The Churchyard at Cannstatt The Burying Hace of Dr Kitto.
 
 JOHN KITTO, D.D., F.S.A. 
 
 JOHN BAD IE, D.D., LL.B. 
 
 I argue not 
 
 Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a Jot 
 Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer 
 Right onward ' 
 
 EIGHT El THOUSAND. 
 
 EDINBURGH: WILLIAM OLIPHANT AND CO. 
 LONDON: HAMILTON. ADAMS, AND CO. 
 
 MDCCCLXI.
 
 f- 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIY \3ITr OF 
 
 FORNIA 
 \ SAN DltGU j 
 
 I 
 
 ' Perhaps no one ever was in my circumstances, or being so, ever 
 retained or gathered spirit to surmount his difficulties. I think more 
 and more, that a statement of those difficulties, as I could make that 
 statement, would be felt to be a thing of no common interest.' KITTO. 
 
 MURRAY AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
 
 EIGHT HON, SIR JOHN I'NEILL, G.C.B, 
 
 LATE HER MAJESTY'S ENVOY EXTRAORDINARY AND MINISTER 
 PLENIPOTENTIARY AT THE COURT OF PERSIA, 
 
 NOT ONLY AS THE MEMORIAL 
 OF A LONG AND GENEROUS INTIMACY WITH DR KITTO, 
 
 BUT ESPECIALLY 
 AS A TRIBUTE OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT TO ONE 
 
 WHO WAS AMONG. THE FIRST 
 TO APPRECIATE THE TALENT AND CHARACTER 
 
 OF THE 
 
 LONELY WANDERER IN A DISTANT LAND OF THE EAST, 
 
 AND TO ENCOURAGE HIM IN THE GRATIFICATION OF THOSE TASTES 
 
 AND IN THE PROSECUTION OF THOSE STUDIES, 
 
 WHICH QUALIFIED HIM 
 TO BECOME AN EMINENT AND SUCCESSFUL ILLUSTRATOR 
 
 OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 How a brave spirit may not only conquer obstacles, but 
 climb by means of them to unrivalled eminence and use- 
 fulness; how a mysterious providence originated a hard and 
 healthful discipline, and by it, wrought out its own benig- 
 nant purposes ; how deafness, privations, and disappoint- 
 ments could not ' choke the life from out' a tender and 
 manly heart ; how the love of literature fed itself amidst 
 rags and wretchedness, and ultimately realised its boldest 
 dreams ; and what perseverance, armed with courage and 
 leaning on faith, can achieve, may be learned from the 
 following biography. 
 
 Dr KITTO always purposed to write out his own life, and 
 unfold its great lessons. When he first resided at Islington, 
 the plan was so far matured, that he proposed, iu a letter 
 to Mr HARVEY, October 17, 1826, to divide the sketch into 
 three parts 1. From Birth to the Workhouse ; 2. From 
 the Workhouse to Exeter; 3. From Exeter to leaving 
 England. A month afterwards, he wrote to the same
 
 6 PREFACE. 
 
 friend ' Perhaps there is sufficient of interest, I had al- 
 most said romance, in my past life, to render the narrative 
 of it attractive to the many ; and it will be my business to 
 employ that attraction as I best can, for the glory of my 
 Master's name, and the real welfare of my readers.' This 
 design was never executed, and though, in subsequent 
 years, it was allowed to fall into abeyance, yet it was never 
 abandoned, and towards the close of his life, it was revived 
 in its original ardour. In a letter to the Rev. Mr LAMPEN, 
 dated Woking, November 5, 1845, he says, in reference 
 to the experiment of writing some personal notices in his 
 little autobiographical work, ' The Lost Senses,' ' it has 
 sufficed to throw me back very strongly upon my previous 
 impressions, that a biography, such as I should wish mine 
 to be, is a work which cannot now be efficiently executed, 
 or rather advantageously published, but should be reserved 
 for a later period of life, when more of the tasks of that 
 life have been accomplished, and more of its labour done.' 
 Lastly, in his correspondence with his Edinburgh publisher, 
 September 21, 1851, he repeats the avowal in these decided 
 terms : ' the reception of " The Lost Senses," and the de- 
 sire for further information which it has awakened, have 
 confirmed me in a purpose I previously entertained, of 
 hereafter preparing or leaving materials for a full account 
 of my early experience, my travels and sojouruings, and 
 my literary labours since my return. I have reason to hope 
 there is yet much for me to do, which may render this
 
 PREFACE. 7 
 
 memorial of an eventful and laborious life, no unbecoming 
 intrusion on the public notice.' What Dr Krrro was pre- 
 vented, alas ! by an early death, from doing, we have en- 
 deavoured in these pages, to do for him ; though, certainly, 
 we could not hope to invest the work with those charms 
 and attractions which he, in his own style and way, would, 
 as author and subject, have thrown around it. Still, Dr 
 KITTO told his story so often and to so many persons, and 
 so voluminous are the papers and correspondence which he 
 has left behind him, that from its free use of this wealth of 
 material, the following volume may be regarded as virtually 
 an autobiography, with some comments interspersed for the 
 sake of connection and illustration. 
 
 We come into no invidious comparison with Mr RYXAND'S 
 full and excellent Memoirs, the form and object of our 
 labours being so different in their nature and design. Mr 
 RTLAND'S selections and unpublished transcriptions from 
 Dr KITTO'S Letters and Journals, have saved us much 
 trouble and time, and we accord him our hearty thanks. 
 It will be seen, however, that we have not only made an 
 independent use of such papers as our predecessor has em- 
 ployed, but have added, from other sources, numerous new 
 incidents, extracts, and illustrations of character. The 
 whole of Dr KITTO'S manuscripts were confided to us by 
 his family, at whose request and that of the publishers of 
 the previous Memoirs, this work was undertaken. We 
 were also kindly favoured with the use of numerous parcels
 
 g PREFACE. 
 
 of letters, which have been preserved by the various friends 
 to whom they had been originally addressed. Our object 
 has been, to tell the story, develop the moral, and recount 
 and estimate the labours of Dr KITTO'S life, within a brief 
 compass ; and if we have not wholly failed, the book will 
 be found to be one, not only of interest in the strange 
 vicissitudes which it pictures, but one also of profit in the, 
 impressive teachings with which it is so signally fraught. 
 
 13, LANSDOWNE CRESCENT, GLASGOW, 
 May 22, 1857.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 
 
 Constitutional Feebleness Sad Domestic History Defective Education Passion 
 for Stories and Books First Literary Effort Desire for Knowledge The Razor 
 and the Hod Dormitory and Study The Accident Incurable Deafness Struggles 
 for Subsistence Pictures and Labels Bookstalls Isolation. Pages 13-35. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 Admission to the Hospital of the Poor's Portion The Awl and the Pen The 
 Workhouse Journal Self-Portrait Reprisals Strange Contrasts First Great 
 Sorrow Death of Grandmother Musings on Immortality Doubts and Ques- 
 tionings Plymouth Fair Powers of Composition Thoughts on the Trial of Queen 
 Caroline and the Death of Buonaparte Forereachings Love of Travel Lectures 
 for the Workhouse Boys Dealings with his Parents Apprenticed to a Shoemaker 
 Drudgery and Stripes The Savage Bowden Night Morning Indenture can- 
 celled Release from the Workhouse The Future Unveiled Captious Criticism 
 Studies in the Public Library Forebodings of Early Death Thirst for Know- 
 ledge Desire of a little Pocket-Money Letter of Condolence to Mrs Burnard 
 Searchings of Heart. Pages 36- 92. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EXETER. 
 
 Introduction to Mr Groves Removal to Exeter Progressive Piety Morning 
 Prayer First Communion First Love ' Essays and Letters' Published Imagin- 
 ary Criticism 'John Kitto, Shoemaker and Pauper' Self-Vindication Multi- 
 farious Reading Imitation of various Authors Necessity of Writing Ideal 
 Companionship Privations of his Deafness Compensation in Love of Books 
 Kitto in his Twentieth Year Longing to be a Missionary Connection with Church 
 Missionary Society. Pages 93-113
 
 10 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ISLINGTON. 
 
 Missionary Institution Stolen Reading Romantic Attachment Reverie on 
 Marriage Lines to his Betrothed Formal Distribution of Time Illness Tract 
 Distribution Meditations by the Way Misunderstanding with the Committee 
 Resigns his Situation Parting Address to the Students Conscious Innocence 
 Gloomy Prospects Reinstalled Counsels to a Relative Departure for Malta. 
 
 Pages 116-138. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 MALTA. 
 
 Early Desire of Usefulness Self-Advancement Church Mission at Malta 
 Restoration to Speech The Voyage Engagements in Printing-Office Hope 
 deferred Marriage Broken off Agony of Heart Letter to his Mother A Lover's 
 Lament Severe Illness Constant Study Final Rupture with the Society The 
 Horizon Lowering Farewell to Malta Return to Plymouth Estrangement of 
 Friends Various Schemes Offered a Situation as Printer at Teignmouth Death 
 of H. A. Engagement with Mr Groves, and Sudden Resolve to Travel The 
 Horizon Clearing. Pages 139-161. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 Character of Mr Groves The Mission Party Departure from Gravesend The 
 Voyage St Petersburg Dream Classification of Dreams Miss Kilham Low 
 Estimate of the Russians Gipsy Missionaries Meditation among the Tombs Dr 
 Glen's Hospitality Tartar Curiosity Grand Pass of the Caucasus Influence of 
 Scenery The White Thorn Georgian Ladies Brambles Colony of Millennarians 
 Fall from his Horse Tabreez Marriage of Miss Taylor Exception to Single 
 Females as Missionaries in the East First Interview with Sir John M'Neill Perils 
 in Koordistan Arrival at Bagdad Terraced Roofs Social and Common Habits 
 of the People Leadings of Providence Self-Possession. Pages 162-200. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 State of the Pashalic of Bagdad Approach of the Plague Its Advent Fearful 
 Mortality Death of Mrs Groves House of Mourning Letter ir Prospect of 
 Death Minor Privations Inundation of the River Providential Escapes 
 Blockade and Anarchy Thieves and Plunder The Siege First View of the City 
 after these Disasters Appalling Desolation Prevailing Dress and Architecture 
 Adventures on the Tigris Escape from Drowning Diligent Journalising Illus- 
 trations of Scripture Projects for the Future Qualifications for an Editorship 
 Self-Estimate Self- Vindication Secret Anxieties Filial Resolves Misunder- 
 standings with Mr Groves Departure with Mr Newman for England. 
 
 Pages 201-240.
 
 CONTENTS. 11 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 RETURN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 Philosophy of Journalism The Caravan Discomforts of Travel Conversation 
 with the Natives Persian Curiosity Caterer for the Party Incidents at Tehran 
 The Persian Embassy Illness from Fever Lady M'Neill Finger-Talk Tabreez 
 Mr Newman leaves and Mr Shepherd joins him View of Ararat and the Euphrates 
 Superstitious Pictures Self-Respect The Muhaffy Trebizond Argonautics 
 Episcopal Blessing of the Black Sea Constantinople Kindness of the American 
 Missionaries Perils from Umbrella and Rain of Potter's Vessels Once more upon 
 the Waters A Literary Crew Spenser Welcome to the Shores of England 
 Under Quarantine Decease of Mr Shepherd First Experiences on Landing Era 
 of Preparation Over. Pages 241-277. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 LONDON FIRST LITERARY ENGAGEMENTS MARRIAGE 
 PICTORIAL BIBLE. 
 
 Intellectual Gain from his Eastern Travels Literary Industry Engagement 
 with Mr Knight on Penny Magazine, etc. 'The Deaf Traveller' First Interviews 
 with Miss Fenwick Marriage Eulogies on Woman Congeniality of Employ- 
 ments Birth of Eldest Child Triumph of Actual Knowledge Sketches from Per- 
 sonal Observations Results of Oriental Experience Nearing the Right Sphere 
 Undertakes the Editorship of 'The Pictorial Bible' Its Popularity Its Novel and 
 Distinctive Character Its Actual Pictures Published Anonymously Previous 
 Discouragements His High Satisfaction at Its Success The Ore and the Mould 
 Various Editions Amusing Extracts from Journal Interview with Mr Groves in 
 London. Pages 278-315. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 BIBLICAL AND LITERARY LABOURS-SOCIAL AND 
 DOMESTIC HABITS. 
 
 Visit to Plymouth ' Uncle Oliver's Travels' 'Pictorial History of Palestine' 
 Not fully appreciated Mistaken Critical Estimate of himself Hours of Labour 
 Soporific Powers of his Reading Incessant Toil Work-day of Sixteen Hours 
 Process of Assimilation with Mrs Kitto Jeopardy in the Streets Delight in his 
 Children Joy and Love of Home Intercourse with his Family Recreations 
 Attractions of Saturday Evening Social Qualities Manner in Society 'The Chris- 
 tian Traveller' Cessation of Regular Employment Pecuniary Straits Casting 
 about for Occupation ' School History of Palestine' ' Thoughts among Flowers' 
 'Gallery of Scripture Engravings' ' Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature' Diploma of 
 D.D. conferred 'The Lost Senses' Strange Experiences and Revelations 'Blind- 
 ness' Contributions to Tract Society's Monthly Volume 'Journal of Sacred Litera- 
 ture' Miscalculations as to its Success Editorial Perplexities. Pages 316-304.
 
 12 CONTEXTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 DAILY BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS LAST DAYS DEATH. 
 
 Proposed Now Work The Plan of the ' Daily Bible Illustrations' adopted Mom- 
 ing Series Its Favourable Reception 'Scripture Lands Described* 'The Land of 
 Promise' Grant from the Civil List Dedication to the Queen Evening Series 
 Critical Estimate of their Value Failing Health Necessity of Exercise 'Sunday 
 Reading for Christian Families' Death of Infant Child Comfort ibr Mourners 
 Cerebral Irritation Fretting Anxieties Conclusion of his Literary Labours 
 Attack of Paralysis Contributions for his Relief Depression and Feebleness De- 
 parture for Germany Residence at Cannstatt Death of Youngest Child and Eldest 
 Daughter Resignation Last Letter Last Hours Death Funeral Inscription 
 on Tombstone. Pages 355-392. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 GENERAL REVIEW OF CHARACTER AND CAREER. 
 
 Lessons of his Life Name immortally associated with Biblical Literature Value 
 of his Labours Illustrations sometimes beside the Mark Early Life Process of 
 Tempering The Turning Point Early Struggles Love of Books Results of his 
 Multifarious Reading Power of Word-Painting Visual Quickness Unceasing 
 Industry and Indomitable Perseverance Physical Exhaustion Foreshadowing of 
 Authorship Numerous Literary Projects Innate Vitality Relish for Society 
 Benevolence Bon-Hommie Fondness for Poetry Quaint and Humorous Sayings 
 Personal Allusions in his Writings Scholarship Accuracy of his References to 
 Authorities Remarkable Faculty of Appropriation Beautiful and Striking Pas- 
 sages Power of Religious Principles Trust in God Deportment under Bereave- 
 ments Catholic Spirit Gratitude to Friends and Patrons Intellectual and Moral 
 Independence Himself a Wonder His Mission. Pages 393-i;>5. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 FRONTISPIECE Portrait of Dr Kitto. 
 
 Gate of Hospital of the Poor's Portion, Plymouth, ..... Page 93 
 
 Tomb in Churchyard at Cannstatt, . ..... 392
 
 LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN KITTO, D.D. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 
 
 JOHN KITTO, the eldest son of John Kitto and Elizabeth 
 Picken,was born at Plymouth on the 4th of December 1804. 
 So small and sickly was the infant, that but a few hours of 
 life were expected for it. Though nursed with uncommon 
 tenderness and assiduity, it was long before the child was 
 able to walk. This original feebleness was never surmount- 
 ed. His stature was considerably below the average height, 
 and his limbs were defective in vigour ; while a headache, 
 recurring at longer or shorter intervals, accompanied him 
 from his cradle to his grave.' As this constitutional frailty 
 unfitted him, to a large extent, for the society of other boys, 
 and debarred him from their sports, it must have pre- 
 vented, or at least greatly retarded, a healthful physical 
 development. Bodily exercise was his grand necessity 
 all his days, but he never relished 4 it, and, indeed, never 
 took it, till he had partially paid the penalty of neglect. 
 Distaste for it may have originated in his incapacity to 
 run and riot with his childish comrades ; but it clung to 
 him, and grew upon him as he advanced in years nay,
 
 14 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 
 
 led him, when charged by his physician to walk so many 
 miles a day, and when his life depended on punctual com- 
 pliance, to seek, by various shifts and pleasantries, to lessen 
 the amount of his pedestrian regimen. 
 
 If a boy that has not sufficient strength and hardihood 
 to keep pace with his fellows in their boisterous pas- 
 times, should be often seen with his book behind a hedge, 
 or on a sunny slope, or found quietly seated in his own 
 corner of the domestic hearth, it would naturally be con- 
 cluded that he had been well educated ; that since he reads 
 so much, volumes are freely at his disposal ; that he meets 
 with parental encouragement ; that no misery preys upon 
 his heart ; and that there is no undue demand for labour 
 upon his youthful sinews. But Kitto's condition was 
 exactly the reverse. He was not sent to school till he was 
 eight years of age ; the majority of his books were begged 
 or borrowed, by continuous and untiring effort ; his home 
 was a seer of misery and degradation ; and, by the time 
 he was twelve years old, the dwarfed skeleton was yoked 
 to the heavy drudgery of a mason's labourer. 
 
 It is scarcely possible to estimate the amount of evil 
 influences that were thrown around Kitto from his child- 
 hood. His parents, both in humble life, had married young 
 the bridegroom, a mason by trade, and doing business 
 on his own account, being in his twentieth year, and the 
 bride in her eighteenth. But alas! the gay ' morning, 
 with gold the hills adorning,' was speedily overcast, and 
 there closed in a dark and stormy afternoon. The young 
 husband and father soon fell into intemperance, and his 
 heart and home became a wreck. Character was not only 
 lost, but the love of a good reputation died away within 
 him. He was, as his son has said, of ' the class of men 
 whom prosperity ruins;' and from being a master, he 
 sank into a servant. The curse of poverty fell upon his
 
 SAD DOMESTIC HISTORY. 15 
 
 family, for what he earned he consumed upon his lusts. 
 Swiftly pursuing his reckless and downward career, he 
 found himself more than once in ' durance vile,' and at 
 length, and at a later period, a more serious misdemeanour 
 threatened such consequences, that his poor boy writes, in 
 the bitterness of his soul ' What will they now say of 
 Kitto, the felon's son?' 1 To snatch the delicate child out 
 of this wretchedness, he was transferred, in his fourth year, 
 to his grandmother's poor garret. She, ' dear old woman,' 
 nursed him with more than a mother's tenderness, and her 
 he regarded with inexpressible affection. She, too, had 
 been blighted by intemperance. Her second husband, 
 John Picken, though usually reckoned a sober man, had 
 gone from Plymouth to Bigbury, a distance of thirteen 
 miles, and spent the evening to a late hour with friends in 
 the alehouse ; so that, as he was riding home somewhat 
 intoxicated, his horse trotted into a pond, and its rider 
 falling from its back, was drowned in his helplessness. 
 Kitto's mother was born a month after the melancholy 
 event. ' Alas !' says her son, on a comparison of his grand- 
 mother's and mother's fate ' My mother has the sad pre- 
 eminence in misery.' For the shadow which had fallen 
 upon her birth gathered over her wedded life in more 
 terrible gloom. Intemperance had made her a posthumous 
 child, and now it made her an unhappy wife, and a broken- 
 it may be added, that Kitto's uncle, who had got a superior education, fell a 
 victim to intemperance, as well as his father. The uncle had some local fame as 
 an engineer, having 'constructed the Upper Road across the Laira marshes from 
 Plymouth towards Exeter, and embanked a great portion of this road from the 
 tide.' Lost Senses, p. 7. Both brothers had come from their native parish of 
 Gwennap, in Cornwall, to Plymouth, attracted by the high rate of wages. Mrs 
 Picken, with her two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, lived in the same street with 
 them, and the result was, that'the two Kittos courted and married the two sisters 
 about the same period. Kitto, in his Workhouse Journal, fills some pages with the 
 sad story of his uncle, who was at length so reduced that he wrought on the Hoe 
 as a pauper, and he concludes by saying, ' Drunkenness is the bane of our family, 
 and the name of Kitto is synonymous with drunkard.'
 
 1<5 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 
 
 hearted mother. Menial offices of the lowest form, she 
 was at length glad to do, working, as she once tells her boy, 
 ' from five in the morning to ten in the evening,' that she 
 might have something to put into the mouth of her babes. 
 
 From his fourth to his eighth year, though Kitto enjoyed 
 a partial asylum with his grandmother, who ' pinched 
 herself to support ' him, yet he got no schooling. True, 
 he enjoyed another kind of education, perhaps as essential 
 to his welfare. He strolled through the fields and lanes 
 with his venerated relative, and gathered the flowers and 
 plucked the fruits, which grew around him in wild luxu- 
 riance, his grandmother deftly using her staff to hook down 
 the clusters of nuts and berries which were beyond his 
 reach. At other times they turned their course to the sea- 
 beach, and both were nerved by the breezes, which carried 
 the surf to the feet of the aged pilgrim and her tiny 
 charge, As they returned from these frequent and happy 
 excursions, she usually supplied him liberally ' with ginger- 
 bread, plums, apples, or sugar-stick,' her indifference to 
 the sweetness of the last article often filling his young ima- 
 gination with great amazement. 1 
 
 At the age of eight Kitto was sent to school, and he re- 
 mained, for various periods, and at various places of 
 tuition, during the next three years. The congenital 
 malady of headache was perpetually attacking him, and 
 destroying the punctuality of his attendance. But there 
 was another reason for his irregularity. His grandmother 
 was too poor to pay the requisite fees, and his father either 
 would not, or could not, spare a few pence for the pur- 
 pose ; so that when the fees could be saved from the ale- 
 cup, the boy attended school, and when not, he stayed at 
 
 The record of his abode with his grandmother is given at full length in a letter 
 by Kitto, dated Bagdad, June 25, 1832 an interesting piece of autobiography, 
 from which our knowledge of this portion of his life is derived, so that the source of 
 the subseqiu- needs not be again referred to.
 
 DEFECTIVE EDUCATION. 17 
 
 home. 1 Perhaps this circumstance may account for the 
 changes made in the schools he was sent to ; for he was 
 ' placed, for short and interrupted periods, at the schools of 
 Messrs Winston, Stephens, Treeby, and Goss.' 2 Probably, 
 at first, he lost as much in these forced recesses as he had 
 gained in the previous weeks of attendance. Still there 
 must have been great carelessness on the part of his parents, 
 ' for they might have availed themselves of the opportunities 
 which the many charity schools of the town afforded, for 
 the instruction of poor boys in elementary knowledge.' 3 
 But such neglect was inevitable the father still drank, 
 and the mother was obliged to go out and char. Kitto 
 did not gain a great deal by this desultory schooling ; his 
 early attainments not extending further ' than reading, 
 writing, and the imperfect use of figures.' The first speci- 
 mens of writing which we have, about four years after this 
 date, are legible, but by no means very elegant ; and as 
 the occasional blunders in spelling and syntax in the same 
 papers indicate, his English acquired at school was not to 
 be measured by a very high standard. His ' granny ' 
 once boasted that he was the best scholar in Plymouth ; 
 but he blushed at the unmerited honour, arid rejected it, 
 adding, however, as her apology, ' she did it ignorautly, 
 but affectionately.' 
 
 But his real, as distinct from his formal, education began 
 under his grandmother's roof. The little fellow, seated 
 quietly at her knee, was, for his amusement and occupation, 
 taught by her to sew ; and such was his assiduity, that 
 he exulted in having done the greater portion of a ' gay 
 patchwork ' for her bed, besides having finished ' quilts and 
 kettle-holders enough for two generations.' His fingers 
 might, indeed, soon fall out of practice with needle aud 
 
 1 Letter addressed to Sir Walter Scott, found among his papers. 
 * 1'reface to his first publication. * Ibid. 
 
 B
 
 18 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 
 
 scissors, but he was unconsciously training to that retired 
 and patient industry which characterized his subsequent 
 life of seclusion and silence. Then, too, from his grand- 
 mother's lips, he came first to know the current lore of 
 ghosts, hobgoblins, fairies, and witches ; and a lively shoe- 
 maker, named Roberts, who dwelt in the same tenement, 
 added his contribution of nursery literature, and repeated, 
 with awl and cord in hand, the tales of Bluebeard and 
 Cinderella, Jack the Giant-killer, and Beauty and the 
 Beast. ' Assuredly,' says Kitto, in 1 832, ' never have I 
 since felt so much respect and admiration of any man's 
 talents and extent of information as those of poor Roberts.' 
 The young listener was charmed. By and by, he found 
 out that such wondrous stories were not mere traditions, 
 to be heard only from the lips of his grandmother and the 
 cordwainer, but that they might be actually seen in print, 
 in Mrs Barnicle's shop-window, ay, and be had for a copper 
 trifle. ' This information,' he says, ' first inclined me to 
 reading.' He was at once induced to buy them, as often 
 as he could afford the small expense. The passion grew 
 upon him, and every spare penny went for the purpose. He 
 willingly denied himself the dainties which his doting 
 grandam would have provided for him no confections so 
 witching as a picture-book, and no fruit so sweet as a 
 nursery-rhyme. His desire of reading was indicated by 
 his growing love of quietness, and by his decreasing relish 
 for amusements out of doors, while it was nursed by the 
 zealous watchings of his relative, who, when he was per- 
 mitted to go out for a brief period to play, soon interrupted 
 him by her loud call from the garret window, of ' Johnny, 
 Johnny !' a sound, he pathetically adds, more than twenty 
 years afterwards, 'which, notwithstanding my deafness, 
 rings in my ears at this moment.' It was surely a kind 
 Providence which was so disciplining him, that the work
 
 PASSION FOR BOOKS. 19 
 
 of his subsequent life did not necessitate a sudden and 
 violent change of habit. He was thus, at a very early 
 period, thrown much upon himself and upon books for his 
 amusement, a proof, as he was wont to argue, that his love 
 of literature was certainly not created, though it was ripened 
 and confirmed, by his subsequent deafness. The books in 
 his grandmother's possession were speedily explored ' a 
 Family Bible, with plenty of engravings ; a Prayer-book ; 
 Bunyan's Pilgrim ; and Gulliver's Travels.' ' The two 
 last I soon devoured,' says he, ' and so much did I admire 
 them, that, to increase their attractions, I decorated all 
 the engravings with the indigo my grandmother used in 
 washing, using a feather for a brush. Some one at last 
 gave me a fourpenny box of colours, and between that and 
 my books, I was so much interested at home, that I retained 
 little inclination for play ; and when my grandmother ob- 
 served this, she did all in her power to encourage those 
 studious habits, by borrowing for me books of her neigh- 
 bours.' All the books in the street passed speedily through 
 his hands. Prior to his twelfth year, he had got into a 
 new world, and he was at first bewildered by its variety. 
 Nothing would satisfy him but book upon book. The 
 voracious student was not at all backward in maintaining 
 a supply by pen or tongue. His first efforts at composi- 
 tion were written to the kind and obliging mistress of a 
 neighbouring charity school, and were either requests for 
 the loan of a volume, or apologies for putting the lender 
 to so much trouble. ' Many of the old neighbours,' he says, 
 ' will remember what a plague I was to them in this respect.' 
 In fact, if he heard of a book being within reach, he pestered 
 everybody about him till he got it. What he calls his ' first 
 literary effort,' was at this time also achieved by him, and he 
 has thought it of such importance, as to place it oil record 
 himself. Nay, when looked at hi the light of his subsequent
 
 20 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 
 
 career, it might be regarded as a propitious omen. The 
 following is his amusing account of the transaction : 
 
 'My cousin came one day with a penny in his hand, 
 declaring his intention to buy a book with it. I was just 
 then sadly in want of a penny to make up fourpence, with 
 which to purchase the history of King Peppin (not Pepin), 
 so I inquired whether he bought a book for the pictures 
 or the story ? " The story, to be sure." I then said, that 
 in that case, I would, for his penny, write him both a larger 
 and a better story than he could get in print for the same 
 sum, and that he might be still further a gainer, I would 
 paint him a picture at the beginning, and he knew there 
 were no painted pictures in penny books. He expressed 
 the satisfaction he should feel in my doing so, and sat down 
 quietly on the stool to note my operations. When I had 
 done, I certainly thought my cousin's penny pretty well 
 earned ; and as, at reading the paper and viewing the 
 picture, he was of the same opinion, no one else had any 
 right to complain of the bargain. I believe this was the 
 first penny I ever earned. I happened to recollect this 
 circumstance when last at Plymouth, and felt a wish to 
 peruse this paper, if still in existence ; but my poor cousin, 
 though he remembered the circumstance, had quite for- 
 gotten both the paper and its contents, unless that it was 
 " something about what was done in England at the time 
 when wild men lived in it " even this was further than 
 my own recollection extended.' 
 
 As the boy occasionally sauntered through the streets, 
 and had so much time on his hand, he read all the play-bills 
 posted on the walls ; and though he had never read or 
 seen a play, he resolved to get up one the ' price of ad- 
 mission being, ladies eight pins, gentlemen ten.' Dresse; 
 were prepared, such as ribbons and sashes, caps an 
 feathers, and the play was acted; the value of the pi
 
 THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE. 21 
 
 collected amounting to three halfpence. The drama was 
 a tragedy, so sweeping in its mimic massacre, that only one 
 little actress remained alive at the end ; and the audience, 
 consisting of fifteen boys and girls, were perfectly satisfied 
 with the performance. The whole affair was sufficiently 
 childish, though Kitto was disposed to make his share 
 the play-bill and the plot a proof of his literary progress. 
 It is plain, from these statements, that Kitto's early love 
 of reading was no whim, or mere childish curiosity, but 
 that there was a craving for information awakened within 
 him. He rose gradually, even in his boyhood, to a more 
 select and useful class of books. The cousin referred to, 
 and for whom the booklet was extemporized, was as fond 
 of books as Kitto, and could far more easily procure them; 
 but his love of reading soon passed away from him, and in 
 his manhood he scarce turned the leaf of anything, ' save 
 a jest-book or a song.' With him, literary relish was 
 only a variety of juvenile caprice, and the ball and the 
 book might, at any moment, change places in his fancy ; 
 whereas in Kitto's case, the thirst for knowledge had really 
 been excited, and, no matter how often baffled, it was never 
 to be repressed. He enjoyed, at the same time, some re- 
 ligious education, and could answer a few questions from 
 the Church Catechism. He also attended church so often, 
 as to have caught the manner of Dr Hawker the vicar, 
 and be able to imitate it, to his grandmother's vexation, 
 when he read the Bible to her. Yet no serious impression 
 seems to have been made upon him : ' After,' says he, ' I 
 had studied the engravings, and read so much of the text 
 as seemed to explain these, I felt then no disposition to 
 study the Bible further.' There was much in it to interest 
 him, had he chosen to read it many scenes and stories 
 that might have fascinated him both in the Old and New 
 Testament ; but the time had not yet come when he was
 
 22 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 
 
 to find it a refuge to the weary, and a balm to the smitten 
 in heart, and when its illustration was to form the daily 
 business of his life. 
 
 But the sky was gradually lowering around him. His 
 grandmother ceased, in 1814, to have any separate means 
 of support, while age and disease were leaving their traces 
 upon her. Reduced to poverty and attacked by paralysis, 
 she was forced to go to live with her youngest daughter. 
 Under his father's roof again, Kitto soon felt the sadden- 
 ing change. The boy must do something for his main- 
 tenance, and, in the spring of the year 1815, he was sent 
 as a species of apprentice to a barber's shop. ' Old Wig- 
 more,' as his facetious underling records, ' had practised on 
 board a ship-of-war, arid related adventures which rivalled 
 Baron Munchausen ; ' had a face so ' sour,' that it sickened 
 one to look at it, and ' which was beside all over red by 
 drinking spirituous liquors.' 1 While in Wigmore's service, 
 he learned only so much of his art, as to be able to shave. 
 For want of better occupation, he seems to have practised 
 so frequently upon himself, as, by the age of sixteen, to have 
 induced a growth of no ordinary thickness on his upper 
 lip, while, by the repeated application of the scissors to his 
 eye-brows, they acquired also a similar premature ' bushi- 
 ness.' But, from this occupation, he was summarily dis- 
 missed. His master's stock-in-trade, or at least his best 
 razors, were put under Kitto's charge, and taken home by 
 him every night. One morning, as he came up to the 
 shop, with the precious implements of his calling under his 
 arm, a woman in front of the unopened place of business, 
 professed to be anxiously waiting for Wigmore, and that 
 no time might be lost, she induced Kitto to leave his parcel 
 with her, and run and call his master. As might have 
 been anticipated, she was off before Kitto returned, and the 
 
 1 Workhouse Journal.
 
 THE RAZOR AND THE HOD. 23 
 
 surly old fellow discharged the little craftsman on suspicion 
 of his being an accomplice of the thief. Kitto keenly felt the 
 imputation, for his mere simplicity was branded as knavery. 
 And thus ended his first and curious engagement. 
 
 What, then, was the boy to do, but occasionally put on 
 a smock-frock, and go out and assist his father? He 
 did so, both in town and country the grieved witness and 
 reporter of his parent's profligacy. When left at leisure 
 at any time, he usually took to wandering in the fields, and 
 among the rocks. He felt himself growing out of harmony 
 with his home and the world around him. As his mind 
 opened, he became more and more conscious of his un- 
 happy lot. He confesses that he first ' knew what happi- 
 ness was, by his own exclusion from it.' He pined for 
 solitude with book in hand 
 
 ' Away, away, from men and towns, 
 To the wild woods and the downs ; 
 To the silent wilderness, 
 Where the soul need not repress 
 Its moaning, lest it should not find 
 An echo in another's mind.' 
 
 In fact, morbid imaginations began at this time to gather 
 upon him. Having picked up a dog's head, which had 
 been long bleached on the sands, he at once determined to 
 make it a sort of symbolical memento, and having given it 
 a more ghastly appearance, by .reddening its jaws, and 
 replenishing its eyeholes and mouth with artificial orbs 
 and tongue, he hung up the grotesque teraphim at the foot 
 of his bed. He had long sought in vain for a human skull, 
 that he might place it in the same position. The abode 
 of his father was old and tall, and John's dormitory, in 
 the very apex of it, was of small dimensions, seven feet 
 by four. It was ventilated by an aperture that admitted 
 the wind, and could not exclude the rain, and was furnished
 
 24 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 
 
 with a rickety table, framed originally to stand on three 
 feet, but now sustaining itself with difficulty on two. This 
 dark oak table was an old heirloom, and highly prized 
 even in its decrepitude. The bed was in keeping with the 
 table, and was by turns a seat and a couch, according as 
 the strange inmate of the den wished to work or sleep. A 
 chest was there, too, having its appropriate uses, with a 
 box of smaller dimensions, holding pebbles and shells, and 
 the other contents of his museum, and which was fastened 
 with a string, passing through a huge and rusty padlock 
 ' a satire on security.' The walls were spattered with such 
 prints as he could afford to buy, and such drawings as 
 he was able to execute. Here was his library of a dozen 
 volumes, having among them a Bible ' imprinted by Barker 
 in the days of Queen Elizabeth,' and here he continued, 
 so far as his intermittent toil allowed, his habits of mis- 
 cellaneous reading. His spirit was gladdened, amidst all 
 his oppressions and wrongs, by such literary vigils. He 
 made indexes to his books, and even then he delighted to 
 hang over the lines of Young and Spenser. "We can easily 
 imagine the sorrow of his grandmother, at the changed 
 condition and shrouded prospects of her favourite. Per- 
 haps she regarded his position in life as fixed, and sus- 
 pected that, if his strength at all permitted, he would 
 naturally follow his father's occupation. Who, at that 
 moment, could have gainsaid such a prediction? But 
 Providence interposed, and suddenly changed the entire 
 current of events. 
 
 On the 13th of February 1817, the elder Kitto was on- 
 gaged in repairing the roof of a house in Batter Street, 
 Plymouth. His slim and ragged son was, about half-past 
 four in the afternoon, engaged in carrying up a load of 
 slates, and, when in the act of stepping from the top of the 
 ladder to the roof, he lost his footing and fell, a distance
 
 THE ACCIDENT. 25 
 
 of thirty-five feet, into the court beneath. There he lay 
 insensible, bleeding profusely at mouth and nose. On 
 being lifted, about five minutes after, consciousness re- 
 turned for an instant, and he could not divine why he came 
 there, or why so many people were staring at him. For 
 more than a week, he continued in prostrate insensibility ; 
 for four months, he was obliged to keep his bed, and he did 
 not entirely recover his strength, till other four months 
 had also elapsed. But the accident had deprived him 
 wholly of the faculty of hearing. What injury was done 
 to the organ was never ascertained, and no possible form 
 of treatment could remove it. He was subjected to every 
 variety of surgical torment and experiment, but all in vain. 
 The action of the auditory nerve was completely paralysed, 
 perhaps, as has been surmised, from the entire internal 
 apparatus being gorged with blood. The sense was not 
 simply dulled, it was extinguished. He became deaf, not 
 comparatively, as if he could hear only a little, and that 
 even with extreme pain and difficulty, but absolutely, for 
 he could not hear at all. The base of the skull had also 
 sustained some fracture beyond the reach of detection or 
 reparation a sad supplement to his constitutional headache. 
 In after years, Kitto often reflected upon the accident, 
 and he virtually assigns no less than three causes for it. 
 His first account of it in his Workhouse Journal (1820), 
 enters into no such details, and the probability is, that the 
 reasons ultimately urged, had really little to do with the 
 matter, but are rather the suggestions of an inquisitive and 
 introspective mind, which tried to connect the fall with 
 some previous mental associations, through which he might 
 have been thrown off his guard. The phenomenon has 
 happened too often to be one of mystery. Any one may 
 stumble, after he has often mounted a ladder, under a 
 heavy burden much more a feeble boy like John Kitto
 
 26 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 
 
 who never enjoyed great power of limb or firmness of step. 
 It does not need any analysis of his previous thoughts 
 to account for his mistake. He had climbed repeatedly 
 with a portion of mortar and slates during the day ; and 
 familiarity with the pathway may have induced a momen- 
 tary carelessness. Or the frequent ascent may have so 
 wearied his sinews, that when he had reached the sum- 
 mit of the ladder, and a different muscular action was 
 required, he had not the complete control of them. Or 
 his knee-joints, stiffened with the short and hard jerk of 
 so many steps up and down, repeated for so many hours, 
 may not have stretched so far as he imagined, when he 
 attempted to throw his foot on the eaves. In one ac- 
 count, he refers to the anticipation of a wonderful book, 
 which had been promised him by the town-crier for that 
 evening; and in another, to the prospect of a smock- 
 frock, on which' his grandmother had been a long time 
 working, and which he greatly needed, for he was in 
 tatters, ' out at elbows, out at shoulders, out at breast, out 
 all over ;' and, lastly, he seems to impute the accident to 
 the post mortem examination of a young sailor's body, going 
 on in one of the rooms of the house on which his father 
 was employed, the effect of which he had happened 
 to notice, as he was ascending the ladder, in the form of 
 bloody water spouting from the gutter. Were the last the 
 true version, there would have been a physical source of 
 unsteadiness vertigo or momentary faintness, which, how- 
 ever, he does not affirm, but speaks simply of a ' shock ;' 
 whereas the two former reasons adduced by him, could 
 only have produced absence of mind. Besides, the third 
 hypothesis would supersede the other suspected causes, 
 which are purely mental, and which, moreover, had been 
 just as powerful during the whole day, as at the fatal mo- 
 ment. All the three could not well co-exist, and the cir- 

 
 INCURABLE DEAFNESS. 27 
 
 cumstance of a post mortem dissection could hardly affect so 
 deeply the nerves of one who had long tried, in various 
 ways, to get the skull of a human skeleton, for the guardian 
 symbol of his couch. 
 
 On being carried home, the stunned youth lay in a trance 
 of nearly a fortnight. At length he wakened up ' as from 
 a night's sleep,' and perceived that it was two hours later 
 than his usual time of rising, but he could not even move 
 in bed. Many an hour he spent in ' trying to piece together 
 his broken recollections,' so as to comprehend his position. 
 How he learned that he had become deaf, is thus par- 
 ticularly related by himself. There was profound silence 
 in the room in which the pathetic scene took place, and alas ! 
 that silence reigned around him ever afterwards. 
 
 ' I was very slow in learning that my hearing was entirely 
 gone. The unusual stillness of all things was grateful to 
 me in my utter exhaustion ; and if, in this half-awakened 
 state, a thought of the matter entered my mind,, I ascribed 
 it to the unusual care and success of my friends in pre- 
 serving silence around me. I saw them talking, indeed, to 
 one another, and thought that, out of regard to my feeble 
 condition, they spoke in whispers, because I heard them 
 not. The truth was revealed to me in consequence of my 
 solicitude about the book which had so much interested me 
 on the day of my fall. It had, it seems, been reclaimed by 
 the good old man, who had lent it to me, and who doubt- 
 less concluded that I should have no more need of books 
 in this life. He was wrong, for there has been nothing in 
 this life which I have needed more. I asked for this book 
 with much earnestness, and was answered by signs, which 
 I could not comprehend. " Why do you not speak?" I 
 cried ; " Pray, let me have the book." This seemed to 
 create some confusion; and at length some one, more 
 clever than the rest, hit upon the happy expedient of writ-
 
 28 BIRTH AKD BOYHOOD. 
 
 ing upon a slate, that the book had been reclaimed by the 
 owner and that I could not, in my weak state, be allowed to 
 read. ' But,' I said in great astonishment, " Why do you 
 write to me ? why not speak ? Speak ! speak ! " Those 
 who stood around the bed exchanged significant looks of 
 concern, and the writer soon displayed upon his slate the 
 awful words " You ARE DEAF."' 1 
 
 A more complete case of isolation can hardly be imagined. 
 Had it not been for the boy's previous acquaintance with 
 books, into what misery would he not have fallen ? How 
 many, with such an infirmity, without education, and in his 
 rank of life, taunted as useless, and tormented as semi- 
 maniacs, would have sunk into objects of pity or contempt, 
 would have fallen into the dregs of society, and disappeared 
 in a nameless tomb in the pauper's or stranger's corner of 
 the graveyard ! Had there not been a powerful principle 
 within him, nursed and sustained by his eagerness for read- 
 ing, he might, as has been the case with not a few in his 
 social position and with his defect, have become sullen and 
 discontented, out of harmony with himself, and in anta- 
 gonism with all around him first a burden and then a pest. 
 His own idea was, that ' such trials and deprivations have 
 been generally found to paralyse exertion, and reduce the 
 mind to idiocy, inducing a mere oblivion of thought and 
 feeling.' 
 
 What circumstances, then, could be so discouraging as 
 those of Kitto a poor deaf boy, with none to care for him, 
 none to guide him, or stimulate him to healthful mental 
 exercise ? Such an inmate of such a home how helpless 
 and how hopeless ! He was able to do little for himself 
 before, and he could certainly do less now. The father 
 might gain a penny from his son's toils once, but now he 
 left him wholly to his own vagaries. His grandmother's 
 
 1 ' Lost Senses Deafness.' By John Kitto, D.D., pp. 11, 12.
 
 WAYS AND MEANS. 29 
 
 resources were exhausted too, and not a farthing to buy a 
 book came into his possession. He resorted, therefore, to 
 what he has graphically called, a ' Poor Student's Ways 
 and Means.' He went down to Sutton Pool, 1 where the 
 ' fishing trawlers ' and small coasters discharged their 
 cargoes, and, wading among its black and fetid ooze and 
 mire at low water, he groped, along with other boys, for 
 pieces of rope, iron, and other nautical fragments. Some 
 of his comrades could gather as much in a day, as amounted, 
 when sold, to threepence ; but Kitto was never very nimble 
 in his movements, and his weekly profits only swelled up 
 once to fourpeuce. But he happened, on one occasion, to 
 tread on a broken bottle, and such a wound put an imme- 
 diate end to this form of industry. Then he turned to his 
 box of paints, and bethought him of artistic employment, 
 wondering, all the while, at the vulgarity of his previous 
 occupation. Having laid out his capital sum of twopence 
 on paper, he set about a series of paintings human heads, 
 houses, flowers, birds, and trees. Grotesque they were, 
 according to his own account ' faces all profiles, and all 
 looking the same way ;' birds sufficiently weighty to ' bow 
 to the dust' the branches on which they were awkwardly 
 perched ; and flowers, ' generally in pots,' with a ' centre 
 in all cases yellow, and with any number of petals.' But 
 in describing this handicraft, he subjoins, with a simple 
 honesty, ' Thus far I can now smile, but no further. I 
 cannot smile when I recollect the intense excitement with 
 which I applied myself to my new labours, and the glorious 
 vision of coppers and reputation which attended my pro- 
 gress. How knew I but, in process of time, my pictures 
 might be pasted on the walls or over the mantel-pieces of 
 most of the rooms in the lane where I lived ! This was 
 
 The details are given by Kitto in two papers in the fourth volume of the Penny 
 Magazine, pp. 218 and 227.
 
 30 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 
 
 the extent of my ambition ; for I do aver that I did never, 
 even in thought, aspire to the dignity of being framed. 
 The boyish ambition that might thus be acquired among 
 my compeers, was, however, a perfectly secondary object ; 
 that which I wanted was money.' But his pictures were 
 painted for sale, and not for criticism ; and being arranged 
 in all their glory in his mother's window, he sat down 
 behind it, and anxiously awaited customers. Few were 
 attracted, for few passed the court, and fewer came in to 
 buy. Yet, the average weekly income of the artist, from 
 this source, was about twopence-halfpenny. Then he re- 
 solved to have a 'standing' in Plymouth Fair, and wrought 
 hard to provide his stall with an adequate supply of goods. 
 The character of his wares attracted many spectators, and 
 it was probably for his comfort, that he could not hear 
 their remarks. Their staring curiosity annoyed him, but 
 he gained a larger sum of money by this public sale, than 
 he had ever before possessed. Certain labels in the win- 
 dows of the lanes and outskirts of the town, had long been 
 an eyesore to him. The spelling and writing were equally 
 wretched ' Logins for singel men,' ' Rooms to leet en- 
 quair withing.' He prepared neat and accurate substitutes, 
 and took many a long and weary journey to dispose of his 
 productions. Occasionally he succeeded, but as often he 
 failed from bashfulness. The boy's infirmity sometimes 
 secured him sympathy, and sometimes led to a testy 
 rebuff; and his inability to talk about his articles made 
 his customers, in one place, kind and generous, and in 
 another, brief and surly in their dealings with him. 
 
 The money gained from employment so precarious, was 
 spent on books. Attachment to study might well have 
 been chilled in a stripling who seemed to himself the most 
 forlorn and helpless of human beings. Yet he read and 
 pondered, frequented Mrs Bulley's circulating library, and
 
 BOOKS AND BOOKSTALLS. 31 
 
 contrived to plod his way through numerous volumes- 
 many, indeed, of an inferior class, but others of a higher 
 stamp and excellence. Still he loved to stroll into the 
 country, or recline among the shelving crags with the surge 
 beating at his feet, and to create for himself, through his 
 reading and reverie, a temporary Elysium. There was a 
 stillness around him, unbroken even by his own footfall. 
 Wearied out after a day's solitary wandering, heart-sick at 
 the misery and privation of his home, with bitter memories 
 of the past, and dreary anticipations of the future, his 
 only refuge was with his books, and in his little attic, where 
 many a tedious hour was beguiled, and where the growing 
 consciousness of intellectual strength could not but fre- 
 quently cheer and sustain him. He used, at this time, and 
 after being sent to the Workhouse, to go to Devonport, 
 once almost every fortnight, to visit a bookstall in the 
 market. He feasted among the volumes, and the keeper 
 not only did not disturb him, but gave him books at the 
 cheapest rate, in exchange for the few pence he had scraped 
 together. 1 This man he reckoned a prince in generosity, 
 and a perfect contrast to a ' sour old woman,' and a ' surly 
 little man,' by whom two other stalls were kept, and who 
 did not relish the sight of so ' shabby a fellow' handling 
 their literary wares. And he naively adds, ' I had another 
 more logical mode of reasoning on the matter, which 
 settled it in my mind beyond any possibility of dispute, 
 that my friend of Devonport market, and others of his 
 kind in general, were, and must be, the happiest men in 
 the world. If, I used to say, they sell the books, they 
 are happy in the money they get ; but if they do not sell 
 them, they are happy in the bool^s they retain.' 2 This 
 
 1 Old Aubrey, the antiquary, says of Hobbes, ' He took great delight to go to the 
 bookbinders' and stationers' shops, and lye gaping on mapps.' 
 * Letter to George Harvey, Esq., January 19, 1827.
 
 32 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 
 
 period has been described by Kitto himself in the following 
 eloquent terms : 
 
 ' For many years I had no views towards literature 
 beyond the instruction and solace of my own mind ; and 
 under these views, and in the absence of other mental 
 stimulants, the pursuit of it eventually became a passion, 
 which devoured all others. I take no merit for the in- 
 dustry and application with which I pursued this object, 
 nor for the ingenious contrivances by which I sought to 
 shorten the hours of needful rest, that I might have the 
 more time for making myself acquainted with the minds 
 of other men. The reward was great and immediate ; and 
 I was only preferring the gratification which seemed to 
 me the highest. Nevertheless, now that I am, in fact, 
 another being, having but slight connection, excepting in 
 so far as " the child is father to the man," with my former 
 self; now that much has become a business which was 
 then simply a joy ; and now that I am gotten old in ex- 
 periences, if not in years, it does somewhat move me to 
 look back upon that poor and deaf boy, in his utter lone- 
 liness, devoting himself to objects in which none around 
 him could sympathize, and to pursuits which none could 
 even understand. The eagerness with which he sought 
 books, and the devoted attention with which he read them, 
 was simply an unaccountable fancy in their view ; and the 
 hours which he strove to gain for writing that which was 
 destined for no other eyes than his own, was no more than 
 an innocent folly, good for keeping him quiet and out of 
 harm's wa} r , but of no possible use on earth. This want of 
 the encouragement which sympathy and appreciation give, 
 and which cultivated friends are so anxious to bestow on 
 the studious application of their young people, I now count 
 among the sorest trials of that day ; and it serves me now 
 as a measure for the intensity of my devotement to such
 
 CRAVING FOR SYMPATHY. 33 
 
 objects, that I felt so much encouragement within, as not 
 to need or care much for the sympathies and encourage- 
 ments which are, in ordinary circumstances, held of so 
 much importance. I undervalue them not; on the con- 
 trary, an undefinable craving was often felt for sympathy 
 and appreciation in pursuits so dear to me ; but to want 
 this was one of the disqualifications of my condition, quite 
 as much so as my deafness itself ; and in the same degree 
 in which I submitted to my deafness as a dispensation of 
 Providence towards me, did I submit to this as its neces- 
 sary consequence. It was, however, one of the peculi- 
 arities of my condition, that I was then, as I ever have 
 been, too much shut up. With the same dispositions and 
 habits, without being deaf, it would have been easy to 
 have found companions who would have understood me, 
 and sympathized with my love for books and study, my 
 progress in which might also have been much advanced by 
 such intercommunication. As it was, the shyness and re- 
 serve which the deaf usually exhibit, gave increased effect 
 to the physical disqualification ; and precluded me from 
 seeking, and kept me from incidentally finding, beyond the 
 narrow sphere in which I moved, the sympathies which 
 were not found in it. As time passed, my mind became 
 filled with ideas and sentiments, and with various know- 
 ledges of things new and old, all of which were as the 
 things of another world to those among whom my lot was 
 cast. The conviction of this completed my isolation ; and 
 eventually all my human interests were concentrated in 
 these points, to get books, and, as they were mostly bor- 
 rowed, to preserve the most valuable points in their con- 
 tents, either by extracts, or by a distinct intention to 
 impress them on the memory. When I went forth, I 
 counted the hours till I might return to he only pursuits 
 in which I could take interest ; and when free to return, 
 
 c
 
 84 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 
 
 how swiftly I fled to immure myself in that little sanc- 
 tuary, which I had been permitted to appropriate, in one 
 of those rare nooks only afforded by such old Elizabethan 
 houses, as that in which my relatives then abode.' 1 
 
 This condition, so well depicted, did not last long. It 
 was a cold gleam of sunshine in the last hour of a wintry 
 day. Nor was it wholly beneficial to Kitto. He was be- 
 coming too much the lord of himself, for he seems to have 
 been gratified in all his caprices that did not involve pecu- 
 niary outlay. The sympathy so naturally felt for him by 
 his relations, inclined them to fondle and humour him. 
 Nay, the child author and artist, was in danger of being 
 admired as a prodigy. But a severe and curative pro- 
 bation was before him. About the end of the year 1818, 
 his grandmother was obliged to leave Plymouth, in order 
 to reside at Brixton. The darling grandchild could not 
 accompany her, and he was left alone with his parents, and 
 entirely dependent on them. Ah ! then did he suffer. His 
 father was unreformed : vice had turned his heart into a 
 stone, and he was insensible alike to his own disgrace, the 
 degradation of his wife, and the cries of his young ones for 
 bread. It was certainly no merit of his that his famishing 
 children preserved their honesty, and did not stray into 
 those courses toward which temptation is ever pointing so 
 many in quest of food and raiment. For months was the 
 boy a pitiable spectacle pinched with hunger, shivering in 
 rags, and crawling about with exposed and bleeding feet. 
 A picture of more abject wretchedness could not be found, 
 than this deaf and puny starveling. Every prospect was 
 closed upon him, and to screen him from ' cold, and hunger, 
 and nakedness,' he was, on the 15th of November 1819, 
 admitted into the Plymouth Workhouse. 2 The sorrow 
 
 1 'Lost Senses Deafness,' pp. 76 78. 
 
 1 This workhouse, originally founded in 1630, was called the ' Hospital of the
 
 HOSPITAL OF THE POOR'S PORTION. 35 
 
 and want of his home had been long notorious ; the neigh- 
 bourhood was scandalized at his daily and hopeless pri- 
 vations ; charity was roused at length to interfere without 
 regard to his wishes and feelings ; and, therefore, as the 
 last and unwelcome resource, he was seized and sent to the 
 common receptacle of aged and juvenile pauperism and 
 wretchedness. 
 
 Poor's Portion.' A new one has now been erected in a different part of the town. 
 The old building stills stands, however, in its comparative desolation, as when we 
 saw it in the beginning of last year. It had been tenanted a short time before by 
 about fifty Emancipadoes from Cuba negroes who had purchased their freedom, 
 and who were on their way to Lagos and Abeokuta. Our friend Dr Tregelles and 
 his lady, with others, were very attentive to them. Services in Spanish were held 
 with them every Lord's Day, as well as many meetings during the week. The old 
 workhouse seemed alive again with its sable inmates, and the Christian efforts did 
 not appear to be without fruit
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 SOME stratagem was necessary to secure the lad's entrance 
 into the workhouse, for he was wild and shy ; and when 
 he learned that he was in virtual captivity, his sorrow was 
 without bounds. But the wayward and defiant pauper 
 submitted, in course of time, to the salutary curb ; and 
 he was in need of it, for he had long moved simply as it 
 pleased him, and acted under no law but that of his own 
 moods, which brooked neither challenge nor control. Not 
 only were the order and discipline of the workhouse of 
 essential service to him, but his fellowship with the other 
 boys was also of immense advantage. It revealed to him 
 various aspects of human nature, and tended to soften such 
 misanthropic asperities as solitude is apt to produce. It 
 gave employment also to his pen, and his facility of com- 
 position eventually drew attention to him. He had been 
 going down the valley of humiliation, and the workhouse 
 was the lowest step but one in the descent. For there 
 was still another, and a deeper one ; but it was the last, 
 and the next step beyond it commenced the up-hill jour- 
 ney. Kitto's desultory life, prior to his entry into the 
 workhouse, would never have brought him into obser- 
 vation ; but now his power was more concentrated, and 
 he gradually came into closer contact with the benevolent 
 Governor and the Board of Guardians. If he felt acuter
 
 THE AWL AND THE PEN. 87 
 
 misery, he had also acquired a keener power of telling it ; 
 and such a power in such a narrator, could not but excite 
 surprise. If he had to make complaints, his fearless utter- 
 ance usually secured redress ; and if he was obliged to 
 enter into self-vindication, the cleverness of his advocacy 
 was at least as conspicuous as the rectitude of his conduct. 
 
 Mr Roberts, who was governor of the workhouse at the 
 time of his admission, treated him kindly, and permitted him 
 some indulgences, even so far as sleeping at home ; and 
 Mr Burnard, his successor, was Kitto's kind friend and 
 sympathizing correspondent through his whole eventful 
 career. The youth was set to learn the making of list- 
 shoes, under Mr Anderson, the beadle, and he grew, in no 
 long time, to be a proficient in the business. Probably his 
 friends were happy that now he might be able at least to 
 maintain himself, and that there was something between 
 him and abject penury. Within a year of his entering 
 the workhouse, he began to keep a journal, and this curious 
 and extraordinary document 1 is the best record of this 
 portion of his life and progress. For this purpose, there- 
 fore, we shall freely employ it. 
 
 It might perhaps be supposed that a lad, brought up as 
 John Kitto had been, in comparative pauperism, should be 
 a stranger to delicacy of feeling. It might be imagined 
 that the hardship of his condition could not but blunt any 
 mental refinement, and that therefore now, within the walls 
 of a workhouse, he had more than ordinary reason for con- 
 tentment among boys of his own years and class. What 
 is thus surmised might be true of many, perhaps of the 
 majority, in Kitto's circumstances; but it was certainly 
 not true of him. He was painfully conscious of his degra- 
 
 1 Kitto mentions, in a letter to Mr Burnard, from Bagdad, that he had found 
 some of his early papers, which had escaped the flames to which, some time pre- 
 viously, he had committed his early MSS. The papers thus accidentally preserved, 
 seem to have been the Workhouse Journal.
 
 38 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 datioii. In spite of all he suffered, he never sank into 
 callousness. What he might have been ever stood out to 
 him in sad contrast to what he was, and his present con- 
 dition was out of all harmony with his ideal prospects. 
 He felt, and he keenly felt, so that in his Journal, when he 
 becomes sentimental or sketchy at any time, or describes 
 what enjoyments he coveted, or what anticipations feasted 
 him, he suddenly and testily checks himself, and cries, 
 ' But what has a workhouse boy to do with feelings?' or, 
 ' The word pauper sticks in my throat.' 
 
 The interesting quarto is styled, ' Journal and Memo- 
 randum, from August 12, 1820, by John Kitto, jun.' The 
 motto on the title-page, might have been ascribed to undue 
 self-appreciation, had it not been vindicated by his subse- 
 quent career 
 
 1 Full many a gem of purest ray serene, 
 
 The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear, 
 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air.' 
 
 The volume is, 'with reverence, inscribed to the me 
 mory of Cecilia Picken, my Grandmother, and the dearest 
 friend I ever had,' etc. It was an odd thing for a pauper 
 boy to think of such a project as keeping a diary. It shows, 
 at least, that his mind was stirring, and that he was re- 
 solved to exercise himself in observation and in composition. 
 When was a journal compiled in such circumstances 
 amidst such physical and social disadvantages by a deaf 
 boy in a poorhouse, of whom no higher estimate was 
 formed, than that he might be a passable shoemaker, and 
 for whom no loftier wish was entertained than that he 
 might be able to maintain himself by his craft, and without 
 being an expense to the community ! Compassion was felt 
 for him, but no hopes were cherished about him. Men 
 blamed the father and pitied the child, and then thought
 
 SELF-PORTRAIT. 39 
 
 no more of him, but as the victim of complicated and re- 
 peated misfortunes. 
 
 As to his motive in writing it, he says, that as he had 
 no time to finish his drawings, and they did not sell when 
 finished, and as he could not command a sufficient quantity 
 of books, so he thought that writing was a good substitute, 
 both for painting and reading. He adds, too, that he 
 adopted the plan of a journal as a useful thing as some- 
 thing to instruct others years hence (if he should be spared), 
 in the misfortunes and sorrows of his early years, while he 
 admits that there may be a little bit of human vanity in 
 the resolution. But the Journal has realized its purpose. 
 What, in fact, would the record of his early life be with- 
 out it? 
 
 The following is his description of himself racy and 
 rather picturesque, though several features of the external 
 portraiture were subsequently modified or toned down 
 by the higher physical culture which he afterwards en- 
 joyed : 
 
 ' Yesterday I completed my sixteenth year of age, and 
 I shall take this opportunity of describing, to the best of 
 ray ability, my person, in which description I will be no 
 egotist. I am four feet eight inches high ; and, to begin 
 with my head, my hair is stiif and coarse, of a dark brown 
 colour, almost black ; my head is very large, and, I believe, 
 has a tolerable good lining of brain within. My eyes are 
 brown and large, and are the least exceptionable part of 
 my person ; my forehead is high, my eyebrows bushy ; my 
 nose is large, mouth very big, teeth well enough, skin of 
 my face coarse ; my limbs are not ill-shaped ; my legs are 
 rt-e/Z-shaped, except at their ends they have rather too long 
 a foot ; when clean, my hands are very good ; my upper 
 lip is graced, or rather disgraced (as in these degenerate 
 days the premature down of manhood is reckoned a dis-
 
 40 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 grace ! how unlike the grave and wise Chinese, who envy 
 us fortunate English nothing but our beards) with a beard.' 
 
 There was indeed something peculiar in his appear- 
 ance : 
 
 ' March 30. I observe that my decorated lip exposes 
 me to observation, and that when I walk along the streets, 
 all men, women, and children, do me the honour to stare 
 me in the face. I got leave to come out this afternoon, 
 and shaved myself with my father's razor.' In a fragmen- 
 tary autobiography, dated June 26, 1823, he writes, ' My 
 manners are awkward and clownish. I am short in stature, 
 stoop much in walking, and walk as though I feared I 
 should fall at every step, with my hands almost always, 
 when I walk, in my pockets.' 
 
 ' October 7. When I go any where, I am almost afraid 
 to meet any of my own sex ; there is, it seems, something- 
 about me that exposes me to observation, and makes me 
 stared at ; and I find, by experience, that the best way to 
 come off well, is riot to avert the face, but to look uncon- 
 cerned, stare at them in return, and assume an impudent 
 look. What a world is this, in which modest bashfulness 
 is contemned, and impudence caressed!' 
 
 His deafness, ' laboured asthmatic breathing,' and appar- 
 ent powerlessness, often made him the butt of the other 
 boys in the hospital, and he was obliged to make sudden 
 and smart reprisals. 
 
 ' October 12. When afterward, in the evening, Torr was 
 making faces at me again in the court-yard, I could bear 
 it no longer, but gave him such a blow as made him fall 
 down. You cannot imagine, Madam, 1 how this seeming 
 trifle provoked me. 
 
 ' October 22. I to-day experienced the truth of the maxim, 
 that meanness is a medal, the reverse of which is insolence* 
 
 * The diary often addresses some ideal personage.
 
 REPKISALS. 41 
 
 When I was waiting under the porch till Mr Barnard 
 should pass by, to ask leave to come out, one of the blue- 
 coat boys, named Peters, kept making faces at me. At 
 first I treated his foolery with the contempt it deserved, 
 by taking no notice of it. But at last he provoked me 
 so far, by attempting to pull my nose, that (though no 
 boxer, and not over courageous) I gave him a blow on the 
 forehead, with such good will, as made him reel to the 
 opposite wall, and brought the water into his eyes. When 
 I had done so, I fully expected a return of the favour, but 
 he, so far from resenting it, desisted from his foolery, and 
 soon sneaked off- 
 
 ' March 21. At eight o'clock, as we were going to 
 prayers, Rowe gave me an unprovoked blow on the back, 
 and ran away. I pursued him, and hemmed him into a 
 corner, when, finding he could not escape, he placed him- 
 self in a pugilistic attitude ; but a few blows made him 
 stoop to defend his ears, and at the same time to pick up 
 a bone and a large cinder to throw at me. While I was 
 disarming him of those missile weapons, I was attacked in 
 the rear by ten or twelve boys, who delight in mischief. 
 Having disarmed Rowe, I turned against my new opponents, 
 and, discharging a bone at one, and a cinder at another, 
 and some blows among the rest, put them all to flight.' 
 
 Sometimes, when bad boys were flogged, Kitto was se- 
 lected to hold their legs, probably because, from his ina- 
 bility to hear their cries, he was under no temptation to 
 slacken his grasp. The next extract is a reflection, in his 
 own style, upon his early disaster. 
 
 ' October 9. I found, on coming to my senses, that I 
 had just been bled, and that by my fall I had lost my 
 hearing, and from that time to this there has 
 
 " Not to me returned 
 The sound of voice responsive, no feast divine
 
 42 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 Of reason, nor the ' flow of soul,' nor sports 
 Of wit fantastic : from the cheerful speech 
 Of men cut off, and intercourse of thought 
 And wisdom." 1 
 
 ' I did not entirely recover my strength till eight months 
 after, four of which I kept my bed from weakness, during 
 which time I had leeches applied to my temples and under 
 my ears, also an issue on my neck, besides taking plenty of 
 nauseous physic all to no purpose as to my deafness, for 
 I do not expect to hear any more. Ever since, after dark 
 or sunset, and in a great measure in the day, I have always 
 had an irregular uneven pace and a labouring gait, and 
 after dark I stagger like a drunken man. Thus, you see, 
 no sooner had youthful fancy begun to sport in the fairy 
 fields of hope, than all my hopes anticipated, and present 
 pleasures and happiness, were, by this one stroke, de- 
 stroyed. ! ye millions, who enjoy the blessing of which 
 I am deprived, how little do ye know how to appreciate its 
 enjoyment ! Man is of such a fickle nature, that he ever 
 slights the pleasures he has, to sigh for those he has not. 
 However, I will attempt to give you an idea of my de- 
 privation. Fair lady, how should you like to forego the 
 incense of flattery (so gratifying to female vanity) offered 
 you by the admiring throng ? I believe, my Lord, you 
 would regret being deprived of the fulsome adulation offered 
 you daily by abject (pardon me, my Lord) sycophants. 
 Sir, who are you ? What are those who extol you to the 
 skies? You are a wonder, I must own a rich poet. 
 Yet, remember, it is not to your poetical or personal merit 
 they pay homage, but to your wealth you owe it; nor 
 forget that such men as those who flatter you, could suffer, 
 unmoved, an Otway, a Chatterton, and many others, to die 
 " unpitied " I had almost added, " unknown " the for- 
 
 1 Imitated from Milton, by Miss Palmer.
 
 STRANGE CONTRASTS. 43 
 
 mer of want, and the latter of ; but let me not with- 
 draw the veil benevolence has thrown over his memory. 
 Should you, Sir, like to be deprived of this degrading 
 flattery ? Ye men of genius, and of wit ! Ye patriots and 
 statesmen ! Ye men of worth and wisdom ! Ye chaste 
 maids aud engaging matrons ! And ye men of social minds ! 
 Should you like to be 
 
 " From the cheerful speech 
 Of men cut off, and intercourse of thought 
 And wisdom?" 
 
 If not, guess my situation, now I am grown somewhat 
 misanthropic, with no consolation but my books and my 
 granny.' 
 
 He had passed through the fire, and the smell of singe- 
 ing was upon him. But he never sank into 
 
 'A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear, 
 A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief, 
 Which finds no natural outlet, no relief 
 In word, or sigh, or tear.' 
 
 Strange it is to find the editor of the Pictorial Bible 
 thus recording of himself : 
 
 ' I was to-day most wrongfully accused of cutting off the 
 tip of a cat's tail. They did not know me who thought 
 me capable of such an act of wanton cruelty. 
 
 ' June 2. I am making my own shoes. 
 
 ' June 9. I have finished my shoes they are tolerably 
 strong and neat. 
 
 ' August 14. I was set to close bits of leather. 
 
 ' August 15. Said bits of leather that I had closed, were 
 approved of, and I was sent to close a pair of women's 
 shoes, which were also approved of. 
 
 ' August 16. I was most unaccountably taken from what 
 I had just begun to learn, to go to my old work (making 
 of list shoes), in which I arn perfect as it is possible to be.
 
 44 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 8 who, without being acquainted with the structure 
 
 of a list shoe, dictates to us who are, without any autho- 
 rity but that of being a man (a very little one too), and 
 bids us, under pain of the stirrup, make a pair of shoes per 
 diem, which is particularly hard on me, who, besides doing 
 my own work, am obliged to teach the rest. 
 
 ' November 14. I forgot to mention that, on Monday, I 
 had been a year in the workhouse, during which time I 
 have made seventy-eight pairs of list shoes, besides mend- 
 ing many others, and have received, as a premium, one 
 penny per week. 
 
 ' November 20. Set to tapping leather shoes to-day.' 
 
 In striking contrast with these revelations about list and 
 leather, tapping and closing, waxing and sewing, occurs 
 the following entry, which proves that the mind of the 
 pauper shoemaker was not only busy, but stretching far 
 above and beyond the walls of the workhouse : 
 
 ' I burnt a tale of which I had written several sheets 
 (quarto), which I called " The Probationary Trial," but 
 which did not, so far as I wrote, please me.' 
 
 The discipline of the workhouse was occasionally admin- 
 istered in profusion, and on a somewhat miscellaneous prin- 
 ciple. He records that, on one occasion, having finished 
 his shoes, and when he was waiting for the soles of others 
 to be cut out, he began to ' write a copy ' for Kelly, and had 
 only written one letter, when the beadle came in, and 
 ' gravely gave us a stirruping all round ' idleness being 
 the alleged ground of the castigation. 
 
 Among the most interesting entries in the Journal, are 
 those relating to his grandmother, who had nursed and 
 watched him with more than maternal fondness and self- 
 denial, and whom he regarded with more than filial affec- 
 tion. On the first page occurs the following entry, which 
 we copy as it stands :
 
 THE FIRST GREAT SORROW. 45 
 
 4 1819. Granny has been absent in Dock this 2 days. 
 Tho' but for so short a period I severely feel her absence. 
 If I feel it so acutely now, how shall I bear the final sepe- 
 ration when she shall be gone to that "undiscovered country 
 from whose bourn no traveller returns?" She cannot be 
 expected to live many years longer, for now she is more 
 than 70 years of age. 0, Almighty Power, spare yet a 
 few years my granny the protector of my infancy, and 
 the . . . I cannot express my gratitude. It is useless 
 to attempt it.' 
 
 His interviews with this relative are the epochs of hi* 1 life. 
 He carefully notes her gifts to him, is rejoiced when she is 
 pleased, and sadly dismayed when he hears of her being in 
 a ' fine taking ' about any domestic occurrence. After nu- 
 merous incidental allusions, he writes : 
 
 ' April 16. Granny is worse again. She seems almost 
 unconscious of everything ; yet she knows me, for she held 
 out her hand to me when I was going. 
 
 ' April 17. She does not know me \ she is speechless. 
 Aunt tells me that the surgeon has given her over that 
 she is dying. 
 
 ' April 18. She is dead.' 
 
 This was the sensitive and affectionate boy's first great 
 sorrow. 
 
 ' April 20, Good Friday, Being now a little recovered 
 from the first shock, I have, after several attempts, sum- 
 moned courage to detail particulars. On Wednesday even- 
 ing, when I came out [from the workhouse], I trod softly 
 up stairs lest I should disturb her repose. Useless pre- 
 caution \ Aunt met me at the head of the stairs, in tears. 
 I entered ; a white sheet over the bed met my view. She 
 was dead \ Think you I wept ? I did not weep \ Tears 
 are for lesser sorrows ; my sensations were too powerful 
 for tears to relieve me. The sluices of mv eves were dried \
 
 46 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 My brain was on fire ! Yet I did not weep. Call me not 
 a monster because I did not weep. I have not wept these 
 four years : but I remember I have, when a boy, wept for 
 childish sorrows. Then why do I not weep for this great 
 affliction ? Is not this a contradiction ? Am I hard of 
 heart ? God forbid that tears should be the test, for I felt 
 I felt insupportable agony. 
 
 ' Even to an indifferent person the sight of a dead per- 
 son awakens melancholy reflections ; but when that person 
 is connected by the nearest ties oh, then when I saw the 
 corpse when I saw that those eyes which had often watched 
 my slumbers, and cast on me looks of affection and love, 
 were closed in sleep eternal ! those lips which often had 
 prest mine, which often had opened to soothe me, tell me 
 tales, and form my infant mind, are pale and motionless for 
 ever! when I saw that those hands which had led, caressed, 
 and fed me, were for ever stiff and motionless when I saw 
 all this, and felt that it was for ever, guess my feelings, for 
 I cannot describe them. Born to be the sport of fortune, 
 to find sorrow where I hoped for bliss, and to be a mark 
 for the giddy and the gay to shoot at what I felt at the 
 deprivation of my almost only friend, the reader can better 
 conceive than I can describe. Yet that moment will ever 
 be present to my recollection to the latest period of my 
 existence. Gone for ever ! that is the word of agonizing 1 
 poignancy. Yet not for ever a few short years at most, 
 and I may hope to meet her again there is my consolation. 
 Joyful meeting ! yet a little while to bear this 
 
 " Fond restless dream which idiots hug, 
 Nay, wise men flatter with the name of Life," 
 
 and we may meet again. Already I anticipate the moment 
 when, putting off this frail garb of mortality, and putting 
 on the robe of immortality, of celestial brightness and
 
 MUSINGS ON IMMORTALITY. 47 
 
 eplendour, in the presence of our God we may meet again ; 
 meet again, never to part ; never again to be subject 
 to the frail laws of mortality to be above the reach of 
 sorrow, temptation, or sickness to know nought but hap- 
 piness celestial happiness and heaven ! Accursed be the 
 atheist who seeks to deprive man of his noblest privilege 
 of his hopes of immortality of a motive to do good, and 
 degrade him to a level with the beast which browses on the 
 grass of the fields. What were man without this hope f 
 I knelt and prayed for her departed spirit to Him in whose 
 hands are life and death, and that He would endue us 
 with resignation to His decrees, for we know that He had 
 a right to the life which He gave. 1 Her countenance is not 
 in the least distorted, but calm and placid, like one asleep.' 
 ' April 23, Easter Monday. The day before yesterday 
 being the day prior to my grandmother's funeral, and not 
 being certain that I should be able to come out early 
 enough to be present, as it would take place at nine 
 o'clock, I determined to take what might eventually be a 
 last view of the revered remains. I raised the cloth it 
 was dusk the features were so composed that I was for 
 a few moments deceived, and thought it sleep. I pressed 
 my lips to her forehead ; it was cold as monumental mar- 
 ble ! cold for ever ! A thousand recollections rushed 
 upon me, of her tenderness and affectionate kindness to 
 me. She, who was now inanimate before me, was, a short 
 time since, full of life and motion ; on me her eye then 
 beamed with tenderness, and affection dwelt in each look. 
 When I was sick, she had watched my feverish pillow, 
 and was my nurse ; when I was a babe, she had fondled, 
 caressed, and cherished me ; in short, she had been more 
 
 * This language is only, in Kitto's rase, the vehement expression of attachment 
 and sorrow. It meant little more than an earnest hope that his grandmother had 
 gone to heavenly glory-
 
 i8 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 than a mother to me. And this friend, this mother, I 
 never was to behold again. A thousand bitterly pleasing 
 instances of her kindness to me occurred to my recollection, 
 and I found a kind of melancholy pleasure in recalling 
 them to remembrance. I gazed on each well-known fea- 
 ture. I kissed her clay-cold cheek and pallid lips. I 
 remembered how often my childish whims had vexed her. 
 I remembered how I had sometimes disobeyed her earnest 
 and just commands. I mentally ejaculated, 
 
 " that she would but come again ! 
 I think I'd vex her so no more." 
 
 Fruitless wish ! Will the grim tyrant death give up his 
 prey ? Will the emancipated soul return to its dreary pri- 
 son ? Ought I to wish it ? " No ! " said reason ; " No ! " 
 said religion : such a convincing " No !" they uttered, that 
 I blushed for the wish. Shall I, a frail mortal, wish that 
 undone which my Maker has done, and by implication 
 censure His decrees ? If (as we may hope) she be happy, 
 will she not grieve to see us repining at her bliss ? I will 
 try to be resigned. I thought of all this ; but yet I did 
 not weep ; for 'twas not a tear my eyes water sometimes ; 
 I did not weep ; it certainly was not a tear that fell from 
 my eyes as I leant over the open coffin, but it was pro- 
 bably caused by my looking stedfastly at one object. I 
 continued bending over the coffin till darkness hid the 
 features entirely from my sight, and then tore myself 
 away.' 
 
 Who would surmise that these paragraphs, so fluent 
 and correct, so vivid and tender, were written within the 
 walls of a workhouse, by a deaf and disabled stripling, 
 almost uneducated, wholly unpractised in composition, and 
 seated, in pauper livery, on a tripod from morning til 
 night, working at a list shoe on his lap ?
 
 GRANDMOTHER'S FUNERAL. 49 
 
 ' April 24. About a quarter past eight on Easter Sun- 
 day, my father went to Mr Burnard, and got leave for me 
 to come out. Crape was put round my hat. . . How 
 unable are the trappings of woe to express the sorrow 
 doubly felt within ! I looked once more and for the 
 last time on the corpse, once more and for the last time 
 pressed her cold lips, and then she was shut from my view 
 for ever ! I felt a something at my heart that moment, 
 which baffles description. I felt as though I could have 
 freely given my life to prolong hers a few years. What ! 
 had I viewed for the last time her who was my only bene- 
 factor, parent, and friend, and was I never to see her 
 more ? " No ! " whispered doubt ; " Yes ! " said faith ; and 
 she was right. . . At the appointed time we walked in 
 " sad array " behind the coffin first, Uncle John and Aunt 
 Mary. . . There were about forty persons present : 
 the service was read by Dr Hawker's curate ; the coffin 
 was deposited in the grave and covered with earth. . . 
 The moment in which the coffin which contains the re- 
 mains of a beloved relative, is hid from our sight, is, per- 
 haps, a moment of greater agony than at their demise, for 
 then we have still the melancholy consolation of contem- 
 plating the features of the beloved object ; but when that 
 sad and gloomy comfort is taken from us, the feelings of 
 our loss occur with accumulated force ; we consider what, 
 a short time since, the contents of the coffin were, and 
 what, in a short time, they will be ; we consider that, in 
 our turn, we shall be conveyed to a similar, if not to the 
 same place, and in our turn be wept over with transient 
 tears, and soon be forgotten. I thought the man almost 
 guilty of sacrilege, and could have beaten him, who threw 
 the earth so unconcernedly on her remains. " Why does 
 he not weep?" I internally asked. "Why does not 
 every human being join with me in lamenting her loss ! " 
 
 D
 
 50 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 But I shall not attempt to describe my feelings ; they 
 were such, that the moment when I stood on the brink of 
 the grave, eagerly looking on the coffin till the earth con- 
 cealed it, I shall never forget till the hand that writes this 
 shall be as hers, and the heart that inspires it shall cease to 
 beat. When we came home I felt a kind of faintness com- 
 ing over me, and if Aunt Mary had not timely rubbed my 
 temples with cold water, I should have fainted. Grand- 
 mother is buried on the left hand side of the aisle, opposite 
 the steeple, near the church door (Charles' Church), be- 
 neath the headstone erected to the memory of her grand- 
 children.' 
 
 Still Kitto could freely criticise the perfunctory manner 
 in which he thought the funeral service had been gone 
 through. But the next entry reveals the lacerated state of 
 his heart, and opens up a glimpse of his unhappy home. 
 
 4 April 27. In consequence of the loss of this revered 
 relative, I already begin to feel a vacuum in my heart, 
 which it is impossible to describe. Who shall supply 
 her place ? Nature points to my mother. . . While she 
 (grandmother) lived, I had no cause to regret the want of 
 kindness in any other person. But now, alas ! she is gone, 
 and I feel myself an isolated being, unloving and unloved ; 
 for whom this world, young as I am, has few charms. . . 
 
 ' When I return from the restraint of the workhouse, 
 the rooms look desolate, for she is not there. She who 
 greeted me with looks and smiles of affection is not there ! 
 She who prepared my tea, and rejoiced if she had some 
 little delicacy to offer me, is not there ! She who chode 
 me if I left her even a short time, is not there ! In short, 
 she who loved me, is not there ! Who shall supply her 
 place ? My mother, or my aunt ? My mother ! it must 
 be so, it shall be so. To do her justice, she has been very 
 kind to me since the sad event, and so has aunt. Yes,
 
 ' 
 SAD DOUBTS AND QUESTIONS. 51 
 
 mother has been very kind. She knows, amongst other 
 things, that my grandmother's death would deprive me of 
 the means of getting almost the only thing I value books : 
 therefore, with great kindness and consideration, my father 
 wrote, by her direction I suppose, " I will give you the 
 money to get the books." " Indeed," I said, " but do you 
 know how much it will come to?" "No." " Why, you 
 know," I said, " I have got a penny per week at the work- 
 house, and I change my books (two vols. small, or one 
 large vol.) three times a week, and pay a penny each time ; 
 that penny will pay but for one of those changes." Father 
 wrote, " You shall never want twopence the week." Was 
 not this kind ? very kind, I think. I shall have no occasion 
 to put their kindness in this last instance to the test as yet ; 
 but will this kindness last ? Will they not, when they 
 think the edge of my grief is blunted, relapse into their 
 former indifference ? I expressed this doubt to my mother. 
 She assured me of her continued kindness, and that she 
 would see this last act of it duly performed. I would have 
 said, but did not 0, my mother ! representative of the 
 dear friend I have lost, would that I were certain that this 
 kindness would continue ; would that I were certain that 
 your present kindness would never cease, and that while I 
 am in need of your aid, you will continue to accord it to me ; 
 and then, when manhood shall have nerved my arm, and 
 age have enfeebled yours, and you will need the aid of your 
 children, how happy shall I be, and feow shall I exult to 
 be able to step forward and say?* " My father, and my 
 mother ! while I was yet a boy and needed your help, you 
 granted it me; then, my parents, how I longed for 
 opportunity to show my gratitude ! The time is come, and 
 now you need it ; as you once offered me your aid, so now 
 I offer you mine, henceforth let all mine be yours." . . 
 I think I could love my mother almost as well as I did love
 
 52 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 my grandmother.' And in his mother's old and infirm 
 days he did verify his wish. 
 
 ' June 10. I have been to aunt's ; was received kindly; 
 before I came away uncle wrote, " You must come out 
 here as often as you can, for it was the dying request of 
 your grandmother that we should be kind to you" And 
 did she think of me ! to the last anxious for me interested 
 even in death for my welfare ! and making friends for me ! 
 My only friend ! my revered benefactor ! my dearest grand- 
 mother ! in death didst thou think of me ! Oh that I had 
 been present ! Yet, no, I could not have borne it. Father ! 
 receive her soul into Thy mercy, and guide my steps in the 
 intricate paths of human life, beset as it is with thorns and 
 briars, with temptations and sorrows : and if it be Thy 
 pleasure that I should drink the cup of human misery and 
 affliction to the very dregs even then, Lord, in the midst 
 of all, grant me strength that I may not swerve from Thy 
 will, nor murmur at Thy decrees ; for well I know that 
 whatsoever Thou doest is just and right, and that, though 
 Thy commandments teack me to resist the dominion of my 
 senses, they, in the end, lead to the eternal mansions of the 
 blessed. I humbly pray Thee, my God, that there I may 
 at last arrive, through Jesus Christ, and there meet her who 
 has gone before nre.' 
 
 He had sad doubts that the affettion now shown by some 
 of his nearest relatives would soon cool, and he felt that then 
 he should be desolate indeed Thus he sobs ' Why do I 
 feel? why dare I think? Am I not a workhouse boy? 
 My father, if you could but imagine what, through your 
 means, I suffer, you would Begone pen, or I shall go mad.' 
 
 Whatever appealed to Kitto's eye gratified him ; and 
 among his ocular amusements, the ' shows ' at Plymouth 
 fair occupied a prominent place. A fair was great or small, 
 in his boyish estimation, in proportion to the number and
 
 SENSE OF DESOLATION. 53 
 
 splendour of such exhibitions. What he saw he describes 
 in his journal with picturesque minuteness : the transpa- 
 rencies and pictures; an 'ill-looking pock-marked dwarf,' 
 or a giantess so plump and fleshy as to ' make the mouth 
 of an anatomist water.' The various devices and blazon- 
 ries, stars and fireworks, first on the conclusion of Queen 
 Caroline's trial, and then at the King's coronation, were a 
 special treat to him. But his deafness occasionally filled 
 his soul with sad regrets. The constables had on one oc- 
 casion collected into the workhouse all the unfortunate 
 women of the town. Kitto gazed on the scene with melan- 
 choly, and moralized upon the lost creatures ' covered with 
 shame, abandoned by friends, shunned by acquaintances, 
 and thrown on the wide world insulted with reproach, 
 denied the privilege of penitence, cut off from hope, im- 
 pelled by indigence, and maddened by despair.' After ser- 
 vice, ' one of the best gentlemen in Plymouth addressed 
 them, so that many of them wept, as well as five-sixths of 
 all the people in the room. Even I,' he adds, ' had almost 
 wept from sympathy.' In recording this, there came upon 
 him at once the overpowering sense of his own desolation. 
 And he writes, October 15, in touching moans : ' Yet I 
 alone was insensible to the inspiration that flowed from his 
 lips. To all, insensible ! Devotion! oratory! music! and 
 eloquence ! To all of ye alike insensible !' 
 In a similar cheerless spirit he soliloquizes : 
 ' . . . I should be inconsolable under my great mis- 
 fortune, were it not for the conviction, that it is for wise 
 purposes the Almighty Power has thought proper to chas- 
 tise me with the rod of affliction. And dare I, a worm, 
 the creature of His will, to repine at His behests ? Besides, 
 He has declared, " Those whom I love I rebuke and 
 chasten." But whither do I wander? Dare I to think 
 that an accident was His infliction ? Dare I to hope that
 
 54 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 the Omniscient will deign, when I pray, to attend to my 
 supplications? I dare not 'twere presumption 'twere 
 almost impiety to think He would incline His ear to such 
 a one as me me, of all my species created the inferior 
 me, whom each eye views with contempt who am mocked, 
 buffeted, and despised. And why am I thus treated with 
 contumely ? Because I am unfortunate ! And does mis- 
 fortune render me inferior in Thy eyes, my God ? No, 
 for Thou hast said, Thou art no respecter of persons. 
 Thou hearest alike the king on his throne, and the beggar 
 on his dunghill. Though man treats me with contumely, 
 Thou wilt not be less merciful. Pardon my doubt, which 
 had dared to prescribe limits to Thy mercy, and endue me 
 with resignation to kiss the salutary rod with which Thou 
 (I dare almost say it) chastisest me. . . I fear I am de- 
 plorably ignorant in religious matters.' 
 
 The language employed in the preceding and succeeding 
 paragraphs is scarcely that of a quiet resignation, but rather 
 of a stubborn acquiescence. The youth who had suffered 
 such degradation from a father's intemperance as now to 
 be a pensioner on a public charity, and who had, by a 
 mysterious Providence, been suddenly bereft of a precious 
 faculty, succumbed, indeed, to his lot, but at first with 
 seeming reluctance, and with a strange curiosity to ' cast 
 the measure of uncertain evils.' 
 
 ' 1821, January 1. Welcome 1821 ! Though thy greet- 
 ing is but rough (uncommonly cold), boding a year of as 
 great events as thy predecessor, I pray God that, as I am 
 conscious I have but ill performed my duty as an account- 
 able being the preceding year, and that my lot in life is 
 but low, He will deign to look on the most humble of His 
 creatures, and blot out of the book of His remembrance 
 the sins I have committed heretofore ; to endue me with 
 fortitude to bear with resignation whatsoever misfortunes
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE'S TRIAL. 55 
 
 may yet assail me, and to enable me to resist temptation, 
 the allurements of vice, and even my own thoughts when 
 they lead to ill ; and to enable me, if it be His pleasure, to 
 drink the cup of misfortune to the very dregs, without 
 repining ; and, finally, through all my life to make me bear 
 in mind that this life is but a probationary trial, to fit us 
 for a greater and a better state hereafter.' 
 
 Kitto's powers of composition were in the meanwhile 
 improving, and he criticises public characters in a free and 
 independent style. The first sentence of the following 
 description is felicitous. It was inserted in his diary on 
 learning the Queen's acquittal. Many glowing sentences 
 were written at the period : the eloquent declamation and 
 satire of Brougham and Denman thrilled the nation ; but 
 the hearty and stirring tribute of the obscure workhouse 
 cobbler has never been printed before. 
 
 1 November 14. Bells ringing, flags flying, and almost 
 every person rejoicing, on the occasion of innocence and 
 the Queen being triumphant ; for the bill of pains and 
 penalties was withdrawn on Saturday, November 10th, by 
 the Earl of Liverpool, from the House of Peers. The day 
 on which the Queen was victorious over slander and re- 
 venge will ever claim a distinguished place in the annals of 
 this country a day on which slander, perjury, and guilt 
 were vanquished by innocence and truth. This trial has 
 been such a one continued scene of iniquity as has not been 
 equalled since the time of the Tudors (except in the in- 
 stance of Charles I. and Louis XVI.) Last week has 
 shown these are not such days as those unenlightened days 
 in which the tyrannic Henry swayed despotically the sym- 
 bol of mercy those days when Britons could tamely see 
 an innocent Queen (Anne Boleyn) led to the scaffold on a 
 pretended charge of adultery. No ! Such days are over ; 
 and now the generous character of Britain will not suffer
 
 56 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 an unprotected female to be persecuted with impunity. 
 Not unprotected neither ! She cannot be called unpro- 
 tected who has the hearts of two-thirds of all Britain 
 warmed with enthusiasm in her cause ; and experience 
 has shown that their hearts are no despicable protection. 
 The conclusion of this iniquitous transaction has over- 
 whelmed the enemies of the Queen with shame and con- 
 fusion. Greater part of Britain will be illuminated in the 
 course of the week Plymouth on Wednesday. 
 ' IGth. Plymouth was illuminated last night.' 
 The next excerpt, in a different strain, is a meditation 
 on the death of Napoleon. It betokens the interest taken 
 in public matters by the young recluse, who never ' saw a 
 newspaper to read till he was nearly twenty years of age.' 
 ' July 6. Learned that Napoleon Buonaparte died on 
 the 6th of May, of a cancer in his stomach. He was ill 
 forty days. I doubt not but that the public journals, 
 newspapers, etc., have detailed all the particulars of his 
 exit from the theatre of the world, in which he has shone 
 as a meteor a meteor of destructive influence ; and I shall 
 only give a few observations on his character, according 
 to my idea of it. 1 That he had talents, no man who has 
 attentively considered his conduct and character can doubt; 
 but such talents! He was an innate tyrant he introduced 
 himself to notice by his eminence in adulation and cruelty. 
 That he was a cruel man, his conduct has always shown. 
 Witness the dreadful Bridge of Lodi, the massacre of Jaffa, 
 and the poisoning his own sick soldiers. He was more 
 than suspected as the murderer of the Duke d'Enghien. 
 I consider him as a man who, from the earliest period of 
 public life, was resolved to let no considerations of honour, 
 religion, humanity, or any other consideration, to interfere 
 
 1 The page is adorned with a portrait of Napoleon, done in glaring colours, and 
 looking rather fierce, and is said by Kitto to be copied from a plate in Barre's 
 Kise, Progress, etc., of Buonaparte's Empire.
 
 ESTIMATE OF NAPOLEON. 57 
 
 with his advancement. Nor did they interfere. ! He cer- 
 tainly had not always thoughts of obtaining the sovereign 
 power ; but his ambition for sovereignty arose from cir- 
 cumstances, step by step. After the abolition of royalty 
 and nobility, and the declaration of equality, he was re- 
 solved to admit of no superior. That he was ungrateful, 
 may be seen by his treatment of his former patron. One 
 or two centuries hence, and even now if we knew not its 
 reality it would be considered as an improbable fiction, 
 belonging to the ages of romance, that a man of obscure 
 origin should thus become the ruler of nearly all Europe 
 thus realize the visions of Don Quixote, and reward his 
 Sanchos with kingdoms at his pleasure thus spread deso- 
 lation, fire, and sword, where nought but peace was known 
 before ; 1 that a man a simple man an unsupported man 
 should thus make princes crouch at his footstool, and 
 should have his will obeyed as a law. How many thou- 
 sands of widows and orphans has he not made ? A lesser 
 villain would have been hanged for the thousandth part of 
 his crimes ; yet he has his admirers. Notwithstanding 
 what has been said by many to the contrary, I allow him 
 the meed of personal courage, and that he was grateful 
 when he could gain nothing by being the contrary. He 
 was an hypocrite arid an infidel ; for he has different times 
 been of almost all religions, Mohammedan included. He 
 was generous by starts condescending when Emperor 
 irritable, hasty, insolent, and choleric. It will not be con- 
 sidered as the less extraordinary part of his story, that, in 
 the end, he was unfortunate obliged to abdicate his 
 throne, and was twice banished ; but, above all, that this 
 man this Napoleon Buonaparte died in his bed of a 
 cancer, while the great and the good Henry died by the 
 hand of an assassin, and the meek Louis died on a scaffold \ I 
 
 1 Switzerland.
 
 58 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 On the whole, it may be said of Buonaparte, that he was 
 a glorious villain I!' 1 
 
 And yet, amidst all the youth's dejection, there were 
 forereachings of spirit, anxious anticipations, the pictur- 
 ings of possible propitious circumstances. His highest 
 ambition at this time was to have a stationer's shop and a 
 circulating library, with twelve or fourteen shillings a week. 
 His anxious question was, ' When I am out, how shall I 
 earn a livelihood ?' Shoemaking could yield but a slender 
 remuneration ; and as he had been taught to make coarse 
 shoes alone, he could only expect small wages. Yet he 
 thought that he might travel, and that some kind gentle- 
 man might take him, even though it were in the humble 
 capacity of a servant, ' to tread classic Italy, fantastic 
 Gaul, proud Spain, and phlegmatic Batavia' nay, 'to 
 visit Asia, and the ground consecrated by the steps of 
 the Saviour.' This odd anticipation of Asiatic travel was 
 wondrously realized, for a ' kind gentleman' did after- 
 wards take him to the banks of the Tigris. 
 
