy was hrought forward hy Mr.
Mansel in his Bampton Lectures to
support a rather remarkahle line of
reasoning, * we must heg that a dis-
tinction he drawn hetween two very
different statements which our meta-
physician has made relating to the
suhjects of the Infinite and Ahsolute.
Tho one we admit, the other is what
we are at present disputing. That
every coguitiou must exist of two
terms, at least, and a felt relation,
appears to us an evident and import-
ant truth; and that therefore the
Ahsolute or Unconditioned caunot ho
a direct ohject of human knowledge,
we think, mnst he admitted. This
law of our thought Sir William
Hamilton enunciated with singular
force in his review of M. Consin,
afterwards repuhlished as an Essay
on the Jlncondilioncd. He there
shows that the Infinite caunot he
known, per se, in a positive sense.
Our positive conceptions are neces-
sarily of the Finite. The infinite is
only known in relation to the finite.
Draw any circle, large or small, there
is always an infinite space heyond it
—an infinity which emhraces the
circle itself. But the other state-
ment which he has made, in conjunc-
tion with this, and which is more
especially dwelt upon in these lectures,
is of a quite different and very dis-
putahle character—namely, that we
have contradictory notions of the
infinite forced upon us. We find
limit or imperfection, not contradic-
tion. And indeed how can Sir Wil-
liam Hamilton make his two state-
ments consistent with each other?
He says, in the one statement, this
and this only is your notion of the
infinite; he says, in the other state-
ment, that two opposite notions have
an equal validity.
"Now, then, I lay it down as a law
which, though not generalised hy phdo-
sophers, can he easily proved to he true
hy its application to the phenomena:—
That all that is conceivahle in thought
lies hetween two extremes, which, as
contradictory of each other, caunot hoth
he true, hut of which, as mutual contra-
dictories, one must. For example, wc
conceive space—we caunot hut conceive
space. I admit, therefore, that space in-
definitely, is a positive and necessary
form of thought. But when philosophers
convert the fact, that we caunot hut
think space, or, to express it differently,
that we are unahle to imagine anything
out of space—when philosophers, I say,
convert this fact with the assertion, that
we have a notion,—a positive notion, of
ahsolute or of infinite space.they assume,
not only what is not contained in the
phenomenon, nay, they assume what is
the very reverse of what the phenome-
non manifests. It is plain, that space
must either he hounded or not hounded.
These are contradictory alternatives; on
the principle of Contradiction, they can-
not hoth he true, and on the principle
of Excluded Middle, one must he true."f
It has heen often said that our
knowledge and obr heing lies hetween
two infinities and two eternities—the
infinitely great, the infinitely small,
the eternal past, the eternal future.
We look out on hoth sides with a
conviction that there is no limit.
This is all the conception of infinity
we can possihly have. But the doc-
trine that our knowledge lies hetween
two contradictions is'quite another
and most fallacious statement. Where
are the contradictions? Are they
such as are really left to us as the
last result of earnest inquiry, or are
they the product of a logical dexterity
taking advantage of the undeniahle
ohscurity of the suhject? We have
never had much respect for these
ingenious antagonisms or "antino-
mies " of the reason. With regard to
Infinite Space, Sir William Hamilton
himself tells us that we can have no
positive conception of it; we think
* In the review of Mr. Manscl's lectures in our July numher wo were unahle,
from want of space, to enter into these peculiarities of Sir William Hamilton's
Philosophy. Perhaps the following remarks may he allowed to supply the defi-
ciency. - f Vol ii. p. 368.


1869.]
6M
Sir William Hamilton.

of a circle perpetually enlarging, and
alwny s having a without and a within;
this illimitahle heyond ia our only
infinite, and it is just as clear to us
whether the circle we imagine he
tbree feet in diameter, or whether it
emhraces all the known stars. But
after having taught us this, it is
mere sophistry to say that the oppo-
site proposition of a "hounded
space" is equally valid hecause we
caunot in a positive mauner repre-
sent to ourselves the "unhounded."
"We are altogether unahle," says
Sir William Hamilton, "to conceive
space as hounded—as finite: that is,
as a whole heyond which there is no
other space." We all admit this in-
stantly, nor can there he any contra-
dictory proposition hrought forward
to shake our conviction. What is
stated here as such is no contradic-
tion. "On the other hand," con-
tinues Sir William, "we are equally
powerless to realise in thought the
possihility of the opposite contradic-
tory; we caunot conceive space as
infinite, as without limits. You may
launch out in thought heyond the
solar walk, you may trauscend ia
fancy even the universe of matter,
and rise from sphere to sphere in the
region of empty space, until imagi-
nation sinks exhausted;—with all
this, what have you done? You have
never gone heyond the finite, you
have attained at hest, only to the
indefinite, and the indefinite, however,
expanded, is still always the finite."*
What have we done? We have done
oil that, when contending for the in-
finite space, we ever professed to do.
We have shown how we might travel
in thought for ever and for ever, and
never find a limit; we have shown
that every limit implies a heyond.
It is thus that, under Sir William
Hamilton's instruction, we defined or
descrihed our notion of the infinite.
Our circle may widen for ever, and
there is always an inexhaustihle he-
yond. You may call this heyond at
each moment the indefinite, if you
please, hecause our conceptions oau-
not emhrace the inexhaustihle; hut
this conviction, that, from the nature
of things it is inexhaustihle, remains,
and this conviotion constitutes our
notion of the infinite. It is no con-
tradiction to say that "we caunot
realise in thought " the unhounded,
if hy realising in thought he meant a
representation in the imagination, for
it is precisely this acknowledged im-
possihility of presenting to ourselves
a last houndary, that constitutes our
rational conviction of the infinite.
We realise it in thought as such ra-
tional conviction.
As with Space, so with Time:
two contradictory propositions are
conjured up hefore us which in fact
are not contradictory. "We are al-
together unahle to conceive Time as
commencing." This expresses the
conviction of every one of us, and it
constitutes our definition of a past
eternity. Let us place ourselves in
what epoch we please, there is always
the same immeasurahility hehind
us and hefore. It is not a great
internal, hecause an interval has a he-
giuning and an end. Take what in-
terval you will, there is at hoth ends
precisely the same immeasurahility
hefore and after. What is the con-
tradictory proposition ?" On the
other hand, the concept of past time
as without limit,—without commence-
ment, is equally impossihle. We can-
not conceive the infinite regress of
time; for such a notion could only he
realised hy the infinite addition in
thought of finite times, and such an
addition would itself require an eter-
nity for its accomplishment.'"t But
it is precisely this acknowledged
impossihility hy any addition of
finite times to reach a hegiuning of
time, or to approach the least nearer
to such hegiuning, that constitutes
our definition of eternity. This im-
possihility stands there as a truth of
experience or inference. There is
no contradiction to it. If we pro-
fessed to have a conception of eter-
nity so that the mind's eye could em-
hrace it, then indeed we should he
opposed to contradiction.
Sir William Hamilton adds: —
"The negation of a commencement
of lime involves, likewise, the affir-
mation, that an infinite time has, at
every moment, already run: that is,
it implies the contradiction, that an
infinite has heen completed." Sir
Vol. ii. p. 370.
f Ihid. p. 372.
S


51-6
[Oct 1850.
Sir William Hamilton.

William himself could very easily,
had ho chosen, have solved the riddle
he lias here placed hefore us. We
have seen it pnt more simply, thus:
There was a past eternity forty years
ago; therefore, at this moment, there
is an eternity plus forty years. The
puzzle is made hy proposing to add
to the immeasurahle. Every event in
time . has precisely the same relation
to eternity; it has definite and very
different relations to other events.
The two rclatohisliips should he kept
distinct. The forty years caunot he
measured off from eternity any more
than forty feet could he measured off
from infinite space. Intervals of
time imply a hegiuning and an end;
and only such intervals can he made
longer or shorter. The same riddle
might he put with regard to infinite
space. You might measure forty
feet from A to B, and then say, that
looking from A, there was an infi-
nity plus forty feet. But, in fact,
position, or measurahle distance, is
only a relation hetween two finites.
Each finite ohject hears the same re-
lation to infinite space, whatever re-
lation it has to other finites. The
ancient sophist could prove that mo-
tion was impossihle, or non-existent,
so long as he could fix attention ex-
clusively on the relation of each oh-
ject to infinite space; it is only the
relation of ohject to ohject that
gives position, and consequently that
change of position we call motion.
In like mauner one might prove that
the sequence of events was impossihle
if, instead of looking at the relation
hetween the two events, one could
fix the mind on the relation of each
to eternity.
Placing ourselves, therefore, under
the guidance of Sir William Hamil-
ton himself, wo caunot admit that,
in our notions of the Infinite and the
Eternal, we are exposed to this cruel
sport of contradictory propositions,
each having equal claim to our as-
sent. We admit his account of these
notions, and are happy to find that
he produces nothing valid against
them. Nor do we hold that the im-
possihility of conceiving the Infinite,
or the Eternal, in any other way
than he has descrihed, is in the least
adverse to any intelligihle doctrine
of religion. If we form the concep-
tion of God, as Creator, we must
necessarily conceive of Him as in re-
lation to the Universe. One does
not see how anything is gained hy
the vain attempt to apprehend Him
as the Ahsolute. Again, we say that
the universe exists in the mind of
God as thought. The idea of infi-
nity, then, as applied to the mind of
God, cannot he other than the same
idea as gathered from the universe
itself. We know the universe as in-
finite, wo do not know the infinite
universe; we know God to he in-
finite, we do not know the infinite
God. No one ever asserted that we
caunot know the universe at all, he-
cause we caunot know the whole,
hecause we know there is an impos-
sihility that we should ever know it
in its infinity.
That this doctrine of truths of a
"negative necessity" does not remain
idle in the system of Sir William
Hamilton, is shown hy this, that he
ultimately resolves into a truth of
this order our idea of Causation. This
suhject of Causation he has dis-
cussed at some length in these Lec-
tures, and we had proposed to our-
selves to follow him in his investiga-
tions of one of the most interesting
prohlems of philosophy. But our
space is exhausted: what we wished
to say on this topic must wait some
future occasion. We ought perhaps
to congratulate ourselves that we
havo heen ahle, in so short a com-
pass, even in this imperfect mauner,
to give some account of Sir William
Hamilton's doctrines of Coguition.
Those who have the requisite leisure
will hardly fail to peruse these lec-
tures themselves. They are full of
thought; there is much to disin—
and to quarrel with; much to re-
ceive, and to he instructed hy; they
are, in every way, a most acceptahle
addition to our philosophical litera-
ture.


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•
BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
.
No. DXXIX.
NOVEMBER 1859. Vol. LXXXVI.
THE FRENCH ON QUEEN MART.
Whether it he owing to an im-
pulse communicated hy the success-
ful lahours of Miss Strickland, or to
some other cause, French authorship
and editorship have lately heen pro-
fnsely dedicating their services to
Mary Queen of Scots. The literature
they have favoured us with, hesides
heing divisihle into good and had,
consists partly of rhetorical declama-
tion, which helongs in a great mea-
sure to the latter category, and partly
of original research, productive of
new facts and views, which consti-
tutes, heyond douht, the more valu-
ahle part of this literary harvest.
The ahle hut hitter inquiry hy M.
Miguer, which, after appearing frag-
mentnlly in the Revue de* Detox
Mondes, was emhodied in a separate
narrative, is now some years old,
and hardly helongs to the more re-
cent series to which the present ohser-
vations are directed. From the pro-
lific pen of M. Dumas we have a
volume of his successive Crimes Celc-
hres, with the title of Marie Stuart,
amusing enough as a piece of pictur-
esque rending, hut not sufficiently
important, either for its novelty or
any other merit, to deserve length-
ened criticism. Lamartine nas also
puhlished a volume with the same
hrief title—a volume of which those
who are tJo greatest admirers of Ins
VOL. LXXXVL
U
genins, and take the warmest interest
in his checkered fortunes, will he
disposed to say the least. He takes
his facts and his tone avowedly from
a somewhat amhitious volume, of
which we shall presently have more
to say, termed Hittoire de Marie
Stuart, hy J. M. Dargaud. But far
more valuahle, as the result of pro-
found historic research, is the hook
hy M. Chernel, with the title, Marie
Stuart ct Catherine de MedicU, etude
historique sur lee Relations de la
France et de I'Ecosse. The merit of
having produced the most valuahle
contrihution among these French
trihutes to the memory of our Queen
will lie hetween this hook of Che-
ruel's and another called Lettres de
Marie Stuart, puhliees avec sum-
maires, traductions, notes et fac-
simile, hy that indefatigahle archaeo-
logist Jean Baptiste Alexandre Theo-
dore Tenlet. llis volume is intended
as a supplement to the collection hy
Prince Lnhanoff, with which the
reader either is or is not acquainted.
This venerahle mernhtr of the select
circle of Russian grandees, claiming
descent from the pristine Rurik,
stands conspicuous as a living illus-
tration of the fascinations of our
northern Cleopatra. It is related
among the trinmphs of Ninon de
l'Enclos, that she had lovers among


518
[Nov.
The French on Queen Mary.

the contemporaries of her grand-
children, one of them, according to a
questionahle legend, turning out to
he an actual descendant in that de-
gree. But the fascinations of Mary
present to us a far more potent testi-
mony in a living lover, who loves
and must love on, as some of the
sentimental songs say, down into the
third century after that In which the
ohject of his passion hreathed the
hreath of life. The Prince has spent
a great portion of a long life in the
t functions of a knight-errnnt, vindicat-
ing the spotless honour of the lady
of his love. If it has not heen his
lot to put the spear in rest against
the cniiift" maliguers, or to knock on
the shield hung outside the gate of
the castle where the otject of his
vows lies captive, he his performed
the drearkr, if less dangerous, task
of ransacking every lihrary in the
world for evidence of the iunocence
of his peerless lady, and has puhlished
the result of his lahours in seven
dense octavo volumes. They are a
curious and valuahle collection, hut
rather dryish on the whole; and
though the price of the volumes is
rather high, we have little douht Uiat
they have heen paid for hy many
more people than they have heen
read hy. The Prince's lahours were
not directed to the end of discover-
ing the truth—that was already fixed
and induhitahle as divine truth; he
sought in his humhle devotion only
to collect and record the documents
calculated to illustrate it, and hring
it home in its fnll lustre to careless
or ohdurate hearts. Accordingly, he
rejected from his collection as spuri-
ous, and in a mauner hlasphemous,
those documents which, in the view
of the impartial, tbrow douht on the
purity of his hright particular star.
it. Teulet ohserves with a sort of dry
sarcasm," C'ett Id tan* doute une con-
viction aussi sincire que retpecldhie;
malheureusement tout le monde ne la
partage pas;" and he remarks very
justly, that to those acquainted with
the Prince Lahanoff it is quite un-
necessary to explain that he is a com-
plete stranger to the volume issued
to the world for the purpose of com-
pleting his collection.
There is, in fact, a sort of Quixot-
ism in M. Teulet himself, and one
caunot help heing amused hy the
enthusiasm for historical accuracy,
which has set the one collector and
editor to dog the steps, as it were, of
the other, and supply his rejections
and omissions, in order that the world
may know the real truths. There is
no getting off with a fond hullncin-
ation, or a well-pleaded one-sided
theory, while there are archaeological
detectives to track our steps in this
fashion. The two editors are not
only honest, hut disinterested, each
in his own peculiar way. To the
affluent and distinguished Prince the
cost of printing seven volumes for
an unap;ireciating puhlic wonld he a
trifling addition to the sacrifices made
hy him in his lahorious search over
the world for their contents. At the
same time, any man, master of the
ahilities and industry emharked on
the supplemental volume, might
surely, had he desired it, have found
a more profitahle and a more dis-
tinguished method of employing them.
M. Teulet represents a race of archfB-
ologists, for whoso solid and valuahle,
hut not conspicuous lahours, the
world caunot he too grateful. In
Scotland we owe. him much. He
edited for the Baunatyue Cluh two
enormous volumes of state papers in
the French archives hearing on the
affairs of Scotland during the six-
teenth century—volumes which will
change the aspect of the history of
the period in the hands of whoever
may next write it. He is the editor
also, if we mistake not, of a volume
of letters on Scottish affairs from the
successive amhassadors sent hy Philip
II. of Spain to the court of France —
a collection which we would find of
little strvice hut for his considerate
ahridgments in clear modern French
of the old Spanish letters. The vol-
ume hy M. Teulet more especially
under notice on the present occasion,
consists chiefly, hut not entirely, of
those documents specially hearing on
Queen Mary, which lie had previously
printed in Uiese unapproachahle vol-
umes.
One would naturally say, at first
thought, that the affuir of Queen
Mary had heen over-written long
ago: that there was nothing new to
he discovered or said ahout it in the
present generation. Not so, how-


1859.]
519
The French on Queen Mary.

ever. Miss Strickland has discovered
much that is new; so has Prince
Lahanoff; so, too, have M. Teuletand
M. CheYuel. It is one of the remark-
ahle powers of true archaeological
science, that it should enahle us to
he acquiring more and more of the
truth ahout great events of the past,
the farther we are marching away
from them tbrough the lapse of ages.
We can not only prune away the
lavish overgrowth of fahle which the
carelessuess and credulity of interme-
diate historians have permitted to
cover up the bare truth of early his-
tory, hut we can even correct the
errors and till up the deficiencies of
contemporary narrators. We can not
only prove the early British his-
tory, from so great a pen as Milton's,
to he steeped in fahle, hut we can
correct and fill up Bacon's aunals of
Elizaheth—the history of his own
age, written hy its wisest son. Look
at the hu-tory of that hrilliant scholar
Buchanan—not a mere student, hut a
practical statesman. The early part
is all fahle, moulded to the political
purposes of the writer. But even of
contemporary matters—events pass-
in under his eye, as it were,
how much do we now know of
which he was iguorant! Nor is it of
less advantage to the cause of truth
that we can sometimes correct hoth
his and other writings where their
errors are rather wilful than acci-
dental.
The lahours of our French friends
hear partly on actual events within
Scotland, hut in a great measure on
the relation of these to foreigu affairs.
Of the purely Scottish portion we
shall perhaps he ahle to give some
rather odd illustrations farther on;
the foreigu department is far the
more valuahle. To have a proper com-
prehension of the wondrous events of
this period in Scotland, we must look
at them not merely at home, hut
from the centre of European politics.
It will he well to he thorougbly satu-
rated with a knowledge of the contem-
porary history of France. It is
there that we shall find, on a large
scale, systematised and classified, the
rules of action and the code of mo-
rality which, ramifying into this
country tbrough the French counec-
tion , have seemed so startling and
anomalous. The crimes and follies, so
astounding when seen in isolated
Scotland, cease to astonish, as the
chemical phenomena of a travelling
charlatan cease to astonish the adept
who has gone tbrough a course of
study in a university lahoratory. If
Catherine of Medici were a little
more studied, we should have less
difficulty in dealing with the pheno-
mena of the lite of Mary Stuart. Not
that the one had a resemhlance to
the other; they were as unlike as
the profound teacher and the careless
easy pupil. Nor were the marvellous
criminality and licentiousness which
then infested the French Court in-
digenously French, any more than
they were indigenously Scottish;
they did not spring out of the origi-
nal character, for instance, of those
French hearty hrave Guises of Lor-
raine. They were hrought over
straight from Italy, and industriously
propagated, producing a harvest
which must have fully satisfied the
fondest hopes of the importers.
The quantity of slaughter ever
crossing these pages makes one so
familiar with such phenomena, that
Scotland hecomes far less of a sham-
hles than her history, studied alone,
would make her. Besides the great
hattue of St. Bartholomew, there
are the two Guises, father and son,
picked off; then the murderer
himself, Heury III., making room
for the King of Navarre, who also
is to he assassinated; and there
was the little vacant area which
the Queen-mother kept around her
hy the quiet removal of more ohscure
victims. One wonders at the nerve
of the people who could suhsist and
"sleep o' nights" at such a Court.
The most careless ohserver must
he struck hy the suocess attending
all attempts on life in that age, when
compared with later times. Even in
France, where they might he sup-
posed to manage such things hest,
how many ahortive shots have heen
fired at Louis Philippe and the pre-
sent Emperor of the French. In the
sixteenth century your assassins
seemed scarcely ever to miss a shot;
they were more used to practice,
their consciences gave them little
trouhle, and they did not go to their
work clumsily uncertain, and half


520
[Nov.
The French on Queen Mary.

crazy with excitement, like the regi-
cide Miflh of the present day.
And hy the way, this reminds us
in passing that a curious view is
tbrown out hy these French writers
on one of the cleverest feats of this
kind which the age produced—the
shooting of the Regent Murray hy
Hamilton of Bothwellhangh. No
reader requires to he reminded of the
picturesque particulars of that deed.
There is a well-known romantic story
ahout Hamilton heing instigated hy
revenge on account of the }':ite of his
wife, turned out of her house on a
winter night with a new-horn
hahe. This story is not well authen-
ticated, and there is reason for he-
lieving that Hamilton acted as the
executioner of a doom pronounced
on Murray hy his enemies in solemn
conclave. The arrangement was a
common one in those days; it was
the shape in which hoth Rizzio and
Daruley were doomed to die, the
latter having heen, ot course, a more
formal transaction than the removal
of the Italian fiddler: the documents
counected with it were indeed care-
fully revised hy counsel learned in the
law. Well, to the point ahout
this affair of the shooting of the
Regent. In a long letter, full of
other and seemingly far more import-
ant husiness, written hy Mary to
her trusty counsellor Archhishop
Beaton, who acted as a sort of am-
hassador for her in France, there
occurs a casual passage which may
he thus rendered.
"As to what you write to me from
my cousin of Guise, I would wish
that so wortbless a creature as the
person referred to were put out of
the world, and it would give me
satisfaction if some one helonging to
me were the instrument, hut still
more if he were hanged hy an execu-
tioner as he deserves. You know how
I have this at heart, and how I dis-
liked the understanding held with
him hy my uncle the Cardinal of Lor-
raine, which I would willingly have
hindered had it heen in my power;
hut to interfere in this matter, where
I have no right to direct, is not my
aifair. That which Bothwellhangh
has done, has heen without my com-
mand, hut I feel under ohligation to
him, and all the more so than if I had
heen in the plot. I wait for the ac-
counts which ought to he rendered of
my dowry, that I may adjust my es-
tahlishment, in which I shall not for-
get the pension to this Bothwell-
hangh.'"* And then the letter passes
on to more important though less in-
teresting political affairs.
Prince Lahanoff has printed this
letter in his collection. It prohahly
contains nothing to astonish a Rus-
sian—nor is it anything hut a natu-
ral letter to those who have read
mnch in the correspondence of the
period. Miss Strickland also cites
it fairly—a remarkahle instance of
her candour and honest dealing,
since there are people in this splene-
tic age who would think it incon-
sistent with the gentleness, purity,
and maguanimity arrogated to the
character of Queen Mary. It will he
ohserved that there are two affairs
spoken of in this cursory passage—
the one, an assassination satisfacto-
rily accomplished; the other, an as-
sassination to come off. Who was to
he the victim of the latter, and what
follower or suhject of hers would
she fain have seen the instrument?
M. Dargaud at once answers hoth
questions, and is followed hy M.
Lamartine. The person it was de-
sired to put out of the way was the
Admiral Coliguy, the great leader of
the Huguenot cause, who suhse-
quently cost his enemies so mnch
trouhle on the night of St. Bartholo-
mew, lest one, whom it was of such
special consequence to slay, might
escape in the general confusion. By
these authors it is set down with
equal distinctness, that Bothwell-
haugh was the destined MMlisIu.
M. Dargaud, indeed, gives a dialogue
with an agent of the Guises, in which
Bothwellhangh is made to say that
he avenged ids own cause and Scot-
land's—that his carhine is not at the
service of every prince, or even mon-
arch, who desires it—that lie is a
Hamilton, not an assassin. For all
that there is no authority—yet
nothing is more likely than that
Coliguy might he the intended vic-
tim, while the context of the letter
* Lahanoff, iii. 364.


1859.]
521
The Freneh on Queen Mary.

seems to point to Hamilton as the
executioner. At the same time
there are old traces of a rumour that
Hamilton had heen solicited in
France, where he sought refuge, to
repeat the teat performed so effec-
tively in Linlithgow, and that he
had indiguantly rejected the pro-
posal. The coincidence is curious,
and it would he a valuahle contrihu-
tion to our history could some one
discover the missing link which
would complete the episode.
What we have said of it might he
counted a wasteful digression, if the
present were a systematic review of
the French hooks hefore us, or an
attempt to digest and arrange their
materials. These are, in fact, a great
deal too affluent and varied to he ex-
hausted within moderate space, and
the present notice of them is pro-
fessedly casual and unsystematic.
Were we to follow out M. Dargaud's
treatment of it, we would have to
tell of the mysterious awe with
which, at Hamilton Palace, he heheld
the identical hackhut with which the
deed was done, and would have to
join issue hy explaining that, having
also seen the weapon referred to hy
him, notwithstanding an inscription
on it engraved in hrass hy some emi-
nent maker of door-plates, our helief
is that it was constructed hy some
Brummagem rifle-manufacturer ahout
the period of the American War, or
perhaps a little later. But reserving
for notice further on some of the
special lights which this author has
tbrown on our country and its his-
tory, let us in the mean time cast a
glance at the larger issues hrought
out hy the collections edited, hy our
French friends.
The most valuahle service of these
volumes is, that they hring forth,
though still hut in an imperfect and
fragmentary shape, the very close
counection hetween the fate of the
Queen of Soots and the marvellous
events which in her day reconstruct-
ed the map of Europe. It was an
age of great revolutions—of rises and
falls of empires—of the disruption of
some, and the consolidation and en-
largement of others—and all this
mighty drama went on with this
young Queen of a small northern
country, almost as muoh tho centre
and pivot of the whole as the hero-
ine of a romance is the centre of all
its versatile and marvellous comhin-
ations. It mattered not that in her
self-will and impulsive attachment
she tbrew herself away, as heroines
will, first on a scamp, and secondly
on a scoundrel—the one an unequal,
the othor a decidedly low marriage.
It was destined, as if hy the despotic
will of the author of a romance, that
she should he unahle to move with-
out carrying the whole elements of
the plot with her; and even these
wretched marriages had their influ-
ence on the development of the great
events of the sixteenth century. Let
us give hut the hriefest glanco at
the conditions hy which the accom-
plished young heauty was surround-
ed, and it hceomes at once ohvious
how much for Europe and the future
rested on her destinies.
It was not alone her possession
of extraordinary heauty and mental
gifts, even accompanied as they were
hy the more potent gift of an irre-
sistihle seductiveness, that gave her
the influence referred to, hut the
mauner in which these fine court
cards were played. They happened
to he in the hand, or rather in the
several hands, of a house which
counted within its own family circle
a group of the most accomplished,
during, and successful politic tl game-
sters of the day. Tho fortune which
made Mary the daughter of a Guise,
put a character on the events of the
time. Had she heen the daughter
of her father's first wife, poor gentle
Madeleine of Valois, of a far higher
house than that of Guise—namely,
the royal family of France itself—
whatever destinies night have await-
ed her, it is not likely that they would
have heen so high. It was not the
greatness of her mother's family—
they Were far helow the Stuarts in
lustre—hut its characteristic, of heing
a pushing rising family, that gave
her name its wide influence. During
that period and for some time later—
so late, indeed, as the construction of
the Prussian kingdom—the legal
duchies which fell into the hands of
clever amhitions families had a way
of expanding into kingdoms and
empires. The King of France repre-
sented hut a Duke of Paris, and the


The French on Queen Mary.
[Nov.

Czar a Duke of Muscovia. It seemed
clear to contemporaries that the
Guises of Lorraine were to aggrandise
themselves into a royal house. They
fell hy their too eagerly grasping at
a great crown, and the amhition that
o'erleaps its sell. Their aim was to
rule France, and how near they were
accomplishing that ohject we can
only now judge hy looking hack on
that age hy the light of the present, in
which the experiment which was then
made, hut failed, has heen successful.
What the Buonaparte dynasty has
done for itself, was in fact pretty
nearly anticipated hy the dynasty of
Guise. It is extremely interesting
to compare, at the two extremes of
such a stretch of time, conditions so
unlike in their mere external and in-
cidental characteristics, yet possess-
ing so much unity in their real
essence. There was the same rest-
lessuess and fickleness among all
classes of the French people, the same
vihration hetween anarchy and ah-
ject suhmission, the saqac insane de-
termination to drive the one principle
uppermost for the time to its most
relentless conclusions; and what is
more to the point, the same thirsting
for a leader hrave, strong, relentless,
and successful. Since the tide turned
against Francis I.—since the date of
the hattle of Pavia, we may say—the
French were losing conceit of the
house of Valois. They did not satis-
fy the national craving for hrilliancy
and success, for the satisfaction of
which Frenchmen will at once cheer-
fully ahandon their liherties. France,
indeed, was waning in the eyes of
Europe hefore the rising influence of
Spain and England, the great repre-
sentatives of the two contending
forces of the age. She thus continued
in imminent peril of revolution, until
Heury IV. gave the crown the lustre
of heroism. Immediately afterwards
Richelieu handed over a well-drilled
territory to Louis XIV., hy whose
hrilliant career of victories and un-
just aggrandisements the lease was
effectually renewed, and the Revolu-
tion postponed.
Le Balafre", or the Scarred, the
head of the Guises, had in the period
of weakness and despondency per-
formed the one redeeming achiev-
ment which was glorious to his
countrymen, in the captare of Calais
from the English. He was the most
popular man of his day, and he knew
iiow hy a suhtle diplomacy to make
that as well as every other element
of his strength tell. There can he
no douht that he was the supreme
guiding spirit in that lndd movement
hy which the precious infant was
spirited out of Scotland, and curried
far heyond the reach of Heury VIII.,
and the influence of his plans for
uniting England and Scotland under
his son and her. The next great step
was her marriage with the Dauphin.
Fortune favoured them mightily at
one stroke, when Montgomery poked
out the eye of Heury II. in the tilt-
yard. A memher of the house of
Guise was now Queen of France.
It does not seem prohahle that then
they looked to sovereiguty in France.
They were hut increasing their power
hy every feasihle means that offered,
and the displacement of their niece's
hushand was not to he so defined.
Indeed, it is not likely that the Ba-
lafre" himself ever thought of the
tbrone of France. It was on his more
unscrupulous and restless son that
that consummation of their power
seems to have dawned.
To the world in general it seemed
as if all this fahric of power had
toppled down at once with the death
of the poor feehle King of France.
Queen of France and Queen of Scot-
laud—the two things w<re as far
apart in power and hrilliancy a s the
palace from the cottage, and the latter
now only remained. To these restless
and amhitious spirits, however, the
game was hy no means up. The
court card was still in their hands to
he played again; and though they
lost the fortune that seemed secured,
there were others even greater within
the range of possihilities. No time
was lost hefore their husy hrains were
at work devising a new alliance. The
several availahle monarchs and heirs
to tbrones were scrutinized. Den-
mark and some of the smaller German
states were lightly passed over hy an
eye that looked ever upwards, and at
la-t rested on the supreme piunacle
of European power—the Spanish em-
pire. It was there that whatever
France lost had heen gained. It was
the empire whose monarch hoasted


1859.]
523
The French on Queen Mary.

that the sun never set on liis domin-
ions. As liis amhassador Don Ferdi-
nand de Mandosa put it, "God was
supreme in heaven, hut the King of
Spain was supreme on earth." He had
hrought under his feet the independ-
ent states of Spain, suatched Portu-
gal, ruled the greater part of Italy; and
though the Dutch were then working
out their independence, they were,
in the eye of Spain and the greater
part of Europe, merely a handful of
rehels struggling in a swamp, and
earning for themselves condigu pun-
ishment. He crushed the Moors, and
in the conflict afterwards crowned at
Lepanto, he had proved himself the
champion and protector of Christen-
dom against the domineering Turk.
To preserve a full impression of the
mighty position of Spain under
Philip II., it is necessary to keep in
rememhrance the traditional amhi-
tion of the great continental powers
to he the centre of a revived Roman
empire, such as that which Charle-
mague estahlished for a reigu. Spain
seemed marching on to this high
destiny. France was tbrown out in
the misfortunes of Francis I. Ger-
many, though nominally in posses-
sion of the Ciesarship, had not
tbroughout her scattered states con-
centrated power to give it vitality.
The greatness of England was of
another kind—a fresh growth, to-
tally apart from the remains of the
imperial system, and supported hy
the separate vitality of its ener-
getic, free, industrious people. Thus
the Spanish monarch had no effec-
tive rival in the amhiiious course
which he was slowly hut cuuningly
and resolutely, pursuing; and when
he finally succeeded, his would he a
greater empire than ever Roman
eagle soared ahove; for had thero
not heen found a new world on the
other side of the Atlantic—the yet
undeveloped empire called the "In-
dies"?
What a position, then, for these
amhitious princes of Lorraine, could
they get their niece with her posses-
sions of Scotland and her claims
to the succession of England, made
queen of Spain 1 With such sources
of influence in their hands, it would
go hard hut that the head of the house
of Lorraine ruled in France, he it as
Mayor of the Palace, as deputy of the
Emperor of Europe, or as actual king.
Accordingly a marriage was projected,
and all hut concluded, with Don Car-
los, the heir to the Spanish crown.
The project suited admirahly with
the amhitious notions of Philip II.
In fact, like the Guises on the death
of King Francis, he had just lost
hy death the hold he had on Eng-
land hy his marriage with Heury
VIII.'s daughter, Mary; and here
was another availahle in its place;
for with all the Roman Catholics
there was no douht that Queen Mary
of Scotland was the true heiress of
the tbrone of England, and that the
overtbrow of Elizaheth the usurper
was to he hrought ahout hy Provi-
dence in its own good time, with
such judicious aid from the sword as
Philip was ahle and very willing to
supply.
There was a dark and suhtle spirit,
however, which in close quarters
might come to he more powerful
than the Guises or the King of Spain
either, set dead against the match.
This was our friend Catherine of Me-
dici, the mother-in-law of Mary. The
motives of this terrihle woman have
heen an enigma to historians. And
yet there is a view of them simple
enough, which tallies pretty well with
the facts of history; it is, that she
had no scruples of any kind, and let
nothing stand hetween her and her
ohject. If lies could accomplish her
ohject, tell them; if life were in the
way, out with it, hy hullet, steel, or
poison, as may he most convenient,
couriering time and purpose. Her
policy was an engine to he kept go-
ing, though nothing hut human hlood
should he availahle for working it;
and as to the nature of her policy,—
it was not that of despotism or of
liherty, of the Church of Rome or of
freedom of conscience, hut the enjoy-
ment of self-centred power. It seems
to add a new shade to one of the
darkest pictures of human wicked-
ness, to say that the author of the
Massacre of St. Bartholomew had no
fanaticism or religions zeal in her;
hut so it was. As to Philip he was a
thorough higot, who consoled himself
on his deathhed hy reflecting on the
numhers he had put to dea"h, and
the quantity of human agony he had


624
[Not.
The French on Queen Mary.

inflicted, for the sake of the Church;
hut as to his rival in hloodshed and
ornelty, she would have hecome, a
Huguenot or a Mohammedan could
it have served her purpose. In fact,
hers was just the Italian ethics—the
ethics of the Borgias and Cencis—
exhihited on a wide field, and guided
hy a tenacious will.
She had no love for Mary Stuart.
The day on which she, the mother of
the king, had to give precedence to
the young heauty who had hecome
reiguing queen, stampod its mark on
her hlack heart. Mary stung the
dowager occasionally with her sar-
castic tongue; for few were hetter
adepts at that dangerous accomplish-
ment which torments and makes
enemies. For all its illustrious his-
tory, the house of Medici was an
anomaly among the feudalities, from
having founded its wealth and power
on commerce instead of rapine, and
it lay open to sueers as not legi-
mately regal; hence Mary called her
mother-in-law the Jille de Marchand
—a sueer which Catherine committed
to her dangerous and retentive me-
mory. She was pretty freely accused,
indeed, of having shortened her sou's
life, hecause she thought she would
have more power were he out of the
way; and no douht she was quite
capahle of the deed. The oidy thing
in which she showed any of the con-
fiding weakness of mankind was in
heing a devotee of astrology and
divination; hut these, if they were
supernatural, yet were agencies put
in the power of man, which she
might turn to her own immediate
purpose, and which were therefore
far more to he respected than the
religion which helonged to another
world, in which she could not com-
mand ohedience.
Well, Catherine was against the
Spanish match, for the ohvious rea-
son that it would render the power
of the Lorraine Guises preponderant
over that of herself and her sons. She
was indefatigahle in carrying her
point. M. Chereul has puhlished
some of her letters on the affair to
the Bishop of Limoges, the French
amhassador in Spain. Strange docu-
ments they are, suhtle almott to un-
intelligihility, full of ingenious sug-
gestion and eager pleading, with a
shadowy half-hidden under-current
of menace. It was difficult to hring
very powerful arguments to hear
against an arrangement so advant-
ageous to hoth the parlies concerned.
She tried to make out that it would
he extremely detrimental to the Ca-
tholic cause, hecause, if her hand were
weakened hy the superiority of the
Guises, it would he the Huguenot
King of Navarre, and not she, who
would really ohtain the chief influence
in France. She endeavoured to work
tbrough King Philip's confessor, and
several of his confidential advisers.
Her daughter was Philip's third wife
—to her the most plausihle argu-
ments were addressed. It was pro-
posed that Don Carlos, instead of hav-
ing Mary, should he married to the
younger sister of his stepmother,
the Queen ot Spain. Thus that Queen
would have a sister with her, and
her position would he strengthened
hy an alliance with the heir to the
tbrone, on whom her own personal
claim as his stepmother would he
hut small. Catherine even endeav-
oured to move Queen Elizaheth to
her ends hy presenting to her a pro-
spect no douht sufficiently alarming,
hoth for the cause of Protestantism
and her own personal interest. But
how Elizaheth could have acted in
the matter save tbrough the influ-
ence of Murray, afterwards the Re-
gent, on his sister, is not very clear.
The match, however, was defeated.
People so unscrupulous as Catherine
are very successful in accomplishing
their ends. She had in her employ-
ment a countryman of her own, one
Bianci or Blanc, as the French
aunalists call faint, an expert confec-
tioner, who got the title of Queen
Catlieri tie's poisoner—that heing the
function hy which he was reputed to
gain his living. A powerful effect
would he produced on the mind hy
such a thought passing over it as
—"well, if I push her to the wall,
that woman will poison me." From
whatever una, however, she had
her way on this occasion, and one of
the most hrilliant of the dreams of
amhition was dispersed.
So ends the first act; hut the tra-
gedy in which the King of Spain, the
Lorraine Guises, and Queen Mary,
continue to he the chief characters,


526
[Nov.
The French on Queen Mary.

Cherncl, who has the iuner history of
the French part of the affair ready
to his hand, says the country was
filled with cries of vengeance. He
selects as the key-note of this senti-
ment the words in which it was
echoed hy l'Ecossuis Blackwood:—
"Le Roi, parent et heaufrere de
cette dame, laissera-t-il son meurtre
itupuni? il ne souffrira jamais que
cette tache deshonore son tres illus-
tre nom, ni que telle infainie tomhe
sur le royaume de France."* But he
was just going, with his own hands,
to drop a darker hint on his illus-
trious name. M. Chdruel notices the
significant little fact, that when
Renaud de Beaurne, archhishop of
Bourges, preached a funeral sermon
on Queen Mary, in which he called
her relations, the Guises, fou&re* de
guerre, or thunderholts of war, he
was required to suppress this expres-
sion when he puhlished the sermon.
The question hetween the Guises and
the house of Valois was coming to
an issac; within a few months aiter
the execution of Mary, the first war
of harricades was fought on the
streets of Paris; a month or two
later the Duke of Guise was mur-
dered in the King's audience-cham-
her, and the family hroken. Heury's
lukewarmness to Queen Mary had its
practical explanation — he was not
going to commit himself against a
powerful monarch like Elizaheth,
either to frustrate or to avenge the
fate of a memher of the detested fa-
mily doomed hy him to destruction.
The drama is not yet entirely
played out. A great scene remains
hefore the curtain drops, in which
Spain has to play a part; it has heen
dictated hy the departed enchantress,
and is the last, as it is the grandest,
instance of her power. The history
of this affair, as now pretty well filled
up hy the documents printed hy the
Frenchman, is extremely curious,
hoth for the minuteness of the par-
ticulars, and the vastness of the his-
torical events on which they hear.
It will he rememhered that, in her
latter days, Queen Mary rested her
hopes on the King of Spain,
feeling that, unless her cousins the
Guises were successful, she need ex-
pect nothing from France, and con-
scious, at the same time, that coun-
tenance and help from Spain would
he the most powerful means of ac-
complishing their success. Accord-
ingly, with marvellous perseverance
and adroitness, she kept up a close
correspondence during her imprison-
ment, with Philip II., and every
new document discovered renders it
clearer than ever that it was at her
instigation chiefly that Philip under-
took the invasion of England.
Mary left hehind her a last will,
which Ritson the antiquary said he
saw, hlotted with her tears, in the
Saottish College at Paris. It was,
like her ostensihle acts, a monument
of kindness and generosity, performed
with a mournful diguity hecoming
her rank and her misfortunes. All
who had heen kind and faithful to
her, high and low, were gratified hy
hequests, whioh were precious relics,
moro dear than the riches she could
no longer hestow. "The names,"
says Miss Strickland, "of her ahsent
servants who were held captive at
Chartley, including Mrs. Curie, Bas-
tian, his wife Margaret, and their
children, were not forgotten, al-
though her means of paying the
legacies she devised were rather of
a visionary nature, consisting chiefly
of the proceeds left hy her twenty
years' law-suit, this having at last
heen decided in her favour, together
with the arrears of her dower pen-
sion for the current year, which she
earnestly heseeches the King of
France to pay, for the sake of her
poor destitute servants "t The funds
were slender, it is true, yet the
legacies were paid. She had issued
another will of a more important
character, which, with her papers, was
seized at Chartley on the occasion
referred to hy Miss Strickland. This
will contained such strange and om-
inous matter that it was deemed wise
at once to hurn it; and lest there
should he any douht that it was
effectually destroyed, or any sus-
picion that its purport had gone
ahroad, Elizaheth hurnt it with
her own hands. It gave its warn-
ing—it showed the enemy—it should
go no further on its mischievous
* Quoted, Cheruel, p. 171.
f Queeni of Scotland, vol. vii. p. 481.


1859.]
527
The French on Queen Mary.

path; so thought Cecil and his
mistress. But they had to deal with
one not easily haffled in the accom-
plishment of her fixed desigus. She
confided her testamentary requests
verhally to two different persons, on
whose fidelity she could rely. Her
executor was the King of Spain. The
nature of these hequests had not heen
entirely concealed. James himself, in
his luhherly schnolboy-like complaints
ahout his mother, showed that he
knew ahout them. Tliey now make
their appearance in the shaIie of a
statement of the reception which the
King of Spain gave to the testamen-
tary injunctions. If we are to sup-
pose—which we are at liherty to do
—that they were utter falsehoods,
invented hy the persons who pre-
tended to he intrusted to the King of
Spain, there is, at all events, this
much of fact in the whole affair, that
the King of Spain helieved them to ho
genuine, and acted on them fully and
emphatically. It is the record of his
so acting that we now possess.
Gorion, Queen M.iry's French phy-
sician, was one of the recipients of
this deposit. He was commissioned
to convey to the King of Spain her
desire that he would pay certain
dehts and legacies, and distrihute
pensions and other rewards among
her more faithful adherents. As to
the dehts and the smaller recom-
penses of services, the Queen ap-
pealed to his religious feeling, on
the ground that to leave the world
without the prospect of these things
heing paid, pressed heavy on her con-
science. The sums of money ahso-
lutely named in these requests were
considerahle; and in asking that the
pensions of the English Catholics,
including the Earl of Westmoreland,
Lord Pngot, Charles Arundel, Charles
Paget, Tbrockmorton, and Morgan,
might he continued, she evidently
drew upon a liheral hand. Philip
appears not only to have unhesitat-
ingly met the larger and ostensihle
demands thus made on him, hut with
a religious zeal to have sought out
the more ohscure ohjects of Mary's
good will, that he might rigidly per-
form her injunctions to the utmost
farthing. One great injunction still
remained—it was that, notwithstand-
ing her death, he would not ahandon
his enterprise on England—an enter-
prise devised in the cause of God,
and worthy of a true Catholic king.
This hequest also, as all the world
knows, the King of Spain did his
hest to carry into effect. There were
some little suhsidiary services to he
performed hy him when he had ac-
complished it. Mary's account with
the world had a dehtor as well as a
creditor side. If the King of Spain
could reward friends, it was also
hoped that he would he in a position
to punish enemies: her last request,
therefore, was, that when once mas-
ter of England, he would not forget
how she had heen treated hy Cecil,
Leicester, Secretary Walsingham,
Lord Huntington, £ir Amyas Paulet,
and Wade, the clever Se retary of
the Council, who had discovered the
desigus of Spain hy putting the frag-
ments of a torn letter together.
While the French physician hore
to the King of Spain what might he
termed the hurdens and ohligations
of the testament, it was commis-
sioned to other messengers—heing
the Queen's two faithful attendants,
Elizaheth Curie and Jane Keunedy
—to intimate what may he called
the heneficial portion, which was no
less than the hequeathing to the
King of Spain the crowns of Scot-
land and England, in the event of
her son James continuing ohstinate
in his heresy. It is with almost
ludicrous gravity that M. Teulet
says, "Philippe II. accepta sans
hesiter les charges d'une succession
qui lui offrait des eVentualitej si
avantageuses." Advantageous even-
tualities indeed—hut, as they proved
to the executor, calamitous realities.
Within eighteen months after the
death of Mary, the Armada was in
the Chaunel. It was the last grand
explosion of the ancient crusading
chivalry—an expedition to restore
the Catholic Church to its supremacy,
and at the same time to carry out
the dying wish and avenge the
wrongs of an injured woman and a
holy martyr. The great actual drama
is now completed, and it is wonderful
with what a close contiguity in time
its long-suspended issues complete
themselves. Early in the year 1587
Queen Mary is executed; in the
summer of the ensuing year the Ar-


528
[Nov.
The French on Queen Mary.

mada comes forth und is destroyed.
That venter the Duke of Guise is
murdered and his family crushed;
and again, hefore another year passes,
the perfidious perpetrator of the deed,
Heury III., is murdered hy a Popish
fanatic, who thus clears the tbrone
for the leader of the Reformation
party.
From this great epoch history
starts afresh with new actors, who
are to hring out a new development
of events. The mighty empire of
Spain from that period collapses like
the hankrupt estate of an over-san-
guine trader, who has risked all his
capital on some rrreat adventure end-
ing in shipwreck. A powerful litile
colony of industrious Protestants
rises up where har yoke has heen
tbrown off in Holland. France is no
longer in the hand of the Guise or of
the Medici, hut is ruled hy one who,
if he dare not he Protestant, will at
all events he tolerant. In the hal-
ance of the European powers, Pro-
testantism, if not predominant, is at
least made secure. But what is not
the least important fruit of these
rapidly-succeeding events, and cer-
tainly for us the most interesting, is,
that from that epoch hegins the vir-
tual, though not the nominal, amal-
gamation of Scotland with England
in one country, having the same en-
mities and the same friendships. The
long history of the French alliance,
with all its interesting and even
endearing associations, was now to
come to a close for ever, and Scot-
land, hidding adien to the chivalrous
and hospitahle stranger with whom
she had sojourned in many a path of
cammon difficulty and danger, was
to return to the people of kindred
hlood Irom whom unfortunate events
and evil deeds had so loog severed
her.
The light tbrown upon the later
history of the Scoto-French alliance
is one of the most instructive and
attractive portions of these French
collections; and amidst the many
recollections of rivalry and animosity
which are so apt to he recalled when-
ever we review the past of France
and Britain, it is pleasant to find
Frenchmen keenly interested in
hringing to light the acts of mutual
friendship and support which hound
at least one portion of the British
empire to a close friendship with
their country.
On the origin of this alliance much
historical nonsense has heen written.
The ordinary hooks which go hack to
our earlier history tell us of an alli-
ance, offensive and defensive, hetween
Charlemague and Admins, king of
the Scots. Charlemague was not a
man to make such alliances, even had
ho found an Achains at Holyrnod,
with a secretary for foreigu aifairs,
and a well-arranged diplomatic ser-
vice, instead of having a vague idea
that somewhere in the northern parts
of this island there were one or two
rough chiefs, ruling over each his
own wild irihe of Celts or Scandin-
avians. The French alliance arose
in far later times, and its ohject is
immediately ohvious to all who pay
a little attention to the tenor of our
history. When the amhitious Nor-
man monarchs of England made their
attempts on the liherty of Scotland,
foreigu aid was of course valuahle for
the protection of those liherties after
they were restored under the hauner
of Bruce. On the other hand, to
France, always at war with England,
nothing could he more important
than to have an ally at the door of
England, to give her hattle, and keep
her at work within her own island.
The hargain was very well fulfilled.
Scotland did keep England tffeetu-
ally at work, and many a time saved
France hy turning the armaments
prepared against her upon a tough,
tormenting, and profitless enemy at
home. Matters went well with this
league until there came to he a great
inequality hetween the two friends,
and their union was like that of the
giant and the dwarf. France, from
its position, was a power ever en-
larging itself; Scotland was neces-
sarily stationary. In the time of
Heury V., adversity pressed heavily
on the French, and they gladly ac-
cepted as a great hoon the services
—the protection it might he rather
called—of the hardy adventurers
who went to find their hated ene-
mies of England on the plains of
France. Nor was France ever un-
grateful or ungracious to the Scots
individually. She opened her purse
liherally and kindly to them, petted
and caressed them, and indeed en-
dowed them with privileges and im-


1859.]
529
The French on Queen Mary.

munities which their own people
must have heheld with envy. A3
France increased in central power,
however, hy the junction of the great
fiefs, her territorial intercourse with
Scotland assumed a tone which the
proud northern could ill hear, even
if he personally enjoyed—as the ma-
jority of course did not—some private
advantage from the august alliance.
There arose a party sternly opposed
to their country hecoming a province
of France; and it seems prohahle
that it was their determination to
accomplish an emancipation from
such a fate that made the Reforma-
tion so rapid an affair as it was in
Scotland. Indeed, from the docu-
ments which have heen more lately
hrought to light, it appears that
these apprehensions were hy no means
groundless; for when Mary hecame
the wife of the French king, there
was evidently very little intention
among French statesmen to preserve
inviolate the separate independence
of the crown of Scotland. On the
contrary, they had fallen into a way
of speaking of Scotland rather as a
possession than an ally- as some-
thing which the French monarch had
to dispose of; and had the Scottish
people heen supine, the supposition
would have strengthened, until it
wonld have heen thought as prepos-
terous to question Scotland's helong-
ing to France as it now is to question
the supremacy of the British sceptre
over the Orkney Islands. In fact, as
if. Teldet's documents show, it was
once matter of serious consideration
whether Scotland should he an ap-
panage, to he enjoyed hy a second
son of France. Contemporary with
such things was the regency of Mary
of Guise, and its employment of
Frenchmen in the high offices of
state, while all the hitterness thus
created was sedulously fostered hy
emissaries from England.
Scotland was indeed then suffering
under the proverhial evil of heing at
the mercy of two friends, the one
pulling to the right, the other to the
left. Of the lahours of Queen Eliza-
heth's emissaries in Scotland, Tbrock-
morton, Walsingham, Sadler, and
Randolph, we have full accounts,
which have heen well ransacked and
instructively commented on. But
the no less interesting negotiations
of the French emissaries in Scotland
have hitherto heen little studied;
nor, indeed, could they easily have
heen so until they were gradually
hrought forth from their hiding-
places in foreigu lihraries and puhlic
offices hy the zeal of the archaeolo-
gists of France. They are not less
interesting from the glimpses which
they afford of the desigus of France,
than from the picturesque descrip-
tions which they contain of events
which it is profitahle to see from as
many sides as possihle, and which
certainly often acquire a new shupe
and character when seen tbrough the
eyes of the accomplished and acute
foreiguer employed to report on them
to the Guises, or Catherine of Medici.
The most remarkahle in accomplish-
ments and wisdom of these French
amhassadors, Michel de Castelnan de
Mauvissiere, was alike conscious of
the importance of the Scottish alli-
ance, and of the almost hopelessuess
of recovering it. After n lively de-
scription of the miseries of the country
when tortured in the terrihle wars
and plunderings of Morton, he says,
"Je suis et serais toujours d'opinion
qui'il n'y a nulle nlHanco au mondo
quo la France doive avoir plus chere
que celle de ce petit pays d'Ecosse."*
Castelnan was one of the really
great men whose eminent lahours,
wasted on tough and hopeless mate-
rials, can only he estimated hy close
inspection. As M. Cheruel well oh-
serves, we will find more of the true
spirit of the actions of the day, and
the men engaged in them, in his
letters and memoirs, than almost any-
where else. He was one of those
statesmen whose fate it is to struggle
for great ends, which their masters,
the heads of the government, will
not hack through with the necessary
energy. As M. Cheruel says, he had
in the interests of Franco to fight
Elizaheth in Scotland, and Phdip
of Spain in the Netherlands. His
memoirs show that he heheld with a
grave sorrow, partaking of despond-
ency, the exterminating spirit and
hloody deeds of hoth the parties, the
* Cherukl, p. 111.


630
[Nov.
The French on Queen Mary.

League and the Huguenots, who each
straggled in his own country, not
merely for existence hut for mastery;
and his experience of this rude con-
test gives an air of practical wisdom
and staid sagacity to his remarks on
our own quarrels, which, fierce as
they were, hold altogether ft smaller
space in the world's history than
the contemporaneous quarrels of the
French. Hence he narrates some of
the most marvellous incidents of
Scottish history with a quiet distinct-
ness, which, instead of suhduing,
rather tends to give power and em-
phasis to the narrative, when it is
felt tbroughout that it is by an on-
looker deeply grounded in a practical
knowledge of similar events. He it
was who came to Britain charged hy
Catherine of Medici with two ma-
trimonial missions—whether they
were sinoere or sarcastic, let him tell
who can. In the one, she proposed
to the austere Elizaheth an alliance
with Charles IX. of France, then a
hoy of thirteen. Whether Catherine
knew it or not, the virago had that
peculiar weakness when anything
matrimonial was proposed, that she
would play with the suggestion as
long as it would keep alive without
serious discussion. Sho remarked
cleverly enough to Castelnau, that
the King of France was hoth too
great and too little a match for her
—too great in his power, too little
in his youth. But she did not let
the atfair drop off for some time,
writing herself to Catherine, arid
otherwise handying it ahout in a man-
ner sometimes hordering, hut never
transgressing on, the serious.
His other matrimonial commission
was to offer Mary the Duke of Anjou
as a hushand. It was not very well
received, and he ohserved in the
heautiful widow the haughty and
restless spirit of her uncle the Car-
dinal. She was angry, ho thought,
with the court of the French Regent,
for having come hetween her and
the match with Don Carlos. While
it was in her mind to make an
amhitious match, she would have
none hut a truly great one, and she
freely spoke of Don Carlos's younger
hrother, who was suhsequently of-
fered to her, as the selfish fortune-
seeking heauties in fashionahle no-
vels speak of detrimental second
sons. To drop from the heir of the
Spanish empire to a prince with
neither dominions nor prospects, was
not a destiny to which she could re-
concile herself. Yet it was while Mary
was dealing in this way with a second
offer of the same kind, that the acute
diplomatist saw growing in her hosom
an attachment for a far more ohscure
youth, whom his mother the Countess
of Leunox had hrought up very
oddly, having taught him from his
youth to dance and play on the lute.
The man of the world was puzzled
somewhat hy this phenomenon, and
looked for an explanation of it to a
cause deemed in his day, among sen-
sihle men, a very practical one—he
thought that there was some influence
d'enchantemenU artiJUieh in the pas-
sion of Mary for Darnley. Of the sad
and tragic events which followed he
was a careful ohserver, and in some
respects indeed he was an actor in
them, having frequently to attempt
the vain task of the peace-maker.
La Mothe Fe"ne"lon, an ancestor of
the great hishop, is another French
diplomatist whose papers contain
interesting vestiges of the history of
the period. He it was who was re-
ceived, after the massacre of St. Bar-
tholomew, at the court of Elizaheth
with a solemn and ominous gloom,
which had more effect on him than
all the virago's furious scoldings. He
was a personal friend of Queen Mary,
holding a kindly intercourse with
her in her captivity. It was from
him that she commissioned the costly
foreigu tissues which she employed
in her matcbless needlework; and he
performed for her many other little
services. Some of the letters re-
lating to such matters are a refresh-
ing contrast with the formidahle
documents among which they are
scattered.
Casual mention of Castelnau and
Fenelon may he found in our ordi-
nary histories. In these the reader
will prohahly look in vain for any-
thing whatever ahout Charles de
Prunele, Baron of Esueval and Vi-
dame of Normandy. Yet he was sent
to Scotland on a mission so critical,
that, as far as externals go, the suh-
sequent fate and history of the
British empire might he said to turn


1859.]
581
The French on Queen Mary.

on its results. He was sent over to
Scotland in the critical year 1585 to
make a last effort to continue the
ancient alliance of Scotland and
France. Now, douhtless, it may he
justly s.nid that such a mission was,
when weighed among the events of
the world's history, a mere formal
trifiV, since the inarch of events
towards an amalgamation with Eng-
land had already doomed the French
alliance. Still, we poor human crea-
tures must note the tendency of
human progress hy its outward ele-
ments: a hattle here, a negotiation
there, a royal death or marriage, are
incidents forming landmarks in his-
tory. Were it merely as the part-
ing scene hetween two old national
friends, the last effort to keep up the
friendship of France would have its
int. rest. But in reality it was a
mission of real practical import-
ance, since it put the question to
issu-, as lawyers say, which was
to fix the destinies of Scotland, and
in a gr. at measure those of Eng-
land. That such a mission should
pass uunoticed hy historians, and
wait tor centuries to ho spoken of,
is one of the illustrations of the
truth that the tendency of history is
not fully seen hy contemporaries;
the importance of many events has
to he fixed hy the posterity which
sees the development, and can pro-
portion to each other the relative
importance of the several parts.
The instructions to d'Esueval urge
on him with reiterated emphasis the
taupwt, or rather the restoration, of
"l'antieune auiytie", alliance et voisin-
ance qui ont toujours este" entro la
France et l'Escosse." The tone of
the document partakes somewhat of
the patronising spirit which had
characterised the French treatment
of her ally for some half a century.
The amhassador is not merely ac-
credited to a sovereigu prince; he
has to do with the people too, as if
he were sent from a superior autho-
rity entitled to adjust their relations
to each other; and he is directed
to use his influence to hring the
people to ohedience, and a proper
sense of their duty to their sovereigu.
This effort was made at a juncture
when the French government could
not afford to quarrel with England,
and was in mortal terror of the Guises
at home. It came upon King James
at that ticklish time when his mother
was in imminent danger, and yet
when there were strengthening in
his favour the chances that, if he
hehaved well, and committed 'no
pieoe of folly, he would some day
he king of England. In the whole
affair, as in all others, he hehaved
like an exaggeration of a heartless,
greedy, grasping schoolhoy, suatch-
ing at whatever he could get with-
out caring for consequences. He
had half-authorised emissaries at the
courts of France and Spain, and at
several other places—Romanists who
could not ohtain actual diplomatic
credentials, and whose acts he could
disavow if he thought tit; nor was
it at all to his inconvenience that
these zealous men were apt to
go far heyond the hounds of his
duhious verhal instructions, since
that gave him the hetter excuse
for repudiating their proceedings
when it was necessary. Not a year
hefore the mission of d'Esneval, the
Lord Seton, the ardent uncompro-
mising supporter of Mary, and Ca-
tholicism, appeared at the French
Court, commissioned, as he main-
tained, hy the actual ruling power
in Scotland, to ask certain aids and
concessions from France. He pleaded
that the old league should he restored,
and that France, like an honest faith-
ful ally, should rescue the Scottish
Queen from her captivity. Among
other stipulations were the restora-
tion of the Scottish Guard to the
full enjoyment of those privileges in
France which they had hought with
their hlood, the payment hy France
of a hody of Scotsmen serving in
Scotland—a very uureasonahle-look-
ing proposal—and certain privileges
of trading. These proposals were
coldly received; all that Heury III.
would give to the juvenile Solo-
mon was a pension of twenty thou-
sand livres, which M. Cheruel, who
has seen the hrevet granting it,
supposes was very ill paid. This
emhassy, whatever was the author-
ity for it, took place a year hefore
Esueval's to Scotland. There had
heen great changes in the mean time,
which, if they rendered Mary's con-
dition more dangerous, had increased



532
[Not.
The French on Queen Mary.
the chance of her son's concession to
the tbrone of England. The same
series of events—the fall of Arran,
namely, aud this league with Eng-
land—alarmed the Court of France,
hy pointing to the total extinction
of'the French alliance; and it was
hence that d'Esueval was sent to
offer as much of the rejected Scottish
demands as France could afford to
give. It will he of course remark-
ed that, in all these matters, there
were longer heads at work than
those of the youthful King; hut
the instincts of his selfish, narrow
heart taught him to co-operate in
them. He could, if he had thought
fit, have hroken tbrough all the diplo-
matic trammels surrounding him, and
struck a hlow for his mother's life,
He had no conscientious principle to
restrain him from such an act, though
he had a strong dislike tor Popery on
the ground on which he hated Preshy-
terinnism—hecause it interfered with
the will of kings. His ruling prin-
ciple was well enough expressed in his
remarks to Courcelles—interim am-
hassador in the ahsence of d'Esueval—
that he liked his mother well enough,
hut she had tbreatened, if he did not
conform with her religious views,
that he should have nothing hut the
lordship of Darnley, like his father
—that she must drink the ale she
had hrewed—that her restless ma-
chinations had nearly cost him his
crown—and he wished she would
meddle with nothing hut prayer and
serving God. The chief figure in this
group of selfishness, meauness, and
cruelty, has to he supplied in Queen
Elizaheth seizing and committing to
the dungeon an unfortunate who had
fied to her for protection—grudging
her the expense of suitahle clothing
and food in her captivity—insulting
her rehgion—wanting to get some-
hody to assassinate her, and at
length, when the wished-for death
could not he hrought ahout without
the forms of law, pretending that
she desired it not, and endeavouring
to tbrow on others the hlame of the
deed.
And yet how wonderfully has all
this, which seems so foul and un-
seemly in romance, tended to one of
the most wonderful and hl«ssed of
historical developments 1 Let us sup-
pose King James, under the generous
impulse of youthful heroism, drawing
the sword in his mother's cause, and
France, with chivalrous devotion,
sending her armies to avert insult
and cruelty from one who had sat as
a queen on the tbrone of St. Louis.
Let us imagine Queen Elizaheth, in-
vested with the natural instincts and
impulses of her sex, kindly disposed
to a persecuted sister—yielding to
the impulses of her heart—marrying,
and leaving a progeny hehind her.
Had the dark aunals of the age heen
thus hrightened, the glorious history
of British power and progress would
have remained unwritten. With
how much longer waiting—tbrough
what series of events—the two king-
doms would have fulfilled their
natural destiny and come together,
are speculations in the world of the
uureal which can receive no definite
answer. We only know that, how-
ever it might have otherwise come
to pass, the heneficent conclusion
arose out of acts of haseness, selfish-
ness, and cruelty, as a tree grows
from decay and putrescence. Even
what remained of good a'nd generous
customs among these unworthy
powers, the kindly old French al-
liance, was doomed to extinction.
The Frenchman who has hrought to-
gether the curious notices of its pro-
gress and termination which have
elicited these cursory remarks, utter
having notioed the faint resuscitation
of a French interest in Scottish
affairs when the Covenanters appealed
to Louis XIII. against Charles I.,
concludes his task in the following
appropriate and pleasing terms:—
"L'Ecosse s'est de plus en plusiden-
tifiee avec l'Angleterre, et, il faut
hien le recounaitre, toutes deux y
out gogue". L'Ecosse a recu en com-
pensation de l'independance na-
tionale, une puissante impulsion;
industrie, sciences, litleYature, philo-
sophic, tout y a prospere". Une sage
regularite, une ohservation patiente
et ingeaiieuse, une prohite" prover-
hiale, out remplace" la loyaute un peu
sanvage, le fanalisme puritain, la
fongue indiscipline"o des anciens
Ecossais. De son c6te" l'Angleterre
a conquis la securite: tranquille dans
son ile, elle a pu porter au loin son
activite guerriere et cotnmerciale.


1859.]
533
The French on Queen Mary.

Une alliance de moins pour la France,
une province de pins pour l'Angle-
terre, voila le resultat d'une poli-
tique tour a tour faihle on passiounee,
fanatique ou indifferente.'7* In strict
propriety, the import of these re-
marks should have suggested the
metamorphosis of l'Angleterre into
Grande Bretague hefore their conclu-
sion; hut where there is so much that
is honest and generous in sentiment,
it would he invidious to criticise the
nomenclature too closely.
The most valuahle portion of these
French hooks consists, as we have
hinted, in their foreigu department.
We must have a word or two, hefore
concluding, on their handling of in-
ternal affairs in Scotland; hut we
warn our readers that these words,
if not entertaining, have certainly no
pretensions to he instructive, so that
the searcher after useful knowledge
will find nothing in them to his pur-
pose. Generally speaking, these
authors might have heen saved a
good deal of useless inquiry, and
'several inaccuracies in its results,
had they paid more attention to the
carefully filled pages of Miss Strick-
land's narrative, which, however
people may differ in opinion ahout
her conclusions, is a marvellous
monument of earnest research,' de-
veloping itself in exact, and at the
same time, picturesque detail.
The professed antiquaries, 'let na
remark, such as M. Tuelet and M.
Choruel, are generally correct in
their nomenclature. They are ac-
customed to records, and to the ren-
dering of the words in them with
precision. Those whose writings
profess dash and originality are not
so accurate. There seems in gene-
ral, indeed, to he a peculiar inaptness
in the French mind to comprehend
foreigu institutions, and accurately
to use a foreigu nomenclature — he it
for institutions, persons, or places.
All the anecdote-hooks swarm with
the mistakes—uttered in a very posi-
tive mauner—which have heen thus
committed. Indeed, a sort of national
self-sufficiency teaches our neighhours
to carry their verhal variations out of
the category of mistakes, and set them
up as standards, there heing a French
way, and a purely native way, of
naming every place and person. We
have a few national variations, hut
they are rare. We are content to
say Paris and Boulogue with the
French ; hut they must say Londres,
and for Edinhurgh their old name
was Lislehourg. No one travelling
in France ever heard his name pro-
nounced hy conducteur or douanier
as he offers it, and as it is spoken
at home. We are reminded of this
national peculiarity hy M. Dargaud
when he gives his hrilliant descrip-
tion of the marriage of Mary and
Darnley, where the Queen is served
hy " Les Comtes Atholl, Sewer, Mor-
ton, Caver, et Crawford." We might
attrihute the appearance of the Earls
Sewer and Caver to extremely care-
less correction of the press, were it
not that some other manifestations
of M. Dargaud's acquaintance with
the time and people of whom he
writes raise a strong suspicion that
he may not even now he aware that
on that occasion Atholl performed
the part of Sewer, and Morton of
Carver. There are surely not many
British readers of French hooks
who would suppose that a maltre
d'lidtcl is a personage like the Master
of Ravenswood, or that a chef de cui-
sine indicates the chief of some Gallic
clan; although, hy the way, per
contra, there is a story of a poten-
tate of the North having his card
printed off for a visit to Paris as that
of the Chef de Clandonochy, or some
such name, and in consequence re-
ceiving the honour due to an ex-
perienced cook.
M. Dargaud is more seriously at
sea when speaking of the miseries
encountered hy Mary at Tuthury.
He mentions, among other incidents,
that one evening she saw the mur-
dered hody of a faithful memher of
her own church dragged out of a well
into which he had heen tbrown for
his fidelity; and one morning she
found that a priest had heen strangled
in a chamher adjoining to her own.
These were not the shapes in which
tyrauny was usually practised even
in the tyraunical age of Elizaheth.
Madam Cottin wrote a novel or ro-
mance called Malvina, laying the
VOL. LXXXVL
* Cukhdel, p. 175.
35


534
[Nov.
The French on Queen Mary.

scene in Britain, and, so far as we
rememher the plot — it would he
too trouhlesome to read the hook
over again for the present occasion —
the chief incidents of it are, that a
fascinating French widow ig prevailed
on, with much entreaty, to give her
hand to an English duke; that his
relatives, angry at the misalliance,
prevailed on the attorney-general to
issue a writ of haheas corpus, under
the authority of which the young
dnke is transported to a colony in
the West Indies, while the audacious
partner of his guilt is tbrust into
a dungeon in the lord-lieutenant's
castle. (It does not occur to the au-
thoress that here are the occasion and
circumstances for a veritahle luxheas
corpun). And there is no way of lih-
erating the heroine save hy the dex-
terity of a devoted physician, who in-
curs in his task the risk of that feudal
vengeance which is so terrihle in this
aristocratic country.
Did it ever occur to you, reader,
to figure to yourself John Knox in
Parliament? If not, you will find
his position there set down hy M.
Dargand, who, after the mauner of
Plutarch, compares him with other
eminent memhers, noticing his pecu-
liarities in dehate, and in a prettily
turned sentence halancing his wisdom
and his ardour against Lethington's
easy eloquence and knowledge of
foreigu affairs, and Morton's audacity
and dexterity in domestic intrigue.
What a pleasant thing all these
halanced sentences and comparisons
would he, were it not from facts
standing hehind which make non-
sense of them. Knux is a character
difficult for a Frenchman of the nine-
teenth century to deal with, though
he took his lessons from a Frenchman
of the sixteenth — namely, Cauvin,
whom we call, from his Latinised
name, Calvin. There are many
marvellous statements ahout his
personal hahits, for which it would
he difficult to find authority; and
which, indeed, make one wonder in
vain where the author could have
got his hint of them. It is some
comfort to feel assured that the char-
acteristics of the following, which we
do not venture to translate, must
have heen suergested hy the hahits of
Bryan, the Celtic seer, in the Lady
of the Lake:—"Tous les soirs tres
tard, il s'endormait au hruit d'une
cascade de la montague. La chute
harmouieuse et monotone de cette
grande nappe d'eau pouvait seule
calmer l'agitation formidahle de ses
pensecs"—(.p. 193).
".Couched on a shelve heneath Its hrink.
Close where the thundering torrents sink.
Rocking heneath their headlong sway.
And drizzled hy the cea"eless ppray,
Mi<lst groan of rock and roar of stream.
The wizard waits prophetic dream."
M. Dargaud, in a pilgrimage to Scot-
land, grounded himself as well as he
could in suhtantial and apparent
facts, for the purpose of enahling him
to write his hold personal sketches.
The materials he had to deal with in
the instance of Knox were meagre
and uupromising enough; however,
he made good use of them. There
was the "statuette du docteur,"
which he saw in the High Street — a
wellkuown piece of rude carving hy
some amhitious mason, who intended
to symholise Moses. There is little,
suggestive in this statuette; hut a
picture in Hi.lyrood is pronounced to
he the veritahle " docteur imperieux
et terrihle de l'idee nouvelle," and fur-
nishes an ohject of much eloquent
raving. Any picture in Holyrood
professing to he a portrait of Knox,
can only he one of the many pieces
of ruhhish collected there for the
henefit of iguorant tourists. Of
course, M. Dargaud saw the interest-
ing stain on the old floor, which has
miraculously survived its hurning hy
Cromwell's soldiers. He throws his
whole force on this phenomenon in a
separate line, "Co sang est reste in-
effaceahle."
But M. Dargand met with won-
ders in Edinhurgh denied to the
eyes and ear^ of the common herd
of tourists. He gives a succinct ac-
count of the mauner in which
Darnlcy was put to death hefore the
honse of the Kirk-o-Field was hlown
up to conceal the deed. This ac-
count is carefully culled from the
traditions which he collected "au
pied de l'eglise expiatoire hatie sur ce
funchre lieu "—the expiatory church
huilt on the scene of Darnley's mur-
der! The statement suggests uneasy
suspicions as to the stories that may
he palmed off upon confiding touri>ls


1859.]
535
The French on Queen Mary.

iD such show-towns as Edinhurgh.
It is proverhially known that the
inhahitants of a country have an
extremely imperfect notion of the
conditions under which strangers see
and feel it. The citizens of a town
know little of the charges and ac-
commodations of the iuns, and are
diffident in passing judgment on
them when asked to give counsel to
strangers. For all that is generally
known, there may he a peculiar race
of guides or valets de place among
ns, who trot out the susceptihle
stranger. We have a suspicion, that
in the tourist districts very wonder-
ful things pass current in this man-
ner. Bat the guide who so far
fathomed the French historian's ap-
petite and discretion, as to show him
the expiatory church on the scene of
the death of Darnley, must have heen
an honour to his profession. M. Dar-
gaud is an inveterate hunter after
traditions, and finds them in the
most uupromising ground. Thus, he
found among the cottars of the coun-
ties of York, Derhy, Northampton,
and Staiford a well-preserved de-
scription of Queen Mary riding along,
surrounded hy he> maids of honour,
and followed hy the ferocious dra-
goons of Elizaheth. He might ahout
as well go to the coast of Kent and
gather an account of the appear-
ance and costume of Julins Caesar on
the occasion of his celehrated land-
ing in Britain; and perhaps M.
Dargaud would say, like Meg Dods,
"And what for no?''
Tradition is a pleasant enough
thing in itself, hut a very slippery
.material for making history of. In
a country where people read, it is
generally nothing else than a had
version of the last popular printed
account of the affair, if it he not
itself entirely founded on some work
of genins. In the neighhourhood of
Loch Katrine the whole series of in-
cidents in the Lady of the Lake have
got as suhstantial a footing as any
traditions have anywnere. Scott has
peopled our country with new trea-
sures of this kind of lore. Our au-
thor, with his powerful digestion, has
swallowed not a little of it. Thus,
we are told that the Regent Murray
would not have heen pierced hy
Bothwellhaugh's hullet had he had
the precaution to put on the "souple
et impenétrahle cotte de mailles," the
work of Heury Wynd, the celehrated
armourer of Perth. This coat of
mail must he ahout as imaginary an
article as a sermon hy the celehrated
hypocrite Tartuffe, or a cameo from
the collection of the Count of Monte
Cbristo. If we are to have history
founded on such materials, it were
well to put the right tradition in the
right place. So when we have Queen
Mary at Hamilton with her fol-
lowers, after her escape from Loch
Leven, displeased with their in-
activity, she resolves to raise them
hy one of those "symholes familieres
au genie des peuples du Nord." Ac-
cordingly, she sets hefore the assem-
hled harons a dish prepared hy
her own royal hands. The cover is
lifted, and hehold—a pair of spurs!
Universal applause and enthusiasm
follow—the war-cry is sounded, and
all leap to the saddle to conquer or
die for their Queen. Everyhody is
familiar with this as a Border legend,
of the method which the good wife
took to remind her hushand of an
empty larder. There is a certain
license, perhaps, to he permitted to
an author of rhetorical and popular
tendencies, who is speaking of a for-
eigu country, and is npt to get in-
veigled hetween the real and the
ideal. There are things coming near
his own door, as a Frenchman, how-
ever, of which so amhitious a writer
might he expected to knew more
than he seems to do. Douhtless the
pretty lines heginuing—
"Adieu plaisant pays de France,
0 ma patrio,
La plus cherie,"
were long attrihuted to Queen Mary,
and cited as critical evidence of the
impossihility of her having written
other things so far lower hoth in
morality and genins. But a French
writer ought to have known that
the piece was written hy Meunier
de Querlon, a clever miscellaneous
author of the middle of the last
century.
It were a pity that these petty
criticisms should find their way to
the author, and disturh him — he
is on so good terms with himself.
Amazed, apparently, at the success
of his hook, he thinks it due to the


536 The French on Queen Mary. [Nov.

world to tell its history from the these days of tile-draining, hetween
germ. It sprouted one rainy day, it the fruitful plains of the lowlands
seems, in the year 1846, when the and the higbland Grampians. Bat
author, driven for shelter into a the author's vivid picture of Queen
hook-stall, asked for the Letters Mary's enjoyment of the contrast
of Machiavelli, and, not ohtaining in the northern tour ending in the
them, was ohliged to take the hest hattle of Corrichie is utterly tbrown
chance volume which presented it- away, since in the course of that
self, and thus secured one which journey the country she passed over
we take from his description to he is an almost continuous track of
Tytler's Vindication of Queen Mary, hleak, low, uniform acclivities. The
Hence his literary destiny was fixed neat allusion, also, to the Queen's
for a term. He made the voyage to encounter with Bothwell, at that
England and Scotland. He explored very Cramond Bridge where her fa-
the collections, the museums, the ther had so singular an escape, is
ancient portraits, the rare engrav- equally tbrown away, since, if we
ings, the traditions, the hallads, the admit the adventure with the Guid-
lakes, the sea and its shores, the man of Ballangiech to he matter of
mountains and plains, the fields of history, the place where Bothwell
hattle, the palaces, the prisons, all met the Queen was not there, hut
the ruins, all the sites, and all the at Fountain Bridge, a suhurh of
iunumerahle traces of the past—the Edinhurgh.
enumeration is the author's own, These are trifling matters, it may
not our travesty of it. He then ex- he said—hut if an author sets op
plains how lifeless all history is with- topography as so essential a part of
out topography; and thus, with history that he hoasts of having
much simplicity, sets the reader on made great journeys for the purpose
the watch to find whether his own of achieving it, he may as well
topography is quite accurate. We make it accurate. Perhaps some
hegin with Mary, a happy child in readers may say it is not worth while
the island of Inch Mahome, in the examining, in this fashion, such a
Lake of Menteith. That she enjoy- hook as M. Dargaud's must he. But
ed the national hallads and legends, the fact is, that the hook has its
and listened with delight to the pi- merits. It has a great fund of elo-
hroch, "sorte de melodie guerriere quence and picturesqueness, and has
executeesur lecornemeuse,"is a state- achieved for itself a name in France,
ment which it would he difficult to Farther, the work has heen the text
disprove were it worth while; hut of another and a greater author, for
the author, when he descrihes her whose genins and fate we have so
hounding over the rocks at early much respect and sympathy, that
dawn, is at once contradicted hy the we forhear saying what we might
fact that the island is a hit of mea- say ahout his contrihution to the his-
dow as flat as a carpet. There is no tory of our country,
douht a great contrast, especially in
•


1859.]
537
Vatiffhan's Revolutions in English History.
ViUODAS a REVOLUTIONS I.N ENGLISH HISTORY.

What are called philosophical his-
tories are, and will he, on the increase.
By philosophical are meant histories
that concern themselves with the peo-
ple and the nation more than the in-
dividual king or governor, and dwell
more especially on those wide causes
which advance or retard national
prosperity, quite independently of
the action of the monarch and the
minister — which indeed mould, or
produce, the monarch and the min-
ister themselves. But we must not
imagine that this is an altogether
novel mauner of writing history, or
that kings and emperors, and the
chiefs of the repuhlic are to quit the
stage, and we are to he occupied only
with ahstractions and generalisations
on the undistinguished multitude and
the great classes into which a people
is divided. It is quite right that
more attention than has heen hitherto
paid should he given to those great
movements in which a whole people
participate, or which are so generally
"shared that they do not distinguish
any one individual from the tbrong.
The most important movements in
society are of this description — as
the gradual progress in industry and
wealth, or that gradual enlighten-
ment and extension of knowledge
which the man of genins or extra-
ordinary power advances, hut which
he also, in the first place, shares, or
he would not have heen the man of
genins, nor have exerted any influ-
ence on his contemporaries. It is
right that we should look attentively
at all those movements which the
whole human race may he said, in
fitting circumstances, to manifest;
for thus only shall we get a correct
idea of the great course, the wide
general current of history; thus only
shall we understand the providence
of God, as displayed in the progress
of human events. Fix your regard
exclusively on kings, or courts, or
military conquests, and history ap-
pears a game of chance: a fit of the
gout may dismiss a minister, and
decide the question of peace or war
and all that may depend ou this.
But when it is seen that there is a
steady under-current which, sooner or
later, makes king and minister and
conqueror suhservient to itself, his-
tory is reinstated in its diguity, atod
we are ahle in some measure to trace
here, as in the rest of the creation,
the operation of great and heneficent
laws. But although this is most
right and indispensahle, it does not
follow that the old hiographical mode
of writing history can he dispensed
with. Individuals who, sharing any
general movement of the mind, have
gone farther than the rest, and he-
come the types and guides and
leaders of their age, must always
retain their conspicuous place in his-
tory; and the prime agents of what-
ever great thing has heen done, must
inevitahly hold the chief place in the
narrative. Such men, whether in the
realm of thought or of action, are
not only the great agents of progress
or of change, hut the world is hest
studied in them. In them are seen
revealed the ohscure, unspoken, un-
acted sentiments of the great multi-
tude. Moreover, it is surprisingly
little that history would have to
record at all, if it confined itself to
the general movements of society
as displayed in the mass of mankind.
How stealthily proceed the great
movements of industry and puhlic
opinion! A people is visited and
descrihed as rude savages, painting
their naked hodies, living in huts,
unahle to construct a larger dwell-
ing even for their gods, and involved
in miserahle wars, which have no
other ohject than that of mutual de-
struction. Two or tbree centuries
elapse, and the curtain rises again
upon the same people: they are de-
cently clad, are huilding houses and
ships, are engaged in commerce, are
growing corn and exporting it. You
ask what produced the change. Some-
times you are referred to a specific ,
cause—as intercourse with a more
Revolutions in, Englhk History. By Rohert Vaughan, D.D. Vol. I. "Revolutions
of Race."


538 Vaughan's Revolutions in English History. [Nov.

advanced people; hut, in the end, conforms himself when writing the
you have to fall hack upon the general history of a nation." An as-
general energy and activity of the sistance of this nature, as he justly
human heing, the promptings of de- adds, caunot he otherwise than ac-
sire, the want that is the mother of ceptahle; and with regurd to those
invention, and the new desire that earlier periods of English hi>tory
springs up even from the new inven- with whinh this volume is occupied
tion, and which conducts to still —those which are filled with the
greater activity and to new modes confused movements of the Celt, the
of Industry. There would he very Saxon, and the Dane—nothing could
little history if you could ahstract it he more serviceahle than an intelli-
from hiography. gent summary of such leading and
Dr. Vaughun, who distinguished general facts as are admitted to have
himself long ago hy his Life of stood the test of exnmination.
Wyeliffe, and who has. since disfm- "Revolutions of Race" is the soh-
guished himself hy many excellent title prefixed to this first volume of
criticisms in the periodical he so the work. If our author has no-
ahly conducts, the British Quarterly where, so far as we rememher, for-
Rccicw, will not need to he reminded mally defined the sense in which he
hy us of the claims of hiography, uses the term Race, it is, we presume,
although in the present work he has hecause he apprehended no mistake
adopted what we have called the could arise on this suhject. On theo-
philosophical type of history. Our logical grounds, if on no other, Dr
remarks are made for the reader Vaughan would trace the origin of
rather than the writer of history— the whole human species to one pair;
for the student who, if he would he could not, therefore, acknowledge
attain an effective knowledge of his- that there were any differences of
tory, must learn to generalise widely, race analogous to those which a na-
aml also to enter as minutely as pos- turalist assumes when he speaks of
sihle into the lives of the great actors differences of species. Differences
in the past. The two modes of study there are amongst the several por-
should he conducted together, and tions of mankind—differences of a
will he found mutually to aid each more or less permanent and heredi-
other. In his present work Dr Vaughan tary character—differences as great,
intends to group together the leading and far greater, than those on which
facta of English history, so as to reveal, the naturalist often founds his elassi-
at a glance, the progress of the na- flcation; hut they have heen hrought
tion. A work of this kind caunot ahout hy climate, food, occupation,
he superfluous, if it is worthily ese- and other circumstances. Such are
cuted; and the honourahle position the distinctions which our author
which Dr Vaughan has earned for evidently understands hy race; and,
himself in hoth theology and litera- indeed, if there ever were such dif-
ture, gives us a guarantee that this ferenccs as those which fall under
will he the case. The specimen he- the science of the naturalist, they
fore us we have read with interest are lost and confounded among the
and improvement. We should par- superinduced differences which are
ticularise the ecclesiastical portion of traceahle to long hahits of life. It
the history as heing executed with may he. that, in comparing the inhah-
esptcial care, and as remarkahle for itants of the several quarters of the
the spirit of justice and liherality it glohe, as Africa and Asia, the ques-
dispkys. In his preface he says:— tion whether there were or were not
'- The question to which this work is several primitive races of mankind,
desigued to present an answer is— would force itself upon our attention,
What is it that has made England to and claim to he discussed and de-
he England? My ohject is to con- cided on; hut in Europe, and withia
duct the reader to satisfactory con- the historic period, the races the his-
clusions in relation to this question, torian has to deal with are great
hy a road much more direct and clusters of human heings hound to-
simple than \* compatihle with the gether hy the same language, and as-
lawa to which the historian usually similated hy a long suhjection to the


1859.]
Vaugltan's Revolutions in English History.

same influences, whether on mind or
hody. Such clusters are hroken up
and mingled together, and in the
course of time new ones formed hy
new comhinations. Yet while they
last, they are marked with certain
general characteristics, and we may
speak with perfect propriety of their
infusing fresh vigour, or a new spirit
of freedom and of energy, into other
populations, which in some respects
had heen less happily circumstanced.
It follows inevitahly from the
nature of the distinctions implied,
that there is a considerahle vague-
ness in the nse of the term race hy
our hest historians. We find, for
instance, our present author speak-
ing at one time of the Normans
and Saxons as two different races;
whilst at another time, when speak-
ing more strictly as an ethnologist, he
admits that Normans, Saxons, and
Danes were essentially the same
race. The fact is, that we classify
nations or populations, according to
their similarity, into certain groups,
and then we further classify these
groups into still more extensive
groups or orders. To hoth classifica-
tions we popularly give the name of
race. The word sub -race is used hy
some, "hut the word is not natural-
ised, and, moreover, there would still
he endless discussion as to that last
group of nations which should finally
he honoured hy the title of race. Should
we, for instance, give it to Teutonic and
Celtic populations, or descrihe these
as sub races of some great Caucasian
stock that we oppose to the Mon-
golian? At present we must hear
with an inevitahle vagueness in the
use of the term, leaving the meaning
of the author to he made clear_ hy the
context. It may he convenient to
speak of the several nations that
have assisted to people this island
as so many races, without therehy
implying any ethnological theory
whatever.
"Revolutions of Race" very well
applies to the earliest epoch in our
history. From the invasion of Julins
Ca:sar to the conquest of William
the Norman, what a scene of con-
fusion, what change, and shifting,
and commingling of population does
our island present I The elements,
we are accustomed to say, are heing
mixed, comhined, and controlled into
a national unity. It is a mere rudi-
mental England that we hitherto
see. Men lived, however, we may
presume, strenuous in their own pur-
poses, Celt or Saxon, quite uncon-
scious that they were thus prepara-
tory to the development of the future
nation. We, too, we suppose, are in
some way preparatory! Every gen-
eration is, more or less, suhsidiary
to its successor. Let us hope that
Briton, and Saxon, and Dane had
their due share of human joy; they
had their full share, at all events,
of human energy, and that is much
the same thing. Preparatory to the
future England all this shifting and
commingling of races may he, hut we
confess we should he hard put to it
if we had to prove that the Saxon
could not have done very well with-
out the Norman, or to show in what
especial mauner the Danes contri-
huted to our progress in civili-ation.
or why even the Britons alone might
not have heen the ancestors of the
modern Englishmen.
As, however, what might have
heen is always a somewhat vague
and useless inquiry, it is the wisest
course to extract what consolation
we can from the actual sequence of
events. Thus, if the Normans, in
their conquest of England, acted the
part of cruel and rutbless oppressors,
pillaging the Saxon of his lands, and
governing always for the interest of
a dominant class, it is some consola-
tion to reflect that the hand of this
powerful despotism was welding the
whole country, with its diverse po-
pulations, into one united kingdom
of England and Wales. This king-
dom, under our Heurys and Edwards,
took finally the form in which it was
destined to grow. Let us, so far as
space permits, follow our author up
to this point—follow him in these
revolutions of race, till, under the
Norman, England has hecome, in his
own language, '• to he England."
Our author was too wise to practise
upon our patience hy long disserta-
tions on the ancient Britons. What
can we know or learn of those twenty-
five trihes who are said, at the in-
vasion of Julins Crcsar, to have oc-
cupied England and Wales and the
Lowlands of Scotland? Who cares


540
[Nov.
Vaughan's Revolutions in English History.

now ahout the Silures, or the Bri-
gades, or the Sceni? We have not
knowledge enough to -sustain our
curiosity. It might indeed be de-
sirahle to know more of them than
we do; and it would still he more
interesting if we could know some-
thing of that prehistoric people who
are thought, hy our antiquarians, to
have preceded the Brigantes and the
rest of the twenty-five; hut in the
hopeless ohscurity which envelops
hoth suhjects, curiosity dies out. We
plainly perceive that there must have
heen considerahle differences amongst
these trihes. Cornwall had long ago
heen discovered hy the Phenicians,
and had enjoyed some of the advan-
tages of commerce. As Dr. Vaughan
ohserves, "The Britons of Cornwall,
with their long heards, long tunics,
and long walking-staves,'' were a
very different kind of people from
the Britons of Kent, whom Caesar
descrihes as half naked, or clad in
skins, "staining their hodies with
woad, and covering them with purple
figures." This last custom, however,
Dr. Vaughan is not disposed to look
upon as a flagrant instance of har-
harism. "Not necessarily harhar-
ian," he says, "inasmuch as it has
heen common among British seamen
within our own memory." But with
- all our admiration for the British tar,
we suspect that if these tattooed and
hlue-stained seamen had heen the
chief inhahitants of Great Britain,
our island would not have escaped
the charge of harharism. "The
desigu," he adds, '• could hardly
have heen to give fierceness to their
aspect; it was the effect rather of a
rude love of ornament." In such
light we who have had the advan-
tages of Captain Cook's voyages (and
know, therefore, more of savage life
than Julins Caesar), have heen in the
hahit of regarding it; hut the rude
love of ornament which leads to a
defacement of nature, has heen always
received as one of the plainest indi-
cations of harharism. It is an indi-
cation, we must admit, that may he
found amongst nations reputed to he
civilised — for civilisation and har-
harism are matters of degree, and a
civilised nation may retain a har-
harous custom. We have heen lately
told that the Japanese are a civilised
people, hut they retain the very har-
harous custom of hlackening the
teeth. The Chinese have the odious
custom of deforming the feet of their
women. Still there is no one more
indisputahle sigu of harharism than
this hlindness to the heauty of the
human form, as nature has left it.
This is not one of the questions^of
taste which each country determines
for itself without hope of any settle-
ment. A Chinese shall assert to the
end of time that a Chinese woman is
the most heautiful of women; we
have no hope, and no wish, to shake
his conviction; hut he will not always
think that his heautiful woman is
improved hy having two pegs suhsti-
tuted for two feet.
If not ahsolute savages, we suspect
that the majority of our British an-
cestors were decidedly harharians.
Those who fought from war-chariots
must, as Dr Vaughan ohserves, have
had amongst them the arts of the
smith, the carpenter, and the wheel-
wright. But when he adds, '• Such
men would he capahle of huilding
houses, and of producing furniture,
after a mauner unknown amongst na-
tions in the lower state of harharism,"
he infers too much if he intends to
say that they therefore did huild
houses or construct furniture, which,
in our estimation, would rank on the
same level as their war-chariots. The
instruments of war are generally the
first hrought to perfection. The
working in metals especially receives
its great impulse from war. It may
he worth noticing, that a Roman,
descrihing the war-chat iut, might
speak of scilthes attached to the
axle. They resemhled scythes to
him: they were swords in the eyes
of the Briton, who prohahly had no
such instrument as a scythe. "Then,"
continues our author, "there was the
harness, which, rude as it may have
heen, must have heen adapted to the
purposes hy many arts that would
have their value in many processes
hesides that of harness-making." We
give them the full henefit of the
harness; we will suppose it construc-
ted of the skins of animals, reduced
into a serviceahle leather; yet we
caunot infer that any cohhler or shoe-
maker had seized hold of this leather
and made serviceahle shoes of 'it


1859.] Vaughan's Revolutions in English History. 541

And whole ages may have passed all hefore them, and involved them
hetween the manufacture of the most in their own fire. The troops of the
gorgeous harness and that supreme enemy were completely defeated, a
work of the tailoring art—under garrison placed on the island, and the
which Carlyle in his clothee-philo- groves, which had heen the conse-
sophy, and in his typical way, has crated scenes of the most harharous
written the motto, Sic itur ad asira superstitions, were levelled to the
—the leather hreeches. Many a race ground." *
of car-horne heroes had lived hefore We are told, it is true, that the
such an invention was given to man- Druids were lawgivers as well as
kind. So slow and capricious has priests. They may have therefore
heen the progress of the arts of performed for the Britons the indis-
peace. Our Norman ancestors huilt pensahle function of the magistrate,
halls to live in fit for the gods, and Let this not he forgotten in the esti-
strewed them with rushes that were mate we form of them. But if we
very soon fit for swine. were challenged to point out the one
Their religion, at all events, had pre-eminent advantage which ac-
taken a form suitahle only to rude crued to Britain from the conquest
and violent natures. Scholars may of the Romans, it is precisely this—
trace Druidism from the East, and that it separated the magistrate from
find in it the reflex of great truths the priest. The first great step in
and suhlime doctrines, hut the rites human progress is made when the
of the religion tell us plainly what priesthood hecome legislators; the
it was in the minds of the British second great step, when they cease
worshippers. Whether it is to he to he so—when jurisprudence, hon-
ranked under the forms of Mono- oured for its own specific ends, is
theism or Polytheism matters little, committed to the civil power. This
All depends, in religion, on the con- hoon the Romans hrought to us much
ception formed of the heing who is earlier than we should otherwise have
worshipped; and horrihly false must attained it, though, as is the mauner
that conception have heen which led of conquerors, they taught us the
to human sacrifice, and that as an lesson hy a very severe process,
ordinary ritual. We see a form of The Romans do, in fact, discipline
piety calculated to eurage men, and and mould us into a province of the
tbrow them into a state of frenzy, empire—something we learn of the
Dr. Yaughan introduces, very aptly, arts of peace. But we have just heen
a passage from Tacitus, which will well recoguised as part of the civilised
hear reperusal. Suetonins is cross- world, when we are relinquished as
ing the Menai Strait to attack the a distant possession not worth the
island of Anglesea, the stronghold trouhle and expense of retaining,
of the Druids. '' The shore of the The Caledonians, hardly kept out
island was lined with the hostile hy the wall of Antoninus, come
army, in which were women dressed down upon the Britons, under new
in dark and dismal garments, with names, it seems, of Picts and Scots,
their hair streaming to the wind, and the Saxons land upon the sea-
hearing torches in their hands, and hoard, pillaging, destroying, and
ruuning like furies up and down the making settlements. Evidently a
ranks. Around stood the Druids, great "revolution of race" is ap-
with hands spread to heaven, and proaching.
uttering dreadful prayers and impre- We thought that Hengist and
cations. The novelty of' the sight Horsa had heen reduced to the
struck our soldiers with dismay, so condition of mythical personages;
that they stood as petrified, a mark or that, at all events, it was
for the enemy's javelins. At length, confessed that nothing distinct had
animated hy their general, and en- descended to us of the first land-
couraging one another not to fear an ing and settlement of the Saxons,
army of women and fanatics, they Dr Vaughau, however, contends that
rushed upon the enemy, hore down Hengist and Horsa are historical
* Page 37.


