THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 & 
 
 LIFE, LETTERS, 
 AND LITERARY REMAINS 
 
 OF 
 
 J. H. SHORTHOUSE 
 
 EDITED BY HIS WIFE 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. II 
 
 LITERARY REMAINS
 
 
 arfed 53.
 
 LITERARY REMAINS 
 
 OF 
 
 J. H. SHORTHOUSE 
 
 EDITED BY HIS WIFE 
 
 Hcmtiott 
 M ACM ILL AN AND CO., Limited 
 
 NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 I905 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 A) 
 nor 
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 With the exception of " The Midsummer Night's 
 Dream" and "A Sunday Afternoon," the whole 
 of the Early Essays and Stories contained in 
 this volume were read from time to time at the 
 social meetings of the Friends' Essay Society of 
 Birmingham. At these meetings essays upon very 
 various subjects were read aloud, and afterwards 
 sent round to each member for perusal. In time 
 these were collected and bound in volumes. 
 It is from these manuscript volumes that Mr. 
 Shorthouse's early writings have been selected, 
 in response to requests from readers of his pub- 
 lished works. Speaking broadly, they were con- 
 tributed to the Essay Meeting in the course of 
 twenty years. The shorter ones would be written 
 when the author was eighteen or twenty years 
 ot age ; those more strictly literary and philo- 
 sophical between the ages of twenty and forty. 
 Mr. Shorthouse ceased to be a member of the 
 
 KZf*
 
 vi PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 Essay Society soon after he began to concentrate 
 his efforts upon John Inglesant. 
 
 In order to make the volume representative 
 also of his later work, Mr. Shorthouse's contri- 
 butions to various periodicals, and also his Essay 
 on the Platonism of Wordsworth, read before the 
 Wordsworth Society, have been included. 
 
 S. SHORTHOUSE.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 EARLY ESSAYS 
 
 1854-1874 
 
 My Fever ... 
 
 Twenty Miles .... 
 
 Books versus Books . 
 
 Chivalry ..... 
 
 Recollections of a London Church 
 
 The Ringing of the Bells 
 
 Suggestions of ' Epitaphs ' 
 
 An Essay which is no Essay . 
 
 The Successor of Monsieur Le Sage 
 
 Sundays at the Seaside .... 
 
 Bede . 
 
 The ' Morte D'Arthur ' and the 'Idylls of the 
 King : . 
 
 The ' Paradise Lost 
 
 LlTERATURE ...... 
 
 On True and False Supern'aturalism . 
 
 The Autumn Walk 
 
 Fragilia ....... 
 
 Religio Historici ..... 
 
 vii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 3 
 10 
 16 
 
 22 
 3i 
 
 35 
 44 
 
 53 
 61 
 
 87 
 94 
 
 107 
 123 
 136 
 
 M5 
 152 
 160 
 168
 
 Vlll 
 
 CONTEXTS 
 
 Nature's Homily 
 The End of Learning 
 The Last of the Rabbis . 
 Vestigia . 
 Ars Vitae . 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 . 184 
 
 • '93 
 
 • 199 
 
 • 203 
 
 2 2 J. 
 
 LATER ESSAYS 
 
 The Platonism of Wordsworth 
 The Humorous in Literature .... 
 Golden Thoughts from the Spiritual Guide 
 Frederick Denison Maurice .... 
 Of Restraining Self-denial in Art 
 
 248 
 281 
 
 285 
 
 3i3 
 
 STORIES 
 
 A Midsummer Night's Dream . 
 The Child in the Grave. 
 The Fordhams of Severnstoke 
 A Sunday Afternoon 
 
 3^9 
 346 
 367 
 3S6 
 
 EARLY POEMS 
 
 A Shadow of George Herbert 
 The Little Graveyard 
 My Wife's Valentine 
 
 407 
 409 
 
 41- 
 
 PLATE 
 
 J. HENRY ShORTHOUSE, from a Photograph by 
 
 R. W. Thrupp. ..... Front:?
 
 EARLY ESSAYS 
 
 1854-1874 
 
 VOL. II B
 
 MY FEVER 
 
 I have been all my life what Nathaniel Hawthorne 
 calls "a devoted epicure of my own emotions," 
 and this in a manner which I have never heard 
 any one else express as their own experience. 
 Nothing is more common than to hear of a man 
 having no other companion than his own thoughts, 
 and in this way people talk of creating a world 
 within themselves, and fancy they have made a 
 very grand creation. Now I have no wish to 
 impugn the beauty of their peculiar worlds, but I 
 wish to express a difference between such people's 
 dreaming and my own, which is this, that, as in 
 their case they themselves remain the chief and 
 ruler as it were over their so created kingdoms, 
 marshalling their thoughts and bringing them up 
 as in battalia to fight on any particular side, in 
 my case, on the contrary, you subside, and lose 
 all personal identity, every one of your thoughts 
 acting for itself without any exertion of your will 
 to call it into being, or being so to act — yet are 
 you not so dead asleep but that the knowledge 
 of your own existence is still present with you 
 between dream and reality, and a power to 
 observe or contemplate lazily these thoughts, 
 which can no longer be called yours, together 
 
 3
 
 4 MY FEVER 
 
 with any half-seen, half-understood objects of the 
 material world that may chance to mingle with 
 them. This power of half-observation is all that 
 is left, both of and to you, all the rest having 
 become separated, and attained an identity and a 
 personality of its own, and a mixture with the 
 outer world. Of course this — this — whatever 
 you choose to call it, for I cannot think of a word 
 to express the peculiar state I have endeavoured 
 to describe — takes place mostly when the body is 
 at rest, and more especially at seasons of ill-health 
 or sickness, when the powers of the body are 
 prostrated and those of the mind proportionably 
 increased, and the instance of which, with your 
 leave, I will venture to attempt a description, 
 occurred at one of these times of sickness. 
 
 I was travelling with a party of young men, 
 and being all reckless and wild from school, we 
 committed a thousand imprudences, which in my 
 case, never being of a very strong constitution, 
 brought on a violent cold, which in a few days 
 ended in something worse, in the midst of which 
 I separated from my companions, and set out on 
 horseback to ride some sixty or eighty miles, to a 
 friend's house, with whom I was to spend a few 
 weeks. When I left a town about halfway from 
 my place of destination, I began to feel very ill, 
 but persevered in hopes of reaching my friend's 
 house, where I was sure of being well cared for, 
 and in this hope 1 set out about the middle of 
 the day. I shall never forget that ride — the 
 weary, weary length it was ; the many attempts I 
 made to shorten it by increasing my horse's speed, 
 which always ended in sinking back listlessly again
 
 MY FEVER 5 
 
 into a walk ; the desperate efforts I made to 
 waken myself from the increasing insensibility 
 that was creeping over me; the strange things my 
 disordered vision saw upon the road ; the horrid 
 feeling that everything was fading away from me ; 
 and finally, all the trees and the road and the 
 stones seemed to rush fiercely upon me, and I 
 lost all consciousness and knew no more where I 
 was. When I came to myself, or rather, when I 
 regained that one power of half-observation of 
 which I spoke above, I found myself in bed — in 
 a large, high -canopied, antique bed, with gold 
 stars on the top of the canopy, and a large sun 
 with great rays in the midst. The room in which 
 I was, was large, and furnished in the manner of 
 a bygone age, with dark tapestries on the walls 
 and dark oaken chairs and large cabinets ; there 
 was a large bay window on the right-hand side 
 near the bed, through which I could see over the 
 leafy tops of apple trees into shady but sunny 
 fields beyond. 
 
 All this I saw without hardly opening my eyes, 
 and with a languid feeling of curiosity not strong 
 enough to cause me to make the least effort to 
 gratify it. It seemed to me — and it is impossible to 
 describe the force with which this seeming comes 
 when your thoughts act entirely independently of 
 any will of your own — it seemed to me as if I 
 was living then in the only possible way any one 
 could live, and that all that I remembered of my 
 past life seemed to me as faint histories of what 
 occurred a thousand years ago seem to us. All 
 that I ever read of past ages seemed to come 
 before me languidly, and I seemed to wander and
 
 6 MY FEVER 
 
 die and suffer misery with dead men of the old 
 time at the very moment that I was conscious of 
 the exquisite luxury of the soft bed, and of my 
 own weak, listless, dreamy state ; for through all 
 this the principal feature is the absolute inaction 
 and inanity in which you are, and it is impossible 
 to describe the strange confusion with which you 
 see before you the actions of past ages, mixed up 
 with what used to be your own thoughts, together 
 with the half-seen objects of the material world 
 which are moving around you, and which become 
 as it were strange personages acting in the old, 
 remembered tale. 
 
 The afternoon sun streamed in through the 
 small panes, and illumined with its dusty and 
 softened rays the dim obscurity of the farther end 
 of the room, and shone full on the portrait of a 
 gentleman in the costume of a century and a half 
 ago. Underneath was a legend showing it to be 
 the portrait of a certain Lord Edward Darrell, 
 who was drowned in the year 1702 in crossing a 
 ford not far from this house, together with two 
 verses, seemingly a portion of some ballad, and 
 which ran thus : 
 
 Lord Edward has ridden o'er Lanton Chase 
 
 And down to the banks of Dee ; 
 He has ridden hard through the summer heat, 
 
 From his weary thoughts to flee. 
 
 O'er Lanton Chase, and down to the Dee 
 
 They have seen Lord Edward ride ; 
 He entered the ford all fearlessly, — 
 
 But he never came up on the other side. 
 
 And as I read these words, the chamber and the 
 bed vanished from me, and I was walking in a
 
 MY FEVER 7 
 
 beautiful flat meadow all strewn with buttercups 
 and daisies, by the side of a fair, smooth river, 
 with willows on the banks and water-lilies covering 
 great part of its surface ; and I found the body of 
 the drowned Lord Darrell lying close to the bank, 
 with the lilies intertwined over him ; and I hoped 
 he would so remain for ever, for I thought he 
 was well buried there in a right beautiful grave, 
 with his own body for the effigy, and the lilies for 
 the carving, and the wreaths upon his tomb. 
 And as I stood there, a very beautiful lady came 
 to me and told me I must be quiet and not speak, 
 which I thought was very strange ; and she sat 
 down in the meadow among the bright yellow 
 buttercups, and told me how Lord Darrell was 
 betrothed to his cousin, a lady who lived at this 
 house, Lady-Croft Hall ; and how he was a very 
 wild, dissipated young man ; and how he did not 
 love her, in spite of her beauty, which was very 
 great ; and how he rode down from London one 
 beautiful April afternoon, after heavy rains ; and 
 how he was drowned in the ford ; and when she 
 said that, I thought it was well he had died then. 
 And I prayed that when it should arrive that by 
 my wrong-doing I was going to give pain to any 
 one that loved me, I might die too, and, harmless 
 to myself and to all others, lie down and be at 
 rest. Then I asked the lady, wondering, why 
 she had said "this house," when we were in the 
 field, and could only just see the roofs and chimneys 
 of the Hall over the willow trees ; and she shook 
 her head and said I was not in the fields, but in 
 bed, whither I had been brought when found 
 senseless in the road, near the gateway of the
 
 8 MY FEVER 
 
 house ; and then I saw she was right, and I was 
 lying in the old bed again ; but I could not see 
 the lady any more, though the door at the other 
 end of the room opened, and another lady came 
 in, dressed in white in an old fashion, with beauti- 
 ful golden hair wreathed with strings of violets. 
 She did not take any notice of me, but came and 
 sat down by the open window and looked fixedly 
 out over the apple, trees and fields to where she 
 could see the London road stretching before her. 
 I lay a long time looking at her dreamily — she 
 sat with one arm leaning on the window-sill, and 
 the afternoon sun shining on her — as a man looks 
 at a beautiful picture which he is quite certain 
 will not fade away. And I thought how pitiful 
 was the ingratitude of men, who have set before 
 them beautiful gifts that a god might envy, and 
 who throw them lightly away. We are waited for, 
 for hours, by bright angels, and we come not, or 
 if we come, repay with a short, cold word the 
 anxiety of a life. And there was no sound heard 
 but the humming of the insects through the open 
 windows, and everything was so very still and 
 calm that I thought nothing would ever disturb 
 the tranquillity of that scene, and that I had come 
 upon a blessed country where all things always 
 were the same. 
 
 Suddenly, in the midst of this sweet calm, the 
 lady started up with a wild cry — -"A horse, a 
 horse ! " and there was a great noise as of gallop- 
 ing, and the running to and fro of servants and of 
 people being sent out to seek ; and then the body 
 of Lord Darrell, which I had seen in the river, 
 was brought in and laid in the very bed in which
 
 MY FEVER 9 
 
 I lay. And I struggled against the horror of that 
 wet, loathsome thing, but could not shake it off, 
 and its cold, flabby hand fell upon my face, and I 
 fainted away. And then I heard as if everything 
 everywhere was preaching this one sermon — that 
 when we think we stand, then certainly we fall ; 
 that when that house was at its stillest and 
 calmest, and when I thought no evil could possibly 
 befall it, then the darkest cloud hung over it and 
 the deepest blow was struck ; and when that lady 
 thought her happiness at the full, then it was 
 dashed rudely to the ground ; and that when I 
 lay fixedly in the most perfect state of bodily 
 pleasure and dreamy happiness, then was I nearest 
 to that dead body — which at that very moment 
 was coming up the stairs to lie down upon me in 
 all its ghastly horror and deathliness. 
 
 And now but one word more. I am now 
 perfectly recovered, and am to-morrow to be 
 married to the beautiful lady I met walking- in 
 the meadow with the buttercups ; and our love, 
 though begun in a dream, will, I fervently trust, 
 be continued through the stern realities of a life.
 
 TWENTY MILES 
 
 In Household Words, vol. x., for September 2, 
 1854, was a paper with this heading, so well 
 written, that as I have had some little experience 
 in the same way myself, I cannot do better than 
 follow so good an example and give you the 
 benefit of some of this experience of mine. 
 
 The twenty miles of the writer in Household 
 Words was, as the readers of the periodical (the 
 best extant) are aware, from Lancaster to Preston ; 
 and in this he has an advantage over me, seeing 
 that his walk was twenty miles straight on, whereas 
 mine is ten miles there and ten back, namely, 
 from this good town of Birmingham to the town 
 of Coleshill ; and this again must be shortened, 
 for, if we except William Hutton's house, there is 
 nothing noticeable before we come to Castle 
 Bromwich, with its fine old hall and pretty rural 
 village, with creepers over almost all the houses. 
 Just beyond Castle Bromwich is a very fine 
 rookery with the usual amount of noise. 
 
 Up to this time the weather on the day of my 
 walk had been very dull, but here the sun burst 
 out splendidly, making the leafless trees and 
 hedges look bright and warm. " Welcome, 
 Phoebus Apollo, Lord of Day, or whatever name 
 
 10
 
 TWENTY MILES n 
 
 thou choosest to be called by, — thrice welcome 
 here." 
 
 On the brow of the hill, beyond Castle 
 Bromwich, you get the first glimpse of Coleshill 
 spire about three miles before you, and a beautiful 
 view it is. Just before me, about a mile off, was 
 a dark brown leafless wood, out of which the 
 tower and spire seemed to rise at once into the 
 clear sky ; on each side lay the far distance, 
 bright in the sunshine, and every few minutes 
 the tower and spire were gilded into brightness, 
 and then sank back into dark shadow ; in the 
 foreground were fields and homesteads and the 
 broad, white, winding road, with the lights and 
 shadows chasing each other over the scene. I 
 wish those who think there can be no beauty 
 when the leaves are off the trees, except in frost, 
 had been with me that day. 
 
 And now, in imitation of the shadows from the 
 fleeting clouds playing before me, I have a shadow 
 of a human nature. In the reign of Henry VII., 
 when Perkin Warbeck was in arms in the south 
 for the throne of England, Sir Simon Montfort, 
 Lord of Coleshill, sent thirty pounds to him by 
 his younger son Henry, honestly supposing him 
 to be the son of his former master, Edward IV. 
 On this very road the young man travelled, and 
 on this very spot, possibly, turned his horse for a 
 last look at his home. The tower stood then 
 nearly as it does now, and the prospect was much 
 the same, with more wood. Well would it have 
 been for him if he had been warned there in time, 
 and turned his horse and ridden back. All this 
 fair manor of Coleshill, with its bright fields and
 
 12 TWENTY MILES 
 
 smiling homesteads and stately woods, that lay 
 so calm and fair before him — all this, together with 
 his father's life, was lost for that thirty pounds. 
 When that unfortunate gentleman was brought to 
 his trial at Guildhall, he was accused of nothing 
 else; but this he never denied. It was proved 
 that he had no particular intention of favouring 
 Warbeck, but merely sent the money good- 
 naturedly and in a gallant recollection of the duty 
 he owed formerly to his dead master, King 
 Edward ; yet in his old age he was drawn through 
 the city and hanged and quartered at Tyburn. 
 His manor was given to his accuser, Simon 
 Digby, in whose family it still remains. 
 
 A little farther on is a road to Coleshill over 
 the meadows, and through a large field like a 
 chase, once a part of the park of the Digbys, 
 dotted all over with very old oaks, some of them 
 quite bleached and dead, part of the old Forest of 
 Arden. Near the path are two very old trees 
 where originally stood four, which bore the name 
 of the " Four Evangelists." One of them has a 
 hollow in the trunk large enough to shelter three 
 or four men. Far on is a little foot-bridge over 
 the Cole, a pretty stream with willows on the 
 banks. 
 
 Flow on, blithe rivulet, to the sea, 
 Thy tribute waves deliver. 
 
 In these meadows you get many pleasant views 
 of Coleshill on the top of its hill, with the old 
 houses and gable ends and great barns and farm 
 buildings grouped close round the foot of its lofty 
 tower and spire. I believe there are one or two 
 modern abominations with slated roofs, but you
 
 TWENTY MILES 13 
 
 can't see them from here. A little farther, and 
 you are at the town. 
 
 In the large, fine old church are the tombs of 
 the Digbys, each with their effigies and those of 
 their ladies, beautifully carved in alabaster, their 
 hands folded ; the lords with their swords by 
 their sides, their heads resting upon helmets, and 
 their feet on lions. And older than these are two 
 effigies of the Clintons, with fleur-de-lis on their 
 shields, and legs crossed, Crusaders to the Holy 
 Land ! The pews are close against these two 
 last, and I thought how different a seat there 
 must have been, with that old Crusader beside 
 you, from two hours in the Meeting-house in Bull 
 Street. One of the Prayer-books I opened was 
 marked "Charlotte Hollis." I wonder whether 
 Charlotte ever thinks of what that means by 
 her side ? Let us hope she is always better 
 employed. 
 
 I made a speech on the subject of their being 
 buried cross-legged which greatly delighted the 
 old sexton, and in the hope that it may do the 
 same to you, I will give it as near as I can entire. 
 41 And you see they are buried cross-legged, which 
 means that they fought in the Holy Land against 
 the Turks. For you see the Turks had got 
 Jerusalem, and Christians wanted to get it, and 
 so there were many great wars between them, 
 and whoever fought in the Holy Land was buried 
 with his lees crossed when he died." 
 
 This exposition so delighted the old man that, 
 overcome with his emotions, he burst forth into 
 the passionate exclamation : " Sir, you are a 
 learned gentleman ; I daresay you'll have read a
 
 i 4 TWENTY MILES 
 
 great deal about the old times." Modesty, of 
 course, forbids my informing the Essay Meeting, 
 as I did the old sexton, that I had read some- 
 thing. I am aware that Pennant thinks the 
 Clintons buried here were not Crusaders, and that 
 sometimes men were buried cross-legged merely 
 as a sign of reverence and faith ; but I confess 
 that I hardly like to believe this. By the bye, 
 the old sexton is worth studying ; I was told so 
 before I went, and I found it to be true. He is 
 eighty-six years old, and very hale and hearty ; 
 he was born near Lichfield, and remembers the 
 organ in Coleshill Church when it was at Lisher- 
 wick, the seat of the late Lord Donegal, near 
 that place. When the house was pulled down 
 in 1810 it was brought here. He (the sexton) 
 was thirty -six years waiter at the Swan at 
 Coleshill, and, as he told me, remembered as 
 many as fifteen or sixteen carriages waiting at 
 once at the gate for horses ! What a picture this 
 gives us of the old posting days ! It was a great 
 place in that way, as the direct road to Liverpool 
 passed through it, missing Birmingham, which 
 place the great people did not like even to change 
 horses in. He has been nearly thirty years in 
 his present post ; he disapproves of railways, and 
 says that, although he has friends in Birmingham, 
 he is afraid to go there, it is so large. At the 
 entrance of the church is a curious font, quaintly 
 carved. 
 
 And so I tore myself away from the old sexton 
 and the church. The churchyard stands high, and, 
 as Pennant remarks, commands a fine view of a 
 rich country. And then, turning towards home
 
 TWENTY MILES 15 
 
 in the warm afternoon sunshine, I lingered in the 
 meadow by the banks of the Co^e and in the 
 chase among- the ancient remains of the once 
 proud Forest of Arden, my thoughts full of the 
 old Digbys lying peacefully beneath their effigied 
 tombs in Coleshill Church.
 
 BOOKS VERSUS BOOKS 
 
 Cardinal de Retz, that most turbulent of states- 
 men, according to Madame de SeVigne, became 
 the sweetest of retired senors, and did nothing 
 but read books and feed his trout. The greatest 
 men in all time, persons even in the shock of that 
 greatest of all businesses, the business of the 
 World — Lorenzo de Medici, for instance — have 
 combined with their other energies the greatest 
 love of books, and found no recreation at once so 
 wholesome and so useful. Warren Hastings also, 
 who had ruled India, yearned for the scenes of 
 his boyhood, and lived to be happy in them. 
 When Shenstone was a child he used to have a 
 new book brought home from the next market 
 town whenever anybody went to market. If he 
 had gone to bed and was asleep, it was put under 
 his pillow, and if it had been forgotten and he 
 was awake, "then his mother wrapped up a 
 piece of wood of the same form and pacified him 
 for the night." All good and great men in all 
 ages have been fond of books. Yes ! say what 
 you will, books open for us a world more bright, 
 more glorious, more magnificent than our own ; 
 books store our memory with glorious pictures of 
 all ages, and create in us a new world ; and their 
 
 16
 
 BOOKS VERSUS BOOKS 17 
 
 true believer sees, feels, acts, lives, within himself. 
 The past is open to him ; he lives again with 
 great men who passed away long, long ago. 
 He is, says Leigh Hunt, again in communion 
 with the past, again interested in its adventures, 
 grieving with its griefs, laughing with its merri- 
 ment—forgetting the very chair and room he is 
 sitting in. Who, in the mysterious operation of 
 things, shall dare to assert in what unreal corner 
 of time and space that man's mind is ; or what 
 better proof he has of the existence of the poor 
 goods and chattels about him which at that 
 moment are (to him) non-existent? "Oh," 
 people say, " but he wakes up and sees them 
 there ! " Well, he woke down " to them and saw 
 the rest." What we distinguish into dreams and 
 realities are, in both cases, but representations of 
 impressions. So says Leigh Hunt, and who, I 
 ask, will deny it ? I once read a story of a 
 German who lived only in his dreams ; he dreamt 
 on continuously from night to night, and went 
 nowhere in the day. He dreamt he was prince 
 of a fairy island in a far-off sea ; he was married 
 to a beautiful princess with whom he lived (in his 
 dreams) for years. At last she died. He hoped 
 there was no such thing as death in dreams, but 
 he never saw her again ; but then he, too, pined ; 
 then he, too, died — is not this strong proof ? 
 Indeed I may almost say with Leigh Hunt, that 
 I more frequently wake out of common life to 
 them or to thoughts caused in them, than out of 
 them to common life. Call me dreamer, visionary, 
 what you will, I would not change for a world ! 
 What is to me the Emperor of the French, or 
 vol. 11 c
 
 i 8 BOOKS VERSUS BOOKS 
 
 what are all the heroes of to-day compared with 
 the heroes of poetry, of history, or romance — and 
 yet I can enjoy this world perhaps as well as most. 
 Which is more exciting, the spectacle of the funeral 
 of the Duke of Wellington, or this : 
 
 The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, 
 
 Burnt on the water ; the poop was beaten gold ; 
 
 Purple the sails, and so perfumed that 
 
 The winds were love-sick ; with them, the oars were silver ■ 
 
 Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made 
 
 The water, which they beat, to follow faster, 
 
 As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, 
 
 It beggar'd all description ; she did lie 
 
 In her pavilion (cloth of gold of tissue) 
 
 O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see 
 
 The fancy outwork Nature : on each side her 
 
 Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, 
 
 With divers-coloured fans, whose wind did seem 
 
 To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool, and what 
 
 They undid, did. 
 
 O rare for Antony ! 
 
 From the barge 
 A strange invisible perfume hits the sense 
 Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast 
 Her people out upon her ; and Antony, 
 Enthroned in the market-place, did sit alone 
 Whistling to the air ; which, but for vacancy, 
 Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too, 
 And made a gap in Nature. 
 
 Rare Egyptian ! 
 
 Can you not see her, dreamer, where she comes ? 
 People nowadays have no faith. They can't 
 believe what science tells them is not true. If I 
 were to read to them (these unbelievers, I mean) 
 the exquisite travels of William W. de Rubenquis 
 or Marco Polo they would laugh scornfully, and 
 stick themselves up upon the top of the pinnacle
 
 BOOKS VERSUS BOOKS 19 
 
 of Science, and say, " See what progress I have 
 made ! It surprises me how people could be in 
 such a state of ignorance!" "What deplorable 
 darkness! — how can you read such stuff?" etc. 
 etc. etc. I beg leave to assure their mightinesses 
 that it was by these despised first steps that they 
 reached their marvellous wisdom, and humbly to 
 suggest that if they had a little more respect for 
 their forefathers, it would by no means lessen 
 their own greatness, or sit ill upon them. Many 
 of these despised ignoramuses were greater men 
 than we shall ever be ; surely they cannot be 
 blamed for their childlike and simple trust ; what 
 does the Bible say about little children — read that 
 and ponder, thou worshipper of Science! Is not 
 this exquisite ? Marco Polo, speaking of a desert 
 in Tartary, says, " In it there are not either beasts 
 or birds ; they say that there dwelt many spirits 
 in this wilderness, which caused great and mar- 
 vellous illusions to travellers and made them 
 perish ; for if any stay behind and cannot see his 
 company, he shall be called by his name, and so, 
 going out of the way, is lost. In the night they 
 hear, as it were, the noise of a company, which 
 taking to be theirs, they perish likewise. Also a 
 great unendurable face that uses to stare at people 
 as they went by. Concerts of music-instruments 
 are sometimes heard in the air, likewise drums 
 and noise of armies. They go therefore close 
 together, hang bells on their beasts' necks, and 
 set marks if any stray." Oh, what a deal you 
 wise people lose ! But you must be a universalist 
 in literature to be a true reader ; you must not, as 
 too many do, read only such books as are repre-
 
 20 BOOKS VERSUS BOOKS 
 
 sentatives of some opinion or passion of your 
 own. " The universalist," says Leigh Hunt, " is 
 the only reader who can make something out of 
 books for which he has no predilection." I believe 
 you will always find something to repay your 
 trouble in every book that has ever been written. 
 In some of the ponderous black-letter volumes of 
 theology, for instance, you stumble upon most 
 beautiful thoughts — in Archbishop Leighton, I 
 think, there is the following : " Archimedes was 
 not singular in his fate, the most part of mankind 
 die unexpectedly first poring over the figures they 
 have traced upon the sand." Even if you are 
 shut up in a country-inn parlour on a wet day 
 with an old almanac or an odd volume of old 
 magazines, I entreat you not to despair. I 
 pledge myself, you shall find something to interest 
 you, or it is your own fault. 
 
 Charles Lamb was not quite a universalist ; 
 he says he could read any book with these 
 exceptions — court-calendars, directories, pocket- 
 books, draught-boards bound and lettered on 
 the back, scientific treatises, almanacs, statutes 
 at large, the works of Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, 
 Beattie, Soame Jenyns, and generally all those 
 volumes which " no gentleman's library should 
 be without," — these he says are books which are 
 no books. 
 
 Most people, says the preface of a little series 
 called " Readable Books, " have their own opinion 
 of what constitutes a readable book. The late 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Charles Wood, 
 gave the palm to Thucydides — an opinion with 
 which many an old University Fellow would
 
 BOOKS VERSUS BOOKS 21 
 
 doubtless coincide. Dr. Dry-as-Dust, F.S.A., 
 would prefer a black-letter volume ; an unfledged 
 student of the law, Punch or the Gent ; while a 
 more mature Mr. Briefless, possibly, Blackstone 
 or Chitty. Lady Theresa Angelus would select 
 a volume of the Rev. Mr. Oriel's sermons or Dr. 
 Dove's tracts ; Mr. Cobden a daily newspaper ; 
 and Major Rawlinson a stamped brick from 
 Nineveh. Some worthy men would be all for 
 popular science, and others for progress essays ; 
 while we question if a commercial traveller would 
 hear of anything but the time-tables of Bradshaw. 
 What a deal these people lose !
 
 CHIVALRY 1 
 
 Although I was fully prepared to encounter any 
 amount of opposition to my justification of Claver- 
 house, still I must confess to a little astonishment 
 at the dead set which has been made against the 
 essay in praise of Chivalry, and although I do 
 not intend to say a word more on the subject of 
 Viscount Dundee, I will venture to intrude upon 
 the very valuable time of the Essay Meeting 
 with a few observations on the two papers which 
 have set themselves so unmercifully to pull that 
 essay to pieces. 
 
 In one of these essays the author makes a 
 distinction which I do not understand, namely, 
 that one of the greatest evils of Chivalry was the 
 making its votaries esteem honour before duty. 
 I firmly believe that it is in keeping our honour 
 spotless that we best perform our duty, both to 
 ourselves and others — of course I mean honour 
 in its purest and highest sense. Our chief 
 business in this world is with ourselves : " Keep 
 yourselves unspotted from the world." This I 
 know is not at this time a fashionable doctrine — 
 so long as they accomplish good, people seem 
 not to care what means they take to gain their 
 
 1 The last of three essays on the subject. The two earlier seemed 
 less worthy of preservation. — Ed. 
 
 22
 
 CHIVALRY 23 
 
 ends. Louis Kossuth is an instance of this. 
 They say that when they hunt the ermines, they 
 strew a quantity of dirt round its dwelling-place, 
 and then drive the ermine towards it, when the 
 creature suffers itself to be taken, rather than 
 defile the spotless purity of its whiteness, which 
 it values more than life. An exquisitely beautiful 
 lesson for us, if we would learn by it. That 
 is a splendid passage in Chateaubriand's auto- 
 biography in which, speaking of the emigrants, 
 he says : " At the present day the outcry against 
 the emigrants is, they were tigers, who lacerated 
 the bosom of their mother ; at the period of which 
 I speak, people were guided by old notions, and 
 honour was reckoned for something, as well as 
 country." With regard to the other part of the 
 accusation, that Chivalry set the authority of a 
 temporal head above that of God, I simply say 
 that I do not believe it. If it were so, how came 
 it that men gave up all that they had — friends, 
 possessions, lands — to throng in thousands to the 
 Crusades, and this, not at the command of any 
 temporal head or chief, but at the preaching of 
 God's supposed Vicar and Vicegerent ? And was 
 not their war-cry always, "It is the will of God! 
 it is the will of God!" It is very easy to say 
 that it was interested motives, or a vile super- 
 stition, that prompted them to that ; but why 
 should we always ascribe the worst motives we 
 can select for the actions of our fellow- men ? 
 Now suppose that at some future time people 
 may say that the advocates of peace at the 
 present day were so only because they thought two 
 millions infinitely better deposited in their own
 
 24 CHIVALRY 
 
 pockets than expended in a ruinous war. There 
 are innumerable things of this kind people may 
 say, and what should we think of it ? All I want 
 to do is to pay the same respect to the motives of 
 our lathers that we would have posterity pay to 
 ours — a golden rule, which always has been golden, 
 and always will be, even in this our iron age. 
 
 And here I may as well observe that I did not 
 (in a former essay) say that the Feudal System 
 or Chivalry extinguished serfdom in England, 
 but that facts did not seem to justify the accounts 
 we hear of the great cruelties practised by the 
 Normans ; I think there is some difference 
 between this and what I have been accused of 
 saying. I might have said that I believe the 
 Feudal System, as introduced by the Normans, 
 was less opposed to a spirit of freedom among 
 the lower orders than the government of the 
 Saxons, and I believe I should be borne out by 
 the facts in this assertion. With regard to the state 
 of learning among the Saxons, they might, and 
 undoubtedly did, do all the great works described, 
 and yet, at the time of the Conquest, have sunk 
 into the state William of Malmesbury declares 
 they had, and I hope my fair antagonist will 
 pardon me if I say that I see no sufficient reason 
 for doubting his word, though of course the 
 authors of the present time must be infinitely 
 better acquainted with the events of the Dark 
 Ages than the poor benighted people who lived 
 in them. And here I must a^ain allude to what 
 I find myselt continually repeating, that the 
 Normans who landed on the coast of Neustria 
 were not the Normans who conquered England —
 
 CHIVALRY 25 
 
 they were a totally changed people. When they 
 landed, they were mere barbarians ; they retained 
 their courage, their personal beauty, and their 
 sagacity — by some called cunning ; almost every- 
 thing else of their former nature was changed ; 
 they became refined,, courteous, and accomplished. 
 William of Poitiers says Normandy was full of 
 monasteries and schools. With regard to their 
 drunkenness, there is not, I believe, the slightest 
 proof that it was one of their vices — must I again 
 recall the evening before Hastings fight ? I think 
 an admirer of the combined descendants of Danes 
 and Saxons should not be very hard upon the 
 ancestors of the Normans for being either 
 barbarians or pirates. Is Vortigern's fate for- 
 gotten ? Is the conquest of the ancient Britons 
 obliterated from the memory of those who profess 
 to view all the portions of history with like 
 impartiality, and who accuse me of the contrary ? 
 The Saxons would not have more right to the 
 possession of England than the Normans — indeed 
 the latter broke no pledge ; the Saxons came 
 over as friends, and then seeing the weakness 
 and incapacity of their hosts they broke all their 
 promises, and turned against them, drove them 
 from their beautiful country, massacred them, and 
 obliged the small remnant to take refuge in the 
 inaccessible mountains of Wales and Cornwall. 
 
 Pardon me, I think others might apply to 
 themselves the lesson they read me with so much 
 talent and earnestness. But perhaps the most 
 singular part of all is the onset which has been 
 made upon me, because my heroes were not 
 perfect. Who ever said they were ? I am sure
 
 26 CHIVALRY 
 
 I did not. But I maintain that all the names 
 mentioned were ornaments to the institution of 
 Chivalry. Henry the Second is objected to 
 because he was a hard father. I confess to 
 ignorance of that ; I always thought he was only 
 a great deal too kind to his children, though I 
 am sure no sons ever deserved harsher treatment 
 than his did. With regard to Philip Augustus, 
 I have no wish to justify his treachery, but I say 
 that a greater man never lived ; and that, how- 
 ever we may try to believe the contrary, Cceur 
 de Lion was nothing but a passionate bully, as his 
 conduct in innumerable instances proved ; and 
 with regard to the Albigenses of his time, if we 
 are to believe many accounts of them, they were 
 not worthy of that sympathy which has been so 
 generally bestowed upon them. 
 
 And now I come to another extraordinary 
 statement, that St. Louis and Joinville were what 
 they were in spite of Chivalry. How was this 
 possible when the virtues they possessed were 
 exactly those inculcated by Chivalry? If a pupil 
 follows exactly the lessons and injunctions of his 
 tutor, you do not say it was something else, we 
 cannot tell what, that made him what he was — 
 it was in spite of his tutor, and not because of 
 him — we should not say this ; then why say so 
 now ? It is too bad to take two of my highest 
 ornaments away and give them to nobody knows 
 who. 
 
 With regard to Henry the Fifth, I do not 
 wish in the least to justify his wars against 
 France : they were partly the errors of the time, 
 partly the errors of his own temperament, and
 
 CHIVALRY 27 
 
 partly the legacy left him by his ancestors. But 
 Henry the Fifth performed a nobler conquest 
 than all these, and it is for this that I put him 
 in my list — he conquered himself. His reforma- 
 tion on coming to the throne is well known ; the 
 affair with Judge Cranworth is often spoken of as 
 redounding in credit to the latter, but was it not 
 as much so to the former? The Judge was trying 
 one of the Prince's companions, and condemned 
 him ; in a moment of ungovernable passion the 
 Prince struck the Judge in the face. Cranworth 
 instantly committed him for an assault. And he, 
 what did he do? He, a prince of the blood-royal 
 of England, heir - apparent to the throne of 
 England, France, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, 
 — a prince of a fiery and impetuous disposition, 
 of a proud and haughty race, — committed to the 
 rude hands of common constables ? He bowed 
 his head silently, and admitted that it was just. 
 Here was a more glorious victory than all his 
 conquests — a bloodless victory, which will be 
 remembered in after ages, when Alexander's 
 conquest of the world will be forgotten. And 
 when he came to the throne, instead of bearing 
 the Judge any ill-will, he sent for him, told him 
 he knew from experience how well he performed 
 his duty, and appointed him to one of his highest 
 offices of the State. 
 
 With regard to the Black Prince, I am content 
 with the praise bestowed upon him — I have no 
 wish to make my heroes perfect ; and, lest I 
 should exhaust the patience of my readers, I 
 must say as much with regard to the Captal 
 de Buch, of whom my opponent owns that he
 
 28 CHIVALRY 
 
 was without reproach ; yet it seems he committed 
 one terrible action, that of saving the ladies of 
 France — nay, even France itself — from horrors of 
 which we have no idea. If this was his worst 
 deed, what must his best have been ? 
 
 One of my opponents says that the Troubadour 
 poetry is unreadable. I think this is a too sweep- 
 ing condemnation. If by the Troubadour poetry 
 is meant only that written by those strictly called 
 Troubadours, I am scarcely competent to judge, 
 as, with the exception of extracts from the 
 Romaunt de la Rose, the Romance de Coney, 
 and a few smaller poems, I am not conversant 
 with their writings ; but as far as I can tell, they 
 are not what would be called unreadable, though 
 certainly not coinciding exactly with our modern 
 ideas. And it is worthv of remark, that in 
 Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, all those related by 
 persons in high rank, — those who came immedi- 
 ately under the influence of Chivalry, such as the 
 Knight, the Squire, the Clerk, etc., — are extremely 
 beautiful and pure, while those of the others are 
 certainly the reverse. Boccaccio too, when he 
 was dying, was so struck by the improper 
 tendency of his book, that he begged a friend not 
 to let it be read by the females of his household — 
 a clear proof that he was behind his age. The 
 Romance of the Morte d' Arthur, though not 
 exactly a Troubadour's poem, is decidedly read- 
 able, as also are several others of the same kind. 
 It is also said that the love of the Middle Ages 
 is entirely licentious. This I do not think. Was 
 Petrarch's love for Laura when he wrote —
 
 CHIVALRY 29 
 
 She wakes within the thought of purest love 
 
 Which from the creature rises to its God, 
 
 Unsullied by the heat of mortal flame. 
 
 Through her the springs of inspiration move, 
 
 Opening so bright a path from earth's dull clod, 
 
 That Heav'n's blest joys, e'en now my soul doth claim. 
 
 Can anything be more pure than Dante's love ? 
 And all through history are there not beautiful 
 instances of the purest and most devoted love — 
 that of Bertha for the Emperor Henry ; Philip 
 Augustus for his Agnes ; Queen Eleanor for 
 Edward the First ; Queen Philippa for the Third 
 Edward, who with her last breath prayed him 
 "that it may please you to take none other sepul- 
 ture whensoever it shall please God to call you 
 out of this transitory lyfe, but besyde me in West- 
 minster " ; Heloise's;love for Abelard, and many 
 more. Louis IX., a prisoner in Egypt, replies 
 to the Saracens that he will do nothing without 
 Queen Margaret, "who is his Lady." The 
 Orientals could not comprehend such deference, 
 and it is because they did not comprehend it 
 that they have remained so far behind the nations 
 of Europe in nobleness of sentiment, purity of 
 morals, and elegance of manners. 
 
 "Chivalry," says Michaud, "so beautifully 
 called ' the fountain of that courtesy which comes 
 from God,' is still more admirable when con- 
 sidered under the all-powerful influence of religious 
 ideas. Christian charity claimed all the affections 
 of the Knight, and demanded of him a perpetual 
 devotion for the defence of pilgrims and the care 
 of the sick. It was thus that were established 
 the Orders of St. John, of the Temple, of the 
 Teutonic Knights, and several others, all instituted
 
 30 CHIVALRY 
 
 to combat the Saracens and solace human miseries. 
 The infidels admired their virtues as much as 
 they dreaded their bravery. Nothing is more 
 touching than the spectacle of those noble warriors, 
 who were seen by turns in the field of battle and 
 in the asylum of pain, sometimes the terror of 
 the enemy, and as frequently the consolers of all 
 who suffered. That which the Paladins of the 
 West did for beauty, the Knights of Palestine 
 did for poverty and misfortune. The former 
 devoted their lives to the ladies of their thoughts, 
 the latter to the poor and infirm." The philan- 
 thropists of the present day should sympathise 
 with this. 
 
 There is one thing in which I most fully agree 
 with my antagonist — the character of Gustavus 
 Adolphus : she cannot praise him too highly for 
 me. But she says Chivalry was extinct in his 
 time. The form might be, but I should be very 
 sorry to suppose that the spirit of Chivalry is not 
 existing now. Of Max Piccolomini I know very 
 little, not having the advantage of an acquaint- 
 ance with German literature. But as I fear I 
 have been very obstinate about my heroes, I will 
 take him on credit. 
 
 And now I will conclude this atrociously long 
 effusion, begging pardon of this meeting for 
 occupying so much of its time, and of my two 
 fair opponents for so impolitely and uncere- 
 moniously contradicting their assertions.
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONDON 
 
 CHURCH 
 
 Stone walls do not a prison make, 
 Nor iron bars a cage. 
 
 Lovelace. 
 
 " Every one has a romance in his own heart," 
 says Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and as truly 
 may we say everything has its romance too. 
 Not alone woods and fields and valleys and old 
 houses standing far in parks. Not alone mountains 
 and moors and high up mountain tarns, so very 
 lonely, so very calm, so very pure that a kind of 
 awe comes over you on approaching them, so 
 very near to heaven that you dare hardly think 
 any of your accustomed thoughts — so worldly, so 
 mean, so unworthy of that Almighty Presence in 
 which you then visibly stand, do they now appear. 
 Not alone in all this, but in large and dusty towns, 
 in the midst of counting-houses and warehouses 
 and high, dark houses — houses everywhere — may 
 romance be found. London abounds in churches, 
 but though their steeples are visible to everybody, 
 few, very few, find the edifices themselves. 
 
 I once had lodgings near one of these. There 
 was a little burial-ground in front and a long 
 narrow strip down each side, but the houses 
 
 31
 
 32 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 came up close all round, and at the back joined 
 the sacred edifice. My lodgings were at the 
 corner of this little square, facing the front of the 
 steeple, and close to which a covered archway 
 opened into an innumerable labyrinth of small 
 lanes which at length brought you into Fleet 
 Street. My occupation — that of a poor, very poor, 
 author — confining me to my room, I had little 
 other companionship than that old church, and, 
 oh, in the bright summer time how I blessed the 
 sun for visiting me even there ! The three lime 
 trees in the burial-ground rejoiced with me too, 
 and in the spring their green leaves, contrasting 
 with the brown duskiness of the surrounding 
 building, were more exceeding beautiful than I 
 can well express. It used to be very silent there 
 in the hot summer afternoons, for all around were 
 offices and warehouses, and the unceasing hum 
 from the great streets rather increased than other- 
 wise the dreamy tendencies of the place, and save 
 the occasional rumbling of a cart through the 
 adjacent lanes, there was little other sound. 
 Though I have called the church old, I do not 
 suppose you would agree with me, for it could 
 not have been built before the early part of Queen 
 Anne's reign or the latter part of William and 
 Mary's. This was evident from its whole appear- 
 ance and from the tombs in the interior, the only 
 effigies consisting of gentlemen in wigs, and other 
 emblems of a similar age. There were also one 
 or two pieces of sculpture of a more aspiring 
 character, representing female figures weeping 
 over urns, inverted torches and such -like, which 
 I suppose were thought much of in their days,
 
 A LONDON CHURCH 33 
 
 but which I confess I never much admired. 
 The only stone in which I took any interest was 
 one on the outside of the church near the door ; 
 it was very small, not larger than an ordinary 
 foot-stone, with the one word "Mary" inscribed 
 on it, with her age, 23 years, and the date, 1734. 
 I never saw much of the rector or his curate, but 
 the old sexton is my firm friend, and all I ever 
 learnt concerning the inmate of this small sepulchre 
 I learnt from him. He had heard his father, who 
 had preceded him in his office, say that he had 
 heard her story in his youth : that she had been 
 the daughter of a wealthy farmer in some far-off 
 county in the west of England, who having lost 
 his property by some means which the old sexton 
 did not know, had died suddenly, leaving his 
 daughter alone in the world ; that she had come 
 up to London, and falling perchance upon that 
 out-of-the-way church, had lived in a house 
 precisely opposite mine, and maintained herself 
 by needlework ; that she had been accustomed 
 to sit all day at the window facing the church- 
 front at her work ; that there was about her 
 something so fair and pure and good, that the 
 people round about had been accustomed to look 
 upon her almost in the light of a visitant from 
 another and a higher world. But gradually, as 
 she sat there in the sun, she had faded away, and 
 before three years were passed was laid in that 
 little grave beside the church door. There was 
 nothing wonderful in all this — perhaps it was for 
 this reason that I loved her story so very much, 
 for it left room for the imagination to roam at will 
 about her name, and frame a being of its own. 
 VOL. 11 d
 
 34 A LONDON CHURCH 
 
 I have sat at my own window looking over the 
 graveyard, till I could see her there before me, 
 bending over her never-ending task, thinking 
 doubtless of that happy home so far away, so 
 very different to this, — of which the only resem- 
 blance was that pure and beautiful sky which in 
 the summer time was spread out above her, 
 reminding her of its greater purity elsewhere ; 
 and amid all her privations and sufferings and 
 loneliness, praying for release. Release ? Yes, 
 it came at last, and from the smoke and noise of 
 a city life into a country more bright and beautiful 
 than that in which her childish days were spent, 
 under a sky more calm and holy, she was carried 
 away. The vicissitudes of this life over, all else 
 was peace. 
 
 Certes, it was very strange that the story of 
 this young girl whom I have never seen, whom I 
 knew so little of, should haunt me thus. Yet for 
 her sake I loved the church and the trees and 
 even the dark and dingy houses round about ; and 
 as with the small congregation I listened to the 
 refrain of that sublime litany which sounded forth, 
 word for word, as she had heard it, I thought it 
 all the more divine because I knew so certainly 
 that in her days of trouble and affliction it had 
 supported and comforted her : 
 
 By Thine agony and bloody sweat ; by Thy cross and 
 passion ; by Thy precious death and burial ; by Thy glorious 
 resurrection and ascension ; and by the coming of the Holy 
 Ghost, Good Lord deliver us.
 
 THE RINGING OF THE BELLS 
 
 I remember once, in a day's tramp in Warwick- 
 shire, I was directed to some place which I 
 wished to reach by the help, among other land- 
 marks, of a wayside ale-house which bore for its 
 sign "The Old Ring of Bells." Whenever I 
 have heard the sound of bells or thought of them — 
 and that is very often, for I love the church bells 
 whether in town or country — I have remembered 
 that sign with pleasure, not only as a relief from 
 the most part of signs, alternating between the 
 equally impossible monsters White Lions and Blue 
 Boars, but because it seems to me that there is 
 something additionally pleasant in the word 
 " Old," as if though the ring or chime of bells had 
 become useless by age and had been replaced by 
 a new one, the people still remembered with 
 affection the old sound which had so often reached 
 them over the tree-tops, calling them from all the 
 country round to their devotions in the church. 
 However this may have been, that love of the 
 bells which doubtless influenced the choice of 
 the village host seems to be common with 
 everybody, and I think we cannot wonder at it. 
 Independently of the material pleasure we derive 
 from the sweet soothing of the sound, whether it 
 
 35
 
 36 THE RINGING OF THE BELLS 
 
 comes "over flowery fields and shadowed waters 
 in the heat of summer," as sweetly as the south- 
 west wind of Arcadia came to the ear of Sidney, 
 or whether, in winter, it come more sullenly 
 through the frosty air over frozen waters and 
 white fields, independent of this material pleasure, 
 there are, associated with the ringing of the bells 
 some of the most pleasant recollections that cheer 
 the heart of man. They are indeed a living on 
 of the past into the present, and I sometimes 
 wonder, in this material age, why they have not 
 been discontinued. They belong to a time when 
 clocks and watches were few and, in the country, 
 rarely to be met with, and then indeed the bells 
 were wanted to call the people to the churches. 
 It is pleasant to think of all the Sabbaths since 
 England was peopled, when all the steeples, all 
 over the land, have rung out their chime-voices 
 to the glory of God. Pleasant also is it to think 
 of what times of trouble these bells have rung - out 
 in, soothing and calming the minds of men. In 
 the great Civil Wars, when the unaccustomed 
 sounds of battle and death startled the fields of 
 rural England, preaching how different a lesson 
 from the rattle of the musquetry ! Before the 
 battle of Edgehill, when the royal army was 
 standing on the top of the hill waiting to begin 
 the conflict, the sweet tones of the bells from the 
 many churches in the plain below came up 
 through the still Sabbath morning air, and reached 
 the ears of the King. "Those bells," he said, 
 "preach peace, forgiveness, and goodwill to men, 
 and we go forward to fight ! " And when the Earl 
 of Northampton marched out of Stafford to the
 
 THE RINGING OF THE BELLS 37 
 
 battle of Hopton Heath, where he was slain, the 
 church bells were ringing for the afternoon service 
 as he rode through the streets. Indeed, the 
 Sabbath bells are so mixed up with all the 
 pleasantest and everyday recollections of our 
 lives, from our earliest childhood to our last 
 long resting-place, that the sound of them 
 seems naturally to form itself into legends 
 like the following relation, concerning a village 
 chime of bells, which has led to the foregoing 
 remarks. 
 
 Many years ago, perhaps almost a century, 
 when men still wore cocked hats and swords and 
 lace clothes, there was a small village in one of 
 the Midland counties of England that possessed, 
 as many small villages do, a fine large church and 
 a very beautiful ring of bells. These bells, cast 
 in the old popish times, had plenty of silver in 
 them, and their soft lingering sound would rest 
 lovingly upon the tops of the sunny wood and 
 over the fields. About a mile from the church, 
 but in full view of it over the meadows, there was 
 an old red-brick house which belonged to a family 
 who had lived there for more than four hundred 
 years, of the name of Field. They had never 
 produced any very remarkable men, — many of 
 them indeed had been justices of the peace, two 
 had been deputy-lieutenants, and one, in latter 
 times, member for the county, — but this had been 
 the height of their greatness. They were, never- 
 theless, well thought of and beloved by their 
 neighbours, to whom, when they needed help, they 
 were very charitable. I say neighbours because, 
 though a wealthy family and well-landed, they
 
 38 THE RINGING OF THE BELLS 
 
 were not lords of the manor on which they 
 lived. 
 
 To this red-brick house over the fields came 
 every Sabbath and holy day the sound of the 
 church bells. On the still Sabbath mornings in 
 the bright summer time it came in through the 
 open windows, mingling with the sweet scent of 
 flowers and the pleasant rustling of the leaves. 
 In the winter it came loudly through the frosty 
 air, over the bare trees. It was hard to tell when 
 it came most sweetly — in the sultry summer 
 afternoons, or when in winter it sounded solemnly 
 through the dark evenings. And they seldom 
 rang in vain ; for year after year, soon after they 
 began ringing, generation after generation of the 
 Fields left their old house, and going out through 
 the garden and along the footpath over the fields, 
 passed through the little gate in the low wall of 
 the churchyard, and so on into the church, to their 
 great old pew in the chancel. And if any were 
 left behind through sickness, or to watch by a sick- 
 bed, they would listen to the sound of the bells till 
 they ceased, and then in their minds they followed 
 the service they had so often joined in, and which 
 was then going on in the church. And one of 
 the Fields departed out of this transitory life one 
 bright Sabbath morning in summer, when the 
 bells were ringing for the morning service, and 
 some present would have closed the window of 
 the room and shut out the sound, but he stopped 
 them and caused himself to be raised up in the 
 bed that he might look out over the green fields 
 to the church, and when the bells ceased he fell 
 back and soon after died — gone, as his friends
 
 THE RINGING OF THE BELLS 39 
 
 humbly trusted, to the great living Church in 
 heaven, there to join in everlasting praise and 
 thanksgiving. 
 
 But there came a time, about which I am going 
 to write, when the red-brick house over the fields 
 was inhabited by only three persons who bore the 
 name of Field. Edward Field and his sister 
 Belinda were orphans, their parents having died 
 when they were very young. They lived here 
 with an old maiden lady who was some far-off 
 cousin, and who kept house for them. In their 
 childhood they went regularly to the church, and 
 the sound of the bells spoke peacefully to their 
 consciences. But when Edward Field grew up 
 he became a fine gentleman, and spent most of 
 his time in London — at Ranelagh or in the Parks 
 — at theatres or rambling- at White's or at 
 Almack's Tavern. When he came down to his 
 home he brought gentlemen with him who drank 
 deep and late into the night, and the villagers 
 going homeward could hear their drinking songs 
 through the open windows of the dining-room. 
 Then they would get up late and tired in the 
 morning and would not go to church, and Edward 
 would try to persuade his sister not to go either ; 
 and sometimes she did not, and sometimes she 
 would yield to the entreaties of the good old lady 
 who lived with them, and go with her ; so that 
 there seemed to be a conflict for the soul of the 
 beautiful young girl (for she, like all the Fields, 
 was very handsome). But the old lady always 
 went to church, as she had done all her life, and 
 would sit alone often in the large old pew, very 
 sad and sorrowful, and pray that better times
 
 40 THE RINGING OF THE BELLS 
 
 might come ; and sometimes when the people 
 were going into the church, or even while the 
 service was performing, Mr. Edward would ride 
 by, and the grand gentlemen, his friends, that were 
 with him, calling to their dogs ; but this was 
 always when Miss Belinda went to church, for 
 when she stayed with them she kept them from 
 riding through the village. 
 
 And now, when he never went to church, 
 Edward Field could not bear to hear the bells, 
 either when they woke him out of his late sleep 
 in the morning, or when they disturbed him in 
 the evening as he sat drinking after dinner. As 
 he was not lord of the manor nor even landlord 
 of the village, he had not sufficient influence to 
 stop the bells altogether, but he tried in all sorts 
 of ways to prevent them being rung. He bribed 
 the ringers to feign themselves ill, or to go away 
 from their homes suddenly, or he sent for them 
 up to his house and made them drunk and locked 
 them up over night. But one way or another 
 some one was always found to ring the bells at 
 the right time, and he was always disappointed. 
 The old clergyman, who had known his father, 
 often spoke with him and laboured hard to con- 
 vince him of his sin, but to no avail. 
 
 Time went on, and he grew worse and worse. 
 He would ride out hunting on the Sabbath day, 
 and make his hounds run the fox through the 
 village, and one morning they killed him in the 
 churchyard while service was performing. Indeed 
 he went so far that the gentlemen who came 
 down to see him refused to accompany him, and 
 even went to church to show they disapproved of
 
 THE RINGING OF THE BELLS 41 
 
 his conduct. His sister too went there oftener 
 than before. 
 
 At last one day he had two young gentlemen 
 stopping with him, wild and reckless as himself ; 
 they resolved over their wine that the next 
 Sunday the bells should not be rung. They kept 
 their intention a secret from Miss Belinda, for 
 fear she should reveal it, and took their measures 
 so well that they bribed or sent everybody out of 
 the place who knew how to ring the bells. The 
 sexton was to leave the village very early in the 
 morning on pretence of some urgent business, 
 and the gentlemen ordered their horses to be 
 ready at the usual hour when the bells began to 
 ring. 
 
 It was a fine autumn morning — one of those 
 bright cold days at the end of summer that 
 remind one of sunlight streaming upon some old 
 marble effigy. 
 
 At the time appointed, they mounted their 
 horses and rode off towards the village. The 
 horse-road was not so near as the path over the 
 fields, and they had to make a circuit. They rode 
 along, laughing at the perplexity the people of 
 the village would be in, and the astonishment of 
 the good clergyman when he came to the church 
 and found it closed. They were now in full sight 
 of the church, and the time was come when the 
 bells ought to ring. 
 
 Suddenly, to their intense astonishment, there 
 arose upon the air from the steeple where the 
 bells were, a peal louder, nearer, and more 
 beautiful by far than they had ever rung before. 
 It swept over the fields and woods, which were
 
 42 THE RINGING OF THE BELLS 
 
 in their autumn foliage, and ascended up joyfully 
 into the blue sky. Edward Field and his com- 
 panions looked at each other with blank faces of 
 dismay ; the grooms, who were not in the secret, 
 were astonished at the beauty of the sound. 
 With a fierce exclamation Mr. Field put spurs to 
 his horse, and, leaping the hedges, rode straight 
 across the fields to the church, followed by his 
 friends. The wonderful peal still continued, and 
 when they reached the wall of the churchyard, 
 the people were mostly come out of their houses, 
 and were thronging to it. The clergyman was 
 there waiting for the keys, for all the doors were 
 fast locked. The men who brought them at last 
 said that the sexton was gone from home, sud- 
 denly, on some business. The ringing of the bells 
 still kept on, the door of the tower was open, and 
 the clergyman, followed by the three gentlemen, 
 went in. The place was quite empty, the ropes 
 hung down motionless, and the. bells above were 
 quite still, but up in the steeple where the bells 
 were, there was a great ringing as of a most 
 beautiful chime or ring of bells. The clergyman 
 turned round to the young men, who were 
 trembling, their faces deadly pale. " This is the 
 hand of God," he said, solemnly. " If any one 
 here knows anything of this, let him take it for a 
 warning, for assuredly it is a gracious sign per- 
 mitted from heaven." The three gentlemen said 
 nothing, but they pulled off their hats and went 
 up the aisle to the old pew, dusty and mouldy 
 from want of use, and knelt down with one 
 accord to pray ; and just then, the people being all 
 assembled, the ringing ceased of its own accord,
 
 THE RINGING OF THE BELLS 43 
 
 and the organ played solemn and grand music, 
 and the morning service began : 
 
 When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness 
 that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and 
 right, he shall save his soul alive. 
 
 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit : a broken and a 
 contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
 
 SUGGESTIONS OF 'EPITAPHS' 
 
 I must apologise to the Essay Meeting for making 
 choice of a rejected subject, for indeed it is not 
 from mere caprice I choose it. Two people may 
 pass together along the crowded highway, and 
 when the strolling organ-player turns the handle 
 of his instrument and plays for the thousandth 
 time an old familiar tune, one of those two will 
 hurry past with an ejaculation of disgust, the 
 other turn and give his willing coin for the notes 
 that have sent him on his way soothed with sweet 
 thoughts and tender recollections. And this word 
 " epitaph " is like that barrel-organ : it has a voice 
 which every listener may interpret as he will. It 
 can speak of poor comical attempts at rhyme 
 engraven on the old grey head-stones of rustic 
 burial-places; of high-sounding eulogiums upon 
 the titled dead, for whom the unflattering grave 
 knows no distinction ; it can whisper sweet words 
 of consolation inscribed by Christian mourners on 
 the graves of their beloved ones, in token that 
 they " sorrowed not as those which have no hope" ; 
 and it can recall that countless number of simple 
 tombstones which tell us only, as we carelessly 
 pass by, that the many sleepers on whose dust 
 we tread once lived and bore a name. And if 
 
 44
 
 SUGGESTIONS OF 'EPITAPHS' 45 
 
 none of these voices are welcome, it has yet 
 another, for it speaks of the places where epitaphs 
 are found. How often, as we journev through 
 this pleasant land of ours, its quiet graveyards 
 and its old church towers lend the last touch of 
 beauty to a lovely scene, and we forget all differ- 
 ence of creed in our thankful veneration for these 
 time-worn witnesses to the faith of our fatherland ! 
 This surely is a pleasant theme ; so pleasant, at 
 least, are the pictures it portrays for me, that I 
 venture an attempt to sketch their outlines, and 
 offer them as a contribution to the Essay Portfolio. 
 (1856.) — It is a bright April day, how welcome 
 its brightness those only who have been subjected 
 to weeks of indoor imprisonment can tell. Day 
 after day slight storms of snow have swept over 
 the hills, forbidding them to resign the wintry 
 aspect they had worn so long. Then came long 
 weeks of rain and mist, and the farmer looked 
 gloomily on his fields and longed to lead forth 
 his plough, but dared not, for the ground was too 
 swampy to bear his horses' feet. But it grew 
 slowly finer, and day by day bright gleams of 
 fitful sunshine stole across the valley, and we 
 could watch the swelling of the tree- buds and 
 the timorous shooting of the early corn. And 
 thus with slow, irregular steps the spring drew 
 near, till at last there came a truly genial day. 
 This country road, with its faintly-tinted hedge- 
 rows and wayside trees winding through a broad 
 valley girt with hills, will be trodden by many 
 feet to-day, but the farmer is not going to his 
 field nor the market-woman to the little town : it 
 is another call they will obey this morning. The
 
 46 SUGGESTIONS OF 'EPITAPHS' 
 
 sweet, solemn tones of the bell in yonder grey 
 church-tower bids them meet for worship and the 
 celebration of another Good Friday. It is a 
 pleasant sight to watch the different groups as 
 they wind over the hills, and from the lonely 
 cottages around, till all meet at last in the little 
 churchyard, shaded with its rows of beech, and 
 sheltered by the larch wood skirting the near 
 hillside. And we, of whatever sect we are, need 
 not fear to enter with them, for he who will 
 preach to-day is one who has laboured long and 
 faithfully in his Master's cause, and he speaks the 
 truth with simple earnestness. He has lived 
 amongst his people as curate for thirty years, and 
 the churchyard holds two of his heart treasures, 
 for a beloved wife and a fair young daughter, the 
 darling of his declining years, are buried there. 
 He is a grave and quiet man, but when his theme 
 leads him to the borders of the better country, a 
 smile steals over his face so bright and heavenly 
 that you need no words to tell you how often in 
 spirit he had visited the home where those he 
 loved so fondly are gone to dwell. But if you 
 would rather linger out in the fresh, glad sunshine, 
 do so ; the early primroses are smiling in the 
 hedges, and on the bright hillsides, where the 
 cloud shadows chase each other, the broom is 
 venturing to unfold its petals, which shall soon 
 array them in a robe as brilliant as burnished 
 gold. This is the dawn of summer ; we do not 
 know now, we could hardly venture to believe if 
 we were told, how long and glorious a summer it 
 will be. We have waited so long for the first 
 signs of spring ; it is enough delight to inhale its
 
 SUGGESTIONS OF 'EPITAPHS' 47 
 
 warm breath, and welcome its early signs of glad- 
 ness. And there is another church, which lies 
 two miles away, where we can go this afternoon, 
 and very old and beautifully situated is the little 
 church of Hope Bowdler. We must leave Caer 
 Caradoc behind, and follow a steep turnpike road 
 for about a mile and a half till it makes an abrupt 
 descent towards Hope Bowdler, and the village 
 church and wooded hill beyond lie close beneath 
 us. We enter the village and turn into a kind of 
 farmyard, with ploughs and waggons standing 
 empty in the sheds, and felled timber lying on 
 either side of it. At the end a little gate leads 
 into the churchyard, where there are many graves. 
 The whole place is very quiet this sunny after- 
 noon, and a rustic with a scarlet waistcoat lounges 
 idly against the gate and seems to wonder what 
 has brought us here. To our great disappoint- 
 ment, he tells us that the church is closed, for 
 there is no afternoon service to-day, but offers to 
 bring the keys that we may see the interior. We 
 enter, and are glad that we have come, though 
 nothing meets the eye but the sternest and most 
 primitive simplicity, the woodwork being very 
 old and rude, and the stone floors damp and chill. 
 It seems smaller inside than we had expected, 
 but is quite in keeping with the quaint exterior, 
 whose tower, with its square peaked roof, like 
 St. Luke's of this town, is roughly tiled and 
 thickly coated with moss. Yet it is a pleasant 
 thought that this simple, ancient church was some 
 few years ago regularly filled, and many even 
 came who could not be admitted for want of 
 room, attracted by the earnest eloquence of a
 
 48 SUGGESTIONS OF 'EPITAPHS' 
 
 curate who resided here some time ; and that his 
 hearers came not only from the villages close by, 
 but for miles beyond the Long Mynds in that 
 hill-country whose people lie scattered in lonely 
 houses far apart, where superstition loves to 
 linger, where even at this very time a strange 
 tale of witchcraft has gained their ready credence, 
 and they have sent to Shrewsbury to obtain a 
 counter spell. Let us hope that the teachings 
 of Hope Bowdler Church may prove a better 
 remedy. 
 
 And now we must leave the graveyard and 
 the church and the broad field beyond, with its 
 many yew-trees, for already a dark shadow has 
 fallen on the fir wood and a distant peal of 
 thunder warns us that a storm is gathering on the 
 hills, and we must return home; and Good Friday, 
 with its fair sunshine and unlooked-for tempest, 
 pass away. 
 
 (1857. ) — And now the rich glories of the harvest- 
 time succeed the unwonted splendours of June 
 and July, and the mellow noon of this sweet 
 August day is well suited to the scene we are to 
 visit. Our old lumbering carriage has conducted 
 us to Lea Hurst, the grey, old, ivy-covered house 
 with its neat little lawn and quaint thorn-tree in 
 front, its long unpretending drive pleasantly 
 shaded with trees, beneath which an old country- 
 woman stands, who seems to know the place and 
 its owners. She tells us how Miss Nightingale 
 comes and stays here sometimes, for this is her 
 father's country-house, and "how good and kind 
 she is to her poor neighbours round, and what 
 famous things she has done amongst the wars,
 
 SUGGESTIONS OF 'EPITAPHS' 49 
 
 and how she wanted to mount a horse and go 
 herself through the battlefield to help the poor, 
 wounded, dying soldiers." But with true self- 
 respect and reverence for her noble calling, she 
 neither seeks applause herself nor will her father 
 permit his sweet, retired mansion to be turned 
 into a show-house ; and so we must content 
 ourselves with a hasty view of the exterior, and 
 of the splendid prospect which the windows at 
 the riofht of the house command, and return to 
 the patient old driver who waits to take us home. 
 Then we remember the clerk's story about 
 Dethwick — the tall, half-dreamy looking young 
 man who showed us Old Matlock Church yester- 
 day, with its strangely -painted ceiling and few 
 old monuments, and the white paper garlands 
 two hundred years old which used to be borne by 
 the coffins of young girls, and have hung so long 
 in the church that they are decaying for very age. 
 We recollect that, as we stood talking in the 
 churchyard, he quietly remarked, " There are 
 many other old halls and a nice church further 
 on among the hills " ; and in spite of our driver's 
 utter ignorance of the place, we determined to 
 try and visit Dethwick. After a very pleasant 
 ride we can see through the trees on either side 
 a pretty little stream, the tower of a church, and 
 leave the carriage to find a way to it. The way 
 is not very long, but perfectly retired — a narrow, 
 winding lane with a low wall on one side and a 
 fence on the other, both richly overgrown with 
 honeysuckle and briar, which brings us at length 
 to a little open green ; a noble tree stands in the 
 centre, and beneath it there are some white geese 
 
 VOL. II E
 
 5 o SUGGESTIONS OF 'EPITAPHS' 
 
 feeding. These are the only living things in 
 sight, and long rows of stone- roofed outhouses 
 indicate the neighbourhood of a farm. Yet the 
 old house we are approaching through that 
 beautiful archway of carved stone overhung with 
 creepers does not look like a farm ; the side 
 which faces the small courtyard we are entering 
 looks more like the renovated portion of a much 
 older and more stately mansion which has once 
 occupied twice the space of the present unassum- 
 ing dwelling. This is really the case, and we 
 are unexpectedly gratified on finding that, in spite 
 of its utter loneliness and the very few visitors 
 who ever find their way to it, its historical interest 
 renders the owners willing to show the only 
 portions which remain unaltered since the time 
 of Oueen Elizabeth. These are the kitchens of 
 that part of the present house which has been 
 converted into a small farm. One of them is a 
 large, low room, with a great old-fashioned open 
 fireplace ; the other, rougher still, adjoins it ; but 
 the farm-servants are at dinner, and we visit the 
 church in the meantime. On our return from 
 the church one of the maid -servants shows us 
 these two rooms, and a lazy-looking young man, 
 who appears to act as bailiff on the estate, stands 
 with his hands behind him idly watching our 
 progress thence to the garden, which he has 
 given us leave to enter, while a girl in a stout, 
 loose garment, like a shepherd's smock - frock, 
 peers at us from out a kitchen furnace, which she 
 appears engaged in cleaning. An orchard lies 
 beyond the left side of the house, and the garden 
 is small and simply laid out like a cottager's, but
 
 SUGGESTIONS OF 'EPITAPHS' 51 
 
 full of flowers, and has a bee-hive near to the 
 thick yew-hedge which bounds it. Beside Deth- 
 wick farm there is not a house in sight ; the only 
 building near it is the church, and the churchyard 
 adjoins the garden of the right wing of the house. 
 The keys are given us, and we are sent to 
 explore alone. It is a pretty church, with a high, 
 slender tower, decorated towards the top with 
 open carving of a more elaborate kind than is 
 mostly seen in country churches. As we ascend 
 its winding staircase, the soft blue summer sky 
 shines through the narrow windows, and a merry 
 twitter from the dusky belfry draws us aside to 
 watch the white martins fluttering- round their 
 pretty nests by the heavy, silent bell, and then we 
 climb again till the topmost step is gained, and 
 the lovely landscape reposes at our feet. And it 
 does repose : there is hardly a sound to break the 
 languid, mid-day stillness of this secluded scene. 
 The haymaking is over, and woods and fields 
 have caught a richer hue from the harvest suns. 
 The fruit is ripening in the orchard, and the 
 honeysuckle berries hang in scarlet clusters beside 
 the few blossoms that remain, and upon the long 
 grey roofs the moss is changing from green to 
 amber. All is peace and quietude and plenty. 
 And the thought is strange and sad, and difficult 
 to realise, that from this sweet country-home went 
 forth, three centuries ago, a young gentleman to 
 the Court of France, to lose in that school of 
 intrigue and vice the English virtues of straight- 
 forwardness and truth, to lend a too ready ear 
 to the treasonable plots of Jesuits, and return 
 to his native land only to add to the list of those
 
 52 SUGGESTIONS OF 'EPITAPHS' 
 
 fatally misguided nobles who died an ignominious 
 death in the cause of Mary Stuart, the name of 
 Anthony Babington. Yet this was indeed the 
 case. The old mansion of Dethwick was his 
 father's house. So we stood awhile looking from 
 the church tower upon that home forfeited by 
 treason to the Crown, and tried to picture to our- 
 selves the scenes in the sad drama once enacted 
 there. We pictured stealthy rides along the 
 lonely lanes at night, fugitives skulking in the 
 outhouses, and nervous anxiety darkening the 
 social board. We thought of all the deep-laid, 
 well-concerted plans, so certain, their contrivers 
 thought, to accomplish their design, so surely 
 falling one by one into the hands of Walsingham. 
 Then a day of horror and consternation when 
 all was discovered, and the conspirators dragged 
 from their homes to meet a traitor's doom. 
 Could so dark a tragedy belong to a place like 
 this ? And history, which cannot be gainsaid, 
 answers yes ! But the warm sky shines down 
 lovingly upon it, wild - flowers breathe sweet 
 fragrance in the lanes, and many-coloured moss 
 and lichens cling to the old grey walls, for the 
 shadow of man's sin may darken his own threshold 
 — the loving care of God preserves the beauty of 
 His earth.
 
 AN ESSAY WHICH IS NO ESSAY 
 
 " I shall consider it a personal favour if you 
 write, and so will all, I am sure." This, of course, 
 settled the matter, and I immediately repaired to 
 our respected friends, "White and Pike," and 
 purchased some sheets of essay paper and a 
 Magnum- Bonum pen. Returning home with 
 the essay paper, and the Magnum-Bonum pen, 
 I revolved in my mind things in general and all 
 subjects past, present, and to come ; but not one 
 did I find but such as were unsuitable for the 
 Essay Meeting, or had already been written to 
 death there. In this sad condition I reached 
 home, bearing with me as aforesaid this paper 
 and the Magnum-Bonum. Nevertheless, though 
 the prospect was so dismal, with a stern deter- 
 mination to do my duty, I unrolled the paper, 
 dipped my pen in the ink, and — looked out of 
 the window. This I did, not through any hope 
 that a subject would come in to me through the 
 window, but from a perfect vacancy and imbecility 
 of mind. It was a very cold afternoon, but the 
 sun was shining brightly in the blue sky ; my 
 eye wandered over gardens and brown fields, 
 then a belt of houses, and beyond, brown woods 
 stretching to the horizon. In the far distance, 
 
 53
 
 54 AN ESSAY WHICH IS NO ESSAY 
 
 standing up against the sky, was the spire of a 
 church gilt and burnished by the sun's rays. 
 Suddenly a faint hope seizes me — spire, church, 
 shadow, old tombs. The subject of my essay 
 has come in at the window ; I reach a book 
 down — The Beauties of England and Wales. I 
 turn to Warwickshire, parish Solihull. My eye 
 glances over the page ; this is what I read : 
 
 " Solihull, ordinarily pronounced Silhall, con- 
 tains little to attract the notice of the examiner, 
 except the church, which is a spacious and 
 handsome building of the cruciform description," 
 — and this was all ! Not even a hint that there 
 were any tombs — not a word to hang a shadow 
 on ! How long I lay in an insensible state I 
 do not know, but when I regained my wits, I 
 was mechanically turning over the leaves of the 
 book which had given me such a cruel blow. 
 I love a topographical book, and generally in 
 proportion to its stupidity. There is a peace- 
 fulness and quiet about all such books. I 
 remember once, travelling by rail, by night, 
 the engine stopped to water at a little wayside 
 station. I had been at business all day, and my 
 mind was full of ten, five, and two-and-a-half per 
 cent, bills at three months, quotations, credit, and 
 such glorious institutions of a great commercial 
 people ; what else may have been in my head 
 was driven out of it by the noise of the train and 
 the thoughts of railways and their adjuncts, which 
 that noise suggested. Suddenly, as I said before, 
 this noise ceased, and there was that exquisite 
 stillness, that "silence sweet together" which 
 every one must have noticed on the stopping of
 
 AN ESSAY WHICH IS NO ESSAY 55 
 
 a train at a small station. The night was pitch- 
 dark and bitterly cold, and in the midst of that 
 sudden stillness, from some neighbouring village 
 tower, came the ringing of the church bells. It 
 is impossible to describe the effect that so simple 
 an incident produced. It was the realisation of 
 the greatest contrast in life, between activity 
 and repose, between the present and the past, 
 between the material and ideal. How different 
 was the mode of life between the spruce officials 
 of the railway and that old sexton and his 
 assistants ; how different the sphere of their 
 daily work — these vast termini, black engine- 
 houses, and the long lines of rail, and the 
 mouldering tower of that village church, with a 
 bunch of misletoe and holly (it was Christmas 
 time) hanging down from the roof! I might 
 follow the contrast out indefinitely, but that is not 
 my object. What that still night and the dark- 
 ness and the bells ringing in the frosty air were 
 to the bustle of commercial and railway life, just 
 such are topographical books to the rest of 
 reading. Elsewhere you read of the bustle and 
 fierce struggle of life ; here you read of its repose. 
 Elsewhere you read of mankind's hopes, fears, 
 loves, hatreds, victories, and defeats ; here you 
 read of their close and last resting-places. Else- 
 where you read of the stern realities and useful 
 things of life ; here you read that "the manor of 
 Craythorne belonged at the Conquest to the 
 Paynells, and from them passed, by an heiress, 
 into the family of Craythorne, in which it con- 
 tinued till the Civil Wars, when, the Graythornes 
 being ruined, it was sold to J. Pudsey, Esq., in
 
 56 AN ESSAY WHICH IS NO ESSAY 
 
 whose family it still remains"; and that "the 
 arms of the Craythornes — argent, on a saltier, 
 gules, five crosses patonce, or — are still to be 
 seen on their tombs " ; and this people call 
 stupid and won't read ; and the brave and 
 beautiful symbols on their armorial coats look 
 dim and old-fashioned, except perhaps at rare 
 intervals, when some simple traveller looks at 
 them with a little kindly imagination which 
 brightens and gilds them like the golden after- 
 noon sunlight streaming in upon them through the 
 stained glass. How full, too, are such books of 
 such passages as this, which I doubt not are very 
 unpleasant to many people : " Here lyeth in that 
 chapelle (that of the Nevilles in Branspeth 
 Church) a Countess of Westmoreland, sister to 
 Bouth, Archbishop of York ; also the Lord 
 Neville, father of the Erie that now is. This 
 Lord Neville died, his father the Erie yet living ; 
 whereupon the Erie took much thought, and died 
 at Horneby Castelle, in Richmondshir, and there 
 is buried in the parish church. The Erie of 
 Westmoreland that is now, had an elder brother, 
 and he lyeth in a little tombe of marble, by the 
 high altar on the south side, and at the feete of 
 hym be buried four children of the Erie's that 
 now lyveth."' This is like musing in any church- 
 yard and looking on our latter end, and reminds 
 you of that beautiful paper of Addison's on 
 Westminster Abbey which no doubt you all 
 remember, where he says : " When I look upon 
 the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy 
 dies in me ; when I meet with the grief of 
 parents on a tombstone, my heart melts with
 
 AN ESSAY WHICH IS NO ESSAY 57 
 
 compassion ; when I see the tomb of the parents 
 themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for 
 those whom we must quickly follow " ; and goes 
 on, "his face" (as Mr. Thackeray kindly says) 
 "catching quite a divine effulgence as he looks 
 heavenward," to speak of that great day when 
 " we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make 
 our appearance together." 
 