 The long and heavy affliction of Kitto had brought him 
 under religious impressions. He had felt the Divine chas- 
 tening, and stooped to it. It was a necessity to which he 
 was obliged to yield, and, as he could not better himself, 
 he bowed, though he sometimes fretted. 
 
 ' nature,' he exclaims, ' why didst thou create me 
 with such feelings as these,' which spring from ' superiority 
 
 1 It would seem that Kitto had been reading a well-known passage in Milton, 
 one of his favourite poets : 
 
 ' Might only shall be admired, 
 And valour and heroic virtue called ; 
 To overcome in battle, and subdue 
 Nations, and bring home spoils with infinite 
 Manslaughter, shall be held the highest pitch 
 Of human glory, and for glory done 
 Of triumph, to be styled great conquerors, 
 Patrons of mankind, gods, and sons of gods. 
 Destroyers rightlier called, and plagues of men.*
 
 FRIENDS IN THE WORKHOUSE. 59 
 
 of genius ? ' ' Why didst thou give such a mind to one 
 in my condition? Why, Heaven, didst thou enclose 
 my proud soul within so rough a casket ? Yet pardon my 
 murmurs. Kind Heaven ! endue me with resignation to 
 Thy will.' 
 
 But a quieter emotion gradually acquired the ascend- 
 ency within him, and he strove to feel that it was the 
 hand of God his Father which had placed him beyond 
 the reach of sound or echo. His knowledge of the Bible 
 began to produce its quickening results, and spirit was 
 infused into the forms of religion. He wished earnestly 
 to be confirmed, and made the necessary application. He 
 was found to be deficient, when first examined, in some 
 portion of the Catechism ; but he adds, ' I learnt the Cate- 
 chism perfect,' and he was then approved by Mr Lampen, 
 the officiating minister of St Andrews. Yet at the first 
 occasion on which he attended, he was not confirmed ; the 
 bishop, and ' the man with the gold lace cloak,' with the 
 crowds about him, divided his attention, while his want of 
 hearing prevented him from understanding arid following 
 the order of the ceremonial. 
 
 Mr Nugent, teacher of one of the schools in the hospital, 
 began at this time to pay special attention to him, wrote 
 out some theological questions for him to answer, and 
 promised to be his friend. Mr Burnard's interest was also 
 increased by reading certain papers of Kitto's, suggesting 
 a plan of judicature among the boys. He proposed to 
 the thoughtful projector, a short time afterwards, to write 
 lectures to be read to them, ' respecting their duty in the 
 house, and their future conduct.' This proposal agree- 
 ably surprised Kitto, and he could not contain himself: 
 ' You can scarcely imagine, my friend, how this letter 
 delighted me, and set me a walking up and down the 
 court with uncommon quickness, eagerly talking to myself.
 
 60 THE WOKKHOUSE. 
 
 Take a bit of my soliloquy : " What ! I, John Kitto, to 
 write lectures to be read to the boys ! Mr Burnard seems 
 to think me competent to it too ! " rubbing my hands with 
 great glee.' The youth was filled with gratitude to both 
 these gentlemen, formally adding Mr Nugent to the list of 
 his benefactors, and saying, in the fulness of his heart, of 
 Mr Burnard, ' I wish, I wish his life was in danger, and I 
 could risk my own to save him. That won't do either 
 too much danger for him.' This feature of Kitto's cha- 
 racter grew with his growth, and in his last work he lays 
 down the true doctrine : ' He who most clearly sees God 
 as the source of his blessings, is the man who will be most 
 grateful to the agents through whom these blessings come 
 to him.' 1 Kitto, on one occasion, hints that he did not 
 like to see Mr Burnard whipping the boys, for it was so 
 unlike his generous nature. 
 
 The boys used to teaze Kitto a good deal, when the 
 eye of their superiors was withdrawn, till his patience was 
 at length exhausted, and he made a formal complaint to 
 Mr Burnard. The ' frisky letter,' as one of the accused 
 styled it, was at once acknowledged, and his tormentors were 
 severely cautioned as to their misconduct, and prohibited 
 from indulging any longer in such wanton cruelty and sport. 
 
 He was becoming, as we have said, more and more 
 anxious about his religious duties. He speaks, under date 
 of October 12, of its being one of the inconveniences of 
 the workhouse, that he was not able to kneel when prayers 
 were publicly read, but resolves to begin on that day to 
 pray ' with himself ' in the morning, ' inclining one knee 
 against a chest' which was under the window. 
 
 Kitto's dealings with his father are much to his credit. 
 We give two extracts, the first a specimen of humour, and 
 the second of integrity : 
 
 1 Daily Bible Illustrations, voL i., p. 393.
 
 DEALINGS WITH HIS FATHER. fil 
 
 ' February 17, 1821. The week before last, father wrote 
 on the table with chalk, " You never gave me anything to 
 drink yet." I went, gravely, and emptied out a cup of 
 water, and gave it to him, and said, " There drink." 
 He blushed deep at this pun, and said no more about it.' 
 
 ' October 7. Father wrote a paper as follows, and 
 wanted me to give it to Mr Burnard : " Sir, I should be 
 much obliged to you if you will be so good as to give a 
 ticket for a shirt, as I am out of work. Jii. Kitto." 
 " Father, thou sayest the thing that is not you are not 
 out of work." "You must give this paper to Mr Burnard." 
 " Are you out of work, father ? " " No." " Then, do you 
 think that I will deceive my benefactor, and permit you to 
 say, through me, that you are ? I will not give it to him." 
 So I said, and so I did. ... I am inclined to think 
 that I was right. My duty to my parents shall never 
 interfere with that to God.' 
 
 Though Kitto felt the restraint of the workhouse, he 
 had become reconciled to it. He was at times, indeed, 
 anxious to quit it, and at other times willing to remain 
 when liberty- was offered him. His father on one occasion 
 held out some hopes to him, and, though he refused at first 
 to leave, yet he soon altered his mind, and became very 
 desirous to get out. But his father had changed his pur- 
 pose, if ever he had seriously entertained it, and the lad 
 was sorely disappointed. The father put forward a variety 
 of objections, but the excited son rebutted them all in suc- 
 cession. ' Liberty,' he cries, ' was my idol liberty, not 
 idleness. If it were not for the bounty of the kind Mr 
 Burnard, the workhouse would be insupportable. Methinks 
 when I am out of the house, I breathe almost another air. 
 . . . Like the wolf in the fable, I would rather starve 
 at liberty than grow fat under restraint.' Believing that 
 his father was only ' seeking causes' against his getting
 
 62 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 out, he waxes warm, and tells him, ' There is no fear of my 
 starving in the midst of plenty I know how to prevent 
 hunger. The Hottentots subsist a long time on nothing 
 but a little gum ; they also, when hungry, tie a tight liga- 
 ture round them. Cannot I do so too ? Or, if you can 
 get no pay, take me out without, and then I will sell my 
 books and pawn my neckerchiefs, by which I shall be able 
 to raise about twelve shillings, and with that I will make 
 the tour of England. The hedges furnish blackberries, 
 nuts, sloes, etc., and the fields turnips a hay rick or barn 
 will be an excellent bed. I will take pen, ink, and paper 
 with me, and note down my observations as I go a kind 
 of sentimental tour, not so much a description of places as 
 of men and manners, adventures, and feelings. Finally, 
 me and father said much more.' The debate was resumed 
 a couple of months afterwards, and Kitto still thought 
 himself ill-used, his father having raised ' false hopes' within 
 him. He admits, that, in displaying such pertinacity, he 
 was in the wrong ; ' for, upon the whole,' he writes, ' I am 
 not dissatisfied with my present condition.' But he drew 
 up what he calls ' articles of capitulation,' and presented 
 them to his parents, insisting that his father, when he 
 agreed to any of them, should write ' granted' opposite to 
 it, while his mother was to make a cross to signify her 
 assent. The principal heads were that he should be 
 taken out on the 1st of April 1822, or sooner if he was 
 maltreated ; that his boxes and papers were not to be 
 rummaged at home ; that he was not to be interrupted in 
 his studies ; and that, if he died, his body was not to be 
 taken from the workhouse to the grave, but first carried 
 home, and thence conveyed to the place of interment, ' in 
 New Churchyard, beside granny.' The last of the stipu- 
 lations reveals his suspicions, for it is, ' that you be kind 
 to me.' To all these articles the parents agreed. The
 
 ARTICLES OF CAPITULATION. 63 
 
 curious document thus solemnly concludes : ' We, the 
 undersigned, do hereby promise to abide by what we have 
 in the above promised to perform, and if we in the least 
 tittle infringe it, we do consent that John Kitto, junior, 
 shall do as he has said ; as witness our hands this sixth 
 day of August, in the year of our Lord one thousand 
 eight hundred and twenty-one. On the part of John 
 Kitto, junior, JOHN KITTO, Jun. 
 
 On the part of J. and E. Kitto, seniors. 
 JN. KITTO. 
 + ELIZABETH KITTO, her mark.' 
 
 He adds, however, that by this formal arrangement he 
 ' gained nothing more than before.' But he was soon 
 released in a manner, and with a result, that he little an- 
 ticipated. 
 
 It was quite common with the guardians of the poor- 
 house to apprentice the boys under their care to tradesmen 
 in the town. They were anxious, as Mr Burnard expresses 
 it, that Kitto should ' learn a trade, so that he might be 
 able to support himself without parish relief.' 1 This was 
 a kind and considerate motive on their part. It was, in 
 fact, the only design which they could legitimately enter- 
 tain. That the lad should not be a burden to society or 
 to them, that he should be able to maintain himself by 
 honest handicraft, that at least he should not return to 
 them and be a pensioner on their bounty was the loftiest 
 purpose they could form for him. Therefore Anderson, 
 the beadle, taught him shoemaking, and he made great 
 progress. To perfect him in his trade, he was then inden- 
 tured, on the 8th November 1821, to one John Bowden, 
 who had selected him for his proficiency, and in spite of 
 his infirmity. He was to remain under this engagement 
 till he was twenty-one years of age, and he was now about 
 
 1 Letter to Mrs Kitto, written after 0r Kitto's death.
 
 64 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 seventeen. The guardians probably congratulated them- 
 selves that they had done their duty to their ward, John 
 Kitto, and that they had fitted him to be a useful member 
 of society. They had got him capricious and wayward, 
 and now they turned him out a quiet and thoughtful youth, 
 who had shown some mental power, was inordinately fond 
 of reading, and had subjected himself to an excellent moral 
 discipline. Probably they lamented, at the same time, that 
 his deafness would exclude all rational hopes of elevation 
 and progress. 
 
 By this time, as we have seen, Kitto had subdued his 
 spirit to the routine and degradation of a poorhouse life. 
 He was even comparatively contented among his pursuits 
 and associates. And yet, though he had found such an ap- 
 preciation of his talents as might have ministered to his 
 youthful vanity, and not a few indulgences were given him, 
 still he seems sometimes to have regarded the hospital as a 
 species of Bastile, and he rejoiced in the idea of quitting it. 
 He was periodically anxious to be gone ; grumbled that 
 his father had not kept his word and taken him out ; nay, 
 he threatened again and again to run away, though he 
 usually laughed to himself at such a clumsy mode of exit 
 and escape. The first offer to remove did not tempt him, 
 for it presented, in fact, few inducements ; so that he hesi- 
 tated, but afterwards consented. And then the idea of 
 finally quitting such a domicile filled his spirit with exulta- 
 tion, and, with a flourish of his pen not elegant, indeed, 
 but expressive he writes : 
 
 (2> > EPOCIIA. ^ \Z) 
 
 ' I am no longer a workhouse boy I am an apprentice.' 
 He felt that he had risen a step in society, that he had 
 ceased to wear the badge of serfdom, and that he was once 
 more master of himself, save in so far as he was bound by
 
 APPRENTICESHIP. 65 
 
 the terms of his indenture. What we have said is quite 
 consistent with his indifference when the proposal was ori- 
 ginally made. He said ' No' to Bowden's first invitation ; 
 but some of the boys, ' aside,' held out the inducement * of 
 food, clothes, money, and freedom ;' 'I pleaded deafness.' 
 ' I do not care,' he replied to repeated questions, ' I would 
 as soon stay as go.' Some time was spent in negotiations, 
 and at last his coy reluctance was overcome. He never 
 was easily induced to change his habits, and this inflexi- 
 bility of nature did, for the moment, almost conquer his 
 oft-expressed desire to get out of confinement. His own 
 exclamation, however, leaves no doubt of his rapture^ ' I 
 am no longer a workhouse boy !' The going home at 
 night, the possession of his evenings for himself, the power 
 of reading in his own garret without molestation, the drop- 
 ping of the poorhouse uniform, food in plenty, and good 
 clothes these formed an irresistible temptation. ' There- 
 fore, on Friday 2,' he records, ' I gave a paper to Mr 
 Burnard expressing that desire, and -soliciting his aid to 
 my being apprenticed.' 
 
 The only objection to Kitto's leaving the workhouse was 
 made by Anderson, and that was because the hospital could 
 not afford to dispense with his services, since he was the 
 only boy perfect in the making of list shoes. Nay, Ander- 
 son afterwards wished to get him back for the same reason, 
 but Bowden was too shrewd and selfish to part with him. 
 
 Kitto had, during his residence, become attached to many 
 things about the workhouse ; and, in the prospect of quit- 
 ting it, he relates ' So I went and took a farewell look of 
 the bed on which I used to sleep, the tripod on which I had 
 sat so many hours, and the prayer-room. I shook hands, 
 in idea, with the pump, the conduit at which I washed, 
 the tree against which I leaned, nay, the very stones on 
 which I walked. I then took a final leave of the
 
 66 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 hospital, and we went to Mr Bowden's house again, when 
 I was aproned and seated, and set to rip off the old tap of 
 a boot.' 
 
 But the hopes of the buoyant apprentice were soon and 
 terribly blasted. His next year's journal opens in a tone 
 of hopeless anguish. He had been delivered into the hand 
 of a brutal tyrant one who hoped that the infirmity of his 
 apprentice would disable him from making any complaint, 
 and prevent him from obtaining any redress. Bowden's 
 previous apprentice had also been deaf, and we cannot 
 suppose that his treatment differed from that suffered by 
 his successor. But the poor creature had not a tongue to 
 tell, nor a pen to reveal . his woes. Bowden, on looking 
 round the busy inmates of the hospital, selected JohnKitto, 
 not simply because he discerned him to be the best work- 
 man in it, but because he imagined that his deafness, like 
 that of his predecessor, might enable his master to work 
 him beyond right, and punish him without limit, and yet 
 run no risk of being himself detected and exposed. A 
 speechless apprentice he had found to be a helpless victim, 
 who could neither murmur under exhaustion, nor appeal 
 against stripes. The six months of his apprenticeship with 
 Bowden formed the most miserable period of Kitto's ex- 
 istence. He groans mournfully indeed : 
 
 ''January 19. misery, art thou to be my only por- 
 tion ! Father of mercy, forgive me if I wish I had never 
 been born. that I were dead, if death were an anni- 
 hilation of being ; but as it is not, teach me to endure life ; 
 enjoy it I never can. In short, mine is a severe master, 
 rather cruel.' The retrospect of two months is sad as he 
 gives it. Bowden threw a shoe at his head, because he 
 had made a wry stitch, struck him again and again 
 now a blow on the ear, and now a slap on the face. He 
 wept at this unkind usage. ' I did all in my power to
 
 DRUDGEKY AXD STRIPES. 67 
 
 suppress my inclination to weep, till I was almost suf- 
 focated: tears of bitter anguish and futile indignation 
 fell upon my work and blinded my eyes. I sobbed con- 
 vulsively. I was half mad with myself for suffering him 
 to see how much I was affected. Fool that I was ! 
 that I were again in the workhouse ! 
 
 ' December 12. My head ached, and yet they kept me 
 to work till six o'clock, when they let me come away. I 
 could eat nothing. 
 
 ' January 14. He threw the pipe in my face, which I 
 had accidentally broken; it hit me on the temple, and 
 narrowly missed my eye. 
 
 < January 16. I held the thread too short; instead of 
 telling me to hold it longer, he struck me on the hand 
 with the hammer (the iron part). Mother can bear wit- 
 ness that it is much swelled ; not to mention many more 
 indignities I have received many, many more; again, 
 this morning, I have wept. What's the matter with my 
 eyes! 
 
 ' I here leave off this Journal till some other change, or 
 extraordinary misfortune takes place ! ' 
 
 Such is the melancholy end of the "Workhouse Journal. 
 
 He did not know what awful thing was to happen him, 
 for he had been tossed about like a ball, and he could not 
 predict where next he should either alight or rebound. He 
 could not bear up. He had already suffered much. He 
 had felt in former days the pang of hunger and the cold of 
 nakedness. But now he was oppressed, overwrought, 
 and maltreated, for sixteen and often eighteen hours of 
 the twenty-four, did his master force him to drudge, and 
 all the while strike and buffet him without mercy. Work- 
 house boys have few to look after them, and fewer still to 
 interfere for them. And why should Kitto be any ex- 
 ception ? The slavery could not be endured. He had been
 
 68 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 all the while devoting his spare hours to mental labour 
 and even this luxury was at length denied him. To keep 
 himself awake for study, he had to torture himself by several 
 cunning appliances. He was willing to have wrought 
 twelve hours, so to have some time for reading, thankful 
 to snatch a brief period for sleep. But to toil from six 
 in the morning to ten at night left him so exhausted, that 
 only by a painful effort could a little space be given to 
 reading and thought. This tyranny preyed upon his 
 mind, such castigations galled him, the long hours of 
 labour, and the short intervals left for study, oppressed 
 and fretted him. His nervous system was shattered, 
 trains of morbid reasoning usurped supremacy over him, 
 conscience was perverted by sophistical ingenuities, and 
 his spirit, weary and worn out, looked to suicide as its 
 last and justifiable refuge. The crisis came; but, as in 
 the case of Cowper, a watchful Providence interposed, 
 and Kitto lived. In the volume of essays which he 
 published on leaving the workhouse, there are two papers 
 on suicide. In the first, the sin is set in its true light ; 
 in the second, it is described more leniently, and much in 
 the way in which, in the period of his misery and gloom, 
 he had gradually brought himself to contemplate it. In 
 illustration of his remarks, he gives, under the assumed 
 name of William Wanley, a portion of his own biography, 
 detailing his dark sensations, how he formed the purpose 
 of self-destruction, justified it, and resolved to carry it out. 
 But the attempt failed. The valuable life which was 
 about to fall a sacrifice to wretchedness and despair, was 
 preserved for higher ends, and did work them out, till 
 God's time came for its final release. 
 
 The Life and History of Wanley were his own, and he 
 formally identifies them. He tells Mr Woollcombe, some 
 years afterwards (December 1825), that 'his mind was
 
 NIGHT. 69 
 
 darker and more wretched than anything he had ever 
 read of that 'the letter of Wanley was no posterior fab- 
 rication, no picture of imagined anguish, but emanated 
 from a warm and loving heart, every vein and fibre of 
 which seemed lacerated with misery too highly for the 
 highest powers of language to express.' In sending the 
 Essay and Letter of Wanley to Mr Woollcombe, prior to 
 their being printed, he wrote this admission : 
 
 'January 8, 1824. You will experience no difficulty 
 in discovering the identity of Wanley. Though he is 
 happier, very much happier, now than at any period dur- 
 ing the last half of his life, all his endeavours cannot pre- 
 vent the occurrence of that melancholy which predominated 
 once so absolutely over him. . . The event which I 
 have narrated is one which he now contemplates with 
 grief, and on which he looks back with the greatest re- 
 pentance.' In a brief sketch of his early life, written just 
 before he left the workhouse, he confesses more explicitly 
 ' The life of misery \ led reduced me to such a state of 
 despair, that I twice attempted my liberation from his 
 [Bowden's] tyranny by a means that I now shudder to 
 think of.' 
 
 The complaints of Bowden's apprentice against his 
 master became at length the subject of judicial investiga- 
 tion. The trial was adjourned in the first instance, and 
 one of those times of ' despair,' to which Kitto refers in 
 the previous sentence, happened in this interval of sus- 
 pense, when, misunderstanding the forms of procedure, he 
 believed that he had been formally condemned to be 
 sent back to undergo, without hope or respite, Bowden's 
 cruel and lawless oppression. But at length he obtained 
 redress. The instrument of his slavery, ' with its formid- 
 able appendage of seals and signatures,' was cancelled, after 
 his case had been fully heard before the magistrates, with
 
 70 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 whose sanction he had been originally indentured. In his 
 appeal to them Kitto acquitted himself to admiration. He 
 wrote so fluently and so correctly as to astonish the bench. 
 His pen delivered him from bondage, and gave him the 
 consciousness of possessing an undeveloped power. He 
 became aware that he could not only think but express 
 his thoughts that he could not only feel, but give fittiag 
 language to his emotions. The gentlemen, who tried the 
 case, wondered, questioned, sympathized, applauded, and 
 set him at liberty, but did not trouble themselves much 
 more about him. They must have thought him a bold 
 and bright little fellow, who was armed with a rare power 
 of self-defence, and would not be easily put down ; but, 
 while they delivered him from the tyrant, they took no 
 steps to improve his condition. They had only a very 
 partial acquaintance with him, and probably judged that 
 the workhouse was his happiest asylum. 
 
 Thus Kitto returned to the hospital, and was set down 
 again to his former occupation to be perfected in it still 
 for the avowed purpose of enabling him to earn an honest 
 livelihood. He received many minor privileges, for which 
 he was thankful. Bright visions of the future began, how- 
 ever, to cheer him. He thought himself destined to some- 
 thing. What might he not do ? Might he not write or 
 compose a work ? Be it in poetry or in prose, might it 
 not immortalize his name? What should hinder the 
 achievement ? Might not every obstacle be surmounted, 
 and John Kitto become an author known to fame? 
 Thanks to Bowden's outrage. It stung him into life. 
 He began to criticise some things he had written, and 
 pronounce them trash, the first sign of growing taste and 
 judgment. He had proposed a higher standard for himself, 
 and now laboured to come up to it. His reading had en- 
 abled him to judge of style, and had supplied him with
 
 MORNING. 71 
 
 many illustrations. His awakened power longed for exer- 
 tion, but he knew not as yet where to find the proper field 
 for it. 
 
 The experiences of this period are thus delineated by 
 him : ' I had learned that knowledge is power ; and not 
 only was it power, but safety. As nearly as the matter 
 can now be traced, the progress of my ideas appears to 
 have been this Firstly, that I was not altogether so 
 helpless as I had seemed ; secondly, that, notwithstanding 
 my afflicted state, I might realize much comfort in the con- 
 dition of life in which I had been placed ; thirdly, that I 
 might even raise myself out of that condition into one of less 
 privation ; fourthly, that it was not impossible for me to 
 place my own among honourable names, by proving that 
 no privation formed an insuperable bar to useful labour 
 and self-advancement. . . . To do what no one under 
 the same combination of afflictive circumstances ever did, 
 soon then ceased to be the limit of my ambition.' 1 
 
 But he must, in the meantime, learn his craft, to please 
 Mr Burnard and commend himself to the guardians. He 
 and they, however, were fast diverging in purpose. They 
 thought of him as a shoemaker ; he pictured himself as 
 an author. They saw him on ' the tripod ; ' he beheld him- 
 self at a desk. They strove to give him the ability of 
 making a shoe ; he dreamed of the power of producing a 
 book. But immediate duty must be attended to, and 
 Kitto passed more months in the workhouse. Again and 
 again did he enjoy his solitary walks a favourite scene of 
 recreation being the Hoe, a magnificent parade, with 
 the sea and breakwater before it, the ships and docks on 
 one side of it, and, to the right, the classic groves and 
 shady retreats of Mount-Edgecumbe. 
 
 The style of his correspondence at this epoch indicates 
 
 1 Lost Senses Deafness, pp. 82, 83.
 
 72 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 
 
 higher moral health, and a more refined taste. The cloud 
 was passing away, and his mind was possessing itself ' in 
 patience.' His fevered brow was cooler, and the dew had 
 fallen on his parched heart. He knew not what was be- 
 fore him, but he was becoming equal to anything that 
 might occur. Though he was conscious of talent, there 
 was no inflation of pride, for he was resolved to refuse no 
 offer that might promise to be of advantage. He knew 
 that only step by step could he reach the summit ; nor did 
 he seem to be devoured by eagerness for elevation. Pro- 
 bably, however, he was disappointed that nothing further 
 was done for him. But he had awakened interest on 
 his behalf such interest as sufficed, when a project was 
 started for his benefit, to crown it with success. His 
 case was matter of wide notoriety; yet no one stepped 
 forward to lend a helping hand to the deaf and lonely 
 aspirant. 
 
 But Mr Harvey came at length to the rescue. This famed 
 mathematician and man of science had observed Kitto's 
 demeanour in a bookseller's shop, and anxiously inquired 
 about him. Learning his history and circumstances, his 
 benevolent heart knew no rest till he had interested others 
 on Kitto's behalf, and induced them to contribute something, 
 either money or stationery, to the studious youth's assist- 
 ance. Mr Nettleton also, of the ' Plymouth Weekly Jour- 
 nal,' inserted some of his compositions in that paper. So 
 that Kitto became known, was more and more asked 
 after, and a deeper anxiety being excited, a few friends 
 issued a joint circular on his behalf, the language of which 
 shows the favourable impression which his character and 
 talents had created. The following is the circular re- 
 ferred to : 
 
 ' The attention of the public has lately been drawn, by 
 some Essays published in the Plymouth Weekly Journal,
 
 APPEAL ON HIS BEHALF. 73 
 
 to the very extraordinary talents of JOHN KITTO, who is 
 now a pauper in the Plymouth workhouse. He is about 
 eighteen years of age, and has been nearly four years in 
 the workhouse, to which he was reduced by the inability 
 of his parents to maintain him, after his having lost his 
 hearing by a fall from a house in Batter Street, where he 
 was employed as an attendant on the masons. This loss of 
 hearing has been accompanied with other bodily infirmities ; 
 but he has been thus so entirely thrown on the resources 
 of his mind, that he has cultivated his intellectual faculties 
 with singular success, and gives promise of making very 
 considerable attainments. An inquiry into his conduct 
 and general character has proved most satisfactory to the 
 undersigned, who are thus led to believe that he must 
 greatly interest those who feel for the difficulties under 
 which virtue and talents labour when they have to struggle 
 with poverty and misfortune. He has of late been em- 
 ployed as a shoemaker in the workhouse, and in that 
 capacity he has given proofs of great skill and industry ; 
 but it seems desirable that he should be placed in a situa- 
 tion more consistent with his feelings and abilities, and to 
 which his deafness might not render him incompetent. 
 It has been suggested that, as a temporary measure, appli- 
 cation should be made to the Committee of the Plymouth 
 Public Library, to employ him as a Sub-Librarian ; and 
 that a sum might be raised, by small subscriptions, to enable 
 him to obtain board and lodging in some decent family, 
 until something permanently advantageous should be sug- 
 gested. In the meantime, although he could not be in 
 the receipt of a salary, he would have opportunities of 
 improving himself, and would be enabled to direct the 
 powers of his mind to those pursuits in which he is so 
 well qualified to excel, and in which, perhaps, the world 
 may find his usefulness, and he himself a merciful and
 
 74 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 abundant compensation for all his deprivations. Great re- 
 liance may be placed on his industrious habits, and it is 
 confidently believed that small contributions from several 
 individuals would enable him to get over the chief impedi- 
 ments to success in a way for which he seems so peculiarly 
 well qualified. The undersigned, who have carefully ex- 
 amined into his character and acquirements, are anxious 
 to give the strongest testimony in his behalf; and will 
 receive, with great pleasure, any contributions, pledging 
 themselves to use the utmost discretion in their power in 
 the application of any money that may be thus intrusted 
 to their management. JOHN HAWKER, HENRY WOOLL- 
 COMBE, 1 WILLIAM EASTLAKE, THOMAS STEWART, JOHN 
 TINGCOMBE, GEORGE HARVEY, ROBERT LAMPEN. Ply- 
 mouth, 26th June 1823.' 
 
 This modest narrative and appeal were successful, and 
 the governor and guardians of the workhouse subscribed 
 five pounds to the fund. On the 1 7th of July, the follow- 
 ing entry is found in the workhouse Minutes : ' John 
 Kitto discharged, 1823, July 17. Taken out under the 
 patronage of the literati of the town.' Kitto was then 
 boarded with Mr Burnard, and had his time at his own dis- 
 posal, with the privilege of using the public library. A 
 great point was thus gained for him. He was released 
 from manual labour, and had all his hours for reading and 
 mental improvement. He must have been aware that efforts 
 were making for him; and this knowledge, acting on a san- 
 guine temperament, seems to have originated and moulded 
 the following dream, as he calls it, and which, though pro- 
 bably a waking reverie, is very remarkable as a true pre- 
 
 1 Mr Woollcombe, whose early and continued attentions to Kitto were as stimu- 
 lating as they were kind, was the founder of the Plymouth Institution, a promoter 
 of literature and the arts, and connected with all the philanthropic movements and 
 societies of the. neighbourhood. He was a highly respectable solicitor, and an alder- 
 man of the borough, in which he had great and merited influence.
 
 WONDERFUL DREAM. 75 
 
 sentiment a correct delineation of his subsequent career. 
 It is dated three days prior to his discharge, and occurs in 
 a letter to Mr Tracy : 
 
 * Methought (this is the established language of dreamers 
 I believe) I was exactly in the same situation in which I 
 really was before I slept, and indulging the same reflections, 
 when there suddenly appeared before me a being of more 
 than mortal beauty. He was taller than the sons of men, 
 and his eye beamed with celestial fire ; a robe of azure 
 hue, and far richer than the finest silk, enfolded his form, 
 a starry zone of glittering gems encircled his waist, and in 
 his hand he bore a rod of silver. 
 
 ' He touched me with his rod, and gently bending over 
 me, he said, " Child of mortality, I am the Angel Zared, 
 and am sent to teach thee wisdom. Every man on his 
 outset in life proposes to himself something as the end 
 and reward of his labours, his wishes, and his hopes ; some 
 are ambitious of honour, some of glory, and some of riches. 
 Of what art thou ambitious, and what are the highest ob- 
 jects of thy earthly hopes'?" 
 
 ' I was astonished at the visit and the words of the angel, 
 and replied not to his demand. 
 
 ' " Thou canst not readily find, child of the earth, 
 words to express the scenes which thy fancy has drawn. It 
 matters not ; I know thy wishes, and will give thee pos- 
 session of the state that is the highest of which thou art 
 ambitious." 
 
 ' He touched me with his rod, and my form expanded 
 into manhood ; again he touched and then left me. On 
 looking around me, I found myself seated in a room, two 
 of the walls of which were entirely concealed by books, 
 of which I felt myself conscious of being the owner. On 
 the table lay letters addressed to me from distant parts of 
 the Island, from the Continent, and from the New World :
 
 76 THE WORKHOUSE. . 
 
 and conspicuously on the chimney-piece were placed 
 several volumes, of which I was conscious that I was the 
 author, and was also sensible that the house wherein I was, 
 was mine, and all that was in it. I went forth into the 
 street. Ridicule no longer pointed her ringer at me; 
 many whom I met appeared- to know and esteem me, and 
 I felt conscious that I possessed many sincere and dis- 
 interested friends. I met a blind fiddler, and placing my 
 hand instinctively in my pocket, I found that it lacked not 
 money. I returned, and exclaimed, as I took Caesar's 
 Commentaries, in their original language, from the shelf, 
 "Now at last I am happy!" but before I had concluded 
 the word, the Angel Zared again appeared before me, and 
 touching me with his silver rod, restored me to the state 
 in which he found me. 
 
 ' I felt a momentary sensation of disappointment and re- 
 gret at the transition, till the angel spoke to me, and said, 
 
 ' " Listen to my words, child of mortality, while I 
 withdraw, as far as I am permitted, the veil of thy future 
 destiny. Thou hast been afflicted with misfortune, and 
 taught in the school of adversity. Think not that HE 
 who made thee and me also, regards with displeasure 
 those whom He purifies by sorrows, or that those are His 
 peculiar favourites who are permitted by Him to enjoy 
 the good things of this world. Whenever thou findest 
 thyself inclined to murmur at the dispensations of Pro- 
 vidence, recollect that others, greater, better, and wiser 
 than thou art, have suffered also, have suffered more 
 than thou hast, or ever wilt suffer. 
 
 ' " The time approaches when thou shalt attract the 
 notice of thy superiors, who shall place within thy reach 
 the means of acquiring that knowledge for which thou 
 thirstest. They will transplant thee into a soil fit for thee, 
 and if thou attendest well to the cultivation of thy Intel-
 
 THE FUTURE UNVEILED. 77 
 
 lectual and moral faculties, thou mayest perhaps become 
 a permanent occupant of a station like that which I have 
 permitted thee to enjoy for a moment. I say, perhaps, 
 for only HE knows, in whose breast is hid the fate of 
 worlds, whether thou art to live beyond the day on which 
 I visit thee ; but of this I am permitted to assure thee, 
 that the period of thy sojourn on earth will not be, at the 
 furthest, very many years. 
 
 ' " Be not, son of earth, dejected, if thou again meetest 
 with disappointments and misfortunes ; neither suffer pro- 
 sperity too highly to elate thee ; and in every situation, 
 and in every moment of thy life, remember that thou art 
 mortal, and that there is a God and a hereafter. So live, 
 that thou mayest not fear death, at whatever moment he 
 may approach thee ; and if thus thou livest, thou wilt have 
 
 lived indeed ." Zared perhaps would have spoken 
 
 longer, but a book falling from the shelf upon my head, I 
 awoke, and, as honest John Bunyan says, behold it was a 
 dream!' 
 
 One might say to such a wondrous dreamer 
 
 ' Thy life lies spread before thee as a sheet 
 Of music, written by some gifted hand, 
 Unsounded yet : to longing, listening hearts, 
 Translate its small mysterious silent notes 
 Into full thrilling chords of life and power.' 
 
 He was now afraid of being overrated, and to show 
 that he was not unduly lifted up by his good fortune, we 
 may quote what he says to Mr Harvey : 
 
 June 15, 1823. ' I sometimes doubt the efficacy of any 
 trifling abilities I possess to retain that patronage with 
 which you honour me. I have not mentioned my unattrac- 
 tive person or clownish manners as likely to operate in the 
 least with a gentleman of your good sense to my disfavour.' 
 Or again, he writes to the same correspondent, Sept.
 
 78 THE WOKKHOUSE. 
 
 30, of the same year, ' I apprehend that you are not 
 disappointed on discovering that I am not one of those 
 meteors which sometimes emerge from darkness, and illu- 
 mine the hemisphere of science with their blaze. On two 
 subjects I am not indifferent. I wish to be known in the 
 world. I wish to get myself a name, and to be esteemed 
 by the wise, the learned, and the good. But even this 
 wish is inferior to that which I have to extend my know- 
 ledge, and to compensate, by literary acquirements, for the 
 deprivation under which I labour.' On June 23, he 
 chides Mr Burnard, for having altered his style of address 
 to the pauper boy who had risen in rank : ' Will you 
 permit me to find fault with the address, " Mr John Kitto ? " 
 how cold and formal ! From any other person I might 
 not object to it, but from you, my earliest and best friend, 
 it must not be. Call me, I entreat you again, plain John 
 Kitto, or, if possible, by some more affectionate appellation.' 
 His hopes were .not yet very high, and this is his humble 
 solace ' I am perfect in my trade ; and should circum- 
 stances send me back to the workhouse, I hope in Mr 
 Burnard for all his former kindness and attention.' 
 
 Batto's mind was at this time specially sensitive, and 
 somewhat irritable. There was the prospect of relief, but 
 it might not be realized ; the blessing of elevation was close 
 upon his grasp, but yet not within it. A few of his Essays 
 had appeared in the papers, and some people suspected that 
 he had been assisted in their composition. On this point 
 he was exceedingly tender, as the following letter to Mr 
 Burnard indicates : 
 
 ' July 22. Public Library. 
 
 ' SIR, I am not happy : I am very uneasy more than 
 uneasy, or I should not now write to you. Pardon me, 
 sir, if I write incoherently, for I address you under the 
 impulse of feelings that have recently been wounded to the
 
 CAPTIOUS CRITICISM. 79 
 
 quick. Those gentlemen were in the right who foretold 
 that I should meet with disappointments. I went down 
 stairs to read last evening, when it grew dark. I had not 
 been there long before a gentleman came in, who, after 
 having read a few minutes, asked me whether I could hear 
 loud sounds ? My answer to this, and other interrogations 
 much more disagreeable, were perused with so evident an 
 intention of finding fault, that it mortified me in the 
 extreme. The pencil was slowly traced beneath the lines ; 
 each word was weighed in the scale of grammatical nicety, 
 and one was found to be improper. I observed, in answer 
 to one of his questions, that I had not, till within these few 
 days, begun to study grammar, and that I did not think it 
 fair that I should be judged by rules with which I was un- 
 acquainted. He replied, " You are in the right, I believe ; 
 but how came you to write so correctly in the Essays in 
 the newspaper ? Did any one correct them for you ? " I 
 leave you to judge, sir, whether this was a proper question 
 for a gentleman, and a stranger, to make. I replied in the 
 negative, adding, that "I repeatedly transcribed them, 
 improving and correcting them each time, till I thought 
 them sufficiently accurate. In the two first Essays, how- 
 ever, the editor corrected some errors in punctuation, and 
 he prefixed the quotation from Anon, to my Essay on 
 Home; but, in the Essay on Contemplation, he, at my 
 desire, made no correction or alteration whatever, further 
 than adding three lines from Shakspere to it as a motto." 
 Yet I believe that Essay is the best. Do you not think so 
 too, sir ? . . . It was very evident, by his triumphant 
 exhibition of a grammatical error and other circumstances, 
 that he was, beforehand, determined to find fault, and that 
 he departed with a very contemptuous opinion of me and 
 my abilities. Whatever was his intention, it is certain 
 that he has made me very uneasy, and greatly discouraged
 
 80 THE WOKKHOUSE. 
 
 me; for, undoubtedly, "the scoff of pride" is not cele- 
 brated for its powers of stimulation.' 
 
 At this juncture, and while his plans of life were still 
 uncertain, a proposal was made to publish a volume of his 
 Essays. But he scrupled at the censorship of his friends, 
 and wished the papers to be left wholly to his own taste 
 and selection. He had no objection that Mr Lampen 
 should read and revise them, provided that he himself 
 might finally bestow upon them ' additional corrections and 
 improvements.' But before the volume was published 
 another change had taken place in his social position, and 
 he had mounted another step upwards. 
 
 His time, meanwhile, being fully his own, was principally 
 spent in the Public Library, and he was not less miserly in 
 the distribution of it than formerly. He devised various 
 means of economising it, such as forming a diagram of 
 method, marked with different colours ; lamented that of 
 late he had been in bed full seven hours, while six were 
 quite sufficient ; resolved against heavy dinners ; would 
 like a little ale, but would prefer a small quantity of wine 
 to his frugal and solitary meal, and so hoped to be able to 
 read or write, with little interruption, from nine in the 
 morning till five in the afternoon. Conscientiously did he 
 occupy his leisure. While he was free to choose any line 
 of study, he decidedly preferred literature to science. 
 Opening his mind to Mr Harvey (June 1st), he declares of 
 Natural Philosophy, ' I have no desire to make any par- 
 ticular branch of it my study. As I have but few hours in 
 the day at my own disposal, and when I attain to manhood 
 am likely to have still fewer, it would be absurd in me to 
 hope to succeed (even if I had the inclination) in such 
 branches of philosophical and scientific research, as geome- 
 try, chemistry, electricity, and others equally abstruse, 
 which are calculated only for men of great talents, and those
 
 STUDIES IN THE PUBLIC LIBRARY:. 81 
 
 who have been blessed with a liberal education.' ' Mine,' 
 he explains to Mr Woollcombe (Sept. 25), ' is a mind not 
 adapted to scientific pursuits. Man, I have repeatedly 
 said, and that which relates directly to him, shall be the 
 chief subjects of my research. Let chemists analyse the 
 elements in their alembics, but let me analyse the passions, 
 the powers, and the pursuits of man in the alembic of the 
 mind.' Accordingly he gave himself to reading chiefly in 
 metaphysics. ' The novels, the poems, and the periodicals 
 slept quietly on the shelves.' History, also, occupied a 
 portion of his time, and he retained through life his liking 
 for it. But the metaphysical theories with which he came 
 in contact, ultimately perplexed him, and he abandoned the 
 pursuit. Yet, before he laid it aside, he had gathered 
 from it ' some useful knowledge, acquired some useful 
 habits, and drawn some useful conclusions.' His mind 
 liked to store itself with information, rather than penetrate 
 into profound questions, or range among subtile hypotheses. 
 His intellectual nature was not fitted to deal with such 
 subjects, and his metaphysical studies were pursued, not 
 for the love of mental science, but for the sake of general 
 knowledge. Instinctively he valued the palpable more than 
 the abstruse, and immediate utility outweighed, in his esti- 
 mate, every form of speculation. He was, indeed, in danger 
 of being injured by the desultory nature of his exercises, 
 for when any mental pursuit ceased to delight him, he was 
 at once inclined to abandon it. He did not relish mathe- 
 matics, for ' he pursued the steps to the demonstration 
 without pleasure or curiosity.' He resolved to go through 
 Euclid, but was easily seduced from the task ; and at length 
 confessed, that whenever he ventured over the Asses' Bridge . 
 he usually ' fell into the water.' 
 
 But he thought of ' beginning Latin,' and of ' possessing 
 the Greek language also.' Though he had been, and was 
 
 F
 
 82 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 still, so voracious a reader, lie knew that the mere perusal 
 of books was not to be identified with intellectual improve- 
 ment. He puts the case strongly : ' Were it possible 
 for one man to read all the books which have been printed, 
 from Caxton to Bensley, that man might still be a block- 
 head. For reading the thoughts of other men will not in 
 itself enable us to think justly ourselves, any more than 
 the wearing of a Chancellor's wig would endue us with the 
 legal knowledge of a Lord High Chancellor.' 1 
 
 He had not been long boarded with Mr Burnard, when 
 his constitutional monitor spoke to him, as it afterwards 
 did, periodically, till his death. In a letter to Mr Harvey, 
 August 13, he laments : 
 
 * Since Tuesday night I have experienced more illness 
 than within an equal space of time since my fall. Sick- 
 ness is well calculated to produce wise reflections and con- 
 clusions in the mind. In the fervour of my hopes, and in 
 the anticipation of future attainments and subsequent use- 
 fulness, I had almost forgotten that it was in the power of 
 death to prevent their fulfilment. 
 
 ' You may, perhaps, sir, also say, that my trifling ill- 
 ness does not justify an anticipation of early dissolution. 
 On such a subject no one can speak with certainty ; yet I 
 may be permitted to say, that I believe my demise will be 
 at no distant period ; and, indeed, I think that, at no other 
 time, it could be more eligible than now. Were my de- 
 cease to take place at present, sympathy might shed a tear 
 over my grave, and I might be lamented by the benevo- 
 lent, the pious, and the learned, as one who, had he lived, 
 might have been a useful member of society. In after h'fe 
 I may be exposed to criminal temptations, which I may 
 not have power to resist. I may form ties which it would 
 be agony to tear asunder ; and I may have miseries to eu- 
 
 1 Essays, p. 209.
 
 FOREBODINGS OF EARLY DEATH. 83 
 
 dure of which I have now no conception, all of which my 
 demise now would prevent. I imagine you pause here, 
 and take up your pen to ask me, " Are you then tired of 
 life, and do you wish for death ? " Oh no, sir, I wish to 
 know, and to communicate my knowledge. I would live, 
 could I command it, till time shall have covered my head 
 with hoary honours. I would live till I had learned how 
 to die with a well-grounded hope of future bliss. The 
 reasons above alluded to are by no means such as to make 
 death desirable. It would be absurd to wish for death in 
 order to avert evils, the occurrence of which is no more 
 than probable. However, the frequent thoughts of death 
 will certainly render his approach less terrible when he 
 ultimately arrives. 
 
 ' Considered abstractedly from the probability of my 
 early dissolution, I think my future prospects very invigo- 
 rating indeed. Henceforth I shall not look too anxiously 
 on the future, but rely on that Great Being who has been 
 so merciful to me, and hope that He will enable me to be 
 happy in any condition which I may be called to occupy.' 1 
 
 With all his high prospects, a feeling of gloom occa- 
 sionally stole over him the shadow of his earlier sensations. 
 To such despondency he makes frequent allusion. He was 
 tormented by fears, and he wisely advised himself to take 
 long walks, and unbend his mind, by partaking of any harm- 
 less amusements. 2 But, with all his dark tendencies, his 
 gratitude was great. When he looked on what he had been, 
 felt what he had become, and hoped what he might yet be, 
 his spirit was filled with thankfulness ; and he describes his 
 emotions, in a letter, published in his earliest volume : 
 
 TO MR WILDE. 
 
 Plymouth Public Library, Oct. 16, 1823. 
 ' DEAR SIR, With much pleasure I avail myself of the 
 
 1 Essays, p. 30. * Essays, p. 48.
 
 84 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 first opportunity of returning my grateful acknowledg- 
 ments for the attention you have shown to my accommoda- 
 tion and comfort in the library ; and, at the same time, of 
 saying something about myself. When I recollect (and 
 can I ever forget ?) how miserable I once was ; how I was 
 exposed to ignominy, to insult, neglect, and oppression, 
 my joy is great to have escaped such evils, and my heart 
 expands with gratitude towards those disinterested indi- 
 viduals who have rescued me from them. 
 
 ' In the most enthusiastic of my reveries, I never imagined 
 that I should ever be as I now am, or that I should at- 
 tract that attention which has been, and is directed towards 
 me. I wrote ; I endeavoured to acquire knowledge, be- 
 cause my deafness had divested me of all relish for common 
 amusements, because I could find no other enjoyment or 
 occupation equally interesting, and because the employ- 
 ment of my few leisure hours and moments gave me the 
 satisfactory consciousness of spending my time well, with- 
 out having the most distant idea that this occupation of my 
 leisure would lead to the beneficial results to which it has led. 
 
 ' An unprepossessing exterior, and deportment somewhat 
 singular, made me to be persecuted and despised by my 
 equals and superiors in age, who knew me no further than 
 as they saw me, or thought me a being not far removed 
 from idiocy. Misery, sir, had rather quickened than 
 blunted the native sensibilities of my heart ; and great as 
 my sufferings were, I probably felt them more acutely than 
 many others would have done in the same circumstances. 
 
 ' Amidst all these troubles, however, my thirst for know- 
 ledge was not destroyed. My closet was my only refuge, 
 and a book, when I could procure it, my only consoler ; 
 for there were none to enter into my feelings or sympathize 
 with me, and by deafness I was cut off from social inter- 
 course with every human being.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 86 
 
 ' Thus unhappy as I was, if you can form an idea of my 
 situation, you can also conceive the satisfaction which I 
 felt when I suddenly became an object of attention and 
 commiseration to those who have assisted to rescue me 
 from the state in which they found me, and placed me in 
 that which I now occupy. I, the lowly being who, a few 
 days before, was unnoticed and unknown, now became an 
 object of curiosity and wonder to persons who would never 
 have become acquainted with rny existence, or have heard 
 my name mentioned, if some trifling circumstances, which 
 I should denominate accidents if I had not been accustomed 
 to trace the finger of an overruling Providence in many 
 of those events which the irreligious, the ignorant, and the 
 careless, call by the name of chances, had not introduced 
 me to the notice of those who have made me known to 
 others. 
 
 ' It must be evident, however, that this is not my final 
 destination ; and I feel no other anxiety or uneasiness than 
 as it respects futurity. The vast ocean of human life lies 
 before me, and my only wish is that my little bark may 
 in future escape those dangers by which it was once as- 
 sailed, and that it may proceed in peace and comfort, un- 
 disturbed by the blasts of adversity, till it ultimately rest 
 in the quiet haven of the grave.' 
 
 One can scarce wonder at the following wish, expressed 
 by such a child of misfortune and poverty, who had never 
 handled a piece of money of any value. It occurs in a 
 Journal that dates from February 19, 1824, to April 3 : 
 
 ' I have some time been desirous of consulting my kind 
 and zealous friend, Colonel Hawker, on the propriety of 
 my desiring to have at Whitsuntide and Christmas, or 
 any other two periods of the year, a sovereign, but I have 
 been loath to mention it to him, for he has lately, and 
 indeed always, been so attentive to my wishes, that I am
 
 86 THE WOEKHOUSE. 
 
 unwilling again to make so great a claim on Ms considera- 
 tion. I do not think that Mr Woollcombe or Mr Lampen 
 would make much if any objection to it ; but, perhaps, Mr 
 Hawker might, and I am not willing to make a proposal 
 which there is any probability of his rejecting, for if he 
 disapproves of it, I shall not mention it to any other per- 
 son. I should not be so reluctant, if it were not for the 
 great increase which has been kindly and spontaneously 
 made to my weekly stipend. Well, and what do you want 
 with twenty shillings twice a year ? Why, as to that, it is 
 partly a wish of having what I never had before, for I 
 never touched a note in my life, nor a piece of gold coin, 
 but once, which was ten years ago, when I was permitted 
 to hold a seven-shilling-piece in my hand for a few seconds. 
 I wish also to have a small sum always at hand, to answer 
 any particular want which may occur. I should also, with 
 part of it, purchase some old books, and thus gradually 
 increase my little store. With half of it, ten shillings, I 
 have no doubt of being able to purchase, at my old 
 acquaintances, ten or twelve volumes of books. I could 
 also supply myself with some minor articles of clothing 
 out of it, and thus prevent the necessity of too frequent 
 applications to Mr Hawker and the other gentlemen on 
 that account.' 
 
 Amidst all this anxiety for himself, his wants, and pro- 
 spects, it is pleasant to find Kitto ' looking on the things 
 of others.' His favourite subjects of composition had been, 
 and still were, childhood and affliction. 1 He wrote of the 
 former with a kind of melancholy pleasure, and of the latter 
 in a tone of earnest commiseration. His life had been a 
 companionship with grief, and such an experience taught 
 him to enter readily into the trials of ' brethren in tribu- 
 
 1 A series of brief essays on ' Childhood ' were addressed by him to Mr Wooll- 
 combe, and many of his earlier compositions take the form of letters or addresses 
 to the afflicted.
 
 LETTER OF CONDOLENCE. 87 
 
 lation.' Sickness had often visited him, and death had 
 once ' come nigh unto him ;' nay, had laid in the tomb his 
 aged and beloved grandparent. He had often craved for 
 sympathy toward himself, and therefore he was forward 
 to express his condolence with those who sorrowed, and 
 mingle his tears with those who wept. He records in his 
 Journal the death of Mr Burnard's son, and adds, under a 
 twinge of despondency, ' I consider his fate as enviable; and 
 nothing but the consciousness that it is my duty to support 
 the life which my Creator gave, prevents me from being 
 absolutely weary of my existence, and anxious to quit it.' 
 But he who had called himself ' John, the Comfortless,' 
 essayed to comfort the bereaved mother : 
 
 * April 29, 1824. 
 
 ' DEAR MADAM, That at the present moment I write 
 to you with reluctance on the subject you suggested, I must 
 candidly acknowledge. At an earlier period it would have 
 been more proper than now, and I should at such a period 
 have written, had I not been deterred by the reasons I 
 mentioned to you. The natural effect of time is to soften 
 that grief which every afflictive occurrence inspires ; I 
 should therefore have deemed it a duty to avoid the men- 
 tion -of any circumstances likely to revive that intensity of 
 sorrow which time must necessarily in some measure have 
 ameliorated, had you not expressed a willingness to receive 
 any communication on the subject I might make. That 
 your son should be lamented by you, is natural perfectly 
 natural. Robert was a son of whom any parent might be 
 proud ; and had he lived, and enjoyed health, there could be 
 no doubt of his proving a blessing to all connected with 
 him, and an honour to human nature, if, as nobody denies, 
 human nature can be adorned by piety, talent, and virtue. 
 These are just causes for the sorrow you felt and continue 
 to experience ; but I cannot persuade myself that any
 
 88 THE WORKHOUSE. 
 
 causes can justify unjust repinings, overstrained lamenta- 
 tions, and rebellious murmurings at the dispensations of 
 that Almighty Providence which never acts but for the 
 good of its creatures. Let it not be imagined that I sup- 
 pose you feel in this manner. Far from it ! you feel only a 
 just and natural grief. But if I indeed thought so, I would 
 say so. Recollect the state in which he spent the last year 
 of his life, -and say whether you should have preferred to 
 have had him live for years in this state of mental and 
 bodily anguish ? for, doubtless, independent of his personal 
 sufferings, he endured much in being cut off from nearly 
 all the gratifications and enjoyments which render life de- 
 sirable. Do you believe him happy I Undoubtedly. Well 
 then, is it kind to repine at his happiness? Supposing, and 
 there is no absurdity in the supposition, that his immortal 
 part be conscious of your actions, can it be thought that 
 his felicity receives any increase from seeing the relatives 
 whom he loved, lament as those who have no hope, and 
 murmur at the dispensations of that Gracious Being who 
 has mercifully seen fit thus early to reward his virtues, by 
 taking him from a state of anguish to one of unutterable 
 felicity ? Far from it ; on the contrary, I conceive this 
 consciousness, if it be indeed possessed by disembodied 
 spirits, to be the only alloy of which their present happi- 
 ness is capable ; and, therefore, if it were possible that any 
 being should have rejoiced in the death of your son, that 
 being would be in reality less his enemy than you who 
 thus bewail his loss. Loss ! Who has lost ? What is 
 lost ? Has he lost anything ? Yes, he lost mortality, he 
 has lost pain, he has lost all the miseries of human life, 
 these are his losses ; but he has in compensation for these 
 losses, gained, but his gains I will not attempt to enume- 
 rate, for only a disembodied spirit can describe those plea- 
 sures, which only a disembodied spirit can enjoy. And
 
 KELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 89 
 
 you, have you lost anything ? No, nothing has been lost, 
 your son has gone a journey, and you know that he is 
 happy, eminently happy, in the country which he inhabits. 
 You know also that a great many years cannot elapse be- 
 fore you will be sent for to the same happy regions, where 
 you will dwell for ever with him, without fear of further 
 separation. But supposing for a moment that you had lost 
 anything by the demise of your son, you are certain that he 
 has gained ; and could you in that case be so selfish as to 
 repine at your own individual loss, when the same cause 
 has rendered your child so supremely happy? If you could, 
 it would not be acting the part of a mother and friend. 
 Such, my dear madam, are some of the reflections which I 
 would have suggested to your consideration, if I had sup- 
 posed that in your instance they had been requisite. As 
 my own sentiments respecting death are pretty well known, 
 I shall not now intrude on you any longer than to assure 
 yon that I am, yours most respectfully, 
 
 ' JOHN KITTO.' 
 ' To Mrs BURNARD.' 
 
 Kitto's continued and prayerful study of the Bible, with 
 the assistance of the best Commentaries which he could 
 procure, was greatly blessed, for there seems to have been 
 all this while the steady growth of religious principle within 
 him. 
 
 ' April 2. I am hi a state which I cannot exactly de- 
 scribe. I become every day more sensible of my own ne- 
 glect of the duties due to the Almighty, and of my offences 
 against His commandments. I have not that due sense of 
 His mercy, His love, and His benevolence, which I ought 
 to have. I do not form a proper estimate of the vanity of 
 human life, and the contemptible nature of human pursuits, 
 compared with those of a spiritual order. I have not that
 
 90 THE WOKKHOUSE. 
 
 overwhelming sense of my own religious and moral crimi- 
 nality which I ought to possess, nor have I that effectual 
 and lively faith in Jesus Christ without which everything 
 else is of no value. It is true that I believe Jesus Christ 
 to be the Son of God, that He existed with the Father 
 from all eternity, and that it is only through His atoning 
 blood that we can hope for mercy and forgiveness ; I be- 
 lieve all this, but this theoretical faith I feel to be utterly 
 insufficient, unattended by practical results, and these prac- 
 tical results I do not experience. There is an internal 
 monitor within me, independent of the written words of in- 
 spiration, which makes me fully assured that of myself I 
 can do nothing that my own efforts are contemptible 
 and that through a Mediator, and a Mediator only, I can 
 hope for salvation. That Mediator is Jesus Christ ; through 
 Him I may obtain mercy and pardon, and His righteous 
 blood can wash away my sins. But I do not feel myself 
 sufficiently grateful to Him, having sufficient faith in Him, 
 sufficiently desirous of living only for Him and to Him, or 
 feel Him absolutely necessary to me. Should I not pray 
 for all this ? I have I have but I cannot pray as I 
 ought to pray. I cannot draw nigh to God in spirit and 
 in truth. I do not approach Him with a humble and con- 
 trite spirit, and with that awful veneration which I ought 
 to experience. The busy thoughts of the world and lite- 
 rary subjects intrude, and call off my attention from the 
 solemn occupation in which I am engaged, and thus I 
 rise from my knees more guilty than when I began to 
 kneel. my God ! Enable me distinctly to discern the 
 path in which I should walk, and give me strength to 
 pursue it.' 
 
 He reveals also to Mr Burnard, April 9, the nature of 
 the emotions which gave birth to such sentiments. ' My 
 uneasiness is not the cause, but the effect of the humiliating
 
 SEARCHINGS OF HEART. 91 
 
 sense under which I labour, of my own moral and religious 
 imperfections.' ' It originates in a lately awakened sense 
 of my unworthiness. I am afraid that mine is a cold theo- 
 retic belief, rather than an effectual and saving faith.' 
 
 This anxiety of soul quickened him, taught him from ex- 
 perience the value of prayer as a means of relief, and led 
 him to read the Scriptures with still greater relish and 
 constancy. The idea of becoming a missionary struck a 
 chord in his bosom. When he heard the question thrown 
 out, ' Might not Kitto become a useful missionary, if he 
 studied with effect the only book of sound principles and 
 perfect science ever written ?' he caught at the suggestion, 
 and nobly expressed himself on the character and aims of 
 the missionary enterprise, in a letter to Mr Flindell on the 
 subject. 1 Nay more, he was on fire at the thought of be- 
 coming a minister. In his Diary, March 31, we note this 
 meditation 
 
 ' Apropos of Kirke White I learn that his deafness was 
 one of the reasons which induced him to relinquish the 
 study of the law for the clerical profession. Till I had 
 learnt this, I had understood that a defect of hearing was an 
 insurmountable bar to entering into Holy Orders. Were 
 it possible, my God ! that I could become a minister of 
 Thy Word ; that I could be permitted to point out to 
 erring sinners the paths of peace and salvation, what more 
 could I desire of Thee ? If an ardent zeal for the salva- 
 tion of souls, if an unshaken belief in the faith promulgated 
 by Jesus Christ and His apostles, if a fervent attachment 
 to the Scriptures, and if a deep sense of the natural de- 
 pravity of human nature, are qualifications for the ministry, 
 then I am so qualified. How truly happy should I be in some 
 retired and obscure curacy, where I should have no other 
 business but the delightful one of instructing others in their 
 
 1 Essays and Letters, p. 49.
 
 92 
 
 THE WOEKHOUSE. 
 
 duty to God and their fellow-men, and in which I should 
 have sufficient leisure to read, to study, and to write !' 
 
 Gate of the Hospital of Uie Poor's Tort
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EXETER. 
 
 WHILE his mind was in this propitious state, Kitto was 
 introduced to Mr Groves, a dentist, residing at Exeter. 
 Mr Harvey had hinted at a University education for him, 
 and believed that he had sufficient interest to obtain a 
 fellowship. But Kitto's other friends would not entertain 
 such a proposal. He was, therefore, left free to form an 
 engagement with Mr Groves, who had heard something of 
 his history, and had judged favourably of him, from having 
 seen one of his letters to Mr Flindell, editor of the Western 
 Luminary. Mr Groves offered to instruct Kitto in his 
 profession, to board him, and give him for his services, 
 15 the first, and 20 the second year, with prospect of 
 higher remuneration. Kitto accepted the offer, and this 
 engagement was the turning point in his career. It 
 deepened and sealed his piety, and ultimately led him to 
 the East, in preparation for the great work of his life. 
 He had already written a paper on the Antinomianism of 
 Dr Hawker, which shows some familiarity with Scripture, 
 though not a very distinct conception of some portions 
 and aspects of the scheme of grace. But the example of 
 Mr Groves quite electrified him, and every fibre of his 
 heart vibrated under the living impression. A vital and 
 decided change passed over him, the result of long pre- 
 paration and prayer.
 
 94 EXETER. 
 
 His mind had been always susceptible of religious im- 
 pression, but it had not yet quickened into life. The 
 blade had shot up, but there now began to appear the 
 ' full corn in the ear.' He had put on record, before he 
 left the hospital, a specimen of his prayers, in a style of no 
 ordinary magnificence a specimen which becomes a moral 
 and intellectual wonder, when we consider the upbringing 
 and the circumstances of him who wrote it a boy, ren- 
 dered totally deaf by an accident, suffered to grow up 
 uneducated, made a pauper by his father's vices, and now 
 learning an humble trade in a workhouse : 
 
 ' MORNING PRAYER. 
 
 ' King of the Universe ! I, an atom of that universe, 
 dare humbly pray Thee to incline Thy ear, while at Thy 
 footstool I confess that I am a wretched sinner ; that I 
 have broken Thy laws, and Thy commandments I have 
 trodden under my feet ; that I have slighted Thee, my 
 Maker ; that I have not done my duty to Thee, my neigh- 
 bour, or myself; that I have deserved nothing at Thy 
 hands but Thy displeasure. I have wasted the precious 
 moments which Thou gavest me to improve. I have 
 murmured at Thy decrees, because Thou, in Thy mercy, 
 wast pleased to afflict me, and because Thou gavest me to 
 drink of the cup of affliction. I have not loved Thee as 
 Thou oughtest to be loved. I have suffered impure desires 
 and evil passions to influence my actions. In short, O 
 Lord, I am a miserable self-convicted sinner. I have 
 deserved Thy wrath and fearful indignation ; and I do not 
 remember one good action that ever I did, which makes 
 me know that Thou alone canst save me. Therefore, 
 Almighty God, overburdened as I am with sin, I dare 
 humbly sue Thee to pardon my sins ; remember not against
 
 MORNING PRAYER. 95 
 
 me my iniquities, bat blot them from the book of Thy 
 remembrance, and erase them from the tablets of Thy 
 memory. Hear me, God, when I cry to Thee for that 
 mercy I do not deserve. Give me, most merciful Father, 
 the gifts of Thy grace. Give me repentance, for, without 
 Thy aid, I cannot repent of my sins nor abide by my 
 purpose of leading a new life ; without Thy aid I cannot 
 know myself. Give me, Eternal King, faith, that no 
 doubts may obtrude themselves, that I may believe in 
 Jesus Christ, and keep Thy law. Do Thou also grant 
 unto me, Lord, content, that I may be satisfied with 
 whatever situation in life it be Thy pleasure to assign me, 
 and that I may be convinced that whatsoever Thou doest 
 is for my benefit ; and that I may thank Thee even for the 
 rod with which Thou dost chastise me. 
 
 ' I most humbly entreat Thee, Omniscient God, to grant 
 me strength to resist the allurements of sin, Satan, my 
 own flesh, and mine own thoughts, that I may not give 
 way to temptation, but resist it. Take from my breast, 
 Lord, this heart harder than adamant, black with 
 impurity, and stubborn and, O Lord, substitute in its 
 place a heart purified in the blood of Jesus. 
 
 ' Inspire Thou those under whom I am placed with 
 kindness unto me, and give me, Lord, power to please 
 them. Shed over me Thy grace, and reveal Thyself unto 
 me, through Jesus Christ, in whom alone we can know 
 Thee, and that I may become a new being, casting off all 
 evil habits and unholy feelings, and conduct myself as be- 
 seemeth a being whom Thou hast redeemed. Guide Thou 
 my steps in the way which, though to mortal eye it is 
 rough and unpleasant to the sense, leads to everlasting 
 life. And do Thou, Almighty Power, give me strength to 
 avoid the road which appears to abound with unalloyed 
 pleasure, but which leads to eternal death.
 
 96 EXETEK. 
 
 ' If it be Thy pleasure to give me hereafter affluence, 
 grant that I may not abuse Thy bounty ; if poverty, grant 
 that I may not murmur ; but I pray Thee, Lord, grant 
 me not riches nor poverty yet not my will, but Thine 
 always be done, for Thou knowest what is for my benefit 
 better than myself. 
 
 ' Bless, God, my benefactors, relatives, and friends. 
 Teach me how to pray unto Thee, in spirit and in truth. 
 
 ' Grant me, Lord, I humbly entreat Thee, grace that 
 I may so conduct myself here on earth, that when it is 
 Thy pleasure to take me hence, I may die with the con- 
 viction that my sins are pardoned, and that at the last I 
 may be able to exclaim, " death ! where is thy sting ? 
 
 grave ! where is thy victory ? " 
 
 ' Lord ! be merciful to me, a sinner, and grant that I 
 may be one of that happy number to whom it shall be 
 said, " Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou 
 into the joy of thy Lord." I ask from Thee not, Lord, 
 worldly blessings. I ask of Thee neither fame, nor riches, 
 nor honours, but, Lord, I ask of Thee a pure and contrite 
 spirit. I ask of Thee patience, to bear with resignation 
 whatsoever afflictions Thou art pleased to send me. 
 
 ' I thank Thee, Father, for the manifold favours I 
 have received from Thee. I thank Thee for life, health, 
 friends, connections. I thank Thee that Thou hast for- 
 bore hitherto to punish me as my sins have deserved. I 
 thank Thee for all the good I have enjoyed, or may enjoy 
 hereafter; particularly for the protection Thou hast af- 
 forded me heretofore, especially in the past night ; and 
 
 1 humbly pray Thee to continue my Protector through 
 the coming day, and grant that at the end thereof, I may 
 look back on a well-spent day. These, and all other 
 favours, which are for my good, I pray Thee grant in the 
 name of Thy beloved Son, Jesus Christ, Who loved our
 
 PROGRESSIVE PIETY. 97 
 
 souls so well, that He took upon Himself our sinful nature, 
 bled for our sins, bore Thy anger in our stead, and suf- 
 fered death for our iniquities, and Who taught us, in the 
 perfect form of words, to say, " Our Father Which art in 
 heaven," etc. 
 
 ' The above is not all that I pray for, only a brief view 
 of the principal heads. What say you to it, dear Harry ? 
 Xot worthy the Being to whom it is addressed ? ' 
 
 But in Exeter a great spiritual advance had been made, 
 experience had ripened, and he discloses himself to Mr 
 Burnard, June 1824: 
 
 . . . ' When I look back, I am surprised at the very 
 great change which has taken place in my views since I 
 came hither a change which I had never anticipated a 
 change which clearly convicts me, in many former instances 
 of my life, of folly and impropriety and a change which, 
 I hope, will ultimately, under Divine teaching, make me 
 wise unto salvation, and enable me to become a Christian, 
 and an useful member of society. . To what is this change 
 to be imputed ? Perhaps to a more exclusive contempla- 
 tion of Divine things, to a more attentive study of the 
 Word of Life, to abstraction from many temporal things 
 which at Plymouth too deeply interested me and engrossed 
 my thoughts, to my intercourse ,with Mr Groves; but 
 chiefly, I conclude, to the grace of God, who has at length 
 permitted that " day -spring from on high" to arise, for the 
 appearance of winch I have long prayed, and which, when 
 fully risen, will enable me to behold the beauty of holiness 
 in all its glory and perfection, and by the strengthening 
 influence of the Holy Spirit, to pursue that light which will 
 then be revealed more completely than at present.' 
 
 Again, writing to the same correspondent, in September, 
 he reverently marks his first sacramental enjoyment : 
 
 ' Since I wrote last, I have for the first time partaken of 
 
 o
 
 98 EXETER. 
 
 the Communion, and the day in which I did so was one of 
 the most pleasant in my life most particularly was it 
 distinguished by that absorbing and sublime devotional 
 feeling which it is my most earnest desire may ultimately 
 become the continual feeling of my daily life, repelling 
 worldly affections and earthly wishes, and making me per- 
 petually act and think from the simple motive of love to 
 our Divine Master. 
 
 ' You must be sensible, from the tone of my 
 letters to yourself and those which you may have seen of 
 mine to other persons that the John Kitto you will see, 
 is rather a different person from the John Kitto you have 
 Been ; and I am sure you will rejoice with me when you 
 understand that this is not a mere alteration of the external 
 manners or appearance, but an alteration most deeply felt 
 in the heart, and entering into every feeling, every passion 
 of, the mind, insomuch that I should now be disgusted with 
 much in which I once delighted, and many things are now 
 most pleasant and delightful, which once were indifferent 
 to me.' 
 
 Kitto got on well with Groves, as his Diary shows : 
 
 ' May 19. Troubles of Latin.- Surely this inaptitude 
 must lower me in Mr Groves' estimation. 
 
 ' May 22. Mr G. desired to know if I was happy in my 
 situation with him. I replied " that it was beyond my anti- 
 cipations, and equalled my wishes." It would be ungrateful 
 were I to express myself dissatisfied with his disinterested 
 and zealous endeavours to promote my happiness arid com- 
 fort. He added, " That it would be a subject of great 
 regret, if any consideration should induce me to wish to 
 leave the bosom of a family, to every member of which I 
 was an object of interest and attachment." ' 
 
 During his residence at Exeter, Kitto corresponded regu- 
 larly with his Plymouth friends, upon a variety of themes,
 
 SPIRITUAL EXERCISES. 99 
 
 and treats, for example, in a series of letters, the topic of 
 capital punishments. Subjects seem to have been proposed 
 to him from time to time ; and his style, through exercise, 
 acquired considerable freedom and energy. He was in 
 the habit of distributing tracts in Exeter, and he was often 
 pained by the scenes of profligacy which he witnessed 
 such as ' fellows emerging from a beer-house, and fighting 
 in the street.' ' My dear sir, my heart is quite sick when 
 I contemplate such scenes of brutal violence. Reflecting 
 on this state of things, it is the duty of every one whom 
 the Holy Ghost has enlightened, whatever his rank or 
 degree may be, to devote himself exclusively to the service 
 of his Master, and to aid His great cause to the utmost 
 stretch of his power. . . . Now, my dear sir, of what 
 I have said I would make personal application, and ad- 
 dressing the Master, say, Behold me, then, my Father ! I 
 offer myself, and all that Thou hast made me, to Thee. 
 Send me where Thou wilt, do with me what Thou wilt, 
 and require my services as Thou mayest, I thank Thee 
 that Thou hast made me willing to obey Thy summons ; 
 and. Eternal God, so prosper me, as by Thy grace I seek, 
 above all things, Thy glory and Thy honour.' 1 
 
 The portion of his Diary which describes his sojourn at 
 Exeter, concludes with the following prayer : ' Almighty 
 and ever-living God, who madest all things, and lovest all 
 that Thou hast made, deign to incline Thine ear to the 
 prayer of a sinner, who thus humbly, at Thy footstool, en- 
 treats of Thee, not this world's goods, or its pleasures, or 
 its honours, but that portion of Thy grace, that infusion of 
 Thy Spirit which maketh wise unto salvation. Grant me 
 these, Righteous Father, and nothing more do I entreat of 
 Thee, for in these all lesser blessings are included. If it be 
 Thy good pleasure that I should drink to the dregs that 
 
 1 Letter to Mr Burnard, 24th March 1825.
 
 100 EXETER. 
 
 bitter cup of adversity, of which I have already drunk so 
 largely, proportion my strength to the trials which Thou 
 givest me to undergo ; make me submit, in humble acqui- 
 escence, to Thy chastening rod, and make me, in circum- 
 stances of apparent sorrow, to exclaim, " Father, if it be 
 Thy pleasure, take this cup from me ; nevertheless, not my 
 will, but Thine be done." But if, on the other hand, Thou 
 bestowest upon me those things which men so highly seek 
 and desire, grant that they may have no injurious effect ; 
 that they may not draw my heart from its hold on Thee, 
 and that I may feel myself nothing more than the steward 
 of Thy bounties, and the deputed dispenser to the poor, the 
 unhappy, and the destitute, of a portion of those blessings 
 which Thou mayest give to myself, or rather which Thou 
 hast deigned to give me in trust. If what I have asked 
 be for my good, grant it, Father, for the sake of Jesus 
 Christ. Amen.' 
 
 That Kitto had surrendered the ' fortress of his silence,' 
 prior to the time he left Plymouth, is evident from some 
 statements in what he calls his ' Private Diary.' Who 
 his ' little flame ' was, we know not, except by name. He 
 was always fond of female society he loved sisterhood. 
 An impression had been made upon him, which cost him 
 no little pain, when with ' many terrible conflicts ' he 
 sacrificed it on what he believed to be the shrine of duty, 
 and in obedience to the warnings of Mr Groves. 
 
 ' April 24. Visited H. this evening ; communicated as 
 much as I thought necessary of my Exonian destination. 
 She did not seem much more pleased with it than with the 
 more superb University plan, an insight into which I gave 
 her. Well, whatever happens, God preserve her, and make 
 her happy, and while she is so, I can never myself be com- 
 pletely miserable.' 
 
 We have given the previous extract, simply to show
 
 FIEST LOVE. 101 
 
 that, while so many painful circumstances had conspired 
 to make Kitto solitary and dull, and force him into a 
 lonely and self-devouring asceticism, he had neither sunk 
 into moroseness, nor avenged himself by a scornful misan- 
 thropy. He could not exclaim, 'man delights not me, 
 nor woman neither,' for, to his benefactors of the one sex 
 he was sincerely grateful, as his letters testify, and there 
 was one in the other sex who had power to attach him, 
 and charm him out of his solitude, and of whom he says, 
 after the correspondence had been broken off, ' she clings 
 to my heart with a force almost irresistible.' He had 
 pleaded, and that powerfully, for this attachment, against 
 the remonstrances of Mr Burnard. This susceptibility of 
 a first love shows that his heart had not been utterly 
 wrecked by his bitter experiences. He had been saved 
 from himself even when a hard and dry incrustation seemed 
 sometimes to be gathering about him. ' Nay,' he says in 
 his volume of Essays, published soon after (p. 85), ' mar- 
 riage is in general the principal component part of a happy 
 home.' In an Essay on Beauty (p. 102), he declares, ' I 
 am an enthusiastic admirer of personal beauty. Expres- 
 sion is to beauty what the soul is to the body. I now 
 repeat, I am an enthusiastic admirer of female loveliness. 
 . . . Mental charms in. a woman will give pleasure and 
 excite admiration, when the attractions of beauty and 
 youth exist no longer.' . . 
 
 About this time, iu the beginning or spring of 1825, 
 the volume of Kitto's Letters and Essays just referred to, 
 was published. 1 Neither title-page nor preface has any 
 date. The duodecimo, of 210 pages, was patronised by 
 above 400 subscribers. It is premised that the volume does 
 not ' consist of papers composed expressly for publication. 
 
 iys and Letters by John Kitto, with a Short Memoir of the Author. Ply- 
 mouth.
 
 102 EXETER. 
 
 They are selections from letters which he wrote in the 
 workhouse, and essays with which he exercised his fond - 
 ness for literary occupations, and they were chosen from 
 the mass of his writings, rather to give an impression of 
 the character of his mind and talent, than as conveying 
 any particularly striking or original views of the subjects 
 of which it treats. . . The volume is now offered to 
 the public in the hope that it may justify the attention 
 Xhat has been paid to the merits of this deserving young 
 man, and that it may be the means of affording him en- 
 couragement in the pursuit of that line of conduct by 
 which he now gratifies his friends.' 
 
 It may be well to pause for a moment over Kitto's 
 earliest production, as the index and fruit of his mental 
 progress ; and as many of its sections are autobiographical, 
 we may find confirmation of the statements we have 
 already made, and learn how, in the dawn of his release, 
 he regarded his previous hardships, what trains of re- 
 flection they suggested, what circles of emotions they pro- 
 duced, what lessons he extracted from them, and what 
 share they had in directing and moulding his subsequent 
 career. 
 
 And first, there was realized, to some extent, another 
 and early dream of Kitto, which he has given in his Work- 
 house Journal, with considerable picturesqueness and 
 power. He represents himself as being in a book-shop, 
 ' and well-dressed ' a sly hit at the poor-house uniform. 
 He is surveying on the counter his own journal in a pub- 
 lished form, when a family enter the shop a sage father, 
 ' a flauntily-dressed elderly lady, with their son and 
 daughter, both dressed as a dandy and dandyzette.' The 
 young coxcomb laughed outright as he took up the volume. 
 ' When asked what excited him, he read the title-page of 
 my unfortunate book " Journal and Memoranda of a Man
 
 SATIRICAL DREAM. 103 
 
 with Four Senses, by John Kitto, Shoemaker, Pauper," 
 etc. " Was there ever such a thing heard," continued he, 
 " as for a pauper ! a shoemaker ! to write anything proper 
 for the perusal of a man of sense !" adjusting the ribband 
 of his quizzing-glass, with the air of a person well satis- 
 fied with his own sense. " Xo, certainly," said his mother, 
 " and I would wager a guinea that it may be classed 
 among the Methodistical jargon which the authors are 
 pleased to call Journals, and of which so much has been 
 obtruded on the public." " I, too, would wager a guinea," 
 said the young lady, "that in this bantling of wax there 
 are no tender embarrassments no ghosts no tears of 
 sensibility nor any duels for nothing but the most gross 
 vulgarity can be expected from this son of the awl." 
 " Yes, indeed ! was ever such extravagance heard of, as 
 for a shoemaker, an occupation found only among the very 
 dregs of the vulgar, to pretend to write a book ? I should 
 not now wonder, 'pon my honour, if the barber should 
 favour us with a treatise on beards the sign-dauber with 
 a history of painting or even the catgut-scraper with a 
 history of music," concluded the young gentleman, witli 
 a loud and long "He ! he ! he !" at his own wit ; " for," 
 added he, " they may as readily do it as a pauper write a 
 Journal." The grave looking old gentleman, who had 
 attentively listened to all that had been said, advanced 
 towards the rest and said, " Ladies and young man, I 
 must dissent from what all of you have said " (an angry 
 and satirical "indeed!" proceeded from all three at the 
 same time) The old gentleman, not noticing this inter- 
 ruption, proceeded " Particularly with regard to what 
 has been said about the incapability of mechanics. For, 
 from my own experience, I can assure you that I have 
 met with genius, probity, and honour, in many instances, 
 among what you are pleased to call the dregs of the peo-
 
 104 EXETER. 
 
 pie. I have always looked upon an honest mechanic, 
 though even a shoemaker, as a much more useful member 
 of society than he who, blessed with affluence, holds time 
 a burden who lives merely to circulate that which would 
 make hundreds happy, and who spends every hour, every 
 day, in what is falsely called pleasure, and who lives for 
 not one of the ends of his creation ; who, so far from im- 
 proving that time which every hour shortens, thinks him- 
 self happy when he has hit on an idea to kill that time of 
 which he is not certain of a moment's continuance. But 
 the best way to convince you of your error is to give you 
 examples of genius amongst the lower classes. I will 
 mention but a few names of the many that occur ; as, for 
 instance, R. Bloomfield, Burns, Chatterton, G. Morland, 
 Savage, Lloyd, Otway, and Shakspere. I scarce need 
 have told any but you that most of these were poets 
 very celebrated poets, and more particularly that Bloom- 
 field was a shoemaker the fourth was one of our best 
 English painters and yet non$ of these were bred in 
 affluence, nor were their talents cultivated by education. 
 But with regard to the book, the merits of which you 
 have decided without opening its pages, I have read it, 
 and though written by a pauper, it does not sink much 
 below mediocrity the misfortune of the author renders it 
 in some measure interesting ; the language is simple, the 
 orthography not very incorrect ; it has some humour ; 
 learning cannot be expected ; yet the author is not igno- 
 rant, and he seems an honest youth, with sentiments much 
 above his condition. Upon the whole, it is better than 
 could be expected from one of his years and situation ; and 
 if it does no good, it will have the negative merit of doing 
 no harm, and it shall be placed in my library." ' 
 
 He who could so express himself was on the high way 
 to write a book, and leave behind him the ' flannel jacket
 
 MULTIFARIOUS BEADING. 105 
 
 and leathern apron ' the badge of poverty and St Crispin, 
 and must soon cease to be ' shoemaker and pauper.' 
 
 The volume bears witness to his multifarious reading. 
 One wonders how he had found time to run through so 
 many books, and read them so carefully as to be able 
 to make such frequent and pertinent allusions to them. 
 The amount of his reading would not have dishonoured a 
 university student ; nay, few of them lay in such a stock 
 of general information. In metaphysics, intelligent and 
 distinctive reference is made to Malebranche and Hume, 
 Reid and Stewart, Berkeley and Des Cartes, Locke and 
 Stillingfleet. Lord Bacon and Madame de Stael are fami- 
 liarly quoted. In an essay on Sublimity,' where he refers 
 to the fine arts, he contrasts the Tuscan and Doric orders 
 of architecture with the Gothic, especially as seen in West- 
 minster Abbey, and in the ruins of Tintern and Glaston- 
 bury ; tells what the pencil of Salvator Rosa achieved, 
 and what Gainsborough could effect ; assigns their re- 
 spective positions to Titian and Raphael ; then passes on 
 to sculpture, criticising the Apollo Belvidere, the group of 
 the Laocoon, and the Choragic monument of Lysicrates. 
 His papers, entitled 'Rabnah and Abdallah,' are rather 
 happy imitations of the once famous Jewish apologues of 
 Ilawksworth and Johnson, and many of the ' desultory 
 reflections,' which conclude the volume, are terse, pointed, 
 and memorable. Kitto denies imitation in style, but 
 many of his first compositions controvert the statement. 
 He fell unconsciously into such imitations. What he 
 had been reading deeply interested him, and left its im- 
 press on his next composition, while inability to hear his 
 own sentences prevented him from detecting the similarity. 
 Does not the following sentence sound like a piece of a 
 Saturday Spectator? 
 
 ' When we consider the numberless claims that the
 
 106 EXETER. 
 
 Deity has to our gratitude, our adoration, and our love 
 what a great Friend, a merciful Father, and a bounteous 
 Benefactor He has been to us, and that on Him depends 
 everything we value and desire the coldness with which 
 we sometimes perform our religious duties appears to me 
 truly strange and unaccountable.' 
 
 Would not the following pass for a portion of the 
 Kambler ? 
 
 ' It were well, perhaps, if the wealthy and the prosper- 
 ous could have a periodical fit of misfortune, which, inde- 
 pendent of its other uses, would give them an opportunity 
 of discovering who were their real and who their pretended 
 friends.' 
 
 There occurs also in the Workhouse Journal a pretty 
 good imitation of Sterne, in an account of a real occur- 
 rence. Kitto describes a poor fellow Avho, from a double 
 amputation, shuffled along on his knees, but did not beg. 
 A marine, passing him, poured the whole contents of his 
 pocket into the maimed man's hand, went away, and wiped 
 his eyes, as if he thought a tear disgraceful. ' Thou wast 
 wrong, generous soldier ! That tear, that action did thee 
 more honour in my eyes than if thou hadst slain with thine 
 own hand thousands of thy fellow-men, and wert therefore 
 called a hero ! Thou, noble veteran ! wast more charitable 
 and more praiseworthy than a rich man if he had given fifty 
 pounds. Thou gavest thy little all. In the perils of war, 
 and temptations of peace, God be with thee, generous 
 marine!' Kitto was fond of Shakspere, and specially 
 fond of Spenser ; and his proneness to form allegories, and 
 shape his fancies into dreams, arose probably from this last 
 predilection. 
 
 His deafness laid him under the necessity of writing. 
 The thoughts of his heart struggled for utterance; and 
 what could not be spoken, must at least be written. Had
 
 COMPOSITION A NECESSITY. 107 
 
 he been able to converse freely, his feelings would have 
 sooner expended themselves, and when afterwards com- 
 mitted to writing, would have lost somewhat of that in- 
 tensity which characterised them. But his emotion, un- 
 wasted by oral expression, appears on 'paper with undiluted 
 strength. Even his ordinary thoughts, pent up within 
 him, and turned over again and again, and examined on 
 all sides, in prolonged and undisturbed reflection, assumed 
 a mature fulness and symmetry when his pen gave a deli 
 berate and final u/tterance to them. This record of his 
 inner history is striking and characteristic : ' I never was 
 a lad! From the time of my fall, deprived of many ex- 
 ternal sources of occupation, I have been accustomed to 
 think, to find sources of occupation within myself; to think 
 deeply ; think as I read, as I worked, or as I walked. 
 Even in my sleep I dreamt ; the addresses, letters, sermons, 
 puns, bon-mots, and tales, I have composed in idea, would, 
 if committed to paper, fill a folio. While other lads were 
 employed with trifles, I thought as a man, felt as a man, 
 and acted as a man.' Yet the appetite for human inter- 
 course led him again and again to write as if addressing 
 another party in an ideal dialogue ; and the same yearn- 
 ing for social speech prompted him to write formal letters to 
 himself, specimens of which are inserted in this published 
 collection. The solitary boy created an imaginary com- 
 panionship. Some of his letters and papers, illustrative of 
 previous parts of his life, have been spoken of already, such 
 as his letter to Mr Flindell on the moral dignity of a mis- 
 sionary, and his essay on suicide. There is, in fine, an 
 excellent paper in the volume, suggested by a passage in 
 Bishop Hall's ' Balm of Gilead,' which unfolds much of his 
 inner thoughts. In harmony with what the good bishop 
 has said, he delivers his own experience : 
 
 ' Next in pre-eminence in the list of misfortunes, after
 
 103 EXETER. 
 
 blindness, comes deafness. To me the whole world is 
 dumb, since I am deaf to it. No more the music of the 
 human voice shall charm. All around, below, and above 
 me, is solitary silence ever-during silence stillness un- 
 broken. Words of advice, of comfort, of instruction or 
 reproof, to me convey no knowledge, nor make me wiser, 
 better, or more happy. For me the feathered warblers 
 tune their little throats in vain ! To me the violin or the 
 harp gives no music ; the deep-toned bell and the pealing 
 organ, no sound. Behold the people crowd to the house 
 of God, to hear the preacher display the riches of redeem- 
 ing love ; but if I go I hear not his words, which to me 
 alone are profitless ; I hear not his voice, which only to 
 me is mute. I am now a mere cipher among men of no 
 value, importance, or estimation. My door is shut, and 
 ever barred against the entrance of knowledge ; and in 110 
 capacity can I hope to be a useful member of the commu- 
 nity. Liable to continual mistakes and mortification cut 
 off from social communication incapable of receiving 
 pleasure from many of the impulses of sympathy, and of 
 enjoying congenial intercourse a being completely solitary 
 and desolate, life would be robbed of all its sweets did 
 there not exist some 
 
 " Motives for consolation." 
 
 Some of these consolations are mentioned by the pious 
 prelate : " Had it pleased God to shut up both senses 
 from thy birth, thy estate had been utterly disconsolate ; 
 neither had there been any access for comfort to thy soul : 
 and if He had done so to thee in thy riper age, there had 
 been no way for thee but to live on thy former stow : 
 but now that He hath vouchsafed to leave the one passage 
 open, it behoves thee to supply the one by the other, and 
 to let in those helps by the window which are denied 
 entrance by the door." ' Kitto then proceeds with his
 
 PRIVATIONS OF DEAFNESS. 109 
 
 comment : ' An anonymous author tells us that " The 
 way to be happy, is to look down on those who suffer, and 
 not up to those who shine in the world." This I hold to 
 be an excellent maxim, and, to be consistent with it, 
 though I cannot look much lower than myself, instead of 
 lamenting the loss of my hearing, I will rejoice that I am 
 not blind. I thank Thee, O my Father ! that Thou didst 
 rather close the doors than the windows of knowledge and 
 delight; and that, having barred the doors, Thou didst 
 not also darken the windows. If I were both blind and 
 deaf, in what a wretched situation should I be ! If both 
 the windows and doors were shut, whereat could knowledge 
 enter ? It has been my earnest endeavour, since my fall, 
 to " supply the one sense by the other," and to give 
 entrance at the window to as much information as I could 
 possibly obtain. If I could not read, how deplorable would 
 be my condition; and I earnestly entreat all -who may 
 chance to read this, of whatever condition, sex, or degree, 
 that they will not be backward in lending me books ; for if 
 they attentively reflect on my situation, they will perceive 
 that no other sources of information, knowledge, or in- 
 struction, and, I might add, of amusement, are left open 
 to me than those which books afford. Without books, I 
 should quickly become an ignorant and senseless being, 
 unloving and unloved, if I am not so already. I apprehend 
 that I have sometimes offended my acquaintance, by the 
 importunity with which I have solicited the loan of books. 
 But if I had a house full of books myself, and knew any 
 person to whom they would be so necessary as to me, and 
 who would make so good a use of them as I do, I would 
 not stay to be entreated, nor scruple to lend any, or all of 
 them, in succession, to such a person. What earthly 
 pleasure can equal that of reading a good book? O 
 dearest tomes! Princely and august folio! Sublime quarto !
 
 110 EXETER. 
 
 Elegant octavo! Charming duodecimo! 'Most ardently 
 do I admire your beauties. To obtain ye, and to call ye 
 mine, I would work day and night ; and to possess ye, I 
 would forbid myself all sensual joys. . . . The Almighty 
 afflicts but to bless. Notwithstanding that His judgments 
 often seem harsh and severe to those who are afflicted, 
 they are in reality just and merciful. It is mercy in Him 
 when He sends us one evil to preserve us from some greater 
 and more serious ill. How do I know but that God per- 
 mitted my deafness, as an instrument through which I 
 might be saved from some far worse evil, which He fore- 
 knew would have happened to me if I had continued pos- 
 sessed of my hearing. But be that as it may, while I 
 regret the loss of a valuable sense, can I ever forget to 
 thank Thee, O my Father ! that, when I fell, I did not 
 lose my reason or life instead of my hearing? Never I' 1 
 
 Such, then, was Kitto in his twentieth year an unfor- 
 tunate and feeble stripling, who had sunk into poverty 
 and wretchedness, nay, had fallen so low as to dwell in 
 a workhouse to acquire a trade, and thus become, as the 
 guardians thought, provided for. Now, through his talents 
 and character, he has emerged into a position of respect- 
 ability, has turned his busy reading to good account, is 
 the author of a handsome volume, patronised by many of 
 the clergy, and by peers and peeresses of the realm, and 
 is talked about as a kind of prodigy. The Hospital of 
 the Poor's Portion is proud of him, and he is in the way 
 of higher preferment, though as yet his friends discern not 
 his ultimate career, nor does he himself foresee the rugged 
 and devious path by which he must reach the great labour 
 of his life. Yet he hints to Mr Burnard that he is in 
 high hopes of prospective authorship. 'If my days be 
 lengthened, nothing is more likely than that I shall publish 
 
 1 This Essay is dated Plymouth Workhouse Feb. 16, 1823.
 
 ANOTHER STEP UPWARD. Ill 
 
 again ; but never will I publish, unless it be something far 
 more worthy of attention than this ; ( but I question whether 
 my next publication, however superior to this it may be, 
 will be equally well supported.' Right, and yet' wrong. 
 His next publication was both vastly superior and far 
 better supported. But he did not as yet even dream of 
 it, for it was the Pictorial Bible with which his name has 
 become identified, nor was he then trained and equipped 
 for such an undertaking. 
 
 A fortunate change speedily took place in Kitto's con- 
 dition. Mr Groves had been for some time contemplating 
 the work of a missionary for himself, and had kept terms 
 at Trinity College, Dublin, to prepare for episcopal ordi- 
 nation. As, therefore, his residence in Exeter could not be 
 of long continuance, he was anxious to secure some settled 
 mode of subsistence for his assistant. Several plans were 
 proposed, to enable him, if he should abide by his vocation 
 as a dentist, to practise either in Plymouth or the metro- 
 polis. But a wise Providence had otherwise determined. 
 Mr Groves had learned that the presses at several stations 
 of the Church Missionary Society were in need of hearty 
 workmen, and, knowing the devotedness of Kitto's spirit, 
 and his vast admiration of evangelical labour, he proposed 
 that he should take part as a printer in the great mission- 
 ary enterprise. Kitto caught at the proposal, and thus 
 addressed Mr Woollcouibe : 
 
 ' Exeter, June 1825. 
 