542
[Nov.
Vaughan's Revolutions in English History.

persons, and relates as a credihle
narrative their transactions with
Vortigern, British king or British
chief, localised somewhere "near the
Thames." Wo would very willingly
retain within the pale of history the
stories told of Hengist and Horsa
and of Vortigern, if only some pro-
hahle and consistent narrative could
he constructed out of them. We
might overlook the fact that the
venerahle Bede, venerahle as he is to
us, lived yet two centuries after Vor-
tigern, and that we have no means
of testing the authorities on which
he framed his narrative; we might
accept at once the authority of Bede
as the hest we had, and there leave
the matter, if the account of the
venerahle monk was the only one we
possessed, and was satisfactory in
itself. But several traditions, im-
prohahle and contradictory, have
descended to us, and we have no
means of testing how far any of
them are founded upon truth, and
therefore we are compelled to suh-
mit to a mere suspension of judg-
ment, or an acknowledgment of ig-
norance. We give Dr Vaughan's
statement of these traditions.
"Our Saxon authorities relate that
in the year 417 or 449, Vortigern, a
British chief near the Thame.", invited
two Saxon chiefs, named Hengist and
Bor*a, to assist him in repelling an
invasion hy the Picts and Scots; that
these chiefs, who were hrothers, landed
in Thanet, a portion of Kent sepa-
rated from the mainland of that dis-
trict hy a river; that the Saxons soon
chased the Scots from the lands they
had devastated; that with the consent
of Vortigern, the Saxon force In Thauet
was increased considerahly; that this
increase caused distrust amongst the
Britons; that the increase'of pay thus
made necessary led to disputes; that
these disputes issued in open war; that
after a long series of conflicts, victory
declared in favour of the Saxons; that
Hengist hecame King of Kent, and in
the year 488 hequeathed his authority
to his son ^Esca, having exercised it
fifteen years.
"Our Brilinh authorities say that Hen-
gist aud Horsa were exiles in search of
a home; that the increaso of the force
in Thanet was treacherously managed;
that the desigu of that movement was
to conquer the country; that Hengist
had a heautifal daughter named Rowena,
who, when the Saxon and the British
chiefs were over their cups, was em-
ployed to present a gohlet to Vortigern;
that Vortigern fell into the suare thus
laid for him hy hecoming enamoured
of Rowena, so as to he prepared to harter
the kingdom of Kent as the price of
possessing her person; that in the wars
which ensued Vortigern was disowned
hy his suhjects, and his son Vortimer
raised to sovereiguty in his stead; that
for several years Hengist was compelled
to seek refuge in his ships, and to suhsist
hy his piracies; that at a feast afterwards
given hy the Saxon leaders, some tbree
hundred British chiefs were treacher-
ously murdered; that the only one of
the British chiefs who was spared was
Vortigern; and that, notwithstanding
the alleged uupopularity of thispiince,
to secure the liheration of Yonigera,
tho people of Keut, Sussex, Middlesex,
and Essex consented to receive Hengist
as their king.''*
Here there are tbree different ac-
counts of the mauner in which this
unlucky Vortigern hrought the Sax-
ons into the kingdom, or was in-
strumental in procuring them a
settlement in Britain. 1st, He in-
vites them to assist him against the
Scots, and calls in a master as well
as an ally. This is the most proha-
hle story, and, if an invention, it is
moulded on the classical type of his-
tory, or, in other words, is an imita-
tion of well-reputed narratives. 2d,
He harters his kingdom for the fair
Roweua, the daughter of Hengist.
3d, His people consent to receive
Hengist as their king in order to
ransom Vortigern, who has heen
taken prisoner. Thus the Saxon has
tbree separate titles to his kingdom,
—conquest, harter for Rowena, and
ransom for Vortigern. What is de-
scrihed as the 8-ixon account is far
more prohahle than the British, hut
in the ahsence of all contemporary
record, and in the presence of oppo-
site tradition, mere prohahility can-
not he allowed to have much weight.
An age that has some tincture of
learning invents differently from the
more rude and wonder-loving age. A
classical age would set to work to
* Page 123.


1859.]
543
Vaughan's Revolutions in English History.

explain any given event in a differ-
ent way from a romantic age. An
air of greater prohahility would
naturally helong to the historical hy-
pothesis of the later age, and there-
fore, where there are circumstances
which lead us to suspect that, in
fact, we have nothing hetter than an
historical hypothesis hefore us, this
air of prohahility must not he allowed
to hetray us into too ready an ac-
quiescence. We find no historical
evidence hearing on these worthies
Hengistand Horsa, and their dealings
with Vortigern.
This is clear, that Angles, Jutes,
and Saxons come over in great num-
hers — conquer and settle — carving
out small kingdoms for themselves.
And when we understand what man-
ner of people they were, we can safely
acquit Vortigern, or release him from
any grave responsihility. He was
altogether a quite unnecessary per-
son in the drama. The flocks, the
pasture, the corn of Kent gave suffi-
cient invitation; the power to hold
and po-sess gave sufficient title. It
was the only title they were likely to
concern themselves ahout. They
came and spread themselves over
the island. The Britons almost van-
ish from our view, and there rises he-
fore us the Saxon Heptarchy.
The Heptarchy, from its founda-
tion, was a species of confederation,
and one of its princes possessed a
precedence over the rest, under the
title of Bretwalda. Disputes for
this title gave rise to their first wars
amongst each other. Ella of Sussex,
Ethelhert and Kent, then a king of
Wessex, are descrihed as successively
the Bretwalda. In 627 Edwin of
Northumhria hears the. title, and
with him it seems to have heen joined
with a suhstantial power — to have
heen something more than the hon-
orary presidency over the Saxon con-
federation. Bat this Brttvcaldaship
does not rise, as might have hten ex-
pected, into the kingship of England.
The title dies down, and the office is
not heard of for some time, when
conquest and predominance of power
elevate e,ne of the Heptarchy to he
king of all England. The office of
Bretwalda prohahly arose at a time
when the Saxons had a common
enemy to protect themselves against
in the Britons or the Scots; when
they felt secure in their possessions, it
would cease to have any suhstantial
utility.
The hi>tory of England under the
Heptarchy is a very confused husi-
ness. It is like the attempt to fol-
low the course of a river that divides
itself into six or seven hranches,
some of which again divide them-
selves for a time, and then reunite.
It will aid the imagination (as Ur.
Vaughan suggests), if we keep stead-
ily in view the tbree great states,
Northumhria, Mercia, and Wessex,
and recollect that these tbree form a
crescent, one point of the crescent
lying upon a houndary somewhere
near Edinhurgh and Glasgow, and
the other point terminating at Corn-
wall. The hollow of the crescent
will he filled up hy Wales, and he-
yond the outer line of it, and stretch-
ing towards the English Chaunel and
the German Ocean, will lie the king-
doms of the East Saxons, Sussex,
Kent, and East Auglia.
During the dark period of the
Heptarchy, Northumhria, Mercia,
and Wessex chiefly occupy the his-
torian. If any one of these can he
more violent or criminal than the
other, Northumhria seems to have
this had pre-eminence. Its ill fame
had reached to foreigu countries, and
Charlemague stigmatises these North-
umhrians as "a perverse and perfi-
dious nation, worse than pagans."
Mercia, with a powerful rival on
either side, and such turhulent neigh-
hours as the Welsh along its western
horders, must have heen always
ready for hattle, if it was to remain
an independent power. It comes
hefore us conspicuously under ita
King Offa. Offa wages successful
wars against Kent and Wessex, and
the Britons. Against the latter he
constructs an emhankment and
trench, known as Offa's Dyke, sepa-
rating Mercia from Wales. Offa
comes in relation with Charle-
mague. Certain of his rehellious
thanes have fled to France, aod the
emperor acts as mediator. Ma'rimo-
nial alliances are projected. Cjarle-
mague asks the hand of a daughter
of Offa for one of his illegitimate
sons. Whereupon Offa. in return,
requests the haud of a French prin-


544
[Nov.
Vaughau's Revolution* in English. Hittory.

cess for his eldest son, Egfurth. This
presumption offends the pride of the
great Emperor, and the treaty is
hroken off.
This daughter of Offa was after-
wards sought in marriage hy Ethel-
hert, king of East Anglia. And this
introduces us to a tale of treachery,
which our author shall tell in his
own words. It is as good a specimen
as any of life amongst these Saxon
princes, if hy any such honourahle
title they deserve to he called.
"Ethelhert was young and accom-
plished, and possessed of many esti-
mahle qualities. Approaching the hor-
ders of Mercia, the young king despatch-
ed a messenger with presents, and with
a letter stating the ohject of his errand.
In reply, assurance was given of a cor-
dial welcome; and on his arrival, him-
self and his retinue were received with
every apparent demonstration of respect
and good feeling. As the advance of the
evening hrought the feasting and merry-
making to a close, Ethelhert withdrew
to his chamher. Presently a messenger
sought access to him, and stated that
the king wished to confer with him on
somo matters affecting the purpose of
his visit. Ethelhert at once followed
the footsteps of his guide. But the
way led tbrough a dark narrow passage,
and there, from invisihle hands, the
confiding youth received a numher of
wounds which at once deprived him of
life. Offa affected surprise, indiguation,
the deepest grief; he would see no one,
and so on. But history points to his
wife as having suggested this atrocious
deed, and to himself as having con-
sented to it. It is enough to say that
Offa seized on the domains of his mur-
dered guest."
Offa did not long enjoy the pos-
sessions gained hy his guilt: he died
at the end of two years. His family
hecame extinct in his son Egfurth, and
suhsequently Mercia had to yield to
the rising power of Wessex.
It is to Wessex we must look for
a king sufficiently powerful to unite
all England in one monarchy. We
find him in Eghert, who had passed
a portion of his life in exile, in the
court of Charlemague, where he re-
ceived a higher instruction hoth in
the arts of war and peace than he
could have done in his own heredi-
tary kingdom. The only surviving
descendant of Cerdric, the founder
of Wessex, he returned to an undis-
puted tbrone. He suhdued the Bri-
tons of Wales, and attacked the
Mercians. "The victory of Eghert,"
we quote from our author, "over
Beornwalf of Mercia, in 823, enahled
him to assert his sovereiguty over
the East Saxons, Sent, and East
Anglia. Sussex was already a part
of Wessex. It only remained that
Northumhria should acknowledge his
supremacy. In 828 that acknow-
ledgment was extorted without an
appeal to the sword." Eghert thus
hecame first king of England, or
(reviving the title) the eighth Bret-
walda.
But while Eghert and his succes-
sors in the kingdom of Wessex were
doing their hest to unite England
under one monarchy, Io I a fresh in-
undation of harharians and heathens!
— fresh hordes of " Northmen," not
even Cbristianised in name, come to
dispute the very possession of the
island. The Danes descend from
their long vessels — hurn, destroy,
pillage, and then retire to their
homes. Some of them seek a home
on the soil itself. These last live
under some amicahle treaty with the
Saxons, hut are suspected of inviting
fresh hands of their own countrymen
to come and share the spoil. Nay,
what seems inexplicahle to us in our
imperfect knowledge of the events,
Danes are raised to posts of confid-
ence and of command, and are said to
hetray their trust in favour of their
countrymen. Ethelred the Uuready,
after injuring the cause of the Saxons
hy his timidity and his craven com-
promises, injured it still more hy an
act of extreme cruelty and treachery.
"Twenty-four years had passed since
the accession of Ethelred, and the greater
part of those years marked hy the cir-
cumstances ahove mentioned, when the
kiug resolved on a deed which has cov-
ered him with infamy, and which, as
might have heen foreseen, was to hring
heavy retrihution in its train. It was
no secret that the Saxons regarded the
Danes resident amongst them with dis-
trust and hatred. The relation of these
people to the common enemy, and still
more the fact that they had generally
shown themselves much more disposed
to favour them to repel the invaders, had
given a epecial intensity to the feeling
ordinarily separating raqe from race.
Ethelred, it would seem, had ceased to


1859]
545
Vaughari's Revolutions in English History.

expect fidelity from this class of his suh-
jects; and, to save himself from the
machinations of traitors within the camp,
he determined that an attempt should
he made utterly to destroy them.
"In the spring of the year 1002, secret
orders were issued that, on the approach-
ing religious festival in honour of St
Brice, the Saxons should fall unawares
upon the Danes, and put th*m to death.
The orders were kept secret; and on
the appointed day the massacre ensued,
the fury of the populace in many places
adding not a little cruelty to the work
of destruction." *
Whatever was the extent of this
massacre (on which very different
opinions are held), it very certainly
hrought with it " a heavy retrihution."
It hrought down upon the island
the great Danish chieftain Sweyn,
with a force so large that almost the
whole country was placed at his
mercy. After four years he was
hought off hy a sum of thirty-six
thousand pounds of silver. But he
returned again. Had he not sworn
on the death of his sister, one of the
victims of the massacre, to make
himself monarch of England? He
did so; hut just at the point of suc-
cess he died. His son Canute fully ac-
complished the desigu, and England
had a Danish king. Finally the Danes
and the Saxons were interfused:
these other heathens hecame also
Cbristians; they were a hold race,
perhaps less pblegmatic and more
ardent than the Saxon. Our author
suggests that we may in part owe to
this race of the sea-kings that love
of the sea, that passion for maritime
life and hattle, which distinguishes
ns. Speaking quite physiologically,
a race that conquers another caunot
prove otherwise than a favourahle
intermixture.
The suhject of the conversion of
the Saxons, and tbrough them of the
Danes, to Cbristianity, is not likely
to lose any of its due importance in
the hands of Dr. Vaughan. It is
carefully and ahly treated. What is
known of the Cbristianity of the
Britons under the Roman Empire is
hriefly told. Who first taught Cbris-
tianity in this island is now past find-
ing out. The legions of Rome would
inevitahly hring it with them; as a
province of the Empire, the new re-
ligion would he sure to extend into
it. Bnt Dr. Vaughan dismisses as
fond fahles the derivation of our
faith from an apostle, or some com-
panion of an apostle. Some of these
stories are easily disproved hy a mere
reference to cbronology. The Britons
who found in the mountains of Wales
a Bhelter against the Saxons, retained
their religion; hut there is no proof
that either these, or any other por-
tion of the earlier race, had extended
their religion amongst the heathen
invaders. Some preparatory influ-
ence they may have exerted, hut the
conquerors caunot he said in this in-
stance, as in so many other instances,
to have adopted the religion of the
conquered people. Cbristianity came,
or came most effectively, to the Saxons
from its central seat at Rome.
But this was not the only course hy
which Cbristianity reached our hea-
then population. Every one knows
the story of Pope Gregory, of the
compassion felt hy him at the sight
of the Anglian children exposed in
the marketplace of Rome, and of the
mission of Augustine, which was the
result of that compassion; hut the
extent of our ohligation to St Co-
lumha and his monks, spreading
their doctrine from the island of
Iona, is not so generally acknow-
ledged. As St. Columha emigrated
from Ireland, and as the Irish Church
lays claim to great antiquity, there
may he here some source of comfort
to those who are desirous of dimin-
ishing their deht as much as possihle
to the See of Rome. We, for our
part, should he interested in the
fact, simply that we might give due
honour to the pious fraternity of
Iona. Whether their form of Cbris-
tianity was in any respect more pure
than that which Augustine taught,
may admit of douht; they were cer-
tainly as credulous and superstitious
as any of their contemporaries; hut
their missionary zeal was ardent, and
free from the least taint or suspicion
of amhitious motives.
"It will he seen," says our author,
"that the northern half of Anglo-Saxon
Britain was hrought to the profession of
Cbristianity hy the direct or indirect
* Pago 168.


646
[Nov.
Vaughaa's Revolution) in English History.

influence of tlio disciples of Columha.
Tbrough Bornieia and Deira tho infiuence
of the Scottish missionaries extended
to East Anglia, to Mercia, and even to
Wesaex. Gratitude is due to Pope Gre-
gory, and to tho ecclesiastics sent forth
hy him to this country. Their Inten-
tions were generous, and tlttir lahour in
a great degree sucecsslul. But had no
thought of Britain ever occupied the
mind of the pious Gregory, or of tho
monk Augustine, it is clear that Britain
would have heen evangelised. Had the
No; we caunot now precisely de-
termine the line hetween self-decep-
tion and an intentional deception of
others. But, in the first place, priest
and people were often equally no-
educated; and in that case, the very
thing we have to expect is, that the
priest will differ from the peasant in
earnestness and zeal, hut not in en-
lightenment; he will merely put
forth the peasant's creed with singu-
lar holdness and energy. And in the
work heen left to the hrotherhood of second place, where the priesthood is a
Iona, it would have heen done."*
On the form of Cbristianity which
we received at this time from Rome,
Dr Vanghan makes some very judi-
cious and candid ohservations. An
historian as well as a theologian, he
caunot fail to he aware that the reli-
gious faith of men, however pure in
its origin, and though drawn in the
first instance from inspired lips, must
partake of the geueral degradation of
the intellect, and again rise as the
general intelligence is cultivated. A
heathen people must take some of
their heathenism with them into
Cbristianity, or they caunot pass
over at all. Certain hroad notions
of what religion is they must carry
with them, or find in the new faith.
If, for instance, a miraculous inter-
position of Cod is of the very essence
of their religion, they must still he-
lieve in this, under new names and
conditions, or religion iUelf would
he lost to them. As Dr Vaughan
justly ohserves,—
"Heathen priests everywhere laid
claim to prophecy and miracle. They
more learned and relic ctive hody than
the rest of the people, this constantly
holds good—that a doctrine deemed
necessary to the religions govern-
ment of mankind is sure to receive
from them a very general and sincere
assent. If it is felt that a divine
government of the minds of men can
only he upheld hy a helief in the
miraculous interposition of God, we
may depend upon it that the majo-
rity of earnest minds will fully he-
lieve in such miraculous interposi-
tion. When such a faith is no longer
necessary for upholding religion in
the multitude, we find that the
thoughtfully pious hegin to join the
more worldly intellect in disputing
or denying it, hut not till then.
It does not follow hecause a people
caunot rise at once to a high intel-
lectual station, that therefore they
may not, tbrough their new doctrines,
receive new sentiments of morality
which shall have a certain effect in
modifying their lives. Consider the
old religion of Odin, and how com-
pletely it justified whatever violence
the hrave man—if he did but peril
made the Interference of their gods in his own life—thought fit to .indulge
human affiant to he perpetual. They
pointed to a hereafter of happiness, or
tho contrary, as awaifing llio3e whom
they were wont themselves to pronounce
as worthy or unworthy. The Cbristian
clergy had to deal with these preten-
sions. They did so hy claiming mira-
culous powers for tho Church; hy hring-
ing many supernatural agencies into the
concerns of this woild; and too often
hy materialising heaven and lull to the
extent deemed necessary adequately to
affect the hopes and fears of tho society
ahout them. How far they were them-
selves deceived in making such repre-
sentations caunot now he Mtenniuealf
in. We suppose that towards other
hrave men of his own nation he was
expected to ohey some rude law of
justice or courtesy. But with this
exception, the life and property of
all the world was placed hy the gods
themselves at the disposal of the
hrave man. Religion sanctioned his
passionate and despotic will. The
gods did, indeed, favour peaceful indus-
try, hut this was only that the fruits
of it might ultimately fall into the
hands of the hrave man. His para-
mount title was loudly asserted—his
the sole right, and the first place in
» Page 2"9.
'
f Page 218.


1859.]
M7
Vavghan's Revolutions in English History.

earth and in heaven. The mere
withdrawal of such a religious sanc-
tion to our most violent passions
must have heen some gain ; the suh-
stitution of a quite opposite doctrine,
which made right sacred in the per-
son of the lowliest, which taught
that strength should he servant of
justice and of charity, must have
produced gradual and heneficent mo-
difications in the national character.
Gradual and partial they must he
admitted to have heen.
The monk Augustine had Do
sooner hecome Archhishop of Can-
terhury than he had the task im-
posed on him of reducing the
British Church of Wales to uniform-
ity with that of Rome. A conference
was agreed upon. We will narrate
the issue in the words of our author.
On him let the responsihility rest
hoth of the narrative and of the ap-
plication of the term "hishop" to
those who are said to have repre-
sented the Welsh Church.
"A second conference was agreed up-
on, in which the Dritisu representatives
were to consist of persons more compe-
tent to decide in hehalf of their nation.
t The 'Welsh now deputed seven of their
hishops. These hishops are said to have
consulted a recluse famous for his wis-
dom touching the course it might he-
hove them to take. The suhstance of
his counsel appears to have hoen, that
unity on the ground of suhmission to
Augustine as their superior, was not to
he entertained for a moment. Let ihem
arrange to approach the archhishop
while he should he seated. 1f ho rose
to receive them, the action might he
taken as indicating hrotherhood and
equality, and it would he well to listen
dispassionately to his statements. If
he received them sitting, his so doing
would hespeak pretensions to superiority
fraught with mischief and it would
hehove them to look on all measures
proposed hy l im with suspicion. Augus-
tine did.not rite." *
Pity that Augustine had not also
heen in communication with this wise
recluse. He would not then have
lost the present opportunity of gain-
ing over the Welsh hishops hy a point
of ceremonial. We need not add
that the discordance hetween the two
churches gradually died away. The
Archhishop of York had in the north
of England a similar controversy to
sustain with those who had received
Cbristianity tbrough the hretbren of
Iona. These last ohserved Easier at
a different time, and wore a tonsure
of a different shape from the Romans.
Wilfrid, Archhishop of York, did not
scruple to eay that the monks of
Iona must have horrowed their usages
from Simon Magus. A conference
was held at Whithy hefore the king.
The party of St. Columha traced
their traditions to the Apostle John.
Wilfrid opposed the Apostle St.
Peter, "to whom the keys of heaven
had heen given." Here the king in-
terposed to ask of the several dis-
putants whether it was admitted, on
hoth sides, that St. Peter had the
keys of heaven. This admission was
made. "Then I decide for St. Peter,"
said the king, "as I know not what
the consequences may he of doing
otherwise."
The Saxons heing converted to
Cbristianity, the Danes who came
amongst them appear to have very
readily dropt their rude superstitions,
and joined the worship of the Saxons.
In one age we hear of them showing
peculiar hitterness and cruelty against
the monks; in the next, we find that
several of them have entered the
Church, and heen elevated to a high
position in it. And now this Saxon-
Danish kingdom has to suhmit once
more to conquest, to undergo another
"revolution of race," hefore it can he
considered as fairly launched on its
onward progress.
In estimating the good and evil
that ensued from the Norman Con-
quest, Dr. Vaughan holds the halance
lis steadily, we think, as it can he
held. But it must he confessed that
historians have given us such differ-
ent descriptions of the Normans—
have approached them from such
different points of view—have given
prominence to such different classes
of facts, that it is extremely difficult
to rest in any satisfactory estimation
of them. Till a late period, the tend-
ency has heen, in Eogland, to over-
look what was harsh, cruel, and
hrutal in their characters; our own
nohility hoast a Norman, descent, and
e Pago 102.


548 Vaughan's Revolutions in English History. [Nov.

"to come in with the Normans " is a come to us from their northern
claim of our gentry; we associate homes, which they had already for-
them with chivalry and knighthood, gotten; they came, the feudatories
and grand castles and glittering of France, to estahlish a great king-
armour; we extol them as patrons dom, to wield a powerful sceptre,
of art, and especially of the great art Thus they effectually united the
of architecture, for they cover Eng- people under one government. And
land, not only with castles, hut with although William the Conqueror
churches and monasteries. Five or ruled hy flagrant force, yet Heury I.,
six hundred monasteries are reckoned the second in descent, did in fact
to have heen huilt in Englaund he- enter into a solemn compact with his
tween the Conquest and the reigu of Anglo-Saxon suhjects, that he would
King John, and many of these were rule " according to the laws of King
schools of learning, as well as retreats Edward." A very indefinite agree-
for the pious. But the harsher and inent, hut an agreement neverthe-
more ferocious aspect of the earlier less; and it is worth noticing how the
Norman kings has heen lately held British constitution grew up from
up more conspicuously to view. Con- precisely this hahit of treating with
tinental historians, who have had no the king as with a power that the
conciliating prejudices in their fa- people do not pretend to have set
vour—as Thierry and Lappenherg— up, hut hope to limit. This is the
have spared none of their vices, and secret of the growth of our consti-
have exposed without remorse their tution; this is the method of its
tyrauny, their greed, and the unscru- development. We have seen how
pulous oppression they invariahly likely an opposite method is to fail,
exercised whenever they were not When a people set to work to create
opposed hy an equal force. If they at once a constitutional monarchy,
huilt stately monasteries, they gave they create the power of the monarch,
us the military hishop and the plea- and they create the check to it at the
sure-loving monk. They yielded no- same time. They can never satisfy
thing to the citizen—nothing volun- themselves; they have no sooner
tarily. The common lahourers found given power, than at the first uupo- ^
their status still more harsbly defined: pular exercise of it they wish to take
"they were hound," says Lappenherg, it hack again. The English never
"to the spot of earth on which dreamt that they gave the king his
they were born, and human heings power; they viewed it as a necessity;
were given to churches and monas- it was a force they did not create, hut
teries like other property." The ad- which they could set ahout regulat-
ministration of justice was corrupted ing. Thus there was something
hy a gross venality; everything was fixed and stahle, round which new
sold that could he; an heiress was institutions could gather,
treated as a prize; the harshest forest By-and-hy our Norman kings want
laws were enacted; on some pretext money for their wars with France,
or other, every Saxon nohle or man Here is a new and most favourahle
of wealth was stript of his posses- opportunity for treaty. But this
sions; in fine, every form of had familiar learning we need not repeat,
government seems to have heen prac- If the reader wishes to refresh his
tised on every class of the community memory with it, he will find it stated
hut one; and that class were con- hriefly and well in the pages of Dr.
stantly fighting among themselves. Vaughan. To those pages we may
But still these Norman kings came honestly recommend him, as the
to us with large ideas of conquest; fruit of steady and conscientious
they were not petty settlers, like the lahour, directed hy a liheral and
Saxons or the Danes; they did not enlightened spirit


1859.]
549
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Pait IX.
TIIE LUCK OF LAnYSMEnE. — PA1IT IX.
CHAPTER XXIIL—THE SENESCHAL'S THOUBLES.
The accompaniments of Dame
Elf hild's earlier years had heen hardly
such as to encourage any displays
of feminine weakness. "When Isola
made her appearance once more at
the old tower of Willan's Hope
whither the good horse had carried
her safe, without much exercise of
will upon her own part, and related
what she knew of tiladice's danger
and supposed escape, the elder lady
neither shrieked nor fainted. What
slio might have seemed to fall short
in the demonstrative qualities of her
sex, she made up however, in prompt-
ness of counsel and decision. She
neither tremhled nor turned pale
when the circumstances of her niece's
peril were related to her; hut her
cheeks flushed a little, and her eye
hrightened as she listened. The
Italian's tale was somewhat hroken
and confused;' for she was agitated
and excited, and her desire to conceal
^iir Nicholas's share in the adventure
*of the morning helped to emharrass
her. But it was much clearer than
any account which could he gathered
from the two or tbree retainers who
came dropping in hy degrees, with
crestfallen looks and jaded horses,
and whose ahility to tell a plain tale
(never a very common accomplish-
ment with men in their station) was
not much quickened hy Old Waren-
ger's furious invectives, when he
found that they had returned without
their lady. No language of ahuse
and imprecation at his command
(though his education, under his late
master, had heen a liheral one in that'
respect) seemed sufficient to meet the
enormity of the case.
"A coward's curse light on ye all,
for a herd of pitbless cravens as ye
are!" said the wrathful seneschal,
addressing them in a hody, when they
were all at last assemhled in the
yard, after exhausting his more per-
sonal and particular execrations upon
each as he arrived. "Men !—do ye
call yourselves men? are ye not
ashamed to look at the heards on
each other's faces? I was wont to
VOL. LXXXVL
say there were tpo many women
ahout the old place—St. Mary forgive
me for it! May I he choked with a
dry morsel, an' I do not muster the
serving-wenches, and go out with
them to look for my lady! G-o home
to the hill, Turstan, and send thy
wife hither to keep watch and ward
in thy stead with a distaff— she can
lay ahout her handily with that, I
have heard some say."
"I did what a man could do," said
Turstan, sulkily, though he scorned
to speak of his wounded shoulder.
There were some things he would
have admitted, which were more
than man could he expected to do;
and one was, to hold his own at home
against the vixen who claimed him for
a hushand.
"I would Sir Amyas could see you
now 1" continued the irate old soldier,
looking round upon his ahashed list-
eners, " it were enough to hring him
out of his grave, if he could hear ('tis
to he hoped he never will) of your
manful deeds this day I"
There was a muttering amongst
some of the men, which might have
heen a prayer for Sir Amyas's safe
repose.
"It was at the Lady Gladice's own
hidding that we left her," said one
at last taking courage to defend him-
self, "it was so hest for her safety,
as she said — I would have fought
for her else, as long as limhs would
hold."
"'Twas the first time, Dickon,"
said the seneschal, " thou ever wert
so ready to take a woman at her
word."
Some of his audience here gathered
spirit enough for a weak laugh at
the seneschal's rejoinder. But the
old man, as if conscious that this was
retrograding from his strong ground
of grave indiguation, turned fiercely
round upon the yeoman, who had
entered the gates with Isola, and
whom, in his first consternation and
anger, he had scarcely found time to
notice.
"And who art thou, that comest
36


550
[Nov-
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part IX.

sueaking ahout the tower again with
this strange lady ? what seekest thou
in this hrave company of swag-
gerers?"
"It matters not so much what I
am, as what service I can do, Master
Seneschal," said the Italian ; "I do
not wonder that a proved soldier
like yourself should feel at first some
righteous displeasure, as though these
good fellows had failed them in their
trust; hut I put it humhly to your
experience whether ten men against
a score, hull' jerkins against good
steel harness, he not such odds as a
wise captain will look twice at —
specially when the weaker party is
cumhered with tbree women who can
neither fight nor fly?''
"I care little for vantage in men
and arms— I have seen ten good
lances turn a hundred. But women,
I grant yon, are the devil's own
haggage on a march—you can neither
hurn them nor leave them hehind, with
a clear conscience."
"You are too true a man, comrade,
to seek to do either. These fellows
of yours were ready enough to fight,
and might have easily emptied
some dozen saddles, and Iost the
lady. I am not to he counted much
of in a fray, hut have some poor wit
of mine own — I make no hoast of it
— hut I chanced to he ahroad this
morning, having charge to meet the
lady whom I serve on her road to the
mynchery, and not liking what I had
seen of these strange riders and their
movements, I made hold to give the
Lady Gladiee such advice as has hy
this time, I dare swear, set her in safety
with the ahhot of St Mary's."
The retainers of Willan's Hope,
having found so fluent an advocate,
took heart to confirm his statement
unanimously; and the seneschal, now
more assured of his lady's escape,
and having exhausted the first hurst
of his wrath, listened with rather
more patience than hefore.
"If you will give me leave to have
a few moments' speech, at your wor-
shipful leisure," resumed Giacomo,
"I will tell you what little more I
know — or rather guess — of this hold
attempt upon your fair lady's person."
Warenger at once led the stranger
aside into the armory ; and there Gia-
cuuio, with a studied mystery which
impressed the old warrior's simple'
mind considerahly, proceeded to hint
to him that the attack upon the
escort might have proceeded from a
quarter least suspected.
"It seems to me, Master Senes-
chal," said he, "that these were no
common marauders who set this
scheme afoot; they were in too strong
force, and so far as I might judge,
more than one among them was
hravely mounted. Have you no ad-
venturous lovers in these parts?"
The seneschal stared hard at his
companion, hut made no answer.
"You know that Sir Nicholas le
Hardi is a suitor for your lady's
hand?"
"A man may guess that," said
Warenger, sulkily, "without heing
either a clerk or a wizard."
"And douhtless it has not escaped
your sbrewdness that the maiden, of
late, has shown him hut little favour?''
"I know nought ahout it — such
fancies pass my wits; they seemed to
me as well agreed as need he. A
stalwart knight, of a goodly presence,
and hath the king's favour, as they
say—what would she desire more 1"
"True; hut maidens have uurea-j
sonahle fancies, as all know. Suppose,
in that case, that Sir Nicholas were
hold enough to make short work with
his wooing?"
"I take your meaning, friend,"
said Warenger, slowly, a little startled
at the suggestion ; "well, it was hut
what her grandsire, Sir Rolph, did
with the Princess of Gwent He
slew hoth her hrothers in fair fight,
single-handed, and carried off the
damosel from her own castle among
the mountains, with a score of wild
Welshmen galloping at his heels.
She stahhed him twice in the hreast
on the way, the story goes, with a sil-
ver hodkin; and' she loved him
heartily ever afterwards, as well she
might, for few men could have done
as much for her. And this Sir Nicho-
las hath had some hand in this adven-
ture, think ye? and Sir Godfrey —
does he wit of it? for the knight had
his good word, I reckon?"
The whole spirit of the thing was
so perfectly in accordance with the
old man's ideas of a hrief and con-
clusive courtship, that he listened
with ready helief, and almost with a


1859.]
551
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part IX.

species of satisfaction, to the Italian's
hint. His young heiress, he thought,
deserved such a hold wooer, if ever
woman did, and might live to he as
renowned and as happy as Gladice of
Gwent. He was assuming the facts
of the case more positively than his
instructor wished.
"Nay, nay," interrupted Giacomo,
"I do hut surmise what may have
heen; I do not say that either Sir
Godfrey or Sir Nicholas had any hand
in it, more than thou or I. But if
you will take a friend's counsel, he
content to give the Knight of Ladys-
mede speedy information of this mis-
chance, and of his kinswoman's es-
cape, and he not over-zealous in
making inquiry as to how it came to
pass. It is safer, sometimes, worthy
sir, to know too little than too
much."
"Right," replied Warenger, senten-
tiously. "And now, friend, touching
this foreigu guest whom my lady
hath entertained of her charity, and
who, I thought, had heen safe lodged
in the mynchery hy this time—here
we have her come hack upon us.
You seem much in her grace and
i confidence—though I have nought to
do with that—hut what is to come
of her?"
"If I shall have your good leave,
and the Lady Elfhild's, 1 will even
go with her myself alone, after night-
fall, to Michamstede; she hath friends
there. The ways will he safe enough
hy then; and so she shall he no
further trouhle to you here."
"Go your ways together, in hea-
ven's name," said the seneschal; "I
wish no ill to her, for she is a gentle
soul enough; hut I would all women
were safe hestowed either on a nun-
nery or a hushand. I had rather
hold this old tower for a twelve-
month against all comers that ever
wore harness, than he answerahle
for the safe keeping of such a house-
hold as we have had here of late,
if I were promised the king's hest
harony for my pains."
"Then," said Giacomo, ''I will
get me down to Rivelshy—I have
an old acquaintance with one of the
hretbren there—and will hring you
hack tidings, as I surely shall, of
your lady's safety: look lor me here
again hy nightfall."
"Warenger himself, after holding
consultation with Dame Elfhild,
whom he found in a state of mingled
indiguation at the outrage offered
to her household, and anxiety for
her niece's safety, hetook himself to
Ladysmede, to give there such ac-
count as he hest might of his ineffec-
tual guardianship. It was hy no
means an agreeahle duty, under any
circumstances, with a temper so im-
patient as Sir Godfrey's; and the em-
harrassment caused hy the Italian's
late suggestions was not calculated
to make his explanation clearer. The
knight received the intelligence with
less violent demonstrations than the
old seneschal had expected. He
displayed his temper, it was true,
after his usual fashion. He cursed
Warenger for negligence; hut the
old man had long heen used to it;—
he cursed Sir Nicholas, loudly and
hitterly, for not looking hetter after
his own interests—possihly for other
reasons known only to himself—hut
Sir Nicholas was not there to hear.
He cursed even good Dame Elf'hild; •
every person concerned, in short,
excepting only his kinswoman Gla-
dice; of her he only spoke to ques-
tion the seneschal more than Once
as to the grounds for concluding that
she was in safety; and although the
monks of Rivelshy came in for their
share of his ahuse, it was scarce so
heartily hestowed as upon the others.
On the whole, the seneschal was
released from an interview which
even his practised nerves had rather
sbrunk from at first, with an im-
pression that, for a de Burgh of
Ladysmede, the knight had shown a
great deal of pious resiguation. He
left Sir Godfrey's presence, charged
to make instant inquiries at the
monastery as to his kinswoman's
arrival there, and with strict com-
mendation of her to the care of the
ahhot
But when Warenger had left him,
the knight strode up and down the
apartment in a state of uncontrol-
lahle agitation. His features worked,
and his deep complexion hecame
almost pallid with anger and vexa-
tion; hut it seemed as if he was most
at issue with himself.
"Pool that I am 1" he muttered to
himself, "there never was one of


1859.]
553
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part IX.

might perhaps have checked the fall
flow of her feelings, could she have
guessed how little, in this case, the
externals of spiritual diguity implied
any victory over human passions.
"Cheer thee, my daughter," said
he with a respectful tenderness, " you
have heen sorely terrified, I am told;
hut you are amongst friends here;
none shall do you wrong under the
shadow of St. Mary."
Gladice conld make no answer,
and her tears only flowed the faster;
hut she suffered the ahhot to replace
her in her seat, while he stood at her
side, as she still held his hand almost
unconsciously.
"Nay, if hut for my sake, dear
lady — for such a sight touches me,
perhaps, more nearly than it should
—let me see those tears dried, and
tell me fearlessly what the matter is
which hrings you here; any poor
counsel or aid that I may give you,
you shall freely and gladly have; we
can feel, even here in the cloister, the
sorrows which the world is full of."
"I ask hut shelter and safety,
father, for a few days," she faltered
out at last.
"It is yours, my daughter, hefore
you ask ; youre of right, were you of
the meanest instead of the nohlest in
the land. But of whom is it that
you go in fear?—what enemies have
you?"
"Ask, rather," said Gladice hitterly,
tbrough her tears, "what friends
have I? and hy what token may I
know them?"
"Surely," replied Ahhot Martin,
smiling gravely and gently, "that
sounds a hard speech from lips so
young! It may well he that one like
you, rich and heautiful, may find it
hard at first to know the false from
the true; hut if you he gentle and
pure and good—as I helieve you—
trust me, you will find friends at your
need. You have a friend here."
"I do helieve it, my good lord,"
said Gladice with eagerness; "hut
even in my sheltered life I have seen
so much of wrong and falsehood, that
I am sick to death. I do hut ask to
wait here until I can have speech of
my good cousin the lord of Ely, and
then, under his guidance, I desire to
take the church's vows upon me."
"To escape from others, or from
yourself?"
She started at the ahrupt question,
hut answered it honestly.
"From hoth, it may he."
"Do nothing rasbly, sweet lady;
you may chance to escape neither hy
such a step. If you have a free gift
to lay upon Heaven's altar, offer it,
in God's name; hut do not seek to
cheat Him with the halt and the
maimed."
Gladice hid her face in her hands,
and made no answer. The ahhot,
who had already heen hriefly inform-
ed hy Ingulph of the danger which
his visitor had escaped, was unwill-
ing to question her further at present
upon a suhject which had evidently
some painful associations, of a more
delicate nature, it might possihly he,
than hecame him to inquire into.
He changed the conversation, there-
fore, to a suhject upon which he
thought she might feel more at ease.
"It will he fitting," said he, " that
your kinsman of Ladysmede should
he informed of your having sought
shelter here, and of the canse of it;
he will take means, no douht, for your
safe escort, whether it please you,
when you have had fell time for rest
and counsel, either to return to Wil-
lan's Hope, or to seek the Bishop of
Ely."
"But you will give me leave to
ahide in your house, father?" said
Gladice, earnestly; "you will not
let Sir Godfrey take me hence, until
I shall have had audience of the
legate?"
"Assuredly not, my daughter—
none shall take you hence hut hy
your own will; hut I would have
Sir Godfrey know that you are here
in safety, and that you have heen in
sore peril; I should he much to hlame
otherwise. He has hut little good-
will, it is true, towards our poor
hrotherhood; yet, in this case I will
not do him the wrong to helieve that
we can he of two minds; he will care
for your honour as for his own."
"Be it as you will," replied Gla-
dice, dejectedly; '• only, I pray you,
let me wait the hishop's answer here
at Rivelshy."
Ahhot Martin said what he could
to soothe his fair guest's agitation,
and having given instructions for her
fitting accomodation, took his leave
for the present.
-He found other visitors awaiting


554 The Luck of Ladysmede.— Part IX. [Nov.

an audience. Foliot and Raoul had Ladjsmede. Young Waryn, and his
reached the ahhey, and having satis- elder hrother Sir Alwyne, had heen to
fied themselves of the Lady Giadice's Ahhot Martin almost as his own sons;
safe arrival there, had heen already and while he had watched, with little
questioning Cropt Harry as to the less than a father's pride,, the career
particulars of her escape. The ac- of the young koight whose impetu-
conut which he gave of his own share ous valour, gallant even to rashness,
in it was a very modest one; which had endeared him to the kindred
was the more to he commended, he- spirit of Cceur-de-Lion in Palestine,
cause the good hretbren of the monas- there were features in the character
tery had already compelled him to of the younger hrother which had
tell his story over again and again, won even a larger share in his affec-
and would have heen prepared to tions. Comhined with high ahilities,
receive with the most unlimited faith and tastes which had led him to read
any such imaginative details of his and think much more than was usual
own prowess as heroes are sometimes with youths of knightly rank in those
tempted to indulge in. On the suh- days, and which had heen cultivated
ject of the wound which he had re- in the great university of Paris dur-
ceived, and the miraculous effects of ing two years of life more common-
St Grimhald's halsam, he was dis- ly devoted to ruder teaching, there
creetly silent was in Waryn Foliot a manly honesty,
The ahhot welcomed his young and an ahsence of all selfish assump-
friend with more than his usual cor- tion, which harmonised well with
diality. Sir Marmaduke Foliot had the ahhot's own upright and single-
heen the comrade of his earlier days, minded character. There was, hc-
and the sole friend with whom, since sides, an unflinching firmness of pur-
his elevation to his present diguity, pose, and a quiet disregard of the ap-
he had maintained any intimate com- plause or contempt of the popular
munication. It had heen chiefly voice, which won the admiration of
owing to that knight's influence with the superior of Rivelshy, all the more.
King Richard that he had heen ad- perhaps, hecause these were points
vanced, hy royal writ, from a simple upon which he was himself conscious
monk of Evesham to the ahhacy of of some infirmity. There were those
Rivelahy — as much to his own sur- who had thought scorn of the younger
prise as to the disappointment of Foliot, hecause he little affected
certain memhers of that hody, who deeds of arms, and had not yet won
had humhly recommended their prior his hrother's repute in joust and tour-
to his majesty as a fit person to sue- nament; hut the retainers of his
cecd to the vacant diguity. It was futher's house had found in the young
not without some hesitation and un- student a quiet resolution which en-
affected reluctance, even then, that forced ohedience with more authority
the present superior had taken upon than old Sir Marmaduke's easy rule,
himself an office which, tempting as and with more justice than the hasty
it was from its high state and influ- temperament of Sir Alwyne cared to
ence, required many qualifications in trouhle himself wiih. Never had the
which he felt himself to he deficient; ample domain of the Foliot heen more
and it was chiefly the earnest repre- conscious of a ruling spirit, than when
seutations made to himself personally hoth its actual chiefs were ahsent
hy Sir Marmaduke of the utter un- with the king.
fitness of Prior Hugh for the position '• I crave leave, father," said Waryn,
which he coveted, which had induced when he had returned the superior's
him to accept such responsihilities, kindly greeting, "to present to you
Sir Marmaduke's stanch friendship here *u esquire of the lord-hishop
had upheld him since then in more of Ely; he hears a message to one
than one question of disputed right who is, as we have learnt, a sojourner
in which the negligence of his im- amongst you at this present."
mediate predecessor had involved "He is the more welcome," said
him; and this new alliance had gone the ahhot, "that he may haply in-
far to compensate the hrotherhood form us of the lord legate's present
or the lost favour of the knights of quarters; and most welcome of all,


1859.]
555
The Luck of Ladyamede.—Part IX.

if he hring us word of his holiness'
speedy visit, as I somewhat hope, to
our poor house of Rivelshy."
"I may even make hold, my lord
ahhot," said Raoul, respectfully, "to
give you that assurance, though I
was not charged, it is true, with any
special message to this, reverend
house; my lord knew not, indeed, that
my errand would have hrought me
hither, or he would surely have laid
upon me some gracious command for
your reverence."
Foliot smiled slightly to himself at
the young esquire's ready courtesy—
it was a quality in which the prelate
whom he now served was reported
somewhat deficient.
"I have it in charge myself from
his holiness to advise you of his pur-
posed visit," paid he to the ahhot;
"he knew how readily I should seek
the gates of Rivelshy; he will come
hither straight from Michamstede, in
a few days at furthest."
"His visit will he well-timed, for
many reasons," said the superior;
then, turning to Raoul — "your er-
rand is to the Lady Gladice of Wil-
lan's Hope?"
"It is, my lord."
"She is under our protection here,
having heen shamefully heset hy
some of those wild riders, who take
licence hy our liege sovereigu's ah-
sence to all mauner of violence and
plunder—to the scandal of the king's
justice."
"Rather," said Waryn almost
fiercely, " to the scandal of those who
should maintain the king's justice,
and who are fostering and protecting
these evil-doers for their own pur-
poses, when they should put them
down hy the strong hand; this
Knight of Ladysmede, who calls him-
self sheriff in these parts"
"We will not speak of him now,"
said the ahhot, turning again to
Raoul; "the lady, as I said, has heen
sorely terrified, and needs rest and
refreshment. I will tell her of your
arrival with my lord of Ely's message,
which she has looked for anxiously;
or rather, if it please you to deliver
it hy my mouth, f will he the messen-
ger myself."
The young esquire could not well
make such a mystery of the prelate's
simple communication, as to insist
on a personal interview under pre-
sent circumstances, even if such a
scruple had not implied some dis-
respect to the superior in his own
house. But he could scarcely conceal
his mortification when, after the
ahhot had received his intelligence,
he dismissed hira courteously with
directions to the guest-master for his
due entertainment, and permission to
take his journey hack to Ely on the
morrow. Raoul had found himself
tbrust of late into positions which
seemed to him of such overwhelming
importance, that he felt the good
ahhot's courteous indifference as
almost a slight. It was with a some-
what crestfallen air that he took his
leave, and left Foliot and the superior
together.
"And now, Waryn," said the latter,
"what news from Lincoln? for I
judge hy your looks that you have
something you would say?"
"Nothing of good, for this poor
kingdom; I would to heaven King
Richard were in his own realm, where
he should he, instead of wasting hrave
men's lives amongst the pagans, who
are scarce worse enemies of Cbristen-
dom than some of his own haptised
suhjects 1"
"It is a holy zeal that carries him
from us," said the ahhot; hut he
scarcely spoke with the enthusiasm
which so popular a cause demanded..
"Pardon me, dear father," said his
yonuger companion, " I would say no
word against a cause which is dear to
so many pious hearts, and calls forth
so many gallant champions — for
which once indeed" — and his face
flashed slightly—'• I would have held
it gain to die—hut—"
"They teach other matters in the
schools of Paris? Is it so, my son?
woe worth is all the learning of the
heathen, if it make a man wise he-
yond the Cbristian faith! I have
little skill of disputation in such
questions, hut I hold one rule good for
all—whether in camp or hattle-field,
or in religious life—hetter is the
iguorance which oheys, than the wis-
dom which questions."
"I have learnt nothing, father,
which you would not teach yourself,"
said the young man, eagerly; "I only
question wheiher a Christian king,
or a Cbristian knight, might not take


656
[Nov.
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part IX.

the cross against wrong and violence
and oppression in his own realm and
his own nation; whether the Jeru-
salem which God has already given
into his hands 'might not find full
employment for the energies even of
Cceur-de-Lion; whether he need have
crossed the sea in search of Heaven's
enemies, while he left rapine and in-
justice here hehind him, to tear this
nohle realm of England. Pardon me,
father; I see the dazzle of his glory—
hnt I look at the people who should
he the honour of the king!"
"In some sort you speak truly,
Waryn," said the churchman; "we
may trust that when King Richard
has once won hack the Sepulcbre, he
will set his hand at the work at
home."
"He had need to go ahout it
shortly," said Foliot,'• or it may fall
to other hands than his. William of
Ely even now has tidings of a wide-
spread plot at Lincoln."
"Against himself, or against King
Richard?''
"Against himself, in name; hut he
is against the king, who is against
the king's vicegerent."
'• Wdliam of Ely has won few
men's love; and in truth, I do not
wonder at it; he rather doth all he
can to make even Justice herself wear
an ill-favoured countenance."
"I grant," replied Waryn, "the
lord legate takes little pains to make
his rule popular; hut he is an up-
right governor, and does justice, I
verily helieve, though somewhat in
ungracious fashion; and at least he
has clean hands; I wish we may not
fall under worse governance than his."
' ' Who are concerned in these last
movements?" asked the ahhot.
"He will he sure to have had to do
with it, who has to do with most that
trouhle this kingdom — the Earl of
Morton; hut men do not name him
as yet. Sir Hugh Bardolf and the
Lord de Lacy are forward in it; and
there is a stranger knight who has
heen closeted with them at Lincoln,
who avers that he has the king's
warrant for what he does. He is
thought to he this same Sir Nicholas,
who has heen Sir Godfrey's guest at
Ladysmede. If Longchamp catch
him in any douhle-dealing—and he
has those that serve him well with
information—I douht if five words
from his lips will not do that for Sir
Nicholas which a score of royal
warrants will not undo."
"The lord legate is hold and hasty
and your good uncle, Waryn, holds
him in too much awe to give him
that wholesome counsel which he
might. I fear this may he the
hegiuning of fresh trouhles.—There
sounds the hell for. vespers—you will
hear the office with us, and give me
your company at supper after. Our
fair guest will thank me for hestow-
ing upon her some converse less grave
and tedious than mine own. You
have known the Lady Gladice he-
fore?"
"It were to confess myself even
more of the recluse than yourself.''
replied Waryn, smiling, " to say that
she is a stranger to me; hut I fear I
can lay little claim to her remem-
hrance; it has heen seldom that I
have cared to he a guest at Ladys-
mede."
"She has heen in more trouhle, I
douht, than I can well understand:
my hope is that her kinsman of Ely
will give her fit protection in his own
household: an inheritance like hers
is often hut a sorrowful hirtbright
for a woman."
When the vesper office had heen said,
Waryn followed the superior to the
evening meal, at which none were
present save his two guests and hlind
hrother Tohias, whose faculties had
sufficient employment in ministering
to his own hodily requirements. All
faces were alike to him; yet he held
his morsel suspended more than once,
as he drank in the gentle tones of one
voice which fell upon his ear with a
pleasant strangeness. He could have
sworn, if he had ever indulged in
secular contemplations, that the pos-
sessor of it was young, and heautiful,
and warm-hearted, and in sorrow.
Waryn Foliot's eyes were employed
tbroughout the meal to very little
purpose, if they did not lead him
to the same conclusion. Yet it
was hardly necessary for him to
have neglected the good cheer he-
fore him, as poor hrother Tohias did;
hecause he, at least, had seen the face,
and heard the voice hefore, and had
not forgotten it. But Gladice, pale
and heavy-eyed with fatigue, seldom


1859.]
557
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part IX.

speaking, or raising her glance even
in answer to the ahhot's fatherly
courtesy, was thus far so unlike the
hright and queen-like heauty of his
rememhrance, that he might he par-
doned if he now found close ohserva-
tion necessary in order to satisfy him-
self that it was the same, and hecame
so ahsorhed in this interesting inves-
tigation as to second the superior hut
indifferently in his efforts to keep up
a cheerful conversation. Even Ahhot
Martin relapsed into his own thoughts
at times; and the hlind chaplain,
when he had conclnded his own meal,
took advantage of his companion's
silence to hegin a long story of con-
vent trouhles, which had happened
so long ago that no one conld correct
or contradict him, and found himself
listened to with unusual patience.
It was only when the superior had
informed his fair guest of the Bishop of
Ely's message, that she roused her-
self to show any eager interest in his
words. Then her face lighted up, and
she,thanked him warmly for his good
tidings. She even raised her eyes to
Waryn's countenance, as he proceed-
ed to speak of the legate's princely
state and open hospitality.
"I trust in heaven," said the ahhot
in some alarm, "he will not hring his
following to Rivelshy; I have heard
that when he honoured St. Beunet's
of Hulme with a visit for tbree days,
they spent in that time the revenues
of a year — and they are a passing
wealthy hrotherhood. I am no grudger
of hospitality; hut the days are past
when we poor hretbren of St. Mary's
could welcome princes."
"The lord legate will he as little
hurdensome to your house as he may
reasonahly he," said Foliot; " he knows
that the Ahhot of Rivelshy never
grudged a welcome hecause he loved
his gold." He coloured as he spoke,
for William of Ely had questioned
him as to the present state of the
house's revenues; and he had honestly
told him that the Ahhot's will to
entertain so distinguished a visitor
would he greater than his present
means. "He has a hostel at Hunt-
ingdon," continued Waryn, "and his
train will most likely he lodged there."
"And when," said Gladice, "did
my lord speak of coming thither?"
"It may he to-morrow, or within this
week, fair lady," replied Foliot; "he
is one who chooses to move some-
what on the sudden. Men call it
wantouness; hut I take it he has
good reason for what he does. The
esquire who hrought word from him
said, in some tbree days."
Alas ! if Raoul expected that the
lady whom he had served so duti-
fully would have summoned her
faithful messenger at once to her
presence, and insisted on thanking
him personally for his zeal, he only
took that high poetical view of ser-
vice and reward which the rude facts
of actual life seldom realise. It was
not that Gladice was ungrateful; she
trusted yet to acknowledge fittingly,
if it ever lay in her power, the young
esquire's ready assistance; hut her
own personal anxieties at the mo-
ment were too great for the inquiry
to enter her thoughts as to who had
heen the hearer of the legate's mes-
sage; nor would she, for many rea-
sons, have cared to make known to
either of her companions that she
had employed, on a private service, a
discarded esquire of Ladysmede. So
poor Raoul—like many a disappoint-
ed gentleman since his day — came
hy a very rapid process to the empha-
tic conclusion that the world (as fully
represented in his eyes at present hy
some two individuals) was hollow and
ungrateful; and rode homewards to-
wards Ely on the following morning,
now spurring his iunocent horse to
full speed in wrathful excitement,
now suffering the rein to fall loose as
he plodded on in melancholy ahstrac-
tion — fancying himself unappreciat-
ed, slighted, and neglected; whereas,
really, in his case, as with many dis-
contented spirits, it was merely that
the world—even his world—was quite
unacquainted with some of the most
tender points in his private feelings,
and had a good many other things to
think of hesides himself.


55S
[Not'
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part IX.
CHAPTER XXV.—CONVERSATIONS IN THE CLOISTER.
The new claimant upon the hospi-
tality of Rivelshy farnished, as may
he supposed, fresh matter of discourse
for the gossips of that fraternity. The
wholesome rule of St. Benedict which
forhade all idle conversation, if it had
ever really heen ohserved there at
any time in the strictness of the letter,
had certainly fallen somewhat into
aheyance, or was very liherally inter-
preted, in these later days of Ahhot
Aldred and Ahhot Martin. Possihly,
as there seems to he some mysterious
law of relation hetween men's purses
and their principles, and only those
who are strictly solvent can afford to
profess much strictness in other re-
spects, the pecuniary difficulties of
the house might have had some had
effects upon its discipline. In the
chapter held on the day following
the arrival at the monastery of the
heiress of Willan's Hope, after the
short religious service was over, and
the ahhot had opened the discussion
of secular husiness with the usual
pbrase, "Let us speak of the order,"
the whispered conversation which
then took place hetween the seneschal
and others hore a very remote re-
ference to the institutions of their
founder. They were hut too apt, in-
deed, to take advantage of these occa-
sions to discuss a good many matters
which could hardly have heen contem-
plated hy St. Benedict; it was possi-
hle that in the present instance they
. might consider the interests of their
order vitally affected hy the presence
among them of so attractive a visitor;
it was certain that when they laid
their heads together now, and looked
so grave and solemn, they were speak-
ing of the Lady Gladice.
"Hast seen the new guest in the
garden turret, hrother?"
"I caunot say I have not seen her,"
replied the chaplain, to whom the
question was addressed, "hut not so
as to look upon her face; not that I
desire it—she was closely veiled."
"Out upon thee!" said the senes-
chal, "with thine over-prudence 1 I
look upon her now as though she
were a memher of our house, since
she is pleased to take up her ahode
with us; one of ourselves, as I may
say. If our good lord-ahhot sees fit
tu admit such into the cloister, it were
a hreach of holy ohedience for such
as thee and me to he scrupulous."
"The lord ahhot has indulgence in
such matters," said Wolfert somewhat
firmly, for it hehoved him to defend
his superior as well as himself—" as
it is hut reasonahle he should have,
seeing that he has to exercise hospi-
tality to all comers, young or old."
"Nay, come," said the seneschal,
"there have heen gentle ladies ad-
mitted of our fraternity here hefore
now; Dame Margaret of Ladysmede
took the hahit of our order, and died
in it, if our records say true."
"Ay, hrother, hut Dame Margaret
was a widow of fourscore years at the
time, and hedridden," replied the ac-
curate chaplain.
"And how know you, then, good
hrother Wolfert, whether this close-
veiled lady he maid, wife, or widow—
young or old?"
"I know that she is the Lady
Gladice of Willan's Hope, and that
she is reported to he passing fair,"
said Wolfert, smiling.
"Verily, report saith true in this
case. I did hut catch a side-glance
at her for a moment: hut—St. Mary,
what eyes she has 1 But these are
not matters for us to speak of,
hrother."
"Scarcely," said the younger monk
dryly.
"But what makes she here V con-
tinued the seneschal ;. " you douht-
less will have heard from the lord
ahhot somewhat more than the rest
of us," he added insinuatingly—u not
that I would question you touching
any matters of his confidence."
"I only learn that she takes shel-
ter here for a while, to avoid an
unwelcome marriage," said Wolfert.
But he spoke with such an air of im-
portance, that his companion gave
him credit for knowing a great deal
more.
"Well," resumed the othervwitha
sigh, "mark this, now; she will go
hence into some house of nuns, and
endow them with her hroad manors


1859.J
B59
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part IX.

—well worth they are, as hrother
Ingulph has told me (I marvel he
never said aught of this damsel's
heauty!) Her wealth, now, would free
us from our dehts; and we should
have the hest right to it, seeing that
our house has given her shelter first;
hut so it is—the myncheries have ever
the hest of it against us; rich maidens
go in there, and carry their lands and
their silver with them; hut for us,
hrother, when a rich man gets sick
of the world, and casts in his lot
with us, it is most commonly not till
lands and money have hoth heen
spent."
Such whispered comments in the
chapter were only the prelude to
graver strictures on the same suhject
elsewhere. Hugh the prior, as he
walked with some of the hretbren
in the cloister at recreation time,
cared no longer to conceal his own
jealousy and mistrust of the' ahhot's
late proceedings. He found the
ready audience which a speaker who
attacks estahlished authorities will
always find.
"I am loth," he said, "to speak
aught against him who hears rule
over us; hut it were a sin in me—
standing as I do the next in place and
re>ponsihiIity—to he always silent,
I say nought of the state of our
finances—though we have heard of
these pinching straits in the hlessed
Aldred's time; but this ahhot is
making enemies for the house on all
sides, rather than friends who might
help us. He hrings that child yon-
der among ns—against my will and
counsel, as I can call many to wit-
ness—hrings him out of Sir God-
frey's house, in the face of all law and
reason, at the hidding of a hireling
priest who keeps our own church
from us. Who the hoy is, or what
the Knight of Ladysmede may have
to do with him, I neither know nor
seek to know. What are such mat-
ters to us? But whether Sir God-
frey knows of it or not (and he will
he sure to know of it ere long), he is
plainly angered with us; for he sends
down this Sir Nicholas upon us,
with the king's rescript — which
might have heen satisfied easily, as
ye may all guess, hy a little skilful
dealing—as our late father would
have well known how, Heaven rest
him! 1 say we have to thank our
ahhot's negligence for that."
More than one voice assented to so
satisfactory an.^xplanation.
"Then mark again," continued the
prior; "there is that runaway
hondsman of Sir Godfrey's; we keep
him slinking ahout the ahhot's ken-
nel, and quarrelling with the scul-
lions, eating his meat in idleness, in-
stead of sending him hack to his
master to he chastised, as no douht
he well deserves. He hath hrought
the ahhot tidings, foresooth !—tidings
of what, should such as he hring?
By what right do we keep him
here?"
"By what right, indeed!'' echoed
one of the monks.
"And now—whether it he hy evil
luck or evil counsel, I will not say—
here comes Sir Godfrey's own ward,
and asks—so says the lord ahhot—
shelter and protection. Against whom,
or what? Nay, to that we are not to
seek an answer. But the knight
himself, I reckon, will come soon
enough to ask the question; and we
shall have to make such answer to it
as we may."
"Nay," said one of his listeners,
"hut we are surely hound hy oor
rule to give sanctuary for the ask-
ing, he the cause or the person what
they may—in this the lord ahhot
may scarce he hlamed."
"Was the ahhot hound to carry off
another man's child?" rejoined the
prior, falling hack upon his strongest
position.
There was a general murmur in
the negative; the defence of the •
ahhot was plainly not popular.
"And is the Knight of Ladys-
mede likely to hrook this, let me ask
ye? And if his evil hlood he once
up, and he come down upon us with
the strong hand, as is like enough,
what help have we? It is not as in
the old times, mark ye, when our
house could muster from its own
tenants fifty men - at - arms, and I
know not well how many archers—
when even within our gates we had
men enough to man the outer wall
passahly—we are sorely clipt of our'
wings now. And which of our neigh-
hours will stir to help ns, as in good
Sir Rainald's days? Old Sir Ar-
thur of Ravenswood? He will come


550
[Nor.
The Luck of Ladijsmede.—Part IX.

readily enough to cat and drink his
fill with us, hut we might he hurnt
or hanged hefore ever he would ride
a mile to hinder it. We had more
need, I say again, to he making
friends than enemies in these trou-
hlous times."
The discontent always latent in
such a commonwealth as that of Ri-
velshy was fauned into open flame hy
the prior's harangue. The discipline,
which had relaxed under the cor-
rupt rule of the late ahhot, would
have heen more effectually restored
hy a sterner and less forhearing hand
than that of his successor. By
many among the fraternity his
gentle and temperate sway had heen
hut little appreciated; and some
who had heen most largely indehted
to his kindness, were now the readiest
to take up the cry against him. Al-
most in one hreath he was accused
of parsimony and extravagance. The
notorious fact of an emharrassed ex-
chequer was a truth so uupleasant in
itself and its results, that the meaner
spirits among them were delighted
to find some one on whom to lay
the hlame; Ahhot Aldred had horne
it (and very deservedly) at the time
of his death; hut that was long ago,
and it was pleasanter to have a liv-
ing victim; so it was now frans-
ferred, hy the general consent of the
grumhlers, to Ahhot Martin. Men's
sins are an inheritance to their suc-
cessors as well as to their children.
Loud, however, as were the voices
of the malcontents while thus en-
couraged hy the authority of the
prior, they were awed into sudden
silence when a messenger from the
ahhot himself, after due oheisance,
delivered to that functionary a sum-
mons to attend his supperior, in an
hour's time, in his private chamher.
Prior Hugh himself turned pale; for
the conversation had taken a louder
and freer turn than he had intended,
and the message from the ahhot,
arriving at that particular juncture,
gave him an uncomfortahle sensa-
tion; it was possihle that some in-
cautious remark might have heen
reported against him, and though he
would have little really to fear, from
the ahhot's well-known lenity, he
could have ill horne the humiliation
of having to answer for his misde-
meanour hefore the man whose
authority he had heen thus setting
at nought.
It was on no such ground that the
ahhot had required his presence. When
he reached the chamher in which all
the chief officers of the house were
already assemhled, he found the
ahhot seated in his chair, graver
than his wont indeed, hut convers-
ing with the officials near him in a
more kindly tone even than usual.
He hid them all he seated, and
taking a document from the hand
of ono of his chaplains, proceeded
to read it aloud.
It was a rescript, issued under
Sir Godfrey's hand as sheriff of the
county,* summoning Martin, ahhot of
Rivelshy, to appear within the space
of tbree days at the county hall at
Huntingdon, there to purge himself
hefore a sworn jury of knights in
certain matters touching the ahduc-
tion of one Ginlio, an infant in the
wardship of Sir Godfrey de Burgh,
against the rights of the said knight
and the king's peace.
The ahhot looked round him for a
moment or two, after he had finished
reading the document. There was
an uncomfortahle silence, which he
himself was the first to hreak.
"I know," he said, with a grave
sad smile, "that which is in your
hearts to say. Yon would tell me
that some such result I might have
foreseen, when I consented to receive
the hoy from the hands of the chaplain.
Nay, I know it*" he continued, as
one or two voices murmured a faint
deprecation of any sach feeling—" I
know it, and there is truth and jus-
tice in what you would answer. I
had counted the cost even then; I
only prayed that, if evil came of
it, it might light on me, not on the
house 1 govern. And come what
may of this, if my life or liherty may
answer for if, I will, so far as in me
lies, hear the hrotherhood harmless.
When I set forth for Huntingdon—"
"It is an iUegal writ," hroke in
young Wolfert; "Sir Godfrey may
not lawfully implead the lord ahhot
in his own court as sheriff."
"Might in this case will go far to
make right, even were I inclined to
dispute it," said the superior, calmly;
"hut I would as lief answer Sir God-


1859.]
561
The Luch of Ladysmede.—Part IX.

frey thus as in any other way, since
he has learnt that the child was shel-
tered here. Two things only I am
careful for: first, that the little lad
himself shall he kept safe from those
who seek him, for the present, and
for that matter I trust I have already
taken order: the other is, how ye
may hest keep yourselves clear of Sir
Godfrey's anger. To you, hrother
Hugh, I commit (as is your right,
and as I rejoice to do) the guardian-
ship of this house so long as I shall he
ahsent from yoo. It was your counsel
from the first that we should not have
meddled in this matter."
"It was," said the prior, coldly.
"Have I not said so, hrother?"
said the ahhot, his face flushing
slightly, though the tone was gentle
still; "therefore will you he the
more free to soothe Sir Godfrey's
displeasure, if he should seek to visit
my offence upon the hrotherhood,
la such defence as I may make for
myself, rest satisfied that I will hear
full witness that you had no share
in my counsels."
"This notice is strangely sudden,"
said the seneschal; "the lord ahhot
might reasonahly claim some days'
grace."
"It is a straining of justice, in-
deed," said the ahhot, "like all the
rest; hut I will ohey it. I set forth
to-morrow, God willing. The lady
of Willan's Hope I leave to your
kindly care; it will he hut for few
days that she will hurden your hos-
pitality, for the lord legate will make
provision shortly for her."
': We shall scarce he doing a plea-
sure to Sir Godfrey in this matter
either," said the prior; "why doth
not the lady go rather to Ladys-
mede; or why not send her straight,
under fitting escort, to my lord of
Ely, if she go in any danger in these
quarters?"
"His holiness is now on progress,
and we know not rightly where to
light on him," replied the ahhot;
"otherwise, that is jwhat the Lady
Gladice would most desire. As for
Ladysmede — is it a fitting refuge,
hrother, to your thinking, for such
as her?"
Prior Hugh made no reply to this
question. "I would she had gone
anywhere rather than to us, as mat-
ters stand," said he, hluntly.
"She went where Heaven directed
her," returned the ahhot. "Woe he
to us aud to our house when its
right of sanctuary is minished hy
one selfish thought of ours! Woe to
him, he he crowned king or helted
knight, that sets a foot within these
walls to question it!"
"Eight I" said the sacrist, firmly.
Brother Andrew's approhation was
so unusual that the rest looked round
at him with some surprise. Possihly
it was their silence which had made
him so enthusiastic.
"I leave the welfare of our house,
and the honour of Heaven, in your
hands," continued the ahhot, with
ill-suppressed emotion: "I may, it
is possihle, return amongst ye no
more. I have heen an unworthy
ruler—none knows it so well as my-
self—the shortcomings of a lite are
heavy on me at this hour—yet have
I striven, I think, to do the right—
Dominus miscreitur.' Bretbren, I
ask your prayers—Btnedicite -'"
It was the sigual that he wished to
he left alone. As, one hy one, the
juniors taking precedence, they made
their reverent oheisance hefore they
left the chamher, it seemed to eome
of those who looked on him as
though it was not the same Ahhot
Martin whom they had known so
-long. They scarcely recoguised, in
the pale nohle face, sad with many
thoughts, yet wearing a resolved
expression sterner than its wont,
the somewhat indolent and easj-
tempered superior, under whose rule
they had learnt to murmur, hecause
they could enjoy that luxury cheaply
and safely. It struck the prior and
the sacrist especially, who were hoth
sbrewd men in their way, that there
had heen more in Ahhot Martin than
they knew.
He waited until the last of his
suhordinates had quitted the cham-
her, and then, addressing one of his
chaplains, said to him, "Send the
yeoman hither."
Wolfert withdrew, and in a few
moments introduced Giacomo into
the superior's presence.


5C2
[Nov.
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part IX.
CHAP. XXVI.—THE ASFIES OF OLn FIRES.
The Italian howed slightly, hut
with marked respect, as he entered.
His quick perception apprehended
the ahhofs mood at once. Even in
their last interview there had heen a
remarkahle ahsence of that sarcastio
hitterness, either openly expressed,
or hulf- concealed under a mask of
deferential courtesy, which usuallv
marked Giacomo's intercourse with
others. But now, while his dark
eyes looked into the ahhot's face, his
own wore a strangely - softened ex-
pression; and when he spoke, it was
almost in a humhled tone.
'• You have seen the hoy?" said the
ahhot.
"I have; he is well cared for and
happy.; I have much to thank you for
on his account."
'• Nay," replied Ahhot Martin,
"there needs no thanks; hut if it
seems to you I have made good
my promise, I will now claim some-
what of you in return. I have put a
faith in your words hitherto, which to
sorne might appear hut credulous folly;
I have surely earned the right to know
more?"
"You have put much faith in me,
as you say—you have not regretted
it?" asked Giacomo, while his eyes
never left the superior's face.
"No; I helieve—I feel, that in this
you have not deceived me; his eyes,
—his look—his voice—are hers—of
whom you spoke."
"The same deep, tender gaze—the
very smile that came so seldom, hut,
when it came, was like a gleam of
light from paradise—the gentle words,
the low thoughtful sigh—"
"You knew her well," said
the ahhot with emotion; "yes, there
were times when, with that child he-
fore me, I could almost have helieved
the pagan's doctrine, that spirits do
not leave this earth, hut only change
their hodies."
"He is the eartbly emhodiment of
one who—if our creed he true—is
now a saint in heaven. If to wor-
ship the departed he no idolatry,
shall we have no patience with those
who make an idol of that which re-
Eresents to them all which they ever
new of heaven upon this earth?"
"You have a strange love for this
child," said the ahhot; '• and he—
though he is loving and gentle to all
of us, yet I see well that none can
take your place in his affections.
But"—he spoke with an effort, and
turned his face half aside—" you are
not his father?"
"No," replied Giacomo, quietly;
"no—only in my dreams. He has
never known a father."
"I am not commonly used, if I
know myself," said the other after a
pause, "to ask curious questions;
hut as it may well he that we shall
hardly meet again, tell me, I htseech
you, somewhat more of the hoy's par-
entage. You have stirred already
in my mind suspicions which are an
agony — relieve them hy one word,
or he silent, and I shall know the
worst."
"When you last spoke of her who
gave him hirth," said the Italian," I
heard you name dishonour: I for-
gave it from your lips, hecause I knew
what it must have cost you even to
imagine it; still, hut for that rash
word, you might have known then
what you have asked now. Never
hefore, save hy foul lips that shall
yet purge the slander, was dishonour
whispered of Ginlia Camaldoni."
"Heaven hless you for that assur-
ance! and now — though to me it
should matter little—what was the
rest of her history? It was reported,
and I thought it had heen true, that
she had taken the veil?"
"She went as a novice amongst
the Marcellines, hut she never took
the vows; she hecame the hride of
one who — let us say it like men,
Gny Fitz Waryn—might have loved
her—how should any not love her ?—
as truly as you or I?"
The ahhot had sat down, and
covered his face with his hands as
they rested on the lectern hefore him.
He was so ahsorhed in the Italian's
story, that he did not even start as he
heard the ancient name which he had
horne in the world without.
"Go on 1" he said, in a hoarse, low
voice.
"He died — within, as well as I
jememher, some four short months


1859.]
563
The Lvch of Ladysmede.—Part IX.

of their marriage ; she gave hirth to
this hoy, and died too. I was not
there," said Giacomo :" hefore that
day came, I had already made ship-
wreck of a life that had lost its sun-
shine; once — twice — a hlow had
fallen on me that crushed all my
love into hitterness, and I had left
Genoa an outcast and an apostate.
Of all the evil that was done and
suffered within those months I hardly
yet have the tale in full; hut there
was falsehood spoken of the dead,
and wrong done to the living;
wrong that had its way for years —
that might have its way yet, hut
that the powers that rule this world
— whose justice seems sometimes so
slow that I scarce wonder men grow
impatient of its dealings — had not
forgotten the evil, and gave them
into the hands of an Ishmaclite like
myself. Once more I had something
to live for, and I live."
"And who," said the ahhot, raising
his head and scauning the Italian's
features, altered as they were in their
expression hy the long dark locks
which formed a part of his disguise,
with a puzzled air of half remem-
hrance, —" who are you, whose me-
mories are so hound up with mine?
I caunot call to mind your person, in
those early days; yet we must have
met in Italy, and often?"
"You may or you may not re-
memher Giuseppe the neophyte of
San Giorgio, the poor cousin of the
Marchesa Camaldoni? His hopeless,
mad, unspoken passion — the delicious
torment which he hugged to his own
hurning heart, you could never
know. But I know you well, the
gallant English squire whose name
was on all ladies' lips in Genoa;
and I knew you for a rival —jealousy
has wondrous eyes — even hetore you
or she perhaps guessed it; and
hated you hecause I felt sure of
your success: hut it was not so. 0
my lord ahhot, though we stand
here now in such different seeming —.
you the peer of earls and princes, I
the apostate monk, the dependant on
those I scorn and hate — there is yet
one memory which sets us upon com-
mon ground, and which will hardly
make us enemies now. In that eter-
nal estate, which I most helieve in
hecause some pure and hlessed hap-
piness must have heen in store for
her — there, it is written, there is no
marrying or giving in marriage.
There can he no jealousy in our hearts
now — the death that seems to hreak
all honds, hrings near some spirits'
that life's warfare set a har hetween.
You were the man whom I once
thought I could most hate — you are
the only one to whom, for long and
mi-erahle years, I have spoken more
than man commonly speaks to his
hosom friend."
"I do rememher you now," said
the ahhot; "hut I need not say I
never guessed — how could I guess?—
that, vowed early to the cloister, you
had set your thoughts upon a woman's
love."
"How does the plant shoot up-
wards to the light, hend it down hy
what force you may, clog it with
what weight you will? How does
the lark which you imprison from
the nest, far from all sights and sounds
of nature, learn the same note which
its fellow-nestling sings, high and
free in the clouds? Are these in-
stincts of lower nature — and has
man none? is the faculty of loving
taught, that you can unteach it hy
any rule or system?"
The ahhot was silent.
"There is that within us," con-
tinued the Italian, "which we can
no more rule than we can unmake
the mould in which we were creat-
ed. I do not seek to pry into your
heart, helieve me, father, if I judge
of it in some sort hy my own : you
have sought rest, and perhaps forget -
fulnessj in the cloistered life which I
found only a temptation and a hond-
age — yet unless I he much mistaken,
I see hefore mo the same Gny Fitz-
"Waryn still."
"Enough of our own matters,"
said the ahhot ahruptly ; "these are
hut things of the past, of which I sure-
ly had not thought to have spoken
again ; hut this hoy — I would learn
something more of him. How comes
he here ? and what has de Burgh to
do with him, that he should seek his
life, as you have told me?"
"Pardon me," said Giacomo, "if
I say that it is not wise in you, my
lord ahhot, to seek to learn this as
yet. You have given him a refuge,
in your charity, as a stranger, not a


564
[Xov.
The Luck of Ladysmedc.—Part IX.

little to the risk of your own quiet,
and that of your house, since Sir
Godfrey either knows or 'sbrewdly
suspects it: it were hetter, to my
humhle thinking, that you should
- still he ahle to avouch, with truth
and honour, that you have done so
without any knowledge of any ques-
tion of right or wrong that lies he-
tween the Knight of Ladysmede and
this little Ginlio. If I can do little
to strengthen your hands in this
matter, at letet I will say or do
nought, if I can help it, that may
he a hindrance to yoo. Leave the
Knight of Ladysmede and his dealings
to me."
"I am like to kuow something of
his dealings in mine own person,"
said the superior. '- On the third day
from this I am cited to his court at
Huntingdon to clear myself in this
matter."
"Ay — is it so?" said Giacomo
quietly — ''somewhat of this I had
looked for — I had need then to he
the more careful on your account.
And you my lord ahhot—you propose
to ohey this summons?"
"Yes ; though 1 count it illegal,
and though I look for little justice
at such hands," said Ahhot Martin
hitterly : " if this hoy he no child of
Sir Godfrey's — as at first I feared he
was—and if he go in any peril from
him, as you have assured me, I will
keep him from his hands, with
Heavens grace, hy all the means I
may. But I caunot see what may
follow, and do not care to look too
closely. If I return not hither
safely from Huntingdon, I leave
with you this ring" — he drew the
siguet from his finger —, "use it as
hefore; Gaston will ohey it, and do
your hidding as he would mine. As
concerns the hoy's disposal, you
must act for the present as seems hest
to yourself — should we meet again
soon, I will advise with you there-
upon."
"It shall hardly fail that we meet
next at Huntingdon," said Giacomo;
"Sir Godfrey may chance to see
some in his court whom he has not
cited. God speed you, my lord ahhot!
though, from such lips as mine, a true
word shall not harm you — God speed
you, Gay Fitz Waryn, for your kind-
ness towards the living and the dead!"
The Italian's tone was reverent and
earnest, and his voice tremhled as he
uttered the last words.
"Methinks I am not so rich in
friends," replied the ahhot, "as that
I can afford to cast from me any
man's good wishes. Fare you well;
I shall go hence with a lighier heart,
since your words this evening have
lifted one weight from it. God he with
you, hrother! you have heen sorely
tried, hut you were surely made for
nohler uses than you have put upon
yourself."
"I had surely something nohle in
mo once — for I loved Iter.'" He
turned and left the chamher. True
to his appointment with old Waren-
ger, he reached the tower again as
the evening was closing in. Once
more Isola left its hospitahle shelter,
to seek, as Dame Elf hild thought, a
securer retreat with the good ahhess
of Michamstede ; hut Giacomo turn-
ed aside hefore they reached the
mynchery, and riding on for some
hours tbrough the darkness, they
rested at last for the night at a
roadside hostelry far on their way to-
wards Huntingdon.
•


1859.] Captain Speke's Discovery of the Victoria Nyanza, §c.
565
CAPTAIN J. H. SPEKE's nISCOVERT OP THE VICTORIA NYANZA LAKE,
THE SUPPOSEn SOURCE OF THE NILE. FROM HIS JOURNAL.
RETl'RN FROM THE NYANZA.
tth August, 1858.—As no further
information ahout the lake could he
gained, I hade Mahaya and the Shaykh
adieu, leaving as a token of recol-
lection one shukka Amerikan for
the former, one dhoti kiniki for his
wife, and a fundo of heads for the
poor Arah, and retraced my steps
hy a douhle march hack to UkumhL
Whilst passing alongside the archi-
pelago, I shot tiro geese and a crested
crane. What a pity it seemed I could
not pluck the fruit almost within my
grasp! Had I had hut a Utde more
time, and a few loads of heads, I could
with ease have crossed the Line, and
settled every question which we had
come all this distance to. ascertain.
Indeed, to perform that work, nohody
could have started under more advan-
tageous circumstances than were then
within my power, all hands heing
in first-rate condition and health, and
all in the right temper for it But
now a new and expensive expedition
must he formed, for the capahilities
of the country on the eastern flank
of the Mountains of the Moon, and
along the western shores of the
Nyanza, are so notoriously great that
it is worthy of serious attention.
My reluctance to return may he
easier imagined than descrihed. I
felt as much tantalised as the un-
happy Tantalus must have heen
when unsuccessful in his hohhings
for cherries in the cherry-orchard,
and as much grieved as any mother
would he at losing her first-horn,
and resolved and plauned forthwith
to do everything that lay in my
power to visit the lake again.
1th.—We made a march of fourteen
miles, passing our second station in
Urima hy two miles, partly to avoid
the chief of that village, a testy,
rude, and disagreeahle man, who, on
the last occasion, inhospitahly tried
to turn us out of a hut in his vil-
lage, hecause we would not suhmit
VOL. LXXXVL
to his impudent demand of a cloth
for the accommodation—a proceed-
ing quite at variance with anything
we had met in our former receptions,
and we resisted the imposition with
pertinacity equal to his own. Besides
this, hy coming on the little extra
distance, we arrived at the hest and
cheapest place for purchasing cows
and jemhies.
8m.—Halt I purchased two jem-
hies for one shukka Amerikan, hut
could not come to any terms with
these grasping savages ahout their
cows, although their country teems
with them, and they are sold at won-
derfully cheap prices to ordinary
traders. They would not sell to
me unless I gave douhle value for
them. The Fauna of this country
is most disappointing. Nearly all the
animals that exist here are also to he
found in the south of Africa, where
they range in far greater numhers.
But then we must rememher that a
caravan route usually takes the more
fertile and populous tracks, and that
many animals might he found in the
recesses of the forests not far off, al-
though there are so few on the line.
The elephants are finer here than in
any part of the world, and have heen
known, I hear, to carry tusks exceed-
ing 500 lh. the pair in weight The
principal wild animals hesides these
are the lion, leopard, hytena, fox, pig,
Cape huffalo, guu, kudu, hartcheest,
pallah, 8teinhoc, and the little mado-
ka, or Sultana gazella. The giraffe,
zehra, quagga, rhinoceros, and hippo-
potamus are all common. The game-
hirds are the hustard, florikan, Guinea
fowl, partridge, quail, suipe, various
geese and ducks, and a very dark-
coloured rock-pigeon or sand-grouse.
The hirds in general have very tame
plumage, and are much more scarce,
generally speaking, than one finds in
most other countries.
The traveller on entering these
37


5C6
[Nov.
Captain Spekes Discovery of the Victoria Kyanza,

agricultural districts meets with a
treatment quite opposite to what he
does from the pastoral trihes. such,
for instance, as the Somal, Gallas,
Masai, &e. Ac Here they at once
• hail his advent as a matter of good
omen, or the precursor of good for-
tune, and allow him to do and see
whatever he likes. They desire his
settling amongst them, appreciate the
henefits of commerce and civilisation,
and are not suspicious, like the ^hin-
dering pastorals, of every one coming
with evil intentions towards them.
The Somal, ahout as had a lot as any
amongst the rovers, will not admit a
stranger into their country, unless ac-
companied hy one of their trihe, who
hecomes answerahle for the traveller's
actions, and even with this passport
he is watched with the eyes of Argus.
Every strange act committed hy him,
no matter how simple, ahsurd, or
trifling, is at once dehated ahout in
council, and always ends to Viator's
disadvantage. They add to every-
thing they see or hear, hy conjuring
up the most ridiculous phantoms; and
the more ridiculous they are, the more
firmly do they at last helieve in them
themselves. The worse their grounds
are, the more jealously do they guard
against anyhody's seeing them; and
woe hetide any one who should fre-
quent any particular spot too often:
he is at once set down as desiguing a
plot against it, to fortify the place and
take it from them; this idea is their
greatest hughear. Among that trihe
hlood shed hy any means—hy the
stealthy knife or in fiir fight—is deem-
ed meritorious and an act of heroism.
No one is ever sure of his life unless
he has force to carry him tbrough, or
can rely on the chief of the clan as
his pillar of safety. This latter plan
is prohahly the >afer one, for, 4s the
old adage goes, "there is honesty
amongst thieves;" so with these
savages it is a matter of import-
ance to their honour and diguity, ac-
cording to their quaint notions of
rectitude, to protect their trust to
their utmost; whereas, on the con-
trary, were that trust not reposed in
them, they would feel justified in
taking any liherties, or act in oppo-
sition to any of those geueral laws
which guide the conduct of civilised
men.
I would not, however, desire the
African agricultural people to he con-
sidered models of perfection. Indi-
vidually, or in small hodies, the mass
of them are very far from heing so,
for they would commit any excesses
without the slightest feelings of com-
punction. The fear of retrihution
alone keeps their hands from hlood
and plunder. The chiefs and prin-
cipal men, if they have no higher
motives, keep their different trihes
in order, and do not molest travel-
lers without good cause, or from
provocation, as they know that pro-
tecting the traveller is the only way
in which they can keep up that
counection with the commerce of the
coast which they all so much covet.
It may he worthy of remark that I
have always found the lighter-coloured
savages more hoisterous and warlike
than those of a dingier hue. The
ruddy hlack, fleshy-lookiog Wazv
ramos and Wagogos are much lighter
in colour than any of the other trihes,
and certainly have a far superior,
more manly and warlike independent
spirit and hearing than any of the
others.
9<A. — We started early, and
crossed the Jordans hy a ferry at
a place lower down than on the
first occasion. After leaving the
low laud, we rose up to the higher
ground where we had first gained
a sight of the Nyanz*'s waters, and
now took our fioal view. To my-
self the parting with it was a mat-
ter of great regret, hut I helieve
I was the sole sufferer from dis-
appointment in heing ohliged to go
south, when all my thoughts or cares
were in the north. But this feeling
was much alleviated hy seeing the
happy, contented, family state to
which the whole caravan had at
length arrived. Going home has
the same attraction with these hlack
people that it his with schoolhoys.
The Belooches have long since he-
haved to admiration, and now even
the lazy Pegazis, since completing
their traffic, have lighter hearts, and
hegin to feel a freshness dawn upon
them. We soon entered our old vil-
lage in Nera, having completed four-
teen miles. Here the chief, who had
travelled up the western shore of the
Nyanza, assured me that canoes like


1859.]
567
the supposed Source of the Nde.—Part III.