 While I am on these subjects, I crave your 
 permission to say something about that old 
 heraldry which people despise so much, without 
 knowing that in many cases it was the symbol 
 and emblem of very beautiful and noble things. 
 For instance, how many who ridicule a cross 
 " fichee " know what it means? It means that 
 the Crusader had his cross sharpened at one end, 
 that he might fix it in the earth and kneel before 
 it to pray to God ere he went to sleep. One 
 old family carried, for six hundred years, a 
 " hand manacled " in their arms, through the 
 gratitude of one of their ancestors who had 
 been marvellously delivered from long years 
 of captivity in the Holy Land. The family 
 " Pringle " bore " Escalops " to show the number 
 and devotion of their pilgrimages ; and there is 
 a story explaining the arms of Chastillion, after 
 which, I think, any man might have been proud 
 to wear them. 
 
 In the days of the first Crusades a young noble 
 of this family left his wife and two little children, 
 whom, like the Seneschal de Joinville, he "loved 
 in his heart," and, accompanied by a numerous 
 body of men-at-arms, went to the Crusade. He 
 reached the Holy Land in safety and passed
 
 58 AN ESSAY WHICH IS NO ESSAY 
 
 through many fierce battles almost without a 
 wound. But one day, riding along the sea- 
 coast, not far from St. Jean d'Acre, he was struck 
 with a deadly fever and obliged to halt at a small 
 village by the sea. That same evening, as he 
 lay dying in one of the little houses, with the 
 Arab women crying beside him, some fishermen 
 who had been out at sea, came to land, and, 
 learning of the party in the village, brought their 
 fish to sell. Among the crowd round the house 
 was one who seemed to be a chief, an old man 
 with a beard, whom the rest appeared to 
 reverence. When the fishermen brought up 
 their fish, this man made every one leave the 
 room except the young knight's page, who was 
 supporting his master's head on the wide couch, 
 and, taking a portion of the roe of several of the 
 fish and boiling it with some herbs and liquid he 
 had with him, he poured it into a cup and 
 brought it to the dying man. Addressing him 
 in the French language, he told him that he was 
 dying, that unless he assisted him, there was not 
 a quarter of an hour's life in him, but that he had 
 there a medicine of such wonderful virtue as 
 would cure immediately ; but he continued that 
 this medicine could not be taken by a Christian, 
 and that before he took it, he must own Mahomet 
 and deny Christ ; and as he spoke, he held the 
 cup close to the young man's lips. The young 
 knight was very ill, his senses were nearly gone, 
 and he had no strength to argue with the 
 tempter, as the latter knew very well ; but, in 
 that supreme moment, strength was given him 
 to say one word, and that was — " No " !
 
 AN ESSAY WHICH IS NO ESSAY 59 
 
 " But consider, Beau Sire," said the old man, 
 " you are so young to die, and the Souldan, 
 our master, will advance you to high dignity and 
 honour, and every earthly delight that you can 
 conceive, you shall have." 
 
 The young knight had not strength to tell him 
 that death would come sooner or later, and that 
 then all these things would be worse than of no 
 account ; but he had just sufficient strength to say 
 that one word again — " No " ! 
 
 " But consider, Beau Sire, that you will never 
 see your home any more, nor your lady and young 
 children, that wait for your coming, and all the 
 friends that love you, and the fair country from 
 whence you came. Smell it, mon Seigneur ! " 
 and he held the cup close to the dying man. It 
 had a cool sweet smell that seemed to promise 
 life, and, as the young man inhaled it, it seemed 
 to give him back a portion of his strength, and 
 with it all the delights of existence, and a fierce 
 longing for life came over him with resistless 
 force. He raised himself on the couch, and 
 taking the cup from the old man, looked at him 
 with a faint smile, as though he thanked him ; 
 then, collecting all his remaining strength in one 
 last effort, he Hung the cup from him across the 
 room, so that every drop of the precious elixir 
 was lost in the sand ; and sinking back upon the 
 couch with a low murmur and a faint smile still 
 upon his lips, he died. And the Chastillions of 
 Chastillion bore ever afterwards in their arms 
 azure, three fish argent, and a chalice or. This 
 story of fish and fishermen may remind us, not I 
 hope unbecomingly, of certain other fishermen
 
 60 AN ESSAY WHICH IS NO ESSAY 
 
 more than 1800 years ago, who, on the day of 
 which this is the anniversary, endured the cruel 
 death of their Master that all the world might 
 live ; in connection with which I cannot do better 
 than conclude with one verse of the pious muse 
 of Keble, more especially as it carries out to 
 the utmost degree that contrast of which I spoke 
 before : 
 
 Then like a long-forgotten strain, 
 
 Comes sweeping o'er the heart forlorn, 
 
 What sunshine hours had taught in vain 
 Of Jesus suffering shame and scorn ; 
 
 As in all lowly hearts He suffers still, 
 
 While we triumphant ride, and have the world at will.
 
 THE SUCCESSOR OF MONSIEUR 
 
 LE SAGE 
 
 I 
 
 It has become almost a truism to say that the 
 great wants of modern literature are simplicity 
 and repose. The admirable prefaces of Matthew 
 Arnold have sufficiently insisted upon this, and 
 his poems (admirable in no mean degree as poems, 
 and still more so as literary studies) have suffi- 
 ciently placed before the English student the 
 lofty tranquillity and calm thought of the great 
 classic models. 
 
 The artificial state of society, which is the 
 result of our civilisation, and of the universal 
 acquirement of superficial knowledge, is con- 
 tinually craving for new and exciting food ; and 
 this insatiable appetite is met by the overwhelming 
 supply of the newspaper and periodical press ; by 
 the works of fiction, with their startling incidents 
 and involved plots, and the unnatural connection 
 preserved between every incident from the first 
 volume to the last ; and by the numberless publica- 
 tions of the (so-called) " religious world," different 
 perhaps, but not less exciting than the rest. 
 
 In the midst of all this whirl of dissipation, it 
 is a great refreshment and relief to turn to the 
 
 61
 
 62 THE SUCCESSOR OF 
 
 works of the earlier human mind, before it became 
 so utterly sophisticated and artificial. The feeling 
 of repose and rest which comes over the mind 
 after reading Arnold's Merope (modelled to the 
 life after these works) is delicious. The freshness 
 and simplicity of the allusions and descriptions, 
 the fewness of the incidents, and the intensity 
 of feeling produced by the few strongly defined 
 passions on which the drama depends, all lead 
 to an admirably calm and quiet frame of mind. 
 
 But it is not the intention of this essay to go 
 so far back in literary history as the Greek 
 tragedies to find a style which is, by its delight- 
 ful simplicity, a refreshment in the turmoil and 
 confusion of the world of letters of the present 
 day. 
 
 Monsieur Le Sage wrote for a society as artificial 
 as our own, but not so blase ; there was not so 
 great a demand for literary novelty, superficial 
 knowledge was not so diffused, and there remained 
 still unexplored regions for the enterprises of 
 literary pioneers. It was reserved for George 
 Borrow to produce in the nineteenth century 
 works equal in most points and superior in many, 
 and a sensation as profound, as Alain Rene le 
 Sage produced in the eighteenth. 
 
 When the Bible in Spain first appeared, the 
 likeness to Gil Bias was noticed, but the approved 
 criticism l seemed to be, " Yes, Gil Bias in water- 
 colours." If Borrow had given us nothing else 
 than the Bible in Spain, this criticism might have 
 stood ; though it would have been, as all smart 
 sayings are, eminently superficial. I am inclined 
 
 1 Spectator, Dec. 17, 1842.
 
 MONSIEUR LE SAGE 63 
 
 to think that the chief point of resemblance which 
 struck the critics was that both books treated of 
 Spain and Spanish life. The books in many 
 points are essentially different. The agent of the 
 Bible Society goes through Spain as a passing 
 traveller ; Gil Bias remains for a time, more or 
 less long in one place, taking service with various 
 masters, and becoming acquainted with the inner 
 life and interest of families and persons. Borrow, 
 therefore, could only image men and women as 
 they seemed to him in the passing glimpses 
 afforded to a traveller (though one perhaps with 
 unusual advantages) ; Gil Bias drew them to the 
 life, as a man is known to his dearest friend, a 
 hero to his valet de chambre ; therefore, what I 
 suppose was meant by the water-colour critique — 
 the inferiority in the delineation of character- 
 though at first it might seem a well-founded 
 criticism, is in reality a necessity to the plan of 
 the whole book. There is another point which 
 may explain the idea which actuated the critic in 
 the Spectator, the inferiority in the delineation of 
 intrigues and vice ; the critic educated to delight 
 in the excitement of the involved plot of an 
 intrigue, whether of ambition or of avarice or of 
 any other passion, was perhaps scarcely competent 
 to form an unbiassed opinion on the singleness 
 and simplicity of the idea which was the cause of 
 the Bible in Spain, but it is not necessary to 
 pursue this part of the subject at present. 
 
 In spite, however, of these, as it might seem, 
 two vital points, there is a great and wonderful 
 resemblance between the two books (I take the 
 French edition of Gil Bias as the original one).
 
 64 THE SUCCESSOR OF 
 
 And first as to style. In this it is rather difficult 
 to decide where this resemblance lies, because the 
 vraisemblance is not perfect. The style of Gil 
 Bias is more polished than that of the Bible in 
 Spain, the sentences are more carefully rounded. 
 In this respect it reminds one more of that of 
 Goldsmith, it is so excessively simple, flowing, 
 and easy. Where then does its resemblance to 
 the Bible in Spai?z lie ? In the excessive simplicity 
 of the words and the ideas. There is no attempt 
 in either of the books at what is called fine writing, 
 there is a perfect absence of any attempt at a stilted 
 or grand class of ideas and thoughts. The most 
 everyday incidents, the most common thoughts, 
 are expressed in the simplest and easiest way. 
 This gives both books an indescribable reality 
 and charm. We are not reading the mere opinions 
 of a writer upon certain elevated subjects, we are 
 not reading a book full of fine writing and magni- 
 ficent ideas, which find no echo in our own breasts, 
 but we are reading the story of one of ourselves, 
 walking upon the same earth, and looking at 
 strange or familiar things with the same eyes, 
 thinking of them with the same ideas, affected by 
 them with the same emotions as we ourselves. 
 We shall have a specimen of this style in some 
 extracts which we shall copy presently. 
 
 The second point of resemblance between Gil 
 Bias and the Bible in Spain consists in the 
 exquisite description of small incidents of travel. 
 I do not think that in this respect either book is 
 surpassed by anything in the whole world of 
 writing. The incidents told so simply and in so 
 few words stand out before you, and remain in
 
 MONSIEUR LE SAGE 65 
 
 your recollection with a graphic force and an 
 enduring reality almost magical. I will give one 
 instance out of Gil Bias ; any one may find twenty 
 out of the Bible in Spain. Gil Bias is travelling 
 on foot with a barber's apprentice. 1 
 
 Lorsque nous eumes fait environ deux lieues, nous nous 
 sentimes de l'appetit ; et comme nous apercumes, a deux 
 cents pas du grand chemin, plusieurs gros arbres qui formaient 
 dans la campagne un ombrage tres agreable, nous allames 
 faire halte en cet endroit. Nous y rencontrames un homme de 
 vingt-sept a vingt-huit ans, qui trempait des croutes de pain 
 dans une fontaine. II avait aupres de lui une longue rapiere 
 etendue sur l'herbe, avec un havresac dont il s'etait decharge 
 les epaules. II nous parut mal vetu mais bien fait et de 
 bonne mine. Nous l'abordames civilement ; il nous salua de 
 meme. Ensuite il nous presenta de ses croutes, et nous 
 demanda, d'un air riant, si nous voulions etre de la partie. 
 Nous lui repondimes qu'oui, pourvu qu'il trouvat bon que, 
 pour rendre le repas plus solide, nous joignissions notre 
 dejeuner au sien. II y consentit fort volontiers, et nous 
 exhibames aussitot nos denrees, ce qui ne deplut point a 
 l'inconnu. Comment done, messieurs ! s'ecria-t-il tout trans- 
 pose de joie, voila bien des munitions ! Vous etes, a ce que 
 je vois, des gens de prevoyance. Je ne voyage pas avec 
 tant de precaution, moi. Je donne beaucoup au hasard. 
 Cependant, malgre l'etat ou vous me trouvez, je puis dire, sans 
 vanite, que je fais quelquefois une figure assez brillante. 
 Savez-vous bien qu'on me traite ordinairement de prince et 
 que j'ai des gardes a ma suite ? — Je vous entends, dit Diego ; 
 vous voulez nous faire comprendre par-la que vous etes 
 comedien. — -Vous l'avez devine, repondit l'autre ; je fais la 
 comedie depuis quinze annees pour le moins. Je n'etais 
 encore qu'un enfant, que je jouais deja de petits roles. — 
 Franchement, repliqua le barbier en branlant la tete, j'ai de 
 la peine a. vous croire. Je connais les comediens ; ces 
 messieurs-la ne font pas, comme vous, des voyages a pied, ni 
 des repas de Saint Antoine ; je doute meme que vous mouchiez 
 les chandelles. — Vous pouvez, repartit l'histrion, penser de 
 moi tout ce qu'il vous plaira ; mais je ne laisse pas de jouer 
 
 1 Histoire de Gil Bias de Santillane, livre ii. chap. viii. 
 VOL. II F
 
 66 THE SUCCESSOR OF 
 
 les premiers roles ; je fais les amoureux. — Cela etant, dit mon 
 camarade, je vous en felicite, et suis ravi que le seigneur Gil 
 Bias et moi nous ayons l'honneur de dejeuner avec un per- 
 sonnage d'une si grande importance. 
 
 I will not apologise for so long a quotation : it 
 is quite delightful enough to be its own excuse. 
 
 As I said before, it is useless to quote from the 
 Bible in Spain, which doubtless is in the hands of 
 every member of the Essay Meeting. Every 
 one must remember that magnificent chapter, the 
 eleventh, which begins so pleasantly : " I pro- 
 ceeded down the pass of Mirabete, occasionally 
 ruminating on the matter which had brought me 
 to Spain, and occasionally admiring one of the 
 finest prospects in the world " ; and goes on to 
 describe so wonderfully the company round the 
 huge fire of the venta, the shepherd who wished 
 to be a wolf — the frightful story of the wolves 
 told by the broken soldier just returned from the 
 wars, at the end of which we seem to fall into the 
 same dreamy doze with the writer, and to be 
 wakened from it, as he was, by the loud voice of 
 the beggar, relating how his gypsy friends had 
 been captured. This, and numberless other speci- 
 mens such as this, must be in the recollection of 
 every one. 
 
 I have said that Borrow, the rival of le Sage 
 in these respects, is his superior in some others, 
 and I think this assertion is not difficult of 
 proof. 
 
 First, in the religious element I contend that 
 the noble aim of Borrow's journey, and the spirit 
 of simple and trusting faith which accompanies
 
 MONSIEUR LE SAGE 67 
 
 him through the whole book, give it an increase 
 of interest, and a sustained and united sympathy, 
 which, merely in a literary point of view, greatly 
 enchances its value and merit. When we read 
 such passages as the following, who will say that 
 our interest and admiration is not increased by 
 glimpses of such a spirit ? Gil Bias is nothing but 
 a clever, good-natured scoundrel, with no aim in 
 view but a selfish one of his own aggrandisement ; 
 but in such passages as this Borrow reminds us 
 of one of the heroes of the old stories of Christian 
 Chivalry, half saint, half knight, riding through 
 wild moors and desolate haunted forests on some 
 holy mission or quest. He is travelling alone 
 with an idiot boy for guide. 
 
 We soon entered the dismal wood, which I had already 
 traversed, and through which we wended our way for some 
 time, slowly and mournfully. Not a sound was to be heard 
 save the trampling of the animals, not a breath of air moved 
 the leafless branches, no animal stirred in the thickets, no bird, 
 not even the owl, flew over our heads, all seemed desolate and 
 dead ; and during my many and far wanderings, I never 
 experienced a greater sensation of loneliness, and a greater 
 desire for conversation and an exchange of ideas, than then. 
 To speak to the idiot was useless, for though competent to 
 show the road, with which he was well acquainted, he had no 
 other answer than an uncouth laugh to any question put to 
 him. Thus situated, like many other persons when human 
 comfort is not at hand, I turned my heart to God, and began 
 to commune with Him, the result of which was that my mind 
 soon became quieted and comforted. 1 
 
 Is not this simple and beautiful ? And under 
 the influence of the same spirit he now and then 
 reaches a sublimity at which Gil Bias never aimed. 
 
 1 Bible in Spain, p. 31.
 
 68 THE SUCCESSOR OF 
 
 For instance, he attended an execution for murder 
 at Madrid. The culprit 
 
 was led up the scaffold, where he was placed on the chair 
 and the fatal collar put round his neck. One of the priests 
 then in a loud voice began saying the Belief, and the culprit 
 repeated the words after him. On a sudden, the executioner, 
 who stood behind, commenced turning the screw, which was 
 of prodigious force, and the wretched man was almost instantly 
 a corpse ; but, as the screw went round, the priest began to 
 shout, "Pax et misericordia et tranquillitas," and still as he 
 shouted his voice became louder and louder, till the lofty walls 
 of Madrid rang with it ; then stooping down, he placed his 
 mouth close to the culprit's ear, still shouting, just as if he 
 would pursue the spirit through its course to eternity, cheering 
 it on its way. The effect was tremendous. I myself was 
 so excited that I involuntarily shouted "misericordia," and so 
 did many others. God was not thought of, Christ was not 
 thought of; only the priest was thought of, for he seemed at 
 that moment to be the first being in existence, to have the 
 power of opening and shutting the gates of heaven or of hell, 
 just as he should think proper. A striking instance of the 
 successful working of the Popish system, whose grand aim has 
 ever been to keep people's minds as far as possible from God, 
 and to centre their hopes and fears in the priesthood. 1 
 
 Did you ever read anything more sublime 
 and yet more simple than the description of this 
 scene ? 
 
 This is another short sentence, the last, written 
 at Finisterra : 
 
 As for myself, when I viewed that wide ocean and its savage 
 shore, I cried, Such is the grave, and such are its terrific sides ; 
 those moors and wilds, over which I have passed, are the rough 
 and dreary journey of life. Cheered with hope, we struggle 
 along through all the difficulties of moor, bog, and mountain, 
 to arrive at — what? The grave and its dreary sides. Oh, 
 may hope not desert us in the last hour — hope in the Redeemer 
 and in God ! " 
 
 1 Bible in Spain, p. 72. - Ibid. p. 177.
 
 MONSIEUR LE SAGE 69 
 
 There is another point of superiority in the 
 Bible in Spain which I reserve for a future 
 evening, but which I will mention now : I mean 
 the gorgeous sunlight of romance which glows 
 over the whole book. Gil Bias has no pretensions 
 to this : it is a novel, not a romance. It is written 
 in a perfectly worldly spirit, and looks at every- 
 thing in a worldly way ; but the Bible in Spain 
 teems with romance, nor does this in any way 
 take off from the reality and manifest truth of 
 the book, which is its greatest charm. It is 
 precisely that kind of romance which you expect 
 to meet with in a Spanish book ; which we see at 
 once is of the very nature and extent which the 
 romance of Spanish life must be ; without which 
 we should be disappointed in any book which 
 professed to treat of that life, and justly so, for 
 without it any such book would be miserably 
 incomplete and unreal. A commercial traveller's 
 view of Spain would probably be as absurd as 
 John Ruskin's late idea of a paternal government, 
 only in precisely the opposite way. Spain is a 
 country of which Englishmen who have never 
 left their native land can form only a very limited 
 and imperfect idea. It is in its history, principles, 
 and estate the very opposite to our own land. 
 It sits (Spain, itself, I mean, for the court, whose 
 wretched history we read in the newspapers, is 
 isolated from the real country), in the midst of 
 its loveliness, in a perpetual dream over its former 
 greatness. Life in it is more a dream than a 
 reality : its old decayed towns with half the houses 
 unoccupied, ancient palaces turned into dwelling- 
 houses, rare and old libraries and paintings in
 
 70 THE SUCCESSOR OF 
 
 secluded and forgotten cloisters, the primitive 
 customs, the public fountains where the muleteers 
 water their mules, the general belief in strange 
 charms and ceremonies, the long and dangerous 
 travelling, the whole people resting largely and 
 contentedly centuries behind the world instead 
 of striving frantically to keep in advance of it, — all 
 this implies and necessitates such a total differ- 
 ence, such an absolute inversion of those beliefs, 
 principles, and opinions which govern and actuate 
 a people, that any book which did not realise 
 them, but which regards Spain with an English 
 eye, would necessarily be incomplete and unreal. 
 The " Romance of the Road," which has long been 
 a tradition only in England, is in all its perfection 
 in Spain. The wildness of the country, the in- 
 security of the ways, the lawlessness of the people, 
 the inefficiency and dishonesty of the Aguazils 
 and police, the length and difficulty of the journeys, 
 the primitive modes of travelling, the incidents of 
 inn experience, and the frequent wars which have 
 disturbed the peace of the country, have long 
 preserved this romance, which the improvements 
 and progress of civilisation have banished from 
 England and most other European countries : 
 these and other causes, reacting upon the people, 
 have formed a nation as opposite to Englishmen 
 as their country is to England. The insecurity 
 which extends over the whole land, and the utter 
 absence of any vital religion, have fostered a 
 superstition to be found in no other European 
 country ; yet the remains of that noble nature 
 which once made Spain mistress of the world 
 cast so much fascination over the faults of the
 
 MONSIEUR LE SAGE 71 
 
 Spanish people, that to my thinking the latter 
 romance of Spain fallen is scarcely less entrancing 
 than the former one of Spain triumphant. 
 
 Again, what more perfect elements of romance 
 (still with such evident truth and simplicity) could 
 we find anywhere than in the gypsy hag's story 
 of her life in the old mansion at Menda? The 
 country of the Corahai (Moors) ; the yellow sandy 
 desert between the town which belongs to Spain 
 and the territory of the Moors ; the fugitive 
 soldier ; the strange town on the Moorish border, 
 full of people who had been Christians but 
 who had renegaded to the Moors ; Spaniards, 
 Portuguese, gypsies ; the black people who 
 wandered about continually in the desert, and 
 who were neither Moors nor negroes nor gypsies ; 
 the loss of her whole company in the wide river, 
 and the wandering about in the mountains and 
 the desert, howling and lamenting to the verge of 
 madness. Where would we find a more vivid 
 romance of real life — not less real because so 
 different to ours — than this ? 
 
 I might multiply numberless examples, such 
 as that of the maniac under the mined tower 
 overlooking the wild heath near Elvas ; and 
 others which, as Borrow himself says, present to 
 our minds pictures of romance, and terror, and 
 strangeness, such as neither painter nor poet ever 
 dreamed in the wildest of their musings ; I might 
 fill pages with what I have not touched upon, 
 the unsurpassed painting of scenery (as, for in- 
 stance, the magnificent description of Finisterra) ; 
 but this paper is egregiously long as it is, and I 
 must stop for the present. I hope, in a second
 
 72 THE SUCCESSOR OF 
 
 essay, to say something about Borrow's three 
 other books — the Gypsies in Spain, Lavengro, 
 and the Romany Rye ; and also to remark on 
 two other characteristics of our author, a profound 
 reading in the literature of all nations, and a 
 devoted study of that science of comparative 
 philology which is but now beginning to be 
 appreciated as it deserves. 
 
 II 
 
 One of the charms of Borrow's books is their 
 suggestiveness. This is partly owing to the 
 learning of the author, which enables him to 
 point out and to trace events and coincidences, 
 both in ethnology and philology, which lead to 
 very interesting and wonderful results. I shall 
 say more of this when I come to speak of 
 philology separately. The other cause of this 
 suggestiveness is the simple way in which Borrow 
 writes down all he saw and heard ; for, if we 
 would but take notice of them, every man's life, 
 even the most commonplace one, is manifestly 
 full of events and circumstances, which will 
 suggest many worthy thoughts and unexpected 
 truths. Many will remember the instance I shall 
 quote of the young Alcade of Corcurion, who 
 possessed all the works of Jeremy Bentham, 
 whom he studied from morning till night, and 
 considered the most universal genius which the 
 world ever produced, and who, on seeing the 
 Testament in Borrow's hand, said he had heard 
 "that the English highly prize that eccentric
 
 MONSIEUR LE SAGE 73 
 
 book. How very singular that the countrymen 
 of the Grand Baintham should set any value upon 
 that old monkish book ! " I think that any one 
 who will meditate a little on this sentence, who 
 will try to realise the state of mind which 
 prompted it, who will try to look at the two 
 books from the same point of view that the 
 Alcade did, and who, in order that he may do so, 
 will let his mind run through the same course of 
 instruction which the Spanish mind had been 
 slowly treading for ages, before the Alcade could 
 look at the two books from that point of view or 
 say that sentence, — any one, I say, who will do this 
 will find, I think, reflections which will repay him 
 for his trouble. 
 
 In my former essay I was obliged to notice 
 several points of difference between the Bible in 
 Spain and Gil Bias : my work henceforward will 
 be very much simplified. As we go on, the 
 writings ol both authors grow more and more 
 alike ; the difference in their spirit may remain 
 unaltered, but the events they treat of resemble 
 each other more and more, and the circumstances 
 under which they occur approximate closer and 
 closer. 
 
 We say the difference in their spirit may 
 remain unaltered, for, though it varies in its 
 aspects under the different circumstances of the 
 books, still the religious element remains unabated 
 through all Borrow's works — unaffected and 
 unobtrusive, but not the less present for that. 
 We have recently found ourselves, very un- 
 expectedly, in the midst of a religious controversy 
 ot no ordinary depth and importance, and we now
 
 74 THE SUCCESSOR OF 
 
 find ourselves, not the less unexpectedly, in 
 another. We do not wish to complain of this. 
 We believe fully that the religious element should 
 so thoroughly penetrate everything that no subject, 
 literary or otherwise, should be fully discussed 
 without some regard to it. Since our last meeting 
 we have been told that our estimate of George 
 Borrows religious feeling is greatly overdrawn, 
 that he went to Spain merely to gratify his love 
 of travel and adventure, and that those who know 
 him say he has no appearance of a religious man. 
 With regard to this last assertion, we need say 
 nothing — it is only hearsay and not admissible as 
 evidence ; nevertheless we will say that it is con- 
 tradicted in every page of his books. As to the 
 former portion of the objection, we freely admit 
 that Borrow was peculiarly suited to his mission, 
 and doubtless derived great pleasure from it (as 
 indeed he frequently admits) ; but it is a doctrine 
 the truth of which we have yet to be convinced 
 of, that a man can do God's work only in the way 
 for which He has least fitted him. In the pre- 
 sent instance, what we must be permitted to call 
 the bigotry of the assertion is to us almost in- 
 conceivable. Because George Borrow does not 
 adopt the peculiar cant, the well-known stock 
 phrases in which it is considered correct for a 
 religious man to write — the favourite phraseology 
 of any particular sect ; because his religon is 
 unobtrusive, and he makes no pretence or show 
 of his feelings, — all the good he did goes for 
 nothing, all those thousands of Testaments which 
 he spread throughout all Spain, all his efforts for 
 the improvement of the most degraded gypsy
 
 MONSIEUR LE SAGE 75 
 
 tribes must go for nothing ; and not only so, but 
 he is looked on as a worse man than if he had 
 gone through Spain as an ordinary traveller, with- 
 out one thought of religion or of God. It should 
 always be remembered that Borrow makes no 
 claim to be more religious than his neighbours, 
 that he always speaks of himself as an unworthy 
 instrument in the Divine hand, and that he 
 appears to have adopted for his rule of life what 
 he finely says on the death of his father : " What- 
 ever I did or thought is best known to God and 
 myself, but it will be as well to observe that it is 
 
 possible to feel deeply and yet make no outward 
 
 » 1 
 S1 g n - 
 
 The Gypsies in Spain, which was the first of 
 Borrows books, presents to the full some of 
 the excellences of his style. The scenes and 
 adventures with the gypsies are equal to anything 
 in Gil Bias, and indeed very much resemble it. 
 The account of the English gypsies in the intro- 
 duction is exceedingly interesting, and would 
 have been more so if we had not had so delightful 
 a description of them in the author's two last 
 works. If he had done nothing else but this — 
 nothing but put on record what he alone of all 
 Englishmen was capable of recording, — the life, 
 manners, and habits of a fast decaying people, 
 and thereby adding a chapter of great interest to 
 the history of the world, — he would be worthy of 
 the lasting praise and thanks of all scholars and 
 enlightened men. 
 
 When Borrow began Lavengro he evidently 
 intended to produce a correct three-volume novel, 
 
 1 Lavengro, vol i.
 
 76 THE SUCCESSOR OF 
 
 having a plot, a beginning, an end, a hero, and a 
 villain — a task which he was as incompetent to 
 perform as Le Sage would have been himself. 
 Borrow begins his book with the utmost propriety : 
 his father the officer, his mother, his brother, the 
 little country town, — all are brought on the stage 
 in the most correct way, though with a reality 
 and a beauty rarely equalled ; but in a very short 
 time the orthodox novel -reader will begin to 
 have doubts about the book. The very slight 
 incidents of boyhood are dwelt upon at such 
 length, such strange subjects are introduced, there 
 are no startling incidents ; above all, he will 
 perceive no trace or foreshadowing of a heroine. 
 The author is evidently struggling under the 
 trammels of a plot which he will soon cast off to 
 follow his own way. As we go on the incidents 
 and conversations are not those of a novel. 
 There is none of that unnatural chain of events 
 tending towards the final denouement. The hero 
 sees persons and things which have no effect on 
 the story, though they all leave a carefully marked 
 result on his own mind. People come in his way, 
 vanish for a time and turn up, sometimes un- 
 expectedly, to vanish and to appear again ; but 
 nothing comes of it. The characters at the 
 beginning of his story vanish completely, to be 
 succeeded by others. This certainly is not a 
 novel, but it is something better. We feel it 
 is a real man living, and that the education of 
 his life is going on all the while. But in the 
 novelist's craft the old schoolboy's sentence is 
 reversed — Vita longa, ars brevis est. Before 
 the story is half told, before the character is
 
 MONSIEUR LE SAGE 7 y 
 
 formed, before the life is nearly complete, the 
 end of the three volumes is reached, the law and 
 the publishers are inexorable, and the narration 
 breaks off without the slightest warning, to be 
 renewed in the Romany Rye, and, at the end of 
 the two volumes of the latter work, to be dis- 
 continued again as unexpectedly. 
 
 The story of Lavengro (the word means 
 master) is soon told. The son of an officer, his 
 natural love of travel and adventure fostered by 
 the frequent change of scene which his father's 
 profession obliged, the boy becomes acquainted 
 with the homeliest and simplest forms of rural life : 
 "amongst poore hyndes, in hils, in woods, in dales" ; 
 amidst the green lanes and breezy commons and 
 hedge ale-houses of England; amongst her gypsies 
 and pedlars and strolling tinkers and snake- 
 catchers and rat-catchers and Irish labourers and 
 harvesters and prize-fighters. Polite society will 
 be surprised to learn that he does not find these 
 unknown races by any means so unmitigatedly 
 wicked as is supposed, but that, on the contrary, 
 he finds many among them who are in the daily 
 habit of practising several of the virtues, and 
 hears as much truth and philosophic reasoning 
 among them as he could reasonably expect to 
 find among any class of people. He goes to 
 London on his father's death, and endeavours to 
 earn his livelihood by writing ; and here again 
 he becomes acquainted with many notable char- 
 acters, chiefly among the poor. Finding, how- 
 ever, that his "translation of the Ancient Songs 
 of Denmark, heroic and romantic, with notes 
 philological, critical, and historical," and his
 
 78 THE SUCCESSOR OF 
 
 " Songs of Ab Gwilym, the Welsh bard," also 
 translated with notes, do not command a high 
 price in the literary market, and having written 
 for the magazines, etc., till he is almost ill with 
 restraint, he writes a tale in a week, for which he 
 gets twenty pounds, and " takes to the roads for 
 fear of consumption." As he has only this twenty 
 pounds, he buys a tinker's cart and apparatus, 
 and sets up as a wandering tinker ; afterwards he 
 becomes "gypsy, postillion, ostler, associating 
 with various kinds of people, chiefly among the 
 poorer class, and following his favourite pursuits, 
 hunting after strange characters, or analysing 
 strange words and names." The characters he 
 sketches in this wandering narration are most 
 curious and admirable, the description of them 
 and of scenes and incidents beyond all praise. 
 The language (perfectly simple, plain, and un- 
 affected) has a force and strength rarely surpassed, 
 and not unfrequently reaches a poetic beauty and 
 a lofty sublimity which the finest writers but 
 seldom have had the good fortune to attain to. 
 Over all and through all is very evident that 
 same spirit of unaffected, all -pervading religion 
 which sent him to the wilds of the Alemtejo and 
 through the mountain passes of Fuencebadon 
 and the bellotas with the Bible in his hand as 
 a present to popish Spain. We have no space 
 to quote, but as a proof of this, among many 
 others, let any one read the description of the 
 camp meeting and the Methodist preacher in 
 the first volume of Lavengro, p. 316. As an 
 instance of the exquisite beauty of his simple 
 diction we will quote two or three sentences. It
 
 MONSIEUR LE SAGE 79 
 
 is the reply of a gypsy when Lavengro asks him 
 if he did not wish to die. 
 
 "Life is sweet, brother." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " 
 
 "Think so! There's night and day, brother, both sweet 
 things ; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things ; there's 
 likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother ; 
 who would wish to die ? " 
 
 " I would wish to die " 
 
 " You talk like a Gorgis — which is the same as talking like 
 a fool — were you a Romany Chal you would talk wiser. 
 Wish to die, indeed ! A Romany Chal would wish to live 
 for ever ! " 
 
 "In sickness, Jasper?" 
 
 "There's the sun and stars, brother." 
 
 "In blindness, Jasper?" 
 
 " There's the wind on the heath, brother ; if I could only 
 feel that, I would gladly live for ever. Dosta, we'll now go to 
 the tents and put on the gloves; and I'll try to make you 
 feel what a sweet thing it is to be alive, brother ! " 1 
 
 This is a poem, and a very beautiful one, in 
 itself. The following description of Alpine scenery 
 reminds one of Mr. Ruskin : — 
 
 Once, when travelling in an Alpine country, I arrived at a 
 considerable elevation ; I saw in the distance, far below, a 
 beautiful stream, hastening to the ocean, its rapid waters here 
 sparkling in the sunshine, and there tumbling merrily in cas- 
 cades. On its banks were vineyards and cheerful villages ; 
 close to where I stood, in a granite basin, with steep and 
 precipitous sides, slumber'd a deep, dark lagoon, shaded by 
 black pines, cypresses, and yews. It was a wild, savage spot, 
 strange and singular ; ravens hovered above the pines, filling 
 the air with their uncouth notes, pies chatter'd, and I heard 
 the cry of an eagle from a neighbouring peak ; there lay the 
 lake, the dark, solitary, and almost inaccessible lake; gloomy 
 shadows were upon it, which, strangely modified, as gusts of 
 wind agitated the surface, occasionally assumed the shape of 
 monsters. So I stood on the Alpine elevation, and now looked 
 
 1 Laveyigro, vol. i.
 
 8o THE SUCCESSOR OF 
 
 down on the gay, distant river, and now at the dark granite- 
 encircled lake close beside me in the lone solitude, and I 
 thought of my brother and myself. I am no moraliser ; but 
 the gay and rapid river, and the dark and silent lake, were, of 
 a verity, no bad emblems of us two. 1 
 
 The Romany Rye (Gypsy gentleman) is only 
 a continuation of Lavengro, and has therefore no 
 plot. It merely carries on the history a little 
 farther, and leaves the hero on the point of making 
 a philological journey to India. Among the 
 many admirable characters in both books we will 
 just mention the gypsy Mr. Petulengro (or Smith), 
 the old apple-woman, the rich gentleman who 
 touched objects to avert the evil chance, the old 
 gypsy hag, Peter Williams, the man in black, the 
 landlord, the old man and his bees, the old 
 gentleman who read runes upon a teapot, and 
 the Hungarian at Horncastle who held Sir Walter 
 Scott in such contempt ; and certainly no review 
 of Borrows books should pass without mention 
 of the beautiful descriptions of country scenery 
 or of the picturesque bits of road travelling, at 
 inns, on coaches, on horseback, on foot, or with 
 a tinker's cart. We would also wish to point out 
 the excellent presentment of different states of 
 religious or non-religious feeling — as, for instance, 
 the conversations with "the man in black," and 
 the opinions of the Elderly Personage of chapter 
 xxiii. 
 
 In our last essay we quoted a scene from Gil 
 Bias ; we have only to open Borrow's two books 
 anywhere to find scenes so closely resembling Le 
 Sage as to mark the similarity of genius. We 
 
 1 Lavengro, vol. i. chap. i.
 
 MONSIEUR LE SAGE 81 
 
 have been trying to select one of these both as a 
 proof of this, and as a good sample of Borrow's 
 style and of the interest his narrations excite, but 
 they are all too long for an Essay Meeting paper. 
 The following, though it is nothing to many we 
 should have liked to quote, will at least show the 
 way he mixes with the country-people, and the 
 kind of intercourse he held with them : — 
 
 After traversing two or three counties, I touched the con- 
 fines of Lincolnshire. During one particularly hot day I put 
 up at a public-house, to which, in the evening, came a party 
 of harvesters to make merry, who, finding me wandering about 
 the house a stranger, invited me to partake of their ale ; so I 
 drank with the harvesters, who sang me songs about rural life, 
 such as — 
 
 Sitting in the swale and listening to the swindle of the flail 
 as it sounds dub-a-dub on the corn from the neighbouring barn. 
 
 In requital for which I treated them with a song, not of 
 Romanvile, but the song of "Sivord and the Horse Grayman." 
 I remained with them till it was dark, having after sunset 
 entered into deep discourse with a celebrated rat-catcher, who 
 communicated to me the secrets of his trade, saying, amongst 
 other things, "When you see the rats pouring out of their 
 holes, and running up my hands and arms, it's not after me 
 they comes, but after the oils I carries about me they comes " ; 
 and who subsequently spoke in the most enthusiastic manner 
 of his trade, saying that it was the best trade in the world and 
 most diverting, and that it was likely to last for ever; for 
 whereas all other kinds of vermin were fast disappearing from 
 England, rats were every day becoming more abundant. I 
 quitted this good company and proceeded on my way. 
 
 It is not possible that I can conclude this essay 
 without saying something about the appendix 
 which Borrow has added to the Romany Rye. 
 This part of the book has been very severely 
 handled by the critics and others. I do not 
 
 VOL. II G
 
 82 THE SUCCESSOR OF 
 
 agree with many in regretting that Borrow has 
 written it (except perhaps in a purely literary 
 view), for I think no writing sent into the world 
 with such an earnest intention to do good as this 
 evidently shows can be useless or thrown away. 
 
 Borrows whole life (a wandering and unsettled, 
 though in many respects a noble one) has given 
 him an intense aversion to the conventionalisms 
 and deceits of modern society. There is doubt- 
 less great exaggeration in what he says on this 
 subject (we should be inclined to think through 
 ignorance of the highest society), but there is no 
 manner of doubt that it is exaggeration which 
 springs from a noble source. He is enamoured 
 of the rough, manly virtues of many of those 
 among whom he has lived, among the lanes and 
 dingles of the country ; he is disgusted with the 
 vices which are only too evident among the 
 higher classes, and he adopts a partial and one- 
 sided line of argument, which he would be the 
 first to deprecate if applied to his own friends. 
 Does he suppose that no faults could be found 
 among those prize-fighters and tinkers, whose 
 manly courage and kind-heartedness he so much 
 admires, or that no virtues could be discovered 
 in the sons of office-holding Whigs — even though 
 they do carry that " badge of the low scoundrel 
 puppy, the gilt chain at the waistcoat pocket " ? 
 No doubt there is folly and vice and puppyism 
 and cowardice in many a well-dressed circle ; no 
 doubt there is much honest -heartedness and 
 noble courage and kindliness in many a poor 
 fellow whom the world calls blackguard and 
 brute ; but to imagine that there is no courage
 
 MONSIEUR LE SAGE 83 
 
 or manliness but in prize-fighters or the leaders 
 of a Chartist mob is no more free from puppyism 
 and conventionalism (though of the opposite kind) 
 than that "gentility nonsense " against which Bor- 
 row is so severe. 
 
 Our author also (of all men he is the most 
 qualified to do it) has much to say against the 
 attempts of the popish priests to propagate their 
 religion, and against that school of novels and 
 poetry which Scott brought in, the chief charac- 
 teristic of which is the praise of the Stuarts and 
 of the Catholic or High Church cavaliers. He is 
 no doubt right to a certain extent, and however 
 much we may differ from him in many points, we 
 all must confess that there is much need of out- 
 speaking on the side he takes, and that we should 
 not stifle a man who will speak out what he thinks 
 is true, stoutly and originally, only because we do 
 not agree in all that he says. 
 
 There is only one more point to mention. 
 Borrow is very hard upon the reviewers. We 
 think in this he has much excuse: there is far too 
 much reviewing and trusting to reviews in the 
 present day. It is very easy, with a noble library 
 at command, to read up in half an hour sufficient 
 to talk very learnedly upon any subject however 
 deep, and any moderately clever man, whose wits 
 are sharpened by practice, can find faults any- 
 where ; but that the work, perhaps, of a real 
 scholar, written with great labour and research, 
 should be exposed to such a criticism as this, in a 
 column or a column and a half of brilliant, shallow 
 writing, at the whim of a person of perhaps not 
 half the writer's real attainments, is too bad. We
 
 84 THE SUCCESSOR OF 
 
 do not see even that the severity of critics at all 
 deters bad authors from rushing into print : the 
 number, on the contrary, is alarmingly on the 
 increase. It is said, many people have no time 
 to read the books themselves; they must read the 
 reviews and so keep themselves up with the 
 current literature of the day. Can any course of 
 reading be more superficial and useless than that 
 which is contented with a few sentences from the 
 largest book, picked out and commented upon at 
 the caprice of some nameless scribbler ? Surely 
 one £ood book well read were worth a million 
 such glimpses of books as this. 
 
 I have no space to say more upon this, or any 
 other point, in Borrows books. I would wish 
 every one to read them, very certain that not 
 only they can do no one any harm, but, properly 
 meditated upon, they are very sure to do much 
 good ; and I will finish with the concluding 
 sentence of the book itself: 
 
 And in conclusion, with respect to many passages in his 
 book in which he has expressed himself in terms neither 
 measured nor mealy, he "will beg leave to observe in the words 
 of a great poet, who lived a profligate life, it is true, but who 
 died a sincere penitent — thanks, after God, to good Bishop 
 Burnet — 
 
 All this with indignation I have hurl'd 
 At the pretending part of this proud world, 
 Who, swollen with selfish vanity, devise 
 False freedoms, formal cheats, and holy lies, 
 Over their fellow fools to tyrannise. 
 
 Rochester.
 
 MONSIEUR LE SAGE 
 
 GEORGE BORROW AND HIS WORKS 
 
 (Inserted) 
 
 The season of the Essay Meeting being over, and the idea of 
 carrying on the discussion of Borrow's merits to another 
 winter being untenable, perhaps I may be pardoned in the 
 somewhat unconstitutional course I have ventured to take 
 of inserting a few parting words in the folio of Essays for 
 circulation. 
 
 I do not wish to say anything more about our author's 
 character — that is a subject on which every one must form his 
 own opinion, — but the essay read at the meeting last week 
 questions the resemblance which I have endeavoured to 
 point out between Gil Bias and Borrow's works. In my first 
 essay I said expressly that I thought the point of resemblance 
 which had most struck the critics of the Bible in Spain was 
 that both it and Gil Bias were descriptions of travel in the 
 same country, and that the two books were essentially 
 different. So far I should agree with our essayist (though I 
 maintain that, even in the Bible in Spain, there are many 
 things which remind you of Le Sage). But the great re- 
 semblance between these two authors is not to be sought in 
 the Bible in Spain, but in the two last books Borrow has 
 written (which the essayist does not appear to have read), 
 and which are, like Gil Bias, works of fiction, autobiographies, 
 and accounts of travel and adventure in everyday life, and 
 amidst the most homely and familiar scenes and circum- 
 stances. The character of the books being therefore so 
 similar, it is in these that the genius of Borrow proves itself 
 to be so closely allied to that of Le Sage. I read the 
 Romany Rye first, by accident, without having seen any of 
 Borrow's other books or any review of them, and the re- 
 semblance to Le Sage struck me forcibly almost at the first 
 page. Here is the same humour, the same skill of delinea- 
 tion, the same " bits " of scenery, the same delight in road-
 
 86 THE SUCCESSOR OF M. LE SAGE 
 
 side adventures, the same faculty of discovering interest in 
 most unpromising places and persons, the same power of 
 fascinating you throughout, the same reality. 
 
 Our essayist says that Gil Bias is a regular romance with 
 a beginning, a middle, an end. It certainly has a beginning 
 where Gil Bias is born, and an end where he is married and 
 the book leaves off (not because the author seems to have 
 said all he had to say, but because he seems to have thought 
 he had said enough) ; but as for a middle I should be very 
 sorry to have to find it (except by taking the whole number of 
 the pages and dividing them by two). Gil Bias is like a life. 
 The hero passes through it as we pass through any number of 
 years of our own existence, meeting with adventures, travelling 
 to various places, seeing many people, but there is none of 
 that startling connection between every incident which you 
 meet with in a commonplace novel ; the story progresses not 
 as if the author knew all the time that he was coining some- 
 thing out of his own brain, and therefore might say what he 
 liked, but as though he was writing a real life, and could only 
 say what he knew had occurred, and could no more alter the 
 incidents than he could change his own fate. These are the 
 facts, he says ; they are not according to rule, they are not 
 coherent, they appear strange and singular and unlikely ; 1 
 you cannot explain them — I have nothing to do with that ; 
 my business is to tell just what occurred ; these are the facts, 
 — make of them what you can. So say Le Sage and so says 
 Borrow in almost the same way. This may not be novel- 
 writing, but, as I said before, it is something better. 
 
 1 The Essay Meeting will remember the admirable critique on the 
 ballad "La Toilette de Constance" in the third volume of Mr. Ruskin's 
 Modern Painters, p. 167.
 
 SUNDAYS AT THE SEASIDE 
 
 Very pleasant to us inland people are our recol- 
 lections of the sea and of sea-life. All our lives 
 we have delighted in the tales of sea-daring and 
 adventure, of smugglers' haunts and exploits, and 
 of the thousand picturesque scenes and stories 
 which have the salt of the sea fresh upon them. 
 And which of us who have been so fortunate as 
 to see them can forget the old seaport towns, 
 with their narrow, winding streets and quaint, 
 overhanging houses, crowded round the little 
 harbours under the shadow of the sheltering 
 cliffs ? Who can forget those scenes, which the 
 lover of such places so often sees, reminding him 
 of the old harbour-pieces of the Dutch painters, 
 where, behind a foreground of fishing vessels and 
 forest of masts and rigging, there rise the red- 
 brick, red-tiled houses whose white smoke curls 
 gracefully up into the sky, casting its faint, 
 wavering shadow on the green background of the 
 cliff? I have seen the seaside under not a few 
 aspects and in not a few places, and I am going 
 to try to describe to you how very pleasant — ay, 
 I may say, how very beautiful and noble — it has 
 seemed to me on shining, summer Sabbath days. 
 Such a day as this, the first that I remember, — 
 
 37
 
 88 SUNDAYS AT THE SEASIDE 
 
 so shining, so full of summer life, so hushed with 
 Sabbath stillness, — was one on which I took a walk 
 in Wales near the Great Orme's Head. Leaving 
 the shore, and passing behind the Little Orme's 
 Head at the other end of the bay, my road led 
 me through narrow, rugged lanes, enclosed with 
 high banks, fragrant with honeysuckle, and open- 
 ing every now and then to disclose peeps of 
 surpassing beauty - — up upon green hillocks 
 crowned with trees, or down into lovely valleys 
 watered with rustling brooks — while every now 
 and then, behind the hillocks and the trees, shone 
 out the coronet of the earth's beauty — the distant, 
 shining sea. 
 
 When the eye has been gazing over the varied 
 beauties of the land, how inexpressibly noble and 
 beautiful is that bright expanse ! — so majestic in 
 its calm, so placid in its unvaried singleness, so 
 gorgeous in its shaded colours, silent as a dream, 
 and up and down which the white ships go sailing, 
 like sweet fancies passing through a fairy vision ! 
 All through that clay's walk I was learning one 
 page in the sea's Sabbath lesson — its wonderful 
 beauty. For a time I turned away from it and 
 passed through a sheltered valley, along a path 
 through fields full of the mown hay or ripening 
 for the harvest. I passed also through a little 
 park, and at the front of an old mansion of the 
 Mostyns, which overlooks the beautiful plain, 
 guarded by the ever-watchful hills, that reaches 
 towards Abergele ; but through all this the im- 
 pression of the sea was upon me, and turning 
 back towards the right, I came out suddenly upon 
 a low range of hills between two summits, and
 
 SUNDAYS AT THE SEASIDE 89 
 
 stood still to look. Beneath me lay a flat, barren 
 land ; on the right hand was the Little Orme's 
 Head and Llandudno Bay ; on the left hand was 
 another bay ; and right in front of me, rising up 
 like a great mountain out of the sea, was the 
 Great Orme's Head — huge, vast, massive, con- 
 taining in itself valleys and hills, a village, and a 
 population. All around again, as far as the eye 
 could reach, was the encircling sea. As I gazed 
 upon this glorious prospect, I tried to gain some- 
 thing of that deep instruction which most certainly 
 it is our own fault if we do not gain, from a vision 
 of such beauty shown to us amidst the sweet, 
 holy gravity and solemn stillness of a summer 
 Sabbath morn. And it seemed to me that, when 
 I looked upon it and thought of Him who made 
 it, and by His ever-constant, loving care keeps it 
 in its beauty, I might say, not to speak it lightly 
 or irreverently, but with uncovered head, that, like 
 the women of old at the sepulchre, I also "had 
 seen a vision of angels, which said that He zvas 
 alive ! " 
 
 Another Sunday by the sea is before me in 
 a very different scene. It is another splendid, 
 summer morning. On a lofty promontory by a 
 ruined castle is a large and magnificent church. 
 Inside the ground is much lower than outside, 
 giving the interior a height which we did not 
 expect. There are three long aisles divided by 
 pointed arches and columns, which cross and 
 intersect each other to the sight with a most 
 beautiful symmetry. High up in the tower the 
 bells are ringing musically, and the avenues to 
 the church, and, presently, the church itself, are
 
 90 SUNDAYS AT THE SEASIDE 
 
 crowded with a gay and fashionable company ; for 
 it is the height of the season in one of our most 
 frequented watering-places. For a long time 
 there is no room for them to be seated — the aisles, 
 the benches, the free seats, the pews — all are 
 occupied. There are many of the aristocracy and 
 of the chief gentry of the land present — the ladies 
 gorgeously and magnificently dressed, the gentle- 
 men in the extreme of the fashion. Suddenly all 
 this gay and brilliant crowd, whether they have 
 found places or are standing in the aisles, becomes 
 very reverent and still, for the bells above cease 
 ringing, and from the upper end of the church re- 
 sound those sonorous words of high import that 
 form the service of the Church of England : 
 " Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O 
 
 Lord ; for in thy sight " And in the ears of 
 
 this assemblage, which many would call frivolous 
 and unreflecting, but which, for all that, is now 
 very grave and decorous, are rehearsed those old 
 simple stories of the Patriarchs, which are the 
 first things we learn at our mother's knee ; and in 
 the deep tones of the organ, and in a thousand 
 tuned voices, swells up towards heaven the 
 magnificent music of the Kingly Psalmist, which 
 three thousand years ago he sang to his people in 
 Jerusalem. And through all the service we are 
 conscious, and at the end, when we come out, we 
 see, that all iround us lies, first, the crowded 
 churchyard, where thousands lie asleep in ex- 
 pectation of the final waking, and, beyond that, a 
 glorious prospect of sea and land ; of the ruined 
 castle above us, of the old town and harbour 
 beneath us, of the new town full of stately houses
 
 SUNDAYS AT THE SEASIDE 91 
 
 beyond, of the yellow sands (on this day alone so 
 bare), and of the far-stretching country and still 
 farther-stretching sea ; and that above us the blue, 
 unclouded heaven is over all. 
 
 After church let us go down to the harbour, 
 which is full of shipping, all decked out with gay 
 flags, in honour of the day. It is quite dry, for 
 the tide is out, and in the outer harbour are a 
 multitude of fishing vessels, packed together as 
 close as they can lie. They are crowded with the 
 fishermen and fisher-boys, with their blue-worsted 
 shirts and scarlet caps. They look very clean and 
 bright and picturesque sitting about upon the ships. 
 Some are playing together, some getting their 
 dinners, some mending their nets. Nor are they, 
 as we hear, wholly without higher occupation for 
 the day. There are many Methodists in the 
 place, and sailors' homes, and sailors' missionaries, 
 and as you go through the streets you often meet 
 a long procession, singing hymns and walking 
 through as many streets as they can, gathering by 
 degrees a long train behind them, till they reach 
 the chapel to which they belong. And the same 
 blue, unclouded heaven is over the chapel as was 
 over the church upon the hill above it, and the 
 same God beholds them both. 
 
 It is afternoon. Let us leave the harbour and 
 go across to the Spa, where the great company 
 walk. They too, as well as the fishermen, have 
 their notion of doing honour to the day. They 
 are carefully dressed in their town dresses instead 
 of being, as on other days, in their country 
 ddshabilti. They have been to church in the 
 morning, and many will go again in the evening,
 
 92 SUNDAYS AT THE SEASIDE 
 
 but now, before dinner, they come out to walk. 
 And the same blue, unclouded heaven is over 
 these great people as is over the fisher-boys in 
 the harbour, and the same God sees them both. 
 
 One more Sabbath and I have done. It is 
 afternoon, again most beautiful and bright, on the 
 sands near the harbour. Before a half- finished 
 vessel, still on the stocks, there is a great crowd 
 assembled, chiefly sailors and towns-people, with 
 a few gentlemen strayed from the other end of 
 the town. Behind them is the old town rising 
 roof above roof till crowned by the old castle and 
 church, and right opposite, across the bay, stretch 
 far southward the long range of cliffs, shaded 
 by the passing shadows like faint imaginations 
 stretching away into dreamland, to Filey and 
 Flamborough Head. Why are all these people 
 standing here ? From the platform that runs 
 round the half-built ship the Rev. Newman Hall 
 will preach this afternoon. After the hymn is 
 sung he comes forward — a tall, elegant, intellectual- 
 looking man, and begins to speak. His eloquence 
 is very simple, and his illustrations taken from the 
 things around him. He tells us that, having to 
 address us this afternoon, he has been thinking 
 what he should say, and, remembering the great 
 flood there has been in that place lately, he 
 thought that he would talk to us a little of 
 that great flood that covered all the earth four 
 thousand years ago, and of the ark that rode safely 
 upon it ; and that, passing from that, he would tell 
 us of another ark, Christ Jesus, into which if any 
 man come, though the floods and the storm 
 threaten him, yet he shall be safe. And for more
 
 SUNDAYS AT THE SEASIDE 93 
 
 than an hour he spoke of that eternal, never- 
 failing refuge in the language best suited to his 
 hearers — that of the sea. Many of the sailors 
 present were, to judge from their faces, delighted 
 with the allusions to their own manner of life. 
 Let us hope that it was not only this that made 
 their faces light up with pleasure. A man near 
 us remarked that it was a "goodly number" ; let 
 us hope it separated bearing goodly seed. 
 
 Have I made out my story clearly? Perhaps 
 not. The lessons that the mind takes in are 
 easier felt than described, and things which are, to 
 some, very suggestive of many deep and beautiful 
 thoughts, fall unmeaning on other ears. It has 
 seemed to me that, as in other places, so on the 
 seashore, the sun shines brighter on the Sabbath 
 than at other times, and that the sea, and the 
 other works of God, have a deeper and a nobler 
 lesson then than on other days ; and that the 
 eternal rest, foreshadowed in the Sabbath, is not 
 without its influence on the mind. If I have, in 
 ever so faint a manner, expressed this, it is enough. 
 If I shall cause any one to remember that he too 
 has felt something like it, I shall not feel that I 
 have written in vain.
 
 BEDE 
 
 The Encyclop&dia Britannica, in its article on 
 the Venerable Bede, says that his Ecclesiastical 
 History is very valuable, in spite of the super- 
 stitious legends with which it is deformed. This 
 sentence would seem to mark the article as having 
 been written some years ago, when the study of 
 popular legends was much less valued than at 
 present. Far from agreeing with this conditional 
 praise, I think it would be very hard to find a 
 book that so well supplied what a student would 
 desire to have. Let us suppose that we were 
 told for the first time that there was a writer 
 living in England nearly twelve hundred years 
 ago, associating with the most learned and pious 
 men, and yet by his calling placed also in con- 
 tinual fellowship with the common people — the 
 husbandmen, labourers, sailors, and fishermen of 
 that time— should we not wish that this man's 
 book should not be merely a dry narration of 
 facts, but should take us at once into the life of 
 those times ? Should not we wish to go with 
 him into the monasteries, churches, towns, woods, 
 and fields of England as she then was, into the 
 libraries, refectories, and guest-chambers of the 
 monasteries, into the palaces of the kings, over 
 
 94
 
 BEDE 95 
 
 the lonely moors and uplands, and into the 
 scattered inns and houses in the desolate country- 
 places, into the shepherds' huts, and into the 
 sailors' and fishers' boats ? All this and still 
 more we see visibly painted for us in the simple 
 Latin of the old monk. 
 
 There is a striking and interesting difference 
 between the histories of Bede and those of some 
 other of the monkish historians a few centuries 
 later, especially Geoffrey of Monmouth and 
 Nennius. From the picture of the Anglo-Saxon 
 people in their best days, as depicted with such 
 evident truth by Bede, from their homely life and 
 feeling, we turn with distaste to the unreal stories of 
 Geoffrey, such as that of Lear, for instance — stories 
 which, however attractive Shakespeare may have 
 made them, have no particle of reality as connected 
 with the early history of our island, and are 
 evidently nothing but the invention of a retired 
 " Literator," acquainted with the classic models, 
 and utterly careless of recording or preserving 
 the true thought and action of his age. Follow- 
 ing this subject farther, an exact analogy of this 
 difference in historic writing may be traced to 
 two distinct kinds of religious legends. The first 
 are those which the people formed for themselves 
 out of such worthy materials as the long-remem- 
 bered life of a good man whom they had received 
 benefits from, and whom they still loved in spite 
 of death ; the occurrence of strange and unex- 
 plained incidents, in nature or in human life ; and 
 above all, a simple faith in the reality of God's 
 presence and of His ruling over men. The other 
 kind are those which ecclesiastics invented in
 
 96 BEDE 
 
 their cells, for the glory of their several orders, 
 and in some instances no doubt from a dis- 
 interested affection for the memory of their 
 departed brother, and a desire to forward the 
 spread of religion. I believe it would not be 
 difficult to determine to which of these two classes 
 any particular legend belongs. If my test is a 
 true one, it must be confessed that the writings 
 of Bede contain both kinds, although the former 
 are vastly more numerous than the latter. In 
 his Beati Felicis confessoris Vita, a very beautiful 
 book, he records that the saint being wanted to 
 succour an ancient bishop who had fled into the 
 wilderness to escape his persecutors, is released 
 from prison by a miracle suspiciously resembling 
 that worked on behalf of St. Peter. But so 
 seldom does this kind of legend occur, that, at 
 the moment of writing, I cannot remember more 
 than one or two instances of it in our author's 
 books. On the contrary, at the end of this very 
 life of St. Felix, there is a beautiful instance of 
 the nobler sort of legend, evidently springing fresh 
 from the heart of a simple and needy rustic life. 
 In accepting which legend, which is simply the 
 account of a poor man who recovered his two 
 oxen, his sole support, when stolen by thieves, we 
 are not by any means obliged to pledge our- 
 selves to the doctrine of the intercession of Saints, 
 nor need we be very positive that any miracle 
 was performed at all, but we may perhaps see in 
 it something of a rude country-life elevated, and 
 a weight of poverty lessened, by the glimpse of a 
 divine truth. 
 
 Bede's most attractive books, of course, are
 
 BEDE 
 
 97 
 
 the Ecclesiastical History, the Life of St. C?tthbert, 
 and the Lives of the Abbots of Wearmouth and 
 farrow, his own monasteries. Let us turn over 
 a few leaves of the Ecclesiastical History. What- 
 ever mav have been the influence of the Romans 
 in England, we find no trace of it in Bede. 
 Whether the whole of the cities built by them 
 were totally destroyed and swept away during 
 the wars that immediately succeeded their leaving 
 the island, and their institutions, manners, and 
 almost their very memory, were forgotten like a 
 dream, or whether, as Mr. Wright 1 wishes to 
 prove, the cities remained for centuries in some 
 degree as the Romans had left them, and exercised 
 a very marked influence in forming the English 
 constitution, I have no space to inquire. But a 
 study of Bede would, I believe, lead us to con- 
 clude that the former theory was the correct one. 
 Not only is there no trace of the influence of the 
 Romans on the Saxon people to be found in his 
 books, but the character and habits of that people 
 as there described are totally opposed to the 
 classic refinement of the Roman colonist. As we 
 turn over the leaves, England seems to us one 
 great woodland, with sparse towns and hamlets, 
 monasteries, churches, and religious houses not a 
 few, common land in abundance, lonely uplands 
 and moors, traversed only by shepherds and their 
 flocks. A simple people fighting a good deal ; 
 not so much given to hunting as to friendly 
 meetings in each other's houses ; deeply religious, 
 with a fondness for miraculous stories ; not 
 altogether unable upon occasion to stand the 
 
 1 The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon. 
 VOL. II H
 
 98 BEDE 
 
 martyr's test, though in Bede's time the necessity 
 for this had nearly gone by ; not altogether un- 
 learned, particularly if connected in any way with 
 the monasteries, — Alfred, King of Deira, giving 
 eight hides of land (about eight hundred acres) 
 for a " beautiful book of the geographers " which 
 the Abbot Benedict had brought from Rome ; 
 not entirely unaccustomed to the luxuries of 
 polished life. "In the courts of princes," says 
 Bede, "are men and women moving continually 
 in splendid vestments," — very strict in their moral 
 laws, as the same extract goes on to prove. In 
 common with the rest of the world, their exposed 
 and hazardous life, and their constant familiarity 
 with uncultivated nature, brought them in imagina- 
 tion very near to the spirit world. The traveller 
 on horseback through the lonely woods and moors, 
 when he reached at last, after many strange sights, 
 the monastery where he asked shelter for the 
 night, was entertained during supper, in the guests' 
 apartment, with stories of the temptation and 
 triumph of saints, of the personal appearance and 
 conflict of evil spirits, of miraculous gifts and 
 mercies, of delicate women made strong in 
 martyrdom, and of horrible rites of pagan people, 
 inspired, he was taught, directly by the Fiend. 
 Lying down to sleep after supper, he heard the 
 wind moan and sweep through the vast branches 
 of the primeval forest that came up nearly to 
 the abbey walls ; sometimes the moonlight threw 
 pallid shadows across his bed ; every now and 
 then some strange cry came to him from the 
 depths of the wood — it might be of some beast, 
 but not at all impossibly of that Wicked One that
 
 BEDE 
 
 99 
 
 " walketh to and fro upon the earth." In his 
 next day's ride there happened to him such 
 adventure as this. Oswald of Northumbria, king 
 and saint, fighting desperately against the pagan 
 Mercians in the wilds of Lancashire, was slain in 
 a great battle and his army routed. Not long 
 after a man was travelling near the place ; his 
 horse, which had gone a long way that day, here 
 broke down altogether, and fell to the earth dying. 
 But happening to fall on the exact place where 
 the blessed king was slain, the virtue of the spot 
 was so great that it restored him at once to his 
 former strength. His master, riding on a little 
 farther to an inn, and finding there the niece of 
 the landlord {paterfamilias, the Latin calls him), 
 who had been ill for a long time, recounts his 
 adventure for her benefit, and she, being taken 
 out and laid on the spot, is also restored to health. 
 Another traveller, also riding by the same place, 
 is struck with the fresh appearance of the herbage 
 on it, and being, as Bede says, of a reflective and 
 religious mind, immediately concludes the ground 
 to be possessed of some extraordinary virtue. 
 He dismounts, and taking some of the earth in 
 a bag, takes it away with him. Riding a little 
 farther on, he comes to a village, and enters a 
 house where the neighbours were feasting at 
 supper. The house, like most others, was built 
 of one principal room with an open (unceiled) 
 roof. Being received by the master of the house, 
 he sat down with the others at the feast, hanging 
 the bag in which he brought the earth on a post 
 against the wall. They sat long at supper, and 
 drank hard. There was a great fire in the middle
 
 ioo BEDE 
 
 of the room, and the sparks flying up, caught the 
 roof of the house, which, being composed of 
 wattles and thatch, was soon in flames. The 
 guests ran out in a fright without being able 
 to stop the fire. The house was entirely burnt 
 down ; only that post on which the earth hung 
 remained entirely whole and unsinged. Of course, 
 I do not quote these stories for the miracles, but 
 for the pictures they show us of the old Saxon 
 life. Is it not indeed worth while to think a 
 little on these antique travellers, so infinitely 
 removed from their successors of to-day in every- 
 thing — in their ways of travelling, in the objects 
 of their journeys, in the sights they saw, and 
 still more in the sights and things which it 
 was supposed possible that they might see and 
 encounter ? As, for instance, that young traveller 
 that St. Augustine tells of, who, watering his 
 horse at a brook towards evening, was suddenly 
 confronted and possessed by a devil, and under- 
 went terrible torments until cured by divine aid. 
 As we turn over the pages, we are taken into 
 every scene that these travellers themselves could 
 have come into. Into the monasteries, — as in 
 the Life of St. Cuthbert we are taken into the 
 travellers' apartment of one of them, where he 
 entertains an angel whom he supposes to be a 
 traveller, driven in for shelter by a heavy fall of 
 snow, and who, departing, leaves no mark of his 
 feet on the white ground ; into the country houses 
 of the princes and nobles ; into the inns ; to the 
 houses of the parish priests, like that of Bishop 
 Aidan, "a church and a few fields about it"; to 
 small oratories and cells in the woods ; past the
 
 BEDE ioi 
 
 stately monasteries in the forest from which arise 
 the notes of singing, like that of Lastingham, to 
 the door of which Owini, favourite of Queen 
 Ethelred, forsaking the world, came, quitting all 
 that he had, clothed in a plain garment, and with 
 a hatchet in his hand to denote that he came 
 for work and not for idleness, and near which 
 afterward cutting wood in the forest, he one day 
 heard miraculous melodies ; into the palaces of the 
 kings, like that in the story of Edwin the Etheling. 
 Edwin, afterwards King of Northumbria, fled 
 from the pursuit of his enemies to the court of 
 Redwald, King of the East Angles. When 
 Ethelfrid, who was persecuting him, heard where 
 he was, he sent messengers to Redwald, his host, 
 and after a long time, partly by threats and 
 partly by promises, induced him to promise either 
 to kill him or to give him up. The Etheling, 
 being warned of this by a friend, as he was going 
 to bed, and being afraid to stay longer in the 
 palace (which consisted of several buildings 
 together surrounded by a wall, the gate of which 
 opened into the street of the town), and being 
 equally uncertain where else to go, went out, 
 before the gates of the king's house were closed, 
 and sat down before the entrance. Here he sat 
 through the night in great trouble of mind, not 
 knowing what to do nor where to turn himself. 
 When the deadest hour was past, just before the 
 first ghastly light of morning came over the 
 distant woods, there came to him, walking up the 
 street, a person whose face and habit were equally 
 strange. This person, after inquiring what he 
 did there at that dismal hour, sitting alone and
 
 102 BEDE 
 
 melancholy when every one else was asleep, 
 comforted him, telling him that no evil should 
 happen to him, but that he should escape from 
 his enemies and attain to greater power than he 
 ever expected. But he charged him, by the 
 gratitude he owed to one who brought him such 
 comfort, that, at a future time, when a man should 
 come to him, giving him better and more useful 
 advice for his life and health that any of his 
 kindred had ever heard of, he should remember 
 that night and submit to that man, and follow his 
 wholesome counsel. This strange visitant had 
 scarcely departed before his friend who had 
 before warned him came out of the king's house 
 to him, to tell him that Redwald had changed his 
 mind, having been persuaded by his wife not to 
 sell his good friend, when in such distress, for 
 gold, nor his honour for lucre of money. Years 
 afterwards, when Edwin was on his throne, 
 Bishop Paulinus converted him to Christianity, 
 by recalling to his memory his heavenly visitor in 
 the hour of his distress. 
 
 We follow St. Cuthbert in his preaching, to 
 the "villages and out-of-the-way places among 
 the mountains," and to the lonely shepherds' huts 
 which they built for their shelter during the 
 summer nights. " It was then the habit of the 
 English people to flock together whenever a clerk 
 or priest entered the village, that they might 
 learn something: from him and amend their lives." 
 We are taken to the sea-coast at Lindisfarne and 
 Monk Wearmouth ; we see before us the wide 
 expanse of the lonely ocean and the wild, wooded 
 shore ; we see the first arrival of the few feeble
 
 BEDE 103 
 
 monks ; their wooden houses and huts ; their 
 persecutions by the rude inhabitants, who did not 
 like the men who had changed all their old 
 customs and beliefs ; the dangers they encountered 
 — at one time driven out to sea in their little fish- 
 ing-boats, bringing wood to build their houses — at 
 another half-perished with cold and hunger from 
 the failure of their scanty crops. We see the 
 improvement that took place ; we see the great 
 Abbot Benedict arrive, the stately building he 
 put up, his library, his beautiful pictures, his 
 carpenters and artificers in stained glass, his 
 teacher of the choristers, all brought from Rome. 
 Out at sea off Lindisfarne we see the lonely 
 island-rock where St. Cuthbert passed so many 
 years, in a hut dug down in a hollow and 
 surrounded by a wall, so that not even the view 
 of the dreary ocean expanse and distant coast 
 should disturb his meditations. We see the flocks 
 of sea-birds sweeping over the dancing billows 
 — birds which for so many centuries had been 
 almost the sole inhabitants of those wastes, and 
 which then saw for the first time the predecessors 
 of that thronged populace which now has almost 
 destroyed them off the face of the waters. A few 
 years after Bede was laid to rest by their brink, 
 these lonely waters were to be visited by unwel- 
 come ships, carrying the destroyers of the Saxon 
 monarchy. At the conclusion of Bede's History 
 he says : 
 
 Such being the peaceable and calm disposition of the times, 
 many of the Northumbrians, as well nobles as common people, 
 having leisure to lay aside their weapons, rather inclined to 
 dedicate themselves and their children to learning and the 
 monasteries than to the practice of arms.
 
 104 BEDE 
 
 Turn over a few more pages of the Saxon 
 Chronicle, and we read the short entry that had 
 such a terrible significance : 
 
 Anno 787. — This year King Beotric took to wife Eadburga, 
 King Offa's daughter ; and in his days first came three ships 
 of Northmen out of Haeretha land. And then the reve l rode 
 to the palace, and would have driven them to the king's town, 
 because he knew not who they were, and they slew him. 
 These were the first ships of Danish men that sought the land 
 of the English nation. 
 
 But Bede has lain peacefully beneath the porch 
 of the church at J arrow fifty-two years. 
 
 The Essay Meeting is hardly the place for 
 it, or Bede would take us into the library of 
 his monastery, and would give us very much 
 admirable instruction, both human and divine. 
 It is curious that, in the midst of what is called 
 the darkest age, a book should have been written 
 in a remote corner of England like his De 
 Natura Rerum, which, in spite of the errors it 
 contains, teaches a method of the study of nature 
 perfectly sound in principle, and more natural 
 truths, and fewer errors than any known book on 
 the same subject. "It is evident," says Mason 
 Turner, "that the establishment of the Teutonic 
 nations in the Roman Empire did not barbarise 
 knowledge." I should like to have translated 
 several excellent passages, both from this book 
 and from his books on Times and The Reason of 
 Times, but I must deny myself. I confess I have 
 read but little of his homilies and dissertations 
 on the Scriptures, but Dr. Giles says "he who 
 studies them with care will be surprised at the 
 
 1 Now sheriff.
 
 BEDE 105 
 
 comprehensiveness with which he treats his 
 subjects." In speaking of the religious element 
 in his books, I may say, however, that in read- 
 ing them we understand (as when reading St. 
 Augustine and some others also) something of 
 the "ages of faith," and see that, however great 
 may be the names of some of the opponents of 
 the theory, there have been ages in the history of 
 Christianity of such a character as to justify so 
 noble a title. Following, as Bede says himself, 
 ac viam patrum, there breathes in his writings 
 that fervent desire which animated them of 
 elevating the spiritual life above the temporal, of 
 realising the unseen, of throwing off the weight 
 of the fleshly will. " It is good for a man," says 
 the Vulgate, translating the 27th and 28th verses 
 of the third chapter of Lamentations — " it is good 
 for a man when he hath borne the yoke from his 
 youth : he shall sit alone and shall be silent, 
 because he shall raise himself above himself." It 
 is not the sense of the Hebrew, but the idea was 
 so constantly present to St. Jerome, as to the 
 rest of them, that it formed a refrain to all he 
 thought and did and read. 
 