 ' SIR, To you and my other friends I feel it necessary 
 to write, before the recurrence of the periods respectively 
 assigned, in order to communicate a circumstance, for 
 which you are more prepared than any of the other gentle- 
 men to whom I am about to write. From something 
 which passed when I had the honour of waiting on you 
 whilst I was at Plymouth, in November last, you are, I
 
 112 EXETER. 
 
 presume, sir, sufficiently aware of the high interest which 
 I felt in relation to the general subject of missions. And, 
 indeed, from a letter written before I had the least idea of 
 coming* hither, it will probably have appeared that my 
 mind was early impressed with a sense of the great privi- 
 leges and importance of the missionary character. Will 
 not these circumstances, sir, have operated on your mind 
 as preparatives for the intelligence, that I hope myself to 
 be permitted to occupy the high station of a labourer in 
 the vast field of missionary exertion ? That is the intelli- 
 gence I write to communicate. And, requesting to be 
 allowed to suppose, for a moment, the existence of a com- 
 mon feeling in relation to one great object between us, I may 
 be allowed to anticipate your sympathy in the gratification 
 which I derive from having enlisted under the banners of 
 The Church Missionary Society. Attached as I ain to the 
 soft domestic charities of life, and open as my prospects of 
 being permitted to enjoy them were, it cannot be necessary 
 that I should inform you, sir, that nothing but a deep sense 
 of the duty which I owed to Him who has been so very 
 good and merciful to me, and an ardent desire to con- 
 tribute the humble offering of my individual exertions to 
 the great, the noble cause, of assisting to dispel that dark- 
 ness which is so deeply to be deplored, could have induced 
 the offer of my services to that Institution. At a time 
 like this, which may not improperly be considered a crisis 
 in every point of view in which it can be contemplated, I 
 think it very essential that every Christian should assist the 
 mighty energies now in active operation, by the practice 
 of that absolute and exclusive self-devotion to the service 
 of the Almighty, the principles of which the Scriptures so 
 strongly inculcate and enforce. Hence I rejoice in an 
 occasion of practically demonstrating the reality of that 
 willingness, which I have not been backward in professing,
 
 CONNECTION WITH THE CHURCH MISSION. 113 
 
 to appropriate myself, and every talent which God has 
 committed to my trust, to the cause of Him from whom 
 all things are derived, and whose right they therefore are. 
 To do this is my honour, the highest honour I can attain 
 my privilege, my duty ; and to it every rational considera- 
 tion suggested to my mind every proper feeling of my 
 heart irresistibly impels me, in spite of a certain degree 
 of reluctance which I have naturally experienced at the 
 idea of entering on a career of high moral responsibility 
 and active exertion. Instead of these general statements 
 and reflections, it will, perhaps, sir, be more necessary that 
 I should enumerate the leading features of the circum- 
 stances under which I live. It having been discovered that 
 the Church Missionary Society was in want of printers in 
 various of its stations, the idea occurred to Mr Groves 
 that I might be very useful in such a capacity, and that I 
 seemed peculiarly adapted for such a situation. When I 
 had properly considered the suggestion, I eagerly entered 
 into the idea it contained. Being satisfied, then, that this 
 must be a most useful sphere of action, it of course became 
 my duty to labour in it. Mr G. therefore wrote to Mr 
 Bickersteth, the secretary, offering my services to the 
 Society. No answer was immediately received, but Mr 
 Groves received an intimation from a third person, which 
 induced him to go to London. He was there enabled to 
 put the affair in a more desirable chain of operation than 
 it had previously been ; but the question was reserved for 
 the decision of the Committee, which was held the week 
 before last. On Friday evening information was received 
 that the Committee did not consider my deafness as any 
 material impediment to my usefulness as a printer at one 
 of the Society's stations. They wish me, therefore, to 
 come to London, where I am to be instructed in the busi- 
 ness by Mr Watts, their printer. Printers are much needed 
 
 H
 
 114 EXETER. 
 
 in Calcutta, Malta, and several other places ; and if I go 
 out under the Society, my employment will be to super- 
 intend the operations of the natives in the printing esta- 
 blishments. I know nothing, sir, in which I could be more 
 useful than this ; and to be useful is the only object, if I 
 had any preference at all, for which I should wish to live. 
 Even in a temporal point of view, if my mind had even 
 adverted to such a consideration, this would be no unde- 
 sirable provision, as the Society takes care of its labourers 
 in cases of inability arising from sickness, age, or any other 
 cause equally unavoidable with these. Certainly I do not, 
 sir, expect that, either in London, of on any of the Con- 
 tinents, I shall not have many trials and difficulties to sup- 
 port ; but I hope and believe that He who has hitherto 
 been with me will give strength and patience sufficient for 
 me in all the varied circumstances of action and of being 
 to which He may see fit to call me. I remain, Sir, your 
 greatly obliged and obedient servant, 
 
 ' J. Krrro.' 
 
 Kitto was accepted by the Board in London, Mr Groves 
 making a liberal offer of fifty pounds a year, for two years, 
 towards the defraying of his expenses. In July 1825 he 
 took up his residence at the Missionary College in Islington, 
 and was assigned to the care of Mr Watts to learn print- 
 ing. What trades he had passed through already bar- 
 ber, shoemaker, dentist, and now a printer ! The last, 
 however, was viewed by him in a spiritual aspect. He 
 was qualifying, as he imagined, for the purpose of circu- 
 lating the Bible and religious books. The work was, there- 
 fore, to his liking. He had thought of various projects 
 before he left Mr Burnard's, and suggested to Mr Harvey 1 
 ' that active measures should be taken to procure me some 
 
 1 Library, September 30, 1823.
 
 ACCEPTANCE FOR THE MISSIONARY PRESS. 115 
 
 * 
 
 situation, before the money be exhausted, which you have 
 with so much trouble collected' . . . 'Food and 
 clothing are my only objects.' He had at that time a 
 strong desire to be attached to some gentleman's country 
 residence, as he was willing to work for his maintenance 
 in any humble capacity, provided all his time was not occu- 
 pied, but some of it left for his own literary pursuits. He 
 had a strong aversion to either editorial or subordinate 
 connection with a newspaper, but would not have demurred 
 to being ' connected with Mr Drew and the Imperial Ma- 
 gazine.' Other schemes were afterwards started in his 
 fertile ingenuity, but none of them were adopted. Such a 
 place as that which he had so recently held under Mr 
 Groves had never once been thought of, and his position in 
 Islington as a printer, in connection with the Church Mis- 
 sionary Society, was as remote from his usual anticipations. 
 The calculations of his own prudence had all been defeated, 
 and he could not but feel that, as a ward of Providence, 
 his steps had been under the leading of a kind and invisible 
 Hand. The unschooled cobbler of the Plymouth Work- 
 house was now an honoured inmate of Islington College.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ISLINGTON. 
 
 KITTO was highly gratified with the attention shown him 
 by all the persons connected with the Institution at Isling- 
 ton, and he speaks very decidedly of the piety and zeal of 
 the eighteen students resident in the house. He tells his 
 friends in Plymouth of a great meeting, Lord Gambier in 
 the chair, when fifteen missionaries received parting ad- 
 dresses. It was ' the most grand and impressive occur- 
 rence' he had ever beheld, and, he adds, ' a finer delivery 
 than that of some of those speeches I never witnessed? In 
 Mr Watts' printing-office he learned first to set Greek 
 types, and he enjoyed much 'delightful contemplation while 
 working at his Greek cases.' Then he tried Persic on 
 Henry Martyn's translation of the New Testament. This 
 manual labour was fatiguing, but still he gave himself to 
 reading. He enjoyed what he called 'pocket-reading' 
 that is, taking one of his volumes and reading it as he 
 walked to and from the place of business, and at every 
 spare moment he could snatch during the day. The reader 
 will remember how the boy, either in rags or in the dress 
 of the workhouse, prowled about the bookstalls in Ply- 
 mouth and Devonport, and pored over their miscellaneous 
 and tattered contents. Now, when he had come to London, 
 this passion met with an ampler gratification. He revelled 
 in the luxury, and philosophised upon its superior delights.
 
 STOLEN READING. 117 
 
 The paradox which he maintains is evidently a relic of his 
 early vagrant life. He rejoiced in his perambulations, and 
 seemed to prefer such half-hours of literary license to 
 undisturbed and sedentary study. ' Bookstalls,' he writes, 
 in high glee, to Mr Harvey, 1 ' are very numerous in and 
 about the town; bookstalls, the least of which will not 
 admit any comparison with any provincial bookstall I have 
 ever seen ; and if I had formerly lived here, I might have 
 had many hours of comfortable reading every day, merely 
 by going from one bookstall to another, and spending half 
 an hour or so at each ; and by the time I might have 
 visited the last in my circuit, I should have been long 
 enough absent from that with which I had begun, to 
 venture thither again, and so on, circuit after circuit. 
 Now, if this state of things be compared with what I have 
 already mentioned to have been the case in Devon, the 
 advantages of a residence in London, to a person of 
 literary habits, is sufficiently obvious in the instance I have 
 selected. Few, on this plan, would be able to boast a 
 larger library than myself. The advantages of such a 
 library are obvious also. First, No money is paid for the 
 privilege. Secondly, The usual effects of sedentary occu- 
 pation are prevented, as "the student is obliged to stand 
 while reading, and to walk both before and after. Thirdly, 
 The opportunity of studying human character is one of 
 peculiar importance ; for the character of the book-man 
 or book-woman, when they form the accompaniment of 
 the stall, which happily is not always the case in London, 
 is a subject of such essential importance to ourselves, that 
 we study them with an anxiety the most intense, and 
 penetration can never be more strongly excited by circum- 
 stances than in such an instance. And, Fourthly, there 
 are peculiar benefits attending this mode of reading. When 
 
 1 Islington, January 19, 1827.
 
 118 ISLINGTON. 
 
 we have books in abundance of our own, or have them in 
 any way at our own disposal, we are apt to neglect them, 
 knowing we can read them at any time we please ; and 
 when we do read them, we are apt to do it cursorily, 
 knowing that we can turn to them again whenever we 
 wish to do so. But at the bookstall we read for our lives. 
 "We know that no time is to be wasted. We know that it 
 is not likely we shall ever see the book again. Stolen 
 reading, too, is sweetest ; and, upon the whole, there is 
 probably nothing we ever read which is so impressed on 
 the memory, and so treasured up in the mind, as that 
 which is read at the bookstall. This is easily accounted 
 for. We know that the only future benefit we can derive 
 from the volume, is that which the memory may afford ; 
 and hence the effort of the mind is strong to retain that 
 which it has taken in. The person likely to avail himself 
 of such a system, has also so little else to read, that the 
 little he does thus read is the more easily retained. The 
 best readers are not those who read most. I read a great deal 
 in the Plymouth library, but I remember less of that than 
 of what I had previously read at my friend's bookstall, 
 and in the windows of booksellers' shops. A person who 
 has many books of his own, or who can get books to read 
 without difficulty, will never understand the advantages of 
 bookstalls as I have related them, because he will want 
 that intense and powerful stimulus which the bookless 
 student possesses.' 
 
 In the meantime, his eye had not been idle, nor was his 
 heart seared. The pain he had suffered in relinquishing his 
 early attachment did not prevent him from forming another. 
 His heart yearned for affection. He was continually striv- 
 ing, as he tells us, ' to win the affection of children, and 
 was often disappointed in their caprices and fickleness.' 
 Three months after coming to Islington, he had seen a
 
 ROMANTIC INTERVIEW. 119 
 
 lady at church, who invited him to the joint use of her 
 hymn-book, and he had been pleased by her appearance. 1 
 He could tell nothing about her. Neither her name nor 
 residence was known to him : nor does he seem to have 
 made any anxious inquiry about them. But one of his 
 periodical illnesses overtook him. He had been leeched on 
 the temples, and during his convalescence he went out and 
 walked one afternoon in Barnsbury Park. As he was re- 
 turning to the college, he happened to enter a shop and 
 engage in conversation with the lady who kept it, and 
 who was a ' respectable and serious-looking woman.' The 
 talk was about Sunday Schools, and ' she supported her 
 part of the discourse on a slate.' She invited her customer 
 into the parlour, which was 'hung round with prints of 
 eminent ministers, framed and glazed.' She showed him 
 the prize-books which her children, six in all, had got at a 
 neighbouring Sabbath seminary, and he naturally wished 
 to see the family. The reply was, that they were all at 
 school but one, and when that one obeyed the maternal 
 summons to appear, Kitto was agreeably surprised to recog- 
 nise in her the object of his previous admiration. She did 
 not, however, recollect him. A courtship naturally began, 
 and proceeded, on successive visits, to his great satisfaction. 
 A matrimonial union was ultimately agreed on. Mr Groves 
 did not now attempt to reason down his passion, but ap- 
 proved of the project, and Mr Bickersteth, the secretary, 
 gave also his formal consent. He lost no time in inform- 
 ing Mr Burnard of his choice, for 'he who has rejoiced in 
 my joy, and sympathized in my distress, will assuredly 
 rejoice with me in this ; and great will be my pleasure, my 
 dear sir, in introducing to you no common character 
 a Christian wife, a Christian daughter, a Christian woman.' 
 
 1 The incidents are given by himself, somewhat minutely, in a paper entituled, 
 'A Memorial of Two Years and a Ilalf of the Life of J. K.'
 
 120 ISLINGTON. 
 
 Marriage was no new idea to him. Even when he was 
 the immediate protege of charitable friends in Plymouth, 
 and before any door was opened to him, he avows, if 
 he should get a curacy ' Then I shall marry, and shall 
 enjoy domestic comfort and my favourite pursuits at the 
 same time.' 
 
 Kitto's spirit glowed into poetry when it felt the ' new 
 sense,' or laboured under the ' madness ' which he ascribes 
 to his love, and he sent the following meditation to Mr 
 Burnard. The prelude is ' My dear Sir, Though you 
 know that John Kitto is no poet, still I hope that, at a 
 leisure minute, this may give you pleasure : 
 
 A KEVERIE ON MARRIAGE. 
 
 COMPOSED WHILE SITTING TO A PORTRAIT-PAINTER. 
 
 Full many a man has sunk to rest 
 With social kind affections blest 
 A heart to cherish and enjoy 
 The tender, soft connubial tie. 
 
 And yet these men have seldom known 
 The social happiness of home; 
 But, served by menial hands and rude, 
 Have mourned in cheerless solitude. 
 
 Say, such be I, then. Shall I sigh, 
 And sunken and dejected die, 
 Because to human joy unknown, 
 Gently to soothe me there is none ? 
 
 None to sympathize in glee, 
 And, when I weep, to weep with me ; 
 None to ease life's weary load, 
 And walk with me^ the narrow road ; 
 
 None near me in the trying hour, 
 Soft balm into my wounds to pour ; 
 None in pain to hold my head ; 
 None to mourn me when I'm dead.
 
 LOVE BUDDING INTO POETRY. 121 
 
 His hand shall soothe me when in pain ; 
 That hand can make me whole again. 
 In death my God will still be nigh ; 
 Yes ; He'll be with me when I die. 
 
 Domestic sweets the social band 
 Are doubtless present ; but the hand, 
 Which them and other blessings lends,, 
 Can give a bliss that never ends. 
 
 Why, then, should I complain and moan, 
 As one quite cheerless and alone? 
 When, having God, in Him I've all 
 We justly happiness can call. 
 
 Human delights, I ask them not ; 
 Be Thou the guardian of my lot ; 
 And give a heart to count but loss 
 All, all things for the Christian Cross. 
 
 Give, Lord, a heart of warm desire, 
 Touch it with coals of living fire, 
 And kindle there a radiant flame 
 To burn for ever to Thy name. 
 
 And Thou, O Man of Galilee, 
 Who bled and agonized for me, 
 Through the strength that's only Thine, 
 Be victory and triumph mine.' 
 ' December 30, 1825.' 
 
 The lines that succeed were addressed to the object of his 
 devoted attachment. It is now the betrayal of no secret, 
 that if Hannah were substituted for Mary, the poem would 
 stand as originally composed. Kitto himself published it 
 in the ' Lost Senses,' with the fictitious name : 
 
 '.In silence I have walked full long 
 
 Adown life's narrow, thorny vale, 
 Deaf to the melody of song, 
 And all music to me mute, 
 
 From the organ's rolling peal 
 
 To the gay burst or mournful wail 
 Of harp, and psaltery, and lute.
 
 122 ISLINGTON. 
 
 Heaven's dread answer I have heard 
 
 In thunder to old ocean's roar, 
 As while the elements conferred, 
 
 Their voices shook the rock-bound shore :- 
 I've listened to the murmuring streams, 
 Which lulled my spirit into dreams, 
 Bright hopes, and fair imaginings ; 
 But false as all that fancy flings 
 Upon a page, where pain and strife 
 Make up the history of life : 
 And so, beneath o'ershadowing trees, 
 I've heard leaves rustle in the breeze, 
 Which brought me the melodious tale 
 Of the all vocal nightingale, 
 Or else the cushat's coo of pride, 
 O'er his own new-mated bride. 
 Yes : I have heard thee Nature, thee 
 
 In all thy thousand voices speak, 
 Which now are silent all to me. 
 
 Ah, when shall this long silence break, 
 And all thy tides of gladness roll 
 In their full torrent on my soul ? 
 
 But as the snows which long have lain 
 On the cold tops of Lebanon, 
 Melt in the glances of the sun, 
 And, with wild rush, into the plain 
 Haste down, with blessings in their train : 
 So, Mary, gilded by thine eye, 
 Griefs melt away, and fall in streams 
 Of hope into the land of dreams, 
 And life's inanities pass by 
 Unheeded, without tear or sigh. 
 
 True, that the human voice divine 
 Falls not on this cold sense of mine ; 
 And that brisk commercing of thought 
 Which brings home rich returns, all fraught 
 With ripe ideas points of view 
 Varied, and beautiful, and new, 
 Is lost, is dead, in this lone state, 
 Where feelings sicken, thoughts stagnate,
 
 LINES TO HIS BETROTHED. 123 
 
 And good and evil knowledge grows 
 Unguided and unpruned, and throws 
 Too often a dull sickening shade, 
 Like that by trees of Java made, 
 O'er hopes and o'er desires which might 
 Have lived in glory and delight, 
 Blessed and blessingothers, till 
 The gaspings of this life were still. 
 
 But, Mary, when I look on thee, 
 
 All things beside neglected lie : 
 There is deep eloquence to me 
 
 In the bright sparkle of thine eye. 
 How sweetly can their beaming roll 
 Volumes of meaning to my soul, 
 How long how vainly all might words 
 Express what one quick glance affords. 
 So spirits talk, perhaps, when they 
 Their feelings and their thoughts convey, 
 Till heart to heart, and soul to soul, 
 Is in one moment opened all. 
 
 Mary, one sparkle of thine eye 
 
 I'd not exchange for all the gems 
 
 That shine in kingly diadems, 
 Or spices of rich Araby. 
 My heart would count th' refined gold, 
 "Which Eastern kings have left untold, 
 But as a beggar's price, to buy 
 One sparkle of my Mary's eye.' 
 
 What Kitto had already avowed, was still true of him 
 4 1 cannot accuse myself of having wasted or misemployed 
 a moment of my time since I left the workhouse.' All his 
 hours were carefully spent. The frugal youth usually had 
 for his dinner, on the days he did not fast, a roll and a 
 sausage, which he bought at a shop in the vicinity of 
 Temple Bar. From a brief journal, in which he wrote 
 occasionally during his residence at Islington, we learn 
 some other particulars of interest.
 
 124 ISLINGTON. 
 
 'Aprils, 1826. At the outset I had best make such 
 an arrangement of my time, and form such resolutions, as 
 I have, for a considerable time, had in contemplation, and 
 I pray God that if it be for His glory, I may be enabled 
 to adhere to this arrangement and keep these resolutions. 
 I am sure that it is more than I should be able to do in 
 any strength of my own. 
 
 ' WORK. 
 
 ' 1. When business is regular, I purpose to leave Isling- 
 ton for town before breakfast, and leave the office directly 
 after tea. 
 
 ' 2. Stay at home every alternate Wednesday, and the 
 forenoon of the other Wednesday when not practicable, 
 the earliest opportunity occurring subsequently. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 ' 3. When at home from any cause, to spend the morn- 
 ing in writing till dinner. After dinner call on Miss A., 1 
 and spend the evening as occasion may require reading 
 if possible.' 
 
 He then specifies the days of the week, with their 
 peculiar duties. Thus, as a sample : 
 
 ' Wednesday. I have for some time observed this as a 
 day of abstinence and humiliation. But finding that it is 
 very injurious to my head to go without breakfast, I hardly 
 think myself justified in abstaining from it. I shall there- 
 fore take breakfast, and content myself with the omission 
 of dinner and tea.' It may be added, that Friday was 
 observed, like Wednesday, as a fast-day. 
 
 HOURS OF REST. 
 
 ' My hours of rest have been very irregular since I left 
 Mr Groves. Sometimes I have gone to bed early some- 
 
 1 The visits to Miss A. are set down as very frequent, almost daily, occurrences.
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF TIME. 125 
 
 times late, but generally very late, so late that I have not 
 thought it worth while to put off my clothes, but have lain 
 down in them, and on an average I have seldom risen 
 earlier than six. I propose, therefore, to go to bed from 
 eleven to half-past, and to endeavour to get into the habit 
 of rising at five. Thus I allow one-fourth of my time, six 
 hours, for sleep, rather more than I can afford. 
 
 * SCRIPTURES. 
 
 ' My method has been to divide my Bible into four parts 
 from Genesis to Job, from Psalms to Malachi, from 
 Matthew to Acts, from Romans to Revelation ; and it has 
 been my general rule to read in two of these parts, one of 
 the Old and one of the New Testament, daily, in alterna- 
 tion, so that if I read in the historical part of the New 
 Testament on one day, I read on the same day in the 
 didactic and prophetic part of the Old ; and if I read 
 on another day in the epistolary part of the New Testa- 
 ment, I the same day read in the historical part of the 
 Old. I have found this method more useful and pleasant 
 than any other, and therefore I shall continue to pursue it. 
 
 ' I appropriate the first half -hour after rising to my 
 Bible, that is, till half -past five, when I am dressed by five, 
 and another half hour in the evening is to be employed in 
 the same way. . . The Bible will be read of course at 
 other times, particularly on Sundays. 
 
 ' DEVOTIONS. 
 
 ' The half-hour succeeding those appropriated to the 
 Scriptures, I propose to apply to the purpose of prayer, 
 prefaced generally by the reading of a few hymns ; and I 
 have thought it would be very desirable to apportion the 
 different objects which intercessory prayer should embrace 
 on the different days of the week a plan which I consider 
 as presenting many advantages and great facilities for the
 
 126 
 
 ISLINGTON. 
 
 due discharge of this important duty, 
 the following arrangement : 
 
 I adopt, therefore, 
 
 SUNDAY. Morning. For clergymen, and ministers, and their 
 
 congregations a blessing on the 
 preached Gospel. 
 
 One o'clock. At this time, on the two first, or when 
 
 there are five in the month, the three 
 first Sundays in the month, my dear 
 
 H and myself will be engaged in 
 
 simultaneous prayer for each other. 
 
 Evening. Church of England, and the Christian 
 
 Churches in general a catholic spirit 
 among the different denominations. 
 MONDAY. Morning. England and its authorities. 
 
 Evening. The States called Christian. 
 
 TUESDAY. Morning. Religious Societies. 
 
 Evening. Children Sunday Schools. 
 
 WEDNESDAY. Morning. Parents and Relatives. 
 Evening. Friends and Enemies. 
 
 THURSDAY. Morning. Jews. 
 
 Evening. Turks, Infidels, and Heretics. 
 
 FRIDAY. Morning. Missionary Societies and Missions. 
 
 ,, Evening. Simultaneous Prayer. 
 
 SATURDAY. Morning. Missionaries and Students. 
 
 Evening. Outpouring of the Holy Spirit on ALL 
 
 flesh.' 
 
 A few disclosures from his Diary at this period, will 
 throw light on several interesting points of his experience 
 and character : 
 
 ' 10. On the sixth I was so very ill when I came home, 
 that I was obliged to lie down immediately, and the next 
 morning continued so unwell, that Mr Yates thought it 
 necessary to send for the medical gentleman who attends 
 the house. He directed that twelve or fourteen ounces of 
 blood should be taken from the back of my neck, by cup- 
 ping, and furnished me with some medicines. I have not 
 been to town since, but I think I feel better to-day than I
 
 DEVOUTNESS AND GRATITUDE. 127 
 
 have done since Thursday. I have often, during this time, 
 experienced excruciating pains in the head and breast. 
 But I do not repine. I have no cause to do so. I feel 
 and am persuaded that it is sent me for good and not evil, 
 and most truly can I, from experience, say that those 
 periods of indisposition to which I am subjected, have been, 
 and are, visits of mercy, seasons of refreshing to me, from 
 the presence of the Lord. The retirement of a sick cham- 
 ber, too, is pleasant to me, if only from the contrast with 
 the bustling nature of general engagements. Here I can 
 commune with my own heart here I can read, and write, 
 and pray, and, when pained and weary, can lie down in my 
 bed unmolested, and unseen by any but by Him whose 
 presence I seem almost sensibly to enjoy. Oh may these 
 seasons be more and more sanctified to me ! May my 
 Master, my crucified Master, appear thus to me more and 
 more the fairest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely ! 
 May I more and more enter into the chambers of imagery in 
 my own mind, and be more and more strengthened by the 
 Holy Spirit, in tearing down and demolishing every idol, 
 whatsoever it be, which has there exalted itself against the 
 knowledge and the love of God my Saviour. 
 
 ' 12. I am better to-day than I have been since taken 
 ill ; and, if I do not go to town this week, hope I shall not 
 be detained longer. I have experienced much kind atten- 
 tion from Miss Hart. She has done everything to meet 
 my wishes and render me comfortable, and the very ser- 
 vants, too, have laid me under much obligation, by their 
 uniform manifestations of every little kindness that they 
 may have had it in their power to exhibit. That it is the 
 same with many of my dear fellow-servants, it is super- 
 fluous to say. All are very very kind to me : thus, for in- 
 stance : Brown has come to my room every evening, to 
 dress my neck while it needed dressing, and my dear
 
 128 ISLINGTON. 
 
 Marsh has called up frequently to see me. When I came, 
 I anticipated that I should be quite among strangers, and 
 was prepared to find it so. But my kind and gracious 
 Master has ordered things otherwise for me than I had 
 expected. I feel that I am among brethren and friends, 
 and that there are several within these walls who feel a 
 most affectionate regard for me. What cause, then, have 
 not I for thankfulness and gratitude to Him who thus far 
 has made crooked places straight, and rough places plain 
 before me ? Oh that this cold heart were more alive and 
 open to all those thankful emotions and impressions which 
 such a continued course of mercy and loving-kindness from 
 my heavenly Father should communicate ! 
 
 ' 15. Hoping my health would allow me to return to 
 the discharge of my regular duties on Monday, I deter- 
 mined to terminate my keeping at home by a long walk 
 and tract distribution. After breakfast, therefore, I stored 
 my pockets with about eighty tracts,, an equal number of 
 handbills, and some fifteen little handbooks. This, with 
 my Testament, pocket-book, and the last number of the 
 " Register," completely filled my pockets. I walked out 
 about four miles from Islington, and returned by another 
 road. I distributed tracts chiefly in returning, as my walk 
 out was in a very retired direction a road in which I had 
 never been before. I have seldom had a more pleasing 
 excursion than this. The weather was beautiful, and my 
 mind had attained to that exquisite tone of feeling and of 
 thought, of which it is indeed susceptible, but which it 
 is so unfrequently permitted to enjoy. Under a different 
 modification of feeling, I might possibly have contemplated 
 all the objects I beheld, without experiencing that interest 
 they have now communicated ; or without deriving any 
 improvement from them. But before I went, my heart 
 was prepared to respond to the language of the Psalmist,
 
 EXCURSIONS FOR TRACT DISTRIBUTION. 129 
 
 and to say, " Thou, even Thou, art Lord alone. Thou 
 hast made heaven, the Heaven of heavens, with all their 
 host, and all things that are therein ; and Thou preservest 
 them all, and the host of heaven worshippeth Thee. O 
 Lord, how manifold are Thy works ! in wisdom Thou hast 
 made them all ! The earth is full of Thy riches." And 
 hence I was interested hence I was instructed and im- 
 proved. My walk out, as I have said, was retired. It 
 was one also iu which I had never before walked. It lay 
 sometimes on the bank of the canal, sometimes beneath the 
 shade of trees, sometimes through fields and pleasant lanes, 
 and at others, over steep hills, from which I had extended 
 and beautiful views before me, and could distinctly discern 
 objects which lay at a very great distance from me. My 
 Testament was a most valuable companion to me, and did 
 not leave my hand till I turned my face towards Islington 
 again, and began to distribute tracts in good earnest. 
 While I soared with the eagle-minded John, or rather 
 with the Divine Master whose words he records, the 
 various objects spread around me, and the blue skies above 
 my head, seemed softly to speak to me a sweeter and more 
 exalted language than that which the natural man can 
 hear. The spirit seemed to enjoy a freedom it never had 
 before to breathe an air it never before imbibed and, 
 for a short and fleeting moment, to experience the fore- 
 taste of another world's enjoyments, in holding communion 
 with beings of a higher world ; yea, with Him who, of all 
 beings and all worlds, is the Cause and the Creator ! I 
 think that God, the Holy Ghost, has been graciously 
 pleased more to enlighten my understanding in reference to 
 many things in His sacred Word, which had not appeared 
 to me before, than in any equal period of time within my 
 recollection. Oh! it is most pleasant to feel and know 
 that the self-same hand which wrote the beautiful and
 
 130 ISLINGTON. 
 
 splendid volume of nature, wrote also the far more precious 
 book of Revelation for us ; that the High and Holy One, 
 who called into being and arranged 
 
 " The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields, 
 And all the dread magnificence of heaven," 
 
 is not an abstract quality an awful, unknown something, 
 but the very same Friend, Guide, and Father, who in 
 mercy and in love has revealed Himself in Christ Jesus, 
 the very same whose loving-kindness and whose truth 
 has followed us through all the devious and intricate paths 
 of our pilgrimage, and has brought us hitherto, and who 
 Himself has promised that He will be with us still that 
 He will never leave us nor forsake us, but bear and carry 
 us even to the end. I am fully aware that a man, not 
 duly impressed with a sense of the amazing value of the 
 Christian verity, may yet be capable of contemplating the 
 sublimities and beauties of nature, with exalted emotions 
 of wonder and delight. But he cannot have the interest 
 and kind of property in them which a Christian has he 
 cannot recognise in them the hand of his best and dearest 
 Friend he cannot, oh, he cannot experience that undefined 
 and inexpressible emotion with which the Christian philo- 
 sopher can look below, around, above him, and, laying his 
 hand upon his breast, can say, " My Father made them 
 all." I had a very pleasing success in the distribution of 
 my tracts and I pray my dear Master to let His bless- 
 ing rest on the seed which I have thus been enabled to 
 sow by the way-side. I am looked up to as an authority 
 on tract matters here.' 
 
 It happened that there was not in the printing-office a 
 sufficiency of Persic types, and Kitto, unwisely using his 
 own discretion, sometimes stayed at home all day, and occa- 
 sionally left the office before the appointed hour. These 
 absences began to be marked, and to form the subject of
 
 MISUNDERSTANDING WITH THE COMMITTEE. 131 
 
 suspicious comment. Kitto hastened to explain, but his 
 explanation was not reckoned wholly satisfactory. He 
 vindicates himself to Mr Watts thus : 
 
 ' SIR, I am sorry to be obliged again to intrude on 
 you, but I feel it necessary to mention distinctly that, 
 although I recollect to have said once that I did not think 
 setting up pie was a useful employment of my time, or much 
 calculated to promote my knowledge of the business, yet, 
 I added, what your informant has seen proper to omit, 
 " That if I could obtain nothing better I should do that 
 of course." I never did object to anything else, nor to this 
 more than once. On this subject, however, I hope I shall 
 be pardoned for saying that I think now as I did then. 
 . . . As you are pleased to refer to your apprentices, 
 I would just remark that it seems to me, that as I have so 
 much to acquire in a period so much more limited than 
 theirs, the same system of instruction cannot well apply to 
 both. . . . 
 
 ' In reference to the irregular attendance you mention, 
 I must be contented with what I said yesterday, that it 
 arose from insufficient employment. I have generally gone 
 to the office every day, even when I expected to find no 
 work. I have waited there, a longer or shorter period, 
 frequently the best part of the day, and if I could get 
 nothing to do, have returned home. I wish to state dis- 
 tinctly now, since I have been misunderstood before, that 
 regular attendance may be expected from me when I have 
 regular work.' 
 
 But the truth is, that Kitto and the Committee did not 
 understand one another. He was never fond of control, 
 and could scarce endure it in Exeter, where he laments, ' I 
 am less a free agent than formerly.' He wished very much 
 to be master of his time, conscious that he ever made a due 
 and diligent improvement of it. The Committee thought
 
 132 . ISLINGTON. 
 
 that he was neglecting the main point for which they had 
 engaged him, and that he was slighting the business for 
 which they had hired him. The terms of agreement must 
 have been somewhat loosely made, and Kitto's deafness 
 prevented him from entering into any minute inquiries or 
 stipulations ; for, certainly, had he known that he was ex- 
 pected to give up his entire time to mechanical labour, 
 foregoing his precious and coveted hours of reading, he 
 would rather have remained at Exeter, and cut the ' tusks 
 of certain foreign animals' into the semblance of human 
 teeth. His belief was, that he was bound to learn to print, 
 but bound, in a higher sense, to prepare for writing some- 
 thing that might be printed. He aspired to be at least a 
 translator. Authorship for men's spiritual good was his 
 aim; and every other vocation was, in his opinion, to 
 occupy a subordinate place. The Committee, on the other 
 hand, not knowing what was in him, and not, perhaps, 
 fully acquainted with his habits and his ambition, resolved 
 that he should simply be a printer, and that the setting of 
 types should be the one present employment, and the ulti- 
 mate business of his life, at least in connection with their 
 Society. On being challenged, he made an honest confes- 
 sion, telling how he thought and felt, praying not to be 
 judged harshly, narrating his early experiences and hard- 
 ships, and how the love of books grew so strongly upon 
 Mm. 
 
 ' I should have been, perhaps, much gratified if my im- 
 mediate duty to the Society could have been more identi- 
 fied with those habits and pursuits, or rather, that they be 
 brought to bear more immediately upon that duty than 
 it appears they can, in the line of employment now chalked 
 out for me. As it is, however, I am very desirous of being 
 informed whether it be indeed, as seems to be intimated, 
 required of me that I should relinquish these pursuits
 
 RESIGNATION OF SITUATION. 133 
 
 altogether. If it be, I am sorry to say, that I cannot think 
 myself called upon or justified in making any promise to 
 that effect. As the Society could devise no line of service 
 for me which would harmonise more fully with the peculiar 
 bent and tone of my mind, is it therefore necessary that this 
 should be wholly merged in the other ? I do myself think 
 not. I cannot believe, although I have tried to believe it, 
 although I have earnestly prayed that the Lord's thoughts 
 for me, and my own thoughts for myself, might coincide, 
 and although I know that a gift to the service of the Lord's 
 house, would not be estimated according to its intrinsic 
 value, but according to the spirit in which it might be 
 offered, yet I cannot believe that it is designed by Him, 
 whose dispensations towards me have been so strongly 
 marked, that the maximum of my service should depend 
 upon that degree of manual exertion which another a mere 
 printer might perform much better and more efficiently 
 than myself.' 1 
 
 He was then distinctly told what was expected from him, 
 and that he could not be sent abroad ' till his altered con- 
 duct should show his cordial compliance with such regula- 
 tions.' This resolution unduly pressed the matter to a 
 crisis ; no sympathy was shown him ; there was no appre- 
 ciation of his peculiarities ; nothing would be accepted but 
 formal and unreserved submission. Aye or no select the 
 alternative at once, and abide by it. Kitto was irritated, 
 and resigned his situation. 
 
 His friends were exceedingly angry at him, and some of 
 his Plymouth patrons were prepared to cast him off. He 
 was inundated with counsels, and cut to the quick by 
 harsher words and rebukes. But he met with special sym- 
 pathy from the students, whom he delighted to greet as 
 
 1 Letter to the Rev. J. X. Pearson, President of the Missionary College, Decem- 
 ber 1826,
 
 134 ISLINGTON. 
 
 ' brethren and friends.' On the second anniversary of the 
 Institution, he had delivered an address to them, and they 
 had tendered him their hearty thanks by a unanimous and 
 unprecedented vote. Now he sold his books to them, and 
 wrote them a farewell address, which winds up as follows : 
 
 ' I am permitted to remain a short time at the Institu- 
 tion, till I have arranged matters for my departure to the 
 place whither He, who has led others through the wilder- 
 ness before, may lead me. I leave you, and I do most 
 truly lament that I leave you in a manner so very different 
 from any that I had foreseen or anticipated. Brethren, 
 suffer me to hope that I shall be followed by your prayers. 
 Permit me to believe that you will not consider the bond 
 to be quite broken which bound me up together with you. 
 Forbid it not, that I still look upon myself as a fellow- 
 labourer with you ; indeed, that I still shall hold the sickle 
 of the reaper, to gather in the harvest of God, although I 
 no longer have a reaper's name.' 
 
 At this period, when so much was at stake, and he must 
 find some employment for himself to live by, he applied to 
 the London Missionary Society ; but his deafness was held 
 to be a barrier to his usefulness as a foreign evangelist. 
 
 That Kitto was conscious of no such breach of contract 
 as was laid to his charge, may be learned from some in- 
 cidental expressions in his letters. He had written to Mr 
 Woollcombe in June ' I scarcely recollect the time when 
 I have read so little as I do now, certainly never since I 
 left the workhouse.' 
 
 But he soon regretted the hasty step he had taken, and 
 to Mr Burnard he poured out his spirit : 
 
 ' I have essayed my own will and my own way, and I 
 have found that will and that way to be bitter. I have 
 therefore endeavoured to return to His way and His will 
 for me. I have thrown myself upon Him again. I have
 
 BITTER THOUGHTS. 135 
 
 said to Him, " Thou seest I fall except Thou help me. I 
 cannot walk by myself. I will no longer try to do so. 
 Lead me and guide me." I am satisfied that I sinned in 
 relinquishing my connection with the Church Missionary 
 Society. I did not, however, sin with my eyes open. It 
 was the sin of blindness. I do not wish to extenuate. 
 Most of my friends have been offended, chiefly because I 
 gave up a good temporal provision. But that was not 
 my sin, nor was it the real ground on which others should 
 have been angry with me. It was the proud heart, the 
 lofty mind. My offence had been chiefly spiritual, intel- 
 lectual ; chiefly against God, at least more against Him 
 than against man.' 
 
 In the journal to which we have referred, he also put 
 clown these words of mingled bitterness and hope : 
 
 ' February 29, 1827. What am I now ? What have I 
 been doing ? I awake as from a dream. In what diffi- 
 culties am I not involved ? Friends dropping away from 
 me on every side, and stripped thus by degrees of human 
 consolation, comfort, hope. Hope, yet I have hope hope 
 not fallacious and delusive, because it is built on the Rock 
 Christ. How desolate now do all things earthly seem to 
 me ! I look around ; all things seem dark, and black, and 
 gloomy and what were I, could I look nowhere but 
 around me ! I look to Thee, O my God ! I wait for Thee 
 more than they that wait for the morning. Arise, arise, 
 O light ! and shine upon me, and enlighten the darkness 
 of my way. I have dealt very treacherously against Thee 
 from my youth up. Yet Thou wert long-suffering, and 
 barest with me, and lo ! Thou hast brought me hitherto, 
 and now wilt Thou leave me now? Thou wilt not. 
 Thou hast promised that Thou wilt not, my God ! Look 
 down upon me in pity, and let not the enemy triumph 
 over me ! Whom have I but Thee to whom can I look
 
 136 ISLINGTON. 
 
 but Thee. 0, then, teach me to look to Thee indeed, to 
 lean upon Thee indeed, to the end of my journey. I go 
 forth, O my Lord, into the wilderness of this world, and 
 know not whither I go. Thou art my hope. Go with me 
 lead me guide me. Direct my steps and my wander- 
 ings by Thy providence. AVatch over me for good ; and 
 when I have finished my appointed course, receive me to 
 Thy bosom to live, and there be cherished for ever. Do 
 not leave me ; I throw myself upon Thee for guidance and 
 protection ; and when I am far away from those charities 
 and ties with which men do surround themselves when I 
 have no home to shelter me, no pillow on which to lay my 
 head, be Thou my Shelter, my Refuge ; and when my 
 wanderings are finished, do Thou plant me where I may 
 grow, and live, and die to Thy glory, where I may be 
 fruitful as the vine, verdant as the fir, strong as the cedar.' 
 
 Kitto, four years afterwards, added a note to this ex- 
 tract : 
 
 ' March 21, 1831. When I wrote the above, I recollect 
 it was my intention to set out on foot and travel in Eng- 
 land, till 1 should find some way or other of subsistence. 
 How little experience, how little knowledge of the world 
 I had then ! I was as a child in every respect. Most 
 likely it would have ended in my being sent to the House 
 of Correction as a vagrant. . . That prayer is better than 
 I thought would be in my heart at that time. The Lord's 
 dealings with me have been wonderful from a child.' It is 
 probable that the example of Goldsmithsuggestedthisdesire 
 to wander through the country a desire which had already 
 been keenly expressed by him when he was in the workhouse. 
 
 Mr Groves, the Rev. Mr Hatchard of Plymouth, and 
 other friends, interfered for him, and the Society restored 
 him to his place. But he gave a rash pledge, to abandon 
 literary pursuits a pledge which, unless his intellectual
 
 APPOINTMENT TO MALTA. 137 
 
 nature had been changed, he could not redeem. He 
 praises Mr Hatchard highly, and Mr Groves very highly, 
 for the pains they had taken to secure his reinstalment. He 
 contrasts Mr Groves with others of his friends, whose cold- 
 ness had keenly wounded him. ' He did not say, like others, 
 "Lie in the bed of your own making;" but, though himself 
 the most aggrieved, has come forth repeatedly to my help.' 
 
 It was deemed advisable that Kitto should be sent 
 forthwith to a foreign station, and Malta was selected as 
 his field of labour. When he was in suspense as to the 
 decision of the Committee, we find him urging not only his 
 own anxiety, but also that of another, as a reason why he 
 should like to have speedy intelligence. He says to Mr 
 Groves, ' for her account, it is therefore my hope to find 
 that the matter is to be decided, or will be soon.' It was 
 resolved, however, that he should go to Malta alone, but 
 that the bans should be proclaimed prior to his departure. 
 This preliminary step was taken, and Kitto expected to be 
 followed in a few months by his betrothed. 
 
 It may be added, in conclusion, that, during his residence 
 at Islington, and when he was worried so much about his 
 own affairs, which at one time looked dismal, he busied 
 himself in various efforts to find a comfortable situation for 
 a young man, who had recently married Betsy, his eldest 
 and favourite sister. This brother-in-law had come to 
 London in quest of employment, but failed to find it. Kitto 
 notes some of the counsels and comforts which he set 
 before him at one of their interviews, and concludes : 
 
 'I spoke of the nature of trials and adversities, the 
 blessed purposes they were calculated to answer ; on trust 
 in God, and casting all our care upon Him, knowing that 
 He careth for us; on seeking first the kingdom of God and 
 His righteousness, and having all other things necessary 
 to us. I adverted to my own case. 1 had once nothing.
 
 138 ISLINGTON. 
 
 The bread I ate, the water I drank, was bitter ; and that 
 bitter bread and water was procured with trouble and 
 difficulty. I had not sought then the kingdom of God 
 and His righteousness ; but since I have been enabled 
 to do so since I have sought, in the first place, objects 
 of pre-eminent and absorbing importance the living 
 water which cometh down from Heaven, the bread which 
 perisheth, and the raiment which waxeth old, have been 
 added to me, and I have lacked nothing. I recommended 
 the seeking of this above all things, and could assure him 
 that if he did so, He who arrays the lilies of the field, and 
 feeds the fowls of the air when they cry, would not fail to 
 take care of him, to feed and clothe him and his also. I 
 went on, at considerable length, in the same strain. I was 
 heard with attention, but not, I fear, with interest. Indeed, 
 I have seen so little out of myself of the Holy Spirit's 
 operations in softening the hardness of the human heart, 
 and I contemplate that heart as so deplorable, and every- 
 thing but hopelessly bad, and disinch'ned to the things of 
 God, that I labour under very great discouragement in 
 speaking and acting, and exert myself, in either way, less 
 from the hope of being instrumental in bringing a blessing 
 to those whom I address, than from the conviction that it 
 is my duty to declare the truth of God on such occasions, 
 and speak and act for Him.' 
 
 Kitto left England on the 20th June 1827, rejoicing 
 in the work that lay before him, and hoping that the bride 
 he had left behind would soon come out to Malta and be 
 his wife the ornament and joy of his home. The Wilber- 
 force (Captain Denck) was detained for some time at Tor- 
 bay by contrary winds, and Kitto had the satisfaction of 
 feeling that the last land he set his foot on was that of his 
 native county of Devon.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MALTA. 
 
 KITTO'S mind had, for some time, been steadily under the 
 power of a motive to which it was originally a compara- 
 tive stranger. The desire of usefulness had supplanted or 
 outgrown the mere love of fame. He craved to be known, 
 in the first instance, and 'get himself a name;' but now 
 his soul was bent on imparting benefit to his fellow-crea- 
 tures. In a letter to Mr Pearson of the Missionary 
 College, he confesses, ' Fame was the idol I was taught to 
 bow down to and worship. I hope that in reference to my- 
 self it is on the throne no longer, and that I have no other 
 wish on this point than that my light may so shine before 
 men that they may glorify my Father who is in heaven.' 
 Let us listen for a moment to his deeper self-analysis, 
 made at a period of subsequent and leisurely meditation : 
 ' It has often occurred to me that the stimulant which the 
 desire of fame offers is specially adapted to one's youth, 
 in which it is indeed most entirely in operation, and that 
 it has been providentially given to that period of life to 
 supply the absence of the more sedate stimulants which 
 advancing life introduces. Rightly understood, it is then 
 an incentive to good and a curb to evil, which, in the 
 spring-time, are so much needed, for he who, in his 
 sanguine youth, hopes that the world will hereafter take
 
 140 MALTA. 
 
 notice of his course, will not be unsolicitous to keep his 
 garments clean. 
 
 ' The desire to be honourably known among men the 
 craving for approbation the wish to do something which 
 might preserve one's memory from the oblivion of the 
 grave and the reluctance to hurry on through this short 
 life and disappear along with the infinite multitudes who 
 " Grow up and perish as the summer fly, 
 Herds without name no more remembered : " 
 
 these things savour, seemingly, of that " love of fame " of 
 which so much has been said or sung. I cannot say that 
 this, as a motive to exertion and to perseverance in the 
 course which I had taken, did not find a way to my mind. 
 ' I have confessed that self-advancement eventually be- 
 came one of the objects which I contemplated as the pos- 
 sible result of my exertions. Very few of my readers will 
 complain of this ; but considering the generally sacred 
 character of my pursuits, which, I will venture to say, 
 have been, however tremblingly, directed not less to the 
 glory of God than to the use of man, some will be dis- 
 posed to ask, whether self-advancement is a legitimate 
 object of exertion ; and whether it was not rather my duty 
 to have been content in the station to which it had pleased 
 God to call me. Now, by " self-advancement," I mean 
 melioration of the evils of my condition ; and no one can 
 object to that without affirming that it was my duty to 
 lie still, to be content and happy, under the unmitigated 
 calamities of the condition to which I had been reduced. 
 I believe that this was not required of me. I am persuaded 
 that the state of life to which the Almighty calls every 
 man is that for which he is fitted, and to which he may be 
 able to rise by the just and honourable use of any and 
 every talent which has been confided to him. In that 
 station let him be cootent, and not waste his heart in aim-
 
 INSTITUTION AT MALTA. 141 
 
 ing at things beyond his reach. I have read the Bible ill, 
 if this be not its meaning. Saint Paul enjoins the Chris- 
 tian slaves to be content in their stations ; and yet he tells 
 them, that " if they be made free, to use it rather" Was 
 ever any slave in so hard a bondage, bondage so hopeless 
 as that into which deafness brought me ? and if I might 
 by exertions not degrading but elevating be free, should I 
 not " use it rather ?" Let the answer be found in the con- 
 trast between the uselessness of my first condition, and the 
 usefulness of that to which I have now attained.' 1 
 
 It was with the view of taking an active and honour- 
 able part in what he reckoned the highest function of re- 
 deemed humanity, that Kitto left Islington. He felt that 
 he was going out to Malta to labour in Christ's cause, for 
 the Master had said to him, ' Son, go work to-day in My 
 vineyard,' and he gladly, and to the best of his ability, 
 obeyed the charge. 
 
 The institution at Malta had for itsobject to supply tracts 
 to the Church missionaries, in Greek, Arabic, Maltese, and 
 Italian. It had three presses, and employed six indivi- 
 duals. Mr Jowett and Mr Schlienz were the principal 
 labourers, accomplished, scholarly, and devoted. Of Mr 
 Jowett Kitto says, ' He is second to none ; or if second to 
 any, only to Mr Groves ; and Mr Schlienz works, in another 
 way, far harder than we printers do, for he preaches, and 
 that frequently, twice on Sunday.' Though there was not 
 a bookseller's shop in the island, the Romish clergy were 
 their principal opponents, and the circulation of tracts 
 was forbidden by sacerdotal authority. But the works of 
 the missionary press at Malta were largely circulated in 
 other countries. Kitto rejoiced that, in sailing to join such 
 an institution, he was assuming, though in an humble form, 
 the coveted character and position of an evangelist. 
 
 1 Lost Senses Deafness, pp. 84 87.
 
 142 MALTA. 
 
 But his sojourn in Malta was, in Scottish religious phrase, 
 a ' crook in his lot.' The voyage to the Mediterranean 
 was, however, of lasting service to him. His deafness had 
 been accompanied by a growing reluctance to speak, and 
 indisposition to use his vocal organs had almost produced 
 inability. 
 
 ' When I first went to the Mediterranean, the compan- 
 ions of my outward voyage were Dr Korck, a German 
 physician, who had lately taken orders in the Anglican 
 Church, and Mr Jadownicky, a converted Polish Jew, lately 
 arrived from America, where he had been completing his 
 Christian education. These well-informed and kind-hearted 
 men, being always with me, soon perceived how the matter 
 really stood ; and, after much reasoning with me on the 
 matter, they entered into a conspiracy, in which the cap- 
 tain of the ship joined, not to understand a word I said, 
 otherwise than orally, throughout the voyage. In this 
 they persevered to a marvel ; and as I had much to ask, 
 since I had not before been at sea, I made very great pro- 
 gress with my tongue during the six weeks' voyage, and, 
 by the time we reached our destination, had almost over- 
 come the habit of clutching a pen or pencil, to answer every 
 question that was asked me. From this time I usually 
 expressed myself orally to those whom I knew, in the 
 ordinary intercourse of life ; but when my communication 
 required many words, it was usually conveyed in writing. 
 This also I at length dropped, and strangers only were 
 addressed in writing. Finally, I ventured to accost even 
 strangers with the tongue ; and it was only when not 
 understood that I resorted to the pen. At first, strangers 
 could rarely understand me without much difficulty ; but, 
 under the improvement which practice gave, my voice was 
 so much bettered, that the instances in which it was not 
 readily understood, gradually diminished ; and, at the pre-
 
 EXPERIENCES. 143 
 
 sent day, I rarely find even a foreigner to whom my lan- 
 guage is not clear.' 1 
 
 The gain to Kitto from this voyage, therefore, was 
 immense ; and he felt under no little obligation to his kind 
 and earnest friends, who broke his pernicious habit, and 
 won him back to the use of speech. The voyage was 
 pleasant to him, for he was a stranger to sea-sickness. 
 He felt, indeed, what sometimes terrifies or distresses a 
 landsman, the instability of cabin furniture and dinner 
 equipage from the blowing of smart breezes ; and while 
 he had made up his mind to such annoyances, and could 
 smile at them, yet he liked an occasional calm, and rejoiced 
 over ' the capture of two fine turtles.' His letters to his 
 friends, Woollcombe, Harvey, Lampen, and Burnard, con- 
 tain such details as, in his opinion, would be most relished 
 respectively by each of his correspondents. 
 
 He states generally, that his mind was no stranger to 
 those emotions which men so often feel on leaving their 
 native shores that a ' feeling of desolateness' had occa- 
 sionally come over him, but that he felt each evening 
 ' Whose presence was with him,' and he hoped that such 
 feelings ' threw him more upon God.' 
 
 His first sensations, off the coast of Portugal, are de- 
 tailed to Mr Woollcombe, July 10 : 
 
 ' I fetched my bolster from the cabin, and arranged a 
 bed for myself on the tafferel, by laying Mr Jadownicky's 
 thick cloak along, to lie upon, and then wrapping myself 
 in my own cloak and fur cap, to defend me from the dew. 
 I remember walking about the deck, or sometimes leaning 
 on the gangway, till between twelve and one o'clock, when, 
 feeling sleepy, I retired to my new bed, and lay there, so 
 that I could look the moon in the face till I fell asleep. 
 An accident awoke me about a quarter past two, and then I 
 
 1 Lost Senses Deafness, pp. 20, 21.
 
 144 MALTA. 
 
 got up and walked about for nearly an hour, went to bed 
 again, and slept till a few minutes before sunrise, which of 
 course is considerably later here than in England. The 
 sun rose with great splendour from behind the Lusitanian 
 Mountains, but I have seen far more gorgeous risings of 
 the sun than this, from the Hoe, at Plymouth, and from 
 the Catdown. Both the risings and settings of the sun do 
 not seem such slow and majestic affairs as in England ; 
 and, indeed, I understand that the farther we advance to 
 the south, the shorter is the morning and evening twilight, 
 and 'the less time the sun takes in rising and setting. I 
 have just inquired at the captain, and find that, as I sus- 
 pected, the mountains adjoining the Rock of Lisbon are 
 those of Cintra, of which Lord Byron speaks, in the four- 
 teenth stanza of the first Canto of Childe Harold : 
 
 " Cintra's mountains greet them on their way." 
 And, indeed, it was to us, as to him, a pleasant greeting, 
 after having been, for so many days, out of sight of any- 
 thing like land.' 
 
 The good ship Wilberforce, with a ' gilt effigy' of the 
 senator at her prow, entered at length the straits of 
 Gibraltar ; and as Kitto looked alternately on the African 
 and European land, so close on each other, many trains 
 of meditation passed through his mind. He reached Malta 
 in safety on the 30th of July, entering the harbour of La 
 Valetta in the evening, and disembarking next morning. 
 The accommodation provided for him was not of the best 
 description, for he slept several weeks on the floor, and 
 ome time elapsed ere he enjoyed the luxury of a chair and 
 a table. At length he got two rooms, a study and within 
 it a bedroom ' the highest in a high house' but abound- 
 ing in windows, which commanded a fine marine prospect. 
 He had also a bookcase, with a good collection on its 
 shelves. But who will wonder at his confession, that of
 
 DA1LT DUTIES. 145 
 
 an impatient bridegroom ' My heart was in England, and 
 my mind continually travelled thither ? ' He set to work 
 with ardour, and especially occupied himself with Asiatic 
 types ; nay, he spontaneously entered, at the same time, 
 upon Arabic studies. The literary departments were filled 
 by the clerical missionaries, and the translators were natives 
 of the countries into whose languages they were rendering 
 Christian books and tracts. From half-past seven till half- 
 past four was he occupied every day in the printing office. 
 He liked his work; and he rejoiced in its prospective 
 results. He declares, in his letters, how happy he was that 
 his connection with the Society had been renewed. 
 
 ' It is easy,' he says to Mr Burnard, November 13, ' to 
 talk about missionary service when we are at home, or even 
 when we are preparing at home for personal service in the 
 cause, and yet understand very little of what it really is. 
 In this, as in other things, an ounce of experimental know- 
 ledge is worth a pound of speculation or conjecture. . . . 
 Believe me, it is not my wish to magnify any sacrifice I 
 may have been enabled to make ; far from it. I only 
 mention this that I might say how " the consolations of 
 Christ" do abound in these situations, notwithstanding the 
 difficulties and sacrifices with which they must be obtained. 
 In my own case, I feel that my most ordinary employments, 
 even my daily occupations, are, with the blessing of God's 
 Spirit, calculated to be the means of great usefulness to 
 the Christian cause. This is what few, but those in our 
 situation, can say of their most ordinary duties.' 
 
 Kitto saw the carnival, with all its puerile follies, which 
 he alleges were on the decline not more than a fourth 
 part of the people wearing masks, and the maskers being 
 prohibited from tossing sugar balls at the unmasked, or hi 
 any way molesting them. ' Sweetmeats, generally small 
 comfits, were thrown about in great abundance, chiefly by 
 
 K
 
 146 MALTA. 
 
 English and Russian officers, who had small bags full, which 
 they frequently replenished at the stalls. These were gene- 
 rally thrown into the coaches, in the faces of the ladies, 
 who commonly returned the compliment with zeal, and often 
 were the first to give it.' 
 
 The Committee in London, by one of their minutes, dated 
 March 20th, 1827, on readmitting Kitto to their employ- 
 ment, and sending him to Malta, gave a conditional sanc- 
 tion to his marriage, ' on the understanding, that, at a 
 future period, should he conduct himself to Mr Jowett's 
 satisfaction, H. A., to whom he is under matrimonial 
 engagements, may join him at that place, with a view to 
 their marriage.' But the lady of his heart, whom Kitto 
 had left behind him in England, proved faithless to her 
 engagement. He was disposed to blame the Committee at 
 home for being careless about forwarding his correspond- 
 ence. ' I have now,' he says, ' been absent from England 
 for something more than eight months, and have not, in 
 all that time, had one letter from Miss A. ; and therefore 
 I feel assured that several successive letters have been left 
 with the Society, on the understanding that they would be 
 sent out. If the separation, for a short time, between us, 
 to which I was unwillingly induced to assent, was at all 
 necessary, this surely is not also necessary. This surely 
 might have been spared.' He did not know what to think 
 about her whom he calls his 'ladye faire' 'she whom 
 I had trusted before all earthly beings she who was 
 dearer to me than all other things my heart ever knew or 
 cherished.' 
 
 His suspicions, at the end of these eight weary months, 
 were at last confirmed, by the intelligence that she had 
 deserted him, and had been married to another person. 
 His hopes were in a moment dashed to the 7 round, and 
 his heart was oppressed with sad and bitter thoughts. He
 
 CRUSHING DISAPPOINTMENT. 147 
 
 had loved intensely, and was in daily expectation of being 
 married. He was ever picturing the comforts of home, 
 when she should fill it and grace it ; but, alas ! she had 
 plighted her troth to another. On receiving the tidings, 
 he went at once into his room, shut the door upon him, 
 and did not leave it for more than two days, not even for 
 his meals. During that dark period no one saw him. The 
 servant became alarmed, and told Mr Jowett. Knocking 
 was vain ; but a ladder was got, that the servant might, by 
 means of it, see hi above the door, and ascertain whether 
 Kitto were dead. On his friends looking into the chamber, 
 he was discovered sitting on his desolate and solitary 
 hearth, with his head bent on his knee. The intelligence 
 grieved him beyond any former affliction which he had 
 been called upon to suffer. ' My spirit is bowed down 
 indeed.' ' I am alone,' he says to one correspondent, ' but 
 what else I am I cannot tell.' ' I often found myself,' he 
 says to another friend, ' engaged in the repetition of two 
 lines, which I must have picked up somewhere at a former 
 period 
 
 " No more, no more, oh never more on me 
 The freshness of the heart shall fall like dew." 
 
 ' . . . I know I can never again confide as I have 
 confided. ... I have read over what I have written. 
 It is not all good. There is an unhealthy spirit in it. 
 True, my own spirit is diseased, for it has been deeply 
 wounded, and the wound is not yet healed. May Almighty 
 God give me the spirit of health and strength give me a 
 sound mind bind up again that which is broken heal 
 that which is wounded. He can, I doubt not ; that He 
 will, I am willing to hope and believe. In outward nature 
 He revives again in the spring that which the winter seems 
 to wither away. Does God take care for plants, for trees,
 
 148 MALTA. 
 
 for flowers, and shall He not take care for me ? Shall not 
 I revive again also ? I will hope that I may, and, believe 
 me, I do endeavour to cast myself and all my cares and 
 troubles upon Him in whom I have never vainly trusted, 
 by whom my confidence and trust have never been be- 
 trayed. I trust He will make good to me all these evils ; 
 and that they may be made instrumental in drawing me 
 still nearer to our crucified Lord, who can give me here 
 comfort, strength, things in my spirit, far better than all I 
 can now lose, than all that can be taken away from me ; 
 and who can give me hereafter " quiet and enduring 
 chambers" in His Father's house, where none of the things 
 that now trouble and distract me, can vex me further.' 
 
 To his mother he thus unbosoms himself : 
 
 March 7, 1828. 
 
 ' MY DEAR MOTHER, I write this letter to you in very 
 great sorrow of heart. I received news yesterday from 
 the Society, which has given me a blow that it will be 
 
 very long before I shall recover. It was this that H 
 
 A is married to some person in England ! Oh, my 
 
 mother, you cannot imagine what this has made me suffer ! 
 I had expected that she would soon come to me, and hoped 
 that we should be very comfortable and happy together in 
 this place when all my hopes and happiness in this life 
 were at once destroyed by this intelligence. I hardly 
 know how to believe it. But it was the Secretaries of the 
 Society themselves who wrote to tell it to Mr Jowett, and 
 they would not have written it had they not been quite 
 certain about it. They wrote very kindly, and assured 
 me of their sympathy and prayers, and my friends here 
 have also been very considerate and kind on this occasion 
 to me. But the kindness of man can do little for sucl i 
 wound as this. I am very unwell, my dear mother, and 
 my spirit is quite broken up. It is a very severe trial to
 
 AGONY OF HEART. 149 
 
 me, and I should quite sink under it, if the Lord were not 
 graciously with me, to support and strengthen me, under 
 the heavy burden I have to bear. I hope it will be 
 sanctified to me, as my other trials have been. I wish you 
 were with me now, that I might talk with you ; for I am 
 desolate indeed, and my cup of sorrow is very full. The 
 Lord is with me, however, and puts a little peace into my 
 heart, else I could not live. Indeed, I do not care to live 
 at all. I have had nothing to make me love life. My life 
 has been quite full of disappointment and sorrow, and I 
 shall be very, very glad, when my labours are ended, and 
 I am permitted to go to my home in heaven to that quiet 
 rest from all these troubles, which the Lord has prepared 
 there for His people.' 
 
 His mother replied in a letter which has the genuine 
 maternal stamp upon it. Indignation at the lady's con- 
 duct, and sympathy with her son, struggle alike for utter- 
 ance. She tells him that God, for some wise purpose, 
 had not designed her for him, and, descending from this 
 altitude, she affectionately advises him to walk a good deal, 
 take plenty of exercise, and converse pleasantly and often 
 with his associates. 
 
 In a letter to the lady's cousin, he sends the following 
 message : 
 
 Malta, March 7, 1828. 
 
 ' . . . Tell her that I have no wish to reproach her. 
 God can bear me witness, that I have desired her happiness 
 above all things ; and although she has wounded me so 
 deeply, and made me desolate indeed, I shall rejoice if she 
 prove to be happy in her new situation. But I doubt 
 whether she will. They who can sport so with the happi- 
 ne - of others, are seldom happy themselves. They may 
 seem to be so for a season, but, in the end, they are not. 
 Their happiness passes away like a dream. Believe me,
 
 150 MALTA. 
 
 it is my prayer that hers may be lasting. But mine would 
 not in her situation. I do not think I could rest quietly 
 upon my pillow if I had served her, or any other person, 
 as she has served me. To murder the peace of another is 
 the worst of all murders ; and she has murdered mine. I 
 think, however, that I can forgive her, and I pray God to 
 forgive her also.' 
 
 We do not know all the reasons which induced the lady 
 to withdraw her pledge to Kitto. We find in his Islington 
 Journal, in an incidental record of his most secret thoughts, 
 the following complaint : 
 
 ' Went to Hannah before coming to the Institution. I do 
 not really know what to think about her. That she loves 
 me I have very great reason to believe ; yet, on this suppo- 
 sition, and knowing that she is not naturally volatile, I 
 have felt much at a loss to account for a degree of inatten- 
 tion to me when at her house, which has very frequently 
 distressed my feelings much, very much indeed. The most 
 trivial and unimportant circumstance has the power of 
 diverting her attention from me, even though I should be 
 speaking of something which may seem to me peculiarly 
 interesting; and I have seen her chatting and laughing, 
 for a long time occasionally, without seeming to be in the 
 least conscious that such a being as John Kitto was pre- 
 sent. I am very foolish to mind such things, yet I cannot 
 help minding them lovers are very foolish beings. . . . 
 That she is faultless, 1 am not obliged, by the most ardent 
 affection, to believe. ... If she do not experience 
 that warmth for me which I do for her, that surely cannot 
 be imputed to her as a, fault it is my misfortune' 
 
 We should be inclined to lay no great stress on this 
 lover's lamentation, for Kitto was very sensitive in society ; 
 and, from his deafness and isolation, was apt to think him- 
 self slighted. He never ascribes to her any alteration of
 
 DANGEROUS ILLNESS. 151 
 
 affection, but says, some years afterwards, that her conduct 
 'admitted of much extenuation, owing to the awkward 
 predicament in which the Society had placed them both.' 
 We have learned, on good authority, that Kitto's letters 
 from Malta were studiously kept back from the lady ; that 
 she was taught to believe that he had forgotten her ; that 
 it was under the pressure of maternal authority that the 
 match was broken off ; and that the instability of his con- 
 nection with the Society was a topic principally insisted 
 on. What Kitto calls the ' deep repentance' of the lady's 
 death-bed, was the result of her coming too late to a 
 knowledge of these painful circumstances. 
 
 The result was, that a severe illness overtook him. His 
 heart had been crushed, and his health now failed. Jn fact, 
 he was fast sinking into that morbid state which had 
 oppressed his early years. He felt as if he had been cut 
 off from the world, and as if some curse had fallen upon 
 him. He had suffered much already for sins not his own 
 had been the inmate of a workhouse, had lost one of his 
 senses, had been twice misjudged, as he thought, by his 
 Committee and ' all these things were against him.' Was 
 he never to enjoy the sunshine ? Was a sudden eclipse for 
 ever cruelly to interpose ? Providence had been mysterious 
 in its actings towards him, and was man, in addition, con- 
 tinually to thwart him ? His spirit sank under such reflec- 
 tions, and sickness preyed upon him. ' I became danger- 
 ously ill,' he tells Mr Frere, ' and we all thought that my 
 cares and my afflictions, my miscalculations and my errors, 
 would now at last be terminated. It pleased God, never- 
 theless, that I should be again restored.' 1 Such was his 
 lassitude, even when recovering, that he had no heart for 
 his duties ; nay, his physical strength was not equal to the 
 task. A peculiar weakness of his ankles, which he had felt 
 
 > Letter to the Right Hon. J. II. Frere. Malta, Dec. 4. 1S28.
 
 152 MALTA. 
 
 ever since his fall, and more than once described and 
 lamented, disabled him from standing at a case ten hours 
 a-day. He began to perceive that he was not giving 
 satisfaction to his superiors. He had rashly bound himself 
 to relinquish literary pursuits. But his own explanation 
 seems to have been that literary pursuits and literary 
 relaxation were different things that he might safely in- 
 dulge the latter without devoting himself, heart and soul, 
 to the former. Though, therefore, he spent his hours of 
 leisure in reading and meditation, he did not think that he 
 had broken his pledge. The Committee, however, judged 
 that the way in which he passed his evenings, did not leave 
 him sufficient time for exercise and sleep ; and that, in con- 
 sequence, he must come to his employment under them, 
 with a jaded mind and an exhausted frame. Mr Jowett, 
 when about to leave Malta for England, had told him so ; 
 and Mr Bickersteth, the Secretary, sent him a lecture on 
 the ' Sacrifice of self-will and self-gratification.' The Com- 
 mittee gave it as their opinion that his ' habits of mind 
 were likely to disqualify him for that steady and persever- 
 ing discharge of his duties, which they considered as indis- 
 pensably requisite.' ' It is clear,' writes the unflinching 
 Secretary, ' that the Society cannot continue in its service 
 those who will not devote themselves to their engagements.' 
 Kitto had been under espionage in Malta, for his previous 
 breach with the Society had been only partially healed. 
 He was, in fact, on trial, though he was not aware of it, 
 and, perhaps, no one put him on his guard. He accord- 
 ingly thought himself unjustly used, and affirmed that he 
 had kept his pledge, that his general hour of retiring to 
 rest was eleven o'clock, and that if he remained out of bed 
 longer at any time, it was because painful feelings would 
 have scared sleep away, had he lain down to woo it. He 
 adds with some degree both of tartness and truth ' If I
 
 FINAL RUPTURE WITH THE SOCIETY. 153 
 
 had employed an equal portion of my evenings, lolling on 
 the sofa and smoking my pipe, it seems all would have been 
 well no blame would have been imputed to me.' It was 
 allowed, that when in the office, he was faithful to his work 
 as a compositor, but it was surmised that his studies out 
 of it must unfit him, to some extent, for its manual labours. 
 The Committee and he were both in error. He had made 
 too large a promise, and they were too exacting and dic- 
 tatorial as to his performance of it. An expression of 
 sympathy would have done more to accomplish their end, 
 than the stern declaration of authority. He might have 
 been led to more exercise and earlier hours, but he could 
 not be forced to them. Kindness might have moved him, 
 but rigour only confirmed him. He was not to be con- 
 cussed into what he deemed a species of helotry. The 
 Committee were resolved to keep him to his place, for he 
 had already offended, and a second misdemeanour could 
 not be tolerated. They would not put up with insubordi- 
 nation on the part of such a servant, and the unconscious 
 Kitto was, therefore, warned, rebuked, and virtually dis- 
 missed. We cannot blame the Society so deeply as some 
 have done, though, certainly, according to their own pre- 
 mises, if they acted toward the misguided lad in equity, 
 they showed him but small lenience. If he was ' out of 
 the way,' they exhibited but slender ' compassion' for the 
 invalid at once fevered in body and bruised in heart. 
 
 Kitto's residence of eighteen months in Malta was nearly 
 lost time to him, and it was the most miserable portion of 
 his maturer life. He had been disappointed where he had 
 ' garnered up his heart.' He had tried to please his em- 
 ployers, and had failed. His views in life were darkened. 
 He had hoped to rise to a position of honour on the mis- 
 sionary staff, but he had been sharply severed from it. 
 And what, then, should he do ? What would his former
 
 154 MALTA. 
 
 patrons say of him now ? Would they not disown him, 
 and reckon their confidence in him misplaced 1 In what 
 ' line of things ' could he promise himself success ? No 
 wonder his spirit preyed upon itself, for even Mr Groves 
 did not, in this instance, justify him. In this forlorn 
 and unhappy condition, and with the horizon lowering all 
 around him, Kitto embarked for England, on the 12th of 
 January 1829, 1 in the Maria, Captain Tregarthen. The 
 ship was first detained for a while in port, and was also 
 long on her voyage. When she was off the Lizard, Kitto 
 composed a letter for Mr Harvey, which might be sent to 
 Plymouth in some fishing-boat. His object was to assure 
 his Plymouth friends of his safety. He was the only cabin 
 passenger, and the voyage had improved his health. He 
 is thankful that his detention in Malta enabled him to get 
 a resolution of the Society, in which they promise to 'make 
 it their business to assist me in the best way of doing well 
 for myself. . . . God make me very thankful and 
 grateful to Himself first.' On the voyage out, Kitto had 
 been in raptures as he gazed upon the mountains of 
 Granada, and he thought that the eyes of another coming 
 after him would admire them too. But, on his return, the 
 magnificent scenery made no impression on him, for ' his 
 heart was too hard and cold to care two pins for all the 
 snowy mountains in the universe.' 
 
 Before Kitto set sail, he had proposed to Mr Frere to 
 write at length a history of the island. 2 Concerning another 
 literary composition, relating to missions and Scripture, we 
 find among his papers the following prayer : 
 
 1 In the Missionary Register for January 1829, it is simply stated, that ' Mr Kitto's 
 health has suffered much; and on this, and on some other accounts, he is about to 
 retire from the Society's service.' In the printed Report for 1828-29, it is men- 
 tioned, quite as vaguely, that ' Mr Kitto, on account of his want of health, and 
 other circumstances, has relinquished his connection with the Society.' 
 
 1 Letter to Mr Frere, just hefore leaving Malta, in which he signifies his wish to 
 lay his case before the king his early misfortunes and his literary desires.
 
 FAREWELL TO MALTA. 155 
 
 ' ON COMMENCING MY BOOK. 
 
 'Almighty God ! without Whom nothing is good, nothing 
 is holy, without Whom all my best designs are vain, I pray 
 Thee bless this undertaking to Thine own glory and the 
 blessing of many. To me, also, may it be sanctified. 
 Grant that I be not led astray by the poor lust of literary 
 honour and distinction. Fill my heart with Thyself, and 
 out of the fulness of my heart may I be enabled to speak 
 to others in the book which now, with this promise, and 
 by Thy grace, I purpose to write and to send forth into 
 the world.' 
 
 In the prospect of leaving Malta, he composed a fare- 
 well in verse. Though not certainly of a high order, it 
 was written with some care ; and it is rather quaintly 
 topographical and minutely antiquarian in its allusions. 
 Place after place is saluted, and its ancient history glanced 
 at. Copious notes in prose illustrate the poem and con- 
 clude the paper. It opens thus : 
 
 ' Dear isle, farewell ! I had not though 
 To find so soon my bark afloat 
 So soon to have again to spell 
 That short but painful word, farewell ! 
 Less had I thought, with much regret, 
 To speak that word to thee. . . 
 Farewell, then, Malta ; yet, once more, 
 Why linger my feet on thy shore ? 
 To thee, a few months since, I came 
 With heart in love, and hopes in flame, 
 Trusting to find in thee a rest, 
 In others blessing being blest. 
 
 But now I leave thee. Soon England 
 I tread upon thy smoother strand ; 
 Yet, sooth to say, I little care ; 
 For what have I to bless me there ?
 
 156 MALTA. 
 
 The hopes, which once around me flourished, 
 Have faded all away and perished. . . 
 So, then, can I be anxious whether 
 I dwell in this clime or another ? 
 No ; regions all alike we call 
 When misery we find in all. 
 England to greet I shall not grieve, 
 Nor Malta do I gladly leave.' 
 
 On his arrival in London, Kitto met with Mr Groves, 
 who was about to embark on his mission to the East. His 
 faith had not been shaken in his former apprentice, and he 
 proposed that the cast-off printer should accompany him. 
 Before coming to a decision, the forlorn adventurer went 
 down to Plymouth, and there he resolved not to go out 
 with his benefactor. He said 'No' most firmly to the 
 very proposal which moulded his subsequent life, and raised 
 him to his ultimate position of usefulness and honour. But 
 a mysterious Providence brought him suddenly to another 
 decision, and he then hastened to be gone. Meanwhile 
 his sojourn in Plymouth was far from being comfortable. 
 Many who had helped him in former days, refused further 
 assistance, and taunted him with his repeated breaches 
 with the Missionary Committee, as a proof that he was 
 proud and intractable. Conscious of his integrity, and 
 disdaining to volunteer such a minute and lengthened ex- 
 planation as might be construed into an apology, or in- 
 terpreted as a confession, he seems sometimes to have 
 wrapped himself in dignified reserve, and thus offended 
 another class of his friends. The case did appear suspi- 
 cious ; and many seem to have thought that their high 
 opinion of his talents had been unwarranted, as being the 
 dictate of sympathy rather than of judgment, that they 
 had erred also in their estimate of his character, that his 
 promotion had turned his head, and that a self-willed 
 obstinacy, or . a hasty temper, was evidently the fatal bar
 
 ESTRANGEMENT OF FRIENDS. 157 
 
 to his advancement. Now that he was again flung upon 
 them, they resolved that he should be left to his unaided 
 resources ; for if he were determined to throw away such 
 auspicious opportunities as he had already enjoyed, they 
 concluded that their money, influence, and advice, would 
 be grievously misspent. 
 
 Kitto, in a letter to Mr Harvey, as far back as 1823, 
 mentions an unknown gentleman who had made him a 
 present of ' Butler's Analogy,' and warned him that, when 
 he ceased to be a novelty, then would come the great test 
 of his abilities. Kitto mused, and acquiesced so far 
 ' When novelty has ceased, and curiosity has evaporated, 
 and after I have had my hopes raised by the transient 
 attention shown me, I shall be neglected, laid upon the 
 shelf, and forgotten.' TVas he now doomed to realize his 
 own prophecy ? In his moments of melancholy, he looked 
 upon himself as one ' marked out for pain, trouble, and 
 bitterness, to whom expectation is delusive, and all hope 
 vain.' He seemed, in short, to embody the poet's descrip- 
 tion : 
 
 ' I am all alone, and the visions that play 
 Round life's young days have passed away, 
 And the songs are hushed that gladness sings, 
 And the hopes that I cherished have made them wings, 
 And the light of my heart is dimmed and gone, 
 And I sit in sorrow, and all alone.' 
 
 He was galled excessively by this procedure on the part 
 of so many of his friends ; and the following paragraph is, 
 perhaps, the only instance in his whole correspondence of 
 something like a querulous and ungrateful spirit. It was 
 in the worst of testy moods that he wrote it, and the fact 
 of his being so misjudged and frowned upon is his apology. 
 It occurs in a letter to Mr Lampen : 
 
 Plymouth, April 6, 1829. 
 
 * . . . I lament to have perceived that those gentlemen
 
 153 MALTA. 
 
 of Plymouth, to whom I most naturally look at this junc- 
 ture, are less willing than I had hoped and expected, to afford 
 me the advantage of their powerful influence, in obtaining 
 for myself a future provision. I certainly did not expect 
 much assistance of any sort ; but whilst my expectations 
 were not of a pecuniary nature, I thought there might be 
 a readiness to exert so cheap a thing as influence on my 
 behalf. It appears that I ^ ave been mistaken in this, as 
 in many other things. I regret to have seen, that the 
 friends to whom I am so much indebted for the kind inten- 
 tions on which they have at former periods acted towards 
 me, seem now to be apprehensive lest I should again be- 
 come burdensome to them. They know best whether I have 
 been so or not. If I have, I am sorry for it ; but it will 
 be borne in mind, that so far as I may have been so, it was 
 not I who threw this burden on them, but they who volun- 
 tarily, unsought of by me, and with kindness which can 
 never be forgotten, took it on themselves. They did so, 
 perhaps mistakenly, perhaps on hasty impressions. I do 
 not know. It is not for me to judge. But I had been 
 happier, perhaps, if they had not done so ; and now I can- 
 not again be happy, as I have been, or as I might have 
 been.' 
 
 He still wished to justify the measure of kindness which 
 he had received, and which he frankly acknowledges in the 
 previous sentences ; and as the Society had not only given 
 him a quarter's salary, but voted him 30 to enable him to 
 find some remunerative sit^tion, he resolved to set up a 
 stationer's shop or circulating library, at Moricetown, in 
 the vicinity of Plymouth. ' The gentlemen of Plymouth,' 
 he says somewhat caustically, ' have studiously proved to 
 me that I am fit for nothing for no regular employment, 
 for none of the common businesses of life ; and, indeed, I 
 do not myself know what regular employment there is,
 
 ENGAGEMENT WITH ME SYNGE. 159 
 
 say nothing of my deafness, the duties of which the present 
 state of my health would allow me to fulfil. What, then, 
 remains for me but this*' 
 
 But his funds were soon exhausted. ' He drank to the 
 dregs again the cup of misfortune and poverty.' He be- 
 came anew what he once called himself, J. Lackpenny, and 
 was obliged to pawn his watch and other articles, as he 
 confesses in a brief note to Mr Harvey, where he states a 
 plan of redeeming them that plan being to proceed to 
 London, and draw the thirty pounds which the Society had 
 kindly set apart for him. The bookselling project, about 
 whose expenditure and income he made many grand calcu- 
 lations, and all upon the side of profit, came to nothing, or 
 rather was superseded by a note from the indefatigable Mr 
 Groves, in which he offered him a situation in Teignmouth. 
 John Synge, Esq., of Glanmor Castle, County Wicklow, 
 who had been residing for some time with his family in 
 Teignmouth, was busy in printing, at his own private press, 
 ' some little works in Hebrew and Greek,' and wished to en- 
 gage a practical assistant. Mr Groves, knowing the rock 
 on which Kitto had split, wisely advised him that Mr 
 Synge's object was ' simply printing,' italicizing the words, 
 and asked his determination. Kitto, warned by many, and 
 by Mr Groves himself, that his mercantile enterprise would 
 be a failure, at once agreed to the offer, and pledged him- 
 self to enter into Mr Synge's employment on the 1st June. 
 Man proposes but God disposes. In the month of May 
 Kitto went up to London, to make preparatory arrange- 
 ments ; chiefly to see Mr Groves, and take a long farewell 
 of his kind and considerate guardian, who was on the eve 
 of departure for Persia. But while he was in London on 
 this errand, the lady who had disappointed him and mar- 
 ried another, died, and died, as he affirms, 'under mysterious 
 circumstances, which seemed in a striking manner to con-
 
 160 MALTA. 
 
 nect her demise with her conduct towards me and my re- 
 turn to England.' What he had learned of her bitter re- 
 morse in her last illness, induced him to go and look on her 
 corpse ; and the spectacle excited such a terrible train of 
 thought in his mind, that when Mr Groves asked him a 
 second time to accompany him to the East, he returned an 
 immediate and affirmative reply. ' Will you come :' said 
 Groves, ' Yes,' said Kitto question and answer aliRe re- 
 markable for conciseness and practical aim. Anything to 
 afford relief to his spirit, Kitto would have grasped at. He 
 longed vehemently to be away 
 
 ' From the wreck of hopes so scattered, 
 Tempest shattered. 
 Floating waste and desolate.' 
 
 In a letter to Mr Harvey from Bagdad, Sept. 25, 1831, 
 he explains this period, ' I returned from Malta with a 
 desire not to leave England again. But I left Plymouth 
 in great bitterness of feeling, which, combined with some 
 heart-rending scenes of death and sorrow I had to pass 
 through at Islington, rendered odious to me the only two 
 places in England in which I had any interest.' In the 
 short space of three days Kitto prepared himself to go, re- 
 nouncing without scruple a good situation, but gratified at 
 the field of prospective usefulness which was so suddenly 
 presented to him. 
 
 As we have already recorded, the workhouse boy had, 
 nine years before, said in his Journal, ' 1 have even thought 
 of plans to enable me to visit Asia and the ground conse- 
 crated by the steps of the Saviour. Even now, notwith- 
 standing my deafnesss, it would not be impracticable, if 
 some kind gentleman, on his travels, would permit me to 
 be his (though not expert) faithful servant. After all, I 
 fear it is a vain scheme, never to be realised.' And yet it 
 was realised, and that far beyond expectation, for he went
 
 TUTORIAL QUALIFICATIONS. 161 
 
 out in the immediate character of tutor to the two little 
 boys of Mr Groves. The mission of Mr Groves was cer- 
 tainly peculiar in its origin and complexion, and as strange 
 was his selection of a deaf and self-taught tutor for his 
 children. But such an appointment proved, that whatever 
 others thought of Kitto, Mr Groves had not lost faith in 
 him ; neither in the reality of his talent, nor the genuine- 
 ness of his piety ; neither in his honesty of purpose, nor in 
 his sincere desire to give the utmost satisfaction to those 
 above him, by his conscientious discharge of duty. Nor' 
 was he so ill qualified for the responsible situation as one 
 might imagine. He was now in his twenty-fifth year, and 
 his acquirements, the result of such continuous labours and 
 vigils, were highly creditable to him. True, indeed, as he 
 confesses, he had to learn some branches, in order to teach. 
 But he instructed his pupils in Hebrew, Scripture, theology, 
 history, geography, writing, arithmetic, and English com- 
 position, and surmounted, by devices of his own, the dis- 
 ability of his deafness. Again had he risen lately a 
 printer, now an educator another step upward and onward 
 to his destiny. Thus the cloud was lifting, though he knew 
 it not ; and the next four years of his life, spent in travel 
 and eastern residence, originated those Biblical works which 
 have immortalized his name. ' Darkness ' was made ' light 
 before him,' though he but dimly perceived its dawn ; and 
 ' crooked things straight,' though, from his angle of obser- 
 vation, he could scarcely measure the change. His journal 
 of travel to Bagdad is very full, but much of it presents no 
 topics of biographical interest or of characteristic detail ; 
 and we shall, therefore, make use only of such sections as 
 either aiford a glimpse into his inner life, or present some 
 striking observation or amusing incident, or show how his 
 mind was fascinated by oriental scenery and manners, and 
 thus prepared to illustrate Holy Scripture. 
 
 L
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 JOUKNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 MR GROVES, who had already taken Kitto to Exeter, and 
 who now engaged him to travel, was a man of marked 
 peculiarity. He had latterly, and before leaving Dublin 
 University, joined in such extra-ecclesiastical meetings for 
 sacramental fellowship and prayer, as characterize the 
 religious party now commonly known by the name of Ply- 
 mouth Brethren. He abandoned a lucrative profession in 
 order to become a missionary, and made no stipulation for 
 maintenance when he went abroad, but relied solely on the 
 voluntary aid of Christian friends, and ' on what his Master 
 inclined the hearts of his brethren to furnish.' His notions 
 of self -dedication were acted out by him with rigid fidelity. 
 He was a ' good man,' and ' full of faith.' His labours in 
 Persia did not by any means produce the anticipated fruits ; 
 but his subsequent toils in India were largely blessed. He 
 was one of those men who exercise an immediate and deep 
 personal influence upon others. Mr Miiller of Bristol, a 
 near relative of Mr Groves, and the originator and pro- 
 moter of that marvellous orphan-house on Ashley Down, 
 says, in his interesting ' Narrative,' that the example of 
 Brother Groves both excited and cheered him in his pro- 
 longed and arduous efforts efforts which, sustained by no 
 visible machinery, but resting solely on ' faith in God as to 
 temporal things,' have realized 77,990, and which actu- 
 ally received in one year no less a sum than 15,000.
 
 CHARACTER OF MR GROVES. 163 
 
 Mr Groves being himself in earnest, had strong force of 
 character, and made his imperious will the law to all 
 around him. So that various estimates were formed of 
 him by those who came in contact, and those who came 
 into collision with him ; by those who beheld his actions 
 at a distance, and by those who were immediately under 
 his control. Whatever he felt to be duty, no matter how 
 he made the discovery, he would do it at all hazards, and 
 every one in his sphere was expected to bend to his con- 
 victions. These convictions sometimes bordered on fana- 
 ticism. On one occasion, in Exeter, when the mind of 
 Mrs Groves was in doubt as to a critical point of duty, 
 she proposed that ' Kitto should search out the mind of the 
 Lord from the New Testament, and say what he thought.' 
 ' The result' of this oracular inquiry Mr Groves laments, 
 ' was, as might be expected, seeing Kitto had no interest 
 in the question ;' that is, Kitto's decision was contrary to 
 that of Mr Groves himself, and he would not be bound 
 by it. In various parts of his journal, he avows his belief 
 that miracles might be still expected by the Church ; nay, 
 he argues, ' that as miracles were designed for unbelievers, 
 and not for the Church, we must expect to see them arise 
 among missionaries to the heathen.' Might they not, 
 therefore, be expected in his own position ? Now, if one 
 gift more than another was needed and coveted by him, 
 it was the Pentecostal gift of Tongues ; and yet we find 
 him again and again lamenting the fatiguing labour gone 
 through, and the precious time spent in acquiring a new 
 and eastern language, the pursuit of which ' disordered his 
 soul greatly.' 
 
 He relates, in his second journal, published in 1832, 
 that when Mr Newman 1 was sick, and 'at the worst, and 
 
 1 Professor Newman, now of University College, London, who, in a fit of devoted- 
 ness, joined Mr Groves at Bagdad, tut whose early creed, springing to a large ex-
 
 1<M JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 they had given up all hopes of him, they anointed him 
 with oil, according to James v. 14, and prayed over him, 
 and the Lord had mercy on them ; yea, and on me also, 
 and restored him. It seems to me truly scriptural.' But 
 his unguarded notions were sometimes sharply corrected ; 
 for when the plague did enter his dwelling, take away his 
 wife, and prostrate himself, he slowly admits that he did 
 not expect such a visitation, but rather thought he had 
 been secured against it, and that his ' error arose from 
 considering the temporal promises of the 91st psalm as 
 legitimate objects of faith.' 
 
 On being asked by Mr Burnard as to some points in Mr 
 Groves' Christian character, Kitto replied from Exeter, 
 after he had been a short tune in his employment, ' Mr 
 Groves is not a Methodist, a Calvinist, a Lutheran, or a 
 Papist. What, then, is he? A Deist, a Unitarian, an 
 Antinoinian? No. He is one of those rather singular 
 characters a Bible Christian, and a disciple of the meek 
 and lowly Jesus ; not nominally, but practically and really 
 such. A man so devotedly, so fervently attached to the 
 Scriptures, I never knew before.' Of his benignant influ- 
 ence on Kitto we have already spoken, and his young 
 friend, though he could not agree with him ultimately in 
 many of his peculiar views, never ceased to regard him 
 with esteem and affection. 
 
 The company that embarked with Mr Groves consisted 
 of seven persons. Those immediately connected with him 
 were his wife and sister, Miss Taylor, his two boys, and 
 Kitto. The Osprey, a vessel of forty-five tons, and be- 
 longing to the Royal Yacht Club, conveyed them, free of 
 expense, to St Petersburg ; and its owner, Mr Puget, 
 
 tent out of a strange facility of impression from men and books, has gradually been 
 abandoned by him to the awful point of abjuring the teaching, challenging the 
 character, and impeaching the life and honesty of Jesus Christ. See Phases of 
 Faith, etc., chap. vii. Fourth edition.
 
 DEPARTURE FOR THE EAST. 1(55 
 
 along with Mr Parnell, now Lord Congleton, accompanied 
 them to the Russian capital. We can afford space for 
 only a few sketches of the journey. Kitto wrote copious 
 letters about some parts of it, and kept as copious journals 
 of other parts of it. He was ever writing, that being of 
 necessity his principal and almost only method of giving 
 'utterance to his thoughts. Most of us are fond of detail- 
 ing what our impressions are in scenes of novelty. Kitto's 
 method of record was not by the use of his tongue, but by 
 the tracery of his pen ; and some .of these papers were 
 composed with a view to subsequent publication. Indeed, 
 he often meditated a book of travels ; but the fruits of his 
 journeys assumed a different form. 
 
 Mr Groves and his friends sailed from Gravesend on the 
 12th June 1829, and, after encountering a heavy storm in 
 the Cattegat, cast anchor before the village of Wedbeck, 
 in the vicinity of Copenhagen, on the 20th of the same 
 month. The yacht had sustained some damage in the 
 gale, and underwent the necessary repairs at the Danish 
 capital. During almost the whole voyage, the Osprey's 
 people had worship on deck morning and evening. The 
 first notice of Kitto in Mr Groves' journal is under date, 
 Sunday, June 14: 'K is not quite well, complain- 
 ing of headache.' 1 The second is Monday, June 22 : 
 
 ' K 's connection with the dear little boys is most 
 
 promising, and leads us to feel assured that he is really 
 sent us by the Lord for that very end, and others important 
 to the mission. He seems happy, and, I trust, is so, which 
 comforts us greatly.' 2 The next allusion is still more cha- 
 racteristic. July 1 : ' I feel the expediency of forming a 
 
 more regular plan with K about the little boys. May 
 
 the Lord, in His great goodness, lead us to adopt a wise 
 one, in the spirit of Christian wisdom. I perceive that 
 
 1 Journal, p. 6, London, 1831. James Nisbet. Ibid., p. 12.
 
 166 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 K has a deep sense of neglect, or apparent want of 
 
 respect. May all things be so ordered, that he may not 
 feel this. I feel his heart is worth winning even on natural 
 grounds, for he has affections that are strong and true ; 
 but on spiritual grounds it is our duty, and may it be felt 
 by us also to be our privilege.' 1 
 
 The party stayed for some days at Wedbeck with the 
 British Charge d' Affaires, and then sailed for St Petersburg. 
 Prevailing light winds made the voyage longer than was an- 
 ticipated. At Cronstadt, Kitto saw a portion of the Russian 
 fleet, and, after the Thames, never beheld such a forest of 
 masts. The Osprey was brought up the river nearly to the 
 city, and then her passengers went ashore in a boat. A pilot 
 had been hired for the difficult navigation ; and this trans- 
 action set Kitto on thinking of Peter the Great, who often 
 conducted vessels from Cronstadt, and uniformly demanded 
 the usual wages. After three weeks' sailing, Kitto was 
 glad to set his foot on land, and to ' lie down on a quiet 
 bed;' but the pilot in the channel, and the scenes in 
 England which had so grated on his spirit as to impel him 
 to travel, were wrought into a dream, which he relates in 
 impressive style : 
 
 ' Methought you see I begin in the orthodox style 
 methought the scene was the same as that of the preceding 
 day, only sublimed in the alembic of dreams. Rocks tre- 
 mendous and awful, and dangerous shallows, were there, 
 which the charts do not exhibit ; and the city in the 
 distance, to which we were approaching, seemed more 
 glorious than Petersburg by far ; more glorious than the 
 cities of Arabian tales ; than the hundred-gated Thebes, 
 Nineveh, or Babylon. Rivers of peace bowers of repose 
 and palaces, and walls, and gates refulgent with diamond 
 and gold, in magnificent perspective, were laid out there. 
 
 1 Journal, p. 1G.
 
 ANOTHER DREAM. 167 
 
 Amidst these rocks and shallows, not knowing which way 
 to take with safety, we lay to, and made signals for a pilot. 
 One came off in a boat from the shore. He was the Great 
 Peter himself. He had clouted shoes, and, excepting the 
 band and hat, was dressed much like the peasants I had 
 seen at Cronstadt. He seized the helm ; issued his orders 
 as pilot with dignity ; and guided the vessel with the air 
 of one who was fully confident that he could bring her, 
 through all the difficulties by which we were surrounded, 
 to the desired haven. 
 
 ' I gazed on this extraordinary character with interest 
 and emotion ; but a change suddenly came over the spirit 
 of my dream ; a mist arose, which concealed the pilot from 
 me. The mist dissipated, and the autocrat was no longer 
 at the helm. His place was supplied by a tender and 
 
 delicate woman by II A herself. (I like to 
 
 dream, but I would cease to dream for ever, rather than 
 dream once more of her. Once she had made my waking 
 dreams very happy, but now Well ! you know it all.) 
 She was attired in the white vestments of a bride which 
 were also the vestments of her grave. There was nothing 
 warm or vital in her appearance. She gave impulse to 
 the helm indeed ; but her eyes were fixed on the deck, and, 
 though open, there was no motion in them. I was not 
 surprised. People are not generally surprised in dreams. 
 I tried to speak, but I could not ; to move, but I could 
 not. My first impulse was to haste and take the helm 
 from her hand. She had made shipwreck of my heart 
 and its best feelings once before and should she again 
 guide the helm ? No. But I could not carry this con- 
 viction into effect. I sat down in desperate idolatry, and 
 gazed upon her. Do what thou wilt ; let me live let 
 me die let me arrive in safety, or let the deep swallow 
 me up.
 