the Tanganyika once were used hy
the natives, and were made from
large trees which yrew on the moun-
tain - slope overlooking the lake.
The disagreeahle - maunered Wasuk-
nuias (or uorth men) are now left
hehind; their mode of articulition
is most puinful to the civilised
ear. Each word uttered seems to
hegin with a T'hu or T'ha, pro-
ducing a sound like that of spitr
ting sharply at an offensive ohject.
Any stranger with his hack turned
would fancy himself insulted hy the
speaker. The country tbroughout is
well stocked with cattle, and hullocks
are cheap, two dhotis, equal to four
dollars, heing the price of a raode-
ratesized animal; hut milch cows are
dear in cousequence of the great de-
mand for sour curd. Sheep and'goats
sell "according to their tkins: a large
one is preferred to a shukka, equal
to one dollar; hut a dhoti, the proper
price of tbree small goats, is scarcely
the value of the largest. The hane
of this people is their covetous-
ness. They do not ohject to sell
cheaply to a poor man, yet they
hang hack at the sight of much
cloth, and price their stock, not at
its value, hut at what they want, or
think they may get, ohstinately ahid-
ing hy their decision to the last.
Cattle are driven from this to Un-
yanyemhe, and consequently must he
cheaper here than in those more
southern parts, still I could not par-
chase them so well: indeed, a traveller
can never expect to huy at a reason-
ahle rate in a land where every man
is a sultan, and his hut a castle;
where no laws regulate the market,
and every proprietor is grasping.
Bomhay suggests that to huy cattle
cheap from the Washenzi (savages),
you should give them plenty of time
to consider the advantages and
disadvantages of the transaction, for
their minds are not capahle of arriv-
ing at a rapid conclusion; hut friend
Bomhey forgets that, whilst waiting
to heat them down a cloth or two,
four or five are consumed hy the
caravan in that waiting. The wo-
men, especially the younger ones,
are miserahly clad here: a fringe,
like the thong kilt of the Nuhian
maidens, made of aloe fihres, with a
single white head at the end of each
string, is the general wear: it is sus-
pended hy a strap tied round the
waist. Hanging over the helly, it cov-
ers ahout a foot of ground in hreadth,
hut not more than seven or eight
inches in depth. The fihrous strings,
white hy nature, soon turn hluck, and
look like India-ruhher, the effect of
hutter first ruhhed in, and then con-
stant friction on the grimy person.
The dangling, waving motion of this
strange appendage, as the wearer
moves along, reminded me of the
common fly puzzler sometimes at-
tached to horses' head-stalls. Amongst
a crowd of fifty or sixty people, not
more than two or tbree have a cloth
of native make, and rarely one of
foreigu manufacture is to he seen.
Some women have stood hefore me
in the very primitive costume of a
hunch of leafy twigs.
But far worse clad than these are
the Wataturu, a trihe living to the
eastward, and the Watnta, living
to the westward of this place, to
whose ahsolute nakedness I will draw
your attention, hecause a ridiculous
opinion prevails that man, hy natu-
ral impulse, as was the case with
our original progenitors Adam and
Eve, entertains an iunate sense of
shame from the exposure of his
person.
Of the first mentioned, the Wata-
turu, a people living a little to the
northward of Turu (see map), I have
only seen a few males, and they were
stark naked, and adhered to the
ancient Jewish rite, which is the
more remarkahle, as they are the
onl; natives that I am aware of who
indulge in this practice, and none are
Ma-sulmans. The Wataturus de-
spise any one who is weak enough
to cover his person, considering that
he does so only to conceal his natu-
ral imperfections. Their women are
currently reported to he as naked as
the men, hut I did not see any of
them, and caunot vouch for it.
Of the Watuta trihe, the second
mentioned, who live a little to the
westward of Msenc (see map), these
savages are said to he all hut naked
also, only wearing a cylinder, or a
piece of hollow hamhoo. This is a
second living example, though I have
no douht there are many more in
Africa, antagonistic to the received


568
[Not.
Captain .fye£s's Discovery nf the Victoria Nyanza,

opinion, which holds that man is
possessed of an inherent sense of
modesty, and that, from some normal
yet incomprehensihle action on his
mind, he is induced to cover up cer-
tain portions of his hody.
Until India, or rather Bomhay,
exports cheap and strong cloths
for the Zanzihar market, and out-
hids the American sheeting now in
common use throughout the most
of the interior, this will he the na-
tional costume. It is to he hoped
that India, when once aroused to the
advantages of dealing more exten-
sively with this country, will never
lose sight of the fact that the negro as
well as more enlightened man can
detect the difference hetween good
and poor stuffs; that the nation which
makes the strongest stufti will he
considered to he the honestest, and
the more lasting the material, the
more readily it will he taken. In
sending cloths great care should
he taken that every piece he of
the same length, and always even-
ly divisihle hy cuhits, or eighteen-
inches measure. If the Lion and the
Unicorn, figuring on the outside of
each piece—Than or Gora,as it is call-
ed respectively in India and Africa
—were security of its heing Eng-
lish manufacture, and, hy heing bo,
sure to he of uniform quality and
size, much respect would he given to
it; and "Shukka Anglesi" (English
shukka) would soon take the place of
"Amerikan," which are hy different
mills, and are different lengths and
qualities. The only reason for the
negro taking a large goat-skin in pre-
ference to u shukka, is hecause it is
stronger.
On coming here I had the misfor-
tune to make my donkey over to
Bomhay, to save his foot, which had
heen galled hy too constant walking;
for though unahle to ride, he was too
proud to say nay, and was therefore
plnced upon it, whilst carryiog the
gun devoted to his charge, Captain
Burton's smooth elephant. Now
Bomhay rode much after the fashion
of a sailor, trusting more to halance
and good lock than skill in sticking
on; and the consequence was, that
with the first side-siep the donkey
made he came to the ground an awk-
ward cropper, falling heavily on the
small of the stock of the gun, which
suapped short off, and was irredeem-
ahly damaged. At first I rated him
heartily, for this was the second of
Captain Burton's guns which had heen
damaged in my hands. I then told
Bomhay of the circumstances which
led to the accident to the first gun.
It was done whilst hippopotamns-
shooting on the coast rivers opposite
to Zanzihar; and as Bomhay had a
little experience in that way to relate,
we had long yarns ahout such sport,
which served to improve our Hindoo-
stani (the language I always con-
versed with him in), as well as to
divert our useless yet unavoidahle
feelings of regret at the accident, and
also killed time.
One day, when on the Tanga river,
near its mouth, I was husily engaged
teasing hippopotami, with one man,
a polesman, in a very small canoe,
just capahle of carrying what it had
on hoard, myself in the hows, with
my 4-hore Blissett in hand, while
Captain Burton's monster elephant-
gun, a douhle-harrelled 6-hore, weigh-
ing, I helieve, 20 lh., was lying at the
stern in the poler's charge.
The river was a tidal one, of no
great hreadth, and the margin was
covered hy a thick growth of the man-
grove sbruh, on the houghs of which
the sharp-edged shells of the tree-
oyster stack in strings and clusters
in great numhers. The hest time
to catch the hippopotamus is when
the tide is ouc and the hanks are
hared, for then you find him wal-
lowing in the mud or hasking on
the sand (when there is any), like
jangle hog, and with a well-di-
rected shot on the ear, or anywhere
ahout the hrainpan, you have a
good chance of securing him. I espe-
cially mention this, as it is quite
lahour in vain, in places where the
water is deep, to fire at these ani-
mals, unless you can kill them out-
right, as they dive under like a water-
rat, and are never seen more if they
are only wounded. I, like most raw
hands at this particular kind of sport,
hegan in a very different way from
what, I think, a more experienced
hunter would have done, hy chasir.gr,
them in the water, and firing at their
heads whenever they appeared ahove
it; and even fired slugs ahout their eyeo


1859.]
569
the *upposed Source of the Nde.—Part III.

and ears, in hopes that I might irri-
tate them sufficiently to make them
charge the canoe. This teasing dodge
proved pretty successful, for when the
tide had run clean out, only pools and
reaches, counecting hy shallow run-
nels the volume of the natural stream,
remained for the hippopotami to sport
ahout in; and my manoeuvring in
these confined places hecame so
irritating, that a large female came
rapidly under water to the stern
of the canoe, and gave it such a
sudden and violent cant with her
head or withers, that that end of the
vessel shot up in the air, and sent me
sprawling on my hack, with my legs
forced up hy the sea—a har of Wood
—at right angles to my hody; whilst
the poler and the hig douhle gun
were driven like a pair of shuttle-
cocks, flying right and left of the
canoe high up into the air. The
gun on one side fell plump into the
middle of the stream, aud the man
on the other dropped, pod first, on
to the hippopotamus's hack, hut ra-
pidly scramhling hack into the canoe.
The hippopotamus then, as is these
animals' wont, renewed the attack,
hut I was ready to receive her, and
as she came rolling porpoise-fashion
close hy the side of the canoe, 1 fired
a quarter of a pound of lead, hacked
hy four drams of powder, into the
middle of her hack, the muzzle of the
rifle almost touching it. She then
sank, and I never saw her more; hut
the gun (after lying on the sandy hot-
tom the whole of that night), I man-
aged, hy the aid of several divers, to
find on the following day.
Bomhay says that on one occasion,
when coming down the Pangani river
in a canoe with several other men,
an irritated hippopotamus charged
and upset it, upon which he and all
his friends dived under water and
then swam to the shore, leaving the
hippopotamus to vent his rage on
the shell of the canoe, which he
most spitefully stuck to. This, he
assures me, is the proper way to
dodge a hippopotamus, and escape
the danger of a hite from him. On
another occasion, when I was hippo-
potamus-hunting in one of the hoats
helonging to a large frigate, the pro-
perty of Sultan Majid of Zinzihar,
in an inlet of the sea close to
Kaole, I chased a herd of hippo-
potami in deep water, till one of
the lot, coming as usual from helow,
drove a tusk clean tbrough the hoat
with such force that he partially
hoisted her out of the water; hut
the hrute did no further damage, for
I kept him off hy making the men
splash their oars rapidly whilst mak-
ing for the shore, where we just ar-
rived in time to save ourselves from
sinking.
The day previous to this adven-
ture, I hagged a fine young male
hippopotamus close to this spot, hy
hitting him on the ear when standing
in shallow water. The ivory of these
animals is more prized than that of
the elephant, aud, in consequence of
the superior hardness of its enamel,
it is in great requisition with the
dentist.
Hippopotami are found all down
this coast in very great numhers, hut
especially in the deltas of the rivers,
or up the streams themselves, and
afford an easy, remunerative, and
pleasant sport to any man who is
not addicted to much hartl exercise.
The Panjani, Kingani, and Lufiji
rivers are full of them, as well as all
the other minor feeders to the sea
along that coast. If these animals
happen to he killed in places so far
distant from the sea that the tidal
waters have not power to draw them
out to the ocean depths, their hodies
will he found, when inflated with gas,
after decomposition, floating on the
surface of the water a day or two
afterwards, and can easily he secured
hy the sportsman, if he he vigilant
enough to take them hefore the
hungry watchful savages come and
secure them, to damp their rapacious
appetites. Mussulmans will even eat
these amphihious creatures without
cutting their tbroats, looking on them
as cold-hlooded animals, created in the
same mauner as fish.
The following day, 10th August, we
made a halt to try our fortune again
in purchasing cows, hut failed as
usual ; so the following morning we
decamped at dawn, and marched
thirteen miles to our original station
in southern Nera. Here I purchased
four goats for one dhoti Amerikan,
the hest hargain I ever made. Thun-
der had rumhled, and clouds overcast


570
[Nov.
Captain Speke's Discovery of the Victoria Nyanza,

the skies for two days; and this day
a delicious cooling >hower fell. The
people said it was the little rains—
chota harsiit, as we call it in India
— expected yearly at this time, as
the precursor of the later great falls.
As Stedi Bomhey was very inqui-
sitive to-day ahout the origin of
Seedis, his caste, and as he wished to
know hy what law of nature I
accounted for their cruel destiny
in heing the slaves of all men, I
related the history of Noah, and the
disposition of his sons on the face of
the glohe; and showed him that he
was of the hlack or Hametic stock,
and hy the common order of nature,
they, heing the weakest, had to suc-
cumh to their superiors, the Japhetic
and Semitic hranches of the family;
and, moreover, they were likely to
remain so suhject until such time
as the state of man, soaring far
ahove the heast, would he imhued
hy a hetter sense of sympathy and
good feeling, and would then leave
all such ungenerous appliances of
superior force to the hrute alone.
Bomhay, on heing created a Mussul-
man hy his Arah master, had heen
taught a very different way of ac-
counting for the degradation of
his race, and narrated his story as
follows: "The Arahs say that Ma-
homet, whilst on the road from Me-
dina to Mecca, one day happened to
see a widow woman sitting hefore her
house, and asked her how she and her
tbree sons were; upon which the
trouhled woman (for she had conceal-
ed one of her sons on seeing Mahomet's
approach, lest he, as is customary
when there are tbree males of a fa-
mily present, should seize one and
make him do porterage) said, 'Very
well; hut I've only two sons.' Ma-
homet, hearing this, said to the wo-
man reprovingly: '"Woman, thou
liest; thou hast tbree sons, and for
trying to conceal this matter from me,
henceforth rememher that this is my
decree — that the two hoys which
thou hast not concealed shall multi-
ply and prosper, have fair faces, he-
come wealthy, and reigu lords over
all the earth ; hut the progeny of your
third son shall, in consequence of
your having concealed him, produce
Seedis as hlack as darkness, who
will he sold in the market like cattle
and remain in perpetual servitude to
the descendants of the other two."
11th.—We returned to our former
quarters, the village of Salawe; hut
I did not enjoy such repose as on
the former visit, for the people were
in their cups, and nolens tolens, per-
sisted in entering my hut. Some-
times I rose and drove them out, at
other times I turned round and feigu-
ed to fleep; hut these manoeuvres
were of no avail; still they poured in,
and one old man, more impudent than
the rest, understanding the trick,
seized my pillow hy the end, and,
tugging at it as a dog pulls at a
quarter of horse, roused me with
loud impatieut "Whu-hu" and "Ili.
Hi's," until at last, out of patience, I
sent my hoots whirling at his head.
This cleared the room, but only for a
moment: the hoisterous, impudent
crowd, true to savage nature, enjoying
the aunoyance they had occasioned,
returned exultingly, with shonta and
grins, in douhle numhers. The Be-
looches then interfered, and, in their
zeal to keep order, irritated some
drunkards, who at once hecame
puguacious. On seeing the excited
state of these drunkards, hawling
and stepping ahout in leng, snd-
den, and rapid strides, with hrand-
ished spears and agitated hows, eq-
deavouring to exasperate the rest
of the moh against us, I rose,
and going out hefore them, said
that 1 came forth for their satis-
faction, and that they might now
stand and gaze as long as they
liked ; hut I hoped as soon as their legs
and arms were tired that they would
depart in peace. The words acted with
magical effect upon them ; they urgent-
ly requested me to retire again, hut
finding' that I did not, they took
themselves homewards. The sultan
arrived late in the evening, he said
from a long distance, on purpose to
see me, and was very importunate in
his desire for my halting a day. As
I had paid all the other sultans the
compliment of a visit, he should con-
sider it a slight if I did not stay a
little while with him. On the occa-
sion of my passing northwards he
had heen ahsent, and could not enter-
tain me; so I must now accept a hul-
lock, which he would send for on the
morrow. A long dehate ensued, which


1859.] the supposed Source of the Nile.—Part 111. . 571

ended hy my giving him one ahukka Europeans, what an entire revolution
Amerikan, and one dhoti kiniki. a few years would hring forth! An
13th.—Travelling tbrough the Nin- extensive market would he opened
do Wilderness to-duy, the Beloochea to the world, the present nakedness
were very much excited at the quan- of the land would have a covering,
tity of game they saw; hat though and industry and commerce would
they tried their hest, they did not clear the way for civilisation and en-
succeed in killing any. Troops of lightenment. At present the natural
zehras, the quagga and giraffe, some inert laziness and iguorance of the
varieties of antelopes roaming ahout people is their own aud their coun-
in large herds, a hutt'alo and one ostrich, try's hane. They are all totally un-
were the chief visihle tenants of this aware of the treasures at their feet,
wild. We saw the fresh prints of a very This dreadful sloth is in part en-
large elephant; and I have no douht gendered hy the excessive hounty of
that hy any sportsman, if he had hut the land in its natural state; hy the
leisure to learn their haunts and wa- little want of clothes or other luxu-
tering-places, a good account might ries, in consequence of the congenial
he made of them—hut one and all are temperature; and from the people
wild in the extreme. Ostrich feathers having no higher ohject in view than
hedeck the frizzly polls of many men the fir-t-coming meal, and no other
and women, hut no one has ever stimulus to exertion hy example or
heard of any having heen killed or anything else. Thus they are, hoth
suared hy huntsmen. These orna- morally and physically, little hetter
menu, as well as the many skulls than hrutes, and as yet there is no
and skins seen in every house, are hetter prospect in store for them,
said to he found lying ahout in The climate is a paradox quite he-
piaces where the animals have died yond my solving, unless the numer-
a natural death. ous and severe maladies that we all
14th.—We left, as we did yesterday, suffered from, during the first eight
an hour hefore dawn, and crossed the months of our explorations, may he
second hroad wilderness to Kahama. attrihuted to too much exposure;
At 9 a. m. I called the usual halt to and even that does not solve the pro-
eat my rural hreakfast of cold fowl, hlem. To all appearance, the whole-
sour curd, cakes, and eggs, in a vil- of the country to the westward of
lage on the south horder of the de- the east-coast range is high, dry,
sert. As the houses were devoid of and healthy. No uupleasant exhal-
all household commodities, I asked ations pollute the atmosphere; there
the people stopping there to tend are no extremes of temperature; the
the fields to explain the reason, and air is neither too hot nor too cold;
learnt that their fear of the plun- and a little care in hutting, dressing,
dering Wamandas was such that and diet should ohviate any evil ef-
they only came there during the day fects of exposure. Springs of good
to look after their crops, and at night water, and wholesome food, are every-
they retired to some distant place of where ohtainahle. Flies and nma-
safe retreat in the jungles, where they quitos, the great Indian pests, are
stored all their goods and chattels, scarcely known, and the tsetse of
These people, in time of war, thus the south nowhere exists. During the
putting everything useful out of the journey northwards, I always littered
way of the forager's prying eyes, it down in a hut at night; hut the
is very seldom that hlood is spilt, ticks hit me so hard, and the anxiety
This country heing full of sweet to catch stars hetween the con-
springs, accounts for the denseness stantly-fleeting clouds, to take their
of the population and numherless altitudes, perhaps preying on my
herds of cattle. To look upon its mind, kept me many whole nights
resources, one is struck with amaze- consecutively without ohtaining even
ment at the waste of the world: as much as one wink of sleep, a
if instead of this district heing in state of things I had once hefore
the hands of its present owners, suffered from. But there really was
it were ruled hy a few scores of no assiguahle cause for this, unless


1859.]
573
the supposed Source of the Nile.—Part III.

had passed heyond Karagwah into a
country where coffee grows ahun-
dantly, and is called Muanye. - He
descrihed the sbruh as standing he-
tween two and tbree feet high, hav-
ing the stem nearly naked, hut much
hranched ahove; it grows in large
plantations, and forms the principal
article of food. The people do not
hoil and drink it as we do, hut pul-
verize and form it into porridge or
cakes. They also eat the herry raw,
with its husk on. The Arahs are
very fond of eating these herries raw,
and have often given us some. They
hring them down from Uganda, where,
for a peunyworth of heads, a man
can have his fill. When near these
coffee plantations, he (our informer)
visited an island on the lake, called
Kitiri, occupied hy the Watiri, a
naked lot of heings, who suhsist
almost entirely on fish and coffee.
The Watiris go ahout in large
canoes like the Tanganyika ones;
hut the sea - travelling, he says,
is very dangerous. In descrihing
the hoisterous nature of the lake, he
made a rumhling, gurgling noise in
his tbroat, which he increased and
diversified hy pulling and tapping
at the skin covering the apple, and
hy puffing and hlowing with great
vehemence indicated extraordinary
roughness of the elements. The sea
itself, he said, was houndless. Kanoni
now told me that the Muingiri river
lies one day's journey N.N.W. of this,
and drains the western side of the
Msalala district into the southern
end of the Nyanza creek. It is
therefore evident that those exten-
sive lays in the Nindo and Salawe
districts which we crossed extend
down to this river, which accounts for
there heing so many wild animals
there: water heing such an attrac-
tive ohject in these hot climes, all
animals group round it. Kanoni is
a dark, square, heavy-huilt man, very
fond of imhihing pomhe, and, like
many tipplers, overflowing with hu-
man kindness, especially in his cups.
He kept me up several hours to-
night, trying to induce me to accept
a hullock, and to eat it in his homa, in
the same mauner as I formerly did
with his hrother. He was much dis-
tressed hecause I would not take the
half of my requirements in cattle from
him, instead of devoting everything to
his hrother Kurua; and not till I as-
sured him I could not stay, but instead
would leave Bomhay and some Be-
looches with cloth to purchase some
cows from his people, would he per-
mit of my turning in to rest. It is
strange to see how very soon, when
questioning these negroes ahout any-
thing relating to geography, their
weak hrains give way, and they can an-
swer no questions, or they hecome so
evasive in their replies, or so ramhling,
that you can make nothing out of
them. It is easily discernihle at what
time yon should cease to ask any fur-
ther questions; for their heads then
roll ahout like a hall upon a wire,
and their eyes glass over and look
vacantly ahout as though vitality
had fled from their hodies alto-
gether. Bomhay, though, is a singu-
lar exception to this rule; hut then,
hy long practice, he has hecome a
great geographer, and delights in
pointing out the different features on
my map to his envying neighhours.
16M.—We came to Mgogwa this
morning, and were received hy Kurua
with his usual kind affahility. Our
entrance to his homa was quiet and
unceremonious, for we came there
quite unexpectedly — hardly giving
him time to prepare his musket and
return our salute. Though we were
allowed a ready admission, a guinea-
fowl I shot on the way was not.
The superstitious people forhade its
entrance in full plumage, so it was
plucked hefore heing hrought inside
the palisade. Kurua again arranged
a hut for my residence, and was as
assiduous as ever in his devotion to
my comforts. All the elders of the
district soon arrived, and the usual
dehates commenced. Kurua chiefly
trades with Karagwah and the north-
ern kingdoms, hut no one could
add to the information I had al-
ready ohtained. One of his men stated
that he had performed the journey
hetween Pangani (latitude 5° south),
on the east coast of Africa, and Lake
Nyanza tbree times, in ahout two
months each time. The distance was
very great for the little time it took
him; hut then he had to go for his
life the whole way, in consequence of
the Masai, or Wahumha, as some call
them, heing so inimical to strangers


574
[Not.
Captain Spike's Discovery of the Victoria Nyanza,

of any sort that he dare not stop or
talk anywhere on the way. On leaving
Pangani, he passed tbrough Usam-
hara, and entered on the country of
the warring nomadic race, the Masai;
tbrough their territories he travelled
without halting until he arrived at
U*ukuma, hordering on the lake.
His tear and speed were such that
he did not recoguise any other trihes
or countries hesides those enumer-
ated. Wishing to ascertain what
numher of men a populous country
like this could produce in case of an
attack, and to gain some idea of
savage tactics, I proposed having a
field-day. Kurua was delighted with,
the idea, and hegan roaring and
laughing ahout it with his usual
hoisterous energy, to the great ad-
miration of all the company. The
programme was as follows : — At
3 p.m. on the 17th, Kurua and his
warriors, all hahited and drawn up
in order of hattle, were to occupy the
open space in front of the village,
whilst my party of Beloochees, sud-
denly issuing from the village, would
perform the enemy and commence
the attack. This came off at the
appointed time, and aocording to
orders the forces were drawn up, and
an engagement ensued. The Be-
looches. rushing tbrough the pas-
sages of the palisaded village, sud-
denly hurst upon the enemy, and
fired and charged successively; to
which the Wamandas replied with
equal vigour, advancing with their
frog-like leaps and hounds, dodging
and squatting, and springing and
flying in the most wild and fantastic
mauner; stahhing with their spears,
protecting with their shields, poising
with hows and arrows pointed, and,
mingling with the Belooches, rushed
ahout striking at and avoiding their
guns and sahres. But all was so
similar to the Senagango display
that it does not require a further
description. The numher of Kurua's
forces disappointed me,—I fear the
intelligence of the coming parade did
not reach far. The dresses they wore
did credit to their nation—some were
decked with cock-tail plumes, others
wore hunches of my guinea-fowl's
feathers in their hair, whilst the
chiefs and swells were attired in long
red haize mantles, consisting of a
strip of cloth four feet hy twenty
inches, at one end of which they cut
a slit to admit the head, and allowed
the remainder to hang like a tail he-
hind the hack. Their spears and
hows are of a very ordinary kind,
and the shield is constructed some-
thing like the Kaffir's, from a long
strip of hull's hide, which they paint-
ed over with ocbreish earth. The
fight over, all hands rushed to the
hig drums in the cow-yard, and he-
gan heating them as though they
deserved a druhhing: this "sweet
music" set everyhody on wires in a
moment, and dancing never ceased
till the sun went down, and the com
usurped the revelling-place. Kurua
now gave me a good milch-cow and
calf, and promised two more of the
same stamp. Those which were
hrought hy the common people were
mere weeds, and dry withal; they
would not hring any good ones, I
think, from fear of the sultan's dis-
pleasure, lest I should prefer theirs
to liis, and deprive him of the con-
sequent profits. My chief reason for
leaving Bomhay hehind at Sena-
gongo was, that husiness was never
done when I was present. For, he-
sides staring at me all day, the people
speculated how to make the most of
the chance offered hy a rich man
coming so suddenly amongst them,
and in consequence of this avari-
ciousuess offered their cattle at such
uureasonahle prices as to preclude the
transaction of any husiness.
18(A. — Halt My anticipations
ahout the way of getting cows
proved correct, for Bomhay hrought
twelve animals, costing twenty-
tbree dhotis Ainerikan and nine
dhotis kiniki. Kurua now gave
me another cow and calf, and pro-
mised me two more when we arrived
at the Ukumhi district, as he did
not like thiuning one herd too much.
I gave in return for his present one
harsati, five dhotis Amerikan, and
two dhotis kiniki, with a promise of
some guupowder when we arrived at
Unyanyemhe, for he is still hent on
going there with me. Perhaps I
may consider my former ohstruction
in travel hy Kurua a fortunate cir-
cumstance, for though the eldest
hrother's residence lay directly in
my way, he might not possess so


1859.]
575
the supposed Source of the Nile.—Part III.

kind a nature as these two younger
hrothers. Still I cannot see any
good reason for the Kirangozi ahan-
doning the proper road: there cer-
tainly could he no more danger on
the one side than on the other, and
all would he equally glad to have had
me. It is true that I should have had
to pass tbrough his enemies' hands
to the other hrother, and such a
course usually excites suspicion; hut,
hy the usual custom of the country,
Karna should have heen treated hy
him only as a rehellious suhject, for
though all tbree hrothers were hy
different mothers, they are considered
in line of succession as ours are, when
legitimately hegotten hy one mother.
Some time ago the eldest hrother
made a tool of an Arah trader,
and with that force on his side
tbreatened these two hrothers with
immediate destruction unless they
resigued to him the entire govern-
ment, and his rights as senior. They
admitted in his presence the justness
of his words and the folly of waging
war, as such a measure could only
hring destruction on all alike; hut
on his departure they carried on
their rule as hefore. Bomhay, talk-
ing figuratively with me considers
Kurua's stopping me something like
the use the monkey turned the cat's
paw to; that is, he stopped me sim-
ply to enhance his diguity, and gain
the minds of the people hy leading
them to suppose I saw justice in
his actions. Pouihe - hrewing, the
chief occupation of the women, is
as regular here as the revolution of
day and night, and the drinking of it
just as constant. It is made of hajeri
and jowari (common millets), and is at
first prepared hy malting in the same
way as we do harley; then they
range a douhle street of sticks,
n?nully in the middle of the village,
fill a numher of pots with these
grains mixed in water, which they
place in continuous line down the
street of sticks, and setting fire to
the whole at once, hoil away until the
mess is fit to put aside for refining:
this they then do, leaving the pots
standing tbree days, when fermenta-
tion takes place and the liquor is fit
to drink, it has the strength of la-
hourers' heer, and hoth sexes drink
it alike. This fermented hever-
age resemhles pig-wash, hut is said
to he so palatahle and sat^fying—for
the dregs aBd all are drunk together
—that many entirely suhsist upon it.
It is a great help to the slave-masters,
for without it they could get nohody
to till their ground; and when the
slaves are required to turn the earth,
the master always sits in judgment
with lordly diguity, generally under a
tree, watching to see who hecomes
entitled to a drop. In the evening
my attention was attracted hy small
processions of men and women, pos-
sessed of the Phepo, or demon, pass-
ing up the palisaded streets, turning
into the different courts, and paying
each and every house hy turns a visit.
The party advanced in slow funereal
order, with gently springing, mincing,
jogging action, some holding up
twigs, others halancing open haskets
of grain and tools on their heads,
and with their hodies, arms, and
heads in unison with the whole
hohling hohling motion, kept in
harmony to a low, mixed, droning,
humming chorus. As the Sultan's
door was approached, he likewise
rose, and, mingling in the crowd, per-
formed the same evolutions. This
kind of procession is common at Zan-
zihar: when any demoniacal posses-
sions take place in the society of the
hlacks, it is hy this means tliey cast
out devils. While on the subject of
superstition, it may he worth men-
tioning what long ago struck me
as a singular instance of the effect of
supernatural impression on the un-
cultivated mind. During hoybood my
old nurse nsed to tell me with great
earnestness of a wonderful ahortion
shown ahout in the fairs of England,
of a child horn with a pig's head;
and as solemnly declared that this
freak of nature was attrihutahle to
the child's mother having taken fright
at a pig when in the interesting
stage. The case I met in this coun-
try is still more far-fetched, for the
ahortion was supposed to he produce-
ahle hy indirect influence on the wife
of the hushand taking fright. On
once shooting a preguant Kudu doe,
I directed my native huntsman, a
married man, to dissect her womh
and expose the emhryo; hut he
sbrank from the work with horror,
fearing lest the sight of the kid,


576
[Nov.
Captain Speke's Discovery of the Victoria Nyanza,

striking his mind, should have an
influence on his wife's future hearing,
hy metamorphosing her progeny to
the likeness of a fawn.
1$tk.—We hade Kurua adieu in
the early morning, as a caravan of
his had just arrived from Karagwah,
and appointed to meet at the sec-
ond station, as marching with cattle
would he slow work for him. Our
march lasted nine miles. The suc-
ceeding day we passed Ukumhi, and
arrived at Uyomho. On the way I
was ohliged to ahandon one of the
donkeys, as he was completely used
up. This made up our thirty-second
loss in assea since leaving Zanzihar.
My load of heads was now out, and I
had to purchase rations with cloth
—a necessary measure, hut not eco-
nomical, for the cloth does not go
half as far as heads of the same
value. I have remarked tbroughout
this trip, that in all places where
Arahs are not much in the hahit of
trading, very few cloths find their
way, and in consequence the people
take to wearing heads; and heads
and hauhles are the only foreigu
things much in requisition.
As remarks upon the relative
valuation of commodities appear in
various places in this diary, I will en-
deavour to give a general idea how it
is that I have found this plentiful
country—quite heyond any other I
have seen in Africa in fertility and
stock—so comparatively dear to travel
in. The Zanzihar route to Ujiji is now
so constantly travelled over hy Arahs
and Sowhilis, that the people, see-
ing the caravans approach, erect tem-
porary markets, or come hawking
things for sale, and the prices are
adapted to the ahilities of the pur-
chasers; and at such markets our
Shaykh hought for us, and transacted
all husiness. It is also to he oh-
served that where things are hrought
for sale, they are invariahly cheaper
than in those places where one has
to seek and ask for them; for in the
one instance a livelihood is the con-
sequence of a trade, whereas in the
other a chance purchaser is treated
as a windfall to he made the most
of. Now this line is just the op-
posite to the Ujiji one, and there-
fore dear; hut added to those in-
fluences here, the sultans, to increase
their own importance whilst having
me their guest, invariahly gave out
that I was no peddling Arah or
Sowahili, as they say, "Bana Wa-
rungwana," for Zanzihar merchant;
hut an independent Mundewa, or
Sultan of the Wazungu (white or
wise men), and the people took the
hint to make me pay or starve.
Then again, not having the Shaykh
with me, I had to pay for and settle
everything myself, and from hav-
ing no variety of heads in this
exclusively head country, there was
great inconvenience.
Kurua now joined us, and report-
ed the ahandoned donkey dead. A
cool shower of rain fell, to the satis-
faction of every thirsty soul. It is
delightful to ohserve the freshness
which even one partial shower im-
parts to all animated nature after a
long-continued drought.
2ith.—During the last four days
we have marched fifty-eight miles, and
are now at our old village in Ulekam-
puri. As we have now traversed all
the ground, I must try to give a
short description, with a few reflec-
tions on the general character of all
we have seen or heard, hefore conclud-
ing this diary. To give a faithful
idea of a country, it is hetter that
the ohject selected for comparison
should incline to the large and grander
soale than to the reverse, otherwise
the reader is apt to form too low
an idea of it. And yet, though this
is leaning to the smaller, I can think
of no hetter comparison for the sur-
face of this high land than the long
sweeping waves of the Atlantic
Ocean ; and where the hills are few-
est, and in lines, they resemhle small
hreakers curling on the tops of the
rollers, all irregularly arranged, as
though disturhed hy different cur-
rents of wind. Where the hills are
grouped, they remind me of a small
chopping sea in the Bristol Chan-
nel. That the hills are nowhere
high, is proved hy the total ahsence
of any rivers along this line, until the
lake is reached; and the passages
hetween or over them are everywhere
gradual in their rise; so that in
travelling tbrough the country, no
matter in which direction, the hills
seldom interfere with the line of
march. The flats and hollows are


1859.]
577
the supposed Sourci of the Nile.—Part III.

well peopled, and cattle and cultiva-
tion are everywhere ahundant The
stone, soil, and aspect of this tract is
uniform tbroughout. The stone is
chiefly granite, the rugged rocks of
which lie like knohs of sugar over
the surface of the little hills, inter-
mingled with sandstone in a higbly
ferruginous state; whilst the soil is
an accumulation of sand the same
colour as the stone, a light hrown-
ish grey, and appears as if it were
formed of disintegrated particles of the
rocks worn off hy time and wea-
thering. Small trees and hrnshwood
cover all the outcropping hills; and
palms on the plains, though few
and widely spread, prove that water
is very near the surface. Springs, too,
are numerous, and generally distri-
huted. The mean level of the country
hetween Unyanyemhe and the Lake is
3767 feet; that of the Lake itself, 3750.
The trihes, as a rule, are well dis-
posed towards all strangers, and wish
to extend their commerce. Their social
state rather represents a conservative
than a radical disposition; and their
government is a sort of semi-patri-
archal-feudal arrangement, and, like
a hand of rohhers, all hold together
from feeling the necessity of mutual
support. Bordering the south of the
Lnke, there are vast fields of iron ; cot-
ton is also ahundant; and every tro-
pical plant or tree could grow; those
that do exist, even rice, vegetate in the
utmost luxuriance. Cattle are very
ahundant, and hides fill every house.
On the east of the Lake, ivory is
said to he very ahundant and cheap;
and on the west we hear of many ad-
vantages which are especially worthy
of our notice. The Karagwa hills
overlooking the lake are high, cold,
and healthy, and have enormous
droves of cattle hearing horns of
stupendous size; and ivory, fine tim-
her, and all the necessaries of life, are
to he found in great profusion there.
Again, heyond the equator, of the
kingdom of Uganda we hear from
everyhody a rapturous account. That
country evidently swarms with people
who cultivate cofive and all the com-
mon grains, and have large flocks and
herds, even greater than what I have
lately seen. Now if the Nyanza he
really the Nile's fount, which I sin-
cerely helieve to he the case, what
an advantage this will he to the Eng-
lish merchant on the Nile, and what
a field is opened to the world, if, as
I hope will he the. case, England does
not neglect this discovery?
But I must not expatiate too much
on the merits and capahilities of
iuner Africa, lest I mislead any com-
mercial inquirers; and it is as well
to say at present, that the people
near the coast are in eueh a state of
slothful helplessuess and insecurity,
that for many years, until commerce,
hy steady and certain advance, shall
in sorne degree overcome the existing
apathy, and excite the population to
strive to hetter their position, no one
need expect to make a large fortune
hy dealing with thetn. That com-
merce does make wonderful improve-
ments on the harharous hahits of the
Africans, can now he seen in the
Masai country, and the countries
extending north-westward from Mom-
has up tbrough Kikuyu into the
interior, where the process has heen
going on during the last few years.
There even the roving wild pasto-
rals, formerly untamahle, are now
gradually hecoming reduced to suh-
jection; and they no douht will
ere long have as strong a desire
for cloths and other luxuries as
any other civilised heings, from the
natural desire to equal in com-
fort and diguity of appurtenances
those whom they now must see con-
stantly passing tbrough their coun-
try. Caravans are penetrating far-
ther, and going in greater num-
hers, every succeeding year, in
those directions, and Arah merchants
say that those countries are every-
where healthy. The hest proof we
have that the district is largely pro-
ductive is the fact that the cara-
vans and competition increase on
those lines more and more every
day. I would add, that in the mean-
while the staple exports derived from
the far interior of the continent will
consist of ivory, hides, and horns;
whilst from the coast and its vici-
nity the clove, the gum copal, some
textile materials drawn from the
hanana, aloe and pine-apples, with
oleaginous plants such as the ground-
nut and cocoa-nut, are the chief
exportahle product,". The cotton
plant which grows here, judging


578
[Nov.
Cjptain Speke's Discovery of the Victoria Nyanzo,

from its size and difference from
the plant usually grown in India,
I consider to he a tree cotton and
a pereunial. It is this cotton which
the natives weave into coarse fahrics
in their looms. Then, again, the
coffee - plant of Uganda, hefore al-
luded t<,, heing a native of that
place, and heing consequently easily
grown, ought in time to afford a very
valuahle article of export. Rice,
although it is not indigenous to
Africa, I helieve is certainly cap-
ahle of heing produced in great quan-
tity and of very superior quality;
and this is also the case with sugar-
cane and tohacco, hoth of which are
frown generally over the continent,
here is also a species of palm grow-
ing on the horders of the Tanganyika
Lake, which yields a concrete oil
very much like, if not the same as,
the palm-oil of Western Africa; hut
this is limited, and would never he
of much value. Salt, which is found
in great quantity in pits near the
Malagarazi River, and the iron I
have already spoken ahout, could
only he of use to the country itself
in facilitating traific, and in maturing
its resources.
It is a singular piece of luck that,
with a few pounds' worth of kit, I
should, in the course of tbree weeks,
have discovered and hrought 'to light.
n matter, the importance of which
caunot he over - estimated, and
on which endless sums have heen
fruitlessly lavished for ages past hy
amhitious monarchs, and eager and
enterprising governments. Thousands
of years, I may say from Ptolemy
to the present time, has this inquiry
heen going on, and now, so far" as the
main features and utility of such
discovery are concerned, it is well-
nigh, if not entirely, solved. But
out of justice to my commandant,
Cuptain Burton, I must add that the
advantages over all other men, un-
der which I accomplished the jour-
ney, are solely attrihutahle to him.
For I was engaged in organising an
expedition in another quarter of the
glohe when he induced me to relin-
quish it, hy inviting me to co-operate
with him in opening up Africa; and
this hrought me to Kuzeh, the start-
ing-point for my separate journey.
These fertile regions have heen
hitherto unknown from the same cause
which Dr. Livingstone has so ahly
explained in regard to the western side
of Africa—the jealousy of the short-
sighted people who live on the coast,
who, to pre>erve a monopoly of one
particular article exclusively to them-
selves (ivory), have done their hest to
keep even hody away from the inte-
rior. I pay shortsighted, for it is
ohvious that, were the resources of
the country once fairly opened, the
people on the coast would douhle or
triple their present incomes, and
Zanzihar would soon swell into a
place of real importance. All hands
would then he employed, and luxury
would take the place of heggary.
I must now (after expressing a fer-
vent hope that England especially,
and the civilised world generally, will
not neglect this land of promise)
call attention to the marked fact,
that the Church missionaries, resid-
ing for many years at Zanzihar,
are the prime and first promoters
of this discovery. They have heen
for years past doing their utmost,
with simple sincerity, to Christianise
this negro laud, and promote a civ-
ilised and happy state of existence
for these henighted heings. During
their sojourn among these hlacka-
moors, they heard from Arahs and
others of many of the facts I have
now stated, hut only in a confused
way, such as might he expected in
information derived from an unedu-
cated people. Amongst the more im-
portant disclosures made hy the
Arahs was the constant reference
to a large lake or inland sea,
which their caravans were in the
hahit of visiting. It was a sin-
gular thing that, at whatever part
of the coast the missionaries arrived,
on inquiring from the travelling mer-
chants where they went to, they one
and all stated to an inland sea, the
dimensions of which were sach that
nohody could give any estimate of
its length or width. The directions
they travelled in pointed north-west,
west, and south-west, and their ac-
counts seemed to indicate a single
sheet of water, extending from the
Line down to 14° south latitude—
a sea of ahout 810 miles in length,
with an assumed hreadth of two to
tbree hundred miles. In fact, from


1859]
579
lite supposed Source of the Nile.—Part 111.

this great comhination of testimony
that water lay generally in a continu-
ous line from the equator up to 14°
south latitude, and, from not heing
ahle to gain information of there heing
any territorial separations to the said
water, they very naturally, and I may
add fortunately, created that monster
slug of an inland sea which so much
attracted the attention of the geogra-
phical world in lta5-56. and caused
our heing sent out to Africa. The
good that may result from this little,
yet happy accident, will, I trust,
prove, proportionately as large and
fruitful as the produce from the
symholical grain of mustard-seed;
and nohody knows or helieves in this
more fully than one of the chief pro-
moters of this exciting investigation,
Dr. Rehmaun. From these late ex-
plorations, he feels convinced, as he
has oftentimes told me, that the first
step has heen taken in the right di-
rection for the development of the
commercial resources of the country,
the spead of civilisation, and tho
extension of our geographical know-
ledge.
As many churchmen, missionaries,
and others, have hegged me to puh-
lish what facilities are open to the
hetter prosecution of their nohle ends
in this wild country, I would cer-
tainly direct their attention to the
Karagwah district, in preference to
any other. There they will find, I
feel convinced, a fine healthy country;
a choice of ground from the moun-
tain-top to the level of the Lake
capahle of affording them every com-
fort of life which au isolated place can
produce; and heing the .most remote
region from the coast, they would
have less interference from the Mo-
hammedan communities that reside
hy the sea. But then, I think, mission-
aries would have hat a poor chance of
success unless they went there in a
hody, with wives and families all as
assiduous in working to the same
end as themselves, aml all capahle of
other useful occupations hesides that
of disseminating the gospel, which
should come after, and not hefore, the
people are awake and prepared to re-
ceive it. As that country must he
cold in consequence of its great alti-
tude, the people would much sooner
than in the hotter and more enervat-
ing lowlands, learn auy lessons of in-
dustry they might he taught. To
live idle in regard to everything hut
endeavouring «o cram these empty-
headed negroes with Scriptural doc-
trines, as has too often heen and now
is done, is, although apparmtly the
straightest, the longest way to reach
the goal of their desires.
The missionary, I think, should he
a Jack of-all-trades—a man that can
turn his hand to anything; and he-
ing useful in all cases, he would, at
any rate, make himself influential
with those who were living around
him. To instruct him is the surest
way of gaining a hlack man's heart,
which, once ohtained, can easily he
turned in any way the preceptor
pleases, as is the case with all Asia-
tics: they soon learn to how to the
superior intellect of the European,
and, like children, are as easily ruled
as a child is hy his father. No
hetter illustration of that can he
found than in the Indian irregular
corps, where there is one chief to rule •
over them, and the interest is conse-
quently undivided. The opposite
again, is to he found in the regulars
where the power is divided, and all, as
we have lately seen, have gone to the
dogs.
2oth— We left UIekampuri at 1
am., and marched the last eighteen
miles into Kazeh under the delight-
ful influence of a cool night and a
hright full moon. As the caravan,
according to its usual march of single
file, moved along the serpentine foot-
path in peristaltic motion, firing
muskets and singing "the return,"
the Unysuyemhe villagers, men, wo-
men, and children, came ruuning out
and flocking on it, piercing the air
with loud sbrill noises, accompanied
with the lullahooing of these fairs,
which, once heard, can never he mis-
taken. The crowd was composed in
great part of the relatives of my por-
ters, who evinced their feelings to-
wards their adult masters as eagerly
as stray deer do in running to join a
long-missing herd. The Arahs, one
and all, came out to meet us, and es-
corted us into their dep6t. Their con-
gratulations were extremely warm, for
they had heen anxious for our safety
in consequence of sundry rumours
ahroad concerning the war - parties


580
Captatn Speke's Discovery of the Victoria Nyanza, [Not.
which lay in my track. Captain
Burton greeted me on arrival at the
old house, where I had the satisfac-
tion of finding him greatly restored
in health, and having everything
ahout him in a high state of prepara-
tion for the journey homewards.
It affords me great pleasure to he
ahle to report the safe return of
the expedition in a state of high
spirits and gratification. AH en-
joyed the saluhrity of the climate,
the kind entertainments of the
sultans, the variety and richness of
the country, and the excellent fare
everywhere. Further, the Beloochee,
hy their exemplary conduct, proved
themselves a most efficient, willing,
and trustworthy guard, and are deserv-
ing of the highest encominms; they,
with Bomhay, have heen the life and
success of everything, and I sincerely
hope they may never he forgotten.
Thus ends my Second Expedition.
The Arahs told me I conld reach
the Nyanza in fifteen to seventeen
marches, and I have returned
in sixteen, although I had to take
a circuitous line instead of a direct
one. The provisions, too, have just
held out. I took a supply for six
weeks, and have completed that time
this day. The total road-distance
there and hack is 452 miles, which,
admitting that the Arahs made six-
teen marches of it, gives them a
marching rate of more than fourteen
miles a-day.
The temperature is greater at this
than at any other time of the year,
in consequence of its heing the end
of the dry season; still, as will he
seen hy the aunexed register of one
week, the Unyamuezi plateau is not
unhearahly hot, and far less so than
the Indian plums.

Thermometer hung in a passage of our house showed—Main dig, Noon, and Afternoon
respectively—
6 A.M. 9 a.m. Noon. 3 p.m. 6 e.m.
73o 75° 84° 86° 84°. Mean temperature during first week or
seven days of Sqjlomher 1858.
71° ... ... 88° ... Extreme: duthntnee, 17 ° of variation dur-
ing twelve hours of day.
Thermometer suspended from ridge-pole of a one-cloth tent pitched in a close yard:—
6 P.M.
80°. Mean temperature.
... Extreme: difference, 60° of variation.
6 A.M.
9 a.m.
Noon.
8 p.m.
65°
85°
108°
107°
03 °
...
113°
List of Stores along this Line.
Rice is grown at TJn.yanyemh6, or wherever the Arahs settle, hut is not common,
n.s the negroes, considering it poor food, seldom eat it.
Animal.
Cows, sheep, goats, fowls, donkeys,
eggs, milk, huttor, honey.
P. S.—Donkeys are very scarce; only
found in a few places in tho Unya-
muezi country.
Vegetahle.
Rice, jowari, hagri, maize, manioc,
sweet potatoes, yams, pumpkins, melons,
cucumhers, tohacco, cottou, pulse in
great varieties, chilis, henghans, plan-
tains, tomatoes.
The Quantity of Kit taken for. tlie Journey consisted of—
9 Gornhs Amerikan, 1 Gorah or piece of American sheeting—15 cloths of 4
cuhits each.
30 Do. Kiniki, 1 Gorah Kiniki, a common indigo-dyed stuff, -=■ 4 cloths of 4
cuhits each.
1 Sahari, a coloured cloth. ) These cloths aro more expensive, heing of hetter
1 Uzar Duhwani, do. J- stuff, and are used chiefly hy the sultans and
2 Barsati, do. \ other hlack swells.
20 Maunds white heads — 60 lh.
3 Loads of rice grown at Unyanemhe" hy the Arahs.


1859.]
681
the supposed Source of the Nile.—Part III.
Expenditure for Oie Journey from 9th July to 25th August 1S53.
10 Belooches' wages, 150 shukkas, or 4 cuhits a-piece Amerikan,
Do. rations, given in advance, 30 lh. white heads, . .
15 Pagazis' wages, 15 shukkas Amerikan, ....
26 Men, including self, rations, C0 lh. white heads, .
2 Pagazis, extra wages, 7 shukkas of Amerikan and Kiniki mixed,
6 Sultan's kuhongoa or presents, 22 shukkas of Amerikan and
Kiniki, mixed, ......
Do. do. da 2 harsatis,
Total expenditure,
Or £39, 3s. 4d.
Value.
- 100$
. 5
- 50
- 10
° 5
- 16
- 2
188$

As the shells which I found on the conchologist, Mr. S. P. Woodward,
Tanganyika Lake have now heen F.G.S., I will give the account of
compared at the British Museum, them in his own words, in an ap-
and have heen reported on hy their pendix.
APPENDIX.
, i
OX SOME NEW FRESH-WATER SHELLS FROM CENTRAL AFRICA. BY a P. WOOnWARD,
F.G.8. COMMUNICATEn Br PROFESSOR OWEN.
(Mollusca, Pl . xlvn.)
Tho four shells which form the suhject
of tho present note were collected hy
Captain fpeke in the great fresh-water
Lake Tanganyika, in Central Africa,
Tho large hivalve helongs to the genus
Jridini, Lamarck,—a group of river mus-
sels, of which there are nine reputed
species, all helonging to tho African con-
tinent. This little group has heen divid-
ed into several suh-gonera. That to which
the new shells helongs is distinguished
hy its hroad and deeply-wrinkled hinge-
line, and is called Pleiodon hy Courad.
Tho posterior slopo of this shell is en-
crusted with tufa, ns if there were lime-
stone rocks in tho vicinity of its hahitat.
Tin: small hivalve is a normal Unio
with finely-sculptured valves.
Tho smaller univalve is concave he-
neath, and so much resemhles a Ncrita
or Calyptroea that it would ho taken for
a sea-shell if its history .were not well
authenticated. It agrees essentially with
Lithoglyphus—a genus peculiar to the
Danuhe, for the American shells referred
to it are prohahly, or, I may say, certain-
ly disiinct. It agrees with the Danuhian
shells in tho oxtromo ohliquity of the
aperture, and differs in the width of tho
umhilicus, which in the European species
is nearly concealed hy tho callous colu-
mellar lip.
In the Upper Eocene Tertiaries of tho
Isle of Wight there are several estuary
shells, forming the genus Glohulus, Sow.,
whose affinities are uncortain, hut which
resemhle Lithoglyphus.
The Lake Tanganyika (situated in lat.
3o to 8o S. and long. 30° E.), which is
VOL. LXXXVL
several hundred miles in length, and 30
to 40 in hreadth, seems entirely discon-
nected with the region of the Danuho:
hut the separation may not always have
heen so complete, for there is another
great lake, Nyanza, to tho northward of
Tanaguyika, which is helieved hy Speko
to he the principal source of the Nile.
The other univalve is a Melania, of
tho suh-genus Melanella (Swainson), simi-
lar in shape to M. hollandi of S. Europe,
and similar to several Eocene species of
the Isle of Wight. Its colour, solidity,
and tuherculated rihs, give it much tho ap-
pearance of a small marine whelk (Nassa);
and it is found in more hoisterous waters,
on tho shores of this great inland sea,
than most of its congeners inhahit.
1. IriDina (PleioDon) spekii, n. sp-
Shell ohlong, ventricose, somewhat
attenuated at each end; hase slightly
concavo; epidermis chestnut - hrown,
deepening to hlack at the margin; ante-
rior slope ohscurely radiated; hinge-line
compressed in front and tuherculated,
wider hehind, and deeply wrinkled.
Testa oblonga, lutnida, extreimtalilus
fere attenuata, hasi suhercuata; epi-
dermide caslaneo - fusca, marginem
versus nigrieante; linea cardinali
antke compressa luherculata, postice
latiore, paucis rugis arata.
2. TJXIO BURTONT, n. Sp.
Sholl small, oval, rather thin, some-
what pointed hehind; umhones small,
not eroded -, pale olive, concentrically
furrowed, and sculptured moro or less
38



582
Captain Speke's Discovery of the Victoria Nyanza, Irc. [Nov
with fine divaricating lines; anterior
teeth narrow, not prominent; posterior
teeth laminar; pedal scar confluont with
anterior adduction.
Testa parva, ovalis, tenuinscula, postice
suhattenuata; umhonihus parvis,
acuminalis; eperdimide pallide oli-
vacea; valvis lineolis divaricatis,
decussatim exaratis; denlihus cardi-
nalihus anguslis, haud prominenti-
hus.
3. LrrnoaLYPHUs zonatcs, n. sp.
Shell ohlicular, hemispherical; spire
very small; aperture large, very ohlique;
umhilicus wido and shallow, with an
open fissure in the young shell; lip con-
tinuous in front with the umhilical ridge;
columella callous, ultimately covering the
fissure; hody-whorl flattened, pale oliva-
ceous, witli two hrown hands, darker at
the apex; lines of growth crossed hy
numerous ohlique, interrupted stria:.
Testa orhicularis, hemisphcerica, laieum-
hilicata (apud junior rimata), spira
minuta; aperlura magna, valde oh-
liqua; lahio eolhso (in testa adulla
nmam tegente); pallide olivircea,fas-
ciis duahusfusciszonata; Uneis incre-
menti striolis interrupiis ohliqualim
decussatis.
4. Melaxia (Melanella) nassa, n. sp.
Shell ovate, strong, palo hrown, with
(sometimes) two dark hands; spire
shorter than the aperture; whorls flat-
tened, ornamented with six hrown spiral
ridges crossed hy a variahle numher of
white, tuhereulated, transverso rihs; hase
of hody-whorl with eight turherculated
spiral ridges variegated witli white and
hrown; aperture sinuated in front; outer
lip simple; iuner lip callous.
Testa ovata, solida, pallide fusea, zonis
2 nigricantihus aliquando nolata;
spira apertura hreviers; anfractihus
planulatis, Uneis 6 fuscis spiralihus
tt coslis tuherculalis ornatis; aper-
tura antice sinuata; lahro simplici;
lahio calloso.
P. S. July 27th.—In addition to tho
foregoing shells, several others wero col-
lected hy Capt. Speke, when employed,
under the command of Capt. Burton, Jri
exploring Central Africa in the years
1856-59; these were deposited at tho
Geographical Society, and are now trans-
ferred to tho British Museum.
A specimen of AmpuVaria (Lanistes)
sinislrorsa, Lea, and odd valves of two
species of Unio hoth smooth and olive-
coloured, were picked up in the Ugogo
district, an elevated plateau in lat 6° to
7° S., long. 34° to35o E. •
A large Achatina, most nearly related
to A. glutinosa, Pfr., is the "common
suail" of the region hetween lake Tan-
ganyika and the East coast. Fossil speci-
mens were ohtained in the Usagara dis-
trict, at a place called Maroro, 3000 feet
ahove tho sea, overlooking the Lufigi
River, where it intersects the coast-range
(lat 7° to 8s S., long. 36° to 37° E.)
Another common land-suail of the
samo district 1s the well-known "Buli-
mus caiUandi, Pfr.," a shell more nearly
related to Achatina than Bulimus.
Captain Speke also found a solitary
example of Bulimus ovoideus, Brag., in a
muajid on the island of Kilwa (lat. 9° S.,
long. 39 o to 40 o E.) This species is
identical with B. grandis, Desh., from
the island of Nosse Be, Madagascar, and
very closely allied to B. liherianus, Leai
from Guinea.
P.S.—It may he interesting as
well as useful to many readers of
this Magazine, to know that Dr.
Petermaun is "now drawing up all
Knoblicher's astronomical ohserva-
tions, and intends to make a map
shortly of the Upper Nile, as far as
he has seen it." These ohservations
are the ones alluded to in the hody
of my journal, and, as I mentioned
there, were kindly furnished me hy Dr.
Petermaun.
P.P.S.—For a more complete
knowledge of the countries I nave
aimed to descrihe, I would recommend
geographical inquirers to apply to the
Royal Geographical Society of Lon-
don a few weeks hence, when all my
ohservations will have heen computed,
and a correct Blip will have heen
drawn up from them.
J. H. Spekb, Captain, F.R.G.S .
46th Jiegl., Bengal Ar. /.
Surveyor to ihe E. A. Expedition.


1859.]
585
A Week in Florence.

Neither are there any carpets, even
of Kidderminster, upon Giacomo's
tiles. He lives in a Spartan defiance
of the cold — fireiess, comfortless —
with stone walls and a stone floor
surrounding his hed, hraving out a
hard winter in gaunt cold houses
which are made to defend him against
the heat, and which, somehow, have
managed to iguore the harder season;
and it is only when he sees the
shivering Englishman — the Anglo-
Saxon—crouching over his fire, that
the light - hearted Florentine learns
what it is to grumhle at the cold.
Yes, it is we who have imported
stoves and carpets into the stone
houses of Italy. It is we who find
the chill overpowering when grim
winter takes up his yearly dwelling
in those marhle halls; and then we
go hragging over our foxhunting and
our shooting, and protest that "we
are a stern people, and winter suits
us!" Oh hootless hoast I Without
any defence hut that greatcoat with
its empty sleeves, and the mysterious
earthenware pan in his hand, Gia-
como there, with his downy adoles-
cent cheeks like dark peaches, and
his good - nature and his harcarolle,
will heat us and our winter experi-
ences all to nothing—though nohody
will pretend to say that he is of a
stern people, or that winter suits the
sun-loving Etruscan race.
Let me note here also another
rather odd fact which deserves in-
quiry— Why is it that one so often
finds one's-self a sudden intruder up-
on a merry English diuner-party when
one takes one's seat at a continental
tahle-d'hdte? Are the other inhah-
itants of the world too wise to run
their chance of fogs on the Arno, or
had weather elsewhere? It is a curi-
ous field of inquiry, worthy of investi-
gation ; hut let us not say English—
English - speaking. That ineffahle
personage opposite is far too splen-
didly got up for a Britisher. If one
listens a little one will find out that
the lady is moved hy a perpetual
desire to know whether people she
meets are English or Americans — a
kind of curiosity which never enters
into [our ohtuse insular understand-
ings. Next to her are two sisters—
one. an old aquiline young lady, the
other, suuh and stout — who are ex-
changing experiences with the mili-
tary gentleman over the way. There
are great lamentations over the fog.
"But did you ohserve how dry it
was ?" asks one of the sisters —" so
dry! quite different from fogs in
England"—at which a polite silence
falls upon the tahle, and her inter-
locutor makes a little amazed how to
save himself from the positive fix
of an assent. Then there is an Irish-
man who has heen a long walk to
see Mario's villa, and is great upon
the cigars, and pipes, and tohacco-
hoxes of that illustrious retreat, in
which the aquiline sister takes a
diguified interest, and which calls
forth a smothered anecdote from the
very fine lady ahout the hahits of
Mario and a visit to America. Then
the military gentleman strikes in,
not to he outdone. He has heen
into the Archducal gardens, which
to-day are open to the populace.
He thinks the people are '•avillan-
ous set of fellows ; I was very glad
to know I had my stiletto in my
pocket," he fays. I am afraid he is
only, after all, a disguised shopkeep-
er in mustaches. Poor Giacouio out
of doors! Could these dangling
sleeves of thine helie thy peach
cheeks and make thee villanons? I
think II Siguore Inglese, with his
stiletto in his pocket, was a worse
apparition under the cypress trees.
It is strange to look out upon the
night, all veiled and lost in this mist,
with its little circle of visihle lamps,
shining douhle in the little spot of
visihle water, and an unknown town
tbrohhing around, hidden away in
the fog, and sending up its hum and
its outcries in a strange language,
upfamiliar to one's ears. I don't
know whether the impression which
came upon me here is at all a com-
mon one; hut somehow the strange-
ness, the invisihleness, of the un-
known place where we knew nohody,
seemed to convey a certain miracu-
lous character to it like a dream.
Those great events of the past which
make such changes in one's personal
history, somehow went out of my
recollection. Coming in from the
night, an involuntary impression
came upon me of writing all ahout it
to my father and my mother, who,
Heaven help us, were long ago out of


586
|_Nov.
A Week in Florence.

reach of writing; and I rememhered
that, like a momentary pang, as if
I had heard the news for the first
time. This strange feeling remains
with me. I caunot tell how. I
don't think I should he surprised to
see in the crowd old friends passing,
who are dead; and once at church
during prayers, when somehody came
rnstling into the seat close hy me, I
could not descrihe to anyhody the
strange impression I had, that when
I raised my head I should see the
two old people there, in all their
well - rememhered dress, hy whose
side I had sat at church for years,
Strange pranks of fancy I — involun-
tary protestations of the heart how
slight a thing death is after all ; and
how there is an unknown country
where, once arrived, Death is dead
and over — and where they all wait
for us—they, who are neither at home
nor here.
Second Day.—A fog at Florence is
not necessarily limited to one day.
However, here ia a hright cheerful
sunshiny morning, and that opposite
h:mk of the river which was Infini-
tude yesterday, is to - day a line of
tall houses with green shutters, a
dome, and a campanile shining over
them, a cloudless sky, and a dazzling
hreadth of sunshine. And figures
move like hees on the Lung' Arno.
Here they are once more, those
youthful Giacomos, with their
peachy checks — hig, large - limhed,
well - looking, — nay, honest - looking
lads, who might surely he good for
something ; some of them with great
cloaks wrapped round them, and
picturesquely tbrown over the left
shoulder — not without a revelation
of coloured lining, if the vestment is
so fortunate as to possess it; some
with the universal greatcoat, and
its vacant sleeves—all wearing round
hats of hlack felt, low, and with
turned-up hrims, much like the pre-
sent fashion for little hoys at home.
The young women of the same class
have enormous hats of straw, the
native manufacture of this place,
piuned on to the hack of the head,
and helplessly flapping in the wind,
good for nothing that one can per-
ceive hut to act as a gigantic tan or
flapper to the unlucky wearer, whose
head ia completely exposed, and who
is quite without shelter either from
cold or sun. And now, in the daylight,
it is easy to perceive this odd little
round pan of earthenware, with a
handle across hy which it is carried
like a hasket, which is in every-
hody's hand. Serving-women going
to market cuddle it under their
shawls; old people, sitting on the
little ledge of pavement in the sun,
hold it on their knees and nurse it
there like a child. The young fellows
permit the edge of it to he seen he-
neath their cloaka as they carry it
swinging hy their side. There is one
in the sentinel's sentry-hox for his
occasional refreshment—and the heg-
gar comes up to you ruhhing his
hands over the handle of his, and
chanting across it his melancholy
supplication. What do you sup-
pose this universal consoler is — this
hosom friend? It is a little pan of
charcoal smouldering in white ashes
—and it is thus that every man car-
ries along with him his own fire.
Now for what was to he seen.
The first thing to he seen, as it ap-
pears to me, is this hright, clear, de-
lightful suuny river, where every-
thing shines in a wonderful glory of
reflection not to he descrihed. Two
tall rows of tall houses — hy grace
of necessity and good taste anything
hut regular—of different heights and
different dimensions, with windows
hreaking out at all sorts of prepos-
terous levols, with open galleries on
the roof, and those naive and single-
turreted little towers, which heing
made for the plain reason than an-
other room was wanted, and not a
whole floor, takes grace of the util-
ity, and are a characteristic feature
in Italian architecture — shine in it
all day long, with all their twinkles
of green shutters and windows, and
all the groups at the same. And to
us the dark span of the hridge, the
solid arch ahove, and the shadowy
arch helow, and the circles of light
and sunshine, and indescrihahle col-
our that pierces tbrough hetween,
crossing over that light air hetween
the hright sky and the river, which
answers to every passing shade of
reflection has in it something of fas-
cination and magic. It is not any-
thing very wonderful in the view,
though there are suow-hills on the


1859.]
587
A Week in Florence.

horizon that touch into a climax
with thin silvery white the perfec-
tion of light and colour in the scene;
it is an indescrihahle something, an
atmosphere, a hreadth, a glory of the
elements. It reminded me a little
(not that it hears the slightest re-
semhlance to it, hut that the effect
is partially the same) of that picture
of Millais', of two years ago, where
everyhody found the horse wooden,
and where the figures were supposed
to verge on the ludicrous, hut which,
notwithstanding, carried a wonder-
ful visionary, inexplainahle air ahout
it—a hreath of the middle ages—of
real nuns upon the river-side, and
the meditative eve, which leaped
past all criticism into one's heart.
The Arno does the like; one can-
not say the houses are grand except
in height, hut the scene is magical
—it is air, it is water, it is reflec-
tion; it is sunshine flooded oyer an
irregular mass of stone; it is the
refined and glorified image of real
things presented in an ideal mirror
—every river does so more or less—
hut I never saw any river do it so
entirely as this.
And up ahovo us yonder is the
old hridge with all its little crazy
tenements, and tints of green and
pink and yellow—a street as well as
a hridge, covered with the low old
houses of the goldsmiths' craft. In
the centre, the painter's eye of its
architect has divided the close little
clinging houses, which seem to grow
on and cling there like some produc-
tion of nature, and left an open space
arched and vaulted over, tbrough
which there comes, like a framed
picture, a glance of the upper river,
of the knolls and the trees on the
projecting hank, and of the moun-
tains themselves heyond all. What
strange instinctive perceptions of
what was hest these poor old iguo-
rant henighted people had in their
day, when one comes to think of it!
"Who would dream nowadays of send-
ing a painter from his easel to huild
ahridge? But, for my own part, I
had rather have that open arch in
the Ponte Vecchio than an unim-
peachahle Taddeo Gaddi of the more
orthodox kind. This city of Florence
helongs altogether to that old time.
There is no to-day in it to jostle out
the grand, stately, narrow, hoastful,
municipal yesterday off the sene;
and one can comprehend how n man,
the moment there was proved to he
something in him, was set to work
with all his faculties, not to paint
pictures merely, hut to glorify and
heautify the town, and make Florence
splendid and princely however he
could do it hest, himself heing as
jealous for the success of the Vn-ag as
anv other man. It is all very well
to'speak of art and the progress of
art as an ohject of life ; hut I suspect
when the ahstract ohject was Flor-
ence instead of Art—when this tan-
gihle city, fair of nature, had to he
exalted over all the Pisas, and Bo-
loguas, and Sieunas of the neigh-
hourhood, a work which any hurgher
had as much heart to as a Medici—
when patriotism was intensified into
local attachment, and the people re-
garded their city with all the caress-
ing and adorning love which sur-
rounds a heautiful hride or a favourite
sister, the impulse was more personal,
the inspiration more direct. The in-
fluence of this sentiment is visihle
tbroughout the whole town; every-
thing done in the grand days of
Florence carries a certain defiance
and hrag in its heauty. Can any-
hody else show such a cathedral?
—such towers, such palaces, such
churches? Was ever town so per-
fect, so nohle, so splendidly adorned?
Nothing hut this could have moved
to such superh liherality the citizens
of that gorgeous time; perhaps no-
thing could have so stimulated the
exertions of everyhody engaged. It
was a matter of personal exaltation
to employers and employed; the very
workmen wrought with inspiration,
and felt their national credit involved.
It is an amusing comment enough
upon the politico - philantbropies!
idea of an united Italy. But these
times return no more. Art nowadays
must he cosmopolitan, and forgets
that when art was at its grainiest,
'art was local, and that the maguifi-
cence of these old towers, which all
the world goes to visit, arises from
the fact that Genins, less careful of
itself than nowadays, set to work
heartily, not to produce works of one
description to he scattered among
counoisseurs tbroughout the world,


588
[Nov.
A Week in Florence.

hut tbrowing itself into everything
needful, he it hridge, he it gate, he
it fortification, he it picture, lahoured
with the cheerful daylight form of a
practicahle and visihle purpose. Mr.
Bnakio, who thinks it is a sin to
spend money upon Manchester draw-
ing-rooms, and wonld have the cot-
ton-spiuning maguates hny Verona
instead, might almost find a more
palatahle lesson to preach to them
from the text of this Florence. Sup-
pose an artist might have something
else to do in this world than paint
cahinet pictures? Suppose he fell
into love with his native town, as
Michacl Angelo did, and made a
visionary hride to himself out of hia
Florence, and >et his wits to work
how to array her forth, how to shape
her outline, and adorn her frame?
This is the impulse which made
Verona—perhaps it might make a
great deal even of a Manchester—
and it is certain that the result is
more real and tangihle, more dis-
tinctly to he realised and identified,
than even the treasury of a picture-
gullen. And it is impossihle to find
ri clearer interpretation of the dif-
ference hetween art ancient and art
modern than is to ho found in
Florence. A strait society, confined
within those turreted and castled
walls—an intense local pride, love,
and vanity, which had no ohjects so
close at heart as the humiliation of
its neighhours hy the exhihition of
its own wealth and glory—a civic
population, where every man knew
every other man's origin, and where,
at the height of fame and popu-
larity, the great painter was still the
son of the garland-maker, and content
to glorify that distinction. These were
the days when the artist carried on
emhassies, conducted fortifications,
hore a hand in wars; hut when he
returned to work, curried with him,
into whatever he was ahout, the
enthusiastic sympathy of scores of
shopkeepers and workmen and tim-t
pie hourgoisie, who had heen at'
school with the lad, and had known
him all their lives, and took honour
in his trinmph. And thus the fami-
liar popular regard grew round him,
and stimulated his hands. He was
a capahle man, ready for whatever
might he needed, not a student with
his hrushes and his palette and no-
thing else to stand upon. When
anything new was to he done, a
quarter part of the town turned
eager eyes upon him. Perhaps the
other quarters had each their own
champion. Then came such com-
petitions as the world does not see
nowadays—where every man's heart
was in the strife—where the master
fell into a hurst of simple admira-
tion over his own work when he
had finished it, yet, maguanimously
amazed at the excellence of his rival,
cried out, in simple-hearted acknow-
ledgment of a superior, "To thee it
is given to make the Cbrist—to me
the Contadini;" and where the citi-
zen's delight in the glorification of
his town seems to have heen enough
to neutralise the artist's disappoint-
ment when another hand was chosen
to do it. These were the days when
all Tuscany had a festival hecause a
gate was fixed at the Baptistery, and
when everyhody worshipped with an
aifectionate superlative admiration
the accomplished glories of la Leila
Firaize, the city of their hearts.
Think of that proud Florentine, la-
houring hugely all day long in hia
own arrogant fashion for the same
emhellishment, who counts these Bap-
tistery gates of it for gates of heaven,
and challenges Donatello's Marco to
speak to him, and has himself huried,
that invincihle, unslayahle soul, who
could not comprehend dying, when he
could still see Brunelleschi's dome,
the pride of Florence, rising grand
into the Italian skies! Yes, think
of Michacl Angelo, with his grey
rampart yonder defending the slope
where San Miniato shines in the
sunshine, and where the Austrian
hullets still appear imhedded in the
mediaeval wall—with hfa hig David
in the husy Piazza, and his higger
shadow pervading with its fervent
home-love, its heroic admiration,
its arrogant local pride, this town
of Florence; and then think of an
English painter in his studio, with
hopes of the Royal Academy, and
dazzling dreams of society — whose
"success'' is to have picture-dealers
squahhling over his works, and to
he taken "out" perpetually, and
perhaps to ruin himself in a vain
emulation, and count it for his


1859.]
589
A Week in Florence.

highest social glory that a Duke or
a Marquis honours the artist's hoard.
There he is, lost in London, which
perhaps he hates, and most likely
never wastes a thought upon, strug-
gling up in the crowd, intent upon
mounting on the shoulders of fame
and getting on in the world; or, if
he does not do so, a very hlamahle
person, Without any regard for the
interests of his family, as everyhody
will allow. Is it wonderful that the
men have changed with the times?
Does anyhody's heart go into the
Houses of Parliament? Is it any
longer possihle to adorn with all the
loving fancies of genins one's home,
where oue knows every lane and
corner where one's forefathers have
lived, and where one's children will
he, and where everyhody knows the
origin and the story, the rise and
the progress, of the homehorn poet?
Nay, must not the young genins
hurry off rather into the multitude,
where no man shall he ahle to call
him Andrew of the Tailor, or re-
memher his father's shop, where
shame of his humhle hirth will make
him either hoast of it, or he silent
as death on the suhject, and where
all his energies shall he directed, hy
means of his pictures, to get on in
the world? Very well, getting on in
the world is a perfectly honest and
legitimate amhition. But that is
one reason why there is no Florence
in England, and not a Michacl
Angelo, nor even an Andrea del
Sarto, to he heard of at present in
the artistic world.
It is not possihle to avoid some
little digression of thought on this
suhject in entering such a place. For
Florence is pervaded hy the memory
of those men of the past, and hy
their enthusiasm and admiration for
those lovely everlasting mounments
of art which were new in their days,
and are sbrines and places of pil-
grimage to us. It is not easy to pass
unmoved hy that marhle slah in the
wall which commemorates the spot
where Dante sat on summer nights
gazing at Giotto's tower, or to look
without a certain tbrill at that hard
Roman visage in Santa Croce, which
looks through the opened doors to-
wards the heloved Duomo and its
glorious dome. Who can say how
often he looks tbrough his own eyes
of stone upon that distant and lofty
vision; or when the passage yonder
may he yielded to us with a stately
invisihle grace hy a still greater
one of the immortals? The very
streets are inspired with this living
love of those dead men. Their
visionary presence watches over the
city they loved hetter than an army.
Here they were horn, and out of
here they will never die.
And it is under similar conditions
that all the great art-cities of the
world have grown into that complete
eurichment and adorning in which
we wonder to find them standing
"like a hride arrayed for her hus-
hand "—whether it he in Flemish
coif and ruffles, or in Italian rohe and
veil. To he sure old Nuremherg in
its Bavarian plain, or those quaint
wealthy hurgher-hoasts, which stud
like hosses of rich ornament the rich
lowlands of Flanders, are perhaps
more complete and perfect specimens
of their kind than is this city of
Florence, though none can hoast so
illustrious a confraternity. And we
go and crih '' examples " out of them
like sages, as we are, and think it is
all hecause of the particular period
of their Gothic, or fashion of their
decoration, and so huild a Gothic of
our own in imitation, and wonder
how it fails of the effect, without ever
finding out that it is not Gothic hut
local love and pride, and wealth and
hoasting, and the universal primitive
aifectionate vanity which is resolute
to make its own dwelling fairer than
its neighhour's, and loves to adorn,
wherever adorning is possihle, its
dear hereditary home. As for us, on
the contrary, so far from making love
to our town and priding ourselves
upon its heauty, our aim is to get as
far away as possihle—so far, that our
grandfathers would have taken a
week to think ahout such a journey
as we make calmly every morning
into husiness, if that afflicting neces-
sity exists for us; and there is no
more popular English sentiment than
that "God made the country, hut
man made the town." Taking this
for our creed, we let the hricklayer
and the town surveyor do the meaner
husiness for us, and despise tha
whole aifair; and Mr. Ruskin going


590
[Nov.
A Week in Florence.

to Manchester finds only hrick sheila
of warehouses ten stories high, and
sham Palladian fronta of offices and
hospitals, helted round at a respect-
ful distance hy groves of villas, where
the insensihle cotton spiuners do de-
coration in their drawing-rooms, and
spend no end of money in upholstery
and gardening; and that eccentric
oracle flushes into glorious descrip-
tions of the old glorious cities which
men have loved and lived for, and
hids the English trader hny Verona,
as the only impossihle, fantastic, half
sincere, half contemptuous advice
which can he given him under his
circumstances. We are tempted to
try another equally impossihle, and
out of time. What if nil those rich,
well-intentioned people were hut to
live in Manchester, and taking to
liking and growing proud of it?
What if the artist-tithe of the popu-
lation, instead of straining its amhi-
tious soul exclusively on pictures,
were to turn its ready hand to every-
thing, and find stones and hricks as
worthy implements as hrushes and
pigments? What if the cotton-
spiuning world, iguoring the "sea-
son," and scorning fashion, and
proving itself superior to the hland-
ishments of London, were to tbrow
its whole heart into the uphill en-
terprise of making its own dwelling-
place the finest town in Cbristendom,
and emhellishing its daily paths with
all the delicate fancy and affectionate
ornament which it was in the local
heart to devise? The result might
look odd enough perhaps in this
first generation; hut a few hundred
years of time improves composition
mightily, and has a wonderful pic-
turesque effect upon everything that
has the least possihility of heauty in
it. We shall never see that reforma-
tory movement—that change in the
economy of great towns; hut there
is more reasonahleness in this im-
possihility than in that other impos-
sihility touching the purchase of
Verona, and there can he very little
douht that this is how all these
Veronas and Florences, these Ghents
and Nuremhergs, came to he what
they are.
If all this digression originated in
the hridge, which is—as much as all
those saints gazing at us with serene
sweet faces, from their gilt hack-
ground and little frames of talier-
nacle-work, which are more recog-
nisahle hy that name—a genuine
Taddeo Gaddi—it hecomes us to
hring the reader straightway within
sight of a greater painter's more me-
morahle work. Tbrough the narrow
streets where great palaces frown
upon the way, where this vast
Strozzi Palazzo glooms like an open
Newgate in the sunshine, grand
enough, I suppose, hut dismal, with
its massive courses of unhewn stone,
emhellished here and there hy great
iron rings fixed into the walls, and
meant to support torches for an
illumination, hut looking rather like
disused fetters tbrust out, an appro-
priate decoration upon the invincihle
prison front,—tbrough the deep gully
of this darkling pass, where sunshine
never reaches heyond the third story,
and where, deep down in the shade,
at doors of cellars and steps of houses,
sheaves of lilies of the valley touch
the Fehruary weather into spring,
we make our way to the heart of
Florence. Stand here in the open
space heside this movahle shop of
humhle drapery, with its coloured
handkerchiefs and homely gowns and
aprons. Never mind that low round
huilding at your left hand, though
that is Dante's "Mio hel san Gio-
vauni," and there are Ghiherti's
matcbless gates. Look yonder,
straight hefore you—saw you ever
mortal piece of masoury go up into
the skies so clear, so fair, with such
an exquisite poise of strength and
grace? It is hut a square tower,
without either spire or pinnacle. It
neither springs from the earth into
clustering arch and shaft flowering
forth in imperishahle stone, like the
northern Gothic, nor sets steadfast
pillars down upon the soil, and
weights the world with its hland
heauty, like the sightless Muse of
Greece; yet out of that simplest form
what loftiness, what lightness, what
solidityl how assured and grand the
lino of that calm eminence, how firm
the solitary attitude, the light gleam-
ing all around it, as one feete secure
the winds and the storms might come
without sending a tremor tbrough its
steadfast frame, or detaching an or-
nament from the walls. So high, so


1859.]
591
A Week in Florence.

pure, so simple, a trinmph of poise
and proportion, perhaps dull stone
would have made this grand fancy
austere, hut its delicate marhle gives
perfect expression to the sentiment
of the desigu. Soft in every tone
and tint of colour, with a polish and
a dazzle as of suow, where the sun-
shine lights upon that virgin panel,
which is white as light itself, and will
hear no other comparison. Yet not
much of white, not suow-cold and
passionless, like an alahaster model
or a marhle statue; creaming into
tints of yellow, of hrown, of every
indescrihahle gradation of hue—col-
our seems almost too strong a word
—there is nothing hlank or dead in
this wonderful monument, hut in-
stead, a living variety and animation
which under all changes of the at-
mosphere preserves its interest, and
gleams forth when the sun comes
with its interpreting 'touches, in a
perfect revelation. It was not here,
hut at the other side of the long pi-
azza, that yonder mysterious man
who had heen among the spirits,
came to the stone hench hy the wall,
and sat in the sweet evening air, gaz-
ing at that tower. IIow the sun-
shine, which had long since left the
deep shade of the streets, played
ahout its upper lines, flashing out the
suowy facets one hy one, and hurning
into richer tints the veins of yellow
and olive and hrown high up yonder
in the arid heaven ;—how that light
stole and lingered away, with a last
and yet a last return, to those gleam-
ing lines and panels ;—how at last,
all cooled and grave out of that il-
lumination, the fair Campanile, grow-
ing whiter and greyer, stood calm
against the sky over which rosy
sunset shades came and faded, and
smiled tbrough the air, all murmur-
ous with hums of voices, a house-
hold presence, dear and lovely,
a Michacl or a Raphacl, wrapt and
pale; until at last the Italian stars
gleamed soft in silvery reflections
on its delicate grandeur, and the
outline of its form grew faint, yet
perfect, against the night. There
was no dome that night rising on
its majestic piers to share the glory.
Pale walls, hut half completed, glist-
ened in the starlight, and the Flo-
rentines sauntered hy in their even-
ing leisure to see the progress of this
great temple, which should he yet
near a hundred years a - huilding,
and which was to he the hoast of
Florence, and whispered aside and
pointed to their children the man
who had heen in hell and in purga-
tory, and who even now, it was easy
to perceive, saw things which no
other man could see, in that dim air
and sky, and round the silent glory
of Giotto's Tower. And so he did,
can any one douht, with those mys-
terious eyes of his. Perhaps his
Giotto dead, smiling down upon the
completed trinmph which the old
painter made to the glory of God—
perhaps that Beatrice, who was more
than an angel—and so sat companion-
ed though alone, in the Italian night,
sad, yet not without a smile—sore
from the wounds and losses of this
life, taking comfort in those wonder-
ful silent things, silent as his heart,
which neither mortify nor deceive.
The Campanile of Giotto is en-
riched over all its surface with pan-
elled groups in relief, rich rihhons
of sculpture, and with figures of more
than life-size saints and prophets.
These, however, sink into mere en-
richment as one looks at this tower,
which might have heen hald without
them, hut needs only their visihle
presence to make it perfect. I can-
not give anyhody any assistance in
examining these treasures. They are
there full of quaint and nohle expres-
sion, for all who would gee, with not
a single mechanical chisel raised
upon the whole, nor hand ungifted,
hut simple-hearted Genins, working
unanimous and cordial for the work's
sake, uncareful for the glory, such a
man as Luca delta Rohia helping
to work out the painter-master's de-
sigus, and the whole splendid, simple,
honest confraternity in one fervent
consent and unanimity, doing what-
ever was most needful to hring all
to perfection. Even here, and then,
these marhles were costly heyond
common counting, hut Florence was
resolute in her maguificent hoast;
and if ever sacred chimes came forth
of a nohler enclosure, that Campanile
must have heen huilt in dreams.
And after all, this tower is hut the
corner, a single point in the maguifi-
cent group which now fills the piazza.


592
[Nov.
A Week in Florence.