 I have given a very faint idea of the peculiar 
 charm which hangs about this old monkish book. 
 Of its simple and pure faith, of its religious calm, 
 of its homely friendliness and humanity, I have 
 said little or nothing. I know of no book written 
 so long ago that takes a stronger hold on your 
 sympathies — that makes you more akin to a people 
 so distant from you. The pictures of that old 
 primeval life, no matter of what people or land, 
 whether Hellenic or Roman or Saxon pastoral
 
 106 BEDE 
 
 (when, in a life of such rudeness and simplicity, 
 the individual man possessed a cultivation * in its 
 manner as complete, and a spiritual life in its way 
 as exalted as our own), have a touching pathos 
 and beauty upon which the modern intellect, 
 jaded and weary, delights to linger and to reflect. 
 I have taken, in conclusion, one sentence of almost 
 a perfect beauty ; by a sort of mysterious fitness 
 it is found not in the De Natura Rerum — in the 
 book of science — though it speaks of fire, nor in 
 the book of homilies, though it speaks of faith, 
 but, where the noblest things of the world ever 
 are found, in the record of the life militant of the 
 righteous man : 
 
 In the case of the real fire which he thus extinguished he 
 imitated that venerable priest, Marcellinus of Ancona, who, 
 when his native town was on fire, placed himself in front of 
 the flames, and put them out by his prayers, though [all the 
 exertions of his fellow-citizens had failed to extinguish them. 
 Nor is it wonderful that such perfect and pious servants of 
 God should receive power against the force of fire, considering 
 that by their daily piety they enable themselves to conquer 
 the desires of the flesh, and to extinguish all the fiery darts of 
 the wicked one ; and to them is applicable the saying of the 
 prophet, " when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not 
 be burned ; neither shall the fire kindle upon thee." But I 
 and those who are, like me, conscious of our own weakness 
 and inertness, are sure that we can do nothing in that way 
 against material fire, and indeed are by no means sure that we 
 shall be able to escape unhurt from that fire of future punish- 
 ment which never shall be extinguished. But the love of our 
 Saviour is strong and abundant, and will bestow the grace of 
 its protection upon us, though we are unworthy and unable, in 
 this world, to extinguish the fires of vicious passions, or to put 
 out the flames of punishment in the world which is to come. 
 
 1 See Edinburgh Review, October 1858, Mr. Gladstone's Homer.
 
 THE "MORTE D'ARTHUR" AND 
 THE "IDYLLS OF THE KING" 
 
 . . . but the colours were all grown faint ; 
 
 And faint upon their banner was Olaf, king and saint. 
 
 Morris. 
 
 I 
 
 It is impossible not to feel dissatisfied with the 
 reviews which have appeared of the Laureate's last 
 poem, though certainly, if number can compensate 
 for deficiency in quality, the literary world has 
 had nothing to complain of. It is hard to say to 
 what class of readers most of the reviews of the 
 Idylls can have been of any use. The poem is 
 not so long but that any person who has the 
 inclination can read it for himself, and most of 
 the papers in the magazines upon it give him no 
 information that he would not obtain in the book 
 itself. I do not pretend to have read all of them, 
 but most that I have seen consist only in a long 
 string of extracts, with a paragraph or two at 
 the end containing some remarkably new truism, 
 either on the peculiarities of the poet or, if the 
 reviewer is very erudite, on that much-wronged 
 subject, the Arthurian Romances. In the first 
 number of Macmillans Magazine, indeed, there is 
 
 107
 
 108 THE 'MORTE D'ARTHUR' AND 
 
 a paper on the " Moral Aspects " of the Idylls, 
 but it deals with the book merely as a modern 
 poem, except in places where it has to draw 
 comparisons not at all favourable to the old 
 romance. 
 
 In no review that I have seen has there been 
 any attempt to consider the book and its contents 
 as a whole — that is, first, the Arthurian Romances 
 generally ; secondly, Mr. Tennyson's success or 
 failure in reproducing them. I make no pretence, 
 in the present short essay, to do more than suggest 
 the subject. 
 
 Those writers who have reproduced in a 
 modern form the antique legends of the past have 
 often enjoyed very great success, but it is plain 
 that this success must depend on certain conditions 
 — either they must preserve faithfully the spirit as 
 well as the exterior form of the legends (in which 
 case a wide success amongst modern readers is 
 hardly to be promised them) ; or the age which 
 gave birth to the legends must not be so distant 
 that every trace of the leading idea of that age is 
 lost ; or, lastly, the subject of the legends must be 
 simply one of the common wants and fears of 
 humanity, which are alike in all ages, and which 
 the animating spirit of every age, however different, 
 suits and inspires equally. Mr. Tennyson has ob- 
 served none of these conditions, and it is, as I 
 take it, a natural consequence that he has failed. 
 
 The first of these conditions was observed by 
 Mr. Morris in his Defence of Guinevere, which, 
 speaking advisedly, is the most wonderful repro- 
 duction of the tone of thought and feeling of a 
 past age that has ever been achieved. This book
 
 THE 'IDYLLS OF THE KING' 109 
 
 met, as was to have been expected, with the least 
 possible success; The Saturday and The Atheneum, 
 with the rest of the reviews after them (with 
 one honourable exception, The Literary Gazette), 
 putting it on one side as a mass of rubbish that 
 could not be understood. The author's most 
 deadly enemy could not have invented a more 
 condemnatory judgment on the book than that 
 (as the reviewers understood the words) it could 
 be understood. Did it never strike these gentle- 
 men that, if a man opens a book written in the 
 spirit and the manner, and influenced by the 
 modes of thinking, of six or eight centuries ago, 
 he is likely to find what he reads there rather 
 different from a modern book on the electric tele- 
 graph, or the last new young ladies' novel, fresh 
 from a nineteenth -century English village, with 
 its classes at the school, and district visitors and 
 the rector and his curate? Yet, what a hostile 
 and contemptuous verdict was given against the 
 book because the phrases and forms of expression 
 were not exactly those to which the present 
 century was accustomed, and because some of the 
 poems really do require a careful study of the 
 literature of the age of Chivalry to understand 
 them at all! Mr. Morris, if we may judge him 
 by his writings, is not a man to regret the course 
 he took, or to consider his labour thrown away ; 
 and, even if he doubted it before, the publication 
 of the Idylls of the King has proved that, if the 
 Arthurian Romances ever are to be worthily 
 rewritten in modern poetry, it will be as he has 
 done it, and not otherwise. Writing a romance 
 of Chivalry in a modern popular form is itself an
 
 no THE 'MORTE D'ARTHUR' AND 
 
 anomaly, and (of the three conditions we have 
 named, the two last being obviously excluded by 
 the nature of the subject) Mr. Tennyson had no 
 course left him but to reproduce the lifeless form 
 of the legends, animating the characters by his 
 genius into some sort of galvanised life, but pre- 
 serving not the faintest gleam of that spirit which 
 alone gives to the tales of knight-errantry a 
 vitality and a never-dying truth. 
 
 If we will trace the course of Christendom 
 through the stormy centuries which preceded the 
 eleventh and twelfth, we shall, I think, have no 
 reason to be surprised that the form which its 
 advancing enlightment took, after passing through 
 such an ordeal and such a teaching, was a chival- 
 rous one. The progress of order and settled 
 government and the spirit of Christianity, going 
 forth hand in hand on their mission, naturally 
 united in one the character and ideal of the 
 Christian warrior — the king and the saint. This 
 character was actually presented to men's sight in 
 Charlemagne, in the German Emperors Heinrich 
 der Vogler and Friedrich Rothbart, in our own 
 King Alfred, and others ; and that fond popular 
 love and gratitude which, acknowledging its need 
 and dependence on such a character, looked wist- 
 fully for years towards that hill over Salzburg, 
 round which the ravens always hover, and within 
 which the great Kaiser lies asleep, was the same 
 feeling that made the romance -writer complete 
 the ideal of the popular hero by the prophecy 
 that, in after years, he should come forth again 
 out of "the Vale of Aveloune," healed of his 
 wound, and "do judgment and justice" and
 
 THE 'IDYLLS OF THE KING' in 
 
 repress wrong ; if indeed both these ideas have 
 not, as all true human ideas have, their common 
 centre and antitype in a still nobler One — martyr, 
 king, and saint — who "shall stand in the latter 
 days upon the earth." 
 
 The Scandinavian nations were highly chival- 
 rous, and possessed every knightly quality save 
 just that which Christianity was necessary to 
 give ; and a comparison between the stories of 
 the Eddas and the romances of chivalry will show 
 that nothing was wanting but this finishing touch 
 to produce the chivalric character among our 
 Norse forefathers. That character was perfected 
 amid the desperate conflicts with the irreclaimable 
 pagans of Prussia and Sclavonia, amid the crusades 
 against the eastern Mahommedans, and amid the 
 gradual formation of comparative order and peace 
 in Europe, under the softening and sanctifying 
 influence of the Church. 
 
 The knightly character thus perfected, and as 
 it is shown in the romances of chivalry, is, in 
 many respects, a very noble one ; and those 
 romances which treat of its highest development 
 are among the noblest and purest books ever 
 written ; but their moral is essentially and insepar- 
 ably connected with that age and character, is not 
 suited to any other age, and least of all can be 
 applied to a reproduction of the forms of chivalry, 
 without the spirit which gave them life. The 
 story of the finding of the Sancgreal, and of the 
 repentance and purification of Sir Launcelot, is 
 perfect in its kind ; but in Mr. Tennyson's poem 
 the story of Guinevere assumes quite a different 
 aspect, and is associated in our minds with circum-
 
 ii2 THE 'MORTE D'ARTHUR' AND 
 
 stances which would influence a similar story in 
 the present day, of which neither the actors in 
 nor the writers of the original legend conceived 
 anything. The Idylls are false in the very 
 groundwork of their conception. The Arthurian 
 Romances are medieval or they are nothing — take 
 away their medieval character and they are utterly 
 worthless ; but Mr. Tennyson evidently wavers 
 between the romances and the old faint legends 
 of Wales and Brittany. He talks of the Romans? 
 and in his description of the throne of King 
 Arthur in the lists, 1 and " the dragon of the great 
 Pendragonship," there is a barbaric magnificence 
 which is not medieval, and jars on the sense of 
 historic unity. One of the influences which 
 wrought deepest on the knightly character was 
 the continual presence of danger, heightened and 
 animated by beings and events supernatural. 
 The dark and gloomy nature of the scenery of 
 Europe in the Middle Ages, the vast forests, 
 pathless mountains, and bridgeless rivers ; the 
 belief in the constant presence and frequent 
 appearance of demons and spirits, round every un- 
 frequented monastery and lonely graveyard, — all 
 had much to do in forming the ideal of chivalry ; 
 yet many of the reviewers congratulate Mr. 
 Tennyson on the great skill he has shown in 
 avoiding and keeping in subordination the super- 
 natural, as unsuited to the present age! Under 
 such circumstances it would be difficult to say 
 what business the present age has with legends of 
 chivalry at all ; and it seems hardly needful to 
 
 1 P. 249, pp. 170, 256. See also the names of the battles etc. (p. 162), 
 which are all British, and taken from the old Welsh and English chronicles.
 
 THE 'IDYLLS OF THE KING' 113 
 
 criticise a book which, professing to be a repro- 
 duction of the legends of the Round Table, makes 
 scarcely a mention, and that quite incidentally, 
 of the Sancgreal. 
 
 The chiefest quality of the knightly ideal, and 
 that which shines out of every page of its story, 
 and that without which there can be no perfect 
 knighthood, is religion. This is as necessary to 
 the finished knight as his courage ; and for want 
 of this, Sir Launcelot, perfect in all earthly points, 
 is brought to shame and to disgrace. The religion 
 of the knight is that of the Son of God, Jesus 
 Christ the man, our Lord. Throughout all Sir 
 Thomas Malory's Morte d' 'Arthur, so far as I 
 remember, the Virgin Mary is never mentioned 
 once; everywhere the knight is sworn to the ser- 
 vice of the Son of God — everywhere His example 
 is set forth for him to follow. The knightly 
 idea appropriated the worship of the Son of Man 
 in its most perfect form : Jesus Christ was (in its 
 creed) the most perfect knight, the noblest born 
 and best-descended gentleman ; to Him every 
 true knight owed his service and his sword as to 
 his suzerain, the head of the whole fellowship of 
 Christian knighthood. It was His form that 
 cheered him, as he rode at dead of night, over 
 cold marshes, and through wild forests, the vessel 
 out of which He ate His last passover he followed 
 to the death, His relics he visited, the memorial 
 of His cross he bore continually with him, in the 
 very form of his sword. Is there then any wonder 
 that the casual reader in the present day finds 
 such an ideal rather hard to understand ? Yet 
 there is no mention, no shadow, of such an 
 
 vol. 11 1
 
 ii4 THE 'MORTE D'ARTHUR' AND 
 
 influence or belief in Mr. Tennyson's poem from 
 beginning to end. 
 
 There is indeed a modernness of thought and 
 expression about the Idylls, which, to any one 
 acquainted with the age they pretend to describe, 
 is repulsive in the highest degree. Mr. Tennyson 
 gained much, in his earlier poems on the subject, 
 by describing the natural features of the country 
 in which the story was laid ; but in the Idylls, 
 by describing just those features which strike 
 the eye in the present day, to the exclusion of 
 all others, he has lost very much more than he 
 ever gained. The lavish use of modern colloquial 
 phrases such as "toppling over all antagonism" 
 "as to abolish him" "the grace and versatility of 
 the man" and numbers more, help to aggravate 
 you with a continual sense of anachronism. The 
 character of the knights, especially of Launcelot, 
 is precisely that of a modern highly-bred gentle- 
 man, with a dash of the Balaclava cavalry officer. 
 Galahad is never mentioned. The impression 
 of the country conveyed is that of modern 
 England. The knights might be fox-hunters 
 going to the meet. 
 
 I do not agree with the reviewers that the 
 Idylls are an improvement on the old romances 
 in a moral sense. I have no sympathy with that 
 morbid refinement which is horrified at the 
 mention of sin, to whose advocates many a noble 
 part of the Old Testament must be a sealed 
 book ; but it seems to me that Mr. Tennyson 
 has retained all that is evil and repulsive, and 
 that presented to us in its most sickening 
 and conventional form, and excluded rigorously
 
 THE 'IDYLLS OF THE KING' 115 
 
 everything that belongs to the spiritual part and 
 sacred meaning of the book. The Sancgreal, 
 on which the whole story of the Round Table 
 hangs, is entirely lost sight of. Sir Launcelot's 
 sin brings him to no disgrace or suffering ; if it is 
 mentioned at all by the personages of the story, 
 it is viewed precisely in the light in which very 
 polite society in the present day would regard it : 
 everything is made as pleasant to him as possible. 
 But what does the romance say ? Sir Launcelot 
 is asleep by a chapel, where the Sancgreal 
 appears to heal a wounded knight, but, owing 
 to the weight of his earthly sin and fleshly 
 passions, he has no power to rise against it, or 
 even to awake out of his carnal sleep. 
 
 But I have marvel of this sleeping knight, that had no power 
 to awake when this holy vessel was brought hither. — I dare 
 right well say, said the squire, that he dwelleth in some deadly 
 sin, whereof he was never confessed. — By my faith, said the 
 knight, whatsoever he be, he is unhappy, for, as I deem, he 
 is of the fellowship of the Round Table, the which is entered 
 into the quest of the Sancgreal. 
 
 Then the knight takes Sir Launcelot's horse 
 and his helm and his sword, the greatest disgrace 
 that can befall a knight, and he has no power to 
 prevent him. 
 
 Then anon Sir Launcelot waked . . . and he heard a 
 voice that said, " Sir Launcelot, more harder than is the stone, 
 and more bitter than is the wood, and more naked and bare 
 than is the leaf of the fig-tree, wherefore go thou from hence, 
 and withdraw thee from this holy place ! " And when Sir 
 Launcelot heard this he was passing heavy, and wist not what 
 to do ; and so he departed sore weeping, and cursed the time 
 that he was born ; for then he deetned never to have worship 
 more, for the words went to his heart. 1 
 
 1 The Morte cT Arthur, lib. xiii. cap. xviii. Caxton, Southey's Ed.
 
 n6 THE 'MORTE D'ARTHUR' AND 
 
 There can be no question but that the whole 
 poem, and especially " Guinevere," is exceed- 
 ingly beautiful ; but it is essentially a modern 
 beauty, without one touch of medieval feeling in 
 it. The moral is modern in its tone, the teach- 
 ing modern in its application. That teaching 
 may be very noble and founded on the New 
 Testament, the religious teaching of Chivalry 
 may be equally noble, and equally founded on 
 the New Testament, but they are not the same. 
 They are different forms of the same teaching, 
 suited to men under the most opposite conditions 
 of human life. The wants and needs which called 
 forth the chivalrous character are no longer felt, 
 and the knightly idea is dead ; the human wants 
 that call forth modern action and civilisation are 
 now urgent, but the time will come when they 
 also shall pass away, and modern action and 
 civilisation shall then die too ; far above them 
 both shines the eternal Christian idea which shall 
 never die. If the present age cannot receive nor 
 understand the chivalrous idea in its entirety, 
 let it sleep in peace beneath its stately tomb, and 
 do not trouble its repose by calling it up to an 
 unnatural and spasmodic life. It had its work to 
 do in its day, and did it ; let us take care that 
 we do ours too. 
 
 II 
 
 I had not intended troubling the Essay Meet- 
 ing with any reply to the two papers on this sub- 
 ject which were read at our meeting in March ; 
 but, on reading them over again, I have thought
 
 THE 'IDYLLS OF THE KING' 117 
 
 of two or three remarks which perhaps that 
 much enduring body will pardon my making, 
 as they may possibly remove what I think is a 
 slight misconception of the nature of the question. 
 It is manifest that a work of fiction, more than 
 any other kind of writing, requires some stable 
 element in it to preserve it uninjured amidst the 
 shocks of time. Not being materially true in its 
 outward form, it must contain some supreme 
 truth in it, which will make the moralist forget 
 (or even approve) its material want of truth, in 
 consideration of the value of the higher form of 
 truth contained within it. When reading a story 
 of any age, it makes very little difference whether 
 the actual events (as they are described) ever 
 happened or not, but it makes an immense differ- 
 ence whether the spirit in which such events are 
 described as happening, and the outward form of 
 life that that spirit took, ever were real things on 
 the earth or not. As I said before, all the ereat 
 works of fiction are written on this principle. 
 The earliest ages of Greece are known at all to us 
 only because a man (or men) happened to write 
 a book in them, in which he described, and set 
 down exactly, everything he saw about him, and 
 the age is called Homeric ever since. It is not 
 of the remotest consequence to us whether Troy 
 was ever burnt or not, or whether Odysseus 
 really " suffered many things also in his mind 
 upon the sea"; but suppose that Homer, instead 
 of describing an actual siege and an actual wan- 
 derer, had produced an ideal poem, partly out of 
 his own head, partly from what he saw about 
 him, and partly from old half- forgotten legends
 
 n8 THE 'MORTE D'ARTHUR' AND 
 
 of different periods taken altogether. Virgil is 
 true to his own age. 1 Shakespeare is so per- 
 fectly true to the age he lived in, that he has 
 sacrificed everything to this truth, and any 
 attempt to reconcile his writings archseologically 
 to any other age, in which the outward scene 
 of his story may be laid, has always been 
 in vain. And just as all the great works of 
 fiction have been true to this law, so all that 
 have failed in it have been forgotten. The 
 French romances of the seventeenth century 
 contained very noble and elevated thoughts and 
 lessons, and no doubt "marvellously touched the 
 springs of the mind and heart " of that day, but 
 where are they now? Dr. Johnson's Rasselas 
 is another such book. The good that is in them 
 will not keep them alive; they are nothing but 
 masks of good and bad qualities personified ; 
 they have no reality of human life in them, and 
 no stability of human fact. Mr. Tennyson's 
 Idylls are composed of three epochs : the British 
 age, where the legends had their dim and vague 
 origin ; the medieval age, the outward form of 
 which even he has not taken uninjured ; and the 
 present age, from which he has received most of 
 the feeling and spirit of his book. It is of no 
 consequence whether a story is true with regard 
 to the age the events are supposed to happen in, 
 or to the writer's own age, but it is absolutely 
 necessary that it should be true with regard to 
 some age. If Mr. Tennyson had taken, as one 
 of the essayists says he has, the mere "frame- 
 
 1 As, for instance, in the description of Carthage [Aeneid, lib. i. 419), 
 which evidently is drawn to the life.
 
 THE 'IDYLLS OF THE KING' 119 
 
 work of the ancient legend " — a good king, an 
 erring woman, a noble but imperfect friend — 
 and had dressed it up "with all his wealth of 
 thought and feeling," in accordance with the truth 
 of any age that ever existed on the earth, he 
 would have produced another of those great works 
 which endure through time itself; as it is, in a 
 work so incongruous, I cannot help seeing, in the 
 midst of so much beauty, the elements of decay. 
 
 One of the essavists considers such legends 
 as the Arthurian useful accessories to the study 
 of history, and the knowledge of them indispens- 
 able in an inquiry into the unrecorded causes 
 which lead to important events, and into the 
 beliefs, prejudices, and idiosyncrasies of the 
 popular mind, but that a poet is not bound to 
 adhere to his original so closely as to retain such 
 legends perfectly unaltered. As far as I can judge, 
 the effect of this would be to prevent any person 
 who took any interest in the study of history from 
 caring for the poet at all. However beautiful 
 might be the thoughts and descriptions contained 
 in the book, no man who had approached the 
 study of history with that reverence and devotion 
 which its eternal meaning commands, could bear 
 to have his associations and beliefs trifled with, 
 and the laws of humanity ignored, to suit the taste 
 of any age, however civilised and enlightened. 
 One of the essayists says that " CEnone," "The 
 Lotos-Eaters," and " Tithonus" are not in accord- 
 ance with the last. I am perfectly at a loss for 
 the grounds of such a judgment as this. It is 
 hardly fair to take " The Lotos-Eaters," because 
 it is no story at all, and, from its vagueness, does
 
 120 THE ' MORTE D'ARTHUR' AND 
 
 not appear to be meant to represent any particular 
 age or event. Mr. Tennyson probably had the 
 narration of Odysseus in his mind, but he has 
 departed from it in every way. His genius, 
 however, is peculiarly classic, and no writer has 
 reproduced more completely some of the gems of 
 Hellenic song. His pastoral idylls are generally 
 higher in tone than the originals (excepting 
 perhaps such of them as Moschus' " Elegy on 
 the Death of Bion "), but they approach very 
 nearly to the religious hymns, chanted to parti- 
 cular divinities, especially those of the Homeric 
 age. That exquisite idyll in The Princess, " Come 
 down, O maid, from yonder mountain height," 
 may be taken as a perfect specimen of the highest 
 Hellenic pastoral. Here are a few verses from a 
 Homeric Hymn to Pan, translated word for word : 
 
 And hither and thither he goes through the dense thickets, 
 allured sometimes by the gently flowing streams ; but again 
 sometimes he passes over the mountains, traversed only by 
 the sun, climbing the loftiest height that overlooks the flocks ; 
 and oftentimes he runs along the long hoary mountain ranges, 
 and oftentimes he passes over the spurs of the hills, slaying 
 wild beasts, looking sharply about. And now and then at 
 evening he plays alone, returning from the hunting, playing a 
 sweet song on the music-reeds. Him not even the bird, which 
 singing among the leaves of flowery spring, pours forth a sweet 
 lay, would surpass in song. And with him then the sweet- 
 songed mountain Nymphs, coming frequently on foot to the 
 dark pebbled fountain, raise the song, and the echo sounds 
 round the height of the mountains. And the god, going 
 hither and thither in the midst of the dances, moves frequently 
 with his feet. But on his back he wears the blood-stained 
 skin of a leopard, delighting his mind with sweet songs in 
 the soft meadow, where the crocus and frequent hyacinth, 
 flourishing, are mingled with abundant grass. 1 
 
 1 Homeric Hymn, xvii.
 
 THE 'IDYLLS OF THE KING' 121 
 
 Who will say that Mr. Tennyson has not caught 
 the spirit of this ? And, with this before us, we 
 shall not, I think, find anything in " CEnone " at 
 variance with the Homeric a^e. Indeed, the 
 very form of expression is adhered to with 
 wonderful exactness. "Many-rilled Ida" is the 
 common epithet, not only in Homer, but in all 
 the classic writings. The description of "evil- 
 hearted Paris " is particularly exact : 
 
 a leopard's skin 
 Droop'd from his shoulder, but his sunny hair 
 Cluster'd about his temples like a god's. 
 
 Homer calls him "Alexander, in form like a god, 
 having a leopard's skin on his shoulder." 
 
 " From many a vale 
 And river-sunder'd champaign clothed with corn, 
 Or labour'd mine undrainable of ore. 
 Honour," she said, "and homage, tax and toll, 
 From many an inland town and haven large, 
 Mast-throng'd beneath her shadowing citadel 
 In glassy bays among her tallest towers." 
 
 Almost every word is a translation — "river- 
 sunder'd champaign," "mast-throng'd," "shadow- 
 ing citadel"; the actual word "glassy" is an 
 anachronism, but the idea is not. 
 
 It is the same in "Tithonus." Here, as in 
 Homer, we have that strange and yet so natural 
 contradiction ; that love of, and dependence on, 
 the earth, and yet that groaning at the sometimes 
 intolerable burden of life to the earth-born ; that 
 yearning after immortality, and yet that un- 
 appeasable longing for the rest and silence of the 
 grave ; that strong feeling of human fellowship, 
 and yet with it a lofty desire after the higher
 
 122 THE 'MORTE D'ARTHUR,' ETC. 
 
 communion of superior natures. In " Tithonus " 
 indeed the poet has found a story which is alike 
 in every age, and in preserving the emotions of 
 the old Hellenic life he has but given a voice 
 again to the troubled spirit of the whole race of 
 the human -born. In the life of the son of 
 Laomedon we see and acknowledge a common 
 humanity, and the brightness of the dawn, that 
 was so supreme in hope and loveliness to him, is 
 the same to us ; happier than Tithonus in this, 
 that our hearts are no longer restless when they 
 rest on Heaven. 1 
 
 1 St. Augustine, Conf. lib. i. cap. I : " Quiafacisti nos ad te, et inquietum 
 est cor nostrum donee requiescat in te."
 
 THE "PARADISE LOST" 
 
 High are thy thoughts, 
 
 but nourish them, and let them soar 
 To what height sacred virtue and true worth 
 Can raise them, though above example high. 
 
 Paradise Regained, Book I. 
 
 Some years ago there were read in our Essay 
 Meeting two essays upon Milton's great poem, 
 which caused some excitement by the unusual 
 opinions they advocated. These essays were 
 the expression of feelings which all must ac- 
 knowledge to be reverent and becoming, and 
 very considerable ingenuity was displayed in 
 pointing out the weak points of the book. Never- 
 theless it is evident that they were written, one 
 of them more especially, as the writer of the 
 present essay has the best possible reason for 
 knowing, on a very superficial acquaintance 
 with the poem itself, and the cognate circum- 
 stances with which its critic, at least, should 
 certainly be somewhat familiar. These essays 
 were answered by two others, but neither of 
 these appear to contain a much deeper or clearer 
 view of the subject, contenting themselves mainly 
 with reproducing the obvious and oft-repeated 
 eulogiums on the grandeur of the conception 
 and of the diction of the poet. The present 
 writer is far from supposing himself equal to a 
 
 123
 
 124 THE 'PARADISE LOST' 
 
 more successful inquiry ; but the Essay Meeting 
 being, we should imagine, above ten years older 
 than it was at the period when this immature 
 criticism on a great writer was ventured upon, 
 it would seem not unsuitable for it to attempt 
 a more exhaustive and unprejudiced expression 
 of opinion, which it is merely the intention of 
 this essay to invite. 
 
 We shall perhaps be thought to be even more 
 precipitate than these rash and youthful essayists, 
 when we say that the only way in which it seems 
 possible to appreciate fully the Paradise Lost is 
 to separate it entirely from the subject of which 
 it avowedly treats ; the former essayists, as young 
 people always do, thought almost entirely of the 
 story or plot contained in the poem. Regarded 
 solely in this light, it is, we think, almost im- 
 possible to speak of the poem otherwise than 
 with blame. Although we may be willing to 
 exonerate Milton, taking into consideration his 
 peculiar training and the age in which he lived, 
 of any irreverent intentions, it must, we think, be 
 acknowledged that the subject of the poem, in- 
 volving as it does the consideration of those 
 questions before whose stupendous difficulty the 
 human intellect, even when assisted by revelation, 
 has ever quailed, and towards whose solution it 
 has never been able to advance one step, — the 
 origin of evil, free-will, the divine attributes of 
 infinite power and mercy considered in connection 
 with a creation full of misery, — is, to say the least 
 of it, unsuitable, especially as these overwhelming 
 themes are considered, not solemnly and soberly,
 
 THE 'PARADISE LOST' 125 
 
 in the light of reason and of prayer, but poetically 
 in that of dim traditions, and through an antique 
 region of pagan and medieval mythos. 
 
 It is peculiarly characteristic of the age in 
 which Milton lived, and the Puritan sects amoncr 
 whom he was brought up, and of those unprofit- 
 able and disturbing discussions on things beyond 
 the reach of man's understanding which excited 
 men's minds (and by the attempt to restrain 
 which the Laudian party incurred such a load 
 of obloquy), that Milton, a layman and political 
 tract-writer, seems to feel no diffidence or hesita- 
 tion in treating of these themes ; but it would 
 seem that it must be attributed to other influences 
 than these that he does not shrink from describing 
 the divine persons themselves in language and 
 by ideas which, being human and sensuous, are 
 naturally revolting and inadequate ; and that a 
 singular conjunction of classical poet and Puritan 
 is no doubt the only one which could have pro- 
 duced a composition so extraordinary as the 
 Paradise Lost. 
 
 We have said that we may be willing to acquit 
 Milton of irreverence, and there is a view of this 
 subject which probably is a true one, and which 
 is not without its pathos. After a stormy and 
 distracted life, a home rendered unhappy by a 
 stern, unyielding temper and an intolerant creed, 
 and a public life stained with violent party 
 passions and degraded by the purchased pen of 
 a political hireling, and by the malignity which 
 pursued its enemies even beyond the grave, — this 
 poor, blind, and old poet, scholar, and musician 
 comes at last, his political dreams vanished, his
 
 126 THE 'PARADISE LOST' 
 
 party destroyed, his power gone, to meditate on 
 other things. Blind, despised, neglected, in those 
 early dawns when he used to rise and walk in the 
 garden, his fancy retraces the steps of man's 
 wanderings through the antique paths of history 
 and tradition, to that distant home and cradle 
 under the eastern sky, towards which, as to our 
 ancient country, mankind has ever looked and 
 prayed. In the darkness in which he sat he sees 
 before him the glades of Eden, and in the deep 
 silence of the lull of politics, he listens for the 
 speaking of a divine voice : 
 
 This subject for heroic song 
 Pleased me, long choosing and beginning late, 
 Not sedulous by nature to indite 
 Wars, hitherto the only Argument 
 Heroic deemed . . . the better fortitude 
 Of patience and heroic martyrdom 
 Unsung ; . . . me of these 
 Not skilled nor studious, higher Argument 
 Remains, sufficient of itself to raise 
 That name, unless an age too late, or cold 
 Climate, or years, damp my intended wing 
 Depressed, and much they may. . . . 
 
 Before this gigantic intellect, this blind Samson, 
 crushed and beaten down, before this solemn and 
 religious nature, mistaken and erring perhaps, none 
 of us surely will refuse to bow ; and the ties of 
 party all forgotten, the noise and smoke of the 
 battlefield passed away out of sight, the blood of 
 the scaffold even forgiven, sit down together as 
 children of the same Father, to whom the divine 
 pleading comes equally, whom the taint and soil 
 of sin alike deface, and to whom alike the antique 
 stories of the old world (the expression of the
 
 THE 'PARADISE LOST' 127 
 
 troubled heart of humanity) come like plaintive 
 music, wandering down through the ages in 
 search of holiness and of bliss. 
 
 We said that to appreciate the Paradise Lost 
 we must forget the story and, in fact, read the 
 whole book in such an allegorical light as will 
 enable us to separate the beauties from the dross 
 in which they are enclosed ; but this only means 
 that we can only read parts of it at all, or at least 
 with edification, for such parts as are purely 
 narrative are so gross in their conceptions and 
 so unworthy of the themes of which they treat, 
 that no amount of allegorical interpretation can 
 render them otherwise than disgusting. The 
 principal of these are, the War in Heaven and, 
 in a less degree, the description of the Creation. 
 The first of these, slavishly copied from the 
 classic fables, has this disadvantage as compared 
 with them, that the wars of the material giants 
 with the human gods of the Hellenic theogony 
 had in them something of awe and mystery, 
 being really what they professed to be — material 
 agencies on a vast and awful scale ; nothing of 
 which can be said of the conflict between the 
 heavenly intelligences and the spiritual powers of 
 darkness, the absurdity of the description of which 
 culminates when it is explained that the ethereal 
 angels, being coated with material armour, were 
 more liable to the destructive force of Satan's 
 engines than otherwise their spiritual bodies 
 would have been. The description of the creation 
 is scarcely less unpleasant (with the exception of 
 those parts, of course, which are purely descriptive 
 of nature), and it may be remarked respecting it,
 
 128 THE 'PARADISE LOST' 
 
 and Milton's cosmogony in general, that his ideas 
 were more gross and incorrect than the state of 
 science in his day warranted; which probably arose 
 from a strict adherence to a mistaken under- 
 standing of the Mosaic cosmogony. The descrip- 
 tion of Death and Sin, though also material, differs 
 slightly from these, and is less objectionable, for 
 this reason, that the intense horror and loathing 
 of the description could not probably have been 
 produced by a less material allegory. Some con- 
 siderable part of the mutual converse of Adam 
 and Raphael is also liable to become absurd from 
 the same reasons ; and indeed we shall probably 
 derive most pleasure by allegorising the whole 
 book, and taking Adam as simply the mouthpiece 
 of humanity, and the whole wealth of description of 
 the scenery by which he is surrounded as imagery 
 of the different aspects in which the visible things 
 of earth and heaven appear to and affect us. 
 
 But when we have thus cleared the ground, — 
 when we have thus performed the thankless task 
 of fault-finding, and may now open our eyes on 
 the beauties of the scene, — what a glorious land- 
 scape of loveliness lies before us ! What a pageant 
 of sublime thoughts and aspirations fills the sight ! 
 With a sweetness and a rhythm and a choice of 
 words which even Tennyson himself, following 
 carefully and closely, and with the further aid of 
 two centuries of literature, has scarcely surpassed, 
 never surely were the beauties of this world — 
 
 To our native Heaven 
 Little inferior — 
 
 sung with a nobler voice.
 
 THE ' PARADISE LOST' 129 
 
 As when 
 Cherubic songs by night from neighbouring hills 
 Aerial music send. 
 
 As when a scout 
 Through dark and desert ways with peril gone 
 All night ; at last by break of cheerful dawne 
 Obtains the brow of some high-climbing Hill, 
 Which to his eye discovers unaware 
 The goodly prospect of some foreign land 
 First seen ; or some renowned Metropolis 
 With glistering Spires and Pinnacles adorned 
 Which now the rising sun gilds with his beams. 
 
 As one who long in populous city pent, 
 Where houses thick and sewers annoy the aire, 
 Forth issuing on a summer's morn to breathe 
 Among the pleasant villages and Farms 
 Adjoyn'd, from each thing met conceives delight, 
 The smell of grain, of tedded grass, or Kine, 
 Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound. 
 
 ... a field 
 Part arable and tilth whereon were sheaves, 
 New-reaped, the other part sheep-walks and foulds . . . 
 
 Or where — 
 
 A steep wilderness, whose hairie sides 
 
 With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild, 
 
 Access deny'd ; and overhead upgrew 
 
 Insuperable heighth of loftiest shade, 
 
 Cedar, and Pine, and Fir, and branching Palm, 
 
 A Silvan Scene, and as the ranks ascend, 
 
 Shade above shade, a woody theatre 
 
 Of stateliest view. . . . 
 
 On which the Sun more glad impressed his beams 
 
 Than in fair evening Cloud, or humid Bow, 
 
 When God hath showered the earth ; so lovely seemed 
 
 That Landskip. And of pure now purer air 
 
 Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires 
 
 Vernal delight and joy. 
 
 Betwixt them Lawns, or level Downs, and Flocks 
 Grazing the tender herb, were interposed, 
 VOL. II K
 
 130 THE 'PARADISE LOST' 
 
 Or palmie hillock, or the flourie lap 
 Of some irriguous valley spread her store. 
 Flowers of all hue, and without Thorn the Rose. 
 Another side, umbrageous Grots and Caves 
 Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine 
 Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps 
 Luxuriant ; meanwhile murmuring waters fall 
 Down the slope hills dispersed, or in a Lake 
 That to the fringed Bank with Myrtle crowned 
 Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams. 
 The Birds their quire apply ; aires, vernal aires, 
 Breathing the smell of Field and Grove, attune 
 The trembling leaves . . . 
 
 Not that fair field 
 Of Enna, where Proserpine, gathering flowers, 
 Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis 
 Was gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain 
 To seek her through the world ; nor that sweet Grove 
 Of Daphne, by Orontes and the inspired 
 Castalian spring, might with this Paradise 
 Of Eden strive. 
 
 Over all which loveliness, as over the human 
 mind, pass shade and sorrow, making life more 
 touching and lovely by the temporary eclipse : 
 
 As when from mountain tops the dusky clouds 
 Ascending, while the North wind sleeps, o'erspread 
 Heaven's chearful face, the lowering Element 
 Scowls o'er the dark'nd landskip, snow or showers ; 
 If chance the radiant Sun, with farewell sweet 
 Extend his evening beam, the fields revive, 
 The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds 
 Attest their joy, that hill and valley rings. 
 
 Or when at last, haply, desolation comes, as 
 come it will too surely : 
 
 Their glory withered, as when Heaven's fire 
 Hath scath'd the forest Oaks, or mountain Pines ; 
 With singed top their stately growth, though bare, 
 Stands on the blasted heath, •.
 
 THE 'PARADISE LOST' 131 
 
 Well might the Angelic virtue answer mild : 
 
 Adam, I therefore came, nor art thou such 
 Created, or such place hast here to dwell, 
 As may not oft invite though spirits of Heaven 
 To visit thee. 
 
 Nor amid this loveliness is there wanting an 
 earthly and historic interest, — all the treasures 
 of medieval lore and art ; all that the seven- 
 teenth century knew and dreamed of — a century 
 full of knowledge and of dreams : 
 
 The Empiric Alchemist by fire of sooty coal 
 Can turn, or holds it possible to turn 
 Metals of drossiest ore to perfect gold, 
 As from the mine. 
 
 Their quaint opinions wide, 
 Hereafter, when they come to model Heav'n 
 And calculate the Stars, how they will wield 
 The mighty frame, how build, unbuild, contrive 
 To save appearances, how gird the sphear 
 With Centric and Eccentric scribbled o'er, 
 Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb. 
 
 As when by night the glass 
 
 Of Galileo, less assured, observes 
 
 Imagined lands and regions in the moon. 
 
 All the curious speculations of which that age 
 was so fond : 
 
 The common gloss of theologians. 
 
 And the jargon of the chymists : 
 
 Concoctive heat 
 To transubstantiate, and what redounds transpire 
 Thro' spirits with ease. 
 
 And the description of the sun : 
 
 Metal or Stone 
 Not all parts like, but all alike inform'd 
 With radiant Light, as glowing iron with fire.
 
 132 THE 'PARADISE LOST' 
 
 If metal, part seemed Gold, part Silver clear; 
 If stone, Carbuncle most or Chrysolite, 
 . . . and a stone besides 
 Imagined rather oft, than elsewhere seen. 
 That stone, or like to that which, here below, 
 Philosophers in vain so long have sought, 
 In vain, though by their powerful Art they bind 
 Volatil Hermes, and call up unbound 
 In various shapes old Proteus from the sea, 
 Drained through a Limbec to his native form. 
 
 All the political and religious sarcasm and 
 ridicule of the day : 
 
 Embryos and Idiots, Eremits and Friars 
 White, Black and Grey, with all their trumpery, 
 And they who to be sure of Paradise, 
 Dying, put on the weeds of Dominic, 
 Or in Franciscan, think to pass disguised. 
 
 . . . The tedious pomp that waits 
 On Princes, when their rich retinue long 
 Of horses led, and grooms besmear'd with gold 
 Dazzles the crowd, and sets them all agape. 
 
 Races and games 
 Of tilting Furniture and emblazoned Shields, 
 Impresses quaint, caparisons and Steeds, 
 Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous Knights 
 At Joust and Tournament, then marshall'd Feast 
 Served up in hall with sewers and Seneschals. 
 
 The unsurpassed music of the seventeenth 
 
 century is not unheard : 
 
 The Harp 
 Had work and rested not, the solemn Pipe 
 And Dulcimer, all organs of sweet stop, 
 All sounds on Fret by String or golden Wire 
 Tempered, soft tunings, intermixed with voice 
 Choral or unison : of incense clouds 
 Fuming from golden censers hid the mount. 
 
 And, finally, human pathos, to which we pass 
 naturally from the cathedral strains :
 
 THE 'PARADISE LOST' 133 
 
 Forsake me not thus, Adam ! Witness Heaven, 
 What love sincere, and reverence in my heart 
 I bear thee, and unweeting have offended, 
 Unhappily deceiv'd ; thy suppliant, 
 I beg, and clasp thy knees ; bereave me not, 
 Whereon I live, thy gentle looks, thy aid, 
 Thy counsel in this uttermost distress. 
 My only strength and stay : forlorn of thee, 
 Whither shall I betake me, where subsist ? 
 While yet we live, scarce one short hour perhaps, 
 Between us two let there be peace. 
 
 Nor is this lovely country inhabited only by 
 beings earthly-minded. The book, like Pros- 
 pero's island, " is full of voices," "celestial voices," 
 "millions of spiritual creatures." Thoughts, 
 intelligences, throng its pages : 
 
 Angels ascending and descending, bands 
 Of guardians bright, as when to him who fled 
 To Padan-Aram in the field of Luz ; 
 Dreaming by night under the open air, 
 And waking cried, This is the gate of heaven ! 
 
 So that the eye is not more delighted with 
 
 Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill, 
 Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, 
 Or flocks or herds, or coming on 
 Of grateful evening mild, 
 
 and all the lovely imagery of the book, than is 
 "the mind, through all her powers irradiated," 
 and what is dark illumined, and what is low 
 raised and supported : 
 
 When God or Angel guest familiar use 
 To sit indulgent, and with him partake 
 Rural repast, permitting him the while 
 Venial discourse unblamed ; 
 
 till, "raised to the height of this great argument,"
 
 134 THE 'PARADISE LOST' 
 
 we seem to hear with the poet the echoes and to 
 breathe the clear air of the eternal hills : 
 
 Smit with the love of sacred song. 
 
 To which frame of mind what can come more 
 fitly than these lines, surely as sublime as any 
 which the Divine prompting ever inspired poet 
 to indite : 
 
 This most afflicts me, that departing hence 
 
 As from His face I shall be hid, deprived 
 
 His blessed count'nance ; here I could frequent 
 
 With worship, place by place, where He vouchsafed 
 
 Presence Divine, and to my sons relate, 
 
 On this Mount He appeared, under this tree 
 
 Stood visible, among these Pines His voice 
 
 I heard, here with Him at this fountain talked. 
 
 So many grateful Altars I would rear 
 
 Of grassie Turf, and pile up every Stone 
 
 Of lustre from the brook, in memory, 
 
 Or monument to Ages, and thereon 
 
 Offer sweet-smelling Gums, and Fruits, and Flowers. 
 
 In yonder nether World where shall I seek 
 
 His bright appearances, or footsteps trace ? 
 
 For though I fled Him angry, yet recall'd 
 
 To life prolonged, and promised Race I now 
 
 Gladly behold, though but His utmost skirts 
 
 Of glory, and far off His steps adore. 
 
 To whom thus Michael, with regard benign : — 
 Adam, thou knowest Heaven His, and all the Earth, 
 Not this rock only ; His Omnipresence fills 
 Land, sea, and air, and every kind that lives, 
 Fomented by His virtual power, and warmed. 
 All th' earth He gave thee to possess and rule, 
 No despicable gift, surmise not then 
 His presence to these narrow bounds confine 
 Of Paradise or Eden . . . 
 
 And- 
 
 Doubt not, but in valley and in plain 
 God is as here, and will be found alike
 
 THE 'PARADISE LOST' 135 
 
 Present, and of His presence many a sign 
 Still following thee, still compassing thee round 
 With goodness and Paternal Love, His face 
 Express, and of His steps the tract Divine. 
 
 . . . Good with bad 
 Expect to hear, supernal Grace contending 
 With sinfulness of Men, thereby to learn 
 True patience, and to temper joy with fear 
 And pious sorrow, equally enur'd 
 By moderation either state to bear, 
 Prosperous or adverse ; so shalt thou lead 
 Safest thy life, and best prepared endure 
 Thy mortal passage, when it comes.
 
 LITERATURE 
 
 Having had the other evening to attend, from a 
 sense of duty, a meeting which was held in the 
 Old Lecture Theatre in Cannon Street, and the 
 meeting being of the usual heavy and oppressive 
 nature, and moreover being addressed by sundry 
 " intelligent mechanics " — thereby impressing you 
 with a healthy horror of democratic parliaments 
 
 — I occupied myself during most of the time in 
 following the train of thought suggested by the 
 room itself. There is perhaps no place in 
 Birmingham which should inspire such feelings of 
 respect. I am not aware of the exact date of 
 its erection, or whether the earliest followers 
 of Science and Literature met within its walls 
 
 — the Priestleys, the Daltons, the Huttons, 
 the Schimmelpennincks, and the Galtons ; but 
 whether this was the case or not, it was the 
 society founded and encouraged by them who did 
 so, and who kept alive for many years in Birming- 
 ham whatever was calculated to wean the mind 
 from vulgarity and sordid pursuits. But to my 
 own mind this room has an interest still more 
 particular and attractive. I will not say that it 
 was here that I first contracted a fondness for 
 reading, but it certainly was here — and I can recall 
 
 136
 
 LITERATURE 137 
 
 the very evening — that I first saw something of 
 the delightful possibilities of " Literature " properly 
 so-called. Very few in this room perhaps will 
 remember the course of lectures on History, or the 
 Philosophy of History, delivered some twelve or 
 fourteen years ago by a gentleman of the name of 
 Lord, but if there are any, they will thank me for 
 recalling to their minds a very pleasant remem- 
 brance. I have no recollection who he was, nor 
 where he came from, but his lectures impressed 
 those who heard him, many of whom were then 
 very young, in a remarkable way. Following the 
 pleasing thoughts which the remembrance of these 
 bygone years suggested, I naturally connected them 
 with the past of our Essay Meeting, associated 
 with such thoughts in the minds of all of us ; and 
 the urgent necessity of producing a paper at this 
 meeting, combined with a sincere wish to con- 
 tribute, in however slight a degree, to the 
 prosperity of its future, is the occasion of the 
 present essay. 
 
 Literary societies like ours, which combine the 
 social with the intellectual element, are exposed 
 to peculiar dangers and causes of decay. The 
 intellectual element in them is narrowed to one 
 phase, and that a somewhat peculiar one — pure 
 literature. Societies formed for some express 
 study or the attainment of some particular art, as 
 geology, natural history, bibliography, music, 
 painting, etc., being simple in their object, live or 
 die with that object alone. So long as any meet 
 for the pursuit of that object, their end is obtained; 
 if none meet, the society is at an end, and no more 
 is to be said about it. Besides, their object is a
 
 138 LITERATURE 
 
 tangible one, and no one who is not interested in 
 that object is attracted to the society. With us 
 it is very different. The social pleasures of our 
 society afford attractions when the intellectual 
 have been forgotten or overlooked ; technical (or, 
 as I have ventured to call them, tangible) subjects 
 are unsuited to our meetings ; and that which is 
 suited — pure literature, which is what all our 
 essays aim at — is of all kinds of writing the most 
 rare in any degree above mediocrity. I have always 
 asserted that to compose an essay at once first- 
 class and still exactly suited to the idea of the 
 Essay Meeting is the most difficult of attainments. 
 In the abstract, like most abstractions, Litera- 
 ture is not easy of definition — of one, at any rate, 
 which will distinguish it from mere style; for every 
 conceivable subject of literature may be classed 
 under some science or other, and if vou exclude 
 
 7 *■ 
 
 all these, you leave her nothing but a mere 
 arrangement of words. I was inclined to define 
 it as all writing which appeals to the heart and not 
 to the head, but such a definition would be one- 
 sided and derogatory to literature ; and though I 
 might call it Science displayed attractively, which 
 I believe to be very nearly an exact definition, the 
 word "attractively" is liable to be misunderstood. 
 Perhaps the exactest definition of all would be, 
 that science which treats of the effect of the 
 contact of human nature with matter, for all 
 literature is instinctively human, and every one 
 will agree that no writing was ever called, or 
 thought of, as literature, which has not individual 
 human feelings as its centre. But, on the whole, I 
 prefer, as most simple, the former definition, viz.
 
 LITERATURE 139 
 
 Science, by which I mean every conceivable sub- 
 ject of interest to mankind, written attractively. 
 And here we see at once why excellence in 
 literature is so rare, and why, to speak colloquially, 
 our Essay Meetings "come to grief," for to write 
 or speak attractively is the rarest and most pre- 
 cious gift of a beneficent God. 
 
 Whether this is true of literature or not, it is 
 certain that it is true as a definition of what is 
 required of our essays ; for it is laid upon us, as a 
 necessity of our existence, that we must be 
 attractive, and woe be to us if we fail ! What a 
 terrible burden, then, is this, especially if we con- 
 sider the variety of taste ! What are we to do to 
 become attractive to a room full of people, many 
 of whom avowedly attend the Essay Meeting 
 chiefly for its social element ? I can think of 
 but one way of getting anything like an answer to 
 this question. I will state my view of what is 
 attractive in literature, and the Essay Meeting 
 will be good enough to declare whether it is of the 
 same opinion or not ; we shall then at least have 
 some standard to set before us, some mark to aim 
 at, and some example to follow. But at the out- 
 set it is necessary to discriminate. Mankind is 
 divided into two distinct classes, Personalists and 
 Impersonalists (something in the way of abstract 
 and concrete). The Personalists take little in- 
 terest in anything which does not relate in some 
 plain way to individual human life, and to the 
 senses and emotions which make up that life. 
 The Impersonalists, on the other hand, delight in 
 nothing but the consideration of abstract pheno- 
 mena (if the phrase may be allowed), which have
 
 140 LITERATURE 
 
 no connection, or at least a very remote one, with 
 human life. I give these people up : nothing that 
 I can say can ever possibly be attractive to them ; 
 and if there are any such in the room they are 
 requested not to vote. 
 
 If we agree in the attraction to a personal 
 interest, our idea of attractiveness in a writer will 
 probably be something like this, that it is his duty, 
 in what he writes, to aim at setting his subject 
 vividly before the reader, in such a way as to 
 awaken his interest in it as a thinking human 
 being in whose common nature author, subject, 
 and reader are united, the first and last absolutely, 
 and the second either absolutely or relatively, as 
 the case may be. To do this the writer must 
 know an immense deal more than he absolutely 
 writes : he must not only have mastered the 
 subject on which he writes, but he must have 
 mastered every other subject which in the remotest 
 way relates to or has any influence upon it — 
 mastered it, that is, as far as it is necessary to 
 understand its influence on his own more 
 particular subject. By all this knowledge he 
 forms in his own mind a perfect image of the 
 subject he wishes to describe ; so that, out of the 
 fulness and completeness of his conception of it, 
 he conveys to the reader, if not as complete a 
 conception as he has himself, still as complete a 
 one as the nature of the case renders possible 
 or necessary. If, for instance, he is writing his- 
 tory, every other science — philosophy, topography, 
 biography, natural history — all throw their par- 
 ticular light, all bring their especial assistance to 
 the subject, and it is only rearranging the order
 
 LITERATURE 141 
 
 of the sciences, and you may go through the 
 whole list, with as many different changes as there 
 are worlds. Unless the historian does this, he 
 produces indeed a number of phantoms gliding 
 dimly about, but he inspires no interest in the 
 breast of his reader in the story he relates ; unless 
 a writer on natural history does this, he becomes 
 a mere compiler of catalogues, and by his 
 intolerable weariness disgusts his reader with the 
 science he wishes him to study ; unless a writer on 
 philosophy does this, he becomes a mere theorist, 
 and the influence his book would otherwise exert 
 is lost as soon as it is read ; unless a preacher 
 does this, as he very seldom does, the Divine Story 
 which he tries to tell is listened to but as an idle 
 tale worthily forgotten as soon as heard. This 
 is why novels and tales are so attractive and so 
 much read, because, whatever else they may do, 
 they fulfil from their very nature this requirement, 
 which, in every other branch of bookcraft, the 
 deepest study can scarcely accomplish. They go 
 straight to the heart of the reader ; they appeal to 
 that common instinct which he possesses as one 
 of a united family, in which " one touch of Nature 
 has made the whole world kin." If they do not 
 do this, they are worthless and are never read ; but 
 being by their very nature simply relations of the 
 experiences and sorrows of our fellow human 
 beings, they can scarcely, except from the grossest 
 stupidity, fail of touching some recollection, or 
 some affection, or some sorrow, which the influence 
 of Time and of the nobler feelings has made 
 dearer to the heart than life itself. But you will 
 ask, How is this art to be obtained ? First,
 
 142 LITERATURE 
 
 I suppose, by the possession of some native 
 aptitude ; but chiefly, I am certain, by the hardest 
 and most patient labour — a labour which despises 
 nothing, which is daunted by nothing, which a 
 love of the pursuit it is engaged in carries over 
 every obstacle and through every discourage- 
 ment ; a patience which is untired by the drudgery 
 of working through uncongenial and seemingly 
 irrelevant sciences for the sake of the light which 
 here and there they shed on the subject on which 
 you are engaged ; a patience which carries you 
 through that laborious formation of style, that 
 profuse blotting, that writing and rewriting, with- 
 out which no author can expect to obtain that 
 mastery over his language which alone will render 
 his style attractive. How is it possible, then, that 
 a society like ours, composed of members whose 
 lives are given to pursuits the reverse of all this, 
 can ever accomplish such labours — ever accom- 
 plish, that is, what it was avowedly established to 
 perform ? And does it not seem more than 
 probable that a society formed for such lofty aims 
 must be content to go on in future, as it has gone 
 on for a considerable part of its existence, drinking 
 tea, and eating " trifle" and bread and butter ? Or 
 shall we at last be constrained to think as the 
 Roman satirist thought — 
 
 Ludisti satis, edisti satis, atque bibisti ; 
 Tempus abire tibi est ! 
 
 Of course, it will be said that much can be done 
 without attaining to such altitudes as these, but 
 without some such standard as this before us 
 nothing will be done. There was a sentence we
 
 LITERATURE 143 
 
 learnt at school, of which (as an erudite school- 
 fellow used to say) " I forget the Latin," but 
 which was to the effect that there is no fruit 
 without labour ; and how can there be labour 
 without some stimulus, and how can there be a 
 stimulus without some noble and attractive goal — 
 very far off, alas, but to some natures not the less 
 of a stimulus for that ? And, moreover, let us 
 never forget that not one particle of all this effort 
 is thrown away. We have said that all the 
 sciences blend with and assist each other, and it is 
 the greatest proof of the truth of our theory that 
 all these sciences and all these pursuits blend into 
 one common sense, one master principle, which at 
 once assists and is assisted by them. It is the 
 great fault of pure reason, and of its modern 
 followers, that they pursue but one object, 
 blinding themselves to every other (so that in 
 these enlightened days it is no absurdity to 
 describe a man whose sole objects of belief are 
 two or three flint axes dug up some dozen feet 
 below the drift) ; whereas all that makes a man 
 combine in his mind more ideas than one, more 
 sciences than one, more conceptions of the 
 appearances of things than one, elevates him in 
 the scale of existence, carries him nearer to his 
 Creator, and disposes him to listen to that system, 
 catholic over nature as over the human race, which 
 has for its centre the All-creating Word ; for the 
 more we realise, by every branch of learning, 
 and by every effort of our intellect, the external 
 appearance of the Life of Christ, the more we 
 picture to ourselves, by the aid of natural history, 
 of topography, or of archaeology, the progress of
 
 144 LITERATURE 
 
 that life, so much the more we shall discover 
 the master principle, the summum bonum, of the 
 ancients, in which all wisdom is contained. Across 
 the long and dreary ages of strife and sin and 
 doubt, the echoes of this life come to us with 
 the sweetness of some half- caught melody from 
 another world; "a dew, like that of Hermon, 
 preventing drought and barrenness from entirely 
 invading the field of God " ; from the lake shores 
 of Galilee, with the waves rippling on their flower- 
 enamelled banks ; from that pastoral life of peace 
 and of a purity which we can never understand, 
 in one unbroken path of beneficence (thanks to 
 which the dullest existence has ever after had its 
 glimpse of heaven); through the crowds of city 
 and religious life ; in contact with every grade of 
 human society, from the centurion in his gorgeous 
 Roman uniform to the outcast publican ; through 
 the judgment hall of Pilate to the felon's cross and 
 the heretic's grave. And the more our learning 
 enables us to see all the various points of view, 
 and all the lights and shadows of this picture of 
 Our Lord, and to appreciate its relative position in 
 the history of our race, the more we shall feel that 
 we have not lost our labour, if it has enabled us 
 to realise, more fully perhaps than we otherwise 
 should, the highest possibilities of that human 
 nature which it is our overwhelming responsibility 
 to share with Him.
 
 ON TRUE AND FALSE SUPER- 
 NATURALISM 
 
 It would be an interesting inquiry for any one 
 familiar with the homely traditions of different 
 ages, and imbued with the love of old books, to 
 trace the dissimilarity between the true super- 
 stition — the true supernatural creed, which is the 
 immemorial possession and belief of a people, 
 which has its birth in their everyday thoughts and 
 necessities, and the aspect and influence of nature 
 around them — and that false supernaturalism, 
 generally the offspring of an affected and super- 
 ficial learning and civilisation, which seeks to 
 graft and transplant some incongruous and 
 strange conception upon the natural belief of a 
 people, thereby producing no better result than 
 a worthless and trivial tale. 
 
 Those real traditions and superstitions which 
 come to us fresh and pure from the hills and 
 dales and country -places where they had their 
 birth, however false we may choose to call the 
 narrations they convey, are indeed the truest part 
 of history. Prejudice may misrepresent, and 
 slander and faction may malign, and the distance 
 of time may obscure, the deeds and thoughts of 
 nations and of men, but the spectral tales of the 
 
 VOL. II 145 L
 
 146 ON TRUE AND FALSE 
 
 people carry us at once into the most retired 
 dwellings and the most distant past, and show us, 
 with a reality which prevents a doubt, the actions 
 and the thoughts, the lives and deaths, the hopes 
 and fears, of nations known to us otherwise but 
 by name. 
 
 The awful certainty of and familiarity with 
 death, which is the common property of the 
 whole human race, gives these legends a solemnity 
 and a gravity which we wrong very much when 
 we consider them in any but the most serious 
 mood ; and we may take it as a sign of right 
 feeling on these points when we are shocked at 
 those monstrous tales which heap wonder and 
 horror on each other with no regard to that 
 truth which nowhere more than in those legends 
 should be scrupulously observed. 
 
 This familiarity with death and the spirit- 
 world, while it is the awful possession of the 
 human race, is also one of its highest privileges. 
 I n whatever country man may be placed, this famili- 
 arity gives an interest and a beauty to his life 
 which its otherwise monstrous dulness would fail 
 to possess, and a grandeur and nobility to the 
 voice of Nature other than her most lovely or 
 most awful scenes would, without this, be able to 
 command. It is this that gives its lesson to the 
 rolling ocean, their moral to the everlasting hills. 
 It was this that gave a meaning, in the eyes of 
 the dwellers among them, to the dismal and 
 gloomy recesses of the Harz Mountains, to the 
 dim and sacred forests of Germany, and to the 
 dreary wilds of Scandinavia ; and having once 
 given this meaning to Nature, this spectral creed
 
 SUPERNATURALISM 147 
 
 receives back from her a strength and an endur- 
 ance which is among the most wonderful things 
 in this world of wonders. The possessors of 
 the second sight 1 in the Highlands of Scotland 
 were no longer seers when they left their native 
 hills, and the gnomes and dwarfs of the Norse 
 mythology did not accompany their human ac- 
 quaintances in their wanderings, but remained in 
 their old haunts. 
 
 It would be curious to trace the various causes 
 which led to the different kinds of supernaturalism 
 to which countries and ages have given birth : 
 as, for instance, in the rough first ages of Northern 
 Europe, the necessity and utility of workers in 
 iron, and of strong and swift horses, was the origin 
 of numberless legends of wayland smiths, and 
 of famous steeds, gifted with human sense and 
 speech. Again, the stories of the fairies are 
 among those which have suffered most from a 
 spurious supernaturalism, but they seem to have 
 been confined entirely to Great Britain. The 
 elves of the popular tales of Ireland would appear, 
 indeed, to be the same as the alfs of Iceland and 
 Scandinavia, but the real fairies of England and 
 Scotland are totally different from the trolls, 
 kobolds, and little men of the mines of Germany 
 and the north of Europe. It is interesting to see 
 how the mineral treasures of these latter countries 
 and the immemorial skill of the inhabitants in 
 working them have influenced the mythology ; 
 the dwarfs, who play so chief a part in their tales, 
 have but a very faint echo in the miner super- 
 stitions of our own country. Scotland also, the 
 
 1 See the letters on Second Sight in the Pepys Correspondence.
 
 148 ON TRUE AND FALSE 
 
 home of so many supernatural beings, is entirely 
 ignorant of them. Were these German and 
 Scandinavian traditions dim recollections, as some 
 have supposed, of a previous people, whom our 
 Teuton ancestors conquered and destroyed, or 
 was there so great a difference between the 
 Keltic and Scandinavian mind, so great a 
 diversity in their several readings of the great 
 lessons of humanity and of the voice of the 
 visible world, that they could not " carve out of 
 Nature for themselves " the same legends or the 
 same creed ? 
 
 Why, again, was magic and the power of 
 invocating the dead so much more general in the 
 southern and north-eastern countries of Europe 
 than elsewhere ? Innumerable traditions, indeed, 
 have spread over the whole of Europe, but with 
 such remarkable exceptions as to increase rather 
 than lessen our wonder. Why, for instance, was 
 the spectre huntsman, so often seen in Germany, 
 England, and even France, entirely unknown, so 
 far as I am aware, in Spain or Italy, in Scandinavia 
 or Scotland? Some legends found alike in the 
 Hindoo, the Classic, and the Teutonic nations 
 are invaluable to the ethnologist as bearing on 
 the common origin of the Indo-European races, 
 but even these are full of strange variations. 
 
 It would also be very curious to observe the 
 changing of these traditions with the age. There 
 is one very remarkable instance which is well 
 worthy of being traced to its source. Before the 
 Reformation in England we hear very little of 
 apparitions of the dead, — what we do hear being 
 mere monkish narrations, for the glory of their
 
 SUPERNATURALISM 149 
 
 different orders, of the appearance of saints and 
 great ecclesiastical dignitaries, — nothing at all that 
 corresponds with the familiar intercourse with 
 the spirits of departed friends found in the more 
 modern ghost stories. Instead of this, the belief 
 in fairies was universal. These pretty beings 
 were everywhere, haunting every dell and lonely 
 place. After the Reformation it was observed 
 by several writers that the fairies entirely dis- 
 appeared. Then, when the mind of the people 
 was loosened from its old sure anchorage in the 
 religion of Rome, and tossed and confused with 
 religious conflict and doubt, graver and more 
 solemn thoughts brought nearer to them the 
 spirit-world, in more noble but more awful guise. 
 Then, not in lonely and romantic spots, fit for 
 fanciful imaginations, did a beautiful and fairy 
 creation dance before them, as in a poet's dream, 
 but the spirits of their dead friends stood before 
 them in familiar orchards and rooms. Riding in 
 open day, on their homely business, near their 
 own houses, they held talk face to face with 
 spirits. In those great struggles of the serious 
 and pious mind of the Protestant Teuton after 
 the everlasting truth, the departed spirits of men 
 manifested an interest in the trouble of their 
 human kin ; and so closely were these ghostly 
 interviews connected with the truths of religion, 
 that for many years to doubt one was to doubt 
 the other, and the man who denied the possibility 
 of an apparition declared himself an infidel. 
 
 I have space but for one instance of the false 
 supernaturalism. What nations and generations 
 have firmly believed in is as true to us as any
 
 150 ON TRUE AND FALSE 
 
 history can be ; for, as a naturalist can describe 
 an animal from seeing its food, so the intellectual 
 food of a people shows us the people itself. If 
 this is the value of these legends, how utterly- 
 worthless must those fanciful narrations of super- 
 natural events be which never were the faith of 
 any nation, or anything else but the imaginative 
 ravings of a poet's brain ! 
 
 We see this in the half- Classic, half- Gothic 
 poems of Tasso and Ariosto. Of Tasso's beauti- 
 ful poem no one should speak but with the greatest 
 respect, but to my mind it is greatly injured by 
 those human trees that bleed and human woods 
 that speak. But Tasso is innocent of this charge 
 compared with Ariosto. In his poem we find little 
 else but this false supernaturalism. Here we see 
 hippogryphs, dragons, visits to the moon and 
 planets, heroes slaying whole armies in one day 
 with a single sword — an innumerable crowd of 
 such follies, which the real beauties of the poem 
 hardly counterbalance. 
 
 Fairy tales and supernatural tales generally, 
 which have been made in modern times to serve 
 as vehicles for modern teaching, have been pro- 
 ductive of the greatest harm in this respect. The 
 well-meaning but mistaken authors never saw 
 that, by thus falsifying and slandering some of 
 the most serious and solemn instincts of our 
 nature, they were committing a far greater moral 
 wrong than their teaching would ever remove. 
 No good can ever come out of falsehood, and 
 that is most false which is monstrous and 
 unnatural. 
 
 Such writers never saw or understood the real
 
 SUPERNATURALISM 151 
 
 lessons and teaching of these time - honoured 
 traditions which they irreverently parodied — 
 lessons not a few, and very high and noble, the 
 greatest of which perhaps is this : that by reflecting 
 on this universal desire of the human soul, this 
 craving which it has ever shown after some 
 knowledge of, and intercourse with, the spirit- 
 world — to make for itself, as it were, friends of the 
 dwellers in that world, that when, after death, it 
 enters, naked and homeless, into that unknown 
 land, astonished and dismayed, they may receive 
 it into everlasting habitations — this yearning after 
 some being gifted with sympathies at once human 
 and divine — a native at once of the mortal and 
 immortal worlds, a god and yet a man — we may 
 perhaps see something of the scope and object 
 of the mission of One who, Himself possessing 
 all these qualities, has gathered together all the 
 craving of the whole human race, all the follies 
 and sins and desires of humanity, into Himself, 
 and by condescending to them, elevated into 
 virtue all its erring and senseless and blind 
 instincts, all its dulness and groping in the dark — 
 Jesus Christ, the Man.
 
 THE AUTUMN WALK 
 
 A solemn peace of its own. 
 
 Dr. Samuel Johnson, in one of the most stately 
 of those Ramblers, whose "stately wisdom" is 
 like the playing of solemn and grand music, has 
 written the following passage, speaking of the 
 propriety of keeping death before our eyes. "If 
 this same thought was always predominant," 
 he says, "we should then find the absurdity of 
 stretching out our arms incessantly to grasp that 
 which we cannot keep, and wearing out our lives 
 in endeavours to add new turrets to the fabric of 
 ambition, when the foundation itself is shaken, 
 and the ground on which it stands is mouldering 
 away." At first sight it would seem easy and 
 most natural that, standing in the midst of death 
 every moment of our lives, we should think the 
 subject of our own approaching dissolution a 
 theme of such importance that we should rarely 
 need the Doctor's euphonious persuasions. But 
 so strangely and wonderfully do we fail in realising 
 the awful importance of this last moment, that 
 we not only utterly ignore as many as we please 
 of the considerations which would tend to con- 
 vince us of its importance, but we turn the rest 
 
 152
 
 THE AUTUMN WALK 153 
 
 into sources of pleasure through our earthly- 
 imaginations, and suffer a pleasing, sentimental 
 melancholy to prevail upon us, when we ought 
 to be roused by the blast of a trumpet, second 
 in power only to that which shall blow at the last 
 day. 
 
 There is a season of the year of which the 
 poetic nature delights to think, when the voices 
 of the trees are hushed before their approaching 
 desolation, and the water in the pools is yellow 
 with the shadow of the faded leaves, — when the 
 wind plays low and mournful music, and the 
 storm demon is preparing to let loose his blasts 
 upon the earth. Then there is a hush and silence 
 over all nature, as around the deathbed of a 
 dying hero, when all men are thinking of his de- 
 parted glory and past life, and are bowing their 
 heads in silence before the coming blow. The 
 mind receives from the face of the country at this 
 season a portion of its calm ; and by the contem- 
 plation of the fate of nature, we are soothed into 
 a fond resignation to our own. 
 
 It was on an afternoon in autumn that I left 
 the cheerful glow of the fire in the parlour of a 
 country-house, and, in the company of a lady, 
 took a walk in the fields. The day was cloudy, 
 and a heavy, dull feeling pervaded the air. The 
 country around us was flat and moderately wooded, 
 and when, after passing two or three fields, we 
 turned to look at the red-brick house we had left, 
 surrounded by its trees, the prospect reminded us 
 of one of the engravings of the last century, in 
 which the chief characteristic is the absence of 
 sunlight. The harvest had been mostly gathered,
 
 154 THE AUTUMN WALK 
 
 and the bright yellow of the stubble fields, and 
 of many of the trees, contrasted finely with the 
 cloudy sky and the dull brown of the grass. Our 
 path led through several fields to a pool of water 
 hidden from the sight by thick trees. We did 
 not say much. What had we to tell ? At these 
 times each one sees for himself a different scene 
 to his companion. It was the remark of a subtle 
 thinker, that since the remembrance of each per- 
 son gives to a place a look and meaning which 
 he only can perceive, there must be an unknown 
 number of pleasing, sad, or dreadful associations 
 spread over the scenes inhabited or visited by 
 man. 
 
 These fields, the old house behind us, this 
 moaning wind, that dark water hidden by the 
 trees, which we contemplate with a pensive 
 pleasure, may excite in another unutterable ideas 
 of grief or agony. Who knows with what strange 
 and fearful beings this scene might be peopled 
 for him, as we ourselves have known in other 
 places ! Nor is such a fancy unsuitable to an 
 autumn walk. May not this feeling, these associ- 
 ated ideas, known only to ourselves, have been 
 in time formed into the wild legends of earthly 
 spirits, gnomes, and fairies of this and other 
 lands ; and what are more autumnal in their as- 
 sociations, and the frame of mind which they 
 create, than such legends? In days like this, 
 full of dark shadows and dim, soft lights, with a 
 sensation of fulness and ripeness and approaching 
 decay in the air, we understand and realise these 
 stories — the birthright and heirloom of a northern 
 race. Autumn is the epic of the deep-thinking
 
 THE AUTUMN WALK 155 
 
 northern nations, as summer is the voluptuous 
 love-song of the south. These yellow woods 
 and brown fields are not the dwelling-places of 
 nymphs and satyrs, but the home of the spirits 
 of our fatherland (to many of us, at least). The 
 German dwarfs, elves, giants, little men of the 
 mines, kobolds, and nixies — these, which surpass 
 in number even the legends of the ideal Greek, 
 are even perhaps more lovely than his, — witness 
 the beautiful myth of the "silent people." They 
 are, like the autumn, domestic, familiar, homely 
 in their tone and character ; in all of them the 
 human interest is predominant, the supernatural 
 is but accessory. The heroes are peasants, poor 
 children, herdsmen ; they are honest, simple, manly, 
 and yet child-hearted ; they are generally oppressed 
 and looked down upon by their fellow human 
 beings, and sit hopelessly in the chimney-corner, 
 or wander mournfully in the fields, like those 
 deprived of mortal friends. Such, these worldly 
 spirits love ; they appear to have adopted and to 
 believe in the old German proverb, "A heart 
 worthy of scarlet lies often under a coarse woollen 
 cloak." Acting upon this principle, they assist 
 and help these forsaken ones, and lavish upon 
 them and their families prosperity and blessings. 
 All this is so natural and homely, so mixed up 
 with the daily life of a people, that these legends 
 suit the autumn days better than the most gorgeous 
 classic dreams. More — with this autumni feeling 
 upon us I think we can understand what they are. 
 They are an attempt to find language for name- 
 less sights and voices. They are the translation 
 of the murmuring song of the ocean, of the fitful
 
 156 THE AUTUMN WALK 
 
 strains that the wind is playing in wild music ; 
 they are the description 
 
 Of undescribed sounds 
 
 That come a-swooning over hollow grounds, 
 
 And wither drearily on barren moors ! 
 
 These fearful lines, for instance, come nearer 
 to the sound of the wind at this moment over the 
 tops of the fir-trees than anything else : 
 
 From the deep mine rush wildly out 
 
 The troop of gnomes, in hellish rout, 
 
 Forth to the witches-clubs they fly ; 
 
 The griffins watch as they go by ; 
 
 The horn of Satan grimly sounds, 
 
 On Blocksburg's flanks strange din resounds, 
 
 And spectres crowd its summit high. 
 
 The idea of the griffins watching the gnomes as 
 they fly past, and the spectres crowding the top 
 of the high mountain, is particularly fine. 
 
 The class of spirits called trolls (which may 
 be either dwarfs or giants) are mostly wicked and 
 malignant ; the kobolds or hobgoblins are neither 
 good nor bad, but are boisterous, terrifying, and 
 noisy ; but the nissies or nixies are of a thoroughly 
 and decidedly good disposition, as their names 
 indicate. Some of them have been known to fill 
 the office of treasurer or master-builder in churches 
 or cathedrals, greatly to the edification of the 
 people and the assistance of the workmen. 
 
 There is something at all times peculiarly 
 fascinating and mysterious in a deep pool of 
 water, but at no season more so than in autumn. 
 A short walk on the day I am writing about 
 brought us to the brink of a large pond, partly 
 overgrown with rushes, and surrounded with high
 
 THE AUTUMN WALK 157 
 
 trees on a sloping bank. The colour of the water 
 was various — in some places yellow with the re- 
 flection of the faded leaves '.; in others dark and 
 gloomy, reflecting the cloudy sky ; and where the 
 brown grassy bank shaded it, it was black. Here 
 and there, through the trunks of the trees all 
 round, we could see the bright yellow of the 
 stubble fields shining amidst the prevailing brown. 
 The water was strewn round the edges with fallen 
 leaves, the wind was rustling through the sedges 
 and moaning through the trees, but there was 
 still a great silence and solemnity about, which we 
 find at no other time. 
 