 Ifi8 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 ' Once more the mist arose, and veiled one whom I had 
 loved " not wisely, but too well." When it expanded, the 
 helm was in the hand of the Master Himself. There was 
 nothing terrible in the appearance. He was as in the 
 days of His sojourning among men meek, lowly, and kind. 
 Yet I trembled. But He said to me, "Fear not, for I 
 am with thee." Then I thought, What should I fear, if 
 Thou art with me ? and I ceased to be afraid. Oh ! how 
 happy I was then. I had no doubt. This was the Pilot 
 who never yet made shipwreck of aught that He ever 
 guided ; and our safety now was assured. Happy he, the 
 vessel of whose hopes and whose desires Thou steerest, 
 Lord. 
 
 ' This was my dream. An interpretation occurs to me; 
 but as I should like to compare notes with you on the 
 subject, I shall expect to receive your interpretation in the 
 first letter you send me after this comes to hand.' 
 
 Really, as to the interpretation, it is not very difficult. 
 The dream, as any one may perceive, was but a reproduc- 
 tion of past sensations and agonies, cast into naval imagery 
 by the recent passage through the shoals and intricacies, 
 islands and lighthouses, of Cronstadt Channel. Ben Jonson 
 sang 
 
 ' And phantasie, I tell you, has dreams that have wings, 
 
 And dreams that have honey, and dreams that have stings ; 
 
 Dreams of the maker, and dreams of the teller ; 
 
 Dreams of the kitchen, and dreams of the cellar.' 
 
 It requires not a soothsayer to tell under what class the 
 preceding vision of the night should be placed. Kitto, it 
 may be said in passing, had considerable faith in dreams, 
 and, as his papers show, he again and again philosophised 
 on their character and predictive power. 1 
 
 1 The phenomenon of dreaming has often engaged, and as often eluded, the re- 
 searches of physiologists and metaphysicians. It is, however, in a different style 
 that Kitto dwells upon it, and the following is a specimen of his lucuhrations on the
 
 FRIENDS IN ST PETERSBURG. 169 
 
 During Kitto's stay at the northern Russian capital, 
 . maiiy Christian friends showed him attention. He makes 
 grateful mention of Mr Knill and of Miss Kilham, a lady 
 who was patronised by Prince Galitzin and the imperial 
 family in her excellent educational institution. In writing 
 to Miss Hypatia Harvey from Bagdad, October 17, 1831, 
 he thus records his reminiscences of this lady : 
 
 ' Did you never hear of Mrs Hannah Kilham, the Quaker 
 lady, who has made so many voyages to Africa, with the 
 view of benefiting the poor negroes ? If not, the history 
 of her most benevolent labours is worth inquiry. The 
 lady I speak of is her daughter, who walks in the steps of 
 
 subject : ' My own conclusion is, that there is a prophetic principle in the soul, by 
 which, with proper attention, our future path in life may be distinctly enough 
 marked out What is this principle? whence does it arise? These and such ques- 
 tions as these, cannot be more easily answered than the questions, What is mind 
 itself, whence does it proceed, what are its principles ? . . . I should rather 
 think that there are three species of dreams quite distinct from each other. First, 
 such as arise from repletion, from recent impressions, or from intoxication and the 
 use of drugs, as opium. These are the " reasonable soul run mad." These are the 
 most common dreams, and they are in general so gross, physical, and empty, that 
 they have brought discredit on dreams altogether. These are the vagabonds, 
 swindlers, and pickpockets in the society of dreams; but why should the whole 
 society be counted disreputable for their sakes? Second Dreams which seem to 
 proceed from the immediate influence of a supernatural agent. I am sufficiently 
 aware that this will be called fanatical Be it so. I am inquiring after truth, and 
 I will take it under whatever form it appears to me. Reason, Scripture, and ex- 
 perience teach, that there are dreams proceeding from such influence on the mind 
 in sleep. Third Under a third class may be arranged dreams which are prospec- 
 tive, future, and prophetic. Of these there is less distinct knowledge. There is no 
 room for mystical interpretation in them. They picture out exactly the persons 
 who shall be seen, and the circumstances which shall occur, but they seem unmean- 
 ing, because they have no relation to any previous experience, and are therefore 
 not recognized as having any personal relationship to ourselves, till the persons are 
 seen and the circumstances occur. I do not suppose these dreams at all peculiar to 
 myself. Most people must have had dreams, which, in the same manner, exhibit 
 in regular concatenation the history of their lives and their connections in life ; but, 
 in the intervening period, the bustle and hurry of daily circumstances, obliterate 
 them from the mind, and prevent that recognition which might be otherwise ob- 
 tained. ... In conclusion, I think this general inference may fairly be de- 
 duced, that there are powers and principles in the soul hitherto hidden and un- 
 thought of, but which it is possible to discover, define, and apply to practical uses.' 
 From a. long paper, the title of which has been lost.
 
 170 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 her noble mother most entirely, and who has resided some 
 years in. Russia, promoting the work of female education, 
 and superintending a school of Russian females, half of 
 whom were slaves. I saw them. They were fine girls. 
 So far as female education is at all an object of attention 
 in Russia, French and dancing are its primary objects. 
 Miss Kilham's institution has nothing to do with these 
 studies. They are taught to read their native language 
 to write cipher sew and, in general, the affairs of 
 domestic life to qualify them for useful wives mothers 
 servants and above all, to teach them their duty to 
 God and man, which is done in a way beautifully simple 
 and impressive. This is a sort of model school, and is, I 
 hope, the germ of a most valuable system of education for 
 the lower classes of females in Russia. Miss Kilham, 
 with nothing outwardly on which the eye of man rests 
 with pleasure, has that superior beauty of " the king's 
 daughter, all glorious within" (Psalm xlv.), which, being 
 combined with infinite humility, and a manner, unassum- 
 ing, quiet, and unostentatious, conciliates the affection 
 of many who do, and the respect of those who do not, 
 understand the high principles on which her mind and 
 character are formed. For myself, I count it among the 
 best fruits of my travel, to have formed so inestimable a 
 friendship.' 
 
 Kitto formed no high idea of the Russian people, or of 
 their government : ' Their calendar is unrefonned, the 
 peculiar costume remains ; the knout remains ; slavery 
 remains ; ignorance remains.' ' There is little show of 
 literature. The booksellers' shops are few, and those few 
 about as well furnished as the bookstalls of London. Upon 
 the whole, the exterior of Russian society is repulsive, not- 
 withstanding the gloss, which the courtesy and politeness 
 natural to all classes of the Russians throw upon it. The
 
 LOW ESTIMATE OF THE RUSSIANS. 171 
 
 air of military despotism the strut of office which meets 
 you at every turn, and the abject worship which inferiors 
 render to their superiors, are most disgusting. Govern- 
 ment ! government ! There is nothing to be done or said 
 without government. Government must control all your 
 movements. Government would know the secrets of your 
 chamber. "With a feeling of much personal kindness to 
 Russians as individual men, I detest such a system of minute 
 rule and legislation.' 
 
 ' The mass of the people are much more superstitious 
 than I had expected ; in this respect, there seems little to 
 choose between this and a Popish country. But supersti- 
 tion is here of a less imposing character. Very pitiful 
 pictures are placed about the city, before some of which 
 lamps are continually burning, and which the people salute 
 in passing, crossing themselves repeatedly and bowing. 
 Statues are no objects of aversion in the Russian Church, 
 and, though pictures are more frequent, I have seen the 
 same homage paid to statues and to figures in alto and 
 basso relievo. This species of idolatry is more common 
 than I ever saw it in Malta, and if religion were measured 
 by it, the Russians might be pronounced a very religious 
 people. But this is all their religion. Their mode of 
 crossing is considered heterodox by the Romish Church. 
 I do not understand the difference ; but I remember that 
 at a grand religious procession at Malta, when a company 
 of Russian sailors stood crossing and bowing after their 
 fashion to every banner, statue, picture, and cross that 
 passed by, they were grossly derided by the Catholic wor- 
 shippers. Poor fellows ! why in all the boasted improve- 
 ments of their nation, has it not been endeavoured to teach 
 them that " God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him, 
 must worship Him in spirit and in truth." From this 
 species of homage, men in the employ of government seem
 
 172 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 to consider themselves exempt. I never saw it rendered 
 by a soldier ; and I do not recollect to have seen one man 
 of the crowds who pour out from the admiralty, at eight 
 o'clock in the evening, stop to cross himself at a famous 
 crossing place near/ 
 
 Miss Groves was prevented by sickness from proceed- 
 ing on the journey, but her brother was joined here by 
 Mr Bathie, and Mrs Taylor and her suite, who had pre- 
 ceded him by way of Lubeck. 1 The company left St 
 Petersburg on Thursday, the 16th of July, and arrived 
 at Moscow on the 24th a city which Kitto regarded 
 as the most pleasant he had ever been in. On his first 
 night's journey, he saw some fires, round which gipsies, 
 as he fancied, were encamped. To show his prevail- 
 ing thoughts at this time, we subjoin his reflection : 
 'Is the conversion of gipsies impossible? If not, why, 
 having them at our doors in England, have they been so 
 much neglected there ? Their former hardy and vagrant 
 habits would admirably prepare them for some depart- 
 ments of missionary service. Most likely a gipsy mission- 
 ary would ramble with peculiar pleasure in Cabool, Beloo- 
 chistan, Bokhara, and Khorassan.' Still he was not very 
 sure of his own ultimate position with Mr Groves ; for he 
 uses such language as this ' As a Christian, I do not know 
 if I may say, Missionary.' He went three times to inspect 
 the Kremlin. ' There are others,' he writes, ' to measure 
 columns, to paint scenery, and to describe churches and 
 palaces ; to them I leave it.' He has given no description 
 of Moscow. Somewhere he speaks of his intention of doing 
 it, but confesses, that after leaving the city, he found that 
 his impressions were not distinct enough to warrant an 
 
 1 Mrs Taylor was an Armenian lady, the wife of Major Taylor, British resident at 
 Bagdad. She had been staying for some time in England, and was returning to her 
 husband. Mr Bathie was a young Scotchman that Mr Groves had met in Ireland 
 and induced to join his mission " 

 
 MOSCOW. 173 
 
 account of that strangely fated capital, which one of its 
 own poets thus addresses : 
 
 ' Proud city ! sovereign mother thou 
 Of all Sclavonian cities now ! 
 Work of seven ages ! beauty once 
 And glory were around thee spread ; 
 Toil-gathered riches blest thy sons, 
 And splendid temples crown'd thy head ; 
 Our monarchs in thy bosom lie 
 With sainted dust that cannot die ! 
 Farewell ! farewell ! thy children's hands 
 Have seized the all-destroying brands, 
 To whelm in ashes all thy pride ! 
 Blaze ! Blaze ! thy guilt in flames be lost ; 
 And heaven and earth be satisfied 
 With thee, the nation's holocaust ! 
 The foe of peace shall find in thee 
 The ruined tomb of victory.' 1 
 
 Mr Groves' caravan left Moscow on the 28th July, 2 
 and reached Astrachan on the 15th of August a distance 
 of 1401 versts, or about a thousand miles. Kitto, in his 
 Journal, makes the usual remarks of travellers, and instinct- 
 ively compares the scenery through which he was passing, 
 with the landscapes of his own country. The ordinary 
 incidents occur : a landau sticking in the sand, and crowds 
 gathering around the strangers, while Mrs Taylor's uegro 
 servant was absolutely mobbed. ' I believe all our heads 
 ache : mine does.' In the churchyard of Ekiimouskoy, he 
 witnessed a scene which prompted him not only to record 
 his emotion, but to cluster around it a host of fancies and 
 reflections : 
 
 ' As I passed through it, on my return from the river, I 
 observed over a grave on which the grass had not yet 
 
 1 Bowring Russian Anthology. 
 
 l ln Mr Groves' Journal (1857) it is said that he and his party did not leave 
 Moscow till Monday, August 9. But on a following page, Sunday, August 9, is 
 spoken of as a period when they were far on their journey.
 
 174 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 grown, a group which affected me strongly. There was 
 one very aged woman kneeling, with her head on the 
 grave; another middle-aged woman kneeling also, with 
 her lips to the consecrated earth ; and there were three 
 sweet children, the eldest of whom, a girl, lay flat along- 
 side the grave. 
 
 ' It was easy to guess the story : a son lay there, the 
 prop of his mother's age a husband, taken in his prime 
 from the wife of his youth a father, a beloved one, the 
 support of his children, their protector, their guide, their 
 friend. He lies there, in whom all this combination of 
 beautiful relations was bound all dissolved now, and 
 broken, and lost. 
 
 ' I looked on at a distance, for I had no mind to disturb 
 the sorrow of which I partook. How universal the true 
 feelings of nature ! I was surprised to meet here such an 
 exhibition of those feelings; but why surprised? True, 
 they were poor they were rude, and slaves, perhaps ; but 
 had they not spirits, like me, 'to feel and suffer ; had they 
 hearts less warm, feelings less acute, than mine ? I was 
 ashamed of my surprise. 
 
 ' Death, thought I, is a terrible thing after all that philo- 
 sophers have said, and written, and acted terrible to the 
 dead, terrible to the living. It was intended to be terrible ; 
 and I do not admire the philosophy which exhibits death 
 as an object of contempt. It is not contemptible. Is it 
 not terrible to close the eye for ever on the happy vales and 
 ancient mountains ? Is it not terrible to hear no more the 
 voices which have been our music ? to mingle no more in 
 the dear relations which, with all their burdens, are so 
 pleasant ? Oh, it is terrible very terrible to die ! And 
 then, as to all the fine sayings about the independence of 
 the spirit on the body, and that the body not being part of 
 ourselves, we should think only of the better half it is all
 
 MEDITATION AMONG THE TOMBS. 175 
 
 cant and rigmarole. It is part of ourselves an essential 
 part ; and if it were not, why does our holy religion teach 
 that these scattered elements shall be collected once more, 
 be once more married to their former companion. If the 
 body be not part of ourselves, why would not rather the 
 unessential part be left to corruption and the grave? 
 Then, is it not terrible to feel that that part of ourselves, with 
 which all our pleasures, our feelings, our hopes, have been 
 identified, must, in a day or two, become a "kneaded clod ?" 
 
 ' And still more terrible it is to hang over the dead. 
 To wonder, in the midst of our sorrows, by what marvellous 
 process could thus become cold cold cold that warm, 
 ardent, sentient being, which, but a little while ago, was 
 one of ourselves went with us to and fro talked with us, 
 felt with us, and loved us. Indeed, I could never look upon 
 the dead with the conviction that there was nothing vital 
 left no sense, no apprehension, in that which lay before 
 me. Could I have realized this conviction, I should have 
 gone mad long ago. 
 
 ' But were there no bright side to this picture, man were, 
 indeed, most miserable. I believe the Bible, without doubt 
 or reservation, and though I find nothing there to tell me 
 that death is not terrible, I find there much consolation in 
 the article of death. There is nothing to inculcate indif- 
 ference to it, but much to strengthen under its infliction. 
 That combination of soul and body, which, separate from 
 all mysticism and metaphysical distinction, is properly and 
 truly ourselves, and out of which no idea of distinct per- 
 sonality can exist, has undergone no endless dissolution. 
 The spirit waits a happier union, in a happier place, where 
 He that sits upon the throne shall dwell among His re- 
 deemed. In anticipation of this happy union, we may ven- 
 ture to meet him, whom even Scripture calls " the king of 
 terrors," undismayed. And with these bright prospects
 
 176 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 before us, there may be even moments in which, feeling the 
 dissolution of these elements a necessary preliminary to full 
 enjoyment, we may eagerly look forward to that hour 
 
 " When this material 
 Shall have vanished like a cloud." 
 
 But, perhaps, the permanent realization of this feeling would 
 not be either happy or wise. It does very well in poetry, 
 but nowhere else. 
 
 ' As the poor people were returning home, I contrived to 
 slip a small donation into the hand of one of the children, 
 and as I could not speak their language, I contented my- 
 self with praying that God would be more than son, hus- 
 band, father, to them. In another half hour our carriage 
 rolled away from Ekinnouskoy.' 
 
 The Moravian settlement of Sarepta was also visited, 
 and found to be no longer a missionary station, but simply 
 a colony of artificers. Melons were sold at one copec 
 each. As the travellers approached Astrachan, Dr Glen 
 met them, and during their brief sojourn in that city, 
 showed them no little kindness. He was then in connec- 
 tion with the Scottish Missionary Society, and was en- 
 gaged in translating the Old Testament into Persian, hav- 
 ing at this period proceeded as far as Ezekiel. Many 
 years afterwards, Kitto refers to this visit in the following 
 glowing terms : 
 
 ' It was, in 1829, the privilege of the present writer to 
 witness something of the progress of this great work. He 
 was then one of a large party which found themselves, 
 for several days, the inmates of Dr Glen's primitive mis- 
 sionary establishment at Astrachan, and beheld, with 
 admiration, the quiet way in which this good man, ab- 
 sorbed in his task, pursued his wonted course, undiverted 
 for one hour by the engagements or excitement which the 
 arrival of so large a body of Christian friends from home
 
 ROMANCE OF TRAVEL. 177 
 
 might have been expected to create. At his appointed 
 hour he withdrew, and was to be seen no more until the 
 labour of his day had ended. Yet this was made consis- 
 tent with the most cordial hospitality, and the utmost at- 
 tention to, and consideration for his visitors. We were 
 reminded, by application, of the words of Nehemiah "I 
 am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down : why 
 should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to 
 you?" Neh. vi. 3.' 1 
 
 According to Kitto's Journal, they left Astrachan on 
 Monday, August 25, and yet he dates the following Thurs- 
 day as the 27th. 2 The routine and monotony of travel, 
 one day so like another, seem to have made both Groves 
 and Kitto somewhat oblivious of the Calendar. Under 
 the last date, and at Koumskaia, he went to sleep on a 
 cart, with some straw under him, and a saddle for a pillow. 
 The hardness of this primitive couch did not prevent him 
 from both ruminating on and dreaming of ' the dear objects 
 which, desolate as he was, he had left behind him.' In 
 the morning he became the subject of close inspection, and 
 condescended, in his humour, to give the curious on-lookers 
 a proof of his skill in the earliest craft he had learned. 
 
 ' I was awakened by the efforts of a Tartar to withdraw 
 the saddle, which was wanted, from under my head. He 
 endeavoured to do it with a polite cautiousness, not al- 
 ways met with among more civilized people, but it awoke 
 me, nevertheless. As I lay a few moments longer, to 
 yawn and stretch myself, some other Tartars gathered 
 
 1 The Court and People of Persia, by John Kitto, D.D. London : Religious Tract 
 Society, 1848. Dr Glen, while engaged, in connection with the United Presbyterian 
 Church, in circulating his own Persian version, and that of Henry Martyn, died 
 suddenly at Tehran, January 1849. 
 
 'In the Memoir of Mr Groves, it is stated that they left it on the 23d, which 
 would be a Saturday, not a very likely day for Mr Groves to take his departure 
 on. Mr Groves also thought very highly of Dr Glen, and speaks of ' the kindness 
 and Christian love which had been manifested by the dear Glens.' 
 
 M
 
 178 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 round the cart. They were most inquisitive. They ex- 
 amined the texture of the camlet cloak on which I lay, 
 and of my trowsers which were of the same material, 
 with peculiar minuteness. I amused myself and them by 
 an exhibition of the articles I had about me. My pocket- 
 book, lined with green silk, and containing a pair of 
 scissors, knife with two blades, and tweezers, was an 
 object of peculiar attention, and one Tartar must needs 
 have some of his mustaches clipped with the scissors. 
 The same man wanted to shave off the scanty hair on his 
 face and chin with the penknife, till I explained to him 
 its use, by cutting my pencil with it. Of this and the 
 case containing it, their admiration was boundless, greater, 
 I think, than at any other article I produced, and the 
 ease with which I protruded the pencil and drew it in, 
 occasioned nothing short of amazement. The one whose 
 mustaches had been clipped, lifted up his hands with 
 wonder, and I verily believe he began to doubt whether 
 there might not be greater and wiser people than Tartars. 
 I suffered him to take the pencil, and instructed him how 
 to draw it in and out. He soon understood it, and I 
 think his admiration was greater of the simple principle 
 on which it acted, arid accompanied with more pleasure, 
 than it had been before. I have observed, on this and 
 other occasions, that even the savage mind admires more 
 that which it can understand than that which it cannot. 
 The principle of the pocket compass I could not make this 
 interesting man understand, further than that, though the 
 needle was moveable, and did actually move, the magne- 
 tized point always settled so as to turn to the same point 
 of the horizon. This seemed to be contemplated with 
 more awe than admiration, and none were so anxious to 
 touch this, as the other articles. My English knife, with 
 three blades, one of them large, was completely admire
 
 TARTAR CURIOSITY. 179 
 
 for though they did not seem to have seen one before, its 
 utility was at once understood. My watch was an object 
 of curiosity, but not of peculiar admiration, as they seem 
 to have seen watches before. With my large clasp knife, 
 the man before mentioned wished to withdraw and shave 
 himself, promising to bring it back again. I had no doubt 
 that he would return it, but whilst I explained to him that 
 it would not do so, I promised to shave him myself. I 
 then produced my dressing-case, to dress myself. The 
 whole process was watched with intense interest by the 
 same congregation. Every article of the case was ex- 
 amined in detail, with more or less admiration, but the 
 brush, I think, had the largest portion. I unscrewed the 
 top, and made them expect something was to come out. 
 Every eye was fixed to see what, and when the brush came, 
 every hand was lifted up in amazement. When I had 
 done, the man anxiously reminded me of my promise. So 
 seating him on the axle of a cart, and telling him to keep 
 his head still, I shaved him. After this was done, no man 
 ever strutted more in the dignity of a chin newly shaven. 
 I had cut a pimple, which bled a little. On this I put a 
 bit of court plaster ; of the black patch, which he con- 
 sidered ornamental, he was infinitely proud. 
 
 'One article struck me as peculiar. It was shaped 
 more like one of the vulgar circular horn lanterns than 
 anything I can remember, moving on a pivot inserted 
 through the centre. It was formed of hard dark wood, 
 well carved, considering by whom it was wrought chiefly 
 Calmuc-Tartaric characters. On my requesting to know 
 its use, an old man took off his cap, and, with much 
 gravity, pulled a string, which made it revolve on its axis, 
 pointing his hand upwards at the same time. This brought 
 to my mind the praying machines of which I had read ; 
 this was doubtless one. I inquired if anything were inside,
 
 180 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 and received a negative reply. The same old man, who 
 seems the patriarch of the camp, produced a copy of the 
 Evangelists in Calmuc-Tartaric. It had been well read 
 and thumbed, and some leaves were wanting. He valued 
 it so highly, as scarcely to trust it out of his own hands. 
 He afterwards brought it up, and our Persian friend 
 assured us he read it fluently. Indeed, I could perceive, 
 by signs which he used in speaking, that he was explaining 
 one of the miracles of Christ. May we not hope, that this 
 book has been, or may be, a means of directing their views 
 to the true object of devotion, and to the true salvation by 
 Jesus Christ ? He says he got it from Petersburg.' 
 
 Beyond the Terek, they fell in with a large party, 
 having a military escort. Kitto, for a great part of the 
 dusty journey, kept up on foot with the procession, and 
 at night had ' a memorable fit of the headache.' He slept 
 on the roof of the stable ; but the lightning and rain were 
 a sad discomfort, and he went into the house at Mr Groves' 
 suggestion. At Ardoon, an officer who had been wounded 
 at Waterloo, and attended by an English surgeon, was 
 very attentive to them, and a sentinel was placed over 
 their carriages, robbers being daring and rife. 
 
 ' The next day (Tuesday) we woke at beat of drum. 
 About noon we stopped at a place called Archom. The 
 remainder of the stage was whiled away by amusing 
 conversation, which was interrupted by our arrival at 
 Kophkai. Its church, with some good white houses, gives 
 it a pretty effect in the distance, which is sadly lessened 
 on a nearer approach. We were quartered in a tolerable 
 cottage ; and the knowledge that we should pay for our 
 accommodations, procured also the use of a room in the 
 next cottage, for some of the ladies to sleep in. The 
 woman of the cottage, on this occasion, made a very pretty 
 display of some clothing, in the English style, which she
 
 PERILS BY THE WAY. 181 
 
 had. She really made, pro tempore, a very tolerable Eng- 
 lishwoman. In my various travels, I have found men vary 
 very much in their national characteristics ; but women 
 are so much the same in ah 1 countries, that they are only 
 distinguishable by language and feature. With this view, 
 when a friend has married, I seldom inquire what country- 
 woman he has married, as ah 1 essential knowledge is suffi- 
 ciently implied in the significant and comprehensive desig- 
 nation, " woman" ' 
 
 At length they came to the grand pass of the Caucasian 
 mountains ; the valley narrow, and the road in part cut 
 out of the rock. Between Lars and Dariel, they threaded 
 their way through the narrowest defile. 
 
 ' We were very much struck by the tremendous preci- 
 pices on either hand, and with the scene of wild and 
 savage magnificence presented to us. The rapid motion 
 of the Terek, dashing and foaming along the base of the 
 right-hand precipices, was admirably in unison, and must 
 have been more so to those whose ears are not closed to 
 the music of nature. Here, and on many other occasions 
 during our Caucasian journey, the inquiry spontaneously 
 arose Who can paint like nature? Can imagination? 
 The negative reply could not fail to be very decisive.' 
 
 The Calmuc tents at Dariel resembled English pig- 
 sties. From Kobi they climbed up several sharp ascents 
 to the Mountain of the Cross the monument of a Russian 
 victory. On descending, Mrs Taylor's carriage upset, the 
 drag-chain having given way, and the horses darting down 
 the hill at their highest speed. Providentially the carriage 
 was empty at the time. Then they came to the most 
 ' fearful pass of all the Caucasus' a narrow defile, rich 
 and wooded heights overhanging it on all sides. 
 
 ' The view was the most splendid I ever saw, or my 
 imagination ever pictured. The snow-capped mountains
 
 182 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 behind the water falling in beautiful white cascades down 
 the gullies the finely wooded mountain before us, con- 
 trasted with the grassy mountains behind and the snowy 
 ones beyond the valley below, with a village and farm on 
 either side of the Aragvi, diminished in the distance the 
 castle, surrounded with firs on the high projecting hill of 
 basaltic rock, which stretched out its bold, nearly circular 
 form, on the other side of the valley the shepherds 
 watching their snow-white flocks on the sides of the moun- 
 tains all, among other little details, combining to compose 
 a scene, such as, having seen once, I will never expect to 
 see again in any other place. At Kashaur we arrived 
 about six in the evening, having been twelve hours in 
 accomplishing a stage of as many English miles. It is 
 situated in a cultivated valley, amongst a considerable 
 number of native farms and villages.' 
 
 While Kitto's eye and imagination revelled in the pic- 
 turesque so lavishly strewed round about him, we cannot 
 suppose him insensible to the higher and holier influences 
 which such scenery and travel are so fitted to produce. 
 No doubt, his soul often retired into itself, or rose in rap- 
 ture to the gates of heaven. Though, from his ' maimed 
 sense,' he could not literally enjoy many of the sensational 
 experiences depicted by the poet of ' The Christian Year,' 
 yet he could, and we believe did, often and easily realize 
 them. Nature spoke to ' reason's ear,' and he listened, 
 understood, and was comforted. 
 
 ' Where is thy favoured haunt, eternal Voice, 
 
 The region of Thy choice, 
 Where, undisturbed by sin and earth, the soul 
 
 Owns Thy entire control ? 
 'Tis on the mountain's summit, dark and high, 
 
 When storms are hurrying by ; 
 'Tis 'mid the strong foundations of the earth, 
 
 Where torrents have their birth.
 
 INFLUENCE OF SCENERY. 183 
 
 ' No sounds of worldly toil ascending there 
 
 Mar the full burst of prayer ; 
 Lone nature feels that she may freely breathe, 
 
 And round us and beneath 
 Are heard her sacred tones : the fitful sweep 
 
 Of winds across the steep, 
 Through wither'd bents romantic note and clear, 
 
 Meet for a hermit's ear. 
 
 1 The wheeling kite's wild solitary cry, 
 
 And, scarcely heard so high, 
 The dashing waters, when the air is still, 
 
 From many a torrent rill 
 That winds unseen beneath the shaggy fell, 
 
 Track'd by the blue mist well ; 
 Such sounds as make deep silence in the heart, 
 
 For thought to do her part. 
 
 ' There lies thy cross ; beneath it meekly bow ; 
 
 It fits thy stature now : 
 Who scornful pass it with averted eye, 
 'Twill crush them by and by. 
 
 ' Raise thy repining eyes, and take true measure 
 
 Of thine eternal treasure, 
 The Father of Thy Lord can grudge thee nought, 
 
 The world for thee was bought : 
 And as this landscape broad, hill, field, and sky, 
 
 All centre in thine eye, 
 So all God does, if rightly understood, 
 
 Shall work thy final good.' 
 
 The exit from the Caucasus was as beautiful and ro- 
 mantic as the entrance, though the descent was difficult. 
 They passed several stations or villages, in one of which 
 was a church dedicated to St Ahithophel perhaps the 
 patron saint of Russian diplomacy. Opposite a place 
 called Ananour, Kitto saw a blasted tree, and at once, as 
 was his wont, thought of himself :
 
 184 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 ' Just opposite, or rather below this place, I observed 
 what I never observed before, a tree rent asunder by light- 
 ning the half which had fallen was withered and dried up, 
 but that which stood, though burnt also, spread forth its 
 leaves as if nothing were the matter. I thought this some- 
 thing of a phenomenon. In physical nature it may occur, 
 but rarely does it happen in our moral nature that he whose 
 better half of being his fresh and pleasant hopes has 
 been dried up, can himself, though standing, put forth his 
 green leaves and fruits again.' 
 
 ' I omitted to mention in its place, that early this morn- 
 ing, I had expressed the pleasure I should feel in seeing a 
 white thorn, as a truly English shrub which I did not 
 remember to have seen since we left our own country. The 
 wish had hardly been expressed half-an-hour, when a white 
 thorn actually occurred, and afterwards continued to be of 
 frequent occurrence. The thorn seems to me to be to 
 England what the thistle is to Scotland, and the shamrock 
 to Ireland. I do not know why the rose should be the 
 national plant. It is more properly that of Persia and 
 other countries, where the '"Gardens of Gul" bloom far 
 more beautifully than in our own isle; and roses, and thistles, 
 and all, have thorns. We like nothing which has not a 
 thorn of some sort or other, although these may not always 
 be so palpable as in roses and thistles.' 
 
 Teflis was seen at a considerable distance before the 
 travellers reached it, and this first view of it did not raise 
 great expectations. For thirteen nights before they reached 
 it, the party had not had their clothes off. Teflis was found 
 to be a disagreeable place ; but there was some relief in 
 intercourse with a curious colony of German settlers. The 
 observant traveller says of the other sex : 
 
 ' I have been rather disappointed in the Georgian ladies. 
 To say nothing of their dreadful eyes and eye-brows, which
 
 REMINISCENCES OP YOUTH. 185 
 
 last are too remote from the eye and from each other, in- 
 dicating a character volatile, easily moved, and little enter- 
 prising, but withal open, warm, and of quick sensibilities ; 
 their foreheads recede too much ; their noses enormous ; 
 teeth and mouth good, and often the chin ; but the nether 
 part of the face is so much wider than the upper, as to 
 give a character of bluffness to the whole, which is quite 
 unpleasing. Their figures are, in general, large and awk- 
 ward, and their hands and feet great clumsy things indeed. 
 Expression is not to be looked for in a Georgian face. I 
 never saw it in one.' 
 
 At Teflis the mode of conveyance was changed. The 
 carriages were parted with, and German waggons without 
 springs substituted. The new vehicles distressed their in- 
 inates by their terrible jolting, and it was some time before 
 they became accustomed to the motion. On the road to- 
 ward Shusha Kitto found some brambles, and remembered, 
 in a moment, his grandmother's excursions with him when 
 he was a child. 
 
 ' Brambles begin to be frequent this stage, and at the 
 place where we stopped, there was almost a thicket of them, 
 interspersed with trees and shrubs. Being the season for 
 blackberries, they afforded an agreeable regale to some of 
 us. I have always relished this humble but pleasant fruit ; 
 and although I have been in the countries of the fig-tree 
 and the vine, I continue to like it. I remember how often, 
 when a boy, I wandered far in search of them. Sometimes 
 I found none, sometimes I did ; and when I did, my hands 
 were lacerated and my clothes torn. How much is this 
 like many parts of my subsequent experience ! How many 
 things have I wandered after which I have found, and which 
 were sweet to me, but there were briars and thorns in them 
 and with them, which tore my hands and my feet, and rent 
 my very heart asunder ! '
 
 186 JOUEtfEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 Annafield, a colony of German Millennarians, was passed, 
 and at another, called Helmsdorf, they spent the Sabbath. 
 ' We here first,' he says, ' observed Persian women in the 
 streets, walking about, muffled up in their long striped 
 veils.' 
 
 ' The people had heard of us before we came, and we 
 experienced a kind and hearty reception. There is a free- 
 masonry in Christianity, by which Christians, in all places, 
 are known to each other, and sympathise with each other, 
 without the intervention of human language. The people 
 have, in this country, found a refuge from the persecu- 
 tions to which they were subjected in their own country. 
 Every man here sits, literally, under his own vine, and 
 under his own fig-tree, and there are none to make him 
 afraid. How far this peaceable state of things may have 
 had the effect of subduing their ardent expectations of the 
 second advent, I have yet to learn. During the late war 
 with Persia, the people of this village were despoiled of 
 some of their little property by the Persians, but no other 
 harm was done. The Russian Government is very tolerant 
 to all denominations whilst they continue in the profession 
 of their fathers, but it looks with an evil eye on all conver- 
 sions from one denomination to another, unless to the 
 Greek Church.' 
 
 On their arrival at Shusha they met with a most ardent 
 reception from the German missionaries. On the 29th of 
 September they left this town, and Herr Zaremba, one of 
 the missionaries, accompanied them to the Araxes, the river 
 that here separates Russia from Persia, and had his horse 
 stolen from him during the journey. Mr Pfander also 
 joined them for the purpose of going to Bagdad. In seven 
 days they reached Tabreez. On the last stage of the 
 journey, Kitto's horse threw him ; but as he had lost his 
 cap the day before, and now wore a turban, its thick folds
 
 FEMALE MISSIONARIES. 187 
 
 saved his skull from being crushed by the fall. ' Yes, my 
 mother,' he writes in reference to this escape, ' God has 
 not done with me yet; I have more yet to do in this 
 world, and more to suffer.' At Tabreez, Mohammed All 
 Khan, a Mohammedan married to an English lady, gave 
 them accommodation. But their own countrymen, of whom 
 there was a considerable number at Tabreez, had heard 
 of the fanatical character of the strangers, and were not 
 prepared to welcome them. Here the party was lessened 
 in number. Mr Nisbet, of the East India Company's 
 Service, married Miss Taylor, and as some compensa- 
 tion to Mr Groves for the loss of one of his assistants, the 
 bridegroom gave him a handsome pecuniary subscription. 
 
 Miss Taylor's marriage must have confirmed Kitto in 
 the views which he had already expressed. For in one of 
 his letters from St Petersburg, composed a very few weeks 
 previously, he discusses the question, whether unmarried 
 ladies should go to the East as missionaries ; and he is 
 hostile to the idea, because so many of them fall away from 
 missionary labour by accepting the offer of a husband. It 
 is different, he admits, in other portions of the world, but 
 in the East there are peculiar temptations. ' I always 
 thought that the energy of the Christian principle of action 
 was never more strongly exemplified than when a tender 
 and delicate woman goes out to " the wilderness and soli- 
 tary place," with no other arm than that of her God, with- 
 out a husband's arm to lean upon for support, and without 
 a husband's wing to protect her.' But after taking excep- 
 tion to single females coming out to the East, since, being 
 brought into contact often with men from their own country, 
 they listen to matrimonial overtures, and cause the ' ad- 
 versary to speak reproachfully of missionary motive,' he 
 adds, ' I except Quaker ladies, because they would be less 
 tempted by such overtures, and I believe them less tempt-
 
 188 JOUKNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 able. Their independent character, their masculine under- 
 standing, their deliberate energy, give them great power 
 and intensity in the pursuit of those objects they under- 
 stand and feel distinctly.' 
 
 At Tabreez Kitto met with Mr, now Sir John M'Neill, 
 and the meeting was to the lonely and eager inquirer of 
 immense benefit. Sir John's kindly manners overcame the 
 young man's modesty, and drew him into conversation. 
 He found him very intelligent, and having the ' utmost 
 avidity for information ;' and especially did he gratify him 
 with some illustrations of Biblical customs, which his own 
 experience in the Bast had made familiar to himself. 
 Kitto's mind was evidently occupying itself a little with 
 such ideas, but Sir John gave it new impulse and ardour, 
 and he referred the inquisitive student to ' Morier's Second 
 Journey through Persia.' The reader cannot but mark 
 with peculiar interest those conversations of such a stranger 
 with Kitto at this time ; for, in fact, they touched and 
 awoke a latent power, which, after years of development 
 and training, gave its possessor his merit and his fame. 
 To the results of Sir John M'Neill's sympathizing and 
 suggestive interviews with Kitto, we shall soon have occa- 
 sion again to refer. 
 
 After the cavalcade left Tabreez, it came into Koor- 
 distan. The ferocious character of the inhabitants was at 
 once apparent, daggers being drawn on the slightest pro- 
 vocation. When the Mehmandar 1 of the party had shown 
 his usual tyranny to the people of the first village they 
 entered, they at once resented it brandished their wea- 
 
 1 Kitto defines the Mehmandar as ' a person who has great powers, and whose 
 duty it is to provide accommodation for us.' Mr Morier gives a more terse and 
 telling description : ' He acts at once as commissary, guard, and guide, and also 
 very much as Tissaphernes, who, In conducting the ten thousand Greeks through 
 Persia, besides providing markets for them, was also a watch upon them, and a re- 
 porter to the king of all their actions.' Second Journey through Persia, etc. p. 46. 
 London, 18'8.
 
 EETEOSPECT OF THE JOURNEY. 189 
 
 pons, and let loose their dogs, while even the old women 
 thumped the travellers with clubs. Similar scenes oc- 
 curred from time to time. They left Baunah, and reached 
 Suleimaniyah over the most frightful roads they had seen. 
 On November 30, they crossed the last and formidable pass, 
 amidst agitation and alarm about robbers, and the people 
 appeared to be more wretched than the Koords. 1 A month 
 was spent in the journey between Tabreez and Bagdad, 
 and they reached the latter city on the morning of Sunday 
 the 6th December 1829, about six months after their depar- 
 ture from Gravesend. According to Mr Groves, the journey 
 of three thousand miles from St Petersburg to Bagdad, 
 cost about 38 for each person of his party, including the 
 expense of living and travelling. Kitto writes : 
 
 ' On taking a mental review of this journey, I feel there 
 is great cause to thank God for His many mercies towards 
 us, and His gracious protection of us from many apparent 
 and real evils. I do most truly believe in the doctrine of 
 ^particular providence, and I shall feel happy in the assur- 
 ance that you do so. It is a doctrine from which I have, 
 in the course of my life, derived much consolation and sup- 
 port, and I would not for a great deal, relinquish the satis- 
 faction it is so capable of affording. 
 
 * We have been till now the guests of Major Taylor, the 
 Resident, and live, and shall live, in a house connected with 
 his. He is a man of much talent, and is very kind to us, 
 being also fully disposed to assist our undertakings. He 
 is of much authority here, and the Residency is a sanctuary. 
 It is contemplated that Bagdad should be the head-quarters 
 of the mission, whilst its members itinerate about in the 
 
 Terhaps the only instance of humour in Mr Groves' first Journal occurs where 
 he says of one of those Koords ' If this man be a specimen of the general state of 
 clothing among these banditti, it would be difficult for a missionary to go clad, how- 
 ever simply, without at least, in this respect, furnishing an object of temptation.' 
 Pp. 109, 110.
 
 190 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 surrounding countries. I have no locomotive talents, and 
 shall probably be a fixture here, writing books and tracts, 
 and bringing up the little boys.' 
 
 Bagdad was once renowned over all the East. The 
 ' Old man ' says of it to Thalaba, 
 
 ' It is a noble city that we seek ; 
 Thou wilt behold magnificent palaces, 
 And lofty obelisks, and high-domed mosques, 
 And rich bazaars, whither from all the world 
 Industrious merchants meet and market there 
 The world's collected wealth.' 
 
 But now it had fallen far from its high estate. Literature 
 had decayed in the once famous capital of Haroun-al- 
 Raschid, and it was said that a perfect copy of the ' Arabian 
 Nights Entertainments ' could not be found in a place that 
 figures so conspicuously on its merry pages. It has often 
 been besieged and pillaged by various armies. Though 
 built on the Tigris, the Euphrates is distant from it only 
 a six hours' march, and its surplus waters during an in- 
 undation are here discharged into the Tigris by means of 
 the canal of Isa. Mr Groves selected this city as the com- 
 mencement of his mission, but left it in 1833 for India, 
 where he laboured in various schemes of benevolent enter- 
 prise during the remainder of his life. Failing health 
 obliged him to return home in 1852, and he died in peace 
 and hope at Bristol, May 20th of the following year. 
 
 It may be mentioned in passing, that, as the follow- 
 ing letter indicates, Kitto identified himself with Mr 
 Groves' mission, though he was not formally engaged in 
 evangelical work. 
 
 Bagdad, April 30, 1830. 
 
 ' . . . We are now settled in a house of our own, in 
 the Christian quarter of the city, in which we have room 
 for an Armenian school, which is this day opened, and
 
 EXPERIENCES. 191 
 
 which we hope it may please God to bless to His own 
 glory, and the benefit of that highly interesting people, 
 who have hitherto been so much neglected in missionary 
 operations. We have thought it most expedient to begin 
 with an Armenian school, as the Mohammedans here are 
 very jealous, and this jealousy will be less provoked in the 
 first instance by an Armenian school than an Arabic one ; 
 but we hope before long to have that also. We anticipate 
 less opposition from the natives than from the Catholic 
 Bishop of Babylon. But he has thus far contented him- 
 self with forbidding his people to send us their children. 
 From his flock, however, we meet with attention and kind- 
 ness, and some of them have offered to send their children, 
 provided we would teach them English. 
 
 ' . . . You will be glad to hear that, though we are 
 here, in the head-quarters of Islamism, we are subject to no 
 personal molestation. A rude boy may call us " dogs" as 
 we pass the streets, but this rarely occurs, and this is all 
 at present. There are many circumstances, however, which 
 lead us to feel that we hold our lives on a very uncertain 
 tenure, in a place where a man's head can hardly be con- 
 sidered as safe as his hat in England. 
 
 ' . . . I have an undertaking in hand of a laborious 
 character, which was suggested to me by Mr Groves him- 
 self. It is to combine, in one view, our own observations 
 with those of various travellers and authors, to form a 
 view of the sects and denominations of Asia and of Asiatic 
 countries, for missionary purposes, rejecting all information 
 but such as may be thought useful to a missionary.' 
 
 Kitto's residence in Bagdad was monotonous the daily 
 teaching of the boys, the solitary walk on the housetop, 
 and the writing of letters and journals. But his observant 
 eye noted much, and he has recorded many of his observa- 
 tions. Of the houses he says :
 
 192 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 ' I will just mention, en passant, that the roofs of our 
 houses, though not gardens, clearly illustrate the gardened 
 roofs of Babylon. The internal aspect of the upper rooms 
 is that of an arch, supported on pilasters ; these rest on 
 an abutment, which runs round the middle of the room, 
 and form very convenient recesses for books, etc. Some- 
 times, however, the ceiling is flat, and then the beams are 
 occasionally seen, unless otherwise covered with ornamental 
 wood-work. In both cases, the actual roof is supported 
 by great beams, over which mats are laid, on which earth 
 or clay, three or four feet deep, is heaped. This lies 
 tolerably firm, and I have not known an instance in which 
 rain water penetrated. There seems no reason at all, 
 why, if the people wished it, or understood it, or it were 
 to their taste, proper earths being used, gardens might 
 not be formed on these terraces. They, however, prefer, 
 perhaps wisely, to reserve them as bedrooms for summer. 
 Rains would not much interfere with such an arrangement. 
 It never, or very rarely, falls, but in winter, and then not 
 in large quantities ; and I do not see that, in this respect, 
 there is any difference between this place and Babylon. 
 Such roofs would not do at Malta, where, from its insular 
 situation, there is a good deal of rain. In that island, 
 therefore, they spread the terraces with a composition, 
 which hardens almost to the solidity of stone, and in 
 which, I believe, lava from Sicily is a principal ingredient. 
 In more rainy places hereabouts, where they use the same 
 roofs, they seem obliged to roll their roofs after every rain, 
 to give them consistence. At Suleimaniyah, which, being 
 among the mountains, is rainy, I saw, after a shower, 
 many persons drawing stone rollers over the roofs this I 
 never saw here.' Again, ' The houses here swarm with 
 vermin ; mosquitoes all the year round, but most in summer. 
 They are, however, not so abundant as in Malta, and in
 
 DISCOMFORTS. 193 
 
 the country between the Volga and the mountains. Fleas 
 swarm, even in the most cleanly houses, for a month or six 
 weeks about the commencement of summer ; but we are 
 not made aware of their existence for the rest of the year. 
 'During that season, even English ladies are not ashamed 
 to complain of them. Scorpions are not numerous in the 
 houses. On removing some clothes from an open recess 
 in the wall one day, I found one the first I had ever seen 
 and not being sufficiently acquainted with Terminology 
 to recognise it, I felt no alarm ; but, not liking its appear- 
 ance, I brushed it out with my hand, and crushed it under 
 my foot. Of rats and mice there are plenty.' 
 He describes the streets in no flattering terras : 
 ' The state of the streets after rain is such as would 
 disgrace the worst village in England. The causeways, 
 where there are any, are about a foot wide, and in as bad 
 a state as the road a level of three feet it is impossible to 
 find, and the mud is ankle deep. The pedestrians either 
 wear great buskins of red leather over their usual slip- 
 pers, or else go barefoot on such occasions the last most 
 generally men, women, and all, holding up their clothes 
 higher than is quite decent that is, the poor women, for 
 others either do not go out at all, or wear the great boots 
 aforesaid. I have often thought that the state of govern- 
 ment is indicated by the state "of the streets. In all the 
 countries I have been in, subsequent experience has con- 
 firmed the impression thus first obtained. Pavements are 
 bad, or none at all, where the government is bad. In 
 Russia, I have not seen a regularly paved street out of 
 Petersburg and Moscow. In Georgia, still worse ; and in 
 Persia and Turkey, worst of all. Pavements bad in Spain 
 and Portugal in England, very good. Verily, the prin- 
 ciples of a government may be read in the dust of the 
 ground. I saw one woman, having a sort of clogs on her 
 
 N
 
 194 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 naked feet, raised high, and fastened over the instep by a 
 band of leather, like a print in Calmet. I never saw it 
 before. There is nothing here like the system of mutual 
 accommodation and civility in street-walking which we 
 find in England. None give the wall, not even the poorest, 
 nor turn aside at your approach, but expect you to step 
 off the causeway, such as it is, into the muddiest mud.' 
 
 JS"or has he forgotten to tell us of the social habits and 
 common occupations : 
 
 ' The people may be considered to have but one regular 
 meal, which is supper, at or a little after sunset. This is 
 generally a pillau, that is, mutton or fowls, with rice. The 
 poor seldom get animal food ; bread, dates, and fruit, are 
 their chief provisions. Mutton is the principal animal 
 food used. Beef is little esteemed, and wild buffaloes' and 
 camels' flesh is mostly eaten by the poor. The Christians 
 can procure pork without much difficulty we do; wild 
 hogs are common among the reeds down the river. A 
 Mohammedan considers it a defilement to touch a pig ; yet 
 a Moslem water-carrier, who serves the house with water, 
 brought a small live hog the other day as a present, for 
 which, however, he expected in return its full value. The 
 venison is very good ; we get it sometimes, though not so 
 often as pork. The wild gazelle is found about the river, 
 and I think the flesh superior to any I have tasted. Coffee 
 is drunk continually by those who can afford it, but only 
 regularly in the morning. The poor seldom get it. Coffee, 
 as made in England, is brown water ; here it is coffee ; as 
 they make it and take it without milk or sugar, all its deli- 
 cious aroma is preserved It is handed round in small cups 
 of delicate china, hi cases of silver or even gold, to prevent 
 scalding the fingers. Each cup contains about a table- 
 spoonful, the contents as black as ink, but as they are the 
 very essence of a considerable quantity of coffee, I have
 
 EASTERN CARPENTRY. 195 
 
 felt more refreshed after such a small cup, than after a pint 
 of the washy stuff dispensed in the London coffeehouses. 
 
 * February 12. I have been, at times this week, consider- 
 ing, with some amusement, the operations of the native 
 carpenters. They uniformly work squatted on the ground, 
 which a European carpenter would consider no very con- 
 venient posture. Work benches are things quite unknown 
 in this country. Thus, in planing a plank, as a table- 
 board, they sit down cross-legged upon it, and having 
 planed the space before them, change their position, and 
 perform the same operation on the space themselves had 
 before occupied. Of course they ride upon the board, from 
 the impulse of the plane, to some distance from the place 
 where the board lay when they commenced ; but when 
 they change their position to plane the other portion, they 
 ride back again ! They make much use of their toe in 
 holding their work. I am not aware that they have chisels, 
 hatchets, or gimblets ; the adze performs by far the greatest 
 portion of their work. Holes they drill with a bow. They 
 have saws, of course, but the teeth are indented in quite 
 the reverse position to ours ; they, therefore, are obliged 
 to use the strongest exertion, not in pushing the saw from 
 them, as with us, but in pulling it to them. Of this instru- 
 ment they make, comparatively, but little use. They have 
 much more idea of reducing the wood on which they labour 
 to the required dimensions, by hewing with the adze, than 
 by sawing. I believe a carpenter, working from sunrise to 
 sunset, earns about sixpence sterling, which, considering 
 the price of provisions, is about nine shillings a week ; and 
 considering the little work they do, this is no inadequate 
 recompense. A good deal of their time is spent in smoking, 
 which, as their pipes are long (a long stick inserted into an 
 earthen bowl), prevents them from working and smoking 
 too ; sometimes, however, when they are pressed, they will
 
 198 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 take out the earthen bowl, which has a short stein, and 
 smoke while they work. 
 
 ' Most of the Mohammedans of this city, being of Arabian 
 descent, wear beards. The Osmanlees wear simply mus- 
 taches. These are the only general rules. The rest of the 
 people wear beards or mustaches indiiferently, according 
 to their fancy, but I think mustaches are most general 
 among the Christians, though they often wear beards. 
 Jews have more generally beards, though often mustaches. 
 As you seldom see a head in these countries uncovered, it 
 is not easy to know whether they are shaved or not ; but 
 from those I have happened to see uncovered, I conclude 
 they are not completely shaven about half so, that is to 
 say, about half the space between the ear and the crown 
 is shaven quite round, leaving a semi-circle of hair on the 
 top, where the hair is suffered to grow thick. This is 
 commonly enough dyed red ; but beards are not dyed of 
 this colour so frequently as in Persia. Occasionally, how- 
 ever, it is done, and a most disgusting and sometimes ludi- 
 crous effect it has. A northern eye, which is accustomed 
 to see the natural red, is not for a moment deceived by the 
 imposture, even so far as the colour is abstractly considered, 
 as it has none of the glossy hue of the natural red hair ; 
 and, accustomed as we are to associate this colour with a 
 fair complexion, a red beard on a dark face seems to be a 
 monstrous anomaly. Moreover it frequently happens, 
 from the neglect of the proprietor of the red beard, that 
 the part which has grown out since the operation, is of the 
 original colour black, grizzled, or venerable white, whilst 
 all the rest is red, presenting, from the contrast of colours, 
 a most curious and truly laughable appearance. 
 
 ' My barber, a tall Osmanlee, with a white turban, is the 
 gravest barber, certainly, under whose hands I ever sat. 
 He bends his tall figure over me with infinite solemnity,
 
 NATIVE OPINIONS. 197 
 
 and proceeds slowly and deliberately at his work, taking, 
 I think, half an hour to cut my hair, inflicting martyrdom 
 upon me, and causing me to feel most acutely the excision 
 of every particular hair.' 
 
 He thus describes the opinions of the people : 
 ' Here (speaking more particularly of Bagdad and its 
 neighbourhood) the English are much better known than 
 any other Franks, partly from the frequent intercourse 
 with India, and the presence of many who have resided 
 there many years, and partly from the highly respectable 
 and respected Residents the East India Company has had 
 here. Of the power, the wealth, the integrity, and justice 
 of the English, they have very exalted ideas. Defective as 
 the system of our Indian administration is, according to our 
 English notions, the Asiatic, who can compare it only with 
 Asiatic systems, has a better idea of it ; and I am sure 
 you will be gratified to learn that those who come here, 
 after having resided there, generally eulogize so highly the 
 comparative impartiality, justice, and liberality of the 
 English administration in India, and the security of person 
 and property they enjoyed under its protection, that there 
 seems a general wish among the mercantile and other more 
 intelligent classes, that the English would take Bagdad into 
 their hands, and they calculate with satisfaction the pos- 
 sibilities that such an event may occur one day or other. 
 Like most other foreigners, perhaps brother Jonathan only 
 excepted, they seem to think Englishmen are made of gold. 
 It puzzles me sometimes, when men, not ill-informed for 
 Asiatics, occasionally inquire if England is as large as 
 Bagdad, how they can suppose the land able to contain all 
 the gold they think Englishmen derive from it. The 
 Russians, though nearer neighbours, are here less distinctly 
 known ; they seem to be regarded with much the same sort 
 of feeling, as I regarded, and, I suppose, we have all re-
 
 138 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 garded, when children the Ogres, the fee-faw-fum men 
 of nursery tales.' 
 
 That Kitto, the deaf pauper boy, should find himself so 
 far from home as Bagdad, must have sometimes surprised 
 him. When he thought of himself as a little ragged 
 urchin running wild about the streets, or pictured his seat 
 of lowly and solitary toil in the Hospital 
 
 ' As one past hope, abandoned, 
 And by himself given over ' 
 
 then, indeed, he must have felt that it was a watchful and 
 mysterious providence which had guided his steps by a 
 tardy and circuitous route from Plymouth, through Exeter, 
 Islington, and Malta, to the ' City of a hundred Mosques.' 
 In this spirit he writes to Mr Burnard, February 25, 
 1830 : 
 
 ' MY DEAR MB BURNARD, . . . Here I am, in this 
 city of enchantment and wonder, the renowned seat of an 
 empire which stretched its gigantic arms from the Indus 
 to the Mediterranean, and the great scene of Arabian tale 
 and romance. I am quite amazed to think, when I think 
 of it all, how different the actual scenes and circumstances 
 of my life have been from any I could previously have an- 
 ticipated for myself, or others for me. At one time I had 
 no idea but that I should spend my days in the obscurities 
 of my humble vocation, and then, when this view was 
 altered, it seemed so much the tendency of my deafness 
 to make me a fixture in some chimney-corner, that I should 
 quite as soon, perhaps sooner, have thought of crossing the 
 rivers of the moon as the Neva, the Volga, the Terek, the 
 Araxes, or the Tigris. But here, in spite of a thousand 
 anti-locomotive habits and dispositions, and ten thousand 
 fireside attachments, I have been wandering about the 
 world by a way I have not known, and in which I had not
 
 LEADINGS OF PROVIDENCE. 199 
 
 intended to walk ; and, as I am now situated, I see no end 
 to my wanderings on this side of that bright city to which, 
 I trust, notwithstanding my weakness, my sin, my evil, I 
 belong, and to which I hasten, forgetting many things 
 which are behind, and pressing forward to them that are 
 before. So true it is, that " a man's heart deviseth his 
 way ; but the Lord directeth his steps." None have had 
 cause to feel this more strongly than myself; and, with 
 my past experience, I am almost tired of devising any- 
 thing at all, but am inclined to sit down quietly and take 
 whatever it pleases God to send me, whether it appear to 
 me good or evil, pleasant or painful. I know you are not 
 a predestinarian ; it has been the tendency of many cir- 
 cumstances in my life to make me one ; but I do not tell 
 you whether I am one or not. . . 
 
 ' I have at present tolerable health and spirits. I find 
 myself upon the whole very congenially situated, and I am 
 not aware that I have at any time regretted the determi- 
 nations which have a second time brought me abroad. I 
 thank God for that faithful and tried friend, with whom I 
 am now again connected more closely and naturally than 
 before, and whose unexampled, and persevering, and nu- 
 tired kindness to me, I am happy to be able in some poor 
 measure to repay, by undertaking, among my other em- 
 ployments, the education of his sons. May I thus be 
 enabled, hi my humble way, to acknowledge, though I can 
 never adequately return, the many obligations he has at 
 different times laid me under.' 
 
 Kitto's language at this period betokens, not only that 
 he had felt the purification of sorrow, but that, apart from 
 the growth of religious principle, his own observation and 
 experience, stimulated by travel and enlarged by inter- 
 course, had taught him the great truth unfolded by Spenser, 
 his beloved bard,
 
 200 JOURNEY TO THE EAST. 
 
 ' It is the mind that maketh good or ill, 
 . That maketh wretch or happie, rich or poore ; 
 For some that hath abundance at his will, 
 
 Hath not enough, but wants in greater store ; 
 
 And other that hath little, asks no more, 
 But in that little is both rich and wise, 
 
 For vvisdome is most riches ; fooles, therefore, 
 They are which fortunes do by vowes devize, 
 Since each unto himself his life may fortunize.' 
 
 Presence of mind, trust in God, calmness of heart, self- 
 denial, and unrepining adaptation as well to sudden evils 
 as to expected trials, had been gradually acquiring strength 
 within him. Yery soon were they all put into requisition, 
 so that, while their genuineness was tested, their power 
 was at the same time developed, in the midst of pestilence, 
 flood, famine, and siege.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 BY the month of April, the Pashalic of Bagdad was in 
 agitation. The Pasha was out of favour with the Porte, 
 and the Arabs were at war, both among themselves and 
 with him. Several messengers had been sent from Constan- 
 tinople for his head, but none of them had ever returned to 
 report his success. In August, between twenty and thirty 
 thousand Arabs encamped close upon the city ; but Daoud 
 Pasha prudently made peace with them, and for the present 
 they dispersed. The plot, however, was thickening, which 
 ended in a siege. Meanwhile, the plague had reached Ker- 
 kook. It had already devastated Tabreez in the previous 
 year, and now it came slowly and surely down upon Bagdad. 
 Who could watch the stealthy approach of the foe that 
 ' walketh in darkness,' without feeling either anxiety for 
 himself, or deep commiseration for the helpless victims 
 fluttering and trembling on all sides of him? Kitto 
 says : l 
 
 ' . . . But you will wish to know how we are per- 
 sonally affected in the prospect of plague and siege. I am 
 sure Mr Groves feels no personal anxiety on this subject. 
 While he laments the misery which the people have in 
 prospect, he is fully persuaded (and I endeavour to get the 
 same feeling, and do, in limine, concur with him) that we 
 
 'Letter to Mr Woollcombe, Bagdad, February 19, 1831
 
 202 KESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 shall be safe ; or if we are visited by the pestilence or the 
 sword, it will be for some wise and useful purpose. He 
 thinks it would be a very poor return for the protection 
 we received from Almighty Providence during our long 
 and perilous journey, particularly in the mountains of 
 Koordistan, were we, in the prospect of new dangers, 
 to distrust that care by which we have hitherto been 
 preserved. The Resident, with his usual kindness, has 
 offered him accommodation, during either the plague or the 
 siege, or both, in the Residency. In the latter case, I 
 know he is at present averse to accept the protection of 
 armed men, which we should there have, for, besides his 
 servants and retainers, the Major has a guard of thirty 
 sepoys ; bat whether this repugnance extends also to the 
 case of the plague, I have not yet asked him, and cannot 
 do so at the moment. I think, on his principles, it would. 
 Now, for myself, I am afraid that I think more precaution 
 consistent with reliance on the Providence of God than he 
 does. However, I am ashamed to feel any anxiety, which 
 no one about me feels, and, in fact, I do not feel much ; but 
 what I may feel when the crisis arrives, I do not calculate 
 upon. I hope to have within me all adequate support 
 from above ; and, at the worst, or that which would be 
 thought the worst, I trust I have prospects of good beyond 
 the grave, and life has not been altogether so pleasant a 
 thing to me, to give an interest of much intensity to a 
 question which, at most, involves no more than its possible 
 loss. ... I often think of the Library, and the first 
 happy, very happy days of new life I spent there. The 
 outward face of every book then there, and the inward con- 
 tents of many, with the feelings and impressions with which 
 they were perused, seem before me now. Many later 
 things, and books more lately read, I do not so well re- 
 member.'
 
 DEATH OF MRS GROVES. 203 
 
 At length, in March 1831, the plague was officially 
 declared to be in the city. Seven thousand perished in the 
 first fortnight of the awful visitation, the population being 
 probably about 75,000 ; so that 500 persons seem to have 
 died in a day. The malady whetted its edge and widened 
 its circle of operation, so that in April some days witnessed 
 from 1000 to 1500 deaths. In two months, 50,000 are 
 supposed to have been cut down. Nearer and nearer it 
 came entered the English Residency took off some per- 
 sons attached to Mr Groves' household and seized Mrs 
 Groves on the 7th of May. After a week's suffering, she 
 died on the 14th. Kitto was deeply distressed by such a 
 stroke. He kept the boys in his own room, and shared 
 with the women the nursing of the baby. 
 
 When this melancholy bereavement threatened Mr 
 Groves, Kitto again appears in his journal, thus : 
 
 ' Poor nature is bowed very, very low, when I look at 
 my dear boys and little babe, and see only poor little Kitto 
 to be left for their care for hundreds of miles around. 
 . . . Dear little Kitto, I feel for his situation with all 
 my heart. . . . Poor dear Kitto and the little boys 
 are now become the sole nurses of the dear baby by day 
 and by night. 
 
 ' May 12. Up to this day I am well, thank God; but, 
 seeing the ways of the Lord are so marvellous, I have 
 arranged all my little concerns, and put them into the 
 hands of dear Kitto. But poor Kitto is so little able to 
 provide even for himself.' l 
 
 The awful scene is described by Kitto in the following 
 terms : 
 
 ' Mrs Groves was interred a few hours after her decease, 
 and the things she had used were burned. It went very 
 sharply to my heart, to see the corpse of so good a friend 
 
 Journal, London, 1856, pp. 132, 137.
 
 204 RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 brought out, wound up in the way of the country, in a 
 sheet, without a coffin, and laid on a sort of grating made 
 of palni branches, which was fastened on horseback with 
 cords, by two strange men, who took it away for inter- 
 ment with little ceremony. No one followed her beloved 
 remains to the grave, and no funeral rites were performed 
 there indeed, we know not the spot of her interment 
 but our hearts followed her, not to the grave, but to the 
 throne of the heavenly King, where she appears certainly 
 not the least brilliant gem among the jewels of His kingdom. 1 
 
 ' My dear little pupils bore the news better than I ex- 
 pected, after the first impression. Indeed, if we did not 
 know the character of a child's mind, and the transient 
 tone of its impressions, this event seemed to visit them 
 much more lightly than I could wish. But there is so 
 little I have myself felt it bitterly so very litth strong and 
 permanent feeling among men and women, that I know not 
 what right we have to expect it from children. 
 
 ' Mr Groves himself, also, bore it much better than, 
 from the extent of his affection to his departed wife, and 
 her apparent importance to his happiness and comfort, I 
 should have expected. However, there were circumstances 
 to make this dispensation particularly mysterious to him. 
 . . . Since she came here, she had experienced a peace 
 and joy in Christ which she had not before known, and 
 her faith was remarkably strong and implicit ; so that her 
 
 1 ' Dead bodies were often tossed into the streets, and devoured by the lean and 
 hungry dogs. ' He did much, then, who took the dead of his household to the 
 river, and threw them in. 1 In a stable-yard, close on Kitto's dwelling, nearly a 
 hundred graves were opened and filled in the course of a day and a half. ' It was 
 a frightful thing to see the uncoffined dead brought on barrows, or on the backs of 
 asses, and laid upon the ground till the graves were ready for them.' ' Rich persons 
 took the precaution of buying their own winding-sheets, and the monopolist, who 
 sold them at prodigious prices, did not long enjoy the fruits of his greed. Little 
 orphans were running through the streets, crying in despair for father and mother; 
 and grandsires were sometimes left alone without a single surviving relative.' 
 See Kitto in Penny Magazine for 1833, p. 458.
 
 SOLEMN MUSINGS. 205 
 
 husband was led to cherish the idea, that the Lord was 
 ripening her for usefulness, and to strengthen his hands in 
 the work of the Lord. How short-sighted are the best of 
 men, when they leave the proper sphere of faith in forming 
 definite expectations for the future, beyond the general 
 persuasion, that all things shall " work together for good" 
 to the children of God. I know many other instances of 
 similar miscalculation. When we see the children of God 
 become more strongly built up in Christ, and more visibly 
 grown, and strengthened, and fructified in Him, we have 
 concluded them to be ripening for great usefulness in the 
 Church, while, in fact (as in this case), they were all the 
 while ripening for the garner of heaven, which we perceive 
 when they are actually gathered in. 
 
 * . . . If it be one property of faith to believe all 
 mysteries, and receive them, it is not in the abstruse points 
 of theology that the difficulty lies such as the Trinity, 
 Freewill, etc. but to believe and receive such great 
 mysteries as this, that the stroke which separates us from 
 'the desire of our eyes, the companion of our way, the 
 beloved of our youth, and lays the garden of our earthly 
 hope a bare and desolate thing, is intended in kindness, 
 and to work final good. Yet nothing is more certain than 
 this great mystery. This we shall, in such cases, under- 
 stand ere long and this, they who are taken, understand 
 already; and adore, and wonder that there is so much of 
 mercy and of love in that which they once thought grievous 
 and hard. I, too, my dear Marsh, have had losses, more 
 personally my own than this, to sustain ; and I have felt 
 it useful, at such times, to think of the feelings and points 
 of view in which the liberated spirit probably saw the dis- 
 pensation I mourned under ; or, in other words, to borrow 
 the eye of the other world with which to look on the cala- 
 mities of this.
 
 206 RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 ' . . . I confess to you, I did not say a syllable to 
 Mr Groves on the subject of this visitation for nearly two 
 days after it occurred, because I did not know what I 
 could say. To many other men I should have had a great 
 deal to say ; but I rather look to him, to profit by his 
 words and example, than expect I could be of any use. 
 Till, therefore, he spoke himself about it, I was content 
 that he could see and feel how deeply I sympathised in the 
 loss he had sustained.' Again : 
 
 * Whilst the plague was in the house, the chief object of 
 my anxiety was Mr Groves. I was indeed persuaded he 
 \vould be spared, yet I could not but feel the possibility of 
 his being taken ; and when I considered how much he had 
 been exposed to the contagion, it seemed he could hardly 
 escape without a miracle. I have sat for hours watching 
 him, with an anxiety which I cannot describe, and which 
 unfitted me for reading or study of any kind. On the 
 Monday following Mrs Groves' death, he seemed poorly in 
 the morning, and at dinner took his meal apart, which he 
 had not done the preceding day. In the afternoon he 
 arose from his couch, and came, with rather a tottering 
 gait, towards me, and said, " Have a firm and stedfast 
 heart towards God, and be sure He does all things well : 
 I feel the same symptoms coming upon me as my dear 
 wife mentioned. It is the earnest desire of my heart to be 
 where she is, but for the sake of the dear little ones, I 
 thought it might be better to stay. But He knows best." 
 I said something, with tears, as to the consolation I had 
 felt in all these calamities, in the hope he would be spared. 
 He said, " The Lord does wondrously." He then gave 
 me some instructions in the event of anything having hap- 
 pened to Major Taylor, as the plague had been carried 
 from hence to Bassorah, recommending me to write to 
 England to his friends for money immediately, and to
 
 LETTER IN #ROSPECT OF DEATH. 207 
 
 Aleppo, and to wait here till I got answers. His only 
 thought, he said, was for the children and me ; yet he was 
 quite sure the Lord would care for us, for His holy name's 
 sake. The next day he was much better, and now seems 
 quite well. There is no doubt, however, that it was really 
 an attack of the plague, as the Worshabet's 1 attack, which 
 occurred two days after, began with exactly the same 
 symptoms, and which, therefore, no doubt, might have 
 been fatal, but for the great mercy of God to the poor 
 children and myself.' 
 
 Kitto himself escaped, but he knew not how soon he 
 might be prostrated, and, at this critical moment, he ad- 
 dressed a farewell letter (May 1831) to his mother, from 
 which we present a lengthy extract : 
 
 ' . . . So far as I consider myself a dying man, I 
 am led to review my life a little. It has been a striking 
 one, abounding in mercies, and also in troubles ; and also 
 in the elements of happiness : and yet my life, as a whole, 
 has been unhappy ; and, perhaps, this is one reason why 
 I the less regret the prospect of its termination. How 
 little would my grandmother have thought, or how little 
 should I have thought myself, ten years ago, that I should 
 have thus been led about the world to die in Irak Arabia. 
 I am glad now that I am not married. When I put my- 
 self in dear Mr Groves' present case, and think what I 
 should feel in his situation, supposing that he has the 
 plague himself, and knowing that his beloved wife has 
 apprehending, also, that he shall have to leave three little 
 orphans in a strange city, under the care of a deaf man, 
 when I think of this, I am afraid I could not bear it as he 
 does, and I thank God I am not so tried. Yet, if I were, 
 
 1 A Worshabet, or Wartabiet, is an Armenian priest and teacher; a Moolah has 
 usually some connection with a mosqne ; an Imaum is a higher spiritual head ; and 
 a Moonshee is an amanuensis or interpreter. Mr Groves was taught Arabic by an 
 Imaum.
 
 208 RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 perhaps He would strengthen me, as He does Mr Groves, 
 to bear all He might lay upon me. How easy it is, in 
 comparison, for me to die ! As to me, it seems of little 
 consequence to any whether I die or live ; but as to Mr 
 Groves, it seems of much consequence to many, and to his 
 own family, at least, that he should live. For myself, I 
 only say, " Do with me as Thou wilt, only make Thy will 
 mine." In case of my death, you will, my dear mother, 
 perhaps, feel it as a little trial if so, may that and every 
 other trial be blessed to you, in bringing you nearer to 
 Jesus Christ, who became Himself a man of sorrows and 
 acquainted with grief, for our sake. That will be a blessed 
 thing, whatever it be, which brings us nearer to Him, and 
 carries you more frequently to your Bible. As for myself, 
 I have nothing to boast of ; no ground of consolation in 
 the prospect of death, but in the free mercy of Christ. 
 I have been a very great sinner though not habitually 
 indulging in external sin ; but my besetting sins have been 
 within, sins of the mind ; I doubt if my heart were ever 
 truly converted to God, till after I was at Plymouth the 
 last time. 
 
 ' My dearest mother, I hope you will earnestly seek 
 after the salvation of God. I hope you will attend at Mr 
 Hatchard's regularly. I know no minister at Plymouth 
 who is so well acquainted with the way of life. Above 
 all, do not neglect the Bible and private prayer. 
 
 ' God bless you, my dear father, and put your heart, or 
 keep it if it be there, in that true way which your head 
 knows so well Dear Betsy, dear Mary Ann, dear William, 
 believe me that I love you all very tenderly, and would do 
 anything I could have done for your welfare, whether 
 spiritual or temporal. I hope you may all walk with 
 Christ through the wilderness of this world, that by and 
 by you may join your elder brother in that house not made
 
 MINOR PRIVATIONS. 209 
 
 with bands, eternal in the heavens, whither he goes before 
 you. Take care of our parents. Think how much we 
 owe them ; you must do the more for them, now that 
 Johnny can no longer share this pleasure with you. I 
 had hoped to see you again, but God knew better than I 
 what was good. I have a great many things I could say, 
 but I have no room, and my head aches bitterly. 
 
 ' My dear brother Tucker, as a legacy, I give you an 
 article I highly value, my sister Betsy. It is the best 
 thing, next my parents, belonging to me, and I hope you 
 will regard it for rny sake. God bless you both, and make 
 you still more happy together than you have been. I 
 would kiss little Jack Hickerthrift, if I could, but as I 
 cannot, I hereby send him word that he must be a good 
 boy. Tell him that his uncle John prays the Great King 
 in heaven to bless him, and that uncle John wants him to 
 learn the way to come and gather flowers with him in the 
 gardens of Paradise. 
 
 ' And now, my dearest father and mother, believe how 
 sincerely I have ever been and am, till I put on my new 
 being, and then too, perhaps, your affectionate son, 
 
 ' J. KITTO.' 
 
 Kitto must have suffered not a few privations during this 
 forced confinement, but he bore them all with patience, and 
 at some of them he could smile : 
 
 ' After describing so much calamity, on a grand scale, 
 it is a little awkward to descend to minor inconveniences. 
 You would, however, have been surprised to see your 
 friend performing, at least in his own apartment, the usual 
 duties of housemaid, such as sweeping the floor, making 
 the bed, and keeping things generally in order. But at 
 the beginning of the plague, the Jew who did our errands 
 left for Bassorah, and the man-servant, who was much ter- 
 
 o
 
 210 RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 rified at the plague, for Mosul ; then only the two women 
 remained, one of whom had enough to do in nursing the 
 baby, and the other in cooking ; and when the latter died, 
 we had not only all our own things to do, but also to nurse 
 the baby, whilst the nurse performed some of the duties of 
 the deceased servant. Thus, also, no washing could be 
 done not at home, because water and hands were both 
 wanted ; not without, on account of the plague. Our stock 
 of linen was, however, sufficient to prevent much annoyance 
 from this cause, except the occasional necessity of washing 
 a handkerchief or so for ourselves. 
 
 ' Among these grievances, I should not, perhaps, men- 
 tion, in my own case, that of being unsupplied with snuff. 
 When the plague began, I was an inveterate snuff-taker. 
 I, however, did not approve the habit in which I indulged, 
 and had often thought of breaking it off ; but the craving 
 of the nasal organ was so intense, when its supplies were 
 suspended, that I forgot all the arguments against the 
 practice. I therefore was led to determine to make it a 
 matter of compulsion. So, when the plague began, hav- 
 ing enough of the titillating dust to last three weeks, I re- 
 solved to lay in no further supply. When that was ex- 
 hausted, no further supply could be had, and, as I had 
 foreseen, my appetite bitterly repented this determination, 
 while my conscience approved it. So, after I had taken 
 every grain that was to be found, in any hole or corner of 
 box, shelf, or wrapper, I was obliged to sit down without, 
 and, after a few uneasy days, my appetite was reconciled 
 to its want, and, long before the plague was over, I had 
 ceased to desire an article which seemed, two months be- 
 fore, to have assumed the character of an absolute neces- 
 sary. There are many habits with which it is of no use 
 to reason. They will not be talked down or argued down ; 
 they must be compelled ; and however lightly some may
 
 INUNDATION. 211 
 
 think of the exertion necessary to overcome a habit appa- 
 rently so insignificant, I venture to believe, that the degree 
 of fortitude which a man must exert in overcoming or re- 
 sisting such a habit as opium-eating, snuff-taking, or 
 tobacco-smoking, would gain him a high name, if applied to 
 some public or prominent object. But mankind have not 
 learned to estimate mind by its own measure, but by its 
 modes of exhibition.' 
 
 But misfortunes did not come singly. The river over- 
 flowed its banks to an extent ' without recorded or tradi- 
 tional example,' and on the night of April 27th threw 
 down seven thousand houses, and fifteen thousand people, 
 the majority of them already stricken with the malady, 
 lost their lives. Hosts of fugitives from the doomed city 
 were caught by the waters and prevented from escaping. 
 Many of them died, and some gained the heights, on which, 
 though spared by the plague, they perished of want. The 
 house in which Kitto dwelt was exposed to the danger : 
 
 ' The house we live in is, perhaps, as strong as any 
 in Bagdad. The waters have not flowed into our street, 
 though they were only kept out at one end by an accidental 
 elevation of the ground. The water, however, soon found 
 its way into the Sardaubs, where it now stands to the depth 
 of nine feet, and though now stationary, has nearly attained 
 the level of the court-yard. Mr Groves, while dressing in 
 the morning, in the room which he and Mrs G. had usually 
 occupied, observed some dust fall down from a crack in the 
 wall, and at last it occurred to him to remove from the 
 room his things, which mostly lay there. All were em- 
 ployed in this business except myself (who held the baby), 
 and it had been finished but a quarter of an hour, when the 
 arch which supported the room gave way, and the floor of 
 earth and brick fell into the water with a horrid crash. 
 Blessed be the Hand that supported the arch till such pre-
 
 212 RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 cious lives were withdrawn from the danger ! A few evenings 
 after, as I was sitting in my room, I felt the house shake, 
 and was almost suffocated by a cloud of dust, and, rushing 
 out, found, as soon as the dust had settled a little, that the 
 wall of the same room, which had separated it from another, 
 had fallen, and with it a great portion of the roof or ter- 
 race of the house, which it helped to support ; and when, 
 after the dust had subsided, one stood on the house-top 
 and looked down into the very cellars from thence, and saw 
 a confused mass of earth, bricks, great beams, and water, 
 it was affecting to think of the Divine goodness which had 
 been exhibited in these transactions ; for, in this last in- 
 stance also, the servant, with the baby in her arms, had 
 but a few minutes before been in the room, which the fallen 
 wall divided from that of the floor which had already fallen.' 
 
 The reflecting journalist adverts to the proximate causes 
 of these terrific scenes of plague and mortality : 
 
 Bagdad, July 3, 1831. 
 
 ' We have not, I think, to seek for the cause of the ter- 
 rible character it assumed, in anything inherent in the 
 plague : we may, then, inquire what collateral causes gave 
 it this destructive character. The answer is, the inundation. 
 In these countries people have no other resource than to 
 run away when the plague appears. In the present case, 
 however, this common resource was precluded by the inun- 
 dation, as if the Agent of Destruction acted with design 
 (and did he not ?) in unbinding the rivers, that the waters 
 might confine his victims, as in a prison, awaiting execu- 
 tion. Now, within the walls of Bagdad, there is not much 
 room to spare. It is not a widely spaced town, and, of 
 course, in such a case, the danger is greater in proportion, 
 as the population, being thus confined, are more exposed 
 to the chance of contact, and the miasmatic corpuscles are 
 more condensed, longer held in suspension, and more
 
 PESTIFEROUS EFFECTS. 213 
 
 slowly dissipated in the purer air ; and not only, it appears, 
 will the smaller mass of air be more strongly impregnated 
 by the greater quantity of miasma, but the air will be, on 
 the same account, additionally loaded by the foul effluvia 
 of a crowded population, as well as from the decomposi- 
 tion of animal substances left in the streets, including, in 
 our own case, bodies unburied, as well, perhaps, as the 
 thousands buried within the walls, slightly under grouad, 
 in which the miasma of the plague will not readily dissolve. 
 And to these causes may be added, the probable generation 
 of bad air by the action of the sun on the waters, which so 
 widely surrounded the city all circumstances concurring 
 to give a peculiarly noxious character to the pestilential 
 miasma in this case. And when the full operation of all 
 these proximate circumstances was efifected, by the destruc- 
 tion of such a great number of houses by the eruption of 
 the waters, which obliged the survivors to crowd together, 
 thirty or forty in a house in the uninundated parts, the 
 wonder, physically speaking, seems to be, not that five out 
 of seven have died, but that the remaining two escaped.' 1 
 
 The horrors of a siege followed the havoc of plague and 
 flood. After various feints on the part of Daoud Pasha, 
 the Arab Pashas of Mosul and Aleppo advanced against 
 him. They had been waiting at Mosul till the pestilence 
 
 1 It may be added, that the heat at Bagdad is sometimes so excessive, that the 
 birds sit on the palm trees gasping for air. At the tune referred to, in consequence 
 of the inundation, the inhabitants could not retire into the sardaubs or sardebs 
 subterranean apartments, where the atmosphere is several degrees cooler than in 
 the higher rooms of the house. Various devices of funnels and chimneys are em- 
 ployed to send a current of air down into the apartments of a Persian house, as in 
 the allusion in 'Lalla Kookh:' 
 
 ' If Zephyrs come, so light they come, 
 
 Nor leaf is stirred, nor wave is driven j 
 The wind-tower on the Emir's dome 
 Can hardly win a breath from heaven.' 
 
 The embankments of the river are now made more secure, for a few years since the 
 water rose 22J feet, considerably higher than in 1831, and yet no damage was done.
 
 214 KESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 and the waters should subside. Robbers took the advan- 
 tage, and began to plunder the city ; entered Mr Groves' 
 dwelling, in their lawlessness, firing a shot through the door; 
 but a civil answer and some money, about a pound sterling, 
 pacified them. The Georgian defenders of the reigning 
 Pasha having fallen before the plague, no resistance could 
 be offered to the invaders. The Pasha was taken prisoner, 
 and Kitto saw him carried past the door under a strong 
 guard. Yet the crafty governor contrived to re-establish 
 his authority for a season at Bagdad, and held the uncer- 
 tain reins of power till September ; the Pasha of Mosul, 
 who had taken his place, being, in the interval, condemned 
 and put to death. Such a daring act could not be pardoned, 
 and the Pasha of Aleppo finally gathered his forces for a 
 regular blockade. The city, knowing the insecurity of its 
 ruler, was full of disorder, and on the night of the 28th 
 of August, the house of Mr Groves was broken into and 
 partially plundered. The loss fell most heavily on him 
 who could not hear the robbers' intrusion, and he thus re- 
 counts it : 
 
 ' August 29, Monday. I was surprised this morning, on 
 arising and coming down from the roof of the house, 
 where, like other people, we sleep in summer, to find some 
 of the contents of my clothes-box scattered about in the 
 adjoining room and the verandah. My first idea was, 
 that thieves had visited us ; but the servant-maid, who 
 had risen just before, and, on observing the same, had 
 gone to ascertain that the door was safe, as no other 
 means of access to the house occurred to her, was looking 
 on with some terror, being afraid to touch the things which 
 lay here and there, in the persuasion that the devil had 
 been busy about them ; for here they assign the same 
 paltry and mischievous employment to the Prince of Dark- 
 ness as in enlightened England.
 
 THIEVES AND PLUNDER. 215 
 
 ' "We soon ascertained, however, that, whether men or 
 devils, they had not left us empty-handed, and that they 
 had obtained access by wresting out the wooden frame- 
 work of a window, in a neglected room, which looked into 
 that same yard where so many of the dead were buried 
 during the plague, and which, though high up in the wall, 
 they had probably ascended without a ladder (a ladder is 
 here a ponderous pair of steps), the people here being 
 expert in climbing, from their habit of clambering up high 
 date trees. Now, we had no idea that thieves, though we 
 expected them, would come otherwise than openly and 
 forcibly by day ; or else that the house was impregnable 
 against silent robbery ; hence our doors were all unlocked, 
 and the robbery was so silently managed, that neither we, 
 nor the man-servant, who slept on the same floor with the 
 rooms robbed, and quite opposite to them, knew anything 
 of it. I say ice, though, as far as hearing goes, they might 
 have pulled the house down for me. Yet I was not 
 undisturbed, for I dreamt of seeing a man hung outside 
 Newgate, probably at the very time that the robbery was 
 going on, illustrating the peculiarity of my dreams, which 
 I have before had occasion to consider. 
 
 ' On examination, it was found that their principal de- 
 predations were committed on poor me. They seem to 
 have visited the rooms in the order of march ; from the 
 first they took bread, but omitted to take the silver spoons, 
 which lay there quite exposed. It is plain that they had 
 no light with them ; and as the room was dark, not 
 admitting the beams of the moon, the spoons escaped their 
 notice. In the next room, that of the little boys, they 
 found nothing to their purpose; and in the next, which 
 is an open room, between mine and theirs, there was 
 nothing to steal. 
 
 ' The next room was mine. The contents of my box
 
 216 RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 (chiefly of the things in actual wear, for what was not so 
 I had, some weeks before, put away in a secret place) 
 they seem to have taken out to the moonlight to see what 
 was most worth taking ; hence the things in the adjoining 
 open room and the verandah. All my clean shirts, about 
 a dozen, they took, leaving only two coarse ones ; also my 
 hose, sheets, pillow-cases, towels, handkerchiefs, and some 
 flannel articles. The last loss is irreparable, as also that 
 of shirts, which no one now in Bagdad knows how to make. 
 There was one little parcel also, which I had made up the 
 preceding day, and intended to lury on this, and which 
 contained some little articles belonging to my lost one. 
 This they opened, and, taking thence some small valued 
 trinkets of silver and gold, left the other articles strewed 
 about. That they had left any of the contents of this dear 
 parcel I thank them, whilst my heart quarrelled with them 
 for having taken that which they did. A bundle, contain- 
 ing old rags, etc., they also took, and another, containing 
 Persian and other worsted hose, together with a quantity 
 of linen cloth. This was the extent of their depredations 
 on me ; my money was hid away ; and, happily, they did 
 not look farther than my box, else they would have found 
 razors and other cutlery, the loss of which would have 
 been irreparable here. I think, indeed, they took alarm 
 when they had done examining my box ; and hence had 
 no leisure to examine the room fully, or the next, that of 
 Mr Groves. They went there, indeed, and brought out 
 some of his clothes to the light ; but they stole nothing, 
 nor seemed to have examined more than one box, though 
 the others contained property much more valuable than 
 they could find with me. For several hours we thought 
 that I had been the only loser, but it was found then, that 
 from another room they had taken two fine Persian carpet 
 rugs, worth about L.6. Mine, however, is the greater loss,
 
 THE SIEGE. 217 
 
 consisting of various articles of use, and some of that ad- 
 ventitious value, which things derive from having belonged 
 to friends now in heaven. If there were an Englishwoman, 
 a wife, or a sister here, such losses as these I mention would 
 not signify, but one feels it, in present circumstances, a 
 little vexatious ; and then one is the more vexed to think 
 that such things should have the power of vexing at 
 all. My books, which I value most, will not tempt them 
 my money, and more valuable things, are concealed 
 among the ruins of the fallen arches and roofs, and of 
 that which remains they have taken that which pleased them 
 best ; so really there is some comfort in having been robbed ; 
 and, to be a little more serious, I trust I may say that I am 
 enabled to take "joyfully the spoiling " of my goods, know- 
 ing of better goods in possession and prospect, which man 
 did not give to me, and cannot take from me.' 
 
 The siege was continued with all its usual fruits, and the 
 Pasha was reduced to the last extremity ; the population 
 in the town proving as dangerous to him as the beleaguer- 
 ing foe beyond its walls. Kitto's quaint observations are 
 tinged with sadness : 
 
 ' September 11. The siege has now been going on for 
 several months. In such circumstances, my deafness is no 
 small benefit to me. I am not disturbed by the noise of 
 artillery and musketry, and of other commotions around ; 
 and I do not, except sometimes through Mr Groves, hear 
 the reports which are so heart-sickening. Upon the 
 whole, if not told, I should hardly know what was going 
 on, as I do not go out of doors, and life passes with me as 
 it was wont, were it not that we are now straitened in 
 several articles of provisions to which we have been ac- 
 customed ; and if, when I walk in the cool of the evening 
 on the house-top, I did not perceive the flash of mortars, 
 cannons, and muskets, and observe the ascent and fall of
 
 218 RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 bombs. The besieging party regularly begin to bombard 
 the city about three quarters of an hour afte'r sunset, 
 when, in this country, it is dark, though it would not be 
 so in England so shortly after the sun had set. If not for 
 the feeling of their being destructive, the flight of the 
 bombs so high, and their frequent explosion in the air, 
 would have a very fine effect. Most of them do burst in 
 the air. We have to be thankful that we are so near the 
 middle of the city, where the bombs do not often fall ; 
 yet one did fall on the top of a house not far from ours, 
 and, by its explosion, killed three persons who slept there. 
 But, upon the whole, I have not understood that their 
 bombs have done much harm to the city or people ; and 
 altogether, it seems the city has much better and more 
 artillery than the enemy. We often pick up musket 
 balls in the court and on the terrace. The enemy seems 
 to be straitened for metal. The balls, both for cannon 
 and musket, are often of clay, the application of which 
 to such a purpose is quite a new thing to me. Such 
 balls, however, have quite force enough to kill a man, it 
 seems ; though that they have made a breach I have not 
 yet learned. I know not what stronger evidence we could 
 have of the misery of man, and the ruined state of the 
 world, than what we have seen and heard in Bagdad in 
 the course of the year 1831. In Europe, particularly in 
 England, the world is presented under so many disguises, 
 and in features so externally attractive, that it requires 
 no ordinary discernment to perceive the utter worthless- 
 ness, vanity, and hopelessness of all it can offer. She is 
 here naked, and the heart sickens at the deformity which 
 sin has made in her once excellent form of character ; 
 and in the depth of its abhorrence and disgust at all it 
 looks on, is tempted to cry, perhaps too impatiently, " O 
 that I had wings like a dove, for then would I fly away
 
 APPALLING DESOLATION. 219 
 
 and be at rest!" May all we have felt and suffered be 
 made useful to our spirits. And I think it cannot fail to 
 be so. We have known and seen what can never be for- 
 gotten, and which, while we remember, we cannot easily 
 fall into the error, which most do, of mistaking earth for 
 heaven ; and in its legitimate effects on our minds, must 
 lead us to feel as strangers and sojourners in it more 
 strongly than we have ever done.' 
 
 The Pasha, to raise funds, sold his dagger studded with 
 diamonds, and the jewels of his wives. The roofs of the 
 bazaars were torn down and sold for fuel, and a drunken 
 rabble did as it pleased with property and life. Provi- 
 sions had risen in price, and there were all the horrors of 
 a famine. The favourite pigeons of Kitto's pupils had to 
 be killed, and the goats on which the motherless baby 
 depended for milk could not be spared. On Septem- 
 ber 15th, Daoud Pasha fled, and he of Aleppo prepared 
 to take possession. As in Samaria in the days of Elisha, 
 the aspect of things suddenly changed, and, as Groves 
 states, ' wheat, that sold on Wednesday for 250 piastres, 
 sold on Thursday for forty, and other things in propor- 
 tion.' After five months' close confinement in the house, 
 from pestilence, inundation, and blockade, Kitto ventured 
 out, and the appalling spectacle deeply affected him. The 
 old Hebrew sovereign was, in the day of Divine anger, 
 offered his choice among God's ' sore judgments ' dearth, 
 sword, and pestilence and he humbly and wisely replied, 
 ' Let me now fall into the hand of the Lord ;' but Bagdad 
 suffered from all these scourges, either simultaneously or 
 in rapid succession. While the angel of death might be 
 seen standing over the city with his drawn sword, the 
 Tigris was collecting its furious torrent among the hills, 
 and the ' hand of man ' was mailing itself to join in the 
 devastation, the camp-fires of the Arabs gleaming in the
 
 220 RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 distance. The combined results of this resistless agency, 
 acting on a crowded, perverse, fatalistic, and misgoverned 
 city, cannot be easily imagined, and Kitto's narrative is 
 not by any means overcharged : 
 
 1 October 1. I went out this afternoon for the first time 
 these five months, in order to get myself a book or two from 
 Major Taylor's library, to which I understood there was still 
 access, notwithstanding his absence. The contrast between 
 the aspect of the streets now, and when I was last in them, 
 was very striking, and greater than I expected to find, after 
 the accession of strangers which the place has received, and 
 the distance of the plague. The streets I had to pass through 
 are among the most populous of the city ; but I doubt if 
 I met more than fifteen persons in going and returning, 
 except in one part of the way which lay through the 
 bazaar. This desolation was very affecting, when its 
 cause struck the mind ; when it occurred to one's thoughts, 
 that of the busy and anxious population which went 
 through the streets a few months back in their many- 
 hued and multiform array, plotting and scheming for years 
 to come, three-fourths now lay buried beneath the soil 
 they then trod. 1 looked round for the accustomed faces 
 which, from frequent passing, had become familiar, but 
 they were all gone. Most I meet now seem to be 
 strangers. The former frequenters of the streets were, at 
 last, accustomed generally to our European dresses, and 
 ceased to stare much at us ; but those I meet now eye me 
 with the wondering gaze of strangers, and such, indeed, 
 their dress betrays many of them to be. All the time I 
 have been in Bagdad before, I think I never saw a real 
 Turkish dress, except on Captain Chesney, a traveller, 
 who assumed it ; but now, many of the persons I meet 
 have that dress, which, though a nearer approximation to 
 ours than the long flowing attire of the Arabians, is far
 
 DRESS A]ST> ARCHITECTURE. 221 
 
 less gratifying to a European taste ; and the simple red 
 cap, without a folding around, which the common Turks 
 wear, has an unpleasant effect, compared with the striking 
 and stately head-dresses which all, except the poorer 
 Jews, delighted to wear ; these often contented themselves 
 with a little coloured handkerchief twisted round the red 
 cap, which, however, was better than nothing. The red 
 cap, though it forms a pleasing part of the proper head- 
 dress, is a contemptible thing of itself. In Greece, how- 
 ever, and the Western Arabic Provinces, it is often worn 
 alone, here, never till now, the Bagdadians being most 
 rigid turbanites ; a predilection which does credit to their 
 taste, for, after having seen almost every variety of mascu- 
 line head-dress, I venture to pronounce that none are more 
 graceful, imposing, or useful, perhaps, in a hot country. 
 The shops also in the bazaar, or leading to it, were nearly 
 all closed, to as large an extent as in England on a Sun- 
 day. Often, I do not think more than one was open. 
 The men who used to sit there cross-legged, with their 
 stores around them, and smoking their pipes, are all 
 dead. How terrible, how very terrible, these things 
 are to a European, and, of all Europeans, to an English 
 mind ! 
 