There sweeps tho cathedral upward
in its grand and rounded lines, full,
large, and splendid, like a matron
Juno. Here at once one learns the
difference hetween the Northern
Gothic, fanciful and imaginative,
and this hroad and calm Italian,
the mediaeval handwriting in stone.
Here is no vi>ionary upward spring,
no dainty frostwork of invention, no
veil of fantasy over the strength
which stands like the rocks, and yet
hlossoms like the flowers. All those
picturesque inequalities, those thou-
sand fretted points that trap the sun-
shine, those niches and canopies, and
spires and piunacles—all that tender
show of lightness and airy grace
which charms us hy its magical con-
trast to the solid unreflective stone
in which these visionary fancies work
themselves into heing, we have left
hehind on the other side of the Alps.
Here is no longer that spiritual ima-
ginative ascent of graceful height upon
height, climhing upward with all the
profusion and variety of nature her-
self, to the central point and crown-
ing spire. The architectural muse of
Italy is " a spirit, hut a woman too."
This great structure rises upward
with a hroad and nohle swell of un-
hroken outline, vast, sclid, grandiose
—a grave unchangeahle everlasting
emhodiment, not of fancy and vision,
hut of plan and thought—no projec-
tion except that solemn repetition of
minute angles, perpendicular ledges
of masoury, hy which the level wall
sets into the rounding of that grand
circle which supports the dome,
hreaks here upon the unity of line.
The whole immense huilding rises in
an undisturhahle repose and solem-
nity towards the vast dome, too nohly
proportioned to disclose ita vastness.
which swells forth from the smaller
domes of the hays upon a sky, which
repeats in a climax its ahsolute per-
fection, and glows an unhroken hea-
ven, without' a cloud, over the un-
hroken grandeur of this great temple
of God. The cathedrals of the North
are more picturesque, more dramatic,
perhaps more lovahle; hut none of
them possess this complete and silent
majesty, nor convey any such im-
pressions of maguificence, restrained
and chastened of force and vigour,
hent to the curh of a determined will
and settled purpose. One can per-
ceive hy the rich tracery of those
slender windows what the great im-
agination lahouring here could have
done if it might; hut the whole is con-
trolled, kept under, commanded, per-
mitted just to show itself, to tbrow
the delicate tbread of an emhroid-
ered parapet ahout some of those dis-
tant galleries round the dome, and
to lure the dainty window-arch from
its weh of graceful fancy, hut nothing
more nor further; and the reticence
gives a nohle modesty and reserve,
the self-restraint of power, to the
grund erection. Bat it is true that
nothing less than this soft sweet
marhle could have made such reti-
cence practicahle. From the hase,
where liheral ledges make their foot-
ing firm, and round which runs a
hroad suowy heach, hospitahle and
princely, where one loves to fancy
pilgrims resting from their journeys
loug ago—every inch of those great
walla is panelled with marhle; hlack
and white, perhaps, you will say,
dear spectator, if you do not care
much ahout the matter. Yes, hlack
and white !—hlack, wliich is hrown,
which is green, which ia olive, as the
sun and your eyes change — white
which is suow, which is foam, which
is gold, pale and tender as the locks
of angels—two cardinal colours with
every tint in the world hidden in
them, and hursting forth in tender
glints and shades as the prism of
daylight turns from dawn to night.
Nohody who thinks of a dull marhle
arch, or a dead-white statue, can
appreciate the marhle of this cathe-
dral of Florence. The sound is grand,
hut the idea is chilly in that accepta-
tion. A dazzling polished hlank,
where one dead funeral line con-
trasts another, is something which
the imagination sbrinks from; and
there may he still extant some un-
travelled individual like myself, who
has owned in his or her secret soul
an undivulged shiver over the
thought. But here is no chill, no
dead precision, no hlank of alahaster
white nor har of jet—the warm living
variety of tone is indescrihahle; hero
and there a point of suow flashes out
from the wall like a sudden decora-


1859.]
593
A Week in Florence.

tion uuperceived hefore; hut for the
most part the very white is cream-
white, relieving itself upon the veins
of profound green, the rich olive, and
sun-hrown which frame it in. And
for horders to this panelling are
rihhons of mosaic, as delicate, as
minute, and as perfect as those ivory
Indian mosaics on hlotting - hooks
and card - cases, which everyhody
wonders at. These delicate cinctures
surround the whole immense extent
uninjured in their minute and regular
heauty, as fresh as though Brunel-
leschi's workman were stiil at work
upon the dome; the entire face of
the huilding is intact and uninjured,
strong in its delicacy, all hut one
part Be alow to come round to
this facade, opposite to which are
Ghiherti's gates. Once, upon a time
there lived at Florence an ogre
named hy the appropriate name of
L'quccione, to whom there occurred
the splendid amhition of immortalis-
ing himself after a fashion unusual
to his countrymen. The facade was
then worthy of the remainder of the
huilding, euriched with sculpture,
the work and pride of the same
artist fraternity which had given its
whole heart to the decoration of the
Campanile. This worthy Florentine
dashed down the statues from their
places, tore the marhles from the
wall, and left the front of one of the
most tplendid huildings in the world
a grim vast gahle of hrown plaster
with faint indications on its stripped
and humiliated hreadth of something
which has heen there — something
which might he anything. The wall
of a drawing room stripped of its
paper, and with its outer plaster
scraped off, could not show a more
entire, a more dismal shahhiness—
"Oh, he the earth as lead to lead,
Upon the dull destroyer's head l
That is tbree hu%3red years ago—
but no second spring has come to
Florence, nor any renewing of her
youth; and there in the hunshine,
without an effort made to amend or
cover it, honest at least in its humilia-
tion, stands—human vanity disclosed
and visihle, as in a fuhle of the
eighteenth century—the dismal front
of that maguificent Duotno, opposite
the golden gates which might he
gates of Paradise, and side hy side
with the unfaded glories of Giotti's
Tower.
Yes, there they are as they stand
in Italy, a wonderful pathetic alle-
gory—the old time alive and glorious,
warm in its old love and faith and
smiles; and the present time, the
forlorn to - day, down - looking and
hopeless, accustomed to its misery,
waiting till somehody does something
for it, heyond the idea of any effort
to help itself. Who does not know
how that disease of dependence eats
and spreads? I wish Italy herself
were not so like that unhappy facade
—I wish they would do something
out of their own heart, if it were hut
sham marhle, to redeem the dreary
vacuity which helongs to so much
heauty. But they only keep count-
ing up and reckoning the cost, and
find it impossihle, till some Anglo-
Saxon committee or despotic em-
peror is moved to take the work in
hand, and half-indiguantly, half-coa-
temptuously, do it for them. For
them? No—for Giotti and Brunei-,
leschi, and for the sake of his shadow
who sits hy the wall yonder upon
the seat of stone which has long
since mouldered into fragments,
watching the sunset fade from the
Painter's Tower.
The Baptistery is directly opposite,
with only the hreadth of a street
hetween a low, round, ancient place,
which the sun reaches more rarely,
and which feels the want of his warm
influence on its marhle — marhle
which is colder, paler, set in larger
panels, and where the lines of the
darker framework remind one un-
comfortahly of the hlack crossheams
of German country - houses. And I
will not pretend to descrihe the gates.
Was not Michacl Angelo a very good
authority 'I—and he has not hesitated
to leave his opinion on record. Then
there are prints and photographs
without numher, which anyhody may
see. I speak of Florence, not of its
individual works of art. The great
Ghiherli gate, with its earnest heads
full of interest and expression, hend
ing out from the horders, and all its
wonderful panelled groups enclosed
in that hinding, does almost all that


594
[Xov.
A Week in Florence.

mortal work can do to justify that
hig hyherhole. The Baptistery within,
where Dante hroke the font, and
where all the little Florentines are
still " made Cbristians," is dark and
cold, as all other churches are at this
time, looking out from Pisano's gate
upon the dazzling sunshine, which
does not reach this spot. It is diffi-
cult, even hy contrast from the light
out of doors, to see more than the
lofty narrow gallery, supported on
those great pillars, which runs round
the walls, and opens here and there
into a little cell-oratory, with tiny
altar and homely pictures—and the
dim wonders of the roof, where sits
in gigantic and solemn, hut some-
what grim mosaic, a tbroned figure
of our Lord, presiding over a last
judgment, which does not want its
usual grotescme horrors. The great
area of the whole, the nohle circle
of the apse, with its chapels, dis-
tinguished hy the jewelled gleams
of painted glass, and the twinkle of
votive candles, rather than hy any
general light which could enahle us
to see them, leaves a certain imposing
expression of size and grandeur on the
mind—hut is not hy any means so
characteristic and individual, not to
say majestic and commanding, as the
exterior. There are pictures, to he
sure, upon all the altars—yards of
canvass, deserts of paint—hut even
supposing them to he worth the
while, which is douhtful, there is no
light to see them hy. Behind the
great rood which crowns the high
altar, is the last work of Michacl
Angelo, a great unfinished Pieta,
which he meant for his own tomh—
hut even around that the light is
faint, the rich email window in the
central chapel of the apse heing half
veiled with a curtain, and the grey
dim atmospheric circle of Vasari's
painted roof having no reflection to
send down upon the group helow. A
very few people are in the church—
• now and then one individual crosses
the marhle pavement, and drops sud-
denly, without noise, on the step of
one of the altars — and a group of
men in white muslin jackets, with
hlack round caps upon their heads,
hang ahout the sacristy door, where
there is a little commotion and put-
ting on of vestments, for it draws
near the hour for vespers. But we
will not wait for vespers—the place
is chill, mysterious, dead, with its
candles twinkling in the dull day-
light, and its single worshippers, like
moths, attracted hy the light. The
sun shines stitf out of dours—hrUk
life, such as it is, moves in the streets.
Provincial life — wonderful exhihi-
tions of fashion, far heyond London
or even Paris — feminine skirts tri-
ply voluminous, feminine faces with
the cars fully revealed for the edifica-
tion of the puhlic, and hounets which
can only he seen from hehind. Sol-
diers, gray - coated and comfortahle,
many of them almost hoys. Heavy
dragoons of five feet-two—gendarme-
rie, with hrigand's hats and cock's
feathers. Then those lounging lads,
of hetter size and looks than the sol-
diers, who form so large a portion of
every crowd in this place, and so
peculiar a one—always with a cloak
over the left shoulder, or their arms
out of their sleeves. In this street
every fifth house is a cafe\ a long strip
of a room with little marhle tahles,
opening direct upon the street, where
people sit in modest dissipation with
a cup of coffee and a glass of water—
or a thimhleful of punch, or a mild
potation of Marsala—hut always the
glass of water. Then coming down
tbrough the narrow streets here, is
once more the Lung' Arno, tbronged
with its afternoon crowd, carriages of
all descriptions hastening past to the
Cascine, the fashionahle drive and
park of Florence, where all the world
goes at this hour. Good speed to all
the world! if other people come here
to see a hit of an imitation of Hyde
Park, or a cut out of the Champs
Elysees, we did no such thing—let
us find our way ahout the town and
lose ourselves among the streets —
those streets withJ their vast palaces,
somhre, gloomy, *nd strong, out of
which the old life and splendour have
departed. Nor is it only the palaces
which are interesting. More pic-
turesque still than that Tuscan para-
pet which projects from the roof-line
of those palazzos, is the irregular line
of less distinguished houses of a dozen
different altitudes, which the sun
loves. Here there is a sudden cut


1859.]
505
A Week in Florence.

down in the deep shadow, letting the
sun in to opposite windows, two and
no more out of twenty. Here an
unexpected elevation, hlotting out
the light from one-half of the house
across the way, and holding even the
gallery on its roof in shadow up to a
certain point, where the sun pours in
with douhle force over the lower level
of the next roof—and so the line goes
dripping and dropping in hursts of
light, and ohlique falls of shadow,
along its irregular and picturesque
course, with a delightful appearance
of caprice and wilfulness. But com-
ing out of the hroad sunshine which
heams over the river, and the hridges,
and the Lung' Arno—you caunot con-
ceive, you chilly grumhling Britishers,
who make endless discomfort out of
your owa honest comprehensihle cli-
mate, how ice-cold and petrifying are
the deep ravines of shadow in these
streets.
Third Day.—I do not promise
that this is tomorrow—hut as I
caunot see how that can make the
slightest difference to you, never
mind, hut understand that it is Thurs-
day, a day which has privileges. It
is Carnival time in Florence, and all
the world is out of its wits. Not in
an imperial overpowering madness,
like Rome at the same period—a
mild imhecility which goes over a
month, wraps the Florentine soul.
Wherever you go to-day there are
groups of maskers, mummers, extra-
ordinary figures in the ahsurdest
dresses, with hideous hlack masks,
or comic '' fause faces," as they used
to he called in Scotland—covering
their proper countenances. There is
no great invention displayed in these
dresses, though some are ridiculous
enough; hut at the present moment
the crowd moves towards the court
of the Uffizi, where, this heing a festa
and great day, the maskers con-
gregate. The Court of the Uffizi is
a long narrow ohlong, with a colon-
nade on each side, opening at one
end into the husiest piazza of the
city, and at the other concluding in
open arches, tbrough which you pass
to an unfrequented end of the Lung'
Arno, close upon the river. On ordi-
nary days this open space, which is
scarcely wider than a street, and very
mnch like one, is frequented hy peri-
patetic stalls of homely merchandise,
coloured cotton handkerchiefs, and
hundles of those checked and dotted
cotton fahrics which even the old
women of England patrosise no
longer; while under the colounades
are stalls and glass-cases of cheap
jewellery, toys, and hooks. All this
is cleared away to-day, and though
there is nothing very wonderful in the
sight, the crowd, half in the sun half
in the shade, with its perpetual change
and motion, diversified as it is hy
groups of maskers, who form perhaps
one-third of the whole assemhly, is a
sufficiently animated and amusing
sight There are a few historical
dresses, on which some care has heen
hestowed ; no end of jesters and har-
lequins, with jingling hells; hrigands
with harmless guns over their shoul-
ders; and mummers, without regard
to character, in loose white cashmere
coats, fantastically ornamented, and
sugar-loaf hats decked with rihhons.
Some dozen of shepherdesses, in white
muslin and tinsel, with little straw
hats stuck on the hack of their heads,
form the feminine element; and a
floating mass of mysterious figures
in hlack dominoes, till up the scene.
Ali are masked after one fashion or
another; half of them, from the lags
of their dress, or the little switches
they carry, keep up a little sound of
hells; and it is the etiquette of the
masquerade to speak in a falsetto
squeak, in which sbrill undistinguish-
ahle tone the disguised assail their
friends on all sides, to the frequent
confusion of the unmasked portion
of the company. This is the fun of
the whole, and it is laughahle enough
for a time; hut, heaven preserve
their wits! think of tbree weeks of
it. The hells and the squeaks and
the occasional rush of a little party
of maskers tbrough the crowd, the
faint laughter and hum of the crowd
itself never rises into excitement.
Yet there they move ahout for hours,
glancing in and out of the light, with
the high walls of the great picture-
gallery enclosing them, and modern
inexpensive statues, white and dull,
looking down from hetween the col-
umns of the colounade. Up yonder
in that gallery are Raphacls, Titians,


1859.]
697
A Week in Florence.

a spiritual presence, that pale, nohle,
visionary sentinel, pure like an angel,
among the darker towers. However
you turn, the dome and the Campa-
nile are the centre of the scene—the
heart of its humanity. And yonder
is the lower dome of San Lorenzo,
where sleep the Medici, with Michacl
Angelo's white guardians watching
their dust; and here the picturesque,
quaint tower of the Palazzo Vecchio,
and yonder another, and yet another
Campanile, with the clear glimmer
of the river, crossed hy hridges and
shadows tbreading tbrough the midst;
and fronts of lofty houses, and up-
ward tbrusts of domestic towers,
and galleries perched upon house-
tops, and golden arrows of sunshine
tailing down tbrough invisihle nar-
row streets, which hreak the mass
as though some fairy power had
cut its mighty shadow tbrough.
Further off the hills heave upwards
to the horizon, olive-hrown against
the sky, with glimmers of white
houses tbrust into every fold and
slope, and dropping down along the
invisible distance of the valley he-
tween Florence and the further
mountains, into dots and spots of
white gleaming out of an uuperceiv-
ahle soil, so that one could fancy one
gazed upon the sea—till the white
ridges to the west, where this valley
of the Arno closes in an invisihle
gorge, limit the horizon with airy
peaks of suow—peaks which may he
a thousand miles away, so magical
is the distance, and so strange the
gleam of those far-off specks of
houses out of the invisihle level and
suuny air helow. The whole scene
is magical and extraordinary: the
solitary slopes of yonder hills in-
vaded and penetrated hy these
human hahitations—the vision of a
lower mount just visihle hetween
two great heads of the range, hear-
ing a grey mass of huilding on its
crest, and hetraying all ahout it, on
every knoll and eminence, the same
white gleams of population, like a
great host encamped, with pickets
on all the hills, rather than the
steady overflow of a great city—he-
trays the gazer into that sudden
surprise of delight which is half a
fancy, and somehow sweeps expe-
rience, thought, fancy, every exer-
vol. lxxxvi. 3
cise of one's own mind, away into
the mere satisfaction of gazing on
something more perfect than thought.
I do not know how other people are
affected; but for my own part I
could no more speculate, sitting
here upon this convent wall, upon
what the people are doing and think-
ing yonder, how they live, and what
they are, than I could fly to the
opposite peak. I have no time for
thinking; the scene ahsorhs me with
an uureasoning silent delight, which
leaves no room for fancy. In sight
of such, thought and imagination
look like mere mechanical instru-
ments, which are no longer needed
when God himself takes that magi-
cal divine pencil, and with the air
and the sunshine, the elements and
the accidents of nature, shows us a
profound and simple perfectness, on
which we can do nothing hut gaze
and satisfy our hearts. It is not an
intellectual pleasure; it is some-
thing which takes words out of our
months, and thoughts out of our
minds, yet rewards us hy the inef-
fahle uureason of something greater
than either thoughts or words,—
"Ona fair landscape some have looked,
And felt, as 1 have heard them say.
As though tho fleeting Time had heen
A thing as steadfast as tho scene
On which they gazed themselves away."
I caunot help thinking, for my
own part, that this kind of contem-
plation—if contemplation it can he
called—is one of the eensations of
heaven.
Now we pass on past this great
convent, a little higher, to San
Miniato, a melancholy mortuary
church, wonderfully perfect and
heautiful, which is gradually heing
made into a hurying-ground. It is
amazing, to ascend tho steps into
the choir and sanctuary, to find the
richest mosaic in the most perfect
condition, and the nohle originality
of the place, which, I think, for un-
injured wealth, has scarcely a rival
in Florence, hut which is gradually
and quietly heing made into a ne-
cropolis, full of dead men's hones.
A profusion of the most splendid
and delicate ornament, rioh, minute
mosaics, and heautiful marhle, re-
main in the utmost perfection on
the pulpit, which is never used, on


598
[Nor.
A Week in Florence.

the railing which no longer divides
the most holy from the holy place,
and even on the pavement helow,
where one stumhles over the votive
wreaths of French sentiment—the
immortelle. i and vases of flowers set
upon the graves. We uphraid our-
selves in England for carelessuess of
our monuments of art; hut there
never was churchwarden of fitly
years ago more harherous than the
sturdy iriars, who make money out
of their church, and displace the
mosaic pavement for gravestones,
and make a desert of the place
which even Time has had the heart
to spare. It is grievous to look at
the frescoes on the walls, at the per-
fection of the huilding, at the golden
light which steals into the desert-
ed sanctuary tbrough windows not
made of glass, hut of transparent
golden sheets of marhle, without a
secret anathema upon the monkish
castoiiers of so fair a p'ace. But
there are special reasons certainly
in Fl irence why people should desire
a shelter for their dead within con-
secrate 1 walls. Here the dreadful
custom of the town is to convey the
dead hy night to a hurying-ground
some miles away, when, unattended,
and undistinguished, the nameless
companions of this gloomy journey
are dropped into a common grave, no
one knowing where they lie. For sani-
tary reason—for the health of the liv-
ing, say the philosophers—and the
poor Italians, let us hope, are suffi-
ciently philosophical to appreciate the
reason; hut it is a horrihle conclusion
certainly -, and it is hard to grudge
even those precious marhles for the
shelter of those who might have no
other alternative than that midnight
jourm-y, with the pit at the end.
And In re vast houquets are visihle,
laid within ono little enclosure, to
wither and rot into vegetahle decay;
and there, a vase of cut flowers, such
as might he placed on a tahle, stands
at the head of' another; and yonder
lie wreaths—of immortelles—of white
artificial flowers, covered with gauze
to protect them; and of laurel leaves,
with rihhons fastened to them, and
votive inscriptions—a strange mil-
linery and frippery of grief—which
shows still more remarkahle in com-
parison with that general indiffer-
ence which can make the common
mode of sepulture possihle. And the
visitors wander ahout reading the
names with a distracted attention,
drawn hy that human curiosity and
wilfulness for which Death has
always a certain strange attraction,
and look with half their eyes at the
place, thinking upon the inhahit-
ants; and outside the sunshine is
warm upon the terrace, and you can
see Florence smiling in the valley,
and look down upon the hrown
strong fortifications of the slope, with
the hullets, as they say, still hedded
in the wall, which have left an iron
siguet of Michacl Angelo upon this
outlying hill. Down helow, the
vines and the olives rise out of the
grass in suuny shelter, and the old
war and the old defences are flouted
hy the sun; and in the town it is
Carnival, and the maskers and un-
masked are alike rushing to the
Corso. Come; we are still io time.
But if ever dnlness made itself a
fitting pastime, I helieve it must
have heen this Corso—two solemn
lines of carriages crossing each other
—solemn people in their hest clothes,
some with haskets full of flowers,
the hest sight of the whole, to he
tbrown into the carriages and laps
of their acquaintance in passing—
now and then a cuclifnl of masks
enlivening the crowd—a few grand
equipages, with liveries ineffahle—
and one American driving ten in
hand, with intent face and awful
gravity, as if the world depended on
the safety and success of his team.
1 saw a little girl at a window wist-
fully looking down upon the heap of
flowers in a carriage helow, and
wondering where the pretty mi>sjlefl
were to he tbrown—for none of that
play was going on at the moment.
"They only tbrow them to their
friends, my dear," said mamma.
'• Then I wish tee were friends to
these people," said the little woman,
with an ingenuous sigh. That naive
and disinterested aspiration was the
most amusing incident of the Corso,
which went rattling along into twi-
light and weariness, till at last the
crowd dispersed, the carriages dis-
appeared, and everyhody Went home
to diuner. Melancholy necessity of
nature! Pereunial and indestructihle


1859.]
A Week in Florence.

val spirits. Then the march of steady
steps falls out of hearing, and the
nonsense hegins again, all very na-
tural, and as it should he; hut why
should it he a mortification of the
flesh, a sorrowful vocation, a work
requiring that dismal disguise, the
sacred merciful duty of helping one's
fellow-men?
Now we are in the Ufftzi—a
long parallelogram—two chilly stony
stretches of corridor forming the two
sides of that court where the mask-
ers congregated, with rooms open-
ing off from them, where again there
are copyists at the finest pictures,
and little groups of English loitering
ahout, the possihle purchasers of the
same. In the principal apartment,
the Trihune, are the "Venus de
Medici," the "Dancing Fawn," L'Ar-
rotino, and other famous figures, sur-
rounded hy many fine pictures of all
the greatest names of art. Venuses
of Titian, Madounas of Raphacl—the
one less nohle, if more lovely than
that great master's superh portraits,
the other tenderly, humanly, purely
heautiful, with often a touch of the
Divine—Andrea del Sarto, Caracci,
Veronese, Guido, Correggio, Domeni-
chino, make up the splendid crowd,
in which there is infinite repetition
and indescrihahle variety, as always
in religious art, when every man's
most notahle endeavour is a Madouna,
and every heart apprehends with a
difference that favourite type of na-
tural piety. Then Fra Angelioo's
tender heads shining fair out of their
golden hackgrounds, that delicate
poet-monk, with his cloistral fancies
and womanish heart! Somehody is
there copying even Angelico, with the
gold ground like to perfection! a
dainty emhellishment for some dainty
High Church oratory where ladies
of Belgravia may confess their fash-
ionahle shortcomings. And here
that picture, the Visitation or Salu-
tation, as people choose to call it—a
woman's picture—which I could par-
don anyhody for hnying as a present
to his young wife. When the old
Elizaheth, with a grave and anxious
joy, gazes into the face of the young
conscious Mary with her downcast
eyes, her awe, her wonder, her mys-
terious humility of self-regard, the
almost mother—St. Elizaheth and
the hlessed Virgin are hut names—
the human sentiment is of to-day,
and of all times—as long as mothers
and daughters, and those tender and
wonderful vicissitudes of female life,
remain in the world.
And ahsolutely, I helieve, one can
hetter hear to see a secondary picture
in the hands of a copyist, than one
of first class—there is less profana-
tion and less harm done. Look
here, hy this window is the corridor,
where a little manufactory goes on
quietly, under cover of a superh
Venetian nohle, whose face has grown
immortal tbrough Titian's hand—
here is a quiet old man, painting
diligently—elahorate little copies in
enamel, of which he has, a dozen
various specimens on his tahle—
miniatures of virgins and saints, of
old heroes and painters, and medi-
aeval nohles like this which is hefore
him. This humhle artist is quick to
hear the steps that approach his
chair. You perceive hy their shape
that they are meant for hrooches,
these tiny pictures—and perhaps he
would he glad to he accosted and
dispose of his delicate merchandise;
—hut think of our national gallery,
our royal collection of pictures made
accessihle after this fashion!—think
of the new Paul Veronese moved out
to the light hecause somehody wanted
to make a sketch of it, or carried off
hodily to a window! Imagine the
Queen and the Royal Academy open-
ing their treasures all day long and
every day, providing stages and ac-
commodations for us, and giving us
the tenderest permission to set up our
easels where we will! However, let
us be thankful—there is compensa-
tion in everything- Where Art is
most cherished and fostered in these
days—where ,iArt has the greatest
heritage, the most splendid associa-
tions, the eompletest pedigree—where
everything ought to contrihute to a
fuller and more superh development
of her powers than the world has yet
seen, and nothing is against her—
there, with no north wind of dis-
couragement to rouse her spirit, nor
Tramontana to quicken the hlood in
her veins, hut only puffs of lukewarm
air, and the calm of a perfect Past
around, Art, perverse and contra-
dictory, like every human principle,
does not flourish, hut dies.
Coming out into the sunshine to


A Week in Florence.
[Nov.

the Piazza at our right hand, here
is Michacl Angelo's hig David side
hy side with a giant Hercules at the
door of the Palazzo Vecchio, that
picturesque tower and nohle mass of
huilding towering up ahove them,
and a row of little soldiers sitting on
a hench enjoying the nir helow. A
little further on a still higger giant,
a monster Neptune, with prodigious
nymphs and imps around him, pre-
sides over a noisy congregation of
waiting carozze, which it would he
prosaic to call a cahstand. Across
the way is the post-office, with a
little crowd at each window; and
here in the square are groups of men
standing together talking as in an
exchange, though these interlocutors
are not of the class generally to
he seen in such places. I caunot un-
dertake to tell you what hrings them
there, or what they talk ahout, hut
they are picturesque enough to look
at—sunhurnt, rustical, middle-aged
Italians, more dangerous fellows
than the youths who tbrong in the
streets—their coats still and always
hanging from their shoulders with
vacant sleeves, coats with hoods,
tasselled and ornamented, coarse
hrown cloth worn and dirty, with
silken emhroideries of green or hlue,
showing the grandeur which has
heen. Among these strong vigorous
savage faces—hravo heads, reckless
and villanous, stealthy heads, down-
looking and sinister—visionary faces,
with hlue eyes, which tbrow a chill
upon the olive complexion and
tangled masses of hlack hair, hut
these unfrequent and few—alto-
gether a savage primitive physiog-
nomy, faces which somewhat helie
the simple good-nature of the young
Florentine countenance which, idle,
gossiping, and pleasure-loving, moves
ahout among them, as it moves any-
where, humming airs from the opera,
and lounging along with well-devel-
oped youthful limhs, which ought
'to he fit for nohler exercise. A cer-
tain hum and hustle as of husiness
is in the Piazza—husiness 1—idea
worthy only of an insular under-
standing!—in this place which, hy-
and-hy, is to acknowledge the dust
and carriage-wheels of the Corso!—
But always strange, always remark-
ahle, is the contrast hetween the
place and the people. Is Art a re-
fining, an elevating influence?—is it
good for a country that there have
heen great minds, and a flush of
genins at one period of her history?
—for it is impossihle not to perceive
that the character, and so much of
good as there is in these faces, is
savage, uncivilised, uurefined.
Fifth Day.—Like every other
ancient town, Florence was once
greatly less extensive than now; and
the natural consequence is that
churches and important huildings
crowd together, drawing as near as
possihle, though in many oases still
without the circuit of the jealous old
wall, to the little heart of the ancient
city. Two successive circles of wall
have hurst, as too narrow for the
swelling life within; hut still the
congregation of churches and puhlic
places in the vicinity of the Duomo
and the Palazzo Vecchio show the
former state of things. One of the
most important of these is the Santa
Croce; and one of the gayest and
most perfectly adorned, the Santis-
siiiia Atmunziata, which are the two
we shall select for examples of the
churches of Florence.
The Santa Croce outside is like
the unhappy facade of the Cathe-
dral; it is hare, hrown, unsightly
plaster, marked with the courses of
hrick or small stones of which it is
huilt, hetraying exactly how careless
its huilders were of any other finish
than the marhles which were intend-
ed at once to adorn and to conceal
all; these marhles which have never
yet come out of the hard heart and
narrow hands of Time. There is not
a hricklayer in England who would
not feel himself eternally disgraced
hy leaving his work in such a con-
dition; hut it is sufficiently illustra-
tive of the local character, that no
idea of the " neat," smooth, and per-
fect conclusion to which work of
every kind, however humhle, must
he hrought with us, has ever entered
the popular understanding here. The
church was meant to he splendid,
and left in its present condition only
till its marhle outer vesture should
he placed upon it; hut marhles he-
ing long ago hopeless for the Santa
Croce, it does not enter into any-
hody's mind to try any homelier suh-


1859.]
60S
A Week in Florence.

stitute, and the original nakedness
standi hnnestly hut not very plea-
santly disclosed. Here, however, the
common contrast of exterior heauty
with deformity within is elahorately
reversed. Within, everything is rich,
splendid, perfect, and jealously cared
for. The church is of the peculiar
form of a T cross, consisting of a
nave and two transepts only; al-
most the entire pavement of the
transepts and a great part of the
nave consists of incised tomhstones
won lerfully rich and perfect, and a
line of little chapels sunk like cells in
the wall runs along the entire east end
of the church. Each of these is the
mortuary chapel of a nohle family;
many have dark altarpieces hlocking
up half the little window, and shut-
ting out the light; hut notwithstand-
ing frescoes are on all the walls, and
everywhere artist-skill, and some-
times genins, has given itself to the
work of decoration with a magua-
nimous indifference, as it seems, whe-
ther its lahours could he seen or
not. On one side of the high altar
are works of Giotto—look at the
place — a little ohlong cell, some
eight or nine feet wide, with a little
window in the wall, raised hy the
height of two or tbree marhle steps
from the area of the church, and de-
riving no light from that, as indeed
there is no more there than is ur-
gently required; an altar-tahle on
another step, with its tawdry deco-
rations and little hlack picture set
in a triangular framework, which
hlocks up all hut the top of the
window; and on the walls, for any
one who can see them, the frescoes
of Giotto 1 What possihle good can
he derived from that ridiculous tri-
angle stuck into the light I caunot
tell; hut there it smirks and glit-
ters with its contemptihle little gilt
diaper, sadly trying to any one's pa-
tience who cares the least for what
he has come to see. After all, it is
only St. Francis whose life, or rather
death, is pictured on these walls; hut
when the day is suuny St. Francis
looks out from his deathhed with such
a cluster of saintly thoughtful faces
round him that the very glimpse
aggravates the spectator: and yet
I suppose Giotto must have known
all the time that his work would
gleam there for hundreds of years in
that imperfect light, llliil without
fuming over it, as I think a Royal
Academician might he pardoned for
doing, only painted it most likely
without saying a word for the glory
of God. In our days, in Puseyite
memorial inscriptions, one is tempted
to think these words rather profane.
But they were not profane in the days
of Giotto when the sentiment was
real, and when the offering of one's
hest seemed still admissihle, and the
metaphysical question whether one's
hest, or anything sprung of human
skill and human art, was a fit offer-
ing to God, had never come into
anyhody's mind. It is possihle—I
will not say such questions are out
of our range—hut it is just possihle
that this half-visihle picture on the
wall was like Mary's ointment, an
offering as acceptahle as if it had
heen sold for so much and given to
the poor.
Throughout this entire range of
chapels the same circumstances
lioll. All are not Giotto's certainly,
though a large proportion of the
partially or wholly destroyed adorn-
ments of these walls are attrihuted
to him; hut the greater proportion
are equally indistinct, withdrawn
into those narrow and gloomy al-
coves where there is little provision
for light, and what little there is is
ohscured and interrupted. But the
arrangement of the chinch throws
no little light on the life of the time
which produced it. In the deep
arms of the transepts are other
chapels, all euriched to the utmost
extent of their space with pictures,
with marhles, with rich fresco and
sculpture, costly evidences of the
wealth and emulation of the old
putrician families of Florence, whose
names one can tell off as on a splen-
did headroll as one reckons up this
line of chapels, dim, rich, and mag-
nificent, which, though modern ne-
glect and emhellishment have united
to dehase them, the hest art of the
time lahoured to adorn.
In the lower end of the church,
great men's monuments alternate
with the *ltars—the old Medicean
philosophers exchange stony glances
with Michacl Angelo; and Alfieri's
graceful memorial, the pale and ten-


604
[Nov.
A Week in Florence.

der modern offering of modern art,
stands hy the pompous monument of
Dante. But in spite of these great
names, there is an interest more
characteristic in the family chapels,
which range in lines on either side of
the high altar—and where the living
Palazzo Borghese out of doors has
its calm and cold representative, its
other family dwelling, in the Capella
Borghese here. But do not suppose
you have seen all, in seeing the
church itself. Here out of the church
is a large lofty square apartment,
with oaken presses, fitted along the
walls—ahove them pictures on one
side—frescoes on another, and at the
upper end, a little chapel divided
from the room hy an ornamental iron
screen. There is a wooden frame in
the middle of the apartment, on which
hangs a priestly vestment, white and
yellow. This is the sacristy, where
once the very doors of those priestly
wardrohes were rich with Giotto's
pictures, and still the place is lumin-
ous with works and names that will
never die—Cimahue, Giotto, the two
Gaddei—and only a sacristy, where
the holy father vests himself in mild
self-complacency under the solemn
shadow of that grey ancient pictured
cross—Cimahue's cross, the austere
symhol of that art, which was still
new to her implements, which had
all her future splendours in her heart
hut not in her fingers—and still had
scarcely found the secret of heauty
out.
Without these walls are cloisters
enclosing a square quadrangle almost
lull of the dead—the dead whose
resting-places are distinguished hy
lines of white marhle let in in check-
work to the stone, with minute in-
scriptions of names, as close as
though those lines meant nothing
hut a pattern—a melancholy crowd-
ing which chills one's heart. This
occupation, it is evident, has heen
stopped ere it was completed; yet
the very crowd hetrays the natural
sbrinking from a common sepulture,
and the natural last desire of person-
ality for an individual grave.
Let as make haste; we have al-
most filli d our space. Mow to the
Santissirna Aununziata, to all the
splendours of gilding and ecclesias-
tical finery, new crimson hangings
and fringes of gold. The Aununziata
occupies one end of a little piazza,
which carries a pretty loggia on
either side of it, and is dainty and
pleasant to look upon. A side-door
admits you into a cloister, where
the wall to the height of your head
is covered with stones and inscrip-
tions, memorials of the dead who lie
helow. A quaint, cool, quiet square,
with its low arches and calm enclos-
ure, where a hrown monk, leisurely
wandering on the other side, with
his heavy woollen frock and cape
and hood, his cord, and his hurly
presence, looks harmonious and in
keeping. Perhaps he is only think-
ing of his diuner or some con-
vent intrigue; hut it might lie me-
ditation tender and solemn which
muses in such a place. In the day-
light and open air a sweet hand
of colour shines round these walls,
glimmering away yonder into the
gentle shade too far off to he distin-
guishahle, and hrightening here into
groups which have more than colour
—into saintly incidents which have
taken form and shape from the
hand of Andrea del Sarto — into
monastic miracles, the fahulous in-
cidents of which take grace and dig-
nity from the touch of genins, and
glow over the cold marhle stones of
rememhrance with a sweet life and
warmth, which it comforts the spec-
tator to see. The cloister is not so
nohle, not so maguificen as those
lofty cloisters of the north, which
still exist in such majestic grace in
our own land; hut it is more familiar,
more inhahitahle, with a depth of
shade under its low arches which
summer will make deeply grateful,
and a quaint comfort and u*e un-
known to us,—while perhaps our
damp and stony splendour would
have done anything hut preserve
those sweet faces on the wall. Com-
ing upon them thus hy surprise, the
eti'ect is wonderfully enlivening and
delightful. The place looks an in-
hahited place. The cloister warms
and hrightens towards us, as with
human smiles; and an impression of
munificence, of free, lavish, open-
handed liherality, which scarcely
anything else can give, flows forth
into the daylight from those open
walls, with their out-of-doors free-


1859.]
605
A Week in Florence.

dom and tranquil exposure to the
airs of heaven. Here are the popular
legends, which of old were the favour-
ite lore of the people, emliellishing
the convent cloister with its open
gates; no print nor copy, nor tran-'
scription in them, fresh from the
great painter's hand,—and one can-
not help hut feel how full and over-
flowing was the life and wealth which
thus hrimmed over, and heyond the
shelter of sacred roofs and palaces
gave forth its inspiration freely to
the open air and the church-going
crowd.
For hy this passage we reach the
church, and stand amazed in the
warmth and hrightness of that ornate
and cheerful place. The nave of the
Aununziata is like a splendid salon,
with little chamhers opening from it
on each side, white arches flowered
and gilded, like little houdoirs or
drawing-rooms, if we may venture to
carry out the profane simile—and
indeed it would he anything hut sur-
prising to see a pretty mirror and
toilette instead of one of those altar-
tahles, which, to tell the truth, are
not much unlike. In the western
end, near the door, is a gilded cage
of tahernacle work, adorned with
symholical ornament'', one of the
principal of which is the pot of lilies
—the flsur de Marie—which holds
a prescriptive place in pictures of the
Aununciation—and in the chapel
close hy is preserved a mysterious
fresco of that event painted hy An-
gelo, and of miraculous power. The
nave opens into a rounded choir, rich
with marhles and gilding, with won-
derful silver-work adorning the high
altar, and another succession of
chapels in the wall—chapels opening
each with a lofty rounded arch into
the fine semicircle—hung like so
many withdrawing-rooms with crim-
son drapery, heavily fringed with
gilded knohs or tassels. Within
there is little more than twilight in
these alcoves, where still frescoes and
pictures of note are to he perceived
dimly; hut in the hody of the church
all is hright and suuny, and the
general impression, if not very solemn,
is cheerful and luxurious to a high
extent. On either side, passages,
penetrating tbrough the lino of the
side-chapels, increase the domestic
appearance so completely that it re-
quires the distant prospect of a
priestly hack in white and gold,
howing over a decorated altar with
mysterious genuflexions, unknown in
ordinary life, to undeceive the spec-
tator. But the splendour of the
church, if nothing else, would show
with sufficient clearness the popularity
of the Aununziata, where worship-
pers surround the little oratory, and
kneel in all the chapels, and which
is more frequented, as it appears, to
judge from the experience of this day,
than any of the other churches in
Florence. We leave the sacred pre-
cincts on tiptoe, whispering under
our hreath. To he sure it is very
shocking to walk ahout or talk when
people are at prayers, and service is
proceeding; hut if we are never to
disturh a chance worshipper—if we
are to keep religiously apart, lest
yonder excellent and pious personage
who follows us with her eyes, and
turns round her head to watch us,
should he disturhed in her devotions,
I fear there will he little sight-seeing
possihle; for somehody is always
discharging his or her religious duties
at some altar, and that meritorious
exercise goes on all the same, with
moving lips and dropped heads, whe-
ther our friend watches our stealthy
passage, or only occupies herself with
the fringe of the altar-cloth—there
is not much difference after all.
I did not hegin with the intention
of descrihing pictures or special works
of art—one who sets out to do any
such thing in Florence must take
months to see, and volumes to con-
tain his journal—hut only a flying
sketch as to what the Florentine
churches are like in general, without
details. They oontain mines of inter-
esting matter for investigators, hut
for us a nohle pomp, a picturesque
appearance, and many a silent sug-
gestion of how things were in that
age, so grand, so distant, so exuher-
ant, which has writ its social economy,
its family ostentation, its pride, its
genins, and its greatness upon these
enduring tahlets, as it was fit a great
ago should write them—leaving to
its descendants a glorious legacy of
tomhs and altars, a suit of state too
hig for them, which show how life
has sbrunk out of its splendid pro-


608
[Not.
A Week in Florence.

portions, and things are no longer as
they were—and to us a spectacle of
life indestructible, an energy which
caunot die.
Sixth Day.—This day let us go the
way of all the world.
Look tbrough the opening in those
lofty houses, how that Apeunine
heaves his mighty slopes into the
air, where the >un shines in defiance
of those hig clouds rolling and gather-
ing and dispersing in mountainous
vicissitude upon the sky. The cloud
over that hill, mingling its gloom in
some indescrihahle way with the un-
discouraged sun, shines darkly, if one
may he permitted the expression,
with the most wonderful, dewy, rainy,
acrial effect, over the vast shoulders
of that hig potentate, conveying to us
low down in the plain a conception of
atmosphere and distance maguificent-
ly wide and far—precise yet immeasur-
ahle—>omething to he painted or ima-
gined, hut which defies words. The
day is mild and soft, with a freshness
in the air which tbreatens rain—a de-
licious dewy spring atmosphere, the
tbreat expanding itself over us, hut
never coming to extremities—letting
a score of hright drops escape now
and then hy a side wind, hut hurting
nothing, not even a lady's hounet.
Bounets are a serious consideration
at the Cascine. Along the level suuny
road, where the tall trees tbrust hare
hranches over our heads, and tbrow
long shadows on the meadow, we
make our way, as do the mountains
down the valley, as does the river to
the sea. Everything is westward;
the hills closing in towards the Gon-
folina gorge, the Arno to the Medi-
terranean, the sun to his setting, and
the tender declining light slants in
golden glints over the level grass,
and over the solitary houses, each
with its square tower, which stand
here and there alone hetween the
mountains and the trees. A long
level road, with stretches of green
grass on either hand, and the grey
Apeunines close in sight, and the
Florentine carriages hastening along
without much note of the way to
something hidden here in the further
trees. What is it? A square of good
extent hut no ornament, with straight
avenues diverging into it on all sides,
and with almost a glimpse of the
river and the suuny promenade ex-
tending along its hank, where iadtad
the company can walk if they are
so minded. Bat the company in
general are not of that mind. The
ladies sit in their carriages, the
gentlemen get out and circulate
from one party to another, carry-
ing a common currenoy of gossip
and compliment tbrough the crowd.
There stand the horses, and there sit
the ladies with the most admirahle
patience, looking at nothing, listen-
ing to nothing, unless it he the
rival toilettes ahout them in the
one case, and the talk of the wan-
dering cavaliers in the other, till
the orthodox time is accomplished,
when the crowd suddenly hreaks up,
and carriages return with the steadi-
ness of a procession along the same
level road. What odd spectacles
fashion and pleasure make when they
lay their heads together 1 I do not
see the fun of sitting for an hour
among a crowd of carriages. Come
this way—never mind the fashion of
Florence—come hack again hy this
river rond which hasks and hurns in
the sunshine. It is still only March,
it is not too warm. Yonder, look at
the white houses dwelling hy the
river—at the low hills towards the
south—Bellosguardo and that gentle
cluster of luxuriant slopes! And
now as Florence comes fully in sight,
look at those domes and towers, ris-
ing in a wonderful full olive against
the sky and the sunshine, through
the air, full of hright reflections
which mask those silent sentinels
with a colour not their own.
And again it is night—not the
mysterious night of an unknown
city, wrapt in fog and darkness—
a glorious shining night of Italy,
mooned and starry, with a flood of
light upon the heavens, hut darkness
deep and solemn in the narrow
streets. Looking out from this high
window, the darkness no longer veils
to us an undiscovered country. The
hum and whisper of the town rises
already half familiar and with a
friendly tone, and one no longer
dreams, hut rememhers. Now the
congenial moonlight will wake with
lyric musical touches, as one falls
into a sweet confusion of all the arts
to express that magical heauty—the


1859.]
807
A Week in Flortnu.

silvery marhles of the Dnoino, the
tender glory of the Painter's Tower.
Arno glistens under all its hridges.
White, in a misty veil of light, rise
the wakeful Apeunines, listening to
every chime of hells and sentinel
shout of passing hours, the "All's-
well" of the night from tower and
Campanile, tall guardians of the city;
and peace and rest are in the air,
white with the saintly henedictions
of stars and moon.
But dark as midnight or mid-win-
ter—hlack in profoundest contrast
with the moonlight, lying in such a
depth of shadow as only that neigh-
horu hrightness could expose, lies far
helow us the pavement of this narrow
lofty street. What is that measured
cadence sounding upward tbrough
this gulf of air and darkness—that
gleam of moving lights, wild and
variahle, hlazing tbrough the gloom;
that tramp of footsteps? Look down
where they pass helow, the few pas-
sengers scarcely pausing to look after
them, they themselves pausing for
nothing, marching to the measure of
their chant, not slow though solemn
—no voice of individual grief, hut a
calm impersonal lamentation, a lofty
melancholy utteranoe upon the com-
mon fate of humanity. White figures
in the dress of a fraternity, with two
or tbree wild torches tbrowing light
upon their way, and upon that dark
weight they carry shoulder-high and
motionless—answering to each other
with ohant and response of deep
voices, carrying their dead. Nay, not
their dead—it has ceased to helong
to any one, that silent hurden. Love
has not a tone in that dirge—grief is
not there — it is the voice of the
Church, solemnly commenting upon
the universal fate—calling the world
to witness that all must die—and
cold, cold, solitary, loveless, the for-
lorn dead in the midst of them goes
to he huried out of sight. Do yon
say it is nothing to him, and he does
not feel it? Heaven knows! hut
that picturesque group, with their
chant and their torches, carry a chill
to one's heart.
And saddened hy such sounds, the
night falls over Florence—and Time
and the hours chant from those match-
less Campaniles the same solemn con-
clusion into the moonlight, to the
wakeful hills and stars that do not
die. But grief is not in the ineffahle
calm of heaven: and there is no grief
in those wonderful works of art,
calmly hearing witness in their silent
permanence to generations dead and
past. Proclaim it from your towers,
great city, hathing in the silence with
the listening hills and skies 1—yet
there is another hurden chiming into
human ears from all your sbrines and
altars, eloquent with their loves and
lahours who are no longer here—a
deeper truth, and dearer than that
hurden of change and death—that it
is here, as everywhere, the dead who
are living—and it is only the living
who die!


The Idylls of the Sing.
[Nov.
THE InTLM OF TIIE KINO.

The final fortunes of Arthur and
of Charlemague, as heroes of song,
have heen very different. Of course,
we do not mean to compare their
actnal exploits. The Laws of Charle-
mague may still he read. His great
achievements form the suhject of
well-ascertained and undouhted his-
tory, and have left their traces on
the present state of modern Europe;
while the shadowy exploits of the
British king, at hest, only retarded
the Saxon conquest of Britain for a
few years, and are so wholly with-
out any hislorictd confirmation, that
many antiquarians have heen led to
douht whether the traditions which
relate to him have any solid founda-
tion of facts to rest on at all. Yet
the silence of the Venerahle Bede,
and other Saxon cbroniclers, should
hardly outweigh the testimony of
so widespread a tradition; for
wherever the defeated British trihes
retired for safety from their Saxon
foe, whether to the sheltering rocks
of Cornwall, or fastnesses among
the Cumhrian hills, thither they
carried with them the name of their
famous chieftain, and there they have
left it indelihly imprinted: so that
northern hallads tell us of Arthur
holding his court at " merrie Carleile,"
and hy the hanks (oh, most uupoeti-
cal name! ) of "Tearue Wadling;"
and the Westmoreland yeoman
readily points out to the inquiring
archaeologist King Arthur's Round
Tahle—a mound near the fair river
Eamotit, some miles on its downward
course, after it has left the loveliest
of those lakes, one of which gave his
surname to Arthur's great knight
Lancelot ta favourite Cbristian name
still in Westmoreland, we may re-
mark en pasnant). So too in Corn-
wall many a mound and cairn hears
Arthur's name; and stern Tintagel,
the wave-heaten ruin on the rocky
Cornish coast, is pointed out to the
traveller as having heen the fortress
of the mighty British king.
Unlike, however, as are the Arthur
and the Charlemague of history—
the one the last support, and the
ohject of the fond regrets of a
conquered race; the other the proud
leader of the victorious Franks, the
fragments of whose empire are now
great kingdoms, and whose success
the amhition of modern times has
emulated, hut failed to equal—they
have yet occupied very similar posi-
tions as favourite suhjects of song
and legend. The court - minstrels
of Charlemague (repeating the lays
which had come across the Chaunel
into kindred Bretague) douhtless
sang to him of Arthur and the
knights of his Round Tahle, as the
hrave Taillefer sang of Roland and of
Charlemague to Norman William at
the hattle of Hastings; and the Pro-
vencal Trouhadours appear to have
made the names of Arthur's knights
as familiar as those of Charlemague,
to the mind of the great father of
modern literature, Dante. But when
the minstrel's tuneful notes were
hushed—in Provence first hy Dominic
and his harsh hrother-inquisitors,
and afterwards tbroughout Europe
hy the revival of aneient learning,
and the altered taste which was its
consequence—Arthur was gradually
lost sight of, while Charlemague
shone with greatly-increased splen-
dour. The great Italian poets sang
of the iron-crowned protector of their
Pope. The fahulous exploits of hii
nephew Roland, the equally fahulous
siege of Paris hy the Saracens, and the
victories of Charlemague over their
countless hosts, live for ever incor-
porated into modern literature hy
the rich fancy, the inexhaustihle in-
vention, which sparkles in the magic
pago of Ariosto. But Arthur was
left to the hallad and the prose
romance. No great poet made him
the hero of a lay that shall last for
over. He forms the suhject of no
poem that has lifted, either English
or foreigu; for Spenser's unique
Allegory (that mighty work of the
imagination, that product of a nohle
Idyll* of the King. By A. Tknkvson, D.C.L., Poet Laureate.
E. Moxou ,t Co., Dover Street.
London:


1859.]
609
The Idylls of the King.

age, rich in faith and loyalty) con-
tains, as we shall have occasion to
remark heivafter, the name, and the
name only, of the ancient British
chieftain. Shakespeare and Milton
do hut mention him. The eighteenth
century was unfavourahle to works
of the imagination, and only re-
memhered Arthur in one or two
hallads preserved in Percy's collec-
tion. Some fifty years ago, in his
introduction to the first canto of
"Marmion," Sir Walter Scott alluded
to the forgotten legends, with which
his diligent antiquariauism had made
him familiar, and seemed, as he wrote
his tales of the olden time, to cast a
longing glance at those still older
stories, which it had stirred the
hearts of his own heroes and heroines
to listen to:—
**As when the Champion of the Lake
Enters Morgana's fated house,
Or in the Chapel Perilous
Pesntstsg spells and demons' force,
Holds converse with the unhuried corse;
Or when. Dame Ganore'a Grace to move
(Alas, that lawless was their love !)
He sought proud Tarquin in his den,
And freed full sixty knights; or when,
A sinful man, and unconfess'd.
He took the Sangreal's holy quest,
And. slumhering, saw the vision high,
He might not viow with waking eye."
Ho reminds us how such legends
"Gleam tbrough Spenser's elfin dream.
And mii in Miltnn'.s heavenly theme;"
and he mourns that the one poet,
who had arisen since then, fit, in his
judgment, to sing of Arthur, had
missed his high destiny:—
'" And Drrden, in immortal strain,
Had raised the Tahle Kound again.
But that a rihald king and court
Bade him toil on to make them sport;
The world defranded of the high design.
Profaned tho God-given strength, and marr'd
the lofty line.
Whether these regrets of the north-
ern minstrel first directed Mr. Teuny-
son's attention to the rich mine,
ready to yield its untouched treasures
to his hand, we caunot say. Certain
it is, that he early sought suhjects for
his poems from among the legends of
Arthur. "The Lady of Shalott" first
showed the direction his thoughts
were taking. Ten years after fol-
lowed two of his finest poems—
"Morte d'Arthur," and " Sir Galahad."
Next he sought inspiration from
other sources, and, in the judgment
of most, with inferior success. (We
of course allude to the "Princess,"
and to "Maud;" not to the magui-
ficeut sorrow of "In Meinoriam.'")
And now, for the last two or tbroe
years, we have hailed with pleasure
the report of a new poem from his
pen, which promises to supply a
statue for this long-vacant niche in
our literature. We rejuiced to hear
that the Laureate was again at work,
that ho had returned to the attach-
ments of his youth, and that his
suhject was once again Arthur—
"mythic Uther's son." Presently
the name of the fortheoming hook
reached us, The Idylls of the King,
and, we must own, somewhat dis-
turhed our ideas. An Idyll is, to
the common understanding, the name
of a Pastoral, not of a tale of kings
and warriors; and, to say the truth, in
our mind Idylls are chiefly associated
with some tedious trash hy Gessuer,
which darkened our early initia-
tion into Germanic literature; and
perhaps also with let hergeries of
Floriau—insipid productions, which
tto the hest of our helief) the crino-
line of the present day is far from
regarding with the same favour as
did the hehooped helles of the days
of Louis Quinze. For one thing, too,
the title prepared us. We were not
to expect a long poem, presenting
Arthur and his exploits as a whole.
"Morte d'Arthur," that exquisite
fragment, was to remain a fragment
still 1—a fragment of an unfinished
epic, which is never to he completed!
At last, after a long delay, we re-
ceived the eagerly-desired volume.
We opened it with mingled hope and
fear; we read it with mixed feelings,
at first of disappointment, hut af-
terwards of greasy-preponderating
pleasure; and we now proceed to lay
some account of it hefore our readers.
It consists of four poems of unequal
lengths, each of which hears a lady's
name. (The Laureate's devotion to
the fair sex evidently glows with un-
ahated ardour, since the days when
he sang "Isahel," "Clarihel," &o,
with more zeal than success.) Each
poem rehearses the adventures of


610
[Nov.
The IdylU nf the King.

some heroine of the days of King
Arthur ;/and the fourth and last con-
tains those of the greatest and love-
liest, though, alas 1 not the hest lady
of the time-fof the "Gnenever, that
hride so hright of hlee" of our old
hallads. Thus the feminine element
predominates decidedly in the work.
Arthur, Lancelot, and Merlin—the
king, the warrior, aud the sage of
the poem—are represented to us, not
so much in council or in action as in
their dealings with, and in the effect
they produce on, Guinevere, Elaine,
and Vivien. In this wise we see
more of the sage's folly than of his
wisdom, of the warrior's weakness
than of his strength. The three first
poems read like tbree long episodes,
detached from a grand epio Arthur,
which is not fortheoming. The
fourth gives us a heautiful hut still
domestic scene, from near its con-
clusion. Those who are unacquainted
with Teunyson's earlier writings,
must feel, as they finish Guinevere,
that the end is wanting; whilst the
majority of readers will hasten to
refresh their recollection of "Morte
d'Arthur" as its true conclusion:
which exquisite poem, we here heg
to suggest, should he printed as the
fifth in the second edition of "The
Idylls," for the henefit of our child-
ren.
The slender tbread which counects
the four poems is furnished hy Gui-
nevere. The first rumours of her
grievous fall drive the gentle Enid
into seclusion, and emholden Vivien
in her wrong-doing; Lancelot's heart
is closed hy her against Elaine's pure
affection, aud her penitence forms
the suhject of the fourth poem. Of
Arthur we hear little till the end.
We are told in very heautiful lan-
guage of his lahours, as an earlier
Churlemngue, to draw fast the slack-
ening honds of law and order, to
uphold the faith of Cbrist and
the honour of Britain against the
heathen invader, and to revive and
uphold every knightly grace and
courtesy hy the institution of his
chivalric Round Tahle; hut almost
all his share in the action of the poem
is confined to the last grand scene,
where he rehukes and pardons his
guilty wife, and then leaves her for
that hattle-field to which he looks
forward with dim forehodings, where
all his yet faithful knights are to
fall hut one, and whence the "dusky
harge" and its mystic crew are to
hear him, whither no man knoweth
even until this day. Lancelot is the
hero of the third poem. Tristram,
Perceval, and Gallahad, are only
named. How gladly would we have
heard more of the latter—that knight
lani peur hecause tans reprocht,
who is one of the fairest creations of
Teunyson's earlier muse; whose quest
of that Sangreal (from the search for
which the valorous Lancelot was
excluded hy his sin) has hecome in
our poet's hands a nohle type of true
Cbristian chivalry—of that work of
heaven on earth which only pure
hearts can love, only clean hands
can do I
For the non-appearance of these
famous knights we are hy no means
consoled hy a new acquaintance—
Geraint, trihutary prince of Devon,
whose adventures fill the first poem.
Its story is somewhat ill-constructed,
and decidedly hetter in execution
than in desigu. It is hriefly this:—
Queen Guinevere and her attendant
maiden are insulted hy a nameless
knight on their way to join Arthur
hunting. Geraint vows to avenge
the insult, aud follows the discourt-
eous knight to a small town, near
which he dwells in a splendid new
castle. The town is full of hustling
preparations for a tournament on
the morrow; and Geraint, whose
haste has hrought him on his chase
unarmed, is glad to seek shelter for
the night at the ruined castle of Earl
Yniol, on the other side of the town,
which is thus prettily descrihed :—
"Here stood a shattered archway, plumed with
fern;
And here had fall'n a great part of a tower,
Whole, like a crag that tumhles from the
ilia;
And like a crag was gay with wilding flowers:
And high ahove a piece of turret stair.
Worn hy the feet that now were etitnt, wound
Bare to the sun, and monstrous ivy-stems
Claspt the grey walls with hairy-fihred anna.
And suck'd tho joining of the atones, and
look'd
A knot, heneath, of suakes, aloft, a grove."
Yniol, the venerahle owner of this


1859.]
611
The Idylls of the King.

dilapidated mansion, has the misfor-
tune to he the uncle of the knight
whose insolence Geraint longs to
punUh, and to have given him mor-
tal offence hy refusing him the hand
of his only daughter Enid. The dis-
courteous Edyrn has avenged his
uncle's refusal hy provoking a revolt
among his retainers, dispossessing
him of his earldom, and keeping
him with his wife and daughter, in
the ruined castle where Geraint finds
them. For the last two years Edyrn
has proclaimed jousts in honour of a
lady whom he has tnken as his love,
to spite Enid, to which no man is
admitted unless his lady-love he pre-
sent; and each year won for her the
prize, a golden sparrow-hawk. The
third joust is fixed for the morrow of
Geraint'e arrival, who, learning this
from hie host, straightway horrows
from him his rusty arms, adopts the
gentle Enid as his lady hetrothed and
wife; avenges her deep wrong, at
the same time as the Queen's lighter
one, hy the overtbrow of the proud
Edyrn, and makes him restore his
earldom to his injured kinsman, and
go to do penance at King Arthur's
court, where his reformed life hears
"pleasing testimony," as the good
hooks have it, to the efficacy of Ge-
raint's rough method of cure. Geraint
prepares to take his fair hetrothed
to Cacrleon-upon-Usk, that the
grateful Guinevere may, according
to her promise, clothe her champion's
hride in fitting attire for the nuptials.
And here we are treated to an amount
of millinery against which not all our
reverence for Teunyson's genins shall
stay us from protesting. Even sup-
posing that the "faded silk" in which
Enid accompanies Geraint hy his
desire, and which she, unluckily for
herself, puts hy reverently in a "ce-
darn cahinet" instead of giving it to
her waiting-maid, as most ladies of
the present day would do, when it
had served its purpose,—even sup-
posing, we say, that the "faded" ar-
ticle of dress in question is introduced
with a high moral purpose—even
that of inducing the wives of Eng-
land generally, and more especially
the wives of English poets, to he con-
tent with plain attire—though we
should he grateful to the Laureate
for his good intentions, and earnestly
wish him success, as the dismal vision
of our Christmas hills rises hefore
our prophetic gaze—yet we caunot
hut feel that if such appeals in verse
could do the husiness, we hate good
Dr. Watts' already, more easilv re-
memhered and mo're distinctly effect-
ing the conscience 1 So, returning
to the aesthetic view of the matter,
we would humhly heg the Laureate
for the future to tell us more of the
maiden and less of her clothes—more
of the wedding, if he will, and less
of the troussean. Nay, might we
venture to whisper to him that lines
like these will defeat his own pur-
pose, where he sums up "the whole
duty of a hushand" thus:—
"To compass her with sweet ohservances,
To drtss her heautifully (!), and keep her
true."
Somewhile after Geraint and Enid's
marriage, the growing evil report of
the Queen induces the former to
withdraw his young wife from her
dangerous example, to retire into his
principality, where, in affectionate
care of Euid (an affection which our
unwise poet descrihes as revealing
itself chiefly in making constant ad-
ditions to her wardrohe), he forgets
the dutios of his office, and incurs
the general disapprohation of his
people. The young wife hears this;
and in hesitation hetween her fear
of displeasing her hushand and her
grief that his fame should perish for
lack of warning, drops a hroken sen-
tence which leads him to suspect her
faithful affection for himself. Mad-
dened hy this suspicion (which he
might have removed hy one simple
question), he resolves to ride forth
into the wilderness, to win hack his
wile's regard hy some high deed;
on which the poet ohserves in very
heautiful language—language far
more applicahle, as it seems to us,
to many a sad occurrence in real
life, than to this very improhahle
difficulty—
"O purhlind race of miserahle men t
How many among us at this very hour
Do forge a life-long trouhle for ourselves,
By taking true for false, or false for true l
Here tbrough the feehle twilight of this
world
Groping, how many, until wo pass and
reach
That other, where- we see as we are seen I"


612
[Nor.
The Idylli of the King.

He commands Enid to accompany
him, and expressly charges her to do
so arrayed in her worst and meanest
dress. A strange suhject to occupy
the thoughts of a warrior, at the very
moment when he was smarting under
the reproach of effeminacy I And
truly, as it seems to us, a very mean
piece of revenge for any "sort of a
man," let alone a knight of the
Round Tahle to indulge in 1 She
oheys meekly; puts on the "faded
silk" in which he first saw her, and
is hidden to ride on far in front, lost
her angry lord should he unahle to
restrain his wrath, and, whatever
hapliens, never to speak a word to
him. Late in the afternoon they
meet tbree handits, and Enid is re-
warded hy her ungenerous hushand,
for having hraved his indiguation to
warn him of his danger, hy his orders
to drive their horses (laden with the
armour of which he has stript their
riders), tied together hy their hridles,
hefore him. A little way farther on
they meet tbree more villains, and
Geraint has another opportunity (of
which he avails himself) of showing
valour to his enemies and unkindness
to his wife.
Tired hy the charge of the six
horses, and much more hv her own
quiet grief, Enid thankfully accepts
the night's lodging her harsh hushand
provides for her in a little town ad-
joining the castle of another old
suitor of hers, Earl Limours. Ho,
encouraged hy the evident coldness
• hetween her hushand and herself,
renews his suit to her. Enid, alarmed
at his numerous hand of followers,
feigus to he willing that he should
come in the morning to carry her off,
only asking to he left in repose that
night; and is so long hefore she
dares awaken her hushand to tell
him of his danger, that their retreat
the next day is speedily interrupted
hy the arrival of the "wild Limours"
and his hand in pursuit of them,
Geraint, however, is fully equal to
the occasion; knocks the earl and
his next follower down like nine-
pins—
"And hlindly rushed on all the rout he-
hind.
But at the flash and motion of the man
They vanished panic-stricken like a shoal
Of darting flhu, that on a summer, mom
Adorn the crystal dykes of Cunelot,
Come slipping o'er their shadows on the
sand;
But If a man who stands upon the hrink
nut lift a shining hand again8t the sun,
There is not left the twinkle of a fin
Betwixt the creasy Islets white In flower.■
Having disposed of this formidahle
attack so easily, the invincihle Ge-
raint rides on with the patient Enid.
But retrihution is at hand. A wound,
which he hardly felt in theard our of
the conflict, hegins to pain him; his
hlood Hows unseen, and he fall-
senseless to the ground. His wife
hinds his wound with her veil, and
sits heside him in despair. "The
huge Earl Doorm," the savage lord
of the territory they are now in,
passes hy, and touched in some de-
gree hy heauty in distress, commands
two spearmen to carry the wounded
mau to his hall. Enid's palfrey has
deserted her, hut Geraint's "great
charger," which stood hy him " griev-
ed like a man," follows him unled.
Left alone in the deserted hall, Enid
sits for long hours hy her lord; who,
wakening from his swoon, is con-
vinced of her true love for him hy
her tears, hut still feigus himself as
dead,—
"That he might prove hex to the utter-
most,
And say to his own heart, 'She weeps for
tod}"
He thus exposes her to the rude at-
tentions of their savage host, who
returns from a plundering expedition
in the afternoon, feasts in the hall
with a motley crew of spearmen and
women,
"Whose soul* tfis old terpent long had dravm
Doim. an tht worm, draw in th« leitker'd
lea/
And maket it earth p
and having finished his savage re-
past, coolly assures Erdd that her
hushand is dead, offers to replace
him; vainly presses meat and drink
upon her, and then, with a regard
for dress amazing in such a har-
harian, and evidently proving that
the love of fine clothes was epidemic
at that period, sends for a splendid
silk, and commands Euid to put off
her faded garh, and"*array herself in
it. To which she answers:—


614
[Nov.
The Idylh of the King.
alas! how utterly devoid of all pas-
toral iunocence! It consists of the
wicked devices of a most unlovahle
damsel, named Vivien, to heguile the
aged Merlin, the great enohanter,
into revealing to her a spell of which
he had once told her. This spell,
wrought in a fashion something like
mesmerism,
'' With woven paces and with waving
arms,"
hut with more enduring results, puts
its suhject to sleep for ever, except
to him who wrought the charm; and
Vivien determines to learn it from
Merlin, and then work it on her un-
lucky tutor,
"Ah fancying that hor glory would ho
(treat.
According to his greatness, whom sho
quenched."
Merlin is painted full of gentle wis-
dom, venerahle as
"Such a heard as, youth gone out,
Had left In ashes,"
could make him. He is not without
gloomy forehodings of coming evil,
depicted in the following fine lines:
"So dark a forethought roll'd ahout his
hrain,
As, oft a dull day in cpn ocean cave.
The hlind, wave, feeling round hit long tea
luiU
In rtlence."
Kay, an indefinahle association links
these forehodings with Vivien. He
says to her,—
"O! did you never lie upon tho shore,
And watch the curl'd white of the coming
wave
GlassM in tho slippery sand hefore it
hreaks?
Even such a wave, hut not so pleasurahle,
Dark in the irl:,ss of some presa^'eful mood,
Had 1 for tbree days seen, ready to fall.
You seem'd that wave ahout to hreak
upon me,
And sweep me from my hold upon the
world,
My use, and name, and fame."
His nature is far too nohle to love
such a thing as Vivien. Listen to
his lofty thoughts on fame:—
Or these:—
"Fame, with men.
Being hut ampler means to serve mankind,
Should havo small rest or pleasure in her-
self.
But work as vassal to the lanrer love,
That dwarfs the petty love of one to one."
At first he tolerates rather than likes
her attentions; and when she pre-
maturely shows the cloven foot, and
pours into his unwilling ears vile
scandal against his nohle friends, the
knights of the Round Tahle (scandal
of which we will say nothing, hut
that we are truly sorry it should pol-
lute the pages which tell, further on,
of the childlike iunocence of Elaine,
and the manly—ay, the Cbristian—
purity of Arthur), he turns from her
indiguantly, muttering,
** Men ot most differ as heaven and earth.
But women, worst and hest, as heaven
and hell;"
and expressing his just loathing of
such as her, who,
u If they find
Some stain or hlemish in a name of note.
Not grieving that their greaiezt are to email.
Inflate themselves with some insane de-
light,
Andjwige all Nature from her feet of day,
Without th« will to lift their eyet and tee
Iter godWce head croien'd with tpiritualfire.
And touching other worlds"
How true 1 how nohle! How good
to rememher the next time we hear
an ill report of any one we reverence!
The heauty of the thought in the
lines we have italicised makes us
quite forget the defective rhythm of_
the last line hut one. And yet the
sage who judges so justly yields up
his secret, a few pages later, to the
woman he despises.' "Oh! most
lame and impotent conclusion!" We
have all pity for the strong man,
whom his affection has disarmed,
stahhed hy the hand which he trusted
as his own. We feel more compas-
sion than anger when we hear the
hrave champion of Isracl against the
Philistines hewail his " impotence of
mind, in hody strong"—
"His lot unfortunate in nuptial choice,
From whence captivity and loss of eyes;"
"Sweet were the days when I was all for the cnoice though a wrong one,
link IH'UM. , * - a, - |j j
But when my name was lifted up, the was his own, and he yielded up
_ •to™ ,_ , . . . God's secret and his to tho woman
Brolc^ on the mountain, and I cared not whomhe&>wjrf. But Teunyson makes


1859.]
615
The Idylls of the King.

Merlin yield up his great secret
to the woman whom he does not
and caunot love, merely hecause
of her importunity! Ho tells it her,
"overtalk'd and overworn ;" and
hy her sbrieking, her exultation,
she leaves him as dead in the hollow
oak,
"And lost to lifo and use and namo and
fame."
Where the original sketch is dis-
torted, the most faultless colour-
ing caunot produce a really good pic-
ture. The tine thoughts and heauti-
ful imagery scattered tbrough "Vi-
vien" with no niggard hand, caunot
make amends for the incurahle fault
in ita original desigu. They can at
hest only conceal it. The sickly tree,
with no principle of vigorous life
within it, with no roots striking far
down into a healthy soil, may he
adorned for a night's festivity with
coloured lamps and artificial flow-
ers; nay, healthy fruits may ho
hrought and hung upon it; hut a
, short examination will always detect
its want of organic counection with
its foreigu splendours. Wo dare not
nay that where the leading idea from
which a poem grows is good, the
poem will he invariahly good also;
for a nohle conception may he much
ohscured and injured hy defective
execution; hut this we will say—a
poem which is false or weak in its
main idea, can never he more than
good in parts. It can never he good
as a whole. The stream can never
rise higher than its source. And thus
wo turn, with reluctant disapproha-
tion, from the two first Idylls. In-
deed, we are half tempted to think
that they were rather written as
foils to the two last, than to act, as
they should have done, as a flowery
and leafy avenue to the stately man-
sion which succeeds them. We would
implore Mr Teunyson, as a father,
never again to sacrifice the welfare
of two elder daughters (even if some-
what uupromising) so completely as
he has done this time, to the success
in life of their younger sisters. And
we would advise that numerous class
of readers, who have not time, or,
which comes to the same thing, fancy
they have not, to read long poems, to
skip the two first Idylls holdly, and
at once make acquaintance with
"Elaine the fair, Elaine the lov-
ahle," as her admiring hard very
meetly styles her. They will recog-
nise an old acquaintance, for Elaine
is a new version of the "Lady of
Shalott." Only Mr. Teunyson, no
longer pressed hy the imperious
exigencies of finding something to
rhyme with Lancelot and Camelot,
and having, perchance, heard some-
times the malicious quotation with
which a most poetical friend of ours
(who has read his Shakespeare more
diligently than his Teunyson; favour-
ed «t, when we last proposed to read
to him "The Lady of Shalott,'"
u Mine eyes smell onions, I shall weep
anon,"
has metamorphosed Shalott very
advantageously into Astolat. There
the "lily maid Elaine"' dwells
with her father and her two
hrothers, Sir Torre and Sir La-
vaine. There Sir Lancelot finds her
on his way to Camclot, where he
means to win in the joust the ninth
diamond, which Arthur offers as the
prize of the yearly tourney there,
hoping to present it, with the eight
he won hefore, all at once to the
Queen. The first discovery of these
diamonds is told in lines which we
have great pleasure in presenting to
our readers:—
"For Arthur, when none knew from
whence he came.
Long ere- the people chose him for thelr
king,
Koving the trackless realms of Lyonuesse,
Had found a glen, grey houlder, and hlack
tarn.
A horror lived ahout the tarn, and clave
Like its own mists to all the mountain side;
For here two hrothers, one a king, had
met
And fought together; hut their names were
lost.
And each had slain his hrother at a hlow,
And down they fell and made the glen
ahhorr'd;
And there they lay till all their hones wcro
hleach'd.
And lichen*d into colour with the crags.
And one of these, the king, had on a
crown
Of diamonds, one in front, and four a-side.
And Arthur came, and labouring up tho
pass
All In a misty moonshine, unawares
Had trodden that crown'd skeleton, and
the skull
Brake from tho nape, and from the skull
the crown
Roll'd Into light, and turning on Its rims,
FUd like a glUttrinj rivulet to the tarn.


1859.]
617
The Idylls of the King.
"Ab when a painter, poring on a face.
Divinely tbru' all hindrance^nc?s the man
Behind it, and so paints him that his face,
The shape and enlour of a mind and life,
Lives for his children, ever at its hest
And fullest; so the face hefore her lived.
Dark—splendid; shaking In the silence,
full
Of nohle things, and held her from her
sleep."
On the morrow Lancelot departs
for the lists at Camelot, attended hy
Elaine's younger hrother, Lavaine,
leaving her his hlazoned shield to
keep for him, as he wishes to fight
unknown; and the hetter to conceal
himself, wearing her favour in his
helmet. Lancelot joins the weaker
side in the tourney, and hears him-
self with his wonted valour:
"King, duke, ewl,
Count, haron—whom he smoto ho over-
tbrew."
But his disguise all hut works his
ruin. His kith and kin, jealous of
the fame of their Lancelot, whom
they helieve ahsent, unite against the
new champion:
"They eouch'd their spears, and prick'd their
steeds, and thus.
Their plumes driven hackward hy the wind
thev inado
In movinrr. altogether down upon him
Bare, as a wild wave in the wide North Sea,
Green-glimmering toward the summit hears
with all
Its stormy crests that smoke against the
skies,
Down on a hark, and overhears the hark.
And him that helms It; so they overhore
Sir Lancelot and his charger, and a s(,ear
Down-idancing lamed the charger, and a
spear
Prick'd sharply his own cuirass, and the
head
Pierced tbrough his side, and thero suapt, and
remain'd."
We like the ahruptness of the last
line. We seem to hear the spear
hreak off short in it. And we have
italicised what wo think as fine a
description of an ocean wave as we
ever read. To return to the story.
Lavaine helps Lancelot to another
horse, and, well hacked hy him and
the rest, the wounded hero wins the
. day. But when he is proclaimed
victor, and hidden to advance and
take the prize, he answers—
"Prize me no prizes, for my prize is
deatll;''
and rushes from the field, followed
hy the faithful Lavaine, to a poplar
grove hard hy (we should have liked
other trees hetter), where dwells a
knight, turned hermit, who
"Had scoop'd himself
In the white rock a chai,cl and a hall
On massive columns, like a shore-cliff cave,
And cells and chamhers—all were fair and
dry:
The green light from the meadows under-
neath
Struck up and lived along the milky roofs?
Lavaine draws out the lance-head;
the hermit carries the wounded
knight into his cave,—
"And there, in daily douht
Whether to live or die, for many a week
Hid from the wide world's rumour hy the
grove
Of poplars, with their noise of falling showers.
And ever-tremulous aspen trees, he lay."
.Meantime the sudden disappear-
ance of the unknown conqueror ex-
cites much disturhance in the lists:
so that Arthur charges Gawain, his
own nephew, to take the diamond and
ride forth to seek its wiuner, and not
to roturn without delivering the
dear-hought prize into his hands.
Sir Gawain fails to find him in his
close retreat; hut at length reaching
Astolat, hrings and hears news of
him there. Elaine's preoccupied
heart gives small heed to the compli-
ments the courtly knight pays her;
even to such a really pretty one as
this, hy which he answers her re-
proof for neglecting the quest on
which the king had sent him :—
"I lose it, as we lose the lark in heaven,
O damsel, in the light of your hlue eyes."
So he leaves her the diamond to
keep, heing sure that, if Lancelot
lives, ho will come to claim his
shield; and noting tho heauty of the
damsel, and that the favour worn hy
Lancelot at the tournament was
hers, he hastens to tell the astonished
court of Lancelot's new love, and
to waken in the Queen hitter jealousy
of her iunocent rival. But Elaine
hai heard of the peril of the knight,
whom she has seen only one day—a
day as fatal to her peace of mind as
a whole year—and she persuades her
old father to let her go with her elder
hrother to seek him out. They find


618
[Nov.
Tfie Idylls of th* King.

him easily, with their younger hro-
ther's help. Elaine presents the
diamond to him, and, grieved hy his
sad plight, stays with her hrother to
nurse him, and saves his life hy her
gentle care—
"Being to him
Meeker than anv child to " roOgfa nurse,
Milder than any mother to a sick child;
And never woman yet, since man's first
fall.
Did kindlier unto man; hut her deep love
Uphore her.''
Lancelot is not untouched hy all
this fond affection; he feels towards
her as to a young sister, and at last
we read—
"Loved her with all love, except the love
Of man and woman when they lovo their
heet,
<losoet end sweetest, and had died the death -
In any kt,tizlitly fashion for her sake.
And pwadvrninru had he seen her first,
She intu,t have made this and that other
world,
Another world for the sick man; hut now
The shae£lc3 of an old leva slniiten'd him.
His honour rooted in dishonour stood.
And/alth unfaithful kept him falsely true."
Surely had Shakespeare had to write
this, he would have said something
like those two last lines! Thus
Lancelot hears the penalty of his sin,
not alone in the remorse which has
poisoned his every cup of guilty
pleasure, hut even more in the moral
ruin it has wrought within him,
rendering him alike consciously un-
worthy of, and incapahle of respond-
ing to, the pure and strong love
(strong hecause pure) which he has
inspired—a love of which Arthur
says very truly, later on:
u And, after heaven, on our dull side of
death,
What should he hest, if not so pure a love
Clothed In so pure a lovelineas."
"The great Sir Lancelot of the
Lake" has condemned himself, hy
his own act, to continue "a lonely
man, wifeless and heirless;" and as
it hegins to dawn on Elaine that he
caunot love her as she loves him
(•why he caunot, how should she ever
dream ?)—
"She murmur'd, 'Vain, in vain; it canuot
i.e.
He will not love me; how then? must I
die r
Then as a little helpless Inuocent blrd,
That has hut one plain passage of few
notes,
Will sing the simple passage o'er and o'er
>'or nll%n April morning, till the ear
Weaj lee to hear it, so the simple maid
Went half the night repeating, 'Mast I
die r"
She makes one desperate effort. At
her father's castle (whither Lancelot
accompanies her and her hrother on
his recovery, where she vainhy puts
on her hest attire to please him,
thinking—
u If I he loved, these are my festal rohes;
If not, the victim's Sower* hefore he fall;"
and where he proffers her every gift
as a guerdon for her care, hut the
one gift she desires) she hreaks silence
on the day he is to leave them, and
declares her love to him. We know
that this contradicts the hest prece-
dents; that Viola's imaginary sister,
who
"Never told her love,
Bnt let concealment, like a worm i' the hud.
Feed on her damask cheek; she pined in
thought;
And with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sal like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief,"
is more truly womanly than some of
Shakespeares other heroines; hut
still Teunyson has provided the hest
excuse he could for his sweet Elaine,
in her childlike iunocence, in the
ease with which her every wish has
heen gratified till now hy her fond
hretbren and father, and, ahove all,
in her heing destitute of a mother's
careful guidance. Lancelot answers
kindly hut coldly; hids her seek a
worthier hushand, whom he may
endow with lands and honours for
her sake, and takes his shield and
departs, not daring to hid her fare-
well, lest ho should increase her fatal
passion. Elaine is left to her de-
spair. Iler father and hrothers strive
in vain to comfort her. She answers
them calmly:—
"But when they left her to herself again.
Death, like a friend's voice from a distant
field,
Approaching tbro' the darkness, call'd; the
owls,
Wailing, had power upon her. and she tnixt
Her lauries with the sallow-rifted dooms
Of evening, and the moanings of the wind."
She sings to herself a doleful little


1859.]
619
The Idylh of the King.

song, called the song of Love and
Death, of which we give the first and
last stanzas, which we admire par-
ticularly. The two middle ones are
somewhat spoilt hy a want of sim-
plicity, like the "concetti " in vogue
two centuries ago, so we omit them:
"Sweet Is true love, though given in vain, in
vain;
And sweet is death, who puts an end to
pain;
I know not which is sweeter, no, not l
.
"I fain would follow love, if that eould he;
I needs must follow death, who calls for me;
Call and I follow, I follow! let me die!"
Her father hastens to har, startled
hy something unwonted in her voice,
and gazes on her altered counte-
nance as on a thing at once strange
and familiar.
"As when we dwell upon a word we know,
Repeating till the word we know so well
Becomes a wonder, and we know not why.''
A comparison which, though we do
not especially admire, yet we read
with pleasure, as proving that an-
other has experienced that strange,
puzzled feeling ahout a well-known
word which has occasionally seized
on ourselves. Then the maiden tells
her hrothers how she has heen dream-
ing of her childhood and of her old
delight, when they took her in a
hoat on the river; how she had al-
ways longed in vain to pass one cape,
where a poplar grew, that she might
go and see the king's palace; and
how now the old longing had re-
turned, and she felt it was to he grati-
fied at last. There is a proverh,
which we have repeated hefore now,
sometimes in hope and sometimes in
fear, which says, "Whatsoever thou
desirest in youth, in age thou shalt
plentifully ohtain;" and every now
and then a dread comes over us that
it may, after all,
"Keep the word of promise to our ear,
But hreak it to our hope."
Such, alas! is to he its accomplish-
ment in our fair Elaine's case. When
she passes the poplar tree and enters
the palace of her childish wishes,
the eye that should have heheld its
glories will he closed. This is what
she says to them :—
"So let me hence that I may pass at last
Beyond the poplar and far up the flood,
Until I find the palate of the King.
There will I enter In among thorn all,
And no man there will dare to mock at me:
But there the tine Gawuin will wonder at
me;
And there the great Sir Lancelot muse at
me;
Gawain, who had a thousand farewells to
me; t
Lancelot,*who coldly went, nor had me one:
And there the King will know me and rar
love;
And there the Queen herself will pity me.
Antl all the gentle court will welcome me;
And after my long voyage l ahaU rest!"
Her hrothers weep for her. Her fa-
ther tries to cure her fatal love hy
telling her of Lancelot's shame, now
puhlicly reported. But Elaine is to
escape what a gifted poetess has
told us is one of the hitterest drops
in woman's cup of woe. (Ah! Feli-
cia Hemans! does man never taste
it?)
"To make Idols, and to find them clay,
And to hewail such worship."
Gently, hut firmly, the maiden puts
aside the arm raised to dash down
her idol, thus:—
"Never vet
Was nohle man hut made ignohle talk.
He makes nofriend icho never made a foe,
But now it is my glory to have lov. <!
One peerless, V, kli'int stain: so let me pass.
My Hither, howsoe"er I leant tn yon,
Aot all unharrp!/, harinff loved GooTs hest
And greatest, tlw' my lava had no return."
She dictates a letter to Lancelot, to
he given him hy herself alone, hid-
ding them
"Lay the lotter in my hand
A little ere I die, and close the hand
Upon it: 1 shall guard it even in death."
They are to place her, when she is
dead, in a hlack harge, steered hy
an old dumh servant, and to deck
her in her richest rohes.
"I go in state to court to meet the Queen.
There surely I shall speak for mino own
self;
And none of you can speak for me so well.'*
Will our readers think us very tire-
some, and Mr. Teunyson very un-
grateful, if we interrupt his touching
story, to ask him why he calls the
dumh man, "the lifelong creature of
the house?" and to say, that though
we have no douht that he has de-
scrihed him correctly, and that a


620
[Nov.
The Idylls of the King.

dumh man, whose fair young mis-
tress was dead, would very likely at-
tend her funeral,
"Winking his eyes, and twisted all his
f.,o-.''
yet that so grotesque a figure should
not have heen hrought forward so
prominently in the sad procession!
That sad procession passes tbrough
the meadows, a shadow in the hright
sunshine, after no long time. The two
mourning hretbren place the dead
hody of their sister on the harge's
hlack dock, give her their last kiss,
and hid her their last farewell—
"And the dead,
Stcer'd hy the dumh, went upward with the
flood-
In her right hand the lily, in her left
The letter—ail her hright hair streaming
down—
And all the coverlid was cloth-of-gold
Drawn to her waist, and she herself in
whlte
All hut her face, and that clear-featured
face
Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead,
But fast" asleep, and lay as tho' she
smiled."
The same day as that on which the
harge moves slowly up the river,
with its precions freight, Sir Lancelot
has sought an audience with the
Queen, that he may at last offer her
his princely gift, the "nine-years-
fought-for" diamonds. They meet
in an oriel of the palace overlooking
the stream, and Lancelot, kneeling,
gives her his prize. Bit Guinevere
has heard and helieved the report of
her knight's intidelity to their un-
hallowed hond; she scornfully re-
jects his offering, hidding him carry
rt to the damsel he prefers to her;
and then, in a transport of jealous
rage, suddenly flings the diamonds
into the river, as recklessly as she
had cast away hefore things far (oh!
how far!) more precious. She is
quickly to learn her error, for
"Then while Sir Lancelot leant, in half
distrust
At love, life, all things, on tho window
ledge.
Close underneath his eyes, and right across
Where these had fallen, slowly past tho
harge
Whereon the lily maid of Astolat
Lay smiling like a star in hlackest night"
The court crowd round her in amaze-
ment, the King himself commands
them to hear her in; and all takes
place in Arthur's hall, as the maid
foretold. Gawain "wond-ert," Lan-
celot "muses" at the si^hr. Only
muses! It seems little for a court-
eous knight to do, as he gazes on the
fair maiden who died for love of
him; and we wrere at first inclined
to think that the poet meant to indi-
cate the fearful power of sin to hard-
en the heart and deprive it of all
capacity for pity—that frightful pro-
cess of which, if we rememher right,
good Dr. Arnold says in one of his
soniions, "I5c assured, they who do
not love God now, will one day love
nothing."* And certainly we fear
that Lancelot thinks more at first of
his justification in the Queen's eyes
completed hy the letter (which Ar-
thur, taking from the dead maiden's
grasp, reads aloud to the court), than
of mourning her untimely fate. As
wo read his cold explanatory speeches
after the letter has heen read, we
must rememher that they were
spoken in Guinevere's presence, and
really addressed to her. It is Arthur,
not Lancelot, who orders the splen-
did hurial of the maiden—
"With gorgeous ohsequies.
And mass, and rolling music, like a
queen;"
and who gives directions for the
costly tomh which is to perpetuate
"the story of her dolorous voyage."
It is not till all is over, and Lancelot,
"sad heyond his wont," has seen the
kuights
"Lay her comely head
Low in the dust of half-forgotten kings,"
that he hegins to discern dimly the
true worth of the treasure which he
has cast away. Truly as well as
sweetly sings Gerald Massey,
"Tn this dim world of clouding cares.
We rarely know, till wildered eyes
Bee white wings lessening up the skies.
The angels with us unawares."
Then at last he says,
u Low in himself, 'Ah! simple heart and
sweet.
You loved me, damsel, surely with a lovo
Far tenderer than my Queen's.'"
And his old remorse awakens with
tenfold power, and the close of the
poem leaves Lancelot groaning in
hitter pain over


1859.]
021
The Idylls of the King.

'• Arthur's greatest knight a man
Not after Arthurs heart!"
struggling wildly against the shame-
ful honds which he is too weak to
hreak; and wishing, in his agony,
that the fairy Lady of the Lake, who
nursed his infancy, had drowned
him, yet an iunocent hahy, in the
"dusky mere."
We have left our fair Elaine's
letter, which we consider a model of
touching simplicity, to form our last
extract from her story. Here it is:—
"Most nohle lord, Sir Lancelot of the
Lake,
I, some time callM the maid of Astolat,
Come, for yon !.-ft me taking no farewell,
Hither, to take my last farewell of yon.
I loved you. and my love had no return.
And therefore my truo lovo has heen my
death.
And therefore to our lady Guinevere,
And to all other ladles, I make moan.
Pray for my sonl, and yield me hurial.
Pray for my soul, thou too, Sir Lancelot,
As thou art a knight peerless."
Need we assure our readers of our
unfeigued admiration for this Idyll?
¥e think they must have seen it all
along, and we trust they share it.
Nothing hut its length prevents it
from coming up to, not the popular
notion of an Idyll (though we hum-
hly suhmit that in choosing a name
for a pcem, no other has any right to
he regarded), hut the definition, fur-
nished us hy those ponderous lexico-
graphers Scott and Liddell, who in-
form us that "eidullion " (literally a
small image) need not of necessity
mean a pastorul, hut is a name that
may helong to any short and higbly-
wrought descriptive composition.
Comparing "Elaine" with the "Lady
of Shalott," we congratulate Mr. Ten-
nyson most heartily on having heen
as successful with his finished pic-
ture, as he was nearly thirty years
ago with his exquisito little sketch.
It is not often that the "artist in
words" paints the same suhject
twice over; still more seldom that
he succeeds in hoth paintings. His
earlier picture is a landscape con-
taining hut one prominent figure,
which receives fully as much from
the surrounding ohjects as it im-
parts to them. His second is a large
historical picture, something like
Maclise's of the play-scene in Ham-
let, where one hright-haired maiden's
iunocent face contrasts strongly with
the traces of suspicion, sin, and sor-
row on those of the courtly group
which surrounds her. The poet does
not descrihe his heroine's feelings in
the "Lady of Shalott." He shows
them to us instead reflected, her
gladness in "the hlue unclouded
weather," her sadness in the "low
sky raining " heavily, and the falling
leaves around her. In this, as in
many of his most heautiful pieces,
such as " Mariana," "St. Agues," and
"Sir Galahad," he appeals to a deep-
seated instinct in the human heart,
which shows itself in old sayings,
such as this—" Happy the hride that
the sun shines on," "Happy the
dead that the rain rains on;" which
personifies Nature, and involuntar-
ily looks to her for sympathy. In
"Elaine," on the contrary, the poet
takes his standing-point from the
heart; the landscape is an efficient
accessory, hut an accessory only.
The weakest points in the execution
of this poem are, in our judgment,
the dialogues; in which we always
thought narrative-poets at a great
disadvantage compared with their
dramatic hretbren, from the ohliga-
tion to insert perpetually "quoth
he," "said she," &c, and which Mr.
Teunyson is apt to render forced and
constrained hy his attempts to give
them greater ease. We dislike, also,
in a poem of such high finish, oc-
casional vulgarisms like the follow-
ing, spoken of a knight recovering
from his amazement:—
"Then shook hit hair, strode off, and huiz'd
ahroad
Ahout the maid of Astolat and her love;"—
of a queen trying to conceal her
feelings, "and saying that she
choked ; "—of a maiden singing her
"swan-song,"—
"The hlood-red light of dawn
Flared on her face, sho tbrilling, 'Lot me
die;'"—
or of a knight who, dreading the
world's censure, descants on it as
having
"Such a tongue to llare Its own interpreta-
tion."
We do not much like the employ-
*


622
[Nov.
The Idylls of the King.

ment (though etymologically correct)
of "crescent" as an adjective. We
know it much hetter as a suhstan-
tive. We dislike such attempts at
novelty of expression as the follow-
ing:—
"Then ttirn'd the tongneloss man
From the half-face to the full eye?
and would have heen perfectly satis-
fied with the information that lie
turned round. But with the excep-
tion of these minor hlemishes,' we
consider "Elaine" a most perfect
composition; exhihiting marvellous
power of description (description
detailed sometimes, aud sometimes
struck off in a line or two), powerful
alike to set hefore us the rocky glen,
or the well-ordered joust, where the
-" clear-faced King," in his rohes of
red samite, looks down from his
dragon-supported tbrone on the con-
flict of his nohle knights; alike the
hlood-stained conqueror in the joy
of his hard-won victory, or the maid
(still fair in death) on her strange
voyage; the mute appeal of the
dead against the living in Arthur's
court; and the useless houours of her
gorgeous funeral. We admire the
way in which the two main difficul-
ties, involved in the nature of the
story, are surmounted; we do not
lose our interest in Lancelot, in spite
of the evil we know to he in him,
and of the ungracious part he has to
act; for the poet has lifted {he cur-
tain, and shown us in the struggles
of the hrave knight's mind how
"The powers that tend the sonl.
To help it from the death that canuot die,"
have not yet ahandoned him. He
still exclaims, "like others worse and
worthier,"—
"Video mellora. prohoque,
Deteriora sequor."
(A sentence which, hy the way, we
heg to assure the fair readers of Dr.
Gutbrie's Sermons, was not spoken,
as that eloquent divine informs them,
hy one of the greatest of heathens,
hut put hy Ovid into the mouth of a
wicked enchantress named Medea.)
And his struggles increase, instead
of diminishing, with the progress of
the poem; so that we have yet hope
for him. We have hefore alluded to\
the skilful treatment of the other >
difficulty; to tho excuses provided
for Ehune's open confession of her
hopeless passion, to the singular .
grace and delicacy of her character,'
and the pathetic simplicity of her
sorrow, tbrough which her poet has
enahled her to win our pity without
forfeiting our respect. And as this
tragic tale "purifies our soul hy
pity," according to the office of tra-
gedy, so does it likewise hy terror;
whilst we see in Elaine how the
strongest and hest human affections
work death, not life, when they
reigu in the soul unsuhordinated to
a higher love; in Lancelot, how
they, who seek happiness in forhid-
den paths, are doomed hy a divine
decree to find one day or other that
they have lost the suhstance while 1
wildly grasping at the shadow. A
We have now to present our
readers with some account of " Guin-
evere," the fourth Idyll. The Queen's
guilt has heen discovered; Lancelot
has returned to his own land at her
hidding, whither Arthur has pursued
him, deeming her to he the com-
panion of his flight; hut in truth she
has retired to hide her shame, and to
foster the stirrings of hetter things,
which she feels arising within her, to
tho " holy house at Almeshury." The
simple nuns, iguorant of the sup-
pliant's rank, hut unconsciously yield-
ing to the spell of her graceful Ideality,
have received her kindly, hut daily
torture her hy their severe censures
of their Queen's misconduct, and still
more hy the sad news they report to
her after a while, that Sir Modred,
the King's nephew, the discoverer of
her shame, has usurped the realm (of
which he was left in charge during
his uncle's ahsence), and made league
with Arthur's heathen foes against
him. So Guinevere sits in lonely
sorrow, grieving over the evil she
has caused, and thinks
'' With what a hate tho people and the
King
Mast hate me,"
and listens to this song, which a
littlo maid of the convent, her only
companion, has learned from the nuns,
as to a sad forewarning, that even as
the mischief she has dono is irrevoc-


1859.]
623
Ths Idylls of the King.
ahle here, ho it will he found to he
hereafter:
u Late, late, ho lato I and dark tho night and
chill I
Lato. late, so Into 1 hut we can enter still.
Too late, too late! ye canuot enter now.
No light had we: for that we do repent;
And learning this, tho hridegroom will
relent
Too late, too late l ye cannot enter now.
No light: so late! and dark and chill the
night I
O let us in that wo may find the light!
Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.
Ilave we not heard the hridegroom is so
sweet?
O let us In, tho' late, to kiss his feet!
No, no, too late! ye cannot enter now."
And the young novice tells the Queen
tales which she had heard from her
father, who was Knight of the Round
Tahle when it first was founded, of
the sigus and wonders which fore-
told its greatness; and Guinevere
knows that "the fine gold has he-
come dim," and that the first hreath
which sullied it came from herself.
Again, the maid tells her of a hard,
who had sung many a nohle war-
song,
"Ev'n in the presence of an enemy's fleet,
Between the steep cliff and the coming
wave;
And many a mystic lay of lifo and death
Had chantod on tho smoky mountain-top,
When round him hent tho spirits of tho
hills,
With all their dewy hair hlown hack like
name;"
who
"Sang Arthur's glorious wars, and sang the
As well-nigh more than man, and rail'd at
those
Who call'd him the false son of Garlols:
For there was no man know from whence ho
came;
But after tempest, when tho long wave
hroke
All down the thundering shores of Bude and
Boss,
There came a day as still as heaven, and
then
They found a naked child upon tho sunds
Of wild nundadgll hy the Cornish sea;
And that was Arthur; and they foster'd
him
Till ho hy miraclo was anproven king:
And that his gravo should ho a mystery
From all men, like his blrth; and could he
find
A woman in her womanhood at grtat
As he was in his tnomhood, then, ho sang,
Tho twain together well might change the
world."
And how there, a sudden dread had
paralysed his voice, and made his
hand quit the harp;
w Nor would he tell
His vision; hut what douht that he fore-
saw
This evil work of Lancelot and tho Queen?"
Guinevere hows down her head and
says nothing; hut when the maid
goes on to condemn Lancelot with
all a child's uncompromising indigua-
tion, makes answer mournfully—
* O closed ahout hy narrowing nunnery
walls.
What knowest thou of tho world, and all its
lights
And shadows, all tho wealth and all the
woe?
If ever Lancelot, that most nohle knight,
Were for one hour less nohle than himself.
Pray for him that he 'scape t/ts doom qfjlre,
Ana weep for her who drew him iohU doom."
There is all a woman's generosity in
those two last lines! Left alone, the
mournful Queen's thoughts recur to
those days of her comparative iuno-
cence when she first saw Lancelot,
who came
"Reputed the hest knight and goodliest
man,
Amhassador, to lead her to his lord,
Arthur; and led hor forth, and far ahead
Of his and her retinue moving, they
Wrapt in sweet talk or lively, all on love
And sport and tilts and pleasure (for the
time
Was May time, and as yet no sin was
dream'd)
Rode under groves that look'd a paradise
Of hlossom, over sheets of hyacinth
That seenCd the heavens uphreaking thro' the
earth'y
(The most heautiful description we
have ever read of that lovely flower,
which inlays with sapphire the emer-
ald pavement of so many of our Eng-
lish woods in spring!)
In the midst of these musings, a
horse's feet are heard outside, voices
resound tbrough the convent, some
one cries, "the Kingl" and an armed
tread approaches Guinevere's door.
She fulls on her face as her injured
hushand enters. With the same wise
judgment which moved the painter
of old to veil that father's anguish


624
[Nov.
The Idylh of the King.

which he dared not trust himself to
portray, the poet has made no vain
attempt to tell us how Guinevere felt
in her deeply-wronged hushand's pre-
sence. That once-proud head is ura
raised from the ground during the in-
terview; she speaks not, she scarcely
r moves, except to make one supplicat-
ing gesture. Thus our whole atten-
tion is fitly centred on Arthur. In
the previous poems we have known
him chiefly hy the effect he pro-
duces on others; hero he speaks
for himself. We tremhle now and
then for the fate of the nineteenth
century in tho hands of some future
Macaulay. He will have no diffi-
culty in giving us a very had charac-
ter, if he ground his judgment on
such facts as tho admitted popularity
of the "Traviata," and the passing
of the Divorce Bill. And we fear
that he will find some additional
evidence against us in the very t,ook
wo are now considering; in Stone
coarse passages in "Vivien," of which
we have already hinted our strong
disapproval. But the speech we have
now come to, ought to go far in arrest
/of judgment. Its tone of manly purity
I hears witness that the age which
I produced it could not he wholly cor-
\J_rupt. It hegins in a tone of digui-
fied rehuke:—
"Liest thou hero so low, the child of ono
I linuourM. huppv, dead hefore thy shame?
Well Is it thnt no child Is horn of thee.
The children horn of thee are sword and
fire,
Red ruin, and the hreaking up of laws,
Tho craft of kindred and the godless hosts
Of heathen swarming o'er the Northern
Sea,
"Whom I, while yet Sir Lancelot, my right
arm,
Tho mightiest of my knights, ahode with
me.
Have everywhere ahout this land of Cbrist
In twelve groat hattles ruining over-
tbrown."
He tells her how he has returned
from waging unsuccessful war against
that same Lancelot,' to meet his re-
hellions kinsmen with sorely-dimin-
ished forces; out of which remnant
he still intends to leave some
"To guard thee in tho wild hour coming
on.
Lest hut a hair of this low head he harm'd.
Fear not, thou shalt he guarded till my
death.
Howhelt I know, if ancient prophecies
Have err'd not, that I march to meet my
doom.
Thou heist not made my life so sweet to me
That I the King should greatly care to lire:
For thou hast spoilt the purpose of my life.''
Saddest of all reproaches to a woman,
to have heen clioseu hy Providence
as a good tnan's help-meet in some
worthy and nohle undertaking, and
not merely to have failed to help
him (sad enough and common enough
as that is!) hut to have worked
against him! And Arthur suhstan-
tial.-- this accusation hy reminding
Guinevere how he had founded his
Round Tahle to give pattern to the
world of courage, courtoy, and puri-
ty, and how, mainly tbrough her evil
example,
"The loathsome opposite
Of all my heart had destined did ohtain,
And all tbro' thee! so that this life of mine
I guard, as God's high gift, from scathe and
wrong.
Xot greatly care to lose; hut rather think
How s<t<l it were/or Arthur, should he live.
To sit once more within his lonely hall.
And miss the wonte<i numher of my knights.
And miss to hettr high talk of nohle deeds.
As in the golden days hefore thy sin.
Fur which of us who might he left, could
speak
Of tho pure heart, nor seem to glance at
thee?
And in thv howers of Camelot or of Usk
Thy shadow still would glide from room, to
room.
And I should evermore he veat with the«
In hanging rohe or vacant ornament.
Or g/wstly footfall echoing on the sta ir.
For think not, though thou wouldat not love
thv lord,
Thy lord has wholly lost his lovo for thee.
1 am not made of s'o slight elements.
Yet must I leave thee, woman, to thy
phiune.
I hold that man the worst of puhlic foes
W ho, either for his own or children's sake,
To save his hlood from scandal, lets the
wife.
Whom ho knows false, ahide and rule the
house l
Worst of the worst were that man he thai
reigns)
Better the King's waste hearth and ctchina
heart
Than thou reseated in thy place of light.
The mockery of thy people and their hane.'"
When did we last read anything
s0 truly pathetic? For there is no
false sentiment here. All is real,
genuine, manly sorrow—the sorrow
of a great man whose life's work is
crumhling to nothing hefore his eyes!