 If I had the power of those old legend-makers, 
 what wild stories would I translate for you from 
 what the wind is saying ! This dark water itself 
 speaks a language too — very suggestively, if I 
 could translate it — touching some fearful tale. 
 Consider — a dark water, evening, the wind wailing 
 among trees — thus much is Nature's language — 
 how easy to find it a voice and a meaning in our 
 own. There is a scene like this in a German 
 story of a giant. These giants — a good-natured, 
 honest, truth-loving race — were being continually 
 taken in and cheated by men. This particular 
 one was deceived by a boy, who was very weak, 
 but very cunning. By many tricks he made the 
 giant believe he was very strong, and lived with 
 him to serve him. One day he was sent out with 
 the giant's child. On their way they passed by 
 a large pool. The water was very dark and deep. 
 The child fell in and was drowned. Then the 
 boy told the giant that his child had left him and 
 gone into the forest, thinking to meet its father.
 
 158 THE AUTUMN WALK 
 
 Upon this, the giant and the boy set out through 
 the forest seeking it. When they came to the 
 edge of the wood next the boy's home, he asked 
 leave to go to see his mother, promising to return 
 and renew the search the next day. The giant 
 gave him leave ; and mindful of his word, and as 
 a reward for (as he supposed) the boy's faithful 
 services, he gave him three bushels of gold, with 
 which he returned to his mother, and, never 
 returning, nor ever haunted by his cruel deceit 
 and broken word, lived all his life rich and for- 
 tunate ; but (these are the touching words with 
 which the legend ends) " the giant wandered 
 about in the forest, seeking for his child." Ex- 
 cepting poor blind Polyphemus (also a giant), in 
 love with the sea-nymphs, I know nothing so 
 pathetically touching as this — the strong, true- 
 hearted, and deceived giant wandering about the 
 dark, dreary forest, seeking for his lost child ! 
 
 Many more such legends are there, and many 
 more too could we learn, if we listened reverently 
 to the teaching of Nature. But the evening comes 
 on silently, and the darkness gathers about us. 
 Gradually the tops of the trees grow fainter and 
 less distinct against the sky ; gradually the dark 
 shadows spread out on the water from the banks 
 and meet in the centre ; the wind ceases, moaning 
 only at intervals very low : you can hear the 
 falling leaves dropping on the grass. Through 
 the dark fields we go homeward : there is a light 
 all round the horizon, which sheds a faint glimmer 
 over the earth, but there is neither moon nor 
 stars. 
 
 Just thus, as winter cometh on, and the fair
 
 THE AUTUMN WALK 159 
 
 glory of summer is faded away, and is remembered 
 only as a pleasant dream — just so shall we too 
 fade and pass away. And, the strength of our 
 spring and the proud glory of our summer de- 
 parted, we shall follow them. Happy, if at our 
 going we show good store of fruit, our barns 
 rilled with corn, and our sheaves bound up ! So 
 that when the last great harvest is gathered in, 
 and the last great Christmas is come, we may 
 join the everlasting carol to the glory of the 
 Great Husbandman. If so, our close will be as 
 calm and peaceful as the setting in of this autumn 
 night, though the night which shall come then 
 will be the one that cometh to all men, when 
 this world and all its beauties are of no account : 
 
 When the pale waste widens around us, 
 
 And the banks fade dimmer away, 
 
 As the stars come out, and the night wind 
 
 Brings up the stream 
 
 Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea.
 
 FRAGILIA 
 
 The thought has doubtless occurred to many of 
 us, as we walk along the miry and thorny yet still 
 quaint and beautiful paths of this life, that we 
 cannot be said to have any present, but that, as 
 every moment as it comes to us becomes instantly 
 the past, and as we cannot be said to live in what 
 is no longer ours, and as it is impossible that we 
 can exist, except metaphorically, in the past, we 
 can therefore be said to live nowhere but on the 
 very point which is neither future nor present, 
 but is just on the verge of becoming present. 
 
 But it is clear that the immediate future, which 
 according to this theory should be the most 
 valuable and important period of time to us, is 
 practically the least so. 
 
 It is true that dreams of the future occupy the 
 mind to a considerable extent, especially in youth, 
 but this future is the distant and not the immediate 
 one, — even before that time arrives, which comes 
 at any rate at times to most of us, when that 
 wonderful future of the unknown and the possible 
 begins more and more to fade away, until at last 
 it seems to us that nothing, of that little which 
 we can ever know, is unknown, and that nothing 
 more can be possible to us. 
 
 1 60
 
 FRAGILIA 161 
 
 If therefore the immediate future is of little 
 value and interest to us, and the present is gone 
 as soon as it is here, we are driven to the necessity 
 of seeing that the really valuable possession is not 
 the past, but what the past has brought to us and 
 what it has left us ; and thereby realising a little that 
 the true home of human nature is not this present 
 life, but another where "time shall be no more." 
 
 The real existence of the world of ideas, 
 independently of that of matter, is an inquiry 
 which to many persons will appear futile and 
 vain ; but it is certain that by no other study can 
 we realise what spirit is, and what relation it has 
 to our present visible life. 
 
 The ideal or spiritual world properly so-called 
 is conceived by very few : what we do conceive 
 is the past or the distant, seldom the ideal ; the 
 unseen perhaps, but rarely the unseeable. To 
 conceive a world of ideas in which neither matter 
 nor form shall have any place is probably the 
 highest abstraction of which the human intellect 
 is capable, and consequently nothing has ever 
 been done in advancing morality or piety by the 
 preaching of such an effort ; but if it could be 
 taught, it must surely prove a strong incentive to 
 virtue, for though it is the fashion to sneer at the 
 idea of a man's resisting the temptations of the 
 flesh through the conception of a philosophical 
 abstraction, yet it must be remembered that love 
 towards a person is as entirely a mental and ideal 
 effort as any abstraction of the reason can be ; 
 and I am inclined to think that love towards an 
 absent person too often proves but a weak guardian 
 against temptation. 
 
 VOL. II m
 
 162 FRAGILIA 
 
 It must be admitted that the Highest wisdom 
 has rejected idealism as a means of influencing 
 the world ; but, if we can penetrate its intention, 
 this seems to have been only because it was 
 impossible to train the world by it. 
 
 The anthropomorphism of the Bible grows 
 less and less as we proceed ; and it is possible 
 that, if mankind had proved more worthy, and 
 therefore more capable, of it, a far clearer revela- 
 tion of the purely ideal world might by this time 
 have been ours. 
 
 The insurmountable difficulty in the way of 
 our conception appears to be that of reconciling 
 ideality with personality — an inquiry which seems 
 to me so vast and impracticable that nothing 
 impresses me more with a sense of our distance 
 from the purely spiritual. 
 
 The highest conception of the Platonic theory 
 — a conception so high as to be held by few even 
 of its professed admirers — seems to me to be 
 but anthropomorphism, under a fresh form and ex- 
 pressed in different words ; for if, following the 
 maxim that "the truth of a thing is its conformity 
 to the Divine Intellect," we conceive a Creator 
 forming all things after the ideas which had 
 existed in His nature from all eternity — the 
 Divine Essence being communicated as it is 
 variously capable of being participated in by 
 created beings (and consequently according to 
 the variety of this imitability so are the possi- 
 bilities of being) — what is this but conceiving a 
 wise and powerful person ; and if we conceive of 
 one personality, why not many ; and if so, and 
 our idea of the spiritual world is one Divine
 
 FRAGILIA 163 
 
 Person or King surrounded by other persons or 
 subjects, what is there different in this picture of 
 the spirit-world from that of the one which we 
 inhabit ; and how have we escaped from material 
 conceptions or in any way established ideality ? 
 
 No idea has been more familiar or more 
 perpetually present to our race in all stages of its 
 existence than that of another world, which for 
 the sake of distinction has been called spiritual. 
 From time to time there has been a strong 
 antagonism to this belief, but the united instinct 
 of humanity is opposed alike to pure scientific 
 materialism and to profligate scepticism, and 
 though often worsted in argument, is not defeated, 
 and remains obstinately true to its recollections ; 
 it cannot forget that, in its firmest belief from 
 its earliest days, spirits — saints and angels — have 
 descended upon our fields, and trod our grass, 
 and walked under our trees ; and that under the 
 globe of night, and the cold brilliancy of the 
 moon, thoughts of heaven and of the spirit-world, 
 and of a future exalted state, have come in upon 
 men's senses, together with the sweeping and 
 rushing of the autumn wind among the leaves 
 and the damp, long grass ; and it cannot help 
 feeling that, just as surely as these heavenly and 
 spiritual thoughts come in upon us naturally, with 
 all the sights and objects of its material home, 
 just so surely it will in the end be found that 
 spirit and matter, science and faith, are not 
 separable, but are both wanted to make a 
 complete man. 
 
 But though the heart of Man is thus sound, 
 he does not for the most part understand in the
 
 1 64 FRAGILIA 
 
 least the truth in which he believes ; for all he 
 knows of the spirit-world is only that aspect of 
 it which is not spirit, but is an outward guise 
 which it has been compelled to assume in order 
 in any degree to make itself perceptible to the 
 sense of man. We could have had no religion 
 now, no spirit -world, had it not been founded 
 on the old heroic and personal one, — nothing 
 different in its essential conception from that 
 which the Hellenic mind formed out of the 
 wanderings and troubles of those whose stories 
 seemed to have so deeply impressed it, over the 
 tossing waves, and along the salt-sea coasts, and 
 in the towered cities of that weird, old, untrodden 
 world, with its wild and high mountains and 
 wondrous shores. 
 
 The first fact which a man has to realise is 
 this, that spirit can never be apprehended or 
 known or understood or seen or felt by matter ; 
 and though it can, in some wonderful and incon- 
 ceivable way, influence and move matter, yet it is 
 only the kindred spirit within us which feels and 
 is sensible of the approach of it. And that, so 
 long as our lot is cast within the confines of a 
 material existence, it can only become, in any 
 degree, intelligible to us, just in proportion as it 
 forfeits its true nature and its idealitv and assumes 
 the nature of its opposite and antithesis — so all- 
 pervading and all-controlling in its influence is 
 this bodv of death. 
 
 J 
 
 It is in its use and power in helping us to 
 realise this that the great value and nobleness of 
 music consists. In music without words we are 
 conscious of the presence of a sensation which we
 
 FRAGILIA 165 
 
 cannot feel, of words which we cannot hear, of 
 thoughts which we cannot grasp, of a world of 
 intellectual being which like a phantom is close 
 to us, but which, from instant to instant as we 
 think ourselves on the point of entering, always 
 eludes our consciousness and vanishes away. 
 No doubt this " insubstantial pageant faded " is 
 the intellectual or ideal world, the world of spirits, 
 our home for all eternity. 
 
 Hence we may see clearly what may be the 
 use of such thoughts as those we began with, and 
 especially of such as relate to the transitory nature 
 of pleasure, which may perhaps convince us that, 
 to our real selves and our true positions, the 
 possessions of our intellect, the present is nothing, 
 the future nothing, that the past is as much 
 present as either, and that to the spiritual man 
 already there is no more time. 
 
 I am not certain that the fragile and temporary 
 nature of pleasure has not a charm of its own, 
 especially as life advances. It would be difficult 
 to say in what it consists, nor are we certain that 
 it does exist. It would seem to arise from a sort 
 of acquiescence in a fact of human nature, a 
 proud acceptance of the lot and nature of 
 humanity, and a perception that it would not be 
 noble without its sorrows and its sufferings. 
 
 The hues of autumn, the sheen of the sunset 
 across the wold, the waving corn, the stacks of 
 the harvest, — all these things would be nothing to 
 us but for the endearing thoughts which so many 
 ages of men's hearts, chastened by sorrow, 
 ennobled by reminiscence and regret, have linked 
 with them ; and not this only, but we are able to
 
 166 FRAGILIA 
 
 feel that pleasure is not real in proportion to its 
 duration, but that it is something abstract, which, 
 once created, is independent of circumstance and 
 change. 
 
 I remember once, after visiting a little town, 
 we stopped the carriage at the last point at which 
 it could be seen, and turned to look back. The 
 view from that spot was very striking — a wide 
 plain with the road sweeping in a picturesque 
 curve, till it reached the quaint and straggling 
 street, with its many gables crowned with the 
 large church and lofty spire. On either side low 
 hills, beyond the rise of Lansdowne, where Sir 
 Bevil Greenville fell. The fields were covered 
 with cowslips, and full of sheep and cattle ; the 
 world was happy with the warmth of early 
 summer. While we stopped, possibly over a 
 minute of time, the chimes from the church 
 steeple rang out, low and far away, yet full and 
 clear, thrilling all the air and satisfying the sense. 
 The pleasure of that moment is more mine at this 
 hour than if I stood upon the spot again. 
 
 There is a refinement in these pleasures which 
 are rare in their occurrence and transitory in their 
 nature — like the first waking on a Sunday with 
 the half- conscious sense of the coming rest and 
 worship of the day — which is not to be despised. 
 I began a brief holiday in a lovely place on a 
 Saturday evening, and slept, like Christian in the 
 Palace Beautiful, in a chamber facing the sun- 
 rising, and woke, and looked out of the window 
 over the plain of Worcestershire, when the 
 summer sun had risen about a quarter of an hour. 
 It was a moment, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne
 
 FRAGILIA 167 
 
 describes, not of our world at all. The toil of 
 yesterday over, oblivion of sleep still between me 
 and the morrow which was yet to come, — only his 
 was confined to his own thoughts in his room in 
 winter, mine was in presence of a pure and holy 
 world lying, in beauty of colour and in rest of 
 peace, beneath the newly arisen glory of the most 
 glorious and beneficent of created things. 
 
 Such pleasures cannot be long. It is a 
 necessity of their existence that they should 
 partake of the spirituality of men's nature ; that, 
 as they are only perceptible to cultured thought 
 and feeling, so, as they are removed in their 
 enjoyment from sense, they should be clearly 
 marked, by the fragility of their existence, as 
 belonging to mind and to eternity and not to 
 matter and to time. Luring us on, and teaching 
 us to look for pleasures apart from sense and 
 time, to realise the essential nature of the unseen 
 and the ideal, and to associate our lives and 
 characters more and more with the life and 
 character of One who is passed into the heavens, 
 yet who still lives, and who, when on earth, culti- 
 vated solely those pleasures which can never die.
 
 RELIGIO HISTORICI 
 
 And indeed it were somewhat strange, as well as sad, if a person 
 disposed and accustomed to observe and consider, conversing with such 
 instructive books as those of God's creatures and His providence, with an 
 intention to take out practical lessons, should not find them. — Robert 
 Boyle's ( kcasional Reflections, sect. iv. chap. i. 
 
 The question whether the study of history is a 
 useful and improving one — a question which I 
 have heard argued in the negative by very 
 sensible and intelligent persons — must surely be 
 only part of a much wider question, viz. whether it 
 be wise to engage in any mental study of any kind. 
 For the object of any study can only be the know- 
 ledge of ourselves, our duties, and our powers ; 
 and in the endeavour after this knowledge, that 
 science which tells us the deeds and thoughts, the 
 beliefs and attempts, the successes and failures, 
 of our own kind who have lived before us on the 
 earth must without doubt greatly assist us. That 
 there is a want of mathematical proof of the exact 
 amount of the benefit which we have derived 
 from the study of history is not more than may 
 be said of any study whatever, except the learn- 
 ing of those arts by which we either gain our 
 bread or maintain our bodies in health. 
 
 I think we may take it for granted that the 
 
 1 68
 
 RELIGIO HISTORICI 169 
 
 study of history is a useful and ennobling one ; 
 that it raises us from the merely animal life of the 
 present moment, and from the petty sympathies 
 of our mediocre natures, to an existence in many 
 distant ages, and to a friendship and a sympathy 
 with the highest and noblest of our race ; and 
 that it gives us all, what few of us otherwise 
 would ever have, the spectacle of what human 
 nature really is, and what it can be, when circum- 
 stances combine (which they so seldom do) with 
 the aspirations and powers of the heart and intel- 
 lect, and produce an actor, on the stage of the 
 world's theatre, who commands for ever the love 
 and admiration of mankind. 
 
 The great evil which has befallen the science 
 of history is that its professors have been too fond 
 of particular theories of their own. From the 
 first dawn of history its facts have only been 
 taken to support the favourite theories of different 
 historians. Those who considered themselves 
 the exponents of Biblical truth have arranged 
 them all in one phalanx ; and the opposite party, 
 the party of free inquiry, have too often forgotten 
 their oft-repeated boast that they at least had 
 nothing to do with theories, and sought only to 
 discover the truth, and have arranged the facts 
 (and even in some cases unblushingly falsified 
 them *) so that they might appear in that order 
 which they supposed would be most damaging to 
 their opponents ; and while insisting strongly on 
 the changes of opinion, as showing the insta- 
 bility of their opponents' position, have too often 
 
 1 The Westminster Review, the most pretentious organ of the free 
 inquiry party, has more than once done this.
 
 170 RELIGIO HISTORICI 
 
 forgotten that their own assertions stand on 
 very doubtful proof, and are very likely to be 
 superseded in their turn. If we are to argue at 
 all on such uncertain data, it is surely as fair to 
 argue on the passing opinion of the day in favour 
 of Revelation as against it ; but those (seeming) 
 facts which tell in its favour are depreciated as 
 ephemeral, while those which seem to go against 
 it, though perhaps equally unsettled, are received 
 with avidity. 
 
 One of the acknowledged facts of our earliest 
 history, which perhaps has been the cause of 
 more theories than any other, is the similarity in 
 the traditions and theologies of the most widely 
 separated nations. The believers in a common 
 origin of mankind (to which belief, indeed, most 
 inquiry tends) have not considered this fact suffi- 
 cient to account for so remarkable a similarity, 
 but have started the most different, and in some 
 cases extraordinary, theories. Nations have been 
 sent flying about the earth like the bits of glass 
 in a kaleidoscope, and the supposed journeys of 
 the ten lost tribes of Israel might have formed 
 the originals for the traditionary ones of the 
 Wandering Jew himself. Even now these theories 
 have not ceased, one having been recently started 
 which places them in the north of Scotland, while 
 the tribe of Dan was settled in Ireland, and both 
 received visits from fellow Jews — missionaries of 
 Buddha — who had previously been converted to 
 that religion in India! 
 
 Setting aside all theories, there appears some- 
 thing unphilosophical, and almost childish, in this 
 endeavour to account for every similarity of
 
 RELIGIO HISTORICI 171 
 
 tradition and habit of thought by theories of 
 personal intercourse and conversation with men 
 of other nations. Taking for granted, what 
 modern science as well as orthodox antiquity 
 would seem to teach, that men originally came 
 from one parent stock, is it not more rational to 
 take such coincidences as the natural result of the 
 workings of a common human intellect, originally 
 fallen, it is at least most pleasant to believe, from 
 a high source ? 
 
 Taking a few of these coincidences, we find in 
 most nations a vague tradition of a dimly seen, a 
 powerful, and a magnanimous Divinity, precedent 
 to the ordinary gods of their current worship ; 
 and in the Scandinavian theology we even read 
 of a time when this Divinity shall resume his 
 sway, and rule triumphant over a new heaven 
 and a new earth, not peopled, however (that 
 glorious vision being reserved for Christianity), 
 with a risen and purified humanity. 
 
 This belief is to be traced in a very interesting 
 way in the Hellenic mind and writings. The 
 Hellenic intellect, though always given to a 
 species of worship (often amounting to no more 
 than an expression of admiration and of thanks 
 for benefits received) of an infinite number of 
 objects, animate and inanimate, had yet in its 
 higher development and aspirations a strong 
 tendency towards unity, and (as also in the 
 Scandinavian theology) this tendency took the 
 form of one predominating Power or Deity — of 
 one God, in fact — manifested to those old seekers 
 after Him in that attribute which appeared most 
 prominent in their experience of life — Fate or
 
 172 RELIGIO HISTORICI 
 
 Inavertable Necessity : " Fate," as Homer says, 
 "whom none avoid, whoever is born." The 
 Stoics held that fate was superior to all the gods, 
 and the conviction at which Herodotus had 
 arrived after a long, patient, and most intelligent 
 inquiry into, and study of, the different forms of 
 life, and the various opinions of the people, of his 
 time, was of the absolute existence of a Power, 
 which he calls "the Deity," who governed the 
 world upon fixed principles of His own, and 
 whom the generally known and worshipped gods 
 had no power to change or to divert or to 
 persuade ; and who took a peculiar pleasure in 
 helping and advancing the poor and wretched, 
 and in debasing and casting down those of great 
 estate, almost using the words of the Magnificat : 
 " He hath put down the mighty from their seat, 
 and hath exalted the humble and meek." And 
 although it is true that the old Greek thought he 
 saw, in the actions of this Omnipotent Ruler, 
 some signs of human capriciousness and jealousy, 
 and probably was far from understanding the 
 " humble and meek " of the earth in the Christian 
 sense (a sense which it required Christ Himself 
 to teach), yet we may not be hard upon him for 
 this, while some religious opinions concerning the 
 Providence and Character of God exist amongst 
 ourselves, and while the true meaning of those 
 words is not always understood even by us. 
 
 We find also in most nations a well-defined 
 tradition of some primeval and supreme conflict 
 — a conflict between gods and inferior demons, or 
 between gods and men themselves, — and it is 
 curious that, although these traditions are among
 
 RELIGIO HISTORICI 173 
 
 the earliest of our history, there is no mention of 
 the expulsion of the evil angels from heaven in 
 the Book of Genesis, seeming to prove that the 
 Gentile nations could not have received this 
 tradition from the Jews. It would be a very 
 curious study to trace this belief from what some 
 have believed to have been its origin — the presence 
 of the gigantic Saurians in the oolite rocks, through 
 all the Gentile theologies down to Milton, in con- 
 nection with such passages in the Bible as speak of 
 the "war in heaven," most of which, occurring in 
 the Book of Revelation, are confused in our minds 
 with the primeval expulsion of Satan and his 
 angels ; and to see how much of the belief of 
 orthodox minds on this latter subject is formed 
 from the Paradise Lost, the ideas of which Milton 
 is said to have borrowed wholesale from a Greek 
 poem of the fifth century called the Dionysiaca, 
 descriptive of the Titanic War. 
 
 Another of these general traditions is the 
 horror of the pollution of blood, or of dead 
 bodies, and of the fatal consequences of the 
 defilement of sacred places thereby. This idea 
 is seen all through the Old Testament and 
 the Greek poets and tragedies, and attains its 
 fullest development in a noble tradition of the 
 Scandinavian mythology, in which the gods, 
 having their mortal enemy, the Daemon Loc, 
 in their power, and in spite of the foreknowledge 
 they possess that ultimately he will destroy them 
 all, refuse to slay him, lest they should defile 
 their holy cities with blood. 
 
 We have already seen that, according to one 
 theory, the existence of the geologic relics of the
 
 174 RELIGIO HISTORICI 
 
 pre-adamite world was known to the ancients, 
 and was the groundwork of one of their most 
 universal traditions, and it would really appear 
 that they were not unacquainted with the 
 geologic periods and convulsions. Their poets 
 have described the desolation of more than one 
 of these periods in their chaos, and the 
 
 Dragons of the prime, 
 That tare each other in their slime, 
 
 appear not only to have been known to these 
 old poets, but to have profoundly impressed their 
 imagination. 
 
 These traditions are not mere coincidences — 
 much less are they, I think, the result of direct 
 communication by word of mouth and teaching ; 
 they form one of the strongest proofs of the 
 common origin of our race, not so much because 
 of the resemblances themselves, which might be 
 accidental, or arise from many causes, but because 
 in them and through them we can see the 
 same mind working, the same ideas, the same 
 ignorance, the same desire for instruction. 
 When we consider how very little the nations 
 after the Flood knew probably of the nature of 
 God, or of their own origin, we cannot be very 
 far wrong if we look on the earliest inhabitants 
 of the first peopled countries, Syria, Greece, and 
 Egypt, as men set down in the earth like little 
 children in a large garden, perfectly ignorant of 
 the meaning and powers of the objects they saw 
 around them, with no instructor (or at least with 
 One only very darkly understood), with no guide 
 but their own senses ; and who, partly from the
 
 RELIGIO HISTORICI 175 
 
 daily additions they made to their experience 
 of facts, but very largely by the uncontrolled 
 wanderings and dreaming of their intellect 
 (wandering at large among beautiful and won- 
 derful things, as all things seem beautiful and 
 wonderful to a child), built up that structure of 
 theology, poetry, tradition, history, physics, and 
 ethics which has such a charm for us now, as 
 being human nature very nearly by itself — human 
 nature, perhaps, under its most picturesque 
 aspect. 
 
 I say human nature almost by itself, because 
 we have very high authority, as well as very 
 sufficient proof from ancient literature itself, that 
 the Divine Spirit did not leave the world, 
 throughout all these ages, totally without some 
 portion of its indwelling, but that God left Him- 
 self a witness, not only in the free bounties of 
 Nature, but by half- understood promptings in 
 the secret chambers of the human heart itself; 
 making much of the history and writings of the 
 classic ages sound more like allegory than history 
 or philosophy. 
 
 If we allow ourselves fully to realise the child- 
 like and totally unoccupied state of the human 
 mind in these early ages, I think we shall 
 understand many peculiarities both in ancient 
 and modern history, because this state continued 
 in a very great degree to very recent times. 
 Revelation only touched very slightly upon man's 
 intellect, or upon his knowledge of his dwelling- 
 place, and the writings of the seventeenth 
 century show no great dissimilarity to those 
 of Greece and Rome. The most remarkable of
 
 176 RELIGIO HISTORICI 
 
 the effects of this state of things is the promi- 
 nence and importance it gave to individual 
 character and action. From the Homeric poems 
 downward, this is what gives such an interest 
 and picturesqueness to history, to almost within 
 our own age ; and the absence of this makes 
 history now so dull, and its future prospects so 
 dreary. Formerly individual human interest 
 was supreme : ascertained facts were very few, 
 and those few of a nature (such as death) that 
 added to, rather than detracted from, individual 
 prominence and influence ; now facts are every- 
 thing — science is crushing individuality out of 
 the world ; we live and move scientifically and in 
 masses ; we may be said to think by machinery 
 and steam ; there is no scope for individual 
 action ; the science of law fixes exactly what 
 every man is to do, and that every man is to do 
 very much alike (or rather we should say that 
 the necessities of our modern life oblige us to 
 submit to such a science of law). Nothing 
 separates history from our own era so much as 
 this want of commandinof individual interest. 
 The leading men of to-day do not excite the same 
 feelings in their contemporaries that the hero of 
 two centuries or more ago did, nor will they ever 
 excite the same feelings in the readers of history. 
 The nature of the age is against them, their own 
 education is against them, their very virtues are 
 against them. Our great men are men of 
 cabinets and diplomacy, men of theories and 
 principles (often beneficent ones), men of corre- 
 spondence and blue-books ; but they are not men 
 of personal action, and never can rival those of
 
 RELIGIO HISTORICI 177 
 
 old in commanding individual interest or admira- 
 tion. The age, indeed, would not endure heroes. 
 A king who, at the head of his armies, took the 
 field now for "the glory of God and the relief of 
 man's estate " would be looked upon with the 
 greatest suspicion. If Gustavus Adolphus or 
 John Frederic of Saxony (Luther's friend) were 
 now for the first time to appear on the European 
 stage, the story they would leave in history 
 would be very different from what it was ; yet 
 more noble characters, more favoured and drawn 
 out by circumstances into striking development, 
 it would be hard to find. No careers dazzle 
 and excite, no individual characters absorb, no 
 events stun, the sense of Europe like the 
 Crusades, like the person of Charles the Fifth or 
 Gustavus, like the defeats and death of Charles 
 the Bold of Burgundy. The interest of these 
 events was heightened by every ornament which 
 outward circumstances could bestow. Every- 
 thing at once and naturally mellowed itself into 
 romance ; every man's action, however common, 
 was picturesque ; there was not a house in 
 Europe, not a dress, not an implement in daily 
 use, not an occupation or custom or habit of 
 the people, but which, whatever fault may be 
 found with it, was at least this — picturesque. 
 Picturesqueness in fact and individuality are the 
 same things, for picturesqueness always accom- 
 panies individual thought and action and their 
 productions, and it is the working of abstract 
 laws upon masses of men which destroys the 
 picturesque. This question is much more 
 important than at first sight it looks, for it 
 VOL. 11 n
 
 178 RELIGIO HISTORICI 
 
 accompanies us as we go back to the earliest 
 dawn of European life — to the Homeric poems, 
 and it assists us towards an understanding of 
 the great question, whether any advance, or 
 indeed any alteration, has taken place in the 
 individual mental standard of mankind. For the 
 united efforts of great minds having produced 
 civilisation, and as one consequence, raised the 
 minds of multitudes to an approximation to the 
 highest standard, it is to individual minds then 
 and now that we must look for an answer to 
 that question ; and as in questions of human 
 civilisation these considerations take an im- 
 portant place, so in questions of the religious 
 life of our race they occupy one not less so. 
 For if we put on one side the foreign element 
 of Revelation (as we have done that of the 
 civilisation of the masses by artificial means), 
 we shall find that the individual religious 
 standard of the Homeric age was as high, in 
 proportion to the present one, as the mental 
 standard was ; and it is impossible too highly 
 to estimate the importance of this part of the 
 inquiry, because many often forget the impass- 
 able gulf which exists between the pursuit of 
 truth in material sciences and in the immaterial 
 existence of which Revelation treats. It is a 
 doctrine of the Socinian teachers, that in 
 religious questions they cannot tell one day 
 what they shall believe the next, and that they 
 can only pray that they may be guided aright. 
 In making this statement, they seem entirely 
 to forget that (putting on one side Revelation, 
 which is fixed, and in which no further discoveries
 
 RELIGIO HISTORICI 179 
 
 can be made) the human mind has not advanced 
 one step in the knowledge of the immaterial 
 world since the earliest Homeric days. The 
 mind of the earliest, the most uncultivated 
 Greek, when he gave the body of his friend 
 back again to the kindly keeping of the earth 
 that gave it life, saw as clearly the answer to the 
 great riddle of Life and Death as (without the 
 Christian faith) we see it. Standing beside that 
 "grassy barrow" or that urn "filled with a little 
 dust," his eye pierced just as clearly and as far 
 into the awful night that lay before him as ours 
 does. Standing by our grave-sides, as the earth 
 rattles on the coffin-lid, just as dense a veil, just 
 as impalpable a void, cuts us sharply off from 
 the life beyond, baffling our intensest efforts, our 
 keenest glances, as they baffled his. 
 
 The religion of the historian, therefore, is not 
 so vague as at first would appear. He sees full 
 evidence of a common humanity, of a mysterious 
 similarity of ideas, of a singular property in all 
 history, tradition, poetry, and literature, as if all 
 these forms of human thought contained in them 
 something more than met the eye — were, in fact, 
 apologues and types, the outward manifestations 
 of a secret power which, through many and dark 
 ages, was silently, all but imperceptibly, working 
 towards a certain end ; teaching men, gradually 
 but not the less surely, that, as Plutarch had 
 learnt, they were " wanderers, strangers, and 
 fugitives from God," and leading them, as may 
 be seen sometimes even in their dark theologies, 
 to understand something of the connection 
 between the human and the Divine. He sees
 
 180 RELIGIO HISTORICI 
 
 also the impossibility of human nature of itself 
 advancing one step beyond the limits of the 
 earthly dwelling-place primevally assigned to it 
 (the life of a little child being as incomprehensible 
 as the eternal pre-existence of God). When he 
 comes nearer to our own time, and looks more 
 confidently for what is called " the hand of God 
 in history," perhaps for a long time he is 
 perplexed and cannot see it. He thinks that 
 those who have pretended most clearly to see 
 it were well-meaning but ill-advised men, that 
 they selected those facts which pleased them, and 
 resolutely shut their eyes to all that seemed 
 difficult of subordination to their theory. He sees 
 men of the most different and opposing creeds 
 evidently bearing about with them the credentials 
 of the same Master. He sees men the most 
 holy, the most plainly under the influence of the 
 highest motives, miserably mistaken — themselves 
 the cause of incalculable mischief to that faith 
 which he is trying to believe the true one. He 
 sees the cause of truth forsaken, desolate, utterly 
 beaten down and trodden out. The promises of 
 Revelation, so far as he can see, are not fulfilled. 
 He sees a general hope and desire among those 
 of all creeds, not altogether, he thinks, unshared in 
 by some of the most holy men, that their cause 
 should be owned publicly before the multitude, 
 that God would declare who was according to 
 His own mind and who was not ; but no cause 
 has been so acknowledged, no sign of divine 
 recognition has been vouchsafed, the awful calm 
 of the blue heavens has been undisturbed during 
 the acting of their tragedy, the triumph of their
 
 RELIGIO HISTORICI 181 
 
 foes has been complete. A phantasmagoria of 
 men and events floats before him ; men seem in 
 history to have walked indeed in a vain show ; 
 the more he inquires into men and creeds, the 
 more he is perplexed — he finds none which he can 
 say is absolutely right, no one fully wrong ; the 
 course of Nature maintains its impartial calm, 
 shutting out the sight of God from him, and his 
 constant prayer is that ejaculation of Isaiah, " Oh 
 that thou wouldest rend the heavens and come 
 down ! " Then perhaps gradually one fact comes 
 out more clearly in all his study ; a fact not 
 dependent on any theory — far above all theory ; 
 a fact so infinite in all the innumerable incidents 
 from which it is deduced, that no theory could 
 have invented it ; a fact so absolutely one with 
 humanity that scarcely a human being who ever 
 lived but may be said to have had some share in 
 its proof ; a fact so incontrovertible that no mind 
 is blind to it ; — the fact which all history, literature, 
 human life before a certain period pointed forward 
 to, and to which all history, literature, human life 
 after that period points back — three short years 
 of a human life passed upon the lake shores and 
 in the towns and villages of Judaea ; a life so 
 intensely human that every human heart at once 
 bears witness to its truth, and yet so far above 
 what had ever before it been known of humanity 
 (placed on the other side of so wide a gulf from 
 the lives and words and minds of the noblest of 
 human kind that had preceded it), that no theory 
 of the gradual development of human teaching, 
 no theory of the improvement by one great 
 teacher of the ideas and discoveries of his
 
 182 RELIGIO HISTORICI 
 
 predecessor, can ever account for or explain the 
 divine teaching, the perfect example of this life. 
 The student concentrates his attention upon this 
 life round which all history centres, in which the 
 longing of ages is fulfilled, upon which the intense 
 restlessness perceptible in all the highest of the 
 classic writings (a restlessness quite different from 
 any feelings that we now experience) at last 
 found tranquillity. He traces it to its end — an 
 end which human nature would not have pre- 
 dicted of such a life, but w r hich Plato, in a 
 moment of divine illumination, saw would be the 
 end of such a life, as he saw that if human nature 
 ever was perfected it would be by such a life ; 
 and having followed it so far, he begins to see 
 that all the confusion and perplexity which before 
 had troubled him was but what this Divine Life 
 itself exemplified, and what surely this Divine 
 Person led His followers to expect. He finds 
 that, in the study of His teaching, all creeds, 
 doctrines, disputes of different churches, theories 
 of inspiration — all lose themselves in one single 
 command, one single doctrine — belief in Him. 
 He sees that in disputes about the doctrine men 
 have forgotten the Person, that in discussions on 
 what His servants have taught they have forgotten 
 His own teaching, and he begins to understand 
 that, though possibly necessary to be passed 
 through, all these confusions and mistakes are no 
 argument against, nor in fact have anything to 
 do with, the main doctrine on which the Christian 
 faith revolves, the belief in the Son of God — a 
 belief which during His life was hard to attain to 
 by reason of the lowliness and desertion of His
 
 RELIGIO HISTORICI 183 
 
 earthly estate, and which all through history has 
 been not less hard, because His servants often 
 seem deserted, and the promises of His Gospel 
 are often fulfilled in a way which has more to do 
 with faith than with sight. 
 
 As I write these words, with the echoes of the 
 Easter chant still ringing in my ears, it seems to 
 me that the religion of the historian, more than 
 that of any other, should lead him to cling 
 tenaciously to the belief in the Person of Christ ; 
 that he, more than any other, can fully know the 
 difference between His life and words and the 
 lives and words of other teachers ; that he, more 
 than any other, can understand the utter desola- 
 tion which would have been the lot of the world 
 if that life had never been lived, those words 
 never spoken ; that he, more than all others, 
 should join in the anthem, " Christ is risen from 
 the dead, therefore let us keep the feast."
 
 NATURE'S HOMILY 
 
 By a very low Person, little better than 
 a common Tramp 
 
 "Consider the lilies." 
 
 It has been a question mooted heretofore in this 
 society, whether the appearance of a country has 
 any influence upon the mind of men, and it has 
 been asserted in a recent essay (at least, so I am 
 given to understand, for, of course, so common an 
 individual as myself can have no connection with 
 so aristocratic a body as that into which I have 
 intruded myself) that such is not the case. 
 
 Now, as I have some acquaintance (in the way 
 of my occupation) with this said Nature, and great 
 love and veneration for her, I have written this 
 paper in order that I may not seem ungrateful for 
 her free lessons and manifold gifts. 
 
 In this life — I have no wish to utter common- 
 place, but I must state my position — in this life, 
 we have misfortunes and sorrows that wither up 
 the heart, and petty vexations and disgusts which 
 sour it many a time and oft. I myself have experi- 
 enced these in common with all, the last perhaps in 
 a greater degree than many ; but I rejoice in this, 
 
 184
 
 NATURE'S HOMILY 185 
 
 that in the very nature of my occupation I have a 
 balm and a remedy which has never failed me yet. 
 
 In this world there are two often opposing 
 works — the works of a great Creator and those of 
 man. As far as my knowledge goes, I have not 
 known one of the former which has been wanting 
 in beauty ; in the latter I have found — who has 
 not ? — cruelty, deceit, falsehood, beauty desecrated 
 by unworthy uses and excesses, the noblest things 
 in life prostituted to the accomplishing of base 
 ends, and thousands living without knowledge of 
 the true intent of their existence, their whole 
 faculties and every thought of their souls dragged 
 down to earth, engrossed utterly by the most 
 mechanical and mind-degrading occupations. The 
 mind dwelling among these evils, and mourning 
 over them, becomes first soured and disgusted 
 and sceptical of the existence of good, then sinks 
 into an utter weariness and spleen, seeing so much 
 evil in its fellow-mortals, that the milk of human 
 kindness and love is dried up, it can discern no 
 good in the actions of the human race, and at last, 
 driven to despair, it is willing to curse everything 
 and die. 
 
 For all this there is a remedy which I recom- 
 mend to all. Out of this turmoil of man's work 
 and man's earthly aims, go to the works of the 
 Creator — to those works on which His mark has 
 not been defaced, to those works whose beauty 
 on earth is a foreshadowing and promise of the 
 beauty in heaven, a testimony and proof of the 
 existence of God, a continual homily, calming 
 and preaching down man's wicked and angry 
 passions, soothing his despair, speaking of love
 
 186 NATURE'S HOMILY 
 
 and forgiveness of injuries and glory to God. 
 " Consider the lilies " ! 
 
 You are disgusted with the strife and conten- 
 tions and deceits that you are a witness of? You 
 see around you no other god worshipped but Mam- 
 mon ? You begin to despise your old youth- 
 ful dreams ? You look upon fancy as unworthy 
 your regard? You think you have grown wiser 
 because you have no longer any faith in anything ? 
 Still you are not satisfied : you are altogether 
 a-weary and disgusted, your ear is full of a hideous 
 hubbub of contending sounds, you know no longer 
 any peace or rest, you feel that you are becoming 
 soured, cold-hearted, sneering at everything, you 
 own yourself as you are — bankrupt in soul ! The 
 first fine day go out alone from the town or from 
 the city ; at the first hilltop you come to, sit down 
 and rest. Before you lies the country ; it may be 
 dull, flat, uninteresting, but it is the country — it is 
 God's work and not man's. Do not try to think ; 
 within, as well as without, be still. Presently that 
 continual hubbub and confusion in your ears grows 
 fainter and less deafening. Presently that tumult 
 and contention to which your mind was wholly 
 given grows less and less distinct, your disappoint- 
 ments, which before you thought unendurable, are 
 lessened in importance, the bargains in which you 
 have been overreached, the injuries you have 
 received, the mean deceits that have been put 
 upon you, appear now of such little importance 
 that you can forgive those who have sinned against 
 you. You have found a place where such things 
 are not considered of, a life where such things are 
 not known, a mind-study into which such things
 
 NATURE'S HOMILY 187 
 
 cannot intrude. There is nothing here which can 
 remind you of them. This plain of verdant fields 
 and shallow streams stretching to the horizon — 
 What does it know of them ? or those green hed^e- 
 rows which are perfect gardens of wild-flowers ? 
 or these groves and copses in which the birds are 
 singing ? or those shady hills over whose slopes 
 the shadows are passing ? — Have they anything in 
 common with that world which you have found so 
 base ? 
 
 I know a scene like this imaginary one, which 
 I saw for the first time one day in early spring 
 when it was spread over with its first faint 
 covering of green. The soft breezes blew over 
 it daintily, bringing up the hill such pleasant 
 country -noises as the rustling of the sedges on 
 the banks of the pools, and the splashing of the 
 water over the floodgates of the mills, and the 
 lowing of cows, and the cawing of the rooks, and 
 the barking of a dog sometimes. What would 
 the most lovely prospect be without such music, 
 which assures us that it is not a fine picture we 
 are gazing on, but that same mother earth in 
 which we have a human interest, in common with 
 the whole world our kin ? And to warm the heart 
 sufficiently towards this world-kindred, the bright 
 spring sunshine rested over all, bringing out the 
 green of the springing grass and hedges, and here 
 and there, in the dull brown woods, of an early 
 budding tree, and brightening, cheering, beauti- 
 fying all the scene, so that the heart of the 
 beholder, refreshed and thankful, rose from earth 
 to heaven, and looking upwards, he saw the blue 
 and cloudless sky stretched out above his head.
 
 1 88 NATURE'S HOMILY 
 
 Here, then, are two things plainly taught us — 
 first, that this earth, which we thought so base 
 and wicked, is not only not wicked but very 
 beautiful ; and secondly, that all mankind, our 
 brethren, the last and most perfect work of the 
 same Creator, must necessarily in their original 
 state be very good and beautiful too, and instead 
 of hating them with a foolish, childish animosity, 
 we should hate that sin which has soiled this 
 paradise and made us what we are ! 
 
 I remember one evening in summer I was 
 walking along a pathway at the top of some cliffs 
 overhanging the sea. I was at that time in a 
 very bad and wicked humour. A person whom 
 I considered I had cause not to like, and who, as 
 I thought, had several times done me injuries 
 with the direct purpose of injuring me, had that 
 day requested me to do him some little service 
 which would cause no inconvenience on my part, 
 except the smallest amount of trouble. As I 
 walked along the cliff, I thought over this request, 
 and asked myself why I should go out of my way 
 to oblige this man who had injured me. Here 
 was a fine opportunity of avenging myself for 
 these injuries. No ! I would not stir my little 
 finger to help him. I would give myself the 
 pleasure of rejoicing in his disappointment. Just 
 as I made this resolution, and arrived at this 
 satisfactory frame of mind (which rivalled, as far 
 at least as my humble means would permit, that 
 of the old serpent in the first garden), I came to a 
 stile. Mechanically almost, according to habit, I 
 paused as I mounted it and sat down. Before me 
 was a hay-field with the grass cut and left to dry ;
 
 NATURE'S HOMILY 189 
 
 on the left hand, at some distance, was an old 
 house with a grove of trees about it, whose tops 
 were shorn level by the cold north-east winds of 
 winter sweeping up from the sea. A little to the 
 right was a noble bay, bright with the yellow 
 sands, and beyond that, the blue and boundless 
 sea, the ships sailing on it, like white birds. The 
 blue sky was overhead. The evening sun, setting 
 low in the heaven, tinged everything — grass, trees, 
 cliffs, sea, sand — with a warm golden colour, and 
 the summer air, stirred by the faintest breeze ol 
 wind, breathed visibly as if with life. Like one that 
 comes suddenly into some glorious presence, the 
 beauty of the scene oppressed me, so that I dared 
 scarcely breathe for awe. Then the unmistakable 
 lesson and sermon of it came upon me with 
 resistless force. What was I — miserable worm 
 that I was ! — that I should mar this beauty, as 
 far as my poor power could mar it, by my childish 
 animosities and contemptible (if it had not been so 
 wicked) spite ? Did not this beautiful world serve 
 the living God with praise continually day and 
 night ? Had not that sea, which was beating wave 
 after wave successively upon the sand with a low 
 murmuring sound, continued from the first moment 
 of its creation, thousands of years before I was 
 born, to obey, in the unceasing regularity of its ebb 
 and flow, the commands of its Creator, and would 
 it not continue to do so long after I was dust ? 
 What was I, again, who, for the little moment I 
 was placed here, could not even nourish kindly 
 feelings towards my neighbour, but must try to 
 the utmost of my puny efforts to increase his 
 discomfort, to destroy what faith he may still have
 
 190 NATURE'S HOMILY 
 
 in the existence of good in the world, and, above 
 all, that I should glory in my work and rejoice in 
 my brother's misfortune ? In the presence of that 
 great sea, coeval with time itself, beating continu- 
 ally like the pulsation of a great heart, how con- 
 temptible seemed all the strifes and contentions 
 and bitterness with which we have filled the 
 world ! I thanked Nature, and, through her, her 
 Maker, for having opened to me so glorious a 
 book, which I had read inadvertently at this my 
 great need of the lesson written there. 
 
 I believe it was asserted in the essay to which 
 I have referred before, that the country in which 
 they dwelt had no influence on the mind of the 
 common people. I have seen in my tramping, 
 in the difference between life in great towns and 
 small villages, what I think is a sufficient answer 
 to this. There is a village some five miles from 
 this town of Birmingham, in which I found myself 
 one summer's evening when the sun was setting. 
 I had been all day tramping about the country, 
 visiting the old churches. I had dined off bread 
 and cheese and beer in a little ale-house on the 
 hot and dusty Coventry Road, and had met with 
 more courtesy there from an old countryman of 
 whom I asked the way than I have experienced 
 from many who would be very angry if they were 
 not called line gentlemen. Afterwards I came 
 along a path over the fields, my heart so warmed 
 with love of the great beauty about me, that with- 
 out much poetical exaggeration I was like the 
 river of which Julia speaks in the play : 
 
 Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge 
 He overtaketh in his pilgrimage.
 
 NATURE'S HOMILY 191 
 
 And coming to this village, I found out the sexton 
 and got him to show me into the church. His 
 talk — this dweller in the village — was not like 
 the talk of the man of cities. You might call it 
 simple and commonplace, and perhaps it was. 
 He told me that he remembered an entirely 
 different congregation to that which now met in 
 the church, and that he had buried them all ! He 
 told me of a great family who had formerly lived 
 near, and had worshipped there, but were all now 
 dead. He showed me their great titles on the 
 monuments, and their great carved pew, and he 
 said that all their greatness and all their grand 
 titles were of no use now, and could not keep 
 them from the common lot. Many of their 
 monuments showed that the silent inhabitants had 
 died in youth, and one was that of an officer. He 
 told me he remembered him coming to the church 
 when he was hardly yet a man, in his splendid 
 uniform, — so handsome and brave-looking, — and 
 he made me read the inscription which told how 
 he too died still young, of fever, in a distant land. 
 He told me that though he was sixty years old, 
 all his life seemed like one day, and he remem- 
 bered the time when he sat in the gallery — he 
 showed me the very place — among the boys of the 
 village school, as if it had been yesterday ; and so 
 it would be, he said, with me too when I grew 
 old. Then, pleased perhaps because I listened to 
 him with a plain interest, he said he would leave 
 me the keys and I should go up the tower and 
 see as pretty a view as ever I saw in my life. 
 And I did see it ! Do not sneer at that ! I saw 
 the green country with the shadows passing over
 
 192 NATURE'S HOMILY 
 
 it and the evening sun shining on it. I saw here 
 and there the village steeples pointing up to 
 heaven. I saw the birds flying overhead to their 
 nests. Above me rose the steeple, casting its 
 shadow over the quiet village below me. Oh 
 so quiet ! with the old houses that had stood there 
 for two hundred years, — longer perhaps, — and the 
 little children playing safely in the street. But 
 when I walked round the tower and looked the 
 other way, I could see, beyond a separating belt of 
 wild country, a black cloud in which could just be 
 discerned a hundred chimneys. I knew too well 
 what it was. I knew that under that black cloud 
 were 300,000 human beings crowded together. I 
 knew too well that among them was crime, vice, 
 poverty, despair, disease. I knew — would I had 
 not ! — that, to too many of them, the day of 
 wretched toil being almost over, the night of 
 more wretched crime would soon begin. And 
 you tell me that the mind-influence of these two 
 places was the same ! 
 
 In all my wanderings I have learnt this, that 
 man ought first to love and serve the great God 
 who has made so beautiful an earth, to love also 
 his fellow-beings, whom God has created in His 
 own image, and to wait patiently for that glorious 
 time when all things will be alike beautiful in 
 earth as in heaven. And I have remembered 
 thankfully, whilst wondering at the beauty, glory, 
 and magnificence of the universe, that though its 
 glory and magnificence is such that the human 
 mind cannot conceive it, yet He that careth for 
 the sparrows made it all.
 
 THE END OF LEARNING 
 
 I was much pleased the other day, in reading the 
 Saturday Review, by some sentences in a paper 
 on the Life of Channing, the famous Unitarian 
 minister at Boston in America, where the writer, 
 after speaking of the unpractical character of 
 Channing's experience, goes on to say : 
 
 A spectator remonstrating and speculating on the affairs of 
 the world, with no occupation which produces any very 
 definite or ascertainable result, is cut off from one of the 
 greatest sources of knowledge and of sympathy with human 
 nature. It is an immense advantage to any man to form 
 part of an organised system, and to have duties to discharge 
 which are not entirely selected by himself. The knowledge 
 which he thus obtains of his own relations to life, and the 
 participation in operations in which he plays a subordinate 
 and not very agreeable part, give invaluable lessons about the 
 constitution and conditions of society. 
 
 It is good for a man, especially for a sensitive man, to be 
 placed occasionally in vulgar and in invidious positions. 
 
 We cannot think too highly of the truth of 
 these sentences. It is intensely interesting to 
 mark the effect of what we sometimes think 
 would be so desirable in our own case — an entire 
 exemption from an uninteresting, plodding round 
 of daily uncongenial duties. No complaint is 
 more common, amongst us who are engaged in any- 
 trade, and who have any tastes and desires other 
 
 VOL. II 193 o
 
 i 9 4 THE END OF LEARNING 
 
 than those of a mere commercial man, than that 
 of want of leisure to follow our favourite pursuits, 
 and of the imperious and absolute demand which 
 business makes upon our attention, and there is 
 no doubt a great deal of truth in this complaint. 
 Not only is nearly the whole of the day occupied 
 in these often uncongenial duties, but the necessity 
 of entire application to these duties is so abso- 
 lute, and the exertion consequent on the applica- 
 tion so great, that the tired mind and body are 
 often equally unfit at the termination of the day's 
 labour to start again in fresh pursuit. 
 
 These things are so generally known and felt 
 that it seems commonplace even to mention them, 
 but I think that there are some considerations 
 which, if properly valued, would bring consolation 
 even to those who now feel their deep privation 
 the most. 
 
 I think it will be granted that there are few 
 situations which allow of no leisure whatever. 
 We are often surprised at the amount of literary 
 work done by those who, we know, are most 
 occupied in other pursuits, proving that even 
 these must be able to find time for reading in the 
 midst of their work. It is to such as these, who 
 think that they have most to complain of, that I 
 would speak. 
 
 It is well for all of us to consider what things 
 are most to be desired in this life, what thing we 
 should most strive to attain to, what thing it was 
 the Creator's intention to advance us in when He 
 placed us here. I have no hesitation — I can 
 have no hesitation in saying that we are placed 
 here for our advancement in learning. By learn-
 
 THE END OF LEARNING 195 
 
 ing I do not mean only the learning of the book- 
 man, or the learning of the man of science, or 
 the learning of the divine ; but I mean the 
 universal learning to which all men equally are 
 called — that learning which should go on through 
 our whole life, which we should draw from all 
 the objects, animate and inanimate, around us — 
 from the works of man as well as from the works 
 of God ; from the history of mankind, as well of 
 the bad as of the good, as well of the present as 
 of the past, as well from the busy workshop as 
 from the quiet study, as well — either for warning 
 or emulation — from the meanest as from the 
 noblest things in life. 
 
 It is by our proper learning from all these 
 things, through the guidance and assistance of 
 the eternal Spirit of God, which lighteth every 
 man that cometh into the world, that we may 
 reach the highest walk of the holy life — a life not 
 holy through an ignorance of or an absence from 
 the world, but holy through a God -implanted 
 knowledge of it and a God-assisted labour and 
 work in it — and so lay up for ourselves a treasure 
 and a sustenance for eternity. 
 
 If we believe in the perfectly wise plan of the 
 Creator, we must believe that we are not placed 
 in this world merely to escape and fly from it, 
 but that we are here not only to work for the 
 good and improvement of others, but also to 
 learn from that work and from the world in which 
 that work is done. We are not only spirits, but 
 at present we are bodies too. With the affairs of 
 the spirit-world we have not at present much to 
 do. W T hat we have to do is to enter with all our
 
 196 THE END OF LEARNING 
 
 strength into, and assist in, that plan of redemption 
 and advancement of ourselves and of the whole 
 world conceived by an all-wise God before the 
 world was ; and we can best do this by learning 
 (by the light of as much revelation from the 
 spirit-world as God has seen fit to show us) the 
 lesson of this world in which we are placed and 
 this life in which we breathe. 
 
 And where is this best learnt ? Not assuredly 
 in some secluded cloister, in the study of a learning 
 of our own and not of God's appointing, is this wide, 
 all-containing lesson understood. In the midst 
 of the world's toil and bustle and sorrow, and in 
 the full hearing of its great solemn-beating heart, 
 are the deepest, gravest, noblest truths appre- 
 hended and realised. No part, however mean, 
 of this life's experiences is useless towards the 
 attainment of this end. 
 
 There has been too much difference made 
 in the shallow philosophy which passes current 
 between the world and the study, the college and 
 the workshop. Really, as I have said, they are 
 all one. Life should be regarded as one great 
 university where there are many schools and 
 many professions, but where one end is always 
 kept in view, or rather, where some pursuits, 
 higher and nobler than the others, sanctify, purify, 
 and exalt into one perfect whole, where no one 
 portion is useless or dishonourable. How well 
 this was known by the great master of thought, 
 he proved when he wrote : " So that the exercise " 
 (in the university) "fitteth not the practice" (in 
 the world), " nor the image, the life : and it is 
 ever a true rule in exercises, that they be framed
 
 THE END OF LEARNING 197 
 
 as near as may be to the life of practice, for other- 
 wise they do pervert the notions and faculties of 
 the mind, and not prepare them." 
 
 Therefore it seems to me, in considering these 
 thing's, that we ought rather to rejoice than 
 grumble at our situation, placed as it is, not in 
 any Arcadia of pleasure of our own choosing or 
 creating, nor amidst academic groves of human 
 planting, but where, if we will but learn them, 
 every day brings lessons of self-denial, forbear- 
 ance, industry ; where innumerable opportunities 
 occur of practising kindness, love, charity, and of 
 becoming acquainted with the great miseries, the 
 great joys, the great hopes, and, by the blessing 
 of God, of the great future of the world ; and 
 where our leisure, if well employed, is generally 
 sufficient to enable us so to elevate our thoughts 
 and understandings (by the help of the great 
 treasures of reading) as to catch the meaning and 
 profit by the lessons of our daily life. 
 
 And as I began by saying that learning is the 
 end of all things, so I may now go back to my 
 title and say that this is the end of all learning — to 
 
 Grow, perforce, acquainted with the woe, 
 The strife, the discord of the actual world, 
 And all the ignoble work beneath the sun. 
 
 And by growing acquainted with these things, to 
 learn our own station in and relation to the general 
 life of man, and so, however ignoble and un- 
 spiritual our work may seem here, play by no 
 means an ignoble part in the eyes of Him whose 
 wisdom, providence, and perfect rule we are daily 
 learning more and more to understand.
 
 198 THE END OF LEARNING 
 
 Let us then, in all our pleasures or business 
 or book-learning — the three occupations of our 
 mortal life — pray continually that we may keep 
 stedfastly in view Him who is the Founder and 
 Example of the holy life, and that His Spirit may 
 enlighten us to the perfect learning of that for 
 which we are placed in this world ; and, if we do 
 so, let us be very certain that, thousands of years 
 hence, we shall not regret that we had not been 
 trained entirely as we should have trained our- 
 selves, nor learnt just that lesson which we should 
 have liked the most, but that He who taught as 
 never man taught had Himself trained us in the 
 stern but infinitely noble lesson of His earth, to 
 enable us to participate in and to understand the 
 infinite glories of His heaven.
 
 THE LAST OF THE RABBIS 
 
 A SKETCH 
 
 Dedicated, without Permission, to Nathaniel 
 Hawthorne 
 
 In the midst of the synagogue, at the Jewish settlement in China, is a 
 railed space from whence the Law used to be read, but it is never used, as 
 they have now no Rabbi, and have forgotten their knowledge of Hebrew. 
 — Lecture on China and its Revolution. 
 
 And the knowledge of Hebrew faded gradu- 
 ally out of the minds of the people, and the last 
 of the Rabbis was very old, and the people were 
 forgetting their ancient customs, and were ceasing 
 to be a peculiar people, and were mingling with 
 the nations among whom they dwelt. And the 
 heart of the Rabbi was moved with sorrow, and 
 he preached to the people, that they should learn 
 Hebrew and keep in mind the traditions of their 
 fathers. And he spoke so eloquently to them, 
 that they promised to obey, and began to learn. 
 But they had quite forgotten their ancient lan- 
 guage, and it was very hard to learn. And the 
 affairs of life and intercourse with strangers were 
 continually interfering, and one by one they lost 
 all pleasure in their task, and went each his way 
 to his business or his pleasure ; and the unceasing 
 
 199
 
 200 THE LAST OF THE RABBIS 
 
 hours flew by unheeded, and the last of the 
 Rabbis grew very old. 
 
 The evening sun was shining drowsily upon 
 the simple edifice that served the wanderers from 
 a far distant land for their house of prayer, and 
 the congregation were thronging into the syna- 
 gogue to evening worship, and the Rabbi passed 
 through them for the last time to his accustomed 
 place to read the Law. He was very old and 
 decrepit, but his intellect remained unshaken, and 
 the knowledge of his high and sacred calling 
 made his gait erect and his presence noble even 
 to the last. He bent for a few moments in silent 
 prayer, and then, raising his head, gazed round 
 him with a restless and troubled eye, as if seeking 
 for some one who would fill his place when he at 
 last was gathered to his fathers. But though he 
 gazed anxiously over all the assembled people, he 
 saw not one. He saw before him the descendants 
 of his fathers, who had travelled long a weary 
 journey over a barren land ; he saw before him 
 the children of Abraham and the prophets, and of 
 the old sacred heroes of the Bible — God's own 
 peculiar people — far, far away from their native 
 land, their own Canaan, their "land of promise," 
 in a foreign country, amid a strange people ; and 
 he saw them departed from the manners of their 
 fathers, and from the knowledge of their language ; 
 he saw them in dress assimilating to the people 
 among whom they lived, and in manners too ; 
 but though he saw many round him who were 
 learned in the lore and well read in the books of 
 the Chinese, yet he saw none who could take his 
 place — none who, when his voice was for ever
 
 THE LAST OF THE RABBIS 201 
 
 silent, could read the Law. And as he bent his 
 head over the sacred book — old and venerable 
 from the hands of a long chain of Rabbis — the 
 sight of it recalled emotions that almost over- 
 powered him, and he thought of all the traditions 
 of the people, since their sojourn in that far-off 
 land, and he thought of his own training for the 
 priesthood, and his regarding the high station he 
 had since reached with such feelings of reverential 
 awe ; and when he thought of all this, and of the 
 whole history of his life, spent among this people, 
 he was very sad, and his voice, as he began to 
 read, trembled exceedingly. But as he proceeded, 
 and read of the everlasting promises for fulfilment 
 in the latter days, and of the innumerable acts of 
 condescension and mercy of the Most High, his 
 voice became firm and high, and rolled forth 
 melodiouslv through the building and out into 
 the still air beyond, like the fabled death-song of 
 the swan. And it was the last time the Law was 
 read, for the Rabbi went home and sickened, and 
 lingered a little time and then died, and the Law 
 was read no more ; but the people still continued 
 to worship in the synagogue, and the book still 
 remains open as the last of the Rabbis left it 
 upon the old, time-worn desk, as if it were waiting 
 for the raising up of a new Rabbi to read therein. 
 And there is a feeling of awe in the minds of the 
 people, which causes them to leave it so — a feeling 
 of mysterious reverence connected with a book 
 containing such great and glorious truths, to 
 them, by their own self-imposed degeneracy and 
 ignorance, sealed and unknown. So the book 
 lies there ever, with its face upwards, and will
 
 202 THE LAST OF THE RABBIS 
 
 probably lie there through all time, and the Last 
 Day will find it there, open in the self-same place. 
 
 And the stranger from a Western clime entered 
 the little synagogue, and looked upon the book ; 
 and he thought that he could read there one of 
 the innumerable lessons from God to man — 
 lessons scattered over all His created earth, in 
 every tree and leaf and flower, for unheeding 
 man to read. For he saw in that open yet silent 
 book a mournful lesson of man's headlong pursuit 
 after the things of his body, and of his careless- 
 ness of the things concerning his immortal self. 
 And the stranger pondered much upon this 
 lesson, and upon the mutations and changes of 
 this present life, and he thought of the words of 
 a poet of his own land — words left just as he 
 wrote them — as he laid down his pen for ever, 
 from his unfinished labour on one of the greatest 
 poems the world ever saw — words most beautiful 
 in themselves, but inexpressibly beautiful as the 
 last words of a great mind, before being called to 
 inherit those joys of which he writes : 
 
 Then 'gin I thinke on that which Nature sayd 
 
 Of that same time, when no more change shall be, 
 
 But stedfast rest of all things, firmly stayd 
 
 Upon the pillours of Eternity, 
 
 That is contrayr to Mutabilitie ; 
 
 For all that moveth, doth in change delight, 
 
 But thenceforth all shall rest eternally 
 
 With Him who is the God of Sabaoth hight, 
 
 O ! Thou great Sabaoth God, grant me that Sabbath's sight.
 
 VESTIGIA 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Charles Dickens, in one of his tales, fancifully 
 imagines a certain street so full of the echoes of 
 passing footsteps, that the sound of them, forcing 
 itself constantly into the thoughts of the dwellers 
 there, caused them to weave theories respecting 
 them into the individual experiences of their lives. 
 They seemed the tumultuous rush of a great 
 multitude, confusedly running hither and thither 
 different ways, and affecting the ear somewhat as 
 a family of ants affects the eye, among which 
 there is vast bustle and hurry with little or no 
 perceptible result. The footsteps in the tale were 
 to those that heard them terrifying ; they said 
 with the satirist "me vestigia terrent." The foot- 
 steps which I have been thinking about are as 
 confusedly intermingled and involved, and are 
 more conducive even than these to reverie, but 
 they happily have nothing terrifying about them ; 
 it is not possible that they can influence our actual 
 lives further than by enabling us perhaps to pass 
 a pleasant hour, or, at the most, it may be to 
 increase a little in us that gracious love of our 
 kind, the expression of which, in the mouth of the
 
 204 VESTIGIA 
 
 Roman player, called down the applause of the 
 listening theatre so long ago. 
 
 Accompanying, and yet apart from, the stately 
 march of history is a rushing sound of thousands 
 of footsteps hurrying to and fro, like the throng 
 of the noisy and unheeded populace following and 
 surrounding the tramp of the military in some 
 triumphal progress through a city. History can- 
 not notice them except here and there, and 
 when it does they lose half their meaning and 
 interest when brought into presence of the great 
 events of the world, and of the stately pageant 
 of the collective acts of nations. They lie 
 hidden in books which are not upon our tables 
 every day ; sometimes they seem to vanish al- 
 together out of sight, and many folio pages 
 must be turned to find one of them ; at other 
 times they come thronging in upon us like the 
 footsteps in the tale, till we almost think that 
 the past is present with us, and that it is possible 
 to be on familiar terms with our ancestors, par- 
 take of their life, and live in their homes from 
 day to day. 
 
 There is a certain hour in the summer day 
 which always seems to me, fancifully enough, to 
 be to the eye and the senses what the familiar life 
 of past generations of our countrymen is to the 
 senses and mind. When noon is past and the 
 afternoon not quite begun, between two and three 
 o'clock, there is a time when the brilliancy of the 
 morning is not lost in, but softened by, the golden 
 haze of the afternoon. There is a hush over 
 Nature not so oppressive as that in the hottest 
 part of the day, yet still calm and dreamlike.
 
 VESTIGIA 205 
 
 The shadow of the trees is light, not darkly- 
 defined like noon, nor gloomy as in the evening. 
 The breeze that an hour ago was still is now 
 whispering in the grass ; the dead sleep is 
 wakened by a lovely dream ; the light over the 
 distant landscape and on the fleecy clouds has 
 neither the glare of the noonday nor the sleepy 
 glow of the afternoon, but conveys a sense of life 
 and action, chastened and calmed with what soon 
 may be repose. With something of this form 
 and gesture come before us those portions of our 
 past into the details of which we are able to 
 penetrate with in some degree a familiar eye — as 
 in the blue landscape "distance lends enchant- 
 ment," a golden sunshine lightens upon it, most 
 of what is unpleasant and painful passes away, 
 the summer sun shines on quaint and gabled 
 houses and churches, on prim garden walks and 
 smooth bowling-greens, on an Arcadian country, 
 and verdant woods swarming with life, and 
 untainted, as is the blue sky over them, with a 
 trace or wreath of smoke. And the simile, though 
 fanciful, will hold still farther. At these spell- 
 laden moments of the summer day the eye may 
 glance at different objects, over each of which the 
 genius of the hour casts its charm. At one time 
 perhaps we gaze upon the distant view of a fair 
 city, with its towered cathedral, its winding river 
 and stately bridge, and the flat meadows around 
 it edged with trees ; over the long bridges and 
 through the winding streets, we see the throng- 
 pressing in and out, emmet - like, yet plainly 
 seen. This is human life as seen perhaps 
 most picturesquely, all the pain and squalor and
 
 206 VESTIGIA 
 
 misery done away ; but next time we have 
 another scene. 
 
 Far away from any houses or homes of men 
 a green field stretches up, crowned at the top 
 against the sky with a tiny village church ; 
 beyond and far below the blue expanse of sea, 
 right and left the white headlands stretching out ; 
 within the girdle of the churchyard wall the 
 green hillocks, over which the fresh breeze blows 
 briskly, bending down the scarlet poppy and the 
 blue thistle flowers, that raise their heads again 
 auntily as it passes by. So inexpressibly sweet 
 and tender, so perfect in its calm, so holy in its 
 purity, that you think nothing but an eternal 
 Sabbath day can ever exist in such a spot. The 
 dead all around you, the air itself laden with the 
 sighing and the voices of the past, surely nothing 
 of week-day or common life can ever intrude into 
 so calm a scene. So in these dim old days, 
 embalmed in musty books, you may see and 
 mingle as you please in the gay festival, or busy 
 town, or in the shock of the battlefield ; or you 
 may retire to the plain country- home of the 
 philosopher or divine. You may sit in his 
 study, with the latticed garden window, and 
 the sunlight through the jessamine leaves gild- 
 ing the fruit and flowers on the bookcase, or 
 the brown gold- lettered calf of his volumes, 
 his only wealth ; or you may walk by his side 
 in his garden by the trimmed yew-hedges, and 
 whether in the garden or the study, listen to 
 such high and noble discourse as perhaps you 
 never heard before, clothed in English words 
 of such majestic rhythm and perfect cadence
 
 VESTIGIA 207 
 
 as certainly English words have never since 
 been set to. 
 
 Yet again, there are places in England — 
 fewer, perhaps, year by year, but still there are 
 places where there is nothing but what, should 
 one of our forefathers revisit it, would strike upon 
 his eye with a familiar sense — the footbridge 
 across the stream, the old mill, the black-timbered 
 houses, the gabled hall, the shadowed church. 
 This last, indeed, is the closest tie we possess in 
 country or in town to the seventeenth century. 
 There are churches in England in which no single 
 change has been made for two hundred years ; in 
 every church so little that our awakened ancestor, 
 were he to enter, would feel among familiar things. 
 It is not in books alone that the life and the 
 England of the past must be studied, but in the 
 life and the England of the present. The seven- 
 teenth century may be said to be the key of 
 the nineteenth ; and, in more things than many 
 would believe, our thoughts and actions and 
 disputes are but a repetition of the thoughts and 
 actions and disputes of two hundred years ago. 
 We shall best understand our forefathers bv stand- 
 ing in their footsteps, and by remembering that 
 nothing happened to them but also is common to 
 us : that they were touched by the same affections 
 that we are, hoped the same things, and tried, 
 many of them, to serve the same Master, and to 
 do something to benefit that fellowship of humanity 
 to which we and they alike belong. 
 
 I do not offer myself as a guide to this familiar 
 intercourse : I am only a seeker needing help 
 myself. The path is only just opening to me,
 
 208 VESTIGIA 
 
 and I am not sure of the way ; many times I 
 shall fail ; many times tire those who may listen 
 to me ; many will leave us and go somewhere 
 else. No doubt it would be much better if we 
 had a practised guide ; nevertheless, there is some 
 pleasure in finding out the path for ourselves. 
 In some great houses and gardens is not the 
 cicerone, though learned, sometimes a bore ? Is 
 not every little discovery, in itself perhaps not of 
 much worth, pleasant to us because we found it 
 unassisted ? Shall we try ? 
 
 " Our fathers find their graves in our short 
 memories," writes Sir Thomas Browne; "grave- 
 stones tell truth scarce forty years. To be read 
 by bare inscriptions like many in Grueter . . . 
 and to have new names given us like many of the 
 mummies, are cold consolations unto the students 
 of perpetuity." The story of the past, always 
 vague and dim, grows dimmer and more vague 
 when we attempt to read it in detail in the inscrip- 
 tions and on the tombstones of the dead. For 
 some few decades of years, perhaps, the story 
 may be clear and easily read ; then the writing 
 becomes confused and defaced, and we go on but 
 uncertainly and make frequent mistakes. Inscrip- 
 tions themselves are often mistaken, and, as Sir 
 Thomas Browne hints, a stone sometimes covers 
 a grave wherein lies a new tenant, himself calmly 
 regardless of the false title by which he is 
 remembered in the world which he has left. 
 In the next degree of antiquity, the inscription 
 is entirely effaced, and the stately, though perhaps
 
 VESTIGIA 
 
 209 
 
 broken, effigy lies silently from year to year, 
 passed by and gazed upon by thousands, sullenly 
 refusing to tell the story it was erected to relate. 
 But far off as the life once recorded on this silent 
 tomb may seem, there are lives still farther off. 
 In the forgotten pages of some old chronicler is 
 set down that in some still older book, now lost 
 for ever, is the description of a tomb, even then 
 destroyed, erected to the memory of some one 
 even then unknown. What a long vista of 
 forgotten existence does such a thought as this 
 suggest ! What a pathos of forgotten memories, 
 of long-buried hopes, the never-ceasing monotone 
 of the old story, always with the same beginning 
 and the invariable end ! The dry and gloomy 
 pages of heraldry and of pedigree catch something 
 of the mellow light of the human pity that springs 
 in our hearts at this voiceless, yet eloquent, plead- 
 ing from the dust. Lists of names and titles 
 assume somewhat of reality, and what the great 
 essayist found among the tombs of the abbey we 
 find in them. 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne refers to one of these 
 writers, James Grueter, who is worthy of a few 
 words. 
 
 He was the son of a burgomaster of Antwerp, 
 one of the signers of that famous petition to the 
 Duchess of Parma, to whom the not less famous 
 nickname of Guenx was given. His mother was 
 one of those educated Englishwomen of that 
 time, and herself taught him Latin and the classic 
 authors. He was a man of strong, conscientious 
 feeling, and left the chair of Professor of History 
 at Wittenberg, and refused one at Padua, on 
 vol. 11 p
 
 210 VESTIGIA 
 
 account of religion. He became professor at the 
 University of Heidelberg, of what chair does not 
 appear, but he must have lived there from 1602, 
 as in that year he published from thence the 
 two last folios of his great book of inscriptions 
 and epitaphs, Inscriptiones Antiquae totius orbis 
 Roman?', which he dedicated to the Emperor 
 Rudolf the Second. Besides this book, he was 
 a most voluminous author, one of those pains- 
 taking and unwearied scholars who adorned that 
 age. It is related of him that he studied standing 
 all day and the greater part of the night. At the 
 siege of Heidelberg by Tilly in 1622, he lost his 
 library, which had cost him 1200 golden crowns, 
 and which his knowledge of bibliography had 
 enabled him to collect. After the taking of the 
 city he made great efforts to recover it, but, pitiful 
 to relate, without success. The remaining five 
 years of his life he passed in the pleasant neigh- 
 bourhood of Heidelberg, amid the vineyards of 
 the Neckar and the waving slopes of the 
 Odinwald, among which, going out one day to 
 visit his son-in-law, he was taken ill and died. 
 His book was republished in 1707 by John 
 George Grevius, another great scholar, professor 
 of eloquence, politics, and history at Deventer, 
 and the author of Thesaurus Antiquitatum 
 Romanorum in twelve folio volumes, and 
 Thesaurus Antiquitatum et Historiae Italiae in 
 three. 
 
 We will leave these foreign places and come 
 home to England. 
 
 On the 28th of May 1631, John Weever, an 
 English scholar, a native of Lancaster and a
 
 VESTIGIA 211 
 
 Cambridge man, was writing his epistle to the 
 reader in his house in Clerkenwell Close. 
 
 Clerkenwell Close was then a pleasant place of 
 residence in the fields, formed out of the cloisters 
 and buildings of the old Priory of St. John of 
 Jerusalem and the adjoining nunnery of Clerken- 
 well, which had been saved from destruction in 
 Henry the Eighth's time for the singular reason 
 that he wanted them to keep his tents and toils 
 for the chase. The place, as is well known, 
 received the name it now bears from a well near 
 it, where the parish clerks of London were wont 
 to meet to perform miracle plays. John Strype, 
 the author of the Lives of the Archbishops, says 
 that he had drunk of this well and found the 
 water excellently clear, sweet, and well -tasted ; 
 and Weever himself, in a passage which is curious 
 when we think of what the place is now (speaking 
 of an equally celebrated well in the next parish), 
 calls it " a certain sweet, wholesome, and cleare 
 fountaine or well which, for the virtue of the 
 water, has amongst the common people been 
 reputed and called holy. It is now decayed and 
 indeed quite spoiled with soile, dung, and other 
 filthinesse, purposely there laid, for the heightening 
 of the ground for garden plots." During the 
 whole of the seventeenth century the buildings at 
 Clerkenwell were the residence of noblemen and 
 gentlemen. They had lost much of the ancient 
 state and beauty they possessed before the 
 Reformation, even when Weever lived there. 
 He tells us of the great Bell Tower, "a most 
 curious piece of workmanship, graven, gilt, and 
 enameld, to the great beautifying of the Citie,"
 
 212 VESTIGIA 
 
 and which had been destroyed in the reign of 
 Edward the Sixth. There had been also tables 
 in the church, on which were " depensild the 
 donations and gifts of the founders " as far back 
 as the eleventh century, which Weever could 
 remember reading, but which perished in the 
 fall of the steeple in 1623. The nunnery had 
 become the residence of Sir William Cavendish, 
 Earl of Newcastle, and within the Close " Sir 
 Thomas Challoner, Knight, deceased," had built 
 "of late a faire spacious house, upon the frontis- 
 piece of which these verses were depensild, 
 now altogether obliterated." (These Latin verses 
 were to the effect that, though the veiled sisters 
 were driven away, Chaste Fidelity remained 
 behind, and honoured Hymen there preserved 
 the marriage vows, and studied in his heart to 
 keep alive the fire on the domestic hearth.) On 
 the other side of the nunnery was the house 
 afterwards occupied for a time by Cromwell. 
 Both these houses were standing at the end of 
 the last century, and Pennant saw them. 
 