 ' I was surprised, also, to see the number of houses 
 which had been thrown down by the inundation. I had 
 thought that the consequences of that calamity had been 
 confined to one part of the city ; but here I saw houses 
 fallen, and others partly fallen, among those which re- 
 mained entire. Some had simply their fronts fallen, whilst 
 the rest remained entire, exposing to view the best and 
 well decorated apartments of many houses. Nothing can 
 present a more striking contrast than the gloomy outside 
 to the gay, and even splendid interior, of the houses in 
 Bagdad. Many of the internal decorations seem in very
 
 222 RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 good taste, however little of it the Turks exhibit in other 
 respects. It is usual to report these people as wanting in 
 taste. I know not on what this imputation is founded, 
 except in the difference of their taste from ours. As to 
 dress, I venture to think our European dresses exquisitely 
 absurd, and can excuse my Arabic friends for thinking so ; 
 but what European ever thought the Arabian, the Al- 
 banian, or the Persian dress absurd ? And, in building, 
 I know no structure more effective, more finely propor- 
 tioned, and delicately turned, than the minars I see around 
 me. If they make no display of taste or skill in their 
 houses or palaces externally, the reasons are pretty well 
 known ; but when we come within, I will say with con- 
 fidence, that in the cities of Turkey and Persia, and par- 
 ticularly Bagdad though I know this is not by any means 
 the finest, or one of the finest, cities there is a greater 
 proportion of houses, elaborately finished and tastefully 
 ornamented within, than in any cities in Europe, not ex- 
 cepting Italy, where such processes are confined to the 
 palaces. Of this assertion, the gracefully arched ceiling 
 of the room I write in is a proof and illustration. It is 
 true, the style of embellishment is different generally from 
 ours, except as in this room, which is a Gothic chapel in 
 miniature. The common style, however, is more light and 
 gay, more of both, indeed, than at the first glance would 
 be thought very compatible with the apparently sombre 
 and heavy genius of the Turks. Yet, I don't know, either. 
 The tame Arabs, who form the basis of the population, 
 are far enough from anything that is sombre and heavy 
 As I looked around, from the top of Major Taylor's house, 
 the city seemed in a great measure laid open, from the 
 falling down of garden and other walls, and I did not, in 
 any one instance, perceive that the least attempt was mak- 
 ing to build up that which was fallen. Indeed, I doubt
 
 EXCURSION DOWN THE TIGRIS. 223 
 
 very much if the city will ever regain its former footing, 
 low as that was compared with its ancient fame.' 
 
 These weary and eventful months taught Kitto many a 
 salutary lesson, and deepened within him a spirit of calm 
 resignation. The crisis had again and again brought him 
 face to face with death. The firmness of Mr Groves, 
 under the trying circumstances, was not lost upon him. 
 There must have been ' great searchings of heart' until 
 unwavering confidence in God was established in his soul : 
 4 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed 
 on Thee.' In October, Mr Groves had an attack of typhus 
 fever, and Kitto again felt no ordinary responsibility. But 
 he persevered and fainted not, committing all to Him who 
 has a Father's heart to pity, and a Father's arm to guard 
 and bless. 
 
 On recovering, Mr Groves contemplated a journey to 
 Aleppo, to confer with some friends there. The design, 
 however, was immediately abandoned. But towards the 
 beginning of next year, the monotony of Kitto's sojourn at 
 Bagdad was varied by an unexpected trip down the Tigris, 
 in company with Sir John M'Neill, who was on his way 
 to Bushire, to another political post. Kitto had suffered 
 much in body and mind during the five months of disaster 
 and evil tidings ; but no sooner did he meet Sir John 
 M-Neill again, than the ruling passion revived, and he 
 recurred to the old topics of conversation at Tabreez, 
 the illustration of the Bible through Oriental manners and 
 legislation. It had by this time become a subject of settled 
 study, and he was desirous above all things of increasing 
 his acquaintance with it. 
 
 The party sailed down the river in a species of barge, 
 and not, as is often done, on rafts resting on inflated skins. 1 
 
 1 These inflated skins are still used for navigation, as they have teen for many 
 ages past Kitto refers to Herodotus and Xenophon as having mentioned them, or
 
 224 EESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 Kitto, never very sure in his footing, fell into the water the 
 first day, and having, as might have been anticipated, a 
 load of books in his pockets, he sank at once to the bottom. 
 But he playfully adds : ' I fortunately pulled a Persian 
 groom of Mr M'Neill's in with me, in return for which he 
 had the good nature to pull me out. This was a trans- 
 action which the light-hearted Iranee always thought of 
 afterwards when he saw me, and never thought of without 
 " roars of laughter," as they say in the House of Commons' 
 reports ; and this, at last, to my no small annoyance, as my 
 perception became too obtuse to perceive where the joke 
 lay which amused him so highly.' 
 
 On one occasion Kitto strayed from the party, and 
 when the boat was about to sail, he could not be found. 
 To shout to him or fire a shot was needless. Sir John 
 M'Neill started in pursuit, and commenced naturally to 
 call after him, ere he recollected that he was only wasting 
 his breath. l After a sharp run,' he says, ' I came up with 
 him, but as he could not hear my approach, he was com- 
 pletely taken by surprise, and when I seized him by t^.e 
 collar of his coat, supposing himself in the hands of some 
 Arab robber, he turned on me a face of such agony, that, 
 ludicrous as the circumstances were, I could hardly laugh.' 1 
 On another occasion, during night, or rather towards 
 morning, the party was attacked by some Arabs, and shots 
 were exchanged, ' without injury to any of the fleet,' though 
 Kitto supposed, from their yelling, after a volley had been 
 fired at them, that some of the invaders had been wounded. 
 
 at least, he says, Major Taylor so translated Herodotus. But in the passage pro- 
 bably referred to, 1. 194, the historian speaks simply of hides stretched on ribs of 
 willow, and calls such vessels, <roTi 'wholly of leather.' Xenophon. 
 however, in his Anabasis, 1-5, 10, speaks of skins stuffed with hay being employed 
 in the construction of rafts. Layard describes the building of those referred to by 
 Kitto. Nineveh, VoL II., p. 96. 
 
 1 Communication from Sir John M'Neill to Mr Eyland. Memoirs of Dr Kitto, 
 econd edition, p. 351.
 
 DILIGENT JOURNALIZING. 225 
 
 ' The cries of the women,' he mentions, ' were very con- 
 spicuous on this occasion, and indeed they are always 
 active participators in such affrays. This I was about to 
 mention as a peculiar disgrace to the " womankind" of 
 this country, but I have just read the account of the Bristol 
 riots l in the Courier.' 
 
 At Zechigyah, Major Taylor met them with the informa- 
 tion that the pestilence was raging at Bassorah, and that 
 Mr M'Neill's appointment at Bushire had been cancelled. 
 They had no alternative but to return to Bagdad, and be 
 again shut up during a second threatened visitation of the 
 plague. Kitto felt more anxiety about this second ex- 
 posure to the malady than about the first. Of the kind- 
 ness of Sir John M'Neill and of the Resident, he speaks 
 in the highest terms. He kept, as he describes it, a ' ter- 
 ribly copious journal' of this brief voyage. 'Mr Groves 
 himself has written a very good journal. ... I find 
 on comparing our journals, that my attention has been 
 directed to many things with interest, which Mr Groves 
 did not at all observe, or did not think it worth while 
 to mention. Moreover, I have been by far the most minute 
 observer of the two, as is, indeed, natural for a little man 
 to be. ... In England, the notes I have been in the 
 habit of making, and shall make during our future jour- 
 neys, if it pleases God to prolong my life, will afford me, 
 I hope, interesting materials for communications to my 
 friends ; though I am not ignorant that the ideal value the 
 mind gives to what comes from afar, would make the same 
 facts and observations, which I may then relate, of much 
 
 1 These riots, unparalleled in the modern history of England, occurred in the last 
 week of October 183L The bishop's palace, the prisons, the excise office, and nigh 
 fifty private dwellings were set flre to, and some hundreds of individuals were killed 
 or wounded. The disturbances arose in connection with some procedure of Sir 
 Charles Wetherell, the recorder of the city, who was exceedingly unpopular, from 
 liis hostility to the Reform Bill 
 
 P
 
 226 RESIDENCE IX BAGDAD. 
 
 greater interest, if they came from Bagdad, in letters 
 smoked and dried, like a neat's tongue, and stabbed through 
 and through, as I suppose mine are.' 1 
 
 Kitto's journal, chiefly scrolled in pencil, is certainly 
 minute and topographical, though there is not much in it 
 of special interest, beyond an account of the banks of the 
 river, the scenery within view, the ruins and villages passed, 
 the interviews with the Arabs, and some scattered remarks 
 on their character and condition. On returning to Bagdad, 
 the family were shut up in Major Taylor's house, the plague 
 having broken out, but not with the severity of the preced- 
 ing year. The city, however, was so deserted, that the 
 very women walked through the streets unveiled. 
 
 By midsummer, Kitto's thoughts were turned toward 
 England. He felt that he was becoming of less and less 
 service to Mr Groves. Mr Newman, who had recently 
 come out to Bagdad, was doing the work of a tutor, and 
 Kitto was not permitted to exercise any of the functions 
 of a missionary. But the object of his journey to the East 
 had been served, though he was not himself aware of it. 
 His mind had been storing itself with the knowledge of 
 Oriental customs, laws, and other peculiarities, and he had 
 seen the importance of these for the illustration of Scripture. 
 The first awakening of his attention to this point was the 
 critical moment of his life, and it is recorded in his journal 
 under date August 3, 1829. 
 
 ' The different modes of raising water .in Russia may 
 not be unworthy of notice, particularly as one of them 
 seems to illustrate a passage of Holy Writ. I do not know 
 what mode obtained, till about half-way between Peters- 
 burg and Moscow ; but there, a very long pole serves the 
 purpose, which is balanced from a beam, placed over the 
 well, by the bucket at one end and a block of wood at the 
 
 1 Precautions used by the post-office with regard to letters from Infected countries.
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 227 
 
 other. The weight of the bucket causes it to descend, 
 when a strong exertion of manual strength is applied, and 
 in the same manner to ascend when strongly pulled, by the 
 assistance of the balance at the other end. A large num- 
 ber of these poles, stretching out their long arms, form very 
 curious and conspicuous objects in Russian scenery. The 
 other mode of raising water is by means of a wheel, from 
 six to eight feet in circumference, which, being turned round 
 in one direction, carries the bucket down to the depth re- 
 quisite to fill it, and then brings it up again. It depends, 
 in a great measure, on the weight of the bucket and balance, 
 but I have tried very few of these wheels which I could 
 turn with ease. As it is a very simple plan, it is also a 
 very ancient one most likely, and I agree with Dr Hender- 
 son in thinking it sufficiently illustrates " the wheel broken 
 at the cistern," in Eccles. xii. 6. In some places pumps 
 are used, but I have not much recollection of having seen 
 a windlass.' 
 
 The next instance occurred at Teflis, where he saw the 
 oxen treading out the corn ; and the third is mentioned as 
 having struck him at Shusha : 
 
 ' Two women were there, occupied in baking bread. 
 The elder of these made me understand, by signs, that the 
 whole establishment, including the threshing-floor adjoin- 
 ing, belonged to her. The baking process is very simple, 
 and I am inclined to suppose it, from the rapidity of the 
 work and coincidence of circumstances, to be the scriptural 
 method of baking cakes. A convex plate of iron is sup- 
 ported on three stones. Under this a fire is kindled, and 
 the dough, spread out into very thin cakes, is placed upon 
 it. Each cake is dressed in a minute or two. Cakes are 
 thus made more or less thin. At Shusha, where I write, 
 they are our common bread. The cakes are as thin as 
 brown wrapping paper, and more flexible, and, as is well
 
 228 RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 known, the Persians use them for napkins at table, and 
 then eat them. They are really very palatable. The na- 
 ture of the process renders turning necessary, which reminds 
 one of the passage, " Ephraim is a cake not turned." ' 
 Hosea vii. 8. 
 
 In Bagdad he alludes to another point : 
 ' When you look at the higher class of buildings, you 
 have an idea of their solidity, which is by no means correct. 
 You see walls three or four feet thick, but they are merely 
 loosely faced with bricks, and the rest is filled up with dust 
 and rubbish. They are, in short, entirely adapted to a 
 climate where it seldom rains. In an inundation of the 
 river, even when the streets are not flooded, the cool cellars 
 already mentioned, lying below the then level of the water, 
 are soon filled, and, in a few days, sap the foundations of 
 the arches which support the rooms above, which then fall 
 in. How easily, then, are such buildings swept away when 
 exposed to the full tide of waters, and how much more, the 
 habitations of the poor, who, as in Job's time, " dwell in 
 houses of clay." ' 
 
 Before corning to Tabreez his attention had been point- 
 edly turned to this subject, for he speaks of a person clad 
 in a certain costume as resembling ' one of the prints in Cal- 
 met's Dictionary.' At length his mind became full of it, and 
 he seized on information wherever he could procure it. His 
 interviews with Sir John M'Neill at Tabreez and Bagdad, 
 and in the brief voyage on the Tigris, were exciting and 
 beneficial to him, and powerfully contributed to give his 
 mind that tendency which ultimately carried him to the 
 great work of his life. Kitto was very sensible of Sir 
 John's kindness, felt at home in his company, and was thank- 
 ful for the varied information which he was so frank in com- 
 municating. Great credit is due to him for the sympathy 
 he felt with the little deaf querist, for the pains he took
 
 PROJECTS FOR THE FUTURE. 229 
 
 with him, for his appreciation of his talents and acquire- 
 ments in spite of numerous drawbacks, and for his readi- 
 ness in at once gratifying his curiosity, and stimulating his 
 mind to future and deeper inquiry. 
 
 Kitto was now ready to come back to England, though 
 he knew not wliat spheres of labour might be opened to 
 him. What he should do on his return was an object of 
 great anxiety, and the subject had been repeatedly talked 
 of with Mr Groves and Major Taylor. ' At Mr Groves' 
 desire,' he writes to Mr Lampen, 1 ' I have opened to him 
 niy views and feelings, and he has entered into them with 
 greater kindness and consideration than I have been ac- 
 customed to even from him.' Still Mr Groves thought 
 that he was becoming low in his aims that mere literature 
 was a sinking of the missionary character, which he had so 
 decidedly preferred. He lamented over such defection, and 
 suspected that his nine years' connection with Kitto had 
 produced little or no spiritual fruit. Another tutorship 
 was out of the question, for no one would be likely to em- 
 ploy him, and his deafness would be held to be an insuper- 
 able barrier. Not hearing the conversations of his pupils, 
 he could not check any froward word or unguarded expres- 
 sion, and was, therefore, incapacitated for one special func- 
 tion of the office. Kitto makes this admission himself, add- 
 ing, however, ' it seems, upon the *vhole, the least repug- 
 nant to my habits of the things I have hitherto tried.' But 
 he was rarely troubled with doubts of his fitness, when any 
 end was to be gained, and his mind turned to periodical 
 literature and an editorship. He was wishful that such a 
 situation, in the first instance at least, might be found for 
 him about his native town. 
 
 ' If Plymouth has its Roscoe, I will hasten to wipe his 
 shoes. Meanwhile, I have a most exaggerated notion of 
 
 > Bagdad, April 6, 1832.
 
 230 RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 the influence of a newspaper, if the editor of a well-sup- 
 ported print, keeping this object steadily in view, might 
 not, in this respect, be of some use. A magazine might 
 do more in the end ; but a magazine does not seem the 
 thing to begin with. There seems no spirit for so spirited 
 a thing, as, otherwise, I think I could lay my finger on 
 the names of several persons who, among them, might 
 construct a very able periodical. . . When I was at 
 Plymouth, poets seemed as thick as blackberries. Besides 
 four known ones, I remember a lady sent me a poetical 
 invitation to dinner, and an artizan wrote a very tolerable 
 acrostic on my poor name. Prose writers are not so com- 
 mon, unless it be taken for granted that a good poet must 
 also necessarily be a good prose writer, which I doubt. 
 
 'As to my own competency for this same editorship, 
 there is not a single if or but in Mr Groves and Major 
 Taylor's admission of it. You will see, by my letter to 
 Mr Harvey, what spirits they have put me into by their 
 saying, that they have now no doubt that I shall be able 
 to get a comfortable living in some of the departments of 
 literary employment. This admission from them seemed 
 the slow and tardy recompense for all my retired, unen- 
 couraged, uncheered, and often opposed exertions in the 
 improvement of my own mind. I shall, perhaps, surprise 
 you by declaring that,, excepting the year in the Library, 
 and excepting that I have had greater facilities in procur- 
 ing books, my opportunities for study have been fewer 
 since I left the workhouse than while in it. I have had 
 less time from my stated employments. Even now, for 
 instance, I write this nearer to one than twelve at night, 
 when every one else has been three hours in bed ; by day 
 I have no time. My employments, indeed, are more 
 pleasant to me than before, but they do not inform my 
 mind. If I were asked, whether, in my secret mind, I
 
 SELF-ESTIMATE. 231 
 
 think myself equal to such an employment, I, who never 
 pretended to more humility than sixpence would cover, 
 would answer instantly / do. And now, at this period, I 
 think I may venture to mention a bit of a secret. My 
 simple love of knowledge, and habits of attachment to 
 pursuits which I venture to call literary, would, I think, 
 have failed under the discouragements I have met with, 
 but the admixture of another feeling urged me on. Then, 
 I know perfectly well, that many thought you and my other 
 earliest friends not justified in their original kindness to 
 me, by any actual possession or future promise I held out. 
 What is more, I soon began to think so too myself. But 
 I thought then, and think to this day, that all the fine 
 stories we hear about natural ability, etc. etc., are mere 
 rigmarole, and that every man may, according to his op- 
 portunities and industry, render himself almost anything he 
 wishes to become. I proposed it, therefore, as an object 
 to myself, to make such attainments to possess myself of 
 such qualifications as might justify my friends to them- 
 selves and others, for their early kindness, and the mode 
 of its exhibition. I think that, small as my opportunities, 
 upon the whole, have been, I can now do this, and shall 
 hereafter be able to do it better ; for I should grieve to 
 think that every day will not be with me a day of some 
 improvement, till the last of my existence an existence 
 which I should desire to be prolonged to that period when 
 the faculties of improvement must fall into " the sear, the 
 yellow leaf." I am now near thirty, a period at which it 
 is surely high time for a man to enter upon his plans of 
 life to endeavour to get into that path in which he 
 desires and intends to walk ; and no one can be more 
 deeply sensible than myself, of the danger of postponing, 
 from year to year, such designs, till postponement becomes 
 a habit till no strength or vigour remains for enterprise
 
 232 RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 for the effort necessary to carry these designs into 
 effect. If, therefore, it be my lot to spend the remaining 
 period of my existence in the class of employments I 
 desire, and which are now admitted to be best for me, it 
 is certainly high time to make the effort, and encounter 
 the risk necessary ; and I think my mind is now wound 
 up to make every possible effort necessary, before I can 
 be led to relinquish these designs ; and if, at last, I must 
 do so, the relinquishment will then probably be final. 
 That I have no " small certainties " in other things, will, 
 perhaps, at this juncture, be an advantage to me. I have 
 long been in the habit, according to a suggestion of Lord 
 Bacon, of noting down the idea of any paper or work 
 which occurred to me. Among the mass of such ideas, 
 there are enough which my mature judgment would 
 approve, to occupy, in their accomplishment, a longer life 
 than I wish mine to be; and new ideas are continually 
 occurring, so that a dearth of matter is the thing which I 
 shall at any time least dread. 
 
 ' What reception I am likely to meet with on my return, 
 I cannot tell. I shall need encouragement from my 
 friends, but, I confess, there are some at whose hands I 
 do not very sanguinely expect it; and this misgiving 
 arises from circumstances which occurred when I was in 
 England last. However, I hope the best ; for I can see 
 no reason why I should not be kindly welcomed to my 
 native land once more. I return under no imputation of 
 blame, under no suspicion of having merged my duty in 
 my own inclinations. If I had any duty that required 
 my stay here, it was the tuition of Mr Groves' sons. I 
 always contemplated to return when this duty should be 
 fulfilled, and now, accordingly, I am retired from it and left 
 disengaged ; the rather, as Mr Groves himself admits, 
 that my deafness precludes me from any occupation that
 
 SELF-VINDICATION. 233 
 
 can be called missionary ; and, I confess, I see not how any 
 one, free from the obligations of detaining duties, could 
 prefer to live in this miserable land. Thus, clear from 
 any just ground of censure in returning, and with a mind 
 improved, I trust, by travel, and stored with images it had 
 not before, I do apprehend I shall occupy a much more 
 advantageous position in returning this time than the last.' 1 
 
 1 1 thank God,' he had already written to Mr Lampen, 2 
 f with all my heart, that I have been able to give satisfac- 
 tion to somebody, particularly when it is one whose satis- 
 faction circumstances have taught me to rate at no common 
 value.' 
 
 There was, as his repeated language implies, one im- 
 pression which Kitto wished most especially to make on 
 his friends, in the prospect of his return to England, and 
 that was, that he came back with no imputation of blame, 
 and under no suspicion of having merged his ' duty in his 
 own inclinations.' He remembered the crisis in Islington, 
 when he renounced his connection with the Missionary 
 Society, and he had not forgotten the emotions which 
 preyed upon him when he returned from Malta, or the 
 cold reception he met with on his last visit to Plymouth. 
 Now, his anxiety was to let it be known that no such 
 misunderstandings or objections had prompted him to 
 leave Bagdad. He knew what he had suffered already, 
 and he was careful to warn all his correspondents that 
 he was not dismissed from any dissatisfaction with him, 
 and that he had not sullenly thrown up his situation, but 
 that the object of his engagement being accomplished, he 
 was at liberty to come home, there being no further pro- 
 spects for him in the East. And thus he opens his mind 
 to Miss Puget an intimate friend of Mr Groves ou 
 September 8, 1832 : 
 
 1 Letter to Mr Woollcombc, Bagdad, July 21, 1832. Bagdad, April 6, 1832.
 
 234 EESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 ' My return is not so difficult to account for, or so un- 
 pleasant to think of, as it assuredly would have been, if 
 I could have allowed myself to think, or if I had been 
 allowed to think, that I had any missionary business here. 
 But as it was admitted on all hands that I had none, and 
 as the only thing I could regard as an imperative and 
 detaining duty, was the charge of the dear little boys 
 which devolved upon me, so when Mr Groves contemplated 
 taking them to England, I had no idea of returning again 
 from thence. This intention of Mr Groves first suggested 
 the idea of return ; and when that intention was altered, 
 in consequence of letters from the friends at Aleppo, who 
 have now so happily joined us, purposing to take the dear 
 little fellows under their charge, the question of my return 
 remained as it was since they (the boys) would then be so 
 very much better provided for in the matter of their in- 
 struction than was in my power. A letter I received from 
 Mr Newman, about the same time, on the subject of my 
 [Missionary] Gazetteer, expressed his impression, that 
 things of that nature had much better be done in England 
 than here, from the difficulty and delay in obtaining the 
 necessary books ; and as things of that nature are the only 
 things in which I could hope to be even indirectly useful 
 to the missionary cause, my way, upon the whole, seemed 
 clear enough to return. I am sure Mr Groves, if he men- 
 tions the subject to you, will say it does not arise from 
 any misunderstanding or unkind feeling in any sense, and 
 I am equally sure his prayers and good wishes will follow 
 me home. It will, therefore, appear to you, and other 
 friends who may have felt some interest about me, in con- 
 sequence of my connection with Mr Groves, that my 
 return does not imply that I have turned back from the 
 class of feelings which led me into missionary connections, 
 or that I have relinquished any principle my heart ever
 
 CHARACTERISTIC LETTERS. 235 
 
 held. I shall ever count the day happy in which I came, 
 for, I hope, I have been enabled to learn much which 
 before I either knew not at all, or very imperfectly. 
 However, I have no desire to magnify my attainments, my 
 feelings, my character, my motives ; and if any think badly 
 of my return, let it be so. If I have gained anything 
 more of the true riches than I brought out, may the praise 
 be the Great Giver's, who has forced upon my heart, in 
 hard and bitter ways truths, lessons, gifts, which, but for 
 its hardness, might have been sent gently down upon it, 
 " like rain on the mown grass." The man does not live, 
 who thinks, or can think, so low of me, as I do think my- 
 self low in all high things.' 
 
 Kitto had become aware, at a very early point of his 
 career, that his letters were freely handed about by his 
 friends as literary curiosities. His knowledge of this 
 publicity naturally prompted him to give them more of a 
 general than of a personal interest. The influence of this 
 motive remained with him ; and, therefore, many of his 
 letters to his Plymouth friends indulge in dissertation, and 
 are a species of colloquial essay, wanting that inimitable 
 charm which belongs to those of Cowper. But the follow- 
 ing epistle is a remarkable exception the affectionate 
 unbaring of a son's distressed heart to his mother. It 
 reveals some of his secret griefs and fears in connection 
 with one whose vice had brought shame upon his child 
 even in its tender years. As he thought that he might get 
 employment in Plymouth or the west of England, he was 
 anxious to pave the way for his future peace by such a 
 preliminary statement : 
 
 ' Bagdad, Sept. 2, 1832. 
 
 ' MY DEAREST MOTHER, . ... It was my earnest 
 desire to be able to live at Plymouth ; but since I got your 
 letter, I feel this desire much weakened ; for it seems to me
 
 236 RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 I am not likely to find much comfort in living where father 
 is. Vexation and trouble is only likely to arise from my 
 connection with him. My poor father ! God knows how 
 gladly I would do all which might be in my power to help 
 him, if he were disposed to lead a quiet and sober life ; but 
 as it is, if I did not know the mighty power of God, I 
 should be altogether without hope for him ; and I do not 
 see, even if it be in my power, what it will be possible to 
 do with him. I think I can only hold myself ready to 
 help him in sickness ; but while he is well, leave him to 
 himself, unless it pleases God to work a change in his 
 heart. I never trusted to his religious-looking letters, 
 while he talked of his misfortunes and sufferings, instead of 
 speaking as a repentant sinner as one who mourned deeply 
 before God over his own pitiable state, a state to which 
 he was brought, not by misfortune, but by sin. He has not 
 been an unfortunate man. The Kittos have been very for- 
 tunate men. God put many blessings in their hands, and 
 they were in a fair way of living with their families in 
 respectability and peace. But they threw His gifts from 
 them, and both John and William, and Dick too, not only 
 ruined themselves, but brought poverty, misery, and shame 
 on their families also. Yet they call themselves unfortunate 
 men! I most earnestly desire my dear father's welfare, 
 and I would do anything to promote it ; and notwithstand- 
 ing the shame he has brought and will bring yet, I fear, 
 upon me and the rest of his family, I have no harsh or 
 unkind feeling towards him ; but whilst he goes on thus, 
 and continues in health, I have made up my mind that he 
 shall never touch a farthing of my money, however the 
 Lord may prosper my own undertakings. The Lord has 
 enabled me thus far to make my way through all my mis- 
 fortunes (for mine have been real ones) and difficulties, and 
 I trust He will continue to do so ; but I shall never feel it
 
 FILIAL RESOLVES. 227 
 
 my duty to let the money I may hardly and honestly earn 
 be spent in public-houses. This is my resolution, which, 
 the Lord helping me, I will keep, let people say what they 
 will ; but still holding myself in readiness to help him when 
 any real calamity or distress falls upon him, and even then 
 I shall endeavour to benefit him without trusting him with 
 money. With yourself, my dearest mother, the case is 
 very different indeed. I am sure you will believe there is 
 nothing I will not do for you which may be in my power ; 
 and as you are now alone, it will be the easier to manage. 
 I hope I shall be enabled to be both a husband and son to 
 you. Wherever I live, it will be my desire to get an 
 apartment, and have you to live with me to manage things 
 for me, and I have no doubt we shall live very happily and 
 comfortably together. But when I come home, and have 
 found out what I ?hall be able to do for myself, I shall be 
 able to see more distinctly the course which had better be 
 taken. That I shall be able to obtain a decent provision 
 hi some way or other, neither Mr Groves nor I doubt, 
 though I may find at first some difficulty. . . . Billy's 
 account of the doings at the King's coronation amused 
 me. The "most splendid arches" he mentions, I hope to 
 see when I come to Plymouth, unless the children have 
 eaten away all the gingerbread they were made of. That 
 the dear fellow is in the way of doing for himself, and 
 getting his livelihood by an honest trade, is a great com- 
 fort to my heart, for I have had many anxieties about 
 him. Now they are over, and God grant I may never 
 have to hear of anything to make me ashamed of him, as 
 I have been of many other of my relatives. I think I 
 never shall. I pray God bless him, and guide him in all 
 that is good and right and honest all his life. I only re- 
 member him as a boy, but suppose he has got a beard 
 by this time. I hope he will take great care in the choice
 
 238 EESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 of his companions. Much of his happiness or misery in 
 this life, if not in the other, may depend on his choice 
 of company. I hope he does not think of marrying yet. 
 One piece of advice I may now give him, which is, never 
 to get a bird till he has a cage to put it in. I have waited 
 for my cage till the season for catching birds is over. I 
 hope now to get a cage soon ; but you, my mother, are 
 the bird for my cage, and you shall sing me there all your 
 old song's over again. Give my love to Billy, Betsy, 
 Mary Ann, Tucker, Aunt Mary, and all my friends, and 
 remember me kindly to Mr and Mrs Burnard. My dearest 
 mother, I am your very affectionate son, 
 
 ' J. KITTO.' 
 
 His connection with Mr Groves had been of signal 
 benefit to Kitto, and it was now about to be terminated. 
 In the private notes of Mr Groves to him, there is much 
 plain speaking, and no doubt it was occasionally needful. 
 Many faults, which resulted from defective training, had 
 to be rectified, and Mr Groves did speak to him with 
 fidelity, if not always with tenderness. He could not bear 
 what he thought Kitto's self-sufficiency, though that self- 
 sufficiency referred not to spiritual matters, but to the 
 ordinary business of life. Nor had he patience with his 
 continuous anxiety to rise, since himself had voluntarily 
 descended, and left all for Christ's sake. One ambitious 
 peculiarity in his character he saw and rebuked, to wit, 
 that any situation he had obtained was usually held merely 
 as a stepping-stone to another, and that the duties of the 
 first were sometimes overlooked in preparation for the next. 
 During their residence at Bagdad, Kitto gave him satis- 
 faction in regard to his boys, and Mr Groves often alludes 
 to it. But it could scarcely be supposed that persons of 
 temperaments so different, as were Mr Groves and the
 
 MISUNDERSTANDINGS. 239 
 
 teacher of his boys, could be at one on all points. Corre- 
 spondence by written documents must also have often been 
 very unsatisfactory, for what is written is written, and it 
 wants those numerous and indefinable modifications which 
 tone or countenance might give it. An epithet has a dis- 
 tinctness on paper which it might not convey when spoken. 
 Kitto's notes to Mr Groves did sometimes so irritate him, 
 that on one occasion he replies, ' You cannot forget the 
 expression contained in your last letter to me during the 
 last time we had any misunderstanding ; if you have, I 
 never can, though I have not, relative to it, the slightest 
 unkind feeling.' The fact is, that Kitto was beginning to 
 despond again, and to reckon any longer residence in Bag- 
 dad as so much lost time ; and he wished Mr Groves to 
 carve out some new path for him. Mr Groves, however, 
 refused to interfere, for he was afraid that his decision would 
 not be in harmony with Kitto's own views. Both men, in- 
 deed, were akin in mental constitution. Mr Groves was 
 of a nature that would maintain its own course, and in 
 this respect his tutor closely resembled him. He was a 
 reserved man, too, living much in his thoughts, and among 
 his own griefs and disappointments ; and the deafness of 
 his younger friend naturally tended to lessen the amount 
 of communication between them. In a letter written a 
 short period after Kitto left him, he confesses 1 'I cannot 
 tell you how I lament over my own folly, in not discharging 
 my Christian service to you, and leaving all results to God. 
 Had I so done, instead of living years with you without 
 confidence or affection, I might have had you given me of 
 the God of grace, to have comforted me in my sorrows, 
 and it might never have come to a separation.' He then 
 commends to him his fellow-traveller, Mr Newman, of whom 
 he says ' I love bun as my soul, for the faithfulness and 
 
 1 Bagdad, September 23.
 
 240 RESIDENCE IN BAGDAD. 
 
 truth which the God of grace has given him.' 1 Kitto, on 
 his part, complained that Mr Groves sometimes made ar- 
 rangements, ' without thinking it necessary in the least to 
 consult him ;' and he adds, in his journal, about the be- 
 ginning of 1832 ' I am persuaded no one can live happily 
 with Mr Groves in a dependent situation. ... I am 
 willing to suppose the fault is in myself, as no doubt partly 
 it is. Yet, I doubt not, he might live happily with friends 
 and equals ; and from my inmost soul do I honour and love 
 him, while I feel most intensely (and the more fully, since 
 I am not singular) the extreme difficulty of living with him 
 happily in a dependent character. Yet it is still good for 
 me to be with him now, and thus far certainly.' On the 
 19th of September 1832, Kitto, in company with Mr New- 
 man, left Bagdad for England. 
 
 1 Did not Mr Groves live to ' lament' 'Alas! my brother?'
 
 RETURN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 THE homeward route of Kitto and Newman was to Trebi- 
 zond, and thence by the Black Sea to Constantinople. In 
 prospect of going to Aleppo at the beginning of the year, 
 Kitto had prepared a journal, and composed a preface, in 
 which he enters somewhat into the philosophy of journalism, 
 and makes the just remark ' that to travel usefully, one 
 must carry information with him, and the information ob- 
 tained will be in exact proportion to the weight of informa- 
 tion carried.' At that period he did not care much about 
 going home, his reason being ' I do not yet feel qualified 
 to enter on the path of action and life I contemplate there.' 
 But his opinion had changed in a few months, and he ac- 
 cordingly bade adieu to Bagdad, ' accompanied into the 
 open country by Mr Groves and the other dear friends, 
 where we took leave of them with tears.' The journey was 
 on horseback, in eastern style, the animal carrying all 
 necessary equipments, and its rider, who had again culti- 
 vated a mustache, dressed in a dark cap of Persian lamb- 
 skin, a Turkish gown, and an Arabian black cloak pre- 
 senting rather a grotesque spectacle. He soon felt what 
 thirst was, and yet, though his throat was parched, he 
 passed the river Dialah, but was afraid to dismount, lest 
 he should not manage to climb up to his horse's back again. 
 His * bones ached miserably,' and his face and hands were
 
 242 RETURN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 scorched and blistered with the sun. The travellers scon 
 joined a caravan of some size '200 mules, 100 asses, and 
 50 horses.' The native Christians of the party were kept 
 at a distance by the haughty Mohammedans. About a 
 week after his departure, he records, with evident satisfac- 
 tion, that a messenger brought him ' memorials from all the 
 dear little boys.' 
 
 He was obliged to have recourse to various shifts for 
 comfort : 
 
 ' I also found this day the use of cording my trowsers 
 tight round my legs, drawing a pair of long English hose 
 over these, and over the feet of these placing a pair of 
 Persian worsted socks, which are inserted into a pair of red 
 Turkish shoes with peaked toes. For want of some pre- 
 cautions of this kind last time, my legs were much ex- 
 coriated. As for the shoes, they are much too large, and 
 thus, also, require to be filled up. When I complained to 
 the man of their capacity, he said they would hold six pair 
 of stockings besides my feet, and six pair of stockings I 
 should find it necessary to use when I got among the moun- 
 tains.' 
 
 He notes carefully the villages through which they 
 passed, and the caravanserais at which they halted; but 
 one day's journey very much resembled another mosques, 
 tombs, ruins, and water-courses. One Mohammedan gen- 
 tleman was very kind to him, and did everything but eat 
 with him and take a pinch out of his box. How they ate 
 with those who would eat with them is thus portrayed to 
 the life : 
 
 ' The men tucked up their sleeves as if going to slay a 
 sheep. We did the same ; and water having been poured 
 on our hands each man's handkerchief serving him for a 
 towel we fell to with our fingers, having been supplied 
 with part of a cake of bread each. This we introduced
 
 DISCOMFORTS OF TEAVEL. 243 
 
 into the stew, taking up as much with it as we could. For 
 the rice, N. and I were accommodated with a wooden 
 spoon, one for both. We were made very welcome, and 
 ate a hearty supper, which concluded with bread and cheese. 
 After supper we washed again with soap. Upon the whole, 
 the Oriental mode of feeding seems much more disgusting 
 in theory than in practice. People may have felt disgust 
 in hearing the process described, but few, I apprehend, in 
 seeing the thing practised.' 
 
 The nights were spent by the travellers as best they 
 might, though Kitto sometimes complains of his fellows 
 one man's feet poking him in the ribs, and another claiming 
 more than half his pillows, which were merely portions of 
 his horse's furniture. They were occasionally taken for 
 Russians, and sometimes for Georgians. The Mohammedan 
 gentleman referred to knew them to be English, but thought 
 England and India the same country. The encampment 
 was usually well watched at night, each man sleeping with 
 nis weapon by his side ; for the thieves would have made 
 no scruple to steal the bed on which the sleepers reposed, 
 nay, now and then succeeded in similar daring attempts. 
 Kitto prudently put away his watch, ' lest,' as he owns, 
 ' its display should get me robbed.' He and his companion 
 did not carry arms, and the people imagined that they had 
 no property but books ' a very safe conclusion for us, as 
 it may save us from pillage.' One person seemed greatly 
 taken with his companion : 
 
 1 This man seemed so much pleased with Mr Newman, 
 that he told me by signs he was a good man, but I 
 imitating my stoop and other infirmities I was a little, 
 crooked, deaf, dumb, good-for-nothing fellow, an opinion 
 to which I nodded assent; but afterwards, when I had 
 given him a pinch of snuff the first Mohammedan in the 
 caravan who has accepted it he signified that I was good
 
 244 RETURN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 also, at which I smiled, but shook my head in dissent. I 
 see in Mr N.'s glass that I really cut a curious figure now. 
 To say nothing of my beard, the skin of my face, neck, and 
 hands hangs in tatters about me, the sun having burnt it 
 up. Whether my new skin will be sun-proof I cannot tell, 
 but I hope so.' 
 
 He complains with some show of justice : 
 ' I do not ride at all comfortably. The men are very 
 impertinent, perhaps the more from our being unarmed. 
 Sometimes they strike my mule behind, which makes him 
 start forward so suddenly as almost to unseat me, not sel- 
 dom getting entangled among the back horses, or crushing 
 against some who may be before. One man, whom we 
 crushed slightly, drew his scimitar, and held it close up to 
 my throat : a joke perhaps, but a joke they would not take 
 with an armed man.' 
 
 An occasional squabble diversified the scene : 
 ' Soon after a grand dispute arose between some of our 
 caravan men and the Persians of the village, in which this 
 young man most hastily mingled. There were most loud 
 language, vehement gestures, pushes, pulls, and some few 
 knocks on both sides. In the heat of the fray, the Seid 
 came down briskly, and acted as arbitrator and pacificator, 
 speaking vehemently also an advocate, it seems, on the 
 side of the party he took, which was that of the caravan 
 men. Both sides seem to look on a Seid as a very fitting 
 umpire and judge, a character which I did not before know 
 at times devolved upon them. We exerted ourselves a 
 great deal ; and one of the most violent disputants, a re- 
 spectable Turk, he laid hold of by the shoulders, and pushed 
 him away, following him in that manner. The occasion of 
 the dispute was the attempt of the Persian Governor of the 
 village to extort a tax on some bags of dates imported by 
 our caravan. This exaction was resisted, and finally not
 
 ODDITIES OF TRAVEL. 245 
 
 paid by our people. Before we lay down, Mr N. conversed 
 with me about pronunciation and metre. He thinks I speak 
 better than could be expected in one deaf so long ; but, 
 among other faults, he endeavoured this evening to teach 
 me to euunciate the final L distinctly. When initial, he 
 says I can do it well enough. I am afraid, however, that 
 in this case the best theoretical instruction will have little 
 influence on my practice. Mr N. conjectures that we are 
 about 2000 feet above the level of the sea, and that a moun- 
 tain, the remotest of three ridges lying not very distant, 
 is about 2000 above our present level.' 
 
 ' Thursday, 27. I have, since I became a traveller, some 
 occasion to regret my ignorance of botany and geology. 
 Perhaps I shall begin these studies in England. Study 
 also is vanity ! We learn many things we think we may 
 have a use for, but never find that use ; and in the use of life 
 we discover we have left many things unlearnt, which we 
 set about acquiring when the occasion of their use is past, 
 and will not return. 
 
 ' Mr N. relates, that I am a great object of interest to 
 the people of the places we have passed through. I can, 
 upon the whole, readily apprehend that a people who 
 have, like the Persians, an exquisite sense of the ridicu- 
 lous, must find something exquisitely exciting to that sense 
 in our many oddities, as talking on the fingers, etc. Their 
 impression of the ridiculous is in this case, however, ap- 
 parently softened to a milder feeling, by the considera- 
 tion, that the oddest of these circumstances arises from a 
 misfortune my deafness. As it is, I suspect that they will 
 frequently, in time to come, relate among their odd and 
 curious recollections what they saw of Numa (Mr New- 
 man), as they call him, and poor me. Be it so. I shall 
 have also something to say of them. It seems they take 
 us for spies.'
 
 246 RETURN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 They reached Kermanshah on the 30th of the month 
 4 the first great stage of the journey.' Kitto gives this 
 month September thirty-one days in his journal, writing 
 down Sunday as the 31st, but corrects himself by calling 
 Monday, October 2. ' The city made but a poor appear- 
 ance.' Kitto went out to see the sights, and surveyed the 
 bazaar with some attention. 
 
 ' In eastern towns, life can be best studied in the bazaars. 
 The artizans seem very industrious. Several seemed to 
 feel it irksome to have their labour interrupted by serving 
 a customer. I went through all the bazaar, in all its parts, 
 as well for the purpose just stated as to make purchases. 
 Notwithstanding my Turkish dress, which is common 
 enough here, they seemed easily to detect that I was not a 
 Turk or Persian. Several accosted me, to whom I replied 
 in English, feeling it much better than to make signs. In 
 the latter case they laugh ; in the former they turn quietly 
 away, finding they could not understand. I should won- 
 der if they did, for not many Englishmen understand me 
 till accustomed to my manner of speech. 1 But when I 
 wanted to deal, I signified plainly that I was deaf, and 
 managed the matter by signs. . . . 
 
 ' Snuff-boxes are here, but no snuff. Wherever I in- 
 quired, and made the sign of taking a pinch, they produced 
 spices and perfumes ; and when I showed the small quan- 
 
 1 The following is Sir John M'Neill's description of his voice: ' It is pitched in a 
 far deeper bass tone than is natural to men who have their hearing. There is in it 
 a certain contraction of the throat, analogous to wheezing; and, altogether, it is 
 eminently guttural. It may be suspected that this is attributable to the fact, that 
 his deafness came on in boyhood, before the voice had assumed its masculine depth. 
 The transition having taken place without the guidance of the ear, was made at 
 random, and without any pains bestowed upon it by those who could hear and 
 correct it. His pronunciation is generally accurate enough as regards all such 
 words as young boys are likely to be familiar with, and as to others which closely 
 follow their analogy, but is naturally defective in respect to words of later acquire- 
 ment In spite of the too great guttural action, his articulation of every English 
 consonant and vowel, considered in isolation, is perfect." Lost Senses, Deafness, 
 p. 22.
 
 PERSIAN CURIOSITY. 247 
 
 tity I had left, they thought I wanted to sell it ; others, 
 that I wished to get it scented. At last one old man, 
 after groping about in a box, found a small quantity in a 
 paper, for which he charged me so highly, that I must at 
 this rate make my present stock serve till we get to Europe, 
 small though it be.' 
 
 Impertinent queries were often showered upon the 
 foreign pilgrims. Mr Newman parried them as best he 
 cculd, and Kitto was often annoyed by such teasing in- 
 vestigations. 
 
 ' I have now regularly adopted the plan of conversing 
 in English when accosted in a way I either do not like, or 
 do not wish to reply to in the more intelligible way of 
 signs. So to-day, when I went to fetch a jug of water, I 
 was accosted by half-a-dozen men, whose countenances 
 seemed to me impertinently curious; so I replied some- 
 thing as Benjamin Franklin to his American landlord, 
 My name is John Kitto of England ; I am from Bagdad, 
 and going to England, at which I hope soon to arrive, by 
 way of Tehran ! They seemed wonderfully edified by this 
 communication, and then, as I observed, seeming to repeat 
 the words " Bagdad " and " Tehran," ceased to molest me 
 with any more questions.' 
 
 Kitto reached Hamadan on the 5th of October, and 
 visited the bazaars, as was his wont, but did not go to the 
 so-called Tomb of Esther, because he could ill afford the 
 present usually paid to the sacred edifice. Before he left 
 the city, he relates 
 
 ' Last night I was amused by dreams of home Eng- 
 land, I should say ; for I am not one of those who have a 
 home in any land to go to. One of the most pleasant ex- 
 hibited me as finding at an old book-stall a copy of a book 
 I read in my boyhood, and of which I have often sought a 
 copy in vain. May I find it indeed, and if I dream, may I
 
 218 RETURN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 find there all my waking and sleeping dreams tell me of ; 
 but this my not over-sanguine mind often questions. Well, 
 I have equally weighed, I trust, the results of both success 
 and disappointment, and have a mind prepared to look either 
 quietly in the face.' 
 
 Sometimes, on the journey toward Tehran, Kitto was the 
 caterer for the party : 
 
 ' Mr K was of opinion that I, even I, poor Pilgarlick, 
 was a better marketer than Kerian. He is of opinion tint 
 ray dress and Oriental countenance impose so far upon 
 them, that, though they perceive I am a foreigner, they <io 
 not suspect me for a Frank ; and my deafness preventing 
 questions, they, unless I tell them I talk English, suppose 
 I am dumb also all which readily accounts for my pecu- 
 liarities without supposing me a Frank, or exposing me to 
 exorbitant charges. My being deaf, and perhaps, in their 
 view, dumb, i.e. a mute, and it may be a dwarf to boot, 
 facilitates my entrance into their houses, which would not 
 be allowed to any other stranger than one under some 
 physical incapacity, which, in their view, is calculated to 
 preclude harm, or which they are accustomed to consider 
 as removing reserve. I therefore volunteered, with these 
 qualifications, to go in quest of fruit to the village.' 
 
 They reached Tehran, the present capital of Persia, on 
 the 14th of October. So Kitto's journal intimates; but 
 he calls it the 13th, in a letter to Mr Woollcombe. They 
 were at once kindly received by the Elchee or ambassador, 
 Captain Campbell. Kitto was joked by the ambassador and 
 by Sir John M'Neill upon his sun-burnt and hirsute appear- 
 ance, his beard being nearly of a month's growth. No 
 sooner was he in Sir John's company again, than he set to 
 his old work. ' I have given him,' says the restless in- 
 quirer, ' a paper of queries, which he has promised to 
 answer me, and which will much extend my little stock of
 
 . INCIDENTS AT TEHRAN. 2^9 
 
 information.' And he gratefully acknowledges, before he 
 left Tehran ' Mr M'Xeill has given me satisfactory 
 answers to my twenty queries, and has promised to 
 do the same to seven more I have proposed to him.' 
 Various incidents of his stay hi Tehran may be grouped 
 together. 
 
 ' Yesterday I was chiefly employed in writing to my 
 friends at Bagdad. After breakfast, I noted the English 
 servants congregating with their Prayer-books and Bibles ; 
 and soon after, Mr M'N. called me into the dining-room 
 where all the English were assembled, to whom Captain 
 M'Donald read the prayers and lessons for the day. I con- 
 fess I entered into much of the service with great satisfac- 
 tion, after having been so long precluded from services in 
 which I could not, from my deafness, have any actual par- 
 ticipation. I feel very comfortable here, after the fatigues 
 and privations of the journey. A journey is like life an 
 alternation of repose and labour, of progression and rest, 
 of good and evil. The pleasure now of having English 
 faces around us, and to me still more of faces I knew before, 
 is a satisfaction which, in the route pointed out, we cannot 
 easily expect again to experience. . . They are all here 
 very kind to me, and put to shame my proud doubt of 
 whether I ought to come when not by name invited in the 
 letter sent by the Gholam, and my proud question, whether 
 they would admit poor Pilgarlick to their table or not. I 
 meant the Elchee, for I had before been a guest at Mr 
 M'Neill's. However, having been freely entertained, both 
 at the Resident's in Bagdad, and the Elchee's in Tehran, 
 I hope to have my foolish thought on that foolish subject 
 at rest in time to come satisfied that, if I have not yet 
 found a place in general society, I shall one day do so. I 
 shall! I shall!' 
 
 Kitto and Newman were both taken ill at Tehran, and
 
 250 RETURN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 in Mr M'jSTenTs absence. Kitto's malady was supposed to 
 be the ague. 
 
 ' The friends here, and Dr Daoud Khan, the Shah's 
 physician, were disposed to set it down for the ague, which 
 I did not myself think it was ; and they adduced as a proof, 
 the shaking of my right foot, which proof I overthrew by 
 the assurance that my grandmother, my mother, and my- 
 self, had shaken our right feet all our lives long, under 
 the pressure of mental or bodily pain. I myself had more 
 confidence in Captain M'Donald, nephew of the late Elchee, 
 than in the Shah's physician; and, indeed, the kindness 
 and care which this gentleman manifested towards us, and 
 the trouble he took, have left on my heart an impression 
 not easily to be effaced. At length, in the height of our 
 malady, Captain Burnes, a gentleman' who had come from 
 India on an exploratory tour, saw us in bed, and pro- 
 nounced our case bilious fever ; and without more ado, or 
 consulting the doctor, he went away for a barber, who bled 
 Mr N. ; but my bleeding, much against the wish of this 
 warm-hearted and decisive man, was postponed out of re- 
 gard to the Khan, who had expressed a particular opinion 
 on the subject. When he came, however, he agreed to my 
 being bled in the evening, though he assured me I " had 
 no symptom to be bled." Accordingly, in the evening, an 
 old barber with a red beard came ; and, strapping up my 
 arm with a leathern thong, produced a rude-pointed in- 
 strument, and performed the operation with no small dex- 
 terity. From that time we both grew better, and now the 
 only thing we want is strength. This we now seem gather- 
 ing, and I trust we shall soon be on the road again. I 
 thought, not once nor twice, that my journey would end 
 at Tehran; but it has pleased God otherwise, and I do 
 thank Him for it for though I trust I am enabled to look 
 at death as quietly as most men, yet there are times when
 
 THE PERSIAN EMBASSY. 251 
 
 death seems a very terrible thing. Miserably wet and 
 wearisome seems the journey before us ; but after this 
 sickness, the spirit seems as it would go forth mad as a 
 March hare, rejoicing in all things it can find under the 
 open heaven. 
 
 ' Our arrival at this place, and kind reception, were very 
 reviving after the privations and fatigues to which we had 
 been exposed during the journey ; nor, for my own part, 
 was I at all insensible to the good cheer which the Elchee's 
 table supplied to me, who had been living so long on 
 nothing but bread and fruits. The party, we found, con- 
 sisted of the Elchee, " one of that numerous division of 
 the human species," to quote the author of Adam Blair, 
 " answering to the name of Captain Campbell," a remark- 
 ably handsome gentleman, with black bushy mustaches, 
 meeting his equally black and bushy whiskers a conjunc- 
 tion which has a very imposing effect; Mr M'Neill, our 
 old friend with whom we voyaged on the Tigris, a gentle- 
 man of much oriental and occidental knowledge, and who 
 has supplied me with a good deal of information on points 
 of which I desired to be informed. He, I suspect, is the 
 spirit of the Mission, though not, nominally, its head. Then 
 there is Captain M'Donald, the nephew of the late Sir John 
 M'Donald, and whose kindness and attention to us during 
 our illness, I have already had occasion to mention. All 
 these are remarkably fine men, and, perhaps, if such were 
 an object, few could be selected calculated to give a people 
 who judge so much by externals as the Persians, a better 
 impression of our countrymen. There are also the ladies 
 of the Elchee and Mr M'Neill, both fine women, and after 
 so long an exclusion from the society of Englishwomen, it 
 was very pleasant to look upon their faces. Mrs M'N. is 
 the sister of Professor Wilson, otherwise Christopher 
 North, the Editor of Blackwood's Magazine. With this
 
 252 EETURN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 lady I have enjoyed more conversation, on the whole, than 
 with any other member of the party, having known her 
 before on the Tigris. She contemplates that I may turn 
 my travels to account in the end. This I do not at present 
 know, nor to what account I could turn them. I regret 
 more and more every day that we came at this season of 
 the year. I hate winter altogether, and I hate travelling in 
 winter more than I hate winter itself. All that I may see 
 between I would gladly forego, to be set down quietly in 
 England at once. My desire to be there becomes hourly 
 more intense ; and whilst I am not blind to the difficulties 
 1 may meet with, and entertain no vast expectations, the 
 spirit with which I do anticipate obtaining, in some way 
 or other, a decent subsistence and a settled home, has not 
 yet failed me, and I trust will not while I need its support. 
 It is wonderful to me what a staid and sober old fellow 
 I find myself becoming, and I am sure you would wonder 
 too, if you could see my little plans of life (not literature} 
 as they are chalked out in my mind.' 
 
 Of Mrs, now Lady M'Neill, Kitto formed a very high 
 and just estimate : 
 
 ' On Friday I went to their house, and looked at her 
 books. On showing me " Adani Blair," she mentioned its 
 being written by Mr Lockhart. I remarked, it seemed of 
 the same class with the " Lights and Shadows of Scottish 
 Life ; " to which she assented, and added, that the latter 
 work was written by her brother. I then had an oppor- 
 tunity of stating that it was not till the preceding day I 
 knew her relationship to Professor Wilson, at which she 
 seemed surprised. She showed me her brother's poems ; 
 and I regretted I had not time to read more than a few 
 passages of " The City of the Plague," a subject on which 
 I feel interested, from having been in the midst of the city 
 of a plague more horrible than that of London. I was
 
 FINGER-TALK. 253 
 
 pleased to obtain " Adam Blair " and a volume of Black- 
 wood to amuse my frequent comparative idleness.' 
 
 His mind, recovering from the lassitude of an exhausting 
 sickness, was in doubt, as it often was, as to the future and 
 its results. 
 
 ' November 1 . Where shall we go now ? I do not know. 
 Travelling, wearisome and irksome though it be, seems 
 paradise when compared with the miseries of a sick-bed. 
 
 England, pray God I may soon be set down in thee, and 
 walk in thee again ! Oh ! oh ! I wish with all my heart I 
 could plump into London at once !' 
 
 On Monday, the 4th November, the travellers left 
 Tehran for Tabreez. The route had all the novelties and 
 all the usual discomforts. Kitto's busy pen narrates some- 
 what jocosely : 
 
 ' N. tells me that, from the habit of talking to me spell- 
 ing each word on his fingers, he finds himself spelling the 
 words in which he thinks ; and when he repeats to him- 
 self a passage of Scripture, he generally spells it through. 
 
 1 expressed a hope that he would not spell audibly in 
 company in England. . . I am fully persuaded that 
 N. thinks his talk on his fingers audible to me ; he often 
 talks to me when my back is towards him, and admits he 
 has often been discouraged, after having been telling me 
 some long story, to find that I have not been observing 
 him.' Yet Kitto hints that his companion sometimes com- 
 plained of the fatigue and irksomeness of talking so much 
 and so often to him on the fingers. It must, indeed, have 
 been no easy task to be speaking in this form every minute 
 to one so curious to know all that was passing, and so 
 prone to put crowds of questions about anything or every- 
 thing that either came into his head, or happened to arrest 
 his attention. 
 
 Tabreez was reached on the 23d of November. Mr
 
 2M RETURN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 Nisbet, who, as narrated on a previous page, had married 
 Miss Taylor, received the travellers with abundant hospi- 
 tality, and his lady and he had, with praiseworthy consider- 
 ation, fitted up a room i-n their house called the ' Mission- 
 aries' Room,' perhaps in imitation of the prophet's chamber 
 in the dwelling of the Shunammite. Mr Newman here left 
 Kitto, and proceeded overland to Constantinople. Kitto, 
 however, consoled himself for his friend's departure as any 
 one that knew him would have anticipated : ' Doubtless, 
 I shall be more independent without him ; notwithstanding 
 his peculiarities, I love him, and find the prospect of going 
 without him more painful than I would have thought.' 
 But at this place he unexpectedly got a new companion, 
 with whom his own subsequent history was strangely bound 
 up, and about whom his first notice is : 
 
 ' Mr Shepherd I have just seen, and, to my surprise, 
 find him an Indo-Briton nothing the worse for that, how- 
 ever. I am led to expect that we have no principle in 
 common, but that his obliging disposition will prevent our 
 coming into collision on any point.' 
 
 It may be added, that Mr Shepherd had been attached 
 to the Persian Political Mission, and was now returning 
 to England to enter into business, and with the prospect of 
 marrying a lady in London, to whom he had been for a 
 considerable period engaged. 
 
 On the first of December the new associates left Tabreez. 
 The weather, being exceedingly cold and frosty, caused them 
 no small discomfort, but Kitto several times eulogises Mr 
 Shepherd as a travelling companion. 
 
 His own birth-day came round, and he moralised 
 
 1 Wednesday, Dec. 4. My birth-day ! Are there any 
 who remember to-day that it is my birth-day ? I know not, 
 but hardly think so. Before my next I must be something 
 that now I am not ; but what, time must disclose. I know
 
 ARARAT. 255 
 
 not by what it has been distinguished more than my feel- 
 ing, for the first time, seriously about my cough. It is 
 now nearly three weeks since I took the cold that brought 
 it on, and, according to the usual process of my colds, it 
 ought to have gone long since. I apprehend its ending 
 in consumption ; and what that ends in every one knows. 
 I was a fool to slight it so far as not to apply to Dr Cor- 
 mick about it. If it lasts to Stamboul, I hope the physi- 
 cian of the Embassy will do something for me. On the 
 whole, I have felt this a very uncomfortable day, both as to 
 health and travel.' 
 
 On the sixth of the month, Kitto obtained the first view 
 of Ararat, and revelled in the spectacle. ' Its grandeur 
 surpasses all description. I made my neck ache in turn- 
 ing my head to look at it, till I felt it was firmly fixed in 
 my mind's eye. . . Great Ararat is of irregular shape, 
 and its top has not that appearance of unsullied white 
 which I have seen in points of inferior elevation. It has a 
 black and white appearance, the hollows being full of snow, 
 whilst the more prominent parts appear in dark contrast. 
 Its blunt and irregular appearance is strikingly diiferent 
 from the regular and pointed cone of Demavend. My feel- 
 ings, as I rode beside these solitary mountains, were more 
 excited, or rather impressed, than I have at any former 
 time during this journey experienced. 
 
 ' . . . Close by Diadin flows a small stream of 
 beautiful clear water, shallow and easily stepped over. 
 This is the Euphrates. I stood astride it a moment, and 
 then passed over. I was never before so near the source 
 of a mighty and famous river ; and my thoughts were many, 
 and to me interesting, though, perhaps, to others they would 
 seem commonplace enough. The water seems to me more 
 pleasant than any I have ever tasted, and I have drunk 
 a great deal of it. It is something to have seen Ararat
 
 256 RETURN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 and the Euphrates in one day! At the fountain there 
 were the maidens of the village drawing water in vessels of 
 truly classical form.' 
 
 What a glorious eyeful for one day the Euphrates and 
 Ararat ! 
 
 At the monastery of Utch Kilissa, Kitto's spirit was 
 stirred within him at the gross superstitions which met his 
 view. 
 
 ' I have said the body of the church is a cross, with two 
 side aisles, or which may be considered as divided into 
 three compartments in breadth, by the square pillars, or 
 rather congeries of pillars, which support the arches. Of 
 these three, the eastern, of course, includes the altar. It 
 is laid with carpets, and hung with pictures ; while the 
 altar itself, in a recess, with a curtain before it, which was 
 withdrawn for us, is adorned with a small picture of the 
 Virgin and Child. I felt disgusted with this tawdry, 
 childish array, the more so, as contrasted with the sim- 
 plicity of the naked walls of the church itself. We were 
 permitted to enter this most holy precinct, and I felt some 
 interest in examining the pictures, most miserable daubs, 
 the execution of which would disgrace a country sign in 
 England. Of Scripture subjects, I recognised but two, the 
 Crucifixion and the Ascension ; the rest were portraits of 
 saints, monks, and bishops, with historical and legendary 
 subjects. Of the legends, I recognised George and the 
 Dragon, and that of the miraculous picture of the hand- 
 kerchief with which Christ wiped His face, and which a 
 king holds in his hands. One of the principal pictures re- 
 presents Gregory baptizing : the converts kneel in grand 
 procession ; a king foremost, with his crown at the saint's 
 feet, behind whom are men, bearded black and brown, and 
 women, among whom is a queen. Above, on a cloud sup- 
 ported by little cherubs, sit the Father and the Son, the
 
 ERZEROUM. 257 
 
 last with a circular, and the first with a triangular glory, 
 which is black or brown. The Holy Ghost, in the form of 
 a dove, also with a transparent glory, is between them, 
 and held as it were by both, which describes, I suppose, 
 their belief in the equal procession of the Holy Ghost from 
 the Father aud the Son. Another represents a jolly-look- 
 ing angel standing on a dead body, apparently of a king, 
 and holding a little child, or, to speak from the picture, 
 a fairy, in his left hand, whilst his right holds a drawn 
 sword, which appears to have done fearful execution. In 
 the upper corner stands the Devil, with his European tail 
 and horns, and black complexion, and goatish extremities. 
 He appears in the act of tearing some papers, which angels 
 are snatching from him. One is in the act of doing this, 
 while another is flying away with the paper preserved. 
 What this means, I know not.' 
 
 On the 18th of December Kitto arrived at Erzeroum, 
 the chief town of Armenia, where he was kindly received 
 by M. Zohrab, the vice-consul, who had been educated in 
 England. 
 
 ' December 21. M. Zohrab was one morning asking me 
 about the Breakwater, l understanding I was a native of 
 Plymouth. I could tell him some things, but not about 
 measures of length, depth, breadth, etc. He inquired, 
 good-humouredly, how it was that I was so imperfectly 
 acquainted with so noble an undertaking at my native place, 
 and was yet so anxious to collect information everywhere 
 abroad ; " but so," said he, " it always is." I replied 
 that, while residing at Plymouth, I was a boy ; and unless 
 for a short visit or two, I had not been there for ten years. 
 
 1 The Breakwater at Plymouth, about which the vice-consul inquired at Kitto, is 
 at low water a mile long. It is forty-five feet broad at the top, and two feet, in 
 some places three feet, above the high water of spring-tides. 3,500,000 tons of 
 stones have been employed in its formation ; many of those in the original mass, 
 flung into the sea, being from a ton to ten tons in weight. The expense to the 
 present time has been about a million and a half sterling. 
 
 R
 
 258 RETURN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 " A difficult question very well retorted," he replied, and 
 then related the following anecdote: As a Turk was 
 quietly smoking his pipe in the presence of an Engh'shman, 
 he asked how many times he might fill his pipe from an oke 
 of tobacco; the Briton, after some consideration, said, "four 
 hundred." Soon after the Turk saw the Englishman writ- 
 ing very quickly, and said, " Since you could answer the 
 question that had no connection with your own habits, you 
 will doubtless find it easier to answer another that has. 
 How many sheets of paper will you fill with an oke of ink?" 
 " Really," said the Englishman, " I cannot tell ; you ask 
 a puzzling question." 
 
 ' Dec. 21, Saturday. We ate, at dinner yesterday, a 
 fish from the Euphrates, near Erzeroum, not unlike a 
 herring in size and taste. Fish is somewhat of a rarity 
 to me since I left England, except at Astrachan, where I 
 ate plenty of sturgeon, which, I think, among the best fish 
 I ever tasted. Since leaving Bagdad, I only got fish at the 
 Elchee's table. Somewhat of a grievance this to a decided 
 Ichthyophagist. 
 
 ' It is agreed, in consideration of Mr Shepherd's state, 
 helpless from rheumatic pains, that we will go in the kind 
 of litter called cajavas, which hang, like panniers, on the 
 mule's back, but are high and arched, and covered with 
 felt. The prospect of such a comfortable mode of jour- 
 neying makes me more willing to set out. They are short, 
 so that one cannot lie down, but may recline or sit upright, 
 and sleep or perhaps read ; this is the way in which women 
 and invalids commonly travel. 
 
 ' Dec. 27. Still at Erzeroum. We were to have gone 
 to-day, but it was found that the litters wanted some im- 
 provement, and the carpenter was sick, and another, who 
 promised to come in the evening, did not. Now, however, 
 they are at it ; yet, to-morrow being Friday, we shall not
 
 SELF-RESPECT. 259 
 
 be able to go, as the Moslems do not begin a journey on 
 that day. . . I feel more and more every day that it 
 will never do for me to mix in company. At the best, a 
 deaf man must always cut an awkward figure in it ; and, 
 from the peculiarity of his situation, he will find it difficult 
 to preserve to himself that consideration to which he thinks 
 himself entitled. It is manifest to me that I can only 
 comfortably mingle in society when I have a right to make 
 myself a place in gentlemanly society ; in all other a deaf 
 man must suffer much. May I be enabled to establish 
 my claim to such a place. My stay here has been for the 
 benefit of my correspondents. The want of books, and 
 anything to do, has driven me to write to them largely ; 
 and now that I have written all my writing, read all my 
 reading, mended all my mending, and bought all my buy- 
 ings, it is high time for us to go. I shall be glad enough 
 altogether when we get off, as I am equally weary of 
 vulgarity on the one hand, and of the consequential con- 
 descensions of patronage on the other. I am tired to death 
 of everything now, myself included. . . 
 
 ' Dec. 30, Sunday. The muleteer, with whom we have 
 stood some days engaged, refuses to go, on the ground that 
 he cannot get lading for all his horses. However, another 
 set of less respectable looking men came with him, with 
 whom we have engaged, and we are still, it seems, to go 
 to-morrow. Our litters look very comfortable, being lined 
 with thick felt within, and covered with it without. Only 
 they look too high, not less than four and a half feet, I 
 think, and I am in fear of their capsizing, which would be 
 a fearful job in any of the terrible mountain passes of which 
 Mr S. speaks. . . I am also afraid I shall see little 
 during this journey, thus shut up ; but, in fact, what did 
 I see but snow during the last part of our pilgrimage. 
 However, I shall endeavour to see all that is to be seen,
 
 260 RETURN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 which is not much, unless some fine scenery, which the snow 
 will, at this season of the year, have much marred. 
 
 ' Dec. 31, Monday. Rose in high spirits for the journey. 
 We were somewhat startled this morning to receive a bill 
 of fifteen ducats, for necessaries during our stay, and in 
 preparation for the journey, and more so to find, among 
 the items, a charge of more than 1 for firing, and another 
 charge for porter drunk at the table of our host. The men 
 were a long time getting our things ready for departure, 
 and, at one time, they came to declare the impossibility of 
 the horse carrying the cages. This arose, however, from 
 their inexpertness in adapting the vehicle to the back of 
 the horse, and, it seems, their ignorance of it altogether ; 
 for, from the crowd assembled in the street to look at them, 
 and partly perhaps at us, I inferred this mode of convey- 
 ance not to be common in these parts. Indeed, except at 
 Teflis, I do not recollect such another exhibition of curio- 
 sity as was manifested on this occasion. At last, about 
 one o'clock, we got fairly into these machines. It was then 
 found, as I suspected, that Mr S., though himself a light 
 man, far outweighed me, and that it was necessary to adjust 
 the balance. This was done by the men tying their horse- 
 bags, etc., to my side of the litter. I had myself with me, 
 in the litter, a pair of little saddle-bags containing books, 
 etc. At last this was adjusted too, and on we went. I 
 found the cage much smaller than" I expected ; within, 
 about four feet high, three and a half feet long, and two 
 wide. Its narrowness prevented me from sitting in the 
 most convenient posture, cross-legged most convenient, 
 not only from its occupying the smallest space of any 
 posture, but also from keeping the feet warm, which I 
 found no easy matter as it was. However, I wore boots, 
 which, even under other circumstances, would have pre- 
 vented my sitting cross-legged. Another inconvenience
 
 THE MUHAFFY. 261 
 
 is, that we ride backward, and the door being before 
 us (open if you please), you have no view of what is ahead 
 of you, and you come upon everything, and everything 
 comes upon you, unexpectedly. The convenience, how- 
 ever, is very great. First, being lined with thick felt 
 within and without, it is warm comparatively, and I felt 
 the convenience very sensibly, when contrasted with the 
 frozen beards and mustachios of those without, who 
 were also exposed to the snow and sleet which fell about 
 through the ride. And though the motion, under certain 
 paces of the horse, was inconvenient, lumping one's head 
 about, yet, on the whole, it was not worse than that of a 
 coach on an English road ; indeed, shutting the eyes, one 
 might almost fancy oneself hi a coach. Lastly, the com- 
 parative repose of such a mode of riding is a very import- 
 ant circumstance, reclining or sitting being assuredly a 
 more convenient posture than sitting astride. If one be 
 dozing, also, he may indulge the propensity if he can, 
 without the fear of a fall. . . With the power of see- 
 ing fully behind, and through a hole on one side, I do not 
 expect to lose much as to seeing. In consequence of this 
 riding with the face to the tail of the horse, seeing nothing 
 but the caravan, the servant who rode behind us, and the 
 tail of our own horse, when he frisked it about, Erzeroum 
 was fully in sight till the usual evening mist arose, and 
 first obscured and then concealed the view. . . In the 
 muhaffy I was soon settled so cosily and snugly, that it 
 was some time before I could make up my mind to exert 
 myself so far as to take a pinch of snuff; and when I 
 had made up my mind, I found myself so confined, that it 
 was with much trouble I got at the snuff-box, and then, 
 from the motion of the cage, it was no easy matter to take 
 one pinch without spilling half-a-dozen ; hence I was 
 obliged to wait my opportunity of momentary pauses, and
 
 262 KETUEN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 actually succeeded in taking no less then three pinches. 
 I had also purposed to amuse myself by reading, but for 
 this, also, it was a good while before I got heart, and then 
 I found it from the same cause impossible to read. This 
 I had anticipated, and, therefore, looking out those pas- 
 sages in Spenser which I had marked as memorable, I 
 proceeded to decipher a line now and then, and learn it 
 by heart. At this rate I hope to have stored my mind 
 with some pleasing, beautiful, and striking images, by the 
 time we reach Trebizond. This, with my snuff-box, and 
 compass to mark the direction of the road, will amuse the 
 time well enough. To-day, the road W.N.W., sometimes 
 due W. . . How full Spenser is of beautiful images, 
 fine sentiments, and striking passages ! It is a pity he is 
 so little known but by name. I shall not think my time 
 unemployed in endeavouring to know him intimately. 
 This few do, because to do so is a work of labour ; yet 
 there is enough of the beautiful and pleasing even on his 
 surface, richly to reward those who will not think it worth 
 their trouble to cultivate an intimate acquaintance with 
 him. Where, in all poetry, is anything more lovely than 
 the lay which some one chanted in the Bower of Bliss 
 evil as its object was ? I am anxious to see what Todd 1 has 
 done with him. It is one of the first books which I shall 
 inquire after. If I am not satisfied, I may possibly, though 
 most unequal, attempt something myself, less elaborate, 
 but more illustrative, than I expect to find in that com- 
 mentator. If Shakspere has found work for a thousand 
 and one commentators, surely there is enough in Spenser 
 for two. Spenser is the only poet I have a wish to deal 
 with in a literary way. A slighting word of Spenser and 
 his Faery Queen goes to my heart.' 
 
 1 The allusion seems to be to Archdeacon Todd's edition of Spenser, eight volumes 
 8vo. 1805.
 
 TREBIZOND. 263 
 
 In January 1833, Kitto passed the village of Gunnish- 
 Khora, and, from the nature of the road, was obliged to 
 pursue his journey on horseback, entering Trebizond on 
 thi llth of the same month. And he thus describes the 
 piospect : 
 
 ' On ascending the difficult mountain behind Trebizond, 
 \\e had a full view of the Black Sea, extending boundlessly 
 ir. front, but rather bounded by Cape Vona on the left, and 
 dape Kereli on the right. Being accustomed to look upon 
 ;he sea with delight from a child, and viewing it now as the 
 ermination of the more arduous part of our journey, I can 
 nardly describe the emotion with which I gazed on the 
 great blue expanse before me.' 
 
 He made his usual visit to all the public places, enjoying 
 the company of the consul and his partner, and lamenting, 
 however, this drawback, that ' there were no ladies.' He 
 witnessed the absurd ceremony of ' blessing the water,' 
 the archbishop who performed it having been ' a woman's 
 tailor formerly ; l ' hypocrisy and roguery ' being, in one of 
 his friends' estimation, ' the only talents necessary to an 
 archbishop more than a tailor.' 
 
 ' We, however, saw the archbishop stand forth, and 
 lifting up his hands, throw a cross, as far as he could, into 
 the water, and, after a short interval, another. There 
 were two men swimming about in the water with their 
 drawers on, this very cold morning, and when the cross was 
 thrown, there was a competition between them who should 
 get it ; he who got it threw it farther into the sea than the 
 bishop had been able. Then the procession left the rock 
 and proceeded to the church, to which we did not follow 
 them. I am not aware that any particular blessing is ex- 
 pected to come to the waters from this ceremony. The 
 Black Sea looked neither the blacker nor whiter for it ; nor, 
 in the expectation of less rough seas after the ceremony,
 
 264 RETURN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 do we felicitate ourselves that our voyage has not taken 
 place before it. To use an expression of the consul, nothing 
 but drunkenness comes of it.' 
 
 Kitto did not sail from Trebizond till the first of March, 
 and before he left it he had prepared himself for enjoying 
 the voyage to Stamboul, by reading the Argonautics of 
 Apollonius Rhodius, in Fawkes' translation. 1 The assist- 
 ance got from reading such a version of such an origiml, 
 must have been of very little service, for the poem is noted 
 for its mere mediocrity, 2 and is full to excess of mytholo- 
 gical episodes, and very sparing and indistinct in its topical 
 allusions. The fabulous voyage of the Argonauts to pos- 
 sess themselves of the ' golden fleece,' presents no lists of 
 places like a descriptive chart, save in a very few instances, 
 and can by no means give such aid and interest to the 
 traveller as the ' Lord of the Isles' does to any one sailing 
 up the Sound of Mull. The poem is in imitation of the 
 Homeric verse, but at an immeasurable distance, though 
 a few lines here and there have some fire^and power. On 
 board Kitto amused himself in studying the character of 
 the motley group of his fellow-passengers, in reading 
 Spenser, and in identifying scenes of actual or legendary 
 interest on the shore. After a brief voyage, the ship en- 
 tered the Bosphorus on the evening of the 7th. When 
 Kitto got up next morning, the scene entranced him. 
 
 ' When I first came on deck in the morning, a scene was 
 presented which I had often heard described, but of which 
 description had conveyed to me no adequate idea. It 
 seemed as if Europe, at the point where Asia looks upon 
 her, had put on all her garments of beauty, and Asia had 
 
 'London: J. Dodsley in Pall Mail 1780. 
 
 1 -lEquali quadam mediocritate. Quintilian. Instit. Orat. Lib. x. i. One of the 
 most spirited portions of the poem is the description of Prometheus chained to the 
 rocks of the Caucasus, the eagle that preyed upon his vitals first wheeling, with 
 heavy oar-like pinions, round the ship, then rushing up to his prey, and again, 
 when gorged, sailing slowly down the side of the mountain.
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE. 2C5 
 
 made herself pleasant to her eyes in return. He who has 
 not seen Stamboul may be said to want a sense a feeling 
 of the beautiful, which no other object can convey. . . 
 The shipping in the harbour are much more numerous than 
 I had been led to expect ; I suppose not less than a hundred 
 merchant vessels. In this enumeration of the objects pre- 
 sented to view, I must not omit the numerous canoe-shaped 
 boats, having low beaks, scudding about on the water. 
 They are very neat, ornamented with much carving, and 
 without any water in the bottom, as is common in English 
 boats ; they are admirably adapted to easy and rapid pro- 
 gress, but easily overset, being very narrow, and having 
 little depth in the water. The house of Leander is no very 
 classical object, notwithstanding its name. It stands on a 
 low rock between Constantinople and Scutari, but nearest 
 the latter, and looks like a mosque or chapel, gaily painted 
 and enclosed by a low battlemented wall. Such were some 
 of the objects which drew my attention ; but a panoramic 
 exhibition only could convey a clear notion of the glorious 
 and beautiful whole. It was not simply the object, as it 
 lay before me, which interested, but the geographical, the 
 political, the historical interest connected with it, and which 
 the more interested me, from my previously studying in 
 Gibbon the account of the last days of the Greek empire, 
 which enabled me to trace out the scenes of that most in- 
 teresting contest, though I suppose the city presents a very 
 different aspect now from what it did in the time of the 
 Eastern empire.' 
 
 The American missionaries, Dwight and Goodell, 1 re- 
 ceived him very kindly. With Mr Goodell he had been 
 
 1 Dr Goodell is known by his version of the Armeno-Turkish Scriptures ; Mr 
 Schauffler by his Spanish-Hebrew Bible ; Mr Dwight, by ' Researches in Armenia, 
 1833.' Kitto was also acquainted with Dr Eli Smith, who was subsequently 
 the companion and philological coadjutor of Dr Robinson in his travels, and 
 recently died, while engaged in a most admirable Arabic translation of the Old 
 Testament
 
 266 RETURN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 acquainted in Malta, and here, too, he met Mr Schauffler 
 and his old friend Mr Hullock. His journal is full of re- 
 marks suggested by the kindness of the missionary family. 
 But his fellow-traveller, Mr Shepherd, was confined by 
 sickness at Pera. During Kitto's stay in Constantinople, 
 as he rambled about the city and suburbs, two rather 
 amusing incidents befell him, in consequence of his want of 
 hearing. First his umbrella got him into danger : 
 
 ' Arriving at Constantinople, from countries farther to 
 the East, and having learnt to regard the umbrella as a 
 mark of high distinction, I was much astonished to find it 
 in very common use there in rainy weather. I should 
 imagine that the example of the Europeans, established in 
 the suburb of Pera, brought it into use, and much oppo- 
 sition to the innovation was not to be expected from the 
 present reforming Sultan. However, I had soon occasion 
 to learn that traces still remained of the distinction, so 
 usually throughout the East associated with that article. 
 I resided principally at Orta Khoi, a village on the Bos- 
 phorus, about three miles above Constantinople ; and hav- 
 ing urgent occasion, one wet day, to go down to Pera, I 
 set out, umbrella in hand. On arriving at the waterside, 
 none of the boats that usually ply between the village and 
 the Golden Horn remained, and I was therefore under the 
 necessity of walking all the way along the road, behind 
 the row of buildings that face the Bosphorus. One of 
 these buildings is a favourite palace of the Sultan, in which 
 he was then residing. As I approached the gate of this 
 mansion, with my umbrella over my head, I observed that 
 one of the sentinels stationed there accosted me in a com- 
 manding manner ; but not comprehending what he said, I 
 went on. Upon which the soldier ran towards me with 
 his fixed bayonet levelled, and without any indication of 
 a friendly intention towards my person. That I took it
 
 PERIL FROM UMBRELLA. 267 
 
 safely that day to the great city, was probably owing to 
 the good nature of a Turk, who was walking close behind 
 me at the moment, and who, on observing the advance of 
 the soldier upon me, snatched my umbrella with violence 
 from my band, and thrust me forward, partially interposing 
 himself between me and the assailant, who then returned 
 to his station, and allowed me to proceed in peace. The 
 friendly Turk, in returning my umbrella, endeavoured to 
 explain a fact which, I afterwards ascertained more dis- 
 tinctly, that it was incumbent on every one to take down 
 his umbrella in passing the actual residence of the Sultan. 
 I had, indeed, observed, with some surprise, that persons 
 walking before me had lowered their umbrellas as they 
 approached the palace, and again elevated them when they 
 had passed, notwithstanding the heavy rain ; but without 
 imagining that this was a matter of obligation. Now that 
 my attention was directed to the circumstance, I failed not 
 to observe, on subsequent occasions, that persons passing 
 on the Bosphorns in boats never omitted to take down 
 their umbrellas as they approached in front of the mansion, 
 which "the brother of the sun and moon" honoured with 
 his presence.' l The other jeopardy was more formidable : 
 ' I was detained in Pera longer than I expected ; and 
 darkness had set in by the time the wherry in which I 
 returned reached Orta Khoi. After I had paid the fare, 
 and was walking up the beach, the boatmen followed, and 
 endeavoured to impress something upon me, with much 
 emphasis of manner, but without disrespect. My impres- 
 sion was, that they wanted to exact more than their fare ; 
 and as I knew that I had given the right sum, I, with 
 John Bullish hatred at imposition, buckled up my mind 
 against giving one para more. Presently the contest be- 
 tween us brought over some Nizam soldiers from the guard- 
 
 1 Penny Magazine, voL iv., p. 480.
 
 268 RETURN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 house, who took the same side with the boatmen ; for, 
 when I attempted to make my way on, they refused to 
 allow me to proceed. Here I was in a regular dilemma, 
 and was beginning to suspect that there was something 
 more than the fare in question ; when a Turk, of apparently 
 high authority, came up, and, after a few words had been 
 exchanged between him and the soldier, I was suffered to 
 proceed. As I went on, up the principal street of the 
 village, I was greatly startled to perceive a heavy earthen 
 vessel, which had fallen with great force from above, dashed 
 in pieces on the pavement at my feet. Presently such 
 vessels descended, thick as hail, as I passed along, and 
 were broken to shreds on every side of me. It is a marvel 
 how I escaped having my brains dashed out ; but I got off 
 with only a smart blow between the shoulders. A rain of 
 cats and dogs is a thing of which we have some know- 
 ledge ; but a rain of potter's vessels was very much beyond 
 the limits of European experience. On reaching the hos- 
 pitable roof which was then my shelter, I learned that this 
 was the night which the Armenians, by whom the place 
 was chiefly inhabited, devoted to the expurgation of their 
 houses from evil spirits, which act they accompanied or 
 testified by throwing earthen vessels out of their windows, 
 with certain cries, which served as warnings to the passen- 
 gers : but that the streets were, notwithstanding, still so 
 dangerous, that scarcely any one ventured out while the 
 operation was in progress. From not hearing these cries, 
 my danger was of course twofold, and my escape seemed 
 something more than remarkable : and I must confess, that 
 I was of the same opinion, when the next morning dis- 
 closed the vast quantities of broken pottery with which the 
 streets were strewed. It seems probable that the adven- 
 ture on the beach had originated in the kind wish of the 
 boatmen and soldiers to prevent me from exposing myself
 
 KLNDNESS OF FRIENDS. 269 
 
 to this danger. But there was also a regulation prevent- 
 ing any one from being on the streets at night without a 
 lantern ; and the intention may possibly have been to en- 
 force this observance, especially as a lantern would this 
 night have been a safeguard to me, by apprising the pot- 
 breakers of my presence in the street.' 1 
 
 On the 14th of April Kitto set sail for England, having 
 parted from his missionary friends at Orta Khoi, with 
 regret ; feeling, as he confesses, ' miserable and irritable, 
 and with few prospects of happiness before him.' So 
 sunken was he in heart, that, unlike himself, he was dis- 
 posed to repress the caresses of a little dog that fawned 
 upon him. But his kinder nature triumphed. 
 
 ' I thought better, and caressed him, poor fellow ! I 
 wished myself in his place ; bowed down by a load of cares, 
 as I felt, and felt how gladly I would have changed mine 
 for any animate or inanimate condition a tree, to grow in 
 the blest sunshine, and bear my fruit ; a dog, to frisk about, 
 and know no care ; anything but what I was. But there 
 was no condition I so much envied as that of the mission- 
 aries, particularly Dwight, married, having children his 
 blest Madonna-like wife his useful, respectable, quiet, and 
 happy life, and his happier feelings, with heaven here and 
 heaven hereafter. . . . Kind people ! God bless them 
 abundantly, for all their kindness to one ready to perish. 
 It tore my heart to part with them, more than the hearts 
 of others were torn, though I saw they were affected, and 
 tears were in the eyes of some ; mine flowed. Dwight 
 vexed me by saying his little boy would not be able to hold 
 me long in remembrance. I would not that anything I 
 love should forget me. They kindly gave me memorials of 
 their regard, which I hold above all price.' 
 
 Ere he left he kissed the little ones all round; and 
 
 1 Lost Senses Deafness, pp. 120, 121.
 
 270 RETURN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 Messrs Goodell, Dwight, and Hullock, accompanied New- 
 man and Kitto to the beach; the first-named gentleman 
 going on board and dining with them. Mr Shepherd, 
 whose strength had been exhausted by the long journey, 
 and by severe and protracted rheumatism, was carried to 
 the vessel ' on a kind of wheelbarrow.' When the captain 
 joined them, he saluted Kitto with nautical freedom, told 
 him ' how highly he regarded him, and that he looked quite 
 a different person in his European dress.' ' I replied,' says 
 Kitto, ' that I believed I was much the same for all that. 
 He said he believed so too. As he thought well of me 
 before, doubtless this was intended for a compliment. I 
 confess I did not feel it as such. He also told Mr Shepherd, 
 that if he did not get better I should take his sweetheart. 
 I told him that my heart was too sour to be sweetened 
 even by a sweetheart, and that, at all events, the lady 
 would prefer Shepherd sick to Kitto well.' The captain's 
 blunt humour was ominous, though no one at the time 
 gave any thought to his prediction. Certainly not Kitto, 
 for he heaves a sigh and adds, ' Now then, " once more 
 upon the waters," God speed us ! I confess that I have a 
 fancy running about in my head for several days, that I 
 shall never land in England.' The captain told his pas- 
 sengers some exaggerated stories about pirates, which so 
 greatly frightened the harmless Kitto, that he jots down 
 in his journal, ' If a skirmish arises and any one is killed, 
 I think it will be myself, and I never cared less about such 
 a result.' The dark sensations of an earlier period were 
 returning, for he was coming home without any cheering 
 anticipations of literary employment and reward. But 
 reading and conversation with Mr Newman beguiled the 
 weary hours on the billow. ' I am,' he records, ' annoyed 
 by the short tacks in traversing the Hellespont. Soon 
 after I fix myself in the sun, the new tack puts me under
 
 ' ONCE MORE UPON THE WATERS.' 271 
 
 the shadow of the sails, and obliges me to shift my posi- 
 tion. I love the sunshine, and whatever man may deny of 
 the world's sunshine, of God's man cannot deprive the 
 poorest and the humblest.' 
 
 The journal of the voyage to London is filled with re- 
 ports of Mr Newman's sayings and criticisms, not forget- 
 ting the ordinary incidents of weather and sailing, and 
 the capture on one occasion of three turtles, ' a glorious 
 day's sport.' The vessel passed near to Malta, the scene 
 of his former painful residence ; yet he says, ' I should feel 
 less pleasure in reaching London than in touching at 
 Valetta. In the last place I have many friends ; in the 
 former few indeed, if any. God bless them for all their 
 kindness to me while I remained among them.' ' A beau- 
 tiful sunshiny day, notwithstanding the high wind. I won- 
 der how it is that Sunday is generally the sunniest day in 
 the week, in every country I have been in, and every sea I 
 have been on.' 
 
 The vessel skirted the Spanish shore, and by the middle 
 of May the snowy mountains of Granada appeared in sight. 
 But the spectacle, like everything else at this period, only 
 tended to depress him, by recalling previous emotions, and 
 he writes as if in bitterness : 
 
 ' They are the same as when I first saw them ; but oh ! 
 how changed am I, and all things in my retrospections of 
 the past, and my hopes of the future. When I first be- 
 held them, they were the first high, the first snowy moun- 
 tains I had seen, and my heart was open entirely to their 
 beauty. I have seen others since, more high, more beau- 
 tiful, more grand ; and they now interest more, from the 
 recollection of what I formerly felt than what I feel now. 
 When I saw them first, I thought, too, that other eyes 
 than mine would soon look upon them and admire, but 
 those eyes never saw them, and are now shut up in the
 
 272 RETURN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 darkness of the grave, and left my own only open to see 
 the desolation of all my hopes and blessings.' 
 
 The captain, mate, and some of the crew, pleased Kitto 
 immensely by their literary taste their anxious perusal of 
 Shakspere and particularly of Spenser. 
 
 ' May 28. I was interested yesterday, and on former 
 occasions, to see one of the sailors engaged in reading one 
 of the cheap editions of Shakspere, which belongs to him- 
 self. I perceived that the last time he was reading All's 
 Well that Ends Well. Verily, it is something to talk of, 
 when our common mariners find pleasure in such books 
 as Shakspere and the Faery Queen. My edition of the 
 latter is in two volumes, and I can hardly keep one for 
 my own use, so anxious is every one to read in it. The 
 mate has read both volumes once through, and yet snatches 
 up a volume whenever I lay it down on deck. The cap- 
 tain has got through the first, and now begins the second. 
 The same man who reads Shakspere borrowed the second 
 volume of me, which, when he had done, I lent *him the 
 first ; but the captain, who wished to read it, made him 
 give it back again. I am really afraid, in dispensing the 
 loan of my Spenser, of giving offence, by my partiality. 
 Now the first volume is vacant, the captain having done 
 with it, yet I am rather afraid of giving it back to the man 
 from whom it was taken, lest I should offend the mate. I 
 trust my Spenser will not generate a mutiny.' 
 
 On June 2, the cliffs of England were hailed, but ' only 
 pro forma ' by Kitto, and * with no very impetuous emo- 
 tions : ' 
 
 ' June 4. Close by land ; two miles perhaps. We saw 
 a white cliff, which, said the mate, was Beachy Head, 
 with Hastings beyond ; but which turned out to be the 
 Culver Cliff of the Isle of Wight, so that we are actually 
 gone a good way back with the current since I went to
 
 LOVE OF FATHERLAND. 273 
 
 bed. Lovely England ! who can view thy beautiful shores, 
 and think of what they enclose, and what thou art, and 
 what thou mightest be, without being proud that he is an 
 Englishman ? I cannot, and would not. And, albeit my 
 heart has gathered sterner stuff around it than it once had, 
 it cannot but feel deeply and strongly in looking on these 
 shores once more, that I had not hoped to see so soon.' 
 
 Still later, and when the shores of England were smiling 
 before him, he inserts in his journal : ' How happy should 
 I be now, were it not for the uncertainty that hangs over 
 my future prospects.' Then nerving himself, he subjoins, 
 in pithy terms : ' God help me : the struggle a death 
 struggle comes.' 
 
 The coasts of Sussex and Kent interested him : 
 
 'Oh, when I look thus intently on the verdant fields, 
 velvet greens, fine trees, and pleasant villages of my own 
 land, the beauties and excellencies of all others fade before 
 me, and I say to myself, what I have often said, " Who 
 that can live in England, would live out of it ?" I return 
 to the land I have loved, and I see few possible induce- 
 ments before me to make me leave it again. I have already 
 wandered more than nine hundred and ninety men in a 
 thousand, and am content to think I have wandered enough ; 
 but if it be not so, let me for the future wander from one 
 of her own pleasant scenes to another, and from one of her 
 bright cities to another. 
 
 ' Passing Dungeness, with its conspicuous high red light- 
 house, and a place which does not seem more than a village 
 to a spectator from the sea, and Hythe and Folkestone, 
 we came to Shakspere's Cliff] below the town of Dover. It 
 is probably a unique circumstance that a place should be 
 called after the name of a poet who had described it. 
 Dover Castle is a very fine object ; as fine as any of the 
 Turkish castles on the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, and finer.'
 
 274 RETURN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 The ship, being laden with silk, was obliged to lie under 
 the law of quarantine in Stangate Creek. Mr Shepherd 
 had gradually sunk during the voyage ; and though he 
 was immediately and kindly taken into the physician's 
 own vessel for better treatment, he died on the evening 
 after his removal. Kitto had been charged by him, in the 
 prospect of his death, with some tender messages, tokens, 
 and farewells to the lady to whom he had been engaged, 
 and whom he was coming home to wed. He sets down 
 in his minute record, that there came to the doctor's ship, 
 at Mr Shepherd's decease, the father and brother of Miss 
 F., his intended bride. The elder of the two was a ' vener- 
 able gentleman ;' and the latter he thus sketches : ' I re- 
 cognised the younger as the brother of poor Shepherd's 
 betrothed from his resemblance to the portrait which S. 
 had of the lady. I did not,' he quietly concludes, 'in- 
 troduce myself to them, but when relieved from quaran- 
 tine shall do so, in compliance with the wishes to that 
 effect expressed by poor S.' How he discharged this melan- 
 choly task, and with what romantic result, will be seen in 
 the sequel. 
 
 It was on Friday, June 12, 1829, that Kitto left Graves- 
 end for the East, and four years all but a day after that 
 is, on June 11, 1833 Mr Shepherd's funeral took place. 
 The body, enclosed in ' a coffin without a plate, and with 
 pieces of rope for handles,' was taken on shore by the 
 sailors, and buried close to the water's edge, the other two 
 vessels in quarantine, the Nymph and the Leauder, wear- 
 ing their colours half-mast high, while the doctor's servant 
 read a portion of the burial service. The piece of ground 
 selected for interment had its uses indicated by what the 
 captain called ' wooden tombstones,' there being only two 
 of them, and both dated 1832. One is tempted to ask if 
 the captain now remembered his prediction, made when his
 
 SENSATIONS ON HIS RETURN. 275 
 
 ship was weighing anchor at Constantinople? The out- 
 burst of his hilarity may have been forgotten by himself, 
 but as it rose to the memory of John Kitto, he imagined 
 and pondered. 
 
 By the end of June the vessel was dismissed from quaran- 
 tine, and Kitto once more rejoiced in being at home in Eng- 
 land. His sensations at this period were afterwards touch- 
 ingly portrayed by himself : 
 
 ' Only those who have spent years in distant lands can 
 tell the yearning of the heart for one's native country 
 the craving, increasing in intensity as time passes, to return 
 to its loved shores to live there a few more years before 
 life closes, and at last to die in our own nest. 
 
 " 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view." 
 
 Distance of either place or time lends this enchantment to 
 the view which the mind takes of the far-off or long-for- 
 saken home ; and not less to the returned exile than to the 
 man long sick, when he " breathes and walks again" 
 
 " The common sun, the air, the skies, 
 To him are opening paradise." 
 