626
[Not.
The Idylls of the King.
r
v
the hushand who has so nohly con-
quered hack the heart that should
have heen always his, vanishes, for
this world's For Ever, from her gaze.
When the trumpet has sounded for
departure, and Arthur has hlest her
and gono to his last hattle-field,
where his false nephew is indeed to
fall, hut whence he himself shall re-
turn no more, she exclaims:—
"Ah, great and gentle lord,
"Who wast as is the conscience of a Mint
Among his scarring senses, to thy knights—
To whom my false voluptuous pride, that
took
Full easily all Impressions from helow.
Would not look up, or hall" despised tho
height
To which I would not or I could not climh—
/ thought I could not hreathe in that fine air,
That pure severity of perfect light—
I wanted warmth and colour, which I found
In Lancelot—now I see theo what thou art;
Thou art tho highest and most human too,
Not Lancelot, nor another. Is there none
Will tell the King I lovo him. tho' so late?
Now — ere he goes to the great hattle?
none:
Myself must tell him in that purer life,
But now it were too daring. Ah, my fiod,
Wl,at might I not have made of thy fair
world.
Had I Out lov;d thy highest creature hsre H
"La vita al fin, e'l di loda la
sera," says Petrarch in one of his
most heautiful canzoni. Such a con-
clusion (for we consider this fourth
Idyll mainly in the light of the com-
pletion of what has gone hefore,
hardly as a separate poem) goes far
to make us forget and forgive the
insult which wo conceived "Enid"
to offer to our understanding, and
tho displeasing effect which part of
"Vivien" produced on us. We have
here a nohle idea heautifully worked
out. Inspired hy it, the poet has
risen ahove his usual self. The
hlemishes we noted in the former
Idylls almost wholly disappear. Nay,
for the moment we can dispense
with their heauties. One dimly-
lighted chamher is more to us than
glen or woodland, tournament or
hall, for in its narrow hounds one of
the great questions of our common
humanity is trinmphantly decided.
The very simplicity of the story, its
want of numerous personages and
multifarious interests, is an advan-
tage. They would he as superfluous
here as in that glorious work of Ary
Scheffer, his "Dante and Beatrice."
Here, as there, two figures are amply
sufficient, only their relative posi-
tions are reversed. Here it is the-\
Man, not the Woman, whose eyes
are fixed on Heaven, and whose face
has caught a radiance from ahove;
the Woman, not the Man, who is to
rise from the dust and gain wings
wherewith to soar upward tbrough .
the hlessed attraction of the Form |
that stands heside her.
In reviewing the work as a whole,
we are hound to confess that Mr.
Teunyson has far more than fulfilled
the promise implied in its title. He
has, it is true, only given us a few
detached scenes out of Arthur's life,
hut these are so skilfully selected
as to present us with a most finished
picture of him. In tlte outline of
Ids portrait he has followed that
transmitted to him hy tradition, and
he is the first great English poet
who has done so; for the Arthur of
The Faery Queen is a creation of
Spenser's own, a gay and gallant
gentleman, hound to no wife un-
worthy of his love, seeking tbrough
many a perilous enterprise the hand
of tho Facry Queen herself, tho great
Gloriana. Whether, in the lost half
of his irreat work, Spenser at all
more nearly approached the tradi-
tional Arthur, is of course uncertain;
in his Wars most prohahly he did so;
hut we have no reason to suppose
that either Guinevere or Lancelot
found admission into any part of the
poem. Whilst adhering, however,
to the outline afforded hy ancient
song and legend (and wUely M, for
in this archaeological age deviations
so wide as Spenser's would find hut
little favour), Mr. Teunyson has in-
fused into it a new spirit. Lancelot""]
is the favourite of tho old romances;
Mr. Teunyson makes him a more
nohle-minded man than they do, and
yet elevates Arthur, the man who
endures, immeasurahly high ahove /
Lancelot, the man who inflicts the J
injury. In his selection and treat-
ment of his suhordinate characters,
as we havo already said, we consider
Mr. Teunyson less successful. "Enid"
is a mistake tbroughout, except in
the parts that relate to Arthur and
his court. "Vivien" is spoilt hy an
attempt to give novelty to an old
and "over true" tale. Finally, Mr.


1859.]
627
On Allied Operations in China.
n
Teunyson is a poet who dwells more
with contemplation than with ac-
tion. He gives us "Idylls" whero
another would give us "Lays." He
would rather listen to the distant
thunder of the hattle, as his own
Lotus-Eaters did to the roaring of
the sea, "stretched out heneath
the pine,!' than plunge heartily into
the thick of it. His story often
seems a trouhle to him to tell; and
the simpler it is, therefore, the hetter
he tells it. It is on the feelings, and
especially on the moral sentiments
called forth hy the various situations
in his tale, that he loves to pause.
Even his hest characters do not stand
alone, and reveal themselves wholly
to ns hy their own words and deeds—
the rare prerogative of the creations
of the greatest masters of song; he
is forced to eke them out hy much
description, mediate or immediate:
and therefore they rather resemhle
some of those works of early Italian
art, where much drapery conceals
the defects of the figure, while the
head looks forth on us with almost
angelic heauty, than the men and
women, instinct tbroughout with life,
of Italian art in its*perfection. He
rises very high sometimes, hut he
has not strength of wing for very _
long flights. Therefore he has done
most wisely not to attempt an Epic, I
in which he must have failed (the /
names of those who, in any age or
country, have succeeded in that truly
great attempt are soon counted), hut
to devote instead four short poems to
the earliest traditions of his country.
Of these, we wish we could say that
all are worthy alike of their suh-
ject and of their author; hut at least
the two last will spread the reno-
vated renown of ArthuW Guinevere,
and Lancelot, far as^rche English
language extends; and (far different
from their ancient prose predecessors,
the reading of which the unhappy
Franceses rememhers in the shades
helow to deploro as the instrument
of her destruction) will hy the pure
and lofty sentiments which they tend
to foster, as well as hy the delight
they caunot fail to give, make no in-
considerahle addition to the great
deht of gratitude which his country
already owes to her worthy son, Al-
fred Teunyson.
-'

J
ON ALLIEn OPERATIONS IN CHINA.
Tjte reserve of tho British press
upon the Chinese question arises far
more, we feel convinced, from a seri-
ous conviction of the grave difficulties
with which the suhject is surround-
ed, than from any desire to under-
estimate its importance; hut we
hold that the sooner the suhject is
now discuased the hetter, for if it ho
delayed until the meeting of Parlia-
ment next Fehruary, grave errors
will he committed that may compro-
mise far more important interests
than those of a mere ministerial
party: and when too late, we may
find ourselves involved in an Allied
war against China—a war in which
we shall have a vast question of re-
venue and commerce at stake,
whilst our faithful and fond allies
will have none—a war in which,
whether successful or not, England
will have to pay the shot—a war
which can hring us no honour, and
which our faithful ally will ahruptly
hring to a close whenever he chooses
to cry halt, as he did in the Crimea
—and the result of which, should
we ever enter Pekin trinmphant,
will he to place England for tho
first time in the East in an appar-
ently secondary position as a victor.
No Englishman can now question
the justice of our case against the
Court of Pekin—it has heen guilty
of a gross act of Eastern perfidy.
The Emperor of China, under his
sigu-manual, concedes certain privi-
leges; when we attempt to avail
ourselves of them, ho repels the
Envoy of Queen Victoria, and slays
four hundred of her suhjects. Such
treachery is not a novelty in our
Eastern history; and cases of it
have occurred with nearly every
native sovereigu in our wide do-
minions. England has always in-
flicted punishment for the crime,


628
[Not.
On Allied Operations in China.

and meted out justice, hut with
her own right hand. She has
neither called in Frenchman or Ger-
man to assist her to do so, and so
has heen exalted the glory of her
arms, and tally estahlished the ter-
ror of her name, tbronghout the
length and hreadth of Asia.
Most Englishmen would have sup-
posed that the unsatisfactory conclu-
sion of the allied war with Russia
would at any rate have warned our
statesmen against committing so
radical an error, as that of introduc-
ing our ally into that quarter of the
glohe where''so much depends upon
our military prestige. Napoleon
might claim equal interests, com-
mercial and political, in the freedom
of the principalities and the inde-
Eendence of Turkey; hut what has
e to do with our quarrel of 1856
with Yeh and the Emperor Hien-
fung, except this, that a plea was
wanted for introducing the French
in force within those seas of India
and China? If Frenchmen could not
create commerce, they could at any
rate cull military honours; and un-
der the pretext of defending Catholic-
ism, let it he .known from the hor-
ders of Tartary to the shores of the
Persian Gulf, that there was a great
country in the west whose Beets
could look quite as imposing as those
of England, and who could send her
soldiers to fight her hattles on quite
as distant shores. These, we grant,
were French reasons; hut for every
laurel gained hy her when fighting
in our hehalf, we maintain a laurel
fell from England's chaplet; and
surely we had had enough of this in
the Crimea. All the hlunders there
were said to he English, all the suc-
cesses French; so stands the record
in Europe. They who love England
should at any rate have striven to
avert such an impression in the East,
where from Aden to Pekin a hundred
thousand of their countrymen live
amongst some seven hundred mil-
lions of Asiatics, and are respected
hy them in proportion, and only in
proportion, as they are feared.
The emasculated Blue-hook, which
on the last day of the Session of 1859
was laid hefore hoth Houses of Par-
liament, as purporting to he all the
correspondence relative to the late
special mission to China, caunot he
too carefully read hy those who
would wish our future measures
against the Court of Pekin to he
perfectly successful, and worthy of
our great country; and it is to he
hoped that the fortheoming work hy
Mr Oliphant will serve to fill up
many a serious hlank, and enahle
the history of the past operations of
1857-58 to he read aright. But he-
fore passing to consider the measures
hy which the treaty of Tientsin was
concluded, and the ohstacles which
impeded Lord Elgin in ohtaining it,
and that have mainly contrihuted to
render it as yet valueless, we must
pause to gather "the flower of wis-
dom," as the Chinese say, from an
earlier page or two.
If anything would convince hureau-
crats at home of the importance of
having a thorougbly ahle High Com-
missioner in China, and for him to
he merely instructed as to what de-
mands were to he enforced, with
plenary powers over her Majesty-
land and sea forces, the perusal of
Lord Elgin's instructions, aud a com-
parison of them with what he really
did, ought to he conclusive.
Out of seven measures which Lord
Clarendon, then Secretary for Foreigu
Affairs, considered it necessary to
suggest in the event of the Emperor
heing contumacious, we find that
Lord Elgin acted hut upon the
seventh and last — this was, the
estahlishment of a military force in
permanent occupation of the city of
Canton; and of all his measures, we
helieve this to he the one most open to
criticism, for the following reasons.
So far as any moral effect upon the
Court of Pekin is concerned, either
in 1858, or as we now see in 1859,
we might as well have taken posses-
sion of Lhassa in Thihet, or the capi-
tal of theCorea; and whilst wo have
excited the hostility and fears of all
China, and given the war-party in
Pekin the very hest argument against
our professions of disinterestedness
touching acquisition of territory, the
occupation of Canton will he found,
on the other hand, to cost a pretty
peuny, if the hill is honestly rend-
ered; and the suffering and death
amongst our soldiers and sailors, who
have heen compelled to remain in the


1859.]
629
On Allied Operations in China.

most unhealthy part of China, have
heen something fearful. Against all
these drawhacks, we have not a
single compensating advantage to set
off, unless it he, that the mercantile
community at Hong Kong like the
arrangement, and that within the
mere walls of one city, in China our
prestige is preserved intact. Perhaps
it might he argued in defence of this
measure, that at any rate we have
avenged the disgrace which fell upon
our arms when the redouhtahle Yeh
made Admiral Sir Michacl Seymour
retreat hefore his hraves and fire-
ships; we reply, that reparation for
our injured honour might have heen
ohtained at far less cost to ourselves
than the occupation of Canton has
heen since Cbristmas 1857.
Such is the result of attempting, in
Downing Street, to lay down rules of
action for men who are to carry out
diplomatic or military measures in
so remote and little understood a
part of the glohe as China. Upon the
importance of the Plenipotentiary
or Amhassador having plenary powers
over the direction of the land and sea
forces, too much stress caunot he
laid.
It is not always that admirals and
generals can he found who will waive
their own petty diguity and narrow
ideas of personal etiquette, and con-
sult alone the interests of the empire
of which they are the paid servants.
This lilue-Iiook leaves much not ac-
counted for in the proceedings of the
amhassadors and admirals when oil"
the Peiho river in April and May
1858. We caunot understand why
Lord Elgin arrives on the loth
April 1858 off the Peiho river tot-
ally unsupported, and apparently
risking insult from the Chinese.
We caunot understand what, if
he can he there on the 15th April,
prevented the Admiral agreeing to
force the passage of the river until
the 18tli May; the more so that in
Despatch 152, Lord Elgin, on May
9th, writes Lord Malmeshury that
"it is ohvious that every day of pro-
crastination and delay was reducing
to a lower ehh our chance of hring-
ing to an early and satisfactory con-
summation the policy which we had
heen commanded hy our respective
Governments to carry out." Who
was delaying?—who was procrasti-
nating? And further on—"Junks
laden with supplies for Pekin had
heen passing the har of the Peiho
river at the average rate of ahout
fifty a day; the healthy season was
passing away, the Chinese hegin-
ning to recover from alarm." Who
was to hlame for all this? No one I
Or do we, in one solitary para-
graph of Despatch 156, find the real
clue, which has inadvertently escaped
the mystifying pencil of the judi-
cious Under-Secretary? Lord Elgin
there says, on May 22d, 1858, di-
reotly after the long-delayed attack
upon the contumacious Chinamen—
"I trust, therefore, thit it (the suc-
cessful fight) will encourage the Ad-
mirals to prosecute with vigour those
measures which I huve heen urging
upon them for some time pant.''
Where, my Lord, are these de-
spatches? It is important now,
for the future honour of our arms
and diplomacy, that the proofs
of these assertions and complaints
he made puhlic. We should not
have sought them, had the skilful
diplomacy and cleverness with which
the Treaty of Tientsin was wrung
from the Court of Pekin succeeded
likewise in guaranteeing its faithful
fulfilment: it has not done so. We
therefore desire to he ahle to prove
our thesis, that for diplomacy to suc-
ceed in the East, it must have entire
control over our own executive; and
wo feel assured that you, my Lord
Elgin, as well as the statesman dt the
head of the Eoreigu Office, hold
proofs of the correctness of our argu-
ment. When we rememher that in
1858 England had in Chinese waters
some eighty odd pendants, and an
overwhelming force of guns and men,
wo are more and more struck with
the want of vigorous action at
Taku and Tientsin hetween the 20th
and 26th May. The guns and earth-
works at Taku appear to have heen
taken, and the troops that Admiral
Seymour, as shown in Despatch 156,
knew to have only retreated a distance
of eight miles, were, if followed at all,
only pressed gently, and allowed to
effect their escape. The result may he
seen in the suhsequent negotiations
at Tientsin, where, judging hy the re-
ported conversations of Mr. Lay with
VOL. LXXXVL
-il


630
Otot.
On Allied Operation! in China.

the Imperial Commissioners, we are
impressed with the eonviction that
skillul jockeying alone ohtained Lord
Elgin his Treaty; and tliat the only
wonder is thai he ohtained it at all,
with a half-heaten Mongolian army
in his neighhourhood—un English
have done with Lord Elgin; and
really, considering how different our
motives are in putting pressure upon
China, the only wonder is, that any
comhined actinn takes place at all.
We go to war with China for purely
commercial reasons: she wants nei-
general in Canton, who allowed him- ther us nor our trade; we insist she
self to he hullied hy Chinese militia
—and Allitd adm rals on the spot,
who fitted very slowly, and, when
forced into action, read the garrison
of '1 nku so light a lesson that they
return in-xt year to inflict a deteat
upon our flag.
No one cared to know of these
things when it was seen that, in spite
of them, Lord Elgin had secured a
Treaty which all men considered a
sound one; hut now that we find the
want of unity of action in 1858
hringing ahout the sad disaster of
1859, it is time that some inquiry
took place into the causes which
hrought ahout such fatal errors in
past negotiations with China.
It is in counection with this suhject
that the action of Allied plenipo-
tentiaries and generals or admirals
hecomes douhly difficult. If so many
impediments exist in the path of an
amhassador looking only to his own
country's interests, what must it he
when there are two amhessadors of
different nations? We have no douht
that if a committee sat to-morrow to
prove the ohstacles which Lord Elgin
had to comhat, and to examine into
the shortcomings of 1858, and how
they have affected the peaceahle
ratification of the Treaty of Tientsin
in 1859, they would everywhere he
met hy the excuse—the information
you eeek caunot he given lest we
offend the pride, or hurt that love
of secresy for which our French
friends are such sticklers. For this
reason an air of mystification is as-
sumed, which is totally foreigu to our
hahits, and contrary to the consti-
tution of this country.
H this ohjection exists at home,
fancy how many ohstacles surround
the amhussador at the distance of
sixteen thousand mdes from the seat
of his Government. The chances are
ten to one against another French
diplomatist heing found, who will
act so cordially and faithfully with
.our envoy as Baron Gros appears to
shall accept hoth. "France goes to
war for an idea," that happens in
this case to he the right of her priest-
hood to go wherever they please,
and seek converts to a faith, a firm
helief in which renders every con-
verted Chinaman a rehellious suhject.
Is England prepared to support
Franco in such a policy?—is France
sincerely desirous of promoting Brit-
ish interests in China?—if so, why
does she traverse our pohcy in every
other quarter of the glohe, and hy
disproportionate naval armaments
ohlige us to tax the commerce and
industry of England to the present
frightful extent!
Every sensihle man will reply that
our interests are not identical; well
then, we say, why not let each sepa-
rately pursue her own policy—why
hy tliis pretended alliance give the
Chinese reason to suppose tl at we
are either afraid to deal with them
single-handed, or that each ca>e is
so weak that it will not stand
upon its own merits? Touching the
arguments in favour of the Am-
hassador having the power to
direct military operations, it must
he allowed that in allied operations,
where unity of action is more than
ever necessary, decision ami rapidity
will he entirely out of the question.
For in China, as in .the Crimea, we
shall have councils of war, plans, pro-
tests, and counter-plans, all for the sole
purpose of handying responsihility
from shoulder to shoulder; and the
siege of Pekin may rival Sehastopol,
if not that of Troy.
If we take into consideration tie
task which our Envoy will have to
execute, and its extremely delicate
and complicated nature, the more
unfair will it he to him to hamper his
action hy having to consult some
hrother plenipotentiary whose coun-
try's interests arc in no wi-e identi-
cal. Whether the Envoy or High
Commissioner of England he a diplo-
matist, admiral, or general, no man


1859.]
6J1
On, Allied Operation* in China.

will envy him the honour who weighs
well the duty lie will have imposed
upon him, or desire to add one straw
to the anxiety or difficulty of his po-
sition. He will have to wipe out the
disgrace of a most sigual defeat—to
impress upon the Court of Pekin that
all ohligations entered into under the
siguature of the high officers, and
ratified hy the Emperor, are hinding,
and ohtain guarantees for the fulfil-
ment of such promises; at the same
time, he, the Envoy, will have to hear
constantly in mind, that, apart from
a mere export and import trade of
twenty-four millions sterling hetween
the United Kingdom and China, with
perhaps as much more to and from
India and British colonies, our re-
venue derivahle from many Chinese
products forms as important a frac-
tion in the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer's hudget, as the sale of opinm is
of vital consideration to the financial
condition of British India.
We caunot, we dare not, forego our
right to punish the Emperor Hien-
Fung for his treachery; hut for a
thousand reasons the punishment
must he short, sharp, decisive, and
at the same time not remorseless.
"We must not force the Emperor to
extremities; we must not kill the
goose that has only commenced to lay
us golden eggs. Can any one give
us, we ask, a single proof that, in
going to Pekin arm-in-arm with the
French, such a course is likely to ho
pursued? Do French military or
naval operations in Algeria, the
Crimea, or Italy prove it? We say
not, and at the same time yield to
none in a sincere admiration for the
gallantry and devotion of her soldiers
and sailors.
Low indeed must England have
sunk, if she needs French aid to punish
China; and whatever reasons Lord
Palmerston may have had in 1857
tor holstering up his case hy a French
alliance, none such exist at present.
We want an ahle Amhassador or
Envoy, with an enterprising admiral
and general, hacked hy ten thousand
men. Surely Great Britain can pro-
duce these. It is hy acting alone that
she will hest impress upon the stolid
Chinaman an idea of her undiminish-
ed power; and it is hy ohtaining re-
dress single-handed that she will hest
allay the excitement which has very
naturally followed tbroughout the
East upon the news of the hloody re-
pulse at the Peiho—results which we
do not helieve will he ohtained, or at
any rate not with effect, if we are to
again act in China under the shadow
of French tricolors.
There is to the English states-
man another serious consideration.
We are introducing the French
amongst our Eastern colonies, and
enahling them to collect in force
upon our great routes of commerce
with India, China, and Australia.
The Government of Great Britain
has proclaimed that, in the event of
war, the colonists of Australia, New
Zealand, Singapore, and India, must
he prepared to defend themselves, at
the same time we are affording the
only naval power English colonists
have any reason to fear, an excellent
pretext for keeping in those Eastern
seas a force which, under all other
circumstances, would he only looked
on as heing there for reasons hostile
to British interests. Directly that
England fancied she had accom-
plished her ohject in China hy the
treaty of Tientsin, she reduced her
fleet. France did not do so, hut ra-
ther augmented it, and set upon the
conquest of the seahoard of Cochin-
China, with a view to estahlishing
herself directly on the road hetween
China and England. That she failed
in this is owing to the tactics
of her admiral, and the insaluhrity
of the climate of Cochin-China, not
to any wisdom upon our part; and
it should he rememhered that, dur-
ing the war in Italy, had circum-
stances compelled England to enter
the field as a helligerent against
France, the French squadron in the
East Indies and in New Caledonia
would have not only matched ours
under Admiral Hope, hut whilst
the latter would have had millions'
worth of property to protect hoth
afloat and on shore, the French
would have only had the pleasing
occupation of capturing, sinking, and
destroying our merchantmen and
settlements. Let a fresh allied war
against China he entered upon, and
though no prophets, we maintain
that the war may last for three or
four years, or as long as Louis Napo-


632
[Sot.
On Allied Operation* in China.
44 guns.
40 do.
8 do.
8 do.
16 do.
24 do.
screw.
do.
do.
do.
leon pleases, and that at the end of
it we shall find the French fleet in
the East in a still more menacing
position than the last Chinese im-
hroglio left them. The French squa-
dron in Chinese waters alone, at
this moment, consists of the follow-
ing vessels:—
Nemesis, frigate.
Capricieuse, do.
Phiegeton, harque.
Primanquet, do.
La Place, do.
Du Chayla, ship.
Mitraille, 6 guns.
Marceuu, 6 do.
Fusee, 6 do.
Dragonne, 4 do.
Avalanche, 4 do.
Preq.-nt, 3 do.
Meurthe,1 Fine armed troop-ships,
Durance, 1 armnmeut uncertain,
Gironde, [ capahle of carrying 12
Saone, J guns each.
Rose, 1 Hired despatch-
Hemi, >. vessels and tran-
St. Andrew, Ac. ) sporta.
In addition to these vessels, the
Frenoh had a sqnadron of four vessels,
if not six, in New Caledonia, and as
many more at Bourhon Island and
off Zanzihar. Against this French
force, which has no territory to pro-
tect, and no commerce to watch over,
we have the
Algerine, Slaney, and ) First-class gun-
Leven, ) hoats.
Blusl erer, Bustard, Clown,]
Coromandel, Drake, Gl1n.,wat
s
Firm,Forester Haughty.! ^ and
Janus, Kestrel, Marling,! vA r,i.«.
Stanch, Watchful, and
Woodcock, J
Heavy first-class
gun-vessels.
Chesapeake, frigate,
Cumhrian, do.
Sampson, ship,
Furious,
Magicieune,
Acorn, hrig,
Cruizer, shin,
Highflyer, do.
Inflexihle, sloop.
Fury, do.,
Esk, ship,
Guns.
51 Screw.
36 Old sailing-ship.
6 Paddle-wheel.
(" Paddle - wheel
16 J frigates, ad-
16 i apt ed for tran-
[ sports.
12
17 Screw.
21 Screw.
6 Puddle.
6 Paddle.
21 Screw.
3dCIa
All the other vessels lately par-
aded in official returns are useless
as men-of-war, and may not with
safety proceed to sea; such, for in-
stance, as the Alligator, Hercules,
Mimlen, Melville, and Bittern; whilst
the Actmon, Dove, Ilesper, Saracen,
Adventure, and Assistance, are fitted
for surveying purposes, or as troop
and store ships. In Indian waters,
Admiral Hope had only at his dis-
posal tbree men-of-war, the Retrihu-
tion, 28—another wretched specimen
of the paddle wheel fighting-ship—
and two first class despatch-hoats;
and so far as the force denominated
the Indian Navy is concerned, the
vessels are no more than a match
for, if so good as, the French armed
troop-ships.
Surely such a fleet as that France
now has in the East, ought to he a
sufficient cause for anxiety in the
present political state of Europe; and
at a time when statesmen are doing
all in their power to awaken a martial
spirit tbroughout this land, with a
view to repel the aggression or in-
vasion which they seem to think
looms in the horizon, instead of en-
couraging an increase of the numher
of French soldiers or sailors in the
East, all should join with us in say-
ing, that for the safety of our Eastern
possessions, and the security of our
enormous commerce with all the
countries heyond the Cape of Good
Hope, the sooner we insist upon the
French force heing reduced in those
quarters the hetter for England.


1859.]
The Future of India and her Army.
THE FUTURB OP INnIA ANn HER ARMY.
A FRIENDLY LETTER BY THE OVERLANn MAIL.
It is only another proof, my dear
Geoeral, of your old kindness of
heart, manifested to me in so many
ways ever since the commencement
of tliat happy time, when yon were
Colonel, and I Adjutant, of the 102d
—and we looked at the dear old
regiment with pride and confidence,
which nothing could shake—that you
should send me an early privileged
copy of the " Report of the Reorgan-
isation Commission." I told you in
my last all that I could tell you ahout
the old regiment. It did not amount
to much more than that it " went to
the had" like the rest. I caunot
he too thankful that I was out of
it hefore the thing happened; for
although we used to think that we
had some hold upon the affections
of our men, and that they would
have "followed us anywhere" (and
in those days I helieve they would);
yet seeing what I have seen, and
hearing what I have heard during
these last two years, I really have
not the least hope that, if you and I
had heen with the regiment when
the madness seized it, we should not
hoth of us have heen shot like dogs.
It is all over now. I really helieve
that the Mutiny has heen fairly
trampled out hy the indomitahle
courage of the Anglo-Saxon race.
But what the doctors call the tequelas
of the disease are now hefore and
around us; and I caunot conceal
from you my conviction that there
is a world of trouhle yet in the
womh of time, and that it will
require all our wisdom and all our
energy to "pull tbrough" into the
old heaten road of tranquil sucoess.
Our old native army has gone to
pieces, and the question now is—
How are we to reconstruct it? Of
course it must he reconstructed. I
utterly repudiate the idea of holding
India simply hy the thews and
sinews of the gora-logue or white
men. We must have, in some shape
or other, a native army; and it
Calcutta, Stptemher 1869.
seems to he pretty well understood
that we must also have a very power-
ful European army to keep it in
check. The difficulty which then
arises is mainly one of finance. How
are we to maintain these two great
armies without so exhausting the
revenues of India as to leave nothing
for internal improvement, without
spending so much on the suhjection
of the people as to deprive ourselves
utterly of the means of heneficent
rule?
Indeed, we have come to this pass
now, that the whole question of In-
dian government has hecome a mili-
tary question. If we caunot reoon-
struot our army in such a mauner
as to hring it within reasonahle
hounds, as respects numhers and
therefore cost, we may as well tbrow
up our cards at once, for we can hold
neither tricks nor honours. Looking
at the matter thus gravely, all think-
ing men in this country regarded
with solemn interest the great fact
that a Commission, composed of some
of the ahlest soldiers and statesmen
of the day, had heen ordered to
assemhle in England for the purpose
of collecting evidenoe respecting the
reorganisation of the Indian army,
and reporting upon it; whilst at the
same time evidence of a like charac-
ter was heing collected in this coun-
try. The many, perhaps, considered
it a personal question; their future
position was to he determined ; their
interests, their privileges were at
stake. Anybow, great was the
eagerness to know what the Com-
mission had reported; and that
anxiety satisfied hy the newspapers,
to learn the contents of the Blue-
Hook. I havo spent many hours
over it, my dear General, and, thanks
to your kindness, have heen ahle to
gratify many friends; hut I caunot
say otherwise than that, on the
whole, I have heen much disap-
pointed hy its contents.
The first thing apparent on read-



634
[Nov.
The Future of India and her Army.
ing the evidence is. that the original
desigu of the Commission was to in-
quire into the hest means of reor-.
ganising the Indian army—chiefly, it
may he said, the Bengal army—with
especial advertence to the reconstruc-
tion of the native portion of it. This
was the original desigu—and up to a
certain point it seems to have heen
carried out with sufficient singleness
of purpose and sincerity of execution.
They hegan hy calling upon that dis-
tinguished veteran, Sir George Pol-
lock, for the result of his experience.
They plied him with a vast numher
of questions- ahout the proportion of
native to European troops that the
Bengal army might safely contain—
the constitution of the artillery force—
the duties of the police—the propor-
tion of regular to irregular troops—the
description of duties to he intrusted to
the Sepoys—the constitution of native
regiments—the expediency or inex-
pediency of comhining natives and
Europeans in the same regiments—
the effect of caste on the Indian
army—the power of commanding
officers—the expediency of maintain-
ing or aholishing corporal punish-
ment in the native army—the numher
of officers that ought to lie attached
to a native regiment—and other ques-
tions of a kindred character, princi-
pally relating to the internal organ-
isation of the Sepoy army. And
when General Low, who had come
fresh from the Supreme Council of
India, and Colonel Welchman, who
had gained large experience in the
Adjutant-General's office, went up for
examination, and were followed hy
others with varied information re-
lating to the organisation of the
native armies of India, still the in-
quiry went on in the same course;
the same questions were put; the same
facts and opinions were elicited. It
appeared to he not only tlie chief,
hut the sole ohjeot of the Commis-
sioners, to elicit information hearing
upon the one great question of the
reconstruction of the native army.
But after the greater numher of ex-
perienced Company's officers, whose
opinions were to he elicited, had heen
examined and dismissed to their
homes, the Commissioners hegan to
change their tactics, and to enter
upon new ground. They hegan to
inquire whither, in the opinion of
the wirnesses, it would he expedient
to maintain us heretofore a local
European army in India, or hence-
forth to rely entirely on troops of the
line. As soon as this question was
started, it appears to me that every
other question at once sank into
insiguificance. Then arose, indeed,
a great conflict hetween the Horse-
Guards and the India Office. It
was ohviously the desigu of the re-
presentatives of the former to hring
the entire European army of India
under the domination of Whitehall.
We are all talking ahout this anx-
iously here upon the hanks of the
Hoogbly, as I daresay you are talk-
ing ahout it on the hanks of the
Thames And I should not tell you
the truth, if I did not say that we
are talking of it not without some
very palpahle manifestations of alarm.
I shall endeavour to find time and
space to say something more to you
on this suhject hefore I have done.
But ere 1 comply with this part
of your request, and tell you what I
think ahout the great question of
"Line" and "Local," as affecting
our European troops, I must give
you a few of my crude ideas concern-
ing the unhappy Sepoy army, once
the pride of our Indian empire, hut
now a hissing and a reproach. And,
first of all, a few words ahout the
Past.
I confess that I am often sorely
puzzled; and that the more I think
ahout the matter, the more difficult
I find it to account for the direction
taken hy this sudden madness of
the Sepoys. There is something so
altogether exceptional and abuormal
in the character of the outhreak and
its manifestations, that at times, a
reflecting man, seeking to fathom
the mystery, is driven to a state of
ahsolute despair. How often has it
heen said, that if the Sepoy officers
had done their duty to their men,
this thing would never have hap-
pened? It is alleged that the Sepoys
were passively neglected or actively
slighted hy their officers—that there
was no reciprocity of kindly feeling,
no hond of sympathy hetween the
white-faced captain and the dusky
sentinel. The hond had heen hroken,
people said, hy the encroachment of


1859]
635
The Future of India and her Army.

Western civilization; and tliere was
a growing feeling of indifference
or distaste on the one side, and of
hitter resentment on the other. But
every one alleged that there were
"exceptions—that there were Euro-
pean officers, attached to native
regiments, whose hearts were in
their work; who did their duty to-
wards their men, not only with un-
stinted lahour, and in an ungrudging
spirit, hut heartily, lovingly indeed;
and who seemed to have estahlished
such relations with the soldiery,
that it was helieved that when the
Sepoy called his officer "Mere hap"
(" My father"), his heart responded
to the sound of the words. Sorely
these men might have heen expected
to escaIie the fury of the impassioned
multitude. There were no wrongs,
no slights—no harsh acts or hum-
hling words, to he resented; there
was the memory of years of kindness
and of care to stand with saving
aid hetween the Sepoy's musket
and the captain's hreast. But even
the most paternal officers were shot
down hy their children like dogs, or
sahred without remorse. You will
say that a hlind, indiscriminate fury
had seized upon the mutineers; that
they were as men possessed hy devils;
and that they emote at friend and
foe alike. If it had heen so always,
the c:ise would have heen one com-
paratively easy to understand. But
it sometimes happened that, in their
fury, the Sepoys did single out an
officer whom they would not smite,
and that the officer thus marked for
protection was not the one who had
treated them hest. Perhaps a man
whoso whole heart had heen in his
company—who had given himself
up wholly to the promotion of its
welfare—who had thought more of
the comfort of his Sepoys than of
Ids own,—was hutchered in cold
hlood: whilst some idle, devil-may-
care fellow, who went ahout his own
husiness, and did just as much for
his men as he was hound to do, and
no more, was spared from the gen-
eral destruction.
You have prohahly heard nothing
of this in England; hut the fact is
as I have stated, and is suhject of
not uncommon discourse amongst
us iu these parts. A remarkahle
incident, illustrative of the eccentric
course of the madness of the Sepoys,
occurred in Bhaugulpore. I may
tell the story in a few words. Three
officers were sitting in a hungalow,
when a detachment of the 32d Na-
tive Inlantry, having risen in rehel-
lion, rushed in upon thorn. One of
these was the commanding officer of
the detachment, Lieutenant Cowper,
who implicitly trusted his men, who
was in constant familiar intercourse
with them, and who was helieved to
he an ohject of sincere attachment
to his corps. Another was Lieu-
tenant Raunie of the same oorps,
who had never taken any particular
pains to please his men, and had
never appeared to he a favourite with
them. The third was Mr. Ronald,
an assistant commissioner in the di-
vision, of whom, of course, the men
knew nothing. If all our theories,
my dear General, had heen worth a
straw, the men would have shot
down Lieutenant Raunie and Mr.
Ronald, and spared Lieutenant Cow-
per, as their friend and their father.
But they singled out Lieutenant
Raunie, who was not known to have
done them any good, called upon
him hy name to leave the hungalow,
and suffered him to depart unmo-
lested, whilst they remorselessly hut-
chered Lieutenant Cowper and the
stranger hy his side.
If they had indiscriminately shot
the three officers, we might have
understood the matter; if they had
spared the stranger, the case might
have heen intelligihle; if they had
suffered Lieutenant Cowper to de-
part in peace, it would have heen as
clear as noonday; hut why they
should have spared Lieutenant Ran-
nie and murdered the other two, is
an enigma which must remain un-
solved to the day of judgment. Of
course, we may hazard vague conjec-
tures; we may speculate at will;
we may surmise that the one officer,
in spite of Ins earnest endeavours to
conciliate the goodwill and to de-
serve the gratitude of the men, may
have unwittingly offended some of
their prejudices; and that in the
other, though generally careless and
indifferent, there may have heen
something that unconsciously ap-
pealed to their predilections and par-
r


636
[Nov.
The Future of India and Ker Army.

tialities. There may have heen some
latent hond of sympathy hetween
them; hut, anybow, such a result is
discouraging in the extreme. It
makes a man cry cui hono f If one
man, taking no account of the mut-
ter, is to conciliate the native mind
hy accident, whilst another, with
much careful study and life-long as-
siduity, earnest and energetic, tbrow-
ing his whole heart into the work,
loving the people whom he serves,
and making perhaps largo sacrifice
of self, is to fail thus with a great
failure, and so to grieve the spirits
of those whom he would cherish
that they are ready to shoot him
down on the first opportunity, what
encouragement is there to a man to
look gravely at his duties, and to
devote himself to the men whom he
commands? He may do more hy
some hap-hazard stroke—hy what
we call in the hilliard-room a erow.
All this is very mortifying. You
know me too well, my dear General,
to think that I would urge such a
misadventure as I have heen writing
of as a plea for indolence and indif-
ference, and a general infusion of the
"devil-may-care" into our profes-
sional intercourse with the natives
of the country. What every man
amongst us is hound to do is his lent,
and nothing short of it. His very
hest may lead practically to nothing
hetter than a strangling failure. But
that is not Ids fault. The issues are
in other and wiser hands. We can
hut work according to the light that
is in us. We may fail, hut not on
that account will our service he less
acceptahle hefore God.
It is very difficult, my dear Gen-
eral, to furnish any theories, wherehy
we may account for this recent con-
vulsion. The more we think ahout
it here on the spot, the more griev-
ously perplexed and hewildered we
are. The real truth is, that we know
little or nothing ahout it. My own
impression always lias heen that
mutiny is the normal state of an
Eastern army; aud that the marvel
is, not thai after so many years the
Sepoys revolted, hut that they did
not revolt hefore. Patau, Sikh, Mah-
ratta—all mutiny. Do you know
any Indian army that has not mu-
tinied again and again? The receipt
of regular pay, and the certainty of a
liheral pension, have kept our army
for a century in a state of compara-
tive, if not of positive loyalty. We
have seen during that interval king-
doms fall to pieces under the wild'
shock of a licentious soldiery. We
have survived a hlow which would
have destroyed others; hut the hlow
may descend again; and what we
have now to do is to place ourselves
in an attitude that may enahle us to
meet it with safety. I do not write
dogmatically upon a suhject that has
hewildered many a stronger hrain
than mine; hut I caunot help think-
ing that our Sepoy army revolted,
not hecause it was an army of hlacks
under a white master, hut simply he-
cause it was an Oriental army, aud
all Oriental armies revolt. We must
not think that there is any especial
hatred of British rule—any especial
hatred of a foreigu yoke. History is
full of instances of the harharities
practised hy Indian armies upon their
own officers—one of the mildest of
which was that of tying them on to
guns heated almost to the point of
red heat. The regularity of the
English pay, and the certainty of
the English pension, douhtless sus-
pended the eruption during a long
period of years; hut the lava was
there, and it was only in the course
of nature that, sooner or later, there
should he an irrepressihle outhurst.
I repeat that what has happened
may happen again, hut not until
after another lapse of years, and not
until we have profited largely hy the
lessons of the past. These lessons,
as yon know, my dear General, are
numerous. But there is nothing, on
every account, more worthy to he re-
memhered than that numhers do not
make strength.
It may he a puzzle to many, hut
so it is, that as in India our enemies
diminished, our army increased. As
we put down one foreigu enemy after
another—as we conquered Mogul,
Mabratta, and Sikh, and mule the
country our own from Caixr Comorin
to the Indus, there was a steady and
consistent cry for "more troops."
The "augmentation of the army"
was the one panacea for all the dis-
eases to which our Indian empire
could he suhject. But there were a


638
[Not.
The Future of India and her Army.

of internal defence; for wo have
really, as I have said, no enemy in
India, heyond our own frontier,
against whom it is necessary to make
warlike preparations on a large scale.
The idea now is, that we must have
a native army, and an European one
of far greater maguitude than hefore
to keep it in check. For every two
or tbree Sepoys we must have an
English soldier, to shoot them down,
when they exhihit a mutinous spirit,
and appear to he hecoming danger-
ous. This is altogether a miserahle
notion. Our strength is turned into
weakness when we are compelled to
protect our right hand against the
assaults of the left. If such he the
necessity, it is very clear that we
must never again enlist a large Sepoy
army. But what are we now doing?
We aro leaving our skeleton regi-
ments still skeletons; and hecause
we do not see them again appearing
with a local hahitation and a name
in the Army List, we think that there
is no native army. But, my dear
General, helieve me when I tell you
that a native army, as multitudinous
if not as dangerous as the last, is
quietly springing up, and we are
taking no heed of it. They are not
"regulars," it is true. What does it
matter? They are armed and dis-
ciplined soldiers—call them what you
may; irregular corps or military pol-
ice. Under the single head of Mili-
tory Police, I shudder to think how
many soldiers have heen enlisted,
armed, and disciplined. The Oude
Military Police is in itself an army
differing little from a Sepoy force in
any essential point—almost as costly
and almost as dangerous as the same
numher of regular Sepoys. We must
take care not to push this theory of
a Military Police too far, or we shall
find ourselves quietly drifting out of
Charyhdis on to Scylla. Use all your
influence at home, my dear General,
to warn the authorities against fall-
ing into a mistake of this kind. You
may do something hy lifting up your
voice.
The first thing, I repeat, my dear
General, is, that we must not arm and
discipline too many native troops, to
he a source of future difficulty and
danger to us—costly in themselves,
and douhly costly, since they must
he watched hy European regiments.
Numhers, I say again, are not
strength. What we want are small
hodies of troops of all arms, capahle
of moving at an hour's notice. Oar
military system heretofore has heen
hased upon a wholly opposite prin-
ciple. We have had lurge hodies of
troops incapahle of moving, and
therefore powerless for good, though
powerful for evil. Let us station at
certain points small movahle hri-
gades, with a fair intermixture of
European troops in each, the guns
heing always in the hands of Euro-
peans. Let cavalry, infuntrv, and
artillery he accustomed to work to-
gether. Let there he some respon-
sihle staff-officer with each hrigade,
whose husiness it shall he to see
that the force is always in a fit state,
in respect of supplies, to take the
field; and we may hid defiance to
insurgent India. Hitherto, any sud-
den danger has found us hopelessly
paralysed and panic-stricken. We
have had guns without ammunition,
cavalry without horses, all armi of
the service without supplies. One
hold prompt stroke at the outset, and
a rehellion is crushed in the hud. It
is hecause we never are in a position
to strike that prompt heavy hlow that
a local emeute grows into a general
insurrection. Let us remedy all
Ihis. What need we fear of out-
hreaks at any one station if there
are always present Europeans with
guns? and what need we fear of dis-
tant movements, if we have such
forces as I have descrihed ready to
move down on the centre of disaifec-
tion from half-a-dozen different
points? Give us only these movahle
hrigades under capahle commander-,
our magazines always heing in places
of safety—which hitherto we have
taken care that they should not he—
and it will not he difficult to hold
India with a force numerically infe-
rior to that which sprawled help-
lessly over the surface of the country
to convince us of our folly and to
warn us of our fate.
There is nothing, of course, so well
calculated to keep Jack Sepoy in
order as the continued presence of
European troops, with the persua-
sive aid of artillery; hut prevention
is hetter than cure, and it is right


1859.]
039
The Future of India and her Army.

that we should consider in what
mauner mutinous comhination is
hest to he prevented. It is often
said that we must not have too many
men of the same caste and of the
same country in a regiment; and
that it is. hest to station them at
a distance from their home, and to
sever as far as possihle local asso-
ciations. But it appears to me that
the localisation of corps and castes
is, on the whole, to he encouraged
rather than not. "Home-staving
youths have ever homely wits." Not
having the fear of the schoolmaster
hefore me, I must confess that Jack
Sepoy is hest in his homeliness.
What he learns from foreigu travel
is seldom much to his own advan-
tage, or to that of the State. I am
afraid that there is in all men a na-
tural disposition to learn evil faster
than good. The one comes naturally
to us, the other seems to he slowly
acquired, and against the grain.
Now, what Jack Sepoy acquires hy
foreigu travel is, so to speak, the
faculty of comhination. He learns
that he is part of an extensive hro-
therhood scattered over the whole
peninsula of India; he learns that in
every cantonment of India there are
men with the same feelings, the same
aspirations as himself. He learns
that in every regiment there are
malcontents, with like grievances,
real or supposed, as his own. In
any season of excitement, therefore,
there is a continual correspondence
hetween men of different regiments
who have at some previous time
heen stationed in the same can-
tonment. They understand each
other hetter, and derive a deeper
interest in what is going on at a dis-
tance, from the local knowledge
which they have gained upon their
travels. This same consideration
furnishes an argument in favour
rather of the massing than of the
dispersing of men of the same coun-
try and caste. If any given nation-
ality is scattered over all the regi-
ments in the army, there is in the
army, as a whole, the element of
comhination; and we must take
heed lest, hy our efforts to limit re-
gimental comhination, we generate a
more dangerous power of association
tbroughout the army itself. It is
plain that there are difficulties in
either direction. The tendency now.
however, is so strongly towards the
advocacy of dispersion, that it is as
well to consider what is to he said
upon the other side. It is assuredly
an evil that a disaffected man at
Peshawar should he ahle quietly to
feel the pulse of a comrade at Dacca,
or, if need he, to scatter sharks of
sedition in the lines of a still moro
remote station in Pegn.
I feel as if I had only hegun to
say what I purposed to say to yon,
General, upon this great question
of the native army of India; hut
if I say anything more, I shall ex-
haust your patience hefore I have
told you what I and others think
ahout the future of our European
army. The great question of " Line"
or "Local" is agitating military
circles here, as you tell me it is agi-
tating military circles at home; and
you may helieve me, when I tell you,
that we are not, in this part of the
world, hungering after the adminis-
tration of the War Office, or the do-
mination of the Horse Guards. There
is no want of loyalty amongst us.
Whether we were pleased at our
transfer hodily from the Company to
the Crown, is a matter which now it
is hardly worth our while to inquire.
The thing is done—we are all "Queen's
officers;" and if it he said, regret-
fully sometimes, that the service will
never again he what it once was, it
is only a trihute due to the loss of
a good and liheral master. The
question now is, not whether we are
to serve the Crown or the Company,
hut whether we are to he governed
hy one of her Majesty's officers of
state or another, and under what
conditions of service. If we are to
he governed hy the Horse-Guards
and hy the Secretary for War, we he-
oome a component part of tho Line
army, still retaining, however, certain
peculiar characteristics, of which no-
thing can deprive us. If, on the
other hand, we are to he governed
hy the Secretary of State for India,
we remain, as now, an integral local
army as much as if we still served
the Company. Yoa may put the
case the other way, and say, "If we
hecome a Line army, we are governed
hy the Horse-Guards," &c, &c.; hut


640
[Nov.
The Future of India and her Army.

it little matters which yoa regard as
the major part of the proposition.
Here is the question which we are
all considering in these parts, and I
can ohserve no indication of a desire
for the change with which we are
tbreatened. It requires no great
acuteness of vision to see, that as
soon as we cease to he a local army,
with privileges as such, we who now
represent the middle-class element
ot European society will he utterly
overwhelmed, crushed, demolished
hy the hurden of the aristocracy.
What would the Horse-Guards have
done for yon, General? What will
the Horse-Guards ever do for me?
We do not helong to a class in whom
Royal Highnesses and friends of
Royal Highnesses take any interest.
Wo are of the Browns and Rohin-
sons. The Browns and Rohinsons
ruled in Leadenhall Street, and to a
certain extent they rule there still.
But m soon as we cease to have a
local European army in India, the
Browns and Rohinsons will he super-
seded everywhere hy the Plaulage-
nets and the Stuarts.
I do not forget that there will
still he a local army. The Horse-
Guards and the War Office do not
aspire to the honour of managing our
"hlack hattalions." But it is easy to
see what the native army of India
will hecome, when detached also from
the European army—a mere native
militia; a police corps—nothing else.
Such, then, of our old Company's
officers as are likely to he attached to
the re-constructed native army, have
the strongest possihle interest in re-
taining the local character of the
European portion of the old army;
whilst those who are ahsorhed into
the Line will equally suffer hy the
change. What made the old Com-
pany's army such a really fine service
was the Staff. I use the word in its
most extended sense, as siguifying all
extra-regimental employment. Every
youth who went out to India knew
that he had as good a chance as his
neighhours of hecoming a Malcolm
or Munro, that he might rise hy suc-
cession to the highest appointments
in the Service, and close his career
as the Governor of a Presidency.
He did not care for interest—he did
not rely on aristocratio counexions.
Aut inreniam aut faciarn was his
motto; and he went without mis-
giving to his work, did his hest hrave-
ly, and if he had the right stuff in
him, he was sure of success. He
was not afraid of Stuarts or Planta-
genets, or any hearers of .letters of
introduction to Governors-General
or Commanders-in-Chief; and there-
fore we had a service of which any
nation might he proud—a service to
whose stout hearts and strong arms
we owe it that we have heen dragged
tbrough the fearful trihulation of the
last two years. Under Providence, we
owe our salvation to the energies of
the middle classes—the right men,
who found their way, hy their own
exertions, to the right place. What
sent John Lawrence to the Punjauh
—what sent Heury Lawrenca to
Lucknow—what put. James Outram
at the head of an army in Persia,
whence he came in the right time to
head another army in Oude? What
hrought such men as Montgomery,
Frere, Chainherlaine, Edwardes, Ni-
cholson, and others to the front when
they were wanted? Why, the good
stuff that was in them; nothing else.
They had few, if any aristocratic
opponents to contend with, and they
were the servants of a middle-class
Government, who would not huve
tolerated aristocratic interference.
Can we hope that it will he so any
longer, if the country is filled with the
proteges of the Horse-Guards and the
War-Office, and men are appointed,
as they will he, to regiments in India,
on the understanding that they are
to get some suug little herths on
the Staff" Nay, indeed, I do not
douht that hefore long the formality
of attaching gentlemen, on their pro-
motion, to regiments serving in India,
will he dispensed with. The thing
has heen hegun already. We have
all heen talking here—and in no
complimentary terms—of a recent
nomination to a political appoint-
ment in Central India. The old
Company's service stood aghast at
the appearance in the Gazette of
the notification of the appointment
thereto of an officer of her Majesty's
service "unattached." Such a thing
had never heen known hefore. The
appointment was one requiring pecu-
liar qualifications, only to he ac-


1859.]
641
The Future of India and her Army.
\

quired hy years of residence in the
country. But the lucky nominee
was not known to possess any sucli
qualifications. He had come out
stronjly recommended, it is said, on
account of political services rendered
to his party—and for this reason,
people said jestingly, he was pitch-
forked into the political department.
I do not say otherwise than he may
he a very excellent and deserving
officer, and may well and worthily
perform the duties intrusted to him;
hut assuredly here was the intro-
duction—hardly, I can say, of the
small end of the wedge, for it seems
to have gone in hodily. At one
jump the Government overleapt the
inevitahle condition of employment
of this description, that the employe
should helong to a regiment serving
in India. The claims of men who
had heen hearing the hurden and the
heat of the day in India were over-
looked for an officer of aristocratic
counection-, fresh from the cluhs of
St. James's and the Government
House of Calcutta. What is there,
then, to prevent all the hest ap-
pointments in India heing virtually
filled up hy aristocratic influence at
home?
It may he said that if this has
commenced already, nothing worse is
to he apprehended from the transfer
of the European portion of the In-
dian army to the direct management
of the Horse-Guards. Your know-
ledge and experience, General, will
enahle you to supply the proper
answer to this. What we see now
is simply an experiment, the success
of which will depend upon the man-
ner in which the question of "Line
or Local" is determined. If matters
remain as they are, and the old Com-
pany's army hecomes hodily a local
army, under the administration of
the Secretary of State for India, I do
not see why the system which limits
(with a few exceptions) the selection
of military officers for Staff employ-
ment to officers of the local army
should not he adhered to as strictly
as hefore. What Lord Cauning has
done hy the appointment of Major
Wortley to a political situation in
Central India, is a deviation from the
rule and practice of the service; it is
irregular, certainly—illegal, perhaps;
and it can hardly escape the attention
of the Secretary of State for India in
Council. What amount of vitality
there may he in that hody I do
not know; hut I shall he very much
surprised if it does not, in the pre-
sent state of affairs, resist this iuno-
vation. Not merely, under the ex-
isting system, is an unattached officer
ineligihle tor civil and political em-
ploy, hut officers of the Line, with
their regiments in India, are ineli-
gihle for such employment. The
Home Government, therefore, can
hardly suffer this irregularity to pass
uunoticed; and if the old Company's
army remain hodily as now a local
army, there can he no pretext for
revUing the system wherehy Lino
officers are excluded generally from
the Staff. As soon, howevir, as the
two services are thus far amalga-
mated, all distinctions of this kind
will he hroken down. The Line army
will he declared to have the same
claim to civil and political employ-
ment as the Local army; and so far
as the old Company's officers, who
have long local experience, are con-
cerned, the claim will he a just one.
But it is easy to see where the inte-
rest will lie; easy to see, hy the light
of Major Wortley's case, among
whom the loaves and fishes are likely
to he distrihuted. The Browns and
Rohinsons—the representatives of
the middle classes—are likely to fare
hut poorly under such a system.
But there is a difference hetween
the may-he and the must-he. Is it a
necessary consequence of the trans-
fer of the old Company's European
troops to the charge of tho Horse-
Guards, that the local native army
should sink into a hlack militia, anil
the Jones und Rohinsons ho defraud-
ed of their hirtbrights? I always
tiiink it wise to fight for what is
attainahle. You seem to think that
the European local army is doomed
—that, reason as we may, convince
as we may, courtly influences must
prevail; aud that, therefore, India
will henceforth he supplied with
European troops wholly from the
Line army. If this he tho case, what
you and others have to contend for
is, that this change shall he hurden-
ed with certain conditions, which
will render it comparatively harm-


642
[Nov.
The Future of India and her Army.

less. Let the Council of lndia make
ft stand for the privileges of the old
Company's service. If the native
■tiny, shorn of its European sup-
ports, is likely, therefore, to degener-
ate into a militia, let care he taken
to sustain it-i character and to in-
crease its advantages, so that, instead
of heing shuuned, it will he sought
hy our hest officers. Let regulations
he laid down—if need he, rendered
imperative hy Act of Parliament—
prescrihing the amount of Staff pa-
tronage to he open respectively to the
Line and the Local army, and deter-
mining the conditions and qualifica-
tions necessary to the attainment of
Staff employment of different kinds.
By far the larger share of the Staif
patronage should he the appanage
of the Local army, hecause it will
contain the larger amount of local
experience, such as knowledge of
the country, knowledge of the lan-
guages, and familiarity with the ha-
hits of the people; and, moreover,
hecause, as I have said, it will he
necessary to confer certain peculiar
privileges and advantages upon it, to
prevent it from suhsiding into the
status of a hlack militia. And then
as to the Line regiments, it would
not he difficult to prescrihe such
conditions for Staif employment as
will render any great amount of
johhery difficult, if not impossihle.
For example, I would not suffer any
officer to he eligihle for civil or politi-
es! employment until he has served
at least four years in India. It
might, perhaps, he advantageous that
two of these years should he passed
with a native regiment—that the
native army, indeed, should he the
stepping-stone to employment of this
kind. hint anybow, if civil and poli-
tical employment were to he attain-
ahle only after four years' good
service in India, and then only upon
ascertained proficiency, we need not
he much afraid of young aristocrats
hungering after appointments ohtain-
ahle only under such conditions.
I know that there are many other
important considerations greatly af-
fecting this question of "Line or
Local." I regard it, you will gee,
from the Indian point of view, and I
need not trouhle you with any re-
marks on the constitutional hearings
of the question. If a large increase
of the Line army, with all its attend-
ant patronage, should he considered
to involve any daneerous increase of
the power of the Crown, Parliament
may look after the encroachment.
Parliament, too, may he left to regu-
late the numher of European troops
to he employed in India; hut I fear
it never can prevent advantage he-
ing taken of the distant deIiendency
to foist upon it all the spare troops
that England does not want at the
moment, and to recall them when
she does. India has good reason to
he suspioious of England in this re-
spect. She will make us pay for
everything that she can; and when
imperial interests are at slake, if
only in a financial sense, little regard
will he had for the outlying de-
pendency, you may he sure. This is.
indeed, a very serious matter, and I
wish that I could discard the thonght
of the possihility of our heing inun-
dated with troops when we do not
want them, and perhaps despoiled
of them when we do. It is true that
England sent us ahundance of troops
to aid us in our recent trouhles; hut
the imperial Government did not
then want them at home; Europe
was at peace; and, therefore, the
fact of her liherality does not invali-
date the hypothesis of danger from
the ahove cause. Nevertheless, I
hoi I that the greatest danger of all
is likely to come from that weaken-
ing of the "monarchy of the middle
classes" on which I have commented.
I caunot dismiss from my mind the
douht whether such men as huilt up
our Indian empire are likely again
to appear upon the scene.
I caunot say, my dear General,
that I altogether like the present
aspect of aifairs in India. I am
not apprehensive of another military
mutiny, at all events for a long time
to come; and still less do I antici-
pate any general rising of the people.
We may organise another army, we
may scramhle tbrough our financial
difficulties, hut I am afraid that we
are drifting into difficulty and dan-
ger of another kind. The real peril
comes from within. It is the gradual
deterioration of the dominant race
hy which our Indian empire will he
slowly destroyed. You will readily


1859.]
C48
The Future of India and her Army.

understand what I mean. A general
di>taste for India, and everything
helonging to it, is laying fust hold of
the European mind. All classes of
society, from memhers of Council to
the rank and file of our European
regiments, are hungering after home.
India is not what it was in your
time, General; and I am afraid that
I shall never live to see it such again.
Men who have gone tbrough the two
last years of trouhle have lived more
than a generation in quiet times.
They have grown sick of the heat,
the glare, the dust; the continual
noise and excitement; the ahsence
of all repose. They are longing for
rest and pining for home. You told
ine in your last that it seemed
as though all India had heen sud-
denly emptied into England—that
men whose deeds you had just heen
reading of, and whom you helieved
to he still hattling it out in India,
were turning up every day at the
corners of the streets of London, or
staring at you across the diuner-tahle.
Everyhody has taken the first decent
opportunity of ruuning over to Eng-
land, if only for a few months. One
caunot he surprised at the prevalence
of this home-sickness. Even in our
old happy times, when we loved and
trusted the people of the country, we
sighed for the green fields and the
cloudy skies of the Fatherland. I
have felt the craving myself. And I
have gone home; and, alter a while,
like hundreds of others, have re-
turned not sorrowfully to the scene
of my appointed lahours, glad to he
at my work again. But who now
returns to his work joyously and
hopefully as of old? We are grow-
ing weary of it—sick of it, 1 tear.
God I what work it has heen during
the last two years! Not the toil of
it, not the pain of it, not the danger
of it—these are nothing in the ordi-
dinary professional course. The true
soldier rejoices in them; he knows
that it is his duty to look them in
the face, and he is glad that his
courage should he tried. But we
have not heen doing mere soldier's
duty during these two years, Gen-
eral. It has heen hutcher's work—
hangman's work—work which, un-
der the strong excitement of the
hour, we got tbrough, scarcely think-
ing what it was, hut which the soul
now sickens to contemplate in the
terrihle retrospect, when we calmly
take the measure of the horrors
tbrough which we have heen drag-
ged. Now that it is over, We see
clearly what it was, and we know
that we would not go tbrough it
again for all the fahulous wealth of
the land in which we live. I have
seen strong, hrave men—men of
iron nerve and resolute will, who
have gone tbrough all these horrors,
outwardly unmoved, pate, tremulous,
terror-stricken at the recollection of
them, when they have heen discussed
in the quiet chamher, or starting up
suddenly from the placid sleep of
security in an icy swe:it, wild and
incoherent, under the influence of an
awful dream, only faintly shadowing
the stern realities of waking life.
Oh I my dear General, we are sadder
and wiser men than we were. There
is scarcely one among us who does
not feel that there is the hurden
of a terrihle nightmare upon him,
which somehow or other he must
shake off. The environments of a
frightful past cling to him like the
poisoned rohe of the centaur. He
must tear them off for a while, or
sink into a state of feehle depression
and despondency. And so every one
is going home—who can wonder?
There is no recovery for us until we
can hreak the chain of morhid asso-
ciations which now holds us in such
ahsolute tbrall.-
And so every one cither has gone
or is going home. They who can any-
how manage to remain there, will
remain, you may he sure. They will
take any service in England that
will afford them the means of honour-
ahle suhsistence, or expend them-
selves in cheap Continental towns, or
in our own pleasant Chaunel Islands,
living for the rest of their days upon
the pension which they have earned
hy Indian service. In the minds of
all married men at least one com-
mon thought surges up—" This is not
the place for women and children."
The women and childreu have heen
sent home; and there are many
amongst us who will never suffer
them again to set foot on Indian soil.
The country may he as safe as it
ever was hefore—nay, if we profit, as


644
[NTov.
The Future of India and her Army.

we ought to do, hy this terrihle lesson,
much safer—hut the leoling of secu-
rity will not he there, an-1 the appre-
hension of continual <lunger is even
worse than the danger itself. Who
again will leave his helpless helong-
ings, as he once did, to the custody
of native servants, content under
such escort to suffer them to pass
from one end of India to the other?
It is the necessary disruption of
family ties which has always heen
the great drawheck of Indian life.
We do not really know what exile is
until we find that wife and children
are taken away from us, and that wo
are left to toil in cheerless isolation.
But this evil has hitherto heen no-
thing in extent to what it is likely
to ho under the new era; so that
Indian life, in its domestic or social,
is fast hecoming as intolerahle as in
its professional aspect. India, in-
deed, under Queen Victoria, is not
what it was under John Company.
Now, there is nothing to recom-
pense a man for all this hut money,
fhe Indian service was always de-
clared, and in your time was grate-
fully acknowledged to he, the heat
service in the world. Some of our
young hands used to speak contemp-
tuously of our honourahle masters as
tea-dealers; hut the longer they re-
mained in the service, the more prone
they were to admit their ohligations to
them, and to speak with thankfulness
of the liherahty of their employers.
I am writing now with reference to
hoth hranches of the old " Company's
Service." As time advances, they
are hecoming mure and more mixed
up with each other; military men
doing largely what was once held to
he purely civilians' work. What I
have to say of one applies, mutatis
mutandis, to the other; and it is to
he said in a very few words. The
time when, for reasons already.stated,
the Indian service has hecome in
every respect less inviting than he-
fore—when the duties have hecome
more onerous and distasteful, and
the social and domestic environments
of Indian life more painful and dis-
tressing—is held to he an opportune
one for the reduction of all our sala-
ries. They ask more from us, and
they give us less; the hurden of our
servitude is increased, and its recom-
pense diminished. Now, if, as I sin-
cerely helieve, the permanence of our
rule in India depends more upon the
individual qualities of the governing
class than upon anything else, it is
not difficult to see what must event-
ually he the result of the deteriora-
tion of the working agency of Eng-
lish government, which seems now
to ho not a prohahility, hut a cer-
tainty past question.
You must not let your hretbren
in England think, my dear General,
that wo are greedy and grasping in
these parts. We are ready to make
great sacrifices. There is not one
among us who will not pour out his
money as freely as he will pour out
his hlood, for the good of the State.
All that we ask is that our services
may not he depreciated. Do not let
Government take the present oppor-
tunity to tell us that we have all
along heen overpaid—that the work
can he done for less money. This is
not merely to attack our pockets: it
is to assail our pride, to wound our
amour propre, to lower our self-re-
spect. We hke to know that we are
well paid, not merely hecause we
have SO much money to spend, or so
much to invest, and therefore so
much to carry home when the old
horse is growing weak in the loins,
hut hecause every man feels a just
pride in knowing that his services
are higbly valued hy the State. He
I.,nks upon a high salary as a per-
sonal compliment to himself. And
even hody knows'how much hetter
we work when we know that our
lahours are appreciated.
But money, it is said, is wanted;
the State is insolvent; how is it to
ho helped? As 1 write, the m*B
is heing afforded, most siguificantly,
hy the Government itself. They
are hammering away at the great
legislative forge, devising new taxes,
wherehy the expenses of the State
may he paid. They have propounded
the great panacea of an income
tax which is to produce the required
millions, or to go a long way towards
it. Whatever ditlieuhies there may
he in working it out, there is no
douht that it is just in principle,
so long as the tax is a general tax, and
no class is exempted. But what
is the proposal? To exempt the


1859.]
(U5
The Future of India and her Army.

officers of Government—that is, the
governing class, the imposers of
the tax. All sound policy dictating
to us the neoessity of reconciling the
natives of India—i.e. the great hulk
of the tax-payers—to the new impost,
they hit upon the hest means of
rendering it grievous and intolerahle
to them. Under such circumstances,
the first man to contrihute to the
necessities of the State should have
heen the Governor-General himself,
then the memhers of Council, the
jndges, the chief secretaries, and so on.
The rest would have cheerfully fol-
lowed. But this very appreciahle rule
has heen reversed. All classes are
to he taxed except the white-faced
English rulers, for whose especial
support the tax is raised. They who
receive largely from the Stato are to
contrihute nothing to it. What is
this hut to estahlish a raw on the
great hack of the unofficial com-
munity? Douhtless there is a rea-
son for it. The Government ser-
vant tells you, and tells you
truly, that his allowances are to he
reduced, and that he contrihutes
largely to the necessities of the State
hy working for a diminished salary.
Now this, my dear General, is patent
enough to him—is patent enough
to the Government; hut it is not
patent to the outside community,
who either caunot or- will not put
two and two together in this way.
But although the Government ser-
vant understands the cause of his
exemption, he does not appreciate it.
He would rather pay the tax than
have his salary reduced, though the
tax were heavier than the reduction,
He writhes, indeed, under the reduc-
tion; hut he would pay the tax
cheerfully and ungrudgingly in ohe-
dience to the paramount necessities
of the State. All this is very plain.
It is human nature. The reduction of
a man's salary is a personal offence to
him. But taxation, however griev-
ous, is not offensive. The salary of
the puhlic servant, which is an ac-
knowledgment of the value of his
services, stands at the same figure:
and he has still, whatever he may
contribute to the exigencies of the
State, the same feeling of pride in
his position, and of gratitude and
loyalty to the Government which so
vol. lxxxvi. 42
liherally acknowledges his services.
It is sound policy, therefore, viewed
hoth in counection with the efficiency
of the puhlic service and the feeling
of the general puhlic, to tax our
official salaries instead of reducing
them. The latter course, I repeat,
offends all parties; it excites general
discontent tbroughout the service,
and, as implying freedom from taxa-
tion, general discontent in the puhlic
mind. But taxation will he cheer-
fully horne hy the official classes,
whether it he regarded ns a tempor-
ary or a permanent hurden; and the
puhlic will pay with comparative
alacrity when they know that the
governing class has hegun hy taxing
itself.
Another thing to he said is, that
an income-tax is not necessarily a
permanent hurden. To render it
palatahle, it should always he made
to have the appearance of a tempo-
rary measure. Salaries once reduced,
will never he raised again to their
original figure. But an income-tax
may ho lightened, or removed alto-
gether. It is poor economy, yon may
he sure, to violate and to dishearten
the executive servants of the State.
Do this, and you will never get such
good work out of them again; and
India, more than any country in the
world, dependu upon the good heart
and strong energies of individual
men. It may he said hy theorists,
who do not know what Indian lahour
is, that the work may he done equally
well at less cost! I altogether depy
the fact. Reduce the wages, and you
will at once lower the quality of the
work It would he so in the hest of
times; hut in such times as these,
when our hest men are hungering
after homo, and the English mind,
once lured hy hright visions of Ori-
ental luxury, now associates with the
very name of India the most terrihle
images of carnage and destruction,
how can you hope to get, hy reduc-
ing the pecuniary temptations, such
men as yon got of old—the men who
huilt up this great Indian .empire,
which, in spite of the trouhles we
have gone tbrough, is still the great-
est political phenomenon which the
world has ever seen?
I repeat, then, that the greatest dan-
ger which lies hefore us at present is


646 The Future of India and her Army. [Nov. 1859.

the discontent which is cankering, not prised if I were to ask you hefore
the native, hut the European mind, long to look ahout for a modest little
We must look to this hefore it is too residence for me and mine in a cheap
late. You caunot expect men to county, where I can ride to market
work in such a furnace as this with on a rough pony with a hasket over
the knife at their tbroats for nothing, my arm, and dig my own potatoes,
High pay and an exclusive service happy as a king,
huilt up our Indian empire. We You will have had more than
are now ahout to see what low pay enough then, my dear General, I am
and puhlic competition will do. It sure. Fortunately for you, mail-day
appears to me to he a fearful experi- has come upon me hefore I have
meat But I shall not remain in said half that I had intended to say
India long enough to see the issue. —so I will only add to the rest that
Like the rest; I am hungering after I am very sincerely and gratefully
England; and I should not he sur- yours.
-



048
[Dec.
The Fight on the Peiho.
the cause of the suhmission of the
Emperor Hien-fung. In Lord Elgin's
own words, the concessions amounted
"to a revolution, and involve the
surrender of some of the most cher-
ished principles of the traditional
policy of the Empire. They have heen
extorted, therefore, from its fears."
Thus, in Septemher 1858, the Min-
istry and Admiralty knew, if no one
else did, that this Treaty was wrung
from the Chinese, and that on or he-
fore June 20, 1859, the copy of that
Treaty, ratified hy the Sovereigu of
Britain, was to he exchanged at
Pokin. Both those departments must
have known that,as the English Treaty
contained two important clauses,*
which all the other Powers represent-
ed at Tientsin had despicahly waived
at a critical moment, if the Court of
Pekin demurred to the final ratifi-
cation of any of those treaties,
that demurrer would first fall upon
the English one, as the chief offend-
er. Supposing that Lord Elgin's
despatches, which accompanied the
Treaty, failed to enlighten the Minis-
try upon the extremely delicate nature
o the final negotiations at Tien-
tsin, and supposing even that neither
in Downing Street nor Whitehall was
the Times ever read, and that the in-
formation of the lion. Mr. Bruce,
Secretary of Emhassy, as to the dif-
ficulties which surrounded his hrother
on the 20th June, 1858, and of the
firmness he displayed, when even his
loyal colleague, Baron Gros, tailed
him, was mere laudation of our Am-
hassador, at the expense of others
lea s stanch at such a crisis; still we
say, allowing all this, there is in
the end of the Blue-hook another
despatch from Lord Elgin,t which
reached Downing Street ou Decem-
her 29th, 1858, the perusal of which
ought to have warned any one, pro-
fessing to he a statesman, of the
critical nature of the task which
awaited the diplomatist and the
naval Commander-in-Chief in the
summer of 1859.
In that despatch (No. 210) the
strong representations of the Chinese
Ministers against the permanent resi-
dence of the Amhassador in Pekin, are
clearly put forward—the Imperial
order to reconstruct the Takn forts,
as well as to fortify the approaches to
Pekin, is distinctly mentioned—the
attention of our Ministry is recalled
to some despatch (which, we own,
does not exist in the Blue-Book) in
which the critical state of the negotia-
tions, on the very eve of the siguature
of the Treaty, was explained to them
—and finally, her Majesty's Ministers
are warned that an enforcement of
that clause in its full integrity would
prohahly compel the Emperor to
choose "hetween a desperate at-
tempt at resistance, and passive ac-
quiescence in what he and his advisers
helieve to he the greatest cahimiiy
which could hefall the Empire"
According to rule, Admiral James
Hope received his commission as
Commander-in-Chief in the East
Indies and China when his prede-
cessor had completed his period of
service. Nothing could have heen
more decorous. He left England
hy the overland mail in March
1859, and, on arriving at Singa-
pore, found Admiral Sir Michacl
Seymour awaiting his arrival there,
in order that he might take his
passage home in the next mail-
hoat. Here those two officers met.
the one with the acquired know-
ledge of tbree years' command in
those remote seas, and thorougbly
conversant with Chinese tactics,
military, naval, or diplomatic; the
other, though well known as an
officer of great ahility and unllinch-
ing firmness, still perfectly iguorant
of the nature of the country and peo-
ple with whom he had to deal, the
constituent parts of his force, its
adequacy or otherwise for the task
assigued it, and the amount of mo-
ral or physical support he was likely
to get from our fond and faithful
allias, the French. Admiral Hope,
* "Art. III. The permanent rosidence of a British Amhassador, with family
and suite, at Pekin.
"Art IX. British suhjects to travel to all parts of ths interior of China, for
purposes of trade and pleasure.''
\ See Blue-Book, p. 4S6, Despatch No. 216, hearing date Shanghai, Nov 5,1858.


1859.]
649
The Fight on the Peiho.

upon all these point-5, must have
looked to Admiral Seymour for in-
formation.
Yet, strange to say, within a few
hours—it appears to us, only forty-
eight hours—after Admiral Hope
arrives in Singapore, Admiral Sey-
mour is steaming homo in a Penin-
sular and Oriental hoat. We would
suggest the following questions,
which require to he answered he-
fore it can he shown that Admiral
James Hope entered OOOB his com-
mand with anything like a proper
chance of success:—
Why did not the Admiralty send
him out to China in time to acquire
information hefore he was called up-
on to act?
Why did not his predecessor await
his arrival in China, instead of in
India?
What period elapsed hetween the
arrival of one admiral and the de-
parture home of the other?
What was the information impart-
ed hy Admiral Seymour to Admiral
Hope, of the condition of the defences
at the entrance of the Peiho—of
the geography or resources of that
Gulf of Pechili, in which Admiral
Seymour had operated during the
summer of 1858?
Lastly, What steps had Admiral
Seymour taken, after July 1858, to
keep himself informed of the state of
the Taku fortifications and the naviga-
hility of the entrance of the Peiho
river? and what ships had heen sta-
tioned to acquire information, and
survey the odiat of China north of
the Yang-tse-lviang river, a region
into which it was well known the
new Admiral would have to carry
his squadron in 1859?
We firmly helieve that on all these
points great injustice has heen done
to Admiral Hope, and that his posi-
tion was one full of difficulty, arisinur
from the neglect of others. On the
16th April 1859 he assumed cum-
mand of his squadron at Singapore.
On that very day he ought to have
heen with a force to support our
Amhassador off the month of the
Peiho river! It was not his fault
that he was not there; and he ap-
pears to have lost no time in provid-
ing for the wants of his extensive
command—organising his forces, de-
spatching stores and coals northward,
securing the safety of the enormous
mercantile interests in China should
a rupture arise, and meeting the de-
ficiency occasioned hy our Govern-
ment having counted upon the aid of
French sailors and soldiers to some
considerahle extent. ,
A despatch from the new Minister,
Mr. Bruce, dated May 21st, 1859,
tells ns that another difficulty had
to he met hy the Admiral at 1 his
juncture—namely, that the Admi-
ralty had ordered a further re-
duction of the squadron in China,
whilst he (Mr. Bruce) had hecome
so alarmed hy the proceedings of
the Court of Pekin, that it was im-
peratively necessary he should he
escorted to Taku or Tientsin hy as
strong a force as that which had sup-
ported Lord Elgin in 1858. Of course
the Admiralty, in giving such an
order, fancied that Admiral Hope
would he joined in China hy the
French squadron under Admiral Ri-
gault de Genouille; hut, as Banal,
they counted without their host, and
out of all that French force, a list of
which we gave in our last numher,
no vessel capahle of crossing the har of
the Peiho river could he spared. There
was another difficulty—if possihle
a still more serious one than the ah-
sence of French support, when it was
counted upon,—and this was the oc-
cupation of Canton hy the British
forces. It deprived Admiral Hope
of the services of a hattalion of her
Majesty's Royal Regiment, and a num-
her of marines and marine artillery;
it rendered the presence of a consider-
ahle naval force necessary in its vici-
nity ; and instead of the Major-General
and staff heing ahle to go where ser-
vices in the field were almost immin-
ent, they were shut up in that wretch-
ed collection of fusty houses, diguified
with the title of the City of Canton.
Instead of sitting down and writ-
ing home for reinforcements and in-
structions, Admiral Hope did what
an energetic admiral should do: he
hastened to the northward with every
availahle man and vessel, ready to
rapport the Minister, Mr. Bruce, in
all such measures as he might deem
necessary. We have yet to learn on
what day Mr. Bruce was ahle to leave
Hong-Kong for Shanghai; hat ho


860
[Dec.
The Fight on the Peiho.

distinctly says he proceeded to the
latter port, where the Chinese Com-
missioners were waiting for him, as
so',n as his French colleague was
ready; and hearing in mind, as we
do, that hy the treaty of Tientsin
ratifications were to he exchanged
in Tekin hy June 26th, and that the
presence of the Imperial Commis-
sioners at Shanghai was very sus-
picious, we can sympathise with Mr.
Bnice's feelings in heing thus delayed
hy his ally at such a crisis.
Need we say more to point out how
much this alliance hung like a mill-
stone round the neck of Plenipoten-
tiary and Admiral?
On or ahout the 11th June 1859,
the Admiral and his squadron sailed
from Shanghai for the Gulf of Pe-
chili; and the Sha-lio-tien, or Wide-
spreading Sand Islands, fifteen miles
off the entrance of the Peiho river,
was given as the general rendezvous.
Mr. Bruce and Monsieur Bourhol-
l<m sailed four days afterwards for
the same destination; they had found
the Commissioners Ivweiliang and
Hvvashana merely "armed with pre-
texts to detain them, and prevent
their visit to the Peiho;" and from
all they had learned at Shanghai,
there could he no douht that every
ohstacle awaited the diplomatists as
well as executives of Europe, in their
forthcoming visit to Pekin.
Yet we caunot see that either Mr.
Bruce or Admiral Hope would have
heen justified in any misgivings as to
the issue of measures that might he
deemed necessary to enforce their
Treaty rights; and had it heen pos-
sihle for them at this juncture to
have telegraphed the state of affairs
to either Downing Street or White-
hall, we solemnly helieve that the
Ministry would have said,—Proceed
to Tientsin—these impediments have
heen anticipated; a Treaty wrung hy
force of arms from an Eastern despot
car not he expected to he ratified
without some demur—and as no one,
we helieve, had taken the trouhle to
ascertain the nature of the new for-
tifications of Taku, it was a very
natural inference that they would
not differ, to any great extent, from
all tho many fortifications which the
British had fought and taken else-
where in China.
On June 17th, II.M.S. Chesapeake,
hearing the flag of Rear-Admiral
Hope, arrived at the anchorage under
the Sha-lin-tien Islands, and on that
day and the next, his squadron as-
semhled round him; hut without
waiting for all to arrive, the Ad-
miral emharked on the 17th on
hoard a gunhoat, the Plover, and
escorted hy the Starling, proceeded
over the har of the Peiho river,
to inform the authorities of the an-
ticipated arrival of the Plenipo-
tentiaries, and to ascertain what
ohstructions, if any, existed at Ta-
kn. Admiral Hope found a num-
her of earthworks standing upon
the site of the old forts destroyed
in 1858,* and the river was rendered
quite impassahle hy a triple series
of hooms and stakes. The forti-
fications seemed well constructed,
singularly neat and finished in out-
line for Chinese earthworks; hut
there were few guns seen; most
of the emhrasures looked as if filled
up with matting; and for the first
time at a military post in China,
there was a total ahsence of all
display, and no tents or flags were
seen to denote a strong garrison with-
in the works. The officer who was
sent on shore with the Admiral's com-
munication was refused permission
to go farther than the heach, and the
men who met him said, that they were
militiamen in charge of the earth-
works; that the hooms and stakes
were placed as a precaution against
rehels or pirates; that the amhassa-
dors ought to go to another river
ten miles further north, which was
the true Peiho river; and concluded
hy assuring the English officer that
they acted upon their own responsi-
hility in all they said and did, as no
high officers were at hand. Some
expostulations which were offered
against tho existence of the harriers
in the river, as ohstacles to the Am-
hassador's friendly visit to Tientsin,
were received in good part, and they
promised within forty-eight hoars to
set ahout removing them. Such was
* We should like to know whether Admiral Hope was ever furnished with a
groun.l plan of the works captured hy Admiral Seymour ih 1858.


032
[Dec.
The Fight on the Peiho.

were constructed, of twenty-two feet
vertical height, so as to screen their
hasements from anything like a
hreaching fire. These hatteries had
guns perfectly casemated, and were
counected into one great work hy
a series of curtains, pierced, like the
hastions, for casemated guns, and
covered hy flanking fire, and wet
as well ns dry ditches. This Grand
Battery was pierced for fifty guns,
and with the exception of those on
the caraliers, every emhrasure was
fitted with an excellent mantlet.
Ahove and helow the grand work,
though prohahly connected with it
hy a covered-way, were two waspish-
looking flanking forts. Each had a
cavalier; and the one to seaward was
excellently constructed, and looked
like a tbree-tier earthen hattery.
On the right-hand hank stood an-
other series of works, only inferior
in importance to those on the oppo-
site side, and finished with equal
care. The right-hand works almost
raked any vessels advancing heyond
the seaward angle of the Grand
Fort.
Apart from these fortifications,
tbree harriers had heen constructed
where the chaunel was narrowest,
and admirahly calculated to detain
vessels immediately under the fire
of the works. Hitherto, however,
in Chinese warfare, it had invari-
ahly heen ohserved that, although
they constructed massive fortifica-
tions, and placed ingenious impe-
diments in their rivers, the guns'
crews would not stand to their guns
at close action, and that they did
not understand the art of concentrat-
ing their guns upon the point at
which our vessels were checked hy
hooms or rafts, and, consequently, it
was always easy to outflank or turn
their works, in any way we thought
proper.
During the 18th and 19th June,
the squadron moved from the Sha-
lin-tien Islands to the anchorage
immediately off the har of the Peiho
river, the smaller vessels passing
within it for security against the
st-as and winds of the Gulf of Pe-
chili; and on the latter day the
* See three
English and French Ministers ar-
rived in H.M.S. Magicieune, and
H.I.M. corvette Duchayla. The ad-
vent of this foreigu force, and their
passage of the her, did not excite the
slightest notice, or appear to give
any alarm to the Chinese. All was
as quiet and sleepy as the must fas-
tidious admirer of Chinese scenery
might desire. The great hroad plain
of Pechili spread away to the north
and south: the upward portion of the
river could he traced (until lost in
mirage) hy the masts of the countless
trading-junks which aunually arrive
at Tientsin from all parts of China.
The long and straggling village of
Taku was hid hy the mound-like out-
line of the southern forts, except the
Little Temple, from which, in 1858,
the Governor - General of Pechili,
one Tan, had made an iguominious
flight hefore our dashing little gun-
hoats Banterer, Leven, and Opossum.
Its quaint turned-up roof, with its
cockey little air, was the only thing,
inanimate or animate, that gave the
slightest sigu of defiance to the "red-
haired harharians."
Mr. Bruce, it is thus shown, arrived
at the entrance of the Peiho river
exactly six days hefore the expiration
of the period for the ratification of
the Treaty at Pekin; and in that land
of ceremony and etiquette Mr. Bruce
well knew that if our Envoy did not
make a strenuous effort to fulfil his
engagement, and appear at Tientsin
or Pekin within the stipulated date,
that the war-party, which had done,
and was doing, all in its power to
suhvert the treaties of 1858, would
immediately maguify the hreach of
contract into a premeditated slight to
the Emperor, and an indiguity to the
Court of one whom five hundred mil-
lions of souls actually worship. When
Mr. Bruce, therefore, hastened to an-
nounce his arrival, and requested to
he allowed to pass tbrough the har-
riers at. Taku to Tientsin, he was
simply told to go elsewhere; and the
harriers were ohstinately kept closed,
whilst the apparently stolid militia-
men declared they did so on their
own responsihility.*
What was Mr. Bruce to do under
Times,
e three final paragraphs of Mr. Brace's Despatch, July 13, 1859, in the
Oct. 6, 1859


1859.]
653
The Fight on the Peiho.

such circumstances? There were hut
two measures open to him—the one
was to removo the harriers placed,
as they declared, hy local authorities,
without the coguisance of the Im-
perial Government, and proceed to
Tientsin, where a high officer was
always resident; the other course
was to go to some place mentioned
hy these pretended militiamen, as
one likely to lead the Minister to
Pekin.
Mr. Bruce very naturally, and very
wisely, as the issue proves in the
American's case,* determined to go
to Tientsin; and as he could not
reach it except tbrough the harriers,
and past the forts which watched
them, he and M. Bourhollon, on the
21st June, after recapitulating their
reasons, tell Admiral Hope that they
"have therefore resolved to place
the matter in your hands, and to re-
quest you to take any measures you
may deem expedient for clearing away
the ohstructions in the river, so as to
allow us to proceed at once to Tien-
tsin." This is plain and straightfor-
ward language—■ simple request;
and with its policy the Admiral very
rightly must have felt he had no-
thing to do. He was called upon to
open the road to Tientsin; he had
around him such a force as his
masters at home considered ample
for any emergency; it was his duty
to endeavour to carry out the task
assigued him.
Admiral Hope at once wrote a
formal note to the authorities, in-
forming them that, should the oh-
structions in the river not he removed
hy the evening of the 24th June, so
as to allow the Allied Ministers to
proceed to Tientsin, as they induhit-
ahly had a right to do under the
sigu-manual of the Emperor, he, Ad-
miral Hope, should proceed to clear
the road. The force at Admiral
Hope's disposal was as follows:—
Outside the har, and incapahle of
crossing it, Chesapeake, Captain G.
Willes; Magioieune, Captain N.
Vansittart; Highflyer, Captain C.
F. Shadwell; Cruiser, Commander J.
Bythesea; Fury, Commander Com-
merell; Assistance, Commander W.
A. Heath; and Hesper (store-ship),
Master-commander Jahez Loane; the
French corvette Dnchayla, Com-
mander Tricault; and tender Noso-
gary.
Vessels capahle of crossing the har
and engaging the forts:—
G
utvri Commander!.
'Int.
1. Nimrod,
6
0 R. S. Wyuniatt.
2. Cormorant
,6
0 A. Wodehouse.
3. Lee,
2
2 Lieut. W. II. Jones
4. Opossum,
2
2 C. J. Balfour.
5. Haughty,
2
2 G. D. Broad.
6. Forester,
•1
2 A. F. Iunes.
7. Banterer,
2
2 J. Jenkins.
8. Starling,
2
2 J. Whitshed.
9. Plover,
2
2 Hector Rason.
10. Janus,
2
2 H. P. Knevit.
11. Kestrel,
2
2 J. D. Bevan.

3Og. 18howit., and a com-
hined rocket-hattery of twenty-two 12
and 24 pounders. The total crews of
these gun-vessels amounted to ahout
five hundred offictrs and men.
A gale of wind and heavy rain
prevented much heing done on the
22d, hut hy the night of the 23d all
the vessels capahle of crossing the
har were assemhled within it; and
early on the 24th June, the marines
from Canton, under Colonel Lemon,
as well as those of the larger vessels,
and the armed hoats and small-arm-
men, were assemhled on hoard cer-
tain junks placed on the har to re-
ceive them. This force, seven hun-
dred strong, was intended as an as-
saulting party, under Colonel Lemon
and Commanders Commerell and
Heath. The Admiral, moreover,
placed the Coromandel and Nosogary
as hospitals, as far oat of range as it
was possihle to anchor them.
The delight of the gallant little
force under Admiral Hope was very
great when the sun set on the 24th
June, and no letter in reply to his
communication of the 22d had heen
* The American Minister, after the repulse of Taku, adopted the second course;
his trinmphal entry into Pekin in a cart, his close confinement whilst there, the
attempt to make him worship the Emperor, the insult of ordering him hack to the
sea-shore for a wortbless ratification, and the entire question of the readjustment
of the tariff heing referred hack to a suhordinate at Shanghai, is conclusive proof
of what we should have gained hy adopting such a course.


654
[Dec.
The Fight on the Peiho.

received. It augured well for resist-
ance, and all felt assured of a fight
and victory. There was not a single
misgiving as to the result of a com-
hat; and if any was expressed, it
was a fear that all they would have
to do, would he to pull up the stakes
instead of the Chinamen doing it
themselves. As yet, nothing had
occurred to excite the Admiral's sus-
picions of the nature of the opposi-
tion to he encountered, although he
had, ever since the day of his arrival,
especially deputed Commander John
Bythesea* and Lieutenant W. H.
Jones in the Lee, to narrowly watch
the forts and river, to see if anything
like an increase of garrison, or the
nature of the armament, could ho
detected. But in order that a charge
of want of preparation for hattle
might not hereafter he imputed to
him, the gallant chief made every
arrangement for taking up positions
exactly as he would have done had
he heen at war, instead of at peace,
with China. The first thing to he
done was to see whether the stakes
or rafts could he destroyed in the
night hy hoats. Accordingly, when
it was quite dark, tbree hoats' crews,
under Lieutenant Wilson, Mr. Eger-
ton (mate), and Mr. Hartland (hoat-
swain), commanded hy Captain Wil-
les, started to make the attempt.
Anxiously were they watched for.
At last two loud explosions, the Hash
and report of a gun or two from
the forts, the return of the hoats,
and the cheers of the excited crews
of the gunhoats, told the joy with
which was hailed the douhle act
of hostility—a pledge for the mor-
row's fight. Captain Willes hrought
hack full information of the stuhhorn
nature of the ohstacles opposed to
the flotilla, and that it was impos-
sihle to make a dash up the stream
to take the works in reverse.
The harriers were tbree in numher.
The first extended across the chan-
nel, at an elhow where the curva-
ture of the mud-hanks, and direc-
tion of tide, placed vessels ascending
the stream stem on, or in a raking
position to the face of the Grand
Battery. It consisted o^ a single
row of iron stakes, nine inches in
girth, and with a tripod hase, so as
to preserve an upright position in
spite of the velocity of the stream.
The top of each stake was pointed,
as well as a sharp spur which struck
out from its side, and at high water
these dangerous piles were hidden
heneath the surface of the river.
This harrier was 550 yards distant
from the centre of the Grand Battery
on the left, and 900 yards from the
forts on the right hand.
The second harrier was placed 450
yards ahove the iron piles, and im-
mediately ahreast the centre of the
fortifications. It consisted of one
eight-inch hemp and two heavy chain-
cahles, placed across the stream at a
distance of twelve feet from each
other: they were hove as taut as
possihle, and supported hy large
spars placed transversely at evoiv
thirty feet: each spar was carefully
moored hoth up and down stream.
The third harrier consisted of two
massive rafts of rough timher, lashed
and cross-lashed in all directions with
rope and chain, and admirahly moored
a few feet ahove one another, so as
to leave a letter S opening, ahove
which were more iron stakes, so
placed as to impede any gun
dashing tbrough the opening, ran-
posing all other ohstacles overcome.
The ingenuity of the arrangement
here was most perfect. The force of
the current would only allow the
passage at this point to he effected
at top of high water; at that time
the iron piles were covered with
water, and their position heing un-
known, the chances were all in favour
of a vessel hecoming impaled npon
them.
Captain Willes passed tbrough the
interstices hetween the iron stakes in
his hoats, and leaving two of them to
secure the explosion cylinders under
the cahles lie, and Lieutenant Wilson
pushed on to the third harrier, or
rafts. They crawled over it, and al-
though they could see the sentries
* This gallant officer, who carried off one of the very few Victoria crosses won
in the Baltic fleet of 1855, was stricken down with Peiho fever, hrought on hy
exposure while employed on this duty, and wasj consequently unahle to share
directly in the hloody laurels of the 25th June.