 Of John Weever himself very little is known 
 besides what he tells us in his book. Fuller 
 knew nothing of him except that he was born 
 somewhere in Lancashire, and educated at 
 Queen's College, Cambridge, where his tutor was 
 Dr. John Person. His native country is known 
 both by the Epitaph he wrote for himself and 
 also from a curious passage in his book, where, 
 speaking of a miracle play, performed in 1409, 
 which lasted eight days, he says, " The subject 
 of this play was the sacred Scriptures from the 
 creation of the world. They call this Corpus
 
 VESTIGIA 213 
 
 Christi play in my country, which I have seen 
 acted at Preston and Lancaster, and last of all at 
 Kendall, in the beginning of the reigne of King 
 James" (he was then a young man of two-and- 
 twenty), "for which the townsmen were sore 
 troubled, and, upon good reasons, the play was 
 finally suppressed not only there but in all other 
 towns of the Kingdome." 
 
 Weever's portrait was published with his book, 
 representing a grave elderly man in a silk cap, 
 with his hand upon a skull. This portrait is rare, 
 most of the copies of the first edition having lost 
 it. He tells us in his "epistle" that he had seen 
 in other countries how carefully the monuments 
 of the dead had been preserved, and had read the 
 epitaphs of Italy, France, Germany, and other 
 nations collected in print " by the paines of 
 Schraderus, Chytraeus, Swertius, and other 
 foreign writers." (Of these old-world and for- 
 gotten authors, I am totally ignorant of the first, 
 Schraderus ; the second, Chytraeus, is not to be 
 confounded with David Chytraeus, an eminent 
 Lutheran divine, but was named Nathan, and 
 published many books, and among them Variorum 
 in Btiropa Itinerum deliciae, sen InsaHptionum 
 Monumenta, published in 1599; the third, Swertius, 
 I suppose, was Francis Swert, a Flemish historian 
 and antiquary, born at Antwerp 1567 and died 
 1629.) He had also seen how in England 
 monuments and tombs were, to the shame of his 
 time, "broken downe and utterly almost all 
 ruinated, their brazen inscriptions erased, torne 
 away, and pilfered, and that, grieving at this 
 onsufferable injurie offered as well to the living
 
 214 VESTIGIA 
 
 as the dead, out of the respect I bore to venerable 
 Antiquity and the due regard to continue the 
 remembrance of the defunct to future posteritie, 
 I determined with myself to collect such memorials 
 of the deceased as were remaining as yet unde- 
 faced, and to retain the memories of eminent 
 worthy persons entombed or interred within 
 Parish or Abbey Churches ; however some of 
 their sepulchres are at this day nowhere to be 
 discerned, neither the bones and ashie remains in 
 any place to be gathered. Whereupon with paine- 
 full expenses (which might have been well spared, 
 perhaps you will say) I travelled over the most 
 parts of all England and some part of Scotland." 
 He goes on to tell how much discouragement 
 he met with. How, "having found one or 
 two ancient funerall inscriptions or obliterated 
 Sepulchres in this or that parish church, I have 
 ridden to ten Parish Churches distant from that 
 and found not one. Besides, I have been taken 
 up in divers Churches by the Church wardens of 
 the Parish and not suffered to write the Epitaphs 
 or to take view of the monuments as I much 
 desired ; for that I wanted a commission which 
 would greatly have encouraged me (and it still 
 would) as that of Henry the Eighth did John 
 Leyland." 
 
 Everywhere was he distressed almost to despair 
 by the wholesale destruction of monuments which 
 had taken place in the last two reigns, in spite of 
 the proclamations of Queen Elizabeth and King 
 James, — "time, the malignity of wicked people, 
 and our English profane tenacitie having quite 
 taken them away for lucre's sake" (this seems
 
 VESTIGIA 215 
 
 rather hard on poor old Time). Nor, when his 
 book was finished, was he safe. He apologises 
 for speaking too well of the monastic institutions, 
 and for "concluding the Epitaphs and Funeral 
 inscriptions as I find them engraven with a ' cujus 
 animam propitietur Deus,' or with God pardon 
 his soule ; which some may say might have beene 
 as well left out of my book, as they are in many 
 cases scraped out of the brasse." It is true he 
 met with pleasures and encouragements. His 
 delight is pleasant to see when he had discovered 
 some fine monument and was able to trace some- 
 thing of its occupant. All antiquities were wel- 
 come to him. 
 
 Who would not see (he says), if he could with conveniencie, 
 the situation of Silcester in Hampshire, having read in our 
 ancient Historiographers how famous it was in the time of 
 Constantius, the Sonne of the great Constantine, and how that 
 our first Christian, worthy King Arthur, was there invested with 
 the Royal Diadem ? Howsoever, no marks are at this day re- 
 maining to show that ever it was a citie, save a wall of two 
 miles in compasse, containing within fourscore acres of ground 
 divided into seven Corn-fields. . . . The seeing of places we 
 know to have been frequented or inhabited by men whose 
 memory is esteemed or mentioned in Stories doth move and 
 stirr us up as much or more than the hearing of their noble 
 deeds, or reading of their compositions. . . . Considering, then, 
 that the most of men do earnestly desire, Ulysses-like, " Qui 
 mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes," so all men are as 
 greedily affected to view the sacred sepulchres of worthie 
 famous personages, yea, and the very places where such have 
 been interred, although no Funerall Monument at all be there 
 remaining to continue their memories. . . . What a concourse 
 of people come daily, to view the lively statues and stately 
 monuments in Westminster Abbey, wherein the sacred ashes 
 of the Lord's Anointed, besides other great potentates, are 
 entombed, a sight which brings delight and admiration, and 
 strikes a religious apprehension into the minds of the beholders.
 
 216 VESTIGIA 
 
 . . . What numbers of Citizens and others at this very time go 
 to Lesnes Abbey in Kent to see some few coffins there lately 
 found in her ruins, wherein are the remaines of such as have 
 been there anciently interred. 
 
 Often too he met with unexpected pleasure. 
 Riding along the dull roads, some chance fellow- 
 traveller would prove a delightful and intelligent 
 companion, and relate curious anecdotes and old- 
 world stories, with which he was more pleased 
 than if he had found a pot of gold. 
 
 Ryding from Raleigh to Rochford (he says), I happened to 
 have the good companie of a gentleman of the country, who 
 by the way showed me a little hill, and told me of a strange 
 Customerie Court and of long continuance, then yearly kept 
 the next Wednesday after Michaelmas Day, in the night, upon 
 the first cock-crowing, without any kind of light save such as 
 the Heavens will afford. The Steward of the Court writes only 
 with coales, and calleth all such as are bound to appear with 
 as low a voice as possible he may, giving no notice when he 
 goeth to execute his office. Howsoever, he that gives not 
 an answer is deeply amerced ; which servile attendance (said 
 he) was imposed at the first upon certain Tenants of divers 
 manors hereabouts, for conspiring in this place and at such 
 unseasonable time to raise a commotion. The title of the 
 Entrie of the Court he had in memory, and writ it down for me 
 when we came to Rochford. 
 
 Finally, through all these pleasures and troubles, 
 having brought his work as far towards completion 
 as he ever brought it, he published it from his 
 house in the old Close at Clerkenwell, where was 
 a sun-dial with the motto — 
 
 Non aliter pereo species quam futilis Umbrae ; 
 
 and dying there three years afterwards, was 
 himself taken to a grave in the church there, 
 where a poetical epitaph of twenty - two lines
 
 VESTIGIA 217 
 
 was placed over him, together with one written 
 by his own hand, and where we will leave 
 him, though perhaps not his book, hoping 
 that the last two lines of his own epitaph were 
 indeed true : 
 
 And Christ to me hath given 
 A home with Him in heaven. 
 
 Amid the confused throng of footsteps which 
 crowd the alleys of the past, and amid the maze 
 of forgotten and faded, yet still active existence 
 which fills its long avenues, it is very difficult to 
 find a clue, or to decide which path to take, or 
 which "line of life" to follow first. Centuries of 
 time crowded with individual actions, each indi- 
 vidual a life, each life, if we knew it, full of distinct 
 incidents, do indeed open a wide and difficult 
 world of thought and search ; and although only 
 some few fragments comparatively are within our 
 reach, yet these are enough to make the task of 
 selection no easy one, and the path we would 
 follow very difficult to find. It would therefore 
 not perhaps seem unwise, seeing that we have 
 stumbled almost unconsciously upon a clue of 
 some sort in old John Weever's book, that we 
 should follow it for a time, and trust that, though 
 but a by-path, it will in time lead us into some 
 more beaten road, if not into the king's highway 
 itself. 
 
 But indeed in some respects this old book is 
 not the worst of guides, especially for us who are 
 seeking to know something of our ancestors 
 personally, and if may be to look them in the
 
 218 VESTIGIA 
 
 face ; for from the first page to the last it is full 
 of the names and titles of dead men ; and though, 
 in many cases, it is only the names and titles 
 which are actually read in it, yet even these 
 are some tangible realities to grasp, and afford 
 in many ways materials for further inquiry and 
 acquaintance. Nor is it unsuitable, for another 
 reason, for it carries us back as far into the dim 
 distance of our country's history as we shall care 
 to go. We are led back into that woodland 
 England of so many centuries ago which is so 
 different from ours and yet so strangely like — 
 different in so much of exterior life and trappings, 
 like in the familiar and kindred people we find 
 there, and in that "res angusta domi " which 
 occupied men as much then as now. We never 
 realise this enough. In imagining the life of the 
 Middle Ages we err two ways : we think of it as 
 too unreal, and yet strangely we do not make 
 sufficient allowance for its romance. On the one 
 side we imagine gloomy and bare castles, with 
 impossible knights, in theatrical attitudes, living 
 the most uncomfortable lives ; on the other, it is 
 hard for us to conceive the real romance — romance 
 in its highest sense — which grew up like wild- 
 flowers along the everyday path. In the first 
 case we deceive ourselves in thinking that the 
 past was more unlike our own times than it really 
 was. For instance, we shall probably find nothing 
 more confidently asserted in popular histories 
 than that there was no middle class of society in 
 the medieval ages. I can think of no sense in 
 which this is anything like the truth. Except 
 perhaps at some short transition periods of con-
 
 VESTIGIA 219 
 
 vulsion which are not to be taken into the 
 general view, the class which inhabited the towns, 
 and by which even in the darkest times the 
 necessary handiwork is carried on — the learned 
 classes, the clergy, the physicians, chemists, and 
 lawyers, and a very large portion of the country- 
 gentry and yeomen — formed together a class 
 which exactly corresponded to the middle class 
 now. Indeed, no country could exist as the 
 popular theory asserts was the case in the Middle 
 Ages — that is, without some such class. Im- 
 possible nobles grouped about with imaginary 
 peasantry never existed anywhere but on the 
 stage and in some popular histories (these re- 
 marks apply particularly to England, but they are 
 true to a great extent of all countries — even of 
 France) ; and accordingly, when we come really 
 face to face with these times, we find this class 
 in full activity, and find the old familiar ideas and 
 incidents occurring in all ages — not an uninterest- 
 ing instance of which we find in an early page of 
 Weever's book, where we are reminded that in 
 early times the graveyards and cemeteries were 
 always outside the towns or villages, partly — 
 and here is shown our forefathers' likeness to us 
 — for the greater healthiness, partly — and here 
 is shown their romance, which we have lost — in 
 realisation that all men are strangers and pilgrims 
 upon earth, and because of the great sacrifice 
 "offered without the camp." 
 
 Again, we talk as though men's minds had 
 never known a " march of intellect " before our 
 day, and as though no discoveries had ever 
 been made before our modern ones, — as though
 
 220 VESTIGIA 
 
 formerly no great intellectual emotions ever 
 stirred men's minds, nor humanity ever advanced 
 step by step on great truths and heart-stirring 
 beliefs. What is our " march of intellect " com- 
 pared to the excitement of those days when the 
 Story of the Cross spread from one end of 
 England to the other like the news of a great 
 victory, — when Paulinus, Bishop of York, baptized 
 in one day ten thousand men, besides women and 
 little children, in the river Swale, by Richmond, 
 the memory of which day caused the stream to 
 be held sacred for ages by the ancient English, — 
 when the effect produced by these great tidings 
 was so great that its influence pervaded all ranks 
 of life ; 
 
 so that whenever any of the Clergy or religious person came, 
 he was joyfully received of all men like the servant of God ; 
 his benediction by hand or mouth gladly desired and his 
 admonition gladly hearkened to ; for the clergy used not to 
 come forth but only to preach, to baptize, or to visit the sick ; 
 nor had they any money but cattle, for if they took any money 
 of rich men by and bye they gave it to poor people ; neither 
 was it needful that either money should be gathered or houses 
 provided for the receiving and entertaining of the worshipful 
 and wealthy, who never came then to church but onely to pray 
 and heare the word of God. The King himself, when occasion 
 served to come thither, came accompanied onely with five or 
 sixe persons, and after prayer ended, departed. But if by 
 chance it fortuned that any of the nobilitie or worshipfull 
 refreshed themselves in the Monasteries, they contented them- 
 selves with the religious men's fare and poore pittens, looking 
 for no other cates above the ordinary and daily diet. For 
 then those learned men and rulers of the Church sought not 
 to pamper the paunch but to save the soule ; not to please 
 the world, but to serve God . . . who also at this time were 
 so farre from the infection of covetousnesse and ambition, 
 that they would not take territories and possessions towards 
 the building of Monasteries and erecting of Churches, but
 
 VESTIGIA 221 
 
 through the earnest suite, and almost forced thereunto by 
 
 noble and wealthy men of the World ; which custome in all 
 
 points hath remained a long time after in the clergy of 
 Northumberland. 1 
 
 But if we leave behind these beatific seasons, 
 which were indeed of too short continuance, were 
 not the great discoveries of chemistry, the re- 
 covery of learning, and of the languages of the 
 forgotten classic world, worthy of comparison with 
 the discovery of steam and of the telegraph ? 
 and whatever may be said of the theories of 
 Copernicus, Kepler, and Descartes, they were at 
 least equal in proof and interest to the geologic 
 theories of our day. The pursuit of alchemy, 
 with its dreams of another and higher world, 
 and of a common and refining spirit, and of 
 ministering beings, pervading earthly things ; the 
 romance of travel, which might then truly be 
 so called ; the intense belief of past ages, — surely 
 left the mind but little want of training, nor the 
 soul without the highest intellectual food. The 
 highest truths were familiar, everyday occurrences. 
 The spiritual world, which is so far from us — 
 farther seemingly year by year — was close to 
 them in their very path. What we should call 
 the most romantic things they saw every day, 
 riding by the woodland roads : 
 
 A light before me swims, 
 
 Between dark stems the forest glows, 
 
 I hear a noise of hymns. 
 
 Then, by some secret shrine I ride, 
 
 My knees are bowed in faith and prayer. 
 
 1 Weever's Funeral Monuments, p. 65, quoting Bede, Eccles. Hist. 
 lib. iii. chap. xxvi.
 
 2?2 VESTIGIA 
 
 I hear a voice — the doors are wide, 
 
 The tapers burning fair, 
 
 Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth, 
 
 The silver vessels sparkle clean, 
 
 The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, 
 
 And solemn chants resound between. 1 
 
 Nothing was commoner than these woodland 
 chapels in solitary places, whence the matin and 
 vesper prayer resounded over the swelling tracts 
 of moor and forest, and if the Sancgreal was not 
 there literally, it was there in fact, and many 
 devout eyes saw it to their endless good. 
 
 It is this mino-linof of familiar and domestic 
 things with what we call romantic which is the 
 life of true romance — the life, that is, of everything 
 that is noble and disinterested as opposed to all 
 that is sordid and mean. All past ages possessed 
 it. I do not mean to assert but that we also may 
 possess it, though it is perhaps more rare now 
 than of yore. Certainly it has been growing rarer 
 every century. In thinking about it, I am en- 
 countered with this difficulty. The seventeenth 
 century, though possessing it very much more 
 than the nineteenth does, certainly possessed it 
 very much less than the fourteenth ; and yet 
 most persons, and I among them, would consider 
 the seventeenth century infinitely nobler than the 
 fourteenth. Again, there is no doubt that, as we 
 possess it much less than the seventeenth century 
 did, so there are not wanting thinkers who 
 maintain (as I think mistakenly, but who still 
 maintain) that our century is a nobler one than 
 the seventeenth. We are then reduced to one of 
 
 1 These verses are slightly adapted.
 
 VESTIGIA 223 
 
 these two conclusions — either that the more a 
 man is removed from mean and sordid objects 
 and pursuits, and the more he is placed among 
 beautiful and noble ones, the worse he is ; or 
 that I and many others are as much mistaken in 
 believing the seventeenth century nobler than the 
 fourteenth as we believe others to be who assert 
 that our century is nobler than any which have 
 preceded it.
 
 ARS VITAE 
 
 Who sees through tears the masquer's leap. 
 
 There is an old word, now fallen entirely into 
 neglect, and perhaps forgotten, which, it seems to 
 me, would supply a want in our modern diction- 
 aries. Some months ago a very admirable essay 
 upon Wit and Humour was read to our Society, 
 in which the subject of the former of those two 
 faculties was treated of in a manner which left, 
 perhaps, nothing to be wished. If the treatment 
 of the latter subject — that of humour — seemed, 
 as "it did to me, inadequate, this was neither to 
 be blamed nor to be wondered at, seeing that no 
 writer has yet treated the subject as its import- 
 ance requires. This chiefly arises from the fact 
 that the faculty, or the art, which at present, for 
 want of a better word, we call humour is growing 
 with the changing condition of human society, 
 and has reached an extension which entitles it to 
 be called a new art, or faculty of the mind, and 
 to have its nature and its limits defined, and a 
 new name given it among men. It is, of course, 
 needless to say that nothing beyond an attempt 
 to direct attention to the subject is intended 
 here. 
 
 224
 
 ARS VITAE 225 
 
 The word " humour " was not, so far as I 
 am aware, applied by the Romans to the dis- 
 positions of the mind, but was confined entirely 
 to certain phenomena of the body ; afterwards, 
 the old physicians taught that there were four 
 " humours " in a man: blood, choler, phlegm, 
 and melancholy. Walking, in this respect, in 
 the same steps as modern science, they taught 
 that, as one or other of these " humours " unduly 
 preponderated, the mind and conduct of the 
 man was affected, and in this way a humorist 
 was understood to mean " a man full of humours 
 or conceits " ; or, in other words, a man in whom 
 certain habits of thought and conduct had 
 gained such strength as to overshadow the 
 entire man and render him noticeable and 
 singular among his fellows. This sense of the 
 word gradually gave way to another, by which 
 it was understood to mean a man whose bias 
 or habit, itself a humour, took the form of 
 studying the humours of others, and this mean- 
 ing is probably the one which would seem to 
 most people at the present time to describe what 
 they understand by the word most correctly. 
 
 In the increased intellectual activity of modern 
 life, when the field of human action was so much 
 narrowed, and that of human thought so much 
 enlarged, it became evident that the study of 
 human life was nothing but the study of the 
 humours of individual men ; and with that 
 increased toleration which follows upon enlarged 
 culture, men began to see that no one man had 
 any reason to assume his superiority to another 
 because his humour differed from his, or because 
 vol. 11 Q
 
 226 ARS VITAE 
 
 his fellow's humour appeared uncouth or ridicu- 
 lous either to himself or to the majority of his 
 neighbours. It also became touchingly apparent 
 that, well considered, nothing in a fellow human 
 being is so truly pathetic 1 as the ludicrous. 
 That which, in a child's puppet, merely raises 
 a thoughtless laugh, assumes altogether a dif- 
 ferent aspect when seen in one who, whether 
 immortal or a partaker of the Divine Nature 
 or not, is just as much so as the spectator him- 
 self, with all his boundless aspirations and 
 reaches of thought. While it does not lose its 
 ludicrous effect, there is superadded to this 
 sense of the ridiculous another of immortality 
 and of pathos ; a conjunction producing mental 
 sensation of which the man has hitherto been 
 utterly unconscious, but which, when once he 
 has yielded to its influence, he seldom forgets. 
 Taught, therefore, by the full extent of this 
 insight, it becomes evident that the study of 
 humour is as wide as that of human life itself; 
 for the shadow of death and immortality, which 
 gives to human life its pathos, throws at the same 
 time — by a cross reflection as it were of lights 
 upon a stage — a sense of the ridiculous upon the 
 most solemn pageant — as earthly dignities appear 
 grotesque, and the grimaces of a harlequin-clown 
 pathetic, seen by the ghastly footlights of the 
 tomb. 
 
 The word, therefore, which seems to me to be 
 most appropriate to the follower of this study, 
 at such an advanced stage, is that which was 
 
 1 This word is used throughout in its restricted modern meaning for 
 whatever excites the passion or affection of pity.
 
 ARS VITAE 227 
 
 formerly applied to one skilled in all human 
 learning, viz. "Humanist." That "Enthusiasm 
 of Humanity " applied, by Professor Seeley, to 
 the love of man apart from his circumstances, is 
 at least as applicable to the passion for man in 
 his circumstances, and becatise of the detailed and 
 trivial surroundings of his daily life. The motto, 
 " The proper study of mankind is man," is limited 
 in its force when it means, as it has invariably 
 done, the study of his moral nature, and of what 
 he ought to be rather than what he is. While 
 this life is considered merely as a prison-house, 
 or a stepping-stone, to be escaped from, or to 
 be left, this world may be contemned, but the 
 doctrine of another is also in danger of becom- 
 ing unreal. It is not till the scene of this life 
 is fully developed that the pageant of a higher 
 can enter upon the stage. If divines had studied 
 this life as earnestly as they have disputed about 
 another, and had shown mankind their own 
 nature in colours they could not fail to recognise 
 (for nothing is so certain of response from the 
 most careless of mankind), they would have 
 been able to present more clearly to their 
 hearers that Divine Excellence which was un- 
 known till it was manifested in humanity. 
 Life as it is, in the dingy streets of our great 
 cities, not as it might be in Utopias and Islands 
 of the Blest, — life in all its forms, with the 
 sorrows and weariness which beset all ranks 
 alike, — is full of magic power to interest and 
 attract. The innumerable fictions which crowd 
 the magazines witness to its force. Among the 
 unpretending walks of religious literature this
 
 228 ARS VITAE 
 
 power is recognised — doubtless in many instances 
 with good results ; but it is singular that, as we 
 advance in the higher intellectual ranks, this 
 ceases to be the case ; and religious teaching 
 and actual life become more and more estranged ■ 
 and this master-chord, to which, touched by 
 the least skilful hand, all other notes respond in 
 tune, remains unstirred. 
 
 It is reported of the golden - tongued 
 Chrysostom, that he slept with Aristophanes 
 under his pillow ; and of a Puritan divine, 
 " that he had read many witty authors in the 
 Italian, French, and Spanish tongues, whereof, 
 by the excellency of his wit, he made admirable 
 use even in divinity, he being able, by an 
 holy alchemy, to make everything serve to his 
 powerful persuasions, wherein he excelled." And 
 the Divine Founder of Christianity Himself not 
 only drew His instructions from every form of 
 the human life around Him, but actually omitted 
 the higher application altogether, reserving it for 
 those few whom He considered able to receive 
 it. It is the more important to bear this in 
 mind, because one of the greatest obstacles 
 which Christianity has to encounter from those 
 advanced stages of Indo-European culture which 
 Athens enjoyed, and modern Europe has again 
 reached, is the antagonism between the mental 
 lore of the Semitic and Caucasian races. That 
 higher seriousness, as we consider it, which 
 clothes itself in irony and humour was unknown 
 to the Jews, while the simple grandeur of their 
 literature seems unreal and grandiloquent to 
 the European. The sharply-wrought reasoning
 
 ARS VITAE 229 
 
 faculty of the Caucasian race, which was first 
 developed in the Greeks, and latterly in most of 
 the different branches of the same great family, 
 finds no encouragement in the Bible. In con- 
 sequence of this diversity Hebrew is unknown, 
 except to theologians, while the study of Greek 
 becomes a passion to every man of culture who 
 nee enters upon it. 
 It seems, therefore, not unimportant that 
 every influence which serves to graft Christianity 
 more strongly into our intellectual life should be 
 taken advantage of; nor need any timid followers 
 of their Lord shrink from such inquiry ; for 
 surely it is a convincing proof of the superiority 
 of Christianity, that, when the exquisite Greek 
 word-science, the brilliant dialectic, the dramatic 
 colouring, the alluring life, the exalted death, 
 the perfect self-sacrifice of the Platonic Socrates 
 had failed altogether to influence the masses of 
 mankind, the religion of Christ, springing from 
 a despised, unlettered people, — from an alien 
 literature, and dressed in nothing that made it 
 attractive to the cultured intellect, — triumphed 
 over the world. The reasons are of absorbing 
 interest, and are not far to seek. They are too 
 long to be considered here, but one of the 
 plainest, perhaps, is that Christ Himself was, in 
 the highest sense to which we have attached the 
 word, a more perfect " Humanist" than any who 
 have hitherto spoken in His most Holy Name.
 
 LATER ESSAYS 
 
 231
 
 THE PLATONISM OF WORDSWORTH. 1 
 
 [The reader will perceive that no allusion is made in this Essay to the 
 general religious opinions of the Poet. The writer has simply attempted 
 to trace certain lines of thought which seem to him to exist in Wordsworth's 
 philosophic poetry.] 
 
 To write of Wordsworth would seem futile. 
 Wordsworth is himself; to paraphrase or parody 
 his words or characters is unspeakably painful — 
 nay, more, it is useless, it will convey no adequate 
 idea to the man who is ignorant of Wordsworth's 
 poetry. It is the perfection of certain passages 
 which induces the wish to call attention to them, 
 but this perfection leaves nothing to be desired 
 or added ; nor can any want of variety be pleaded 
 as an excuse for using any words other than 
 the poet's own. The stage is crowded already. 
 Think of the press of fairy folk who throng upon 
 your memory as you turn over his pages in your 
 recollection — the miller and his maids on their 
 island platform in the river — that strange woman 
 and her no less weird mate beneath the tower of 
 Jedburgh — the stealthy mystic form of the leech- 
 gatherer — the stately march of figures which fill 
 the pathways of "The White Doe" — the valleys 
 and hill-slopes gay with blithe or hallowed with 
 
 1 Read to the Wordsworth Society, July 18S1. 
 233
 
 234 THE PLATONISM OF WORDSWORTH 
 
 solemn figures which delight our fancy in the 
 pages of The Excursion — the churchyard where 
 the brother sleeps — the mountain sheepfold where 
 Michael toiled and sorrowed — the foot-plank which 
 bore the last impress of Lucy's feet — the dusty 
 highway along which the Cumberland beggar 
 moved, and will move now for ever — the ghastly 
 fellowship that haunted the prosaic everyday walks 
 of the travelling potter, Peter Bell — Matthew, 
 the schoolmaster, and his mysteriously provoking 
 witty rhymes — Simon Lee — old childless Timothy 
 and the hunt, and that exquisite apologue which 
 genius heard even in the chance echo of the 
 cuckoo's cry — 
 
 unsolicited reply 
 To a babbling wanderer sent. 
 
 Wordsworth was a leader of men in the truest 
 sense. On his guidance the jaded and perplexed 
 intellect may safely depend ; he possessed a 
 power of cheerful calm, clear as the dawn and 
 unvarying as the stars. 
 
 That, when time brings on decay, 
 Now and then may I possess 
 Hours of perfect gladsomeness ; 
 Keep the sprightly soul awake, 
 And have faculties to take 
 Even from things by sorrow wrought, 
 Matter for a jocund thought ; 
 Spite of care and spite of grief 
 To gambol with life's falling leaf. 1 
 
 It is the spirit of Paradise, 
 
 ... a spirit strong, 
 That gives to all the selfsame bent 
 Where life is wise and innocent. 2 
 
 1 " The Kitten and Falling Leaves," p. 130, Ed. 1849. - P. 121, Ed. 1849.
 
 THE PLATONISM OF WORDSWORTH 235 
 
 It may be that there are lines of thought which 
 the Poet merely indicated, but which it is possible 
 to trace out more clearly, and to follow further 
 on, not only to our own delight and advantage, 
 but also to the appreciation of the Poet. 
 
 It has been suggested that one of these lines 
 of thought is the similarity of Wordsworth's 
 teaching to that of Plato. I have said the simi- 
 larity of Wordsworth to Plato, because it is not 
 asserted that Wordsworth consciously Platonised; 
 on the contrary, it is not likely that he ever read 
 the Dialogues. It is not impossible that Coleridge 
 may have talked to him upon the matter. We 
 know he discoursed at length to him upon Spinoza, 
 and Sir Frederick Pollock fancies that he can 
 trace the effect of those conversations in the 
 Poet's work. 
 
 I should suppose that any ordinarily educated 
 man would, if asked, describe Wordsworth as a 
 poet of nature, and he has with the utmost 
 emphasis described himself as a " worshipper of 
 nature "; nevertheless it would seem that Words- 
 worth is essentially the poet of Man. He is in 
 fact less of a poet than of a Seer. It is man 
 whom he chiefly busies himself about. It is the 
 emotions and thoughts of men which fill his 
 thoughts. Nature is the type of permanence and 
 reality — man is transient and ever changing ; 
 nevertheless nature is ever subservient to man. 
 Seen by man's intellect inanimate nature becomes 
 "an ebbing and a flowing mind." 1 It is intellect 
 projected upon the bleak side of some tall peak 
 " familiar with forgotten years," that gave to it 
 
 1 The Excursion : " The Wanderer," p. 447, Ed. 1849.
 
 236 THE PLATONISM OF WORDSWORTH 
 
 its " visionary character." 2 It was the transitory- 
 nature of the being that stood upon its bank that 
 gave to the flowing stream its lesson of " life 
 continuous — being unimpair'd." 2 By these forms 
 of nature, "in the relation which they bear to 
 man," 3 are evoked "the spiritual presences of 
 absent things, convoked by knowledge." 4 
 
 Amid the groves, beneath the shadowy hills 
 The generations are prepared. 5 
 
 Their manners, their enjoyments and pursuits, 
 Their passions, and their feelings ; chiefly those 
 Essential and eternal in the heart. 6 
 
 But though man consecrates nature, nature 
 elevates man — man and nature act and re-act. 
 That glorious universe, the intelligent succession 
 of conditioned existence, has 
 
 meanings which it brought 
 From years of youth. Which like a Being made 
 Of many Beings, it has wondrous skill 
 To blend with knowledge of the years to come ; 7 
 
 and thus to lure mankind from a superstitious 
 Manichseism into a state of abiding and gracious 
 calm, in which he is at last able to recognise 
 the eternal unity which pervades all things, the 
 synthesis of thought and matter, the clear dawn- 
 ing of the perfect intellectual day. 
 
 'Tis Nature's law 
 That none, the meanest of created things, 
 Of forms created the most vile and brute, 
 
 1 P. 449. a " Despondency Corrected," p. 482. 
 
 3 Idem, p. 487. 4 Idem, 1st Edition, 
 
 5 The Excursion : "The Churchyard," p. 504, Ed. ,1849. 
 
 6 Idem : "The Wanderer," p. 449, Ed. 1849. 
 
 7 Idem : " The Wanderer," p. 450, Ed. 1849.
 
 THE PLATONISM OF WORDSWORTH 237 
 
 The dullest or most noxious, should exist 
 Divorced from good — a spirit and pulse of good, 
 A life and soul, to every mode of being 
 Inseparably link'd. 1 
 
 If this is the nature of Wordsworth's poetry, 
 what is the result? He has himself told us that 
 he did not intend to found a system ; but the 
 effect produced by his teaching is a sacred peace, 
 in the presence of pure and absolute Being. The 
 petty troubles of existence vanish before the 
 passionless face of nature, and in the presence of 
 invariable Law an entrance is won into the king- 
 dom of the pure Intellect, 
 
 by mystery and hope, 
 And the first virgin passion of a soul 
 Communing with the glorious universe. 2 
 
 Immutably survive, 
 For our support, the measures and the forms, 
 Which an abstract intelligence supplies ; 
 Whose kingdom is, where time and space are not. 3 
 
 Now let us turn for a moment to the banks of 
 the Ilissus and we shall find something of the 
 same character. 
 
 Standing under the shady plane-trees, which 
 have long since vanished, groups of earnest-look- 
 ing young men are discussing those themes which, 
 as the years roll on, generation after generation 
 will discuss ; while among them a queer-looking 
 little man whom all reverence, and make way for, 
 and listen to, walks about asking questions, and 
 showing each one of them, to his own satisfaction, 
 how great a fool he is. Plato's dialogues, just as 
 
 1 "The Old Cumberland Beggar," p. 425, Ed. 1849. 
 
 2 The Excursion : "The Wanderer," p. 449, Ed. 1849. 
 
 3 Idem : "Despondency Corrected," p. 476, Ed. 1849.
 
 238 THE PLATONISM OF WORDSWORTH 
 
 much as Wordsworth's poems, form a volume of 
 Philosophical Romance. For his groundwork he 
 seized upon a wonderful and unique man. His 
 philosophy is based upon the story of a life and 
 death, his pages are crowded with men ; without 
 the aid of narrative he can create character : but 
 story is not wanting. Anecdote and incident, 
 apologue and poetry, enliven the page. The 
 trials, the difficulties, the follies and aims of men 
 are his theme. Nor does he stop here : his philo- 
 sophy (transcendental, as it has been called) is 
 human, his ideas are those of earth. Unlike 
 Aristotle and the Schoolmen, he does not occupy 
 himself with Existence, Substance, Attribute, 
 Essence, Eternity, but with matters of everyday 
 life ; in the first place destroying false and pedantic 
 notions, and then basing his idealism upon recog- 
 nised facts, such as love, hatred, strength, and 
 even horses, dogs, and mud. 
 
 Let us endeavour to trace this likeness still 
 
 more clearly by two examples before we attempt 
 
 to realise the metaphysic result, and the particular 
 
 mode in which it forced itself on the Poet's 
 
 imagination, and by which he is still enabled to 
 
 communicate it to us. 
 
 He speaks of 
 
 another gift 
 Of aspect more sublime ; that blessed mood 
 In which the burden of the mystery, 
 In which the heavy and the wear)' weight 
 Of all this unintelligible world 
 Is lighten'd : that serene and blessed mood 
 In which the affections gently lead us on 
 Until, the breath of this corporeal frame, 
 And even the motions of our human blood,
 
 THE PLATONISM OF WORDSWORTH 239 
 
 Almost suspended, we are laid asleep 
 In body, and become a living soul ; 
 While, with an eye made quiet by the power 
 Of harmony and the deep power of joy 
 We see into the life of things. 1 
 
 Such an extract as this has said everything 
 that need be said on the subject. It covers all 
 possible ground. Let us remain silent, and turn 
 to the other master : 
 
 And what think you would happen were it given to any one 
 to behold beauty itself, clear as the light, pure and undenled, 
 not daubed with human colouring, nor polluted with human 
 fleshliness, and other kinds of mortal trash ; so that, in its 
 singleness of form, he were able to see the beautiful and the 
 godlike in one. Think you that the life of a man would be of 
 little account if he look thitherward (without fear) and has 
 such fellowship as this ? Do you not see that to him alone 
 will power be given (who alone has the power to behold the 
 beautiful) to beget, not the deceitful show of virtue, as not 
 being tempted by deceitful shows, but the truth itself as one 
 who embraces a reality : — and so begetting virtue (as a lovely 
 daughter) and bringing her up, it will happen to him to be 
 God-beloved, and, if any man can be, immortal. - 
 
 Apart from all the distracting terminology of 
 metaphysic, then, the meaning of the English poet 
 and the Greek philosopher seems to be this : The 
 forces of life, which we call intellectual, may be 
 actually of similar birth with the physical, but 
 phenomenally they stand out in clear distinction. 
 Love, self-sacrifice, and self-denial, courage, and 
 the other virtues, are so far immaterial at least 
 that they are indestructible, invisible, invariable 
 in action, unregulated by the laws which attach 
 to matter. So long as the race endures they are 
 
 1 " • 
 
 'Tintern Abbey," p. 260, Ed. 1849. 
 • Plato, Symposium, xxix. E. Ed. Stallbaum.
 
 240 THE PLATONISM OF WORDSWORTH 
 
 eternal. But a difficulty seems to present itself 
 at the outset. Love and self-denial, courage and 
 the rest, are all that you state them to be, but so 
 are hatred, revenge, fear, and the like. Will, then, 
 the eternal world of Pure Intellect, which an 
 abstract intelligence has peopled, prove nothing 
 more than a repetition of this ? — with all its unin- 
 telligible gloom, its perplexities, its cruelties, its 
 Sphinx-riddles, which lead to despair and death ? 
 
 To grapple with this difficulty Plato fell back 
 upon what may be called a principle of excellence, 
 which rules the formation and government of all 
 animate and inanimate things. What this prin- 
 ciple was he was often at a loss to decide, but he 
 appealed boldly to the experience of his hearers 
 to acknowledge that there was such a principle, 
 and to pronounce upon the success or failure of 
 any Work or Being in proportion as it adheres to 
 or departs from it. This being so, it follows that 
 all temporary, accidental, and unsuitable adjuncts 
 being eliminated, nothing but the pure idea of 
 the perfect object will exist in the intellect ; so 
 that to the perfectly instructed man there would 
 be no such thing as evil or bad workmanship in 
 the world. Indeed this is really the case in the 
 pure intellect, in which alone all things exist (all 
 things, that is, in their perfect form), and which 
 is God. 
 
 The general truth of this, I think, will not be 
 denied. The latest efforts of modern speculation 
 have declared that the world of thought, and that 
 alone, is subjective and objective at once, and 
 that all conceivable attributes turn out to be 
 objective aspects of thought itself. " The ultimate
 
 THE PLATONISM OF WORDSWORTH 241 
 
 elements of thought are not merely correlated 
 with the ultimate elements of things : they are the 
 elements of things themselves." l 
 
 Nor is Platonism antagonistic to any older or 
 later form of philosophic thought. You may make 
 matter as eternal as you like. You may deny 
 the argument of design, and conclude that no 
 evidence exists of a Creator, beneficent or other- 
 wise. You may endow matter with such vital 
 energies and such faculties of thought as you may 
 require. You may satisfy yourself that force, or 
 motion, or extension is the immanent cause of all 
 things : but the Platonic theory can never be 
 antiquated or impossible. 
 
 From every phenomenon you will always be 
 able to eliminate the transitory and the accidental, 
 until you arrive at an abstract idea which exists 
 only in the pure intellect. It is into this world 
 of ideas that the Platonist forces his way. In 
 this fourth dimension of intellectual space he 
 finds himself in a world familiar and yet wonderful. 
 Into this world neither change, nor corruption, 
 nor decay can enter. This is the true eternal 
 life. Of all earthly things the ideas are eternal, 
 and this pure intellect, this world in which they 
 live and move and have their being, and some 
 portion of which we have each of us received, is 
 none other than the all-perfect, all -containing 
 intellect, the mind of God. 
 
 In what way, then, does Wordsworth speak of 
 this world ? Under what aspect did its eternal 
 glories present themselves to him ? He tells 
 that 
 
 1 Vide Sir Fred. Pollock's Spinoza, pp. 176-9. 
 VOL. II R
 
 242 THE PLATONISM OF WORDSWORTH 
 
 The power 
 Of nature, by the gentle agency 
 Of natural objects, led me on to feel 
 For passions that were not my own, and think 
 On man, the heart of man, and human life. 1 
 
 How exquisitely the individual mind 
 
 ... to the external world 
 
 Is fitted, and how exquisitely too 
 
 The external world is fitted to the mind. 2 
 
 From that bleak tenement 
 He many an evening to his distant home 
 In solitude returning, saw the hills 
 Grow larger in the darkness ; all alone 
 Beheld the stars come out above his head, 
 And travell'd through the wood with no one near, 
 To whom he might confess the things he saw. 
 So the foundations of his mind were laid 
 In such communion, not from terror free. 8 
 
 While yet a child, and long before his time, 
 Had he perceived the presence and the power 
 Of greatness : and deep feelings had impress'd 
 Great objects on his mind, with portraiture 
 And colour so distinct, that on his mind 
 They lay like substances, and almost seem'd 
 To haunt the bodily sense. 4 
 
 I venture to think that these lines deserve the 
 closest study. They seem to me to contain the 
 key not only to Wordsworth's Platonism, but to 
 that peculiar conception of his that an entrance 
 into the world of abstract thought may be won 
 by the help of material objects. 
 
 " The presence and the power of greatness " 
 
 1 "Michael", p. 96, Ed. 1849. 
 
 2 Preface to The Excursion, p. 445., Ed. 1849. 
 
 3 The Excursion : "The Wanderer," p. 447, Ed. 1849. 
 
 4 Idem, 1st Ed., p. 10.
 
 THE PLATONISM OF WORDSWORTH 243 
 
 — this is that " principle of excellence " in which 
 Plato believed. This expression includes all that 
 can be conceived of absolute perfection — of im- 
 mutable morality, absolute in itself— independent 
 of space and time, of locality and temperament. 
 It includes that power within us which, in Mr. 
 Matthew Arnold's phrase, " makes for righteous- 
 ness," — that consciousness which assures us that, 
 in the Divine Intellect, love must rule and not 
 hatred, confidence and not fear. 
 
 By deep feeling, the Poet goes on to tell us, 
 this greatness is impressed upon our mind, so 
 that its attributes lie like substances upon us and 
 haunt the bodily sense. It is evident, I think, 
 that he uses the word " substance " in this place 
 not in the strict metaphysical sense, but in that 
 secondary sense which has vitiated all the terms 
 which express essence or reality, popular use and 
 wont invariably attaching these two last terms to 
 that which is not essential or real. The poet 
 evidently refers to that lower substantiality which 
 belongs to matter, and which is perceived by the 
 senses. He seems to affirm that by the help of 
 the vast objects of nature, perceived in silence 
 and in solitude, we are enabled to understand 
 and to conceive the great realities of abstract 
 
 thought, and to , . . ., 
 
 & breathe in worlds 
 
 To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil. 1 
 
 But in the mountains did he feel his faith ; 
 There did he see the writing — all things there 
 Breathed immortality, revolving life, 
 And greatness still revolving ; — infinite. 
 
 1 Preface to The Excursion.
 
 244 THE PLATONISM OF WORDSWORTH 
 
 There littleness was not, the least of things 
 Seem'd infinite : and there his spirit shaped 
 Her prospects. 1 
 
 This is that " divine hope of pure imagination," 2 
 that " fittest to unutterable thought," 3 " the pass- 
 ing shows of being." 4 
 
 The silence and the calm of mute insensate things. 
 
 Where earth and heaven create one imagery. 5 
 
 Matter therefore is a thought of God. The 
 rural gods of Greece would seem to have occupied 
 a similar position in the mind of the Platonist as 
 did these "spiritual presences of absent things," 6 
 " This soul imparted to brute matter," in the 
 poet's "pure imaginative soul." 7 
 
 We live by admiration, hope, and love. 8 
 
 A spirit hung, 
 Beautiful region ! o'er thy towns and farms, 
 Statues and temples, and memorial tombs ; 
 And emanations were perceived ; and acts 
 Of immortality, in Nature's course, 
 Exemplified by mysteries, that were felt 
 As bonds. 9 
 
 The means are not very different, the result is 
 the same. This absolute being is described as 
 including within itself, as the sea its waves, all 
 adoring and conscious and apprehending existence : 
 
 1 The Excursion: " The Wanderer," 1st Ed., p. 14. 
 
 2 Idem, p. 497, Ed. 1849. 3 "To H. C, six years old." 
 4 The Excursion : "The Wanderer," p. 455, Ed. 1849. 
 
 6 "To H. C, p. 62." 
 
 6 " Despondency Corrected," p. 487, Ed. 1849. 
 
 7 "The Parsonage," p. 523. 
 
 8 "Despondency Corrected," p. 482. 9 Idem, p. 482, Ed. 1849.
 
 THE PLATONISM OF WORDSWORTH 245 
 
 . . . Life continuous, Being unimpaired, 
 
 That hath been, is, and where it was, and is, 
 
 There shall be — seen, and heard, and felt, and known, 
 
 And recognised — existence unexposed 
 
 To the blind walk of mortal accident ; 
 
 From diminution safe, and weakening age ; 
 
 While man grows old, and dwindles, and decays, 
 
 And countless generations of mankind 
 
 Depart ; and leave no vestige where they trod. 1 
 
 Thou, thou alone 
 Art everlasting, and the blessed Spirits 
 Which thou includest, as the sea her waves : 
 For adoration thou endur'st ; endure 
 For consciousness the motions of thy will ; 
 For apprehension those transcendent truths 
 Of the pure intellect, that stand as laws 
 Even to thy Being's infinite majesty ! - 
 
 The inborn conscience of humanity has recog- 
 nised the perfection of Being in a variety of forms 
 — by diverse myths, and it may be grotesque 
 imaginations, at which a misdirected intellect may 
 sneer. The "secret spirit of Humanity" 3 has 
 consented with a marvellous unanimity to con- 
 ceive of a world where wrong is made right, 
 where suffering is turned to joy, where inequality 
 is removed, and the rough places of misery and 
 oppression made smooth — where the poor and 
 the afflicted who have seen or felt little in this life 
 to delight or elevate may find existence somewhat 
 more worthy to be lived. That this blessed 
 consummation may never arrive in the form reli- 
 gionists have dreamed may be true : but that the 
 idea can ever be aught else than true and 
 righteous is impossible. 
 
 1 "Despondency Corrected," ist Ed. 2 Idem, p. 476, Ed. 1849. 
 
 3 "The Wanderer," p. 455, Ed. 1849.
 
 246 THE PLATONISM OF WORDSWORTH 
 
 The life where hope and memory are as one, 
 Earth quiet and unchanged, the human soul 
 Consistent in self-rule, and heaven revealed 
 To meditation in that quietness. 1 
 
 Miserable indeed would the world become 
 were this ideal of righteousness ever entirely lost. 
 
 Who in this spirit communes with the forms 
 Of nature, who with understanding heart 
 Doth know and love such objects as excite 
 No morbid passions. 2 
 
 The light of Love 
 Not failing, perseverance from his steps 
 Departing not, he shall at length obtain 
 The glorious habit by which sense is made 
 Subservient still to moral purposes, 
 Auxiliar to divine. 3 
 
 Thus deeply drinking in the soul of things, 
 
 He shall be wise perforce, and while inspired 
 
 By choice, and conscious that the will is free, 
 
 Unswerving shall he move, as if impelled 
 
 By strict necessity, along the path 
 
 Of order and of good. Whate'er he see, 
 
 Whate'er he feel of agency direct, 
 
 Or indirect, shall tend to feed and nurse 
 
 His faculties, shall fix in calmer seats 
 
 Of moral strength, and raise to loftier heights 
 
 Of love divine his intellectual soul. 4 
 
 It would be easy to go on. This synthesis of 
 thought and matter is the key-note of every line 
 in the poem. But the line of thought has been 
 sufficiently laid down ; who will follow it up ? 
 
 " He excels," says Jewish proverb, when at 
 loss for words of highest praise, "He excels upon 
 Sheminith " — the eighth string of the world to 
 
 1 " Despondency," p. 469, Ed. 1849. 
 
 2 "Despondency Corrected," 1st Ed., p. 195. 
 
 3 Idem, p. 196. 4 Idem, p. 197.
 
 
 THE PLATONISM OF WORDSWORTH 247 
 
 come which shall be added to the Kinnor of the 
 Sanctuary when Messias begins His reign. 
 Listening, weary and sad, amidst the rustling 
 echoes of the selva selvaggia of metaphysical 
 tradition, we may catch from these two master- 
 singers, as Dante heard in the stately rhythm of 
 the volume he so long had conned, the clear 
 resonance of this mystical string.
 
 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 1 
 
 Was Hamlet a fluke? Is the highest attainment 
 possible to the human intellect " to roll joyously 
 about on a dunghill, thinking no evil ? ' as was 
 said of Rabelais. Is all consciousness and in- 
 tention fatal to the highest literature ? and is 
 design, driven from theology, to be allowed no 
 resting-place in letters either? Is the quality 
 we call humour the only salt that will keep the 
 memory of a writer fresh for centuries ? and, if 
 so, what are the essentials of this surprising 
 quality ? Who are the masters in the science 
 of it ? Who is the chief priest of its ritual ? Is 
 it another name for human life, or is it something 
 apart and partial? Is it a modern faculty and 
 of recent birth, or has mankind always possessed 
 and valued it ? Had Shakespeare humour ? 
 What was the origin of the word ? Did it 
 
 originate with the surgeons ? Did . . . but 
 
 Have you any more questions ? the startled 
 reader may reasonably ask ; and seeing that we 
 may never be able to answer those already pro- 
 pounded, it may be as well, at least for the 
 present, not to ask any more. 
 
 Some people probably would make very short 
 
 1 Macmillari 's Magazine, March 18S3, p. 159. 
 248
 
 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 249 
 
 work of some of these questions. It is not the 
 highest result of the intellect to roll about on a 
 dunghill, joyously or otherwise. Humour is not 
 human life, but only a certain aspect of it, and 
 that not a very elevated one. If I believed this 
 last assertion I should not go on with this paper, 
 but if the sources of this word lie so deep in the 
 realities of life that the highest genius cannot 
 exist without the recognition of its meaning ; if, 
 as the race grows more intellectual, it may be 
 expected to grow more sensitive to the influence 
 of this quality, though its power of achieving it 
 may possibly become less, then it may be worth 
 while to try to clear our minds a little concerning 
 this word, and to settle to our own satisfaction, 
 if possible, what we mean by it. 
 
 For it would seem that beneath the masque 
 of the comic actor lie the issues of great contro- 
 versies, and that the opponents have recognised 
 in the jester's laugh the truest test of what lies 
 at the root of human existence. On the one 
 hand we are asked lugubriously " whether the 
 greatest men," those of deepest and widest out- 
 look — Sophocles, Dante, Shakespeare, Beethoven 
 — -have found the world a merry place, or " have 
 been much pleased with life " ? No one is so, 
 we are charitably informed, but "children and 
 grown-up children, some of the selfish rich, and 
 a few peculiarly happy natures." On the other 
 hand we hear, "If the great humorist Circum- 
 stance proves to be so fond of fun, he must be a 
 benevolent king, and therefore all is well " ; we 
 have nothing to do but roll joyously about upon 
 our dunghill. Can it be that Touchstone's
 
 250 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 
 
 motley garb is the emblem of a solution which 
 will deliver us from these extremes — for extremes 
 are always wrong ? 
 
 Have men always possessed and valued the 
 quality of humour, and how long have they 
 called it by this word ? I have some difficulty 
 in deciding which of these questions to take first, 
 they are both so important. The word is yet 
 scarcely fitted to the quality, yet if the latter be 
 such as we believe it to be, it must have been 
 the most ancient possession of the race. I think 
 we shall find it such, for the humour of Aristo- 
 phanes is as pure as that of later days and runs 
 upon the same lines — man's folly and far-reaching 
 thought, his littleness and his lofty dreams, his 
 weakness and his power. In the Plutus is the 
 germ of Don Quixote and Sancho. In the Birds 
 and Frogs, human life is played with, amid 
 graceful rhythm and music, with as delicate and 
 genial a touch as Addison's, and with a melody 
 as perfect as Mr. Matthew Arnold's. Much the 
 same may be said for Terence, but the dis- 
 tinguishing quality is not so marked ; it is more 
 of the unconscious sort ; nor is the medium so 
 delicate and graceful ; for it does not follow that 
 because man had not yet learnt to use the word, 
 that there was not even then conscious and 
 unconscious humour. 
 
 Now, I think, we must go back again to our 
 first question — Was Hamlet a fluke? for this 
 brings us at once face to face with a question 
 which we must answer — Is genius conscious or 
 unconscious ? Speaking of Wertker, Goethe 
 said that there was an old prejudice that a book
 
 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 251 
 
 must have a didactic purpose ; " a true exhibition 
 of life," he says, "has no such purpose. It 
 neither justifies nor blames, but unfolds ideas 
 and actions in their relations, and thereby teaches 
 and enlightens." In other words, is genius so 
 infinite that intention is contrary to its nature 
 and shows that it is not genius ? or, to put it 
 another way, human life is so infinite in its 
 incongruities, in its pathos, in its meanings, and 
 its hopes, that to describe it with the intention 
 and puny vision of a finite being is to destroy 
 its infiniteness and to confuse its delicate lines ; 
 whereas, if the artist copies unconsciously the 
 life which is about and before him, he cannot err 
 — the lesson must be read aright. 
 
 If this be so, then, the paltriest fact of human 
 existence, the stupidest life of the veriest clown, 
 is more pregnant of truth, more full of teaching, 
 than the maturest thought of the greatest genius, 
 and we cannot shrink from the climax reached 
 in the modern paradox — that the humour of 
 Cervantes, which has to do largely with the 
 unseen and the divine, is terrene, while that of 
 Sterne, which never recognises aught save the 
 exigencies of the moment — including an insistent 
 exigence called Death — is derived from the 
 eternal order of things. 
 
 But may we not oppose to this brilliant 
 theory, with some show of reason, that intention 
 is necessary to art ; that if life be a lesson so 
 easily read by him that runs, wherein is the 
 advantage of letters at all ? The careless do not 
 read the lesson of life ; it is the function of the 
 true artist, whom we take to be the humorist, to
 
 252 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 
 
 point the moral, and we say that by the manner 
 in which he does so he shows his skill. 
 
 The greatest genius, qua genius, that ever 
 wrote undoubtedly lends a vast support to the 
 theory which I am opposing. Indeed it would 
 probably never have been propounded had 
 Shakespeare never lived ; for in Shakespeare we 
 find neither consciousness nor intention, nothing 
 but life in infinite variety, fed from the well- 
 springs of human feeling, and ruled by the 
 inevitable forces that keep the issues of life 
 and death. That, when he began Hamlet, 
 Shakespeare had no intention of doing more 
 than dramatising a bald story out of Saxo 
 Grammaticus, is probably true ; but it surely is 
 a poor compliment to creative genius to assert 
 that it is too stupid to understand a character 
 as it grows under its touch. It will be admitted, 
 I think, by those who have attempted such 
 things, that the most delightful part of their 
 experience is the way in which characters do 
 grow and develop, as it seems, independently 
 of the author. They form their own story, and 
 pursue their own course ; but is the author the 
 only person concerned who is not allowed to 
 see this ? Hamlet became a lesson for all time 
 because Shakespeare, having set himself to write 
 a story with a tragic ending, had the sense to let 
 his character work itself out upon those lines, 
 and those alone, which lead to tragic issues. 
 " It is a text," says Dr. Gervinus, " from true 
 life, and therefore a mine of the profoundest 
 wisdom." That Shakespeare understood the 
 character of Hamlet, and also that such meaning
 
 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 253 
 
 grew upon him, we seem to have positive proof, 
 from the additions which he afterwards made to 
 the first cast of the play ; every one of which, 
 as Dr. Gervinus also says, " assist to a more true 
 understanding of the piece." 
 
 But whatever we may say of Hamlet, it is 
 certain that the Quixote was not a fluke. The 
 one thing which in this, the great masterpiece of 
 humour, is kept before the reader from the first 
 page to the last, is the nobility of this crazed 
 Spanish gentleman, and, what is more, the 
 humour is not only recognised by the author : 
 it is perceived by the characters themselves, as, 
 in real life, people understand the humour of the 
 situation. With an exquisite truth all the gentle- 
 men are made to recognise it. There is not a 
 gentleman in the book but, the moment he 
 comes across Don Quixote, recognises not only 
 his worth but the humour of his craze. " Para 
 aquellos que la tenian del humor de Don Quixote 
 era todo esto materia de grandissima risa." 
 " For all those who understood the humour of 
 Don Quixote all this was a matter of infinite 
 laughter." And even those who were not 
 gentlemen, but who as servants were accustomed 
 to associate with gentlemen, saw it. "If this be 
 not a concerted jest," said one of the servants of 
 Don Lewis, " I cannot persuade myself that men 
 of such good understanding as all these are or 
 seem to be, can venture to affirm " such things. 
 The crass stupidity which talked of " laughing 
 Spain's chivalry away " has been, I should hope, 
 sufficiently exposed. On the contrary, " most of 
 his hearers being gentlemen, to whom the use
 
 254 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 
 
 of arms properly belongs, they listened to him 
 gladly." " Antes como todos los mas eran 
 Cavalleros, a quien son anexas las armas, le 
 escuchiavan de muy buena gana." 
 
 I do not contend that Cervantes realised the 
 full extent of his conception : to do so would have 
 been to limit its applicability. He could not, for 
 instance, see the force of the allegory, which 
 grows in import and truth as the years go on, 
 which underlies the story of the liberation of the 
 galley slaves, and it is possible that he may have 
 been unaware of the perfect ending of the whole 
 matter which his genius led him to adopt. He 
 may have pandered to what he supposed was the 
 popular opinion of his hero by making him die 
 repentant and false to the ideal of his life ; but 
 by doing so he did but point with supreme force 
 the allegory and lesson of his wonderful book. 
 Whatever Cervantes may not have intended, or 
 have been conscious of, it is certain that he 
 intended to point out the incongruity of human 
 existence — the contrast of man's highest aspira- 
 tions with his possibilities — and not, as has been 
 asserted, his "ludicrous futility in his relations 
 to his fellow-man." Man is not futile in such 
 relations ; he is most helpful and competent. 
 It is when he comes into contact with the 
 " universal harmony " that the futility manifests 
 itself. From the first the Quixote has been read 
 from these different points of view ; is it possible 
 that some inquiry into the origin of the faculty 
 of humour will enable us to reconcile them ? 
 
 The word must have had its birth in Europe, 
 for we have seen that Cervantes uses it in
 
 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 255 
 
 precisely the same sense that Ben Jonson 
 understands by it. 
 
 What does the author of Every Man out of 
 his Humour say ? — 
 
 Why, Humour . . . we thus define it 
 To be a quality of ayre or water 
 And in itself holds these two qualities 
 Moisture and fluxure : as, for demonstration, 
 Powre water on this floor, 'twill wet and run 
 Likewise the ayre (forc't through a horn, or trumpet) 
 Flowes instantly away, and leaves behind 
 A kind of dew ; and hence we may conclude 
 That whatsoe'er hath fluxure, and humiditie, 
 As wanting power to contain itself 
 Is Humour. So in every humane body 
 The Choller, melancholy, flegme, and blood, 
 By reason that they flow continually 
 In some one part, and are not continent, 
 Receive the name of humours. Now thus far 
 It may, by metaphor, apply itself 
 Unto the general disposition : 
 As when some one peculiar quality 
 Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw 
 All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, 
 In their confluctions, all to run one way, 
 _ This may be truly said to be a Humour. 
 
 No inkling of the modern sense here. Asper, 
 
 further on, says — 
 
 I go 
 
 To turn an actor, and a Humorist ; 
 
 but he means nothing more than that he will 
 represent the humours of other men. He 
 charges indeed — 
 
 . . . these ignorant well-spoken days 
 
 with 
 
 Abuse of this word Humour ;
 
 256 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 
 
 so that 
 
 if an Idiot 
 Have but an apish, or phantastic strain, 
 It is his Humour. 
 
 And it may be possible to find a germ of future 
 growth in these last words, for these quotations 
 seem to me of chief value as pointing out 
 that the condition of true humorous thought is 
 individuality. 
 
 This assertion receives confirmation from the 
 time when humour began to be consciously 
 talked of, especially in Italy, where Cervantes 
 had lived. 
 
 In the Middle Ages, life was too serious for 
 the individual to grow. Thought was epic ; its 
 theme was man's greatness, rather than his little- 
 ness. It occupied itself with those qualities in 
 which he resembles the gods, not with those in 
 which he resembles nothing save a creature as 
 complex as himself, if such there be. In an age 
 of great ideals the individual is crushed : where 
 all men are of one mind there is no room for 
 humorous eccentricity. The surroundings are 
 stern and oppressive, and the result is a simple 
 character and singleness of eye. The force which 
 was afterwards developed as humour acted in 
 other ways. It spoke out in the arising of 
 chivalry. Europe was regenerated by the en- 
 thusiasm for women which was a passion, a 
 humour, of the Germanic tribes. This vital 
 force was overpowered by superstition and the 
 priesthood, and once again it broke out, in very 
 different form, in the Renaissance. There is 
 always this blessed quality in superstition — it
 
 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 257 
 
 stupefies itself. Life is crippled, defaced, cari- 
 catured — a mere torso of humanity as in Rabelais. 
 Then superstition loses its power, and life breaks 
 out once more. The Renaissance was a peculiar 
 manifestation of this force: its ideal was humanity, 
 it developed a new science, humanism, and it 
 culminated in humour. 
 
 Human life became individual at the Renais- 
 sance, for it was then that man began to realise 
 the certainties of his state and dwelling-place. 
 To this sympathy with, and understanding of, 
 humanity as it is, was added an inheritance 
 which the classic times knew nothing of — the 
 lurid glow of the infinite — a world of emotion 
 and of hope, and of unspeakable possibilities. 
 Men could not forget altogether the ideals of 
 the past centuries. When this new force — this 
 principle of humanism — awoke, with new-born 
 delight, in a world of colour and of form and the 
 recollections of the old humanity, it found itself 
 also in contact with these awful realities, these 
 great beliefs, which once conceived could never 
 be forgotten. Then humanity was seen for the 
 first time in relation to its eternal environment, 
 the unswerving realities of existence by which 
 it is conditioned ; humanity as complete as in the 
 pagan times — the eternal existences as the pagan 
 never saw them. The antithesis was complete, 
 the incongruities of life flashed upon the human 
 consciousness, and humour became a conscious 
 faculty of the brain. 
 
 This great brain-wave passed over into 
 England, where the vibration of its note found 
 strings of perfect accord. The sadness and 
 vol. 11 s
 
 258 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 
 
 melancholy of the English humour, vivified and 
 warmed by this brilliant sunbreak from the lands 
 of colour and of pleasure, formed a setting of 
 surpassing mellowness, and elevated and purified 
 the wildness and license of the original birth into 
 a work of perfect, if fantastic, tone. There is 
 something of wonderful grace in this development 
 of the Renaissance spirit in the Shakspearian 
 drama. In Jacques and Touchstone, in Loves 
 Labour s Lost, and in Olivia and the Duke in 
 Twelfth Night, there is something of Italian 
 courtliness, mingling with the sad, rough phlegm 
 of the English humour, which is peculiarly 
 charming and very curious, especially when 
 found in Shakespeare, usually so reckless in 
 projecting the habits and thought of England 
 into all countries and times. The mere masques 
 and pantomimes which, in the preceding reigns, 
 had wandered over into England by the medium 
 of the French wars, culminate here, in the 
 Elizabethan culture, in this combination of 
 perfect humour, wherein 
 
 The wise man's folly is anatomised 
 
 Even by the squand'ring glances of the fool. 
 
 But our insular dulness was too gross. The 
 English genius kept the humour, but, except 
 for a moment in Addison, lost the grace. The 
 superiority of the English genius, however, is 
 shown by comparing this combination, while it 
 lasted, with the humour of Scarron and Le Sage. 
 The nearest approach to it in these latter writers 
 will be found, I think, in Le Viable Boiteux, 
 elevated and relieved as this admirable picture
 
 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 259 
 
 of a great city is by the beautiful story of the 
 Count de Belrleur. 
 
 I have said that the English genius kept the 
 humour while losing the grace. That it did so 
 was greatly owing to peculiar circumstances 
 which favoured the culture of individual char- 
 acter. As in the Middle Ages, the individual 
 had little scope, so in modern centralisation it 
 is again lost. It is, therefore, in the period 
 between these two epochs that we must look for 
 humour, and accordingly it is here, in the seven- 
 teenth and eighteenth centuries, that we shall 
 find it. The last century was particularly fertile 
 in individual character among all classes of the 
 people. Village life was peculiarly productive of 
 it. The difficulty of locomotion kept people in 
 one place, and undisturbed by constant contact 
 from without, the individual had time and room 
 to expand and grow. Newspapers were un- 
 known, and all men's minds were not modelled 
 into one fashion every morning by the newspaper 
 train. The clergy, the doctors, and manv of the 
 gentry, inhabiting the innumerable manor-houses 
 and parsonages that covered the land, carried 
 with them a quaint and original scholarship 
 from universities as yet innocent of the degree 
 grinding-mill. The distinction of classes was 
 much less marked than at present. Domestic 
 service was a friendly and intimate relation. 
 The village lad was constantly rising to the 
 university, by the aid of twenty pounds from the 
 squire. A two days' journey by stage or on 
 horseback was an education in life, with its 
 constant change of companionship, and its study
 
 260 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 
 
 of character. In the villages, and in cathedral 
 and market towns, all classes lived side by side 
 in friendly and mutual help, and the smiling 
 plenty of the land, — rivers abounding with fish 
 and coverts with game, — which as yet no absorb- 
 ing central markets tore ruthlessly from the 
 dwellers on the soil, a smokeless sky, and ample 
 leisure, mellowed the human mind, and disposed 
 it towards a genial and gay esteem of life — a 
 striking characteristic of the old civilisation, most 
 inadequately replaced by the tyrannous chatter 
 of to-day. 
 
 This village life, with its plenty, its humorous 
 instinct, and its genial neighbourliness is well 
 seen in Sterne, and has been well depicted by 
 the late Lord Lytton, and by one who, within 
 the lines which he set himself, and which he 
 never overpassed, was perhaps the most perfect 
 humorist that ever wrote — Washington Irving. 
 In Hone's Table Book 1 there is a sketch of a 
 city worthy, written by Hone himself, but which 
 would do credit to Charles Lamb, which illustrates 
 with distinctness what a fertile source of humour 
 this individuality of character was, and how with 
 such examples around him the humoristic writer 
 naturally grew into existence, and found materials 
 ready to his hand. 
 
 The whole nation, familiar with this life, 
 recognised the Shandean humour as true, and 
 it was continued in English literature. Curious 
 and graphic examples of it are to be found, even 
 to a late date, in Poor Robin s Alma?iack, which, 
 started, as is said, by the poet Herrick, himself 
 
 1 Vol. ii. p. 446, ed. 1830.
 
 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 261 
 
 no mean humorist, was for more than a century 
 the most original of its brethren. But Sterne's 
 humour was only developed by this life ; Don 
 Quixote, Sir Roger de Coverley, and Uncle 
 Toby are, alike, the offspring of it. They all 
 correspond to this highest mark of the humorous 
 character — perfection in itself — the ridiculous and 
 pathetic blended into one. It is not enough to 
 depict a ludicrous character and, side by side with 
 it, a pathetic. This is the work of the dramatist 
 but not of the humorist. It must be admitted, I 
 think, that the humour of the Spectator is mostly 
 of this character. The effect is produced by the 
 alternation of grave and lively papers, now a 
 lively letter from a rake, then a discourse upon 
 immortality, but in Sir Roger the two are united, 
 as far as each goes, as much as in the highest 
 effort of humorous writing. Sir Roger is, in fact, 
 a mild reproduction of Don Quixote. 
 
 Let us turn back in recollection over the 
 pages of the Spectator, and see with what a 
 magic touch Mr. Addison brings the world of 
 English life, both of city and country, before us. 
 Mr. Thackeray does not, I venture to think, rise 
 to the full estimate of Addison's work. 
 
 " It is as a tatler of small talk that we love 
 him," he says, and " as a spectator of mankind." 
 The last is surely true, but is the first ? 
 Addison's talk is never small ; his lightest touch, 
 in the description of the slightest fop, has as 
 deep a meaning as his paper upon Westminster 
 Abbey. " In Addison's kind court only minor 
 cases are tried." Indeed ! I should have thought 
 that was a " hanging assize " in which the foul
 
 262 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 
 
 plays were lashed with a withering sarcasm. 
 Addison's humour was permeated with intention 
 and purpose, and with insight into the whole of 
 life. 
 
 It is here that he rises immeasurably above 
 Fielding, and here, I think, we again gain a 
 clear insight into the real facts of the uncon- 
 scious theory with respect to genius. The theory 
 contains much truth, as we have seen, but the 
 chances are that such writers as Fielding are 
 unconscious, because they only see, and can 
 therefore only describe, part of life. Tom Jones 
 is nature, but, as Addison said, " nature in its 
 lowest form." Fielding has always gained by 
 being contrasted only with Richardson, and by 
 being opposed by him. Addison was dead ; it 
 was fortunate for Fielding that the rapier was 
 rusted, and the skilled hand cold. 
 
 Miss Martineau speaks graphically somewhere 
 of an " upright manhood following upon a gallant 
 youth," and Sir Richard Steele, in the Spectator, 
 says "a man that is temperate, generous, valiant, 
 chaste, faithful, and honest may at the same 
 time have wit, humour, mirth, good -breeding, 
 and gallantry. While he exerts these latter 
 qualities [for the purpose, Sir Richard means, of 
 filling an agreeable part in play or tale] twenty 
 occasions might be invented to show that he is 
 master of the other noble virtues. Such char- 
 acters would smite and improve the heart of a 
 man of sense when he is given up to his 
 pleasures." Rather a different ideal this, to the 
 handsome booby, devoid of intellect and of every 
 conceivable virtue, save a certain stupidity which
 
 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 263 
 
 prevents his being a hypocrite, who drags his 
 tedious and dirty steps through a slough of 
 coarseness and filth. That Fielding could do 
 better, he proved in the character of Amelia, 
 where we get that most exquisite sight — the 
 purity which walks unspotted through evil of 
 every kind. 
 
 It has been well pointed out that this contrast 
 forms the raison d'etre of the obscene in humour. 1 
 "It arises from an acute apprehension of this 
 great and eternal incongruity of man's existence 
 — the conflict of a spiritual nature, and such 
 aspirations as man's, with conditions entirely 
 physical, and perhaps the only truly philosophical 
 definition of the word ' indecency ' would be this, 
 ' a painful and shocking contrast of man's spiritual 
 with his physical nature.' Very true ! but in 
 order to have this contrast, we must surely have 
 both sides represented in something like equal 
 proportion, and it is worthy of notice that Richard 
 Steele, who may be supposed to have known 
 something about the matter, charges the play- 
 wright with being obscene merely because his 
 wit and invention fails. Mr. Traill, one of the 
 charms of whose brilliant monograph is im- 
 partiality, will admit that this charge is sometimes 
 true of Sterne. 
 
 The Spectator shirks no evil — the fopling, the 
 rake, the coquette, the fallen seamstress, the 
 stage at its lowest depths. Old London rises 
 before us with all the sin and all the charm of 
 city life — when cities were inhabited — that life 
 
 1 Article on "English Men of Letters — Sterne," Athenczum, Nov. 18, 
 1882.
 
 264 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 
 
 and that humour which Charles Lamb so loved. 
 A few months before his death he writes : " On 
 Wednesday I was a-gadding, Mary gave me a 
 holiday, and I set off to Snow-hill. From Snow- 
 hill I deliberately was marching down with noble 
 Holborn before me, forming in mental cogitation 
 a map of the dear London in prospect, thinking 
 to traverse Wardour Street, etc., when diabolic- 
 ally " In this love of city life, of this 
 
 weakness and this purity, all humorists indeed 
 are alike — the realities of life, the petty details, 
 the daily paltriness, the soil and tarnish, the 
 glitter and the taint, the serpent trail even — if 
 these be not the field of humour, then humorists 
 have been wrong. 
 
 I have already ventured to differ from Mr. 
 Thackeray in his opinion of Addison. I have 
 also to do so as to Pope and Swift. I fail to 
 detect the slightest humour in Pope ; indeed I 
 have sometimes thought that Mr. Thackeray's 
 lecture upon Pope must have been inspired by 
 sly humour itself. How else can we account 
 for his extraordinary enthusiasm for the con- 
 cluding passage of the Dunciadt The artificial 
 satire of Pope seems to be wit, and the savagery 
 of Swift, satire illuminated by wit. 
 
 But Mr. Thackeray was not only a writer 
 upon humour. He was the author of one book 
 which will probably in the future stand among 
 the few masterpieces of humour. I mean, of 
 course, Vanity Fair. It would be grotesque to 
 dwell upon the excellences of this great work — 
 its life-painting, minute as a photograph yet 
 warm and rounded with all the delicacy of
 
 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 265 
 
 colour, its crowded canvas, gay and bustling 
 with movement, the reserved strength of its 
 invective, the point of its irony, the power of 
 its narrative, as in the scenes in Belgium, which 
 never drops into mere narrative, but constantly 
 preserves the human character-play, so that it is 
 not the author who narrates, but the real person- 
 ages of the novel who act — the tremulous change 
 from the comic to the pathetic, and the perfect 
 tone of its pathos. The comic in Thackeray 
 may sometimes drop into caricature as in the 
 schoolmaster, the Rev. Lawrence Veal, but his 
 pathos (unlike that of Dickens) invariably rings 
 clear and true. 
 
 It has always seemed to me one of the greatest 
 proofs of the power of this book, that it survived 
 the most painful illustrations with which the 
 author, with a distressing perversity, insisted 
 upon ornamenting it. It is not only that they 
 are badly drawn ; they are utterly contrary to 
 the conception which the author had formed of 
 his own characters. The men are broken-down 
 swindlers, the women impossible scarecrows. 
 
 But, while fascinated by the brilliancy of 
 Vanity Fair, what we have to decide is whether, 
 and in what, it falls short of the very highest 
 perfection. I venture to think that it does so 
 fall short, and that the reason is given on its 
 title-page. It is there called, " A Novel without 
 a Hero." This seems to me to be precisely 
 what it is, and what all Mr. Thackeray's work 
 is ; it lacks the ideal. The standard is low even 
 for Vanity Fair, but curiously the story is not 
 confined to Vanity Fair ; if it were, the book
 
 266 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 
 
 would not be so great as it undoubtedly is. It 
 presents life ; it is conscious of the infinite, but 
 it has no hero. Dobbin is unselfish and noble, 
 but his ideal is Amelia. Constantly spooning 
 after a foolish woman is not the end of existence, 
 and that book which represents it as such cannot 
 take the highest rank as a mirror of human life. 
 Henry Esmond fails in a precisely similar way, 
 but with even less excuse. He sacrifices himself 
 and his country, almost his honour, to a wretched 
 girl, who repeatedly jilts him. In both these 
 lives, the result, even when the coveted end is 
 obtained, is declared by Mr. Thackeray to be 
 vanity. Love even is vanity. 
 
 The victor hours scorn 
 The long result of love. 
 
