EAKLY ASD LATE PAPEES 
 
 HITHERTO UNCOLLECTED. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS. 
 1867. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by 
 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS, 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & Co., 
 CAMBRIDGE. 
 
PR 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 SEVERAL years ago, when the author of these 
 papers visited America, he had the pleasant habit 
 of quoting to his friends phrases, and sometimes 
 long paragraphs, from his earlier contributions to 
 the English periodicals ; and when asked why he 
 had not included these magazine articles among 
 his other miscellanies, he replied, " They are small 
 potatoes," adding, at the same time, " but pretty 
 good small potatoes, I believe." The collector of 
 these Thackeray-valuables remembers also when 
 he begged the author to bring together his scat- 
 tered contributions to "Fraser" and "Punch," 
 he replied : " Do it yourself, mon ami ; write the 
 preface, and I'll stand by you." 
 
 It seems a real loss to the admirers of that 
 fine genius to allow so much that he has writ- 
 ten to remajn longer shut up in the somewhat 
 
IV NOTE. 
 
 inaccessible pages of foreign periodicals, and this 
 volume is published for those who treasure every- 
 thing that came sparkling from Thackeray's pen. 
 Much yet remains uncollected of this great mas- 
 ter's contributions to the current magazine litera- 
 ture of his day, and at some future time other 
 volumes, similar in character to this one, may 
 
 appear from the same press. 
 
 J. T. F. 
 
 BOSTON, May, 1867. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGH 
 
 MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING 1 
 
 MEN AND COATS 38 
 
 BLUEBEARD'S GHOST 63 
 
 DICKENS IN FRANCE 95 
 
 JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OP LIFE AND CHARACTER . 122 
 LITTLE TRAVELS AND EOAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 No. L FROM RICHMOND IN SURREY TO BRUSSELS IN 
 
 BELGIUM 139 
 
 No. II. GHENT. BRUGES . 167 
 
 No. III. WATERLOO 181 
 
 ON MEN AND PICTURES 188 
 
 PICTURE GOSSIP 222 
 
 THE ANONYMOUS IN PERIODICAL LITERATURE . . 250 
 
 GOETHE ' 256 
 
 A LEAF OUT OF A SKETCH-BOOK 261 
 
 THE LAST SKETCH 269 
 
 " STRANGE TO SAY, ON CLUB PAPER " . . . . 274 
 
 AUTOUR DE MON CHAPEAU 282 
 
 ON A PEAL OF BELLS 295 
 
 ON SOME CARP AT SANS Souci 308 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 DESSEIN'S 317 
 
 ON A PEAR-TREE 332 
 
 ON A MEDAL OF GEORGE THE FOURTH . . . 342 
 
 ON ALEXANDRINES . 354 
 
 THE NOTCH ON THE AXE 365 
 
 DE FINIBUS . 396 
 
EARLY AND LATE PAPERS. 
 
MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 
 
 IN A LETTER TO OLIVER YORKE, ESQ., BY M. A. TITMARSH. 
 
 PARIS, May, 1341. 
 
 ]IR, The man who makes the best salads in 
 London, and whom, therefore, we have face- 
 tiously called Sultan Saladin, a man who 
 is conspicuous for his love and practice of all 
 the polite arts, music, to wit, architecture, painting, and 
 cookery, once took the humble personage who writes 
 this into his library, and laid before me two or three vol- 
 umes of manuscript year-books, such as, since he began to 
 travel and to observe, he has been in the habit of keeping. 
 Every night, in the course of his rambles, his highness 
 the Sultan (indeed, his port is sublime, as, for the matter 
 of that, are all the wines in his cellar) sets down with an 
 iron pen, and in the neatest handwriting in the world, the 
 events and observations of the day ; with the same iron 
 pen he illuminates the leaf of his journal by the most faith- 
 ful and delightful sketches of the scenery which he has 
 witnessed in the course of the four-and-twenty hours ; and 
 if he has dined at an inn or restaurant, gasthaus, posada, 
 albergo, or what not, invariably inserts into his log-book 
 the bill of fare. The Sultan leads a jolly life, a tall, 
 stalwart man, who every day about six o'clock in London 
 and Paris, at two in Italy, in Germany and Belgium at an 
 1 A 
 
2 MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 
 
 hour after noon, feels the noble calls of hunger agitating 
 his lordly bosom (or its neighborhood, that is), and replies 
 to the call by a good dinner. Ah ! it is wonderful to think 
 how the healthy and philosophic mind can accommodate 
 itself in all cases to the varying circumstances of the time, 
 how, in its travels through the world, the liberal and 
 cosmopolite stomach recognizes the national dinner-hour ! 
 Depend upon it that, in all countries, nature has wisely 
 ordained and suited to their exigencies THE DISHES OF A 
 PEOPLE. I mean to say that olla podrida is good in Spain 
 (though a plateful of it, eaten in Paris, once made me so 
 dreadfully ill that it is a mercy I was spared ever to eat 
 another dinner), I mean to say, and have proved it, that 
 sauer-kraut is good in Germany; and I make no doubt 
 that whale's blubber is a very tolerable dish in Kamschat- 
 ka, though I have never visited the country. Cannibalism 
 in the South Seas, and sheepsheadism in Scotland, are the 
 only practices that one cannot, perhaps, reconcile with this 
 rule, at least, whatever a man's private opinions may be, 
 the decencies of society oblige him to eschew the expres- 
 sion of them, upon subjects which the national prejudice 
 has precluded from free discussion. 
 