1859.]
655
The Fight on the Peiho.

walking up and down at either
end, and they must have heen seen
hy the garrison at the forts, which
towered ahove them at the short dis-
tance of 150 yards upon the right
and left, neither party molested the
other. Satisfied of the^solid nature
of the ohstacle, and that a mere gun-
hoat pressing against it would never
force away all the anchors or cahles
with which it was secured, Captain
Willes returned to the second harrier,
and exploded his charges, occasioning
a hreach apparently wide enough for
a vessel to pass; hut a carefully-
directed fire from a gun or two in
the forts warned him to desist,
There was, however, no general
alarm on shore, and the works fid
not, as might have heen expected,
open a general fire, or develop their
formidahle character.
It was evident that Admiral Hope
had now hut one resource loft, namely,
an attack upon the enemy's front; a
flank attack was impossihle; for it
would have heen simple folly to have
landed seven hundred marines and
sailors outside the har, either to the
northward or southward of Taku;
the force was far too small to risk
such a manoeuvre. The Commander-
in Chiefs plan was simple and judi-
cious. He had eleven gun-vessels; nine
of them were to anchor close to the
first harrier, as nearly ahreast as pos-
sihle without masking each other's
guns. Captain Willes in the Opos-
sum was to secure tackles to one of
the iron piles, ready to pull it up when
ordered, and then, under cover of the
anchored gun-vessels, the Admiral and
Flag-Captain in the Plover and Opos-
sum were to pass on to the destruc-
tion of the second and third harriers,
Whilst the Admiral thus carefully
made his plans to meet a strong
resistance, few in the squadron
thought of anything hut the fun
and excitement of the coming day:
many a witty anticipation was ex-
pressed as to promotion for another
hloodless Chinese victory, mingled
with jokes at the foolish ohstinacy
of John Chinaman. Daylight came;
the forts were deceitfully calm;
some thought an emhrasure or two
had heen added during the night, hut
it was only certain that the second har-
rier, where it had heen hroken during
the night hy Captain Willes, was again
thorougbly repaired. Everything had
the appearance of simple ohstinacy.
With cock-crow all was activity in
the squadron; at half-past tbree in
the morning, a chorus of hoatswains'
mates' whistles had sent all hands to
their hreakfasts, and hy four o'clock
the vessels commenced to drop up
into their assigued positions. The
flood-tide was ruuning strong, a
muddy turhid stream flowing up a
tortuous gutter; gradually that gut-
ter filled, and the waters, ruffled hy
a fresh hreeze, spread on either hand
over the mud hanks, and eventually
washed the horder of the reed-covered
plain, and touched the hasements of
the huge masses of earth which con-
stituted the forts of Takn. These lay
silent and lifeless, except where at the
flag-staff of one waved two hlack han-
ners, ominously emhlematic of the
hloody day they were ahout to witness.
The Admiral commenced to move
his squadron into action* thus early,
anticipating that hy the time the
flood-tide had ceased ruuning, every
vessel would have reached her posi-
tion, the distance In no case heing
more than a mile; hut the nar-
rowness of the chaunel, the strength
of the hreeze, and force of current,
occasioned great delay hy forcing
first one gunhoat and then another
ashore on the mud hanks; added to
which, the great length of the Nim-
rod and Cormorant caused them,
when canting or swinging across the
chaunel, almost to hlock it up. The
consequence was, that the squadron
was not ready for action at 11.30 a.m.,
or high water. Prior to high water
it would have heen folly to have com-
menced action. No judicious naval
officer would engage an enemy's
works whilst a flood-tide was sweep-
ing in towards them. Had Admiral
Hope done so, every disahled vessel
and hoat, as well as every wounded
man, would have fallen into the hands
of the Chinese; and, moreover, the
difficulty of anchoring hy the stern in
gunhoats, in so strong a tideway, can
only ho appreciated hy seamen, and
would have prohahly resulted in the
whole force falling ahoard of one an-
other, and heing swept hy the tide,
in one mass, under the concentrated
fire of all the hatteries. By one


656
[Dec.
The Fight on the Peiho.
->
o'clock the ehh-tide was ruuning
strong; all the vessels were hy that
time in position, except the Banterer
and Starling, and they were hope-
lessly aground, though in positions
whicli enahled them to co-operate to
some extent. The Admiral prepared
to remove the harriers, and issued his
final instructions. The squadron was
placed as in the aunexed plan; and
to those who say that Admiral Hope
ought to have acted earlier in the
day, we have merely to point to the
issue of the comhat into which he
was inveigled, and reply, that had
there heen two more hours daylight,
we hardly think a ship or man would
have heen saved.

s...II-'' AT L
MUD
OW WATER

Reference.
Scals. 1 Inch = 330 yjrd^
A. A. Piloa driven closoly in the Mud.
B. Barrier of Iron Stakes, aimost covered
at High Water.
C. Chain, or Cahle, stretched partly across
the Rivor, supposed to have heen carried
away hy the tide hefore the Attack.
D. Boom of heavy timhers, stretching
across.
E. Massive Timher Raft.
F.F. Pointed Stakes ahout 2 feet high,
driven closely in the ground.
1. Plover (Flag).
2. Omasum.
8. L..-.
4. llaiurhty.
5. Forester.
6. Banterer.
Gunhoats.
7. Starling.
8. Janus.
». Kestrel.
to. r..rmorant.
11, ^"nurod.


1850.]
057
The Fight on the Peiho.
At 2 p.m. the Admiral, whose Hag
was flying on hoard tlio Plover, sig-
nalised to the Opossum to remove
the iron pile to which she was se-
cured, and thus to make a passage
tbrough the first harrier. This the
Opossum's officers and men, hy means
of tackles and steam-power, succeed-
ed in accomplishing in thirty minutes.
The Comrnander-in-Chief now led up
to the second harrier, followed closely
hy the Flag-Captain in the Opossum.
These were moments of intense ex-
citement for those on the covering
flotilla, as well as for the impatient
assaulting-party anchored on the har
of the river. Every eye was directed
upon the hatteries under which the
gallant Rason was hearing the flag
of his chief. The oft-repeated ques-

For Details, See Plan. 1.
tion of "I wonder whether the ras-
cals will fight!" was ahout to he an-
swered; and that moment of eager
expectation, which all men feel hefore
they join in comhat, made eveiy heart
heat quick, and silenced every tongue.
As the stern of the Plover touched
tho harrier, a single gun serTed as a
sigual to all the works, and in a min-
ute a concentrated fire of forty heavy
pieces opened upon the little craft.
In the words of the seamen, "it
seemed as if the vessels had struck
an infernal machine." The Plover
and Opossum were wreathed in fire
and smoke, ahove which the red flag
of the gallant hader waved defiantly.
A rush and -lamp of men to their
quarters sounded tbrough tho flotilla,
and as the Admiral tbrew out the



658
[Dec.
Tlie Fight on the Peiho.
sigual, "Engage the enemy" with the
red pendant under, indicating as
"elosi; a*it»ssihle" the cheers of the
delighted ships' companies mingled
with the roar of that first hearty
hroadside. All day long, tbrough
that stern fight, that sigual, simple
yet siguificative, flew from the mast-
head of the heroic Admiral. Never
was the need greater that every man
should do his duty, and nohly they
responded to the appeal. So well
concenfrated was the enemy's fire
upon the space hetween the first and
second harriers, that the Plover and
Opossum appeared to he struck hy
every shot directed at them. The
flag-ship was especially aimed at.
Within twenty minutes hoth these
vessels had so many men killed and
wounded, and were so shattered, as
to he almost silenced. Lieutenant-
Commander Rason, of the Plover,
was cut in two hy a round shot.
Captain M'Keuna, of the 1st Royals,
on the Admiral's staff, was killed
early, and the Admiral himself was
grievously injured hy a gun-shot in
the thigh. The Lee and Haughty,
under Lieutenant-Commanders W. H.
Jones and G. Broad, now weighed,
hy signal, and advanced to the sup-
port of the Admiral.
The shattered Plover almost drift-
ed out of her honourahle position,
having only nine men left efficient
out of her original crew of forty. The
Admiral, in spite of wounds and loss
of hlood, transferred his flag to the
Opossum, and the hattle raged furi-
ously on either hand. A little after
tbree o'clock, the Admiral received a
second wound, a round-shot knocking
away some chainwork hy which he
was supported in a conspicuous po-
sition, and the fall hreaking several
of his rihs. The Opossum had hy
this time hecome so disahled, that it
was necessary to drop her outside the
iron piles of the first harrier, where
hoth she and the Plover received
fresh crews from the reserve force,
and again took their share in the
fight.
There was now no false impression
upon the mind of any one, as to the
work they had in hand, or the novel
amount of resistance they had to over-
come. Retreat was disgrace, and in
all prohahility total destruction; for
the har would he impassahle long he-
fore the vessels could reach it—and
who was going to think of retreat thus
early? who wanted to he hooted at
In' all the world as men who fled he-
fore a Chinaman? No, strip and
light it out, was the general feeling
from Captain to hoy, and in a frenzy
of delight with their chief, they went
into their work like men, who, if they
could not command success, would at
any rate show that they deserved it.
A pall of smoke hung over the Bri-
tish flotilla and the forts of Taku;
under it flashed sharp and vividly
the red fire of the comhatants; the
roar of great guns, the sbriek of
rockets, and rattle of rifles, was con-
stant. No missile could fail to reach
its mark; the dull thung of the ene-
my's shot as it passed tbrough a gun-
hoat's side, the crash of wood-work,
the whistle of heavy splinters of wood
or iron, the screams of the wounded,
and the tnoans of the dying, mingled
with the shouts of the comhatants
and the sharp decisive orders of the
officers—all were "fighting their
hest!" And it was a close hug indeed,
for the advanced vessels were firing at
150 yards' range, and the maximum
distance was only 800 yards. Every
officer and man rejoiced in this fact;
for, forgetful of the enormous thickness
of the parapets opposed to them, our
gallant sailors fancied that all was in
favour of a race who had never heen
excelled in a stanch fight at close
quarters. The Lee and Haughty
were now suffering much; the fire of
the forts had heen most deadly, and
was in every respect as accurate as
ours. The Admiral in his harge, al-
though fainting from loss of hlood,
pulled to these vessels, to show the
crews how cheerfully he shared the
full dangers of their position; and
they who advocate a British com-
mander-in-chief heing in the rear, in-
stead of, as Nelson and Collingwood
ever placed themselves, in the van of
hattle, ought to have witnessed the
effect of Hope's heroic example upon
the men under him that day; even
the wounded were more patient and
enduring owing to such an example.
By four o'clock the Lee had a hole
knocked into her side helow the how-
gun, out of which a man could have
crawled: hoth she and the Haughty
had all their hoats and topworks
knocked to pieces, and many shot


860
[Dec.
The Fight on the Peiho.

structive, whilst our guuners, though
quite close, had to aim upward at
me" enemy. The experience of Sehas-
topol lias shown that a horizontal
fire will not dislodge a hrave oppo-
nent from hehind earthworks; of
course it would he much less likely
to do so when the assailants were so
low as to have to fire in an ohlique
direction upward; and such was the
relative position of the two antagon-
ists at Tabn, The hody of the forts
was soon found to he invulnerahle,
and the emhrasures hecame the tar-
gets of our gunhoats. Those on the
cavaliers were suhjected to a ter-
rihly accurate fire, yet, strange to say,
the guns at these points were seldom
silenced for any length of time. The
Cormorant's how-gun, on one occa-
sion, in four successive shots, fairly
knocked over the tbree guns in the
face of the cavalier of the centre
hastion—the wholo squadron wit-
nessed the fact, and saw tho guns
and crews shattered hy the terrific
effect of her solid 68-pounders—yet in
a quarter of an hour other guns were
there and stinging away as waspisbly
as ever.
At 4.20 p.m., the Admiral was
ohliged to yield to the entreaties of
the medical men, and to the faint-
ness arising from loss of hlood: he
handed over the immediate command
of tho squadron to the second in
seniority, Captain Shadwell, who,
supported hy Captain Willes and
Captain Nicholas Yansittart, carried
on the hattle.
Of tho individual acts of valour
and devotion with which such a com-
hat is replete, how many escape oh-
servation !—whilst the mention of
others often gives pain to the modest
men, to whom the writer would fain
do honour. At any risk, however,
we must narrate an anecdote or two
illustrative of the zeal and devotion
displayed in this glorious fight.
When the Cormorant's how-gun
did the good service of silencing, in
four shots, the centre cavalier, the
Admiral, lying on his cot, was so
struck with the accuracy of the aim
that he immediately sent an aide-de-
camp forward to ohtain the name of
the captain of the gun. The mes-
senger found worthy Corporal Giles*
at the full extent of his trigger-line,
the gun loaded and run out; his
whole mind was intent upon one
ohjeot—hitting his enemy. "Muz-
zle right," said the honest marine.
"Who fired those shots?" interposed
the messenger; "the Admiral wants
to know." "Well!" shouted the
man to his crew, adding, " I did, sir,"
(to the officer). "Elevate!" "What's
your name?" rejoined the messen-
ger. "John Giles," said the marine,
leaning hack, shutting one eye, and
looking along the sights of the gun,
his - left hand going up mechanically
to the salute—"John Giles, cor-
poral. "Well!" (this to his crewt—
"Second company" (to the officer)—
"Ready !—'Woolwich division! —
Fire! Sponge and load !—I heg your
pardon, sir, No. 1275." We need
not add that the worthy corporal
was far more intent upon his work
than mindful of the kind compliment
his Admiral was paying him, and
his hest reward was the hurrah of
his gun-mates as they watched the
shot plunge into the enemy's emhra-
sure.
"Opossum ahoy !" hails a hrother
gunhoat captain; "do you know
your stern-frame is all on fire ?—
for smoke and flame were playing
round one end of the little craft,
whilst from the other she was spite-
fully firing upon the foe. "Bother
the fire I" was the rejoinder; "lam
not going to knock off pitching into
these hlackguards for any hurning
stern-posts. No men to spare, old
hoy!"
"Werry hard hit, sir!" remarks
the hoatswain of the Lee to her gal
lant commander; " the ship is making
a deal of water, and won't float much
longer; tho donkey - engines and
pumps don't deliver one hucket of
water for ten as comes into her!"
"Caunot do more than we are doing,"
replies the commander—" it is im-
possihle to get at the shot-holes from
inside, and I will not order men to
dive outside with shot-plugs, in this
strong tide-way, and whilst I am
compelled to keep the propeller re-
volving."
"There's no other way to keep the
* We regret that we do not know the proper name of this gallant marine.


1859.]
661
The Fight on the Peiho.

ship afloat, sir!" urged Mr. Woods,
"and if you please, sir, I'd like to go
ahout that 'ere joh myself."
"As you volunteer, I'll not ohject,
Woods," said the commander—" hut
rememher it is almost desperate
work; you see how the tide is run-
ning, and that I must keep screwing
ahead to maintain station. You have
the chance of heing drowned, and if
caught hy the screw, you are a dead
man." ,
"Well, sir! " said Woods, looking
as hashful ns if sueing for some great
favour—"I knows all that, and as
far as chances of death go, why, it is
'much of a muchness' everywhere
just now; and if you will keep an
eye upon me, I'll try what can he
done."
Woods accordingly hrought up a
hag of seaman's clothes, tore it open,
wrapped frocks and trousers round
wooden shot-plugs, tied a rope's-end
round his waist, and dived under the
hottom of the Lee to stop up the
shot-holes. Again and again the
gallant fellow went down, escaping
from the stroke of the screw as if hy
a miracle; for he often came up
astern at the full length of his line,
having heen swept tliere hy the tide.
His exertions, however, were not
successful, although he stopped as
many as twenty-eight shot-holes;
and the nohle little Lee was soon
found to he In a sinking condition.
The Kestrel with colours flying,
and still fighting under the gallant
Lieut.-Commander Bevan, went down
in her station at 5.40 p.m., and affairs
hegan to look very serious; yet the
last thing thought of was defeat.
One gunhoat swings end on to a
raking hattery, and a shot imme-
diately sweeps away all the men
from one side of her how-gun, as if
a scythe had passed tbrough them.
"This is what they call a ratification,
Billy! ain't it? " remarks the captain
of the gun to one of the survivors;
and raising his right arm, red with
the hlood of his slaughtered com-
rades, he cursed in coarse hut honest
pbrase the folly and false humanity
which in the previous year had al-
lowed these mandarins to march off
almost unscathed, "whilst we was
a-lootinff hrass-guns for the Toole-
ries" (Tuileries). PhirrI came along
a har-shot and a mass of woodwork
and splinters knocked over and al-
most huried a commander and master
of one of the gunhoats. The remain-
ing officer, a warrant-officer, rushes
up and pulls them out from under
the wreck. Though severely hruised,
neither was, happily, killed. "All
right, I hopes, sir!" ruhhing them
down—" legs all sound, sir !—ah!
you will get your wind directly—
hut you must keep moving, sir; if
you don't, they're sure to hit yoo. I
was just telling the chaps forward
the same thing—shot never hits a
lively man, sir!—and, dear me, don't
they work our how-gun heautifully
—that's right, lads! that's right!'"
urged the enthusiastic guuner —
"keep her going! Lor! if old
Hastings* could have seen that shot,
Jim, he'd have given yon nothing to
do at the Admirality for all the rest
of your horn days."
Thus manfully went the fight;
explosions occurred now and then in
the works, hut nothing to indicate a
destruction of any of the garrisons—
the two hlack flags in the upper hat-
tery still waved gently in the light air,
and no sigu of surrender or distress
appeared on the Chinese side, except
that all the emhrasures showed a -
severe punishment must have heen
inflicted upon the men working the
guns within them, and there seemed to
he an inclination to cease firing upon
the part of the enemy, or only to fire
in a deliherate and desultory man-
ner. Exhaustion was hegiuning to
tell upon our men, just at the time
that the shattered condition of their
wssels called for most exertion. By
six o'clock all prohahility of forcing
the harriers with the flotilla was
at an end. The Kestrel was sunk,
and the Lee ohliged to he run on
the mud to prevent her going down
in deep water; many other ves-
sels were filling owing to shot-holes
—the Starling and Banterer aground
—Plover disahled; and if the Niin-
rod or Cormorant, hy any accident
to their anchors or cahles, fell across
• A very irreverent allusion to Admiral Sir Thomas Hastings, who inaugu-
rated the present excellent system of navnl guunery.


662
[Dec.
The Fight on the Peiho.

the stream, the chaunel would he
hlocked up, and all the squadron he
lost. The senior officers saw that
nothing now remained hut to with-
draw, if it were possihle, the squad-
ron from the fight; the difficulties,
however, in the way of such a ma-
noeuvre were almost insuperahle. It
wanted yet nearly two hours hefore
darkness would set in—the passage
over the har conld not he effected
hefore dark, on account of high water
not occurring until midnight—the
night was moonless—the prohahili-
ties great against the vessels heing
ahle to find their way in the dark,
down so narrow and tortuous a chan-
nel—and so long as the vessels re-
mained within the har, so long also
must they he within range of those
hard-hitting long guns, of the effects
of which they had had that day such
hitter experience. The reserve force
of 600 fresh men had not yet heen
hrought into action—they were heg-
ging to he allowed to retrieve the
tremhling fortunes of the day; even
the crews of the sinking gunhoats
only asked to he allowed to land
and grapple with the foe, who skulk-
ed hehind his earthworks, whilst
they (stripped to their trousers) had
fought upon their exposed and open
deck>. There was yet another rea-
son, which douhtless had its weight:
out of the 1100 men und officers se-
lected hy the Admiral from his fleet
to carry out the service which the
representative of his Sovereigu had
called upon him to execute, only 25
were killed and 93 wounded at 6.20
p.m., after four hours' close hard fight-
ing. That loss was simply insuffi-
cient to justify any officer in acknow-
ledging himself thorougbly heaten, or
in ahandoning an enterprise.
Uninterested spectators upon the
har may say, after the result, that
they saw within ten minutes of the
action heing commenced, that the
British would not succeed. It would
have heen an evil day for Admiral
James Hope and his captains, had
such an idea entered their heads at
so early an hour. It is true, they
felt that they had heen inveigled
into an amhush, hut inasmuch as they
went into it having taken every pre-
caution against surprise, and pre-
pared for hattle, it remained alone
for them to fight it out, and trust
to their God for victory in a good
cause.
The gallant-hearted Yansittart
urged one last hold stroke to re-
trieve the honours of the day, and at
any rate to save, if possihle, the entire
squadron from destruction. Captains
Shadwell and Willes concurred in
this view, though they well knew it
was a neck-ornothing attempt—in
short, a forlorn hope, which might, if
once fairly hand to hand with the
enemy, drive him from his works,
hut at any rate the attempt would
divert the fire from the shattered flo-
tilla, and allow night to close in,
and afford them an opportunity of
saving all the vessels from destruc-
tion. And let any one weigh well
what would have heen the effect,
tbroughout the seaports of China,
to our countrymen and commerce,
had those gallant officers lost all that
squadron, as we helieve they would
have done in attempting a retreat at
that juncture. The ingenious tactics
of the enemy—Chinamen we will not
call them—afforded just then an
illusory ground for hope of a success-
ful issue to an assault: they assumed
the appearance of heing silenced in
many quarters, and only worked a
gun here and there. An assault and
escalade were at once ordered; the
Opossum went to the rear, and, aided
hy the generous sympathy of the
American Flag-Officer Tatuall—who,
in his steamer the Toeywan, assisted
very materially—the hoats filled with
the marines and sinall-arm men
were hrought up to the front.
At ahout seven o'clock, Captains
Shadwell and Vansittsrt, Major
Fisher, R.E., Colonel Lemon, R.M.,
Commanders John Commerell and
W. A. J. Heath, and Commandant
Tricault of the Imperial navy, headed
this forlorn hope o'f seamen, sappers,
and marines, their march across the
mud heing directed upon the outer
hastion of the Grand Fort, as it ap-
peared to have suffered most from
the fire of our vessels. The cheers
of the excited crews of the gunhoats,
the revived tire of the flotilla, and the
dash of the hoats to the point of dis-
emharkation, warned the enemy hut
too well of the intended assault; and,
to tho astonishment of the assailants,


1859.]
663
Th« Fight on the Peiho.
from every work, every gun, and
every loophole, a terrihly destructive
fire opened upon our devoted men as
they waded tbrough the deep and
tenacious mud. In spite of shot,
grape, rifle-halls, gingalls and arrows,
the party, six hundred strong, formed
a solid mass, and pressed forward,
whilst close over their heads flew the
covering-shots of their hretbren in the
vessels. It was a terrihly maguificent
sight to see that dark mass of gallant
men reeling under the storm of mis-
siles, yet, like a nohle hark, against
adverse wind and sea, still advancing
towards its destination. Officers and
men fell rapidly—Shadwell, Yansit-
tart, and Lemon wero soon hadly
PI A IT 3.
6 P.M.
Theassanlt decided upon.

Opossum and Tueywaa, with boats in tow.
For Details, See Plan 1.
wounded, and many a man fell griev-
ously injured in the deep mud, to
he quickly covered hy the flowing
tide; yet there was no lack of
leaders—no hesitation in the daunt-
less survivors. It must he acknow-
ledged that the garrison showed
neither want of skill nor hravery; for
in spite of the fire of the gunhoats,
VOL. LXXXVL"
they crowded parapets and emhra-
sures, and opened a withering fire of
musketry upon our men. At- last
a hank covered with rushes was
reached—Commerell, Heath, Fisher,
and Parke, still headed the devoted
hand, and they dashed into the first
ditch, leaving, however, a very large/
proportion of killed and wounded
44


664
[Dec.
The Fight on the Peiho.

strewn along their path. The flo-
tilla had now to cease firing upon
the point of assault, lest it should
injure friends instead of foes. The
excitement of the guncrews may he
- imagined, as they saw the night
closing around their comrades wrapt
in the blaze of the enemy's fire, and
they heard the exultant yells of the
garrison, and marked the faint and
desultory cheers, and ill-sustained
reply of the assailants. It was with
difficulty that they could in some
cases ho restrained from rushing to
join the good or evil fortune of the
fray; five hours' fighting had made
all indifferent to life. As one gun-
hoat went down, the crew modestly
suggested to the commander, that as
they could do no more good in her,
it would he as well "to go over the
mud and join our chaps on shore!"
It is not lair to say such men can he
heaten; all had hecome imhued
with the heroic spirit of their chief
—the infection had even spread to
the American hoats' crews. The
calculating long-hacked diplomatists
of the United States, who had sent
their Admiral and Envoy to reap the
advantages for which Englishmen
were fighting and dying, forgot that
there were certain promptings of the
heart wliich override all selfish con-
siderations; and that, in short, as
flag-officer Tatnall ohserved, " hlood
is thicker than water," ay, than ink
either. An American hoat visited
one of our vessels, and on wishing to
leave her, the officer found all his
men had got out of the hoat. After
some delay they were found looking
very hot, smoke-hegrimed, and
fightish. "Halloa, sirs," said the
officer with assumed severity, "don't
you know we are neutrals? What
have you heen doing?" "Begs
pardon," said the gallant fellows,
looking very hashful; "they were
very short-handed at the how-gun,
sir, and so we give'd them a help for
fellowship sake;" they had heen
hard at it for an hour. Gallant
Americans! you and your admiral
did more that day to hind England
and the United States together, than
all your lawyers and pettifogging
politicians have ever done to part ns.
The issue of the assault was not
long douhtful after crossing the first
or tidal ditch, and wading tbrough
its deep mud and some yards of per-
fect quagmire; heyond it another
deep wet ditch was found, into which
ahout two hundred men and officers
recklessly dashed, wetting ammuni-
tion and muskets; only fifty oftliein,
however, headed hy Commanders
Commerell, Heath, and Tricault,
reached the hase of the works; the
rest, 150 in numher, of the survivors
in the advanced party, lined the
edge of the wet ditch. Every at-
tempt to hring up scaling-ladders
resulted in the destruction of the
party, and the garrison tbrew out
light halls, hy which they could see
to slay the unfortunate men outside
the forts. The English were di-
minishing rapidly; there was no re-
serve or supports availahle; and at
last, with deep reluctance, the leaders
of this gallant hand sent word to the
senior officer afloat " that they could,
if he pleased, hold their position in
the ditches until daylight; hut that
it was impossihle to storm without
reinforcements." The order was
therefore given for a retreat; and in
the words of Admiral Hope, this dif-
ficult operation in the face of a tri-
umphant enemy was carried oat with
a deliheration and coolness equal to
the gallantry with wliich the advance
had heen accomplished. The hat
men to leave the hloodstained hanks
of the Peiho, after having saved every
wounded man that could he recover-
ed, were the two gallant command-
ers, Commerell and Heath; and the
severity of the enemy's fire upou this
assaulting-party is hest shown hy the
fact, that out of ahout six hundred
men and officers, sixty-four were
killed, and two hundred and fifty-two
were wounded.
The management of the retreat
devolved upon the ahle flag-captain,
J. 0. Willes—a most trying and anxi-
ous duty; for the enemy opened a
perfect Jcu-dt-joie from all aides,
upon vessels and hoats, and for a
while tbreatened total destruction to
the force. By 1.30 a.m. on the 26th
the survivors of the forlorn - hope
were emharked, and the process of
dropping out the gunhoats com-
menced, with, however, hut very par-
tial success. The scene was terrihly
grand; the night was dark, the sea


1859.]
665
The Fight on the Peiho.

and land veiled in gloom, except
where the fire-halls of the enemy and
the flash of his guns hrought out the
forts and shattered flotilla in striking
relief; the turhid stream, pent up in
its chaunel hy the wreck of sunken
vessels and the Chinese harriers,
chafed and whirled angrily past the
repulsed ships, hearing on its hosom
the wreck of the comhat and the
corpses of the dead. The moans of
the wounded, the shouts of officers,
the frequent strokes of hoats' oars,
alternated with the roar of can-
non and the exulting yells of the
victorious garrison. Btit there was a
still more tbrilling sight—that on the
decks of the Cornmandel, where the
gallant Admiral, and Captains Shad-
well, Vansittart,* and Colonel Lemon,.
lay surrounded with their dying and
wounded followers. Nothing that
medical foresight could provide to
alleviate mortal suffering was want-
ing; yet their agonies were terrihle
to contemplate. The deck was
lighted up with every availahle candle
and lanthorn, aided hy which the
surgical operations were heing carried
on as rapidly as possihle. A pile of
dead, covered with the flag for which
they had fought so well, awaited
decent interment on the morrow.
The medical officers, after sharing in
all the dangers and lahours of the
day, now called to renewed exertion
on hehalf of suffering humanity,
were to he seen exerting them-
selves with a zeal and solicitude
as remarkahle a* the maguificent
hearing of the poor fellows who,
with shattered limhs, awaited their
turn for amputation: it was, indeed,
a scene of epic grandeur and solem-
nity.
We could fill a volume with anec-
dotes of calm endurance and heroism,
which were almost childlike in their
simplicity—of the poor fore-topman
who, mortally wounded, was laid hy
his kind commander upon the sofa in
his cahiu, and as his life-hlood
oozed away, modestly expressed his
regret at "doing so much injury
to such pretty cushions 1"—of the
old quartermaster, whose whole
shoulder and rihs had heen swept
away hy a round-shot, and during
the few hours prior to death ex-
pressed it as his opinion, that "them
Chinamen hit hardish," and had only
one anxiety—" whether the Admi-
ralty would pay Ids wife for the loss of
his kit?" But we need not, we feel
assured, dwell upon such traits to
enlist the sympathy of our country-
men on hehalf of the men who fought
so well, yet lost the day. at Takn.
One fact struck every one—and
it is a fact of which Admiral Hope
may well he proud—that from the
lips of those shattered men and
officers there arose no eomplaint
of having heen wantonly sacri-
ficed or misled; and had it heen
thought so, the anguish of the mo-
ment would assuredly havo wrung it
from their lips, and yet have met
with kindly pardon. On the contrary,
though all acknowledged themselves
thorougbly heaten in the fight, yet
every mouth rang with praises of the
leader who had set them such an
example; and had Admiral Hope
next day called for volunteers to re-
new the fight, desperate as such a
measure might have heen deemed,
there was not one of the remnant of
his force that would not again have
cheerfully followed him. A repulse
arising from the hlunders of a leader
never meets such sympathy. Officers
and men knew all had heen done as
they themselves would have sug-
gested, had they heen consulted. The
Admiral had exhihited foresight,
audacity, and gallant perseverance.
They were ready to follow such a
man to the death. Had he turned
hack without testing the foe, and
endeavouring to take the forts, every
man's tongue would have railed at
him, and all England would have
stamped him an incompetent leader.
The survivors knew that they had
heen partially entrapped, and had had
to fight far more than mere China-
men; and if defeated, they could
point to their sinking vessels, to a
loss in killed and wounded of 434
officers and men out of 1100 comhat-
ants, and ask their countrymen if they
* The gallant Vansittart died suhsequently; and we have to lament the loss i f
another officer, Commander Arinue WoJehouse, H M.S. Cormorant, who recently
succumhed to a fever, hrought on hy the exposure and anxiety on that day.


66C
[Dec.
The Fight on the Peiho.

had not done their duty. Assuredly
they had; no men could have done
more. Nelson's repulse at Teneriffe
was not more glorious or less hloody.
Yet he it rememhered, and our cheeks
ought to hurn with shame at the
recital, that for this most gallant
deed of arms, so replete with chival-
rous hravery and devotion to Great
Britain, not a single honour or pro-
motion has heen puhlicly awarded;
and that act of cold neglect, and in-
deed indirect censure, has heen per-
petrated hy those especially dele-
gated to watch over the Royal Navy
of England, to keep alive its spirit,
and who are supposed to encourage
the men and youth of this nation
to enter on hoard her men-of-war.
Shame on ye 1 shame on ye! not a
thousand medals, wrung from you at
a later day, can heal the wounded
honour of the men thus unjustly
treated.
There was no rest for any during
that sad night of the 25th Juno;
and daylight still found the exhaust-
ed officers and men endeavouring
to save the flotilla, and place the
wounded out of reach of the deadly
fire of the forts. That we were
thorougbly heaten hack, there could
he no question; even the sturdy
seamen and marines, hegrimed with
powder, hlood, and mud, ruhhed
their heads, and owned it had heen
"a mortal tbrashing;" yet shook
their horny fists, and looked de-
fiance at the rascals, he they who-
ever they were, hehind those invul-
nerahle parapets of mud. The sun
rose on a shattered squadron. The
mastheads of the Lee and Kestrel
were alone visihle; they had heen
fought until they sank heneath their
gallant crews. The Cormorant, in
an attempt to drop out, fell across
chaunel, got aground, and had to he
temporarily ahandoned to save un-
necessary loss of life; the Haughty
was sinking—the Plover and Star-
ling ashore under the hatteries, and
ahandoned hy the small surviving
portion of their crews; in short, the
only vessels in safety at daylight
were the Nimrod, Banterer, For-
rester, Opossum, and Janus—and six
out of the eleven vessels which went
into action were thus sunk or disahled.
The condition of the persounel in the
squadron equally well proved the
stuhhoruness of the fight. Lieut.-
Commanders Rason and Clutterhuck;
Captain M'Keuna, 1st Royals; Lieuts.
Graves, Wolridge, and Inglis; Mr.
Herhert, midshipman—were killed in
action. The Admiral, Captains Shad-
well and Vansittart, Colonel Lemon,
R.M., and the Rev. H. Huleatt, chap-
lain, as well as a sad list of suh-
ordinates,* were of the severely
wounded: in short, of the heads of
the executive, Captain Willes (Flag-
Captain), and Major Fisher, R.E.,
were the only two not wounded;
and of the entire force, which never
had more than eleven hundred men
in action, the killed amounted to
eighty-nine, and the wounded to
tbree hundred and forty-five in num-
her, or a total loss of four hundred
and thirty-four. The French, out of
their petty contingent, consisting of
the officers and crew of the Duchayla,
had four killed and ten wounded,
amongst the latter the gallant Com-
mandant Tricault, who had stood
tbroughout the day in the foremost of
the fight:—
British forces actually engaged.
11 Vessels—1100 men.
Losses—of Vessels.
Sank. Disahled. Much damiged.
3 4 3
Losses of Men and Officers.
Killed. Woundtd. Surviving.
89 345 660
Direotly it was light enough to
work, Captain Willes proceeded to
save as many of the ahandoned vessels
as possihle, and to hlow up or de-
stroy those that could not he saved.
Although the enemy made deliherate
and telling practice at the men so
employed, the surviving officers and
men succeeded in recovering tbree of
the sunk and ahandoned vessels, and
those that could not he carried off,
* Lieutenant Buckle, R.N.^ Lieutenant G. Longley, R.E.; Captain Masters,
R.M.; Lieutenant Crawford, R.M.A.; Mr. Burnitton, master, R.N.; Messrs. Smith,
Powlett, and Armytage, midshipmen; Mr. Ryan, guuner—were returned amongst
the dangerously wounded.


1859.]
667
The Fight on the Peiho.

the Cormorant, Lee, and Plover, were
destroyed and rendered wortbless to
the enemy as trophies of their vic-
tory.
Apart from the forts keeping up
an excellent fire upon our men, large
working-parties covered the face of
their works, and rapidly made good
the damage done to the parapets,
emhrasures, and mantlets,* hy our
fire on the 25th; and during the
next two or tbree successive nights
the enemy kept a most vigilant look-
out, and often lightsd up the front
of the hatteries with fire-halls, in an-
ticipation of another night-assault.
The mantlets alluded to were so
striking an iunovation in Chinese
warfare, and reminded many so pain-
fully of the hitter siege of Sehasto-
pol, that we must descrihe them,
leaving others to conjecture how the
slow - marching Chinamen should
have suddenly learnt to apply them
so ingeniously and successfully to the
forts of Takn. These mantlets would
he quite worthy of imitation in our
own fortifications, and the cleverness
with which they were worked de-
serves all praise. Had they heen
fitted to the upper port or emhra-
sure-sill, any accident to the lanyard
would have caused them to fall down
and hlock up the gun-port, so that
they would have to he hlown away
to enahle the gun to work; hut plac-
ed as they were, hy attaching the
lanyards to the gun-carriage, as the
piece recoiled it closed its own mant-
let, and if the lines were shot away,
the mantlet merely fell down, and
left the gun to fight in an ordinary
emhrasure. There was one more
fact ohserved, which, evincing for-
eigu advice and instruction, we deem
worthy of the notice of the Gov-
ernment: we are assured hy one
who shared in the honours of this
hloody day, that he calihred most of
the shot that struck and lodged on
hoard his vessel; they were of a
calihre generally used hy Russi-
ans, and these, hy a strange co-
incidence, we now find the Pekin
Board of Ordnance to have adopted.
We own that whatever he our opi-
nions upon these coincidences, those
opinions do not create any alarm as
to the issue of such foreigu advice,
provided that we deal with China in
future with a full recoguition of the
fact. Our only danger lies in fancy-
ing we are dealing with the same
people at Pekin that we have to do
with elsewhere tbroughout China.
The Russian will soon he ahle to
say of Pekin, as he said of Warsaw,
"Nous y sommes et vous n'y etes
pas;" let us recoguise this prohahi-
lity, and deal with the question with-
out hlinking or evading its serious as-
pect. Russia must expand; she wants
Eastern empire; the laws of nature
and of God call those northern hordes
over which the Czar rules, to march
forward to the conquest of climes
more hlest than those which have
heen the cradle of the race. West-
ern Europe, dear old soul, put on her
spectacles and flourished her mop in
the face of the Muscovite when he
looked towards Western Asia and
Turkey. We saved the Mohammedan,
hut we sacrificed the Budhist nations.
Our possessions East of Hindostan,
our Chinese commerce,which it would
have taken ages to endanger hy way of
Persia and Turkey, have hecome inse-
cure ever since the Russian occupa-
tion of the Amour and Manchouria,
an occupation only preliminary to
the formation of a Russian eastern
empire in Northern China and Japan,
which will over - tower and over-
shadow, with its military organisa-
tion and hrute force, the empire of
Britain, hased upon commerce, jus-
tice, and forhearance.
• They were of stout wood, covered externally with a wattling of ratans, ho as
to he rifle proof. The mantlet worked on hinges or rollers fitted to the outer and
lower edge of the emhrasures, and was triced up or lowered down hy means of
lines leading upward tbrough the parapet on each side of the gun. When closed
up, the casemated emhrasures were not easily detected in the smoke of action,
and the gun was loaded and laid point hliink hefore heing run out. Directly all
was ready, down went the mantlet, out ran the gun, a shot was fired into the
mass of vessels, and as the gun recoiled the mantlet went up again with such
expedition that our men required sharp eyes to detect which of the enemy's em-
hrasures was firing and ought next to he silenced.


668 Ltne's Young Dream—Nowadays. [Dec.
LOVE'S TO0NG nREAM—NOWAnAYS.
Oh tell me not that distant seas
Roll wide hetween me and my lover;
For he, I'm sure, is at Ins ease—
And I'm in clover.
And don't tell me that foreigu parts
Will ever make me, dear, forget him;
Nor will he take to hreaking hearts,
Unless I let him.
He writes to me hy every post,
And every post takes hack my answer;
He writes of " muffins," sleighs, and frost—
I of my dancer.
So don't tell me that I mnst mope,
While he's in Canada reoruiting;
He's neither Bishop, Saint, nor Pope,
And fond of shooting.
I wish you'd write to him some day,
How very hadly I'm hehaving,
He'd send hack word at once to say
Ho thought you raving.
He likes my going to a hall,
And talking German with Lord Rowan;
D'you think that, out at Montreal,
He flirts with no one?
Ah! you don't know him. I must own
I've seen you flirt, my pretty cousin,
But Willy soon would flirt you down,
And sev'ral dozen.
Don't talk such sentimental stuff;
You preach as if I were a hahy;
As Willy says, "' I'm not a muff,"
Nor he "a gahy."

I know he's very fond of me—
I know I'm very fond of Willy;
And as to douhts and jealousy,
We're not so silly.
We hoth intend to have our fun,
And then to many one another;
And, as the music is hegun,
Pray no more hother.
II. D. W.


1859.]
669
Another Pleasant French Booh
ANOTHER PLEASANT FRENCH BOOK.

There is something inexpressihly
cheering in the contact of an honest
mind. We are all, at times, depressed
and saddened, hy the spectacle of
what seems the privileged dishonesty
of trade, politics, and literature,
which fills us with forehodings as to
the future of our race; and yet, after
giving utterance to such gloomy fore-
hodings, our faith in human integrity,
and our hopes for human progress,
are revived, whenever we have direct
experience of one cheering exception.
Enlightened hy that one example,
we reflect that the world must have
salt enough to keep it at least from
putrefying. We know as a matter
of fact, that a man can he a tradesman,
yet not he "meek and much a liar;"
that ho can he a statesman, and yet
care moro for his country than his
place; that he can he a critic, and
speak the truth of friend or foe. If
we interrogate our experience, we
find that even a landlady at a lodg-
ing-house may have a scrupulous
conscience. Our world is really not
in the miserahle plight we had, in
our impatience, supposed. And this
renewal of hope is strengthened when
we compare our experience with that
of our, friends; each has ahundant
examples uf integrity to record, as a
set-off against the laxity which is,
alas! also ahundant.
Something of this invigorating in-
fluence we feel when we make the
acquaintance of a French writer like
M. Ernest Renan. French literature
has hrilliant qualities, and many
charms; far he it from us to gainsay
these qualities, or to speak with
wholesale disrespect of a literature
which hoasts so many nohle minds;
hut, without alluding to the pro-
foundly vicious tendency of most of
its light and popular works—most
vicious when affecting a moral tone
—we think it will he generally ad-
mitted that, with rare exceptions,
French literature displays intellec-
tual adroitness and passionate rhe-
toric, rather than sweet seriousuess
and depth of earnest feeling. It is
hrilliant; hut there is more light than
heat. Those who have real convic-
tions are too apt to seek only the
trinmph of their cause without re-
gard to the means. The hrain seems
more active than the heart. It Is,
and always has heen, rare to find a
man deeply impressed with the im-
portance of Truth, merely as Truth;
still rarer to find a man with that
natural piety which inspires respect
for the convictions of others, merely
hecause they are the convictions of
human souls, no matter how little
they may agree with his own. This
quality of mind, in all countries rare,
is peculiarly rare in France. There
seems to he something in the French
mind essentially unfavourahle to it,
as, indeed, to all true liherty what-
ever; and that something we should
call a passion for despotism and sys-
tem. The readiness with which they
suhmit to all regulations of authority,
is only another aspect of that im-
patient desire they have to regulate
everything—to systematise Life, Art,
Literature, and Science. Servility is
only despotism in aheyance.
We will not pursue this suhject.
We have no desire to draw up an in-
dictment against the French nation,
or its literature; the more so as wo
are aware of the injustice which
inevitahly mingles in such general
charges. There are splendid excep-
tions, even in France, to general
charges, even the most undeniahle.
M. Renan is an example and an ex-
ception. Without heing the most
noticeahle of French writers, he is
the last whoso acquaintance we wel-
come, as that of one who helps us to
a more charitahle view of the French
mind, vindicating the heauty and in-
tegrity which must exist among our
neighhours. We are unacquainted
with his previous writings, hut the
volume just issued, entitled Essais de
Morale et de Critique, has given us
such agreeahle hours, that we hasten
to introduce it to the notice of our
readers. M. Renan is a man of vari-
ous and solid erudition; and oriental
scholars speak of him with great re-
spect. In this volume we have the
weight rather than the display, of a
well-stored mind: the scholar is felt


1859.]
m
Another Pleatant French Boole.

necessarily destroys all liherty. Ho
renounces '89. He protests against
its violence, its code founded on a
materialist conception of property,
its disdain of personal rights, its
levelling tendency under the pretext
of equality, and its disregard of lihe-
ral culture. On the dreary flat which
the levelling passion has made of
France, he sees hut one fortress
standing erect—the fortress of intel-
ligence: "Les gens d'esprit sont la
vraie nohlesse de notre histoire."
The chivalry of France, at least since
the time of the Valois, has heen only
distinguished hy hravery, elegance,
and frivolity. It wanted seriousuess
and morality. It forgot the essential
function of an aristocracy—the de-
fence of its rights, which were to a
great extent the rights of the whole
kingdom, against the king. From
the seventeenth century, all the du-
ties of the nohility seemed resumed
in one—to serve the king. It only
understood its privffeges as a mark
of superiority over the hourgeoisie;
its prerogative was a principle of
contempt, not of true pride—a mo-
tive of servility and impertinence
rather than a duty to he performed.
The only protectors France has had
have heen the men of intelligence.
They have resisted, they have kept
alive the sacred fire. Even to this
day it is only in this class that Louis
Napoleon finds formidahle enemies.
But although M. Renan looks to
the aristocracy of intellect as the
source of salvation for France, he is
very far from sharing the opinions
popular among that aristocracy. One
fault of the Liherals has heen, he
says, the pretension of doing with-
out traditions, and of forming society
solely on a hasis of logic. He de-
plores the loss of municipal institu-
tions, and the provincial spirit of in-
dependence; he regards centralisa-
tion as a despotism and a curse.
"L'erreur de lMcole liheTale est
d'avoir trop cru qu'il est facile de
crier la liherie par la reflexion, et de
n'avoir pas vn qu'un e"tahlissement
n'est solide que quand il a des racines
historiques." The truth of this is
hecoming every year more evident.
We are a part of the Past, as the
hlossom is of the root. Life is not a
theorem which can he constructed;
society is an organism which must
grow. The ieole lihirale commits
the same mistake as has heen so
fatal to China: "Je veux dire oette
fausse opinion que la meilleure »-
cie"te" est celle qui est ratiounelle-
ment organises pour son plus grand
hien." It seems a paradox to say
that society should not he '. organised
for its good;" and yet a larger logic
teaches us that just as organisms
must grow, carrying with them the
imperfections of hereditary tenden-
cies, and caunot he constructed on
"rational principles;" so also must
society grow, developing itself from
the past, good and evil together.
M. Renan finely says, that the ecole
lihirale, in its rationalising scheme
"ouhlia que le respect des individus
et des droits existants est autant
au-dessus du honheur de tons qu'un
interet moral surpasse un inte"ret
purement temporel." No one will
dispute that many of the existing
rights are indefensihle on a logical
view of the social fahric; hut they
are rights, and as rights ought to he
sacred. Of the two political systems
which divide the world, M. Renan
says, France has preferred the one
which is hased on ahstract right, to
the one which is hased on estahlished
right; hecause France is the "coun-
try of logic and generous ideas."
Who would reproach her, since it is
owing to this glorious fault that she
achieved the splendour of her history
and the sympathy of tlie world? Yet
the nation which, in perfect sincerity,
desired to achieve the liherty of the
human race, was unahle to found
her own. Serfs purchasing their
freedom peuny hy peuny, and after
centuries of effort hecoming not the
equals of their masters, hut ahle to
exist in their presence, have in
modern times hecome more perfectly
free, than the nation which even
during the middle ages proclaimed
the rights of man. Liherty hought
or conquered hit hy hit, has heen
more durahle than liherty decreed.
"En croyant fonder le droit ahstrait,
on fondait la servitude; tandis que les
hants harons d'Angletcrre, fort peu
geinereux, fort peu eclaires, mais in-
traitahles quand il s'agissait de lours
privileges, ont en les defendant fonde*
la vraie liherie"."


1859.]
C73
Another Pleasant French Booh.

masculine pursuits of our forefathers
have given place to humhler efforts.
Adopt what religion or philosophy
you will, he continues, man is here
helow for an ideal, transcendental
end, something superior to mere en-
joyment and material interests. But
does material progress contrihute to
hring us nearer to such an end? Has
the world, since this transformation,
hecome on the whole more intelli-
gent, more honest, more anxious
ahout liherty, more sensitive to what
is nohle and heautiful? That is the
whole question.
Truly, that is the question; and
while every one will agree with
him that material progress can never
he considered a compensation for
moral decadence, the whole force of
his philippic against our age rests
on the assumption that there is this
moral decadence. We may he per-
mitted to douht the truth of this as-
sumption. Like Mr. Carlyle, and
some other writers, M. Renan takes
for granted that our superiority in
industrial skill has heen purchased
hy an inferiority in other directions.
But we caunot think that a dispas-
sionate survey of the condition of
England—the first of industrial na-
tions—detects an inferiority in intelli-
gence, morality, love of liherty, or
appreciation of nohle life, as compar-
ed with previous centuries. There
may he a tendency in some quarters
to over-estimate the value of material
progress. We think there is this
tendency, and that it is vicious; hut
we have no fears that the nohler
fihres of our life will cease to move
us, or cease energetically to protest
against such over-valuation. Look at
industrial England, and ask whether
the great ideas of Religion, Morality,
Liherty, and Science, are hanished
from the minds of active men. M.
Renan thinks that industry is good
and honourahle, hut not nohle.
"L'utile n'eunohlit pas: cela seul
eunohlit qui suppose dans 1'homme
une valeur intelicctuelle et morale."
Perhaps so; hut does useful lahour
exclude nohle life? That is the ques-
tion. He considers that virtac,
"genins, science, when disinterested
and pursued with purely speculative
aims, piety, and military greatness (!)
eunohle life." Bnt who will seriously
aver that these are incompatihle with
industrial progress? It was a fa-
vourite topic with certain writers,
that England had hecome enervated
hy a long peace, until the sudden il-
lumination of Alma, Inkermaun, and
Balaclava revealed the folly of such
declamation. And it has long heen
a stereotyped paragraph in French
literature, that the English care only
for "le confortdhle" interest them-
selves "am petites choses hien plut6t
qu' aux grandes ide".s at aux grandes
passions." But is it the fact? Are
we insensihle to great ideas and great
passions? Do we prefer comfort to
freedom; do we neglect Religion,
Morality, and Philosophy, for our
mess of pottage? If we are not an
artistic race, are we therefore mate-
rialist? If the English do not inte-
rest themselves in certain "great
ideas," which to the French and Ger-
man mind seem of pre-eminent im-
portance, it is hecause the English,
hy temperament, no less than hy edu-
cation, see reason to question the
value and the truth of these ideas;
not hecause industrial activity has
made them forget the nohler aims of
life. The Englishman is as deeply
interested in religious and philoso-
phical questions as the Frenchman or
the German; hut he has little faith
in the representative ahstractions and
the metaphysical methods which oc-
cupy his neighhours. We are re-
proached with heing a nation of shop-
keepers; the truth simply heing that,
as shopkeepers, we surpass other na-
tions; and this superiority in industry
is only one of the many evidences of
our national power. Are we inferior
as sailors, soldiers, thinkers, and wri-
ters? Is there a richer, nohler litera-
ture than our own? Are our men of
science unworthy of a place heside
their Continental rivals? Are our
poets—in spite of our alleged un-
poetical character—inferior to those
of France and Germany? We have
never heen great in music, painting,
or sculpture; hut he is a hold man
who will assert that, in other direc-
tions, this shopkeeping, comfort-lov-
ing, cleanly, prosaic England is infe-
rior to any nation. In every de-
partment of Intellect we have heen
eminent. In the difficult art of
self-government, uniting a deep


1869.]
675
Another Pleasant French Booh.

strong are, for the most part, too
heated to he compassionate. Capital
is at present a hard taskmaster. The
restless desire to get rich rapidly,
thwarts the very ohjects of wealth,
which are leisure and enjoyment. To
he richer than our neighhours, rather
than to ho hetter, or wiser, or hap-
pier, can never he a healthy amhi-
tion. Unhappily it is too much the
amhition of our day. A passion for
"getting on in lite" has taken the
place of the desire for living happily.
If we caunot rise ahove our condi-
tion, we endeavour at least to seem to
do so. By imitating some of the ex-
ternals of wealth, we try to cheat
others into the helief that we are .
richer th»n we are; and all in vain:
no one is deceived. In vain does the
servant-girl, or shopkeeper's wife,
dress in silks or muslins which a
duchess formerly would have heen
glad to wear; in vain are the new-
est Parisian fashions rapidly imitated
hy the struggling classes; the servant
is known to he a servant, and not a
duchess; and the servant knows that
the shopkeeper's wife is not a duchess.
If a professional man succeed in per-
suading his friends, hy his diuners
and train de maison, that he is "get-
ting on" hetter than is actually the
case, the success is hut small, and the
price paid for it in toil and anxiety is
heavy. But these and other mis-
takes will, let us hope, vanish hefore
long; and the deeper evils of exces-
sive competition will find a cure in a
wiser and more humane conception
of the purposes of life.
As a protest against an over-valua-
tion of the henefits of industry, and
as an eloquent reminder that there are
other ohjects ahout which human
heings and nations have to concern
themselves, we accept M. Renan's
essay on the Poetry of the Great
Exhihition. He sees with something
like sadness, that for the first time
Europe convened its multitudes to-
gether without proposing to them an
ideal aim. "Twice has Europe sent its
envoys to witness an exhihition of
merchandise, and to compare manu-
factures; and returning from this
novel pilgrimage, no one has com-
plained that something was missing."
He then undertakes to show that, in
the previous history of the world,
the epochs which were great in art,
were epochs in which the "comfort-
ahle" was unknown. Comfort ex-
cludes heauty. An English jug is
certainly more adapted to its purpose v
than a Greek vase; hut the Greek
vase is a work of art, the English jug
will never he more than a utensil.
What then? If the utensil he in-
tended for art, it is a failure; hut if
intended for use, it is a success. The
only conclusion we can draw is, that
art, appealing to other feelings than
those appealed to hy manufactures,
should never enter into competition
with use. It would he douhtless a
painful thought, if prohahle, that art
should ever he hanished from life,
and poetry give place to industrial
energy; hut while man continues to
have an emotive, sensitive, aspiring
soul, there is little fear lest poetry
should die out. Art driven from
Vases hy the stern necessities of Life,
will find some other mode of express-
ing itself.
M. Renan loves the past, and lin-
gers fondly over every vestige which
remains of the life that once was
vigorous on earth. Our readers will
prohahly share this feeling, this na-
tural piety which links the present
generations with the past. "Poetry
and morality," he says, "are two
different things; hut they hoth pre-
suppose that man is not the creature
of a day, without ties which unite
him to the infinite which precedes,
and without responsihilities to the
infinite which succeeds him. I con-
fess it would he impossihle for me to
reside, or even to travel with plea-
sure, in a country where there were
neither archives nor antiquities.
That which gives interest and heauty
to things, is the trace of man having
passed there, loved there, suffered
there." It seems to us, however,
that M. Renau, like many others, in
vindicating the claims of the past,
forgets that the past itself was once a
present; and if piety towards the
generations that have heen checks
the too ready scorn or indifference
which is sometimes felt and expressed
for the days of old, the same piety
towards the generations that are,
and are to he, should check the ten-
dency to flout and scorn our own age.
Not that M. Renan is a narrow-


678
[Dec.
Another PUaeant French Booh.

Liherty, which means individual free-
dom; and, heing a wise man, he has
a profound distrust of that chimeri-
cal equality which nature has em-
phatically declared can never he.
Individual energy, and individual
character, are the horn enemies of
that mediocrity which aims at uni-
formity. So impressed is he with
the value of individuality, that,
although a Frenchman, and a dis-
tinguished writer, he actually pro-
tests against the supremacy of the
French classics; and this not in the
spirit of opposition which in 1830
founded the noisy Eeole Jtomantique,
hut in the spirit of catholic apprecia-
tion which an Englishman or Ger-
man might display. "On ne pent
refuser au dix-septicme siecle le don
special qui fait les litterateurs ckm-
iques, je veux dire une certaine cotn-
hinaison de perfection dans la forme
et de mesure (j'allais dire de me"dio-
crite) dans la pense"e, grace a laquelle
une litterature devient l'ornement de
toutes les memoires et l'apanage des
ecoles; mais les limites qui convien-
nent aux e"coles ne doivent pas etre
imposfi* a l'esprit humain." He is
willing to admit the admirahle qua-
lities of style which distinguish these
classics, and thinks that in all times
they must he enjoyed hy men of
taste; hut he douhts whether men
oan continue to have recourse to
them for consolation, enlightenment,
encouragement. We have outgrown
the intellectual condition of the age
which produced that literature; our
horizon is widened, our insight deep-
ened; our wants are altered, and our
knowledge is more exact. "II est
difficile que la faveur du puhlic qui
lit, non par acquit de conscience,
mais par hesoin intime, s'attache in-
dSfininient a des livres ou il y a peu
de choses a apprendre sur les proh-
lemes qui nous preoccupent, ou uotre
sentiment moral et religieux est fre"-
quemment hlesse"." This will seem
very daring to the majority of French-
men. The idea of their "grands ecri-
vains" no longer heing held as the
models of perfect literature, which
moderns may amuse themselves in
imitating, hut can never equal, will
he paintul where it is not exasperat-
ing. There is in all nations a strong
disposition to exalt the old writers at
the expense of contemporaries; and
the writers now reverenced as clas-
sics had in their day to suffer this
injustice, and were invidiously com-
pared with their predecessors. But
this tendency, everywhere strong, is
peculiarly strong in France, owing to
that servility natural to the French
mind which makes it peculiarly prone
to worship estahlished power, and to
domineer over individuals. 'M. Renan
would prohahly assigu another cause;
for he douhts whether the French
mind, with all its hrilliant external
qualities, and its ahsence of moral
and religious depth, he destined to
anything higher than captivating the
world hy sonorous rhetoric, and as-
tonishing it from time to time " par
des hrutales apparitions."
It is evident from what has heen
already cited, that M. Renan is not
one of those Frenchmen who pro-
claim France the centre and the light
of the universe. It is also evident in
his articles on Victor Cousin and
Lameunais, that he is not of those
Frenchmen who care more for elo-
quence and felicity of pbrase, than
for truth and honesty. He is too
good a writer not to love good writ-
ing; too serious a man not to de-
spise the sacrifice of matter to form.
In the estimate of Victor Cousin,
which is written with exquisite cour-
tesy, and evident admiration for that
writer's oratorical ahility, we see
plainly enough how he has gauged
the shallow and insincere mind of
that celehrated professor. After
speaking of Cousin's oratorical power,
he adds with a sarcasm terrihle in its
truth :—" L'eloquence ooinme l'en-
tendit M. Cousin a des exigences
impeneuses. Toutes les doctrines ne
sont pas egalemeut eloquentes; et je
crois hien que plus d'une fois M.
Cousin a du se laisser entrainer vers
certaines opinions, autant par la con-
sideration des heaux de>eloppinents
aux quels elles prfitaient, que par
des demonstrations puremeut scien-
tifiques." He also gently ridicules
M. Cousin for his claptrap patriot-
ism in proclaiming Descartes the
greatest of philosophers, and his phi-
losophy "la philosophic Francaise."
To his auditors it was douhtless tan-
tamount to a demonstration of the
truth of the philosophy, to say that


1859.]
679
Another Pleasant French Book

it was peculiarly French. Majendie
was wont to employ the same trick;
and whenever he opposed a physiolo-
gical theory, pronounced that it was
not "la physiologic Franchise,"
which of coarse closed the question.
The artiole on Augustin Thierry
will lie road with great interest hy all
the admirers of that conscientious
scholar and admirahle man; whereas
the article on Lameunais will pro-
hahly irritate all the admirers of that
writer who, according to if. Renan,
was neither a philosopher, a politi-
cian, nor a savant, hut an admirahle
poet, ohedient to a Ihwo severe et tou-
jour* irritee. The metaphors which
he at first employed against liheral
ideas were afterwards turned against
kinga and the Pope. His rhetoric
had little variety; "l'enfer en faisuit
tons les frais." His rhetoric was that
of the priests; he raised up a phan-
tom which he called Satan, and which
ho made the representative of the evil
he had to destroy; "puis il frappait
do coups terrihle* et rotentissants.
Le sonci do l'exactitndo no le preoc-
cupait jamais."
In the article on Procopins, M.
Renan once more discusses the vexed
question of the authorship of that
cbromque teandalmut, which one
party helieves Procopins wrote as a
secret vengeance —a hypocrite's
"aside"—and which another partv
stoutly maintains he never did write.
The Historia Arcana, whether writ-
ten hy Procopins or not, must always
remain a questionahle source for his-
torical students; even when a chron-
ique scandateuse contains some truth,
it still remains scandalous, and the
amount of truth is not ascertainahle.
There was douhtless something piqu-
ant and attractive to historians in tho
idea of Justinian, who had, till the
commencement of the seventeenth
century, made so majestic a figure in
history, suddenly losing that prestige
of panegyric, and finding a detractor,
if not a detector. His name was
attached to that code which gave
legislation to Europe. And the Mid-
dle Ages had almost canonised him,
no less than his courtesan Theodora.
To discover that Cawar is hald, will
always delight the mass of mankind;
to discover that a hero was a
scoundrel, seems also agreeahle to
VOL. LXXXVL
many. Justinian had heen without
a satirist and without a critic until
1620, when Alemauni discovered,
among the manuscripts of the Va-
tican, the uupuhlished appendix, as it
were, to the eight hooks of official
eulogy which Procopins had written
on the reigu of Justinian. In this
supplementary hook the historian pre-
tended to reveal the truth. In what
he had previously written he was
under the coorcion of an official posi-
tion, and in fear of a tyrant's ven-
geance. He spoke, therefore, with
the samo nice regard for truth as M.
de Cassaguac or M. de Laguerrioniere
display when they speak of the acts
and intentions of Louis Napoleon.
But in this Historia Arcana he was
resolved to unhurthen his mind; a
resolution which may some day occur
to M. de Cassagnac, if a good chance
presents itself. But Procopins does
not deny the suspicion which must
attach itself to all such tardv revela-
tions. If he was an official" liar, hv
his own confession, how can he ho
accredited as a veridical historian in
his private charadter? If his pane-
gyric was written under the pres-ur -
of servile motives, what guarantee
have we that his accusation was not
written under the pressure of motives
equally hase?
The picture presented of Justinian
and Theodora in the Secret History
is that of two demons delighting in
evil, not of two human heings. When
writers like Montesquieu and Gihhon
accord historical credit to such lihjls
they forget that the very exaggera-
tion of the accusation rohs it of value
as testimony. It is more than pro-
hahle that Justinian and Theodora
were not saints; hut it is certain
they were not devils. If the only
evidence wo have of their infamy is
what a secret pampblet, the avowed
product of a liar, can furnish, we are
hound to treat that evidence as worth-
less. M. Renan justly remarks that
love of evil for the sake of evil has
never heen sufficient to sustain a life,
or to serve as a principle of govern-
ment, Making every allowance for
official tlarteries, and* separating the
personal from the regal character of
a sovereigu, and admitting that had
men may perforin actions which will
give them a sort of false air of great
45


680
[Deo.
Another Pleasant French Booh.

men, it is impossihle to helieve that a
monster could have left such a name
in history as that of Justinian—im-
possihle to admit that a reigu so glo-
rious hy its administration, its legisla-
tion, mid its policy, could have heen
the work of a Domitian, aided hy a
Messalina. It is true that execrahle
tyrants ruled Rome, and Rome still
remained the mistress of the world.
But here the case is quite different.
Under Justinian, Romo did not pre-
serve her acquired supremacy; she
retired from an expiring condition,
and once more seized the sceptre of
the world.
Moreover, the general suspicion
which must attach itself to all such
secret and tardy revelations, hecomes
confirmed when the mauner of the
historian is examined. He delights in
vague declamations without definite
statements to warrant them; or he
collects the ahsurd scandals current
in Grecian cities, and among the idle
gossips of the court and antechamher.
Sometimes Justinian is an ass, at
others an astute tyrant exercising
prodigious intellectual activity. Then,
again, as M. Renan notices, it is diffi-
cult to reconcile the accusations of in-
famous dehauchery with the sohriety
and indefatigahle ardour for work
which is not refused the tyrant.
What, then, is the truth ahout
Justinian? We do not know; we
never can know. There may he a
foundation for the accusations of
Procopins, hut the exact amount of
truth they contain can never he esti-
mated. M. Renan thinks that the
emperor was "un esprit serienx et
applique, inais lourd et grossier."
The performances of horses and htllets
seem to have heen his sole artistic
pleasures. This, in a private person,
would have heen comparatively harm-
less; hut the tastes of ahsolute rao-
narchs are not indifferent matters:
"il n'est pas permis a celui dont les
preferences sont des lois d'avoir telle
litterature qu'il lui plait." It was
also a serious misfortune that the
emperor had a passion for theological
controversy, and shed torrents of
hlood ahout suhtleties.
But we must not longer dwell on
this suhject, nor on M. Renan's
charming pages. We commend the
hook to the meditation of all lovers of
serious and delicate literature; a hook
in which they will find moott that
runs counter to their own opinions,
hut in which an honest, thoughtful,
elevated mind is everywhere manifest
It is in many respects a protest; hut
such protests are needed. As M.
Renan well says "A toutes les e"po-
ques, il y a eu une hasse litterature;
mais le grand danger de noire siecle
est que cette hasse litterature,
profitant de nos desastres, tend de
plus en plus a prendre le premier
rang."


1859.]
681
Popular Literature—Prize Essays.
POPULAR LITERATURE PRIZE ESSAYS.

EveryboDy knows the story of
the pedlar selling cheap knives at
a fair. "Selling them oft I—selling
them off I "Who'll hny?—only a six-
pence—here you air, sir,—another
sold—they are made to sell—going
cheap—sixpence each—nothing like
them—warranted to sell, sir, war-
ranted to sell—sold tbree hundred
and twenty-tbree to-day; who'll
hny?" It so happened that one of
the purchasers, in the simplicity of
his heart, returned to the pedlar with
the information that the knife he had
hought was wortbless, and utterly
incapahle of mischief. He argued
that the trader, having warranted
the ipmliiy of the knife, o ight now
to return the money. '• Wot did I
say, sir?" was the reply. "Did I
say they was warranted" to cut? I
said they was warranted to sell, and
they 'ave sold. You got it cheap,
and you can 'ang it on the mantel-
piece, along o' the spotted chiney
dog that stands there, I know, look-
ing up everlasting at your grand-
mother's sampler. You must learn
to spell your grandmother's sampler,
my man, afore you ketch me giving
hack the money." To some people
it will appear an awful heresy if we
class prize essays among the ware in
which our friend the pedlar delight-
ed; hut, in all soherness, there is a de-
ception ahout them which ought to
he laid hare. The ohject of writing
a hook is that it mHv he read; hut
the ohject of writing a prize essay is
achieved in the mere fact that it is
written. In truth, nohody does read
a prize essay. The chief producers
of this commodity are amateurs who
have no notion of writing, and with
infinite difficulty send forth an article
which has the same relation to a
genuine hook that shoddy has to
hroadcloth. Now and then it is true
that a practised hand competes for
the prize, and produces something
hetter than usual; while, as in the
case of the Burnett Prizes, when the
reward is sufficiently enticing, the
successful works are considerahly
ahove the average, and well worthy
of puhlic recoguition. But, as a
general rule, prize essays must he
considered the work of amateurs;
and it is in counection with the sys-
tem of amateur writing, which has
of late sprang up among us, that
they are chiefly interesting. It is in
this aspect that we propose to exa-
mine the suhject, in the first place;
and then, in the second place, we
may go on to answer a question that
will naturally ari.e out of our ex-
amination,—namely this. How is it
that the offer of prizes for intellectual
lahour has most sigually failed? We
can get prize oxen and prize pigs that
come up to our expectations; hut
prize essays, prize poems, prize monu-
ments, prize desigus of every kind,
are notoriously failures in this coun-
try, no matter how high we hid.
For the Duke of Wellington's monu-
ment the offer was some £20,000,
and we all know the disappointment
which the exhihition of the desigus
created. Why, we may well ask,
should success ho casual and failure
almost certain?
To hegin with the suhject of the
amateurs, the circumstance that in
these competitions the candidates are
known, or at least are presumed to
he known, only hy certain mottoes
written on the hacks of sealed enve-
lopes, which contain the real name
and address, makes a grand opening
for aspiring novices. They are in-
vited to fight with visors down in a
tournament where there is a chance
of reaping honour, and no chance of
heing puhlicly discredited; and on
these terms men who have never
handled a sword in their lives are
willing to enter the lists. The plea-
sant proposal meets the wishes of
hundreds upon hundreds tbroughout
the country, who, having a taste for
realing, very naturally aspire to
write. It is impossihle to cultivate
the taste for reading without also
exciting this desire to write. Not
only is it that we are imitative ani-
mals, and long to do what we admire
—to play the game as well as to see
it played; the fact is, that we never
read satisfactorily until we learn to
write; sooner or later we all find


G82
[Dec.
Popular Literature—Prize JEssaus.

that our reading is of little avail to
us until its results are something
more than a passive memory—until
they take some active shape. This
is merely putting Bacon's remark
into a ditlerent form. "Reading,"
said that philosopher, "inaketh a
lull man, conference a ready man,
and writing an exact man; and
therefore, if a man write little, he
had need have a great memory; if
he confer little, he had need have a
present wit; and if he read little, he
had need have much cuuning, to
seem to know what he doth not."
When we speak of the cacoeth^s
izrihendi, and laugh at the idea of
every man in the country setting
himself down to write, we ought to
rememher these preguant remarks.
A man never knows what he has
read until he has either talked ahout
it or written ahout it. Talking and
writing are digestive processes which
are ahsolutely essential to the mental
constitution of the man who de-
vours many hooks. But it is not
every man that can talk. Talking
implies, first of all, a readiness on the
part of the speaker, and, next, a sym-
pathetic listener. It is therefore, as
a digestive process, the most difficult,
if it is the most rapid in its opera-
tion. Writing is a different affair;
a man may take his time to it, and
he does not require a reader; he can
he his own reader. It is an easier
although more formal process of di-
gestion than talking. It is in every-
hody's power; and everyhody who
reads much makes more or less use
of it, hecause, as Bacon says in the
ahove passage, if he does not write,
then he ought to have extraordinary
faculties to compensate for such neg-
lect. It is in this view that we are
to understand the complaint of a
well-known author, that he was iguo-
rant of a certain suhject, and the
means hy which he was to dispel his
iguorance—namely, hy writing on it.
It is in this view that the monitorial
system of instruction has its great
value—to the monitors it is the hest
sort of teaching. It is from the same
point of view that Sir William Ha-
milton used to lament the decay of
teaching as a part of the education
of students at the universities. In
the olden time it was necessary to
the ohtaining of a degree that the
graduate should give evidence of his
capacity as a teacher; and in the
very titles of his degree, as magister
and doctor, he was desiguated a
teacher. A man never knows any-
thing, Sir William used to say, until
he has taught it in some way or
other—it may he orally, it may he
hy writing a hook. It is a grand
truth, and points a fine moral. Know-
ledge is knowledge, say the philoso-
phers; it is precious for its own sake,
it is an end to itself. But nature
says the opposite. Knowledge is not
knowledge until we can use it; it is
not ours until we have hrought it
under the command of the great
social faculty, speech: we exist for
society, and knowledge is null until
we give it expression, and in so doing
make it over to the social instinct.
Especially in our day is the dis-
cipline of the pen an essential part of
study. The student nowadays not
only reads much, he reads many
things. The hounds of science have
heen so widened, the ohjects of intel-
lectual interest have heen so multi-
plied, that more than ever study
has hecome discursive. In acquiring
general information, we are apt to
forego special knowledge, und in al-
most all the intellectual pursuits of
the day there is a want of concentra-
tion. We skim the surface of things.
There are so many pleasant dishes
hefore us, that we nihhle at each
without getting a good meal from
any. One way particularly we may
indicate in which our modern litera-
ture is destructive to us, and requires
the antidote which the hahit of writ-
ing supplies. In one of the early
chapters of his literary hiography,
Coleridge enumerates the various
hahits that destroy the memory, and
among these he gives a very pro-
minent place to the hahit of reading
newspapers. At first sight, it would
seem as if he were making a hroad
statement out of his own particular
experience; hut on examining into
the question, it will he found that he
is quite right, and we may even ex-
tend his remark to periodical litera-
ture as a whole. The reason of it is
not simply that in newspapers and
periodicals we read much, sud read
lightly, passing from one article to


684
[Dec.
Popular Literature—Prize Essays.

not still go on, an amateur maga-
zine; and those societies, of whose
organizations we had to give some
account a few months hack, play
upon the same chord. They propose
a suhject for a prize essay, and endea-
vour to make the prizes as tempting
and numerous as possihle. Tliey count
upon receiving agreat numher of com-
munications which will he of value,
partly as a testimony from indepen-
dent parties to the opinions of the
society, hut chiefly as a means of
exciting an interest in these opinions
among the class who are expected to
contrihute the essays. A prize is
proposed on the advantages of a
seventh day's rest, on the heauty of
teetotalism, on the henefits of early
rising, on the pleasure of swimming,
on Hie hest means of preventing the
smoke nuisance. Persons who previ-
ously cared nothing for these suhjects
are induced for the sake of the prize
to write upon it, and to advocate a
particular view. For the rest of
their lives they are committed to that
view, and hy the vanity of composi-
tion, if not hy the force of conviction,
hecome the apostles of a doctrine
which they previously despised. They
proselytise, and a little leaven, it is
calculated, will ere long leaven the
whole lump. If the essay he in itself
as heavy as lead, it has at all events
had the effect of making the writer of
it a convert. A puhlisher wants a
hymn for New-Year's Day. He
offers a guinea prize for it to the
puhlic in general, and to Sunday-
school teachers in particular. Sun-
day-school teachers are quite equal
to the effort of writing hymns; and
thousands of them set to work for
the sake of the prospective guinea,
and the fame that follows success.
The puhlisher receives an infinite
numher of attempts, from which he
selects one, advertising it with a
flourish of trumpets. All the Sunday-
school teachers in the realm are in-
terested in the experiment, patronise
the hymn largely, each hoping that
in the next year he or she will he the
successful candidate and the enter-
prising puhlisher makes a very hand-
some profit out of the transaction. In
the prize poems proposed for the
honour of Burns hy the Crystal
Palace Company, we see the system
fully developed under a glass case.
Not the most iunocent among us can
he mistaken as to the nature of the
transaction. It was a first-rate me-
thod of collecting a crowd. But in
kind, it is precisely on a par with the
method pursued hy some puhlishers
to ohtain a large circulation for their
hooks. There has just now heen pro-
duced in London a Dictionary of
Unirersal Information, which is
aunounced as the "cheapest and
most valuahle work ever produced."
Though its information is universal,
its cheapness uurivalled, and its value
inconceivahle, it is necessary to in-
duce persons to hny it hy giving to
purchasers the advantages of a lot-
tery. It is "a complete gazetteer of
geography, with accurate and heauti-
fully engraved maps;" "a perfect
cyclopaedia of history;" "a compre-
hensive compendinm of hiography;"
"an interesting epitome of mytho-
logy;" "a treasury of hihlical know-
ledge;" "a reliahle cbronological
record," and so forth, the whole puh-
lished for six shillings. But the at-
traction of the concern is supposed
to he so very douhtful, that the puh-
lisher aunounces £10,000 worth of
prizes to he given away to purchasers.
To any person who will send to the
puhlisher a list of 150 suhscrihers far
this precious dictionary, a gold watch,
valued at ten guineas, will he given.
A gold watch, valued at five guineas,
will he given to any one who will
procure 75 suhscrihers. A silver
watch, value tbree guineas, goes to
any one ohtaining 45 suhscrihers. A
gold pencil case, value two guineas,
will he presented to the individual
who can make up 30 suhscrihers;
and, small hy degrees, a silver pencil-
case, half the value of the gold one,
will fall to the lot of him who can
muster 15. Here we see the prize
system in all its naked deformity. It
is nothing more than an ingenious
method of investing a portion of the
retail profit in prizes, and giving
these instead of cash payments as a
preminm to canvassers who tramp
the country to force their sales.
In other puhlications of the same
firm, the lottery system is judi-
ciously mingled with the recoguition
of literary merit. We are told that
the "Englishwoman* Domestic Ma-


1859.]
685
Popular Literature—Prize Essays.

gazine stands at the head of all peri-
odicals for the interest of the tales and
light literature, for the usefulness of
many hundreds of recipes, and for the
mas-' of general information which ap-
pear in its pages." So little faith, how-
ever, have the puhlishers in this an-
nouncement, that at the same time they
advertise in large capitals "two HUN-
nREn ANn FIFTY PRIZES GIVEN AWAY
EVRKY YEAR, VALUE FOUR HUNDRED
guineas." During a period of seven
years, it is proclaimed that a sixty-
guinea pianoforte, manufactured hy
So-and-so; fifty-four gold watches,
manufactured hy somehody else; one
hundred and twenty-nine gold chains,
hy a third party; and a thousand
guineas' worth of articles in jewellery,
drapery, upholstery, silver and plated
goods, hooks, stationery, dressing-
cases, tahle cutlery, moderator lamps,
stereoscopes, and stereoscopic views,
supplied hy certain estahlishments
named (all of which, hy the way, ad-
vertise regularly in this most gene-
rous of magazines), have heen distri-
huted among the purchasers of the
periodical. All that is necessary to
secure a chance in the distrihution of
gifts, is to send to the puhlishers
certain numhered cheques, which ap-
pear with each issue of the magazine
on the corner of the last page. One
year of these cheques gives a chance;
the prizes are distrihuted hy hallot,
and the names of the happy prize-
holders are duly puhlished in the
me ,zine. But comhined with this
lottery system we have Mid there is
a line homage paid to literary aspira-
tions. The prize of a handsome
guinea volume is offered to any of
the suhscrihers who will forward the
hest selection of quotations from the
poets, on Jealousy, on Revenge, on
Hope, or some such theme. The
selections are criticised. "We duly
received the very largo numher of
quotations on Revenge forwarded to
us hy our fair suhscrihers. They dis-
play even a greater amount of care,
attention, good taste, and discern-
ment, than those on Hope." The
puhlishers of other periodicals eschew
the lottery system altogether, and
profess to give prizes only for intel-
lectual merit. Among these it is a
favourite plain to puhlish difficult
riddles, and award prizes, from a
guinea downwards, to those who can
discover the answer soonest; or, still
more frequently, to hold out similar
inducements to those who will in-
vent tolerahly severe enigmas. The
puhlishers of one little aunual, an
almanac and pocket-hook comhined,
which is called the Ladies" Fashion-
ahle Repository, in the volume for
the ensuing year "renews his thanks
to his kind friends for their wel-
come assistance, and has pleasure in
awarding them the following hooks:
To E. C. M., two copies for the hest
general answer; four copies to Fauny;
tbree each to Coralie, Charlotte, Y. 8.
N., and Sautillion; and one each to
Z., Miranda, Gerty, and Fleurdelis;
and we offer two additional copies
to Fauny for some pretty original
verses." Although we are not in-
formed what are the volumes which
are thus heniguantly hestowed, we
can imagine the sweet smile on
Coralie's fair face; and who would
not wish to share the rapture of that
dear Fauny on receiving two addi-
tional copies? We may give that
fine fellow Santillion's riddle as a
specimen of the lot:—
"A fusihle metal.
If hackwards 'tis read.
Will hecome what a tahle
Is made of Instead."
We rise a little in the scale when
we come to Young England's Hhis-
trated Newspaper; a periodical that,
if not very hrilliant, is at all events
well intentioned. Its aim is the use-
ful, and it ahounds in hiography,
natural history, science, good ndvice,
and riddles. It offers a prize of two
guineas for an essay on teetotalism;
a prize of one guinea for an essay on
cruelty to animals, which is to have
special reference to the horse, and par-
ticularly to horses aged; one guinea
for an essay on machinery, and it is
hoped that "our friends in Ireland
who have heen hreaking the reaping-
machines will try their hands for this
prize;"' lastly, a prize of one guinea
for an essay on nursery-hooks—" the
essay to consider Cock- Rohin, and
Jack the Oiant Killer, and to answer
the question, Are these nursery-hooks
good or had for little England?"
What sort of interest the offer of
such prizes excites we may see in


1859.]
687
Popular Literature—Prize Es$ay*.

was only the other day that prizes
were offered for an improved omni-
hus, ami the result was a failure.
The difficulty of answering such ques-
tions is the greater, hecause against
these disheartening experiences we
have to set the fact that, under a
different system of civilisation, the
emulation produced hy the offer of
prizes was eminently successful.
Whenever a Greek drama was act-
ed, it was a prize drama; and wo
are told that iEschylus won the
honour so many times, that Sophocles
in the end heat /Eschylus, and that
Euripides in like mauner had his tri-
umphs. Coriuna, it will he remem-
hered, won the prize for lyric verse,
Pindar heing her rival. Whether it
he a fact or not ahout the poetical
contest hetween Homer and llesiod,
and the prize of a tripod won hy the
latter, the tradition of such a contest
is a voucher for the custom, and for
the honour in which it was held. At
the Pythian Games, prizes for music,
and almost every species of artistic
work, were just as common and as
celehrated as the prizes for horse-
races and foot-races; and to realise
such a state of things in our time, we
must imagine all the poets from Ten-
nyson to Tupper, all the painters
from Landseer to the weakest Pre-
raphaclite hrother, and all the musi-
cians from Mario to Picco, assemhled
on Epsom Downs upon a Derhy day,
to contend for the honours of the
occasion with Mu-jid and Promised
Land, Umpire and Nuthourne. Why
should that he possihle in Greece
which is impossihle now? Why do
we draw the line hetween jockeys
who ride race-horses and poets who
ride their Pegasus—offer prizes for
the grosser animals, and produce
results that have made English
horses the first in the world, while
the most maguificent offers caunot
get a fit monument for the greatest
Englishman of the present century?
Why can we not ohtain hrilliant re-
sults from racing our hohhies?
Were we to consult Mr. Ruskin, he
would tell us that competition has
in itself a hlighting influence. There
is not much harm in it, so long as we
have to do with such material things
as horses and other cattle. You can
get a prize horse, a prizo canary, or
a prize tulip, for money. The contest
is a material one, and must he de-
cided on the principles of commer-
cial value. But in the products of
mind we have to recoguise a higher
element. There is a moral worth in
works of art which is independent of
mercantile standards, and the at-
tempt to produce such works from
mercantile or merely emulative mo-
tives, must have a haneful reaction
on the mind of the artist. Art in its
higher forms is the expression of
man's delight in the work* of God;
literature is the expression of his
love for truth, and desire to propa-
gate it. If we introduce the lower
motives—if we work with the ex-
press ohject of ohtaining either the
highest amount of remuneration, or
the highest rank of honour, we gag
the nohler impulses; we in the end
destroy them; and our work, want-
ing the inspiration, gradually hecomes
wortbless. Undouhtedly there is a
good deal to he said in favour of Mr.
Ruskin's view. There was a time
when it seemed to he a species of
simony to take money for the inspi-
rations of genins. Nohody would
take the money who was not com-
pelled to it, and there was a sort of
degradation in the act. Nay, still,
if money is raised into the supreme
test of literary excellence, and if the
pecuniary reward is made the chief
ohject of pursuit, there must follow
a certain hardening of the heart,
which will in turn react upon the
intellect and freeze its energies. At
the same time, it does not appear that
the principle of competition, as it
exists among us, has a very haneful
effect. The hahitof competition, and
the attractions of money, exist in
full force, and always will exist, even
where there is no definite system of
offering prizes. An exhihition is
opened; crowds of pictures are sent
to it: the walls are covered with a
spread of canvass that would satisfy
the requirements of the British
navy. Each work is placed there on
the chance of ohtaining a prize—not
a prize fixed hy certain selected
judges, hut a prize fixed hy the artist
himself—in one word, a price. Who-
ever will give him that price, gives
him the prize which, according to
his own estimate, he has merited.


1859.]
689
Popular Literature—Prize E*say*.

and fought for his own hsnd. They
were similar only in their dissimi-
larity. The similaritj- of the French
school, on the other hand, is a
genuine approximation of methods,
a theoretic uniformity of ideals. It
has often heen said that in politics
the French democrat aims chiefly at
equality, while the chief aim of Eng-
lishmen is liherty. It is a distinction
which is exhihited in art and lite-
rature as well as in politics. In
English art and literature there is
extreme license of method, infinite
variety of aim, the most astonishing
originality of result. In French work,
on the other hand, we are at onco
conscious of a certain monotony. One
French writer is exceedingly like an-
other. What diversity exists is dis-
played within very much narrower
limits. One sees palpahly the uni-
versal influence of school—of fixed
standards, of known rules, of accre-
dited models; and we oan under-
stand that, in such a state of things,
the prize system would he much
more successful than among us, who,
in the full flush of our Protestantism,
have asserted the right of private
judgment, and our contempt for au-
thority in no measured terms. The
nation that has two or tbree dozen
religions, and only ono sauce, is not
likely to have common standards in
philosophy, in literature, or in art.
But wanting these common stand-
ards, what faith can we have in our
judges? We have faith in the force
of truth; we have faith in the great
puhlic; we have faith in posterity;
we have faith in the awards of time.
But if there ho any originality in ns,
we are extremely loth to stake our
reputation on the verdict of any one
man, or of any two or tbree. The
artist, the poet, or the essayist, who
has aimed at novelty, may very na-
turally say, "I am willing to take
the award of time, and of the majo-
rity of my fellows; hut exposing my
work in a competition where my
judges are to he, not the great puhlic,
hut one, two, or tbree popes, elected
for the time heing, who have their
own ways of looking at things, I run
the risk of having my work discre-
dited hy their judgment, and hy the
fact of failure deprived of merit. The
difference hetween myself and any
tbree men selected to judge me may
he s0 great as to constitute an ahso-
lute inahility on their part to see
what is in me. Butlesson the chances
of difference hy increasing the numher
of judges—neutralise the differences
altogether hy giving me the whole
British puhlic for my judge, and then
I will compete. I have no ohjection
to your prizes, hut I will win my prize
hy getting my price—hy puhlishing
my work, and taking the opinion of
the puhlic, not hy sending it to tbree
judges, with whose appointment I
have had nothing to do, and ahiding
hy their opinion."
It is chiefly for this reason that the
offer of prizes does not and caunot, in
our country, call forth the highest ex-
cellence. Upon no man's judgment
can we pin our faith, if we have faith
in ourselves. The scholar will have
faith in his teacher, and when the
amateur takes to writing essays, he
has faith prohahly in those who are
so enlightened as to offer him a prize;
hut any man who has risen ahove his
models, and is capahle of producing
an original work, must have a certain
assurance which amounts to a rehel-
lion against the adverse judgment of
individuals. The men who contend
for prizes are, for the most part, men
who have not emancipated them-
selves from the influence of models;
and hence the dreary uniformity of
prize works, which, as we have al-
ready indicated, are of little use to
any hut the competitors themselves.
As the Russian prince danced all
night, not hecause he was fond of
dancing, or was in love with his
partner in the dance, hut hecause he
wanted to perspire, prize essays are
valuahle, not hecause they are worth
reading, or hecause their enormous
distrihution can do much good, hut
hecause they make their writers think
and master their stores of know-
ledge.