 This is the lesson which Thackeray set himself 
 to teach, with what struck even himself at last as 
 a wearisome iteration, " All is vanity ! ' ! It is 
 not true. Life is not vain. There is success 
 before every man, if self- surrender, serenity of 
 mind, and euthanasia be any test of success. 
 
 If he who liveth, learning whence woes spring, 
 Endureth patiently, striving to pay 
 His utmost debt for ancient evil done 
 In Love and Truth alway ; 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 He dying — leaveth as the sum of him 
 A life-count closed, whose ills are dead and quit, 
 Whose good is quick and mighty, far and near, 
 So that fruits follow it. 
 
 No need hath such to live as ye name life : 
 
 That which began in him when he began 
 
 Is finished : he hath wrought the purpose through 
 
 Of what did make him man. Light f Asia.
 
 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 267 
 
 Thackeray's perfectly successful characters, 
 Major Pendennis, Foker, Barnes Newcome, are 
 all of this type — men without an ideal. George 
 Warrington is perhaps the finest character he 
 ever drew. Colonel Newcome may very fitly 
 be compared to Sir Roger de Coverley. It is 
 a perfectly beautiful creation, and did it occur in 
 Vanity Fair would go far to perfect the book ; 
 but coming from Mr. Thackeray's pen, it can 
 scarcely fail to strengthen the painful feeling 
 suggested by his good women — that goodness is 
 weak. None of Mr. Thackeray's good women 
 are real ; they are so unnaturally foolish. I 
 shall gain no thanks by the assertion, so I make 
 it without hesitation — that the heroine of the 
 exquisite Story of Elizabeth is worth all the good 
 women Mr. Thackeray ever drew ; and the same 
 may be said of Dolly in Old Kensington. 
 
 It is this presence of the ideal which perfects 
 the masterpieces of German humour, the result 
 of that outburst of intellectual development 
 which began with Lessing. Wilhelm Meister is 
 full of the ideal, so is Werther and the Wahlver- 
 wandtschaften. " Here, as in a burial urn," 
 wrote Goethe of this last, "many a sad experi- 
 ence is buried." Some may hesitate in applying 
 the title of humorist to Goethe at all ; but if it 
 be humour to blend with surpassing skill into 
 one life -piece the noble and the frivolous, the 
 simple-hearted and the sarcastic, the pure and 
 the foul, then the genius which has given Philina 
 in the same book that revealed the " secrets of 
 a beautiful soul " (" fair Saint " as Carlyle has 
 chosen to call her), which has created in the
 
 268 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 
 
 dramatis persons of the Lehrjahre a phantasmal 
 and yet real world of marvellous variety, of 
 gaiety and pathos, has surely conferred upon its 
 possessor the right to be so called. 
 
 But it was reserved for Germany to produce 
 in Jean Paul Richter the greatest and most 
 perfect humorist, if we except the author of 
 Don Quixote, that the world has yet seen. I 
 doubt even whether Jean Paul does not surpass 
 Cervantes in some respects. I am content to 
 rest this assertion on the fantastic story of the 
 friends Leibgeber, with their whimsical changes 
 of identity and simulated deaths, which begins in 
 Siebeitkcis, and is completed in Titan. The story 
 from the beginning is strangely touching, and full 
 of the deepest humour ; but when in Titan one 
 of these friends, who now calls himself Schoppe, 
 becomes, as is perhaps not to be wondered at, 
 finally deranged, the psychological interest is 
 intensified with a marvellous power of genius. 
 
 Schoppe's madness is of a different kind from 
 that of Don Quixote, or of any enthusiast, and 
 of a far more terrible kind. To the crazed brain 
 of the Spanish gentleman nothing came amiss, 
 nothing disturbed him. Giants might turn into 
 windmills, ladies into peasant girls, and their 
 soft hands into hard cords, but this was only 
 what might be expected to occur in the death 
 struggle in which he was engaged with the 
 powers of evil enchantment and guile. The 
 madness of Schoppe is of that terrible kind 
 which is recognised by its victim ; and surely, 
 in the whole range of literature, never has the 
 terrible disease been so perfectly portrayed.
 
 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 269 
 
 It has been said that the machinery of ven- 
 triloquism and jugglery [diablerie, in fact) which 
 is introduced into Titan impairs its beauty and 
 does not help the development of character ; but 
 with this criticism I am quite unable to agree. 
 These fantastic, but quite accountable appear- 
 ances, the " father of death," the inflated figure 
 carried up to heaven by gas, the complicated 
 machinery which, at the fated moment, animates 
 statues and " hearts without a breast," the Bald- 
 head and his madhouse of wax figures, the 
 forgotten burial-ground in the mystic gardens — 
 all these are not only full of a grotesque humour, 
 but actually exerted a powerful influence upon 
 the characters of the romance. Events such as 
 these, which are laughable or childish to a self- 
 contained mind, are productive of surprising and 
 terrible results when seen through the medium 
 of passion or of disordered intellect. At a certain 
 period of incipient derangement, a very slight 
 apparent violation of the expected and the known 
 is unspeakably terrible, and may upset irrevocably 
 the equilibrium of the mind. When the mind is 
 struggling to retain its hold upon fact, and to do 
 its duty, so to speak, to the real, there is a sense 
 of unspeakable wrong and injustice when the real 
 seems to change its nature and to cease to be 
 depended upon. Were the earth as firm as 
 adamant, he could not keep his step correctly ; 
 but when the earth shifts too, when by acci- 
 dent, or the fantastic action of other men, 
 or by villainous design, nature seems to enter 
 into the plot, what becomes of the wretch 
 then?
 
 270 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 
 
 In Schoppe's case the psychological study is 
 appallingly instructive. The man had chosen 
 
 To vary from the kindly race of men, 
 And pass beyond the goal of ordinance 
 Where all should pause, as is most meet for all. 
 
 He had struggled forward after infinite reality 
 beyond the point at which the human brain can 
 maintain its steadiness on the dizzy ridge, and 
 returned crazed and scared from the glance into 
 the pit itself. He had despised the common 
 realities among which man is meant to dwell ; he 
 had neglected nature's teaching, which is present 
 in every mouthful of common food by which the 
 brain is fed, and in consequence nothing is real 
 to him. This is the most terrible form of 
 insanity, when the sense of phantasm is present 
 at every moment to the victim. He himself is 
 phantasmal; he is not himself — somewhere among 
 the festivals and village maidens, the pleasant 
 meadows and moist hills and woods of his native 
 land (that blessed sense of moisture which he can 
 never feel), there is another and a happy being, 
 his former self — his sane, his collected self — the 
 self of former years, when love had not given 
 place to irony, nor allowance to sarcasm ; the self 
 of boyhood and of youth, when those brilliant 
 guides and thoughts of the mind were fresh 
 and innocent, which have since led him such a 
 wizard's satanic dance. But he is not himself 
 — what then is he ? Ah, God ! should he ever 
 meet that other one, anywhere, face to face ! 
 
 It is surely a most appropriate function of 
 genial and kindly humour to point such a moral
 
 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 271 
 
 as this, but it can only be very seldom that a 
 genius arises equal to the dual task. I incline 
 to think that it will be found the most surprising 
 fact in literature that the humorist w T ho had 
 such a childlike, fanciful delight in sunshine and 
 flowers, whose heart melted with love to God 
 and tenderness and sympathy at the sight of 
 every living thing, to whom, not only the very 
 beasts, but the most degraded and repulsive of 
 his fellow-men were dear, could conceive and 
 execute so elaborate and careful a study of a 
 mental course so opposed to his own. It is not 
 a sketch merely ; Schoppe's whole life and con- 
 versation is before us, worked out in the fullest 
 detail, and we trace step by step the downward 
 course of a nature at the bottom genial and 
 kindly, but whose very geniality is alienated by 
 the want of such quality in others, to whom the 
 sarcastic and the bitter has become the food and 
 sustenance, not the corrective salt of the mind. 
 With its grotesqueness, with its ludicrous side, 
 with its terrific earnestness, with its ghastly 
 terror, its laughter and its tears, this surely must 
 be perfect humour if such can be found. 
 
 " Laughter and tears." This brings us back 
 to the old definition of humour, and we begin 
 to ask ourselves what this juxtaposition really 
 means. We read of a certain incident, and we 
 laugh — Why? — because the incident recalls a 
 chain of associated ideas connected with laughter 
 in past years. We read of another incident, or 
 perhaps the same, and we weep — Why ? — because 
 the incident now recalls an association of ideas 
 connected with the pleasing melancholy which
 
 272 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 
 
 results in tears. A delicate and high note is 
 struck when laughter passes into tears ; we 
 recognise our own story ; the comic, the common- 
 place, is touched, as it has been some time, 
 surely, with all of us, by a divine emotion ; the 
 mystic chord is struck, which is peopled by a 
 magic throng — the sunlit garden of childhood, 
 the first ideal, the remembrance of the dead, the 
 benign influences which stand within the portal, 
 and the kindly ritual of the hearth. 
 
 I have said " the pleasing melancholy which 
 results in tears," for we must decide what tears 
 mean. 
 
 One of the greatest of poets, in a most often- 
 quoted line, speaks of 
 
 Thoughts which lie too deep for tears. 
 
 And another, perhaps equally great, has called 
 such tears as these " idle," though at the same 
 moment he says that they spring from the 
 
 Depths of some divine despair. 
 
 Let us think what we mean when we glibly 
 quote these words. What are these things 
 which " lie too deep for tears " ? 
 
 One thing indeed we know — crushing sorrow 
 — no man ever wept at that. No man ever wept 
 at the apprehension that what was dearest to 
 him would be taken away ; nor did he weep even 
 when it was so taken : and none ever wept under 
 a still more terrible visitation, the misgiving at 
 life's lesson, which is despair. The lady who 
 could find no tears for the crushing blow which 
 desolated her life, weeps at the sight of her
 
 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 273 
 
 infant child. For these crushing sorrows, either 
 of our own or others, are, happily, not part of 
 our daily lives, and have no chords of association 
 connecting them with a happy past. They stand 
 aside, like gaunt Erinnyes, and our heart-strings 
 feel no responsive tremor to their touch. 
 
 It would seem, then, that it is these thoughts 
 which do not lie too deep for tears with which 
 we have to do ; and I think that we shall soon 
 see how near akin is laughter to such genial, 
 beneficent tears. There are many kinds of 
 laughter — the innocent laugh of the child, easily 
 turned, by the bye, to tears ; the drunken laugh 
 of the fool— and have we not heard of maudlin 
 tears ? — and the laugh of the cynic. In the same 
 way there are different kinds of tears — tears of 
 passion, tears of grief, tears of tenderness. All 
 these have one source, association of idea ; the 
 sole difference is in the nature of the idea 
 evoked. 
 
 It is a subject that would lead us into dis- 
 cursive paths, but one thing seems pretty certain, 
 that Cervantes' masterpiece, which, at its first 
 appearance, was received with shrieks of laughter, 
 will come in the end to be recognised as one of 
 the saddest books ever written. Can it be 
 possible, then, that the emotion which displays 
 itself sometimes in laughter and sometimes in 
 tears is, in fact, one and the same ? When we 
 think over various humorous scenes we begin to 
 wonder where the laughter is. When Don 
 Quixote, believing himself the victim of enchant- 
 ment, sits steadily through the dark night upon 
 his horse, whose hind legs Sancho has tied to a 
 VOL. 11 t
 
 274 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 
 
 tree so that his master may not move forwards 
 to confront the fearful unknown danger in front 
 of them, you may look at the scene through 
 Sancho's eyes even, and I think that on the 
 whole the smile will be faint and the seriousness 
 deep. 
 
 For the thoughts which move the nerves of 
 laughter also, the quality of association slightly 
 changed, stir the source of tears. The incon- 
 gruities of life, when first they strike the mental 
 retina, have the effect of surprise and cause 
 laughter, but, when familiar, are associated with 
 ideas of tenderness which have lain long in deep 
 remembrance. The idea of Don Quixote with 
 his horse's legs tied, strikes the brain of one man 
 as a ludicrous one. He has been accustomed to 
 laugh at such things ; the like ideas, as we say, 
 tickle him ; this tickling sensation and the con- 
 sequent laughter are pleasant to him, therefore 
 instinctively he repeats the process. To another 
 man this self-same idea suggests other associa- 
 tions. He has been accustomed to view the 
 realities of life, its incongruities and littlenesses, 
 from the pathetic side, and to derive pleasure 
 from so doing, and curiously this sort of pleasure, 
 acting by association, does not produce laughter. 
 The idea is conveyed to the sensorium as before,, 
 but instead of being transmitted thence to the 
 muscles of the mouth it is conveyed to the ducts 
 of the eyes. In the far-off prehistoric age, tears, 
 for some reason unknown to us, became the form 
 by which sorrow was expressed, and consequently 
 that sensibility — what we may call the nerve of 
 tenderness, or what the last century would call
 
 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 275 
 
 the " tear of sensibility " — which realises thoughts 
 akin to sorrow, takes the same course. " As I 
 am a great lover of mankind," says Mr. Addison, 
 " my heart naturally overflows with pleasure at 
 the sight of a prosperous and happy multitude, 
 insomuch that at any public solemnities I cannot 
 forbear expressing my joy, with tears that have 
 stolen down my cheeks." 
 
 These two perceptions of the ludicrous and 
 pathetic, this sympathy with the passing joy of 
 a people to whom sorrow is a familiar guest, is 
 what we mean by perfect humour. It is the 
 most delicate feeling we experience. It is 
 laughter purified, gaiety refined into a joy of 
 tenderness and peace and love — as we frequently 
 observe a joyful cheerfulness among people who 
 have known sorrow. For tenderness and sym- 
 pathy, being the highest joy, take the same form 
 of expression as the sorrow which is their source 
 and sustenance ; and so completely is this the 
 case that it is scarcely an hyperbole to say that 
 in a perfectly joyful world there would be no 
 such thing as joy. 
 
 There is still one question before us. If 
 humour be what we have claimed for it, not 
 mere farce but a depicting of the whole of 
 human life, then we should expect that the 
 highest literature should be found to contain it. 
 We should expect to find it everywhere — that it 
 should satisfy all that desire which a reading in 
 theology, or philosophy, or science, or history, or 
 a study in art has created in man. Are there then 
 any great books, or still more any great forces of 
 human life which seem devoid of it? Is there
 
 276 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 
 
 any humour in the Gospels ? This is a dilemma 
 that must be faced, for if humour be life itself, 
 how can human life in its highest development 
 dispense with it ? 
 
 In the sixty-eighth Spectator, Addison says, 
 speaking of the son of Sirach, " with what strokes 
 of Nature, I had almost said of Humour, has he 
 described a treacherous friend." If humour is 
 nature then, — if the laughter in it is only a pre- 
 liminary step to the seriousness which is the 
 highest joy, to that joy which Mr. Addison says 
 he could not forbear expressing by tears at the 
 sight of the solemnities and enjoyments of men, 
 — then we may remember that though it is true 
 that there is no laughter in the story of the 
 Cross, yet this familiar phrase reminds us that 
 it was by story that the world was won to God ; 
 and, if words mean anything, we must mean by 
 this, that it was because mankind recognised its 
 own nature in the preaching of the life and death 
 of Jesus that it was attracted by it. One of the 
 many brilliant epigrams with which Mr. Matthew 
 Arnold has enriched the language, is that in 
 which he describes religion as " conduct touched 
 by emotion." It was the emotion born of the 
 daily relations of human life which men found 
 satisfied in the story of Jesus Christ, for the 
 patient tendency of a slow development had 
 prepared men to recognise the kind of God of 
 which they had need ; and, from the beginning 
 of the race, forces were working to this end, 
 which deserve scientific examination as much as 
 any that at present occupy the attention of the 
 physical schools. The origin of all religion is
 
 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 277 
 
 in the needs and incidents of daily life. All 
 emotion — that is, all love and passion, — springs 
 from the same source. No form of religion 
 ever succeeded which did not spring from these 
 incidents, which did not pretend at least to 
 satisfy these needs. 
 
 It was no new idea that God should take 
 upon Him the form of man. Beginning probably 
 with a healthy enjoyment of the beauty of life, 
 men formed the conception that the gods them- 
 selves must desire to share it. But, as the 
 sorrowful predominates in most lives, this idea 
 grew imperceptibly into a nobler one, that the 
 God became incarnate to bring healing and help. 
 This was the form which the cultus of Apollo 
 took among the Greeks, and at last, in the 
 Scandinavian Balder, we get the idea that the 
 God was incarnate and then died. 
 
 In these, and such as these, the notion was 
 of a God — great and glorious — but the preachers 
 of the Cross told, indeed, of a Healer, but of a 
 rejected Healer. They told of a houseless 
 wanderer, of harlots and sinners, of shepherds 
 and sowers and fishermen, of the wine-press and 
 vine-dressers, of father and mother and of family 
 life, of marriage and festival, of the bridegroom 
 and his friend. They spoke of suffering and of 
 failure and of unrecognised death. Then men 
 saw in all this something different from the 
 bright sun-god of the Hellenes, or the fated 
 Balder of the chivalrous north, and said with 
 whispered breath to themselves and to each 
 other, " This is the God we need." And the 
 same magic is working to the present day. The
 
 278 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 
 
 book which, in the present century, has had 
 the greatest sale of all others is John Keble's 
 Christian Year, and why ? Because, across the 
 poetic Fantaisie 1 of flowers and woods and winds 
 and hills, we trace the passion-play of a suffering, 
 self-denying life and death. The footsteps of 
 the God are upon earth and among earthly 
 
 things 
 
 . . . beside our paths and homes, 
 Our paths of sin, our homes of sorrow. 
 
 And if His feet are torn and bleeding by the 
 roughness of the way, the purple stains upon the 
 flower tissues that form our home-garlands prove 
 only that we are His kin. 
 
 But is it true that there is no humour in 
 the Gospels ? " What strokes of nature, if not 
 of humour," to use Mr. Addison's words again, 
 may we find in the story, let us say, of the 
 prodigal son ? What, in the light of the modern 
 conception of humour, will come out of this ? 
 
 Here, surely, there is no want of real life — of 
 low life, even. Here is a wild young scamp, as 
 like Tom Jones as heart could wish. Here is 
 ingratitude, forgetfulness of parents, riotous living, 
 taverns, harlots, what not ? Then beggary and 
 feeding swine and living upon husks. Then, 
 when evil living is found not to answer, penitence 
 — like Tom Jones again. 
 
 And " when he was yet a great way off, his 
 father saw him," along the stony road beneath 
 the vine-clad hills. Who can tell us how often 
 the father's eyes had gazed longingly down the 
 road since his son's figure, gay, reckless of the 
 
 1 " Fantaisie " is the name of a prince's garden in Jean Paul.
 
 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 279 
 
 benefits just bestowed, accompanied by servants, 
 eager for the pleasures of the world, had vanished 
 from his sight ? Now, at last, after so long 
 waiting and looking, he sees, in the far distance, 
 a very different sight. He sees a solitary figure, 
 worn and bent down, in rags, dragging on its 
 weary steps. How could the old man's gaze 
 expect such a sight as this ? Nevertheless, his 
 father knew him, " and ran and fell on his neck." 
 He did not wait for any accents of repentance, 
 nor did he enforce any moral precepts which 
 might advantage posterity. "He fell on his 
 neck, and kissed him." Foolish old father ! 
 
 Tom Jones is brought in. He goes to the 
 bath. The familiar feeling of luxury comes over 
 him once more. He is clothed in fine linen and 
 has a gold ring placed upon his finger ; the past 
 seems an evil dream. Then the fatted calf is 
 killed. The banquet is spread, and there is 
 festivity, music, and dancing-girls. 
 
 But, suddenly, in the midst of his delight, 
 some trouble passes over the old man's face ; 
 his eldest son is not in his place, and they bring 
 him word that he is without, and refuses to come 
 in. Some perception of a neglected truth passes 
 through the father's mind ; he rises and goes out 
 — " Therefore came his father out and entreated 
 him." 
 
 The eldest son had been out all day working 
 in the vineyards : all his life had been one long 
 performance of duty, taken for granted, and, 
 therefore, unpraised and unrecognised. In how 
 many households will silent witness be borne 
 that this is real life — the gentle and ;obedient
 
 28o THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE 
 
 service overlooked — nay, more than this, the 
 cross word or hasty temper vented where there 
 is no fear that it will be returned. 
 
 " All these years have I served thee . . . and 
 yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might 
 make merry with my friends." I am a man like 
 others ; gaiety and feasting are pleasant to me, as 
 to them. 
 
 A look of perplexed but growing insight 
 comes into the father's face. " Son, thou art 
 ever with me, and all that I have is thine." 
 
 This is all very well ; still he is conscious that 
 there is something to be said for the eldest son, 
 too. But his lost son — his wayward, and there- 
 fore loved, son — is come again. 
 
 "It is meet that we should make merry and 
 be glad, for this thy brother was dead and is 
 alive again." We can see the pitiful, pleading- 
 look in the old man's eyes — "thy brother was 
 dead ! " 
 
 Yes, Addison must be right. Nature and 
 humour cannot be far apart. The source and 
 spring of humour is human life. Its charm 
 consists not merely in laughter, or even in joy, 
 but in the stirring of those sympathies and 
 associations which exist invariably in the race, 
 for we inherit a world -life and a religion, the 
 earth-springs of whose realities lie, perchance, 
 too deep for laughter, but not, Heaven be 
 thanked, too deep for tears.
 
 GOLDEN THOUGHTS FROM THE 
 SPIRITUAL GUIDE 1 
 
 After the Life of Molinos, and before the reader 
 forms an acquaintance with Molinos himself, my 
 part in this little volume would seem to be small. 
 There remains, indeed, only to give thanks for 
 these — 
 
 Words of blessing and of peace. 
 
 For though here and there in this little book 
 some things may strike us as hard sayings, yet it 
 seems to me that this message from a foreign 
 country and a bygone age is not without a 
 singular appropriateness at the present time, 
 when the inquiring intellect is so much in the 
 ascendant, and the soundings have become 
 strange, and the old landmarks dim in the ever 
 seething mist. For this " Method of Molinos " 
 deals with an experience of the mind which is 
 utterly unaffected by any of the controversies 
 which trouble the Christian Church in these days. 
 The faith of which he speaks is not a faith in a 
 series of events or in any schemes of dogma, 
 however important or useful such faith may be 
 (and I for one believe it to be very important), 
 
 1 Preface to Golden Thoughts from the Spiritual Guide of Miguel 
 Molinos, the Quietest. D. Bryce & Son, 1883. 
 
 281
 
 282 GOLDEN THOUGHTS FROM 
 
 but the faith of which he speaks is faith in an 
 eternal principle — in that awful yet gracious 
 Presence, by whatever name we choose to call 
 it — the sense in every one of us of purity and 
 peace, of righteousness and love and power ; of 
 that Plastic Force, in short, which " inhabiteth 
 eternity," with which the universe is instinct, and 
 in which benign and intelligent energy some of 
 us still recognise a Personal God. 
 
 When we enter with Molinos into the mystical 
 state of " internal recollection and silence," we 
 leave behind us all the perplexing questions by 
 which religious life in the present day is disturbed. 
 These things "cease from troubling," we find 
 ourselves face to face with the Eternal and Ideal, 
 and we lie still and passive if so be that He may 
 work His gracious will on us. Is not this a 
 blessed change from jangling and contention, 
 from doubt and distress ? And, indeed, when 
 we come to think of it, it would seem not so 
 strange a thing to ask that, when we think of 
 all the blessings which we have inherited and 
 received, "those which we have forgotten and 
 those which we cherish in our memories and feel 
 in our hearts," and of this crowning blessing by 
 which humanity is raised to the Ideal, and the 
 imperfect love of the least of us is made partaker, 
 and in some sense even the pattern, of the Divine 
 Love — when we think of the blessing which such 
 thoughts as these have brought to the most 
 sorrowful and careworn life — is it so strange that 
 we should sometimes think it possible that we 
 might all of us, with all our differences and 
 estrangements, in this one thing united as children
 
 THE SPIRITUAL GUIDE 283 
 
 of a common Father, "evermore give thanks 
 unto Him in His Holy Church" ? 
 
 For the extracts from Molinos' book which 
 are here given are only part of his Method, and 
 relate only to that portion which belongs to the 
 Mystical Theology. Molinos' Method consisted 
 in the uniting of this spiritual experience and 
 training with the system and worship of the 
 Church Catholic ; and this ought not to have 
 been found so difficult, for if we will think for a 
 moment, we shall see that this method of the 
 soul's training in mystical worship is, in fact, 
 conceived in the purest spirit of that Sacra- 
 mentalism, which has nothing to do with priest- 
 craft, and is the basis of that idea of the Church 
 which all its abuses in all ages, so far from creat- 
 ing, have only impeded and obscured. The 
 "prayer of silence," the "spiritual martyrdom," 
 the "mystical peace," the "entrance into internal 
 recollection through the most Holy Humanity of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ," are all the offspring of 
 the Sacramental principle which finds an utter- 
 ance in outward fact, in formal and ceremonious 
 usage, and not in human intellect and speech, is 
 nowhere so clearly seen as in the worship of the 
 Church Catholic in its purest form, and could 
 nowhere, so Molinos insisted, more surely be 
 expected than in the Communion of the con- 
 stituent parts of that Holy Humanity, the 
 Precious Body and Blood. 
 
 The brazen gates are closed behind us which 
 shut out the fantastic throng of troublous and 
 distracting thoughts ; above and around us, in 
 the windows and on the walls, are saints and
 
 284 GOLDEN THOUGHTS 
 
 apostles, martyrs, servants, and seers who have 
 endured to the end ; sense is there, but it is sense 
 in its ideal entirety, not the erring and wandering 
 sense of perplexed Humanity ; melodious sound 
 is there, but inarticulate, or, if articulate, in the 
 hallowed words of centuries, which have lost the 
 note of finite utterance and become universal as 
 silence itself; form is there, but form hallowed 
 and mystical, without choice or alternative, with- 
 out growth and without decay ; and before the 
 adoring- individual sense, thus chastened and 
 annihilated, is presented the God-given Humanity 
 as God Himself restored it, and offered it before 
 the universe as a sacrifice again.
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 1 
 
 (Nineteenth Century, May 1884.) 
 
 The publication of this book has been expected 
 with eagerness, and it is not surprising that such 
 has been the case. It is just twelve years since a 
 unique personality passed away from among men ; 
 a name which had occupied a most prominent 
 place in the world of thought and of controversy 
 ceased to appear any longer as that of a con- 
 temporary, and a voice was silent which, within a 
 certain range at least, had stirred the heart and 
 spirit as no voice in modern times had ever done. 
 If any surprise were expressed, it would almost 
 seem to be caused by the patience with which the 
 absence of any biography of Mr. Maurice has 
 been borne ; but the reason of this is, I think, not 
 far to seek. Those who knew Mr. Maurice, 
 either personally or by his writings, knew him so 
 well — his presence was so constant, and his 
 thoughts and convictions were so real to them, 
 and had become so perfectly their own — that they 
 felt less the need of a biography than in the case 
 of almost any other man. 
 
 I am inclined to think, however, that all feeling 
 of indifference will be exchanged for enthusiasm 
 
 1 77?!? Life of Frederick Denison Maurice. Edited by his son Frederick 
 Maurice (London : Macmillan and Co. 1884). 
 
 285
 
 286 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 when the present volumes are perused, for, if the 
 subject of the biography was unique, the work 
 itself may, I think, be said to be unique also. It 
 cannot be said to be an autobiography, for no 
 autobiography could possibly be so spontaneous, 
 or have contented itself so exclusively with 
 thought and opinion ; but for this very reason it is 
 not so much a book at all as it is Mr. Maurice 
 himself, not perhaps in the flesh, but certainly 
 in the spirit. The book is unique in the position 
 and circumstances of its editor, and it has been 
 produced upon principles of candour and personal 
 abnegation which, if not unique, are at least 
 infrequent. Few biographers have said less 
 about their subject than Colonel Maurice has said 
 about his father, and few have allowed their 
 subject to speak so largely and unreservedly. 
 Colonel Maurice says in his Preface : " Nothing 
 whatever has been kept back or concealed as to 
 my father. My sole object has been to present 
 him as he was." The question whether letters do 
 represent a man is one which must, I think, be 
 decided afresh in each individual case ; but, 
 ceteris paribus, no one can be so good a judge of 
 this as a son can be, because he has fuller 
 opportunities of knowing how far the private life 
 corresponds to the public, and he is less liable to 
 be biassed in his judgment by party or theological 
 prejudice. Where Colonel Maurice has departed 
 from his usual method, as in chapter viii. of the 
 second volume, the result is so charming- as to 
 make us wish for more personal reminiscences. 
 The candour with which the letters and extracts 
 of letters have been given to us is remarkable,
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 287 
 
 extending, I should say, in a few instances, to the 
 publication of what Mr. Maurice himself would 
 have suppressed. To some of those who have 
 only known Mr. Maurice in his books, it is 
 possible that some of these letters, written under 
 circumstances of excitement and impulse, will 
 convey an impression of unrest and anxiety 
 foreign to the serene result to which, in the 
 sermons, thought and experience had given a 
 prophetic calm ; but we shall all feel the privilege 
 of being thus admitted into the workshop of the 
 mind, obtaining, I think, by such means, as true, 
 as vivid, and as detailed a presentment of the 
 personality which it is our wish to realise as we 
 could with any reasonableness expect. 
 
 His biographer says that Maurice's position was 
 unique. I conceive that Mr. Maurice himself was 
 absolutely unique. I conceive that no other man 
 ever occupied his precise mental standpoint, for he 
 combined two qualities which are generally found 
 to be incompatible — he united an almost perfect 
 freedom and toleration of thought with the most 
 entire certitude of conviction and teaching. It was 
 this quality beyond every other which made him 
 emphatically the teacher of teachers ; for a teacher 
 who attracted the freest and most acute intellects 
 by his sympathy with their doubts and specula- 
 tions, believing, as he did, that God's guidance 
 was to be perceived not so much in men's 
 opinions and conclusions as in their struggles and 
 questionings and glimpses of light (vol. ii. p. 338), 
 and at the same time appeared possessed of a 
 certitude at least equal to that of the narrowest 
 dogmatist, could not fail to command an influence
 
 288 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 over thinking men. It is easy for a man who has 
 not to teach to assume a generous breadth and 
 freedom of opinion ; but it is obvious that the 
 teacher must have something to teach, and must 
 have arrived at some point of certitude from which, 
 as from a rock, he can draw up his hearers from 
 among the waves of perplexity and unrest. This 
 was what emphatically Mr. Maurice did. 
 
 There is, however, another point in Mr. 
 Maurice's character which I think well to touch 
 upon here at the outset as giving a note most 
 important to be struck thus early — I mean his 
 saintliness. " He was the only saint I ever knew," 
 was said to me the other day by one well known 
 in letters and in society; "others have aimed at 
 it. He was a saint." Dr. Goodeve, of Clifton, 
 his cousin, the companion of his boyhood, says of 
 him (vol. i. p. 3S) : 
 
 He was the gentlest, most docile and affectionate of 
 creatures ; but he was equally earnest in what he believed to 
 be right and energetic in the pursuit of his views. It may be 
 thought an extravagant assertion, a mere formal tribute to a 
 deceased friend and companion, but, after a long and intimate 
 experience of the world, I can say with all sincerity that he was 
 the most saint-like individual I ever met — Christ-like, if I dare 
 to use the word. 
 
 I wish thus early to insist upon this, because I 
 have no doubt that to a character of this 
 description only that secret is entrusted which 
 becomes the method of attraction which Mr. 
 Maurice possessed. Others may have been holy 
 as he was, though I think they have been few ; 
 but none could have possessed his attraction, 
 however gifted with like gifts, save the holy, for
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 289 
 
 he himself would tell us that none but the pure 
 can see God, and the secret of his certitude and of 
 his charm was that he had seen God. 
 
 " I was sent into the world," he writes to his 
 son, in one of his carefully prepared auto- 
 biographical letters—" I was sent into the world 
 that I might persuade men to recognise Christ as 
 the centre of their fellowship with each other, so 
 that they might be united in their families, their 
 countries, and as men, not in schools and factions"; 
 that is, as I understand him, the bond of interest 
 and union is not opinion, but that humanity which 
 has been taken up into God. 
 
 Very early in life, in the little Quaker village of 
 Frenchay, with its quiet greens and leafy parks, it 
 was borne in upon the mind of this exceptional 
 boy that there was nothing strange or exceptional 
 in his circumstances, but that he " was one of a 
 race." This, undoubtedly, is the key-note of Mr. 
 Maurice's teaching to the end of his life — not 
 children by election or adoption ; not disciples or 
 followers by choice or opinion, but children by 
 natural birth, elect in virtue of the common 
 humanity by which alone every human being is 
 the son of God. The distinction between his 
 view of baptism and Dr. Pusey's was just this : the 
 latter regarded baptism as a change of nature ; he 
 saw in it the coming out of the infant into the first 
 radiance of a light which had been ever shining 
 for it and for all the world. 
 
 In the very remarkable mental atmosphere in 
 which the boy grew up, amid those religious 
 questionings which led to the entire family ot the 
 Unitarian minister leaving their husband and 
 
 VOL. II U
 
 290 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 father to follow other forms of faith, it was perhaps 
 natural that, to such a mind, this principle should 
 be strengthened, if indeed it was not suggested ; 
 for a craving would arise in an affectionate and 
 susceptible nature for some other bond of union 
 than that of mere opinion. When, after many- 
 discussions, he went to Cambridge, he came under 
 the influence of a remarkable man in a very 
 characteristic way. In a most interesting extract 
 from his own papers, he gives an account of Julius 
 Hare's lectures during two terms, first upon the 
 Antigone of Sophocles, and secondly upon the 
 Gorgias of Plato. Hare himself wrote of him 
 "that there was in his classroom a pupil whose 
 metaphysical powers were among the greatest he 
 had ever come in contact with, but that the man was 
 so shy that it was almost impossible to know him." 
 Entirely unknown to the man who was afterwards 
 to be his intimate friend and brother, this was 
 what was passing in the boy's mind (he was 
 eighteen) : — 
 
 I do recollect Hare's classroom exceedingly well. I am 
 often surprised how clearly all the particulars of what passed in 
 it come back to me, when so much else that I should like to 
 preserve has faded away. 
 
 You will suppose, perhaps, that this was owing to some 
 novelty in his method of teaching. You will inquire whether 
 he assumed more of a professional air than is common in a 
 College, and gave disquisitions instead of calling on his pupils to 
 construe a book ? Not the least. We construed just as they 
 did elsewhere. I do not remember his indulging in a single 
 excursus. The subject in our first term was the Antigone of 
 Sophocles. . . . 
 
 We hammered at the words and at the sense. The lecturer 
 seemed most anxious to impress us with the feeling that there 
 was no road to the sense which did not go through the words.
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 291 
 
 He took infinite pains to make us understand the force of 
 nouns, verbs, particles, and the grammar of the sentences. 
 We often spent an hour on the strophe or antistrophe of a 
 chorus. . . . 
 
 If there had been disquisitions about the Greek love of 
 beauty, about the classical and romantic schools, and so forth, I 
 should have been greatly delighted. I should have rushed forth 
 to retail to my friends what I had heard, or have discussed it, 
 and refuted it as long as they would listen to my nonsense. 
 What we did and heard in the lecture-room could not be turned 
 to this account. One could not get the handy phrase one 
 wished about Greek ideals and poetical unity ; but, by some 
 means or other, one rose to the apprehension that the poem 
 had a unity in it, and that the poet was pursuing an ideal, and 
 that the unity was not created by him, but perceived by him, 
 and that the ideal was not a phantom, but something which 
 must have had a most real effect upon himself, his age, and his 
 country. I cannot the least tell you how Hare imparted this 
 conviction tome; I only know that I acquired it, and could 
 trace it very directly to his method of teaching. I do not 
 suppose that he had deliberately invented a method ; in form, 
 as I have said, he was adapting himself exactly to the practice of 
 English Colleges ; in spirit, he was following the course which 
 a cultivated man, thoroughly in earnest to give his pupils the 
 advantage of his cultivation, and not ambitious of displaying 
 himself, would fall into. Yet I have often thought since, that 
 if the genius of Bacon is, as I trust it is and always will be, the 
 tutelary one of Trinity, its influence was scarcely more felt in 
 the scientific lecture-rooms than in this classical one ; we were, 
 just as much as the students of natural philosophy, feeling our 
 way from particulars to universals, from facts to principles. 
 
 One felt this method, without exactly understanding it, in 
 reading our Greek play. The next term it came much more 
 distinctly before us. Then we were reading the Gorgias of 
 Plato. But here, again, the lecturer was not tempted for an 
 instant to spoil us of the good which Plato could do us by 
 talking to us about him, instead of reading him with us. There 
 was no resume of his philosophy, no elaborate comparison 
 of him with Aristotle, or with any of the moderns. Our 
 business was with a single dialogue ; we were to follow that 
 through its windings, and to find out by degrees, if we could, 
 what the writer was driving at, instead of being told beforehand.
 
 292 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 I cannot recollect that he ever spoke to us of Schleiermacher, 
 whose translations were, I suppose, published at that time ; if 
 they were, he had certainly read them ; but his anxiety seemed 
 to be that Plato should explain himself to us, and should help 
 to explain us to ourselves. Whatever he could do to further 
 this end, by bringing his reading and scholarship to bear upon 
 the illustration of the text, by throwing out hints as to the course 
 the dialogue was taking, by exhibiting his own fervent interest 
 in Plato and his belief of the high purpose he was aiming at, 
 he did. But to give us second-hand reports, though they were 
 ever so excellent — to save us the trouble of thinking — to supply 
 us with a moral, instead of showing us how we might find it, 
 not only in the book but in our hearts, this was clearly not his 
 intention. 
 
 Then Mr. Maurice goes on to say that Hare 
 first set before his pupils 
 
 an ideal not for a few " religious " people, but for all mankind, 
 which can lift men out of the sin which "assumes selfishness 
 as the basis of all actions and life " ; and secondly, the teaching 
 them that " there is a way out of party opinions which is not 
 a compromise between them, but which is implied in both, and 
 of which each is bearing witness." " Hare did not tell us 
 this. . . . Plato himself does not say it ; he makes us 
 feel it." 
 
 I do not apologise for the length of these ex- 
 tracts : they are so interesting in themselves, and 
 are so intensely valuable as showing the forces that 
 were at work in the boy's mind. " The most en- 
 lightened men in Germany, France, and England," 
 he wrote afterwards, " are acknowledging the deep 
 obligation which they have owed to Plato for 
 having enfranchised them from systems, and sent 
 them to seek for wisdom, not in the strife of parties, 
 but in the quiet of their own hearts." " Maurice 
 says," writes his pupil, Edward Strachey, to Lady 
 Louis — " Maurice says all little children are 
 Platonists " ; and we know of Another who said
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 293 
 
 that only as little children could we enter the 
 kingdom of God. It was through this portal, 
 then, that young Maurice, like so many others, 
 entered into intellectual life. 
 
 On leaving Cambridge, not having made up his 
 mind to the required subscription to the 36th 
 canon, he took his name off the University books, 
 without taking a degree, declining the kindly sug- 
 gestion of the Senior Tutor of his College that he 
 should allow the full term of five years' standing to 
 expire before taking so decisive a step. Whatever 
 his future opinions might be, he characteristically 
 said he could not hazard their being influenced by 
 any considerations of worldly interest. During 
 his stay in London, where he wrote for and finally 
 edited the Athencezim, during an interval at home 
 during which he wrote his novel, Eustace Conway, 
 and at Exeter College, Oxford, to which college 
 he was attracted by the kindness of Dr. Jacobson, 
 he was gradually forming those convictions which 
 resulted in his taking orders in the English Church, 
 of which, I imagine, it would be difficult to find a 
 more ardent or a more thorough adherent than he 
 became. 
 
 I have agreed with Colonel Maurice that his 
 father's position with regard to the Church was 
 unique, but in addition to this I should not 
 hesitate to say that at first sight it seems, and all 
 through his life it did seem, intensely subtle : so 
 much so that he himself could scarcely expect it to 
 be grasped by religious people of ordinary calibre ; 
 still further, I am not ashamed to admit that it has 
 often appeared to me so subtle that I have failed 
 for some time altogether to grasp it ; nevertheless
 
 294 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 I am perfectly certain that it was of the simplest 
 description. We have seen that Mr. Maurice's 
 idea of God was that of a God of the natural 
 human race. He conceived of a living God, the 
 Author, Origin, and Support of the race — a God 
 who in all ages had not only been speaking to it, 
 but had been living in it, teaching, leading, drawing 
 it to Himself — a God who was doing this now as 
 much as ever. In the Hebrew Scriptures he found 
 the fullest and clearest proof and exposition of 
 this immortal fact. He believed, with his whole 
 heart, in the existence of this ceaseless Energy, 
 this unwearying Love and Power. He believed, 
 also with his whole heart, that the English Church, 
 in its formularies, in its Articles, in its Liturgy, in 
 its Creeds, literally, and in the plain and ordinary 
 English interpretation of the words, inculcated this 
 truth ; just as the English translation of the 
 Hebrew Scriptures, in their literal sense, also 
 inculcated it. " The errors of the Oxford Tracts," 
 i.e. of the High Church movement, he wrote to 
 Edward Strachey, 
 
 consist, I think in opposing to " to irvevfxa tov cuwvos tovtov " 
 (the spirit of the present age) the spirit of a former age, instead 
 of the ever-living and acting Spirit of God, of which the spirit 
 of each age is, at once, the adversary and the parody. The 
 childlike spirit of the Fathers, say they, must be brought 
 in to counteract the intellectual spirit of these times — the 
 spirit of submission to Church authority against the spirit of 
 voluntary association. 
 
 It was not that he objected to the spirit of the 
 Fathers — so far from it, he was most deeply read 
 in and conversant with them, especially with St. 
 Augustine — but their utterance was not that ever-
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 295 
 
 living and acting Spirit to which he believed the 
 formularies of the English Church bore witness, 
 and any slighting or crippling or ignoring of which 
 Spirit he believed to be heresy against such formu- 
 laries and articles. 
 
 Now this ever-living and acting Spirit of God 
 pervades the whole human race, absorbing all its 
 functions into Himself, so that, as in the old 
 Jewish times, king and priest and prophet were 
 the instrument and mouthpiece of this Spirit, 
 so now king and state and commonwealth are 
 as much, and no more, manifestations of this 
 Spirit as the Church itself. There is no power 
 whatever but that of God ; all else is mere 
 lawlessness and anarchy. So far ■ as the 
 democracy declared itself absolute, he opposed 
 it to the death, but he would have been the 
 first to recognise in the most stifled outcry of a 
 democracy the voice of God proclaiming, as by 
 the wild cry of a gaunt and ragged prophet by 
 the wayside, wrath and future judgment against 
 the selfishness and atheism of kings and states. 
 So far as the sectaries set themselves up against 
 the visible unity of the one Kingdom and Church 
 of God — so far he would have no fellowship 
 with them ; but he would have been the first to 
 recognise the side of truth each of them had 
 grasped, as a witness against the error and 
 backsliding of the Church. " I write of Quakers," 
 he says, "but I write /<? Church people." 
 
 I will quote a passage from the Prophets 
 and Kings, partly because of its extreme beauty, 
 but chiefly because it explains, more than any 
 other word could do, this simple and clear
 
 296 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 position as to the relations of Church and 
 State : — 
 
 We have been hearing of a Vision. Does that word sound 
 as if it belonged to times which we have left far behind, as if it 
 pointed to something fantastical and incredible ? Oh ! if there 
 were no such visions, brethren, what an utterly dark and weary 
 and unintelligible place this world would be ! How com- 
 pletely we should be given up to the emptiest phantoms, to 
 the basest worship of phantoms ! What mere shows and 
 mockeries would the state and ceremonial of kings, the 
 debates of legislators, the yearnings and struggles of people, 
 become ! How truly would the earth be what it seemed to 
 the worn-out misanthropical libertine, "a stage, and all the 
 men and women merely players " ; a thousand times we have 
 been all tempted to think it so. The same painted scenery, 
 the same shifting pageants, the same unreal words spoken 
 through different masks by counterfeit voices, the same plots 
 which seem never to be unravelled: what does it all 
 mean? How do men endure the ceaseless change, the dull 
 monotony ? Satirists and keen observers of the world's follies 
 have asked this question again and again. The best man 
 may often doubt what he should reply. But he hears a 
 voice saying to him, " Try to be true to thyself; resist the powers 
 which are tempting thee to go through thy acts, common or 
 sacred, as if thou wert a mere machine ; hold fast thy faith 
 that God is, and is working, when thou seest least of this 
 working, and when the world seems most to be going on 
 without Him; assure thyself that there is an order in the 
 universe when all its movements seem most disorderly. So 
 will the things around thee by degrees acquire a meaning and 
 a purpose. Those divine services and sacraments which have 
 partaken of their insincerity, which have become shadows like 
 them, will show thee what a truth and substance lies behind 
 them. In English temples thou mayst hear ' Holy, holy, holy, 
 Lord God of Hosts,' resounding from the lips of seraphim. 
 In them thou mayest know that thou art in the midst of a 
 company of angels and archangels and just men made perfect ; 
 nay, that thou art in the presence of Jesus, the Mediator of the 
 new covenant, and of God, the Judge of all. And if the sense 
 of that presence awaken all the consciousness of thine own 
 evil, and of the evil of the people among whom thou dwellest,
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 297 
 
 the taste of that sacrifice, which was once offered for thee and 
 for all the world, will purge thine iniquity. When that divine 
 love has kindled thy flagging and perishing thoughts and 
 hopes, thou mayest learn that God can use thee to bear the 
 tidings of His love and righteousness to a sense-bound land 
 that is bowing to silver and gold, to horses and chariots. And 
 if there should come a convulsion in that land, such as 
 neither thou nor thy fathers have known, be sure that it 
 signifies the removal of such things as can be shaken, that 
 those things which cannot be shaken may remain." 1 
 
 Now, if his position is so simple and so 
 orthodox as it appears to be — and I think the 
 fact cannot be disputed — how is it that Mr. 
 Maurice's mental and doctrinal standpoint ap- 
 peared so subtle and obscure ? how was it that 
 he seemed to be constantly contradicting and 
 disappointing the expectations of simple-minded 
 people ? and how is it that this man, who was 
 by every possibility of expression the most 
 orthodox of Churchmen and the most un- 
 swerving of believers in the inspiration of the 
 Bible, should have left his name as a by- word 
 among a large and varied class of Church people, 
 for a monster of heresy and misbelief? The 
 question seems to me full of interest both as it 
 relates to peculiarities of character and of the 
 times, and illustrates some traits of our common 
 nature which are alike in all times. 
 
 Some reflection on Mr. Maurice's principle of 
 interpretation of Scripture, if so simple a process 
 can be called by such a name, will, I think, assist 
 us in this perplexity. His faith in the letter of 
 Scripture was entire. "If the Bible shrank from 
 difficulties," he said, " if it had not a stronger 
 
 1 Prophets and Kings, p. 234.
 
 298 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 evidence in itself than all the ingenuity of 
 apologists could supply, it was not the book 
 which I took it to be — it had not the power for 
 which I gave it credit." The absence of all 
 difficulty, the ease with which obstacles ap- 
 parently insurmountable are overcome, give the 
 reader at first a sense of amused surprise, as though 
 some ingenious casuistry or legerdemain was at 
 work ; but this is only because we are so unused 
 to his plain and simple principles. We are so 
 accustomed to difficulties and apologies and 
 German criticism and to etymological niceties 
 and ethnological refinements, that when all our 
 difficulties vanish before the simple story of a 
 life like our own, when the record is revealed 
 to us as being nothing but the history of 
 struggles and failures, sins and repentances, of 
 men and women and people like ourselves, and 
 of the clear and still clearer shining of a light 
 into their hearts and lives by which the mysteries 
 of time and of the future appear, if not altogether 
 vanquished and brought to naught, yet, at least, 
 as ranging themselves on the side of righteous- 
 ness and development, and not of anarchy and 
 despair ; when, instead of the elaborate exegesis 
 we expected, we hear only the charmed rhythm 
 of this divine message through page of story, 
 and prophet's cry, and psalmist's song — we can 
 hardly credit that our trouble has been in such 
 sort laid to rest. And, as a matter of fact, it 
 is certain that this method of interpretation 
 staggered the so-called religious world. Indeed, 
 to please this world it is not enough that you 
 profess your belief that the Bible is inspired ;
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 299 
 
 this will serve you little, unless you add your 
 conviction that the religious world is inspired 
 in its interpretation of it. This is true of all 
 times ; but a wonderful change has passed over 
 the religious world of England since Mr. 
 Maurice took orders fifty years ago. It re- 
 quires some effort to realise the position of 
 those days : so many questions have been set 
 at rest, so many outworks abandoned, so many 
 crises which were to have ruined the Church 
 and religion safely passed through. The whole 
 power of the Church, and indeed of the religious 
 world, was in the hands of the Evangelical 
 party — a party only just entering on its decadence. 
 The triumphs and spiritual victories of this 
 great and missionary section of the Church 
 were fresh in men's minds. The mental atmos- 
 phere was redolent with the names of such men 
 as Simeon, Venn, and Romaine. The invariable 
 result had occurred. The leaders of thought 
 being removed, their followers adopted their 
 formulas, and, like the Israelites with the ark at 
 Eben-ezer, supposed, because of their adherence 
 to these formulas, that God was still in the 
 camp. The religious patronage of the country 
 and the revenue of the religious societies were 
 in their hands, and its distribution was decided, 
 and the thought and opinions of the congrega- 
 tions guided, by the so-called religious news- 
 papers. Now a man who believed that God's 
 voice was heard not in formulas and systems, 
 not in opinions and conclusions, but in "struggles 
 and questionings and glimpses of light," could 
 not expect much appreciation from excellent and
 
 300 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 formal people trained and drilled in a system 
 like this. His interpretation of Scripture was 
 to them naught, for they recognised in it none 
 of their familiar phrases. To many of these 
 people, to attempt to see two sides of a question 
 is not only perplexing — it is positively wicked ; 
 to endeavour to discover the particle of truth 
 which exists in your opponent's opinion is to 
 pander to the Devil himself. The best and 
 most charitable of these people would say, " I 
 cannot understand him"; and no wonder, for it 
 is impossible to give the reader, who is un- 
 acquainted with his character, any just idea of 
 the exquisite balance of Mr. Maurice's mind. 
 If his whole life and writings failed to give it to 
 so many thousands of his fellow-countrymen, it 
 would be ridiculous to attempt it here. All I 
 can do, it seems to me, is to insist as often as 
 possible on this one point, that the distinguishing 
 quality he possessed, and the quality which 
 prevented his position from being understood 
 and his influence felt, which caused him to be 
 suspected of casuistry and rejected as obscure 
 and unintelligible, was simply and solely this 
 exquisite balance of mind and thought. 
 
 But there were other forces which, while 
 they could not cause this estrangement, yet 
 strengthened and perpetuated it when caused. 
 One of these was Mr. Maurice's connection with 
 what was called, then as now, Christian Socialism. 
 I shall allude very briefly to this. I would rather 
 hope that some of those men, and they are 
 many, now in orders in the English Church, who 
 are carrying on his work under the influence of
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 301 
 
 his spirit, and who look upon him as the 
 inspirer and guide of their cause, will give us 
 some account of the result of his connection with 
 it. I will only say that the quality I have men- 
 tioned, — a balanced intellect and a consequent 
 wisdom superior to all those who worked with 
 him — appears to me most prominent in this 
 phase of his work. In those days, however, of 
 continental revolution and of political excitement, 
 a man who had actually converted some Chartists, 
 and was known to be intimately associated with 
 intelligent artisans, "naturally all atheists, you 
 know," was regarded in many circles with horror. 
 Nothing was too bad to believe of such a one. 
 The clergy would say to younger men, with that 
 recklessness of speech which is not confined to 
 parsons, " Has no belief in the Atonement, you 
 know " —an assertion about equivalent to denying 
 to St. Paul any belief in the doctrine of Justifica- 
 tion by Faith. 
 
 It is almost impossible at the present day to 
 realise the anonymous and irresponsible tyranny 
 wielded by the religious newspapers at the time 
 of which we are speaking. Colonel Maurice 
 contrasts the power of this tyranny in 1842-6, 
 when the Record won its great victory over 
 Bishop Blomfield, and the bishop, to escape the 
 storm, actually had to abandon all those clergy 
 who had followed his advice, and to approve of 
 those who had refused to obey him, with its 
 weakness in i860, when, in response to its 
 demand that Bishop Tait should resist Mr. 
 Maurice's appointment to St. Peter's, Vere 
 Street, only twenty of the London clergy signed
 
 302 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 the address to the bishop, against three hundred 
 and thirty-two who signed the counter-address to 
 Mr. Maurice. Mr. Maurice's antagonism to the 
 " immoral and godless domination of anonymous 
 religious journalism " had been consistent, deter- 
 mined, and uncompromising from the beginning 
 of his career ; a great part of his unpopularity 
 with Church people was earned in this single- 
 handed combat with an impalpable malific power, 
 and to him in great measure is to be attributed 
 its fall. It would be necessary to study the files 
 of these forgotten instruments of bigotry to 
 understand the position truly, but this were a 
 task before which even German conscientiousness 
 and enterprise might well quail. 
 
 It was the chivalrous instinct which saw 
 injustice in ex parte statements of an opponent's 
 position which first roused his indignation against 
 the religious newspapers, and it was this same 
 habit of Mr. Maurice's mind which was a fertile 
 source of misunderstanding between himself and 
 the so-called religious world. To go out of your 
 way to point out what truth there may be in the 
 position of a man whom you firmly believe to be 
 righting against truth, seems to many people to 
 be treason against the truth itself. When the 
 honest acceptance of the Articles was in question, 
 and an attempt was being made at Oxford to 
 vindicate the act of subscription from an open 
 avowal of dishonesty, to find the strong advocate 
 of subscription, in the literal and plain sense, 
 openly siding with the offender was no doubt 
 puzzling to many simple people ; and when Mr. 
 Maurice approved the Dissenters' Chapels Bill,
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 303 
 
 which appeared to confirm the possession of en- 
 dowments to those who had departed from the 
 faith in support of which such endowments had 
 been bequeathed, many good and formal people 
 who never saw below the crust of things, and to 
 whom no distinction ever occurred between "the 
 eternal verities on which their faith stands, and 
 the points which must receive a different solution 
 in each different age," — a distinction vital to Mr. 
 Maurice, — were inclined to think his conduct disin- 
 genuous. Mr. Maurice did not accept the Articles 
 and formularies as a particular righteous creed 
 admirably expressed in language by the English 
 Reformers, although he believed that the men of 
 the sixteenth century were far more capable of 
 such a task than those of the nineteenth ; he 
 accepted them as the plain testimony to the 
 truth of an "ever-living and acting spirit of 
 righteousness," which had ever taught the 
 Church, and was still teaching her in his own 
 day. He was apparently open to the retort that 
 after all it was only Mr. Maurice's own opinion 
 which he advocated, just as it was the opinion of 
 other people which he opposed ; but in his own 
 mind he escaped this dilemma. " For me to assume 
 that I am right or you are wrong," he wrote to 
 Mr. Strachey, " in the way of putting down 
 idolatry or any form of error is hateful and 
 immoral, confusing ends and means, leading to 
 the most melancholy consequences to the mind of 
 the individual and of the country — consequences 
 which are every day making themselves manifest." 
 " The exquisite acuteness of his intellectual 
 perceptions," to use Mr. Ludlow's words, was
 
 304 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 indeed always leading him to perceive distinc- 
 tions which were quite imperceptible to ordinary 
 minds ; but it would be the very greatest of 
 mistakes to suppose that there was in Mr. 
 Maurice anything of the tolerant laissez-faire 
 of the worldly-minded statesman or divine, to 
 whom life and religion are a fine art. On the 
 contrary, an almost painful earnestness pervades 
 his language at every crisis — and such crises 
 were chronic — of religious matters in his time. 
 
 All Christian liberty, all manly divinity, and I believe all 
 honesty of purpose, is in peril if one step be taken in this 
 course, 
 
 he writes on one occasion. 
 
 To lie down and sleep till the fates accomplish their own 
 purposes, which it seems impossible that we can promote, and 
 very likely that we may hinder, is the inference which the 
 devil has whispered to every one a thousand times, and which 
 most of us have obeyed till a louder whisper has awakened us. 
 Oh, there is nothing so emasculating as the atmosphere of 
 Eclecticism ! Who that has dwelt in it has not longed for "the 
 keen mountain " misty air of Calvinism, or anything, however 
 biting, that would stir him to action ? 
 
 he writes again. In 1843 he writes this remark- 
 able sentence to Archdeacon Hare : 
 
 I have even thought of addressing a letter to him (Lord 
 Ashley) on the fearful danger of making Tractarians, and 
 Romanists too, by these violent efforts of suppressing them. 
 But I scarcely dare meddle with such subjects ; they are too 
 exacting, and I sometimes think with trembling that that way 
 madness lies. Nothing goes nearer to take away one's senses 
 than the clatter of tongues, when you feel every one is wrong, 
 and know that if you tried to set them right you would most 
 likely be as wrong as any. It would not be so if one had 
 learnt how to keep sabbath days in the midst of the 
 world's din.
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 305 
 
 This intense earnestness, this terror of, and 
 determination to grapple with, erroneous opinion, 
 seems indeed at times almost inconsistent with 
 the equally intense faith in the living and acting 
 Spirit that was guiding the world. There are 
 in the world two principles of action — I had 
 almost said of culture — that of Luther and that 
 of Erasmus. I mention these two names, so 
 often used in this connection, because it is very- 
 curious that, while we might have expected that 
 Mr. Maurice's sympathies would have been on 
 the side of the cultured, tolerant, sweet-tempered, 
 and sweet-voiced reformer, the exact contrary is 
 the fact. He despised Erasmus from his heart. 
 He speaks of him as "the selfish dilettante" — of 
 Luther as "the Christian Hero." I think that 
 this combination of tolerance with earnestness is 
 the most unique thing about Mr. Maurice. His 
 toleration was infinite ; we feel disposed to wish 
 sometimes that his earnestness had been a little 
 less intense. Of the great controversy of his 
 life, — that with Mr., afterwards Dean, Mansel, — 
 he says that, had he listened to advice, he should 
 have let it alone. 
 
 There is a passage on St. Augustine in the 
 Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy which seems 
 to show that he was incapable of realising the 
 position of a conscientious agnostic. We do not 
 like to fancy even the slightest resemblance 
 between him and those good people whose 
 distress and dread would be pitiful if it were 
 not grotesque. To hear some of these talk, 
 for instance, at the present day, one would 
 almost suppose that they believed that some 
 vol. 11 x
 
 306 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 twenty years ago there had been a God, but that 
 Professor Huxley and Professor Tyndall had 
 killed Him, and that, in consequence, not 
 unnaturally, some considerable perplexity and 
 distress was being felt. If there be a God, it 
 would seem probable that He will be able to 
 protect Himself against Professor Tyndall, and 
 I do not imagine that the Third Person of the 
 Trinity was in such imminent danger of annihila- 
 tion from Henry Longueville Mansel, D.D., as 
 to make it necessary for Mr. Maurice to come to 
 the rescue without an hour's delay. 
 
 It seems only yesterday, though it is a quarter 
 of a century ago, that the controversy with Dean 
 Mansel began. I remember with distinctness 
 the effect that "What is Revelation?" had upon 
 myself. The prominent feeling was how gracious 
 it was of Mr. Maurice to lavish such a wealth of 
 spiritual thought and vitality merely to crush that 
 most unique, surely, of all champions of orthodoxy 
 — the man who implicitly denied the existence 
 and ridiculed the office and functions of the 
 Third Person of the Trinity. It is difficult to 
 believe that the effect of the lectures could have 
 been such as to require such a confutation. Mr. 
 Mansel was an acute logician, but he was not a 
 metaphysician any more than he was a theologian. 
 His position is utterly untenable except from a 
 purely logical standpoint. He speaks indeed of 
 a "revelation," but, whatever this may be, it is 
 evident that it must be of the vaguest description, 
 for he commences by stating that it is evident 
 that no systematic theology has been given by 
 it, and he exposes with admirable acuteness the
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 307 
 
 absurd statements which dogmatism has made in 
 its attempts to formulate one. As therefore Mr. 
 Mansel denied the possibility of any communica- 
 tion or acquaintance with God except by means 
 of this shadowy nothing, it is not perhaps an 
 unfair presumption that the tendency of the 
 Bampton Lectures that year was towards 
 practical atheism. His position at any rate was 
 exactly that which Mr. Maurice felt himself, as 
 his biographer points out, sent into the world to 
 protest against — the establishment of some 
 system, some idol of opinion — in place of the 
 energising Spirit of the living God. Mr. Mansel 
 puts passages from the New Testament at the 
 head of his lectures, and intersperses a few more 
 in the course of them. It is therefore fair to 
 suppose that he had looked into that book, other- 
 wise it would be difficult to believe that he had 
 even heard of it. 
 
 It is very doubtful whether personal con- 
 troversy is at any time productive of an advance 
 in the apprehension of truth, — so much is lost 
 by the introduction of the necessary personal 
 allusion and recrimination ; at any rate I think 
 it will be admitted that Mr. Maurice did not 
 shine in it. His conceptions and faculties were 
 of a character too lofty for success in mere 
 personal word-play. He is too much in earnest. 
 He is absorbed by the splendour of his con- 
 ception ; dazzled, it may be, "by the abundance 
 of the revelation." His line of argument, as 
 relates to his opponent, is confused ; it is need- 
 lessly protracted ; the point seems constantly 
 lost sight of; long extracts from his adversary
 
 308 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 confuse the reader, who at last does not know 
 which of his teachers is speaking. Distracted 
 between two disputants, neither of whom 
 evidently in the least understand one another, 
 attempting in vain to grasp the real meaning 
 of the one in order that he mav see how it is 
 to be confuted by the other, the reader is at 
 last tempted to exclaim in Mr. Maurice's own 
 graphic words : " This way madness lies." Mr. 
 Mansel's point of view is easily realised. He 
 had written and preached his Bampton Lectures 
 with considerable applause. He had previously 
 had a correspondence with Mr. Maurice, which 
 he appears to have conducted with courtesy. 
 Suddenly there burst upon him an assault which 
 he was utterly incapable of either comprehending 
 or repulsing. He was somewhat in the position 
 of a Weaver Bottom, who through a troubled 
 dream is dimly conscious of a world of mystery 
 and glamour, which he can in no way realise, 
 of heights and depths of starry firmament, of the 
 mountain full of horses of fire and chariots of fire 
 round about the prophet. The certain deductions, 
 as they seemed to him, of his logical sequences 
 are perverted and mis-stated ; the pure unaffected 
 humility of Mr. Maurice appears to him to be 
 sarcasm. The result on both sides is painful. 
 How much better would it have been had Mr. 
 Maurice ignored Mr. Mansel altogether, preached 
 a series of sermons embodying all thoughts 
 aroused by the lecturer, and left the good seed 
 to produce its natural harvest. He might have 
 lost some little publicity, but what an immeasur- 
 able gain ! No loss of space and time on formal
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 309 
 
 statement and denial ; no waste of nerve-tissue 
 and of physical power, of which nothing is more 
 destructive than the irritation of personal con- 
 flict ; nothing but a sublime calm, a ceaseless flow 
 
 o m 
 
 of the Divine Reason exalting, refining, purify- 
 ing the reader, raising him above the partial 
 understandings, the inadequate conceptions, of 
 personal debate, into the certainties of absolute 
 truth. He always spoke of the controversy in 
 after times as forgotten, and while, as he could 
 not fail to do, maintaining that his position was 
 the true one, as regretting the personalities 
 involved in it. At the very moment it was 
 taking place he was writing of Mr. Spurgeon, and 
 of what he conceived to be his errors, in a tone 
 of perfect insight and calm ; but Mr. Spurgeon 's 
 position at that time was very different to Mr. 
 Mansel's, and his particular opinions did not 
 touch Mr. Maurice so nearly. In one of the 
 last things he wrote — the preface to the final 
 edition of the Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy 
 — he has the following passage, which forms so 
 appropriate a conclusion to the remarks upon 
 a once famous controversy that I hope to be 
 allowed to quote it : — 
 
 I would not willingly have been spared one of these 
 conflicts, for they have forced me to observe what conflicts 
 there are in myself. Butler and Paley did not invent the 
 questions about a conscience ; they do not exist in a volume 
 of sermons at the Rolls, or of lectures on moral philosophy. 
 If thou hast not a conscience, Butler will not give it thee. If 
 thou hast one, Paley cannot take it away. They can only 
 between them set thee upon considering what it is or is not. 
 Thou hast senses which Locke did not endow thee with ; thou 
 thinkest and thou actest, whether Descartes tells thee so or not.
 
 310 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 What signifies it that Bentham laughs at sympathy, if there 
 are sympathies between thee and the members of thy kind ? 
 How canst thou feel otherwise than grateful to Bentham for 
 showing thee that there is a something called happiness which 
 men are striving after, and that it may be a general, not a 
 mere separate, happiness ? If he can see nothing above or 
 beneath but utility, was it not his function to speak of that ? 
 
 The remarks which I have ventured to make 
 upon Mr. Maurice as a controversialist apply only 
 to pure controversy. Where he is simply stating 
 his case, in reply forced upon him by attack, as 
 in his " Letter to Dr. Jelf on the word ' Eternal,' 
 nothing: can be clearer or more concise than his 
 method and argument. Indeed, his position was 
 so absolutely unassailable that it would have been 
 difficult for any man to have gone wrong in it. It 
 is not necessary to do more than allude to the 
 miserable business of the King's College fiasco. 
 A mere majority, promoted by selfish ignorance 
 and bigotry, and snatched by fraud, had no other 
 real effect than that of increasing Mr. Maurice's 
 influence twenty-fold. The one point which 
 seems to me worthy of notice is the instance it 
 affords of the supreme intolerance and ignorance 
 of Laymen. A fact well worth considering at 
 a time when schemes of Church councils and 
 government are constantly discussed. 
 
 We have seen Mr. Maurice as a teacher of 
 theology ; we have yet to consider him as a 
 scholar and a man of letters. This is a point of 
 view from which he is not perhaps usually 
 regarded, but it is assuredly a necessary one if 
 we wish really to understand his power and 
 influence. The PropJiets and Kings, simple as its
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 311 
 
 pages seem in the stately rhythm of their majestic 
 thought, could never have been written save by a 
 Platonic scholar, and a man of literary and 
 dramatic genius ; but what shall we say of his 
 great work, the work of his life, which repeated 
 editions and ceaseless labour had wrought to the 
 point at which we have it in the last years of his 
 life — the Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy ? 
 He would be a bold man who would undertake to 
 criticise this book. Colonel Maurice cites the 
 testimony of specialists in any particular period, 
 and of teachers, who have used the book. They 
 testify, in the only way in which, in the case of a 
 book of such extent (not less, indeed, than the 
 entire history of human thought), it is possible for 
 any one to testify, to its value. If I might venture 
 to add anything to what they have said, I should 
 wish to call attention to the intellectual instinct 
 which realised the later Latin genius, and, with it, 
 the situations of absorbing interest, in which it 
 was developed, amid the conflicts and alternating 
 vices and virtues of the old and new faiths. No 
 one, I imagine, can read the pages which describe 
 the Emperor Julian, Augustine, Gregory the 
 Great, and others, without being aware of the 
 presence of this graphic perception, to which only 
 genius attains — the grasp of what human thought 
 was like during the procession of those weird 
 centuries through which East and West passed 
 alike, when the future of the race seemed per- 
 petually to tremble in the balance "amid the 
 extravagances, follies, tyrannies, rebellions of the 
 world, which rose out of the ruins of the Em- 
 pire of Augustus." In the biography are one or
 
 312 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 two letters of great interest, addressed by Mr. 
 Maurice to the author of Hypatia, recommend- 
 ing to him the introduction of this Latin race- 
 spirit in a more direct manner than Mr. Kingsley 
 seemed to have intended. One passage upon St. 
 Augustine I cannot resist quoting, it so exactly 
 expresses the leading principle of Mr. Maurice's 
 own life : — 
 
 He had no doubt a craving, felt in his youth and never 
 lost, for a very definite system of opinions. But the influences 
 which crossed this desire and drove him in search of another 
 object were really the blessed influences of his life, — those to 
 which he owed all the strength of his own belief and all his 
 power of teaching others. When he had got his system nearly 
 complete, the voice which asked him "What art thou? "and 
 forced him in the heights or in the depths to find an answer to 
 the question, broke the thread of his speculations and forced 
 him to begin anew. The oftener in his after-life he heard that 
 voice, and believed that it was the one which he was to make 
 others to hear, the more fresh and living and full of instruction 
 for all ages did his words become. When he forgot it, and 
 sought to build earthly tabernacles for Moses and Elias and 
 his Divine Lord, his spirit became confused, and he forged 
 afresh for mankind some of those very chains from which he 
 had been set free. 
 
 I should anticipate for the beautiful edition of 
 this book published in 1 882, with its etched portrait, 
 an increasing and enduring recognition not only 
 from scholars, but also from the general reader. 
 For the latter will find in it a singular clearness 
 and brilliancy of diction while treating of subjects 
 usually dry and formal, and a picture of the real 
 life of successive centuries through which runs a 
 vein of quiet humour often very effective. It 
 would be easy to select, indeed, from Mr. Maurice's 
 letters, and even from his sermons, instances of
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 313 
 
 this quiet humour and of perception of the 
 characteristics of social life which go to form 
 genial satire. 
 
 Colonel Maurice, in the chapter we have 
 already alluded to, gives us the following 
 charming passage : — 
 
 It was almost painful to walk with him in any part of the 
 town where it was necessary for him to ask his way. In the 
 noisiest and most crowded places he would inquire his direction 
 in the gentlest and most apologetic tone, perhaps of some bluff 
 old costermonger woman, who, unaccustomed to hear such 
 subdued language, would continue to shove her way along, 
 utterly unconscious of having been addressed. He would 
 instantly draw back as though he had been rebuffed in an 
 intrusion which, on reflection, he felt to have been quite 
 unwarrantable, and would watch for a more favourable oppor- 
 tunity of attracting the attention of some other passer-by. 
 
 This perfectly, I will not say sincere, but in- 
 stinctive humility of Mr. Maurice is shown in 
 numberless passages in his letters. ' One particular 
 trait is, I think, worthy of notice. He believed 
 that he was very deficient in a love of Nature, 
 and says, in one place, that his first wife, whose 
 approbation he valued above all things, was con- 
 stantly regretting his deficiency in this respect. 
 In spite of this, however, I cannot help connecting 
 him, in my own mind, with one for whom he had 
 the greatest admiration and respect, and who, 
 though essentially the poet of man, is most truly 
 associated with the love of Nature — William 
 Words worth. In the Christian Year are some 
 lines which throw, I think, considerable light on 
 this connection.
 
 314 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 And wilt thou seek again 
 Thy howling waste, thy charnel house and chain ? 
 
 He, merciful and mild, 
 As erst, beholding, loves his wayward child. 
 
 When souls of highest birth 
 Waste their impassioned might on dreams of earth, 
 
 He opens Nature's book, 
 
 The revolution which Wordsworth wrought in 
 the realm of English thought — the change from 
 pseudo-civilisation, from artificial emotion, from 
 false taste to the true life of simple manhood — 
 made it possible for the gospel of humanity to be 
 heard again. 
 
 Thus Nature spoke. The work was done. 
 
 He laid us as we lay at birth 
 On the cool flowery lap of earth. 
 
 In Wordsworth's pages we breathe again the 
 air of Palestine, when the world was young. The 
 singleness of character and of life is before us, as 
 in the old Hebrew pages which Maurice restored 
 again to reality and being. Wordsworth, though 
 perchance he was unconscious of it, was a 
 Christian Platonist, as was Maurice. They are 
 both of them poets in the highest sense, for they 
 are both of them seers. They are raised above 
 the slime of earth, into the life of the ideal. We 
 are taught by a new philosophy, whose note 
 seems to me to ring with a somewhat vulgar and 
 false tone, that this is a shallow optimism ; and 
 we are referred to other poets and novelists who, 
 we are told, are "courageous thinkers, and face 
 the ghosts of the mind." "The business of
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 315 
 
 intellect is to master, not to shun, the disturbing 
 elements of life." This we shall all admit ; but 
 how can those poets be said to master such 
 elements who pander to mankind in its lowest 
 and vilest forms ? He is not a regenerator who 
 resigns all hope and effort towards the pure and 
 the spiritual, and contents himself with describing, 
 in forcible rhythm, the debased and distracted life 
 of a reckless humanity, which he lives as well 
 as they. An optimist, however " shallow," who be- 
 lieves, and acts as a believer, in a regenerating 
 energy, which is permeating the race, is a truer 
 friend to his kind than such as these. The 
 " living God " of Frederick Maurice solves many 
 qustions that have perplexed the wise. His 
 teaching solves that great perplexity which has 
 haunted the students of Spinoza from before the 
 time of Lessing, for it explains that belief of 
 Spinoza in a God who exists within human 
 consciousness alone — a belief which Dr. James 
 Martineau says is atheism, and Mr. Frederick 
 Pollock says is not. The God of Frederick 
 Maurice, infinite and incomprehensible as He 
 doubtless is, enters into human consciousness by 
 virtue of His gracious will, and may be known in 
 consciousness by whosoever seek Him. There is 
 no dogma of Christianity, however grotesque it 
 may appear in its popular form, but what has its 
 germ in the profoundest scientific truth, and none 
 can be more certainly traced to such truth than the 
 "living God" of Platonism and of the Christian 
 Church, whom Frederick Maurice was sent into 
 the world to proclaim, who enters into conscious- 
 ness by the Divine Humanity, and continues His
 
 316 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 
 
 energising power by the living Spirit, which 
 enlightens the world. It is not necessary to 
 dispute of the " unknowable," or of the range of 
 consciousness of all. Within consciousness, and 
 as a man sees his friend, Frederick Maurice 
 knew God. His portrait might tell us this, where 
 
 Promise and presage of sublime emprise 
 Wear evermore the seal of his believing, 
 Deep in the dark of solitary eyes. 
 