 But the feeling is more enduring ; for if one is at length 
 privileged to return to his own land, he finds that land has 
 acquired an interest in his eyes which age cannot wither 
 nor use exhaust. This is not speculation, but experience ; 
 for the writer can declare that, after some years of absence 
 in the far-off lands of the morning, with little thought or 
 intention of ever returning, and after the first agonizing 
 rapture of greeting once more his natal soil had subsided, 
 he has not ceased, during nineteen years, to feel it as a joy 
 and a privilege, which has in its measure been a balm to 
 many sorrows, to dwell in this land ; and he has experi- 
 enced a constant intensity of enjoyment in the mere fact of 
 existence in it, which had not formerly been imagined, and
 
 276 RETURN FROM THE EAST. 
 
 'vhich only the facts of privation and comparison can enable 
 one thoroughly to realize.' 1 
 
 He narrates to Mr Woollcombe 2 his first experiences on 
 returning : 
 
 ( My poor mother will have it to be a miracle that I have 
 at last returned in safety. I would not say so ; but, be- 
 lieving in a special Providence, as I think you do, I do 
 feel that I owe my life to its protection under all the 
 varieties of danger to which I have been exposed since I 
 left my native land. I desire to be enabled, by my future 
 life, to express the thankfulness I ought to feel for the most 
 undeserved mercies which I have received. I will only just 
 mention, that the first event which happened within a quar- 
 ter of an hour after my landing, was to have my pocket 
 picked of a silk pocket-handkerchief.' 
 
 He also tells this correspondent how, as the result of his 
 eastern life, he felt amazed at first on seeing women walk- 
 ing unveiled, and averted his eyes when a lady passed; but 
 archly adds, ' this is nearly off already, and I run into the 
 other extreme, of looking at every one that passes ; and, 
 verily, in walking from Barnsbury Park to the turnpike 
 gate, I see more lovely countenances than in all the four 
 years of my second absence, and in all my wanderings from 
 Dan to Beersheba.' 
 
 His residence in an eastern climate had somewhat dark- 
 ened his face : 
 
 ' Those who do not know me often take me for a 
 foreigner, and to this mistake, perhaps, my complexion, 
 browned by the various suns of the East, not a little con- 
 duces.' 3 
 
 Somewhat later he writes to Lady M'Neill at Tehran : 
 
 1 Daily Bible Illustrations, vol. vi, p. 256. 
 
 ' Upper John Street, Islington, July 8, 1833. 
 
 Deaf Traveller, I. Penny Magazine, voL iL, p. 810. 

 
 SECOND ABODE IN ISLINGTON. 277 
 
 ' I had understood that the world had been turned up- 
 side down while I had been out of it in the East ; but when 
 I came back, no other tokens of change were at once visible 
 to the naked eye, than new churches, bridges, and streets ; 
 and of the Reform Bill itself, no other indication was im- 
 mediately apparent besides "jReform" inns, coffee-houses, 
 coaches, and shaving-shops. In whatever else the people 
 of all classes differ, in one thing they all agree, that the times 
 are bad. I am sure I believe so ; for ever since I can re- 
 member, I never heard any one say that they were good ; 
 and I question if the Wandering Jew himself, in all the 
 ages he has lived, and all the countries he has travelled, 
 ever once heard that they were. Maybe some simple lads 
 and lasses, during some hours of their wedding-day, may 
 have thought so ; but even they soon found out that the 
 times were bad as bad as they could be, and worse than 
 they ever were.' 
 
 Toward the beginning of July, as if by a fascination which 
 he could not resist, he had established himself in lodgings 
 at Islington. The era of preparation was over, and that 
 of active labour was about to commence. He had little 
 doubt of being able to secure a maintenance if any engage- 
 ment should be opened to him. It mattered not to him 
 what toil it should cost, for he had braced himself 
 
 ' To scorn delights and live laborious days." 
 
 He had already advised his friends in Plymouth of his 
 return, asking their assistance in securing for him some 
 remunerative employment, and Mr Lampen and Mr Wooll- 
 combe at once responded to the earnest appeal of the re- 
 turned wanderer.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 LONDON FIRST LITERARY ENGAGEMENTS 
 MARRIAGE PICTORIAL BIBLE. 
 
 AND what had Kitto gained by those travels, from which 
 he was now resting ? 
 
 At an early period in his career, and when he was 
 dreaming of the future, rather than earnestly training 
 himself for it, he had freely expressed his opinion as to 
 the theoretic advantages of travel. He hoped to visit the 
 continent and some 'interesting parts of the island,' in 
 company with some person who would not think him an 
 incumbrance. ' Important advantage would accrue to me 
 from travel/ he remarks, ' viz., it will enable me to write 
 with the confidence of personal observation, of the charac- 
 ters and natural and artificial productions of other parts of 
 Britain and Europe.' 1 This was but a modest desire, for 
 he had then only a limited object in view. Any one who 
 had seen him a few months before he made this statement, 
 within the walls of the workhouse, and plying his trade with 
 undisturbed assiduity, would have thought him as firmly 
 fixed to Plymouth for life, as the limpets to the rocks on 
 its shores. He never travelled, indeed, as he originally 
 contemplated, for he passed through various foreign coun- 
 tries, not to see them, but only to reach a distant point 
 
 t Letter to Mr Harvey, Public Library, Plymouth, August 7, 1823.
 
 REFLECTIONS ON TRAVEL. 279 
 
 beyond them. He never was a traveller in the same sense 
 in which Robinson and Livingstone are travellers men 
 who make a journey with an avowed and definite geogra- 
 phical purpose. He sailed and rode to the East in order 
 to get to Bagdad, and he rode and sailed to the West 
 in order to get to London. But his experiences of travel- 
 ling cooled his earlier ardour. Though he prized the 
 results, he did not relish the process of obtaining them. 
 ' To have travelled is a very fine thing, but it is not a very 
 fine thing to travel' is his language to Mr Harvey. 1 
 Three months afterwards he declares to Mr Burnard 2 more 
 emphatically : ' I hate action, I hate travel, unless, in- 
 deed, I must travel ; and by and by I must.' Yet, on his 
 progress homeward, he makes another revelation to Mr 
 "Woollcombe : ' As to travelling, it will be borne in mind, 
 that I am not travelling as a traveller ; and in the way I 
 have travelled, I never would travel, except on business, 
 again. If I do not marry, it by no means appears to me 
 that I may not travel again. But my ideas of future travel 
 are vague and remote, and at all events will in a great 
 measure depend, in their consequences, on the direction 
 given to the current of my life on reaching England.' 3 
 
 Though a dark hour sometimes passed over him, as 
 toward the end of his residence in Bagdad, the moral 
 influence of his travels was certainly healthful. His own 
 acknowledgment in his Journal, under March 12, 1831, 
 is 
 
 ' I assured Mr Pfander that, though there were some 
 circumstances that did not quite satisfy me in coming 
 abroad, I rejoiced, upon the whole, in having done so ; for 
 this one reason among others, that my love of mankind 
 has been more extended than under any other circum- 
 
 1 Bagdad, September 25, 1831. * Bagdad, December, 183L 
 Tehran, October 30, 1832.
 
 280 LONDON. 
 
 stances it probably would have been. When I left Eng- 
 land, I had a general disgust, if uot contempt, toward 
 mankind, fully including myself ; I despised men for being 
 what I thought they were, and I hated myself for being 
 like them. My personal associations, even with religious 
 people, had not been happy, nor had much tended to raise 
 my respect and love for their character. But the many 
 truly excellent and amiable individuals I have become 
 acquainted with since I left England, have brought round 
 my feeling to a more healthy tone.' 
 
 Kitto had also made no little intellectual gain by his 
 journeyings and residence in the East. The extracts from 
 his Letters and Journals, which fill so much of the three 
 preceding chapters, sufficiently attest his powers of obser- 
 vation, and his habits of reflection. Whatever he saw in- 
 terested him; whatever befell him excited inquiry. His 
 eye was ever busy, and was never ' satisfied with seeing ;' 
 nay, it had acquired a special dexterity in taking in a 
 large panorama, and photographing an indelible image of 
 it on the memory. Customs and habits so different from 
 those of England arrested his attention, and led him to 
 study humanity under ' new aspects of society and forms 
 of life.' His mind was enlarged, and his stock of informa- 
 tion greatly increased. ' Facts and images ' were laid up, 
 and he distinctly knew ' some things which the untravelled 
 can only conceive.' 1 In spite of his deafness, he had made 
 himself acquainted with all he wished to know. Indeed, 
 the appetite of his youth retained its eagerness in his ma- 
 turer years, for he thus limns himself in a miniature por- 
 trait of his boyhood. 
 
 ' At a very early period of life, and in the midst of un- 
 toward circumstances, and of occupations which left ine 
 the least possible leisure, I was a diligent collector of all 
 
 1 Letter to Mr WooUcombe, Bagdad, December 15, 1831.
 
 EARLY STOLEN STUDIES. 2S1 
 
 the odds and ends of knowledge that fell in my way. I 
 read all the bills that were posted on dead walls and empty 
 houses. I studied all the title-pages and open leaves that 
 appeared in the windows of booksellers' shops ; joyfully 
 hailing the day when the windows of a particular shop were 
 cleaned, and a change of books and pictures introduced. 
 Sometimes, also, when I was allowed a little leisure, I 
 brushed myself up as smart as possible, and ventured so far 
 on the respectability of my appearance as to make the tour 
 of the book-stalls, pausing at each ; and, after dallying a 
 little " about it and about it," taking up some humble 
 looking volume, and devouring so much as was possible of 
 the information it afforded, with the utmost intensity of ap- 
 petite, and all the excitement that attends a stolen enjoy- 
 ment. In process of time, I knew well the state of every 
 book-stall, and could tell at a glance what books had been 
 sold, and what additions had been made since my last visit; 
 and many severer troubles in my subsequent life have made 
 my heart ache less than sometimes to find a book gone, 
 from which I had calculated on gleaning more information 
 on a second occasion than my first spell at it had enabled 
 me to obtain. I knew perfectly the dispositions of every 
 proprietor of a stall in the three towns of Plymouth, Devon- 
 port, and Stonehouse, and could tell to a minute how long 
 I might dabble at his books before he would look sour; and 
 in process of time, most of the stall-men, on their part, be- 
 came habituated to me, and came to regard me as a tole- 
 rated nuisance, or as one of the customary inconveniences 
 incident to the trade.' 1 
 
 What the youth had been, the man was still, but the 
 curious boy had become the inquisitive traveller ; gratify- 
 ing the same desires on a larger scale, and with propor- 
 tionate results. He had ' laid up in store against the time 
 
 ? Penny Magazine, vol. iv., p. 171.
 
 282 FIRST LITERARY ENGAGEMENTS. 
 
 to come,' and that time was now at hand. He had also 
 been qualifying himself for literary labour, for his pen had 
 not been idle at Bagdad. He tells Mr Harvey, 25th Sep- 
 tember 1831, that he was ' preparing an account of the 
 cities, towns, etc., between the Mediterranean and the Indus, 
 which claim the attention of a missionary,' and that, for 
 this purpose, he was in correspondence with missionaries 
 in Armenia and Syria, having, at the same time, collected 
 nearly all the information which Major Taylor's library 
 could supply, and being also in daily expectation of books 
 from England. Hosts of Essays, Tales, Dialogues, Dis- 
 quisitions, Allegories, and Sketches, had also been thrown 
 off by him. 1 Shut out from human intercourse, he was 
 necessitated to give shape to his ideas, and body forth his 
 imaginings, so that by the time he returned to England, 
 he had acquired great facility of composition, and found it 
 a comparatively easy matter to give expression to his teem- 
 ing thoughts and reminiscences, 
 
 On being settled down in London, Kitto, as in time 
 past, displayed uncommon ingenuity in devising plans for 
 himself, though, as was usual with him, he was apt to over- 
 look their feasibility. What appeared most plausible to his 
 own mind, sometimes failed to commend itself to the judg- 
 ment of others. But if one scheme failed, he had no hesi- 
 tation in proposing or adopting another. Anything rather 
 than rely on bounty, or be abandoned to total idleness. 
 ' Language would fail to describe all the anxieties I felt on 
 
 1 The following are the titles of some of his compositions, which range over a great 
 variety of topics The Seals of the Kaliphs; On the Mendicant Orders; the Astro- 
 loger; Calligraphy; Mahomet All Khan ; The Principle ; Maria Bell; The Modern 
 Student; Ancient Student; Sights and Insights; the Silver Spoon ; The Clirys- 
 tal; The Angel of the Ruby; Hot-Cross Buns; Recollections and Collections 
 about Malta; Language; On a Future State of Being; Chosrou; Plague of Bag- 
 dad; Childhood; Hubert and Eleanora ; The Stars; Geographical Queries; Leila; 
 Bastan; London in 2417 ; the Young Astrologer ; Blindness; Persia; Farewell to 
 Malta, a Poem ; Lylan ; Hebrew names of God, etc. etc.
 
 THE PENNY MAGAZINE. 283 
 
 my return about a temporal provision. Many dear plans 
 of my own were in a short time blown to atoms, and I was 
 sinking down into despondency.' 1 But he was, sooner than 
 he expected, relieved from his distress, and he entered at 
 once on that career which grew in brightness as it extended 
 in usefulness, till the gloom of the sepulchre was suddenly 
 thrown over it. 
 
 Through the influence of his friends, Kitto "was brought 
 under the notice of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful 
 Knowledge, of which Lord Brougham, then Lord Chan- 
 cellor, was president, Sir Henry Parnell, and afterwards 
 Lord John Russell, vice-president, with a large committee 
 of high and honoured names in London and throughout 
 the provinces. In July, Mr Woollcombe gave him a note 
 of introduction to Mr Coates, the secretary, recommending 
 him for employment. On the 18th of that mouth, he waited 
 on Mr Coates, and handed him a written proposal to give 
 a brief account of his travels, in the shape of weekly num- 
 bers, like the Penny Magazine, or of volumes in the Library 
 of Entertaining Knowledge. Mr Coates told him that the 
 latter alternative could not be adopted, but referred him 
 to Mr Charles Knight, the editor and publisher of these 
 popular serials. On the 19th he wrote to Mr Knight, 
 stating his willingness to make up papers from his journals 
 for the Penny Magazine, and on the 20th he had a personal 
 interview. After the exchange of a few letters, and the 
 presentation of a few approved specimens of his composi- 
 tion, he became a regular contributor to the Penny Maga- 
 zine, a rich collection of miscellanies, read, it was sup- 
 posed, by a million of people in England, besides being 
 reprinted in America, and translated into French, German, 
 and Dutch. 
 
 The rate of remuneration was a guinea and a half per 
 
 1 Letter to Lady M 'Neill, Tehran. London, August 12, 1833.
 
 284 FIRST LITERARY ENGAGEMENTS. 
 
 page, but he was limited to two or three columns weekly. 
 His first two contributions appeared in the same number 
 for the 10th of August one a collection of Arabian pro- 
 verbs, and the other a paper introductory to his travels. Its 
 title is ' The Deaf Traveller,' and it is headed with the 
 following editorial explanation : ' We have much pleasure 
 in placing before our readers the first of a series of papers, 
 which, we think, will be found highly interesting, not only 
 from their intrinsic merit, but from the peculiar circum- 
 stances of the writer. These circumstances he has de- 
 scribed in the following introductory account of himself. 
 We have only to add, that the writer has been introduced 
 to the notice of the Society by a valuable member of one 
 of the local committees, who is fully aware of his singular 
 history.' Some interest attaches to this paper as the 
 first-born of so many successors in various walks of litera- 
 ture. Kitto gives in it a succinct account of his previous 
 life. ' There are circumstances in my condition which 
 would exonerate me from censure, had I nothing at all to 
 say, or less than I really have. It is not yet a mouth 
 since I returned to my native shores. I made a pause 
 at the first book-shop, and the Penny Magazine attracted 
 my gaze. . . Some of the papers I had purchased at 
 the shop I skimmed over on my way home, cutting open 
 the leaves with my forefinger for want of a knife ; and 
 before I reached my lodgings, I felt that I should like 
 to have to do with some of these publications, par- 
 ticularly the Penny Magazine, in which I felt an espe- 
 cial interest. 1 . . I have certainly in the course of my 
 life been in very remarkable and interesting situations, 
 but I remember few more interesting than that in which 
 
 1 On his return from Malta in 1829, the first place he stopped at was a bookshop, 
 but his eye fell on the following title-page, 'A Treatise on the Art of Tying the 
 Cravat.'
 
 FIRST FRUITS OF LITERARY TOILS. 285 
 
 I am now placed, whilst talking to a million of people 
 about myself.' Referring to his past days, he makes this 
 further disclosure : ' Though, with a painful effort, I could 
 speak, I seldom uttered five words in the course of a week 
 for several years. I always said the little I had to say 
 in writing, and I know not whether it be not to this cir- 
 cumstance I owe that habit of composition which now 
 enables me to address the readers of the Penny Magazine. 
 . I have endeavoured to keep one object steadily 
 in view the acquirement of such information and general 
 knowledge as I found open to me in the midst of much 
 occupation, and of difficulties which, though considerably 
 different from those of my earlier life, have often been very 
 great.' 
 
 He was now fairly harnessed for work, and began to 
 reap the fruit of his toils and travels, his consistent be- 
 haviour, and his honest perseverance. Writing from 
 Bagdad to Mr Woollcombe, July 21, 1832, he expressed 
 his gratitude, and gave as the reason : ' For you have 
 waited so patiently and so long to see whether the wild 
 and rude plant you assisted to transplant and water, 
 would at last become fruitful.' His introduction, through 
 this same friend, to the Useful Knowledge Society, had now 
 produced at least promising first-fruits. His contributions 
 being so acceptable, and his month of virtual probation 
 being successfully passed, Mr Knight offered him a gene- 
 ral engagement at a salary which Kitto thankfully accepted, 
 saying, ' the terms offered would be sufficient, not only for 
 my present, but for my prospective wants.' What oc- 
 curred during the interview which led to this arrangement, 
 is artlessly told by himself. 
 
 ' Mr Knight said, " I am perfectly satisfied with what 
 you have done, and only fear you may feel such employ- 
 ment dull ; but I trust its usefulness will in time make it
 
 286 FIRST LITERARY ENGAGEMENTS. 
 
 pleasant to you." I also spoke on the subject of my in- 
 dependent contributions to the Penny Magazine, as The 
 Deaf Traveller, etc. You have perceived that my papers 
 have been few and far between ; and as I thought this 
 might be from fear of tiring the readers, by the frequent 
 recurrence of the same subject, I expressed the satisfaction 
 I should feel in being permitted to fill up with other subjects 
 the intervals between the various papers of The Deaf 
 Traveller. Mr Knight said he would be glad if I did so ; 
 but the reason The Deaf Traveller had not come in more 
 frequently, was the fear that I had not exactly hit his 
 meaning in preparing the papers. I had better take some 
 one subject, and bring my collected information to bear 
 upon it, rather than carry the readers on from stage to 
 stage, as in a book of travels. " I do not say, don't write 
 a book," Mr Knight remarked, " for that is a different 
 matter, but don't write a book for the Penny Magazine." 
 I am now preparing the papers on this principle.' 
 
 Kitto was also to take a certain charge of the Penny 
 Cyclopaedia, suggesting new words or additions, looking 
 through German, French, and Italian books of reference, 
 and answering letters of contributors. He was somewhat 
 dismayed by the prospect, but Mr Knight very kindly 
 encouraged him, and told him, that ' his zeal would over- 
 come all difficulties.' This task necessitated his personal 
 attendance for seven hours daily in Ludgate Street. ' I 
 sit,' he boasts to Mr Harvey, 1 ' in Mr Knight's room, 
 with plenty of books about me, and more below. What- 
 ever spare time the Penny Magazine does not require is 
 spent in perfecting my knowledge of French and Italian, 
 and in acquiring German.' Though he entered on his 
 labours with some anxiety, he was soon enabled to go 
 through them with credit. No one knew better than Mr 
 
 1 August 18, 1833.
 
 INTRODUCTION TO MISS FENWICK. 287 
 
 Knight what contributions were adapted to such periodical 
 literature as that which he was issuing, and Kitto was 
 therefore under a kind and able monitor. Mr Knight 
 gently checked his strong propensity to dwell on a subject, 
 and work it out to a disproportionate length. 1 Kitto was 
 now as busy as he could desire, doing whatever was re- 
 quired of him abridging, compiling, translating, as well 
 as composing original articles. The Penny Magazine was 
 largely indebted to his pen, and the Penny Cyclopaedia 
 to his care. His pecuniary income was considerable, and 
 had every appearance of steadiness and increase. He had 
 climbed long and bravely, and he was now but a few steps 
 from the summit. 
 
 When the vessel which had brought him from Constan- 
 tinople was casting anchor in Stangate Creek, he concluded 
 a section of his journal with this racy soliloquy : ' Give 
 me a little house, a little wife, a little child, and a little 
 money in England, and I will seek no more, and wander 
 no more.' 
 
 In a few days after, this aspiration assumed a practical 
 aspect, and in a manner quite as peculiar and striking as 
 had been the previous steps of his life. Bitter disappoint- 
 ment with a bride who had deserted him, wedded another, 
 and then died in sorrow and remorse, sent him to the East; 
 and now, when he had returned, the mysterious hand of 
 death brought him into connection with the betrothed of a 
 fellow-passenger, who had sickened on the journey, and 
 expired within sight of the shores of England. For Mr 
 Shepherd, who had died when the vessel was lying in 
 quarantine, had charged Kitto with several bequests and 
 memorials for Miss Fenwick, the lady to whom he had 
 been long engaged. Mr Newman and Kitto made their 
 
 1 Thus, at a later period, the Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature, and the Daily 
 Readings, grew to double the size originally agreed on.
 
 288 MARRIAGE. 
 
 first visit together to express their condolence the former 
 relating to the lady all the painful circumstances, while, ac- 
 cording to her own description, Kitto ' sat all the time 
 mute, the very image of sympathy.' Such an interview did 
 not suffice for Kitto, for he had private matters, both of 
 Mr Shepherd's and of his own, to talk about. The whole 
 circumstances of the drama, so touching and so strange, 
 had impressed Kitto very deeply, and disposed him to fore- 
 cast ' whereunto this would grow.' For attachment was 
 springing out of the melancholy adventure; and he had 
 learned to love her, 
 
 ' . . . Though her thoughts are straying 
 To one who sleeps the dreamless sleep 
 Of death ; though midst her sighs are plaj'ing 
 The hopes o'er which her visions weep.' 
 
 Again he called upon her, and again, and found her, as he 
 describes the result of his interviews to his friend, Lady 
 M'Neill, to be ' a very interesting person, with much infor- 
 mation and more understanding. The loss she takes more 
 sadly than I should have expected, and, of course, she will 
 henceforth " wither on the virgin thorn for ever." So she 
 thinks not I, knowing, as I do, that no intense feeling can 
 be lasting, or any resolutions permanent, which are formed 
 under their influence. I believe our minds are wisely and 
 well thus constituted. I remember the time when I had 
 firmly made up my mind to die an old bachelor, but now, 
 if I find any one who will have me, nothing is further from 
 my intention.' 
 
 He knew by the time he wrote these words that there 
 was one not averse to him, nay, that he had found one 
 who was willing to have him. ' My sympathy,' he says to 
 Mr Lampen, in reference to his first errand, ' made my 
 company pleasant to her ; and though I did not for some 
 time think of her in any particular way, she won upon me
 
 HIS MARRIAGE. 289 
 
 by her modes of thinking, her correct feeling, and strong 
 and accomplished mind. She was ultimately led to think 
 that she might find happiness with me.' The wooing 
 the success of which he owed to some extent to his innate 
 persistence had all but accomplished its object, when he 
 felt that it behoved him to try to learn the probable amount, 
 and especially to ascertain the certainty of his future in- 
 come. There was only one way of coming to a satisfac- 
 tory conclusion on the delicate subject, and that was by 
 sounding his employer. Accordingly, on the 13th of Sep- 
 tember, he wrote a confidential letter to Mr Knight, freely 
 stating his position, and his anxiety to be assured about 
 his prospects of work and pay. The main question was 
 thus put ' Whether my engagement with you is one which 
 you wish me to retain ? . . . I should say, there is 
 nothing I desire more than to remain.' Mr Knight re- 
 turned a satisfactory answer, and Kitto's heart was re- 
 joiced beyond measure. Every impediment was thus easily 
 removed, and the charge of imprudence could not be urged 
 against the step which he was about to take. What he 
 had so intensely longed for a hearth and home of his own 
 was now to be attained. The cup had been dashed from 
 his lips before, but again it was filled to overflowing. The 
 happy day was at length fixed, and accordingly, on the 
 21st of September, and at Christ's Church, Newgate Street, 
 was solemnized the marriage of John Kitto and Annabella 
 Feuwick. The church was under repairs at the time, and 
 the workmen being obh'ged to suspend their noisy opera- 
 tions during the ceremony, became its amused spectators. 
 The bridegroom afforded them some merriment which they 
 were scarcely able to conceal, for more than once, from his 
 deafness, he got before the officiating clergyman, and had to 
 be recalled to the actual duty which the course of the ser- 
 vice devolved upon him. The day of his marriage was 
 
 T
 
 290 MARRIAGE. 
 
 the famous St Matthew's day, and as the civic dignitaries 
 of London were on their annual visit of ceremony to Christ's 
 Hospital ' next door,' there was no small stir in the neigh- 
 bourhood. The bridegroom wondered much at the bustle, 
 especially at the Lord Mayor's ' fine coach' waiting with- 
 out, but could not at the time divine the reason. Yet the 
 lively scene was not forgotten, and many years afterwards 
 he referred to it on occasion of the admission of one of his 
 boys to the great educational institution, jocularly remark- 
 ing, that the time, place, and circumstances of their father's 
 marriage seemed to give them some claim upon it. 
 
 This new connection added unspeakably to Kitto's hap- 
 piness, and contributed in no ordinary degree to his useful- 
 ness. At the termination of the honey-moon, he rejoices 
 to proclaim, ' she now thinks she has found happiness, and 
 I hope to give her no cause to think otherwise. I have 
 now a fireside of my own to sit down by, and on the other 
 side is my wife darning stockings.' But she was not allowed 
 to keep long by such domestic employment, for her time, 
 during some years, was largely occupied in gathering lite- 
 rary materials for her busy husband. She daily visited the 
 British Museum with him, and each, in that ample reposi- 
 tory, pursued a separate path, he plying his immediate task, 
 and she amassing materials for other meditated productions. 
 She was the lion's provider, and was obliged to cater 
 liberally among all sorts of authors, living and dead ; for, 
 as his den was a scene of uncommon voracity, his daily prey 
 required a skilful and diligent purveyor. 
 
 If the previous pages indicate that Kitto was alive to 
 female charms, other portions of his writings show his high 
 appreciation of the sex, on which he has pronounced many 
 noble and graceful eulogies. He has recorded his senti- 
 ments more than once, and that towards the last years of 
 his life. For example, the history of Samson suggests
 
 EULOGIES ON WOMAN. 291 
 
 to him, that ' reliance upon the tenderness and truth of 
 woman's nature is not in itself a bad quality ; nay, it is a 
 fine, manly, and heroic quality and we may be allowed 
 to regret that Samson fell into hands which rendered it a 
 snare, a danger, and a death to him.' 1 
 
 Or, again, he has thrown out this striking sentiment : 
 
 ' But not to dwell further on particular instances, it may 
 be well worth our while to note one great matter that de- 
 serves to be mentioned to their praise, and to be kept in 
 everlasting remembrance. "We have read of men once held 
 in high esteem, who became apostates Demas, Alexander, 
 Philetus, and others ; but never, by name, in all the New 
 Testament, of a woman who had once been reckoned among 
 the saints. This is great honour. But not only have 
 women been thus honoured with extraordinary gifts ; they 
 have been otherwise favoured with special marks of atten- 
 tion from the Lord. To whom but unto women did Christ 
 first appear after His resurrection ? Of what act did He 
 ever so speak as to render it everlastingly memorable, save 
 that woman's, who poured upon His feet her alabaster box 
 of precious ointment; and to whom He promised that, where- 
 ever, in the whole world, His Gospel should be preached, 
 there should her work of faith be held in remembrance?' 8 
 
 Or, still further, in vindication of Job's wife, and against 
 the opinions which some commentators have formed of her 
 words, translated in the English version, ' Curse God and 
 die,' he protests right cheerily : 
 
 ' It was telling him that death was his best friend ; that 
 it was better for him to die than to live a life like this. 
 Such a life was a continual death ; and it were better to 
 die at once than to die daily. Now, as many ladies are 
 among our readers, we will at once ask them, if this is a 
 true or probable explanation ? We will feel assured that 
 
 > Daily Bible Illustrations, voL ii., p. 413. Ibid., voL iii, p. 12.
 
 292 FIRST LITERARY ENGAGEMENTS. 
 
 they will at once say it is not ; that this is not the language 
 which any true-hearted wife would hold to her afflicted 
 husband, and that the advice is not " wholesome," as this 
 explanation supposes. It is the ingenious speculation of 
 dry old scholars, shut up among their books, and not of 
 men knowing anything about the hearts of wives.' 1 
 
 Kitto's work with Mr Knight was somewhat multifarious, 
 but he was pleased with it. For a time, indeed, he walked 
 ' fearfully and tremblingly,' but he gradually gained con- 
 fidence and courage. Toward the close of this eventful 
 year, on December 9, 1833, he gives some recital of his 
 experience to Mr Woollcombe. 
 
 52, St John's Koad, Islington. 
 
 ' . . . With me things have gone on as smoothly as 
 I could reasonably expect. . . I have to bring into 
 admissible form the contributions of correspondents, whose 
 letters I also answer. In this last employment I have great 
 occasion to feel how much I owe to your kind recommen- 
 dation, as I have often to write for Mr Knight, declining 
 offers of assistance, which I cannot sometimes help think- 
 ing, would be more efficient than my own. I am happy to 
 hope that I have not altogether discredited your recom- 
 mendation, and I trust that I shall not. I find my em- 
 ployments so very congenial, and my facilities in them in- 
 crease so rapidly, that I think often that I have at last 
 been enabled, through your kindness, to find my proper 
 place and level. . . There is a letter of Mr Groves in 
 the Record newspaper of last Thursday. I am sorry to 
 say that no letter from him has yet come into my hands. 
 I have been poorly lately.' 
 
 The next year, 1834, was passed in similar industry, his 
 
 1 Daily Bible Illustrations, voL v., p. 95.
 
 HIS FIEST BORN. 293 
 
 remuneration being L.I 8 a month. Still, as his work 
 grew familiar to him, he contemplated some other and 
 future tasks ; nay, as labours multiplied upon him he ' sang 
 in his heart.' At length more than half the Magazine 
 was of his preparing, and he avers, with some exulta- 
 tion, ' all the papers I write now are printed.' Books for 
 children held a prominent place in his projected author- 
 ship, of which Uncle Oliver's Travels in Persia is a favour- 
 able specimen. His articles being printed anonymously, 
 he was saved from the imputation of inordinately thirsting 
 for a name. He was all the while acquiring practice for 
 higher achievements, for he was training himself to har- 
 monise compactness with detail. The brief and uniform 
 limits of the Magazine constrained him to proportion the 
 space he occupied, to the differential value of his topics. 
 The hardest lesson he had to learn was that of literary 
 perspective, and he never thoroughly mastered it ; nay, he 
 almost complains, that ' the readers of the Penny Maga- 
 zine are so accustomed to condensation, that they cannot 
 bear details.' 
 
 During this year was born his eldest child, Annabella 
 Shireen the second name being a reminiscence of his 
 Persian travels. She was a source of new joy to him, and 
 he had a thousand happy ways of delighting and amusing 
 her in her infancy. When the little lady gave any sign of 
 being gratified, he would at ouce turn to her mother and 
 say (with what a tone !) ' Does she make a noise ? Pray 
 tell me what kind of noise it makes.' The tear starts in 
 the eye on reading these touching words. He complains 
 seldom, but ah ! he utters a deep and mournful sigh as he 
 thinks of ' children's voices, and the sweet peculiarities of 
 infantile speech,' and then points to his daily sorrow and 
 privation as he sat among his darlings, being doomed ' to 
 see their blessed lips in motion, and to hear them not.'
 
 294 PICTORIAL BIBLE. 
 
 The materials to be employed in Biblical illustration, 
 had for a period been stored up in Kitto's mind ; but as 
 yet no outlet had been found for them. He had, how- 
 ever, some notion of their value, and of their adaptation 
 to general purposes. But his plans had been overruled. 
 Yet the germ of the Pictorial Bible lies in the following 
 statement : ' I am to undertake the description of re- 
 markable things and customs in foreign countries, begin- 
 ning with those in which I have actually travelled. It 
 was the very thing I wanted to do when I first came home.' 
 This idea, which was still uppermost, only received a spe- 
 cial direction when the Pictorial Bible was edited. The 
 light which would have been scattered on a variety of 
 points, grew brighter and steadier by its concentration on 
 Scripture. At a later epoch, after he had acquired ' cele- 
 brity,' and when ' black mail' was freely levied upon him, 
 though not to the extent he sometimes imagined, he indi- 
 cated the peculiar source of his superiority and power by 
 the avowal, ' Nothing in fine saves me from being smothered 
 by my own children, but the certainty of actual knowledge 
 which my residence and travels in the East confer.' 1 This 
 ' actual knowledge' was his tower of strength. For the 
 description of a veritable eye-witness differs usually from 
 that of a mere compiler, as much as a green garland from 
 a faded chaplet. He who has seen the animal killed and 
 cooked by one continuous process, and has partaken him- 
 self of the feast, diving into the pillau of rice or barley 
 with his naked hand, and fetching up his morsel, can paint 
 the festive scene with a few vivid touches, as he illustrates 
 Abraham's hospitality, or give an edge to Solomon's pro- 
 verb about the slothful man's hiding his hand in the dish, 
 that is, not using his three fingers, as is generally done, 
 but so filling his whole palm at once, and loading it, as to 
 
 1 Letter to Mr Oliphant, October 30, 1851.
 
 SKETCHES FROM LIFE. 295 
 
 save such repeated motion. 1 The flesh of animals is in 
 the East more a luxury than an article of daily food, and 
 men are cautioned in Scripture against being 'riotous 
 eaters' of it. The Arab, as often as he can, does feed 
 himself to satiety, but the spectator can add his own 
 humorous touch : 
 
 ' We have often had occasion to witness a meal of meat 
 indulged in under such circumstances, to a degree of in- 
 conceivable intemperance, and enjoyed with a degree of 
 hilarity very much like that which attends the consump- 
 tion of strong drink in our northern climates. We have 
 the Arabs more especially, but not exclusively, in view ; 
 for it is in connection with this -people that the present 
 expression, " riotous eaters of flesh," has been brought most 
 forcibly to our mind, on beholding the strong and irrepres- 
 sible satisfaction with which a party of them would receive 
 the present of a live sheep, and on witnessing the haste 
 with which it was slaughtered and dressed, the voracity 
 with which it was devoured, and the high glee, not un- 
 attended with dance and song, which seasoned the feast. 
 We are almost afraid to say how much an unrestricted 
 Arab will eat when an opportunity is given. It is com- 
 monly considered that an Arab can dispose of the entire 
 quarter of a sheep without inconvenience ; and we have 
 certainly seen half-a-dozen of them pick the bones of a large 
 sheep very clean.' 2 
 
 The rider who has carried at his saddle the skin filled 
 with water or wine, or the guest who has been cognisant 
 of the Persian fashion of debauch, which begins at sunrise 
 or before it, can give point to an exposition either of the 
 trick of the Gibeonites, or of the prophet's denunciation, 
 ' Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that 
 
 1 The allusion is based upon a peculiar interpretation of Prov. xxvi. 15. 
 1 Daily Bible Illustrations, voL v., p. 343.
 
 296 PICTORIAL BIBLE. 
 
 they may follow strong drink.' The invalid who has been 
 unfortunately under the hands- of Oriental physicians, can 
 speak from experience of their thirst for bleeding their 
 patients with a dull lancet, or a knife rudely made into the 
 shape of one, or of their fondness for the actual cautery 
 with a common iron nail, or a piece of wire.' 
 
 The ' publicans' of the New Testament, or officers of in- 
 land revenue, were specially detested. "Why ? Let Kitto's 
 experience declare : 
 
 ' It has not been our lot to be acquainted with any 
 country, the inhabitants of which are so alive to their 
 obligations to the State, as to receive with pleasure and 
 regard with respect the collectors of the revenue, under 
 whatever name they may come, whether tax-gatherers, 
 rate-collectors, excisemen, customhouse-officers, or tollmen. 
 The popular dislike to this class of public servants has 
 always existed everywhere ; and in an eminent degree it 
 has always existed, and does exis|, in the East, where the 
 antipathy to anything like a regular and periodical exac- 
 jtion for government objects goes far beyond the dogged 
 churlishness, with which the drilled nations of the West 
 meet the more complicated demands upon them. This 
 may, among other causes, be owing to the fact, that the 
 eastern tax-gatherer feels quite at liberty to use his stick 
 freely upon the person of a tardy, inadequate, or too re- 
 luctant tax-payer.' 1 
 
 Speaking of the erroneous application of western forms 
 and ideas to eastern usages, and that in reference to the 
 scene of the Saviour's birth, so inaccurately handled by 
 poets and painters, the pilgrim can affirm from obser- 
 vation : 
 
 ' The explanation we give of this incident, is founded 
 upon actual observation, made while ourselves, more than 
 
 1 Daily Bible Illustrations, voL viL, p. 272.
 
 EASTERN EXPERIENCE. 297 
 
 once, were constrained to lodge in the stable, because there 
 was " no room in the inn ;" and was, in fact, suggested in 
 a place that led us to say, " In such a stable as this was 
 Jesus born ; here might have been an excellent retreat for 
 the Virgin ; here she would be completely screened from 
 observation at the time it was needed ; and here in this 
 very ' manger' she might have found no unsuitable cot for 
 her first-born son."' 1 
 
 The student who, one afternoon at Bagdad, had been 
 startled from his book by a sudden obscuration of the sky, 
 as if the sun had been eclipsed, and had ascertained the 
 cause to be a cloud of locusts, black from its very thick- 
 ness, and covering the city ' like a pall,' could not fail to 
 be picturesque in his comment on the first and second 
 chapters of Joel. 
 
 As to the character and effect of eastern salutations, 
 one who had often made and returned them with all their 
 picturesque formality, is -warranted to say : 
 
 ' The servile demeanour of the poor in this country is 
 hateful to every well-ordered mind. It has grown out of 
 circumstances which there has been too little effort to re- 
 sist ; and we may go to the East to learn how the poor 
 may be treated with courtesy, and be continually reminded, 
 in every passing form of speech, of their natural and reli- 
 gious brotherhood, without being thereby encouraged to 
 disrespect or insubordination, but with the effect of a 
 cheerful and willing character being thereby imparted to 
 obedience.' 2 
 
 The gaze that had frequently wandered over Asiatic 
 fields, entitled the expositor to show the immense loss, which 
 the foxes let loose by Samson, did to the harvest thus : 
 
 1 Daily Bible Illustrations, vol. vii., p. 62. 
 
 * Ibid, vol. iit, p. 27. Dr Kitto might have noticed, that our own common forms 
 of salutation had once a religious significance. Adieu, is a commendation to God 
 and Good b'ye, is God be with thee.
 
 298 PICTORIAL BIBLE. 
 
 ' The reader must recollect that the cultivated lands are 
 not separated by hedgerows into fields as with us, but are 
 .aid out in one vast expanse, the different properties in 
 which are distinguished by certain landmarks, known to 
 the owners, but not usually obvious to a stranger. Thus, 
 as the time of harvest approaches, the standing corn is 
 often seen to extend as far as the eye can reach, in one 
 vast unbroken spread of waving corn. Hence the flames, 
 once kindled, would spread without check till all the corn 
 of the locality was consumed ; and we are further to re- 
 member, that there were fifty pairs let off, doubtless in 
 different parts.' 1 
 
 The oratory at Philippi was by the river side, and the 
 sojourner in remote Russia can quote an apposite illus- 
 tration : 
 
 ' It is rare at the present time to witness worship by 
 a number of persons under such circumstances, as they 
 usually find other means for ablution ; but it happened to 
 us, that the first act of Moslem worship we ever witnessed, 
 was thus performed. This was nearly a quarter of a cen- 
 tury ago, in the Caucasian mountains, at a time when many 
 Turkish prisoners of war were kept there by the Russians. 
 Bodies of these were conducted, at the hours of prayer, 
 under a guard of soldiers, to any open place traversed by 
 a river, near the military stations, and after performing 
 their ablutions at the stream, they prostrated themselves 
 upon the green sward, and went through the several acts 
 of their remarkably demonstrative worship.' 2 
 
 But not to multiply examples. Almost every one is 
 aware how unlike an Oriental dwelling is to one among 
 ourselves. But the wayfarer who has lived in both, can 
 give a striking picture of the difference, and invest it, too, 
 with an architectural interest. 
 
 1 Daily Bible Illustrations, vol. II, p. 416. > Ibid., voL viiL, p. 340.
 
 ACCUMULATION OF LITERARY STORES. 290 
 
 ' The probability is, that the majority of the houses of 
 Nineveh, like those of many eastern cities of the present 
 day, consisted but of one storey, spread therefore over a 
 large extent of ground. We have always observed the 
 Orientals to be exceedingly averse to ascending stairs ; 
 and where ground is not an object, as it seldom is, they 
 consider it absurd to build habitations in which they must 
 be continually going up stairs and down, when they are 
 at liberty to spread out their dwellings over the ground 
 as widely as they like. Hence the accommodation which 
 we secure by piling storey upon storey, they think they 
 realize with much more advantage, by placing these storeys 
 separately upon the ground, connecting them by doors, 
 galleries, courts, and passages. This is their idea of com- 
 fort, and we must confess to being considerably of their 
 opinion. The result is, however, that the house of an 
 eastern gentleman in a town will generally occupy four or 
 five times as much ground as that of an Englishman in the 
 corresponding condition of life.' 1 
 
 These extracts are only a specimen of that full and exact 
 illustration which one can adduce who ' testifies what he has 
 seen.' Though they are taken from Dr Kitto's last work, 
 they show what stores he had at command for his earliest 
 Biblical exposition. Sir John M'Neill gave him, when he 
 met him at Tabreez, a peculiar illustration of the territorial 
 meaning wrapt up in the phrase, ' Jacob digged a well,' 
 by informing him, that in Persia the law enacted, that he 
 who digs a well in the desert, is entitled to all the land 
 which it will irrigate. Morier's ' Second Journey through 
 Persia,' also recommended to him by the same authority, 
 contains numerous elucidations of customs and sayings in 
 the Old Testament, some of them ambiguous, indeed, and 
 others based on misconception, but the majority of them 
 
 i Daily Bible Illustrations, voL vi, p. 407.
 
 300 PICTORIAL BIBLE. 
 
 singularly perspicuous and happy, and many of them veri- 
 fied by the deaf yet sharp-eyed wanderer himself. It is 
 true, indeed, that Kitto did not travel in Palestine ; but 
 the East has an unvarying type among its Shemite races, 
 and especially among those of the Syro-Arabian dialects. 
 Manners are in many things the same on the banks of the 
 Tigris as on those of the Jordan the same among the 
 children of Elam as among the children of Eber. What 
 are often called Jewish customs, are, apart from religion, 
 not confined to Abraham's progeny through Isaac, but be- 
 long equally to his descendants through Ishrnael. Dr 
 Asahel Grant forgot this truth in one part of his argu- 
 ment, when he endeavoured to prove that the Nestorian 
 Christians are the remains of the Ten Tribes, from certain 
 customs and ceremonies, which, so far from being distinctive 
 of Israel, are common to all the provinces of Western Asia. 1 
 While Kitto wrought heartily on the Penny Magazine 
 and other periodicals, he had not yet found his appropriate 
 function. Still he was but a common literateur, and in 
 that ' line of things ' would scarcely ever have been known 
 beyond the immediate circle in which he moved. But 
 when the hour came the man was ready. Exploring his 
 dim and uncertain way towards his right sphere, he had 
 been frequently and partially baffled, though he was con- 
 stantly nearing it. 
 
 ' The cygnet finds the water, but the man 
 Is born in ignorance of his element, 
 And feels out blind at first.' 
 
 At this juncture, the active and enterprising mind of Mr 
 Knight, suggested the idea of an annotated Bible, and he 
 thought that his man of all work was well qualified to 
 write that portion of the notes which related to Oriental 
 
 1 The Nestorians, or the Lost Tribes. By Ashael Grant. M.D., chap, xvlii 
 London, 1841.
 
 NEARING THE EIGHT SPHERE. 301 
 
 manners and life, end which his travels might help him to 
 furnish. The plan at once rivetted Kitto's attention as 
 something peculiarly fitted for him, and in which he could 
 excel. He prepared a specimen, with which Mr Knight 
 was so pleased, that he resolved to gratify Kitto's earnest 
 solicitation, and intrust him with the execution of the entire 
 work. This decision was a wise one on the part of the 
 publisher, and a happy one for the editor. Kitto thank- 
 fully owned Mr Knight's kindness, as one ' qualified beyond 
 most men to judge of another's fitness,' and he eulogizes 
 his ' generous confidence in intrusting to my untried hands 
 a great and noble task, which others would have deemed 
 to need the influence of some great name in literature.' 
 
 This new experiment brought him at once into the field 
 which he had been long preparing to occupy, and for the 
 occupation of which much of his previous training and 
 travels had really qualified him. Prior to that objective 
 preparation which his eastern journey had given him, and 
 along with it, there had been another and a superior dis- 
 cipline. The Bible had become to him the Book of Life. 
 Before his fall from the house-top, he had regarded the 
 Bible ' as a book especially appointed to be read on Sun- 
 days,' and had not ' ventured to look into it on any other 
 day. It seemed a sort of profanation to handle the Sacred 
 Book with work-day fingers.' But, as he lay on that bed 
 of slow convalescence, the exhaustion of his slender literary 
 resources drove him to it, and then he read it 'quite 
 through, Apocrypha and all.' His studies from this period 
 took a marked direction towards Theology. Works of a 
 religious kind were found and devoured by him, such as 
 Foxe's Martyrs, Josephus, Hervey's Meditations, Bunyan, 
 Drelincourt, Baxter's Saint's Rest, Sturm's Reflections, 
 and Watts' World to Come. In course of time, indeed, 
 he extended his reading to a more miscellaneous class of
 
 302 PICTOEIAL BIBLE. 
 
 books, and especially in the public library did he give him- 
 self to Metaphysics; yet he hints, that 'amidst all this, 
 the theological bias given by my earlier reading and asso- 
 ciations remained.' 1 But it was at Exeter that the 'day- 
 spring' for which he had long prayed arose upon him. 
 Up to that time the Bible, he confesses, had been ' a sealed 
 book ' to him, for the ' instructing influences of the Holy 
 Spirit did not attend ' his reading of it, and he did not 
 come to it 'with the humble and teachable spirit of a 
 little child.' Now, and for some years, the inspired Word 
 had been the food of his soul the daily theme of that de- 
 vout and earnest meditation which, 'comparing spiritual 
 things with spiritual,' makes ' wise unto salvation through 
 faith which is in Christ Jesus.' 2 So that, when in due time, 
 he came to illustrate Scripture, he did it in the right spirit, 
 and never forgot the divinity of the volume on whose 
 pages he was lavishing so many literary and pictorial 
 illustrations. Spiritual qualification guarded and hallowed 
 scholastic equipment. 
 
 The work, commencing in the end of 1835, was pub- 
 lished in monthly parts, and completed in May 1838. Dur- 
 ing its progress Kitto ' received L.250 a-year, and when 
 it was finished he was presented with an additional sum, 
 which seemed to him a little fortune.' 3 
 
 The Pictorial Bible rose at once into high popularity. 
 It was his first work in that department, and it led the 
 way to all his subsequent productions. No sooner had he 
 entered on this form of labour than 
 
 ' Almost thence his nature was subdued 
 To that it worked in, like the dyer's hand.' 
 
 Little, indeed, had been previously done in this neglected 
 province of illustration. There had been huge commen- 
 
 1 Lost Senses Deafness, p. 14. Ibid., p. 16. 
 
 * Article Kitto, in Knight's English Cyclopaedia Biography. VoL iii.
 
 ITS DISTINCTIVE FEATURES. 303 
 
 i 
 
 taries, and good ones too the quaint and pithy Henry, 
 the solid and judicious Scott, and the more erudite and 
 ambitious volumes of Patrick, Lowth, Whitby, and Adam 
 Clarke. These authors, however, had, to a great extent, 
 treated Scripture in one aspect. But the Bible, like the 
 Redeemer whom it reveals, has two sides of view divine 
 and human. The former had been principally thought of by 
 earlier expositors. They regarded more the truth of Scrip- 
 ture than the mode in which it had been conveyed. Their 
 attention was given rather to the sound of the trumpet, 
 than to the shape of the instrument, or the music of the 
 peal. They busied themselves more with what history 
 said, than with the style of recital ; more with what the 
 ritual taught, than with the scenes and ceremonies of the 
 pageant itself; more with what poetry had sung, than 
 with the lyre, drapery, and attitude of the Hebrew muse; 
 more with what prophecy revealed, than with the allusions 
 and colouring of its oracles. So that, with all the im- 
 portant service which they rendered, they had left a wide 
 field unoccupied. For the Bible, though a Divine revela- 
 tion, is also a human composition ; and though ' given by 
 inspiration,' it is essentially an Asiatic or Oriental book 
 the product of Hebrew mind, and laden with the riches of 
 Hebrew imagination. 
 
 Various illustrations of manners and customs had been 
 already collected, such as the treatises of Harmer, Burder, 
 and Paxton ; the travels of Sandy, Purchas, Maundrell, 
 Shaw, Niebuhr, and Burckhardt, were not unknown ; and 
 every scholar was acquainted with such writers on anti- 
 quities, geography, and natural history, as Bochart, Reland, 
 D'Herbelot, Pococke, Celsius, Forskal, Harris, Jennings, 
 Jahn, and Roberts. Many of the more prominent features 
 of the eastern world had also been distinctly apprehended. 
 It was perfectly well understood that houses in the East
 
 304 PICTORIAL BIBLE. 
 
 Lad flat roofs, that the so-called bottles were of skin, and 
 that sheep followed the shepherd, and were not gathered 
 or driven by dogs. But Dr Kitto's merit lay, not so much 
 in discovery as in application. He brought the public 
 mind into vivid contact with Oriental scenery and life, by 
 moulding them into the form of a continuous commentary 
 on the Old and New Testaments. His readers are so ini- 
 tiated, that they are placed under the eastern sky, with its 
 bright days and starry nights, and are so privileged, that 
 they may gaze on the glory of Lebanon, the beauty of 
 Carmel, and the rugged sublimity of Sinai ; throw the net 
 with the fishermen on the Lake of Galilee; raise the ' shout ' 
 of the vintage on the slopes of Eshcol; recline by the ' still 
 waters ' with the shepherd, when the ' pastures are clothed 
 with flocks;' work and sing with the reaper when the 
 ' valleys are covered over with corn ;' go up at the great 
 festivals to ' the testimony of Israel,' with ' the tribes of 
 the* Lord ;' or march with the accoutred yeomen of the 
 land, to fight for hearth and altar against Moab or Philistia, 
 Ammon or Syria, the foes of the old theocracy. The Pic- 
 torial Bible gave glow and reality to ancient scenes and 
 customs, and threw a wondrous light on what is external 
 or Oriental in the drapery of Scripture. 
 
 Striking and appropriate illustration is borrowed from 
 the Egyptian monuments. Witsius and others had 
 laboured hard to disprove any religious connection be- 
 tween Israel and Egypt. Their arguments were, however, 
 more of a theological than of an artistic and antiquarian 
 nature, and there is no doubt that Marsham and Spencer 
 carried their opposite speculations to an unwarranted ex- 
 tent. But it is natural to suppose that no small portion 
 of Hebrew custom and art was learned in Egypt, so famed 
 for its ' wisdom.' Therefore the figures on the monuments, 
 BO various in their allusions, and portraying so much both
 
 ITS GREAT AND IMMEDIATE POPULARITY. 305 
 
 of the religious and common life of the nation, are a fertile 
 source of illustration for the Pentateuch the law and the 
 history of the chosen people, just after it had migrated 
 from the shores of the Nile. And thus, in the notes and 
 woodcuts, you have Egypt everywhere its wheat and its 
 bulrushes, its flax and its frogs, its gods and its mummies, 
 its priests and its ark, its feasts and its funerals all of 
 them verifying and explaining the Mosaic annals and legis- 
 lation. The same felicity is displayed in the references to 
 Oriental usage, which is so brought before the reader with 
 pen and pencil that he lives in it. Distinctness is given 
 to his conceptions, for every intelligent reader of scenes, 
 travels, battles, and manners, must form a mental picture 
 to himself as he proceeds, and Kitto sets before him the 
 exact similitude, copies from nature both to be ' seen and 
 read.' Some of the curious and difficult points of Hebrew 
 jurisprudence are well illustrated by apposite examples and 
 analogies, some of them better than those which Michaelis 
 has collected. We need not allude to the many engrav- 
 ings taken from Petra, Persia, and Babylon, and so pro- 
 fusely scattered through the exposition of the prophetical 
 books. The introductions prefixed to the various sections, 
 though brief and unpretending, are full of good sense, and 
 convey useful information. 
 
 We need not wonder, therefore, at the immediate popu- 
 larity of the Pictorial Bible. It was a new idea success- 
 fully carried out. It brought down to the people what 
 had lain on the shelves of students, or been stored away in 
 the treasures of the British Museum. It gave an impulse 
 to this species of biblical study, familiarised the ordinary 
 readers of Scripture with its geography and antiquities, 
 and showed, that research, no matter how far or in what 
 direction it was carried, served to confirm the truth, 
 authenticate the history, develop the beauty, and promote
 
 306 PICTORIAL BIBLE. 
 
 a fresher and fuller understanding of the Book of God. It 
 was at first objected that the comment wanted the evan- 
 gelical element ; but the author's purpose must be kept in 
 view, and as he professed to deal with neither exegesis nor 
 theology, he must be judged by the aim which he sought 
 to realise. 
 
 What are called ' Illustrations from the Old Masters,' 
 are usually of little value. Nay, they often mislead. Those 
 of them, for instance, which are found even in the first 
 volume of the Pictorial Bible are of this nature. In the 
 one which forms the frontispiece, the artist has paid no at- 
 tention to Egyptian features, dress, or custom. In the 
 plate representing Laban's covenant with his son-in-law, 
 Jacob is pictured as still a young man, whereas he could 
 not have been far from threescore years and ten. But it 
 was the special superiority of the Pictorial Bible, that it 
 discarded such fanciful illustrations, except as mere occa- 
 sional ornament, and that it figured actual animals, plants, 
 garments, and scenes, so as to give to the reader's eye the 
 zoology, botany, costume, geography, and ethnography of 
 Scripture. Many objectionable plates in the first edition 
 were excluded from the fourth, for they were often inaccu- 
 rate as exponents of history, and imperfect as representa- 
 tions of manners and dress. The first edition, completed 
 in 1838, formed three large imperial octavo volumes, and 
 from the stereotype plates of it various large impressions 
 were taken. 
 
 The book was published anonymously. Its reception 
 not only gratified Kitto immensely, but decided what was 
 to be the labour of his subsequent years. For the reviews 
 were very favourable. One of them spoke of the men em- 
 ployed in the publication ' as fully competent to their 
 anxious undertaking ;' and the one man who did the entire 
 work, secretly and heartily enjoyed the plural reference.
 
 GRATIFICATION AT ITS SUCCESS. 307 
 
 The approbation of the public was not only a reward to 
 him for his toils and anxiety, but he took it as the index 
 of Providence pointing out what he now rightly regarded 
 as the work to which he had been called, and for which 
 so many years of study and travel, and growing re- 
 ligious faith, had so admirably disciplined him. The 
 ' almost unprecedented favour ' with which the book was 
 received, was therefore owing to its real worth, and not to 
 any fame of its author for his name was concealed nor 
 to any sympathy with the workhouse boy, who had wan- 
 dered from Plymouth to Bagdad, and plodded his way 
 back again to London. Kitto could not but record his 
 high satisfaction with the result ' The degree of atten- 
 tion with which my labours have been favoured, has not 
 arisen out of any sympathies for, or had reference to, my 
 peculiar condition : for my greatest and most successful 
 labour was placed before the public without any name ; 
 and although the author's name has been attached to later 
 works, it has not been accompanied by any information 
 concerning the circumstances which have now been de- 
 scribed. As, therefore, the public has had no materials on 
 which to form a sympathising, and therefore partial, esti- 
 mate of my services, and has yet received them with signal 
 favour, I may venture to regard the object which I had 
 proposed to myself as in some sort achieved. And since it 
 is at length permitted me to feel that I have passed the 
 danger of being mixed up with the toe-writers and the 
 learned pigs of literature, I have now the greater freedom 
 in reporting my real condition.' 1 
 
 He stated also to Professor Robinson of New York, 8 
 then in London, that ' through incidental notices and al- 
 lusions in periodical publications, the public had got some 
 notice of his history,' but that even then (1840) he was not 
 
 1 Lost Senses Deafness, p. 83. > September 28, 1840.
 
 308 PICTORIAL BIBLE. 
 
 extensively known as the editor of the Pictorial Bible. Not 
 that there had been any studious concealment, but, he de- 
 clares, ' it has rather been my wish that I should not seem 
 to owe any part of the success I might attain as an author 
 to the sympathies which my sufficiently singular personal 
 history might be likely to produce.' Indeed, he affirms, 
 more unreservedly, and with some degree of warmth, that 
 at an early period he had found little encouragement from 
 others, even from those who ultimately favoured him with 
 their notice ; that when he spoke of literature, he had been 
 kindly pointed away to other means of occupation and use- 
 fulness ; that his literary predilections had usually obtained 
 no encouragement, but had rather been opposed as an un- 
 reasonable infatuation ; and that therefore he had ' deter- 
 mined, at whatever risk, to act upon his own soul-felt con- 
 clusions, and to stand by the truth or fall by the error of 
 ineradicable convictions.' 1 So completely unknown was 
 he in Scotland, that when we first heard that the Pictorial 
 Bible was edited by ' John Kitto,' we thought that the 
 brief and uncommon name must surely be a nom de plume. 
 
 In a fragmentary Journal, July 4, 1837, we find this 
 characteristic paragraph : 
 
 ' Newman writes me, " I have taken in the Pictorial 
 Bible. Parnell tells me that you were the editor. I said, 
 perhaps of the later portions. Is it true that you were 
 the editor of the Pentateuch part?" Bah! I answered, 
 rather shortly, yes and did not altogether omit the oppor- 
 tunity of slightly girding at the discouragements I had 
 received, and the calamities which were foretold me from 
 my adherence to my literary predilections ; to which ad- 
 herence I owe all the benefits I now enjoy. I said just 
 enough to let him see that I did feel something of triumph, 
 to have it thus established that I was right in my-obsti- 
 
 1 Lost Senses Deafness, p. 90.
 
 PREVIOUS VICISSITUDES. 309 
 
 nacy. These old college folks, I fancy, cannot like the 
 successes of parvenus, self-educated men like myself.' 
 
 In short, though Kitto rejoiced in doing all manner of 
 service for the Penny Magazine, and other useful and 
 popular periodicals, he felt, for the first time, that he was 
 in his true element when he commenced his studies for the 
 Pictorial Bible. His benefactors, in their kindness, had 
 assigned him different forms of labour, from the making 
 of shoes to the setting of Persic types, from the teasing of 
 oakum to the manufacture of artificial teeth, and in all of 
 them he did his best, but in none of them was he contented. 
 Each was but a resting-place his heart still said, Excel- 
 sior ! and he arose and climbed again. Various spheres 
 of work were opened up to him, but he could not find a 
 home at Plymouth or Exeter, Malta or Bagdad, when 
 Providence at length set him down in Ludgate Hill, and 
 yoked him to the great business of his life. And then he 
 felt that he had been slowly training for his high vocation, 
 and that what had disabled him for the physical toils under 
 which his soft sinews had first bent, had but set him apart 
 to higher and more exhausting labours. Then, too, he 
 learned that no phase of his life had been without its ad- 
 vantages that his love of lore now enabled him to pay 
 his tribute of veneration to the Book of books, and that 
 his journey to the Tigris yielded fruits to be afterwards 
 reaped on the Thames. And thus he waxed ' strong in 
 faith, giving glory to God.' 
 
 During the progress of this first and great labour he tells 
 Mr Knight, in the fulness of his heart 
 
 ; I cannot begin any observations respecting the Pictorial 
 Bible, without stating how highly I have been gratified 
 and interested in the occupation it has afforded. It has 
 been of infinite advantage as an exercise to my own mind. 
 It has afforded me an opportunity of bringing nearly all
 
 310 PICTORIAL BIBLE. 
 
 my resources into play ; my old Biblical studies, the obser- 
 vations of travel, and even the very miscellaneous character 
 of my reading, have all been highly useful to me in this 
 undertaking. The venerable character of the work on 
 which I have laboured, the responsibility of annotation, 
 and the extent in which such labour is likely to have in- 
 fluence, are also circumstances which have greatly gratified, 
 in a very definite manner, that desire of usefulness, which 
 has, I may say, been a strong principle of action with me, 
 and which owes its origin, I think, to the desire I was early 
 led to entertain of finding whether the most adverse cir- 
 cumstances (including the privation of intellectual nourish- 
 ment) must necessarily operate in excluding me from the 
 hope of filling a useful place in society. The question was, 
 whether I should hang a dead weight upon society, or take 
 a place among its active men. I have struggled for the 
 latter alternative, and it will be a proud thing for me if I 
 am enabled to realise it. I venture to hope that I shall : 
 and to you I am, in the most eminent degree, indebted, for 
 the opportunities, assistance, and encouragement, you have 
 always afforded me in my endeavours after this object.' 
 
 Sir John M'Neill and Mr Knight were, each in his time 
 and place, of essential service to Kitto ; the one in the 
 East had greatly and opportunely helped to store his mind, 
 and the other in London devised the plan which brought out 
 his knowledge into popular and practical form. The one 
 encouraged him to gather the ore, and, after its fusion, the 
 other shaped the mould, and there ' came out' the Pictorial 
 Bible. During the years in which it was in process of 
 publication, his toil was incessant, though he was never far 
 ahead of the press ; so that he complained of the time lost 
 by going in search of books, especially to the British 
 Museum, and wished a few serviceable volumes to be pro- 
 cured for himself. Matters connected with the work, over
 
 STANDARD EDITION. 311 
 
 and above the writing of the notes, took up, he affirms, ' a 
 fourth of his time, and more than half of his anxiety.' And 
 he ends his request with the memorable declaration, ' The 
 Museum day is but six hours long, whereas mine is sixteen.' 
 
 It may be added, that the Pictorial Bible was reprinted 
 in four quarto volumes, in 1838, but not stereotyped ; that 
 in 1840 the notes and some of the illustrations, without 
 the text, were published in five small octavos ; and that 
 in 1847 was commenced what may be called the standard 
 edition, completed in 1849, in four volumes imperial octavo. 
 Kitto bestowed special pains upon this edition, and ' received 
 upwards of 600 for his labour.' * Not only did it excel its 
 predecessors in better paper, larger page, choicer woodcuts, 
 and more tasteful printing, but it possessed other and higher 
 improvements. The editor, who was best qualified to speak 
 of it, for he knew the labour it had cost him, says himself : 
 
 ' The final results appear in a considerable body of fresh 
 matter, exhibited in some thousands of new notes, and in 
 additions to and improvements of a large number of the 
 notes contained in the original work. Space for this has 
 been provided by an actual increase of the letterpress, by 
 the omission of one class of woodcuts, by the careful ex- 
 cision from the original work of such matters as might, 
 it was judged, be spared, not only without loss but with 
 advantage, and by the pruning and condensation of many 
 notes which remain without essential alteration. The effect 
 of all this may be seen in the fact that, in the Pentateuch 
 alone, besides introductions occupying several pages, be- 
 tween four and five hundred new notes have been intro- 
 duced without the sacrifice of any valuable matter contained 
 in the original work, and with the addition of a large 
 number of really illustrative engravings, which did not 
 appear in that publication. 
 
 1 Article ' Kitto,' in Knight's English Cyclopaedia.
 
 312 PICTORIAL BIBLE. 
 
 ' The general result may be thus stated: that the 
 matter of the original work has undergone a most careful 
 and elaborate revision ; that nothing of interest or value 
 in the original work is wanting in the new edition ; and 
 that large additions have been made, equal altogether to 
 above one-third of the whole work, of the same kinds of 
 useful information which have secured for the Pictorial 
 Bible the high consideration with which it has been 
 favoured.' 1 
 
 In this edition, there was prefixed to each book a list 
 of commentators upon it, and the editor regarded this as 
 a ' new feature.' Certainly it was ; but he adds, ' A com- 
 plete list is scarcely possible.' His lists are fuller than 
 any we have seen extending to all the various books of 
 Scripture ; but we have met with much fuller lists on 
 separate books. He has omitted, especially in the New 
 Testament, several good expositors, both on the Gospels 
 and Epistles. Some that he has put in his lists are mere 
 curiosities ; but it was impossible for him to assign their 
 several value to books which he had never seen, and their 
 respective merits to authors whom he had never consulted. 
 There is this benefit, however, that ' even the thoughtful 
 general reader may find some matter for suggestive medi- 
 tation in these lists. They will enable him to see what 
 are the books which have been chiefly attractive for 
 separate exposition ; he will perceive how much more 
 attention has, until of late years, been given to the sepa- 
 rate consideration of particular sacred books abroad, than 
 iu this country ; and he may trace the periods in which 
 this department of biblical literature was most cultivated.' 2 
 
 1 Journal of Sacred Literature, vol. iv., 1849, pp. 162-165. 
 
 1 The stereotype plates of this last and improved edition belong now to the 
 Messrs Chambers of Edinburgh, who have issued an elegant reprint, with useful 
 and interesting appendices to the. first three volumes, l>y a qualified contributor, 
 referring to books of research not published in 18 tS.
 
 BRIEF ENTRIES IN DIARY. 313 
 
 Tt is stated in the preface to Dr Chalmers' Daily Scrip- 
 ture Readings, that what he called his ' Biblical Library,' 
 consisted of the Pictorial Bible, a Concordance, Poole's 
 Synopsis, Henry's Commentary, and Robinson's Researches 
 in Palestine. In another place, Dr Chalmers says to his 
 grandson : ' Perhaps when I am mouldering in my coffin, 
 the eye of my dear Tommy may light upon this paper ; 
 and it is possible that his recollection may accord with my 
 fervent anticipations of the effect that his delight in the 
 " Pictorial Bible " may have, in endearing still more to 
 him the holy Word of God.' 
 
 The labour of the last three years had been so incessant, 
 that Kitto had no time to fill much space in his diary. 
 Twelve months elapse between some of the entries. But 
 a few scattered notes of some interest occur : 
 
 ' June 20, 1837. This day the king died, and this day 
 I put the last hand to the second volume of the Pictorial 
 Bible. Mem. I am, it would seem, a dab at presenti- 
 ments. At the beginning of the year, I had a presentiment 
 that the king would die this year. Mentioned it at the 
 time to Bell (Mrs Kitto), who recollects it. Would I had 
 been a false prophet ! Who is not sorry that the king is 
 dead? I am sure I am. 
 
 1 Same day. Very anxious about baby indeed miser- 
 able. A lump on her head. Doctor says she has no 
 bone on the left side of her head, and showed Bell, in the 
 skull of a dead child, the very bone which the living one 
 wanted. A case of great ultimate danger, probably fatal. 
 She has good health now ; and it is awful to see the dear 
 little thing crawling about, laughing, and affecting to 
 address me on her fingers, and to know that the sentence 
 of death is upon her. I have not often never been 
 more distressed ; for I do love the dear little article most 
 entirely.
 
 314 LONDON. 
 
 ' June 21. Sent her to Sir Astley Cooper. After a 
 very slight examination, he said that the bump contained 
 extravasated blood, probably arising from a fall ; doubt- 
 less, the fearful fall she received about two or three months 
 back ; nothing could be done but rub it with vinegar. No 
 danger whatever. When told about the bone, he said 
 " Pho ! Then you may tell the medical man, from me, 
 whoever he is, that he is mistaken." Now, blessed be Sir 
 Astley Cooper ! I receive the dear little creature as one 
 given me back from the grave. May she live a thousand 
 years ! Bless her little eyes ! ' 
 
 The humour which the next excerpt contains was native 
 to him, as the reader must have frequently perceived in 
 the course of the narrative : 
 
 ' June 30. Was much amused by the piscatory pro- 
 pensities of the juvenile cockneys about the New River, 
 which are well worth an extended notice ; e.g., one boy, 
 with a basket, rod, line of black worsted, and bent pin, 
 proceeding, with great importance, river- ward, between two 
 other boys, proud of being parties in the affair, and dying 
 with envy at the luck of their companion, and the dignity 
 to which he had attained. Some respectable-looking 
 boobies, approaching manhood, groping the poor river 
 with very complete and costly apparatus. Others of all 
 sorts, returning fishless home, their blank looks admirably 
 contrasted with the animation and glad expectation of 
 those proceeding river-ward. Coming home by the green, 
 met with a capital practical satire on this at the butcher's, 
 a boy about four, infected with the piscatory mania, was 
 fishing out of the window into the road with one of his 
 father's flesh-hooks.' 
 
 Mr Groves paid a visit to England, on his return from 
 India, in 1835 ; and though Kitto and he had parted in 
 the manner already described, yet they rejoiced to see one
 
 INTERVIEW WITH ME GROVES. 316 
 
 another in their native land. Kitto tells Mr Woollcombe 
 (April 12), ' Your letter conveyed to me the first impres- 
 sion that Mr Groves was in England. I heard nothing 
 further of him until, on returning from Mr Knight's 
 to dinner, about a month since, I found he had called in 
 my absence, and left word that he was about to start for 
 the Continent, but should be in Chancery Lane till four 
 o'clock (it was then three), if I could call upon him there. 
 I did so, and had the greatest satisfaction in seeing him 
 once more.' Two months afterwards, June 10th, he in- 
 forms Mr Lampen 
 
 ' I have had the pleasure of seeing Mr Groves several 
 times since his return to this country, and I was gratified 
 to learn that he had an opportunity of seeing you at 
 Plymouth. I confess to you that there are many of his 
 views in which I do not concur nearly so much as I 
 seemed to myself to do, while I was under that strong 
 personal influence, which 1 think he exerts over those who 
 are in near connection with him, through the warmth and 
 energy which, more than any man I ever knew, he throws 
 into his opinions. Whether the difference between now 
 and then, in my mode of considering the subjects to which 
 my attention, while with him, was so forcibly drawn, re- 
 sults from a more dispassionate and uninfluenced view of 
 the same subjects, or merely from the greater ascendancy 
 of worldly influences in my mind, I cannot venture to 
 determine. I fear Mr Groves might be disposed to con- 
 sider the latter the most probable account; while you, 
 perhaps, might be willing to allow the former cause as 
 sufficient .to produce the effect.'
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 VISIT TO PLYMOUTH BIBLICAL AND LITERARY 
 LABOURS SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC HABITS. 
 
 AFTER the Pictorial Bible was completed, Kitto and his 
 family paid a friendly visit to Plymouth, and were received 
 in a manner which must have been highly gratifying to 
 him. How different his condition now from that in which 
 he had visited his birth-place on his arrival from Malta ! 
 Then appearances, to say the least of it, were against him; 
 now realities were for him. He had achieved celebrity ; 
 and every friend who had ever given him a kind word 
 might greet him as a man of note, and claim an interest in 
 his success. Many must have reversed their previous 
 opinion, and perhaps affirmed that, after all, they had 
 uniformly believed, and had indeed so predicted, that John 
 Kitto would make a figure. Some of humbler rank might 
 remember the deaf and ragged boy, who had devoured 
 so many books ; or the poor and pitied youth, who had 
 drudged so contentedly in the workhouse. We wonder 
 whether Mr Bowden, whose tyranny had brought the 
 smart youngster into notice, lived to see or hear of the 
 editor of the Pictorial Bible. 
 
 Kitto tells one friend that he often ' mused on his inner 
 history,' but his outer life also presented many topics of 
 reflection. As, therefore, he walked through Plymouth, 
 and visited Seven Stars Lane, the place of his birth, or
 
 VISIT TO PLYMOUTH. 317 
 
 surveyed the grim walls of the hospital, or shook hands 
 with some one whose friendly countenance he might not 
 recognise, he must have wondered at the changes in his 
 history ; his memory must have suddenly leapt back to 
 days gone by, and brought them into immediate contrast 
 with present scenes and enjoyments. Once it was night 
 poverty, rags, hunger, toil, and loneliness without a home : 
 now the day had dawned competence, study, fame, and 
 usefulness, with a smiling and a growing household. He 
 was designedly taking his own picture when he grouped 
 and arranged the opposite elements of such an experience 
 as the following : 
 
 ' Afflictions and trials are often allowed to accumulate, 
 one after another, without rest or pause for a certain 
 time, until a point of such accumulated wretchedness is 
 reached, that it seems as if the last point to which even 
 human endurance can stretch the utmost pitch to which 
 even heavenly sustainments can uphold this earthly es- 
 sence, has been attained, and that it needs but one atom 
 more added to the agglomerated burden of these troubles 
 to break the spirit on which it has been piled up. Then, 
 at what seems to us the last moment, lie who knoweth 
 our frame, and remembereth that we are dust He who 
 will never suffer us to be tempted beyond what we are 
 able to bear appears as a deliverer. With His strong 
 hand He lifts the burden from the shoulder, and casts it 
 afar off; tenderly does He anoint and bind up the deep 
 sores it has worn in the flesh, and pour in the oil and the 
 wine ; and graciously does He lead us forth into the fresh 
 and green pastures, where we may lie down at ease under 
 the warm sunshine of His countenance, till all the frightful 
 past becomes as a half-remembered dream a tale that 
 is told.' l 
 
 1 Daily Bible Illustration*, vol iii., p. 316.
 
 318 LITERARY LABOURS. 
 
 After, a sojourn of three weeks in Plymouth, Kitto re- 
 turned to his daily toils. ' Uncle Oliver,' J on which he 
 had been long working, was published during the year. 
 The devotion of so much of his time to the Pictorial Bible 
 had greatly retarded its completion. The book is a de- 
 scription of Persian scenery, with an account of plants, 
 animals, villages, houses, habits, markets, domestic customs, 
 and religion. Uncle Oliver is an old gentleman who has 
 travelled in Persia, and who doles out his information 
 night after night to two nephews and a niece, while Mr 
 Dillon, tutor to the two boys, vouchsafes occasional ex- 
 planations. Uncle Oliver has, of course, almost all the 
 talk to himself, the boys and girl putting in a word only at 
 intervals ; but his descriptions are simple, and, being those 
 of an eye-witness, they are interesting and well adapted 
 to the young. The style is professedly in ' the manner of 
 Peter Parley.' It does not seem to have excited much 
 sensation on its appearance, nor did its author seemingly 
 care much about it. 
 
 Kitto's next great work, after the Pictorial Bible, was 
 the ' Pictorial History of Palestine and the Holy Land, in- 
 cluding a complete history of the Jews.' Nine months 
 were spent in laborious preparation 'collecting books, 
 examining authorities, and digesting materials.' The want 
 of books was still felt by him, for many of those he coveted 
 were of an exorbitant price. He had, however, been 
 fortunate in gaining some valuable tomes, many of which 
 had once been in Mr Heber's collection, ' containing Travels 
 and Descriptions of Palestine,' extending from the fifteenth 
 century to the present time. But he experienced great 
 difficulty in getting authentic information as to the natural 
 
 1 Uncle Oliver's Travels In Persia, giving a complete picture of Eastern manners, 
 customs, arts, sciences, and history, adapted to the capacity of youth, In the man- 
 ner of Peter Parley. Illustrated with twenty-four woodcuts. 2 Vols. 18ma
 
 < PICTORIAL HISTORY OF PALESTINE.' 
 
 history of the country. The work,' he says to Lieuten- 
 ant-Coloiiel Smith, ' is, therefore, in this part, one of original 
 research sufficiently laborious and difficult.' The first 
 volume, with a considerable portion of the second, contains 
 the national history of the Jews, commencing with the 
 patriarchs, descending through the times of the Old Testa- 
 ment, filling up the interval between the Restoration and 
 the birth of Christ, and concluding with the capture of 
 Jerusalem and the ultimate dispersion. The physical 
 history occupies by no means so large a space, and was, 
 perhaps, curtailed, to keep the work within certain fixed 
 dimensions. He opens this section with a brief sketch of 
 various writers on the subject beginning with that store- 
 house, the Hierozoicon of Bochart ; glancing at the Ar- 
 boretum Biblicum of Ursinus, and the Hierophyticon of 
 Hiller ; eulogising, as it deserves, the Hierobotanicon of 
 Olaus Celsius, the patron of Linnaeus, not forgetting, at 
 the same time, Paxton, Harris, Calmet, and Taylor ; and 
 describing some strange and valueless peculiarities in the 
 engravings which so profusely embellish the Physica Sacra 
 of the Swiss physician Scheuchzer. The very^ full list of 
 travellers is arranged, to some extent, according to the 
 countries to which they belonged those being specially 
 referred to who have added to our stock of information on 
 the natural history of the Holy Land. He next discusses, 
 under separate heads, mountains, geology, valleys, lakes, 
 and rivers, history of the months, and zoology, the animals 
 being arranged according to the order of Cuvier's Regne 
 
 Animal. 
 
 The Pictorial History of Palestine and the Holy Land 
 never reached the popularity of the Pictorial Bible, and 
 probably has never been fully appreciated. It seemed to 
 be supposed that the mass of its information had already 
 been anticipated in its predecessor. The supposition is
 
 320 LITERARY LABOURS. 
 
 so far correct in reference to the Bible history, and that 
 has always formed the special object of interest. Many of 
 the illustrations also are repeated from the previous work. 
 Nor do general readers care to find Sacred Narrative done 
 into other words recomposed in another style, which, as it 
 mingles up illustration and paraphrase, and is broken by 
 explanatory references, wants the simplicity and terseness 
 of the inspired original. The book, however, contains 
 much that is valuable, and, of course, treats of portions of 
 Jewish history which are not found in Scripture. Nine 
 months of incessant and conscientious preparation for the 
 task could not be without some proportionate fruit. 
 
 The part which contains the physical history is deficient 
 in arrangement. To describe all the hills and rivers col- 
 lectively and in separate sections may make up good dis- 
 sertations, but it fails to give the reader a full and correct 
 notion of geography that is, of the features and character 
 of the country as they really present themselves. It would 
 have been better to have constructed an ideal pilgrimage 
 through the land, bringing out scene after scene as they 
 actually occur. The imaginary tour might have begun in 
 the peninsula of Sinai and advanced northward, or it might 
 have followed the poet's order, and commenced its survey 
 where 
 
 1 Hoar Lebanon ! majestic to the winds, 
 Chief of a hundred hills, his summit rears 
 Unshrouded ; thence by Jordan south, 
 Whate'er the desert's yellow arms embrace 
 Rich Gilead, Idumea's palmy plain, 
 And Judah's olive hills ; thence on to those 
 Cliff-guarded eyries, desert bound, whose height 
 Mocked the proud eagles of rapacious Rome 
 The famed Petrcean citadels till, last, 
 Rise the lone peaks, by Heaven's own glory crowned, 
 Sinai on Horeb piled.'
 
 DEFECTIVE ARRANGEMENT OF THE WORK. 321 
 
 Such a method, while it would have imparted more variety 
 and interest, would have also taken away from the work 
 its detached and miscellaneous appearance. One prefers 
 to see Palestine as it is, rather than to have it dislocated 
 into fragments : one of these built up of all its mountains, 
 and another overflowing with all its waters. The same 
 objection partly applies to the history of the months, 
 arranged after Buhle and Walch. That portion is replete 
 with useful facts, but of such a kind, that the reader would 
 never think of consulting the section for them. The author 
 pleads for his arrangement, that by it the largest infor- 
 mation might be thrown into the smallest space. True. 
 The argument is good for those who may read through the 
 ' Economical Calendar,' as Charles Taylor calls his trans- 
 lation of Buhle ; but it is forgotten that many a one buys 
 such a book for reference, and that its value is in propor- 
 tion to the facility with which he finds at once what he 
 wants. Who, without some previous knowledge, would 
 search for almonds under January, or hennah under May 
 sycamores under August, or agricultural operations under 
 October? Had Kitto, with his subsequent experience, 
 handled the work for a second edition, he would have 
 turned out almost a new production. Having been paid 
 for this work ' according to the highest scale of literary 
 remuneration,' and having laboured on it so long and dili- 
 gently, he was greatly disappointed at its slow sale, and 
 thus explains himself to Mr Knight May 28, 1840 : 
 
 ' . . . I was deeply disappointed to learn that the 
 success of the Pictorial Palestine is so much below your 
 expectations. I feel assured in my mind that it deserves 
 to succeed, and will still hope that it may afford an ade- 
 quate remuneration to you, when it comes to be sold in a 
 completed form. If I have misgivings, they arise from the 
 fact, that the work will not be completed to the extent 
 
 x
 
 322 LITERARY LABOURS. 
 
 which was promised. . . . It is quite true that the 
 Scriptural narrative was too diffuse at the beginning, arising 
 partly from the difficulty of calculation, and partly from 
 my wish to bring out characteristic customs and ideas. 
 . . . I am, on the whole, well satisfied that, as it will 
 stand, the Pictorial Palestine will do no discredit to the 
 editor of the Pictorial Bible. It is, in fact, a much superior 
 work, though, as it happens, it would seem to be less 
 adapted to attract attention " in the market of literature." 
 I know nothing that could mortify me more than to hear 
 you say that the Physical History would not sell by itself. 
 It is a pocket question to me ; for most of the time spent 
 by me in preparation, before the work went to press, was 
 occupied in forming collections for this very portion. With 
 the other portion, by which I gain as much, and which 
 will be more profitable to you, I could have gone to press 
 at once, and furnished a part month by month. It seems 
 possible to make books too good for the great world ; and 
 if so, you can neither aiford to publish nor I to write good 
 things that will not sell.' % 
 
 Thus will authors complacently misjudge the compara- 
 tive merits of their productions. Yet he admits that 
 Professor Robinson of New York, then in London, had 
 pointed out several inaccuracies in the plates of some of 
 the most beautiful of the landscapes ; and it is plain, from 
 a tedious correspondence, that there was considerable 
 misunderstanding between publisher and author about the 
 size and proportions of the work. He had also expressed 
 distrust of Professor Robinson's view as to the scene of the 
 passage through the Red Sea, 1 stating, in his usual tone 
 of unqualified firmness, that the traveller could scarcely 
 be unbiassed in his judgment, and would see nothing to 
 disturb his ' foregone conclusions,' as he had previously 
 
 1 Pictorial History of Palestine, vol. i., p. 189.
 
 SOPORIFIC POWERS. 323 
 
 published the same opinion in an American periodical. 
 Professor Robinson then wrote him, calmly denying the 
 imputation, 1 and Kitto replied 2 in a long letter, conveying 
 his full appreciation of the traveller's successes, and his 
 hearty thanks for the unparalleled service he had rendered 
 to biblical geography. Many points, too, on which Kitto 
 gives a decided judgment, such as the identification of 
 Sinai, are yet unsettled points on which Lepsius, Ritter, 
 Robinson, Stanley, Stewart, and others well qualified to 
 judge, are by no means agreed, and further research is 
 still indispensable to a just conclusion. 
 
 The question may now be naturally asked, how did 
 Kitto find leisure to get through those multifarious em- 
 ployments how did he so divide and occupy his hours as 
 to bring so much labour within the limits of human capa- 
 bility? His plans necessitated no ordinary industry, and 
 twelve hours were not sufficient for his day. From early 
 life he had taught himself to be a miser in the use of every 
 moment, and he was so disciplined as to content himself 
 with a very small amount of sleep. His quiet and retiring 
 habits, formed before his marriage, were not altered by it. 
 He would still sit at breakfast with a book in his hand, 
 as if he had forgotten that he had ceased to be a bachelor. 
 At tea, however, he made it a point to offer compensation 
 for the morning's monopoly, by reading aloud to his wife, 
 but the deep and unvarying bass of his guttural tones, 
 prolonged for hours, often set ' his sole auditor ' asleep. 
 So innocent was he in his own opinion, that, when gently 
 spoken to as to his persistence in the practice, he could 
 not at first understand what possible cause of complaint 
 he had given. He had imagined that what had so in- 
 terested himself as to induce him to try his vocal organs 
 
 ' ' Letter to Mr Kitto Regent Square, London, October 12, 1840. 
 3 October 19, 1840.
 
 324 DOMESTIC HABITS. 
 
 upon it, could not fail to interest his wife. But the prac- 
 tice, he admits, ' brought to light new and previously 
 unknown talents in him.' ' Were I again in Persia,' he 
 merrily exclaims, ' it would be in my power to realise a 
 handsome income by the exercise of a gift, which is only 
 there well appreciated. It throws into the shade all the 
 boasted wonders of the mesmeric trance, to behold the 
 gradual subsidence of my victim under the sleep-com- 
 pelling influences of my voice, in spite of all her super- 
 human struggles to avert the inevitable doom ! ' 1 In many 
 ways did Mrs Kitto feel at first those strange peculiarities 
 which his habits and labours had created or fostered ; for 
 while he coveted the seclusion of a hermit for his work, 
 he had the intense relish of a husband for domestic and 
 social enjoyment. Indeed, his wife had to undergo a 
 willing process of assimilation, and soon became not only 
 so reconciled to his modes of life, but so much at one with 
 him, in admiration of his abilities, and in sympathy with 
 all his pursuits, as to be able herself to put on proud re- 
 cord that ' during the twenty-one years of our married 
 life, I may say, in perfect truth, that ten hours have not 
 been spent separate from him in visiting.' His toil was 
 incessant, and many a day his only walk was from his 
 study to his parlour, and from his parlour to his study. 
 To overtake his many tasks, he began to sit up during 
 night, but soon abandoned such a dangerous method, for 
 nature would assert its claims, and he insensibly dropped 
 asleep before midnight among his books and papers. 
 Suddenly starting from slumber, he would resume his pen, 
 and by the third watch of the morning would be found 
 eager and busy at his allotted duty. His lamp, however, 
 did not always shade its flame, when he nodded ; and more 
 than once there was the risk of a conflagration. Then 
 
 1 Lost Senses Deafness, p 28.
 
 HOURS AND ORDER OF A WORK-DAY. 325 
 
 he betook himself to a far better and healthier plan, that 
 of early rising the alarum-clock employed for the pur- 
 pose first rousing his partner, who could hear it, and she 
 touching him. A bell, which could be rang by the watch- 
 man, was next substituted for the alarnm; but still he 
 must have depended on the faithful ears of another, and 
 his wife was often obliged, sorely against her will, to wake 
 him from a slumber which his exhausted frame so much 
 required. Getting up at the first summons, usually at 
 four, he at one period repaired directly to his study, pre- 
 pared himself a cup of tea by means of a spirit-lamp, and 
 then sat down and laboured till the hour of breakfast. 
 After breakfast a few turns were occasionally taken in his 
 garden, and having dressed, he went to his workroom, and 
 remained till he was called to dinner at one. The writing 
 of letters, the correcting of proofs, and other miscellaneous 
 duties, occupied him till tea at five ; then he returned to 
 his desk, writing till toward ten, and reading till eleven. 
 This was a work-day of sixteen hours, and of incessant 
 application. All the socialities of out-door life were com- 
 pletely set aside. His wife was enlisted in his service, 
 and so well did she drill herself, that, so far from being a 
 cypher, as she at first thought, he used jocularly to call 
 her his ' hodman.' She never allowed him to be checked 
 or interrupted in his labours by any domestic hinderances ; 
 so that no visitor ever found him, like Melancthon, Hooker, 
 and Thomas Scott, holding a book hi one hand, and rock- 
 ing the cradle with the other. So essential did she become 
 to him, that he could never bear her absence from home. 
 Her activity blended so admirably with his sedentary 
 habits, that he delighted in his own humorous image, 
 ' What with my centripetal and her centrifugal force, we 
 move in a very harmonious orbit.' 
 
 When he was employed in Mr Knight's office, he com-
 
 32G DOMESTIC HABITS. 
 
 monly went and came with book in hand, for the noise 
 around could cause him no distraction. Then and after- 
 wards he ran no little risk in the streets of London. His 
 load of books in his pockets had nearly drowned him in 
 the Tigris ; and the volume on which he poured, amid 
 the crowded thoroughfares of the metropolis, frequently 
 brought him into jeopardy of life and limb. And even 
 when he had no book to fill his eye and occupy his atten- 
 tion, he sometimes saw the people staring as if at some 
 novelty, aad could not divine what or who it was, till a 
 whip laid smartly across his shoulders, told him that him- 
 self in imminent peril had been the unconscious object of 
 curiosity and alarm. At other times, the excited gestures 
 of a policeman warned him to look behind, just as the hot 
 breath of a horse blew into his face, and its uplifted hoof 
 was about to tread him to the ground. But he was merci- 
 fully preserved ; and the coarse epithets of cab-drivers and 
 waggoners, and the more sympathising badinage of orange- 
 women, as the one cursed, or the other commiserated his 
 stupidity, were all happily lost upon him. 
 
 While his daily toils left him little leisure, he yet de- 
 lighted to relax for a brief period with his children. He 
 took them, as soon as they were able, to assist him in his 
 gardening operations, and they were delighted at the 
 symbols of approbation, whenever they received them. 
 Rejoicing in their little joys, he partook of their gambols, 
 and each, on its birth-day, was sure to receive an appro- 
 priate present. But while they enjoyed themselves to the 
 utmost in their pastimes, and could range their home with- 
 out restraint, to one room they were debarred access. The 
 library was a sacred place; and if they did cross the 
 awful threshold, they were solemnly interdicted from 
 touching anything in it. They must have often looked on 
 its litter with curious wonder its piles of letters and
 
 JOY AND LOVE OF HOME. 327 
 
 bundles of papers books shut and open huddled together 
 on the table, and volumes as large as themselves strewed 
 in heaps on the floor. Shireen was at length allowed the 
 high and envied privilege of occasionally touching some of 
 the papers, and arranging a few of the books. But she 
 was bound in her procedure by a strict and formal stipu- 
 lation, to all the articles of which she promised a rigid ad- 
 herence. The formidable document ran as follows : 
 
 ' Plan, Programme, Protocol, Synopsis, and Conspectus, 
 for clearing Dr Kitto's Table. 
 
 ' 1. Make one pile of religious books. 2. Another of 
 books not religious. 3. Another of letters. 4. Another 
 of written papers other than letters. 5. Another of printed 
 papers. 6. Put these piles upon the floor. 7. The table 
 being now clear, dust, scrub, rub, and scour the table till 
 you sweat ; and when you have sweated half a gallon, give 
 over, and put the piles upon the table, leaving to Dr K. 
 the final distribution. Signed, sealed, and delivered, this 
 28th day of May, in the year of our Lord 1852. 
 
 * Witness, HOLOFERNES PIPS. ^ JOHN KITTO.' 
 