690
IDec.
Motley's Dutch RepuMie.

MOTLET 8 nUTCH REPUBLIC.
The literary puhlic had hardly for-
gotten tlie impression made on it
hy Preseott's History of Philip II,
and hy his ahle portraiture of that
gloomy, conscientious, industrious.
narrow-minded, and least amiahle of
monarchs, than it was recalled to the
same period of history, and to a second
portraiture of the same sovereigu, hy
the pen of Mr. Motley. The Ameri-
cans seem to have taken the history
of Spain as their especial province,
and they have dealt with it in a very
masterly mauner. No one will feel
that Mr. Motley's hook, even where
it goes over ground lately trodden hy
his estimahle predecessor, is in the
least degree superfluous; hut, in fact,
it has a distinct and specific ohject—
the narrative of the rise of the Dutch
Repuhlic—which is .sufficient to give
to it a plan and character of its own.
A worthier suhject no historian could
choose, nor one which legitimately
hrings hefore him greater principles
to disouss, or events more terrific, or
a more striking and varied dramatis
personal.
An intelligent Englishman or Ame-
rican, who will prohahly think that
he has little to learn on the rights of
conscience, or the liherty of opinion,
or the fundamental principles of good
government, may he apt to conclude
that the sole value, as well as the con-
spicuous merit, of Mr. Motley's hook,
lies in his spirited narrative of events,
and his powerful delineations of the
chief personages concerned in them.
He will he perfectly correct in accord-
ing his praise to the graphic man-
ner in which the terrihle sieges and
hattles and massacres which sigual-
ised the revolt of the Netherlands,
and the uprise of the Dutch Repuhlic,
are here hrought hefore him,and in ad-
miring even still more the vivid pencil
with which Mr. Motley has sketched
for ns the chief heroes in these trans-
actions; he will he perfectly correct
in applauding the insight into char-
acter, and the dramatic power, mani-
fested hy the author, and that perse-
verance with which—hy means often
of very lahorious research—he has
tracked out for us the dark policy,
and revealed to us the treachery and
dissimulation of the Spanish king;
hut he will have formed, we think, a
very erroneous estimation of his own
times, or of the lesson this history
conveys, if he should pronounce that
lesson to he trite or needless. For
our own part, there is no history we
should desire, at this present epoch,
to he more generally perused hy old
and young, and hy all classes of so-
ciety, than that which relates the
heroic and successful struggle ot the
United Provinces against the vast
power of Spain, acting as the armed
champion of a still greater power—
the Catholic Church and its vast
European hierarchy.
We all kindle as we read of this
greatest hattle for the rights of con-
science and the human intellect which
ever was delivered on the face of the
earth; we all rejoice over the trinmph
which resulted in the estahlishment
of that Repuhlic of Holland, to which
the whole of Europe, and England in
an especial mauner, owes so nohle a
deht; we all execrate that tyrauny
of Spain which would have crushed
the spirit of Freedom and the love of
truth; hut we do not all of us lier-
ceive that the tyrauny of Spain which
we execrate, was hut, in fact, one form
of that tyrauny of religious opinion
which is at all times ready to display
itself. We can estimate that tyrauny
when it displays itself in other minds,
and in strange forms of religion, or
in remote epochs of history; hut to
detect it in our own minds, or in our
own epoch—to understand that a
danger similar to that which other
nations have passed tbrough, may
tbreaten those nations which now con-
sider themselves the most advanced
in Europe—and that the nineteenth
century may have trials to undergo
similar to those of the sixteenth
—this is not so easy. It is, how-
ever, indisputahly true. The great
Tlie Rixe of the Dutch Repuhlic; a History.
don: Routledge.
By John Lothrov Motley. Lon-


692
[Deo.
Motley's Dutch Repuhlic.

and Transatlantic Spain are them-
selves neither Spaniards nor Catho-
lic. They helong to another race—
they profess another religion—they
speak another language. Washington
Irving, Prescott, Motley, Ticknor, are
the children of Protestant England.
It is this race which now hears sway
in that hemisphere, discovered and
conquered some four centuries ago
hy Catholic Spain. The very history
of Spain, like its domination in the
New World, has fallen into the hands
of strangers and heretics." Nor is
this, he proceeds to ohserve, any
isolated fact or any fanciful sport of
destiny; it is hut in perfect har-
mony with the whole current of
events. Then, taking a masterly
survey of that declension of Spain to
which we have hriefly alluded, he
adds: "The fate of Spain, its politi-
cal degradation, the staguation of its
literature, its nullity in science and
the arts, and all that constitutes the
manifold progress of a great society,
is hut the legitimate result of the
policy it pursued in the sixteenth
century. The government of Spain,
in its zeal for the Catholic faiih,
struck at the intellectual life of the
nation?' This is the answer to he
given to our question, and we prefer
to use the words of M. Guizot, that
the truth may have all the weight
it can derive from the authority of
one distinguished as much for his
calm, temperate, mature judgment,
as for his learning and philosophic
hahits of thought. In Spain, an ah-
solute monarch, hoastful of his piety,
sustained and clamorously applauded
hy a superstitious moh, crushed and
destroyed the rising spirit of inquiry.
The Catholic faith trinmphed, and the
nation sunk. The mental life died
down. Henceforward sloth and iguor-
ance are varied only hy outhursts of
democratic violence and vulgar infi-
delity, which again are hushed up
into the old iguorant superstition,
and the old contented sloth.
It is not that Spain remained
nominally Catholic; it is that she was
not allowed to think—this was the
malady under which she sunk. It
was the repressive policy which was
pursued that proved iatal to her.
M. Guizot remarks that the six-
teenth century was the critical age
of our modern European nations;
the epoch at which they received
the character that has remained with
them. This may he true, hut it ap-
pears to us that the age we are liv-
ing tbrough at this present time is
hardly less critical. Will the repres-
sive policy attain generally tbrough-
out Europe a trinmph whose result-
will he felt for centuries to come? or
will liherty of thought grow to he the
grand characteristic of the European
nations? This is the question we a>k
ourselves. Let it he rememhered that
this policy of repression may he vory
effectually pursued, though it may
not assume precisely the snme form
that it did in Catholic Spain. It
pleased Philip and his priests to seize
upon the tremhling heretic, to dauh
him over with painted devils and
painted flames, and then hurn him in
that rial hell-fire which they indeed
kindled upon the earth. It was thus
they laid the spirit of inquiry. But
emperors and priests in the nine-
teenth century may accomplish the
same feat hy methods less revolting
to humanity. The means used may
he less cruel, hut it will he the same
disastrous trinmph. S,,ain lahoured
successfully at the grand project so
dear to priesthoods—she estahlished
in her own dominions the unity of
the Church—she hanished all free
speculative thought. All was satis-
factorily settled. And who felt the
least want of philosophy? The sturdy
peasant and the dissolute nohleman
could hoth pass their lives exceeding
well without a single reflection he-
yond their lahours or their pleasures.
IIow happy should all he that they
have not to think upon dark perplex-
ing themes—only to live on in the
light the Church tbrows upon them I
It seems a heneficent result. But
the mental lite which would have
heen developing itself here and there
in a heresy aud a douht, was the
same mental energy which would
have animated the citizen and the
scholar, the physician and the mer-
chant, in their several toils, studies,
and enterprises. You have quieted
your patient hy an opiate that has
stupified him, or perhaps he olter-
nates hetween stupor and delirinm.
It was, moreover, the monkish type
of Cbristianity which prevailed and
'-


1859.]
688
Motley's Dutch Repuhlic.

was rendered predominant in Spain.
The secular intellect was not allowed
to interpenetrate it, parity and exalt
it, or, nt all event*, render it a fit
servant to secular purposes and a
mundane prosperity. This monkish
form of piety held human life in con-
tempt, set a stigma upon eartbly
prosperity, made renunciation and
resiguation the sole virtues of the
elevated man. Useful enough where
evils are without a remedy; and no
douht it acted as a heneficent counter-
poise to the violent passions of Goths
and Scythians, and the otl^r har-
harians who overtbrew the Roman
empire, or who were found living
in it; hut it is a form of piety an-
tagonistic to those vigorous efforts,
to that persevering and hopeful in-
dustry, which is the source of all our
modern progress. The Cbristianity
which has heen allowed to advance
or modify itself with the general in-
telligence of the day, lends its aid to
every effort to remedy evils; is heard
amongst us demanding sanatory mea-
sures; is seen resolutely withhold-
ing the charitahle gift that tends to
make want perpetual hy allying it
to sloth. The monkish Cbristianity
of the middle ages set up for its
standard of excellence the man
who endured all evils complacently,
whether remediahle or not; who
suffered with inexhaustihle patience;
whose charitahle gift was hut another
form of the virtue of renunciation:
if it increaud the poverty of the
world, was there not wider scope for
the exercise of patience and resigua-
tion? Was it not his own stand-
ard of piety to sit smiling serene
amidst dirt, and vermin, and starva-
tion? Where this monkish type of
Cbristianity keeps its hold, as it did
in Spain, sloth and iguorance have
one permanent ally; and (what is
worth considering) ihe finer spirits,
and the most conscientious of men,
are, under such a state of religious
opinion, carried off from the real ser-
vice of mankind, and that real ser-
vice loses its due honour, its due ap-
plause, and its due place in the
human conscience. When, therefore,
we further rememher what type of
Cbrisiianity it was that Spain re-
solved to preserve intact, we caunot
he surprised at the little energy and
mental life it thereafter displayed.
Such a people, saying amongst them-
selves, "There shall, if possihle, he
no heretic amongst us," have pro-
nounced their own sentence. They
have struck as with "mace petrific,"
and the society is immovahle.
But we must forego, or postpone
for the present, any further prosecu-
tion of these tempting generalities,
and look at the work hefore us, and
endeavour to convey some idea of
its nature, and of its literary merits.
Mr. Motley has no hesitations, makes
(isvf compromises. He does not write
like one who is alternately an advo-
cate for hoth parties; hut as a fair,
honest, dowuright advocate of that
party and of those men who, he is
convinced, deserve his admiration.
He writes like a lover of liherty, hut
without any undue partiality, that
we have ohserved, to democratic
institutions. Whether the portraits
presented to us are always, and
in all respects, minutely faithful,
who would venture to say? They
are, in our estimation, fair and
truthful in the main; and they
are always life like, always drawn
in a very masterly mauner. The
vivid picture he leaves hehind of
the chief actors in his period of his-
tory, is one of the striking character-
istics of the hook. Those who rather
sbrink from the prospect of having
to read over again of the atrocities'
of the Inquisition, and of the sieges
and massacres to which such atroci-
ties conducted—who feel no desire to
have again revived in their minds
such scenes as the slaughter of Ant-
werp, or the sack of Zutphen, or the
terrihle sieges of Haarlem and Ley-
den, will find the narrative agreeahly
relieved hy this vivid portraiture of
men and mauners.
Mr. Motley is an artist who hides
no hlemish, physical or moral—-who
spares no delinquency, conceals no
weakness—who is regardless of the
ideal, looks to the actual and real.
His predecessor, Mr. Prcscott, though
entitled to the praise of extensive and
original research, had always a lin-
gering attachment and strong hios
towards what may he descrihed as
the romance of history. His charm-
ing narratives of the Spanish con-
quests ot Mexico and Peru reveal this


694
[Dec
Motley's Dutch Bepiihlic.

tendency—reveal, at least, that he
leant rather to historic faith than
to historic douht. We read on de-
lighted; we live, verily, in a new
world, amongst his Mexicans and
Peruvians; hut we close the hook
with an uneasy suspicion that mnch
exaggeration, and some fahle, have
heen admitted into the place of
history, and that the new world we
have heen moving in, is partly the
world of imagination—of Spanish
imagination or credulity. And in
his portraiture of Philip II., ahle
though it is, and faithful in the main,
we trace a touch, a mauner more
poetic than truthful. The Spanish
hat and plume, and the mystery of
a Spanish palace, are allowed to
tbrow a certain grace and diguity
over the features and hearing of a
man who was as narrow-minded
as our James II.—who had the hi-
gotry of a monk without his self-
denia!—whose conscience, trained hy
priests for their own work, and for
the service of the Church, knew no-
thing of truth or justice as hetween
man and man—whose hest virtue
was the mechanical industry of a
clerk, and whose greatest talent was
to trick and deceive, and play the
game of dissimulation even with the
very tools he used for his treachery.
Mr. Motley has no respect for Spanish
or regal diguity; he delights to push
up the hat and plume, and show
what sort of eye and forehead aro
really there to meet the light. No
illusion remains to us after our au-
thor has passed his examination.
The Philip of the poets—of Alfieri
and of Schiller—dwindles down to the
quite ordinary man—placed, how-
ever, in the quite extraordinary posi-
tion. A slave of the Church, his
religion never kindled one generous
thought, or excited to a single virtue;
it could not always restrain his king-
ly amhition any more than it could
regulate his private morals; hut it
was oheyed with fidelity and zeal
when it taught him to tyraunise over
his suhjects, and put heretics to
death—it made him one of the most
terrihle potentates that have existed
on the face of the earth.
But it is the emancipation of the
Netherlands from the grasp of this
unworthy nvinarch that is the theme
of Mr. Motley's hook; and therefore,
if he has a tyrant and a higot on the
one side of his canvass, supported hy
a Cardinal Granvelle and a Duke of
AIvh, he has also his patriot and
liherator, in the hrighter part of his
picture, in the person of Willimi of
Orange, named the Silent and the
Wise. William of Orange is the hero
of the hook. On him Mr. Motley ex-
pends a perhaps unchecked enthu-
siasm. A cqol impartial critic may,
indeed, suspect that the lights and
shadows are tbrown tbroughout the
work with too strong a contract:
hut we know that the indiguation
and the admiration are hoth, upon
the whole, well hestowed. It is
a very wholesome indiguation, and
a very profitahle admiration, that
we are called upon to sympathise
with. Nothing is more easy than to
suggest, and even to Move, that
"hlack's not so very hlack, nor white
so very white;" nowhere can praise
or hlame he weighed out to the very
scruple; it must suffice us if we feel
we can honestly applaud and right-
fully condemn; and it is a good thing,
at times, to have hoth these sentiments
kindled within us, and to detest and
admire cordially, and with the full
energy of our souls.
Our author's style is hold, vigorous,
full of power; hut we should desert
our critical function if we did not add
that it is sometimes intemperate, and
that in the earlier pages there is an
apparent effort, a straining after effect,
and (in his topographical descrip-
tions) a certain semi-poetic or fanci-
ful diction that appears to us out of
place. Ahusive epithets are some- ■
times scattered with an injudicious
prodigality. We might instance the
description of our own Queen Mary,
of disastrous memory, to he found in
the first volume, page 123; hut we
have no wish to dwell on what are
only casual hlemishes. And these
errors of taste and judgment appear
to us to he chiefly at the commence-
ment of the work. To discharge our-
selves at once of all the critical venom
we have on this occasion to distil, we
must add that, vigorous as his nar-
rative generally is, our author is also
capahle, at times, of heing tedious
and prolix. He is not quite master
of that art which gives to all portions
of his suhject a fair and sufficient
attention, and no more than what is



690
[Dec.
Mbthf'* Dutch Repuhlic
'
^
canse of the people. The archives of
a court have heen sedulously examined
to track out the treacherous and wily
course of a king or a minister; hut
the archives of the puhlic, the litera-
ture of the time, or whatever remains
of spoken or acted thought amongst
the people, have not heen ransacked
with equal zeal to determine the
state and condition of puhlic opinion.
A minister, or a regent, or a general,
is introduced to us with all his dis-
tinctive characteristics, and we are
prepared to follow and appreciate his
conduct; hut a great city is some-
times hrought suddenly hefore us in
its highest state of turhulent or en-
thusiastic action, without any prepa-
ration to warn the reader or to
explain to him this particular out-
hurst of passion or uf heroism.
But if our historian has more es-
pecially devoted himself to portray
the chief actors in his great drama,
it is fit that we should follow him to
his chosen field; and our limited
ohject, in these few pages, will he
to draw attention to his masterly
delineation of some of these person-
ages, as of the King, the Regent, the
Cardinal Grunvelle, Alva, Egmont,
and Orange. One pleasant pecu-
liarity distinguishes his historical
portraits; he never forgets the per-
sonal appearance of the man, his fea-
tures, his stature, or any trick of
gesture, hut introduces these in such
a mauner that they accompany us
tbroughout the history. As we have
intimated already, there is nothing of
the courtier in the descriptions he
gives. If there is a deformity of per-
son, a weakness or a vice, a hlemish,
physical or moral, it is set down with
frank, unmitigated distinctness. We
have a striking specimen of his gra-
phic power near the commencement
of the work, where he introduces to
us the Emperor Charles V. and his
court as they are seen arrayed in all
their pomp and state, on that cele-
hrated day when the Emperor retired
from the cares of government, and re-
sigued to his son Philip the largest
and the most powerful of the king-
doms of Europe. From this point
we may as well take up the thread
of Mr. Motley's History, so far
as we can follow it, as from any
other.
On the 25th day of Octoher 1555,
the citv of Brussels was the scene of
a grand tpeetaele or ceremonial, such
as is rarely exhihited in the theatre of
the world. It was one of those occv
sions, indeed, when the real events
of life assume a theatrical aspect, and
take upon themselves the stndied ar-
rangement of the stage. They seem
to mimic what is itself a mimicry of
life, and to outrival the fictitious
passions and the mock heroism of
the theatre, and whereas the stage
exclaims, Behold a real court! the
imperial court might say, Behold
another stage. This grand ceremo-
nial affords a very appropriate open-
ing to Mr. Motley's narrative:—
"Many individuals of existing or future
historic celehrity in the Netherlands,
whose names are so familiar to the stu-
dent of the epoch, seemed to have heen
grouped, as if hy premeditated desigu,
upon this imposing platform, where the
curtain was to fall for ever upon the
mightiest Emperor since Charlemague,
and where the opening scene of the long
and tremendous tragedy of Philip's reigu
was to he simultaneously enacted. There
was the Bishop of Arras, soon to he
known tbroughout Cbristendom hy the
more celehrated title of Cardinal Gran-
velle, the serene andsmiling priest whose
suhtle influence over the destinies of so
many individuals then present, and over
the fortunes of the whole land, was to he
so extensive and so deadly. There was
that flower of Flemish chivalry, the line-
al descendant of ancient Frisian kings,
already distinguished for his hravery in
many fields, hut not having yet won
those two remarkahle victories which
were soon to make the name of Egmont
like the sound of a trumpet tbroughout
the whole country. Tall, maguificent in
costume, with dark flowing hair, soft
hrown eye, smooth cheek, a slight mus-
tache, and features of almost feminine
delicacy—such was the gallant and ill-
fated Lamoral Kguiont The Count
Horn, too, with hold, sullen face and
fan-shaped heard—a hrave, honest, dis-
contented, quarrelsome, uupopular man;
the hold, dehauched Brederode, with
handsome,reckless face and turhulent de-
meanour—these,with many others whose
deeds of arms were to hecome celehrated
tbroughout Europe, were conspicuous in
the hrilliant crowd. There, too, was
that learned Frisian, President Viglins
—crafty, plausihle, adroit, eloquent—a
small hrisk man, with long yellow hair,
glittering green eyes, round, tumid,
rosy cheeks, and flowing heard. Fore-
most among the Spanish grandees,
and close to Philip, stood the famous
favourite, Rny Gomel, or, as he wii
.yvj,.


1859.]
697
Motley'ti Dutch Bepullie.

familiarly called 'Re y Gomez'(King
and Gomez), a man of meridional aspect,
with coal-hlack hair and heard, gleam-
ing eyes, a face pallid with intense ap-
plication, and slender hut handsome
figure; while in immediate attendance
upon the Emperor was the immortal
Prince of Orange.
"Suoh were a few only of the most
prominent in that gay tbrong, whose for-
tunes, in part, it will he our duty to nar-
rate: how many of them passing
tbrough all this glitter to a dark and mys-
terious doom I—some to perish on puhlic
scaffolds; some hy midnight assassina-
tion; others, more fortunate, to fall on
the hattle field—nearly all, sooner or
later, to he laid in hloody graves I"*
Conspicuous ahove all was, of
course, the aged Emperor himself.
Not that he was old according to the
numher of his years, hut his strenu-
ous and active life—strenuous, yet
self-indulgent, and occupied to the
full with war and husiness and plea-
sure—had given him the appearance
of old age. He, his son, and the
Queen of Hungary, stood as central
figures in the scene, while the several
governors of the provinces, the great
councillors, and the Knights of the
Golden Fleece, were artistically ar-
ranged hefore him. The personal
description which our author gives
of the now infirm and toil-worn Em-
peror is hy no means flattering; yet
we see the wreck of what, setting
aside all the prestige of rank and
power, was—mind and hody—one of
the most remarkahle of men :—
"He was ahout the middle height, and
had heen athletic and well-proportioned.
Broad in the shoulders, deep in the
chest, thin in the flank, very muscular
in the arms and legs, he had heen ahle
to match himself with all competitors in
the tourney and the ring, and to van-
quish the hull with his own hand in the
favourite national amusement of Spain.
He had heen ahle in the field to do the
duty of captain and soldier, to endure
fatigue and exposure and every priva-
tion, except fasting. These personal ad-
vantages were now departed. Crippled
in hands, knees, and legs, he supported
himself with difficulty upon a crutch,
with the aid of an attendant's shoulder.
In face he had always heen extremely
ugly, and time had certainly not im-
proved his physioguomy. His hair, once
of a light colour, was now white with
age, close-clipped and hristling; his
heard was grey, coarse, and shaggy. His
forehead was spacious and commanding;
the eye was dark hlue, with an expres-
sion hoth majestic and heniguant. His
nose was aquiline, hut crooked. The
lower part of his face was famous for de-
formity. The under-lip—a liurgundian
inheritance, as faithfully transmitted as
the duchy and county—was heavy and
hanging, the lower jaw protruding so far
heyond the upper that it was impossihle
for him to hring together the few frag-
ments of teeth which still remained, or
to speak a whole sentence in an intelli-
gihle voice. Eating and talking—occu-
pations to which he was always much
addicted—were hecoming daily more
arduous in consequence of this original
defect, which now seemed hardly hu-
man, hut rather an original deformity."
But though this catalogue of fea-
tures may he correct—and Mr. Motley
cites his authority for each item as
he proceeds—the impression which
the retiring Emperor made on the
august assemhly hefore him, was
fully equal to the occasion. That
halo of divinity which is said to sur-
round a sovereigu, prevented them,
we presume, from seeing these per-
sonal defects; they saw, in fact, with
the mind's eye, and saw hefore them
the man with whose name all Europe,
for the last age, had rung from side
to side; they saw him descending
from the tbrone he had so long filled,
to the pious retreat of the cloister;
and there was, we are assured, one
universal weeping, and every cheek
was hedewed with tears. Old gen-
erals, veteran diplomatists, Knights
of the Fleece, all hroke into tears, as
the Emperor, in his oration, glanced
at the p:ist, and hade farewell to the
toils and state of government;—
"there heing," said the English en-
voy, Sir John Mason, "in mine
opinion, not one man in the whole
assemhly that, during the timo of a
good piece of this oration, poured
not out ahundantly tears, somo more,
some less."
Mr. Motley is very hard upon this
weeping. He asks what sigual he-
nefits had his suhjects, especially his
Netherlander?, received from this
monarch, that they should so hewail
his retirement ?" What was the
Emperor Charles to the inhahitants
of the Netherlands, that they should
• Vol. Lp. 91.



608
[Dec.
Motley's Dutch Repuhlic.
weep for him?" He had spent their
money in wars and conquests in
which they were utterly uncon-
cerned; he had infringed their old
municipal privileges; he had perse-
cuted many on account of their new
religion, and had shown his determi-
nation to coerce them hy the Inqui-
sition. Mr. Motley caunot find a
rational cause for all this weeping.
He forgets that a rational cause is
not indispensahle on such occasions.
Some one sentiment prevails at the
moment; it is aggravated in each hy
the participation of numhers; it acts
as a panic does in the field of hattle,
and people find themselves shouting
or weeping, they scarcely know why.
It does not follow that these weeping
Netherlanders were quite ohlivious of
their own interests, or were pecu-
liarly servile: they were simply car-
ried away hy the loyal sentiment of
the hour. Much the same thing oc-
curs daily amongst ourselves. We
will not risk any imputation on our
own loyalty hy asking whether those
crowds who tbrong the streets, or
cluster ahout a railway, when our
Queen is to pass, know why it is they
are hawling as if with the full inten-
tion of splitting their own tbroats.
We will take an illustration of a
quite social, not political nature. An
actor has heen nightly hefore the
puhlic; the puhlic has now praised
and now ahused the actor, and the
actor has often ahused the uureason-
ahle puhlic. By-and-hy this actor,
sometimes praised and sometimes
ahused, and to us altogether per-
sonally indifferent, assemhles his last
audience, and hids them farewell.
There is not a dry eye, we are told,
in pit or hoxes. Next morning, pit
and hoxes, and the retiring actor
himself, are laughing at the wondrous
enthusiasm and tenderness that had
seized upon them. And douhtless
every one of these Netherlanders,
from the Knight of the Fleece to the
simplest hurgher who was present
at the great ceremony, wondered the
next morning how or why it was that
his cheek had heen wet like the rest.
Charles's persecution of the Pro-
testants is the crime which, in our
historian's opinion, ought not to have
heen forgiven him even at this affect-
ing moment. We will not stay to
ask what proportion of the assemhly
shared in the Protestant faith, which
at this epoch was not likely to he
emhraced hy many of those who were
entitled to he present at this august
ceremony; hut we stop to ohserve,
that Mr. Motley deals rather severely
with the old Emperor when he denies
to him that excuse, bo readily ac-
corded to hie son, that he acted in
accordance with his sense of religious
duty when he used the power placed
in his hands in the extirpation of
heresy. It is quite true that he was
not always consistent, not always
faithful to the Church; that the ordi-
nary motives of political amhition
could at times trinmph over this
sense of duty, just as the ordinary
motives of cupidity or pleasure can
trinmph at times, in each one of ns,
over what we nevertheless deem to he
a religions or moral ohligation; hut
hecause the monarch was stronger in
Charles than the churchman, it do,*
not follow that he was not, up to the
measure of his capacity for such sen-
timents, a very faithful and sincere
son of the Church. The man whose
armies sacked Rome, who laid his
sacrilegious hands, as Mr. Motley re-
minds us, on Cbrist's vicegerent, and
kept the infallihle head of the Church
a prisoner to serve his own political
ends, was manifestly capahle of heing
carried away hy the peculiar tempta-
tions of his high imperial position.
But, in the ahsence of such tempta-
tions, he might very sincerely regard
it as his especial duty to protect the
Catholic faith, and preserve thelunity
of the Church. And why should the
historian tbrow any douhts or asper-
sions on that personal piety of which
he made profession? In Charles, as
in so many others, it was a piety that
had a very limited influence on moral
action; it displayed itself chiefly in
ritual, in prayer, in fasting, and the
like; there was more of superstition
in it than religion, hut as a supersti-
tion it was apparently held with per-
fect sincerity. "No man," says Mr.
Motley, "could have heen more oh-
servant of religious rites. He heard
mass daily; he listened to a sermon
every Sunday and holiday; he con-
fessed and received the sacrament
four times a year; he was sometimes
to he seen in his tent, at midnight, on


1859.]
699
Motley's Dutch Repuhlic.

his knees hefore a crucifix, with eyes
and hands uplifted; he ate no meat
in Lent, and used extraordinary dili-
gence to discover and to punish any
man, whether courtier, or pleheian,
who failed to fast during the whole
forty days." Why should Mr. Motley
cruelly add, that "he was too good
a politician not to know the value of
hroad phylacteries and long prayers?"
Is every one who knows the value of
orthodox hehaviour to he therefore
twitted with hypocrisy? If it he really
trne that "he ate no meat in Lent,"
he gave a very notahle proof of his
sincerity, for the appetite of Charles
V. was enormous, and he was accus-
tomed at other times to indulge it
without stint. He seems, indeed, to
have had a craving, preternatural ap-
petite, amounting to a disease, such
as might well have ohtained from his
confessor an especial exemption in
this matter of fasting.
Very marvellous is the account
here given us of the gastronomical ex-
ploits of the Emperor. Captain Dal-
getty was a child to him. Mr. Stir-
ling, in his Cloister Life of Charles
V., had revealed to us that the mon-
astic seclusion of the ex-emperor
did not imply a monastic regimen,
or what is generally understood as
such. Mr. Motley has given us a
programme of the day's performance
while his appetite was in its full vi-
gour. Never was such dietary. "He
hreakfasted at five on a fowl seethed
in milk, and dressed with sugar and
spices; after this he went to sleep
again. He dined at twelve, partak-
ing always of twenty dishes. He
supped twice; at first, soon after
vespers, and the second time at mid-
night, or one o'clock, which meal
was perhaps the most solid of the
four. After meals he ate a great
quantity of pastry and sweetmeats.
and he irrigated evory repast hy vast
draughts of heer and wine."
To return to our grand ceremonial
of ahdication. The second person in
the scene was the son, Philip, to whom
he was ahout to resigu the far greater
part of his power and territory—all
hut the empire of Germany, which he
had heen unahle to relinquish in his
favour. Let us hear Mr. Motley's
description of the gloomy monarch,
so great a favourite of tragic poets:—
"The son, Philip II.. was a small,
meagre man, much helow the middle
height, with thin legs, a narrow chest,
and the shrinking, timid air of an hahi-
tual invalid. 'His hody,' says his pro-
fessed panegyrist, Cahrera, 'was hut a
human cage, in which, however hrief
and narrow, dwelt a soul to whose flight
the immeasurahle expanse of heaven was
too contracted.' The same wholesale
admirer adds, that 'his aspect was so
reverend, that rustics, who met him
alone in a wood, without knowing him,
howed down with instinctive veneration.
In face he was the living image of his
father, having the same hroad forehead
and hlue eye, with the same aquiline,
hut hetter proportioned, nose. In the
lower part of the countenance the re-
markahle Burgundian deformity was
likewise reproduced. He had the same
heavy, hanging lip, with a vast mouth,
and monstrously protruding lower jaw.
IIis complexion was fair, his hair light
and thin, his heard yellow, short, and
pointed. He had the aspect of a Flem-
ing, hut the loftiness of a Spaniard. His
demeanour in puhlic was still, silent—al-
most sepulcbral. He looked hahitually
on the ground when he conversed, was
chary of speech, emharrassed, and even
suffering in mauner. This was ascrihed
partly to a natural haughtiness, which
he had occasionally endeavoured to over-
come, and partly to hahitual pains in the
stomach, occasioned hy his inordinate
fondness for pastry."
Was there ever such an incongru-
ous comhination presented to the
imagination of the reader! This
downward look and stooping pos-
ture is partly the reserve and haugh-
tiness of a Spanish king, and partly
a contrite hending of the hody, pro-
duced hy a schoolhoy's love of
pastry! Other indulgences, not quite
so iunocent, our most orthodox of
princes seems to have permitted
himself. What a medley we have
here!—" He was most strict in reli-
gious ohservances, as regular at mass,
sermons, and vespers as a monk—
much more, it was thought hy many
good Catholics, than was hecoming
to his rank and age. Besides several
friars, who preached regularly for his
instruction, he had daily discussions
with others on ahstruse theological
points. He consulted his confe-sor
most minutely as to all the actions
of life, inquiring anxiously whether
this proceeding or that were likely to



700
[Dec.
Motley's Dutch Repuhlic.
"""
hurden his conscience. He was
grossly licentious. It was his chief
amusement to issue forth at night
disguised, that he might indulge
himself in the common haunts of
vice. This was his solace at Brus-
sels in the midst of the gravest affairs
of state."
This prince, when he quits Brus-
sels and enters into his kingdom of
Spain, solemnises his entry hy an
auto-da je, at whioh he utters the
pious sentiment, that he would rather
cease to reigu than reigu over here-
tics, and declares that he "would
carry the wood to hurn his own son,"
if his own son proved a deserter from
the faith. A strange production it
is to contemplate!—this of the con-
science of a Cbristian prince, as
educated hy a Catholic priesthood.
Where the duty horders upon crime
—where, to the secular mind, it is
an act of cruelty and injustice, there
the conscience is inflexihle; in the
simple moralities of temperance and
of truth, it is hut a silken rein which
the priest touches from time to time,
merely to show that he holds it, and
holds it laxly.
The dissimulation of Philip, and
how completely the deception of
others entered jnto his idea of good
government, is well known; hut Mr.
Motley has heen ahle, hy comparing
together the preserved letters of this
monarch, to display the working of
this high order of statesmanship in a
clearer light than it has perhaps ever
heen placed hefore. We tbread the
petty lahyrinth which the secluded
-monarch found it his greatest delight
to plan; we are introduced into the
very study of the king; we see him
forming his plot, preparing his con-
tradictory letters—thete to he read
aloud at tho council-hoard, those to
he kept secret. Arrangements are
made that the Regent of the Nether-
lands, or her minister, shall write cer-
tain letters, which are to receive from
him certain answers—letters and
answers hoth mere fictions to dis-
guise the real nature of the transac-
tion. Dissimulation, indeed, is the
order of the day. His ministers all
practise it upon him, as he upon his
ministers. He deceives every one.
Though always in the leading strings
of some man more ahle than himself,
though taking his assistance, and
conscious of the need of it, he always
kept some secret from his most con-
fidential adviser, and was always
prepared to dismias him the moment
that his services hecame needless.
One good quality deserves mention-
ing—the king and his ministers were
all hard-working men. It is no
Eastern court, where the sultan con-
sults only his own pleasure, and
leaves all to the vizier, and the vizier
occasionally hangs or squeezes a pacha,
and then takes his pleasure also. No
English minister works harder than
the favourites of Philip. He himself
delighted in the use of the pen, and
sate whole hours at the desk. Mr.
Motley says—
"His mental capacity in general was
not very higbly esteemed. His talents
were, in truth, very much helow medi-
ocrity. His mind was incredihly small.
A petty passion for contemptihle details
characterised him from his youth, and
as long as he lived, he could neither
learn to generalise, nor understand that
one man, however diligent, could not he
minutely acquainted with all the puhlic
and private affairs of fifty millions of
other men. He was a glutton of work.
He was horn to write despatches, and to
scrawl comments upon those which he
received. He often remained at the
council-hoard four or five hours at a
time, and he lived in his cahinet. He
gave audiences to amhassadors and de-
puties very wiUingly.listening attentive-
ly to all that was said to him, and an-
swering in monosvllahles. He spoke no
tongue hut Spanish, and was sufficiently
sparing of that, hut he was indefatigahle
with his pen. He hated to converse;
hut he could write a letter eighteen
pages long when his correspondent was
in the next room, and when the suhject
was, perhaps, one which a man of talent
could have settled with six words."
The favourite, Rny Gomez de Silva,
was n prodigy of industry. This no-
hleman had heen hrought up with
the king, and when a hoy (so the
story runs) had struck Philip, and
heen condemned to death for so sac-
rilegious a hlow. Philip had tbrown
himself at his father's feet, and im-
plored and ohtained the forgiveness
of the culprit. In after life, a more
prohahle cause is aasigued for the en-
durance of their friendship—the com-
placency which he exhihited towards
the King, as the hushand of the cele-


1859.]
701
Motley's Dutch Repuhlic.

hrated Princess Eholi. Rny Gomez
and his occupations are thus de-
scrihed :—
"At the present moment he occupied
the tbree postsof valet, state councillor,
and 6 nance minister. He dressed and
undressed his master, read or talked him
to sleep, called him in the morning, ad-
mitted those who were to have private
audiences, and superintended all the ar-
rangements of the household. The rest
of the day was devoted to the enormous
correspondence and affairs of admini-
stration which devolved upon him as
first minister of state and treasury. He
was very iguorant. He had no experience
or acquirement in the arts either of war
or peace, and his early education had
heen limited. Like his master, he spoke
no tongue hut Spanish, and he had no
literature. He had prepossessing man-
ners, n fluent tongue, a wiuning and
henevolent disposition. His natural
capacity for affairs was considerahle;
and his tact was so perfect that he could
converse face to face with statesmen,
doctors, and generals, upon campaigus,
theology, or jurisprudence, without he-
traying any remarkahle deficiency. He
was very industrious, endeovouring to
make up hy hard study for his lack of
general knowledge. At the same time,
hy the King's desire, he appeared con-
stantly at the frequent hanquets, mas-
querades, tourneys, and festivities, for
which Brussels at that epoch was re-
markahle. It was no wonder thnt his
cheek was pale, and that he seemed
dying of overwork."
Equally industrious, and far more
accomplished, indeed one of the most
accomplished and learned men of his
time, was Cardinal Granvelle, who
long held what we may descrihe as
the position of prime minister to the
Duchess of Parma, Regent of the
Netherlands. The Regent was as-
sisted hy a council of state, and tbree
of this council formed the cviuulta
hy whose advice she was to he espe-
cially guided. Of these tbree, Gran-
velle was the chief; in fact, he and
the eorutulta were said to ho the same
thing; he was the conxulta. The
Cardinal was a man of learning;
could write and speak well, and that
in several languages; hut that which
stands out so conspicuously in the
history is the admirahle tact with
which, for a long time, he governed
the Regent and guided the King.
Principles of his own, we venture to
think, he had none—unless the
determination to uphold that autho-
rity of churchman and of minister, in
which he shared so largely, he
called a principle—hut ho very dex-
trously assumed the views of the
King, and tbrew his own ahility, so
to speak, into the mind and opinions
of his sovereigu. When we see him
removed fro n the court, he lives and
speaks like an epicurean philosopher;
when he writes to the King, he is an
alarmist for the faith, supersti-
tious, and a persecutor. His con-
tempt for the multitude was, no
douht, sincere enough; and this sin-
cere contempt led him, as it has led
many others, to uphold, without
scruple of conscience, whatever power
or authority was in the ascendant.
Such men caunot, at least, he seid to
violate any generous conviction, for
they have none. They can have no
reverence for kings or cardinals—they
know them too well; hut they have
still less reverence for any other human
heings. Granvelle was well horn, of
an ohscure hut nohle family in Bur-
gundy, and his father had heen a min-
ister—" held office," as we should say,
in the Court of the Emperor Charles.
At the age of twenty, we are told he
spoke seven languages with perfect
facility, and his acquaintance with
civil and ecclesiastical laws was some-
thing prodigious.
"He was ready-witted," continues Mr.
Motley, "smooth and fluent of tongue,
fertile in expedients, courageous, reso-
lute. He thorougbly understood the
art of managing men, particularly his
superiors. He knew how to govern
under the appearance of oheying. In
his intercourse with the King, he co-
loured himself, as it were, with the King's
character. He was not himself, hut
Philip; not the sullen, hesitating, con-
fused Philip, however, hut Philip en-
dowed with eloquence, readiness, faci-
lity. The King ever found himself an-
ticipated with the most delicate ohse-
quiousuess, and heheld his struggling
ideas changed into winged words with-
out ceasing to ho his own. No flattery
could he more adroit. He would write
letters forty pages long to the King, and
send off another courier on the sank' day
with two or tbree additional despatches
of identical date. Such prolixity en-
chanted the King. The painstaking mo-
narch toiled, pen in hand, after his won-



702
[Dec.
Motley's Dutch Repuhlic.
derful minister, in vain. Philip was
only fit to lie the hishop's clerk, yet he
imagined himself to he the directing and
governing power His industry
was enormous. He could write fifty
letters a-day with his own hand. He
could dictate to half-a-dozen amanuen-
ses at once, on as many different suh-
jects, in as many different languages,
and send them all away exhausted."
Of which last story we have our
own opinion; hut there can he no
douht of the consummate skill with
which, for some time, he directed the
affiiirs of the Netherlands. Consum-
mate skill! hut shut out from a wiser
statesmanship hy his priestly contempt
for the opinions of an unlearned class.
Ho could not see that—as a mere pro-
hlem of political forces—it was not
only the King he had to direct, and
the Duchess to control, and the Fle-
mish nohility to resist and to counter-
plot,—he had some account to give of
this hurgher spirit awakening to its
liherties, and ahove all, to the liherty
of conscience. Had he measured this
force? At the first superficial glance
at the man's history, you would say
that, at all events, he was a sufficient
alarmist, an unhesitating persecutor.
He piously writes to his very pious so v-
reigu,—u For the love of God and the
service of the holy religion, put your
royal hand valiantly to the work,
otherwise we have only to exclaim,
'Help, Lord, for we perish!'" Thus
he runs with his torch hefore the man
who, he knows, will and can travel
hut on the one road on which he pre-
tends to guide him. He lias appre-
ciation enough of the movement going
on around him to ahuse and execrate,
to punish and vilify it; hut if he had
rightly estimated its strength, such a
man asGranvelle would have respected
it for its mere strength, and held a
very different language towards it.
The Prince of Orange and Count
Egmont were memhers of the state
council. Of course thej' chafed under
the rule of the Cardinal, and were in
open hostility to the policy he pur-
sued. At length a determined effort
was made hy the patriot party to drive
him out of the Netherlands. Orange,
Egmont, and Horn united in a letter
to the King, in which they represented
that it was ahsolutely necessary for
the peace and salvation of the pro-
vinces (which they were doing their
utmost to quiet) that the Cardinal
should he recalled. The Cardinal was
prepared, at all events, for the attack.
"He wrote to the King the day hefore
the letter was written, and many
weeks hefttre it was sent, to apprise
him that it was coming, and to instruct
him as to the answer he was to make"
This storm hroke over. But it was
in vain that the Cardinal had not only
the ear of the King, hut also held his
pen—it was in vain that he repre-
sented the Flemish nohility as riotous
and amhitious voluptuaries—(one of
them even eating meat in Lent!)—as
spendtbrifts so encumhered wit
deht that they sought a season of
anarchy to rid them of their ohliga-
tions: it hecame evident, even at the
Spanish court, that the Cardinal, with
all his diplomatic skill, had not
sufficient power to make head against
his opponents. There must he con-
cession, or force of another kind must
ho employed—the sword, and not the
pen. And now having resolved on
the recall of the Cardinal, all the
finesse and petty hypocrisy of the
King had a fair field for their exer-
cise. Orange and Egmont and the
people of the Netherlands should
never have it to say that he, the
King, had dismissed his faithful ser-
vant in consideration of their opinion
or their wishes. That he would think
of the matter, is the most con-
ciliating answer he gives to them.
Nay, the Cardinal himself should
never know that he was in reality
dismissed. His recall should apIiear to
the minister himself as a temporary
departure, counselled hy the emergen-
cies of the moment; to all others this
temporary ahsence from the Nether-
lands should seem the voluntary and
spontaneous act of the Cardinal.
Had not the Cardinal a mother,
living in some remote district? And
must not so henevolent and tender-
hearted a Cardinal he desirous, after
a long interval, of visiting his aged
parent? The Cardinal shall in a let-
ter, which may he seen or heard of all
men, solicit of the Regent, or
the King, permission to retire for a
space from the cares of government;
and the King or the Regent shall,
with much regret, yield to the claims
of filial affection, and of a constitu-


1859.]
70S
Motley's Dutch Repuhlic.

tion requiring repose. This shall he
tlie aspect of the transaction to the
world at large. The Cardinal receives
his private letter. He has now the
pen put into his hands, and is in-
structed what to write. In his cor-
respondence with the King, he had
frequently implored his majesty—
llepven knows with what sincerity!
—not to scruple at sacrificing him
or his interests for what might he
deemed the puhlic welfare. To this
hrief retirement how then could he
ohject? He writes, requesting very
suhmissively a leave of ahsence—it is
puhlicly and hlandly granted him.
He retires to his country-seat, there
to indite most contented letters on the
charms of a philosophical retreat, and
pine in secret for the return of power.
The Cardinal seems to have he-
lieved, or tried to helieve, that it was
the King's intention to reinstate him
after a hrief interval. The puhlic, in
general, though mystified hy this pre-
arranged correspondence, concluded
that the Cardinal never would re-
turn, and great was their joy at his
departure. Even the Duchess was
glad to he liherated from a minister
who had grown too powerful and
domineering. The young nohility
were in extacies. "Brederode and
Count Hoogstruaten were standing
together, looking from a window of a
house near the gate of Caudenherg,
to feast their eyes with the spectacle
of their enemy's retreat. As soon as
the Cardinal had passed tbrough the
gate on his way to Namur, the first
stage of his journey, they rushed into
the street, got hoth upon one horse,
Hoogstruaten, who alone had hoots
on his legs, taking the saddle, and
Brederode the croup, and galloped
after the Cardinal with the exultation
of schoolhoys."
After some interval, the Duke of
Alva succeeded to the Cardinal, and
those who rejoiced most in the depar-
ture of that wily minister might have
wished his return; for Alva united
in himself all the craft and suhtlety
that the court of Philip could teach,
with a cruelty and hardness of na-
ture seldom learned in camps. But
we are not attracted to this man—
his lineaments are well known, and
are not attractive; consummate
general as he was, his moral qualities
are those we associate with a Grand
Inquisitor, not a great Captain. And
his range of thought must have heen
very limited; for when he had suc-
ceeded in quelling all resistance hy
his arms, he undid his own work, and
kindled against himself the wrath of
every citizen, Catholic or Protestant,
hy the ahsurdest system of taxation
that ever entered into the head of the
merest dragoon to estahlish. Amongst
other taxes he imposed, this stands
out conspicuous—ten percent of the
value of every article of merchandise
to he paid as often as it shovld he sold.
Had he desigued to put down com-
merce as well as heresy, he could
not have framed a hetter system of
finance. Imagine every tradesman
and merchant, in the tbriving cities
of Flanders, heing compelled to keep
an account of every sale they made
in the course of the day, in order that
they might deduct from their profits
this ten per cent to the government.
It was monstrous; it was impractic-
ahle. His coadjutors in the Council
of State remonstrated with him, hut
in vain; a like tax he had imposed
on his own little town of Alva, and
why should it not he equally feasihle
in the great commercial cities of the
Netherlands? But commerce was
hetter ahle to protect itself than
heresy, and it raised such a storm
ahout the general's ears that ho
at length seemed very willing to
escape from these Flemish citizens;
and Philip, who had no other re-
source than to appoint new men—
heing utterly incapacitated for the
reception of new ideas—was equally
willing to recall him.
It is time we turn to the opposite
and patriot camp. Amongst the
hrave, jovial, gallant, rich, hut
thoughtless nohility of. Flanders,
there was one man of earnest pur-
pose, keen insight, heroic persever-
ance, whose mind expanded as events
developed themselves, who finally
devoted himself to the cause of the
people—of freedom civil and religious
—the Prince of Orange. Be too, as
we first catch sight of him, is the
maguificent nohleman, sumptuous,
munificent, of generous nature, and a
lover of justice, and withal as pro-
foundly versed as Philip himself in
what he called the art of government
—hut not apparently possessed hy
any great principle of action. As,


704
[Dtc.
Motlay's Dutch Repuhlic.

however, his own life matures, and
as the crisis of puhlic affairs ap-
proaches, lie takes upon himself the
full solemnity of the times; he he-
comes the worthy leader of that great
movement, which is agitating, in a
vague and distracted mauner, all
classes of the community: he devotes
himself till death to a great cause.
His son is seized, and detained hy
the court of Spain as a hostage; his
vast revenues are spent in the levying
of troops to resist the Duke of Alva,
and hrihes of princely wealth are
held out to him; hut he is pledged
to his work, and sacrifices all, pa-
rental affection, and finally life itself,
to his great cause.
His early education was more
adapted to develop his talents than
his moral nature, hut it was evident-
ly preparing him for the great task
he was to accomplish. At an early
age he entered as page into the ser-
vice of Charles V., and the Emperor,
recoguizing the ahility and discretion
of his prince-page (for he had already
come into possession of his title and
estates), delighted to have him fre-
quently in his presence, and retained
him even when the greatest affairs
were discussed with his ministers, or
when he gave audiences of the most
confidential kind. The youth grew
up with a knowledge of men and
things that is rarely acquired. At
an age when most men are gazing in
foolish wonder at the spectacle of
courts and governments, he had heen
introduced hehind the scenes, and
understood what men were, and what
their real motives, and how common
a flesh and hlood hides heneath the
velvet and the ermine. Nor did the
Emperor trust his sbrewd and silent
ohserver in the cahinet only; he
trusted him also in the field. Before
the Prince was twenty-one, he was
appointed, during the ahsence of the
Duke of Savoy, to he general-in-
chief of the army on the French
frontier. After the Emperor's death
he was equally trusted hy Philip,
heing employed to negotiate the peace
with France. He was one of the
hostages selected hy Heury of France
for the due fulfilment of the treaty.
It was at this period that the
incident occurred which is said to
have procured him the name of the
"Silent." He and Heury, while
hunting in the wood of Vinceunes,
found themselves together, separated
from the rest of the company ;• and
the French King, concluding that the
envoy of Philip was privy to all his
desigus, hegan to open his mind on
the great scheme which he was then
secretly framing with his hrother of
Spain. The two zealous monarchs
were solemnly to pledge themselves
for the extirpation of heresy in their
several kingdoms, and that hy the
decisive process of a massacre of the
heretics, "that accursed vermin."
The French King proceeded to dis-
cuss the details of this most religious
plot. The Prince was silent, and kept
his countenance; and earned his name
of "Silent," from the mauner in
which he received this hlundering
confidence of the King. The story
wears an apocryphal air. The Prince
of Orange was not yet a Protestant,
and the confidence, therefore, was not
so strangely misplaced; and a nick-
name is not given from a transac-
tion, which at the time is known
only to a few persons, for the Prince
of Orange would not talk of this.
But if Heury of France did make
this indiscreet revelation, we may he
sure that Orange would not fail to
reflect upon it nt an after period,
when he was engaged in the conflict
with Philip. It was a lesson, if he
needed one, of what kind of "holy
alliance" the Cbristian sovereigus of
his epoch were capahle of forming.
As Stadtholder of Holland, Freis-
land, and Utrecht, it fell upon him
to carry out the policy of the Spanish
monarch in his treatment of heretics:
he received secret instructions to
enforce the edicts against all the
sectaries without distinction, and
with the utmost rigour. From a
mere sense of humanity and justice,
he was far less severe than Philip
required; still he gave orders to ei-
force conformity with the ancient
Church. He was rich, powerful,
young; a luxurious and princely
life lay hefore him. His hospitality,
like his fortune, was almost regal.
"Twenty-four nohlemen and eighteen
pages of gentle hirth officiated regu-
larly in his family." It was a daily
hanquet in his household, and the
generous host of wiuning mauner
and address, was heloved and hon-
oured hy all. It was not at this


1859.]
707
Mothy's Dutch Repuhlic

the support of religion, and feeling
this need at a time when two forms of
Cbristianity presented themselves for
his selection, he preferred the Pro-
testant. A Catholic may suggest
that he chose the religion of that
party with which his own fortunes
were henceforth to he hound up—
that his was, in fact, a political con-
version; hut his after life, and the
tenor of his private correspondence,
prove him to have hecome sincerely
and zealously pious. To us the choice
seems very natural: he who had seen
so much of priests—though perhaps
of the higher and not the more
spiritual order—was not likely (if he
could adopt another) to select that
form of Cbristianity in which a priest-
hood stands hetween the human soul
and its God. He would prefer the
theology which led him at once into
communion with God and Christ, to
that which put a priestly confessor
heside him to dog his footsteps every
moment of his life. One thing is
indisputahle, and higbly to his glory;
—hoth for Catholics and Protestants,
for Lutherans and Calvinists, he
claimed liherty of thought, freedom
of worship, the full and manly enun-
ciation of every sincere conviction.
He was misunderstood even hy his
own party; his nohle sense of justice
was often traduced as lukewarmness
and irreligion. Peter Dathenus, a
fiery zealot who for some time exerted
an overhearing influence from the
pulpit of Ghent, denounced him as
"an atheist in heart,—as a man
who knew no God hut state expedi-
ency, which was the idol of his wor-
ship." And a far more temperate
Protestant, St. Aldegonde, seemed
incapahle of comprehending that
there was any necessity to preach
toleration to those of the Reformed
faith; he evidently caunot under-
stand that "religious peace" at
which the Prince was aiming, that
mutual forhearance, that freedom of
restraint for all in matters purely
religious. "The Prince," he says
complainingly, in one of his letters—
and the complaint remains an honour
to his misapprehended leader—" The
Prince has uttered reproaches to me
that our clergy are striving to ohtain
a mastery over consciences. He
praised lately the saying of a monk,
who was not long here, that our pot
had not gor/e to the fire as often as that
of our antagonists, hut that, when the
time came, it would he hlack enough.
In short, the Prince fears that after
a few centuries the clerical tyrauny
on hoth sides will stand in this re-
spect on the same footing."
The Prince of Orange lived to see
Holland and Zealand ohtain, tbrough
many trials and the fiercest struggle,
their independence; and had just
accepted some modified sovereiguty
of these provinces, under the title of
Count, when his assassination took
place. We regret to find how con-
spicuous a part his old opponent,
Cardinal Granvelle, plays in this
transaction. It is he, it seems, who
whispered into the King's ear the
expediency of removing the Prince
hy the assassination. He couples the
advice with a hase calumny against
the courage of the man whose life
was one constant exposure to danger.
He was in lavour of puhlicly setting
a price upon his head—oftering a re-
ward of thirty or forty thousand
crowns to any one who would deliver
up the Prince dead or alive; and he
added, "as the Prince of Orange is a
vile coward, fear alone will tbrow him
into confusion." Thus writes, thus
counsels, the priest; and the King,
who was uot difficult to persuade on
such an occasion, accordingly puh-
lished what is called his " han," in
which, after enumerating the oftences
of Orange, after hanishing and put-
ting him out of the pale of law, he
continues thus: "And if any one of
our suhjects, or any stranger, should
he found sufficiently generous of
heart to rid us of this pest, deliver-
ing him to us alive or dead, or taking
his life, we will cause to he furnished
to him, immediately after the deed
shall have heen done, the sum of
twenty-five thousand crowns in gold.
It he have committed any crime, how-
ever heinous, we promise to pardon
trim; and if he he not already nohle,
we will eunohle him for hit ralour.'"
Thus, says Mr. Motley, hy Cardinal
Granvelle and hy Philip, a price was
set upon the head of the foremost
man of his age, as if he had heen a
savage heast, and admission into the
ranks of Spain's haughty nohility
was made the additional hrihe to
tempt the assassin.
Balthazar Gerard, the miserahle


710
[Dec.
Motley's Dutch Repuhlic.

ahle; and at the dawn of each day every
eye was turned wistfully to the vanes of
the steeples. So long as the easterly
hreeze prevailed, they felt, as they anxt-
ouslv stood on towers and house-tops,
that they must look in vain for the wel-
come ocean. Yet, while thus patiently
wuiting, they were literally starving ; for
even the misery endured at Haarlem had
not reached that depth and intensity of
agony to which Leyden was now re-
duced. The daily mortality was fright-
ful The pestilence now stalked
at noonday tbrough the city, and the
doomed inhahitants fell like graas he;
neath its scythe. From six thousand to
eight thousand human heings sank he-
fore this scourge alone; yet the people
resolutely held out—women and men
mutually encourngingeach other to resist
the entrance of their foreigu foe—an evil
more horrihle than pest or famine. Ley-
den was suhlime in its despair. A few
mormor * were, however, occasionally
heard at the steadfastness of the magis-
trates, and a dead h.idy was placed at
the door of the hurgomaster, as a silent
witness against his inflexihility. A party
of the more faint-hearted even assailed
the heroic Adrian van der Werf with
tbreats and reproaches as he passed
tbrough the streets. A crowd had ga-
thered around him as he reached a tri-
angular place in the centre of the town,
into which many of the principal streets
emptied themselves. There stood the
hunromaster—a tall, haggard, imposing
figure, with dark visage, and a tranquil
hut commanding eye. He waved his
hroad-leaved felt hat for silence, and
then exclaimed, in a language which has
heen aimost literally pi-eserved—' What
would ye, my friends I Why do ye mur-
mur that we do not hreak our vows and
surrender the' city to the Spaniards?—a
fate more horrihle than the agony she
now endures. I tell you 1 have made
an oath to hold the city, and may God
give me strength to keep my oath I I
can die hut once, whether hy your hand,
the enemy's, or hy the hand of God, My
own fate is indifferent to me, not so that
of the city intrusted to my care. I
know that we shall starve if not soon
relieved; hut starvation is preferahle to
the dishonoured death which is the only
alternative. Your menaces move me
not; my life is at your disposal; here is
my sword, plunge it into my hreast, and
divide my flesh among yoo. Take my
hody to appease your hunger, hut expect
no surrender so long as I remain alive!'"
But the wind rose, and the sea
with it, and at a fortunate conjunc-
ture, a panic dispersed their enemies,
and the relieving fleet sailed into the
city! The quays were lined with
the famishing population, and from
every vessel hread was tbrown
amongst the crowd. Some choked
themselves to death with the food
thus suddenly presented to them.
By the spontaneous movement of
the multitude, or as a measure wisely
ordained to calm the over-excite-
ment of the moment, all the inhahi-
tants, the magistrates and citizen*,
the sailors and the soldiers, repaired
to the great church, there to hend
in humhle gratitude hefore the King
of kings. Thousands of voices raised
the thanksgiving hymn; hut the
universal emotion hecame too fnll
for utterance—the hymn was ahrupt-
ly suspended, and the multitude wept
like children.
Surely no people ever won its
freedom tbrough greater efforts, suf-
ferings, and sacrifices than these
United Provinces of the Netherlands.
God forhid that any European na-
tion should again pass tbrough so
terrihle an ordeal; still it is instruc-
tive, and it stirs the heart to learn
what men can do and suffer in a
righteous cause.
With the death of Orange termi-
nates the first instalment which Mr.
Motley has given us of his history.
The remaining portion will treat
more especially of the acts and the
career of the Dutch Repuhlic. Then
will he the fit occasion to offer some
remarks on the "place in history"
of this famous repuhlic; for all
Europe, and England especially, owes
a great deht to Holland. We are
accustomed, and with justice, to say
at the present epoch, that England
teaches practically, to the rest of
Europe, how far the pure government
of equal laws can he estahlished
without interference of arhitrary
power. There was a time when
England learned this lesson of Hol-
land ;—not to mention that it was a
stadtholder of Holland who came to
our liheration at a time when we
could not have horne a repuhlic, and
when we should have looked in vain
to any other quarter for a liheral
sovereigu. No other quarter in En-
rope could have grown or edacated
the man we wanted. We shall ex-
pect with much interest the remain-
ing volumes of Mr. Motley's History.


1859.] The National Gallery—its Purpose and Management.
711
THE NATIONAL GALLERY—ITS FCTtPOSE ANn MANAGEMENT.
The management of the National
Gallery has long heen the chosen
suhject for ahuse. Sometimes the
outcry is raised that pictures have
heen flayed and destroyed under the
murderous hand of cleaners and re-
storers—sometimes that mere copies
have heen imposed upon the Trustees
in the place of originals; and then,
again, that the puhlio money has
heen squandered in the purchase of
a class of works more calculated to
corrupt than to improve the puhlic
taste. Snch charges are hut too
easily made in the matter of picture-
dealing, in which the dealer is often
the desiguing knave—the purchaser,
it may he, a too credulous dupe—the
general puhlic, in great measure, in-
competent judges—and even the ac-
complished and qualified few a court
of douhtful appeal, constituted pos-
sihly of opinions the most diversified.
It were, then, almost vain to pre-
sume to adjudicate on these much
vexed questions, which even par-
liamentary committees have failed
to solve, save hy that ohlivion which
notoriously sbrouds all suhjects com-
mitted to " Blue-hook" custody.
Pictures have an existence only
less painfully sensitive than that of
the artist-painter himself. You can
scarcely in a studio venture to com-
pliment an artist on his work, in the
dread of wounding the delicacy of his
nature; and you can surely scarcely
venture to hang his picture in any gal-
lery, from fear that an ohlivious sha-
dow or some appalling light may mar
a cherished heauty. But these are evils
merely of the passing hour. Think
then, 0 gentle reader, of the accu-
mulated injuries heaped in the lapse
of centuries upon works hy Raphacl
which have heen taken from panel
and transferred to canvas—upon pic-
tures hy Correggio, rougbly scoured
and then repainted—upon paintings
hy Titian, skiuned and scraped, and
then reglazed. Ponder, we say, on
the delicate sensitive existence of
a picture — those lines so lovingly
traced hy the hand of Raphael, lines
upon which the spirit - world of
heauty intones its gentlest harmonies
VOL. LXXXVL
—think, too, of those lustrous hue*
of radiant glory, tempered hy the
cnol of grateful shade, which ia
Titiun seem to exult in all the life
and fulness of voluptuous pleasure;
and then raise your lamentations
over the ravages of time — rail
pouring in hy skjlight—-heat ami
cold, with fever and with chill, rack-
ing each delicate memher—ravages
hut rendered still more fatal hy re-
storations which man comes merci-
lessly to inflict Is it a wonder,
then, that from every gallery is
Europe the outcry is raised against
the havoc which time and man have
thus committed? In Madrid, Ford
tells as that the pictures have heel
ahsolutely flayed and massacred. It
Dresden, likewise, it is hut too evi-
dent that the great Correggios have
suffered violence. In the Pitti of
Florence, the palace like polish of
well-kept surface can only he main-
tained hy doctoring reparations. In
the far-famed Trihune, in the same
city, we have heen ourselves asked
to expose the system which now,
under the plea of restorations, tbreat-
ens the great masterpieces wirh still
further destruction. Thus it can
easily he understood that there ii
scarcely a picture in Europe over
which Raphacl once lovingly doted
—scarcely a work in which the great
masters have poured out the fulness
of their spirit, or apportioned with
costless pains a priceless lahour—
that has not heen marred or mas-
sacred either hy time or the hand of
man.
These considerations must certainly
materially affect the character and
quality of any national gallery which
is now attempted to he formed. The
great works of which we have spoken
as injured, and sometimes all hut de-
stroyed, are still justly deemed suck
priceless treasures as to he withheld
from our reach. They never come
into the market, and caunot he
hought at any price. The managers
of our National Gallery are then ne-
cessarily, in their selection, reduced
to a class of works, it may he, hid in
convents or held in private hands,
46


712
[Dec.
The National Galhry—its Purpose and Management.

the history and pedigree of which
are prohahly somewhat douhtful.
The great masters, it is well known,
were aided hy numerous scholars,
and hence it is that countless works
are found not only in Italy hut
tbroughout Europe, which presume
to hear the master's name, hut
which were, in fact, executed only
hy his pupils. We are told that a
scholar of Raphacl made a copy of
one of his master's works, which even
Raphacl himself mistook for an ori-
ginal. Let ns, then, for a moment
look at the difficulties which heset
the formation of any national gal-
lery. In the first place, the great
and important pictures are now pro-
verhially difficult to ohtain. In the
next place, it is not always possihle
to determine whether any given work
has heen executed hy master or
scholars. And then, again, a once
original picture may have heen so
injured hy time, and so far repainted
hy restorers, as to leave little or
nothing of the master's hand. Such,
indeed, are the difficulties which heset
the purchase of pictures, such the
scares deliherately cast with the
purpose to entrap, that even the
most wary and the hest informed
must occasionally he deceived. It
may, therefore, he matter even of
surprise that, in the lengthened his-
tory of our National Gallery, more
errors have not heen committed.
Without going into the details of
any given charge, we may, in the
very necessity of the case, almost
take it for granted that some unwise
purchases have occasionally heen
made. We would say, however, let
these he forgotten in the remem-
hrance of the great and invaluahle
works which of late years have heen
wisely secured, forming at length for
this country a National Gallery of
pictures worthy of its name and pur-
pose. We have, for example, secured
one of the largest and choicest works
of Paul Veronese. We have hecome
the fortunate possessors of a Perugino,
which, for purity of spirit and heauty
of colour, is scarcely surpassed in
Europe. We have purchased, more-
over, in Florence a series of early
Italian pictures, which gives to our
Gallery that historic hasis which is
essential to accurate knowledge and
study. The authorities . then, for
these and other services may safely,
we think, appeal to the grand general
result, against any minor errors which
may have heen laid to their charge.
The difficulties in the formation of
a national gallery are, as we have
seen, so great, the possihilities of
error so many, that it is scarcely sur-
prising that the authorities intrusted
with the management, should have
heen made the victims of constant
and inveterate attack. It is most
easy for Mr. Coningham in the House
of Commons to denounce certain
works as "villanous." It certainly
is not difficult for any counoisseur,
even the most shallow, to write an
anonymous letter to the Times desig-
nating some recent purchase as a
wretched dauh. And all this, and
much more, is easy and tempting,
affording a ready road to noisy noto-
riety, hecause hoth hearers And
readers in the House, and heyond
its doors, are self-endowed with a
capacity to judge of all matters re-
lating to pictures and the fine arts,
just in proportion to the extent of
their iguorance. It was once well
said hy Mr. Lahouchere that the
House of Commons never appears
to less advantage than when it sets
itself to discuss the merits of a
picture. And a late Chancellor of
the Exchequer, the present Secre-
tary for the Home Office, stated in
his place in Parliament, that "he
had learned hy experience that there
was scarcely a duty more difficult
to discharge than that of haying
pictures for the National Gallery:
for himself, he declared that he
would infinitely rather negotiate a
loan for ten millions sterling, than
he would undertake to purchase a
single picture." On these occasions,
when the wisdom of the House of
Commons condescends to discuss the
meriisof the fine arts in general, and
the management of the National Gal-
lery in particular, Lord Elcho usually
leads the attack, and wins the House
hy ready wit and pleasant laughter;
olten, it may he feared, at the expense
of hetter reason. Mr. Coningham
follows, quotes his friend Morris
Moore, and relies greatly on ohscure
pampblets puhlished in Berlin against
l)r. Wuagen. Dr. Wuagen, indeed,


714
[Dec.
The National Gallery—its Purpose and Management.

hordering upon the grote-que hy
ohjecting to pay an enormous price
"for a second-rate picture hy a
second-rate master ! I" We need
scarcely say in conclusion, that hy
criticism such as this honourahle mem-
hers condemn themselves. The un-
measured exaggeration of the attack
almost constitutes a defence. A pic-
ture which in Venice has heen deemed
hy all the world a grand masterpiece,
may certainly, when hrought to Lon-
don, hold itself superior to noisy
clumour. Works carefully collected
in Florence as gems of rarest masters,
may assuredly stand indifferent to a
pmise or censure little worthy of the
areopagus of any modern Athens. In
spite, however, of all this prejudiced
opposition, we rejoice to say that the
National Gallery now at length im-
partially represents all tastes, how-
ever diversified; all wants, however
opposite; includes all schools, all
nationalities, all climates, religions,
and tongues; and thus has attained
to thut universality which may well
defy the noise of party, or the narrow-
ness of sect.
Let us now further inquire for what
purpose a national gallery should he
founded—let us determine what class
of pictures should he purchased hy a
nation wishing to promote among its
people the knowledge and the cul-
ture of the arts. Now, it is evident
that two somewhat distinct principles
may guide the selection of appro-
priate works, and determine the cha-
racter and intent of the nation's cen-
tral gallery of instruction. On the
one hand, it is prohahle that puhlic
opinion may with some plausihility de-
cide that a national gallery, as a guide
and standard of puhlic taste, form-
ing an essential part of a great cen-
tral school or academy of art, should
exclusively consist of master works,
which are themselves standards of
excellence. But opposed to this
plausihle notion, there has heen long
a growing opinion that even a gallery
thus constituted would he far from
complete and satisfactory. It has
heen felt that the greatest pictures
and painters have heen in great mea-
sure historic products, helonging, no
less than poets and poems, states-
men and laws, to the times in which
they have heen cast. Great events
have heen for the most part fore-
shadowed, great men have had their
antecedents, and grand revolutions
their forehodings. The Reformation
of Luther was the revolt which fol-
lowed upon long years of douhting
discontent, the great French Re-
volution hut the last volcanic out-
hurst of internal fires. And we need
scarcely insist on the ohvious pro-
position, that in order rightly to
estimate such historic characters and
phenomena, it is needful to under-
stand the historic periods out of
which they have arisen—to trace
admitted facts hack to their efficient
causes in preceding centuries, and
again forward to their ultimtte
results in all succeeding times. Now
it has heen rightly felt that in these
respects the arts form no exception
to other hranches of knowledge. In
art, no less than in philosophy,
science, or politics, it has heen found
impossihle wholly to isolate any one
master or epoch. A Luther, a Bacon,
or a Newton, it is admitted, must hc-
studied tbrough the age in which
they lived. And so, in like mauner,
Raphacl or Michacl Angelo, together
with the great works proceeding from
their hands, can he rightly estimated
only hy a comprehensive review of
the times out of which they have
arisen, of the masters who were
their contemporaries, of the earlier
sculptors and painters who formed
their historic ancestry, and even of
those later men who are known as
their degenerate descendants. Hence,
then, it will he understood why it
has heen deemed needful that a
uational gallery should consist of
works forming a historic series of
progressive development, leading
from the earlier periods of compara-
tive immaturity down to those great
masters whose supreme creation.'
constitute for art the last glory and
perfection. The student, we again
repeat, can alone understand the
genins of Rsphacl in its simplicity,
yet maturity, when hrought into
comparison and contrast with all the
inchoate crudity which went hefore,
and all the showy ostentation which
followed after. The student must be
taught hy failure, no less than hy
success. He must know how some
men have fallen from lack of genins.


720
[Dec.
The National Gallery—its Purpose and Management.

matured epochs when art was en-
ahled to emhrace the wide circuit of
a many-sided humanity, when the
hody, no longer a mean and despised
prison-house, was glorified as the
temple for the soul's worship. The
sound hody was now found, even for
art, to he the only condition to the
sane mind,—a hody in which all the
memhers, without schism or division,
should perform their healthful func-
tions; a hody so harmoniously fash-
ioned, so happily halanced, as to he
at peace within itself, suhdued and
suhordinated, moreover, to a higher
ministration, perfect in itself, yet suh-
ordinated to a still higher perfection,
its wondrous functions hut willing in-
struments to the soul's movings, its
matcbless symmetry hut the reflection
of mental harmonies, the entire fahric
an instrument of volition, a mirror
of expression, a tahernacle specially
huilt for the spirit's dwelling. la
this perfected ideal do we find the
union of schools spiritual and mate-
rial, the perfection of humanity, and
hy consequence the ideal of Cbristian
art—an ideal which all true artists
have sought after, and some few have
happily found. Artists there have
heen hlessed with that equipoise of
nature, which as a reflex of higher
harmonies revealed itself tbrough
the unities of a well halanced art.
We see even, on the walls of our Na-
tional Gallery, works hy Lorenzo di
Credi, Ferugino, Leonardo, and others,
in which outward physical form is,
as it were, inspired hy spiritual ex-
pression, in which even hard intel-
lect is softened hy emotion, literal
truth adorned hy suhtle, sensitive
heauty. It was thus, in the union
of all natures, physical and mental,
inward and outward, human and
divine, that art found its full fruition.
The greatest artists hecame great
just in proportion as they gave to a
hitherto partial and fioite art these
wide and infinite relations. It was
. the supreme glory of Raphacl, the
reward of a well-helanced nature, the
good fortune, moreover, of having
lived at a happy epoch, that he
united in his greatest works the
hitherto divided elements. He lived
at that culminating point when, on
the one side, spiritualism had already,
in Sieua, Florence, aud Umhria,
reached its utmost purity and heauty;
and when, on the other hand, natural-
ism in the school of Managua, and the
materialistic masters of Central Italy,
had attained to accuracy and vigour.
He came endowed with a nature hap-
pily halanced hetween these two ex-
tremes, and hence it hecame, as we
have said, his special mission to hlend
into one these hitherto antagonistic
elements, to rear to art the outer tem-
ple of the hody, spotless ant! unde-
filed, and then to ensbrine within the
tahernacle the animating sonl as an
indwelling deity. Oar National Gal-
lery, unfortunately, does not enahle
the student fully to realize the great-
ness of this artist's genins. "The
Vision of a Knight," an early work;
"St. Katherioe," helonging to his
second period; and the "Por-
trait of Jalins II.," fail adequately
to show the high service which Ra-
phacl conferred upon that art which,
under his hands, emphatically hecame
divine. In Florence, Rome, and other
Italian cities, we can, however, fully
analyse his more complex works hack
to those essential elements out of
which we have seen they took their
historic origin. In his earlier pic-
tures helonging to his father's school
of Umhria, and to the mauner of his
master Perugino, we naturally find
predominant the hard severity and
the attenuated purity of the ante-
cedent spiritual masters. Then,
again, with the vigour and indepen-
dence of growing manhood, the frail-
ty of a spiritual existence hecame
clothed in forms more higbly devel-
oped; his characters grew fitted for
the fulfilment of every healthful func-
tion, suited to the enjoyment of this
present world, yet aspiring to a life
heyond. Here then, we find, in some
few favoured works, that perfect hal-
ance of hody and of soul, that entire
harmony hetween forms and func-
tions, hodily and mental, which con-
stitute a completed humanity, and
therefore, as we have said, a perfect
art. But, alas! we have found a per-
fection which is seen hut once, and
then departs. Even Raphacl him-
self, in unguarded moments, fell away.
He lost at times the finely-arljusted
halance which made his genins per-
haps the most harmonious and com-
plete which art had yet known; and


1859.] The Actional Gallery—it* Purpose and Management.
721

thus, in some few later works, he fell
over toward that physical material-
ism which as hy hrute force, hut too
often suhjugates the finer motions of
the spirit. We are not among those
who helieve in the fall of Raphacl.
At moments, indeed, he faltered, wa-
vering hetween two opinions; and
these partial failings hut serve to
show how frail is the tbread which,
in art no less than in nature, unites
the soul with the hody; how easy it
is to sever the cord of life which in
art as in nature hinds the higher
world of spirit and the lower mate-
rialism of earth into one heauteous
creation.
We have dwelt upon the genins
and works of Raphacl, hecause they
may he taken as the culminating
point in the history of art—hecause
they serve perhaps as the hest illustra-
tion of that ideal perfection which we
would make the ultimate test and cri-
terion of all suhordinate excellence.
We have now endeavoured to show
in what mauner our National Gallery
of hi-toric pictures, some of which are
necessarily all hut repulsive, may
illustrate and estahlish great generic
truths which lie at the hasis of all
sound criticism, and are even essen-
tial to all high enjoyment Our space
has permitted us to give only some
general hints and indications, which
the reader, we hopp, may carry out
for himself to completion. In a
more detailed and extended survey of
the varied schools he will he ahle
still further to apply and to illustrate
those fundamental principles which
we have hut vaguely indicated. The
closer examination of the schools of
outward materialism will lead him,
for example, to discriminate hetween
masters and works holding among
themselves a very varied rank and
diguity. The works of Michacl An-
gelo, for instance, as may he some-
what seen from the grand master-
piece in our National Gallery hy one
of his scholars, "The Resurrection of
Lazarus," are douhtless material. In
looking at his vast creations, we feel
ourselves under the tyrauny of a co-
lossal humanity, physical, organic,
and material, even to the utmost pitch
of the suhlime. We feel that all which
is gentle and lovely has heen driven
out from those gladiatorial monsters
which, as rude rocks or impending
mountains, frown upon the loveliness
of nature. And yet, in the midst of
all this, we ore conscious of the
presence of a mighty mind and a
retiitless will dwelling and heaving
heneath the giant mass. Thus, if the
works of Michacl Angeloare material,
the materialism is at least informed
hy no less gigantic mind. Passing
on to the pictures hy Ruhens, of
whom there are many grand examples
in our National Gallery, we are still
in the very midst of a material art,—
a materialism, however, to which
mind adds little diguity. Then, again,
coming to the school of Venice, we
shall find it needful to draw still fur-
ther distinctions, as the unconscions-
ness of matter grows sensitive under
kindling mind and emotion. On
closer examination we shall find that
the school of Venice, like, indeed, to
other schools, is the mingling and the
intermingling of things material and
spiritual, which, as shade and sun-
shine, play the one around the other,
Tintoretto, it is well known, desigu-
edly formed himself upon the nohle
mauner of Michacl Angelu—a mauner,
or rather perhaps a maunerism, spe-
cially the exponent of genius. Titian,
again, though he loved to revel in the
intoxication of passion, and sometimes
even sank into the grossest of ma-
terialism, knew well how to inform
the tenement of clay with that diguity
and high expression which nohle
minds alone can give. Lastly, the
materialism of Veronese is of a some-
what different character—a material-
ism little redeemed hy mental expres-
sion. It is true, we are often in the
presence of a queenlike heauty, which
proudly commands our worship as hy
conscious and iunate dignity. But
again, too frequently the nohility of
man, and even the heauty of woman
are overlaid and eclipsed hy the mere
ostentation of princely apparel and
the material grandeur of wortbless
wealth. These and other aspects of
materialism the reader may, with
little difficulty, work out for himself
in our own National Gallery, or in-
deed in any other of the great Euro-
pean collections. Then, again, under
the generic head of schools spiritual,
the student will soon find himself
making suhordinate divisions corre-


724
[Dec.
The National Gallery—its Purpose and Management.

he well seen hy pictures in our Na-
tional Gallery, seems wholly forgetful
of his parentage and hirthplace in
Lorraine, and to have hathed and
hasked in the golden light of setting
suns, to have grown languid in the
fervent heat, and imaginative in the
dreamlike' spell of Italian life and
clime, Gaspar Poussin, hy parentage
a Frenchman, in like mauner shows
the iunate sympathy hetween the
rapture and romance of artistic
genins and the glowing intensity of
a southern fun. His landscapes, of
which our Gallery may well hoast
of its grand examples, are known to
have heen in,pired hy the Campagua
of Rome, the fastnesses of the Apen-
nines, the rock-huilt towns of Etru-
ria, or the ruined temples of Tivoli.
Nicholas Poussin, a Norman hy hirtfi,
joined in the same southern migra-
tion, and found for his genins in Italy
a fitting sphere. "The Nursing of
Bacchus," "A Bacchanalian Festi-
val," "A Bacchanalian Dance," and
"Venus Asleep surprised hy Satyrs,"
all in our National Gallery, helong to
that order of suhjects which can only
he successfully painted in those clas-
sic lands and suuny climes where
ruined temples strew the land, where
marhle gods and goddesses may still
he seen as once when worshipped—
where indeed the traveller even to
this present day may surprise Venus
as she sleeps, Or Diana as she hathes.
Again, in the great pictures hy Ti-
tian, Veronese, Correggio, and others,
all to he found on the walla of our
National Gallery, we may read as
in a mirror a consummated history
when the arts had no longer to
maintain in rigid ahstemious virtue
a hard and precarious struggle for,
existence, hut, clothed in purple and
decked in sumptuous splendour, they
hegan to minister to luxury, and even,
it may he, to pander to excess. As a
nohle example of this resplendent art,
turn to " The Family of Darins at the
Feet of Alexander," hy Paul Veronese,
the last great spoil which the wealth
of England has won from the down-
cast poverty of Italy. In the illumi-
nated splendour of the colour, in the
richness of princely rohes, the glitter
of regal gems, think of the priceless
spoils poured in from the exhaustless
East, of the sumptuous feast whereof
monarchs partook—think, too, of the
glories of sunset skies lighting every
cloud with hurning fire, gilding each
wave with dazzling sold—and then
look at this work hy Veroness as the
illuminated hauner of Venice in her
glory and her pride.
As a contrast, let the student-tour-
ist tbrough our National Gallery re-
cross the Alps into Northern Europe.
The climate suffers change—the ima-
ginative Italian is supplanted hy the
heavy prosaic German peasant — the
liquid sounds of tte music - loving
south are transmuted into the harsh
guttural of a rugged tongue, and, as
part of the same mutation,.the art of
the people has suffered a revulsion.
We are now in the land of Holhein,
and others of kindred school. Look
at the heads, for they assuredly arrest
attention. The women are no fairy
sprites or emotional daubers of love
and devotion, hut inveterate and con-
firmed German fraus, given to do-
mestic duties and home comforts,
useful rather than ornamental, con-
scientious, truthful, and matter-of-
fact. The men, in like mauner, are
not the imaginative, sensitive, emo-
tional heings of the south, hut hard,
practical, matter-of-fact, well-to-do
mortals, with common sense and the
rights of private jndgment planted
in the hrow, keen sbrewdness in the
penetrating eye, a certain pleheian
plodding in the nose, decision in the
determined set of the mouth, with
hard lines cutting into features, as if
the frost of many winters and the
corroding cares of the husiness-world
had plowed deep furrows across
the front of youth. Contrast, we say,
this German school—some remark-
ahle examples of which, in its ear-
lier stages, may he found in our Na-
tional Gallery—with the imaginative,
suhtle, and heauteous creations of
the south, and then trace hack these
diverse manifestations to originating
causes in the contrast of race, of cha-
racter, of climate, and civilisation—
elements, in short, which constitute
the distinct individuality of a nation.
Thus did we attempt to show how a
gallery of pictures may he studied as
an illustrated chart of mental philo-
sophy; and now have we seen how
the great schools of art follow in the
landmarks which divide climates and


72C
[Dec.
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part X.
LAnYSMEnE — PART
CHAPTER XXVIL—THE WATCHERS.
On the evening preceding the day
on which he was to answer Sir God-
frey's summons at Huntingdon, Ah-
hot Martin was closeted until late in
the night with the treasurer, in the
little stone chamher which that func-
tionary occupied in right of his office,
and where the records of the house
were kept. Once more he had the
accounts of the hrotherhood laid he-
fore him, and spent more time and
pains than he had hitherto done in
endeavouring to master their compli-
cated details, and to place in a clearer
point of view the present state of
their revenues and liahilities. The
employment was not a pleasant one,
least of all to one of the ahhot's
temperament; nor were its results
satisfactory. But he manfufly went
tbrough his ungenial task; and
though at last he laid the rolls aside
with a heavy sigh, it was partly an
expression of relief, and he spoke a
chetrful word or two to his suhordi-
nate at parting.
The night was hright and cold, and
feeling restless and heated with long
sitting and lahour of an unaccus-
tomed kind, the ahhot, instead of
seeking his own chamher at once,
ascended the hroad flight of steps
which led to the river - terrace, and
paced slowly along its extent gazing
thoughtfully into the moonlight that
played on the hroad stream helow.
The thoughts which now crowded on
his heart had little to do with the
fortunes of Rivelshy. He who
walked there was no longer the grave
Benedictine, the ruler of a peaceful
honse of recluses. He lived again
amidst the stirring scenes of his ear-
lier manhood, when the world had
for him all its hest to oftVr. He
did not feel the cold hreeze that
swept op over the marshy meadows
of the Ouse, or see the dank mists
that rose helow him. For him, the
moon shone on the waters of the
Bisaguo, and the night air came
loaded with the perfumes of the
south. He was walking once more,
in spirit, under a trellis of Italian
vines, and listening to the gentle
tones of a voice which had lone heen
hushed in its last silence. He saw
again hefore him that face of calm and
gentle heauty in which the hlue Sax-
on eye lighted with its soft radiance
all the rich hues of southern loveli-
ness ; and it seemed to him now, as
it had seemed hefore, that its glance
met his own with a half conscious
meaning. The intoxicating dream
which comes but once in lite was on
him — in memory — still. It must
surely have heen so 1 he could not
have heen self deceived ; though the
jealous pride of the old Genoese no-
hility had taken alarm at the preten-
sions of a foreigu adventurer, who
had little hesides his sword, and had
huried her from his sight and his
search—still, he felt in this hour a
stronger assurance than ever that
(J inliii Camaldoni loved, or would have
loved him.
He had heen so ahsorhed in his
own meditations, that, still as the
night was, he either did not hear, or
did not notice, the cautious move-
ment of oars upon the river. Nor
did the closing of the postern-gate,
which led down from the terrace to
the river entrance in the outer wall,
reach the ahhot's ear, so noiselessly
was it effected. But he whs startled
hack into a sudden recollection of
the present, when he saw, as he
turned in his walk, the figure of one
of the hretbren appear suddenly
from the postern steps, and cross the
terrace rapidly toward the hroader
flight which from a point nearly op-
posite communicated with the clois-
ter. The monk, whoever he was,
turned his head in the direction of
the ahhot as he passed across, stop-
ped for an instant and seemed to
hesitate, and then, drawing his cowl
over his head and quickening his
steps, disappeared into the quad-
rangle helow. The moonlight was so
clear and stroBg, and shone so fall
upon the face as it was turned to-
wards the ahhot, that in spite of the
puzzling uniformity of the monastic


1859 ]
Tlie Luck of Ladijsmede.—Part X.

hahit, he felt convinced that he had
recoguised the gait and the features
of the prior. His first natural im-
pulse was to stop and question him,
and his lips actually pronounced the
name. Not so loud, however, as to
make it certain that the other heard
him; if he did, it had not the effect
of recalling him. The steps died
away in the distance hefore the ah-
hot had fully recovered himself; and
it was then for the first time that he
caught the sound of oars upon the
water. It was more distinct, in-
deed, than it had heen at first, as if
the rowers, as they got further from
the ahhey walls, cared less to hetray
their movements. Looking ffhm the
hattlements, he saw distinctly a
small hoat, containing two or tbree
persons, come out from the shadow
of the hank under which it had
hitherto kept, and make its way
down the river. He turned, and de-
scended into the quadrangle; there
all was still and calm, as hecame a
religious house within an hour of
midnight. Massive and solemn, some
hidden deep in shadow, some clothed
with light as with a frost-work of
silver, the fretted piunacles and
stately arches reposed under the full
moon. So was it, perhaps, with the
sonls that slept within; on some, the
darkness of uurepented sin, the sha-
dow of evil passions, hung with a
heavier and deeper gloom hecause of
the holy heams around them; others,
though weather-worn and tempest-
stricken, like those old towers, had
caught therej something of the hright-
ness of heaven.
But the ahhot had no time now
for such reflections. What he had just
seen filled his mind with a new source
of disquiet. It was evident that the
person, whoever it was, who had jast
entered hy the postern - gate, had
either heen ahsent from the monas-
tery on some secret errand, or had
heen holding rendezvous at that late
hour with some parties who wished
their visit to pass unohserved. He he-
sitated whether he should proceed at
once to the chamher where the prior
slept at the end of the long dormitory,
and ascertain, if possihle, whether his
suspicions of the identity of the per-
son were correct; and if so, whether
there might not still he some reason-
VOL. LXXXVL
ahle explanation to offer. On con-
sideration, however, he determined
to defer any inquiry of thai nature,
at all events, until the morrow. He
glanced once more round the vast
range of huildings, where all was
dark and silent, and passed tbrough
the archway into the smaller court,
where lay his own apartments. Be-
sides the little lamp which hurnt
coutinually in his own chamher, and
the dim gleam from the quarter where
the sacrist lay, or rather watched,
ready to awaken the hretbren for the
midnight office, he saw a light also
in the room now occupied hy his
guest Waryn Foliot He had a long-
ing at that moment — though he
chided himself for it as a weakness—
for the tones of some kindly human
voice. He had missed, heyond what
he himself could have thought pos-
sihle hut two months hack, the daily
companionship of the little Ginlio,
who was still under Gaston's faithful
charge at Morton Grange; and
Waryn, who had heen to him almost
as a son in his hoyish days, still re-
tained a hold of the same nature on
his affections. It might have heen a
weakness in his own character—it
might have heen the freshness of a
simple heart—hut Ahhot Martin al-
ways felt most happy and uurestrain-
ed in the company of the young. He
felt, too, that in Foliot, young as he
was, he could, if need were, repose a
confidence which he would hesitate
to risk in many of his own household.
Without any very definite purpose,
then, he hent his steps at once to-
wards Waryn's chamher.
Having knocked gently at the door,
the ahhot entered, and found the oc-
cupant seated at a tahle covered with
parchments and materials for writ-
ing. Waryn rose, and received his
visitor with a smile in which some
natural surprise was apparent.
"What!" said the ahhot, "at your
studies so late, young friend!"
"I am studying men rather than
hooks, at present, father," replied
Waryn, answering with some little
emharrassment; "I have husiness
here which the lord legate has done
me the grace to put into my hands.
These letters which you see are of
some importance,—pardon me that I
horrow of the night fer it"
47


728
[Dec.
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part X.
"William of Ely know* how to
choose his friends," said the ahhot;
"I wish well that King Richard had
half his discretion in that point."
"I would he had a score of such
stoat friends in this realm as the
hishop of Ely," said Foliot; "he were
a match for all his enemies then.
But there is false dealing everywhere
—falsest of all are they of his own
hlood. Have you any suspicion, my
good lord, that the Earl of Morton has
any friends in this house of Rivelshy?"
The ahhot started, and hesitated
for a moment or two hefore he an-
swered. He hethought himself, al-
most involuntarily, of what he had
just witnessed on the river-terrace.
"No," said he at last, "I have no
cause to think so." But he spoke
with an emharrassment that could
not escape Foliot's ohservation.
"Pardon me, my dear lord," said
he, "if I seem to wrong your vener-
ahle hrotherhood .hy such an inquiry.
But Prince John will leave no stone
. unturned to overtbrow the hishop's
power hy any means he may; and he
has ahettors in many quarters where
they should least he looked for. There
are those who think our gallant King
Richard will scarce return alive from
Palestine, and are ready to hny them
favour at any price with the king
that shall he. I know there are
faults in the lord legate; hut no man
can gain-ay him as a hold and up-
right governor, and loyal to the high
trust he hears. God forhid we should
fall under the hands of the Earl of
Morton!"
Certain expressions which the prior
had let fall in conversation touching
the rival claims to power on the part
of the king's hrother and the hishop
of Ely, came into the ahhot's mind
irresistihly; he tried to hanish the
thought as an unworthy one, hut still
it would return. And now, when ho
was ahout to leave his house—he
knew not for how long—under the
prior's ahsolute government, it seemed
to him like an imperative duty to
ascertain, if possihle, how far he
might trust his loyalty to the king.
That he hore little good-will to him-
self, as his superior, Ahhot Martin
was well aware; hut that was only
u personal matter, which he was too
honestly proud to resent; it made
him even more careful lest he should
judge him harsbly in* the more im-
portant question.
"I trust I am not wont to he suspi-
cious," said he; "St. Mary forgive me
if I wrong any man! hut yet"—he was
uncertain even now whether he should
go on.
Waryn made no remark when the
ahhot stopped ahruptly, hut there
was a look of anxious intelligence
which made it evident that he had
not made the inquiry lightly. Yield-
ing partly to the conviction that he
was acting wisely, and partly, per-
haps, to his own confiding disposition,
Ahhot Martin told his listener hriefly
what he had seen that evening, and
that he still retained his helief that
it was the prior who had passed him.
At the same time he explained that
he had, until now, counected this
nocturnal visit in his own mind with
some of the emissaries of Sir Godfrey.
Foliot only gravely smiled in reply,
as from the parchments hefore him
he selected one containing a list of
names, which he handed to the ahhot.
The name to which his finger pointed
was that of the prior of Rivelshy.
"And who are these?" asked the
ahhot with some astonishment, as he
glanced over the roll which he held,
and read some other names there
which were familiar to him. "You
will not surely tell me that these
have any part in the plot you spoke
of?"
"There is hut too good proof of
it, I fear," replied Foliot, gravely;
"I have that here," he continued, lay-
ing his hand upon a folded document
which he singled from the rest,
"which some of them at least will
find it hard to reconcile with their
allegiance to the king."
"And the hishop," said the ahhot
"what course will he take upon
this?'
"He waits his time; hut his mea-
sures are taken; and if the men of
England have no mind to change
their king, these hunters after power
will find the chase a dangerous one."
"It seems to me scarcely prudent,"
said Ahhot Martin, "if it he as you
say, to leave the guiding of this house
in ench hands even for a short space;
alheit, as St. Mary knows, we can he
of little help to the hishop's cause or



732
[Dec.
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part X.
any special remark or inquiry. For
a moment he hesitated whether he
should see and examine the new-comer
for himself; hut time was now pre-
cious, and as he looked at the scroll
which the cellarer put into his hands,
and recoguised the well-known seal
of his friend the Ahhot of Walsing-
ham, he felt that the occurrences of
the past night were tbreatening to
make hira over-suspicious. Merely
giving hrief directions, therefore, for
the pilgrim's hospitahle entertain-
ment so long as he should see fit to
remain, and for every furtherance to
he given him in the performance of
his vow, he moved towards the spot
where his escort and horses were
awaiting him.
The monks were gathered in the
courts and cloisters in little par-
ties, finding in the superior's jour-
ney to Huntingdon on such an
errand a topic of more than ordin-
ary excitement. Most of them were
selfisbly more concerned for the in-
terests of their house, which they
held to he imperilled hy the un-
scrupulous enemy whom the ahhot
had provoked, than for any personal
risk which he himself might he in-
curring. Some, however, saw his
departure with unfeigued regret, and
more than one felt a misgiving that
he was leaving enemies hehind him
not less dangerous than those whom
he was going to meet; There was a
general move towards the gateway
hy which he was to pass, and some
who pressed to the front fell on their
knees to ask his hlessing, and to hid
him God-speed.
"I thank you, my children," said
the ahhot, in a hroken voice—he was
easily moved hy any show of affection
—" I thank you all; I trust to re-
turn to you in peace, and speedily."
'• Stay with us, my good lord,"
said the sacrist ahruptly; '' there is
evil hefore you—let us meet it here
together."
"Stay with your children, father,"
said one of the older monks; "there
is no trusting these men of violence
—they hewed down St. Thomas at
his own altar."
"And did not his hlood cry against
the king from the ground? But
fear not, my children," he continued,
smiling in his old cheery fashion,
though it was hut to hide a stronger
emotion which their honest aifection
called forth—" I am no saint, to he
worthy of such a martyrdom. I were
more tit to die in harness; never man
struck me, altar or no altar, hut he
might chance to get as good as he
gave. Farewell, and he of good
cheer; God and St Mary have you
in their holy keeping!"
CHAPTER XXIX.—JUSTICE ANn HER ASSESSORS.
The court was set in the county-
hall at Huntingdon. There, as justi-
ciary for the king, sat Sir Hugh Bar-
dolph, who had little pretension in
his own person to represent justice,
except that he was nearly hlind. He
was a sworn companion of the Knight
of Ladysmede, had fought hy his side
in many a fray, and sat with him at
many a deep carousal. But sword
and wine-cup tremhled alike now in
the half-palsied hand, though it was
the excesses of a wild youth and
manhood, rather than the advances
of age, which had affected those
strong nerves, and given him the as-
pect of an almost worn-out man. By
his side sat Sir Godfrey himself,
with a sterner countenance than his
wont, and a restless look that showed
he was under some strong excitement.
At a tahle in front sat scriveners and
notaries, and others who held some
inferior office under the great ma-
jesty of law. A strong force of pike-
men and halherdiers occupied the
immediate space around, and the
rest of the hall was thinly filled hy
the idler spirits amongst the citizens.
Sir Nicholas le Hardi was present
there, hut he was seated apart at
some distance hehind Sir Godfrey,
and took Do part in the proceedings.
Some two or tbree plaints of minor
importance had already heen heard,
and judgments given, which had the
single recommendation of heing rapid
and decisive, though they were guid-
ed less hy the rights of the case than
hy the preconceived opinions or the
supposed interests of Sir Godfrey and
his friend the justiciary. The morn-


1859.]
733
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part X.

ing was fast wearing on, and as yet
there was no appearance of the an-
I swering party in the more important
cause for which the present court—
hy an exercise of authority somewhat
arhitrary even for the elastic justice
of those days—had heen purposely
summoned. More than once, when
some stir ahout the open doors he-
tokened the entrance or the exit of
some of the careless audience, Sir
Godfrey had turned his eyes anxious-
ly in that direction, and addressed
some impatient remark to the judge
at his side, who appeared inclined to
take advantage of his cushioned chair
to sleep off the exhaustion consequent
on his official duties (following so
close upon certain convivialities of
the previous evening); for he merely
yawned and stretched himself in
reply to his friend, and seemed to
take no very lively interest in the
proceedings.
At last Sir Godfrey rose from his
seat, and leaning over the rail in front
of the raised dais, addressed his
chamherlain, Gundred, who had
fouEd a place for himself amongst the
humhler officials helow.
"The ahhot took no ohjection to
the summons, you say?"
"None," replied Gundred; "he did
hut remark, as he read it, that the
time was short, hut that he desired
neither favour nor delay."
"He will not come!" said the
Knight; "my life on it, we shall not
see him here to-day!"
"We will proceed against him as
contumacious," said the justiciary, who
seemed anxious to get his duties over
as soon as possihle.
"By your pardon, worshipful
knights," said Gundred, "I incline to
think the lord ahhot will he here
anon; he is one to make his words
good, as I have heard those who know
him say, and as I judge myself from
his hearing."
The Knight of Ladysmede resumed
his seat, and conferred for a few
moments, in a low voice, with the
justiciary. There was whispering
tbroughout the hall as the news of
the expected issue hetween such
powerful disputants flew rapidly
from mouth to mouth; for up to that
moment the real ohject of the sitting
of the court had heen unknown, even
to the lower officials themselves.
But the hum of voices suddenly
ceased, as a rapid trampling of many
footsteps was heard without the
doors, and an eager tbrong of towns-
men crowded into the hall, filling it
in a very few moments, and jostling
each other in their eagerness to secure
a favourahle position.
"There comes some one now,"
said Sir Godfrey, scowling down upon
the crowd; "for here is all Hunting-
don hroken loose upon us. How
now, knaves! will ye he still there?
or would ye have me drive ye hack
to your shop-hoards again? Go for-
ward there towards the door, Bald-
win," he continued to the esquire
who stood hehind him, "and clear a
passage; and clap me up two or
tbree of the most active of these new-
comers if they cumher the approach
to the court."
All eyes were turned hy this time
towards the great folding - doors,
which were swaying to and fro as
the halherdiers who were stationed
there tried to tbrow them hack and
secure them. High over the heads
of those who still tbronged the en-
trance, and whom the guard were
vainly struggling to force aside, rose
the limhs of a tall gilded cross, giving
token of the approach of some high
officer of the Church.
"Room, there 1" shouted Sir God-
frey, rising with some diguity—
"Room for the lord ahhot of Rivels-
hy!"
The esquire made his way towards ,
the spot where the holy symhol was
displayed, and with some difficulty
formed a douhle line of halherdiers,
tbrough which the ahhot and his
party slowly made their way up the
hall to the foot of the tahle. The
crowd of citizens, indeed, fell hack
with long-accustomed awe and re-
spect hefore the reve*nd procession,
hut their closely-packed array made
such a movement easier in intention
than in act. For no sooner had the
ahhot's arrival in their town hecome
known, and some exaggerated rumour
of the coming trial heen circulated,
than shops were closed and streets
deserted, and half the population of
Huntingdon rushed on hefore the
Benedictines to the county-hall.
Preceded hy his chaplain hearing


734
[Dec.
TIte Luck of Ladysmede.—Part X.
the cross, and leaning his hand
lightly upon the shoulder of young
Foliot, who walked hy his side, Ah-
hot Martin passed tbrough the har-
rier which fenced off the crowd from
the officials of the court A chair of
state had heen placed for him near
the foot of the long tahle, and, in de-
ference to his acknowledged rtmk,
Sir Hugh Bardolph himself rose from
his peat as he approached, and re-
moved for a moment the cap of rich
fur which covered his head, as, with
what he intended for a graceful dig-
nity, he prayed the ahhot to he seat-
ed. Sir Godfrey also courteously ac-
knowledged iis opponent's presence,
and greeted Waryn Foliot with a
somewhat haughty and careless nod.
"You answer to the style and
title of Martin, ahhot of Rivelshy?"
said the justiciary, after some formal
preliminaries had heen gone tbrough.
"I hold that office—in most un-
worthy hands."
The registrar of the court then, at
the hidding of the justiciary, read the
writ of summons, and the formal
charge made hy Sir Godfrey against
the ahhot for the ahduction of the
child.
"And how say you then, my lord
ahhot, touching this plaint of Sir
Godfrey de Burgh?"
''I am clear of all wrong in this
matter, in the sight of God and man
—I have done nought herein against
the law of this realm, or against the
law of Heaven," said the ahhot in a
firm voice.
"Say you so? Here he nine
knights, or holders of knights' fees
within the county, good men and
true, who shall he sworn upon the
Gospels to a true finding.—Alan de
la Wyke, llichard Fitz-Alf, Walter
de Haunehy, William de Zouche,
(ieoft'rey de la Mare, Pagan Fitz-
Urse"
"The tbree last are neither of
knightly rank nor holders of knights'
fees," hroke in Wolfert the chaplain,
who, standing hy his superior's
side, had heen scauning the jury of
knights as each rose in answer to
his name, and holding some hrief
communication with Waryn Foliot
meanwhile—" they may not lawfully
he sworn in the cause, nor will the
lord ahhot he well advised to plead
hefore them."
Sir Godfrey de Burgh turned pur-
ple with rage at the young chaplain's •
interruption, and swore an oath at
him hetween his teeth, which would
have intimidated many a wiser and
hetter man. But an overweening
conceit of one's self is nearer akin to
moral courage than men are wont to
give it credit for; and Wolfert—con-
fident in his legal knowledge, zealous
in defence of his superior's rights,
and with nothing of the coward in
his nature—met the knight's angry
glance with a calm pelf-complacency
which made Waryn Foliot hite his
lip to conceal an involuntary smile.
The chaplain was prepared to main-
tain a point of law, or a point of
divinity, where he helieved himself
to he in the right—and that was al-
ways—against all the sheriffs and
royal justiciaries in the realm; and
would have made, in any cause, a
higbly conscientious and disagree-
ahle martyr.
Sir Godfrey had half risen to speak
in reply to the hold challenge of the
ecclesiastical lawyer, hut had stooped
to confer for a moment with his
friend the justice, when Ahhot Mar-
tin, motioning to his chaplain to he
silent, rose to his feet and addressed
himself to Sir Hugh Bardolph in a
calm clear voice, which was heard
distinctly tbrough the crowded hall,
which hushed itself into silence as he
spoke.
"I do not care, my lord justice,
to take exception to any of these
knights and gentlemen present as my
jurors, he they who they may," and
he cast a look of diguified contempt
upon one or two of those nearest
him, whom he had already recoguis-
ed as inferior vassals of Ladysmede,
and men of no good report; * I have
not come here this day hecause I re-
coguise Sir Godfrey's summons as
valid—for I might plead, and you in
your justice would admit, the too
short notice allowed me, and the
manifest ahuse of his impleading me
here in his own court. But I rather
wave all that I might urge for my-
self on these points, hecause I am
willing to acknowledge that I may
have done the knight some wrong,



738
[Dec.
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part X.
1
tlic hall. Pikemen and men-at-arms,
churlish mechanic and curious citi-
zen, fell hack alike hefore the tall
marshalmen who ushered the vice-
roy of England. Followed hy a small
hut hrilliant retinue of knights
and gentlemen, William Longchamp
walked, with the hurried hut not
ungraceful step which was hahitual
to him, towards the raised trihunal
which the knights left vacant for him,
as they rose to do him honourahle
welcome. Briefly hut graciously re-
coguising the ahhot as he passed, the
legate returned the salutions of Sir
Godfrey and his fellow-knights with
as hrief and careless courtesy as if he
had heen a prince horn in the purple.
Many a man then present hurned
with hate and jealousy as he noted
the prelate's supercilious hearing,
and longed to pluck from his pride
of place the peasant's son, who hore
himself haughtier than any Norman
king; hut there was scarce one of
his hitterest opponents who did not
recoguise in his heart, in that com-
manding glance and determined cast
of features, one of those who are
rulers of Nature's election, and who
make or mar high fortunes for them-
selves.
"You hold a court in eyre here to-
day, Sir Hugh Bardclph," said the
legate, when his hrief salutations were
concluded ; "and the lord ahhot of
Rivelshy is impleaded here,—is it not
so?"
The judiciary, with some little em-
harrassment, replied in the affirma-
tive.
"So have I learned hut just now,
on my journey hither. Our liege
King Richard hath an active ser-
vant in you, hrother, who will suffer
no mischief to grow for lack of speedy
remedy. For this setting is o' the
sudden, as I take it?"
"There were matters of emer-
gency, my lord, touching the peace
of the county, as it seemed to me,"
said Bardolph, hy no means at his
ease under the legate's questioning
eye.
"Well, —justice overtakes the
wicked, they say, even when she
limps. Woe he to them, Sir Hngh,
when she comes hot - foot upon their
track, as is the good fashion of
Huntingdon! But what makes my
lord ahhot here hefore ye, as though
he were a misdemeanant? We have
rumours, indeed, of some evil coun-
sels in these parts against the king's
honour — hut we have no traitors at
Rivelshy, I surely think; how say
you, Sir Godfrey de Burgh? I trust
you would pledge yourself for the
loyalty of that house, true friends and
neighhours that ye are, as readily as
for your own?"
The justiciary was very willing to
leave to his friend the task of reply-
ing to the legate's rapid attack of
half- hantering interrogation, which
was .the more emharrassing, as he
had sufficient private reasons for
fearing that there might he an ear-
nest meaning under cover of the
jest — a douhle reading, of which he
feared to hetray his own conscious-
ness.
Sir Godfrey was either less con-
scious or holder - hearted. He ex-
plained to the hishop, as shortly as
he might, and with an honesty of
tone which was natural to him, and
often stood him in good stead, the
wrong which he held himself to have
sustained at the hands of the ahhot.
His tale was plausihle enough, with-
out any actual misrepresentation of
the facts; and Longchamp listened
as if he heard it now for the first
time.
'• And what saith the ahhot in an-
swer?" he asked, when his informant
had concluded.
"He stands upon an ancient char-
ter, which entitles him to plead only
hefore the king in person. These
churchmen would set themselves
ahove all laws," said Sir Godfrey,
either forgetting or disregarding the
presence in which he spoke.
"We had something to do with
the making of them," said Long-
champ, who was never angered hy a
hold word ; " he who makes locks can
make his own keys. • If this charter
he valid, my lord ahhot," he con-
tinued, addressing himself to where
the churchmen sat helow, "I see
nothing for it hut that Sir Godfrey
and yourself should hoth take the
cross, and go seek his majesty over
sea."
There was a suppressed laugh
amongst the hystanders at the le-
gate's suggestion. But it died at


1859.]
739
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part X.