 On the 15th of June, 1856, in the chapel of 
 Lincoln's Inn, the sermon was drawing to a close. 
 The somewhat strained attention became relaxed, 
 for the well-known change in the preacher's face, 
 the slight alteration of the voice, showed that the 
 appeal to the reasoning faculty was over, and 
 that the veil was rent for a moment, and that the 
 High Priest had entered into the Holy of Holies, 
 the " Cyte of Sarras in the Spyrituel Place " : — 
 
 Towards this resurrection all creation is groaning and 
 travailing, and that groan which burst from Christ at the grave 
 of Lazarus was the expression of His sympathy in that groan 
 of His creatures. . . . Do we not feel sometimes as if all 
 power of believing in anything that is great and noble were 
 departing from us ? Do we not feel as if to believe in Him 
 who is goodness and truth were the hardest effort of all ? 
 Does it not appear as if a second death were coming upon us, 
 a death of all energy, of all trust, of all power to look beyond 
 ourselves ? Oh, if this numbness and coldness have overtaken 
 us or should overtake us — if we should be tempted to sit down in 
 it and sink to sleep — let the cry which awakened Lazarus awake 
 us. Let us be sure that He who is the Resurrection and the 
 Life is saying to each of us, however deep the cave in which he 
 is buried, " Come forth ! " — however stifling the grave-clothes 
 with which he is bound, " Loose him, and let him go ! " 1 
 
 1 Gospel of St. John, p. 319.
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE 317 
 
 Yes. Emboldened by the gracious utterance 
 of the divinest mercy, which permits us to believe 
 that the servant may be even as his master, and 
 the disciple as his lord, I do not hesitate to apply 
 these words to him of whom we speak. For 
 these two great cries, spoken centuries ago before 
 an open grave, have re-echoed in men's hearts 
 before all craves, whether of the flesh or of the 
 spirit, ever since ; and have formed the note of 
 all prophetic utterance, and of none more so than 
 of his. " Come forth ! Loose him, and let him 
 go ! " Come forth out of the lower life : out of the 
 life, lovely in its kind — the life of self, of fleshly 
 beauty, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life ; — 
 and at his call the soul came forth. But this was 
 not enough. The soul, thus aroused from death, 
 and stirred into a strange activity, is still crippled 
 and wrapped in the grave-clothes of the imperfect 
 dispensation in which we live — the grave-clothes 
 of superstition, of formalism, of systems, and of 
 burdens laid by human imposition upon the 
 righteous whom the Lord has not made sad. 
 " Loose him, and let him go ! ' ; This was the 
 distinctive proclamation which it was the mission 
 of Frederick Maurice to announce. How true 
 he proved to this mission I shall not ask. I leave 
 it for those to testify from whose stiffened limbs 
 the grave-clothes fell at his word. Much has 
 happened since his voice was still, but, across the 
 lapse of time, the words are still ringing in their 
 ears, " Loose him, and let him go ! "
 
 OF RESTRAINING SELF-DENIAL 
 
 IN ART 1 
 
 The Dorian flutes, heard through the mysterious 
 defiles of Olympos, haunted by the legends of the 
 Vision of God, taught their hearers, in those 
 ancient genuine strains of Hellas, this truth above 
 all others, that there is no Art but the Art of Life. 
 For the Dorian flute itself was a striking product 
 of the instinct of this unique people, themselves 
 the ground-spring of culture to Greece and to the 
 world, which taught them to seek after an advance 
 in culture in the security of a patient reserve. 
 For the severity of the three-stringed lyre having 
 yielded, by pressure of irresistible melody, to the 
 seven-stringed lute, the ceaseless watchfulness of 
 the guardians of the State decided that the divid- 
 ing line was reached, and he who lasciviously 
 introduced and played upon a lute with nine or 
 fourteen strings, was incontinently and solemnly 
 put to death, as one who would delude and draw 
 away the people from the life of measured and 
 ideal Art ; and, somewhere about this time, these 
 same severe guardians admitted, doubtless after 
 much and weighty thought, the most startling in- 
 novation of flute music, and by this wise concession 
 
 1 From the Century Guild Hobby Horse. 
 318
 
 SELF-DENIAL IN ART 319 
 
 attained, in conjunction with the seven-stringed 
 lute, to the most perfect music that the world, 
 pending the discovery of the violin — the vibration 
 of string with string — was to know and hear. 
 
 This, the first music of culture — the Dorian 
 harmony - - was distinguished throughout the 
 ancient world as possessing a unique, high-sound- 
 ing, and solemn strain, befitting a people who saw 
 life as a whole, and allowed no one Art to absorb 
 or to deteriorate the rest of life. 
 
 " Give us that which is good and beautiful ' 
 was the Dorian's prayer ; and He who, through 
 all the changes of the world's story, left Himself 
 not without a witness, taught them, amid the 
 myrtle dingles and the many-sided, oak-covered 
 slopes of the great hills, by the worship of 
 'AireWcov 1 — the averter and defender, the Son of 
 God who slew the Python, born of the slime and 
 filth of earth, and descended into hell that he 
 might redeem and restore all men to a life of 
 brightness and of joy — to conceive the existence 
 of this art of life, the perfection, that is, of man- 
 hood, of all things the most desirable of attain- 
 ment, far beyond any single effort of the intellect, 
 or of the plastic instinct, which may be dignified 
 by the name of Art. 
 
 It has been said, and said truly, that only two 
 things are capable of self-sacrifice — nature and 
 love ; but this art — the art of life — is and must be 
 capable of it, for it contains within itself both 
 nature and love. 
 
 It must be, for no existence can be made 
 
 1 'Att{\\wv, not A7r6X\wf, appears to have been the ancient Doric- 
 /Eolian form. — C. O. Miiller, Dorians, p. 323, ed. 1830.
 
 320 SELF-DENIAL IN ART 
 
 perfect except through restraint and sacrifice ; 
 and that art which boasts itself untrammelled and 
 free, leaves the fresh bracing air of the open fields, 
 with its discipline of the driving storm, and the 
 desolate, cloudy day, and encloses itself in a 
 tropical atmosphere in which nothing that is 
 noble and great in human existence can breathe. 
 
 In this resolve to brace and train the intellect, 
 in this life of restraint and sacrifice, the Dorians 
 persevered unflinchingly. It extended to every 
 detail of their lives. No nation ever approached 
 them in the perfection to which they succeeded 
 in making life an Art. The individual was so 
 moulded into the State, that there remained only 
 one individual — the State. It was a condition 
 which could not become permanent. It may 
 even be said to have been an impossible dream. 
 To avoid the rude awakening, one would think 
 that they dared scarcely stir, dared scarcely think ; 
 and if they erred by too much adherence to 
 antiquity, how could they help themselves ? But 
 this impossible dream, if it were a dream, lasted 
 for many generations, was probably the greatest 
 factor in the civilisation of the world, and it will 
 remain for ever an inspiring model and aim. 
 
 Its value to us, however, is its insistence on the 
 necessity of restraint in Art. The contention that 
 Art is utterly selfish, that it has but one narrow 
 aim, according to its several developments, and 
 that to that aim everything must yield, every moral 
 tie, every domestic claim, is a contention utterly 
 remote from the Dorian conception of Art, and 
 of life, in all its minutest details and varied forms. 
 If the moral character of Music is so certain that
 
 SELF-DENIAL IN ART 321 
 
 he deserved death who added another string to 
 the lute, and thereby debauched the morals of the 
 people, what shall be said of the moral character 
 of Painting, which of all arts appeals most to the 
 popular mind and perceptions, and appeals with 
 greatest force just in as much as it excels in the 
 technique, which reproduces familiar things with 
 greatest semblance of reality ? A low test of Art ! 
 you will say : doubtless, but, it would seem, the 
 test of to-day. 
 
 "Now," says the old Greek scholiast, with 
 perhaps unconscious humour, "they used to call 
 this the ^Eolian harmony, but afterwards the 
 vTToSeoptov, not, as some think, because it was 
 pitched lower on the flute than the Dorian, but 
 because, — so it seems to me, — seeing the inflated 
 style, and the pretence to valour and virtue, they 
 thought it was not exactly what the Dorian 
 harmony was, though to a certain extent like it, 
 and so we call what is not thoroughly Dorian, 
 
 wrroocopiov. 
 
 "The Dorians," says Miiller, "were contented 
 with themselves and with the Powers to whom 
 they owed their existence and their happiness, 
 and therefore they never complained," — surely 
 the perfection of Art-life ! And yet these people, 
 who were in themselves the most perfect realisa- 
 tion of the Art-life ever seen among men, practised 
 the most rigid restraint and reserve in Art that, 
 doubtless, any people ever did. " They never 
 complained." Under the serene sky, and among 
 the wooded ravines and plains, so unlike the 
 parched, arid scenes that present themselves to 
 the traveller to-day, it was possible for this people 
 
 VOL. II Y
 
 322 SELF-DENIAL IN ART 
 
 to fancy that it rested with themselves to attain 
 to a perfect existence. Death itself seems to 
 have disappeared from their view. " They looked 
 not to the future but to present existence, every- 
 thing beyond this boundary was mist and dark- 
 ness, and everything that was dark they supposed 
 the Deity to hate." 
 
 And who, then, was the Deity of this wonderful 
 people ? 'ATreXXfoy — the Averter and Defender, 
 the clear and spotless God, the destroyer, and the 
 avenger of wrongs, the slayer of the Python, who 
 was born amid prayer and fasting and with untold 
 labour and pains, who descended into Hell that 
 he might return purified and the purifier of all 
 that trusted in him — was not, with all this, the 
 man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; he was 
 not the God of the lonely and forsaken, of the 
 Helot, the outcast, and the slave. 
 
 He was the Saviour of a people contented with 
 themselves and with their gods, endowed with 
 the surpassing instinct of restraint and sacrifice 
 even in their content and in their art. He was 
 the God of a great effort, of a brilliant and most 
 noble phase of Art, never perhaps equalled, but 
 which was itself unequal to the strain of reality 
 and sorrow, and therefore passed away, but which 
 has left behind it this supreme message to us, the 
 message of restraint in Art. 
 
 Since the Dorian has passed away, with his 
 dream of cultured Art, since the philistine Roman 
 and the barbarian of the chivalrous North has 
 swept over the scene, there has arisen a God, the 
 Averter and Defender, the slayer of the Serpent, 
 who also descended into Hell. Of Him it may be
 
 SELF-DENIAL IN ART 323 
 
 said, at least, that He is alive, that He lived 
 among the outcast and the heavy-laden, and that 
 the coming democracy recognises in the legends 
 of His life the traces of a friend. He spoke the 
 most awful and mysterious story ever told of 
 those who dress in purple and fine linen and fare 
 sumptuously. Surely, in our Art — in the days of 
 this sacrificed and sacrificing God — we shall not 
 manifest less restraint than was insisted on, even 
 to the death, in the reign of the bright Sun-God, 
 the God of joy and gladness who was never to be 
 invoked by the sorrowful or the sad. The whole 
 of modern life has been transformed by the 
 worship of this God — it would be strange indeed 
 were Art, which in itself is life, alone to remain 
 Pagan or to return to the lowest Pagan form. 
 
 The Dorians subdivided labour in Art to such 
 an extent that their cooks were allowed to practise 
 only one form of cookery. An artist may be con- 
 centrated on one phase of Art to the exclusion of 
 all others, but, in this phase of Art, he should 
 work in subjection to the highest generic instinct 
 and conscience — in agreement, that is, with the 
 conscience of the whole. 
 
 It may seem a paradox, but the self-denial that 
 restrains is its own reward. The force and vigour 
 which would otherwise be spent in vain and fruit- 
 less wanderings in the walks of unrestrained fancy 
 and frivolous self- pleasing, is concentrated and 
 strengthened within more confined limits, with a 
 result of gain surprising even to the artist himself. 
 This is applicable to every sphere of Art. In 
 literature many recent writers will miss a not un- 
 deserved immortality because they have followed
 
 324 SELF-DENIAL IN ART 
 
 the leading of the single original phase of genius 
 with which they were gifted, instead of modestly, 
 and with a restraining denial of self, following 
 in the steps of the great masters, and thereby 
 gradually working into the fabric of their Art, 
 bequeathed to them by the patient labour of the 
 past, the special contribution which their own 
 insight had gifted them to win. It would be 
 instructive to trace the conscientious use which 
 Charles Dickens made of the comic scenes in 
 Smollett and the humorous writers of the last 
 century, and the immense advance which his 
 peculiar genius won. 
 
 In painting it would not be difficult to discover 
 similar lessons. That the originators of what 
 used to be called the pre-Raphaelite School had 
 a distinct and imperative call, no one who re- 
 members what the state of English painting was 
 forty years ago will be disposed to deny, but I 
 think that it is equally true that had the pre- 
 Raphaelite painters exercised more restraint, had 
 they engrafted their perfection of detail, purity, 
 and truth of outline, boldness and truth of colour, 
 earnestness and strength of thought, upon the 
 abiding excellences of the old school — as, for 
 instance, the effects of atmosphere — when we 
 think of the old masters of English landscape — 
 there seems to open before us possibilities of Art 
 greater than were achieved. 
 
 There has arisen since those days another 
 class of painters, founded mostly on some excep- 
 tional schools of Italian Art, to whom the same 
 observations apply with still greater force. If 
 their undoubted genius had been chastened by
 
 SELF-DENIAL IN ART 325 
 
 an unselfish, modest submission to the lessons of 
 the past, the world would have been spared many 
 abortions of crude colouring, fantastical, unreal 
 grouping and figure-drawing, wearisome monotony 
 of feature and expression — and of elongated chin 
 — and, latterly, of still worse sins against taste in 
 morals. The result would have been widely 
 different. Wondering crowds would not have 
 thronged the Galleries, much less laudation would 
 have emanated from friendly pens, fewer pictures 
 probably would have been painted, but some 
 supreme work of genius would have graced the 
 Victorian reign.
 
 STORIES
 
 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 
 
 There was once, no matter where, only it was 
 not in fairyland, a very wonderful house. You 
 might not, perhaps, have thought very much 
 about it as far as the outside was concerned, 
 except that it stood in a wood, with glades and 
 terraces cut out here and there, and that it was 
 broken up into bays and gables, and covered with 
 the green tendrils of creeping plants, and with 
 purple clematis and yellow flowers, and that the 
 brickwork and stone facings were toned down 
 into a harmony of tint. 
 
 Now this house had belonged for generations 
 to people who cared about art and harmony and 
 colour and sound. They did not live there much. 
 They lived mostly abroad, for they were not very 
 rich, but they had enough to live on and to spare; 
 and every now and then something happened that 
 made them richer for a time ; and they had great 
 opportunities, living in Italy, of buying unex- 
 pected pictures that took your breath away as 
 you looked at them, landscapes with wonderful 
 lights and sun-gleams in them, and strange, pale 
 faces that were alive and spoke to you from their 
 worn and shattered frames. They bought also 
 old cabinets, black and ivory, and others from
 
 33© A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 
 
 Venice, inlaid craftily with different colours oi 
 wood, as with birds and flowers ; and every now 
 and then some of the people would come home 
 for a time, and then they would please themselves 
 with arranging all these treasures, and trouble 
 themselves very much with questions of colour 
 and harmony ; and they brought down paintings 
 from the attics where they were stored, and had 
 them hung, and stood before them for hours, and 
 could not satisfy themselves or their fastidious 
 taste, and had them sent back into the attics 
 again. Sometimes, perhaps, they were called 
 away to Italy, or maybe on a longer journey, 
 before these counter orders could be obeyed ; or 
 perhaps, now and then, a degenerate heir appeared 
 who had the pictures routed out of the attics and 
 hung up promiscuously. So in time the rooms 
 and the walls were furnished somehow, and in 
 the still midnights when the moonlight filled the 
 rooms the modest and timid Baldassare Peruzzi, 
 whose classic beauty recalled the marbles of 
 Greece, stole down from its frame and wandered 
 into the lonely glens and through the ruined 
 castles of the Salvator Rosa which hung by 
 chance next it ; and the unhappy Beatrice with 
 the pleading eyes gazed so long in the mellow 
 evenings at the gay festivals and dances of 
 peasants on the opposite wall that something of 
 their happiness passed into her sorrowful eyes, 
 and their joyous merriment was somehow subdued 
 and harmonised by her presence. And so, as the 
 time went on, the gracious hand of Time and the 
 mellowing sunlight "through many a cloudless 
 day " subdued and softened everything that at
 
 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 331 
 
 first was strange and incongruous, not only in 
 form and colour, but also in mind and in feeling, 
 until the whole house was something like a faded 
 picture or a half-forgotten dream where nothing 
 seems very real or very distinct or brilliant, but 
 where nothing, on the other hand, is inharmonious 
 or hostile, and where nothing jars upon the 
 sensitive nerve. 
 
 Now it happened that one of these people, who 
 expected to live a long time, and was looking 
 forward to many delightful days and to all kinds 
 of intellectual pleasures and fame, and to being 
 married and having a wife and children and heirs 
 and all manner of fine things, died suddenly at 
 Naples, probably of a bad smell, and everything 
 at once became quite different from what it 
 would have been if things had not happened as 
 they did. 
 
 Upon this the property came to a young man 
 who was at Oxford reading for his first degree. 
 He had intended to be a clergyman, and had 
 serious thoughts of becoming a missionary and 
 going out to those islands where Bishop Patteson 
 was killed ; but when he was told that this great 
 property was his he changed his mind, and, with- 
 out waiting even to take his degree, he went 
 down to the village where he was born and 
 proposed to a young lady whom he had known 
 ever since he was a little baby, but whom he had 
 never hoped to marry because her father had 
 made a great deal of money by the manufacture 
 of coffin furniture, and considered that his daughter 
 ought to take that position in society to which 
 she was entitled by her birth. In a few weeks
 
 332 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 
 
 these young people were married, and went to 
 live in the wonderful house which stood in a 
 wood. 
 
 Now this young man, though he did not go to 
 the islands where Bishop Patteson was killed, yet 
 he was a good young man, and, remembering that 
 he had once thought of being a clergyman, he set 
 himself to do what good he could in a quiet way 
 to the people that lived upon his estate ; and his 
 wife, though her father had made a fortune by 
 selling coffin furniture, was thought by many 
 people to be quite as good a lady as her neigh- 
 bour whose father had lost one on the turf, so 
 that on the whole they got on very well and 
 lived many years in this beautiful house, and had 
 several pleasant little children, and, what was still 
 more important, they did not " restore " nor alter 
 anything in it. 
 
 These little people ran about all over the place, 
 and though they could have told you nothing 
 about it, yet they were in fact the children of the 
 house, and grew up to be something very different 
 from what they would have been had they lived 
 elsewhere. For the solemn Vandycks that hung 
 against the wainscot of the entrance hall, with its 
 black and white marble flags, the gorgeous Titians 
 which filled the music-room, and the lovely faded 
 Claudes which made the great drawing-room like 
 a dream in the placid summer dawn had some 
 effect upon these children's lives, and made their 
 natures somewhat different to what they would 
 otherwise have been. 
 
 The eldest of these children was a girl named 
 Julia, and on no one had the house exerted a
 
 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 333 
 
 greater influence than on her. She was a child 
 whom people stopped to look at once and again, 
 — a child with large dark eyes, whom it was a 
 palpable absurdity for a grown person of average 
 intellect only to patronise. 
 
 One evening after the children were gone to 
 bed but did not feel inclined to sleep, she began 
 to talk to those of her brothers and sisters who 
 slept in the same room. 
 
 "You children think," she said, "that when 
 we go to bed the world comes to an end and 
 nothing else is done till we get up in the morning, 
 but you are wonderfully mistaken. What we see 
 is nothing at all but a mere getting ready. The 
 real world begins after we are gone to bed. Then 
 all the houses everywhere are lighted up. The 
 people put on their real clothes ; they start off in 
 carriages to visit each other, in towns ; they go to 
 theatres, where they see wonderful things that I 
 can't understand or conceive, though I have tried 
 very hard to think what they are like. Here in 
 this house you cannot think what goes on. I 
 have often heard the carriages on the terrace 
 bringing up the guests — Cinderella's godmother, 
 I dare say, and all the other wonderful people. 
 Then they dine with all kinds of delightful things 
 to eat and drink, and then they play music and 
 stand about and talk, and then the most wonderful 
 thing of all happens, for all the pictures that hang 
 upon the walls come to life, and come down and 
 walk about among the live people, and talk to 
 them and tell them all about things that happened 
 hundreds and hundreds of years ago, and that is 
 why grown people are so wise and know such a
 
 334 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 
 
 number of things that we cannot remember though 
 we learn them out of books. Jane read it all to 
 me out of a book one day, how all the china and 
 little figures in the cabinets all came to life 
 because somebody sneezed three times on a 
 Friday. Oh, it was so nice ; and mamma came 
 in and said that such things were not fit for a 
 little girl to hear. So I know it is all true, 
 because that is what they always say to us if a 
 thing is true. And there are many books written 
 by a great man who lived abroad somewhere, 
 whom they all think a great deal of, and he says 
 just the same thing, and he says they are some- 
 times seen by children if they go downstairs after 
 all the other people are gone to bed." 
 
 And being quite out of breath with telling, 
 Julia came to a stop. 
 
 "Why, it must be like a dream," said little 
 Harry. 
 
 " It is more real than a dream," said his sister; 
 "though some people," she added, mysteriously, 
 " say that dreams are real, and all we do besides 
 is a mere nothing." 
 
 "How can that be?" said her brother; 
 " when we dream we lie in bed and do nothing, 
 but in the day we get up and walk about and do 
 all sorts of things that must be real." 
 
 This argument, ad populum, was too much for 
 Julia, so, like a wise young person as she was, she 
 put it on one side. 
 
 " Well, I did not say that it was so ; I only 
 said some people thought so." 
 
 " Then they must be very foolish people," said 
 Harry.
 
 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 335 
 
 " At any rate, they are not rude, like some 
 little boys," said his sister. 
 
 And it did really happen that a few weeks after 
 this conversation, as Julia was just falling asleep, 
 one night she heard the carriage wheels upon the 
 terrace as the guests arrived. It was old Mid- 
 summer night, July the 6th, and the weather 
 was very hot. The child roused herself up at the 
 noise of the wheels, and for a moment it seemed 
 doubtful whether she would put her bold design 
 into execution and venture downstairs or not. 
 But she was so sleepy that she could hardly think 
 or remember what she had resolved to do ; and 
 just then there were no more sounds upon the 
 gravel, and the little head fell back upon the 
 pillow, and the stout resolution — ah me ! that no 
 other resolutions were renounced so easily ! — was 
 forgotten, and Julia fell asleep. 
 
 But between two or three hours afterwards the 
 child woke with a start, and sat upright in bed. 
 The moon was shining full into the room, and an 
 awful sense oppressed Julia that she had forgotten 
 or neglected something that she ought to have 
 done. Overpowered by this feeling she rose, 
 and without staying to put anything on, in her 
 embroidered and laced night-dress and with her 
 little bare feet, she opened the door of her bedroom 
 and went out. 
 
 The great staircase was all ablaze with light, 
 and as the child went down, the lofty walls on 
 either side, which reached up far out of sight, 
 seemed like a vast Jacob's ladder covered with 
 ladies and gentlemen in gay and curious dresses,
 
 336 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 
 
 ascending and descending. The grim carved heads 
 upon the balusters seemed to nod kindly at Julia 
 and to wink with their eyes as much as to say : 
 
 "All right, little girl, go on! there are fine 
 doings down below. We should go downstairs, 
 only we cannot stir." 
 
 The child went down in a kind of trance of 
 awful expectation, and, opening the door at the 
 foot of the staircase, she went at once into the 
 great hall. 
 
 This also was alight, but was quite empty : the 
 black and white flags stretched out before Julia to 
 apparently a limitless extent, but at the opposite 
 end she saw the great fireplace with a flowering 
 hydrangea standing in it ; and over it King Charles 
 the First standing by his horse, which was held 
 by a page. All round the room, upon the walls, 
 stood gentlemen dressed more or less like the 
 king, and they all tried to look as much like their 
 master as they could, and they especially tried 
 very hard to get the same look into their eyes 
 that he had. Some of them succeeded in this 
 very well, but some could not manage it at all 
 and looked very absurd in making the attempt ; 
 but just opposite the king there stood a gentleman, 
 in a superb dress, looking over his shoulder. The 
 expression of his face was lofty and beautiful, and 
 his eyes were finer even than the king's. 
 
 The child entered bravely upon the desert and 
 cold marble that lay before her, but before she 
 had gone very far her feet were quite chilled, and 
 she stopped for a moment to warm them upon the 
 skin of some great beast that lay upon the floor. 
 What put such ideas into her mind will never
 
 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 337 
 
 now be known, but as she stood there it seemed 
 to her that the king left his horse and page and 
 came down from his frame and began to walk up 
 and down the floor in a very stately way. The 
 gentlemen seemed all to stand ready in their 
 frames to come down should he require them. 
 
 After the king had taken two or three turns, 
 there came suddenly running into the room a little 
 fat man, like a Dutchman, who began talking very 
 fast to the king about the prices of his pictures 
 being very much cut down, and especially one 
 painted for what he called " le ducq de Jarc," 
 which had been cut down from two hundred 
 pounds to one hundred. He was going on to 
 say something about arrears of pension ; but 
 when the king heard all this he looked very grand 
 indeed, and there came an expression into his 
 eye as though he was looking at something many 
 thousand miles away, and could not by any possi- 
 bility see anything between himself and it. He 
 waved his hand towards an old gentleman with a 
 ruff, who carried a white wand in his hand and 
 had a great purse at his girdle and stood in the 
 frame next the king's. When the old gentleman 
 saw this, he tried to look as much like the king as 
 he could, only he did not do it very well, and his 
 eyes evidently saw something five or six miles 
 away — a mere trifle. The little Dutchman ran up 
 to him and began talking very fast ; but Julia was 
 so frightened that she forgot the cold flags and 
 ran across the marble floor and went out of the 
 hall. 
 
 The door opened into the library, which was 
 also alight and quite empty. Passing through 
 
 vol. 11 z
 
 333 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 
 
 this room with less terror than before, for there 
 were no portraits here, except one over the mantel- 
 piece who took no notice of such a little girl, she 
 reached the door of the great drawing-room. 
 
 Now inside this door, which was open, there 
 hung beautiful new hangings of cloth of silk, 
 partly drawn and worked all over in divers colours. 
 The little girl, who felt very cold, curled herself 
 up in these warm curtains and looked into the 
 room. Then, indeed, she saw a wonderful sight. 
 
 The room was all ablaze with a soft and con- 
 cealed light, and was rich with the perfume of 
 flowers which were piled up in corners and in the 
 centre of the settees. The lovely Claudes upon 
 the walls, with their depths of light and sky, stood 
 out in the strong light as they never stood by 
 day, and floating in from the room beyond, the 
 door of which was open, came the sound of 
 delicious music, the ripple of the grand pianos, 
 and the wail of a violin. Standing about were 
 beautiful ladies in laced dresses of every shade and 
 colour, and talking to them were gentlemen in 
 black — some in velvet and some in silk. Richards 
 the butler and the footmen (only they looked 
 much more beautiful than they ever did by day) 
 were handing some delicious drink in glasses. 
 How precious it must be to be served in such tiny 
 little cups ! The child lay still and held her 
 breath with wonder and delight. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 The delicious music charmed her senses into 
 repose, the rich odours of the perfumed apartment 
 penetrated to her brain, the gay figures passing 
 each other to and fro as they crossed the room,
 
 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 339 
 
 dazzled and perplexed her sight, as she lay there 
 soft and warm in the silken hangings. The child 
 fell asleep. 
 
 And, about the witching hour of twelve on 
 that Midsummer night, she began to dream. She 
 thought that the guests had all retired, and that 
 the suite of rooms was empty ; but in this she was 
 mistaken, for one of the visitors who was staying 
 in the house, a German gentleman, remained long 
 after the rest, and he began to practise fantasias 
 upon the grand piano, improvising low soft music 
 to himself. And the child thought that though she 
 lay still for a long time and watched, yet nothing 
 happened as she expected. The portraits did not 
 come down from the walls and walk through the 
 rooms, the china shepherds and shepherdesses 
 and the grave mandarins upon the buhl tables did 
 not come to life, nor did the ebony cabinets open 
 of their own accord and let out a wonderful throng 
 of Japanese ladies in ivory, carrying mystic flowers, 
 and old peasants in carved wood from the Hartz 
 forest, and monkeys that played violins, and silk 
 birds of bright colours, and brilliant plates that 
 got themselves arms and legs for the occasion, 
 and Venice glass that threw weird dragon shadows, 
 though all these charming people stood there ready, 
 as Julia thought, to pour forth in crowds, tumbling 
 over each other in their eagerness to enjoy their 
 short hour of freedom. None of these things 
 happened ; but things more wonderful than any- 
 thing that had crossed little Julia's brain appeared 
 in her dream that night. 
 
 For she thought that, after she had lain there 
 some time, she was gradually aware that the room
 
 340 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 
 
 was full of figures of the most intense interest and 
 charm. She could not say whether these figures 
 were large or very small, as all fairy forms should 
 be, for it seemed to her that they had no con- 
 nection with the room itself or with her own 
 person, though instinct with all gracious and kindly 
 sympathy with herself and all mankind. They 
 were of both sexes, and of every form and aspect 
 of which human life is full. They were drawn 
 from no one rank of life, nor from any single 
 epoch of time. The maiden of yesterday in the 
 fashion of her hour appeared side by side with the 
 monk and sage of centuries past, and peer and 
 chimney-sweep, fishwife and exquisite, mingled 
 amicably in the stream of being which filled the 
 room. All the personages of fairy tale and legend, 
 it is true, were here, but mingled with them were 
 others innumerable, upon whom no one eye save 
 that of the All-Father had ever gazed, whose lives 
 and sorrows were unknown to all save to a few 
 equally nameless and undistinguished people and 
 to the Divine Pity which exists for all. There 
 were weeping girls to whom for a few short hours 
 life had seemed prosperous and happy, and there 
 were others to whom happiness seemed only as 
 the common everyday air they breathed. The 
 child gazed with delight upon this marvellous 
 throng. 
 
 At last a single figure seemed to separate 
 himself from the crowd and to advance towards 
 her. He was dressed in a flowing robe, and 
 carried a long white wand as though he were a 
 magician: in "the green land of dreams," how- 
 ever, Julia spoke to him without fear.
 
 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 341 
 
 " Can you tell me, sir, who all these people 
 are r 
 
 "We are the people," replied the magician, 
 " who live in sound. As you are a very little girl, 
 you may not perhaps even have heard that many 
 very wise persons have supposed that there are 
 beings which exist in fire, air, and water — 
 spiritual beings who more or less resemble man- 
 kind. I only mention this to explain to you at 
 the outset that, whether these people exist or not, 
 we have nothing whatever to do with them — 
 have, in fact, no connection with them in any way 
 whatever. We come," continued the magician, 
 "of a very exalted birth ; in fact, we are the off- 
 spring of thought." As he said this, he looked 
 very proud, and evidently thought that Julia 
 would be very much overawed ; but perceiving 
 that she did not understand a word that he was 
 saying, and was therefore not in the least 
 impressed, he assumed an expression of greater 
 modesty, and continued : 
 
 "It is true, as I said before, that we live in 
 sound, but we are not born of sound. We are 
 born of the union of art and sound, or rather" 
 (and here he looked as though he were going to 
 say a very fine thing), " to express myself more 
 exactly, we are born of the union of art and 
 human thought, wedded in the aisles of the 
 glorious cathedral-church of sound." 
 
 He was obliged to stop and take breath for a 
 moment after this, and Julia said : 
 
 "Then you are what everybody has thought 
 after they have been listening to beautiful music ? " 
 
 The magician seemed rather taken aback by
 
 342 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 
 
 this matter-of-fact way of putting it ; but, like a 
 clever man, he rallied in a moment or two, and 
 said, looking very wise : 
 
 " Not exactly : your epigram, though pointed, 
 scarcely expresses the whole of the matter ; for 
 thought, when it is once conceived, has an 
 existence of its own, and never dies ; look to 
 where I point with my wand : you see a young 
 girl in all the matchless grace of happiness and 
 youth ; that girl entered into the life of sound 
 during one short hour of harmony one evening 
 long years ago ; the person who, as you say, 
 thought these things during the fine music, fell a 
 few weeks afterwards into a great sorrow, and 
 after many years died, a sad and lonely woman ; 
 but this lovely creature, born in that bright hour 
 of light and melody, never dies. She is part of 
 the life of sound, and wherever harmonious 
 sound is heard — sound, that is, which is the 
 result of art — she exercises (so curious is the 
 hereditary instinct which the human race hands 
 on to successive generations) no inconsiderable 
 influence on mankind. You may see around 
 you," and he waved his wand over the ever- 
 changing scene, " groups which met together 
 for a few moments in the dimly-lighted streets of 
 great cities years ago, at plays long forgotten, in 
 theatres long since swept away, but these affec- 
 tions and events which the actors themselves, 
 perchance, forgot on the morrow, or at any rate 
 in a few short years, live on. There is an awful 
 sphere of consequence in which the smallest leaf 
 never falls impotently to the ground, with that I 
 have nothing to do. But when these forgotten
 
 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 343 
 
 moments are once admitted to partake of the 
 existence of our race, there too they live on for 
 ever, they also are parts of the life of sound." 
 
 "But," said Julia: "I seem to see wandering 
 among these beautiful people, who, you say, are 
 your relations, some others of a different aspect 
 and form." 
 
 "Ah ! " replied the magician, " you see them, do 
 you ? I do not. They are related to those other 
 beings of whom I told you before. They are the 
 people who live in scent. Very worthy people, 
 no doubt : I have no wish to say a word against 
 them, only we have no connection whatever with 
 them. They have nothing to do with art or with 
 mind." 
 
 " You speak a great deal about art," said 
 Julia; "What has that to do with your existence 
 in sound ?" 
 
 " I used that expression, little girl," said the 
 magician, who began to think that the child was 
 rather too clever, " for conciseness and brevity. 
 It would be, perhaps, more correct to say that we 
 exist in harmonious sound. You cannot breathe 
 in foul air ; I do not say that we cannot live — 
 for we never die — but we continue our existence 
 only in harmonious sound, with mere noise we 
 have nothing to do. Nor can we breathe freely 
 in sound which — however harmonious — is not 
 under the influence of mind, or, if you prefer the 
 word, soul. However skilful the performance 
 may be, it is an arid and dry atmosphere in 
 which we cannot breathe. But there is an art 
 so perfect, by long training and instruction, by 
 something higher than itself, that it supplies the
 
 344 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 
 
 place of soul. In sound evoked by this art- 
 soul we exist freely — are existing even now." 
 
 During this sentence Julia was so fast asleep 
 that she did not even dream. The magician 
 poked her up with his wand. 
 
 "In order that you may understand this more 
 clearly," he said, " I am about to try whether you 
 can see anything more." 
 
 He passed his wand over her eyes ; the child 
 looked out eagerly upon the still crowded room. 
 
 "Yes!" she said, "I do! I see other figures 
 different from those which I saw before, yet pass- 
 ing freely among them. They are more stately 
 and brilliant in appearance, yet they do not seem 
 to me, somehow, so gentle and lovely to behold." 
 
 "These," replied her instructor, "are the 
 creatures who live in colour. That is," he 
 continued, with somewhat of a vindictive look at 
 the child, " in harmonious colour directed by art. 
 They are not so numerous nearly as we are, 
 nor are they so easily perceived by men. For 
 whereas there has scarcely been anybody but has 
 done somewhat at some period of his existence 
 to people the life of sound, those to whom the 
 gorgeous dwellers in colour have been revealed 
 have been few, and therefore the human race has 
 done little to people its mystic avenues. I will 
 try you once again." 
 
 And once more he passed his wand over 
 Julias eyes. 
 
 " I see," said the child, speaking as in a 
 mesmeric trance — " I see other beings still. 
 They pass among the two first as if of the same 
 kindred, but their outlines are faint and exquisite
 
 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 345 
 
 and beautiful, and they are shadowy as a dream. 
 Sir, who are these?" 
 
 "These," said the magician, "are the people 
 who live in form. They are very few in number ; 
 for as those who are influenced by colour are 
 much less than those whom music has delighted, 
 so those whose mind has fed upon pure form are 
 far fewer still. But such as they are, they pride 
 themselves exceedingly upon the purity of their 
 birth, alleging that the culture which delights in 
 form is of the highest order ; and they are, as 
 you see, in consequence, exquisitely beautiful. I 
 confess that to my mind both they and the 
 dwellers in colour are cold and lifeless, and their 
 beauty is of a kind which fails to stir the blood, 
 but this may be merely a prejudice of my birth." 
 
 The magician here became so very prosy that 
 Julia fell into a profound sleep, unbroken by any 
 dream. The magician stirred her several times 
 with his wand, but failing to awake her, he 
 desisted, and went on his way ; and what else 
 took place that night in this wonderful house it 
 is impossible to say, for there was no one there 
 to see. 
 
 No doubt many things very strange and 
 delightful happened ; but this thing is certain, 
 that when the housemaids came in somewhat 
 late the next morning, and began to move the 
 furniture and the hangings, they found the child 
 safe and warm and fast asleep. The country 
 servants, who believed in such things, were quite 
 certain that she had seen the fairies : and I 
 suppose she had.
 
 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 The sources of the contempt which we feel for 
 what we call "truisms " seem to me to afford some 
 little matter of thought. Truism is described in 
 the dictionaries as meaning " self-evident truth " ; 
 the contempt we feel for it, therefore, cannot arise 
 from its essential nature, but must be caused either 
 by the way in which the truism is put before us, 
 or the way in which we ourselves regard it. It 
 cannot be contended that an indifference or 
 stupidity which prevents us from realising a truth 
 is a sufficient reason for despising it ; and, on the 
 other hand, it would seem more reasonable to 
 endeavour to realise and make our own an obvious 
 truth, no matter in however trite, bald, or pre- 
 tentious a way it may be forced upon our notice 
 by some ignorant babbler. 
 
 The peculiarity of a truism is that the moment 
 it is realised by us, it loses all its trite, stupid, and 
 pretentious character, and becomes at once vital 
 truth, full of reality, of interest, of life, and of 
 that pathos that touches the heart. For what- 
 ever may be said against truisms, this at least 
 must be admitted, that they are coexistent with 
 our race, and from the earliest dawn of human 
 life upon the earth have followed men in all their 
 
 346
 
 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 347 
 
 toilsome wanderings, and the reflections which 
 are called up by these trite subjects possess 
 an unequalled attraction, whenever the mind is 
 prepared to realise and receive them. 
 
 Relics of the past, of whatever nature, attract 
 these reflections necessarily. When, in turning 
 the pages of an old book, you come upon notes 
 written by a hand long since at rest, suggested 
 by a mind which, long since, earthly matters 
 ceased to interest, it is impossible not to experi- 
 ence some tender feeling towards the former 
 possessor of the very book you hold, valuing it 
 as you also value it, thinking much the same 
 thoughts in connection with it that you think, 
 resigning it at length as you will have some day 
 to resign it. In this wonderful and mysterious 
 existence in which we find ourselves, this linking 
 mind to mind in the past, this treading even the 
 narrow pathways of the grave, fascinates us to 
 follow in its track. 
 
 But perhaps the most powerful suggestors of 
 such thoughts are old letters. No subject can 
 be more trite, yet will any of us say that we have 
 taken these fragile messengers of the past into 
 our hands without interest ? The yellow paper 
 worn and thin with age, the quaint handwriting, 
 the bare appearance of the outside, with no 
 postage stamp and no office mark, only the figure 
 which tells how costly letter- writing was long 
 ago — all interest us. The contents, whether we 
 have a family interest in the writers or not, charm 
 us many ways. First the present reality : " I am 
 sitting in the morning -room after breakfast." 
 " Lucy would send her love, but is taking tea
 
 348 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 
 
 this evening at Mary's." Ah, those mornings, 
 that evening's tea-table, how long since past 
 away! "The country is most beautiful, serene, 
 and quiet, after the gaiety of town ; and the 
 evenings are very pleasant, as the days lengthen." 
 How many springs have welcomed the young 
 and happy into life, how many autumns soothed 
 the old and weary, on the downward path, since 
 then ! " Frederick's beautiful boy was here this 
 morning, making his way amongst us." Ah me, 
 Frederick's beautiful boy made his last way upon 
 the ladders at Badajos ! 
 
 The letters I have been reading take you into 
 English country-life at the latter end of the last 
 century — that life which Mrs. Sherwood has so 
 charmingly depicted, and which is well described 
 in the earlier chapters of her own life. The old 
 country houses with their formal gardens, and 
 quaint drawing-rooms full of Indian and Chinese 
 curiosities, and paintings of Reynolds and Gains- 
 borough. The state visits at long intervals ; my 
 Lord's or Esquire Cecil's stately call in a coach 
 and six, talked of by the villagers until the next 
 similar visitant arrived. The exciting journeys, 
 commenced in the private carriage or on horses 
 kept expressly for travelling, through the long, 
 narrow, wooded lanes, to the nearest market- 
 town, and thence by coach or post-chaise along 
 the great turnpike roads. "Why do we not see 
 more of each other," says one writer, " we are 
 only four days' journey apart ? " Where will four 
 days' journey take us now ? One constantly 
 recurring incident is the annual visit to Bath or 
 Cheltenham for " the waters," varied, but not till
 
 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 349 
 
 towards the end of the period, by an enterprising 
 excursion to the seaside : enterprising visits in 
 those days, and hitherto considered insalubrious, 
 when lodging-house evils did not exist, only 
 because there were no lodgings to be had. 
 
 In these letters, this old-world and picturesque 
 life is peopled with all the common incidents and 
 characters which, under different aspects, are 
 familiar to us now. Births, the married life, the 
 deathbed, fill most of their faded pages. The 
 marriage of the heir, and his picture by the great 
 artist of the day - - standing in full dress, in a 
 sylvan scene, with his horse and favourite dog. 
 Other objects of art more peculiar to the age — 
 the mezzotint and line engravings of the wonder- 
 ful mechanical productions of the day, the new 
 bridge, the astonishing canal carried over valleys 
 and cut through hills ; the views of manufactories 
 and collieries, elaborately and magnificently en- 
 graved, as objects of great and general interest, 
 well worthy of the possession of the polite and 
 cultivated. 
 
 The letters extend over a series of years. 
 Sorrow, disappointment, the frustration of fond 
 hopes for others, are to be found in their pages. 
 " I am accustomed," says one writer, a lady, " to 
 disappointments and sad tidings from that side 
 of the house. I have gone thus far on my 
 pilgrimage, nothing is left me but to go on still 
 to the end, and if the end be crowned, it will be 
 well. Ah, how well ! " 
 
 Out of these worn pages and this old-world 
 life, together with other materials, I have drawn 
 the threads which weave themselves into the
 
 3 5o THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 
 
 following history, which it seems to me may, 
 with even greater consistency than the piece 
 which bears that title, be called by the name of 
 one of Hans Christian Andersen's admired tales, 
 
 The Child in the Grave. 
 
 The coast of Flintshire, on the western shore 
 of the Dee estuary, is composed of parallel ravines 
 running down to the sea, each of which is watered 
 by a mountain stream. These streams and ravines 
 have been from the earliest times the scenes of 
 mining operations, especially in lead, dug from 
 the hillsides. Towards the middle of the last 
 century, however, this country became the centre 
 of great activity, by the introduction of numerous 
 mills and collieries. Copper was found in veins 
 of great richness, and works for smelting, and mills 
 for founding, and battering brass, and for brass, 
 steel, and iron wire, were established ; the prin- 
 cipal of which, the Pary's mine company, equalled 
 in comparative importance any of the gigantic 
 companies of the present day. Another company, 
 called the Gadly's, or, as their charter expressed 
 it, " The governor and company for smelting down 
 lead with pit coale and sea coale," nourished with 
 great reputation for a long period, until, indeed, 
 they had worked out all their ore. " This com- 
 pany," an old writer explains, "was often called 
 the Quaker company, from the great number of 
 persons of that mild persuasion who were in it." 
 Cotton and paper mills were also established, as 
 well as numerous other works. All these, together 
 with the collieries, which were for a time very
 
 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 351 
 
 extensive, drew together numbers of people from 
 all parts, and the population doubled between 
 1760 and 1780. The wooded valleys resounded 
 with the noise of mills and blasting, and were 
 crowded with the wild and hardy miners. 
 Industry was much more picturesque in those 
 days than in our own. The extensive pools, 
 necessary for their water-power, abounded with 
 fish, and numbers of gay-plumaged kingfishers 
 haunted their banks. The people were pictur- 
 esque as the miners of the Hartz ; half-labourer, 
 half-peasant, they joined the quaint customs and 
 beliefs of the latter class with others equally 
 quaint, originated by their new calling. They 
 believed in fairies and dwellers in the mines, and 
 the fiery tongues, hovering over the pit mouths 
 in the impure gas, awed them independently of 
 the danger they knew they portended. In the 
 wild sky above the Dee channel, and over the 
 hilltops, they heard the hounds of the spectre 
 Huntsman ; and it would seem that these super- 
 stitions extended to some, at least, of the more 
 educated classes ; for it is recorded that the coal- 
 adventurers, as they were called, suffered greatly 
 from the depredations committed by the poor, 
 rather than prosecute, and run the risk of being 
 cursed at St. ^Elian's Well. Farming and mining 
 were closely connected, the same man cultivating 
 wheat on the upper lands and digging ore in the 
 dingles. 
 
 The landed gentry, who benefited greatly by 
 the mineral wealth of the land, threw themselves 
 heartily into the common work, and manifested 
 great sympathy and kindliness towards the
 
 352 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 
 
 peasantry. The old feudal feeling was almost 
 unimpaired, and the gentry ruled the land with 
 undisputed power. They exerted themselves 
 greatly in times of scarcity. They established, 
 or assisted the companies to establish, Sunday 
 schools. They encouraged the cottagers to 
 cultivate gardens, and they opened canals and 
 built wharfs to help the commerce of the country. 
 They were despotic landlords, expected passive 
 obedience, and adhered rigidly to the distinctions 
 of rank, but beyond this their tenants seem to 
 have had little to complain of. They were mine- 
 owners as well as landlords, and even sometimes 
 partners in the mills and other works. Many of 
 them, as the Mostyns and Pennants, were men 
 of culture and education. The ladies resembled 
 most of their class of that day, and proved the 
 compatibility of extreme refinement with homely 
 domestic lives and duties, and not much book- 
 learning. 
 
 One of these gentlemen, called, according to 
 the custom of those days, Esquire Hendre, of 
 Trefalen, whose estates, which were not large, 
 had increased enormously in value through the 
 discovery of the coal and ore, was naturally one 
 of the most active in these new pursuits. He 
 held shares in many of the companies, and 
 worked his own coal-mines. He was descended, 
 as all the gentry were or claimed to be, from 
 the chief of one of the fifteen tribes of North 
 Wales ; and his wife, a lady of great beauty and 
 superiority, was the daughter of a family which
 
 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 353 
 
 claimed direct descent from Owain Gwynedd, 
 Prince of that country. The importance which 
 these refined and educated gentlemen, in their 
 costly libraries, and their wives' elegant tea- 
 rooms, attached to their descent from these 
 savage barbarians, is very curious. Squire 
 Hendre and his lady had only one child, a little 
 boy of great promise, and the inheritor of his 
 mother's beauty, and the chief thought of their 
 lives was to leave this heir in possession of 
 estates and position unequalled by any of his 
 forefathers. When only six years old he was a 
 child of great originality and acuteness of intel- 
 lect, and, even then, almost a companion to his 
 father and mother in their interest in the people 
 around them. His father would take him on his 
 rides over the steep hills and down into the 
 wooded valleys of the estate, and the wildest 
 and roughest miners were pleased to see the 
 little boy by the squire's side. But of course 
 these rides could only be now and then, whilst 
 his mother was seldom separated from her son 
 and was united to him by an almost mysterious 
 sympathy. She was a lady of that acute nervous 
 sensibility which some have considered due to 
 magnetic influence, and which is commonly found 
 among the inhabitants of hilly mining- districts, 
 by which the mind and body are so brought into 
 sympathy with another as almost to abolish the 
 confinements of matter and of space. Her child's 
 nature, stronger and more intelligent than her 
 own, exerted, even at that early age, an influence 
 over her which after events alone could describe. 
 Her education having been what we should now 
 vol. 11 2 A
 
 354 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 
 
 consider very limited, her mind, though as truly- 
 refined as any lady's of the present day, con- 
 stantly occupied with such influences as sur- 
 rounded her (as indeed was very much the case 
 with all before the days of railways and news- 
 papers), became formed to a certain extent in 
 unison with those ideas and superstitions which 
 actuated the people around her, refined by her 
 own high nature and intercourse with intelligent 
 and educated men. 
 
 But the happiness which the father and 
 mother enjoyed was not to last. When the child 
 had nearly completed his seventh year, his parents 
 were alarmed by an epidemic fever, which, fre- 
 quently hovering among the more crowded parts 
 of Flint and Holywell, had this year extended 
 itself over a wider extent of country ; and, to 
 increase the alarm, a terrible kind of quinsy, 
 most fatal to children, which several times in the 
 last century brought desolation into England, 
 appeared in Wales again. Several years before 
 this time the three children of the Vicar of Holy- 
 well had been taken away by this scourge — a blow 
 from which the poor man never recovered ; and, 
 later still, the four children of Sir Richard 
 Mostyn of Gloddaeth were also swept away. 
 It is therefore not surprising that the family 
 at Trefalen were very much alarmed at the 
 approach of this fatal complaint. It was thought 
 best that Madame Hendre and her child should 
 go to " Park," an old jointure-house belonging 
 to the family, situated some miles inland upon 
 the high ground, and considered very healthy. 
 They had not been here a week before the child
 
 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 355 
 
 was seized with this fatal disorder, and before 
 help could be summoned he was dead. This 
 terrible blow, desolating for ever their earthly 
 lives, reduced the unhappy parents to the pros- 
 tration of utter despair. Madame Hendre re- 
 mained in a partially unconscious state for many 
 days, refusing consolation, and even nourish- 
 ment. To the squire the blow was equally 
 terrible. All his desires and efforts were con- 
 nected with this child ; everything was prospering 
 with him, a future full of every satisfaction was 
 opened to his view, but this one blow rendered 
 all valueless ; whatever wealth and power he 
 might possess, no wealth or power could ever 
 give him another child. For several days the 
 family remained crushed and inert, and the body, 
 which it was remarked exhibited no symptoms of 
 decay, was kept longer than usual before burial ; 
 but after a few days Squire Hendre saw, even 
 in his grief, the folly of thus clinging to the 
 dead, and gave orders for the interment at the 
 Parish Church of Trefalen, the " Eterna Domus " 
 of the race. This little church is placed towards 
 the head of the ravine in which the few cottages 
 of Trefalen stand, in a most secluded and remote 
 situation. The ravine, like the rest of the 
 valleys, is thickly wooded, the principal trees 
 being oaks, interspersed with groves of hazel 
 and white thorn. The winding of the valley 
 shuts out all view below the churchyard, except 
 that of the trees, the small stream, and one 
 narrow slice of the distant sea ; above the church, 
 the trees form a thin screen before the mountain 
 ground, where the small black cattle graze the
 
 356 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 
 
 heath and coarse grass. In this little church- 
 yard, in the mountain air and among the sources 
 of the streams and the roots of the metallic veins 
 and of the oaks, was the child buried. A hand- 
 some tomb was placed over him, but Roubiliac 
 himself received an order for a marble monument, 
 to be erected in the chancel of the little church. 
 
 When Madame Hendre recovered sufficiently 
 to know what had taken place, a strange idea 
 took possession of her mind — probably suggested 
 by what the servants had told her of the appear- 
 ance of the body — that her child was not dead. 
 This belief was not at all a terrible one to her, 
 nor did it induce her to take any steps to recover 
 possession of her lost treasure. It seemed as if 
 it was impossible for her mind to link the idea 
 of death with that of her child ; and on the other 
 hand, as though her nature, simple and earthly in 
 its education and attachments, could not pene- 
 trate the earthly veil and realise the existence of 
 spiritual life. Her delusion had a kind of per- 
 ception that the world could not be expected to 
 join in her belief; and not only this, but a still 
 more curious sort of instinct, that nature itself 
 was against her, and could not be brought either 
 to acknowledge the truth of her conviction or 
 to allow that truth to be made palpable to 
 others beside herself — that truth which she held 
 with a kind of silent confidence against the world 
 and nature equally ; but, on the other hand, it 
 had no reference whatever to a spiritual life, 
 unconnected with the body and the grave. It 
 appeared to be a simple assertion that the child
 
 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 357 
 
 that lay buried under the sod of the little church- 
 yard of Trefalen was not dead ; that, so far as a 
 child buried in a grave could be supposed to in- 
 fluence the upper world, that child was influencing 
 it ; and that especially to her, his mother, that 
 influence was extended perpetually, drawing her 
 towards him, and deciding her feelings and 
 conclusions, and even her actions, by his desires 
 and thoughts. And thus far no doubt it was the 
 fact that the image, which the strong nature of 
 the child had established on the mother's mind, 
 was a positive existence ; so much so, that it 
 reacted upon her mind, as the presence and 
 influence of another living person would have 
 done, and was so clear, defined, and individual 
 in its character and properties (quite different in 
 many respects from her own) that it brought hers 
 gradually into conformity to its own. This belief 
 did not show itself in any obtrusively outward 
 way, but acted as a constant silent influence upon 
 her both by day and night ; making her resemble, 
 perhaps more than anything, a person who is 
 expecting every moment some dear friend to 
 arrive, and is anxiously arranging every little 
 object, and picturing the arrival to herself, and, 
 by such fancies, bringing her own mind and 
 thoughts into a state most similar to those of 
 the friend whom she expects, — only Madame 
 Hendre never expected anything, nor looked for 
 any arrival before the arrival of the Messenger 
 to take herself away. All that this strange 
 instinct or opinion taught was that she had still 
 a child, a living, breathing child, a child whose 
 powerful and sweet influence was acting there.
 
 358 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 
 
 not only upon herself but upon others — a child in 
 the grave. 
 
 And it did act upon others ; for not only in a 
 very obvious way were others the better for it, by 
 the influence it had upon her own character and 
 actions, so that much of the good she did, and of 
 the holy effect which her life produced upon 
 others, was due to this child in the grave, but 
 also this fixed belief of hers became so well 
 known and talked over by the people, that it 
 became a positive fact in the neighbourhood, not 
 indeed that the child was alive really in the 
 grave, but that it surely was alive in the hearts 
 and imaginations of the people ; and that perhaps 
 not the least powerful thought that determined 
 the actions and words of these wild superstitious 
 peasants was the child that was buried in the 
 hillside above Trefalen — the child in the grave. 
 
 Two or three years passed, and gradually 
 another thought occupied the mother's mind — 
 that she should see her child again. To this end 
 she requested her husband that the tomb might 
 be opened and the lid of the little coffin raised. 
 How she obtained her husband's consent to this 
 strange proceeding is not known, — probably by 
 her sweet and patient life, and by the love and pity 
 in his heart. He gave the necessary orders with 
 secrecy ; nevertheless several of the miners and 
 peasantry were present when the tomb was 
 opened before the squire and his lady, and the 
 lid of the coffee raised, that the child in the grave 
 might be seen again. 
 
 Now, whether it was from the nature of the
 
 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 359 
 
 disease, or the character of the soil, or of the 
 mineral waters that trickled through the earth, it 
 is said that, when the coffin was opened, the 
 face of the child, which was all that could be 
 seen, appeared as fresh and beautiful as the day 
 it died. There was the same smile, the same 
 calm rest of the eyelids, the same colour of the 
 cheek. When Madame Hendre saw her child 
 again, thus miraculously, as it seemed to her, 
 alive in the grave, and even in health, she 
 fainted away, and the squire gave orders that the 
 coffin should be fastened down and the grave 
 closed up at once. 
 
 This sight of her child could not strengthen 
 her former belief in Madame Hendre, for that 
 was impossible, but it produced in her an 
 increased happy certainty and hope, as though 
 she began to believe that she and her child 
 would at last triumph over nature itself. But the 
 shock to her bodily health, in spite of this 
 increased happiness of the mind, was very great, 
 and her husband decided upon going abroad for 
 several years. He himself regarded this strange 
 belief as the effect of disordered intellect, and he 
 hoped the change of scene and association would 
 restore his wife's mind. • They went to Paris, but 
 war breaking out with France, upon that country 
 taking part with the revolted States of America, 
 they did not stop long, but travelled into Italy, 
 where they lived for seven or eight years. 
 
 Some letters of introduction which Squire 
 Hendre carried, took them to Genoa, and this 
 beautiful city so pleased him that he resolved to 
 remain there. He hired a country house in the
 
 360 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 
 
 valley of the Bisagno, one of the environs, of 
 which the slopes were at that time covered with 
 palaces and " maisons de campagne." Several of 
 these had been abandoned of their masters, who 
 appeared to take less pleasure in these beautiful 
 palaces than their ancestors did, preferring houses 
 in the city. They were adorned by neglected 
 frescoes of extraordinary beauty, and paintings by 
 the greatest masters of Italy — then so common in 
 that country that they appear to have been left as 
 fixtures on the walls ; and were surrounded by 
 groves and gardens, murmuring with fountains, 
 and the perfume of whose orange, citron, and 
 jasmine flowers struck the sense leagues out of 
 sight of land at sea. 
 
 A certain pathos attended the last days of the 
 old European society, then rapidly approaching 
 to its end. Surrounded by the splendid but 
 often neglected accumulations of the past, soon 
 to be swept away and dispersed over the world, 
 the privileged classes continued their life of 
 earthly enjoyment and mental luxury (like the 
 swan that meets its death with song), till the 
 tempest, heard first in the thunder of the French 
 Revolution, swept them from their palaces and 
 estates. Genoa was surpassed by few cities in 
 this wealth of accumulated interest and enjoy- 
 ment. It was one vast collection of the relics of 
 past taste and refinement. The most exquisite 
 paintings filled its churches and its vast saloons ; 
 marbles from the finest sculptors crowded its 
 lovely gardens. In one of its churches was a 
 vessel, positively affirmed to be that Holy Grail 
 for which the chivalry of centuries had sought in
 
 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE *6i 
 
 y 
 
 vain. Its society, brought from all quarters by- 
 its commerce, was of the most delightful variety — 
 its nobles and the commercial classes lived on 
 friendly terms. Its decadence was more mental, 
 in intellect and in art, than in outward prosperity ; 
 its trade was still flourishing, and vast public 
 works had just been completed at great expense. 
 The splendour of its streets of palaces, of polished 
 marble and designed by Rubens, was unsur- 
 passed in Europe ; the throng of carriages which 
 crowded its promenade at the fashionable hours 
 was magnificent. Nor were other and higher 
 thoughts forgotten ; two noble hospitals healed 
 the sick, or relieved the incurable ; a magnificent 
 palace opened its doors day and night to the 
 houseless and destitute poor ; and a single noble 
 of the house of Fieschi, who had died childless, 
 had bequeathed an immense palace and estate to 
 receive and dower five hundred young and poor 
 girls. The scenery, from the sea-shore and the 
 flowery meadows, up into the mountain passes, 
 was various and beautiful. Lovely fertile valleys, 
 full of flowers and woods, running up to the foot 
 of fantastic rocks and overhanging hills crowned 
 with castles ; groves and avenues of thickly- 
 planted chestnut trees lined the roads. 
 
 In this earthly paradise, then, Mr. Hendre 
 fancied that he could pass the rest of his days, in 
 quiet content if not in happiness. Every tie 
 which bound him to his native country was 
 severed by the death of his child. Occupation, 
 which he delighted in, he could find plenty of in 
 Genoa. He had the entree into the best society 
 of the place. The fathers of the Augustine
 
 362 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 
 
 monastery near his house, those of the Oratory 
 of St. Philip Neri, and of other religious houses, 
 mild and courteous men of the world, imbued 
 with the polished indifference of the age, were 
 pleasant and unexacting companions. The high- 
 bred, educated, and melancholy Englishman be- 
 came a favourite in the Genoese society, and his 
 wife the especial pet of the fathers of the religious 
 orders. Her nature, the one of all others to 
 charm the clerical mind, and her strange and 
 romantic delusion, excited the greatest interest 
 among the religious classes. The most favoured 
 and intimate of these fathers undertook gently to 
 wean her from her delusion, from her Cambrian 
 home, from her English heresy. In the last of 
 these, as far as outward observance went, they 
 soon succeeded. There were, of course, in those 
 days no Protestant services in Italy, and the 
 Hendres attended without scruple, and doubtless 
 with comfort, the services of the Roman Com- 
 munion. But in the two first they utterly failed. 
 " It is true," they said, "your child is dead — you 
 acknowledge that nature and sense are against 
 you ; nevertheless, do not despond, nature and 
 the Good God are very kind. Your child is an 
 angel in the city of God ; in the cities of earth, 
 and in this beautiful city around your feet, are 
 many children, infants of the Good God as well 
 as yours. Be a mother to these ; we will find 
 numbers of lovely children to touch your tender 
 heart, and to receive blessing from your heaven- 
 sent hand ; and beside one child already in 
 heaven, you shall have hundreds more, who shall 
 enter heaven through you ! " It was all in vain.
 
 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 363 
 
 Not all these smooth and pleasant words, not all 
 the delights of that wonderful city, not even the 
 sense of alms-deeds, could keep her from that 
 simple northern home, and from her child. Go 
 forth among the poor she did. The Albergo 
 des pauvres and the conservatoire of the child- 
 ren knew her well, as she came followed by her 
 servants laden with gifts ; and, still more, when 
 seated by the beds of the poor and sick, or 
 surrounded by the children, she tended the wants 
 of the first, and told the others the story of her 
 child in the grave. 
 
 And so, in the Albergo of the Poor, and in the 
 palaces of the rich, in the houses of the religious, 
 and among the little children, this child's influence 
 still was felt. This strange child, that was dead 
 and yet alive, who was lying underneath the sod 
 of a hillside in Wales, yet was talked of, and 
 wondered at, and made its existence felt, in the 
 saloons and boudoirs of that stately city by the 
 sea, and amongst the pastures and hill passes 
 that led up between the vineyards into Lombardy ; 
 this little child whose earthly memory lived so 
 long after him — this child in the grave. 
 
 But more than all, on his mother's mind, per- 
 petually dwelling on its lovely child-nature, did 
 that nature, elevated and idealised by her own, 
 work the most ; and her soul, led on by divine 
 mercy and the works of love, became more and 
 more strengthened in goodness and purer in 
 heart from all self-will and sin. For, when she 
 reverently read of those angels that once sat in 
 an empty tomb, and thought angels were surely 
 sitting in that tomb, far away at Trefalen, where
 
 364 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 
 
 her child was, drawn there by its child-nature, so 
 like, she thought, to their own, it made her strive 
 more and more, and succeed more and more as 
 she strove, to make her own nature resemble that 
 child-nature (as she fancied it, and as indeed it 
 was) ; so that, in some future time, should angels 
 come and sit by her, they also should be drawn 
 by her nature, purified and fashioned like her 
 child's. And He also whom that empty tomb 
 could not hold — He with the pale alluring face — 
 might not He too, some calm and summer night, 
 when the soft moonlight lighted all the wood, 
 and the little church, and the dingle, and the 
 distant hills and sea — might not He even, as in 
 these Popish countries He was said . . . but her 
 reverent heart did not finish the thought, neither 
 will we. 
 
 • • * • • 
 
 At last, drawn by some mysterious power 
 which she could not resist, and to which her 
 husband yielded, they came back to England. 
 France being still closed to them, they returned 
 through Germany, and saw the mines of the 
 Hartz Mountains, everything connected with 
 such pursuits still attracting the squire. They 
 travelled north through Staffordshire, where the 
 mines were already extensive, and by the iron- 
 works in Shropshire, where the Darbys had just 
 completed the famous bridge. A few days more 
 passed, and they were at home. 
 
 And now a settled desire, which some might 
 call self-will and even sin, filled the mother's 
 heart. This was to have the grave once more 
 opened, and to see her child again. She did not
 
 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 365 
 
 obtain this desire without some difficulty : the 
 squire resisted it, the vicar resisted it, all her 
 friends entreated her to renounce the thought. 
 That wonderful patient persistency which she 
 possessed, joined to the resistless sweetness which 
 subdued all wills to hers, again overcame all 
 obstacles. All the objections vanished, and the 
 day was fixed. It was impossible this time to 
 keep the matter a secret, nor does it appear to 
 have been attempted. The excitement among 
 the ignorant and superstitious people was im- 
 mense. What they expected no one knew, but an 
 undefined expectation there certainly was — an 
 expectation encouraged by a belief in the super- 
 natural and the unseen, held from childhood, and 
 connected with all the petty incidents of their 
 simple life. All the friends of the family were 
 present — Lord Penryn, Sir Roger Mostyn of 
 Trelacre, Squire Pennant of Downing, the great 
 writer. The scene in the little valley is described 
 as extraordinary beyond description : the wild 
 overhanging rocks and dwarfed oaks, the rushing 
 mountain torrent, the hazel bushes and white 
 thorn, which was then in flower, the knots of 
 peasantry, and the miners perched on every point 
 of rock and filling the churchyard ; high up the 
 little church and belfry, with the ancient yew trees, 
 crowning the rocky bank against the sky, the 
 horses of the gentry picqueted at the gate. The 
 old sexton of his own accord had retired into the 
 belfry, and the solemn tolling of the bell filled 
 the air between the rocks. 
 
 The tomb was opened, and the lid of the coffin 
 was again raised. Whether the previous opening
 
 366 THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE 
 
 had done its work, or from whatever other cause 
 I cannot say, but the progress of decay had been 
 as rapid as it had been previously slow : there 
 was nothing in the coffin but a little dust. 
 
 All eyes, from my Lord Penryn and Sir Roger 
 Mostyn to the meanest collier, were turned to 
 Madame Hendre's face, as she stood before the 
 open grave, expecting some strange and fearful 
 consequence upon this crushing proof of the 
 futility of all her hopes. But what they saw was 
 very different from what all expected : a radiant 
 happiness was overspread upon her thin and worn 
 face, the calm and satisfied smile of possession 
 hovered on her lips, her eyes were fixed not on 
 the grave, but on the sky. " I was right — all 
 these long years I have been right — my child is 
 not dead." And, sliding more and more from 
 her husband's arm, she fell across the coffin, and 
 when they raised her the life was gone. Surely 
 in that supreme and final moment her blind and 
 earthly instinct was illumined by a diviner light ; 
 and who shall say what ecstatic vision was given 
 her of her child — not in the grave.
 
 THE FORDHAMS OF SEVERNSTOKE 
 A CHRISTMAS STORY 
 
 Some years ago there stood, not far back from 
 the road that leads from Chipping Norton to 
 Evesham, a very old mossy brick house. It 
 stood alone in the fields, sheltered by a little 
 wooded hill. It had a formal quaint garden on 
 one side of it, separated from the fields by a sunk 
 fence and a low yew hedge, and behind it, skirting 
 the wooded hill, was a walled kitchen garden. 
 This house had belonged to one family for more 
 than four hundred years. They had taken rank 
 among the smaller gentry of the county, and in 
 the village church, half a mile over the fields, 
 were several monuments which showed that the 
 name of Fordham had not been unheard in the 
 pulpit, the bar, or the battlefield. 
 
 Some twenty years ago this house was the 
 frequent home of a very bright happy group of 
 cousins. There was the family of the master of 
 the house himself, several fine girls and boys ; 
 there were the children of the rector of the family 
 living, their uncle, and they were not a few ; and 
 there were several other families of cousins, living 
 in country houses scattered within twenty miles 
 
 367
 
 368 THE FORDHAMS OF SEVERNSTOKE 
 
 of the country round. It was not in the nature 
 of things that so large a company of cousins, 
 being thrown together through the long days of 
 summer and the nights of winter, riding together 
 through the long lanes and over the breezy 
 commons, meeting the fresh wind blowing straight 
 from the tops of the green woods, should not fall 
 in love ; and accordingly they did so, and many a 
 sweet and tender recollection of the old house, 
 and the gardens, and the wood where the pigeons 
 used to coo, and of the high clumps of trees in 
 the fields before the house where the rooks used 
 to build, did the boy cousins carry away with 
 them when, afterwards, as many of them were, 
 they were dispersed all over the earth, both at 
 sea and on land, in search of their fortunes. 
 
 It was very pleasant while it lasted, but the 
 end came all too soon. The first breaking up of 
 any family is a sorrowful and touching thing, 
 and all the more so when it is the waking up out 
 of such happiness and such pleasant dalliance as 
 this. The boys grew up and went into the army 
 or abroad. Some went to Oxford, and afterwards 
 to the law courts in London, and they came back 
 periodically, but with changed feelings and ideas. 
 The rector died, and the rectory was occupied by 
 one of his nephews, for the head of the family 
 could not spare the living for one of his sons. 
 Nor was the dispersion only that of distance : an 
 estrangement took place amongst those who were 
 formerly so attached. The girls married differ- 
 ently ; one or two of them, those of the elder 
 branches, married gentlemen of fortune ; one 
 married a rich tradesman of the neighbouring
 
 THE FORDHAMS OF SEVERNSTOKE 369 
 
 town ; the rector's daughters went out as gover- 
 nesses ; and one of them (worst of all) married a 
 Methodist minister. The rector's eldest son, in 
 holy orders, who thought he might have succeeded 
 to his father's living, was a curate at a village not 
 far off, at a stipend of a hundred a year. 
 
 Years had passed, ten or fifteen years, and the 
 estrangement which had existed among this family 
 began to diminish, though as yet there were no 
 outward signs-of it. As each of them advanced 
 to the battle of life, the small misunderstandings 
 and differences which had subsisted between them 
 seemed of less account. 
 
 The heir of the family, George Fordham, who 
 had by this time succeeded to the estate, was 
 approaching middle age — thirty-five or forty — a 
 fine, handsome country gentleman, very kind to 
 the poor, very great on the Justice bench, very 
 terrible to poachers, loyal to the backbone to 
 Church and State. He bore no enmity to any 
 one, least of all to his relatives, and had already 
 made overtures of friendliness to some of them, 
 not entirely without success. 
 
 The son of the old rector, the curate at a 
 hundred a year, so won his patron's heart that, 
 on the death of the incumbent, the living was 
 bestowed upon him, and his two sisters gave up 
 their situations as governesses and came to live 
 with him. 
 
 The rich manufacturer proved very useful to 
 one of the gentlemen of fortune in an election, in 
 which he (the gentleman of fortune) was returned 
 solely through his influence. The Methodist 
 minister still remained the most obnoxious, but 
 
 vol. 11 2 B
 
 370 THE FORDHAMS OF SEVERNSTOKE 
 
 it began to be observed that he kept himself very 
 quiet, and preached against poaching as much as 
 the justices could do. 
 
 This was the state of things at the time my 
 story begins. On the whole, the fire of cordiality 
 was smouldering, and only wanted a chance spark 
 to set it in a blaze. This chance soon occurred. 
 
 One of the Fordhams of the elder branch (a 
 younger brother of George Methuin Fordham of 
 Severnstoke), who was a very high-spirited, reck- 
 less young man, had begun life in a marching 
 regiment, and had carried his pair of colours into 
 Canada ; there, not liking the restraint of the 
 service, he sold out, and wandered for several 
 years over the whole of North and South America, 
 never writing home, and sometimes engaged in 
 very questionable situations. At one time, dig- 
 ging for gold in California ; at another, building 
 a log hut in a Canadian forest ; at another, fore- 
 man of some mines in the Andes ; and, it was 
 whispered, even once connected with a party of 
 filibusters. But through all he had preserved 
 very much of his honest English nature, and 
 entirely his love of his English home ; and, at 
 last, turning his eyes in the direction of his 
 native country, early in December he arrived at 
 Southampton, and immediately came down into 
 the country. 
 
 He slept at Deddington, some fifteen miles 
 from Severnstoke, and, despising English luxuries, 
 set off the next day to walk to his home. It was 
 a very cold day, the sky dark and lowering, but 
 there was no snow. The long dark lines of the 
 leafless hedges, and the bare brown woods, lay
 
 THE FORDHAMS OF SEVERNSTOKE 371 
 
 before him as he drew nearer to the old house. 
 Everything was very still and calm, and he had 
 full leisure to indulge in his recollections of that 
 pleasant past time. Every step of the way was 
 well known to him, and reminded him of some 
 pleasant incident of that time — the woods, the 
 fields, the streams, the long road edged with the 
 wayside grass now white with the hoar-frost, the 
 little wayside inns, everything came pleasantly 
 before him, all pointing lovingly back into that 
 old time. 
 
 There are the fields close round the house, and 
 there it stands, dark and grey, with volumes of 
 white smoke rising up out of its many chimneys 
 against the brown wooded hill. High above it, 
 in the air, wheel round and round the clamorous 
 rooks. A little farther, and he would have 
 reached the lodge gates. There is a stile on his 
 left hand, and a path leading across the fields, — a 
 handsome-looking gentleman with a gun and two 
 fine dogs ; the wanderer stops suddenly in the 
 middle of the road, gazing at this simple appari- 
 tion as if he was fascinated. The gentleman also 
 stops, looks at him too for a moment, drops his 
 gun most carelessly, springs over the stile, and 
 comes forward with both hands held out. 
 
 "Dick! dear old fellow! come back at last! 
 just in time for Christmas, eh ? " 
 
 He was a hardened, reckless fellow, this poor 
 wanderer, but the tears streamed down his face 
 as he grasped his brother's kindly welcoming 
 hands. 
 
 "And now," said Mr. Fordham, after he had 
 presented his brother (in whose demeanour, in
 
 372 THE FORDHAMS OF SEVERNSTOKE 
 
 spite of his roughness, were very evident the 
 gentle manners that became a Fordham) to his 
 lady and his three rosy children — " now we will 
 have all the old lot, they and theirs, this Christmas, 
 and spend such a Christmas as the old house has 
 not seen these dozen years. Henry, and Edward 
 Keynton, who is his lieutenant, are with their 
 regiment at Cheltenham, and there are two or 
 three of the lawyers at Severnsthorpe, and we'll 
 have Thomas Fordham and his sisters from 
 Woodcote Rectory, and I'll find out the Methodist 
 parson myself and ask him and his wife ; and 
 there is cousin Boscombe of Wotton — he's a 
 peevish, discontented man, and I hardly ever 
 see him, but I daresay he'll come." 
 
 So the Squire took great pains, as he said 
 he would, to bring all his relations together at 
 Christmas time, and in this he was very successful, 
 everybody promising to come. The Squire found 
 out the Methodist minister himself, and per- 
 suaded his brother, the Rector of Severnstoke, to 
 accompany him. The company were bidden for 
 Christmas Eve, and accordingly, in the afternoon 
 of the 24th of December, they began to arrive. 
 
 There had been a slight fall of snow in the 
 morning, and the sky was black and lowering, 
 and threatened more. They came in a variety of 
 ways. There were the carriages of the gentry, — 
 Aylesby Quinton of Severnsthorpe, Esq., M.P., 
 and his party, who had married one of Mr. Ford- 
 ham's sisters, and whom the rich manufacturer 
 had helped in his election ; the Keyntons of 
 Keynton, and the Whitehursts of Fonholt, who 
 also had married sisters of the Squire ; and Francis
 
 THE FORDHAMS OF SEVERNSTOKE 37s 
 
 Pecham of Eastwood, the Squire's uncle. But 
 the carriage of the rich manufacturer was far 
 grander than any of them, being one blaze of 
 armorial bearings and gold. The Rev. Mr. 
 Fordham of Woodcote and his sisters came in a 
 pony chaise, a very elegant little thing ; and the 
 Methodist minister and his wife and son and 
 daughter came in a very old-fashioned double- 
 bodied chaise. 
 
 Then all that afternoon might be seen a most 
 wonderful sight, more especially when the com- 
 pany came into the drawing-room before dinner. 
 The fine young lawyers and officers talking 
 amicably with the wife and daughter of the 
 Methodist minister, and the Squire's lady, who 
 was grand- daughter of an Earl, turning over 
 engravings with his son. And, still more wonder- 
 ful, the Rev. Augustine Bernard and his cousin 
 the Rector of Woodcote engaged in friendly talk 
 with the Methodist minister himself. The Rev. 
 Augustine Bernard ! who had an embroidered 
 altar cloth and wax candles in his church, and 
 services on all Saints' days and holy days, who 
 had all the old pews taken down and replaced 
 with open seats, and who had erected, with the 
 help of his brother, a screen and font of the most 
 " severe taste " ! And these clergymen (who were 
 such " high Anglicans " that the ministers of the 
 little dissenting chapels in their villages did little 
 else but preach against them as followers of the 
 "beast and the scarlet woman") not only talked 
 amicably with the dissenter, but found that on 
 many subjects they thought wonderfully alike ; 
 and the Methodist minister found, to his astonish-
 
 374 THE FORDHAMS OF SEVERNSTOKE 
 
 ment, that the high churchmen knew quite as 
 much about the poor of their parishes as he did 
 of his. And all these wonderful things happened 
 because Richard Fordham came home from 
 abroad ; or rather, let us say, because of that 
 blessed Christmas spirit in which all men equally 
 put their trust, and whose influence makes the 
 whole world own its kinship, the rich and the 
 poor, the wise and the simple, the highly and the 
 lowly born. 
 