 His home, in short, with all its monotonous and in- 
 cessant toil, was to him a source of perpetual delight. 
 His previous life had prepared him to relish it. He who 
 had so often been a guest under others' roofs, and so long 
 ' a stranger in a strange land,' felt his own hearth and house- 
 hold to be an unspeakable pleasure. We have been with 
 him in the height of his fame, and when his family were 
 round him. How heartily he was one with them ! He 
 was a happy and playful father, and his young ones were 
 full of innocent freedom in his presence, each anxious to 
 say a word to him that is, to present it in visible form 
 to the paternal eye even the infant imitating in its own 
 way, and with ' infinite seriousness,' the finger-talk going 
 on so busily round about it, and crowing in ecstasy at its
 
 328 DOMESTIC HABITS. 
 
 success in obtaining a nod or a smile. ' It was quite a 
 treat,' says one of his visitors, 1 ' to see him out of his study, 
 especially at family devotion, conducted with so much 
 solemnity by your dear husband, surrounded by his little 
 family. The dear little one, too, brought in for its morn- 
 ing kiss by his aged mother, and then herself receiving the 
 same token of affection. I think I have never seen so 
 much love and reverence manifested by children for a 
 father indeed, all was love and harmony ; and that look 
 of affection (over his glasses) so often bestowed on them, 
 impressed my mind more deeply than words could have 
 done, that he tenderly loved them.' Again and again, had 
 he intimated, in his journals and letters, his desire to pro- 
 vide for his mother, who had seen so much of the shady 
 side of life ; and now, in the evening of her days, she was 
 an honoured inmate of his dwelling ; and so much was she 
 bound up in him and his family, that when his failing health 
 obliged him to go to Germany and leave her behind, she 
 was so grieved and stunned by the separation, that she 
 seldom spoke afterward, but sunk into a melancholy which 
 continued till her death at the end of last year. 2 
 
 His children, ah 1 of whom had acute ears, and tongues 
 of rattling eloquence, were each of them, as they grew up, 
 at a loss for a time to understand their father's infirmity. 
 They could not comprehend why a word or a call should 
 not at once tell upon him as upon their mother. They 
 were unable to divine why, at their cry of ' Papa,' he did 
 not lift his head from a book, or lay down his pen for a 
 moment ; while the cry of ' Mamma' brought her at once to 
 their side, no matter in what business she might happen to 
 be engaged. From mere imitation, they began the finger- 
 talk before they could speak, and resorted to it when other 
 
 1 Mrs Hullock, in a letter to Mrs Kitto Plainfield, Massachusetts, Nov. 5, 1855. 
 1856.
 
 ATTRACTIONS OF SATURDAY EVENING. 329 
 
 infantine signals failed. ' If the little creatures are so placed 
 as to be unable to engage my attention by touching me, 
 they call to me, and on finding that also unavailing, blow 
 to me, and if that also fails, stamp upon the floor ; and 
 when they have, by one or other of these methods, attracted 
 my eyes, begin their pretty talk upon the fingers. One of 
 the least patient of them used to stamp and cry herself into 
 a vast rage in the vain effort to engage my attention. It 
 is very singular that these practices should have been taken 
 up by all of them in succession, like natural instincts, with- 
 out having learned them from one another.' 1 
 
 His modes of recreation were, at this period, like himself, 
 somewhat peculiar. It was not exercise he coveted, but 
 rather a ride in an omnibus, and a walk home afterwards. 
 The flowers in Covent Garden in summer, and the glory of 
 the shops in winter, greatly delighted him. But scarcely 
 more than once a week could he afford such an indulgence. 
 ' If I failed,' such is his own record, ' to secure this recrea- 
 tion, from press of editorial or other literary business, 
 during the early portion of the week, I seldom missed it on 
 Saturday night. This was because, as an observer of 
 character, I took much interest in seeing the working 
 people abroad with their wives, laying out the money which 
 their week's labour had produced ; and in witnessing the 
 activity which this circumstance gave to many streets, and 
 inspecting the commodities there exposed for sale in the 
 open air. I felt that I could enter with interest into the 
 feelings of the various parties pausing, hesitating, or pur- 
 chasing, at the various shops and stalls, materials for the 
 hiss of universal fry, which on Saturday night ascends from 
 fifty thousand hearths, or for the scarcely more enjoyed 
 bake of the Sunday dinner. It was something to be able 
 to enter into these matters, and to follow a hundred of 
 
 1 Lost Senses Deafness, p. 98.
 
 330 SOCIAL HABITS. 
 
 these parties home, to assist in blowing the fire, to turn ont 
 before the eyes of the bigger children the treasures of the 
 basket, to pacify the young ones, now all alive in bed, with 
 an apple or other nicety, to watch the spit and sputter 
 and hubbub of the frying-pan, and at length to share its 
 steaming contents with all. What a multitudinous host of 
 beggars are then abroad, whom one sees not at any other 
 time ! Their faith in their own class always willing, but 
 then only able to assist them their assurance of the warm 
 sympathies of those who have dominion over Saturday 
 night, more than in the cold charities, or colder uncharities, 
 of gentlefolks who have rule over the rest of the week, are 
 the influences which that night may draw forth into the 
 streets, from their wretched nooks, hundreds of miserable 
 creatures, who, but for the gleams of sympathy and kind- 
 ness which, on that one evening, shine upon their hearts, 
 would perhaps cast themselves down in helpless despair to 
 curse God and die. Then, also, the music is all abroad. 
 Barrel-organs we have at all times ; but on Saturday nights 
 bands of fine instruments are about in all directions, as well 
 as songsters and solitary fiddlers. This is not without 
 enjoyment to me. I like to stand a few paces aloof from 
 a party of Saturday night people gathered round the 
 musicians. I watch the impression it makes upon them. 
 I sympathize in their attention, and by identifying myself 
 with them, derive real enjoyment from the music through 
 them, and drop my dole into the plate with as much cheer- 
 fulness as if the whole concourse of sweet sounds had rushed 
 into my own ears.' 1 
 
 She who had the best experience of his social qualities 
 has thus described them : 
 
 ' I desire to give some idea of my dear husband's habits 
 with friends, but I find the task somewhat difficult. No 
 
 1 Lost Senses Deafness, p. 153.
 
 MANNER IN SOCIETY. 331 
 
 one who ever saw that noble brow, and that eye lighted 
 up with intelligence, could doubt his social powers. That 
 bright thoughts were ever passing within, might be in- 
 ferred from the glowing expression of his features, even 
 when unuttered by the lips. In ordinary company he was 
 far from comfortable, and could only take refuge in a book. 
 Most of his friends, though they might enjoy hearing him 
 talk that is, the few who could understand him. had them- 
 selves so little to say, or were so discouraged by the slow- 
 process of finger-talk, and the still more cumbrous resource 
 of pen and paper, that they seldom or never made the effort 
 to speak. Thus he was generally left to himself reading, or 
 while watching an opportunity to speak, perhaps incurring 
 the mortification of finding that he had interrupted some 
 one. When he met with literary characters, or men of 
 real information, he kept them continually writing, often 
 catching, with his quick eye, the meaning of their answers 
 before they were fully written. He had one friend who 
 was capable of keeping him in a state of continued excite- 
 ment. Though I could execute the finger-talk with great 
 rapidity, I could never read it ; so that I could only guess 
 at what had been said by other persons from the tenor of 
 my husband's remarks. I was always aware when the 
 company was irksome to him. Husbands are not clever 
 at hiding their feelings from their wives ; and I could 
 easily discern his, which often made me quite as miserable 
 as himself. I felt that he ought not to be made to feel 
 his infirmity, which was always the case when he was out 
 of his library. We therefore mutually agreed, that the 
 reception of friends was not suited to our condition, and 
 learned to live alone. But there was one dear family of 
 children, whose growing intelligence he had watched from 
 their infancy, on his visits to their parents. Them ho 
 delighted to visit, or to be visited by. They had all been
 
 332 LITERARY LABOURS. 
 
 drawn to him in love during their childhood, and had 
 learned to talk on their fingers, and could as freely ask 
 and reply to questions as any of his own family. He 
 always kept these young people in full talk, and, while in 
 his company, there was no reprieve for their poor fingers. 
 Sometimes he insisted on their playing on the piano the 
 Battle of Prague, and he sat with his fingers placed on 
 the sounding-board, seeming to derive pleasure from the 
 vibrations he felt. His entire helplessness in all matters 
 extraneous to his library, rendered him quite dependent on 
 me ; whilst I felt it a privilege thus to guard and keep in 
 quiet one whose time was devoted to such noble ends. 
 But the cares of a large family quite destroyed, of late 
 years, the close union of the early period, and I may say, 
 quite separated us, except at meal-times ; for it rendered 
 such exactions of labour necessary on his part that he 
 had no spare time but of this he never complained. He 
 would say, " My work is my pleasure also, and, if it 
 please God to give me strength, I have only to work a 
 little harder." ' 
 
 Of the ' Christian Traveller,' a periodical publication 
 which Kitto had thought of for fifteen years, and which 
 was now commenced, he formed the highest expectations 
 ' a work devoted to a cause for which the public gives 
 half a million a year out of its pocket,' must, he argued, 
 ' be received with favour.' The object of the papers was 
 to give sketches of the missionary enterprise in various 
 parts of the world. He was anxious, for several reasons, 
 to do all the work himself, as he rightly thought that the 
 editing of what he did not himself compose, would take 
 up very much of his valuable time, and if he should ask 
 for contributions, he shuddered to ' think of the showers 
 of twaddle by which he should be inundated.' He felt 
 that he was competent to the task, for he could now do
 
 PECUNIARY STRAITS. 333 
 
 before breakfast what he should once have considered a 
 good day's work ; and one personal reason for the under- 
 taking is honestly stated by himself. It was not simply 
 that he wished to get all the credit, but this ' I have to 
 build up the provisions for my family from the foundations, 
 and under any possible contingency, there is not one on 
 earth from whom those that God has given to me can expect 
 a crust of other bread than such as I may be enabled to 
 provide for them.' 
 
 Only three parts of the periodical were published, when 
 it was stopped by the pecuniary embarrassment of Mr 
 Knight's publishing house. Kitto, so suddenly severed 
 from remunerating labour, was soon reduced to straits. 
 He had been able to earn only a little more than daily 
 bread by hard exertion ; and when occupation could not 
 be found, difficulties at once enveloped him, and so grew 
 upon him, that he was obliged to sell his house at a 
 considerable loss, leave London, and remove to Woking 
 in Surrey. 1 Fits of his early melancholy sometimes re- 
 curred; and no wonder a wife and four children were 
 now dependent on him. 
 
 His own explanation is, ' In 1841, the only publishing 
 house with which, up to that time, I had been connected, 
 fell into difficulties, and was obliged to bring to an abrupt 
 close an engagement with me, which had promised a fair 
 income for some years. I thus became out of employment 
 at a time when the general difficulties of the trade for a 
 long time indisposed booksellers to enter upon new under- 
 takings. At first I lived upon the little I had saved ; then 
 upon the sale of my books, helped out by a little credit for 
 the necessaries of life to a large family.' At a later period, 
 
 'A few pages of what he calls Village Memoranda have been preset ved, but 
 they contain nothing of note. ' I begin to perceive,' he says, ' how people in the 
 country can appear as grandees on an income which would barely enable them to 
 support the appearance of respectability in London.'
 
 331 LITERARY LABOURS. 
 
 he states more fully to Mr Groves, that between the end- 
 ing of one task and beginning of another, he had no em- 
 ployment for twelve months, and that he had made an 
 arrangement to pay what he owed by instalments in three 
 years. 'This,' he adds, in 1848, 'has been done to the 
 uttermost farthing.' 
 
 But during such domestic eclipses, he could conceal his 
 own discomfort, and charm away that of others with a 
 little touch of gaiety. On one occasion, when the more 
 solid portion of the family dinner depended on the sale of 
 some books, which necessity had compelled him to part 
 with, and when she who had gone on the melancholy 
 errand returned without having converted the volumes into 
 money, he surveyed first his children's faces of anxiety 
 and disappointment, and then, moving towards the window, 
 exclaimed, ' Well, we must look at the butcher's shop op- 
 posite to get the right relish for our bread.' 
 
 Let it then be understood, that Kitto's straits arose, not 
 from inadequate compensation, but from want of employ- 
 ment. Had he enjoyed constant work, he would have lived 
 in comfort. His books were not of a nature to bring him 
 or his publishers very large profits, yet they had an excel- 
 lent circulation. They could not, like the works of Dickens, 
 realise a magnificent revenue, but they would have insured 
 him a sufficient income. His great helplessness lay in the 
 precariousness of his means. His torment was not a sur- 
 plus, but a want of work. ' Leave to toil ' was his prayer, 
 for he knew that abundant fruit would follow. 'There 
 are ten thousand things in the world that I fear more than 
 work,' he says ; and he might have added, ' What I dread 
 above all things is the want of work.' He states to his 
 friend, Mr Tracy, 1 ' The position which I have attained is 
 not without its anxieties. I see, for instance, a large 
 
 1 Woking, Jan. 20, 1847.
 
 CASTING ABOUT FOR EMPLOYMENT. 335 
 
 family growing: around me, and entirely dependent upon 
 the labours of my pen, which, in tJie line I have chosen, are 
 much more productive of honours than emoluments.' Lest 
 a want of economy, or some other folly, should be laid to 
 his charge, he explains, a month afterwards, to the same 
 friend ' I heard, last week, that there is a general im- 
 pression in the city of my being a very rich man. I accept 
 this as an acknowledgment, that one whose works have 
 been so well received by the public ought to be so. So I 
 might have been, probably, if I had commenced my career 
 with any capital to enable me to retain the copyright of 
 my own works.' This statement speaks for itself. He 
 could never command property in his books, but was 
 obliged to compose them for daily support, so that, when 
 the work was finished, the salary ceased. He never was 
 able to finish a work, and then sell it. He simply pre- 
 sented his plan, made his bargain, and was paid in propor- 
 tion as the work advanced. But the possession of literary 
 property was still his hope, though he never could manage 
 to secure it. Accordingly, two years afterwards, in offer- 
 ing to Mr Oliphant the Daily Bible Illustrations, he de- 
 clares, ' It was my wish to undertake this intended set of 
 books on my own account, but circumstances have arisen 
 to render it more expedient to pursue, at least for a time, 
 the plan upon which all my works have hitherto been pro- 
 duced, viz., by making arrangements for them, before I get to 
 work seriously upon tfiem? But we have been anticipating. 
 Previously to his removal from London to a rural re- 
 treat, his anxious mind had been devising many forms of 
 literary industry. Not a few prospectuses were penned 
 by him, and sent abroad in various directions. He pro- 
 posed to the Religious Tract Society to write for them 
 either a Biblical Cyclopaedia or a Life of Christ, entering 
 at length into an explanation of his views ; but the Society
 
 336 LITERARY LABOURS. 
 
 do not seem to have entertained the offer. The project 
 of a new Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature, sent to Messrs 
 Black of Edinburgh, engaged their attention ; and they 
 entered into a correspondence with him, the issue of which 
 was the publication, in the first place, of a ' History of 
 Palestine, from the Patriarchal Age to the Present Time,' 
 12rno, pp. 378, Edinburgh 1843. This was a brief school 
 history ; and while it put a little into the author's pocket, 
 it added nothing to his fame. Some months elapsed be- 
 fore the Cyclopaedia could appear months in which his 
 household suifered the pinch and pressure of want. The 
 ' Thoughts among Flowers ' l was published in 1843, by 
 the Religious Tract Society. The little volume shows 
 the author's love of flowers, and how he could moralise 
 among them, and indicates what snatches of poetry lay in 
 the stores of his memory. The reflections are occasionally 
 far-fetched, and are not the natural scent of the blossoms, 
 but rather a borrowed fragrance. Between 1841 and 
 1843, he prepared for Mr Fisher the letter-press of the 
 ' Gallery of Scripture Engravings,' in three volumes quarto. 
 The letter-press is simply to explain the engravings, and, 
 except as a show-book, the volumes are of no great utility. 
 In 1845 he prepared for Mr Knight ' The Pictorial Sunday 
 Book, with 1300 engravings, and an appendix on the 
 Geography of the Holy Land.' 2 This volume was in 
 folio, and a portion of it was published separately, under 
 the title of the ' Pictorial History of our Saviour.' ' The 
 publication,' it is stated in the preface, ' now submitted to 
 Christian families, is intended to present, at the very 
 cheapest rate, a series of engravings illustrative of the 
 Bible history, the prophecies, the psalms, the life of our 
 Saviour, and the Acts of the Apostles, exhibiting the 
 scenes of the great events recorded in Scripture, the 
 
 32mo, pp. 156. Charles Knight and Co., 1845.
 
 CYCLOPAEDIA OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. 337 
 
 customs of the Jews, the natural history of the Holy Laud, 
 and the antiquities which throw a light upon the Sacred 
 Writings. With these are united some of the more 
 striking and impressive compositions of the great painters 
 and original designs. These pictorial illustrations are con- 
 nected with a course of Sunday reading, which, avoiding 
 all matters of controversy, endeavours to present, in the. 
 most instructive and engaging form, a body of Scriptural 
 narrative and explanation.' There is nothing new in the 
 volume it is but a classified re-exhibition of plates and 
 wood-cuts employed in previous publications of various 
 kinds, both secular and biblical, with pages of letter-press 
 between. The physical geography annexed is a reprint, 
 with a few changes, of the similar portion of the Pictorial 
 History of Palestine. Yet, apart from its immediate value 
 in relation to Scripture, and that value is not great, the 
 volume contains such a number and variety of engravings, 
 both from nature, the Egyptian monuments, and the 
 masters of all schools and countries, that it is an amusing 
 and informing production, and was certainly of marvellous 
 cheapness at its first appearance. 
 
 In the meantime the ' Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature,' 
 published by the Messrs Black of Edinburgh, had been 
 commenced. The idea was his own, and he had much 
 correspondence about the details of the plan. In the mul- 
 titude of opinions proposed to him, he held in the main to 
 his own original view, but was obliged to depart from his 
 first resolution to do the whole work himself. He knew 
 what had been achieved in this department, and what 
 remained to be done. Nor was he confined to British 
 iassistance in the enterprise he laid his hands also on 
 igeveral German contributors. The book, as it proceeded, 
 ,grew to a size not originally contemplated, a circumstance 
 mot unusual with its editor. But the allotment of articles
 
 338 LITERARY LABOURS. 
 
 to respective writers was a responsible task, and it needed 
 some tact to get the contributions in time from his numer- 
 ous assistants. Swarms of suggestions poured in upon 
 him as the publication went on, and he sometimes felt that 
 the multitude of counsellors endangered safety. Objec- 
 tions, too, were started, and there was ground for some of 
 them. He replies, in his own portion of the preface, ' that 
 he felt that he could not find forty independent thinkers, 
 among whom there should be no visible diversities of senti- 
 ment ;' observes that ' it did not become him to dictate to 
 them the views they were to take of the subjects intrusted 
 to them ;' and confesses that some of them exhibit opinions 
 in which he is not able to concur, though he regards them 
 as not less competent than himself to arrive at just conclu- 
 sions. He claims, however, and that justly, that the book 
 be judged not by particular articles, but by its general 
 character ; and he adds, that his ' physical privation,' 
 placing him in complete isolation from many external in- 
 fluences, ' had enabled him to realise more extensive co- 
 operation in this undertaking, than under any pastoral or 
 official connection with any religious denomination he could 
 expect to have obtained.' ' The work owes its origin to 
 the editor's conviction of the existence of a great body of 
 untouched materials applicable to such a purpose, which 
 the activity of modern research and the labours of modern 
 criticism have accumulated, and which lay invitingly ready 
 for the use of those who might know how to avail them- 
 selves of such resources.' The book was at once felt to 
 meet a want of the age. Nothing of a like nature existed 
 in the English language. Previous dictionaries were de- 
 fective both in scholarship and materials. Calmet had 
 been done into English, and overlaid with learned fancies ; 
 while Winer could not bear translation at all. Other works 
 of less pretension were also in circulation. But Dr Kitto
 
 DIPLOMA OF D.D. 339 
 
 had concluded an enterprise which embraced the ripest 
 scholarship, and took in the most recent researches. The 
 Cyclopaedia, therefore, rose at once to a lofty position, and, 
 as we have elsewhere said, ' can be excelled only by itself 
 in a new and corrected edition.' It is beyond our present 
 business to offer any criticism on the unequal merits of the 
 various articles, written by so many contributors. Only, we 
 may say, that Dr Kitto did not appear to full advantage as 
 an editor. Though his own religious views were fixed, yet 
 his catholicity of temper unfitted him for doing the harder 
 work, and pronouncing the sterner decisions of the editorial 
 chair. He received a thousand pounds as editor, and more 
 than double that sum was expended on contributions and 
 illustrations. We regret that he was not spared to superin- 
 tend a second edition, for he was well aware that a second 
 edition would require to be, in many respects, a new book. 
 
 When the great work was at length brought nigh to its 
 termination, and its toils and dangers were past, we find 
 its indefatigable editor relaxing, and recording thus, 
 
 ' July 13, 1845. Put the last hand to the regular work 
 of the B. C. ; that is, did the last article in Z that was 
 upon my list. A day to be remembered on many accounts 
 besides. 
 
 1 July 14. Cleared my table of the books that have lain 
 on it for three years placed them on the shelves, not long 
 to slumber there perhaps.' 
 
 On the title-page of the Biblical Cyclopaedia, when pub- 
 lished in two volumes, the editor's name stands no longer 
 in naked simplicity. It is now John Kitto, D.D., F.S.A. 
 a very different addition from that which he assumed 
 in his early dream of authorship. It was then ' John 
 Kitto, shoemaker, pauper, etc.,' the inmate of a work- 
 house ; but now, it is John Kitto, Doctor of Divinity, 
 Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries a double elevation
 
 340 LITERAEY LABOURS. 
 
 to which he had never aspired in his wildest reveries. 
 To be a missionary, sometimes appeared to him a pro- 
 bable occurrence to be a clergyman, was scarce within 
 the range of possibility ; but now he had received a theo- 
 logical title, and was the first, and we suppose the only 
 English layman, who ever possessed such an honour. In 
 1844, the University of Giessen, through his friend Pro- 
 fessor Credner, sent him the diploma of Doctor of Divinity. 
 And had he not earned it by his literary works? the 
 works of a man who had passed through such a boyhood 
 of privation and suffering, and had spent such a youth of 
 desultory and unsatisfactory pursuits. Among Kitto's 
 papers there are preserved two documents, that stand out 
 in startling contrast : the one his indenture to Bowden, 
 the shoemaker, somewhat ragged and torn, with its many 
 ' seals and signatures ;' and the other his diploma from the 
 University of Giessen. They mark the two opposite poles 
 of his life. In 1845, Dr Kitto became a fellow of the 
 Royal Society of Antiquaries, and this body honoured 
 themselves in thus honouring him. We have occasionally 
 seen the epithet ' reverend ' prefixed to his name. The 
 error arose, no doubt, from the idea that a theological 
 title implies a clerical status. But degrees are simply 
 academical, not ecclesiastical distinctions. In Germany, 
 as Dr Kitto explains, they are sometimes conferred on 
 scholars who are not ' in orders,' as very recently on the 
 Chevalier Bunsen ; and in such a case, if one, who has 
 already obtained the title of Doctor in Divinity, ' desires 
 to undertake the pastoral office, he is ordained without 
 the examinations which all others must undergo.' ' Thus 
 Tholuck was Doctor in Divinity and Professor of Theo- 
 logy before his ordination to the ministry, which, conse- 
 quently, took place without the usual examinations.' 1 
 
 ] Daily Bible Illustrations, vol. viiL, p. 121.
 
 LOST SENSES DEAFNESS. 341 
 
 In 1845 Dr Kitto made two contributions to Mr 
 Knight's Weekly Volume. Both are named the ' Lost 
 Senses ;' the first part having the special title ' Deafness,' 
 and the second ' Blindness.' The first is a charming little 
 book in fact, an autobiography a revelation of his life 
 and history, as they were modified or developed by his 
 deafness. ' His condition,' he admits, ' is not new ; but 
 that it has never hitherto been described, may be owing to 
 the fact, that a morning of life, subject to such crushing 
 calamity, has seldom, if ever, been followed by a day of 
 such self-culture.' He was a D.D. when he penned these 
 words. In this brief volume he first traces the growth of 
 his mind with great distinctness, and shows clearly under 
 what awful disadvantages he laboured. The books in 
 common circulation in his young days were far inferior to 
 those now produced ; but he had triumphed over such a 
 drawback. After his deafness he became more and more 
 loath to speak, till his friends, during his voyage to Malta, 
 forced him ; and through life he used no superfluous terms 
 ' avoiding all remarks about the weather, all expletives, 
 adjuncts, complimentary phrases,' and even terms of en- 
 dearment ; so much so, that one of his boys was startled 
 when his father, for the first time, called him ' dear.' There 
 is a chapter of great interest on ' percussions.' The loud- 
 est thunder-storm was perfectly inaudible to him, though 
 once, a peal having shaken the house, he supposed it was 
 a servant moving the table in an adjoining room. He 
 could not hear the throb or music of a set of bells ; but 
 when he was placed in contact with the tower in which 
 they were ranged, he was conscious of a dull percussion 
 overhead, as if blows had been hitting the wall above him. 
 The great clock of St Paul's struck when he happened 
 .once to be examining it with a friend, and the sensation 
 was that of heavy blows upon the fabric on which he stood,
 
 342 LITERACY LABOURS. 
 
 communicated to his feet, and diffused over his body. 
 When a cannon was fired near him, he heard no sound, 
 but felt as if a fist, cohered with a boxing-glove, had 
 knocked him on the head. The drawing of furniture, slap- 
 ping of doors, or falling of books upon the floor, produced 
 a vibration that often distressed him, though he could not 
 determine precisely whence the disturbance proceeded. A 
 knock at the street door he could not hear, but the shut- 
 ting of it, affecting the entire edifice, was ' painfully dis- 
 tinct.' The lightest footfall upon the floor of his room 
 would sometimes rouse him from sleep, tie felt the, sound 
 of vehicles in Fleet Street only when they were on the 
 same side of the pavement, and opposite to him, but this 
 ' sense of sound ' did not affect him in the house. When the 
 points of his finger-nails rested on the board over which 
 the wires of a piano are stretched, he could make out the 
 higher notes, in such a stormy piece of music as the ' Battle 
 of Prague.' In corroboration of what he has said in the 
 ' Lost Senses,' we may add another of his subsequent 
 experiences. He witnessed, from the apartments of the 
 Society of Antiquaries, in Somerset House, the great 
 procession of the Duke of Wellington's funeral. But he 
 says, ' Not the shadow of a sound, or the faintest vibration, 
 struck upon the paralysed organ from the great military 
 bands that passed below, though a person, I have been in 
 the habit of supposing as deaf as myself, told me he could 
 not only distinguish the sound, but follow the notes with 
 considerable distinctness.' 1 
 
 Yet there were some compensations. He had developed 
 within himself a keen sense of the beautiful, and a passionate 
 love for it. He could not bear what was ugly. He loved 
 to gaze on the moon 'walking in brightness;' and 'high 
 mountains were a feeling.' ' The slaughtering of a tree 
 
 1 Letter to Mr Oliphant, Nov. 20, 1852.
 
 PRIVATIONS OF DEAFNESS. 343 
 
 affects me more sensibly than that of an animal.' He was 
 fond of colours, and, when a boy, knew every print in every 
 window of Plymouth by heart. He travelled over every 
 countenance distinctly within his view, as a florist would 
 inspect a bed of tulips, and often performed the same ex- 
 periment upon character as he walked from St Paul's to 
 Charing Cross, or from the top of Tottenham Court Road 
 to the Post-office. He hated to sit in twilight, Dr Kitto 
 then paints some of those disqualifications which deafness 
 produces, and how he rose above the trials of his earlier 
 years ; how the craving to be honourably known grew 
 upon him, and how this was refined into a passion to be 
 useful. He felt that deafness, while it aided the amount 
 of work done, had many drawbacks ; for it prevented ex- 
 planation, retarded business, and the making of bargains. 
 This defect had more than once annoyed him in his trans- 
 actions and literary covenants. ' Men of business have a 
 feeling that affairs can be transacted much better by per- 
 sonal interview than writing. In fact, there is no conceal- 
 ing it, that the deaf man is likely to be regarded as a bore. 
 Sensitively alive to this danger, he will perhaps depart, 
 leaving his business unfinished.' 'The deaf man,' he repeats, 
 ' is confined to the solid bones, the dry bread, the hard 
 wood, the substantial fibre of life, and gets but little of the 
 grace, the emotion, the gilding, and the flowers, which are 
 to be found precisely in those small things which are " not 
 worth " reporting on the fingers.' 
 
 He has a very playful chapter on the shifts to which 
 deaf people resort to catch the talk of a general company, 
 and how they are usually far behind in their enjoyments of 
 clever and witty sayings, beginning to smile at one piece 
 of humour, while those around them are concluding their 
 laughter over another which has superseded it. He might 
 have added, that the epithet ' absurd' has its origin and
 
 344 LITERARY LABOURS. 
 
 meaning from the common misappropriateness in time or 
 subject of a deaf man's answer. Strange to say, he was 
 six years deaf before he knew that there was any mode of 
 communication by means of the fingers. 
 
 Dr Kitto then enters at some length into the philosophy 
 of teaching deaf mutes, and diverges into an account of 
 some famous institutions for their education. He used to 
 attend public meetings at Exeter Hall, and the most ani- 
 mated speakers pleased him most. When the audience 
 'broke into loud cheers,' he became keenly alive to his 
 privation. In the House of Commons he was more amused 
 than awestruck was shocked by the want of solemnity ; 
 and he says, 'My far too entire sense of the ridiculous 
 almost overcame me, when the very remarkable sergeant-at- 
 arms shouldered his mace, with the air of a musketeer, 
 and escorted up to the table two masters in Chancery, who 
 brought down a bill from the Lords, and who, in retiring, 
 walked backwards the whole length of the floor, stopping 
 at regulated intervals in their retrogressive move, to bow 
 very low to the Chair.' Toward the conclusion of the book, 
 Kitto hazards a conjecture as to the origin and significa- 
 tion of his name. The English would have it to be Cato, 
 the Spaniards Quito, the Italians Ghetto. Himself gives 
 it a Phoenician source, Kirru in Dioscorides meaning a 
 species of cassia, pronounced in Hebrew mp, and he avows 
 that the Phrenicians, in their early intercourse for tin 
 in Cornwall, probably planted the name in that southern 
 province. The likelihood is, that it is simply a miner's* 
 contraction of an older and longer Cornish name. The 
 Cornish and Celtic are closely allied ; the epithet ciotach, in 
 Irish, means ' left-handed,' and this Celtic term is not un- 
 known in a more Anglicised form. The reader will remember 
 Colkitto as the epithet of the royalist chieftain Macdonnell 
 in Milton's eleventh sonnet. The original spelling Kittoe,
 
 LOST SENSES BLINDXESS. 345 
 
 is also so far fatal to the eastern derivation. Cato or Catto 
 is a common name in Aberdeenshire, and may be only our 
 northern Doric form of the English word. This small auto- 
 biography is Kitto's record of his first difficulties and sub- 
 sequent progress, of his physical disability and its results 
 a record made at a period when he was able to take a 
 patient survey of his inner life and its outer course. 
 
 The second volume, ' Blindness,' has not the charm of 
 the former, chiefly because it does not contain the results 
 of self-analysis and experience. It describes many cases 
 of blindness, and shows what high excellence in various 
 departments of art and science the blind have attained. 
 For the roll of the blind includes many illustrious names, 
 far more than that of the deaf mutes. The deprivation is, 
 in fact, less than that of hearing, for the want of hearing 
 necessitates the want of language. Among blind poets, 
 we have Homer and Milton, and at a great distance Black- 
 lock, who was also a clergyman ; Euler and Saunderson, 
 among mathematicians; and Huber among naturalists. 
 Many have been musicians ; and Handel was blind in the 
 last years of his life. Lieutenant Holman, blind from his 
 twenty-fifth year, had travelled round the world, being at 
 one time sent out of Russia as a spy ; and in 1834 he pub- 
 lished his travels, in four volumes. James Wilson was the 
 blind biographer of the blind. Dr Kitto adduces many 
 instances of persons whose touch was a kind of second 
 eight who could distinguish colours by smell or touch 
 or who were able to comprehend locality in a marvellous 
 degree, such as Tom Wilson of Dumfries, not only an in- 
 genious mechanic, but one who often was seen, on a Satur- 
 day evening, conducting a 'groggy neighbour' home to his 
 wife and children. We ourselves knew as remarkable a 
 case as any that Dr Kitto has mentioned that of blind 
 Alick of Stirling, who, as he twirled his key in his hand,
 
 346 LITERARY LABOURS. 
 
 would repeat the words of any portion of Scripture, if you 
 simply named its chapter and verse, and who, if you recited 
 any passage, would, in a moment and as easily, tell you the 
 chapter and verse where it occurred. We heard, in our 
 boyhood, of a blind tailor, too, in the same town, who was 
 famous for his taste and accuracy in sewing tartan dresses, 
 distinguishing the various colours by the sense of touch. 
 I)r Kitto dwells with special tenderness on the sad condi- 
 tion of those who are at once blind and deaf and dumb, 
 creatures in perfect isolation ; the most remarkable cases 
 being those of James Mitchell, in the north of Scotland, 1 
 and the well known Laura Bridgman of America. In fact, 
 Laura Bridgman is the most awful example on record 
 totally blind, deaf, and dumb, with no power of smell, and 
 almost none of taste. Touch alone remains; and her 
 education is a surprising instance of ingenuity and per- 
 severance. 2 The volume, however, notwithstanding its 
 
 1 We saw James Mitchell at Nairn last summer (1857). He is certainly a strange 
 creature ; yet contrives to walk about, feeling on all sides of him, and has great 
 pleasure in ascertaining, in his own way, the progress of any new buildings in the 
 town. 
 
 2 The following incident in the history of Laura Bridgman, her first interview 
 with her mother after eighteen months' absence in the Institution, is one of the most 
 touching ever recorded in any language : 
 
 'The mother stood some time, gazing with overflowing eyes upon her unfortunate 
 child, who, all unconscious of her presence, was playing about the room. Presently 
 Laura ran against her, and at once began feeling her hands, examining her dress, 
 and trying to find out if she knew her ; but not succeeding in this, she turned away 
 as from a stranger, and the poor woman could not conceal the pang she felt that 
 her beloved child did not know her. She then gave Laura a string of beads which 
 she used to wear at home, which were recognised by the child at once, who, with 
 much joy, put them around her neck, and sought me eagerly, to say she under- 
 stood the string was from her home. The mother now tried to caress her, but poor 
 Laura repelled her, preferring to be with her acquaintances. Another article from 
 home was now given her, and she began to look much interested. She examined 
 the stranger much closer, and gave me to understand she knew that she came from 
 Hanover; she even endured her caresses, but would leave her with indifference at 
 the slightest signal. The distress of the mother was now painful to behold; for, 
 although she had feared that she should not be recognised, the painful reality of 
 being treated with cold indifference by a darling child, was too much for a woman's 
 nature to bear. After a while, on the mother taking hold of her again, a vague 
 idea seemed to flit across Laura's mind that this could not be a stranger ! She
 
 MINOR WORKS. 347 
 
 interesting statements, never did, and never could, obtain 
 the popularity of its predecessor. 
 
 Between 1846 and 1849 Dr Kitto composed, for the 
 Tract Society's Monthly Volume, 'Ancient and Modern 
 Jerusalem,' two parts ; ' the Court and People of Persia,' 
 two parts ; and the ' Tahtar Tribes.' These little books, 
 when not dealing in extracts from accredited authors, are 
 very interesting, and put into plain language and brief 
 compass, the result of former researches and previous pub- 
 lications. ' The Tabernacle and its Furniture' was pub- 
 lished in a thin quarto in 1849, and is well worth reading. 
 
 By the time that the Cyclopaedia was nearly concluded, 
 Dr Kitto had fallen again into pecuniary difficulties, which 
 preyed upon him for some years to come. He could not 
 readily find employment of a kind to support him, and his 
 
 therefore felt her hands very eagerly, while her countenance assumed an expression 
 of intense interest ; she became very pale, and then suddenly red. Hope seemc 
 struggling with doubt and anxiety, and never were contending emotions more 
 rtroXly depicted upon the human face. At this moment of painful uncertainty, 
 the mother drew her close to her side, and kissed her fondly; when at once th 
 truth flashed upon the child, and all mistrust and anxiety disappeared from her face, 
 as, with an expression of exceeding joy, she eagerly nestled to the bosom of her 
 parent and yielded to her fond embraces. After this, the beads were all unheeded, 
 the playthings which were offered to her were utterly disregarded ; her playmates, 
 for whom but a moment before she gladly left the stranger, now vainly strove to 
 pull her from her mother, and though she yielded her usual instantaneous obe, 
 ence to any signal to follow me, it was evidently with painful reluctance. She clung 
 close to me, as if bewildered and fearful ; and when, after a moment, I took her 
 her mother, she sprang to her arms and clung to her with eager joy. The sub- 
 senuent parting between them showed alike the affection, the intelligence, and tli 
 resolution of the child. Laura accompanied her mother to the door, clinging close 
 to her all the way, until they arrived at the threshold, where she paused and felt 
 around to ascertain who was near her. Perceiving the matron, of whom she is very 
 fond she grasped her with one hand, holding on convulsively to her mother with 
 the other and thus she stood for a moment. Then she dropped her mother s hand, 
 put her handkerchief to her eyes, and turning round, clung, sobbing to the matron, 
 while her mother departed with emotions as deep as those of her child. -. 
 ceding description is by Dr Howe, her teacher. 
 
 Another very remarkable instance of the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties 
 will be found in a volume called-The Rifle, Axe, and Saddlebags. By \\.1U 
 Henry Milburn, the Blind Preacher. Reprinted from the American edition, with 
 a Preface by the Rev. Thomas Binney. London : S. Low and Son, 1857.
 
 348 L1TERAKY LABOURS. 
 
 sources of income were scanty and precarious. The com- 
 position of the small works we have referred to was of little 
 value in money. The new edition of the Pictorial Bible 
 took up more time than he expected, and for what he called 
 ' surplus time' he obtained no remuneration. His friends, 
 however, stood forward to assist him, and His Royal High- 
 ness the Prince Consort was a generous contributor. 
 
 At this period he projected the 'Journal of Sacred 
 Literature.' His object was noble, but the circulation 
 never repaid him for toil and effort. The prospectus was 
 of considerable size, and embraced a great variety of topics. 
 The editor represents that there are many excellent reli- 
 gious periodicals, and much valuable matter locked up in 
 them, but they are little read save by adherents of the 
 ecclesiastical bodies to which they belong as organs. Very 
 much more is equally lost in languages which few general 
 readers know, and not many scholars understand. His 
 inference is, that there is, therefore, an undoubted want of 
 ' a publication which, being established on a wider basis, 
 should not be regarded as the organ of any one religious 
 denomination, or of any one country ; but should be the 
 means of enabling different denominations and different 
 countries to impart to one another whatever they know, 
 which is likely to advance the general interests of biblical 
 literature.' There is truth in this statement, but much is 
 taken for granted. Denominational predilections, though 
 certainly weaker in this branch of sacred learning than any 
 other, are not wholly without antagonistic influence. The 
 editor adds : ' It will also appear that the current theo- 
 logical literature of this country, and especially its reli- 
 gious periodical literature, is too exclusively formed out of 
 materials arising among ourselves, and in our own language. 
 We have the apostolical assurance, that " they who measure 
 themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among
 
 JOURNAL OF SACEED LITERATURE. 349 
 
 themselves, are not wise ;" and yet, for nearly two hundred 
 years, we have done little else. There were of old " giants" 
 of biblical literature in our land, who, in their lifetime, kept 
 up a profitable intercourse with the scholars of the Con- 
 tinent, and whose names are even now cited with respect 
 by eminent foreign writers, who have but little acquaintance 
 with our more modern labours in sacred literature. We 
 therefore want a publication which shall keep us acquainted 
 with all that is sound and valuable in the labours of biblical 
 scholars of the European Continent and of North America, 
 and in whose pages such of them as now live may inter- 
 change the results of their researches with our own writers. 
 ' All these wants, and more than these, it is the object 
 of the present publication to satisfy ; and those, who are 
 apt to discern "the signs of the times," are strongly 
 sensible that the time is come in which the demand for 
 such a work is most urgent, and in which it may, with 
 the greatest advantage, be produced.' 
 
 ' The editor was induced to think of this publication by 
 the frequent representations, to the above effect, which he 
 has been in the habit of receiving from various quarters ; 
 and already the private notification of his intention to 
 venture on the undertaking has excited much interest 
 both in this country and abroad. It is only, indeed, in 
 consequence of the extensive literary co-operation which 
 he was enabled to organize for the purposes of another 
 publication (the Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature), that 
 he has been induced to think seriously of this work in 
 the form which it bears in the present prospectus : but 
 with the like, and even more extensive co-operation, 
 applicable to the existing undertaking, he finds no reason 
 to distrust his means of producing a publication adequate 
 to the supply of the wants which have been indicated.' 
 Kobody will question Dr Kitto's desire to promote
 
 350 LITERARY LABOURS. 
 
 biblical scholarship, but he regarded the working of the 
 machine as too easy a matter. He forgot that many 
 persons had not his promptitude in pouring forth the 
 ripened results of their research and judgment ; that it 
 is one thing to induce a scholar to write an article for 
 the Cyclopaedia a work of permanent value, and quite 
 another thing to prevail upon him to send an elaborate 
 contribution to a periodical, the interest of which too 
 often passes away with the current number. The con- 
 spectus, as first published, embraces a wide range 
 Original Essays on Biblical History, Geography, Natural 
 History, Antiquities, Biography, Bibliography, with Re- 
 views, Notices, and Quarterly Lists of New Publications, 
 Expository Passages, Philological Essays, Ecclesiastical 
 History, Translations and Reprints, Oriental Literature, 
 Correspondence and Intelligence. Dr Kitto thought that 
 his previous success .secured a basis of prosperity to his 
 new undertaking. ' Every writer,' he tells us, ' does, in 
 the course of time, gather around him a public who 
 understand him better, and sympathise with him more 
 than the rest of the world. Such a public, consisting 
 chiefly of the possessors of his former publications, the 
 editor of the Journal of Sacred Literature may venture 
 to suppose that he, after many long years of well accepted 
 labour, has brought around him ; and though the present 
 publication is of much wider range than any of his for- 
 mer productions, singly taken, and a proportionate in- 
 crease of readers may be expected for it, he naturally 
 looks to his old friends as the chief and most earnest 
 supporters of an undertaking, to which the matured plans 
 and the most cherished hopes of usefulness are now 
 irrevocably committed, and in connection with which he 
 has assumed responsibilities more anxious than he ever 
 before ventured to incur.'
 
 MISCALCULATIONS AS TO SUCCESS. 351 
 
 1 . Dr Kitto, in forming such an estimate, evidently forgot 
 to distinguish between scientific and popular literature. 
 Thousands of the readers of the Pictorial Bible, who 
 were delighted and benefited with the work, set no value 
 whatever on biblical criticism or Oriental literature ; and 
 many of those who purchased the Cyclopaedia, did so be- 
 cause, from its compacted form and its learned treasures, 
 it could be easily and profitably consulted. When they 
 opened it, they could turn at once to the article they 
 wanted. Whereas, in subscribing for a periodical, they 
 did not know what they might get to read, or what pecu- 
 liar subjects or texts might be handled. The notes of 
 the Pictorial Bible, if scattered through the volumes of a 
 Quarterly Review, would never have attracted hosts of 
 readers their charm lay in being so compendious, and in 
 being found so readily in connection with the text of the 
 Sacred Volume. 
 
 Dr Kitto sadly miscalculated when he thought of find- 
 ing so large a circle of subscribers to his Journal. The 
 very prospectus warned away hundreds who had rejoiced 
 in his previous labours, and who might wish him success 
 in a path in which they had neither inclination nor ability 
 to follow him. Yet who cannot sympathise with the editor 
 when he thus winds up his address ? ' If it tends to ad- 
 vance the glory of God by promoting the better under- 
 standing of His word and His ways, if it contributes in 
 any useful degree to the advancement of sacred literature 
 in this country, and if, by the sympathies of common 
 labour, and by the development of common interests, it 
 becomes a uniting tie among all those to whom those ob- 
 jects are dear, then may God bestow His blessing upon 
 it, that it may prosper ; but if it does none of these things, 
 it is useless, it is not wanted : let it perish.' The objects 
 sought are noble, and it will be a happy day for the
 
 352 LITEEARY LABOURS. 
 
 various churches when they can be reached ; when sanc- 
 tified scholarship shall have lost all sectarian bias ; and 
 when ministers of the Gospel shall seek their mental 
 nutriment in biblical science, and be active in its ad- 
 vancement. At present, however, a Review, if it main- 
 tain its scientific character, must address itself to a 
 select circle even of clerical readers, and can rarely 
 have a large and compensating circulation. A better 
 period is commencing. Erudition is rising above deno- 
 minational influence, and assuming a true Catholicism 
 both in commentaries and in the higher forms of periodi- 
 cal literature. Still it must be admitted, that while a 
 religious journal, in order to succeed, must have its 
 party to appeal to, and fall back upon for support, 
 Dr Kitto failed, for other reasons, to realise his own 
 purpose. In his delicacy toward his allies, no small 
 amount of inferior matter was introduced by him, 
 and contributions were subjected to no rigid scrutiny, 
 either as to sentiment or erudition. What may be a very 
 instructive paper for a popular magazine, may be wholly 
 out of place in a journal of biblical science. It should be 
 explained, however, that Dr Kitto felt fettered in rejecting 
 or altering articles, from being almost solely dependent on 
 the voluntary assistance of his friends, since the profits of 
 the publication did not admit of the usual honorarium. In 
 his letters to Mr Blackader, publisher of the second series 
 of the Journal, and one who, from his literary and biblical 
 tastes and acquirements, ably seconded the exertions of 
 the editor, he alludes now and again to his being so ham- 
 pered by the want of funds, that only a very few of his 
 contributors received any pecuniary recognition. His 
 hope was, that his ' friends would aid him for the sake of 
 the good cause till better times came round. This has 
 been the answer of some who have stood by me in all my
 
 EDITORIAL PERPLEXITIES. 353 
 
 struggles, but it is not to be expected from all.' 1 His 
 heart, however, was set upon his Journal, and he laboured 
 anxiously for it. His notes to the publisher show his con- 
 tinuous anxiety about all points connected with it adver- 
 tisements as well as papers, postages as well as contribu- 
 tions. He strove to offend nobody in any way, and was 
 sadly perplexed on falling into a dilemma, either when 
 some one complained of delay in the insertion of an article, 
 or a book was sent him with a request or virtual stipula- 
 tion that the critique might be favourable, or two of his 
 friends happened to forward a contribution on the same 
 subject, or wished to review the same volume. There 
 seemed to be a nervousness in all this business, quite un- 
 like his usual firmness and composure. But the Journal, 
 neither in its first nor second series, came up to his 
 own idea ; and, though it improved in several aspects, it 
 never took that high place which his name and fame were 
 expected to give it. The first number appeared on the 
 first of January 1848 ; and, after anxiously watching over 
 it for several years, till eleven volumes had been printed, he 
 was obliged to give it up. But he made some stipulations 
 as to its future character. Though sorrowing to take 
 leave of it, he wished it still to retain its original impress, 
 and thus wrote : ' I have secured effectual guarantees 
 that it shall be always conducted on the essential principles 
 on which it was founded that it shall retain its compre- 
 hensive and catholic character that it shall be orthodox 
 and that it shall not be sectarian.' 2 It did not at first 
 ' pay print and paper.' ' I hope the best,' he wrote to Mr 
 Tracy. . . 'I have little misgiving, less now, indeed, 
 than ever;' but this was in November 1847. 'The 
 Journal is getting up nearly to one thousand copies,' 
 writes he to the same friend in March 1848. What clisap- 
 
 1 Letter to Mr Blackader, Oct. 7, 1852. ' Ibid, Aug. 11, 1853. 
 
 Z
 
 Soi LITERARY LABOURS. 
 
 pointment he must have felt ! His plan had not succeeded ; 
 his anticipations were blasted. He should have begun 
 with a large reserve fund, which might have been easily 
 raised for the purpose, and not involved his own means and 
 the bread of his family in the undertaking. Other and 
 onerous duties pressed upon him, his health had also given 
 way, and in 1853 he reluctantly handed over the Journal 
 to Dr Burgess, its present able and indefatigable editor. 
 Dr Kitto had now lived some years at Woking; but he 
 felt that while such a rural residence might enable him to 
 economise, it was exceedingly inconvenient for his literary 
 pursuits. Accordingly, in March 1849, he returned to 
 London, and took up his abode first at 21 High Street, 
 Camden-town, removing the following year to 1 Great 
 Camden Street, where he remained till his final departure 
 for Germany in August 1854.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 DAILY BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS LAST DAYS DEATH. 
 
 DR KITTO had so often felt his way toward employ- 
 ment, that he knew somewhat of the tastes of each pub- 
 lisher, and the characteristic wares of each publishing 
 house. To the enterprising publishers of the Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica he addressed the project of a Biblical Cyclo- 
 pgedia ; and to the Messrs Oliphant of Edinburgh, so well 
 known for their issue of many practical religious books 
 fitted for general circulation and enjoying it, he sent, in 
 June 1849, a long letter, out of which sprang, in a brief 
 period, his last work the ' Daily Bible Illustrations.' The 
 plan which he sketched himself was different from that ulti- 
 mately adopted. In his delineation of it, he premises that 
 'he primarily looked to an extended measure of useful- 
 ness in that which seemed to have become his proper 
 vocation.' ' The general title I purpose to be that of Bible 
 Evenings ; and as I incline to think that the book of Ruth 
 affords an appropriate theme for the first portion, the full 
 title of the volume we commence with would be Bible 
 Evenings the History of Ruth Conversationally explained and 
 illustrated by J. K., etc. ; or perhaps, " Conversations on 
 the History of Ruth " would be as well for the second 
 title. The attraction in subjects of this sort is known to 
 be very great ; but it is my hope to enhance this attrac- 
 tion by the manner of treatment. It is meant that the iii~
 
 350 DAILY BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 terlocutors shall be, not sticks but characters, and that the 
 progress shall be enlivened and diversified by such scenes, 
 incidents, and circumstances, as might naturally arise 
 among such persons. The leading idea is, that a family 
 in the middle educated class, devotes two evenings in the 
 week to conversations on the Bible. Of the persons, one 
 may be a biblical scholar, supposed to be able to explain 
 everything that is not assigned to the other characters ; 
 another will be a traveller, who has seen everything, and 
 been everywhere, and who is, therefore, able to supply a 
 lively description of places and products, and to point out 
 the analogous manners, customs, and ideas of the Modem 
 East ; a third may suggest practical improvements ; and by 
 so doing, he will give the key note to one more, who has 
 a wonderful memory for all kinds of ancient and modern 
 anecdotes, which appear to him to illustrate or bear upon 
 the principles developed, or the conduct followed ; and 
 there may be another yet, apt to remember or to fabricate 
 all kinds of poetry and snatches of verse, having some 
 kind of connection with the matter in hand. All this is 
 to be produced, not in the stiff ABC style of interlocution, 
 but with all the animating turns and incidents of natural 
 conversation. 
 
 ' The result, as I conceive, would be a most instructive 
 and entertaining book, for which there could not fail to be 
 a large demand. The elements of success, in such under- 
 takings as this, have been most carefully considered, 
 and the work will be expressly formed to embrace them 
 all. It is not designed to be ostensibly a book for child- 
 ren, but care will be taken that there shall be nothing 
 beyond the range of intelligent young people of ordinary 
 education ; and the volume would, without doubt, be seen 
 to be well suited to them, and would be largely used in 
 presents to them.'
 
 THE PLAN ADOPTED. 357 
 
 The sketch is ingenious, and such a colloquy would 
 have been interesting ; but it would have been very diffi- 
 cult to execute the plan, so as to give each scene a living 
 and natural aspect, apportion his remarks to each speaker 
 with natural propriety, and prevent the whole from becom- 
 ing an artificial and tiresome set of little discourses. The 
 true dramatic presentation cannot be elaborated by effort. 
 Dr Kitto had a vigorous imagination ; but such a work 
 would have taxed his powers to the utmost in forecasting 
 the various dialogues, and giving to every character its 
 harmonious utterance. Indeed, Uncle Oliver is a failure, 
 so far as dramatic ease and fitness are concerned. The 
 scheme adopted was far better. It cost him less labour, 
 was far more natural, and it has been eminently accept- 
 able. Mr Oliphant suggested a series of papers for every 
 day in the year, each paper being on a separate topic, 
 and the whole of them, in order, forming volumes of conse- 
 cutive reading and comment. Dr Kitto acquiesced in the 
 plan, for it was not new to him, having been one of his 
 multitudinous projects, which he purposed to call ' Bible 
 Readings for every day in the year,' or else the ' Daily 
 Scripture Reader.' The Sunday papers were to be on 
 themes in unison with the sacred day, and the treatment 
 of them was to be in harmony. Dr Kitto's own mind was 
 growing in spirituality, and he preferred to write these last 
 papers himself, rightly refusing some assistance which had 
 been offered to him. ' I shall be glad,' is his argument to 
 the publisher, ' of the opportunity of refreshing my mind 
 by some spiritual writing ; and, besides, I am partial to 
 this kind of writing, and have had considerable experience 
 in it, though the general tendency of my undertakings has 
 been to drive me out of it.' 
 
 He entered upon his work in a spirit that could not fail 
 to insure success :
 
 358 DAILY BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 ' Since I wrote last, I have been enabled to look more 
 closely into our new enterprise, and I cannot but say that 
 the more I grapple it as a practical matter, the better I 
 like it. I feel that the task which thus devolves on me is 
 one which I shall execute with real zest and pleasure. I 
 see that the execution of the design affords a fair oppor- 
 tunity of usefulness, which has always been a consideration 
 with me, while it presents me with an occasion, not always 
 to be found, of producing an agreeable and popular book. 
 This encourages me ; for, although I have produced books 
 of the class, I began to dread getting too much entangled 
 in books heavy with scholarship and the solidities of know- 
 ledge. I therefore enter upon this work with the deter- 
 mination that I will, and with the conviction that I can, 
 produce a book which shall be read and this not by being 
 superficial, but by exhibiting, in an attractive manner, all 
 the information that can be fitly produced, and the best of 
 all such thoughts as my meditations may suggest.' Again, 
 and after having succeeded, he states, in one of his pre- 
 faces, that his object had been ' to make the new familiar, 
 and to make the familiar new.' 
 
 The first volume was produced a few days after the sti- 
 pulated period ; and he confidently says to the publisher, 
 ' I never put a book out of my hands, of the success of 
 which I have felt so sure as this.' And his confidence 
 was fully justified. He pledged himself to punctuality in 
 the publication of the volumes ; and gave as his ground, 
 ' that his working day was of twice the usual length, from 
 4 A.M. to 9 P.M., with little interruption.' His first work each 
 morning was the paper for the day, though he felt such con- 
 tinuous labour to be occasionally a 'hard job.' The volumes 
 were to be published quarterly. The first volume, ' The 
 Antediluvians and Patriarchs,' is dated December 1849, 
 and takes in the first three months of the year ; the second,
 
 MORNING SERIES. 3o9 
 
 'Moses and the Judges,' is dated April 1850, and is 
 meant for April, May, and June. In the preface to this 
 volume, the author avows his thankfulness ' for the warm 
 favour with which the first volume was received,' and feels 
 himself encouraged to ' hope for a blessing upon his la- 
 bours hi the direction which has now been given to them.' 
 The third volume, for the months July, August, and Sep- 
 tember, brought Dr Kitto to his usual explanation, that 
 the limits originally fixed for the work were too small, and 
 that his plan must not be ' crushed in the attempt to force 
 the substantial matter of two volumes into one.' Half 
 the volume is occupied with the Life of David, and this 
 portion is of great interest. The King of Israel is por- 
 trayed truthfully, without any attempt to palliate his sins, 
 or tone down the darker traits of his character ; yet how 
 unlike he appears to the picture of him in Bayle, or to that 
 in the article ' David' in Kitto's own ' Cyclopaedia.' In 
 fact, we have always been charmed by the papers on 
 David : so much is brought out incidentally, and so many 
 of the secret links of his court and policy are unfolded, by 
 a reference often to a single clause of the inspired history ; 
 so just an appreciation of Joab and the other- notable men 
 about him is interwoven, and there is so striking an esti- 
 mate both of his weakness and of his strength, of his sins 
 and of his sorrows, of the raptures and the tears of his 
 lyrical muse. 'David,' he says, 'was always great in 
 affliction.' ' The bird which once rose to heights unat- 
 tained before by mortal wing, filling the air with its joyful 
 songs, now lies with maimed wing upon the ground, 
 pouring forth its doleful cries to God.' The volume which 
 completes the year is named 'Solomon and the Kings' 
 the characters of principal interest in it being the wise 
 monarch and the prophet Elijah. 
 
 The publication of this last volume had been retarded four
 
 360 DAILY BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 or five months by subordinate engagements. He completed 
 a work for Mr Bohu, named ' Scripture Lands Described 
 in a series of Historical, Geographical, and Topographical 
 Sketches.' London, 1850. These sketches are simply a 
 memoir to accompany and explain a beautiful biblical atlas 
 of twenty-four maps, and are ' not wholly a reproduction of 
 materials previously used by the same writer,' but contain 
 the results of recent researches, though not to any large 
 extent. There is, however, a very full and useful index, 
 exhibiting the ancient and modern names of scriptural 
 places, with their latitude and longitude, and other import- 
 ant information, in a tabular form. This excellent volume 
 forms one of Bonn's Illustrated Library, and is, like others 
 in the same series, handsomely got up. The other pro- 
 duction, which occupied a portion of Kitto's time, was a 
 book which had been written two years before for the 
 Tract Society, but the printing of which had been de- 
 layed for want of requisite illustrations. ' The Land of 
 Promise' is a re-exhibition of a great deal that he had 
 said before, though in form and arrangement it differs 
 much from ' Scripture Lands,' and one special object of 
 it was to describe every place or site of interest ' as it now 
 appears! 
 
 At a personal interview between Mr Oliphant and Dr 
 Kitto in London, in 1850, the second series of Daily Bible 
 Illustrations was virtually agreed on, and in September of 
 the same year, the publisher had suggested the dedication 
 of the work to the Queen, when it should be completed. 
 Kitto at first objected, inasmuch as such dedications are 
 * usually prefixed to works which cannot stand alone, and 
 a royal dedication has come to be almost considered as a 
 sign of intrinsic weakness. There seems, also, to my mind, 
 in this case, a sense of disproportion, like mounting Great 
 Tom of Oxford on a village church. One would think
 
 GRANT FROM CIVIL LIST. 361 
 
 this distinction would better suit some great work, such 
 as I may hope hereafter to produce. Yet, on the other 
 hand, this is not absolutely a small work as to size, nor, if 
 I may believe half that I read in the notices you send me, 
 is it altogether unimportant or valueless in its contents. 
 It is not unlikely that it might interest her Majesty more 
 than any work I have yet produced. Upon the whole, per- 
 haps, I should rather like it, if it can be shown to be a 
 proper thing to do ; and I do see one point very clearly, 
 that if the pension should be granted, it would be a very 
 proper and graceful thing for me to take the first oppor- 
 tunity that subsequently offers, of thus expressing my 
 grateful acknowledgments. Nothing can be clearer than 
 that. Then, again, if this benefit should not be realised 
 in October, such a dedication might advance the matter 
 somewhat ; but of this I am not able to judge. It is well 
 to wait, to see what October brings forth.' 
 
 The allusions in these last sentences lead us to state, that 
 it had been deemed advisable by Dr Kitto's friends to make 
 a united and hearty effort to obtain a grant for him from 
 the Civil List. Memorials and letters were forwarded to 
 the Prime Minister from all religious parties in the king- 
 dom, including peers, bishops, clergy, civilians, and literary 
 and theological professors. The application was at length 
 successful ; and on the 17th of December Lord John Russell 
 conveyed the brief but gratifying intimation, ' the Queen 
 has directed that a grant of 100 a-year should be made 
 to you from her Majesty's Civil List, on account of your 
 useful and meritorious literary works.' 
 
 By February in the following year, Dr Kitto had got 
 permission to inscribe his volumes to her Majesty, and he 
 was somewhat at a loss to know in what words to frame 
 the dedication. Nor was he sure whether it might not be 
 necessary for him to go to court, adding ' I may take it
 
 362 DAILY BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 into my head to go after all, especially if I can get hold of 
 some one to help me through it.' He would have presented 
 his volumes in person, if it had been deemed necessary ; 
 still, such an appearance would have been a trial to one 
 of ' his nervous retiredness of temper,' and who had ab- 
 stained from all public assemblies. ' It may be,' he con- 
 soles himself, ' that the feeling which thus holds me prisoner 
 is but a protective instinct, guarding me from the circum- 
 stances which might press too painfully upon me the con- 
 sciousness of my condition.' On the 24th June, the 
 four volumes, with a copy of the Lost Senses, handsomely 
 bound, were sent to Colonel Phipps, at Buckingham Palace, 
 who acknowledged the receipt of them adding besides, 
 ' I have not failed to present these books to her Majesty 
 the Queen, by whom they have been very graciously ac- 
 cepted.' 
 
 Before Dr Kitto had finished the first series, and at the 
 beginning of 1851, there were decided indications of ap- 
 proaching cerebral debility. The pain in the back of his 
 head, which he had often felt before, had become too intense 
 to allow of mental toil. He was compelled to moderate 
 his labour and shorten his hours. Rising at four or five 
 in the morning was totally out of the question. To stoop 
 his head to write created excruciating agony. He had 
 vomited blood annually for a long period, but not during 
 the last two years ; and the cessation of this self-reh'eving 
 process may have burdened his brain. But the hemorrhage 
 returned in the crisis, and a medical friend having bled him 
 copiously besides, the neuralgia abated. These warnings 
 were so far slighted by him, that he did not adopt decided 
 measures to maintain his health and prolong his working 
 powers. It was in this weakened state that he wrought 
 upon the Evening Series, the first volume of which was 
 published in December 1851, and the last in January 1854
 
 EVENING SERIES. 363 
 
 more than double the time that was fixed on for the pro- 
 duction of the Morning Series. 
 
 We need not characterise at length the Evening Series, 
 which is quite equal to the Morning Series. The first 
 volume was ' Job and the Poetical Books' to wit, Psalms. 
 Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs and has 
 ' more of a literary cast' than any of its predecessors. The 
 second volume, ' Isaiah and the Prophets,' is rather mis- 
 cellaneous in its nature giving some prominence to the 
 person and exploits of Cyrus, as well as the local fulfilment 
 of prophecy, and containing a digest of the results of those 
 researches which Botta and Layard had prosecuted at 
 Nineveh. The third is the ' Life and Death of our Lord ;' 
 and the last is the ' Apostles and the Early Church.' The 
 Life of Christ is presented synoptically, and therefore the 
 various chapters are closely connected ; while the sketch 
 of the Apostles inweaves the historical intimations con- 
 tained in the Epistles. 
 
 This work, to the eight volumes of which we have so 
 briefly alluded, has obtained, as it merits, a wide popu- 
 larity. The topics are selected with admirable skill, and 
 are usually founded on some striking scene or novel adven- 
 ture, some fact or sentiment, some attractive feature of 
 character or remarkable incident in eastern life and enter- 
 prise. Thus, in the first volume, you pass from the sim- 
 plicity of the tent to the bravery of the camp, from the fire 
 on the hearth to the flame of the altar ; and whether the 
 paper be on a marriage or a funeral, a sacrifice or a scene 
 of revelry, whether the theme be Abel's death, Lamech's 
 polygamy, Jubal's harp, Enoch's piety, Noah's ark, Sarah's 
 veil, Hagar's flight, Lot's escape, Jacob's pillar, Joseph's 
 bondage, or Pharaoh's signet, each is told with a charm- 
 ing simplicity, surrounded with numerous and beautiful 
 illustrations, and interspersed or closed with pointed and
 
 364 DAILY BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 just reflections. Dr Kitto throws light, throughout the 
 series, on many obscure allusions, says many tender and 
 many startling things, opens his heart to the reader, as he 
 unfolds the stores of his learning all his utterances being 
 in harmony with his avowed design, to make this work 
 ' really interesting as a reading book to the family circle, 
 for which it is primarily intended.' It is not easy to cha- 
 racterise the volumes ; and the author seems to have felt 
 this difficulty himself, when he says, in the preface to the 
 second of them, this work is ' not a history not a commen- 
 tary not a book of critical and antiquarian research not 
 one of popular illustration, nor of practical reflection but 
 it is something of all these.' He admits that ' it would 
 have been easy to have written a more learned work ;' but 
 he carefully avoided the ' forms and processes of scholar- 
 ship' on the one hand ; and, on the other hand, he made 
 no pretension of ' writing down' to any class of readers. 
 He aimed ' to put the whole into brisker language than is 
 needful in heavier works.' ' I am amused,' he says, as the 
 work was proceeding, ' to see what a hankering there is, 
 among the noticers, that I should make these papers 
 "practical" etc. that is, turn them into little sermons. 
 This would be to spoil the thing altogether. It would be, 
 to abstain from my own line, in which, from peculiar circum- 
 stances, studies, tastes, and travels, I can do better than 
 many others, to attempt that of which there is already a 
 superabundance, and which thousands could execute as 
 well as, or better than, myself. This tone of remark is, 
 however, natural for those who do not sufficiently consider 
 my peculiar vocation. I do, however, try to give a reli- 
 gious turn to matters where I have a fair opportunity of 
 doing so ; and, upon the whole, this is probably the most 
 religious work I have yet written.' The papers are each 
 independent and complete a parable for the day, or a
 
 CRITICAL ESTIMATE OF TIIE1R VALUE. 3G3 
 
 meditation for the night. The interest never flags, dry 
 
 detail is avoided, and the themes for the Lord's Day are 
 
 in exquisite keeping with its sacred character. These 
 
 eight volumes are, in fact, the cream of all that Dr Kitto 
 
 had previously written. There is a special charm about 
 
 them, and a vein of serious instruction runs through them. 
 
 A rich and racy humour now and then shines out, not 
 
 indeed so frequent as in Matthew Henry, nor so salient and 
 
 picturesque as in Thomas Fuller. Nothing like a morbid 
 
 spiritualism is found in them it is open-faced godliness. 
 
 They are suggestive, too, in their nature ; many things are 
 
 placed in a novel light, and many of the remarks made are 
 
 so new, and yet so much in point, that you wonder they 
 
 never struck you before. Difficulties are honestly met, and 
 
 are never set aside by any rationalising process. The 
 
 author has availed himself of all his former labours, as if 
 
 ' anxious to disburden his full soul' of its treasures. He 
 
 writes, too, with earnestness and living power; and the 
 
 results of his travels, experience, and research suffer no 
 
 deterioration from being moulded anew in the fire of a 
 
 devout soul, and set in the framework of an ingenuous and 
 
 healthful piety. 
 
 In the autumn of 1852, Dr Kitto was again and more 
 seriously endangered. The pain was more intense and 
 alarming, and he could no longer fight against it. Medical 
 advice was resorted to, and he was enjoined to do less 
 work and take more exercise. At least two hours a-day 
 was he enjoined to walk in the open air. But he com- 
 plains, September 7, to his publisher, of such consumption 
 of time : 
 
 ' I have not got well so rapidly as I expected, and am 
 still under active medical treatment. The last week was 
 nearly a blank for practical purposes, and the anxiety thus 
 occasioned has probably retarded my recovery. I am,
 
 366 FAILING HEALTH. 
 
 however, gathering strength, and am undoubtedly better. 
 The excruciating pains are less violent, and I can venture 
 to sit longer at my desk without bringing them on. Thus, 
 I am beginning to return to my usual habits, although, 
 for the present, on a reduced scale as to time. The new 
 habit of walking has been so seriously impressed upon me, 
 that I hope to cultivate it as a matter of duty. The want 
 of a definite object is the difficulty : care for one's health 
 seems too vague an inducement for a practice so adverse 
 to one's habits, and, in its immediate aspect, a serious loss 
 of precious time. I suppose, however, that some one or 
 other will always be dragging me out now ; and Mrs Kitto 
 will probably look to it, as the doctor has enjoined her to 
 turn me out daily, and not to let me in again till my time 
 is up. I felicitated myself at first, that he only stated how 
 long I was to walk, not how fast, or how much, so that, as 
 I thought, I might manage to make the business enter- 
 taining, by sauntering about among the book-stalls ; but 
 the doctor is now too sharp for me, and talks of six miles 
 a-day. Think of that for a man who has almost lost 
 the power of putting one leg before another ! However, 
 seeing that there are so many little ones whose immediate 
 welfare seems to have been made dependent upon my 
 existence, and that I have set before me many labours 
 which I should be loath to leave unexecuted, I hope to be 
 enabled to adapt myself to this new condition of affairs. 
 It may be the Lord's method of strengthening and pre- 
 serving me for such work as He means me to do. In this 
 point of view, the death of one whom I knew, Mr Porter 
 of the Board of Trade, " from want of exercise" a cause 
 I never before saw assigned in an obituary notice has 
 made considerable impression on my mind.' 
 
 Certainly the death of Mr Porter, and from such a 
 cause, should have checked his exhausting industry ; but
 
 NECESSITY OF EXERCISE. 367 
 
 yet, when we think of the numerous family supported by 
 his daily labours a family of five sons and five daughters 
 we must not judge him harshly. Still his disease was 
 of such a nature, that it was not to be tampered with ; for 
 the organ attacked was his only implement of labour and 
 source of income. Weakness or injury to it would sadly 
 diminish the supplies, or stop them altogether. He was 
 visited with another relapse v ere September expired, in 
 which the head-pains were continuous. On his being 
 cupped, and on the application of other means, he revived, 
 and, by the constant exercise to which he had been forced, 
 his ' too solid flesh ' was somewhat ' melted off.' He 
 could well spare some. Mrs Hullock, an old Malta friend, 
 who had accidentally discovered him through means of 
 ' The Lost Senses,' was surprised, on visiting him, to see 
 ' the little slender man become so great in person and name.' 
 He was very thankful for recruited strength, and in Octo- 
 ber was tolerably well, but complaining of the immediate 
 loss of time which his daily walk occasioned. He should 
 have remembered that Milton, one of the poets of his 
 earliest admiration, used to walk daily after dinner in his 
 garden, three and four hours at a time. Even the Exhi- 
 bition in 1851 had small enticements for him. Fleet Street 
 and the Strand were greater to him than the Crystal 
 Palace, but he did not very often frequent them. Occa- 
 sionally he sauntered down Oxford Street, Regent Street, 
 the Strand, and Holborn, ' looking for bargains and curious 
 things at the bookshops;' and even this lounging was 
 better than no recreation at all. He, however, did visit 
 the Great Exhibition, and saw it at its close ; and though 
 the noise made not the least impression upon him, 'the 
 scene was strikingpeven to grandeur.' But he sighs and 
 says, ' I certainly do not feel that I lost a day, but my 
 work did.' This perpetual toil was fast wearing him out,
 
 368 FAILING HEALTH. 
 
 and still he grudged the slightest relaxation. Yet one is 
 glad to find that, on September 30, being the last of his 
 boys' Michaelmas holidays, he went with them ' a-nutting 
 to Epping Forest,' ' not sorry to have so good an excuse 
 for a run.' He found relief at this period from Pulver- 
 inacher's hydro-electric chain, which threw a 'sensible 
 continuous current of electric fluid through the part af- 
 fected.' 
 
 Anxious to have some stable means of support, when 
 the Daily Bible Illustrations should be concluded, he was 
 induced to edit a weekly religious periodical ' Sunday 
 Reading for Christian families.' 1 It did not succeed, and, 
 after three months, was abandoned, though it deserved a 
 better fate. The capital papers which its editor wrote for 
 it, were not sufficient to ensure its success. Though 
 warned that the project would be a failure, he was re- 
 polved to try, and the trial satisfied him. Thus he delivers 
 himself : ' The case is this For many years I have been 
 desirous of finding a fixed basis of occupation and useful- 
 ness in the conduct of a periodical publication, which, by 
 affording me a salary, would make regular and determinate 
 a portion of the income I require, leaving me compara- 
 tively free for the book-work, which would be needful to 
 complete that income, and relieving me from the perils of 
 an entire dependence thereon.' 2 
 
 But his malady soon returned in still more awful vio- 
 lence. The electric chain in which he had so fondly 
 trusted, could not charm the pain away ; and, while he 
 was in this state of prostration, he was visited with another 
 trial. His youngest child, Henry Austin, died. This was 
 the first entrance of death into his dwelling ; and every 
 parent knows the pang of a first bereavement. Aye, 
 though it be an infant that is taken away when yet unable 
 
 1 London : Needham, 1853. 3 Letter to Mr Blackader, March 3, 1853.
 
 DEATH OF YOUNGEST CHILD. 369 
 
 to prattle, the new sorrow pierces and lacerates the 
 parental heart. Kitto's softened spirit bowed to the chas- 
 tisement. He loved his children dearly, and never, with all 
 his solitary study and toil, ' hid his face from his own flesh.' 
 
 This little child had wound itself round his heart. His 
 earliest intimation to Mr Oliphant is (April 12) : 
 
 ' This is the first letter I have written for a week, and 
 the first time I have taken up my pen for any purpose 
 since Saturday. There has been much besides my ill 
 health : a beloved child of mine has been dying, and now 
 it lies here dead. God took it from us on Monday morn- 
 ing, and while I bow in submission to this stroke, know- 
 ing it is from my Father's hand, my heart is very sore. 
 During the years that I have had a home of my own, 
 death has not been permitted to enter, and its presence is, 
 from its strangeness, the more grim and terrible. During 
 that long time, I have indeed been tried with many griefs ; 
 but this form of trial, the hardest of all to bear, has been 
 spared to me. Now, this also has come, and finds iny 
 heart very weak. May the Lord strengthen it for me, 
 and enable me in due time to learn what lesson it is that 
 He means to teach me by this new stroke of His rod !' 
 
 The Rev. Dr Brown of Edinburgh, whose wide sym- 
 pathies extend to every ' companion in tribulation,' sent 
 him one of his useful and solacing little books ' Comfort- 
 able Words for Christian Parents bereaved of Little 
 Children.' 'It touched him much.' Mrs Kitto also felt 
 that it fulfilled the promise in its title, and as its balm 
 dropped into her heart, she did not refuse to be com- 
 forted. The father was thankful for the ' seasonable me- 
 morial,' and in his own way tells how dear this babe had 
 become from its very weaknesses, and how the only land 
 he possessed had been purchased for a burial-place a 
 sacred spot with a precious deposit : 
 
 2 A
 
 370 FAILING HEALTH. 
 
 ' It was but a little child, thirteen months old. He was 
 from the first difficult to rear, and required the constant 
 care of his mother ; and this brought his infancy, with its 
 numerous little ways, more under my own notice than that 
 of any other of the children ; and the great solicitude with 
 which he had needed to be watched over and prayed for, 
 endeared him greatly to us. At length all difficulty seemed 
 to be overcome, and he waxed fair and strong, and his 
 mother ventured to trust him partially from her own con- 
 stant care. Then he caught cold, and after a few weeks 
 of suffering, heart-rending to witness, he died. His 
 mother, with many tears, reproaches herself, that if she 
 had never trusted him from her own care, but had con- 
 tinued to nurse him in her own arms, he would yet have 
 lived. It is difficult to realise the idea that, nevertheless, 
 he has not fallen without the will of God. It is hard to 
 learn, but she is learning it, and so am I, and I feel that 
 all real comfort, under a trial like this, must be rooted in 
 that conviction. I am now become, for the first time, 
 the owner of a grave all the land in this wide world 
 that I possess. This afternoon I shall be constrained to 
 consign to it the remains still beautiful in death of this 
 dear little child, into whose bright eyes I have for so 
 many months been daily looking for matter of hope or 
 fear. May the Lord strengthen in the hour now near, 
 and make realities to my own heart the comforts I have 
 sometimes endeavoured to impart to others ! ' 
 
 Those comforts which he had dispensed to other 
 mourners, had been no mere commonplaces, no trite cour- 
 tesies, no empty or unavailing regrets. He did not only 
 throw his flower on the sepulchral urn, but he touched! 
 and stayed the bleeding heart with his ' bundle of myrrh.' 
 ' When,' he writes in reference to the death of the widow of 
 Zarephath's only son, ' we behold that a child so dear
 
 COMFORT FOR MOURNERS. 371 
 
 . . " Like a flower crusht with a blast is dead, 
 And ere full time hangs down his smiling head," 
 
 how many sweet interests in life, how many hopes for the 
 time to come, go down to the dust with him ! The purest 
 and most heart-felt enjoyment which life offers to a mother 
 in the society of her little child, is cut off for ever. The 
 hope the mother's hope, of great and good things to 
 come from this her son, is lost for her. " The live coal that 
 was left," and which she had reckoned that time would 
 raise to a cheerful flame, to warm her home, and to pre- 
 serve and illustrate the name and memory of his dead 
 father, is gone out is quenched in darkness. The arms 
 which so often clung caressingly around her, and whose 
 future strength promised to be as a staff to her old age, 
 are stiff in death. The eyes which glistened so lovingly 
 when she came near, now know her not. The little 
 tongue, whose guileless prattle had made the long days of 
 her bereavement short, is now silent as that of the " mute 
 dove." Alas ! alas ! that it should ever be a mother's lot 
 to close in death the eyes of one whose pious duty, if 
 spared, should be in future years to press down her own 
 eyelids. This is one of the great mysteries of life, to be 
 solved only thoroughly, only fully to our satisfaction, in 
 that day when, passing ourselves the gates of light, we 
 behold all our lost ones gather around our feet.' 1 
 
 Thus his afflictions were multiplying, for the process of 
 refinement was to be severe, because it was not to be long. 
 He who ' sits as a purifier,' gave special intensity to the 
 ' refiner's fire,' as its action was not to be of continued dur- 
 ation. Beautifully had the mourner expressed himself 
 already as to the results of discipline : 
 
 ' It is only by the grafting of our will into His that we 
 can bear much fruit any fruit ; and no branch was ever 
 
 Daily Bible Illustrations, voL lv., p. 228.
 
 372 FAILIXG HEALTH. 
 
 yet grafted without being cut to the quick. In what He 
 allows us, or in what He takes from us, in His dealings 
 with us, or in His action upon us through others, the same 
 object is always kept in view, of teaching us our depend- 
 ence upon Him ; and it is well with us very well, then 
 only well when our will so works with His, that in all we 
 see, or hear, or enjoy, or suffer, we strive to realise for 
 ourselves that which He strives to teach to see His will, 
 and to have no will but His.' 1 
 
 At this period of sorrow he became worse himself, and 
 found no relief from any of his previous appliances. The 
 late Dr Golding Bird was then consulted, who, refusing at 
 first to entertain the case of a deaf patient as it consumed 
 so much of his valuable time, no sooner learned who the 
 applicant was, than, in characteristic terms, he expressed 
 the warmest interest in him, and afterwards received his 
 fortnightly visits with the greatest cordiality, refusing, at 
 the same time, the customary fees. He said to the sufferer, 
 ' If you mean to live, you must work less, and take more 
 exercise.' But, at the expiry of a few months, he declared 
 Dr Kitto incurable, because the intractable patient had 
 systematically counterworked his physician's skill and pre- 
 scriptions. His brain wanted rest. Dr Bird had tried to 
 subdue the cerebral irritation ; but Dr Kitto persisted in 
 thinking and writing, and nullifying all his medical adviser's 
 kindness and efforts. It was pressed upon him, that he 
 must cease from labour for a period ; but he replied, ' No ; 
 I must finish the work for which I have had the money, 
 and if I knew I should die with the pen in my hand, I will 
 go on as long as the Lord permits.' So that he virtually 
 sealed his own doom. In August he went down to Rams- 
 gate, and though ' he spent much of his time iu the open 
 air, his head became rather worse than better.' To induce 
 
 1 Daily Bible Illustrations, vol. iv., p. 318.
 
 FRETTING ANXIETIES. C7.5 
 
 him to prolong his stay, a box of books was sent for ; but 
 ' the books spoiled the holiday, and the holiday spoiled the 
 books.' His general health was, however, materially im- 
 proved, and so little apprehensive was he of any serious 
 ailment clinging to him, that he amused himself with pro- 
 jecting a plan of travel in Egypt and Palestine, ' mainly 
 for the purpose of biblical illustration,' which might be 
 produced after his return ' in the shape of, perhaps, two 
 8vo volumes.' But he came back to London ' in one re- 
 spect not sensibly better ; ' and believing that, nevertheless, 
 some ' salutary influence ' had been received, he resolved 
 to ' run about as much as time and circumstances would 
 allow.' It was at this period that, as already stated, he 
 resigned the Journal of Sacred Literature into the hands 
 of Dr Burgess. But his hours of study were greatly cur- 
 tailed, and his labours on his closing work greatly abridged. 
 He was forbidden to rise at four or five in the morning, as 
 he had done for fifteen years, and enjoined to walk in the 
 forenoon, ' one of the prime portions of his time.' These 
 and similar explanations he made to his Edinburgh pub- 
 lisher, confessing ' his fretting anxiety at his inability not 
 to get on faster.' He had decided, at all hazards, to 
 finish the book on hand ; and had for it and other pressing 
 labours been tempted to neglect Dr Bird's keen and honest 
 warnings. 
 
 It would be wrong, however, to suppose that the Daily 
 Bible Illustrations, though professedly his main work, were 
 either the heaviest or most exhausting element of his 
 labours. It was his anxiety about his other engagements 
 that fretted and fatigued him. He took too much in hand, 
 and, in his haste to keep all his appointments, he over- 
 tasked himself. What he had been doing for Bohn's 
 Library and for the Tract Society, his new enterprise in 
 connection with the Sunday Reading for Families, and his
 
 874 FAILING HEALTH. 
 
 uneasy feelings and mirelaxing tension of soul about his 
 Journal this combination of effort and vigilance was far 
 more damaging to him than any study or writing necessary 
 for the Daily Bible Illustrations. 1 The series of chapters 
 required for this work cost him little labour in comparison, 
 many of them being subjective in their nature the well- 
 ing out of his own spontaneous reflections, and the others 
 which exhibit research, being upon topics long familiar to 
 him, and on which he had already delivered his thoughts. 
 Though the Daily Bible Illustrations were, at this time, his 
 largest, they were, on the whole, his easiest work, for he 
 had ceased to compose a paper a day, and the toil had 
 become a pleasure to him, as well as oftentimes a reh'ef to 
 his burdened spirit. Nor did he die, as he had protested, 
 with the pen in his hand, and his labour unfinished. The 
 angel of death calmly waited for him till he had laid it 
 down. 
 
 He carried out his resolve as to the eighth volume of 
 the Daily Bible Illustrations, amidst much weakness and 
 delay, and at length concluded his task. His wife and he 
 together blessed God when the last sentence was written, 
 and felt that they had abundant and pressing reason to 
 ' offer thanksgiving.' This closing composition of a clos- 
 ing life has for its subject the Catacombs at Rome, and the 
 striking picture of early Christianity furnished by them. 
 And his last words are, ' In these solemn recesses we meet 
 with "none but Christ." It is the unobscured light of 
 His countenance, as of the sun shining in its strength, that 
 irradiates the gloom of these solitudes. He is the Alpha, 
 the Omega, of all around. All is of Him 
 
 " HIM FIRST, HIM LAST, HIM MIDST, HIM WITHOUT END." ' 
 
 1 A tract which he wrote in 1852 for the Working Men's Educational Union, on 
 Eastern Habitations,' needs scarcely be referred to.
 
 ATTACK OF PARALYSIS. 375 
 
 It was in the frame of mind indicated by these glowing 
 words, that he gave thanks to Him who had guarded and 
 blessed him in his last great labour upon earth, and had 
 carried him to its termination, though sickness and sorrow 
 had often threatened interruption. 
 
 And the work was not finished a day too soon. The 
 last day of regular toil was succeeded by the first day of his 
 final illness ; for next morning, as he attempted to rise, he 
 felt a strange powerlessness, and said, in sad and hurried 
 tones, to his wife, ' 0, Bell ! I am numb all down my side.' 
 The effects of this stroke of paralysis continued for a con- 
 siderable period, yet he gave what time he could afford to 
 the revision of the Biblical Cyclopaedia for a new edition. 
 This work being stereotyped, the corrections could not be 
 very many, though some of them were very important. 
 Xor did he go over a large portion of the book, for the 
 malady soon returned in a more intense and alarming 
 shape. On the morning of the 4th of February, he was 
 seized with a fit, which lasted till he was bled by Dr 
 Tunaley, his medical attendant. Consciousness was quite 
 restored, but violent and agonising headache, the result of 
 congestion of the brain, still remained. That rest which 
 he had been so unwilling to take, was now forced upon 
 him by extreme debility. He was worn out by continuous 
 and unrelieved labour. Still Dr Bird had thought and said 
 that a year's rest might yet restore him. The farmer allows 
 his field to lie fallow, and he believes that he loses nothing 
 by a year's unproductiveness. But the powerless and 
 moneyless author had, in the meantime, his household to 
 support, and without work there was no income, save the 
 small pension from her Majesty. Mrs Kitto consulted Mr 
 Oliphant, and a plan was proposed to raise such a sum as 
 might secure the overdone labourer two years' release. 
 But before the idea was wrought out, he was seized again,
 
 376 FAILING HEALTH. 
 
 and more severely ; so that a larger and more permanent 
 form of assistance was projected. Committees for the 
 purpose were formed in London and in Scotland, presided 
 over respectively by John Labouchere, Esq., a generous 
 philanthropist in the metropolis, and by his old and valued 
 friend, Sir John M'Neill. Sir John took the chair at a 
 meeting in Edinburgh, and delivered, in his opening ad- 
 dress, a just and eulogistic criticism on Dr Kitto's biblical 
 labours. When the plan was brought into operation, con- 
 tributions were received not only from admirers at home, 
 but from New York, Nova Scotia, and South Australia. 
 The final result did not, however, come up to expectation, 
 the sum received being only L.1800. 1 Had the particu- 
 lars of Dr Kitto's early life been extensively known his 
 hardships and privations, his fortitude and triumphs 
 much more, we believe, would have been promptly con- 
 tributed. 
 
 For many weeks, Dr Kitto was utterly prostrated ; but 
 he was in no small degree gratified by the public interest 
 shown in his behalf. It was not, however, till the month 
 of June, that he was able to pen a note, though he had 
 made several attempts ; and he wrote, on the 20th of that 
 month, to Mr Oliphant, under great depression and feeble- 
 ness : 
 
 ' At the present time, my head is, upon the whole, con- 
 siderably better, and I have, on most days, intervals of 
 comparative ease ; but, at best, it is exceedingly tender, 
 and any little movement or effort brings on acute pain. I 
 am led out now and then by Mrs Kitto, or one of the 
 elder children, for a short crawl ; but I generally return 
 in great distress, the movement, however gentle, having 
 disturbed my head, and the lower limbs being still very 
 
 1 Of this sum, there remains about L.1200, which has been invested in the names 
 of Trustees for the benefit of Dr Kitto's widow and family.
 
 DEPRESSION AND FEEBLENESS. 377 
 
 feeble, from the effects of the repeated seizures, though 
 the more obviously distressing results of these seizures 
 have most materially abated. I rejoice to learn, that my 
 medical adviser is of opinion, that, in the state to which I 
 have been brought by diet and medical treatment, there is 
 little probability of further attacks of this nature. Still, 
 however, the original slight numbness along the whole left 
 side, which I was, if I remember rightly, describing to you 
 in the letter I left unfinished, and which was forwarded 
 to you after the dreadful attack of the 4th of February 
 this has remained all through, though less sensibly felt at 
 some times than at others. The doctor is, however, per- 
 suaded that this also will be displaced, under a change 
 of air. This change has been retarded by various cir- 
 cumstances, with which you are acquainted ; and now, 
 lastly, by my wife's illness, which added much to my 
 other distresses. But, through the Lord's mercy, she 
 seems much better to-day, though far from well ; and I 
 entertain the hope, that the change, when it does take 
 place, will re-establish her health, which has been much 
 shaken of late. 
 
 ' I cannot write more now ; but I cannot close this, my 
 first and necessarily short letter, without expressing how 
 deeply I have been affected by the kind interest which, 
 under these most trying circumstances, you have mani- 
 fested on my behalf, and the zealous exertions you have 
 made to ameliorate the evils of this condition. God has 
 been very gracious to me, not only in keeping my heart 
 from sinking in the evil day, but in raising up many friends 
 to testify their effectual sympathy for me and mine. This 
 is most cheering ; and, if it should please Him to remove 
 the cloud which now hangs over my tabernacle, I shall 
 hope to be enabled to evince my gratitude by more entire 
 devotement to that service in which alone perfect freedom
 
 378 FAILING HEALTH. 
 
 is found in actual labour, if that be possible, or, if not, in 
 patient waiting for Him.' 
 
 Labour, indeed, was denied him, and ' patient waiting ' 
 was henceforth to be his duty. ' Wait' had been his 
 motto, ' only wait, only believe ' had been his shield 
 against despondency. In these seasons of trial, the Master 
 had been saying to him, ' I come quickly ; ' and his response 
 was, ' Amen, even so come.' 
 
 A journey to the Continent, which had been meditated 
 for some time, was postponed for the purpose of trying the 
 benefit of further medical skill in London. The experiment, 
 alas ! did not succeed. His daughter Shireen had gone 
 down to Edinburgh, on her way out to Canada ; but failing 
 health obliged her to return to London. Her father, in this 
 dark hour, writes in July to the same correspondent : 
 
 ' Shireen returned from Edinburgh on Saturday, without 
 much exhaustion. Her return was a mixed pain and plea- 
 sure to me pain, that her meritorious hopes and endeavours 
 should be frustrated, and pleasure, to be reunited to one who 
 had seemed lost to us. Under all, I thank God, however 
 and it is much to be thankful for that I have been enabled 
 to rest in the full and satisfying persuasion, that all things 
 will assuredly work together for good, vital good to myself, 
 and to those whom God has given me. I have no ground 
 to expect I never have expected, that the Lord should 
 establish on my behalf an exemption from all trouble; but I 
 believe and know that all must be for eventual good, though 
 it may be by ways I should not prefer, -or by ways that I 
 might even wish to avoid. I am very unable to express the 
 sense I entertain of the munificent kindness and delicate 
 consideration which you have evinced towards me, both 
 before and since this present emergency and trial. The 
 last instance is peculiarly gratifying to me, and will occupy 
 a pleasant place in my recollections of this time.'
 
 DEPASTURE FOR GERMANY. 379 
 
 The next letter lias some faint scintillations of his former 
 humour : 
 
 ' July 31 . . . . It seems that we are to go on Wed- 
 nesday se'nnight, and that in a day or two we leave this 
 house, in which I thought I had made my life's nest, for 
 furnished lodgings, as a preparatory step, having let the 
 house. Changes so radical have become hard to me ; but 
 the Lord's will be done, and I think that I seek only to 
 know what His will is. At Shireen's supplication, I sat to 
 the sun for my portrait on Saturday. Till I saw it, I had 
 no idea how grand I look ; it seems the concentrated 
 essence of twenty aldermen and ten bishops, ah 1 in one. 
 Mrs K. sat also ; but, womanlike, she spoke in the very 
 crisis of the operation, and so spoiled the likeness. I 
 amused myself much with the idea, that the sun, who has 
 hitherto lived like a gentleman, is now obliged to work for 
 his living.' 
 
 As originally contemplated, Dr Kitto left for Germany 
 on the 9th of August, with his wife and seven of his 
 children, the other two remaining for the sake of their 
 education in England, one of whom had in 1850, to his 
 father's great delight, received a presentation to Christ's 
 Hospital, through the influence of his old friend Mr Tracy. 
 They were accompanied by a sympathising frieud, the Rev. 
 Cornelius Hart, incumbent of Old St Paucras. Landing 
 at Rotterdam, the party proceeded up the Rhine by May- 
 ence and Mannheim, and thence to Stuttgart. There Dr 
 Kitto became greatly worse again, and Dr Ludwig, the 
 king's physician, was brought to him. On his visit, he 
 repeated what the medical men had said in London, and 
 the certainty of speedy dissolution seems, from this time, 
 to have become a conviction with Dr Kitto: A dream, 
 as at the beginning of his life, pictured out his waking 
 thoughts, and he saw, in sleep, his wife a widow and his
 
 380 LAST DAYS. 
 
 children fatherless. The telling of this sad vision next 
 morning filled his eyes with tears, for he believed that the 
 presentiment would soon be realised. Stuttgart was found 
 to be very hot, and the invalid next took up his residence 
 at Cannstatt on the Neckar. The mineral waters at this 
 place are much resorted to, but Dr Kitto found from them 
 no great benefit. 
 
 The ' beginning of the end' had arrived. First his 
 youngest child, Henry Harlowe, aged ten months, was 
 taken from him on the 21st of September. The infant had 
 been always delicate. ' His mother spent the days and 
 nights in walking to and fro with him, for so only would he 
 be quiet, shedding many tears over her once beautiful baby, 
 now so wasted, and so soon to be taken from her. For 
 me, I could only spend my hours in prayer to God, that 
 He would be gracious to her and me, and spare us, if it 
 were possible, this heavy stroke of His hand. Indeed, I 
 felt emboldened to pray with great importunity for the life 
 of this child. I ventured to ask it as a token for good, as 
 an encouragement to my faith ; and I promised to receive 
 it back as a trust and a gift a double gift, from the womb 
 and from the grave and as such (should my life be spared), 
 to watch his steps with daily solicitude, and give my best 
 time and earnest endeavours to the task of bringing him up 
 for the Lord, in the ways of holiness. I allow myself to 
 think this prayer was heard and accepted. Certain it is, 
 that at his next visit the doctor began to express hopes, 
 and the child has since been reviving, and although still 
 very feeble, he is now so much better, that even my poor 
 Rachel refuses not to be comforted. 
 
 ' I have written this by short instalments ; my head has 
 been easier during the two nights which have intervened 
 since I began it. ... 
 
 'P.S. Sept. 22. I was mistaken. Our dear child was
 
 DEATH OF ANOTHER CHILD. 331 
 
 taken from us yesterday Henry Harlowe Kitto, aged ten 
 months. Our hearts are very sore. May He who does 
 not afflict willingly, strengthen us to bear this new grief ; 
 but these are the things I find it hardest to bear, and the 
 most difficult to understand. My poor wife suffers greatly, 
 for her heart was strongly set on this child. Please ask Dr 
 Brown if he will write to her.' 1 
 
 Dr Brown did not and could not refuse such an appeal. 
 Nay, such an appeal was not required to elicit his sym- 
 pathies, and bring out his genial words of comfort. 
 
 But the shadow of death was settling down on his house- 
 hold in thicker gloom. His first-born, unable to proceed 
 to Canada, as she intended, had returned to London in 
 declining health; and her removal to Germany, with its 
 change of air, had effected no improvement on her. The 
 watchful eye of her father saw her real condition, and it 
 smote hmi to the heart. 
 
 < I have yet to grieve that I am obliged to report less 
 favourably of our dear Shireen ; she seems gradually sink- 
 ing under her disease ; and although there is perhaps no 
 immediate danger, the hope of her ultimate recovery is very 
 faint. It is sad to a parent's heart to see one so promis- 
 ing his first-born laid thus low, and I trust that the 
 prayers of my friends will not be wanting to strengthen 
 ours on her behalf.' 2 
 
 Her disease was a complicated form of dropsy ; and 
 when the little Henry died, she was confined to bed from 
 extreme debility, and never again arose from it. During the 
 last twelve days ef her life, her father seldom left her bedside, 
 but strengthened and comforted the dying girl, though his 
 own condition and her weakness made the necessary finger- 
 talk very exhausting to both. Her eldest brother John 
 was summoned from England, but before he could reach 
 
 1 Letter to Mr Oliphant, Cannstatt Sept. IS, 1804. Ibid.
 
 382 LAST DAYS. 
 
 Cannstatt, liis sister had expired. Her mother tells the 
 sad tale : 
 
 ' We had both been desirous that she should feel that 
 her change was near, but how were we to tell her ? I felt 
 I could not. Her dear father read and talked to her, and 
 ga,ve some gentle hints that the doctors would not be 
 answerable for the results, and indeed, that they thought 
 it a critical case. Whilst we were hesitating thus to com- 
 municate with her, the Lord Himself showed His inten- 
 tions towards her. One morning, as I was attending to 
 her, she said, " Mamma, I dreamt last night that the dean 
 of the place came and told me I was only to live a fort- 
 night." I took advantage of the opportunity as well as I 
 was able, and said to her, " Well, my dear, the Lord speaks 
 in various ways, and perhaps this is His message to you." 
 " Yes," she said, " I think it is, for certainly I cannot live 
 long thus." After that she became quite resigned and 
 composed, and daily talked very sweetly on the subject of 
 her decease, both with her dear father and myself. She 
 died exactly at the end of the fortnight, as her dream had 
 told her.' 
 