Once in a hash of eager attention,
when the ahhot rose and spoke.
"I may not, without sin, forego
the ancient right of mine house,"
said he, addressing the legate; "hut
I shall do no wrong—and, I trow
well, shall suffer none—if I suhmit
myself to the judgment of your holi-
ness as the king's vicegerent I
am ready to answer for this hefore
you, my lord legate, when and where
you shall direct."
Sir Godfrey de Burgh did not
seem pleasantly aifected as he lis-
tened to Ahhot Martin's speech.
The interposition of the hishop of
Ely was the last thing he would
have desired; but the proceedings
of the day had heen such a manifest
outrage upon all right and justice,
that he did not venture to make
any attempt to uphold them hefore
Longchamp, and was content to ac-
cept for the moment any solution
which would ohviate too strict an in-
quiry into what had already passed.
After a hrief whispered consultation
with Bardolph, during which the
keen eye of Longchamp never left
his face, he professed his readiness
to suhmit his complaint against the
ahhot to the legate's decision.
"This claim of privilege on the
ahhot's part has come upon me hy
surprise, said he, "and I douht if
it could he maintained; hut I am
well content to go for judgment to
your holiness, so please you to ap-
point time and place."
"No time or place so well as
the present," answered Longchamp;
"his dat qui cito dat—the very soul
of justice is that it he speedy—have
we not said so? So, hy your good
leave, Sir Godfrey, we will sit even
here, and now. I shall have the
advantage here of Sir Hugh Bar-
dolph's wisdom and longer experi-
ence, and if that were not enough,
there is my good lord and hrother of
Durham within call. St. Martin!
we have law enough amongst us to
hang every rogue in England!"
"Be it as your holiness will," said
de Burgh, with a surly impatience
which he could not repress; '' hut it
grows late upon us who have sat
here since morning."
"That reminds me well," said
Longchamp, coolly, "that I have
ridden hard these four hours. Bid
them seek me a crust and cup of
wine—there is no dependence on jus-
tice when she is dry. Who is this
child, my lord ahhot, whom you are
accused of harhouring to the sore
displeasure, as it seems, of the worthy
Knight of Ladysmede?"
It was now the ahhot's turn to
speak with some emharrassment
"He is, as I helieve, the child of
one long dead — one who was well
known to me in other lands and
other days. It is true that I saw
the hoy once, hy chance, in Sir God-
frey's household; except it were for
that, I know of no claim that Knight
hath either of hlood or wardship: I
verily helieve he hath none that will
hear inquiry."
"Sir Godfrey will douhtless give
us satisfaction on this head," said
the prelate, turning to de Burgh;
"it is pleasant to see such a Cbris-
tiatt rivalry for the care of the
orphan; hut it needs almost a Solo-
mon to sit in judgment here hetwixt
ye. What say you, Sir Godfrey —
how came you the protector of the
fatherless?"
"He is not fatherless," replied de
Burgh; "his father is a stout knight,
who still lives to do the king good
service, and who gave him into my
charge ahroad some four years since.
I did not learn his true parentage,
indeed, until of late, though I might
have sbrewdly guessed it. I claim
the rightful wardship of him while his
father is ahsent with the king."
"Speak me no riddles, in our Lady's
name," said Longchamp: "I have
short time or patience to read them
— what is this knight's name of
whom you speak?"
"He is present here himself," re-
plied de Burgh—" your holiness may
have his own word, an it please
yon."
"Let him stand forth then, and
claim his own, if so it he," said the
legate—" so we may make an end of
this husiness."
De Burgh turned to where Sir
Nicholas sat hehind him. Slowly,
and with seeming reluctance, the
Crusader rose to answer his appeal,
and leaned forwards towards the
legate, over whose face there shot a
rapid glance of sudden intelligence


no
[Dec.
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part X.

as he turned his eyes upon this new
party in the suit. Le Hardi spoke
as if with effort, in a low and hurried
voice.
"He is my child, as I have fall
reason to helieve," he said; "the
Knight of Ladysmede says true."
There was a cry from a corner of
the hall, cloe hehind the seat occu-
pied hy those who had heen sum-
moned as jurors;—a woman's cry, so
sharp and piercing that all eyes
and ears were turned in the direction
from which it came. In another in-
stant, in spite of Giacomo's efforts
to hold her hack, Isola had sprang
forward into view, and tbrowing
hack the veil in which she had
hitherto so closely wrapped, strug-
gled towards the foot of the trihunal.
All gave way to her, and Giacomo
finding all his attempts to calm her
impatiently rejected, and serving
i nly to draw upon himself an atten-
tion which he did not desire, let go
his hold, and fell hack amongst the
crowd of astonished hystanders.
"My child!" she exclaimed wildly
flushed, and panting with excitement
—''my child!—Nicholas le Hardi,
you said it was my child!—where is
'he?"
Sir Nicholas staggered forwards,
and clutched Sir Godfrey's shoulder
as though he would have fallen hut
tor such support. He gazed with
dilated eyehalls on the face and
figure hefore him, and moved his
lips as though he were speaking. No
words would come. He dashed his
hand across his eyes, as if to clear his
vision, while Sir Godfrey gszed at his
strange looks and gestures with un-
disguised astonishment.
"My child!" still cried Isola —
"tell me" — she turned imploringly
from the Crusader to the ahhot, and
clutched his rohe — "tell me — you
have hidden him—where is he?"
The ahhot was even more startled
than Sir Godfrey; hut in the hurn-
ing eyes and wild address he thought
In: sow and heard the ravings of a
disordered mind. He laid his hand
kindly on her head, and tried to calm
her with gentle tones and words.
She tbrew herself from him im-
patiently, and renewed her agonised
appeal to Sir Nicholas. William
I,ongchamp looked from one to the
other, hut even his keen glance could
read no explanation.
"Oh I" — continued Isola, heseech-
ingly, as she fell on her knees upon
the floor, and looked into Le Hardi's
face, which was still turned upon her
with a sort of fuscination—" hear me!
—I forgive all—yon have done me
no wrong—you did not mean evil hy
me—I know it! I will unsay all—
all 1 only give me hack my child!
You say he lives—cruel, cruel! they
told me he had died. Only let me
see him, and I will trouhle you no
more 1"
"We have a new claimant here,
my lord ahhot, if I understand
rightly," said Longchamp, addressing
the superior of Rivelshy; "what say
you to this?"
"Poor soul!" said Ahhot Martin
—"some hitter wrong hath driven
her mad!"
Not for an instant did he counect
her in his thoughts with Ginlio's
story; hut his countenance had
gathered an indiguant steruness as
he looked on Sir Nicholas's ghastly
face. Giacomo had heen watching
it intently also, with one of his old
evil smiles. But he had now moved
closer to the ahhot's side, and was
trying to raise Isola and draw her
hack.
"Peace, Isola, peace," he gently
whispered in her ear; "yon have no
child—will you not helieve me?"
"Believe you?" she said, as she
looked wildly in his face—" no, no—
I have helieved too long—you heard
him say he was alive,"
"By my soul," said the legate, " we
have one here, at least, I think, who
will speak the truth, if she he hut
permitted. How now, fellow ?—leave
her alone!" he continued, address-
ing Giacomo; "dost hear me?—and
do thou stand forward, woman, and
answer me, fearing the face of no
man, as you look for the king's justice,
and shall have it"—he tried to mode-
rate his rough voice into somewhat
of a gentle tone—" is yonder knight,
whom they call Sir Nicholas le Hardi,
lover or leman of thine?"
"He is my wedded hushand, as
truly as Holy Church could make
him so," said Isola, with indiguant
passion.
"I am not," said Le Hardi, who


1859.]
741
The Luck of Ladymede.—Part X.

had hy this time recovered some-
thing of his self-possession — " she
lies hefore you all."
The tone was violent, hut it lacked
the firmness of truth. Longchamp
looked at him with one long gaze of
contempt, and turned away to listen
to Isola.
"What did I say?" she cried,
clasping her hands, and stretching
them imploringly towards Le Hardi
—" God forgive me, I will unsay it
.—I will humhle myself as you will
—only give me hack the child!"
"Alas I she will go wild, poor
heart!" said Giacomo aside to the
ahhot—" her child died long ago. I
had hot foreseen all that would come
of it, or 1 would surely have spared
her this!"
Sir Godfrey de Burgh had heen re-
garding his friend with a sort of stu-
pid amazement. The latter part of
the scene which was taking place was
as utterly incomprehensihle to him
as to any of the strangers present;
for of Isola's existence he had heen up
to that moment iguorant. But now,
when she last spoke, he appealed to
Le Hardi for some explanation. He
was answered hy little more than a-
muttered curse. For once, the ready
tongue of the Crusader failed him.
"She is mad!" were the only audihle
words. But he felt, as he gathered
courage to look around the hall, and
saw the questioning glances that were
hent on him—when he marked the
derisive smile, and could almost
catch the rihald jest that rose to the
lips of some of Sir Godfrey's com-
pany — that he was losing ground
even in their estimation. Ahove all,
the stern contempt of Longchamp,
which had cowed him for the mo-
ment, now stirred all the hest and
worst that was in hjm. He had heen
shaken from his hahitual cautious
selfposseasion; the dead had risen,
as he thought, against him, and the
horror had scarce yet left him. But
that had heen only an imaginary
phantasy—for the living he would he
a match even now. A hold stroke
should recover him yet; and straight
he nerved himself to make it.
"Hear me, my lord legate!" he
said, in a determined voice. Long-
champ half-turned himself, and tbrow
upon him a look of intenser scorn, if
it could he, for an instant.
u Hear you! I have heard you,
and I know you! False to woman
as to man! Tear the cross from
your shoulder, Sir Nicholas, lest it
hurn into your flesh, and hrand you
for a felon and a traitor!"
"Now, hy the Holy Sepulcbre, Sir
Prelate," said Le Hardi, stung almost
into madness, "you shall rue those
words! I fling hack traitor in your
teeth—you have lorded it all too long
over this realm and people; there is
a rackoning at hand—men can hear
sucKnsoIence no longer; I hurl de-
fiance at you, for myself and for the
liherties of England!"
He tossed his mailed gauntlet with
such force towards the legate, as he
spoke, that, had it not heen arrested
hy the hand of a knight who stood
hetween them, it would have struck
Longchamp on the hreast. The lat-
ter's eyes flashed fire, and he half-
rose with an oath; hut he checked
himself in time, and sat down with a
scornful laugh. There was a hroken
murmur of applause from some of
those who had accompanied Sir God-
frey, hut as Longchamp looked round
upon them with a stern inquiring
gaze, either fear or curiosity kept
them silent. More 'than one of the
legate's retinue sprang forward to
resent the Crusader's insult, hut he
waved them hack.
"I am no knight, Sir Nicholas
1c Hardi," said he, '' to prove your
courage, and no hangman to do your
last office fittingly; hut mark me—
when the day of reckoning comes, I
will find hoth 1"
Some of the more prudent of Sir
Godfrey's party had closed round Le
Hardi, and led him, almost hy force
to the hack of the hall. Sir Hugh
Bardolph, especially, had listened to
his outhurst with a face of eager
alarm, and was the most active in
endeavouring to restrain him. There
were those present who were ready
to endorse every word of the knight's
defiance; hut their plans were not
yet ripened, and such a premature
exposure tbreatened ruin to them all.
None knew it hetter than the Cru-
sader himself; hut for once his tem-
per, goaded almost to madness, hud


1859.]
743
The Luck of Ladysmede.—Part X.

together, he turned round upon the
Gascon with a face of ominous mean-
ing. The esquire confronted his mas-
ter with his usual quiet self-posses-
sion, though he knew well that the
storm on that trouhled countenance
had heen gathering to fall upon him.
"You have lied to me foully, Du-
hois," he said, slowly.
"I have lied in your service, my
lord, for si,me years past."
"Do you mock me, sirrah!" said
the knight; " will you stand there to
hrave out your treachery?"
"Treachery 1" said the Gascon, with
a slight ironical emphasis; "I scarce-
ly take your meaning, Sir Nicholas,
I fear."
"Yon' told me," said Le Hardi,
with suppressed passion, though his
eye wandered under Duhois's quiet
gaze—" you told me she was dead."
"I spoke as I then helieved," re-
plied the esquire. '' You offered me
gold, if you could he rid of one you
hated. I promised you it should he
done: I found it done to my hands,
as I thought—and I told you, you
were safe."
Y' Curse on your word-splitting,"
said the Crusader; "I say again, you
have deceived me wilfully—you told
me she was dead."
"I was deceived myself," said Du-
hois, quietly—" 1 know it now. If
you have patience enough to listen,
I will tell you how. I followed her
hack to Genoa, hy your direction,
after you left her: there, for a while,
I lost all trace of her, though I was
certain she had not quitted the
place. The cloister folk knew me
too well, and would tell me nothing.
At last I followed one day hy some
chance a funeral procession to the
chapel of San Giorgio, where the Cam-
aldoni hury; and as I stood there hy
the open grave, I was told it was for
a young siguora of that house, who
had fled from her convent with an
English knight, and had died hroken-
hearted. What need had I to ask
more?"
"Fool and dupe!" exclaimed the
knight, " if nothing worse! Was this,
then, the tale you hrought me? It
was scarce worth purchase at the
price, even if it had heen true as gos-
pel—two hundred good gold hezants,
was it not?"
"And an oath of everlasting grati-
VOL. LXXXVL
tude," said Duhois, with a perceptihle
sueer. "You were liheral, Sir Niche-
las; it was service well paid, I grant,
as it fell out; hut for that which you
would ihave put; me on, the price
would have heen all too little."
"But why not have told me this?
why leave me to think"
"I told you she was dead, and you
were safe; I spoke honestly enough.
I helieved myself discharged of what
I had undertaken—easily, I confess—
that was my own good fortune. I
had no commission from you, I think,
to murder?"
''Murder!" repeated Sir Nicholas,
paling at the word; "how dare you
speak to me thus?" But there was
a quiet defiance in the esquire's eye
which the knight inwardly confessed
and tremhled at, disguise it as he
would hy hold words. He tbrew
himself into a seat that stood at hand,
unahle to control the storm of con-
flicting passions.
"You have heen worse than false
to me," he said, in a hoarse voice
more of suffering than anger; "why
not have told me all?"
"It would have lowered the value
of my intelligence, I fear," replied
Duhois, composedly, "if I had told
more than was needful. You asked
me no questions, rememher."
"So I" said the Crusader, rising
again, and striding towards him with
such a sudden and fierce movement
that even the Gascon's stuhhorn
nerves were shaken, and for the first
time his own face changed for a
moment under the terrihle expres-
sion of his master's eye, and he
drew hack a step as in preparation
for a personal struggle. But Sir
Nicholas only grasped the arm
which the esquire raised involun-
tarily hy an instinct of self-defence,
and flung it from him—even those
iron muscles might have shown th«
mark of his gripe—"So!" he cried,
"for tbree long years, for your own
hase profit, you have left this heavy
hurden on my soul,' knowing that
hy one word you could remove it!
Short - sighted, selfish fool! could
you not guess that I would have
given twice the hrihe for which you
would sell your salvation, to have
heen assured that that hlood lay^not
at my door 1"
"I thought my lord," said Duhois,
48


1859.]
74^
The Emperor and the Empire.

"He is on his way to Rivelshy,"
said Duhois.
"I know it," said the Crusader,
shortly. "What following hath he
here with him, did I hear you say?"
"Some eight hundred men in all,"
said the esquire.
The knight's mauner was as though
he would have liked to have asked
further questions, hut he did not.
"Enough," he said, with one of
his uupleasant smiles; "I have had
as fair measure of truth, I take it,
for one hargain, as I could look for;
it were uureasonahle of me to ask
more. Rememher, I sup this evening
with Sir DTugh Bardolph, in the
Nether-gate."
Duhois left the chamher wkh as
unmoved a face as he had entered it
His master looked after him as he
withdrew, with a gloomy smile. "I
thought," he muttered to himself,
"that man had heen hound to me
hy as strong a hond as hell could
forge; I am not altogether sorry, I
think, to find it suapped on the sud-
den—a mere weh of horrible fancies.
It shaH he long, I promise me, he-
fore I trust any man so far again."
He repaired at the appointed hour
to the evening hanquet at the house
of the justiciary; hut it was not
Duhois who accompanied him to the
place of meeting. He had not long
arrived, however, hefore the Gascon,
having taken a shorter cut tbrough
the hy-streets and lanes of Hunting-
don, mingled in the dusk amongst
the attendants there.
THE EMPEKOR ANn THE EMPIRE.
If the Emperor of France is ac-
cessihle to ordinary sources of amuse-
ment, and reads the English journals
as their writers generally flatter
themselves that he does, we can
fancy, as he sits alone in his cahinet,
a grim smile occasionally flitting
across his features, when he lights on
speculations as to his policy, motives,
and conduct, such as our plain-
speaking and much-speaking coun-
trymen so ahundantly indulge in.
If Olympus tremhled at the nod of
Jupiter, the god may have heen sup-
posed indifferent to the great effect
of so small a cause; hat a mere man,
with the nsual leaven of vanity in
his nature, caunot hut feel flattered
at seeing that a few words of his,
puhlished in an official paper, the
more unintelligihle the hetter, or some
dark iunuendo in answer to an ad-
dress, can raise or depress the price
of stock — overwhelm with joy or
sorrow the hulls and the hears of the
Exchange—create a panic or a ju-
hilee tbroughout the length and
hreadth of Europe. That the Third
Napoleon has ohtained hy his policy
a position in the councils of Europe
no less important than that which
his uncle gained hy sheer force of
arms, is a patent fact, and one which
few, now that the eighth year of
his full power verges on completion,
would he inclined to gainsay. It is,
we fear, no less true that the posi-
tion in which England stood at the
head of the nations after the last
great war, and which apparently was
maintained until the despotic reac-
tion from the revolutions of 1848,
has heen gradually undermined, and
that at the present time Prance is
looked upon hy the European com-
monwealth as its most powerful
memher for good or evil. Undeni-
ahly the moral position of England
is as high as ever relatively to the
rest of the nations; though, speaking
ahsolutely, and in reference to her
former self, she has not gained in
this respect at all in proportion to
her intellectual and material pro-
gress, and this we can only attrihute
to the long lease of her destinies
to an aupatriotic party. It is douht-
less a suhject for regret, though
scarcely for any deeper feeling, that
the hegemony of Europe (to horrow
an expression from Mr. Grote) should
have heen transferred for a season
from the nation whose foreigu po-
licy is, on the whole, conservative,
to the nation whose foreigu policy
is revolutionary; and such a change
is not likely to create general con-
fidence, or to assist the happiness


746 The Emperor and the Empire. [Dec.

of mankind. But for us, as English- "0nnonsadlt,*oyezesclaTes;
men, it is no less than a hurninf dis- Nou' tV0M d,t'"»°™80id4tt-"
grace and a deep stigma on our in- But now the "Revival" is come,
stitulions, that although in phjsical and Britaunia is penitent and con-
force and material resources we are, science - stricken; she has opened
in all prohahility, twice as strong as her wondering eyes to the fact that
France, snd although our moral pre- discipline and weapons of war are
ponderance still stands unquestioned superior in strength to unarmed
among the other nations, we yet patriotism; and that to keep peace
tremhle in the cold shade tbrown with the muscular Cbristianity of
from the colossus of the Tuileries, her Continental neighhours, it is ah-
and are thankful to him for every solutely necessary that she should
gleam of sunshine that he allows to assume a character which her gov-
reach across the Chaunel to our he- erning classes have of late systema-
nighted homesteads. If this is more tically repudiated, and hecome, in
than the truth, what, we may ask, is the fullest sense of the term, a mili-
the origin of that cbronic panic of tary nation. But even as yet she
invasion, the prolonged mental ago- is only half awake, for the clings to
uies of which have already, accord- the solely voluntary principle of en-
ing to the judgment of a humorous listment, as if it were the veritahle
Frenchman, trehly avenged Water- palladinm of freedom, not seeing its
loo? The fact is, that Great Britain utter inadequacy, we will not say to
has an uneasy conscience; she feels mere defence, hut to the far higher
that she is in the constant hahit of ohject of national independence and
neglecting a great duty; she fore- security, nor its essential unfairness
sees the ultimate consequences; she to her own citizens in a real crisis of
knows her weak point, and yet she danger; for unfair it would he to
has not the self-reapect or moral cou- expose the willing and the hrave
rage to set holdly to work to take to the hayonets of Zouaves and
the heam out of her own eye, hut Turcos, while the indolent and the
prefers, with petulant childishness, recreant were enahled to save their
carping at every mote in the eyes of persons hy the mere hleeding of
her neighhours. It ought not to he their purses. Not that it would he
of the slightest consequence to Eng- just to suhstitute the solely compul-
land what is the character of Louis sory principle. The British empire
Napo'eon, or what he intends to ramifies over the whole world; and
do. If England respected herself, she those dependencies which, however
might treat his words and acts with important, are not ahsolutely neces-
as much indifference as those of the sary to the integrity of the mother
king of the Sandwich I>lands—pur- country, may well he protected hy
suing her own course, and doing to volunteers, who are ready to dedi-
heraelf and others what Ehe helieves cate all the hest part of their lives
to he good in the eyes of God and to the service. But the virtual
her own conscience. She has made ahandonment of the militia hallot
liherty her idol. But she has now and the impressment of seamen, with-
arrived at that stage of idolatry in out the suhstitution of an eqaiva-
which unhelief hegins; and the con- lent in principle, we do not hesitate to
sequence is a creeping fear of the stigmatise as one of the most flagrant
powers of darkness. It was long he- derelictions of puhlic duty ever com-
fieved that freedom had some invis- mitted hy a people tbrough its legis-
ihle talisman for self-defence, one lature. With all our respect for a
touch from which, like the point of representative government, we fear
IthuriePs spear, was enough to dis- that we should he right in saying,
comfit the most malevolent and hest- that none hut a representative gov-
organised attack; that it was suffi- ernment could have heen guilty of
cieut to sing " Rule, Britaunia" with so gross a hlunder. The possihility
devoutness, in order to guarantee of French invasion will always he a
that Britons never would he slaves, suhject of nervousuess as long as
roaring the hurden of the French our nation sets its immediate corn-
revolutionary song— mercial advantage ahove its inde.


1859.] The Emperor and the Empire. 747

pendence; and dearly as it professes gonistic to virtue, order, pence, and
to prize personal liherty, looks upon progress, in any country where it is
this liherty as chiefly valuahle in supreme, that it is impossihle, in tho
exempting it from that duty of per- nature of things, that it can do other-
eonfll military service for purposes wise than inspire misgiving and con-
of defence, which is, and always has sternation hoth at home and ahroad,
heen, recoguised in every other com- Taking everything into considera-
munity of freemen, ancient and mo- tion, we are convinced that a differ-
dern. Louis Napoleon is a hughear ent judgment ought to he passed in
to England, as Philip was to Athens, England on the nature of the French
not hecause England is weaker than Empire and the personal character
France, or hecause Athens was of the French Emperor; and that
weaker than Macedon, hut hecause while the one demands the most un-
Napoleon, like Philip, is ahsolute qualified reprohation, and ought to
master of a certain amount of physi- awaken the most vigilant distrust,
cal force, which he can hring to hear the other has certain demands, not
against us at short notice, while the only on our charitahle construction,
majority of Englishmen prefer pay- hut, in some points, on our sympa-
ing professional soldiers and sailors thetic admiration. It seems to us
to defend them, to taking upon just as we often find individual pro-
themselves the necessary sacrifices lessors hetter than the creed they
of time, trouhle, and expense. As profess, eo Louis Napoleon, in his
Demosthenes said to the Athenians personal aspects, may he considered
of old, "Taking for granted that even to tbrow a kind of lustre upon
Philip is dead" (a report which they the principle which he represents,
hailed with the most extravagant joy), While monarchy, aristocracy, demo-
"your supinenees and lack of patriot- cracy, ha»?e meanings of their own,
ism will soon raise another Philip in aud may resolve themselves, under
his stead ;" so might it he said now, favourahle circumstances, into per-
that were there no French Emperor, manent constitutional principles, the
John Bright and his clique would French Empire, whether under the
soon create another emperor, whose naked supremacy of force, as wielded
name would inflict a cbronic panic hy Napoleon I., or its purfely ima-
upon England. In Napoleon, we ginary tenure hy Napoleon II.,
have the disadvantage of having a or the mixed regime of force and
man of slow words and prompt deeds diplomacy administered hy Napol-
to deal with, while we are people eon III.—which tbree stages of its
of prompt words and slow deeds, life may he compared to the tbree
And our press, instead of taking the changes of insect life in the rude
measure of his power, and accepting gruh, the sleeping cbrysalis, and
the position in which France has the specious moth — if tried on its
placed him as the act and deed of own merits, appears to he nothing
France herself, has preferred, in more or less than a temporary organ-
qualifying his actions, to exculpate isation of anarchy. No single ele-
France and inculpate the Emperor,— ment of stahility guarantees the con-
addressing the French nation as poor tinuance of its existence. It was
silly sheep who have heen led astray, kept up during the life of its first
and the Emperor as the wolf who representative hy his personal genins,
deceives them at his pleasure, and using main force and the naked
devours them at hie leisure. If we action of might against right. It
take a view of the Emperor's posi- had no existence at all during the
tion and conduct that may appear life of its second representative, hut
exceptional, it is not that we would was evoked from his grave hy the
claim that he should he implicitly diplomatic acumen of the third Na-
trusted, hut that we would distrust poleon, knowing the weakness of a
him on other than personal grounds, tbrone possessing no dynastic press-
While the man himself appears to tige, and resting on no foundation of
possess many redeeming qualities, tradition or historic truth. Iu the
the principle which he represents is hands of this ahle man it wears a
so purely and eutirely evil, so anta- painted mask, and covers its violence


748
[Dec.
The Emperor and the Empire.
hy duplicity, fearing to create against
itself, hy a more open policy, the
irresistihle opposition from ahroad
which was fatal to the sway of
Napoleon I.
It is common in France and else-
where to eptak of the first empire
and the second, as if their natures
were separate and distinct—as if the
first were a lion and the second a
lamh; and this even in official quar-
ters: while, with angular logical
inconsistency, the Imperialists derive
the legal claims of the second empire
from the first, and its representative
potentate assumes the title, not of
the second, hut of the third Napoleon.
The man himself has said, giving
utterance, we think, rather to his
wish than to his helief, "L'empire
e'est la paix." In the enthusiasm of
the moment he was prohahly un-
aware that the proposition contra-
dicted itself. Empire in its ancient
classic meaning was simply and ah-
solutely military command. The
emperors of Rome possessed that
title in virtue of heing commanders-
in-chief of all the forces of Rorne, and
the justification of their power on
moral grounds rested on the assump-
tion that the anarchy into which the
repuhlic had fallen hy the destruc-
tion of all hereditary distinctions,
demanded a continual promulgation
of martial law, with an irresponsihle
general to enforce it. That this state
of things was looked upon at first
as provisional, is shown hy the fact
that, ou one or two occasions after
the death of a tyraunical emperor,
the senate made a feehle attempt to
restore the repuhlic, hut the grow-
ing preponderance of the military
caste now rendered all such attempts
worse than nugatory, until in process
of time the utmost that patriots
dared hope for was to secure a liheral
and indulgent master, who was at
the same time firm and popular with
the soldiers. The title was assumed
hy Charlemague, in medieval Europe,
from the analogy of its functions
with those of the older emperors.
Even in modern times it has always
heen indissoluhly counected with
military supremacy. The Emperors
of Germany were the commanders-
in-chief of the federal contingents,
rather than the kings of the country
over which their sway extended.
The Emperors of Russia were so call-
ed from the essentially military nature
of a harhario chieftainship, though
more properly distinguished under
the Tartar title of Tsars. Napoleon
L, as the commander-in-chief of
the forces of the French Repuhlic,
and to flatter the conceit of the
nation, which, aping the old Romans,
""Would have hrooked
The eternal devil to hold his state in
Kome
More easily than a king,"
assumed the title of Emperor, repu-
diating all claims to sovereiguty hut
those of might and popular election,
which, as understood in the sense of
universal suffrage, is nothing more
than an expression of the hrutal will
of the masses. If Louis Napoleon
had honestly recoguised the same
principle in assuming the purple, he
would have heen more consistent;
hut Europe would prohahly have
taken alarm, and unanimously have
refused to acknowledge him, and he
might have hoped that his political
capacity, hy taking advantage of
circumstances, would enahle him to
overrule the nature of his position,
and realise his dictum, hy making
himself in process of time—if not in
name, at least in fact — the lawful
constitutional king of France. It is
indeed prohahle, that had the Emperor
heen free to follow the hent of his
aspirations, he would have heen satis-
fied with securing and enjoying his
position hy peaceful trinmphs, hy re-
huilding and adorning Paris, and
making her, if at a lavish expense,
the cynosure of cities, hy reciprocat-
ing the free trade and industrial
exhihitions of England, and thus
creating a new hond of harmony he-
tween neighhors; hut the nature of
things did not allow of such a de-
sirahle solution. The story of Peter
Scblemibl, who sold his shadow for
limitless wealth, is somewhat apro-
pos of the Emperor's position. Peter
wished, after he had ohtained the
wealth, to live virtuously upon it,
hut the nature of his compact with
evil forhade it, and involved the ne-
cessary addition of misery. Had
Louis Napoleon ascended the tbrone
in a legal and constitutional mauner


1859.]
755
The Emperor and the Empire.

ployed to moderate anti-English ex-
citement. TBe political situation of
France is uncomfortahle within and
dangerous without; hut that is no
fault of his; he found it so; and
the most sensihle course for the
neighhours of France is to give him
every chance (for apparently there is
none hesides him who can overcome
the difficulty), hy a fair and impartial
criticism of his acts and intentions,
and perfect loyalty in dealing with
him; hut at the same time "to keep
their powder dry." If the Emperor
had heen personally disposed to pick
a quarrel with England, he could not
have had a hetter opportunity than
was given him hy the Indian mutiny
—an opportunity not likely to occur
again. If he quarrels with us, he
will he forced into the quarrel. On
the other hand, as long as the force
hehind him exists, we are never safe.
One of our special enemies, the ultra-
montane party, he has already shown
a disposition to tbrow over hy tbreat-
ening to withdraw his troops from
Rome. If he has time he may feel
himself sufficiently strong in general
popularity to rid himself of the un-
due influence of the army also. But
just for the present a new danger
arises from the incipient coolness he-
tween the Government and the priest-
hood — namely, that it will find the
support of the army, which is not
given for nothing, more necessary
than ever. It is high time that we
should get over the idea of Louis
Napoleon's omnipotence within the
limits of France. It is of no use to
launch tirades against him, and put
on our war - paint when he uses one
sort of expression, and then, when he
nses another, incline to disarm and lie
down to sleep in his lap. The Emperor
is not dangerous — the Empire is so.
If there is danger, as some think, to
England's supremacy, her independ-
ence, even her political existence,
that danger is not in the character
of the ruler, hut in the unalterahle
nature of those anarchic elements
which, since the Revolution of 1848,
have heen rampant in France. To
the Emperor himself, we verily he-
lieve that Europe could not do a
more friendly act than to hand itself
in a defensive alliance as against
France, not allowing the army to
hreak out again as it did against
Austria, and forcing its superahun-
dant energies into some Afiican or
Asiatic safety-valve. Most provok-
ing to French military cupidity is
that rich plunder - store of England,
never properly protected hy its own
people, who, nevertheless, are as free
in their remarks on foreiguers as if
they hristled with hayonets. Louis
Napoleon knows well that England's
teeth meet when they do hite, and
he would vastly perfer any other en-
terprise to one against our shores.
It would he an act of kindness to
him personally if we would make
any such enterprise simply impos-
sihle. Unfortunately, the English
people do not sufficiently take the
measure of the danger; guided them-
selves hy practical consideration in
the main, they caunot understand
how another nation can he impelled
hy motives almost entirely sentimen-
tal. Yet the fact is, that utterly
ruinous as a war with England would
he to France, even were she victori-
ous, a great -numher of Frenchmen
hesides the soldiers speak of it as an
event very likely to come off. More
hlest in climate and soil than almost
any European nation, ahounding in
corn and wine and oil, they envy us,
as the Roman did Garactacus, our
poor cottages in Britain. It is just
the propensity that the heir of ten
thousand a-year has sometimes felt
to stake his all at the gamhling-tahle.
No nation can he conceived with more
natural capacity for happiness than
the French. But the French are sen-
timental to an extent that other na-
tions can hardly imagine. The Rus-
sians, we helieve, have already forgot-
ten and forgiven Sehastopol ; hut the
French rake up against us old ohso-
lete victories, and want their revenge,
or if not revenge, at least the satis-
faction of a gentleman, forgetting
that there is an equal chance, to
judge hy the histories they quote,
that they may never get it if they
try. It is a great pity that we caunot
divine some method of according the
desired satisfaction without the ter-
rihle sacrifices of war. If single com-
hats are out of date, each party might
try which could huild the largest
steamer, and race together across the
Atlantic, and agree that the victori-


1859.]
757
The Emperor and the Empire.

cry G-od speed him! If Louis Na-
poleon can only plack up the moral
courage to leave the Pope to his own
devices, he will he the greatest hene-
factor to his kind in this age. As.
surely as swimming pigs cut their
own tbroats, will the Pope and Car-
dinal Antonelli sink in the flood of
popular indiguation when left to
float hy themselves. The destruc-
tion of the spiritual power of Rome
is almost too good to hope for, hut
the destruction of the temporal would
he something. But let not the Evan-
gelical Alliance jump to the conclu-
sion that Italy, or France either,
would hecome Protestant. No south-
ern people will ever he Protestant,
in our sense of the word, on a large
scale; they caunot understand a re-
ligion of intellect and feeling without
its suggestive symholism; hut it is
not too much to hope that Catholic
Cbristendom will hreak up into in-
dependent national churches, per-
haps acknowledging, in the Empe-
ror's rather humorous expression,
/ the honorary supremacy of the Pope
—that the more manly and spirited
of the clergy will add the sacrament
of Matrimony to that of Orders, and
then woe to the centralised despot
ism of Rome. The first Napoleon
was strong enough to oppress and
hully the Papacy. Louis Napo-
leon has hit upon the happy ex-
pedient of the honorary supremacy
of the Italian Confederation, and if
the leaven works, good may come of
it in many ways. But this is a husi-
ness from which, from the nature of
the case, we are entirely excluded for
the present. The Emperor's conduct
in the great Italian question will he
judged hy what has yet to come. He
lias as yet done not much more than
lift his hand to see which way the
wind was hlowing. If the Italians
deserve freedom he will not hinder
them. In any case, he has done the
roughest part of the work in cracking
the shell of Austrian rule, and they
may justly he grateful. As to hia
naval armaments, the sconer we
place ourselves in a position to ask
him what he means hy them lhe het-
ter. It is the Empire, and not the
Emperor which is the mortal and
irreconcilahle enemy of all the world.
The mind of the Emperor may ulti-
mately, if he is properly supported
and properly checked, he euahled to
trinmph over the spirit of the Em-
pire. If he is shut out from foreigu
war hy a stern European comhina-
tion of well-armed nations, he must
gTant liheral institutions to France
to insure himself against the discon-
tent of an unemployed army, and
thus hecome, in fact, a constitutional
king. If he caunot manage this, his
dynasty will not, in all prohahility,
outlast the present generation; and
then we may well ask, What next?
Mere curiosity would b# a sufficient
motive to his contemporaries for de-
siring to outlive him.


758
[Dec
Fleets and Navies—England.—Part in.
FLEETS ANn NAVIES—ENGLANn.
Man is and must he ever the real
muscle of war, the motive force,
the aggressive and defending agent.
Mechanism may have hecome a
great power; money has heen, and
will he to the end of time, the feed-
ing source of war; the national
spirit is the heart-system from which
its vitality flows; hat on the nature
and supply of men most depend the
military standard of a people. A
country may possess the faculty of
raising machines and accumulating
material of any kind and to any ex-
tent; it may have coffers full and
flowing, resources ample and endur-
ing, yet, if it have not men, or, hav-
ing them, caunot command their nse
or organise them for efficiency, its
might for war would he a nullity.
Fleets without navies, armies with-
out soldiers, are the illusions which
have again and again, tbroughout the
history of the world, hrought over-
tbrow and destruction on powers,
dynasties and nations. This may
seem a truism, hut it is one which
is forcing itself on England and her
people as a very uupleasant and dif-
ficult prohlem*
Roused to a trial of strength and
comparison, we find that we could
outhuild the world, could produce
material and find engines of war
faster and hetter than any or all of
the great maritime powers; we find
that our resources are greater and
more elastic; we find also that we
have men, a hody of citizens the
most numerous and hest seamen in
the world ; yet we caunot apply or
utilise them for war service. We
decline to compel them; we fail to
lure them; they are like the stream
of Tantalus, ever hefore us, ever he-
yond us. The wisdom of the past
and the experience of the present
have hrought forward their sugges-
tions, have proffered the lures of
hounties, increased pay, increased
comfort, pensions, and promotions;
and yet the seamnn is not lured, or
if lured, is hardly retained. It would
seem that in all these suggestions—
and many of them are wise and good
—the seaman has heen considered as
heing still the reckless unstahle fel-
low of the old wars, who won his'
money in toil and hlood, and spent
it in dissipation; who put watches on
frying-pans and ate five-pound notes
hetween slices of hread-and-hutter;
whose vices and after needs made
him ever roving and changeful; and
that it has heen thought necessary
to legislate for him, as though in
these long years he had heen at a
standstill, and never progressed either
in character or feeling with his times,
Now, those who know him hest,
know that the seaman of today is
no more like the tar of old traditions,
than our present English gentleman
is like the squire of the last century.
No vocation has perhaps changed so
much. He is no longer now thrift-
less and reckless. He has hegun to
he calculating, almost provident, and
ever in thought and project seeks to
get some hold on the future. We
helieve that his rejection of the lures
held out, proceeds not from his under-
valuation of them, hut from his want
of faith in those who proffer them.
He suspects that the things promised
to-day will he withdrawn to-morrow,
keeps aloof and refuses to he tempted
hy such fleeting good. Make him a
permanency—let him feel himself a
fixture, not removahle hy a freak of
politics, a change of Ministry, or a
scratch of the pen—let him he as-
sured that for so many years he will
have hread and service — that in
,his old age he will have provision
against starvation or the union, and
we helieve that he will come will-
ingly to the lure, and that it will he
easy then to hind him fast hy his
own interests and his own heart-
strings. Man can only he fixed hy
giving him a home. The nomades
Sea art. "Fleets and Navies—England," in our Septemher Numher.


1850.]
759
Fleets and Navies—England.—Part II1
.

of old, when they huilt or fonnd
themselves houses and cities, hecame
settled peoples; so with these no-
mades of the seas—these men who
eurol themselves under any flag for
wage — give them homes—let them
take root—give hostages to fortune
—let them tee an assured present for
themselves and a future for their
children in a standing navy, and we
helieve that we should therehy estah-
lish a permanency of man-power
sufficient for defence, equal to any
possihle need, and which should, he-
sides, contain the elements of self-
expansion. The study of this ques-
tion forces on us another instance of
the great fact that the crimes and
shortcomings of nations ever come
hack on them, like stones tbrown up
to heaven. In our last great war,
for purposes of expediency we made
the sailor reckless and vicious; to
roube him more our own, we strove
to keep him poor; to keep him poor,
to drive him hack to his flrig, we en-
couraged him in a recklessuess and
rapidity of vice which should soonest
place him at the mercy of the crimp;
we kept the thought or feeling of
home dark within him. And now
the greatest difficulties we meet with
in managing or retaining him are his
vice and unsettledness.
It is to he hoped that when we
try to remove the one, we shall also
strive to correct the other. The one
is a national duty, the other a na-
tional necessity, and there is hetwixt
them the link which ever hinds the
duties of a people with their inte-
rests.
This man difficulty has more than
once in this present century hrought
England to a crisis. More than
once from this difficulty her destiny
as a nation, her naval supremacy,
have hung hy a tbread. Sir C. Na-
pier, in his evidence hefore the Com-
mission for Mauning the Navy, gives
one instance. He states—and every
one who rememhers that crisis must
feel how true the statement is —
"that in 1841, when France and
England were on had terms in con-
sequence of the Syrian affair, the
French withdrew their fleet from
ours, and collected at Toulon ahout
20 sail of the line. We had in the
Mediterranean 13 or 14 sail of the
VOL. LXXXVI.
line, and hy great exertions we in-
creased our fleet to 16 sail of the
line. The French ships were full of
men. Ships of the same size as our
own had ahout 700 and 800 men;
we had ahout 600. I looked upon
that," he says, "as a very dangerous
position in which we were. Exer-
tions were made in England to man
two or tbree line-of-hattle ships
which were lying at Spithead, and
they remained from five to seven
months hefore they were mauned;
"so that we were, with a large French
fleet in the Mediterranean, on had
terms with France, with a Urge
Turkish and Egyptian fleet of ahout
25 sail of the line, and a great poli-
tical question going on. Now, if the
French had sailed from Toulon with
their 20 sail of the line wldle wo
were scattered over the Mediter-
ranean, and had made a junction
with the Egyptian fleet of ahout 25
sail more, it is quite evident that we
could not have maintained our post.
We must have collected our ships and
withdrawn from the coast of Syria."
"Or had they sailed from Toulon
with evil intentions, they would have
arrived in this country five or six
weeks hefore we could have collected
our fleet. I think the country was
never in greater danger than it was
then. We had no power of getting men.
The ships lay at Spithead for four or
five months; and had the enemy ap-
peared off there, or in the Chaunel, or
had come to Cherhourg, they would
have commanded the Chaunel, and
done what they thought proper."
Hero was a real crisis—it was no
panic, no exaggeration of alarm, hut
a real positive danger tbreatening the
might of England; and the man-diffi-
culty had caused it.
The revelations of hureaux have
since disclosed that the question of
peace or war was poised in the halan-
ces. The caprice of a minister or the
will of a monarch might have turned
the scale, and England have heen
put on a trial of life or death.
Our old naval prestige and the
peace-policy of a sovereigu saved us
then. It was not the interest of the
existing dynasty to institute war as a
policy in France; and even then caW-
nets hesitated to challenge a navul
power which had proved so terrihle.
49


wo
[Dec.
Fleets and Navies—England.—Part III.

Alison in his History of Europe
(vol. viii. p. 821) has cbronicled an-
other instance when the peril was just
as imminent, and our impotency to
meet it equally patent. In the year
1850, in consequence of differences on
the Greek question, the nation was
hrought to the verge of a war with
France and Russia united, and at
that time '' hy no efforts could five
eail of the line, adequately mauned,
have heen collected in the Chaunel
to protect the British shores from
invasion. On the other hand, the
Russians had 23 sail of the line,
constantly mauned- and equipped, in
the Baltic, and 15 in the Euxine, and
France had 53,000 men ready to
man 20 s>.il of the line, aud as many
frigates and war-steamers, to join in
the crusade. And the danger was
averted hy no other means hut ahan-
donment hy Great Britain of the
pretensions she had in so heedless a
mauner advanced."
There were other occasions when
the diguity and safety of the country
were imperilled hy this same man-
difficulty ; hut surely these should he
enough for warning—enough to give
the past a meaning to the present.
Is this man-difficulty less now thin
it was then? or is it possihle to sup-
pose, that were the like danger to
arise now, it would he averted hy any
hesitation in the policy of our enemy;
or that if a desigu were once formed
against our supremacy, any suhmis-
sion could save us from the fate of
weakness and unpreparedness?
It is not less, perhaps, in the fact
of getting men, hut it is less in the
fact that we are addressing ourselves
earnestly to solve it. It still re-
mains, however, the great prohlem
of our time—the great moot-point of
our naval destiny. Every mnn has
sotne pet theory for its solution.
Professional chiefs, mercantile men,
statesmen, demagogues, the great
Church hierarchs even are all per-
fectly convinced that they are ahle to
devise a plan for mauning the navy.
And yet, strange to say, spite of the
multitude of council, the question is
still an open one. The desigus and
plans are prohahly all clever and in-
genious — many seemingly feasihle;
hut there is one ohjection to all: the
!,eamen will not assent to them.
There are, unfortunately, two parties
to the question—the State and the
mariner. The State may pass its de-
crees and issue its plans, yet the knot
will remnin as great a tangle as ever,
unless the seaman sees with the eyes,
and reasons with the reasons, of the
State. Until he adopts and recog-
nises them, the decrees will remain
a dead letter, the plans he never
more than ahortions. The offer of
the State may he supposed to he hest
emhodied in the "Report of the
Commissioners appointed to inquire
into the hest means of Mauning the
Navy," as all the suggestions therein
advanced have heen either directly
or indirectly adopted. These Cum-
missioners were chosen from differ-
ent classes, all supposed, from cir-
cumstances or experience, to he in-
terested in and well acquainted with
the suhject; and their recommenda-
tions were hased on the evidences of
the first men hoth in the naval and
merchant service. Their recom-
mendations, therefore, as they have
heen ratified hy the State, may he
considered as representing the views
and ideas of the country in respect to
the solving of the great questions—
How can we get men for our fleets?
How can we retain them? How can
we provide reserves for emergen-
cies? How can we make the supply
certain and permanent? By discuss-
ing the principles and details of the
system proposed hy the State to
overcome the man - difficulty, we
shall see wherein it meets and where-
in it fails to meet the great national
need, and therehy judge whether it
is sufficient as a final measure, or
what yet remains to attain the great
end—mauning the navy.
The Commis-ioners divide their
inquiry, and their report of sugges-
tions, into two parts. The first in-
cludes '' the mode in which her Ma-
jesty's ships are mauned in time of
peace; the condition of the seamen i
and whether any alterations could
he introduced hy which the service
might he rendered more popular.
The second, the mode in which the
fleet has heretofore heen mauned in
time of war; the means which exist
for that purpose; the character and
extent of the reserves on which re-
liance can he placed; what measures


7C2
[Dm.
Fleets and Navies—England.—Part IlL

improving the condition, and raising
the standing and character of the
seamen.
These arrangements comprise an
alteration "in the condition of the
hulks in which the men are lodged
whilst their ships are fitting out, and
improvements in their lighting, ven-
tilation, warming, and other arrange-
ments, upon which the health and
comfort of the men so much depend"
—an increase in the allowance of
provisions—the issue of hedding and
mtss utensils to the men on entering,
hy the Government, to enahle them
to commence their service free from
deht—a gratuitous supply of a suit
of clothes to every man on his first
entering for ten years' continuous
service—the payment of wages whilst
the ship was fitting out—an altera-
tion ID the system of allotments—
the extension of the privilege of
hadge-money, for good conduct, to
petty officers—the grant of a higher
grade of rank to warrant-officers, and
of a pension to their widows—the
promotion of warrant-officers, or any
seaman in her Majesty's navy, to the
quarter-deck, in the case of very
sigual and extraordinary services.
Having framed these suggestions,
the Commission closes,; this part of
the subjcct with the conclusion, that
their adoption "will render the ser-
vice more popular, and tend to effect
the ohject in view, namely, the
speedy and efficient mauning of her
Majesty's ships."
A good and sufficient conclusion,
truly, if it he proven hy results.
Thus we have hefore us the whole
plan of the State for mauning the
navy, and keeping it mauned, in time
of peace. There can he no ohjection
to any of the propositions; they are
all good, all commendahle, all preg-
nant with henefit to the seaman and
efficiency to the navy; hut the douht
is, whether they are sufficient in
themselves, without the operation of
some other principle which should
give them due action, to fulfil the re-
quired purpose. The principles on
which they are hased have all heen
partially tried already, and though
productive of certain good results,
have never justified the conclusion,
that their expansion and extension
alone would insure the one great end.
The plan of continuous service, of
increased advantages in personal pay,
comfort, and promotion, has already
heen offered on a smaller scale to the
seaman, without making the service
much more popular in his eyes; and
it can scarcely he hoped that its en-
largement alone will at once overcome
his disinclination, and give the State
the preference in the man-market
The continuous service was the
germ of a permanent organisation—
was hegiuning to expand—was he-
giuning to he understood, and to have
a popular action. In the Russian
war there were 24,000 serving under
its conditions; and there can he
little douht that an experience of
its advantages, present and prospec-
tive, would have given it a wider and
more extended operation, until its
effect would have heen almost that
of a standing navy, and the State
would have found itself possessed
not only of a control over its sea-
men, hut of a power of complet-
ing and even extending their num-
her. The non - continuous-service
men would have seen its working,
have witnessed the privileges erjoyed
hy their comrades, and have gradually
comprehended that these more than
counterhalauced their own liherty of
choice and action on leaving their
ships. The most popular condition
of the system was its permanency,
or, at any rate, the fact of its hecom-
ing so was the only one which could
have much henefited the State. It
was the interest of the State that the
seaman should see in it a certainty
not only of present henefit, hut of
future and prospective good—that he
might feel a vested right in the ser-
vice—that he had a property in it.
If he had no security in its perma-
nency, it was nothing to him; the
present advantages were not sufficient
to tempt or allure; it was the assur-
ance that the engagement hetwixt
him and the State was hinding—that
his years of service were an invest-
ment for afterlife, which could alone
induce him to prefer it to his old
oflf-and-on custom of entering for a
commission only. Unfortunately,
his confidence in this permanency
was hroken hy one of those acts
which have teuded ever to place
mistrust hetwixt the seaman and the


1859.]
763
Fleets and ATavies—England.—Part III.

State, and which have mainly created
and aggravated the man-difficulty.
After the war there was a redaction,
and continuous-service seamen were
offered a free discharge; 2200 were
paid oflf, with the understanding that
on re-entry, their previous service
would not count towards pension,
and that they must hegin de novo.
This was denied hy officials to he a
hreach of faitli; hut it had, at any
rate, all the appearance and effects of
such, and must, and did, shake the
trust of the seaman in the perma-
nency of the henefits to himself which
the system offered. These reductions
have heen ever the curse of the navy;
they have ever deteriorated its effi-
ciency, demoralised its character,
hroken its organisation, and, worst
of all, have inspired the seaman with
a distrust of the faith of his rulers.
Neither have they heen successful as
economical schemes. They are ever
the most costly of political projects.
Undertaken under some pressure of
opinion, of financial urgency, of de-
ference to demagogical cries, they are
necessarily carried out hastily, and in
the mauner which will tell most im-
mediately on the halance sheets of
estimates. There is no time for sav-
ing hy a judicious curtailment of ex-
penses, hy an investigation of extra-
vagant expenditure in departments:
the sum must he struck off at once;
therefore so many ships must he
paid off, so many seamen discharged,
that the expenses of their main-
tenance may not appear in the com-
ing hudget. Unfortunately for the
projectors, fortunately for the nation,
these reductions have ever heen fol-
lowed hy emergencies: men have
heen no sooner dispersed than they
have heen required again; hut the
same men were not to he found—the
trained, disciplined men who had
heen so summarily dismissed, hid
carried their skill and their experi-
ence to other markets, and their
places were to he filled hy sweep-
ing from the highways and hyways,
hy grass-comhers, along-shore men,
coasters, raw material, who were to
he manufactured into seamen at the
expense of the State, and perlups
even enticed hy high hounty. A due
inquiry into these reductions would
show, we helieve, that it would have
heen cheaper to have retained each
of these men at the cost of his weight
in gold, rather than have dismissed
him. Nor did the evil end with
losing the man; with him went ever
somewhat of the old spirit and the
old character he had inherited, of
the old traditions he had received.
After the peace-policy panic, which
sent 2000 or 3000 men recklessly adrift
on their own resources in the years
1844-45, it was found, when the crews
were again emhodied, that their gen-
eral character and tone had very
much changed; that the old man-of-
war's man had disappeared, or re-
mained only like a red Indian among
the clearings; that the old hahits
were hecoming ohsolete; that the
dare-devilism, the reckless smartness
of the past, was yielding to a cautious,
calculating consideration of how much
work should he done for so much pay;
that the old yarns and the old fore-
hitters, the old sea-ditties, had heen
superseded hy the slang of the cad-
ger's haunt and the songs of the cage
and the prison; and that even crime
had lost its daring character, and de-
scended to the petty-larceny-speak-
ing style of the tramp and vaga-
hond. Had this Ias'ed long, the old
naval character of England might
have heen infected with a degeneracy
which would have ended in death.
Luckily there was leaven enough
left, life enough left in the system, to
modify the evil, though it will he
long ere the service eotirely recover
from the effects of this demoralisa-
tion. "The evil that men do lives
after them;" and the evil which
these statesmen did, who counselled
such reductions, will live after their
names and memories are extinct, to
trouhle and perplex their nation.
These reductions were like the old
medical operation of letting out so
many ounces of hlood, instead of cor-
recting hy gentler remedies the disease
of the constitution.
The act of 1857 douhtless gave a
shock to the continuous service sys-
tem, and will retard its ex'ension
and diminish its influence in popular-
ising the service, unless there he
given to it such a law of permanency
as shall restore confidence in its
operations, and give assurance to
those who accept it that the henefits


1859.]
765
Fleets and Navies—England.—Part 111.

no lack of candidates. It is the
made seaman, the manufactured ar-
ticle, who will seek and find his
own market, that it is so difficult to
ohtain. An early and certain provi-
sion, an education and a calling
without any demand on their re-
sources or respond hility, would he a
great temptation to parents. The
service would he always popular to
hoys. Here the State might pick
and choose. It might not only get
as many as it required, hut get the
hest. It might nurture them after
its own model. Six, eight, ten thou-
sand hoys thus entered, trained, and
fed, cultured morally and physically
under Government superintendence,
would suffice at least to keep up the
continuous-service men to the numher
of 27 000, if each hoy, in return for
the henefit he had received from the
Slate, were required to insure his
services for a certain numher of years
—nor would it he too much to ask in
return for education and training.
Thus would he secured the elements
of a healthy, taught hody, self-sup-
•porting and superior to any other in
efficiency. There would he expense
in this, douhtless; hut the expense
would he repaid hy certainty and
efficiency; in the X s. d. point of view
even would he compensated hy there
heing no need for hounties; hy the
decrease in crime — a costly item in
military expenditure is crime, though
economists seldom regard or calcu-
late on it; hy the decrease in deser-
tions, in sickness, and invalidings; hy
having hetter men, healthier men,
more valuahle men. Tliese are con-
siderations which seldom enter into
the calculations of financiers: that a
rogue or scamp costs tbrice as much
as a good mau—a weakly, sickly one
twice as much as a healthy one. A
mm is to them a man—an item—
representing so much expenditure;
so that he stands in due order and
makes up the figure, it mitters little
what class he comes from; yet
it would show a difference which
would astonish their statistics were
they to compare the results, the
halances, of the career and service of
a man thus early taken hy the Srate,
and one entered hy haphazard, with-
out knowledge of his antecedents, his
stamen, or capacity. It would ap-
pear, we helieve, that two good
healthy men could he kept and main-
tained at the cost of one hroken-
down, dehauched, or irregular one;
so that this increase in the hoys'
system would he not only the surest
source, hut the cheapest in facts, if not
in figures, for mauning the navy.
The next recommendation was the
reserve of 4000 seamen. This was
good, too, very good; yet why so
limited? Why depart from the ori-
ginal suggestion made hy the Com-
mittee of 18.r,2, "that her Majesty's
navy should he maintained at such
numerical force in commission, as,
independently of the Chaunel squad-
ron, will admit of 10,000 seamen and
hoys heing retained in England for
the protection of the ports and coasts
of the Uuited Kingdom"? Surely
this was not more than enough fo»
the conservation of our supremacy,
not more than the country would
have willingly maintained; yet the
Commissioners curtailed this to 4000,
and suhstituted for a defensive reserve
one which was merely an expedient
for the speedy and economical relief
of ships on srations.
Ten thousand seamen at home —
ten thousand continuous-service men,
ahle-hodied, skilled guuners, or-
ganised, ready! What a vision of
defence does this conjure up! How
calmly might we contemplate the
naval preparations of other countries,
had we at command such a force,
with which, in the moment of danger,
we might at once man a fleet suffi-
cient, iu conjunction with the Chan-
nel squadron, to meet the first hlow
of a war, the first onset of a danger,
and yet leave a nucleus on which our
reserves might form to man a se-
cond or a third which would i>sue
forth from our harhours in reinforce-
ment to assert the might, the inex-
haustihle might, of England 1 And
why not? Is not England entitled
to such assurance of defence? Is
she not capahle of affording and
maintaining it?
Such an assurance she must have,
and will have, perhaps in a more
permanent and enlarged form; hut
defence has hecome a national will,
and must he accomplished. Accom-
plished thus in a permanently organ-
ised hody, or a standing navy, we


708
[Dec.
Fleets and Navies—England.—Part III.

increased hy 5000 men. There is,
however, a limit heyond which they
cannot he conveniently increased, for
it is necessary to their efficiency that
they should spend a large portion of
their time afloat." Here we have
the first component of our reserve—
a hody of soldiers well trained and
ahle, muny of them experienced in
the Mages, duties, and discipline of a
man-of war, all ready at a lew hours'
notice to he transported on hoard
ships, and at once to enter on their
part in the organisation; for the de-
tachments always contain a great
proportion of old soldiers, who of
themselves shape and order the re-
cruit element. This is, of course, a
certain resource. It was thought ex-
pedient that this hody should he in-
creased hy 5000, so that this portion
of the reserve should furnish 11 000.
This recommendation was partially
carried out; an addition of 2000 was
voted, was raised in two or three
months, and many of the numher have
heen already thorougbly trained, and
are serving afloat. Thus, then, we have
a corps ulways at hand, thorougbly
serviceahle, readily trained, and easily
raised. The man-difficulty meets us
not here. It would seem, therefore,
reasonahle, if we cannot get seamen
and can get marines, that we ought
to seize on the material which we
can command, and increase the pro-
portions of the latter force in the
naval system. There are two objec-
tions offered to this — that if the
strength of this hody were raised he-
yond a certain limit, the intervals
hetwixt the terms of service afloat
would he so long that the men would
lose much of the efficiency which they
bad attained tbrough u-e and expe-
rience of ship life and duties,—and
that an increa-e of this hody would
tend to a decrease of seamen.
The first ohjection m'ght readily he
evercome hy increasing the strength
of detachments afloat; or hy attach-
ing a certain numher to the gun-
hoats at the different ports in which
they might he exercised during cer-
tain months, and the young hands
thus learned to get their sea legs, and
the old ones to keep theirs. How-
ever, usually, a man is seldom more
than a year or at most two years on
shore, and it is not likely that, dur-
ing that time, or even the longer
period which the proposed increase
would entail, a marine who had heen
some years afloat would lose the ha-
hitude of sea life. Of late, men who
had not heen more than four or five
months on shore after service in the
Crimea and in China, were again em-
harked; and it hss happened, and it
is to he supposed that it will always
happen, that the various call- of the
service, and the national exigency,
will curtail so much the shore por-
tion of his career, that there will he
no danger of the sea experiences
heing forgotten or ohliterated.
The second ohjection is one in-
spired in naval chiefs hy a jealous
fear for the interests of their class,
All men naturally cling to their own
class, and helieve it to he the fore-
most and most fitting for all pur-
poses. Naval chiefs love their hlue-
jackets naturally, lean to them, trust
in them; they know them to he pre-
cious and costly material, and look
suspiciously on any measure which
may reduce their sale. They grudge
a single hluejacket, even though that
hluejacket shonld represent a poor
wretch who is not worth his salt. They
would he right, undouhtedly right,
if seamen - numhers meant seamen -
strength; hut it is well koown to all
who have had experiences of a man-
of-war, that there are always many
men on the ship's hooks, classed for-
merly as landsmen, now perhaps as
second-class ordinary, who are not
and never can he made seamen; who
merely swell the muster-hooks, cum-
her the decks, consume victuals,
plague drill - instructors, employ the
police, and are of little or no use
whatever. In fact, as we once heard
an old salt say, they are nondescript
—neither hog, dog, nor devil. Xow,
such men might well he replaced hy
marines, without danger to the sfa-
man-supply or seamen-efficiency. We
are no advocates of the theory that
the changes which steam and the
improvement in arms have made in
naval warfare will make seamanship
a dead letter, and that ships oucht
for the future so he mauned chiellv,
if not entirely, hy artillerymen. We
repudiate it altogether. Seamanship
must he ever the life-principle of
our navy; it is that which gave us
suprenncy — it is that which must
maintain it.


770
[Dec
Fleets and Jfavies—England.—Part III.

dier element' would tbrust out and
aholish from the naval system a class
which is weakening to its efficiency,
without in any way diminishing its
real strength in seamanship; and that
this soldier-force should he adequate
to the sole conduct of any land opera-
tions which might he projected. To
carry oat such an arrangement, the
marine corps should never he allowed
to full helow the strength of 20 000
men, as proposed hy the Commission;
and until a system of ohtaining and
retaining seamen, hoth for the peace
estahlishment and the reserve he de-
vised, it would he advisahle to increase
the numhers hy 3000 or more. How-
ever, whatever may he their exact nu-
merical force, the marines on shore
must he accepted as a real and valu-
ahle item in the reserve for national
defence.
The same may he said with equal
justice of the next component of the
reserve, the C.uwt-Guard. This force
is composed of experienced and tried
seamen, chiefly men-of-war's men who
have served seven years at sea (and
this seven is to he increa-ed to ten);
men matured in strength, adept in
mratas, inured to discipline, and
suhject to a regular organisation.
The numhers voted for this force
were 9000; hut of these the officer
in command of it states that there
are only ah.,ut 6000, including officers
and hoys who may he considered as
"fleet men"—men ahle and capahle
of heing transferred from the Coa>t-
Guard at once to a man-of-war.
These men are dispersed along the
coasts as required for the protection
of the revenue, hut are attached to
different ships stationed at the dif-
ferent ports in the districts, into
whose organisation they could he at
once admitted. It is calculated that
eighteen hours would he the longest
time required for the assemhlage of
any portion of this force, fully armed
and equipped; so that in twenty-
four hours from the time a summons
was despatched, 0000 men would he
assemhled on hoard their respective
district - ships, ready for transfer,
dispersion, or service in their own
vessels. There are eleven such ships
—nine hlock-hips, and two frigates
—none ot which are considered ser-
viceahle or efficient It was proposed
hy the Comptroller of the Coast
Guard that these vessels should he
replaced hy good and efficient ships,
complete in every respect of equip-
ment and armament, so that, when
mauned hy the men attached to them,
they would form a fleet of eleven
ships of the line, which might ren-
dezvous at Spithead in tbree days.
This proposition seemed so sound
and so judicious, that it is strange it
was not at once adopted. It was
stated that the ships thus employed
would not deteriorate so much as in
ordinary. Thus the Chaunel fleet, in
the very shortest time in which
danger could he apprehended, might
he douhled hy a reinforcement equal
to joining it at once, if the emergency
were urgent. If there were more
time for preparation, the crews might
he divided, one-half heing sent to
form the nucleus of another fleet,
whilst their places were filled, accord-
ing to Sir Charles Napier's plan, hy
marines and ordinaries.
The regulations for the concentra-
tion of this force appear to he very
perfect and the organisation of it to
he very good. The efficiency of the
men is undouhted. They proved
themselves in the Russian war:
ahout 100 were emharked in each of
the liners in the Biltic fleet. At
first, commanding officers harked at
their comparative slowness and want
of smartness, and their comrades
laughed at their coddling hahits, and
the care they took to guard against
cold, catarrhs, and rheumatics, hy
swathing themselves in woollen,
wrapping their tbroats in flaunel,
and making frequent applications to
the doctor; hut in time their trust-
worthiness and practice hegan to tell.
They furnished crews for the hoats,
no one of which ever ran, or got
drunk, and thus relieved them of all
anxiety as to their coming and going;
they had ever in their ranks men
of intelligence and experience, ready
and fit to he appointed on emergencies
to places of trust and responsihility;
and they seldom if ever appeared in
the roll of culprits, or appeared in
the punishment-lists. During two
years of service, out of the hundred
Coast-Guard men emharked in one
ship, only one was ever hrought up
for punishment.
These facts are striking. Why
was it that these men were superior


Fltets and Navies—England.—Part III.
[Dec

too short to admit of that efficiency
which a man called upon to serve
in these times of practised guunery
should possess, and which would he
still further decreased hy the system
of hroken periods. It. is supposed
that twenty-eight days will he as
much time as could conveniently he
exacted from a merchant-seaman,
without great detriment to his inter-
ests; hut it is also supposed that
every seaman is on shore and out of
employ for ahout tbree months in the
year. Why not, then, give him the
option of serving that time, or any
portion of it, in a training-ship or
man-ofwar? Many, instead of slop-
ing and loafing ahout the seaports,
casting ahout for a meal or a hed,
would he glad of such a provision
and maintenance, and would he
rendering themselves more efficieut
memhers of the Reserve.
Allowing, however, that the re-
quired numhers are raised—that the
organisation is made, and the whole
system hronght into fair working
order—we have still to ask how
those men, or how many of them,
will he availahle at a sudden sum-
mons? How many of the 30,000
would he fortheoming, or could he
depended on at any instant? The
ohligation that each volunteer should
report himself every six months, in-
sures his not heing long ahsent; hut
it would he entirely a matter of acci-
dent whether he would he present
when required. It might he that,
when the need arose, two thirds of
the force would he in the home ports,
or it might also happen that the
same proportion would he ahsent;
at any rate, it could never he fairly
calculated that more than one-half
would he availahle. Even thus we
helieve that we overstate the actual
dependence.
However, even with these ohjec-
tions, it is the hest plan for a volun-
teer force yet enacted; it will at any
rate give us some hold on the mer-
chant seamen, and, hy familiarising
them with the navy, will no douht
popularise that service, and open a
wide field for recruitment; and as it
is only the last reserve, we may ac-
cept it as a worthy addition to the
national defences. The Commission
• further provided for the future main-
tenance of this force, and their re-
commendation was one which would
have given it a certain permanency.
They thought that, though it must
he first constituted of adults carefully
selected from the merchant service,
it must he supplied and fed hy
hoys. They acknowledge, tbrough-
out, the principle, that every force
which is to he permanent and re-
liahle must have a certain feeding
source; and they wisely recommend,
in all instances, that this source
should consist of hoys chosen, trained,
and educated for the purpose. In
this case they propose "that school-
ships should he estahlished in all the
principal commercial ports, capahle
of accommodating from 100 to 200
hoarders in each ship, 100 of whom
should he supported hy the State ; that
these hoys should he carefully chosen;
and that they should receive not only
instruction for the merchant service,
hut also certain instructions in gun-
nery ; that the schools should he open
to day scholars, children residing at
the ports; and that, at the expiration
of the training, a certain numher
(limited, however) should- have the
option of entering the Riyal Navy,
the remainder heing taken as ap-
prentice* hy the shipowners, who, in
return for the education given, would
he required to suhscrihe to a certain
fund in favour of the hoys thus re-
ceived. It is thought that, at the
close of the apprenticeship, the
hahits acquired, the inducements of
pay, and promised pension, would
draw the sailor at once into the hody
of volunteers." Why not make it
compulsory, at any Tate on those who
receive their education and main-
tenance gratis from the State? It
would not he any severe exaction from
the others in return for the advan-
tages given, and would insure a cer-
tain fteding source.
This part of the plan, like the
other, will have a great effect in
cementing the union hetwixt the two
services, and in creating a kindly
feeling which, after some years' work-
ing and trial, would no douht popu-
larise the naval service and aunul the
man-difficulty.
The Commissioners, in closing
their lahours, arrive at the conclusion
that, hy the means proposed, there


Index.
777
Castelnau, French amhassador to Scot-
land, notices of, 5'21t.
Catherine de Medici, notices of, 519,
523 et teq.
Cavour, count, counection of, with the
Italian war, 12l.
Change of Ministry, the, What next?
113.
Charlemague, the legendary history of,
608.
Charles IX. of France, proposed mar-
riage hetween Elizaheth and, 530.
Charles V., Motley's character of, 698—
his ahdication, 699 et seq.
Cheruel's work on Queen Mary, review
of, 517.
China, on AllieD Operations in, 627.
Christianity, the attack hy Positivism
on, 89—the introduction, Ac, of, into
England, 545.
Clarendon, Lord, and the Italian ques-
tion, 118—his instructiens to Lord
Elgin in China, 628.
Cleland, colonel, his account of the
Higbland host, and Macaulay's use of
it, 168.
Cockneyism, London and Parisian, 88.
Cognition, Sir W. Hamilton on, 499.
Coliguy, the admiral, supposed applica-
tion to Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh to
assassinate, 520.
Comhin, ascent of the, 463.
Comparison, Sir W. Hamilton's views
on, 510.
Compiegue, the meeting of Napoleon
III. and Lord Palmerston at, 118.
Conservatives, strength of the, 115.
Cookery, domestic, Michelet on, 95—
Italian, 477.
Cornwall, effect of intercourse with the
Phenicians, 540—traditions regard-
ing King Arthur in, 608.
Corso of Florence, the, 598.
Cousin, Victor, Kenan on, 678.
Cowley, lord, and the Italian question,
121 et seq.
Cowper, lieutenant, peculiarities of mur-
der of, hy the Sepoys, 635.
Cranmer, archhishop, as the leader of
the English Reformation, 176—cruel-
ties of, 187.
CrusaDer's Return, the—a Breton
hallad, 488.
Daily News, the, on the hrihery con-
victions, 366.
Damascus, the approach to, and sketches
in, 529 et teq.
Danes, the iuroads, Ac., of, in England,
544.
Dargaud's Histoire de Marie Stuart, on,
517, 633.
Dartmouth election petition, the, 868.
Davies, Mr., ascent of the Mischahel-
horner, hy, 466.
Derhy, lord, on the peaee, 245.
Derhy ministry, the overtbrow of the,
113 el seq.—charges of hrihery
hrought against the, 364 et seq.
Diahlerets, ascent of the, 468.
Disarmament, the proposed, 375 et seq.
Douglas, Sir Edward, on the Russian
navy, 326.
Dream of the DeaD, a, 358.
Druidisra, the, of the Britons, 540.
Drummond, captain, and the massacre
of Glencoe, 11.
Druses, sketches of the, 431.
Dumas' Marie Stuart, on, 517.
Dumharton, Richard Frank's account
of, 166.
Duncanson, major, and the massacre of
Glencoe, 16 et seq.
Duomo of Florence, the, 592 et seq.
Dutch Repuhlic, Motley'8 History of
the, 690.
Edgeworth, Miss, the novels of, 99.
Edward VI., Latimer's preaching he-
fore, 185.
Eghert, suhjugation of the Heptarchy
hy, 544.
Egmont, count, execution, Ac, of, 706.
Elahorative faculty, the, Hamilton's
views on, 510.
Election Petitions, the, Who Does the
hrihery? 363.'
Elections, gains of the Conservatives hy
the, 115.
Elgin, lord, the instructions to, in
China, 628.
Elizaheth, conduct, Ac, of, on the exe-
cution of Queen Mary, 525—proposed
marriage of, to Charles IX., 530.
Emperor, the, anD the Empire, 745.
England, Sketches of the Reformation
in, 182 et seq.—policy of Napoleon III.
toward, 246 et seq.—present state, Ac,
of the fleet of, 'AUetseq.—present posi-
tion of, with regard to France,379 ctseq.
—passion forsporting,Ac, in, 456—the
ahoriginal races of, 539—importance
of the Chinese question to, and danger
of alliance with France on it, 628—
effects of industrialism in, 678—diffi-
culty of mauning the navy in,758 et seq.
English Fox-hunter and Higbland laird,
Burt's picture of the, 172.
English Hlstory, Vauqhas's Revolu-
tions ln", reviewed, 687.
Englishman, associations of the, with
London, 87.
English school of painting, the, 127.
Ethelhert, murder of, 544.
Ethelrcd the Uuready, reign of, 544.
Eencval, the haron d', mission of, to
Scotland, 530.
Europe, the mountain ranges of, 459.
European troops, necessity for, in In-
dia, 633.
Farel, the reformer, in Geneva, 179.
Felicita, Part I, 189—conclusion, 278.


778
Index.
Fenttre de Snlena, passage of the, 460.
Festa, an Italian, 482.
Fevers, severity of, in Africa, 572.
Feydeau, Fauny hy, remarks on, 90.
Fight on tuk 1'emo, tue, 647.
Flelts ash Navies, Part II., EnglanD,
324—Part III., 768.
Fletsehhorn, ascent of the, 467.
Florence, a Week in, 583.
FonMGN Akfaiks—the Disarmament,
375.
Foster, Mr., visit to Martinsloch, hy, 468.
France, present position and policy of,
246 ct sec/.—danger from the navy of,
325, 326—long counection of Scotland
with, 519—history of the alliance he-
tween Scotland mid, 529—dangers,
&.<•., of alliance with, against China,
62s—naval force of, in the East, 632
—Renan on the present state of, 670
—position of, in relation to the Em-
peror, 745 et teq.
Frank, Richard, his account of the High-
lands, and Macaulay's use of it, 165
et set/.
Frogatcs hlindees, the French, 336.
French, the, <,n Qi-ken Mary, 517.
French Exhihition, the, in London, 137
et teq.
French literature, influence of positiv-
ism on, 90—characteristics of mo-
dern, 669.
Frenchman, the, his attachment to Paris,
87.
French school of pointing, the, 138.
Frenchwomen, Miehelot on, 94.
Futohe of InDia, the, anD her Army,
633.
Galway contract, Sir James Graham on
the, 364.
Geant, Col du, ascent of. 362.
Geneva, influence of Calvin, Ac, in,
179, elaeq.
George I., character undinfluence of,212.
Gerard, the assassination of the Prince
of Orange hy, 707.
Germany, policy of Uapoleon III. to-
ward,"210, 378.
Ghiherti, the Gates of, at the Baptistery
of Florence, 590, 593.
Giotto, the Campanile of, 690 et teq.—
the frescoes of, in Santa Croce, C03.
Glaciers, remarks on, 468.
Glencoe, the massacre of, examination
of Mncaulay's account of it, 1 et scq—
the valley of, its scenery, Ac, 4 et stq.
Gloucester clectiou petition, the, 368.
Goldsmith's account of the Higblands,
Macaulay on, 163 et seq.—contrast
hetween them, 164.
Gothic architecture, domestic, 478.
Graham, Sir James, his speech on the
no-confidence motion, 115—charge of
hrihery hrought hy, against the Derhy
ministry, 364.
Grant, Mrs., her account of Glencoe and
the massacre, 6.
Granvclle, the cardinal, character of,
701.
Grotte, M. de la, death of, in the Alps,
469.
Guise, the duke of, his murder, 525—
and that of his son, 526.
Guises, effects of the counection of
Queen Mary with, 521—their desigus,
Ac., 522.
Guizot on the cause of the decline of
Spain, 691 et teq.
Guns, the various, fornaval warfare,336.
Gunhoats, uses, Ac, of the. 328, 338.
H. D. W, Love's Young Dream nowa-
days, hy, 668.
Hamerton, colonel, consul at Zanzihar,
340.
Hamilton, Pir William, Lech-res on
Metaphysics hy, reviewed, 494.
Hamilton, colonel, counection of, with
the massacre of Glencoe, 15 et seq.
Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, the assas-
sination of the Regent Murray hy, 520.
Hanoverian settlement, circumstances
attending the, 211.
Hardwicke, archdeacon, death of, 470.
Hardy, Mr., nscent of Mount jEtua hy,
459, 469—and of the Peak of Dark-
ness, 467.
Hasheya, sketches in, 431.
Hauotrrs anD the HaunteD, the, ok
the House anD the Brain, 224.
Hawkins, Mr., account of the Col de
Miage hy, 463.
Hengist and Horsa, Dr. Vaughan on,
542.
Heury VIII. of England, Latimer he-
friended hy, 184.
Henry III. of France, conduct of, on the
execution of Queen Mary, 525—mur-
der of Hie Duke of Guise hy, 526.
Heptarchy, government, Ac, of the, 543.
Hereditary succession, slow develop-
ment of principle of, 210.
Higbland clans, posiiiou, Ac, of the, in
1715, 216—their tactics, Ac, as sol-
diers, 217. ,
Higblands, Macaulay's aspersions on
the, 162, et acq.
Hill, colonel, account of the High-
landers in 1691 hy, 2, 3—his counec-
tion with the massacre of Glencoe, 11
—his instructions from the king re-
garding it, 13—his character, 15.
Himalaya mountains, the, 459.
HincblifF, Mr., ascent of the Trift pass
hy, 464.
Hinduism, the Brahm of, 53.
Hippopotamus, ad ventures with the,568.
Holland, the navy of, 326.
Hooker, Dr., his account of the Sikkirn
mountains, 459.
Hope, admiral, at the Peiho, 663 ct stq.


Index.
779

Horse-Dealing in Stria, 1864, 255—
Part II., 419.
Horse Guards, proposed placing of the
Indian army under the, 634.
Horses, Arah, prices of, 480.
Huddersfield election petiiion, the, 369.
Hull election petition, the, 370.
Ihand:i, travelling in, 402.
IDylls of the Kino, review of the, 608.
Income tax, the proposed, in India. 644.
InDia, the Future ok, anD her Army,
633.
Industrialism, Renan on, 672.
Infinite, Dr. Hansel on the, 49 et seq.
Iron-plated ships, the proposed, 332.
Iskenderoon, the sketches at, 256.
Italian architecture, characteristics of
Florence, 586.
Italian diuner, an, 474.
Italian murder, an, 486.
Italian question, feeling in the country
on the, 116—the diplomatic corre-
spondence on it, 117.
Italian war, policy of Napoleon III. in
the, 246.
Italians, endurance of cold hy, 584.
Italy, results of the French intervention
in, 376 et seq.—the climate of, 471—
present state of art in, 099.
J. 1i., the legend of Barney O'Carroll, hy,
492.
James II., circumstances attending the
hirth of his son, 210.
Jersey to the Queen, 374.
Jewish marriage at Damascus, a, 263.
Judgment, Sir W. Hamilton's views on,
510.
Justinian, Frocopins' History of, 679.
Kahizia, island of, 351.
Kahogo, island of, lake Tanganyika, 849.
Kasenge, sketches at, 351 et seq.
Kawele, sketches at, 342.
Kazeh, Arah depot of, 341.
Keppoch Higblanders, the Master of
Sinclair's picture of the, 217.
King, Mr., Italian Valleys of the Alps,
hy, 469.
Kiviia Island of, 348, 349, 350—river,
identified with the Nile, 396.
Knox, as the leader of the Reformation
in Scotland, 187—Dargaud's account
of, 534.
Lahanoff, prince, his collections of the
letters of Queen Mary, 517.
Lamartine's Marie Stuart, on, 517.
Lameunais, Renan on, 679.
La Mothe Fenulon, French amhassador
to Scotland, 530.
Lanfranc, the influence, Ac., of, in Eng-
land, 183.
Lnppenherg on the Normans, 548.
Lattimer, Principal Tulloeh's picture of,
182 et seq.
Lawrence, Sir Heury, his papers on
India, 637.
LeaDers of the Reformation, 175.
Leathern, Mr., unseating of, for hrihery,
367—Mr. E. A., the election petition
against, 369.
Lehanon, scenery of the, 267, ct seq.
Leyden, the siege and relief of, 709.
Leys, M., Early days of .the Reformation
hy, 138, 139.
Liherals, the, their coalition against the
Derhy ministry, 113—their disunited
state, ih.—hrihery hy, 363 et seq.
Lihertines, the, in Geneva, 180.
LifteD Veil, the, chap. I., 24—chap.
II., 36.
Limerick election riots, the, 371.
Lindsays, the, and the massacre of Glen-
coe, 16 et seq.
Livingston, Sir T., counection of, with
the massacre of Gleneoe, 15 et seq.
Local army in India, the question of a,
634.
Lomhardy, the cession of to Sardinia,
250.
London, how regarded hy the English-
man, 87.
LonDon Exhihitions—Conflict of the
Schools, 127.
Louis the Eleventh's Page, a Breton
hallad, 488.
Love, Michelet's work on, 90.
Love's Youno Dream—nowaDays, 668.
Low, general, evidence of, on the Indian
army, 634.
Luck of LaDysmeDe, the. Part V.,67 —
Part VI., 143—l'art VII., 307—Part
VIII., 435—Part IX., 549—Part X.,
720.
Lung' Arno, the, Florence, 586.
Luther, Tulloeh's picture of, 175.
Macaulay, LorD, anD the Massacre of
Glencoe, 1,
Macaulay, Loan, anD the HighlanDs of
ScotlanD. 162—descent and paren-
tage of, ih.—on Miss Austen's novels,
108.
Macdonalds of Glencoe, the massacre of
the, i et seq.
M'lan of Glencoe, Macaulay's account of
the massacre of, 1 ct seq—his position
3—and personal character, 4.
Macintosh, hrigadier, character, ,fec. of,
220.
Maidstone election petition, the, 369.
Malagarazi river, the, 347, 893.
Maimeshury, lord, and the Italian ques-
tion, 118 et seq.
Mansel's Bampton Lectures, 48.
Mar, the earl of. his career and charac-
ter, 213—lady, the plot against, 216.
Maronites, sketches of the, 257.
Martinsloch, visit to, 468.
Mary, Queen, the French on, 517—
letter of, on Hamilton of Bothwell-
haugh, 520—her character;, peculiari-
ties of her epoch, Ac, 621.








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