 " There is one face I miss," said somebody, as 
 dinner was coming to a close, " William Boscombe, 
 whom we used to see here." The Squire gave 
 a start. " I have forgotten him," he said. " I 
 sent him a letter to ask him to come, and have 
 had no answer. He was always a morose and 
 discontented man, and since his wife, my cousin, 
 died I have seen very little of him. I am sorry 
 that he should not be here to-morrow ; he is the 
 one of all of us who most stands in need of such 
 a meeting as this. I will ride over to Wotton 
 this evening, it is not far, and see why he does 
 not come." 
 
 There was a general exclamation of discourage- 
 ment at this ; but the Squire was resolved to 
 carry out his whim to the full, and telling his 
 brother Richard to take his place at the table, 
 he left the room, to change his dress and order 
 his horse, and one of his hacks being brought 
 round, he mounted and rode away. By this time 
 it was very nearly dark, but a faint light, which 
 seemed to come from the horizon and to diffuse 
 itself over the earth under the blackness and 
 clouds above, showed that the snow had begun
 
 THE FORDHAMS OF SEVERNSTOKE 37 5 
 
 to fall thickly in large Makes, and, as the Squire 
 rode down the drive, he could see that the wheel- 
 marks of the carriages which had brought his 
 guests were already covered. As he rode along 
 he thought over what he had not chosen to tell 
 the company at the dinner-table, but which, if he 
 had told them, might have lessened their surprise 
 at his riding out ten miles that dreary night after 
 a man who had refused to answer a friendly 
 invitation. William Boscombe's wife had been 
 the Squire's favourite cousin, and many of the 
 pleasant recollections which filled his mind when 
 he thought of his old house were connected with 
 her. The young lady had no fortune, and both 
 of them knew that their friends would never 
 consent to their marriage, so nothing had ever 
 taken place between them but a little innocent 
 flirtation ; nevertheless, when William Boscombe 
 came to court his cousin, which was before his 
 own marriage, the Squire looked upon him with 
 something of the jealousy of a lover. He had 
 never liked him, and on more than one occasion 
 there had been a slight quarrel, and the coolness 
 between them had never been cleared away. In 
 the hurry of his guests' arrival the Squire had 
 not noticed William Boscombe's absence, but 
 when it was mentioned, all the recollections of 
 this difference came upon him, and he felt that 
 their family reconciliation would not be com- 
 plete while his own particular offence remained 
 unforgiven. 
 
 He thought upon all these things as he rode 
 on through the fast-falling snow, past Cornwell 
 and Kingham, till he came to the bridge over the
 
 376 THE FORDHAMS OF SEVERNSTOKE 
 
 Evenlode, before you come to Churchill. It was 
 now very dark and intensely cold, and the snow 
 fell faster than ever, so that it was already more 
 than a foot deep. The great darkness was owing 
 to the falling snow, for when it ceased a little, 
 now and then, he could see all the woods and 
 houses as he passed them covered with the 
 beautiful white snow. As he passed through 
 Churchill the town was very still, but many of 
 the houses were cheerfully lighted, and he could 
 see the shadow of the holly and mistletoe branches 
 on the window-blinds, and figures moving across 
 them. He thought of his own home, and put 
 spurs to his horse ; as he passed by the church 
 the clock struck seven. A mile and a half farther 
 and he came to Wotton, where Mr. Boscombe 
 lived. On the top of the hill is the church, and 
 a house by it that was formerly the rectory, but 
 the incumbent residing at another living, the 
 house was let, and Mr. Boscombe had rented it 
 for many years. It was an old house, with a 
 stone wall before it and a gate. The servant 
 appeared amazed to see a visitor. " Mr. Bos- 
 combe was very ill indeed ; the doctor had just 
 left, and there was no hope. Would Mr. Ford- 
 ham go up ? Mr. Boscombe had mentioned his 
 name. The curate, Mr. Norgrave, was with 
 him." 
 
 The Squire went up into his room, an old- 
 fashioned room with dark heavy furniture. The 
 curate of the parish was standing at the farther 
 side of the bed, and his housekeeper, an old 
 servant devotedly attached to the family, stood 
 at the foot. Mr. Fordham went up to the bed- 
 side.
 
 THE FORDHAMS OF SEVERNSTOKE 377 
 
 " I am sorry to find you so ill, William," he 
 said ; "I was come to fetch you to my house, to 
 a friendly Christmas gathering." — " You come 
 too late, George Fordham ; I was bidden to 
 another gathering before your letter came. But 
 I am very glad you are going to meet. It is a 
 very blessed thing, this Christmas charity. I 
 see my life very differently now from what I ever 
 did before, — I would I could live it over again." 
 He paused and then went on again : " But it is 
 very kind of you to come here. George — very 
 kind ; and it is a bad night too, they tell me, — is it 
 so?" — " Yes," replied Mr. Fordham quietly, "it 
 is a bad night ; it is very cold and the snow is 
 falling very thick." There was a pause. The 
 clergyman, who had been waiting, began to read 
 the prayers for the sick. The old housekeeper 
 sat down in a corner and buried her face in her 
 apron. Mr. Fordham stood still on the other 
 side of the bed, bowing his head reverently. 
 While the prayers were being read the sick man's 
 hand kept wandering over the bed-clothes. He 
 did not seem to listen to what was being read, 
 but to be murmuring something to himself that 
 rested on his mind. When the clergyman ceased, 
 he roused himself a little and said, " Read the 
 third collect." The curate turned over the leaves 
 quickly and read, " Lighten our darkness we be- 
 seech thee, O Lord, and by Thy great mercy 
 defend us from all perils and dangers of this 
 night, for the love of Thy only Son. our Saviour, 
 Jesus Christ." " From all perils and dangers of 
 this night." wandered the dying man; "George 
 Fordham — from all perils and dangers of this
 
 378 THE FORDHAMS OF SEVERNSTOKE 
 
 night, — this night, George Fordham ! when it is 
 so very cold, and the snow falls very thick." 
 
 As he spoke of the cold without, the exceeding 
 cold of death overcame him, and the clergyman 
 on one side of the bed, and George Fordham on 
 the other, both looked down upon a corpse. 
 
 " If I am to get home at all I must go at once," 
 George Fordham said to the curate ; "it is a 
 terrible night." 
 
 When they went outside, what with the dark- 
 ness of the night and the snow, they could not 
 see a yard before them. Mr. Fordham's horse 
 was brought round, and he mounted and rode off. 
 The clergyman looked after him — he could only 
 see him for about two seconds — and as he turned 
 back into the house for his hat and coat, he 
 muttered, " If he ever gets home at all, it will be 
 through the infinite mercy of God ! " As Mr. 
 Fordham rode out of the gate, where the ostler 
 was standing with a lantern, there was a distant 
 ringing sound in the air, and he asked the man 
 what it was. " It is the clock at Churchill, sir, 
 striking eight." Mr. Fordham turned his horse's 
 head towards his home ; but the snow fell so fast, 
 and was frozen so hard as it fell, and lay so thick 
 on the ground, that it was with great difficulty 
 that his horse, though the best hack in his stable, 
 would face it. Mr. Fordham felt the cold pierce 
 him through and through, and the icy sleet beat 
 down upon him and lash into his face. A feeling 
 of numbness, of dizziness, and of unutterable 
 wretchedness came over him, and a strange un- 
 certainty as to where he was. Whether he was 
 sleeping or waking he could not tell. From this
 
 THE FORDHAMS OF SEVERNSTOKE 379 
 
 state he was roused by the lights at Churchill, and 
 he drew rein at the bright windows of the inn, 
 staggered into the bar, and asked the astonished 
 host for something hot. " Brandy and water — 
 anything." — " Squire Fordham ! what ill-luck has 
 brought your worship out such a night as this! you 
 surely won't go on." — " I must go on," the Squire 
 said. " I have been up to Mr. Boscombe's, who 
 is dead." — " Dead ! " muttered the host under his 
 breath; " it is an awful night for a man to die on." 
 Then, speaking louder, he pressed Mr. Fordham 
 at least to take a chaise. "No, he would take 
 no post-boys out in such a night," the Squire said, 
 'least of all on Christmas Eve; he felt warmer 
 now and should do very well " ; and he mounted 
 and rode off against the driving snow. The 
 snow fell thicker and felt colder than before ; he 
 could neither hear nor see anything, and struggled 
 on blindly, hardly knowing where he went. Once 
 he thought of turning back, but the recollection 
 of his friends' anxiety at home caused him to 
 struggle on. He was conscious that he was 
 descending the hill towards the bridge over the 
 Evenlode, and he kept his horse, as near as he 
 could tell, in the middle of the road, that he might 
 not miss the bridge. He could just see the snow- 
 covered parapet on his right hand, and urged his 
 horse, as he thought, up the ascent of the bridge. 
 The animal made a plunge forward through the 
 thick snow — then a wild neigh and a struggle, 
 and horse and rider went down, head foremost, 
 into the frozen river beneath. The Squire fell 
 undermost — the horse remained motionless upon 
 him. He was dimly conscious for a moment of
 
 3So THE FORDHAMS OF SEVERNSTOKE 
 
 the snow falling, falling, falling thicker and more 
 thick, and covering him, feet deep, with a white 
 shroud, then all consciousness left him, and he 
 fell into a slumber as cold and fast as that of 
 death itself. 
 
 Now let us see what strange thing had 
 happened at Severnstoke. 
 
 After Mr. Fordham had ridden away the 
 company left the grand dining-room and went 
 into what was called the oak room, which 
 adjoined it. It was a small room, panelled with 
 oak black with age, and had a very high carved 
 chimney-piece also of oak, round which the 
 company seated themselves. The absence of 
 the host, on such a gloomy evening, made them 
 feel sad and dull, and the reports brought in from 
 time to time of the increasing wildness of the 
 night did not much enliven them. They began 
 to talk of dreary winter nights and of the dismal 
 tales connected with them — of men and women 
 being snowed up and lost on barren moors ; of 
 dreadful sounds and sights seen by those who 
 had cause to ride by night ; of mysterious horse- 
 men riding up suddenly by the traveller's side 
 and disclosing some hideous countenance or tale ; 
 of wild huntsmen encountered in great parks or 
 chases ; and one of the lawyers told how a friend 
 of his, riding home late, or rather early, one 
 winter's night from a hunting dinner, when there 
 was a hard black frost, but no snow, heard for a 
 long time the tramp of a horse, through the black 
 stillness, coming to meet him. And how, just 
 as he reached a long old bridge over a deep 
 river, there met him, on the middle of the bridge,
 
 THE FORDHAMS OF SEVERNSTOKE 381 
 
 a man, mounted on a tired horse, and bearing 
 a dead body before him, which he made as if 
 he would throw into the stream. And how, 
 when he saw the gentleman ride up to him, he 
 dropped the body on the bridge, and passed by 
 the other like a whirlwind, in spite of his tired 
 horse. And how it was supposed he must have 
 brought the body very many miles through many 
 counties, for, though the gentleman gave in- 
 formation in the morning to a justice, and the 
 matter was taken up, yet the body was never 
 claimed. And how, many years afterwards, a 
 man, dying in a small town in some distant 
 county, confessed himself guilty, with others who 
 were then dead, of the murder, and told a dread- 
 ful tale of riding through the dark night with 
 the dead horror before him on his saddle-bow. 
 through the silent villages and towns, and past 
 the churches, whose clocks seemed to cry out' 
 after him when they struck ; and how, when his 
 hateful task was nearly done, when he thought 
 he had ridden far enough, and was going to rid 
 himself of his horrid burden over the parapet of 
 a bridge, there met him a fiend, riding on a 
 coal-black horse, and clothed all in flame (which 
 was the gentleman's scarlet hunting coat), and 
 how he was scared almost to death, and fled 
 away beyond the seas. 
 
 Though there might be some slight element 
 of the ludicrous in this tale, yet the frightfulness 
 of it so far preponderated, that the company were 
 very still and scared after it, and they sat for a long 
 while quiet, no one venturing to tell any more 
 stories. A heavy dreariness pressed down upon
 
 382 THE FORDHAMS OF SEVERNSTOKE 
 
 them, and they felt a fear stealing over them of 
 they did not know what. At last some one 
 spoke. " George will be back soon, I should 
 think," he said; "what o'clock is it?" — "Just 
 eight." The words were hardly spoken before 
 the whole company felt a sudden chill, as though 
 the door had opened and some one had come in 
 out of the night, bringing a cold blast of frozen 
 air with him. Most of them sprang up and 
 turned round, and there, a little way from them, 
 by a table, stood William Boscombe as plainly as 
 he had ever stood in life. There was nothing 
 fearful in his aspect, nevertheless the company 
 were struck motionless by some nameless horror. 
 He moved up towards the fire, the company 
 giving back to let him pass. 
 
 "It is a very cold night," he said; "George 
 Fordham will be here anon — he has left my 
 house." 
 
 The voice was as nearly as possible his ordinary 
 voice, but there was this peculiarity in it, that it 
 did not seem to be formed in his mouth, but to 
 come from him without any effort on his part. 
 " Did you meet him, then ? " some one said — no 
 one ever knew afterwards who it was. " No, I 
 did not meet him." It seemed as if they were 
 obliged to speak, the silence was so terrible ; and 
 another said, "Will you come to the fire?" 
 " No, I cannot stay, I am waited for in another 
 place ; but you had better send some one forward 
 to meet George Fordham at Evenlode bridge this 
 night — this night when it is so very cold, and the 
 snow falls very thick — very thick — very thick." 
 The last words seemed to be repeated three or
 
 THE FORDHAMS OF SEVERNSTOKE 383 
 
 four times somewhere in the room, fainter and 
 fainter every time, and each time the figure 
 before them grew less and less distinct, till at 
 last it faded away utterly, and the sounds ceased, 
 and they were alone in the dark oak-panelled 
 room. 
 
 There was a profound stillness in the room for 
 several minutes ; every one seemed waiting to hear 
 his neighbour breathe. The Methodist minister 
 spoke at last. " This is a message from the dead," 
 he said, " like those of which Baxter and Cotton 
 Mather and other holy men of old writ. No time 
 should be lost in obeying it." 
 
 He turned as he spoke, for Richard Fordham, 
 who had left the room unperceived, now came back 
 with his hat and dreadnought coat on, and a 
 lantern in his hand. " I am ready to go," he said, 
 "who will come with me?" 
 
 And the two officers volunteered, and the Rev. 
 Augoistine Bernard also came forward. 
 
 " I am rector of this parish," he said, " and my 
 post is foremost in any danger of this kind." 
 
 Mr. Fordham's own groom asked leave to 
 accompany them, and they set out down the 
 drive. The snow fell faster than ever ; just round 
 the lantern they could see the falling flakes — that 
 was all. It was impossible for the eye to pierce 
 the intense darkness, which the falling snow made 
 greater than on the darkest night. In a few 
 minutes they were all covered with snow an inch 
 thick. In this way they struggled on, being- 
 guided by a faint halo in the direction of the 
 lantern, which the groom carried a little ahead. 
 More by chance than anything else, or shall we
 
 384 THE FORDHAMS OF SEVERNSTOKE 
 
 say, more by the merciful Providence of God, 
 they kept the right road. 
 
 Sometimes, when they passed a small wood or 
 plantation, they could see a faint, shape or outline 
 rising up, and by this the groom made out the 
 road. It is impossible to describe the helpless 
 feelinof of that desolate silence. The loudest 
 shout would not penetrate a hundred yards 
 through that dense atmosphere of falling snow. 
 They had gone in this way about two hours, and 
 were beginning to despair, when the snow seemed 
 to be falling less thickly, and it grew lighter, and 
 immediately afterwards they heard a clock strike 
 before them. 
 
 "That must be Churchill clock," said the 
 groom ; " we are coming down upon the bridge." 
 
 From the place where they were they could 
 see on either hand, by the increased light, a high 
 plantation, and the groom placed them, as nearly 
 as he could, in the middle of the road, between 
 the two woods. "If we can get in the middle 
 and keep on in a straight line," he said, " we may 
 hit the bridge ; else we shall go over into the 
 river, which God keep the Squire from having 
 done already." — " I and the groom will go on 
 first," said Richard Fordham. " Stay here till we 
 have found the bridge ; we will shout when we 
 have found it — or something else," he muttered to 
 himself. 
 
 They stood there some ten minutes, though it 
 seemed longer, with a dread anxiety upon them, 
 stamping and beating themselves as well as they 
 could, for the snow was frozen upon them an inch 
 thick. They watched the lantern go on in a
 
 THE FORDHAMS OF SEVERNSTOKE 385 
 
 straight line, or nearly so, down the sloping road 
 that led to the bridge ; then they saw it hesitate, 
 wave up and down, and wander to and fro ; 
 suddenly it made a descent, and the next instant 
 they saw it violently agitated up and down, as if 
 to attract attention, and they heard Richard 
 Fordham's strong voice shouting through the 
 darkness, " Come on ! come on, all of you ! he is 
 down in the river's bed ! " 
 
 Three days afterwards George Fordham was 
 as well as he was before he took that dismal night 
 ride, and William Boscombe's body was buried 
 on New Year's Day in his village church. 
 
 Requiescat in Pace ! 
 
 vol. 11 2 c
 
 A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 1 
 
 It was the smoke-room of a Welsh castle, after 
 lunch on Sunday. Three of the numerous easy- 
 chairs were drawn round the small fire. It was 
 a fine day towards the end of a fine September, 
 but there is, especially when one has attained to 
 a certain period of life, something in an easy-chair 
 more in accordance with the after-lunch tobacco 
 than there is in lounging about on terraces and 
 garden-seats, and two of the occupants of the 
 easy-chairs had more than attained to this period 
 of life. The man who sat to the left, facing the 
 fireplace, and who was evidently the master of the 
 house, was a tall, fine-looking man, Sir Frederick 
 Chevenix Pole, perfectly English in type, fair- 
 haired and fresh -coloured, with strongly cut 
 features, indicative of a firm purpose and will. 
 Next to him, between his two companions, sat 
 a man of about seventy years of age, of a 
 striking and, one might almost say, fascinating 
 appearance. His short white hair and grey 
 moustache, according with his perfectly cut 
 features, might have accounted for this attraction, 
 but there was more than this. There was a 
 distinction in his cold grey eyes, born of the 
 habit of command and of the conscious possession 
 
 1 From the English Illustrated Magazine. 
 386
 
 A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 387 
 
 of power, physical, mental, and conferred ; a 
 consciousness that gave an expression of bene- 
 ficence and courtesy because supported by the 
 sense of authority which made the one possible 
 of instant fulfilment and the other assured and 
 safe. He was, there could be no doubt, a 
 general officer in high command. The third 
 chair was pushed back somewhat farther from the 
 fire, as though the occupant did not need its 
 warmth. He was scarcely more than a boy — 
 a young man of barely three -and -twenty — Sir 
 Frederick's only child, married within three 
 months. He was as tall as his father, but 
 much handsomer, giving promise, indeed, of 
 becoming in a few years what used to be called 
 " a beauty man." He had dark hair and unusually 
 clear and piercing eyes, and, what he doubtless 
 inherited from his dead mother, strikingly deli- 
 cately cut nose and mouth. 
 
 Sir Frederick was evidently in a very bad 
 humour. He lay back in his chair, his eyes 
 fixed upon the fire, taking no pleasure from the 
 cigar which, from the mere necessity of keeping 
 it alight, he from time to time put to his lips. 
 
 "It is all very well," he was saying, "for 
 Plynlimmon and Cader and such great men to 
 say that it does not matter, and that nothing has 
 happened. I say that everything has happened, 
 and that it matters very much. I say that it is 
 revolution ! " 
 
 The other men continued to smoke calmly, 
 looking into the fire. It seemed better to let Sir 
 Frederick relieve his mind without interposing 
 irritating remarks.
 
 388 A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 
 
 " To me," he went on, " to me, who care for 
 every blade of grass upon the land, who, and my 
 fathers before me, have done for these people 
 infinitely better than they would have done for 
 themselves, I say that it matters very much, and 
 that everything has happened — that it is simply 
 revolution. Look at the County Councils, and 
 now Parish Councils ! Am I to sneak in by a 
 dozen votes or so, and be insulted and out-voted 
 every time I propose anything the like of which 
 my fathers have done for centuries for the people 
 and for the land ? " 
 
 It was quite too sore a subject to irritate 
 further, and the other men remained discreetly 
 silent. 
 
 " Look at Sir Corwen," Sir Frederick went 
 on, talking more to himself than to the others, 
 " I don't know what has come over Wales during 
 the last ten or fifteen years. Only a few years 
 ago they used to talk, all over Wales, of ' God 
 and Sir Corwen.' Who talks of that now ? Who 
 talks of God at all ? " 
 
 Of a family resident in Wales for centuries, 
 but of almost pure English descent for all that 
 length of time, and marrying with all the great 
 English families, Sir Frederick was of Wales, 
 and yet not Welsh. He did not speak Welsh 
 himself. It was not the fashion to do so in his 
 youth. His son had been taught the language, 
 and spoke it sometimes to the farmers and 
 peasantry, but he did it with constraint and 
 apparent condescension, and it had not the 
 slightest good effect, but rather the reverse. 
 
 " God knows," Sir Frederick began again, " I
 
 A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 389 
 
 don't want to insult these people. I never have 
 insulted them. I have done them all the good 
 I could ; but you know what I mean." 
 
 " It is just the same in India," said the 
 General, in his courteous, suave way. " We 
 never know but that any post may bring us some 
 insane orders from the British Parliament." 
 
 " Here is Felix there," continued Sir Frederick, 
 thus encouraged, " they want him to stand for the 
 county. Plynlimmon says that it is our duty. I 
 say, No — I won't have him beaten by a tallow- 
 chandler." 
 
 " He isn't a tallow-chandler, Dad," said the 
 young man in a cheery, pleasant, ringing voice 
 from his remote chair. "He is a great soap- 
 manufacturer, who employs tens of thousands of 
 workmen, and has built a town for them on the 
 most approved system. He will be made a 
 baronet if the Gladstonians stick in." 
 
 " He is an insolent cad," replied his father 
 with great asperity, " to set himself against the 
 Plynlimmon and the Chevenix Pole influence. 
 Look at Sir Corwen, who spends half of his 
 income for the good of his people, and they all 
 vote against him ! Look at Cader, who gives 
 all his labourers fancy cottages at a pound a year, 
 and keeps the hedges and the gardens in order 
 as well, and they all vote against him ! " 
 
 There was a long pause ; iniquity like this did 
 not admit of discussion. 
 
 "And, what is worse," Sir Frederick said at 
 last, after he had satisfied himself that his cigar 
 was alight, "this tallow-chandler will get in! I 
 think I can depend on old Thompson. He is the
 
 390 A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 
 
 butler, General, and was my father's man. But 
 I'll be hanged if I don't believe that the London 
 footmen would vote against me if they got the 
 chance ! The effect of this demoralising influence 
 upon people of very good disposition is amazing." 
 
 There was another slight pause ; then Sir 
 Frederick began again — 
 
 " I tell you, Felix, you shall not stand ! I 
 won't have Felix Chevenix Pole beaten by a 
 little red-haired Welshman." 
 
 "He isn't little, Dad," replied the boy, "and 
 he isn't red-haired, He is not far short of my 
 height, and he has black hair. As for Welsh- 
 man, what are we ? " 
 
 "You seem to know a great deal about him," 
 said his father shortly, and ignoring the last 
 question. " Where have you seen him ? " 
 
 " I have seen him with the Flintshire Hunt. 
 He rides fairly well to hounds." 
 
 What Sir Frederick might have answered to 
 this will never be known, for at this moment the 
 door opened and another actor appeared upon 
 the scene. 
 
 " Felix," said a sweet, silvery voice, " I am 
 going to the three o'clock children's service. 
 Will you come with me ? " 
 
 "Come with you!" cried the young man, 
 springing up. " W T here would I not come with 
 you, my love ! " 
 
 The other men had risen also. 
 
 "May I come too?" said the General. "I 
 should like to hear the little children sing." 
 
 He was looking from one to the other with 
 an amused, beneficent, surprised delight, and,
 
 A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 391 
 
 indeed, at the latest comer he might well look — 
 a tall, fair, grey-eyed English girl, with a perfect 
 complexion and clear-cut profile and mouth, " A 
 daughter of the gods, divinely fair," from whose 
 girlish form the honours of her recent wifehood 
 had as yet taken no single grace. A girl with 
 whom, one would think, a man would go any- 
 where — even to church ! 
 
 " Oh, the children don't sing much ! " she said. 
 " They are too little, but the choir-boys' voices 
 are very sweet, and they sing such lovely 
 hymns." 
 
 "You will excuse me, my dear," said Sir 
 Frederick, as he kissed his new daughter on the 
 forehead, " I have been to church once to-day, 
 and I am not fit to hear little children sing. I 
 am not in a Christian frame of mind." 
 
 They went out into the great hall. As he 
 passed Felix took his father's hand — 
 
 " Don't worry, Dad," he said ; " what does it 
 matter ? There is a boy in Terence who calls 
 to his father, ' O festivissime Pater.' I always 
 used to think of you when I blundered over 
 that at Eton." 
 
 The great hall was surrounded by high leaded 
 windows and dim portraits. There were masses 
 of harpalium, single dahlias, and tritomas in china 
 and delf jars ; there was also a faint scent of 
 mignonette. 
 
 As near as he could get to the centre of the 
 hall stood a small pug-dog, apparently in an 
 aggrieved and injured frame of mind. He was 
 evidently of a most distinguished breed, with a 
 skin of a fine golden fawn colour, and brilliant
 
 392 A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 
 
 black eyes. He regarded his mistress with a 
 look of reproach. 
 
 " You seem to have made your own arrange- 
 ments," he clearly said. "Am I to come or 
 not ? " 
 
 " Oh, you may come, Beo," said his mistress. 
 " You will stay in the porch, you know, during 
 the service." 
 
 The dog turned his back and walked towards 
 the hall-door. 
 
 " I suppose I know how to behave," he said 
 to himself. 
 
 Beo was an aristocrat to the backbone. He 
 was fed on minced chicken, and slept in his 
 mistress's room on a down pillow (his mistress 
 said she slept in his room), but when he was 
 turned out of the wagonette he would run for 
 miles and never ask to be taken in. 
 
 They followed Beo out of the carved porch 
 and down the carriage- drive, deep cut in the 
 solid rock, with banks of hydrangea on either 
 side, now varied with curious pale autumn tints, 
 and great oaks and ashes upon the top, and on 
 the rocky mounds overhanging the drive where 
 the walls and bastions of the feudal castle had 
 been. 
 
 There was a lofty square-built tower, covered 
 with ivy, where the jackdaws and swallows lived, 
 with great oaken gates studded with iron bands 
 and nails, through which they passed by a small 
 wicket and came out into the main street of the 
 village, with an old high-arched bridge immedi- 
 ately opposite the gate, spanning a rushing torrent 
 in its course from the hills to the neighbouring
 
 A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 393 
 
 sea. The village street, with pretty new-built 
 shops standing in gardens, passed up the valley ; 
 but opposite to the gateway and across the 
 narrow bridge was another street of much older 
 houses, leading up to the old Welsh church on 
 the top of the hill. 
 
 Beo, evidently knowing, or thinking that he 
 knew — the wisest of us are liable to be mistaken 
 sometimes — exactly what was going to happen, 
 walked in front and crossed the bridge with the 
 intention of proceeding straight up to the church. 
 
 The first thing that disconcerted Beo as they 
 came out from under the dark archway into the 
 sunlight was a tame jackdaw, who, descending 
 from one of the pillars at the bridge wall, came 
 running towards him with much chattering and 
 flapping of wings. Beo regarded this creature 
 with the intensest disgust. His sentiments were 
 precisely those of Sir Frederick Chevenix Pole. 
 It was a sign of the general demoralisation of 
 manners that a gentleman could not walk up the 
 street of his own village without being subjected 
 to such familiarities. 
 
 On the bridge were several young men and 
 boys, lounging and smoking and talking. It 
 might have comforted Sir Frederick somewhat 
 to have seen that most of them touched their 
 hats. We have not quite reached the lowest 
 depth yet. 
 
 The party from the Castle crossed the bridge 
 and began to ascend the steep old village street 
 towards the parish church, which was their 
 nearest way to the English church, built by Sir 
 Frederick lower down the hill-slope, among the
 
 394 A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 
 
 villas and tennis-lawns of the English residents, 
 on the verge of the park as it approached 
 the sea. 
 
 They had not gone far up the street when 
 their steps were arrested by the sound of soft 
 music, melancholy and still, and yet at the same 
 time with an odd sense of a lively strain under- 
 neath the solemn monotones ; a distinct and 
 divergent sound, different from aught that lay 
 around, different from anything to which their 
 lives had hitherto seemed to lead ; a faint, slow 
 movement, quaint and almost lively, yet touching 
 and sad, that seemed to communicate itself to the 
 warm, sunny air, and, together with it, to act upon 
 the sense with a marvellously attractive power. 
 They turned almost instinctively and stood by the 
 stone walls of the garden plots, looking down 
 upon the street and upon the bridge. 
 
 A Sunday rest and glamour pervaded the 
 quiet scene. The warm afternoon sun was 
 shining over the late roses and the fuchsias 
 and white anemones in the cottage flower-beds, 
 and on the rank growth of potatoes and cabbages 
 and marrows in the gardens interspersed between 
 the straggling houses. In the background were 
 the massy woods and dark foliage of the Castle 
 grounds, with the great feudal tower covered 
 with ivy, all in flower, and traced here and there 
 with tendrils of Virginia creeper stretching up 
 through the dark green mass. The tame jackdaw 
 came down again and stood in the very centre of 
 the village street. He flapped his wings and 
 seemed to be discoursing to an absent congre- 
 gation ; being dressed in black, his action might
 
 A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 395 
 
 seem suggestive to the unthinking mind. At the 
 cottage-windows and at the backs of the houses 
 girls might be seen preparing themselves in their 
 Sunday finery for the afternoon stroll, while their 
 fathers and mothers, too busy or too lazy to 
 change their clothes, were standing in garden 
 and doorway in their everyday working dress. 
 Small birds darted in and out, the rooks swept 
 across the sky. The village cats, calmed appar- 
 ently by the influence of the day and of the hour, 
 sat dreamily and securely, with something of a 
 Sabbath serenity, upon wall and window-sill, 
 gazing with unwonted complacency upon the 
 dogs that strolled past in the village street. 
 Through all this still life the marvellously 
 attractive notes penetrated the ear with irresistible 
 force. 
 
 The loungers on the bridge, arrested apparently 
 by these sounds, strolled listlessly up the street 
 and stood at the entrance of a narrow passage or 
 court from which the sounds seemed to come. 
 The court was surrounded by some of the very 
 oldest houses in the village. It was very narrow 
 at the entrance, but opened a little afterwards 
 into a quiet yard surrounded by stone cottages. 
 The strollers from the bridge seemed to be 
 somewhat sheepishly undecided, attracted appar- 
 ently by the music, ashamed to show any marked 
 interest in what was going on. 
 
 They were also exposed to a counter-attraction. 
 
 Some of the village girls, who had finished 
 their toilette, now came out and joined them. 
 One maiden went so far as to slap her friend 
 jovially upon the back. The men did not seem
 
 396 A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 
 
 to heed ; something in that faint yet piercing- 
 note seemed to draw them with its magic 
 influence, as it had done those others, of so 
 different a kind, farther up the hill. They 
 moved off slowly one by one, and went up the 
 narrow court. The village girls, disgusted at 
 the desertion of their swains, went back into 
 their gardens to bide their time. 
 
 " Let us go down," Claire said. "It is the 
 Salvation singing, I think." 
 
 They moved down the steep street and stood 
 at the entrance of the court, where the others had 
 stood a moment before. 
 
 Beo strongly objected to this course. It was 
 irregular, and to his well-regulated mind it did 
 not seem that it was in good form. There was a 
 stone step, or pavement, in front of a closed shop 
 at the corner of the little alley. He seated him- 
 self upon this, with his back to the whole affair, 
 and his gaze steadfastly fixed up the steep street 
 towards the afternoon sky above, and towards the 
 outline of the village church upon the crest of the 
 hill. 
 
 An intense stillness pervaded the scene, scarcely 
 broken by the strain of thin, wild music. The 
 stone houses, worn and weather-stained, borrowed 
 of the warm sunshine and of the rich autumn 
 afternoon, and became to a certain extent mel- 
 lowed and beautiful ; and the pale, delicate sky 
 accorded in its faded blue with the sombre colours 
 of the houses and of the autumn gardens — with 
 the quiet yard and with the mystic song, which 
 no Eastern sunlight or fancy could have warmed 
 into the tints and melodies of fable or romance.
 
 A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 397 
 
 As the Castle party stood in the main street, at 
 the entrance to the alley, they could see, beyond 
 the group of men who were standing some little 
 way up the narrow entry, the small court of 
 houses, which seemed almost uninhabited. An 
 old woman or so appeared now and then at the 
 upper windows, and gazed with apparent indiffer- 
 ence upon the scene below. An indescribable 
 sense of peace and mystery pervaded this quiet 
 yard. 
 
 In the open space between the small houses 
 were three girls, in the orthodox Salvation dress, 
 and two men. 
 
 The girls were singing, and had small 
 tambourines in their hands. They accompanied 
 their singing with the very faintest beating of the 
 tambourines in time. In addition to this faint 
 beating of the time, they executed at the interval 
 of every few seconds the very slightest rhythmical 
 movement of their position and pose — a move- 
 ment so slight as to be scarcely perceptible, yet 
 possessing an enthralling and suggestive effect ; 
 for this faint, graceful movement gave a reality 
 and a touch of human feeling, as in the grandest 
 music there are cords which suggest street and 
 village life, and in dance and pantomime airs 
 there are strains and adagios which recall the 
 great music of the Mass. 
 
 What these girls sang none of the Castle party 
 knew, but not one of them doubted for a moment 
 that it was some version of that strangely per- 
 sistent story born among the villages of Galilee 
 many hundred years ago. 
 
 After an interval of two or three minutes the
 
 398 A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 
 
 girls ceased singing, concluding their verses with 
 a dance, movement more marked than usual, and 
 one of the men began a short address. He was 
 a small, red-haired man, of an insignificant and 
 common appearance. He spoke apparently to 
 no one, for the group of men in the entry seemed 
 too far off to constitute an audience, but he spoke 
 with profuse action and earnestness, and in a full 
 and rich tone of voice. 
 
 " He is consigning us all to hell -fire," said 
 Felix, who was supposed to know Welsh, "but it 
 does not matter. It is a melodious language, and 
 the men's voices are rich and sweet." 
 
 When the elderly man had completed his 
 sermon — and he spoke for a very short time — the 
 girls sang again, and when they had finished a 
 young man stepped forward and delivered an 
 address, which seemed to be only a repetition of 
 the elder speaker. Then the girls sang again 
 with the same thin, sweet, searching note, with 
 the same faint beating of the tambourines, with 
 the same svelte movement of the limbs. Then 
 they stopped altogether. 
 
 " Will they come out and walk the streets ? " 
 said Claire. " They have no audience here." 
 
 Felix shook his head. His knowledge of 
 Welsh habits was small, of Salvation methods 
 smaller still. 
 
 But when the girls had stopped singing the 
 elder of the men took one of the tambourines 
 from their hands and advanced towards the group 
 standing in the entry. They apparently contri- 
 buted something. Then he came a little farther, 
 and stood for a second or two undecided, looking
 
 A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 399 
 
 at the group in the street. Felix, to encourage 
 him, took out his purse. Then the man came 
 forward cheerfully, with his head on one side and 
 a wheedling smile upon his face. He held out 
 the tambourine : there were several coins upon it 
 — halfpence and pence. Each of the men gave 
 him half-a-crown. 
 
 " I should like to see if they come out," said 
 Claire again ; "let us wait a minute and see." 
 
 But nothing of the kind happened. When the 
 man went back the service seemed to be over. 
 He stooped, or almost knelt, before the others, 
 and, producing the coins, arranged them in order 
 upon the ground, so that all might see. Then 
 the strange choir broke up, most of them 
 apparently retiring into the houses around. 
 
 But one girl came down the court. She passed 
 the group of men who were standing in the entry, 
 and came out into the street. She was a striking- 
 looking girl, in spite of her hideous bonnet and 
 dress, and there was something about her look 
 that seemed strange to the surroundings among 
 which she stood. 
 
 Inspired, as it would seem, by a sudden 
 instinct, Claire moved towards her. 
 
 " Your singing is very sweet." she said, with 
 her silvery distinct utterance. " We thank you 
 very much," and she held out her hand. 
 
 But the girl drew herself up. She fixed her 
 steady eyes upon the striking group before her, 
 and there was something in the glance of the 
 dark eyes suggestive of the fact that such a group 
 — not this one, but one not unlike it — was far 
 from being an unfamiliar sight.
 
 400 A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 
 
 " Thanks, no," she said in perfect English, 
 and with a refined accent and tone ; " thanks, no, 
 my Lady ; I am a ruined girl," and she passed on 
 down the village street. 
 
 There did not seem much to say after this as 
 they went up the street to the old Welsh parish 
 church upon the top of the hill. 
 
 The September light, which had been some- 
 what obscured in the valley, became brighter 
 as they reached the crest of the hill, and a 
 blaze of sunlight and, as it seemed, an unexpected 
 day of space and sense awaited them as they 
 crossed its ridge. 
 
 And, indeed, it could hardly seem surprising 
 that Beo had steadfastly sat himself upon that 
 corner flagstone with his eyes fixed upon the 
 western sky and upon the low, suave lines of the 
 Welsh church upon the hilltop, for the sight of 
 man (or dog) has seldom seen anything more 
 perfect in its way. 
 
 The western sun, travelling towards its grave 
 in the sea, had passed beyond the church towards 
 the right, and left behind it, in the sky which it 
 had traversed, an intensely clear and delicate 
 flush, against which the low roofs of the church 
 stonework, wrought upon and tempered by the 
 slowly passing centuries, and wreathed here and 
 there with masses of creeping ivy, stood out in 
 soft and yet distinctly cut outline and relief. 
 
 The churchyard was guarded by a fence of 
 slate piles, fastened together by iron bands ; and 
 the gate was a great slab-slate, girded with iron. 
 Inside the churchyard the tombs were mostly of 
 slate, with short inscriptions, one might almost
 
 A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 401 
 
 say, scratched upon them ; but here and there a 
 great stone slab, moss-grown and coloured with 
 age, and supported by small carved pillars of 
 stone, marked the resting-place of some Welsh 
 gentleman whom the perplexities of this life 
 ceased to trouble two centuries ago. All over 
 the churchyard, in among these pale slates and 
 armorial stones, a profuse melde of Welsh flowers 
 flung itself in masses and in single lines over the 
 green sward and around the lettered stones, and 
 over the broad tombs, which seemed, as it were, 
 some strange reminiscence of the discarded altar 
 of the past. 
 
 As they trode, with hushed senses, these quiet 
 pathways of the dead, the stillness, as of a day 
 sacred to peace, and the chime of the green hues 
 of earth and the clear tints of Heaven, and the 
 hand of time graciously at work through many 
 winters, and through long summer days, softened 
 the rude outlines of poverty and of death, and 
 seemed to reduce (or is it elevate ?) all men, from 
 the castle or the village, by the magic of a common 
 clay, to one fellowship and kin. 
 
 Great trees, ashes and oaks, lined the further 
 wall of the churchyard, and another gate, also of 
 slate, opened the way to a path which led down 
 to the new church at the bottom of the hill. 
 
 Underneath the spreading branches of the 
 trees, as they stood for a moment by the church- 
 yard gate, great swallows swept past, almost 
 touching them in their rapid flight ; through the 
 overarching branches went a murmur and sound 
 as of some spirit-whisper from above. 
 
 Beyond, the ground fell steeply down a sloping 
 
 VOL. II 2D
 
 4 02 A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 
 
 field, and over the shimmer of delicate grass and 
 the pale blue tint of small thistle-flowers, and the 
 tall white spire of the English church and the 
 woods, lay a waste of yellow sand, broken with 
 channels and rivers of blue sea, and beyond this 
 more blue sea, and then, faint in the misty 
 glamour of the autumn afternoon, the distant 
 shores. 
 
 To the left, where the hills sloped down into 
 the park and the sea, the great trees and copses 
 cast long shadows upon the grass in the quivering, 
 slumberous air. 
 
 The General stopped for a moment, as if 
 surprised. 
 
 "The sea is as blue," he said, "and the sand 
 as yellow as at Capri itself." 
 
 A sense of consolation and of peace came 
 over Claire's spirit, jarred and repelled as it had 
 been. 
 
 "How beautiful it all is!" she said. "And 
 the old village church, with its soft outline and 
 its creepers and the mossy graves ! General 
 Lefevre," she went on with a sudden impulse, 
 " you have been everywhere, and know every- 
 thing. Tell me, why do Dissenters like everything 
 that is ugly, and why are they so rude ? " 
 
 "My dear!" said the General, "I am sure I 
 cannot tell ! I don't know anything. I was never 
 taught anything but the Latin grammar, and that 
 I wouldn't learn. I was sent into the Army 
 because I was the fool of the family. ' He can 
 stop a bullet,' my dear father used to say, 'if he 
 can do nothing else.' And I didn't even do that," 
 the General said with a smile. "In the hottest fire
 
 A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 403 
 
 I was never touched. They said I bore a charmed 
 life. I am sure I cannot tell!" 
 
 By the time that they reached the English 
 church, by the pathway over the field, they had 
 loitered so long that the service was over, and 
 the children were singing the final hymn : 
 
 We are but little children weak, 
 
 Nor born to any high estate ; 
 What can we do for Jesus' sake, 
 
 Who is so high and good and great ? 
 
 Oh, day by day each Christian child 
 
 Has much to do, without, within, 
 A death to die for Jesus' sake, 
 
 A weary war to wage with sin. 
 
 When deep within our swelling hearts 
 The thoughts of pride and passion rise, 
 
 When bitter words are on our tongues, 
 And tears of passion in our eyes ; 
 
 Then we may stay the angry blow, 
 Then we may check the hasty word, 
 
 Give gentle answer back to all, 
 And fight the battle of the Lord. 
 
 The shrill treble note, with a child's uncertainty, 
 sang this lesson of human life, before whose stern 
 realities it has been said that he is happy who is 
 like a little child. The tears were in Claire's 
 wonderful grey eyes. 
 
 " I heard that sung," she said, "in one of the 
 smartest and most crowded churches in London. 
 I never heard anything so touching in my life ! " 
 
 So, there being nothing else to do, they went 
 home by another way, past the gardens of the 
 English residents and up the village street, where 
 Beo was more comfortable in his mind. He had
 
 404 A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 
 
 been to church as a gentleman should, and most 
 of the creatures had retired to sleep. They went 
 in through the great portcullised gateway, past 
 the banks of hydrangeas and the avenues of ashes 
 and of oak. The massy doors stood open, under 
 the porch with its carved armorial bearings, to 
 the great silent hall, and Claire went in. 
 
 " What did you think of that girl ? " said the 
 General, as the two men stood for a moment on 
 the sunny gravel outside the porch. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," said the boy, with just 
 a touch of assumption of supreme knowledge of 
 the world. " Been in English service, I should 
 say — lady's-maid, probably. Some fallen girl 
 who has been reclaimed. The police tell us that 
 these people do a lot of good." 
 
 " She reminded me," said the General, very 
 slowly — and it struck Felix, with a sudden 
 surprise, that his face was ashy pale — "she 
 reminded me of a girl whom I knew many a long 
 year ago. Do you think, Felix," he went on, 
 and there was a strange humility in his tone in 
 speaking to the boy, as to one possibly possessed 
 of information later than his own — " do you think 
 that there is anything in it all ? Some of us will 
 need God's mercy, one day, if there be."
 
 EARLY POEMS 
 
 405
 
 A SHADOW OF GEORGE HERBERT 
 
 Thou that in a dreary prison-house 
 
 Pensively dost sigh, 
 And in thy sorrow only longest, 
 
 Poor heart ! to die, 
 Know this, 
 Thy God, within these dark bars, willeth 
 
 To bring thee bliss. 
 
 Believe thou, that this world, 
 
 So rich and rare, 
 And all the living things and flowers 
 
 Thou thought so fair, 
 Are nought 
 Save to the simple soul and pure 
 
 That God has taught. 
 
 For all the wisdom of the world, 
 
 And all its care, 
 And all its stepping-stones to Heaven, 
 As water unstable are. 
 Thy cell 
 Is large enough for thee to find thy way, 
 Aye ! twice as well. 
 
 407
 
 408 A SHADOW OF GEORGE HERBERT 
 
 Then know, thou art within thy cell 
 
 As in a little cave, 
 (Far off from all that tempteth man,) 
 
 Thy soul to save ; 
 And see 
 That, by the mercy of thy God, thy cell 
 
 A palace rich may be !
 
 THE LITTLE GRAVEYARD 
 
 On the hillside, o'er the valley, 
 Open both to sun and shade, 
 To the hot sun, and the cold wind, 
 With the green grave-hillocks lined, 
 Is the little graveyard laid. 
 
 Just below it is the meeting 
 
 Ancient fashioned. 'Tis so still 
 We can hear the water flowing, 
 We can hear the oxen lowing, 
 At the bottom of the hill. 
 
 And above us is the blue sky 
 
 Shining through the fleeting clouds ; 
 And around us trees and bowers, 
 And below us grass and flowers, 
 And the dead men in their shrouds. 
 
 We see them not, we hear them not, 
 
 All around is bright and glad, 
 And the sunshine gaily dances, 
 And the shower-wet flower glances : — 
 What is it makes us sad ? 
 
 409
 
 410 THE LITTLE GRAVEYARD 
 
 Not sad in our modern meaning, 
 
 But as our forefathers meant ; — 
 Nobler thought and higher feeling ; — 
 Heart-stirring o'er the spirit stealing, 
 Than outward objects lent. 
 
 What is it makes our tongues grow still, 
 
 Or but in whispers sound ? 
 What is it makes our feet move slowly ? 
 What have we found so grave and holy ? 
 
 Within that little ground. 
 
 O ! no outward object is it, 
 
 That our heart is moving thus, 
 'Tis spirit unto spirit speaking ; — 
 'Tis spirit, spirit-commune seeking ; — 
 This it is that moveth us. 
 
 For we feel, beyond the beauty 
 
 Of these earthly hills and flowers, 
 The working of a knowledge higher, 
 The influence of a presence, nigher 
 God, — than ours. 
 
 And we feel the certain knowledge 
 
 Of the mighty truth we hear, 
 Of a glorious world of bliss, 
 Of saints and angels numberless, 
 And feel them near. 
 
 And they seem no longer vanished 
 All the loved and passed away : 
 
 All the good of history's pages, 
 
 All the saints of all the ages, 
 We feel them near to day.
 
 THE LITTLE GRAVEYARD 411 
 
 And our hearts reach out before us 
 
 To that awful day at last 
 When all the world beneath the sun, 
 The myriad tribes shall stand as one, 
 
 To answer for the past. 
 
 And the dear ones that lie buried, 
 
 Here — they are but few, 
 Shall rise up from the mouldy ground, 
 Shall arise and look around 
 
 On the hills they knew. 
 
 And shall such knowledge be in vain ? 
 
 Shall such feelings fade away ? 
 Rather let them lead us upward, 
 Rather let them lead us heavenward 
 
 To the perfect day !
 
 MY WIFE'S VALENTINE 
 
 " Did you know Mamma? " you ask me, 
 Little Florence, " Is it true ? " 
 And your bright eyes grow still brighter 
 At the thought so strange and new. 
 
 I can tell you, pretty Florence, 
 That the thought you've in your mind 
 Is a great one, ay ! a greater 
 Perhaps for years you will not find ! 
 
 You are standing, little Florence, 
 In the glory of the dawn, 
 And the bright world lies before you 
 With its beauties, night and morn ; 
 
 And its beauties, never ceasing, 
 Morn by morn your eyes shall meet, 
 And its wonders, still increasing, 
 Year by year before your feet : 
 
 But the wonder that is filling 
 Your bright eyes with awe to-day 
 Is the great one, that this beauty, 
 And this wonder last for aye. 
 
 412
 
 MY WIFE'S VALENTINE 413 
 
 Ere upon this earth so lovely, 
 Little Florence saw the light, 
 Hope was high, and love was tender, 
 Joy was blythe — and stern the fight. 
 
 Cold, forgotten, 'neath the hillocks, 
 Cold — ah — colder ! 'neath the sun, 
 Many lie, who, little Florence, 
 Had with joy their lives begun. 
 
 Do not tremble ! 'tis the Eternal, 
 The Divine all-perfect plan, 
 That from age to age has governed 
 And shall rule us, man by man. 
 
 ri 
 
 Did I know mamma ? you ask me, 
 For to-day old friendships meet, 
 And familiar voices mingle 
 Drowned by little pattering feet, 
 
 And I see her, years long parted, 
 In her household, fair and mild, 
 And the little Florence by me 
 Is her youngest, loveliest, child. 
 
 I can see the old grey manor 
 And the fir trees on the lawn, 
 And the rustling, shimm'ring foliage, 
 And the summer light at dawn,
 
 4 i 4 MY WIFE'S VALENTINE 
 
 And the mossy garden terrace 
 'Neath the fruit- walls long and high, 
 Where the budding chestnut blossoms 
 Glittered white against the sky, 
 
 And the finely pencilled evenings 
 'Mid all which we passed our time, 
 I, a boy just granted freedom, 
 She, a maiden in her prime. 
 
 Life was young to us, and lovely, 
 
 Every door was opened then 
 
 To the stores of many ages, 
 
 To the thoughts and dreams of men. 
 
 And we gathered of the honey 
 Which flowed freely all around, 
 Walking with enchanted footsteps 
 On the poets' magic ground, 
 
 Dante, Laura, Beatrice, 
 Arthur, Tristram, Eleanore, 
 And the shrine of Arthur Hallam 
 " In memoriam " evermore. 
 
 Thro' the world was I in fancy 
 With her wandering day by day, 
 Seeking for " the four-leaved shamrock 
 Of the air she loved to play. 
 
 And the little lore I gathered 
 And the culture, as was meet, 
 Served to make our converse sweeter, 
 All was offered at her feet.
 
 MY WIFE'S VALENTINE 415 
 
 What she gave me back I say not, 
 What I owe her, who can say ? 
 She, whose sweetness first exalted, 
 First refined life's opening day. 
 
 Still I hear her sisters' greeting, 
 Who for her sake held me dear, 
 And the household's kindly banter, 
 " Ah, we thought you two were near." 
 
 And I fancied sudden danger 
 And her guarded safe from harm 
 As we mounted at the gatehouse 
 With her light foot in my palm ; 
 
 As we loitered down the hedgerows 
 With a slack and careless rein, 
 With my hand upon her saddle 
 And hers resting on the mane ; 
 
 As we galloped o'er the park slopes, 
 Crossed the river at the ford, 
 Where the startled deer were herded 
 On the soft and flowery sward ; 
 
 As I mounted at the farm gate 
 'Neath the buildings mossy grey, 
 As I turned at the last winding 
 And looked backward on my way, 
 
 Through the winter trees I see her, 
 See her as I saw her then, 
 Vision of the past returning 
 Mid the haunts and strifes of men,
 
 4 i6 MY WIFE'S VALENTINE 
 
 And all day time, in the summer, 
 In the meadows, 'mid the hay, 
 We two, never wishing other, 
 Lingered down the dying day, 
 
 Lingered down the mellowing sunset, 
 Lingered down the evening star 
 — And you ask me, little Florence, 
 Did I know mamma ! 
 
 Ah ! ah me ! it shows how distant 
 Are those fairy summers now 
 That you ask me, looking upward 
 With your eager earnest brow, 
 
 And I answer, pretty Florence, 
 Answer, colder than the snow, 
 " Yes ! I knew your mother, Florence, 
 Many, many years ago." 
 
 in 
 
 Earth is fair ! and, like old Memnon, 
 Full of melodies at morn ! 
 But the fair earth grows still fairer 
 As day travels on from dawn. 
 
 And those melodies so tender 
 Though they reach us to the last. 
 Breathing murmurs, how bewitching ! 
 From the harp-notes of the Past,
 
 MY WIFE'S VALENTINE 417 
 
 Yet they grow, their theme is higher 
 And their harmonies more sure. 
 And their discords are converted 
 Into chords serene and pure. 
 
 Lovely is the summer sunlight 
 Brilliant upon flower and grass, 
 Gracious are the cloudy shadows, 
 On the landscape, as they pass. 
 
 But the gifts of God are brighter 
 Than the sunshine on the grass, 
 And the bonds He ties more gracious 
 Than the shadows as they pass. 
 
 There are ties more fixed and tender, 
 Sealed and blessed in heaven above, 
 There is sweetness more enduring 
 Than a dreamy boy's first love. 
 
 vol. 11 2 E
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abelaxd, 29 
 
 Abergele, 88 
 
 Addison, 56, 250, 258, 261-262, 264, 
 
 275, 276, 278, 280 
 Aidan, Bishop, 100 
 Albigenses, 26 
 Alfred, King, no 
 Alfred, King of Deira, 98 
 ' ' Antigone " of Sophocles, 290 
 Antwerp, 209 
 Archimedes, 20 
 Arden, Forest of, 12, 15 
 Ariosto, 150 
 Aristophanes, 228, 250 
 Aristotle, 238 
 Arnold, Matthew, 61, 62, 243, 250, 
 
 276 
 " Ars Vitae," an Essay, 224-229 
 Arthur, King, 215 
 Arthurian Romances, 107-122 
 Ashley, Lord, 304 
 "Athenaeum, The," 109, 293 
 •Autumn Walk, The," an Essay, 
 
 152-159 
 
 Babington, Anthony, 52 
 
 Bampton Lectures, 307, 308 
 
 " Beati Felicis Confessoris Vita," 96 
 
 " Beauties of England and Wales," 
 
 54 
 "Bede," an Essay, 94-106 
 Beethoven, 249 
 Bell Tower, 211 
 Benedict, Abbot, 98, 103 
 Bentham, Jeremy, 72-73 
 Beotric, King, 104 
 "Bible in Spain," and "Gil Bias," 
 
 62-72, 73, 85-86 
 " Birds " and "Frogs," 250 
 
 Birmingham, 10, 14 ; Old Lecture 
 
 Theatre, 136 
 Black Prince, the, 27 
 Blomfield, Bishop, 301 
 "Books versus Books," an Essay, 
 
 16-21 
 Borrow, George, compared to Le 
 
 Sage, 61-86 
 Bouth, Archbishop, 56 
 Boyle, Robert, 168 
 Branspeth Church, 56 
 Browne, Sir Thos. , 208, 209 
 
 Caer Caradoc, 47 
 
 Cambridge, F. D. Maurice at, 290- 
 
 293 
 
 " Canterbury Tales," 28 
 
 Castle Bromwich, 10 
 
 Cavendish, Sir Wm., 212 
 
 "Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, 
 
 The," 97 (note) 
 Cervantes, 251, 254, 256, 268 
 Challoner, Sir Thos., 212 
 Channing, Rev. — , Life of, 193 
 Charlemagne, no 
 Charles V., 177 
 
 Charles the Bold of Burgundy, 177 
 Chastillion family, arms of, 57-59 
 Chateaubriand, 23 
 Chaucer, 28 
 
 " Child in the Grave, The," 346-366 
 "Chivalry," an Essay, 22-30 
 Christian Socialism, 300-301 
 "Christian Year, The," 278, 313- 
 
 3M 
 Chytraeus, David and Nathan, 213 
 Claverhouse, 22 
 Clerkenwell Close and Nunnery, 211, 
 
 212, 216 
 
 419
 
 420 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Clinton family, 13, 14 
 Coleridge, 235 
 Coleshill, 10-15 
 Constantius, 215 
 Copernicus, 221 
 Corcurion, Alcade of, 72-73 
 Corpus Christi play, 212-213 
 Cranworth, Judge, 27 
 Craythorne family, the, 55-56 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 212 
 
 Dalton family, the, 136 
 
 Danish ships, the first to arrive in 
 
 England, 104 
 Dante, 28, 247, 249 
 Darrell, Lord Edward, 6-9 
 De Buch, Captal, 27 
 " Defence of Guinevere," 108 
 Deira, Alfred, King of, 98 
 De Joinville, Seneschal, 57 
 De Medici, Lorenzo, 16 
 De Retz, Cardinal, 16 
 De Rubenquis, Wm. W. , 18 
 Descartes, 221 
 De SeVigne\ Mme. , 16 
 ' ' Despondency Corrected, " 236 ( notes 
 
 2 and 3), 237 (note 2), 244 (notes 
 
 8, 9), 245 (notes 1, 2), 246 (and 
 
 notes) 
 Dethwick Farm, 49-52 
 Deventer, 210 
 " Diable Boiteux, Le," 258 
 "Dialogues, The," 235, 237 
 Dickens, 203, 265, 324 
 Digby family, the, 12, 13, 15 
 Digby, Simon, 12 
 " Dionysiaca," 173 
 Dissenters' Chapels Bill, 302 
 Donegal, Lord, 14 
 " Don Quixote," 250, 253-255, 261, 
 
 268, 273 
 "Dorians, The," 319, 321-322 
 Dorian flute, the, 318-319 ; Dorian 
 
 conception of Art, 320-324 
 " Dunciad, The," 264 
 Dundee, Viscount, 22 
 
 Eadburga, 104 
 
 "Ecclesiastical History," 94, 97 
 
 Eddas, the, in 
 
 Edgehill Battle, 36 
 
 "Edinburgh Review," 106 (note) 
 
 Edward I., 29 
 
 Edward III., 29 
 
 Edward IV. , n, 12 
 
 Edward VI., 212 
 
 Edwin the Etheling, 101-102 
 
 Eleanor, Queen, 29 
 
 " Elegy on the Death of Bion," 120 
 
 Emperor Henry, 29 
 
 " Encyclopaedia Britannica," 94 
 
 "End of Learning," an Essay, 193- 
 
 198 
 England, Renaissance spirit in, 257- 
 
 258 
 " Enthusiasm of Humanity," 227 
 Erasmus, 305 
 
 " Errors of the Oxford Tracts," 294 
 Essays — 
 
 " Ars Vitae," 224-229 
 
 " Autumn Walk, The," 152-159 
 
 " Bede," 94-106 
 
 " Books versus Books," 16-21 
 
 " Chivalry," 22-30 
 
 " End of Learning," 193-198 
 
 "Essay which is no Essay, An," 
 53-6o 
 
 " Fragilia," 160-167 
 
 " Frederick Denison Maurice," 285- 
 
 3 X 7 
 
 " Golden Thoughts from the Spirit- 
 ual Guide," 281-284 
 
 " Humorous in Literature," 248-280 
 
 "Last of the Rabbis, The," 199- 
 202 
 
 "Literature," 136-144 
 
 " Morte d' Arthur " and the " Idylls 
 of the King," 107-122 
 
 " My Fever," 3-9 
 
 " Nature's Homily," 184-192 
 
 "Of Restraining Self- Denial in 
 Art," 318-325 
 
 ' ' On True and False Super- 
 naturalism," 145-151 
 
 " Paradise Lost," 123-135 
 
 " Platonism of Wordsworth, The," 
 
 233- 2 47 
 ' ' Recollections of a London 
 
 Church," 31-34 
 " Religio Historici," 168-183 
 "Ringing of the Bells, The," 35- 
 
 43 
 ' ' Successor of Monsieur Le Sage, 
 
 The," 61-86 
 " Suggestions of ' Epitaphs,' " 44-52 
 " Sundays at the Seaside," 87-93
 
 INDEX 
 
 42 1 
 
 Essays, continued — 
 
 " Twenty Miles," 10-15 
 " Vestigia," 203-221 
 
 Ethelfrid, 101 
 
 Ethelred, Queen, 101 
 
 " Eustace Conway," 293 
 
 "Every Man out of his Humour," 
 255-256 
 
 "Excursion, The," 42 (note 2), 234, 
 235 (note), 236 (notes 5, 6, 7), 
 237 (notes 2, 3), 242 (notes 2, 3, 
 4), 244 (and notes), 245 (note 3) 
 
 Exeter College, Oxford, 293 
 
 " Fantaisie," 278 (and note) 
 
 Field, Belinda and Edward, 39-43 
 
 Field family, the, 37-38 
 
 Fielding, Henry, 262-263 
 
 Filey, 92 
 
 Flam borough Head, 92 
 
 " Fordhams of Severnstoke, The," 
 
 3 6 7-385 
 " Four Evangelists," 12 
 " Fragilia," an Essay, 160-167 
 "Frederick Denison Maurice," an 
 
 Essay, 285-317 
 Frenchay village, 289 
 Friedrich Rothbart, Emperor, no 
 Fuller, 212 
 "Funeral Monuments," 221 (note) 
 
 Galton family, the, 136 
 
 Geoffrey of Monmouth, 95 
 
 Gervinus, Dr., 252-253 
 
 "Gil Bias" and "The Bible in 
 
 Spain," 62-72, 73, 85-86 
 Giles, Dr., 104 
 
 Gipsy tribes, Borrow's interest in, 74-75 
 Gladstone's " Homer," 106 
 Goethe, 250-251, 267 
 " Golden Thoughts from the Spiritual 
 
 Guide," an Essay, 2S1-284 
 Goodeve, Dr., 288 
 " Gorgias " of Plato, 290, 291 
 Great Orme's Head, 88-89 
 Greenville, Sir Bevil, 166 
 Grevius, John George, 210 
 Grueter, James, 208, 209-210 
 " Guinevere," 116 
 Gustavus Adolphus, 30, 177 
 "Gypsies in Spain," 72 
 
 Haeretha land, 104 
 
 Hall, Rev. Newman, 92 
 
 Hamlet, 248, 250, 252-253 
 
 Hare, Archdeacon, 304 
 
 Hare, Rev. Julius, 290-292 
 
 Harz Mountains, 146 
 
 Hastings, Battle of, 25 
 
 Hastings, Warren, 16 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 3, 166, 199 
 
 Heidelberg, 210 
 
 Heinrich der Vogler, Emperor, no 
 
 Heloi'se and Abelard, 29 
 
 Henry II., 26 
 
 Henry V. , 26-27 
 
 Henry VIII., 211, 214 
 
 Heraldry, 57-59 
 
 Herodotus, 172 
 
 Herrick, 260 
 
 Homer, 117-118, 121, 172 
 
 " Homer," by Gladstone, 106 
 
 Hone, — , 260 
 
 Hope Bowdler Church, 47, 48 
 
 Hopton Heath, Battle of, 37 
 
 Horneby Castelle, 56 
 
 " Household Words," 10 
 
 Humanist," 227, 229 
 
 Humour, 224-229 
 
 " Humorous in Literature," an Essay, 
 
 248-280 
 Hunt, Leigh, 17, 19 
 Hutton family, the, 136 
 Hutton, Wm. , to 
 Huxley, Prof. , 306 
 " Hypatia," 312 
 
 " Inscriptiones Antiquae totius orbis 
 
 Romani," 210 
 Irving, Washington, 260 
 
 Jacobson, Dr., 293 
 
 James I., 213, 214 
 
 Jarrow, 104 
 
 J elf, Dr., 310 
 
 John Frederick of Saxony, 177 
 
 Johnson, Dr., 118, 152 
 
 Joinville, 26 
 
 Jonson, Ben, 255 
 
 Keble, 60, 278 
 
 Kendall, 213 
 
 Kepler, 221 
 
 King's College and Rev. F. D. 
 
 Maurice, 310 
 Kingsley, Rev. Chas. , 312
 
 422 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Knights, Orders of, 29-30 
 Kossuth, Louis, 23 
 
 Lamb, Chas. , 20, 260, 264 
 
 Lancaster, 210, 213 
 
 "Last of the Rabbis, The," an 
 
 Essay, 199-202 
 Laughter and tears, 271-275 
 " Lavengro," 72, 75-80 
 Lea Hurst, 48 
 
 "Lecture on China and its Revolu- 
 tion," quoted, 199 
 " Lehrjahre," 268 
 Leighton, Archbishop, 20 
 Le Sage, Alain Rene\ George Borrow 
 
 compared to, 61-86 ; " LeDiable 
 
 Boiteux" by, 258 
 Lesnes Abbey, 216 
 Lessing, 267 
 ' ' Letter to Dr. Jelf on the word 
 
 ' Eternal,' " 310 
 Leyland, John, 214 
 " Life of Frederick Denison Maurice," 
 
 285 (note) 
 " Life of Molinos," 281 
 "Life of St. Cuthbert," 97, 100-103 
 " Light of Asia," quoted, 266 
 Lincoln's Inn Chapel, 316 
 Lindisfarne, 102, 103 
 Lisherwick, 14 
 " Literary Gazette," 109 
 " Literature," an Essay, 136-144 
 " Little Graveyard, The," Poem, 408- 
 
 411 
 ' ' Lives of the Abbots of Wearmouth 
 
 and Jarrow," 97 
 Llandudno, 89 
 Longfellow, 31 
 Long Mynds, 48 
 Lost Tribes of Israel, 170 
 " Lotos- Eaters," 119 
 Louis IX., 26, 29 
 "Love's Labour's Lost," 258 
 Ludlow, Mr. , 303 
 Luther, 305 
 Lytton, Bulwer, 260 
 
 " Macmillan's Magazine," 107 (note), 
 249 (note) 
 
 Malmesbury, William of, 24 
 
 Malory, SirThos., 113 
 
 Mansel, Dean, F. D. Maurice's con- 
 troversy with, 305, 306-309 
 
 Marcellinus of Ancona, 106 
 
 Marco Polo, 18, 19 
 
 Margaret, Queen, 29 
 
 Martineau, Dr. James, 315 
 
 Martineau, Miss, 262 
 
 Maurice, Col., 286, 311, 313 
 
 Maurice, Frederick Denison— - 
 
 Character, 287-289, 313 ; college 
 life under Hare, 290-293 ; theo- 
 logical views, 293-305, 3 1 S-3 1 7'< 
 controversy with Dean Mansel, 
 305-309 ; literary work, 310-312 
 
 " Merope," 62 
 
 " Method of Molinos," 281-284 
 
 " Michael," 242 (note 1) 
 
 Michaud, 29 
 
 Middle Ages, life in the, 218-223, 
 256, 259 
 
 "Midsummer Night's Dream, A," a 
 Story, 329-345 
 
 Milton, 173; "Paradise Lost," 123- 
 
 135 
 
 Miracle plays, 211, 212-213 
 
 Molinos, Life of, 281; "Method of 
 Molinos," 281-284 
 
 Monk Wearmouth, 102 
 
 Montfort, Sir Simon, 11 
 
 ' ' Moral and Metaphysical Philo- 
 sophy," 305, 309-310, 311-312 
 
 Morris, Wm„ " Defence of Guine- 
 vere," 108-109 
 
 " Morte d' Arthur " and the ' ' Idylls of 
 the King," 107-122 
 
 Moschus, 120 
 
 Mostvn family, the, 88 
 
 Miiller, C. O., 319 (note), 321 
 
 "My Fever," an Essay, 3-9 
 
 "M\ Wife's Valentine," Poem, 412-417 
 
 " Natura Rerum, De," 104, 106 
 
 " Nature's Homily, "an Essay, 184-192 
 
 Neckar, the, 210 
 
 Nennius, 95 
 
 Neustria, 24 
 
 Neville family, the, 56 
 
 Nightingale, Miss, 48-49 
 
 Normans, the, 24-25 
 
 Northampton, Earl of, 37 
 
 "Occasional Reflections," 168 
 Odinwald, the, 210 
 " CEnone," 119, 121 
 Offa, King, 104
 
 INDEX 
 
 423 
 
 " Of Restraining Self-Uenial in Art,'' 
 
 an Essay, 318-325 
 " Old Cumberland Beggar, The," 237 
 
 (note 1) 
 "Old Kensington," 267 
 Old Lecture Theatre, Birmingham, 136 
 Old Matlock Church, 49 
 ' ' On True and False Supernatu- 
 
 ralism," an Essay, 145-151 
 Oswald, King of Northumbria, 99 
 Owini, 101 
 Oxford, 293, 302 
 
 Painters, Modern English, 324-325 
 " Paradise Lost," an Essay, 123-135, 
 
 173 
 Parma, Duchess of, 209 
 " Parsonage, The," 244 (note 7) 
 Paulinus, Bishop, 102, 220 
 Pennant, Thos. , 14, 212 
 Person, Dr. John, 212 
 Petrarch, 28 
 Philip Augustus, 26, 29 
 Philippa, Queen, 29 
 Piccolomini, Max, 30 
 Plato, 182, 290, 291, 292 
 " Platonism of Wordsworth, The," an 
 
 Essay, 233-247 
 " Plutus," 250 
 Poems — 
 
 " Little Graveyard, The," 408-411 
 " My Wife's Valentine," 412-417 
 "Shadow of George Herbert, A," 
 407-408 
 Poitiers, Wm. of, 25 
 Pollock, Frederick, 235, 315 
 " Poor Robin's Almanack," 260 
 Pope, Alex. , 264 
 Pre-Raphaelite School, 324 
 Preston, 213 
 Priestley family, the, 136 
 "Princess, The," 120 
 Priory of St. John of Jerusalem, 211 
 " Prophets and Kings," 295-297, 310- 
 
 3 11 
 Pudsey, J., 55-56 
 Pusey, Dr. ,289 
 
 Queen's College, Cambridge, 212 
 
 "Rabbis, Last of the," an Essay, 199- 
 
 202 
 Rabelais, 248, 257 
 
 Raleigh, 216 
 
 "Rambler, The," 152 
 
 " Rasselas," 118 
 
 " Recollections of a London Church," 
 
 an Essay, 31-34 
 " Record, The," 301 
 Redwald, King, 101-102 
 ' ' Religio Historici," an Essay, 168-183 
 Renaissance, the, 256-258 
 Richard Cceur de Lion, 26 
 Richardson, Samuel, 262 
 Richmond, Yorkshire, 220 
 Richter, Jean Paul, 268 
 " Ringing of the Bells, The," an 
 
 Essay, 35-43 
 Rochford, 216 
 Romaine, 299 
 
 Romances, Arthurian, 107-122 
 " Romance de Coucy," 28 
 " Romance of the Morte d'Arthur,",2S 
 Romans in England, the, 97, 104 
 ' ' Romany Rye, " 72, j-j, 80, 81-82, 85 
 " Romaunt de la Rose," 28 
 Rudolf II., 210 
 Ruskin, 69, 79, 86 
 
 St. Augustine, 100, 105, 294, 312 
 
 St. Cbrysostom, 228 
 
 St. Cuthbert, Life of, 97, 100-103 
 
 St. Felix, 96 
 
 St. Jerome, 105 
 
 St. Louis, 26, 29 
 
 St. Peter's, VereSt. , 301 
 
 Salzburg, no 
 
 " Saturday Review, " 109, 193 
 
 " Saxon Chronicle,'' 104 
 
 Saxons, the, 24-25 ; time of Bede, 
 97-105 
 
 Scandinavian nations, ill ; traditions, 
 146-148 ; theology, 171 ; myth- 
 ology, 173 ; Balder, 277 
 
 Scarron, 258 
 
 Schimmelpenninck family, the, 136 
 
 Schleiermacher, 292 
 
 Schraderus, 213 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 83 
 
 Seeley, Prof. , 227 
 
 Self-denial in Art, 318-325 
 
 "Shadow of George Herbert, A," 
 407-408 
 
 Shakespeare, 95,118, 249, 252-253,258 
 
 Shenstone, 16 
 
 " Siebenkas," 268
 
 424 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Silcester, 215 
 
 Simeon, 299 
 
 " Sir Roger de Coverley, " 261 
 
 Smollett, 324 
 
 Socrates, 229 
 
 Solihull parish, 54 
 
 "Songs of Ab Gwilym, the Welsh 
 Bard," 78 
 
 Sophocles, 249; " Antigone," by, 290 
 
 Spanish life, 63, 69-71 
 
 "Spectator, The," 63, 261, 262, 263, 
 276 
 
 Spinoza, 235,315 ; Life of, 241 (note 1) 
 
 Spurgeon, 309 
 
 Steele, Sir Richard, 262, 263 
 
 Sterne, 251, 260, 261, 263 
 
 Stories — 
 
 " Child in the Grave, The," 346-366 
 " Fordhams of Severnstoke, The," 
 
 3 6 7-385 
 "Midsummer Night's Dream, A," 
 
 329-345 , 
 
 " Sunday Afternoon, A," 386-404 
 
 " Story of Elizabeth," 267 
 
 Strachey, Edward, 292, 294, 303 
 
 Strype, John, 211 
 
 "Successor of Monsieur Le Sage, 
 
 The," an Essay, 61-86 
 "Suggestions of 'Epitaphs,'' an 
 
 Essay, 44-52 
 "Sunday Afternoon, A," a Story, 
 
 386-404 
 " Sundays at the Seaside," an E 
 
 87-93 
 " Supernaturalism. On True and 
 
 False," i45- T 5 r 
 Swale river, 220 
 Swertius (Francis Swert), 213 
 Swift, 264 
 "Symposium," 239 (note 2; 
 
 "Table Book," 260 
 Tait, Archbishop, 301 
 Tasso, 150 
 
 Tennyson, 107-122, 128 
 Terence, 250 
 
 Thackeray, 57, 261, 264-267 
 ' ' Thesaurus Antiquitatum et Historiae 
 Italiae," 210 
 
 "Thesaurus Antiquitatum Roman- 
 
 orum," 210 
 Thucydides, 20 
 Tilly, 210 
 "Times," and "The Reason of 
 
 Times," 104 
 Tintern Abbey, 239 (note 3) 
 ' ' Titan," 268-271 
 "Tithonus," 119, 121, 122 
 "Toilette de Constance, La," 86 
 
 (note) 
 " Tom Jones," 262, 278-279 
 Traill, Mr., 263 
 Tribes of Israel, the lost, 170 
 Troubadour poetry, 28 
 Turner, Mason, 104 
 "Twelfth Night," 258 
 " Twenty Miles," an Essay, 10-15 
 'yndall, Prof. , 306 
 
 " Vale of Aveloune, " no 
 
 "Vanity Fair," 264-267 
 
 • ' Variorum in Europa Itinerum 
 
 deliciae, seu Inscriptionum 
 
 Monumenta," 213 
 Y'enn, 299 
 
 " Vestigia," an Essay, 203-221 
 Village life, 259-260 
 Virgil, 118 
 Vortigern, 25 
 
 " Wahlverwandtschaften," 267 
 
 Wales, 88 
 
 "Wanderer, The," 236 (notes 6, 7), 
 237 (note 2), 242 (note 3), 244 
 (notes 1, 2, 4), 245 (note 3) 
 
 Warbeck, Perkin, n, 12 
 
 Weever, John, 210-219 
 
 " Werther," 250, 267 
 
 Westminster Abbey, 56, 215, 261 
 
 Westmoreland, Countess of, 56 
 
 "White Doe, The," 233 
 
 " Wilhelm Meister, " 267 
 
 William of Malmesbury, 24 
 
 William of Poitiers, 25 
 
 Wood, Sir Charles, 20 
 
 Wordsworth, 313, 314 ; Platonism of, 
 
 233- 2 47 
 Wright, Thomas, 97 (and note) 
 
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