 Her spirit had been gradually ripened for the great 
 change, and the evident preparation for it gave her father 
 unspeakable joy in the midst of his distress. After her 
 decease, he writes to Mr Oliphant : 
 
 Cannstatt, Oct. 18, 1854. 
 
 ' It has pleased God to withdraw from us the bodily 
 presence of our dear daughter Shireen, our first-born thus 
 following in just three Aveeks our last-born to the tomb. 
 I blessed God in the midst of my distress for allowing me 
 the comfort of finding that she not only submitted to the 
 Divine appointment concerning her, but accepted it with 
 a cheerful spirit, and was enabled to move on, day by day,
 
 DEATH OF ELDEST DAUGHTER. 333 
 
 consciously nearing the unseen world with an unshaken 
 countenance, strong in the assured belief that to depart 
 and to be with Christ was far better for her than aught 
 which life could have in store. I thanked God with all my 
 heart for this high grace granted to her ; and while our 
 affections have been deeply smitten by the loss of one so 
 dear and so highly gifted, we refuse not the comfort which 
 the contemplation of a death so serene and cheerful is 
 calculated to afford to those who know that hopeless sorrow 
 is a sin.' 
 
 His sensations at this period of bereavement were such as 
 himself had already portrayed, though he knew not then 
 how soon the case described was, in God's mysterious pro- 
 vidence, to be his own. As he bent over the corpse of his 
 lovely and accomplished daughter, his first-born and joy, 
 did he not remember what he had once said with such 
 truth and tenderness ? 
 
 ' With this instance in view [that of the Prince Abijah], 
 we can find the parallels of lives, full of hope and pro- 
 mise, prematurely taken, and that in mercy, as we can 
 judge, to those who depart. The heavenly Husbandman 
 often gathers for His garner the fruit that early ripens, 
 without suffering it to hang needlessly long, beaten by 
 storms, upon the tree. Oh, how often, as many a grieved 
 heart can tell, do the Lord's best beloved die betimes 
 taken from the evil to come ; while the unripe, the evil, 
 the injurious, live long for mischief to themselves and 
 others ! Roses and lilies wither far sooner than thorns 
 and thistles.' * 
 
 The corpse, being that of a young and unmarried 
 woman, was, according to the custom of the country, 
 crowned with a wreath of myrtle blossoms, and the father 
 was moved to tears at the spectacle. His deep sorrow 
 
 i Daily Bible Illustrations, voL iv., p. 159.
 
 384: LAST DAYS. 
 
 had not as yet ventured to express itself in words. It wti 
 a double trial in a land of strangers, himself expecting 
 soon to be joined to both his children, and anxious to 
 have a place secured for his own grave, by the side of that 
 of Shireen. 
 
 ' The circumstances of this great loss, following so soon 
 upon the other, awakened much sympathy among the 
 kind-hearted Germans, and the myrtle-crowned corpse 
 was followed to the tomb by a large train of sponta- 
 neous mourners, composed mostly of persons unknown to 
 us, and who are not likely to be known. I was not 
 among them ; for although I had seen her die, the doctor 
 and our friends here prevailed upon me to abstain from 
 attending her to the grave. But neither the bier nor the 
 tomb is here invested with the dismal incidents and ideas 
 which prevail in England. All is here made significant of 
 cheerful hope, as among the early Christians. All the 
 symbols and inscriptions in the churchyard are of this 
 character, and the yard itself is called the " peace-yard " 
 (Friedhof), a sense which is probably local, as I find it not 
 in dictionaries. I forbear to tell you of the many things 
 this dear child was to do for me, and with me, " when she 
 got well ;" and I am not yet strong enough to dwell upon 
 the close affinities of mind and character, and the ever 
 ready and quick apprehension on her part, which drew her 
 very near to me, and rendered my intercourse with her a 
 delight. But all this is over. Year after year, week after 
 week, I am bereaved of my children ; and other trials 
 frustrated purposes, loss of health, loss of means, expatria- 
 tion from the land I love all these, though heavy, seem 
 light in comparison. God help me and I assuredly know, 
 and believe that, even with this large addition to my afflic- 
 tions, He does and will help me, and that His help is suf- 
 ficient for me in all things.
 
 RESIGNATION. 385 
 
 'My head has suffered considerably from these trials, 
 .vhich necessarily involved the suspension of my usual 
 exercise. But my poor wife, in addition to these wounds 
 to her maternal affections, has had great personal fatigues, 
 and nights of watching to undergo ; and these together 
 have left her in a state of much disturbed health, from 
 which I trust that rest may restore her. She and I, with 
 our son, have been this day to visit the grave^)f our two 
 children (for they allowed the little one to be taken up and 
 deposited wrth his sister), and we found it overspread with 
 very beautiful garlands free-will offerings of the good 
 people here.' 
 
 Dr Kitto's last letter but one has a peculiar interest 
 attaching to it. Mr Davis, once a publisher in London, 
 but latterly a very prosperous settler in South Australia, 
 having seen, in a London newspaper, some account of the 
 benevolent exertions making for Dr Kitto, generously 
 transmitted a subscription ; and to him, as an acknow- 
 ledgment in return, was sent the following note, so ripe in 
 Christian feeling and hope : 
 
 Cannstatt, Wurtemberg, Oct. 27, 1854. 
 
 'DEAR SIR, Mr Oliphant has forwarded to me your 
 kind letter, with its enclosure, and I beg you to accept my 
 earnest thanks for both. In the midst of ta trials which 
 have been sent me, and by which I am laid aside from the 
 labours in which I took much delight, I have been greatly 
 comforted and encouraged by the strong interest for me 
 which has been expressed by many who have known me 
 only by those labours, and which has been evinced in warm 
 and hearty endeavours to ameliorate the relievable evils of 
 the condition to which I am reduced. Of these kind 
 voices, none have reached me from so distant a quarter, 
 nor have any been more encouraging than yours. To. 
 
 2 B
 
 386 LAST DAYS. 
 
 know that any of the writings which I have been enabled 
 to produce have been useful, under the circumstances you 
 indicate, in the land most distant from our own, is a 
 satisfaction very dear to my heart ; and the accompany- 
 ing expressions of kind sympathy towards me will not be 
 the less precious to me, as coming from one whose name 
 is familiar to my remembrance, from its presence on the 
 titles of many publications which I used to see in former 
 times. 
 
 ' The refreshment of your very friendly communication 
 comes most seasonably to me ; for, in the short time since 
 I have been in this place for benefit of health and economy 
 of living my cup has been filled very high, in the loss of 
 my eldest daughter and youngest son, whom, within three 
 short weeks, I have laid in one grave. But though heart- 
 smitten, I have not been allowed to sorrow as having no 
 hope ; and I begin to perceive, that, by these variously 
 afflictive dispensations, my Lord is calling me "up hither" 
 to the higher room in which He sits, that I may see more 
 of His grace, and that I may more clearly understand the 
 inner mysteries of His kingdom. What more awaits me, 
 I guess not. But the Lord's will be done. I am, dear 
 sir, with affectionate regard, most truly yours, 
 
 * JOHN KITTO.' 
 
 On the same day, Dr Kitto wrote his last letter to his 
 friend and publisher. It breathes a spirit of deep com- 
 posure ; for the writer was now, as himself says of David, 
 ' past all danger, for he knew he was to die.' * We are 
 still most sorrowful ; but, not being " forsaken," we try to 
 gather strength from the belief, that He whose love has 
 been so often proved, would not willingly lay upon us one 
 stroke more than is needed for oar essential welfare, and 
 for the final welfare of those whom He has taken. My
 
 LAST LETTER. 
 
 387 
 
 dear wife was greatly cheered by Dr Brown's most kind 
 and considerate letter. I may mention that, upon our first 
 loss here, we read his "Comfortable Words" all through 
 together (that is, I read it to her), and were indeed greatly 
 comforted by it. We, more than once, exclaimed with 
 Mr Sherman, " God bless John Brown for writing this 
 book!"' 1 
 
 The time had now come when he ' must die.' His work 
 was over, and he was calmly waiting to be called up. He 
 was neither impatient to depart nor anxious to remain, for, 
 by God's grace, he was enabled to say, ' My times are in 
 Thy hand.' The last weeks of his life were spent in quiet 
 meditation ; and as soon as Shireen was buried, he selected 
 as his favourite chamber the room in which she had died, 
 whom he was so soon to follow. He was soothed by 
 looking ' on the same scenes she had last looked on.' His 
 spirit must have often pondered on the strange path by 
 which Providence had led him a ragged boy, toiling 
 beyond his strength, till a terrible calamity disabled him 
 a miserable stripling, forced into an almshouse an ap- 
 prentice to an ingenious form of surgical art a printer 
 on a Mediterranean isle a stranger in a far-off city of the 
 plague a literary workman in the metropolis a famed 
 illustrator of Scripture and now a worn-out invalid, 
 about to enter upon his final rest and reward. Thoughts, 
 too deep for utterance, and too sacred for publicity, must 
 have often sprung from such a retrospect. He had sur- 
 vived an accident all but fatal ; had outlived his own 
 purpose to die ; had stood unscathed when thousands fell 
 before the 'burning pestilence' on all sides of him; and 
 now he understood the reason why Divine benignity had 
 
 1 Mr Sherman said so in a letter of sympathy to the Rev. Dr M'Farlane of 
 Glasgow, prefacing the benediction by these words : ' If you have not seen his 
 sweet book, read it ; if you have, read it again.' See Dr M'Farlane's touching 
 and consolatory little work, ' Why Weepeat Thou ? ' pp. 74, 75. London : Nisbet.
 
 888 LAST DAYS. 
 
 uniformly spared him. The dreams of his youth had been 
 more than realised, for 
 
 ' Dreams grow realities to earnest men.' 
 
 But he had been informed long ago, by the Angel Zared, 
 that ' the period of his sojourn on earth would not be, at 
 furthest, very many years.' Of this ideal warning he had 
 been reminded by the alarming illnesses which had so 
 often seized him, and which had proved themselves to be 
 seated beyond the power of dislodgment in that vital 
 organ, which, though it had been so materially injured in 
 early life, had still, by the forced abundance of its fruits, 
 provided food and raiment for him and his. For many 
 years' of his earlier manhood, there had been little to 
 attach him to life. Then he felt himself to be all but use- 
 less, and he was to a great extent dependent on others. 
 But the later portion of his career had been signally suc- 
 cessful ; and, in the midst of his fame and usefulness, these 
 premonitions of decease gathered thickly around him. The 
 idea that he had fallen into a second state of dependence 
 and uselessness, deeply affected him ; yet he repined not ; 
 and, though he might wonder at the mysterious dis- 
 pensation, he strove to profit by it. Two mornings 
 before he died, he said, among other things, to his wife 
 ' Somehow I begin to feel a sad distaste of life. I am 
 now in a useless state, with little hope, that I can see, of 
 ever being useful again.' He added, ' I, who have all my 
 life been in the habit of referring everything to God, 
 naturally sit and ask myself what all these things mean, 
 and endeavour, if possible, to find out what His mind 
 towards me is ; and, unless it be to draw me to Himself, 
 I confess I am at a loss.' 
 
 His conclusion was just, and it was consoling too, as his 
 experience had told him ; for, since to-morrow was to be 
 his last day on earth, there had been special kindness in
 
 LAST HOURS. 389 
 
 weaning him from life, and filling him with the conscious- 
 ness, that every step towards and along the 'dark valley' 
 was a step nearer glory and God. She who had so deep 
 an interest in it, has herself described that solemn scene, 
 which left her a widow and her children fatherless : 
 
 ' In the evening he read to me Thackeray's Lecture on 
 Goldsmith, and said, that was the right spirit in which to 
 view literature, and expressed how much more happily and 
 respectably he had spent his life in that pursuit than he 
 could have done in any other occupation. He sat reading 
 till eleven o'clock, and seemed quite pleased that I had 
 been able to rest so long listening to him. He then retired 
 for the night. About three o'clock in the morning, I was 
 awakened by his step in the room. I immediately sprang 
 up, and inquired what was the matter. He said, " Un- 
 less I can be sick, I feel I shall be very ill." I applied 
 some remedies, which had the desired effect, and wished 
 to send for Dr Burckhardt, his medical attendant, but he 
 would not allow me, saying, " it would pass off." I did 
 not feel any particular alarm, and he went again to bed, 
 and slept till about seven, when I inquired how he was. 
 He said he felt better, and asked for his sauerwasser. He 
 then rose and dressed himself, but said he would defer the 
 more laborious process of shaving and washing till he had 
 .taken his breakfast. He sat at the table with the children 
 and myself. As soon as they had gone to school, he said, 
 " Well, after all, I think I must have a very strong con- 
 stitution to stand what I have gone through. I never felt 
 so conscious as last night of the approach of a fit, and had 
 I not been sick I am sure I should have had one." Then, 
 making two or three circles with his finger, to signify 
 giddiness, he added, almost in the same breath, " Look 
 sharp, Bell !" I saw he was greatly affected, and caught 
 hold of him, calling loudly to the servants, whom I hurried
 
 390 DEATH. 
 
 off to fetch Dr Burckhardt, and our kind friend Mr Hirsch, 
 who had shown himself throughout most anxious to render 
 every assistance in his power. Dear Kitto seeing I was 
 greatly agitated, waved his hand gently up and down, 
 signifying to me to be composed. His chest heaved vio- 
 lently, and continued doing so at intervals of about half 
 an hoar. Between the paroxysms, he kept trying his eyes, 
 his fingers, and his tongue, and said, " My impression is 
 I shall die." Medicine was given, but it could not be 
 retained. He sat on his chair, with his feet in a mustard 
 bath, and leeches on his temples, and, after an interval of 
 some hours, he was bled in the foot. There seemed, how- 
 ever, no signs of amendment. About two o'clock in the 
 day he was removed to bed. But the chest kept constantly 
 heaving, and the head was swollen, and the face very red. 
 Stertorous breathing commenced, and it became very 
 difficult to understand him ; all told too plainly that, in a 
 few hours, we should be left desolate. In the early part 
 of the evening he said, " I am being choked. Is it death ? " 
 I spoke with my fingers, but I saw that he could not make 
 out what I said. I then, with my head, signified that it 
 was. He added, " Pray God to take me soon." These 
 were his last words. He continued for some hours in this 
 agony, which no human power could alleviate. Mr Hirsch, 
 and other kind friends, offered to sit with us during the 
 night, but all help of man was vain. Towards five o'clock, 
 the convulsive struggle became too agonising to witness, 
 and Dr Burckhardt, who had been sent for, insisted upon 
 my retiring, and would not suffer me again to return. I 
 never saw him afterwards. About seven o'clock I was 
 told that all was over, and that my beloved husband had 
 entered into the rest prepared for the people of God.' 
 
 Yes, rest had been prescribed for him by physicians, and 
 urged upon him by friends, and he had gone to Cannstatt
 
 FUNERAL. 391 
 
 in search of it ; but, on the morning of the 25th of Novem- 
 ber, he passed into that repose which the brave and the 
 true enjoy, through the merits and mediation of the Ex- 
 alted Redeemer. 
 
 ' Spirit ! thy labour is o'er ! 
 Thy term of probation is run : 
 Thy steps are now bound for the untrodden, shore, 
 And the joy of immortals begun. 
 
 ' Spirit I look not on the strife, 
 Or the pleasures of earth with regret 
 Pause not on the threshold of limitless life, 
 To mourn for the day that is set. 
 
 ' Spirit ! no fetters can bind, 
 No troubles have power to molest : 
 There the worn out like thee the weary shall find 
 A haven, a mansion of rest. 
 
 4 Spirit ! how bright is the road 
 For which thou art now on the wing ! 
 Thy home it will be, with thy Saviour and God, 
 The loud hallelujah to sing.' 
 
 The funeral, according to German usage, took place two 
 days after his death. Dr Gleissberg the dean officiated, 
 and the service began and concluded with praise and 
 prayer. A sketch of Dr Kitto's life and labours was also 
 given, and followed up with such impressive lessons as the 
 scene suggested. The English residents, and a large con- 
 course of the native population, followed to their resting- 
 place the remains of the illustrious stranger, whose brief 
 abode among them had been checkered with such trials. 
 To be buried at Plymouth ' in New Churchyard beside 
 Granny,' was his boyish prayer, but he sleeps with his 
 two children in the cemetery of Cannstatt ; and a hand- 
 some monument, erected by the publisher of his last work, 
 marks and adorns the hallowed spot. The monogram, 
 surrounded by a chaplet and winged with palm leaves,
 
 392 INSCRIPTION ON TOMBSTONE. 
 
 which is carved on the upper part of the stone, is taken 
 from a slab in the Roman catacombs, and was the print 
 selected by him for the concluding paper of his Daily 
 Bible Illustrations, and appropriately symbolises his own 
 warfare and his victory ay, more than victory through 
 Christ. 
 
 The monument, with its inscription, is here presented: 
 
 5n fHcmorfam 
 IOANNIS KITTO, D.D., ANGLI, 
 
 INGEXIO, DOCTRIXA, PIETATE CLARISSIHI, 
 
 QUI KTSI MtTLTIS FORTUNE IMPEDIMENTS OBSTEICTCS, 
 
 ATQUE JAM PUER CASH CAPTU9 Fl'IT AtTRIBUB, 
 
 TAMES LEGENDO ET PEREGRINANDO 
 MAGSAM VAIUAMQCE SIBI CCMULAVIT ERDDITIOSfEM, 
 
 QUAM PEKMCLTIS LIBRIS, 
 
 IMPBI1IIS SCKIPTURAS SACKAS UiUSTRAXTIBCS, 
 EXPOS0IT. 
 
 6TCDIIS CONFECTCS IN GERMANIAM 8E CONTCLIT 
 
 CT VALETCDINEM DEBILITATAM RESTAUEARET, 
 IBIQUE V1TAM SEMPITERNAM IS CHR1STO INVENIT. 
 
 NATTTS PLTMOUTHLK DIE IV MENS. DECEMB. AN. MDCCCIV, 
 MOBIUUS EST CANUSTADiaS DIE XXV MENS. NOVEMB. AN. JIDCCCLIV. 
 
 AMNABELLA SHIREEK, FILIA E-TCS PRIMOGENITA, MORTEM OBIIT XIII OCTOB. 
 MDCCCLIV., ANNO ^TATIS VICESIMO PEIMO ; 
 
 BEKRICUS HAKLOWE, FILIUS NATO MINIMUS, XXI BEPTTMB. 
 EJCSDEM ANSI, VIX DECEM MENSES NATCS.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 GENERAL REVIEW OF CHARACTER AND CAREER. 
 
 MANY authors are remembered, not for their lives, but for 
 their works. Their personality is lost, and they are known 
 by what they have achieved, not by what they have been. 
 
 ' Not myself, but the truth that in life I have spoken ; 
 Not myself, but the seed that in life I have sown, 
 Shall pass on to ages, all about me forgotten, 
 Save the words I have written, the deeds I have done.' 
 
 But this silent separation of the author from his works 
 cannot happen in the case of Dr Kitto, whose name is now 
 immortally associated with biblical study and literature. 
 For the measure of his success is not more amazing in 
 its amount than in the means by which he reached it. 
 His life is as instructive as are his labours ; and the two 
 combined, present an unequalled picture of triumph over 
 obstacles which have been very rarely so surmounted, and 
 ,:ver circumstances which few have ventured to encounter, 
 and which fewer still have mastered to such advantage. 
 He did not merely neutralise the adverse position of his 
 earlier years, but he wrung from it the lessons and habits 
 which slowly built up his fame, as they prepared him for 
 his ultimate achievements. Truly has he realised the riddle 
 of Samson ' Out of the eater came forth meat, and out 
 of the strong came forth sweetness.' "What a contrast
 
 894 GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 between the deaf and pauper boy of 1819, wheedled into 
 a workhouse to keep him from ' hunger and fasting, cold 
 and nakedness,' and the John Kitto of 1854, doctor of 
 Divinity though a layman, member of the Society of Anti- 
 quaries, Editor of the Pictorial Bible and the Cyclopaedia 
 of Biblical Literature, and author of the Daily Bible 
 Illustrations. The interval between the two extremes was 
 long, and sometimes very gloomy ; yet he bore bravely up, 
 with earnest resolution and strong faith in God, often 
 murmuring to himself 
 
 ' Be still, sad heart ! and cease repining, 
 Behind the clouds the sun is shining.' 
 
 We have already characterised, in the preceding pages, 
 those numerous literary and biblical productions which 
 occupied the last twenty years of Dr Kitto's life. Suffice 
 it now to say of them generally, that they work principally 
 on the outer aspects of Scripture, and seldom touch the 
 deeper difficulties that lie beneath. Such labours have, 
 however, their own value ; for, though they do not inter- 
 pret, they may conduct to the interpretation. They break 
 the husk, though they do not bring out the kernel. Many 
 of the topical descriptions so lavishly given in the quartos 
 of Conybeare and Howson, contribute not a whit to a just 
 exposition ; but they wonderfully freshen our conceptions 
 of the toil and travels of the great apostle. On the other 
 hand, Smith's expository description of Paul's voyage 1 is 
 true to the life ; the nautical language ropes, anchors, 
 sails is dexterously unravelled ; the positions of the 
 labouring ship, day after day, are laid down with a sea- 
 man's precision ; and the wreck and the scene of it are 
 delineated with such fulness and accuracy, that at once he 
 sketches a picture and completes an exegesis. 
 
 1 "The Voyage and Shipwreck of St Paul,' etc. By James Smith, Esq. of Jor- 
 danhill, F.R.S. London, 1848.
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS BESIDE THE MARK. 395 
 
 ' Sometimes Dr Kitto's illustrations are too ingenious, 
 and sometimes, though rarely, they are beside the mark. 
 Thus, in the Pictorial Bible and in the Daily Bible Illus- 
 trations, he holds up Ephron the Hittite as utterly supple 
 and dishonest in his transaction with Abraham about the 
 cave of Machpelah, and denies him all generosity, if not 
 integrity a mode of representation unwarranted by the 
 narrative, and which errs in interpreting the ancient and 
 simple manners of Canaan by the ingenious flatteries and 
 lying courtesies of modern Persia. In writing under Acts 
 xix. 2, of the question which, properly rendered, is, ' Did 
 ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed ? ' and of the 
 answer, ' We did not so much as hear whether there be 
 any Holy Ghost,' he understands the language as referring 
 to the existence or person of the Spirit ; whereas the con- 
 text makes it obvious that it is to the gift, or rather the 
 extraordinary endowments of the Spirit, that the querist 
 and his twelve respondents refer for when they were bap- 
 tized, 'the Holy Ghost came on them, and they spake 
 with tongues and prophesied.' In his remarks upon the 
 rapid increase of Israel in Egypt, he declares ' After all 
 the learned and sagacious talk about the laws of popula- 
 tion and of human increase, there is really no law of increase 
 in any population but the will of God.' No one doubts 
 this great truth, yet surely the will of God neither acts 
 without law nor by miracle, but according to certain 
 physiological principles, which may be detected and exr 
 plained. Under Ezekiel xiii. 10, 11, he has a curious 
 dissertation on 'cob-walls' a species of rude buildings 
 formed of mud, and found in the south-west of England. 
 But he jumps at once to the conclusion, that the process 
 had been carried, like his own name, from Phoenicia to 
 Devonshire, from Canaan to Cornwall. But the same 
 methods of clay-masonry are found in Scotland and else-
 
 396 GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 where, and need not be traced to any other origin than 
 poverty and necessity. Mr Urquhart and he are puzzled 
 much about the syllable ' cob,' which certainly has a variety 
 of meanings in compounded forms, and they regard ' cob- 
 web' as meaning the wall and the web ; whereas the first 
 syllable in cobweb is simply the last of the early name of 
 the insect, called attercop still in Denmark, and in many 
 parts of Scotland and England* 
 
 The late Hugh Miller, an immortal example of the suc- 
 cessful pursuit of science under difficulties, which to the 
 majority of men would have been insuperable, has, in his 
 last work, ' The Testimony of the Rocks,' taken Dr Kitto 
 as the exponent of the popular view of the universality of 
 the Noachic deluge. In our opinion, his direct refutation 
 of Dr Kitto fails on some points, turning the edge of the 
 weapon without breaking it, and is greatly inferior in 
 cogency and conclusiveness to the positive and very strik- 
 ing argument for his own hypothesis. Another recent 
 author has taken up and rebuked both Dr Kitto and our- 
 selves upon a point on which he possesses practical skill 
 and experience. 1 The matter in dispute is the demolition 
 of the golden calf by Moses. The conjecture may be un- 
 tenable, that Moses dissolved the calf in some chemical 
 fluid, and mixed the nauseous potion with the water which 
 he compelled the Israelites to drink, though certainly a 
 solvent sufficient for the purpose might easily be fixed upon, 
 and might be known to Egyptian chemistry. The wor\cls 
 of Moses are, ' he burned it in the fire, and ground it to 
 powder, and strewed it upon the water,' ' he stamped it 
 
 1 The Ancient Workers and Artificers in Metal, from References in the Old Tes- 
 tament and other Ancient Writings. By James Kapler, F.C.S. 1856. This inter- 
 esting and informing little work loses much of its value to the student, because, 
 with the exception of quotations from Scripture, it does not note the sources of its 
 extracts. It is, besides, far more profuse about modern than ancient metallurgy, 
 and ingeniously misinterprets several passages of the Bible, by giving them a 
 chemical allusion rather than a popular sense.
 
 EARLY LIFE. 397 
 
 and ground it very small, even until it was small as dust.' 
 The text implies that the ' burning' in the fire was not 
 fusion, as our opponent supposes, for surely burning is not 
 melting, but some unknown process that prepared the 
 metal for being 'stamped' and then 'ground' to powder a 
 process which Mr Napier, though he meditated a book on 
 ' the Chemistry of the Bible,' has certainly not discovered, 
 but has been obliged to leave unexplained. 
 
 Dr Kitto's life was one of heroic daring and perseverance. 
 With a dissipated father and a broken-hearted mother, 
 afflicted with a deafness which a sad accident had brought 
 upon him, left pretty much to himself, and prone to wan- 
 der about the fields, or lie among the rocks, the lad might 
 have grown up to lead a vagabond life, without settled 
 aim or occupation. But the waif, tossed about on the 
 billows, and in danger of being carried out to sea, was 
 floated into the haven of the old Plymouth workhouse. 
 And what was to be done with him there ? In kindness, 
 the overseer set him to shoemaking, and probably his 
 relations thought him now provided' for during life, and 
 reckoned the use of awl and pincers a fitting occupation 
 for a jobbing mason's disabled apprentice. And had 
 it not been for his mental elasticity, he would certainly 
 have been a poor labourer all his days. By and by he is 
 leased out to a brutal tyrant, who made the poor boy so 
 utterly wretched, that he cherished to familiarity the idea 
 of suicide. He ' tried hard to be happy, but it would not 
 do,' and at length he longed 
 
 4 to be hurled 
 Anjrwhere, anywhere, out of the world.' 
 
 Ah ! little did Mr Bowden know, when he was so cruelly 
 cuffing his helpless drudge, and dashing a tobacco-pipe or 
 a shoe in his face, that the object of his contumely was 
 faithfully committing to record, in his Journal, the whole
 
 398 GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 of the brutal procedure, to be turned up thirty years after 
 wards to the gaze and reprobation of the world. The in- 
 denture must be cancelled, and the magistrates mercifully 
 sent him back to the almshouse : but he did not sink into 
 apathy, nor did his spirit prey upon itself, and become the 
 nursery or the victim of dark and vengeful passions. 
 Many, alas ! in more propitious circumstances than his, 
 have yielded to such temptation. Byron's lameness was 
 an evil incomparably less than Kitto's deafness, and yet it 
 so soured his Lordship's temper, that he could not en- 
 dure an unwitting allusion to his halt. It could be borne 
 that his mother called him a brat, but that she called him 
 ' a lame brat,' was ever a plague-spot on his memory. 
 Shut out from intercourse with society, Kitto never learned 
 to hate it cheerless and homeless, a butt to the wilder 
 boys, sometimes pitied and sometimes slighted, he main- 
 tained a calm and firm temper ; and, at length, he could 
 speak and write of his infirmity with the analytical pre- 
 cision of a physiologist, and the quiet resignation of a child 
 of God, to whom all things ' work together for good.' It 
 was, indeed, a rough training to which he had been sub- 
 jected. But it was not without its benefits ; for though he 
 was not what he has himself called a ' mother-bred youth,' 
 yet a good deal of his earliest days would have badly ' fitted 
 him to endure the sharp air and gusty winds of practical 
 life.' ' The hardening of such a character is the most dis- 
 tressing moral process to which life is subject. Tender to 
 touch as the mimosa, morbidly sensitive to every influence 
 from without, even the kindness of men seems rough, while 
 neglect wounds and unkindness kills. Apt to see offence 
 where love is meant, mortified to be no longer ihe first ob- 
 ject of thought and solicitude to all around, such a young 
 man, in his first adventure from home, cannot possibly 
 find any society in which his self-esteem will not be deeply.
 
 PROCESS OF TEMPERING. 399 
 
 wounded.' 1 The distinctness of this picture shows that it 
 was a sketch of himself, and the reminiscence is as sore as 
 if the wounds had scarcely been healed. 
 
 And that terrible fall was a prime means of his elevation. 
 But for this accident, the Cornish miner's grandson might 
 have been a decent tradesman, superior to his class in intel- 
 ligence and moral worth, an active member of a Mechanics' 
 Institute, or a leading spirit in the committee of a public 
 library. Men might have said, that the younger Kitto had 
 retrieved the good name which his father had lost. The 
 boy had always a fondness for books ; but his deafness, 
 shutting him out of the world, forced him, by an irresistible 
 instinct, to hold converse with himself and others upon 
 paper. There was in him a yearning for interchange of 
 thought, and therefore, as he had few friends, he wrote 
 letters to himself, and communed with himself through his 
 ' Journal.' Had he been born a deaf mute, the same result 
 and tendency would not have been so strongly felt. But 
 twelve years of boy-life, formed an experience not easily 
 forgotten. Through that mysterious and instinctive neces- 
 sity which exists between thoughts and language, what he 
 had been accustomed to put into words, he longed to put 
 into words still. As he could not hear his own words, so 
 he compensated himself with seeing them, arid the eye be- 
 came the natural substitute for the ear. In the meanwhile, 
 his spirit was sustained by such nutriment and solace ; and 
 literature, of the humblest sort, was a welcome luxury. 
 The native vigour of his mind achieved for him a good 
 self-education. Band friends noticed him, and took him 
 out of the Workhouse '0 happy hour!' 2 But few of 
 them guessed what was in him. They could not see what 
 fire was in the flint, for it had not been struck. He was at 
 
 1 Daily Bible Illustrations, vol. viii., p. 271. 
 Letter to Mr Harvey, July 20, 1823.
 
 400 GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 this period not unlike Seattle's Minstrel, the object of most 
 opposite opinions 
 
 ' Silent when glad affectionate, though shy j 
 And now his look was most demurely sad ; 
 And now he laughed aloud, yet none knew why j 
 The neighbours stared and sighed, and hlessed the lad ; 
 Some deemed him wondrous wise, and some believed him mad.' 
 
 He was, in fact, not fully aware- of his own capabilities, 
 and, step by step, was he unconsciously led on to cele- 
 brity and usefulness. Had there not been a deeper power 
 in him than was surmised, he might have remained in 
 charge of book-shelves in Plymouth or in Exeter might, 
 perhaps, have written a few miscellanies, or done work 
 for some of the London publishers. But he would have 
 come short of that high excellence to which he ultimately 
 attained an excellence, based as much on the nature of 
 his studies as on the success with which they were pur- 
 sued. As he has said in one of his Journals, ' Talent is 
 common, but the art of unfolding talent is not so com- 
 mon. Those whom we call men of talent had, perhaps, 
 ten thousand contemporaries of equal talent, but who had 
 not equal art and facility in unfolding the gifts they pos- 
 sessed.' 
 
 His romantic connection with Mr Groves was the turn- 
 ing point of his life. It opened up a new path of labour 
 in connection with the Church of England Missionary 
 Society. Manual toil it was, but it awoke novel ideas and 
 prospects. At length his journey to Bagdad fulfilled one 
 of his first dreams, and revealed to his quick eye the very 
 dress and manners of early times. He saw the East, and 
 soon learned to perceive what biblical illustrations might 
 be gleaned from it. The seeds of piety had been sown in 
 his heart by his kind and loving grandmother, but they 
 were quickened by the conversation and example of Mr
 
 THE TURNING POINT. 401 
 
 Groves ; so that, when the time came, he took to biblical 
 work as a congenial task, and therefore he rose hi it to 
 signal eminence. Again, his deafness aided him. It threw 
 him ever on his own mental resources ; led him to retire 
 into his own heart, and commune with his Maker ; and 
 gave his mind that special liking for Scripture, and all 
 about it, which fitted him so well to illustrate it. The 
 mere love of fame, so natural to youth, gradually sub- 
 Bided, though the natural desire of appreciation still re- 
 mained. ' I did,' he avows, ' earnestly desire to leave to 
 the age beyond some record of my past existence, and 
 thereby establish a point of communication between my 
 own mind and the unborn generations.' 1 He has recorded 
 his obligation to a member of the Society of Friends, who 
 showed him great kindness when few thought of him, and 
 especially impressed upon him this idea, ' that it was the 
 duty of every rational creature to devote whatever talents 
 God had given him to useful purposes.' 2 The counsel 
 took effect, and, as ' a word spoken in season,' aided in 
 producing large results. 
 
 Had Dr Kitto been born in such affluence as to receive 
 a good education, and to have been enabled to live among 
 books, and occasionally to compose a biblical paper for 
 amusement, he would have been regarded as a literary 
 phenomenon. Had he done even a tithe of what he has 
 done, without any such disadvantages as he had to contend 
 with, he would still have been entitled to no little thanks. 
 But he had to fight for life as well as for learning, had to 
 work sore and hard for food and raiment, while slowly 
 acquiring the elements of knowledge. His question was 
 not what shall I eat, but how shall I get it not what shall 
 I put on, but how shall I contrive to provide it. Such a con- 
 flict might have absorbed all his energies, but the battle for 
 
 1 Lost Senses Deafness, p. 89. ' Ibid., p. 91. 
 
 2 C
 
 405f GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 bread only hardened him for the struggle after knowledge. 
 The late Duke of Sussex possessed a magnificent biblical 
 library, comprising many thousand volumes, and he could 
 occasionally talk of better versions and happier renderings. 
 Many gentlemen who have similar tastes, and are not with- 
 out extensive information in the literature of Scripture, 
 can propose various readings, and defend ingenious trans- 
 lations. But study is to these dilettanti a matter of luxury 
 and pastime, and rarely do they produce much of perma- 
 nent merit or utility. Kitto, on the other hand, had to 
 educate himself while wearied out with manual toil. He 
 had to gather his library with the fragments of his scanty 
 earnings, the crumbs that fell from his frugal table had, 
 in fact, both to create his instruments, and teach himself 
 how to use them. He had to collect the clay and glean 
 the straw ; and not only has he made the bricks, but he 
 has built them into structures, stored with richer treasures 
 than were Pithom and Raamses. 
 
 There can be little doubt that Dr Kitto's i infirmity in- 
 creased his natural love of books. His own account is, 
 ' Whatever acquirements I have been able to make, have 
 been built up in solitude upon the foundation of the taste 
 for and habit of reading, which I had acquired at an early 
 age, before I had lost my hearing. How it would have 
 fared with me had not this taste been previously formed, I 
 am afraid to conjecture.' 1 Books became his companions. 
 He did not simply handle them, he fondled them. A book 
 was a thing of life and fellowship to him. It spoke to his 
 heart in frank companionship. What a wistful eye he cast 
 on some favourite lying on a bookstall, when he painfully 
 knew the purchase to be beyond his means ! He seemed 
 to feel that the book instinctively understood his yearning 
 towards it, and sympathised with him. Day by day, as 
 
 1 Letter to Mr Oliphant, March 30, 1850
 
 LOVE OF BOOKS. 403 
 
 he passed the spot, the book and he exchanged lovers' 
 glances ; and this coquetry would last for months. When 
 speaking of Kirjath-Sepher, as meaning ' Book-city,' and 
 therefore probably having some library within it, he says, 
 with true zest, ' By the dear love we bear to books, which 
 place within our grasp the thought and knowledge of ah 1 
 ages and of all climes, we exult in this inevitable conclu- 
 sion.' Referring to the Pictorial Bible, he tells Mr Knight, 
 ' Never was there any commentary that required more 
 help from books, and yet perhaps no work of the kind was 
 ever undertaken by a person with a more scanty library. 
 It was my peculiar disadvantage, to have no books at all 
 when I came to England. I had a very decent collection 
 for a person in my circumstances ; but I have never heard 
 of it since I left it at Bagdad, to be sent home by way of 
 India.' 1 Books, however, were gradually accumulated by 
 him at no small expense, till he could boast of a library ' 
 * three thousand five hundred strong.' 
 
 The books common in his younger days were of a far 
 inferior class to those in circulation in his riper years, and 
 were also considerably dearer in price. ' To bring this 
 home,' he calculates, ' let us see how I might now employ 
 a weekly sixpence, which in those times would only have 
 furnished me with about thirty-two loosely printed octavo 
 pages, sixteen of quarto, or eight of folio, being a portion 
 of a work to be completed in from thirty to a hundred 
 numbers, and perhaps containing a cut in every fourth 
 number. The same sum would now enable me to obtain 
 regularly the Penny Magazine, one number ; the Penny 
 Cyclopaedia, two numbers ; the Saturday Magazine, one 
 number ; and Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, one number ; 
 leaving me, besides, an overplus of a weekly halfpenny, 
 which, at the end of the month, would more than enable 
 
 1 Letter to Mr Knight, Feb. 22, 1837.
 
 404 GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 me to obtain Chambers' Information for the People. Thus, 
 for my weekly sixpence, I should have five distinct publi- 
 cations, containing a large body of interesting information, 
 and comprehending about eight times the quantity of 
 printed matter which my sixpence would formerly have 
 purchased. Besides this, instead of one engraving for 
 every third or fourth sixpence which I expended, I should 
 now have from eight to twelve neat and instructive cuts 
 included with my printed matter ; and, at the end of the 
 year, I should be the possessor of six large volumes, con- 
 taining altogether upwards of 2000 closely printed pages, 
 and comprehending from 400 to 500 engravings.' 1 
 
 Few men have made better use of books than Dr Kitto. 
 All his productions teem with the results of his multi- 
 farious reading. Not that he multiplies extracts unneces- 
 sarily, either with slovenly profusion or with the parade of 
 learning ; for his selections tell at once upon the case in 
 hand, and in their aptness lies their force. So appropriate 
 are many of them, so exactly do they hit the precise point, 
 that one is apt to compare him to the left-handed warriors 
 of Benjamin, who could ' sling at an hairbreadth and not 
 miss.' The awful stillness in which he lived, gave him 
 special facility in consulting books, and his undisturbed 
 attention enabled him to turn all that he read to the best 
 advantage. 
 
 His deafness gave also peculiar power to his eye, 
 ' For oft when one sense is suppressed, 
 It but retires into the rest." 
 
 This ocular discipline was, indeed, a natural necessity. 
 But it imparts a vividness to his descriptions. He excels 
 in word-painting. He tells you what he has seen so dis- 
 tinctly, that you see it too. Every scene that he beheld 
 seemed to be photographed on his memory. Even when, 
 
 1 Penny Magazine, voL ir., p. 228.
 
 POWER OF WORD-PAINTING. 405 
 
 as he quaintly describes it, he saw without Iwliiuj, he could 
 trust implicitly to his impressions. He adduces in proof, 
 that his wife and he went to Woking to look oat for a 
 house, and that, when they began to talk about it after- 
 wards the day, indeed, before taking possession of it 
 she, who had been on a second visit to it, affirmed that the 
 front was of plaster, while he maintained that it was ' good 
 red brick.' He had merely seen, and not looked ; but he 
 was correct. ' I confess,' he adds, ' that I allowed myself 
 to exult at this, as it was a very strong proof of the distinct- 
 ness of the faculty of minute observation.' He had been 
 in the habit of noting whatever he observed. At Bagdad, 
 objects of natural history interested him ; and his accounts, 
 in his Journal, of the form, habits, and doings of certain 
 species of wasps and spiders, have not a little of the quaint 
 and amusing minuteness of Gilbert White of Selborne. 
 In consequence of this faculty, one of his paragraphs is 
 often equal to an engraving or a panoramic picture. The 
 effect is the same, whether he describe a tree or a mob, a 
 landscape or a portion of dress. His style is eminently 
 pictorial, and, by a few masterly strokes, he paints what 
 he has set before you. In this power he resembles another, 
 who has raised himself to imperishable renown in physical 
 science. When the late Hugh Miller figures in words a 
 fossil fish, its jaw, or fin, or general shape ; or describes 
 the attitude in which it was found, the species of rock in 
 which it is imbedded, or the scene in which the discovery 
 took place, his reader comprehends the object or place as 
 clearly as if he beheld it, and the pencil is felt to be almost 
 a superfluous aid. 
 
 Dr Kitto's eye was one peculiar source of enjoyment to 
 him. It drank in a rich and unfailing pleasure from the 
 landscape. He loved, therefore, to traverse the Hoe at 
 Plymouth, to saunter on the baraccas or high terraces at
 
 406 GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 Malta, and to gaze around him as he lounged on the 
 housetop at Bagdad. A flower or tree was a special 
 delight ; nature, in all her visible forms, enchanted him. 
 He liked to see the old trees swinging their great boughs 
 in the storm, and 'to fancy the sound' He could well 
 comprehend the seductions of grove worship, from the 
 sensation which he experienced among 'the endless fir 
 woods of northern Europe, the magnificent plane trees of 
 Media, and the splendid palm groves of the Tigris.' His 
 study was usually selected, not so much for his conveni- 
 ence, as that it might enable ' his view to rest upon trees, 
 whenever his eyes were raised from the book he read or 
 the paper on which he wrote.' 1 He could describe, with 
 astonishing vividness, not only what he looked on, but also 
 any imaginary scene which appealed to the vision. What 
 he saw in his mind's eye, he could tell as clearly, and with 
 the same effect, as what he saw with those large and 
 lustrous orbs. I can live again,' he assures us, ' at will, 
 in the midst of any scenes or circumstances by which I 
 have been once surrounded. By a voluntary act of mind, 
 I can in a moment conjure up the whole of any one out of 
 the innumerable scenes, in which the slightest interest has 
 been at any time felt by me. If I wish to realise a scene, 
 or to conjure up the view of a place, it comes before me, 
 peopled with the very persons I saw in it.' 2 Paintings 
 delighted him ; but he could not endure such glaring 
 improprieties as painters of Scripture scenes too often 
 commit ' the Prodigal Son in trunk breeches, and king 
 Joash as a half-naked mulatto ; ' or, we might add, the 
 Jewish high-priest, in full pontifical costume, immolating 
 Jeplithah's daughter ; blind Bartimeus with a violin on his 
 arm ; or the angelic choir over the common of Bethlehem, 
 chanting with a music-book spread out on the clouds 
 
 1 Lost Senses Deafness, pp. 56, 07. ' Ibid., p. 68.
 
 VISUAL QUICKNESS. 407 
 
 before them. His eye had also a special quickness, and its 
 informing glance told him what question you were about 
 to propose. The writer was struck with this peculiarity 
 when he met with Dr Kitto. The moment he saw you 
 looking at anything, he divined at once what you meant 
 to ask, or what had attracted your attention. He read 
 the thought as unerringly as if he had heard the question. 
 Long practice had produced a facility, which had all the 
 promptness and sureness of an instinct. The vigour, in 
 short, of many of his descriptive passages, is owing to the 
 use which he was forced to make of his vision, to supply, 
 as far as possible, the service of the organ which had been 
 so utterly destroyed. 
 
 Yet there is no question that this defect told upon his 
 composition in another form. His sentences sometimes 
 want rhythm, the clauses are occasionally rugged, and his 
 manuscripts exhibit a word or an epithet recurring in con- 
 tiguous members of the same sentence. He had lost so far 
 the feeling of sound, and his eyesight could not guide him. 
 His poetry exhibits this aural defect of ' halting, hopping 
 feet ;' and he admits that he could not recognise or rectify 
 it, and that he had always a misgiving on the subject. 
 The effect of such verbal repetition could be learned only 
 from reading, for though he might read aloud himself, 
 he heard no syllable. A strange mystery to use what 
 were sounds to others, but none to himself ; to speak, with 
 what tones he could not tell ; and to articulate, with what 
 results he could only faintly remember or dimly imagine. 
 He was sensible of this defect, and sought sometimes to 
 prove his MSS. by fancying the effect of reading them. 
 Still he had sensations which appeared like tho^" O f sound. 
 Perceiving, on one occasion, that I did not fully compre- 
 hend his deep guttural speech, he said at once, ' Ijeei that 
 I am not in good voice to-day.' ' I have often,' he assures
 
 408 GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 us, * calculated that above two-thirds of my vocabulary 
 consist of words which I never heard pronounced.' The 
 words of his first vocabulary he continued to pronounce as 
 he had done in boyhood, and he could not get over the 
 provincial pronunciation of tay for fea, though he was per- 
 fectly aware of the error. Uneducated people are apt to 
 write words according to their sounds ; but he was liable 
 to pronounce words as they are written, and as he generally 
 brought out all the syllables, German strangers, having 
 some acquaintance with English, usually understood him 
 better than his own countrymen. 1 
 
 But while we ascribe so much to the disaster which befel 
 him, we must not forget his extraordinary diligence and 
 perseverance. What he did, he did with his might. It 
 was not a feat, and done with it, but patient and pro- 
 tracted industry. He did not spring to his prey like the 
 lion, but he performed his daily task like the ox. He did 
 his work with considerable ease, but he was always at his 
 work. He was either fishing or mending his nets, either 
 composing or preparing for composition. From his earliest 
 days he could not be idle ; his repose was in activity not 
 unlike the swallow, which feeds and rests on the wing. He 
 wrote to Mr Woollcombe, in 1827 : ' I have no peculiar 
 talent ; I do not want it ; it would do me more harm than 
 good. I only think that I have a certain degree of industry, 
 which, applied to its proper object, may make me an instru- 
 ment of usefulness of greater usefulness, perhaps, than 
 mere talent can enable any man to effect.' He declares also 
 to the same friend from Bagdad : ' All the fine stories we 
 hear about natural ability are mere rigmarole ; every man 
 may, according to his opportunities and industry, render 
 himself almost anything he wishes to become.' At a later 
 period, in 1841, he asserts to Mr Knight, 'I am quite 
 
 1 Lost Senses Deafness, pp. 23, 24.
 
 SUCCESSFUL INDUSTRY. 409 
 
 sensible that I am in a condition to undertake what others 
 would shrink from. I am fitted, by a variety of circum- 
 stances, for hard work. From my predilection for'study 
 and composition, it is not easy for work to become labour 
 to me.' 
 
 Though under the pressure of a calamity which would 
 have broken the fortitude of many, he resolved, not so 
 much to be famous as to be useful ; and, though numerous 
 providences seemed conspiring to thwart him, he boldly 
 acted out his resolution. He often felt exhausted, and 
 sometimes dispirited, on the rugged and up-hill path. But 
 though ' faint,' he was still ' pursuing.' Every time he fell, 
 he rose with renewed vigour. His stout heart and in- 
 domitable perseverance carried him through. ' Perhaps,' 
 said he toward the end of his career, ' few men are more 
 contented than I am. I have attained the object of youth- 
 ful aspiration I am satisfied with the position I have 
 gained, and which I feel to be mine I have to work, bat, 
 unlike very many men, my work is what 1 would do for 
 pleasure, though I were not obliged to do it.' 1 Will any 
 one blame him for feeling that he had achieved something, 
 and done good service to his age ? After the traveller has 
 climbed the hill, may he not, as he gazes on the scenery 
 beneath him, contrast his present elevation with the humbler 
 position which he occupied at starting ? We remember 
 how amused and gratified he was, when we took a vener- 
 able friend, the Rev. Dr Beattie of Glasgow, with us to see 
 him, and who paid him, through Mrs Kitto, such a com- 
 pliment as this : ' Madam, I am disappointed in your 
 husband's appearance exceedingly. I had thought, from 
 the amount of information he possesses, that he must be 
 double the age he is, and, from the quantity of labour he 
 
 1 From a journal of some of his more remarkable sayings, kept by his eldest 
 daughter.
 
 410 GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 has gone through, that he must possess twice the physical 
 vigour.' Yet, in spite of many temptations which naturally 
 sprang out of his singular career, he maintained his humility 
 as deeply as when he said, in 1832, to Mr Woollcombe, 
 ' I know perfectly well that many thought you and my 
 earliest friends not justified in their original kindness to- 
 ward me. What is more, I soon began to think so too 
 myself.' But he had won his position by toil, in season 
 and out of season, toil such as no constitution could long 
 sustain. ' The working day of the Museum,' he wrote to 
 Mr Knight, ' is six hours mine is sixteen hours.' What 
 physical frame could long bear up under such continuous 
 strain and pressure ? ' A merciful man regardeth the life 
 of his beast ; ' and Dr Kitto's soul should have had com- 
 passion on its ' earthen vessel,' and not worn it to death. 
 
 It is true that, in his latter years, there were great 
 demands upon him. The cares of a numerous family sum- 
 moned his pen into perpetual motion. He told me, when 
 I saw him during the period of the Great Exhibition, that 
 he had not been across his threshold for about six weeks. 
 It was a manful struggle which he maintained in order 
 to support a wife and ten children, by his literary labours. 
 Such toils are not the most remunerating very unlike 
 the lighter works of fiction, which often draw a princely 
 revenue. ' They are of the world, therefore the world 
 heareth them ; ' but treatises like those of Dr Kitto, though 
 they bear upon the highest interests of mankind, neither 
 awaken the curiosity, nor gratify the relish, of the common 
 circle of readers. They are set aside as serious produc- 
 tions, to be read perhaps by and by, but when or where 
 the unwelcome study may be forced upon him, their re- 
 jecter does not know. There seems every reason to 
 believe that Kitto's head had sustained some serious in- 
 ternal injury, and there was, therefore, all the more need
 
 PHYSICAL EXHAUSTION. 411 
 
 that every precaution should be taken that labour should 
 not deepen into drudgery, and that, along with intervals 
 of entire relaxation, the amount of study should be meted 
 out with rigid regard to constitutional capability of en- 
 durance. The bow should have often been unbended, that 
 the cora might not be speedily snapped, or become so 
 flaccid as to be useless. Less work longer work, should 
 have been the motto of his life. His memory began to 
 fail under those attacks which so prostrated him first 
 the memory of names, and then the scraps of poetry which 
 had been so abundantly stored up, < leaked out.' He was 
 to some extent aware of this danger. ' It may not,' he is 
 obliged to confess, ' be always prudent or safe for a man 
 to be constantly on the stretch, doing all he can.' Yet 
 with this conviction, we find him, during his residence at 
 Woking, saying to Mr Tracy, < I fancy that I must soon 
 trundle into town, notwithstanding the disinclination to mo- 
 tion which results from the corpulency engendered by my 
 sedentary habits, which are so rooted that I can seldom 
 bring myself to move beyond my garden once in three or 
 four weeks.' This reluctance to physical exercise had 
 always made travelling a species of self-denial, even though 
 he had enjoyed such benefit from it. ' I would not,' he 
 says to Mr Barnard from Bagdad, ' give five para to see 
 the finest city in the universe, unless I could see without 
 going to see.' 
 
 It is somewhat remarkable that one is able to trace in 
 Kitto's early boyhood the visible germs of those tastes 
 and habits by which he was afterwards distinguished. 
 Few lives are moulded by merely accidental circumstances. 
 Childhood often supplies the key to the interpretation of 
 ripened character. The soul has its ' seed in itself,' and 
 its growth is the result of a thousand invisible influences. 
 Kitto's mind contained within it a strong formative prin-
 
 412 GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 ciple, which was fostered and strengthened by causes ap- 
 parently the most unpromising and disastrous that can 
 well be imagined. His love of books was almost an infant 
 passion. A cordwainer's recitation of juvenile stories set 
 him to buy them. He tasted, and his thirst was never 
 quenched. Mrs Barnicle's shop-window became the 
 scene of daily and intense gaze and wonderment, finding, 
 however, a more formidable rival in a book-stall in the 
 market. The boy begged or borrowed volumes wher- 
 ever he could find them. The money that other youths 
 threw away on sweetmeats, he cheerfully spent on books. 
 This book-love resisted every temptation even that most 
 tempting of luxuries to older palates, the clotted cream of 
 Devonshire. And the passion was a lasting one. In his 
 Workhouse Journal, he stated his highest ambition to be, 
 to gain a livelihood by means of a circulating library. A 
 very short period before his death, he said to a friend, who 
 declared his relish for the country, because it afforded 
 hunting, fishing, and shooting ' I like hunting too, but 
 in London ; I hunt books they are my game.' 
 
 Not only so, but one who reads the story of his boy- 
 hood, may discover in it the foreshadow of his authorship ; 
 nay, the special form of literature which he should prefer 
 was thus early indicated. Copies of the Pilgrim and 
 Gulliver's Travels with illustrations, had been very attrac- 
 tive to him, and he daubed ah 1 the engravings with his 
 mother's washing indigo. The story book he wrote on 
 one occasion for his cousin, was decorated by a pictorial 
 embellishment. Boys usually like pictures, and often 
 amuse themselves with drawing. Kitto, however, not only 
 painted, but he did it with energy, and to good practical 
 purpose. Pictorial works were his subsequent master- 
 piece. His early shifts were also, as it were, typical of his 
 later forms of industrious ingenuity. He wanted a penny,
 
 FORESHADOWED AUTHORSHIP. 413 
 
 and he bargained to write a book to his cousin for it. 
 Really, what else did he do during his life ? he still wanted 
 a penny, and he still bargained to write a book for it. 
 If he wished anything, he was seldom baffled in obtaining 
 it. The deaf boy, unfit to work, and abandoned to him- 
 self, used to wade at low-water in Sutton-pool, to fish out 
 pieces of rope or scraps of iron. Treading on a broken 
 bottle, he was laid up ; and then he resorted to painting, 
 having expended twopence on paper to set himself up in 
 business. When the first method of exposing his wares 
 had lost its novelty, he next erected a stall at Plymouth 
 Fair, and threw open to public gaze his Art exhibition. 
 Then he fell upon the device of printing labels, and was so 
 engaged, when, to keep him from utter misery, he was lodged 
 in the ' Hospital of the Poor's Portion.' It was much the 
 same with him afterwards. If one thing failed, he tried 
 another : the conclusion of one labour was the beginning 
 of another either shoeing people's feet in Plymouth or 
 repairing their mouths in Exeter ; setting types in Malta 
 or nursing and tutoring little children in Bagdad ; writing 
 for the Penny Magazine at Islington, editing the Cyclo- 
 paedia at Woking, or completing the cycle with the Daily 
 Bible Illustrations at Camden Town. His letters to my- 
 self teemed with projects to occupy him when this last 
 work should be concluded ; and they were all more or less 
 connected with Eastern life or biblical illustration. His 
 industry was unceasing from the period when his thrifty 
 grandame taught her quiet and delicate charge to sew 
 patchwork and kettle-holders, to the period when he felt 
 the week by far too short to turn out in it the expected and 
 necessary amount of copy. He liked to have his hands full, 
 and they were sometimes too full ; it puzzled him what to 
 do first, though the indispensable ' penny ' had often sum- 
 marily to settle the question.
 
 4U GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 ' Thus from its nature will the tannen grow, 
 Loftiest on loftiest and least sheltered rocks, 
 Rooted in barrenness, where naught below 
 Of soil supports it 'gainst the Alpine shocks 
 Of eddying streams ; yet springs the trunk, and mocks 
 The howling tempest, till its giant frame 
 Is worthy of the mountains from whose blocks 
 Of rude bleak granite into life it came 
 And grew a giant tree : this life has proved the same.' 
 
 His literary projects were truly multifarious. In pro- 
 spect of finishing one work, he generally sketched a 
 score of successors. Before the Daily Bible Illustrations 
 were concluded, he had in view a Bible for the young, 
 with three volumes on Joseph, Ruth, and Esther, for the 
 purpose of expounding at length the customs and institu- 
 tions of the patriarchal age, the daily rural life of the 
 Hebrew nation, and the connection of the exiled people 
 with the court and kingdom of Persia. He proposed also 
 a series of great dictionaries. I. One of Ecclesiastical 
 History, including not only sects, dogmas, ceremonies and 
 usages, but ecclesiastical geography arid chronology, anti- 
 quities and liturgies ; II. Dictionary of Christian Biography, 
 containing fathers, martyrs, heretics, missionaries, popes, 
 and divines ; III. British History and Biography of the 
 Nineteenth Century. The two first works, had they been 
 combined with the materials of the Cyclopaedia of Biblical 
 Literature, would have formed a work not unlike the 
 great German work in course of publication the Real- 
 Encyclopaedie, edited by Professor Herzog, with the assist- 
 ance of a numerous circle of famous scholars and critics. 
 Eatto's gigantic plans of literary labours seem to be 
 equalled only by those of Antoiue Court de Gebelin, one 
 of the illustrious French Protestants who lived and suf- 
 fered under Louis xiv. one who not only read with as- 
 tonishing voracity on all subjects, and who might be seen
 
 MULTIFARIOUS PROJECTS. 415 
 
 with the Complutensian Polyglott on one side of him, and 
 a Treatise on Mathematical Infinitudes on the other, but 
 who sketched a prodigious repository, in twenty or thirty 
 volumes, to be called the ' Primitive World Analysed and 
 Compared with the Modern.' The first volume was to 
 deal in Eastern allegories, the generating principle of the 
 ancient religions ; the second in universal grammar ; the 
 third in the natural history of speech ; the fourth in the 
 history of the Calendar, etc. etc. ; the three next being 
 etymological dictionaries of the French, Latin, and Greek 
 languages. ' Why, it would take twenty men to do all 
 that,' interrupted an astonished auditor, as he listened to 
 a partial detail of the plan up to the tenth volume. 
 ' Twenty men, you say ?' replied the smiling projector, ' I 
 begin to be reassured ; Mons. d'Alembert asserted that it 
 would require forty.' 1 Dr Kitto equalled De Gebelin in 
 laying out plans, and, like him, thought of executing them 
 too by unaided effort. 
 
 Though Kitto, in his youth, had seasons of melancholy, 
 yet he was buoyed up by sanguine anticipations. ' The 
 question was,' he says to Mr Knight (1837), ' whether I 
 should hang a dead weight on society, or take a place 
 among its active men. I have struggled for the latter 
 alternative.' Even when he was seated on Mr Burnard's 
 tripod, he displayed an innate vitality, and lived in the 
 ideal regions of his own creation. Occasionally he pictured 
 to himself what he might, by God's grace, become ; and he 
 laboured hard to realise his picture. He looked to the 
 future, and lived in it. 
 
 ' I slept and dreamed that life was beauty ; 
 
 I woke and found that life was duty : 
 
 Was then thy dream an idle lie ? 
 
 Toil on, sad soul, courageously ! 
 
 v See The Priest and the Huguenot, by Bungener, p. 215. Edinburgh: Nelson 
 and Sons, 1854.
 
 416 GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 And thou shalt find thy dream to be 
 A noon-day light and strength to thee.' 
 
 Indeed, he revealed his own secret, when he said to a friend, 
 in 1853 ' If you dreamed, you should not have awoke ; 
 you should have striven to make your dreams realities. The 
 very act of dreaming these aspirations and desires, shows 
 that we possess the power to make them so.' He never 
 wholly renounced faith in dreams, though his own recorded 
 ones may be traced to an active imagination giving sphere 
 and form to its waking thoughts and fancies. He dreamed, 
 and then he dared. Nothing was too arduous for him. 
 ' I am,' says he in his Eastern Journal, ' not myself a be- 
 liever in impossibilities.' When he lived at Woking, and 
 wished to have some means of livelihood of a more per- 
 manent and regular kind than literary labour could secure, 
 he had serious thoughts of applying for the wardenship or 
 secretaryship of a new cemetery to be established in his 
 vicinity. The writer remembers how he wished him to 
 make interest with one of the directors, and especially what 
 plans and contrivances he proposed to ward off the objec- 
 tion about his deafness, and to meet the auricular demands 
 which such an office would necessarily bring upon him. 
 
 The reader is not to suppose from these statements that 
 Kitto was a mere bookworm a dry creature speckled with 
 dust, and living in the congenial brotherhood of moths. 
 He was a recluse from necessity, not from choice. He 
 valued society, and keenly felt the loss of being, as he has 
 phrased it, ' shut out from good men's feasts.' He did not 
 condemn festivities, though he could not join in them ; nay, 
 he expressly vindicates them, as ' one whose infirmity frees 
 him from all misconception' on the subject. In his Work- 
 house Journal, the boy records that, on a visit to his aunt, 
 she regaled him with ' a baked pig's ear,' and the man was 
 never an ascetic skeleton. Many who deem themselves the
 
 RELISH FOR SOCIETY. 417 
 
 victims of circumstances, too often think that they owe 
 society nothing but a grudge, and they make war on the 
 world. But Kitto yearned for brotherhood, ay, and sister- 
 hood too. He loved ' children, especially girls.' When in 
 Exeter, he encouraged the girls to whom he gave tracts, 
 and whom he otherwise laboured to instruct, to indite short 
 essays and letters to him ; and, as his Journal shows, he 
 wrote them earnest, faithful, and beautiful replies. His 
 heart was in no risk of ossification. Benevolence was a 
 distinguishing feature in his nature. One of his last acts, 
 before leaving London for Germany, was to take some wine 
 and a few confections to a poor invalid incarcerated for debt, 
 whom he had often before relieved, even when in pressing 
 straits himself. This prisoner was the sou of Mrs Barnicle, 
 whose little books had enraptured him, and who had been 
 kind to him in his boyhood. Out of tenpence which he 
 gained when toiling as a shoemaker's serf in 1821, he 
 records that he gave ' a halfpenny each to five little children ' 
 a large proportion, for he expended only double the sum 
 for paper and books, the idols of his soul. He was fond 
 of his native country, and what he had seen abroad but 
 endeared it to him the more. The account of what he 
 suffered from the savage to whom he was given out as an 
 apprentice, reveals also the depth of his emotion. There 
 was no stoicism, real or affected, with him. He did not 
 morosely retire into himself, though he was forced to spend 
 so much time by himself. When she whom he had wooed 
 and won broke her plighted troth, his letters referring to 
 this sad disappointment reveal a crushed spirit overflowing 
 with tenderness, moaning under an agony which refused to 
 be comforted, and so smitten, as to be anxious to travel 
 out of view into a dark and solitary future. 1 He felt that 
 this condition of mind was morbid and ' unhealthy,' and he 
 
 1 See page H7. 
 
 2 D
 
 418 GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 prayed God to revive him. And when the wound was 
 healed, and time had brought him one who has proved a 
 help-meet in so many respects, no one more enjoyed his 
 home. His trials had taught him that 'if we are wise, 
 the fruit comes after the blossom has departed, and that, 
 although less pleasant to the eye than the blossom, is much 
 more useful.' 1 
 
 So far, then, from being, as some might imagine from 
 his history and labours, an inkstained recluse or a living 
 mummy, Kitto was a man both of heart and humour. He 
 enjoyed a good story, and could also tell one. So unex- 
 pectedly did his wit break out, that it lost nothing by his 
 apparent gravity. When a friend quoted the lines of Pope 
 as the motto of his desires 
 
 ' Give me, again, a hollow tree, 
 A crust of bread, and liberty,' 
 
 he archly replied ' I would rather have a good dinner and 
 a comfortable library.' After he had felt what it was to be 
 tried and crossed, he composed a specimen of a new Lexi- 
 con, to be called Love's Dictionary, with illustrations in 
 prose and verse. Three examples may suffice : ADHE- 
 RENCE a word well-known to the ancients, practical mean- 
 ing now forgotten ; ADVICE that which those who are in 
 love never take ; ACHE indispensable in the idiosyncrasy 
 of a lover's heart, etc. 
 
 The eloquence of the following paragraph is equalled 
 only by its pleasantry :- ' I have had but an indifferent 
 taste for anything which travel offered (mountains and trees 
 excepted), save man, and the circumstances by which he 
 is surrounded ; and even ruins have been interesting to me, 
 chiefly as circumstances belonging to men of a past age, 
 and I have cared for them only as I could read man in 
 them. Oh, how it has delighted me to take a man, dis- 
 
 1 Letter to Rev. F. F. Tracy, June 1847.
 
 BON-HOMMIE. 419 
 
 tinguished from his brother man by a thousand outward 
 circumstances, which make him appear, at the first view, 
 almost as another creature and after knocking off his 
 strange hat, his kullah, or his turban after helping him 
 off with his broadcloths, his furs, or his muslins after 
 clipping his beard, his pigtail, or his long hair after 
 stripping away his white, black, brown, red, or yellow skin 
 to come at last to the very man, the very son of Adam, 
 and to recognise, by one " touch of nature," one tear, one 
 laugh, one sigh, one upward or downward look the same 
 old, universal heart the same emotions, feelings, passions, 
 which have animated every human bosom, from the equator 
 to the poles, ever since that day in which the first of men 
 was sent forth from Paradise.' 1 
 
 He was fond of poetry, and occasionally wrote it him- 
 self. A fine conception or a glowing image afforded him 
 intense pleasure. He had met with the following verse 
 from Longfellow, as a motto, in some book he had been 
 reading 
 
 ' Art is long, and life is fleeting, 
 
 And our hearts, though strong and brave, 
 Still, like muffled drums, are beating 
 Funeral marches to the grave.' 
 
 He committed the lines at once to memory, and advised 
 his eldest daughter to do the same. ' I would,' added he, 
 ' give 50 to be the author of that verse. He has done 
 something for the world ; he has given it a fine and beau- 
 tiful idea.' A quaint humour, as we have already said, 
 peeps out occasionally in his writings, and often in the 
 Daily Bible Illustrations. ' Lamech had his troubles, as a 
 man with two wives was likely to have, and always has 
 had.' ' When Jacob kissed his fair cousin, he lifted up 
 his voice and wept. . . . Had the faults of Jacob been 
 
 ' Lost Senses Deafness, pp. IfiO, 151.
 
 420 GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 greater than they were, we could forgive them for these 
 tears.' ' Laban's daughter was a match for her father, 
 even in his own line.' ' In dreams, we not only see, but 
 hear.' ' A razor is itself a good thing, especially if it be a 
 good one' a reminiscence of the earliest craft which he 
 was sent to learn. Describing the frontal ornament of the 
 women of Lebanon, he affirms, that the horn from its 
 height and weight, ' needs as many forestays and back- 
 stays to keep it in position as the mainmast of a seventy- 
 four!' 1 In reference to Solomon's prayer for wisdom, he 
 avers, that ' if twelve men were taken, whether from our 
 colleges, or our streets, or our church-doors, not more than 
 one would say, as the Hebrew king said, " Give me wisdom," 
 most of them would think themselves as wise as Solomon. 
 It has not occurred to us in all our life, not now scant of 
 days, though, alas ! scant in accomplished purposes, to have 
 met with one man who avowed any lack of wisdom, or who 
 therefore would have made the choice of Solomon, had that 
 choice been offered to him.' 2 
 
 He went once up to the gallery at the top of the dome 
 of St Paul's, and was exceedingly nervous in ascending, 
 and especially in descending ; but he accounts for his fears 
 by saying, ' My old experience in falling may have had 
 some effect in producing this trepidation.' 3 The attempt 
 to explain away the miracle of the manna, by referring it 
 to the gum of the Tamarisk falling round the camp six 
 days, and intermitting the seventh day, is, says he, ' much 
 harder of belief than the simple and naked miracle much 
 harder than it would be to believe that hot rolls fell every 
 morning from the skies upon the camp of Israel.' Refer- 
 ring to a kind of rough and ready water-cure, applied to 
 persons under fever in the East, he writes, with consider- 
 
 1 Daily Bible Illustrations, voL v., p. 165. Ibid. vol. iv., p. 47. 
 
 * Lost Senses Deafness, p. 66.
 
 QUAINT SAYINGS. 421 
 
 able naivete ' We have ourselves received exactly this 
 treatment, under the orders of a native physician, in a 
 fever that seemed likely to be fatal, and we certainly 
 recovered though, whether by reason of this treatment, 
 or in spite of it, we know not.' In the sublime contest 
 between Elijah on the one hand, and the hundreds of 
 Baal's priests on the other, the conclusion agreed to was, 
 ' the god that answereth by fire, let him be God.' The 
 commentator argues that the Baalite priests could not, 
 with a good grace, refuse to abide by such an ordeal, 
 seeing that ' Baal was none other than the sun, whence it 
 should have been very much in his line thus to supply them 
 with the fire which they wanted for his service.' Accord- 
 ing to his own account, he was four feet eight in stature 
 when a lad of sixteen and certainly he never attained a 
 much greater altitude. He is hard upon Samuel for ad- 
 miring Saul on account of his being a head taller than 
 any of the people, and he is rather satirical in the sentence 
 which follows : ' Even we want not experience of this in 
 the involuntary respect with which tallness of stature and 
 powerful physical endowments are regarded among our- 
 selves by the uncultivated and, indeed, by persons not 
 wholly uncultivated, if we may judge from the not un- 
 frequent sarcasms which we may meet with in the most 
 " respectable" monthly, weekly, and daily publications, 
 upon the shortness, by yard measure, of some of the most 
 eminent and highly gifted public men of this and a neigh- 
 bouring country.' He is witty on the ponderous folios of 
 Caryl upon Job a book so awfully large, that a clergy- 
 man's son, on going to India, left his father reading it, and 
 found him by no means near the end of it when he returned. 
 * Life in sheep,' said he on one occasion, ' is merely salt to 
 keep them fresh, till they are wanted for eating.' Describ- 
 ing the unearthly sort of noise he made when speaking in
 
 423 GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 the open air, he represents people as starting and staring 
 in astonishment ; and adds, that, in the Burlington Arcade, 
 the preternatural rumble of the voice is heard afar, and 
 the wonder really is, that all the busy inmates of that 
 industrious hive flock not forth from their cells to learn 
 what calamity threatens their flimsy habitations.' 
 
 Allusions to himself are sometimes found in the Daily 
 Bible Illustrations, and his loss is incidentally mentioned. 
 Still he felt it, even in his resignation : ' Yery cheerless 
 was the lot that seemed to be before him.' Describing 
 the peacocks imported by Solomon's fleet, he says of the 
 original name, that it is probably imitated from the cry ; 
 and, as if he had ventured too far, he adds, ' but we do 
 not know, for we never heard it.' Illustrating the phrase, 
 ' the wheel broken at the cistern,' he introduces a machine 
 which might be referred to by the royal sage one which 
 was at work every morning in front of a house he had 
 dwelt in on the banks of the Tigris ; and he adds, as if 
 painfully reminded of his ' slain sense,' ' it is said to produce 
 a creaking disagreeable noise.' In alluding to Zacharias 
 as struck dumb, he at once puts in, as if it were an 
 extraordinary alleviation of the judgment, but 'he was 
 not deaf.' As if the sentiment did deeply gratify him, he 
 announces : ' Some of the most eminent men of ancient 
 times were subject to infirmities Moses had a stammering 
 tongue, Jacob was lame, Isaac was blind yet they were 
 not the less chiefs of the chosen race, and accepted of 
 God.' And we might venture to say, that the terseness 
 of the following sentence has its edge from the pangs of 
 boyish experience : ' The sight of the pottage was plea- 
 sant, and the odour overpoweringly tempting to a man 
 ravenously hungry.' Esau knew that, if he did not get it, 
 he must wait some time ' an age to a famishing man.' 
 Such remarks might be indefinitely extended. The samples
 
 AMOUNT OF SCHOLARSHIP. 423 
 
 which we have given tend at least to show, that Dr Kitto 
 was of no peevish or misanthropic nature, but was kind, 
 social, frank, and generous attached to domestic comfort, 
 and well fitted to enjoy it. His hours in his parlour were 
 as pleasant as those in his study ; and when you saw him 
 of an afternoon, with the festive cup in his hand, so happy 
 and so much at ease, you could not have thought that that 
 hand had held a pen for eight or ten hours previous to 
 your pleasant interview. 
 
 It would be excess of eulogy to say, that Dr Kitto was 
 a paragon of scholarship, though certainly his attainments 
 were extraordinary in proportion to his opportunities. 
 He had as much knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and 
 the modern tongues, as sufficed for his purpose. His 
 English style is pleasant, and, on the whole, correct. Occa- 
 sionally, it has a tendency to diffuseness, and it has many 
 sudden changes, as if the writer were holding a conversa- 
 tion with himself. He thought, however, that his style 
 was ' rather sententious than conversationally fluent,' a 
 style for which, in reading, he avows a decided preference. 
 As his mind was somewhat poetical, many pathetic and 
 beautiful fancies adorn his compositions. The reader is 
 never at a loss for his meaning ; whether you agree with 
 him or not, you always understand him. He wrote with 
 great ease an ease not always consistent with vigour. 
 Sheridan's remark, that ' easy writing makes hard reading,' 
 does not, however, apply to him. His references to books 
 and authorities are unusually accurate, and quite trust- 
 worthy. 1 
 
 1 But even 'good Homer* occasionally nodded. An amusing instance of over- 
 sight occurred in the paper on 'God's Retributions,' in the first edition of the 
 Bible Illustrations. Wishing to show that the Romish Church still maintains its 
 ancient persecuting principles, he inserted a quotation, very pat to his purpose, 
 from a recent pamphlet, purporting to be written 'by the Bishop of Bantry,' and 
 having much the appearance of a genuine Roman Catholic document. On his 
 attention being called to it, and the pamphlet placed in his hands, with the intima-
 
 424 GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 His mind was sagacious and well balanced, and he had 
 one faculty in a very high degree that of constant ap- 
 propriation. Naturalists tell us, that though the zoophytes 
 are fixed to one spot, yet they are for ever tossing their 
 arras about them, and drawing in to themselves whatever 
 minute nutriment floats within their reach. It was so with 
 Dr Kitto. He was well aware that there wrought within 
 him ' a strong faculty of mental association, which enabled 
 him to discover illustrative analogies where few would per- 
 ceive them, and thus gain constant accession of materials 
 not commonly thought of or usually available.' ' Recog- 
 nition, recollection, and research,' were his ' threefold cord.' 
 In his Daily Bible Illustrations, there are many facts taken, 
 not only from the class of works usually referred to, but 
 also from current literature from books he happened to 
 read in the course of his labours. Not only have we Ben- 
 jamin of Tudela, but we have also Beldam and Bartlett ; 
 verification is brought from Hollinshed, and likewise from 
 Lord Claud Hamilton ; contribution is levied from Sir 
 Charles Napier, the Indian commander, and from Emerson 
 Tennent, the governor of Ceylon ; Napoleon III. and 
 Abd-el-Kader, the prince and the exile, are both pressed 
 into his service ; Marco Polo and Mayhew are alike at his 
 command ; the ' Fair Maid of Perth ' and the Arabian 
 romance of ' Antar ' do him equal service ; the ' school 
 at the end of the street ' gives one example, and the temple- 
 palace of Karnak affords another ; ' our own house ' is put 
 in contrast with ' the old lady in Threadneedle Street ' and 
 her nightly ' guard of bearskin-capped grenadiers ;' sculp- 
 tured slabs from Koyunjik at Nineveh figure by the side 
 
 tion, 'not by the Bishop of Bantry, but of Bantei the thing is a jeu cTesprit' 
 leaning his cheek on his hand, as was his wont, he looked amazed for a moment 
 or two, and then, as he turned over a few pages, its true nature flashed upon his 
 mind, and he burst into a hearty laugh, exclaiming, ' Well, this is She first time I 
 ever fell into such an absurd mistake."
 
 FACULTY OF APPROPRIATION". 425 
 
 of sepulchral tablets from the catacombs at Rome ; extracts 
 are given from such passing publications as Notes and 
 Queries, and the Missionary Record of the United Pres- 
 byterian Church ; Sanchoniatho stands at the one extreme 
 of reference, and the Times newspaper at the other. The 
 same faculty was in active exercise, even to his latest days. 
 When he was at Cannstatt, and smitten by bereavements, 
 he loved to study the processes of the vintage going on 
 around him, which, he says, 'have made clearer to me 
 many of the allusions of Scripture on the subject all being 
 here conducted in a primitive style.' But he concludes, 
 in mournful tone ' I find myself unable to enter into these 
 matters with the eager zest of former days.' Yes, his 
 work was over. He needed not to be detained by the cut 
 ting of the clusters, and the treading of them in the press, 
 for he was so soon to drink of the fruit of the vine new in 
 his Father's kingdom. 
 
 Sentiments both beautiful and striking sparkle in his 
 pages. Had space permitted, we might have quoted the 
 long eulogy which he has pronounced on Moses ' the 
 greatest of woman born, with the exception of One only, 
 and that One more than man.' Or we might have refer- 
 red to the admirable summing up of the character of Joshua 
 ' an Asiatic conqueror, without personal ambition, with- 
 out any desire of aggrandisement.' Or we might have se- 
 lected, for illustration, the concluding paper on the book 
 of Esther, in which he refutes and tosses away the frivolous 
 objection against this old historical fragment that the 
 name of God does not occur in it. 
 
 In fine, what point and truth are there not in the follow- 
 ing paragraph ? 
 
 ' There are many who pride themselves on their deep 
 " knowledge of human nature," that is, being interpreted, 
 on their keen appreciation of the dark things and the foul
 
 426 GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 things of the human heart. The Lord preserve us from 
 too much of this knowledge ! He who has none of it is 
 little better than a fool, and he who has most of it is much 
 worse than a man. For we usually find among men the 
 highest degree of this knowledge united to the lowest de- 
 gree of appreciation of a moral incapacity of apprehend- 
 ing a total inability of feeling, that which, through the 
 grace of God, is divine and spiritual, and therefore good 
 and holy, in the soul of man. . . The most perfect 
 master of this learning is Satan, and he is at once the most 
 consummate example, and the most egregious dupe of that 
 ignorance. It were difficult to find the man in whose soul 
 some faint glimmering of faith in God or man does not 
 linger. But Satan has none. He is the most finished pat- 
 tern of knowledge without faith. This is his character: HE 
 HAS NO FAITH. This is his weakness and his shame. In 
 this possession and in this want, he has reached heights and 
 depths impossible to man.' 1 
 
 The power of religious principle was the mainstay of 
 Dr Kitto's life. The reader will not have forgotten the 
 sublime prayer which he wrote after his introduction to the 
 workhouse, nor his great desire to be confirmed at the 
 bishop's visitation. Early impressions were deepened by 
 the Divine Spirit ; and the Bible, which had been a sealed 
 book, was then read by the guidance of a new sense, and 
 welcomed with the aspirations of a new heart. The ar- 
 dour of Mr Groves communicated fresh impulse, and the 
 terrible visitations which crowded upon him at Bagdad 
 plague, famine, inundation, and blockade threw him, un- 
 reservedly, into the arms of his heavenly Father. From 
 Exeter he wrote, in 1824, to Mr Harvey: ' I did think 
 of religion now and then, but I did not make it the con- 
 stant subject of my thoughts.' In 1834, he said to the 
 
 1 Daily Bible Illustrations, voL v., pp. 63, 64.
 
 POWER OF RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLE. 427 
 
 Rev. Mr Lampen : ' I never talked about religion less 
 than I do now, but there is much about religion which I 
 never felt so decidedly and deeply.' His faith in God ever 
 helped him on. Rescued from any crisis, he 'thanked 
 God, and took courage.' Assured that God had work for 
 him, he never wholly lost the assurance that He would 
 bring him to that work in the right place, and at the right 
 time. He had long studied the Bible, for itself and its 
 spiritual benefits, and not with any view to its public illus- 
 tration. It had been to him the Book of Life before it be- 
 came a text for pictorial comment. He had searched the 
 Scriptures, and discovered the Christ which they reveal, 
 ere he invited others to ascend the hills or traverse the val- 
 leys, mark the manners or investigate the antiquities, of 
 the Lands of the Morning. ' On coming home,' he humbly 
 and thankfully states to Mr Tracy, in 1847, 'I was enabled 
 to lay all that I had during long years of silent study ac- 
 quired, and all that I had gathered together in foreign 
 parts, upon God's altar ; and I sometimes venture to think, 
 that He has been pleased to accept and honour even that 
 humble offering.' He had a firm faith in the plenary in- 
 spiration of the Bible, and he knew full well that mere 
 truthfulness in those Oriental allusions, which he was so 
 happy in illustrating, is not, of itself, as many have erro- 
 neously supposed, any proof of a Divine origin. Agree- 
 ment with the ' form and pressure of the age' around it is 
 demanded of any production, and the want of it in Scrip- 
 ture would certainly be fatal to any higher claim. But 
 historical veracity is not identical with canonical authority, 
 though essential to its evidence. 
 
 His trust in God was unwavering : ' There is One,' he 
 solemnly writes, ' higher than the highest, whose honour 
 is not to be the second or the third, but the FIRST matter 
 for consideration.' It was very natural in him, who re-
 
 428 GENERAL HE VIEW. 
 
 ferred all things to God, to ask, on a review of the ' sad 
 passages' of David's life, ' How is it that we hear no more 
 of David's asking counsel of the Lord?' And he nobly 
 records: ' Thirty years ago, before "the Lord caused me 
 to wander from my father's house," and from my native 
 place, I put my mark upon this passage in Isaiah, " I am 
 the Lord : they shall not be ashamed that wait on Me." 
 Of the many books I now possess, the Bible that bears 
 this mark is the only one that belonged to me at that 
 time. It now lies before me ; and I find that, although 
 the hair which was then dark as night, has meanwhile 
 become " a sable silvered," the ink which marked this text 
 has grown into intensity of blackness as the time advanced, 
 corresponding with, and, in fact, recording the growing 
 intensity of the conviction, that "they shall not be ashamed 
 that wait for Thee." I believed it then, but I know it 
 now ; and I can write Probatum est, with my whole heart, 
 over against the symbol, which that mark is to me, of my 
 ancient faith. " They shah 1 not be ashamed that wait for 
 Me." Looking back through the long period which has 
 passed since I set my mark to these words a portion of 
 human life, which forms the best and brightest, as well as 
 the most trying and conflicting in all men's experience 
 it is a joy to be able to say, " I have waited for 
 Thee, and have not been ashamed. Under many perilous 
 circumstances, in many most trying scenes, amidst faint- 
 ings within and fears without, and under sorrows that 
 rend the heart, and troubles that crush it down, I have 
 waited for Thee ; and, lo ! I stand this day as one not 
 ashamed."' 1 
 
 During a period of great straits, in 1848, he penned 
 these words to a friend: 2 'My sensations have become 
 legs acute, not because my burden is less heavy, but be- 
 
 1 Daily Bible Illustrations, voL v., p. 203. * Rev. Mr Lewis.
 
 TRUST IN GOD. 429 
 
 cause I have become more accustomed to its weight. . . . 
 It has not yet pleased God to relieve me from the great 
 present distress, in which I have been so long plunged ; 
 yet I still wait day by day for this help, believing that He 
 will not suffer one who has been enabled to trust so much 
 in Him to be ultimately confounded. I shall learn one 
 day the lesson He designs to teach me ; and I know that, 
 when the lesson I am to learn has reached my heart, He 
 will stay His hand. My heart had fainted long since 
 unless I had believed in that fatherly care, which has never 
 yet failed me, and never will. None but those who have 
 been tried in the furnace of affliction can tell or conceive 
 the bitterness greater than the bitterness of death of 
 the trials which one day after another brings to me, and 
 uader which I sit still in a depressed and sorrowful, but 
 not in a despairing spirit. I have hope, but it is " hope 
 deferred." ' 
 
 We present only another illustration, the sentiment of 
 which has its source in his own domestic experience, and 
 the number of his ' olive plants : ' ' There are tens of thou- 
 sands among us, who would by no means be thankful for 
 such an intimation as that which the angel of God brought 
 to Manoah and his wife. How is this? Alas, for our 
 faith ! which will not trust God to pay for the board and 
 lodging of all the little ones He has committed to our 
 charge to bring up for Him. Good old Quarles, who was 
 himself the father of eighteen children, enters feelingly into 
 this matter : 
 
 " Shall we repine, 
 
 Great God, to foster any babe of Thine ! 
 But 'tis the charge we fear ; our stock's but small : 
 If heaven, with children, send us wherewithal 
 To stop their craving stomachs, then we care not. 
 Great God ! 
 How has/ Thou crackt Thy credit, that we dare not
 
 430 GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 Trust Thee for bread ? How is't we dare not venture 
 To keep Thy babes, unless Thou please to enter 
 In bond for payment ? Art Thou grown so poor, 
 To leave Thy famished infants at our door, 
 And not allow them food ? Canst Thou supply 
 Thy empty ravens, and let Thy children die ?" '' 
 
 The last days of his life were clouded, as we have nar- 
 rated, by successive family bereavements. In that land of 
 strangers whither he had gone to die, his youngest child, 
 and then his eldest one, the lovely and bright-eyed Shireen, 
 preceded him to the tomb. The trial shook him with 
 intense agony. But though he mourned, he did not mur- 
 mur looking to Him who ' healeth the broken in heart/ 
 and wipes away the tears of the bereaved. There pressed 
 upon him, too, the consciousness of physical disability ; 
 and the sad thought, that, at the end as at the beginning 
 of his life, he was dependent on the bounty of others. 
 He cannot, indeed, be classed among the infanti perduti 
 authors noted for misfortune and sorrow. His works, as 
 he says, had a steady, though not always an immediate 
 sale ; but his calamity lay in failing health and occasibnal 
 want of employment. He was, however, no exception to 
 Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton's statement ' For the author 
 there is nothing but his pen, till that and life are worn to 
 the stump.' 
 
 Dr Kitto was in connection with the Church of England, 
 but he was a man of catholic spirit. He was wont to say 
 that he belonged to the Church Universal, meaning that 
 he had no sectarian leanings, and that he was not, and 
 could not be, a constant and visible worshipper in any 
 sanctuary. But he punctually attended the Episcopal 
 Church on communion Sabbaths, for this reason among 
 others of higher moment, that with his prayer-book ' he 
 
 1 Daily Bible Illustrations, voL ii., pp. 425, 426.
 
 CATHOLIC SPIRIT. 431 
 
 could follow the service.' He thought, too, that this 
 absence of ecclesiastical bias tended to recommend his 
 writings to all classes of the community. The example of 
 Mr Groves was not in this respect lost upon him. ' Talk,' 
 said this worthy man, ' of loving me, while I agree with 
 them. Give me men that will love me, when I differ from 
 them and contradict them.' 1 Every Christian was a bro- 
 ther to Dr Kitto, and he loved the image of the Master 
 wherever he saw it. On parting with Mr Pfander at 
 Bagdad, he sets down this meditation in his Journal : 
 ' The personal separation of Christians, even in this life, 
 is less complete than that of other people. There is a 
 spiritual intercourse which still subsists when their bodies 
 are widely separated. There is also the feeling of being 
 children of one common Father, who Himself sees and 
 loves all His, whilst they are unseen to one another ; and 
 who thus, so to speak, becomes a medium of intercourse 
 with their spirits, which all centre in Him. Him whom I 
 love, they love also ; Him to whom they look every day, I 
 also look to daily, and I see them in Him ; and He who 
 talks to my heart, talks with theirs also. No ! thus mem- 
 bers of one body, we cannot be completely separated.' 
 Nay, he had a strong desire to serve the Lord in what he 
 justly reckoned the highest form of earthly service, that of 
 an Evangelist to a heathen country. His want of hearing, 
 indeed, disqualified him ; but, even with this drawback, he 
 felt the handling of types to be a sacred duty, from its 
 connection with Bible circulation, and he looked on his 
 journey to the East in the light of a missionary tour. 
 
 Dr Kitto's life was marked by gratitude to all his friends 
 and patrons, and he rejoiced to make prompt and cordial 
 declaration. His early epistles are full of his thanks ; and, 
 in his last letter, referring to the public subscription in 
 
 1 Newman's Phases of Faith, p. 37. Fourth Edition.
 
 432 GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 process of being raised for him, he writes : ' I am deeply 
 thankful for what has been already done, and for the most 
 kind attentions of which, under these circumstances, I have 
 become the object.' l This dying testimony at Cannstatt is 
 only the echo of his first acknowledgments in the Plymouth 
 Workhouse. Mr Tracy, at the time one of the surgeons 
 of the Public Dispensary, visited the boy who had fallen, 
 and ' his sympathetic and good-natured face' being the 
 first that met the poor patient's gaze on a momentary re- 
 turn to consciousness, was never effaced from his recollec- 
 tion. ' Are you Mr Tracy ?' scribbled the little cobbler 
 on a slate, as that gentleman was afterwards passing 
 through the wards of the Almshouse, for the questioner 
 was anxious to recognise and honour him. In 1847 he 
 wrote to him : ' Thirty years ago is it possible that it is 
 thirty years ago ? I lay before you as one dead.' ' Ten 
 years after, I saw you in London. I went and returned, 
 and now we meet again.' 
 
 The only objection which can be brought against our 
 statement is, that Dr Kitto does not, in any of his works, 
 make allusion to Mr Groves : not only in places where he 
 refers to his journey to the East, but even in the Lost 
 Senses, where many of the changing pursuits of his life are 
 described. We believe that Mr Groves himself, on visiting 
 Kitto in London, asked why his name had never been men- 
 tioned by him in any of his writings, and that Kitto replied, 
 that the silence was in accordance with his own peremp- 
 tory request before the separation at Bagdad. Mr Groves 
 then made some explanation as to the meaning and pur- 
 pose of his injunction, to the effect that it was not in- 
 tended to forbid all mention of him, but only the mention 
 of him in connection with his religious history and mission. 
 This awkward misconception, if it were one on the part of 
 
 1 Letter to Mr Oliphant, Cannstatt; Oct. 27, 1854.
 
 MORAL INDEPENDENCE. 433 
 
 the deaf author, is but another example of the loss sustained 
 through his infirmity which prevented, as we have said 
 more than once, all supplemental talk with him ; and, in 
 deed, he confesses, in a note to Mr Blackader, that he 'had 
 always an unfortunate turn for taking people at their word.' 
 This same tendency led him to express his own opinions in 
 a bold and unmodified style. We have referred to the 
 foregone conclusion which he ascribed to Professor Robin- 
 son 5 1 and he asserts with equal bluntness of Sir Gardner 
 Wilkinson, in reference to the question of human sacrifice 
 in Egypt, that, throughout his work, ' he keeps the sub- 
 ject as much as possible out of view, for a very pardonable 
 unwillingness to bring forward into broad light a matter 
 so disparaging to the civilization of a people whom he has 
 made it the business of his life to comprehend, and, from 
 the influence of that devoteduess to a single object, to extol 
 and magnify.' 2 
 
 Dr Kitto was, at the same time, of an honest and inde- 
 pendent nature. Though he had been so much patronised, 
 he had never learned to cringe. In July 1823, he began 
 thus to Mr Woollcombe : ' I commence my letter with 
 telling you, that I have ever been accustomed to write my 
 opinions with freedom, and that I should deem myself un- 
 worthy of your patronage if I could be so base as to sacri- 
 fice my intellectual and moral independence at the shrine 
 of interest. Much of my future welfare depends, I believe, 
 on you ; yet, were I certain that you were my only friend, 
 and that on you rested my every hope of earthly comfort, 
 I would not seek the way to your continued favour by en- 
 deavouring to accommodate my opinions to yours.' What 
 the lad, who had just thrown off the poorhouse livery, 
 said so firmly, the man continued to assert and exemplify. 
 He was too self-reliant to be servile. All he sought was 
 
 1 Page 322. Pictorial History of Palestine, voL i., p. 684. 
 
 2 E
 
 434 GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 opportunity to put forth his energies. He was noted for 
 his uniform candour and truthfulness, and for his kindness 
 to all his correspondents and coadjutors. He bad no 
 jealousies of others, and he loved to encourage promising 
 talent. Perhaps, from his peculiar situation, he might 
 imagine slights where none were intended ; and that per- 
 sistency which made him what he was, must have some- 
 times assumed, in the view of others, the character of 
 obstinacy. 
 
 In whatever aspect we view him, he is a wonder. It is a 
 wonder that he rose in life at all ; a wonder that he acquired 
 so much, and that he wrote so much is yet a higher wonder. 
 Many have excelled him in the amount of acquisition, but 
 few in the patience and bravery which he displayed in lay- 
 ing up his stock of knowledge, in the perfect mastery he 
 had over it, and in the freedom and facility with which he 
 dispensed it in Magazine, Review, or Treatise. Most cer- 
 tainly he hit upon the moral of his life when he couched it 
 in these vigorous terms : a ' I perhaps have as much right 
 as any man that lives, to bear witness, that there is no one 
 so low but that he may rise ; no condition so cast down as 
 to be really hopeless ; and no privation which need, of it- 
 self, shut out any man from the paths of honourable 
 exertion, or from the hope of usefulness in life. I have 
 sometimes thought that it was possibly my mission to 
 affirm and establish these great truths.' We do not mean, 
 to place him among those men, of whom the Italian poet 
 sings 
 
 ' Natura il fece, e poi ruppe la stampa ;' 
 ' Nature made him, and then broke the die ;' but, take him 
 all in all, he was a rare phenomenon an honour also to 
 his age and country. He struggled manfully, and gained 
 
 1 Lost Senses Deafness, p. 73.
 
 HIS MISSION. 435 
 
 the victory ; nay, out of his misfortune he constructed the 
 steps of his advancement. Neither poverty, nor deafness, 
 nor hard usage, nor ominous warnings, nor sudden checks, 
 nor unpropitious commencements, nor abandoned schemes, 
 chilled the ardour of his sacred ambition. He lived not to 
 a long age, but he had not lived in vain ; and when death 
 at length came, it was but the Master saying, as of old, to 
 the deaf one, ' Ephphatha be opened ! ' and his spirit, 
 which had so long dwelt in distressing silence, burst away 
 to join the hymning myriads whose song is 
 
 ' Louder than the thunder's roar, 
 Or the fulness of the sea 
 When it breaks upon the shore.' 
 
 THE END. 
 
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