 Well, after looking through three or four of Saladin's 
 volumes, I grew so charmed with them that I used to 
 come back every day and study them. I declare there 
 are bills of fare in those books over which I have cried ; 
 and the reading of them, especially about an hour before 
 dinner, has made me so ferociously hungry, that, in the 
 first place, the Sultan (a kind-hearted, generous man, as 
 every man is who loves his meals) could not help inviting 
 me to take potluck with him ; and, secondly, I could eat 
 twice as much as upon common occasions, though my ap- 
 petite is always good. 
 
MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 3 
 
 Lying awake, then, of nights, or wandering solitary 
 abroad on wide commons, or by the side of silent rivers, 
 or at church when Dr. Snufflem was preaching his favor- 
 ite sermon, or stretched on the flat of my back smoking a 
 cigar at the club when X was talking of the corn-laws, 
 or Y was describing that famous run they had with the Z 
 hounds, at all periods, I say, favorable to self-examina- 
 tion, those bills of fare have come into my mind, and often 
 and often I have thought them over. " Titmarsh," I have 
 said to myself, " if ever you travel again, do as the Sultan 
 has done, and keep your dinner-bills. They are always 
 pleasant to look over ; they always will recall happy hours 
 and actions, be you ever so hard pushed for a dinner, and 
 fain to put up with an onion and a crust : of the past fate 
 cannot deprive you. Yesterday is the philosopher's prop- 
 erty ; and by thinking of it, and using it to advantage, he 
 may gayly go through to-morrow, doubtful and dismal 
 though it be. Try this lamb stuffed with pistachio-nuts ; 
 another handful of this pillau. Ho, you rascals! bring 
 round the sherbet there, and never spare the jars of wine, 
 'tis true Persian, on the honor of a Barmecide!" Is 
 not that dinner in the "Arabian Nights" a right good 
 dinner ? Would you have had Bedreddin to refuse and 
 turn sulky at the windy repast, or to sit down grinning in 
 the face of his grave entertainer, and gayly take what 
 came ? Remember what came of the honest fellow's phi- 
 losophy. He slapped the grim old prince in the face; 
 and the grim old prince, who had invited him but to 
 laugh at him, did presently order a real and substantial 
 repast to be set before him, great pyramids of smoking 
 rice and pillau (a good pillau is one of the best dishes in 
 the world), savory kids, snow-cooled sherbets, luscious 
 wine of Schiraz ; with an accompaniment of moon-faced 
 
4 MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 
 
 beauties from the harem, no doubt, dancing, singing, and 
 smiling in the most ravishing manner. Thus should we, 
 my dear friends, laugh at Fate's beard, as we confront 
 him, thus should we, if the old monster be insolent, fall 
 to and box his ears. He has a spice of humor in his 
 composition ; and be sure he will be tickled by such con- 
 duct. 
 
 Some months ago, when the expectation of war be- 
 tween England and France grew to be so strong, and 
 there was such a talk of mobilizing national guards, and 
 arming three or four hundred thousand more French sol- 
 diers, when such ferocious yells of hatred against per- 
 fidious Albion were uttered by the liberal French press, 
 that I did really believe the rupture between the two 
 countries was about immediately to take place ; being 
 seriously alarmed, I set off for Paris at once. My good 
 sir, what could we do without our Paris ? I came here 
 first in 1815 (when the Duke and I were a good deal re- 
 marked by the inhabitants) ; I proposed but to stay a 
 week; stopped three months, and have returned every 
 year since. There is something fatal in the place, a 
 charm about it, a wicked one very likely, but it acts 
 on us all ; and perpetually the old Paris man comes hie- 
 ing back to his quarters again, and is to be found, as 
 usual, sunning himself in the Rue de la Paix. Painters, 
 princes, gormands, officers on half-pay, serious old 
 ladies even acknowledge the attraction of the place, 
 are more at ease here than in any other place in Europe; 
 and back they come, and are to be found sooner or later 
 occupying their old haunts. 
 
 My darling city improves, too, with each visit, and has 
 some new palace, or church, or statue, or other gimcrack, 
 to greet your eyes withal. A few years since, and lo ! 
 
MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 5 
 
 on the column of the Place Vendome, instead of the shabby 
 tri-colored rag, shone the bronze statue of Napoleon. 
 Then came the famous triumphal arch ; a noble building 
 indeed ! how stately and white and beautiful and strong 
 it seems to dominate over the whole city. Next was the 
 obelisk; a huge bustle and festival being made to wel- 
 come it to the city. Then came the fair asphaltum ter- 
 races round about the obelisk ; then the fountains to dec- 
 orate the terraces. I have scarcely been twelve months 
 absent, and behold they have gilded all the Naiads and 
 Tritons ; they have clapped a huge fountain in the very 
 midst of the Champs Elysees, a great, glittering, froth- 
 ing fountain, that to the poetic eye looks like an enormous 
 shaving-brush ; and all down the avenue they have placed 
 hundreds of gilded, flaring gas-lamps, that make this gay- 
 est walk in the world look gayer still than ever. But a 
 truce to such descriptions, which might carry one far, very 
 far, from the object proposed in this paper. 
 
 I simply wish to introduce to public notice a brief din- 
 ner-journal. It has been written with the utmost honesty 
 and simplicity of purpose ; and exhibits a picture or table 
 of the development of the human mind under a series of 
 gastronomic experiments, diversified in their nature, and 
 diversified, consequently, in their effects. A man in Lon- 
 don has not, for the most part, the opportunity to make 
 these experiments. You are a family man, let us pre- 
 sume, and you live in that metropolis for half a century. 
 You have on Sunday say, a leg of mutton and potatoes 
 for dinner. On Monday you have cold mutton and potatoes. 
 On Tuesday, hashed mutton and potatoes ; the hashed mut- 
 ton being flavored with little damp, triangular pieces of 
 toast, which always surround that charming dish. Well, 
 on Wednesday, the mutton ended, you have beef ; the beef 
 
6 MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 
 
 undergoes the same alternations of cookery, and disappears. 
 Your life presents a succession of joints, varied every now 
 and then by a bit of fish and some poultry. You drink 
 three glasses of a brandyfied liquor called sherry at dinner ; 
 your excellent lady imbibes one. When she has had her 
 glass of port after dinner, she goes up stairs with the chil- 
 dren, and you fall asleep in your arm-chair. Some of the 
 most pure and precious enjoyments of life are unknown 
 to you. You eat and drink, but you do not know the art 
 of eating and drinking ; nay, most probably you despise 
 those who do. " Give me a slice of meat," say you, very 
 likely, " and a fig for your gourmands." You fancy it is 
 very virtuous and manly all this. Nonsense, my good 
 sir ; you are indifferent because you are ignorant, because 
 your life is passed in a narrow circle of ideas, and because 
 you are bigotedly blind and pompously callous to the beau- ' 
 ties and excellences beyond you. 
 
 Sir, RESPECT YOUR DINNER ; idolize it, enjoy it prop- 
 erly. You will be by many hours in the week, many 
 weeks in the year, and many years in your life, the hap- 
 pier if you do. 
 
 Don't tell us that it is not worthy of a man. All a 
 man's senses are worthy of employment, and should be 
 cultivated as a duty. The senses are the arts. What 
 glorious feasts does Nature prepare for your eye in ani- 
 mal form in landscape and painting ! Are you to put out 
 your eyes and not see? What royal dishes of melody 
 does her bounty provide for you in the shape of poetry, 
 music, whether windy or wiry, notes of the human voice, 
 or ravishing song of birds ! Are you to stuff your ears 
 with cotton, and vow that the sense of hearing is unman- 
 ly ? you obstinate dolt you ! No, surely ; nor must 
 you be so absurd as to fancy that the art of eating is ia 
 
MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 7 
 
 any way less worthy than the other two. You like your 
 dinner, man ; never be ashamed to say so. If you don't 
 like your victuals, pass on to the next article; but re- 
 member that every man who has been worth a fig in this 
 world, as poet, painter, or musician, has had a good appe- 
 tite and a good taste. Ah, what a poet Byron would 
 have been had he taken his meals properly, and allowed 
 himself to grow fat, if nature intended him to grow fat, 
 and not have physicked his intellect with wretched 
 opium pills and acrid vinegar, that sent his principle to 
 sleep, and turned his feelings sour I If that man had re- 
 spected his dinner, he never would have written " Don 
 Juan." 
 
 Allans done ! enough sermonizing ; let us sit down and 
 fall to at once. 
 
 I dined soon after my arrival at a very pleasant Paris 
 club, where daily is provided a dinner for ten persons, 
 that is universally reported to be excellent. Five men 
 in England would have consumed the same amount of 
 victuals, as you will see by the bills of fare : 
 
 Desserts of cheese. Pears and Fontainebleau grapes. 
 Bordeaux red, and excellent chablis at discretion. 
 
 This dinner was very nicely served. A venerable 
 maitre d'hotel in black, cutting up neatly the dishes on a 
 trencher at the side-table, and several waiters attending 
 
8 MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING- 
 
 in green coats, red plush tights, and their hair curled. 
 There was a great quantity of light in the room ; some 
 handsome pieces of plated ware ; the pheasants came in 
 with their tails to their backs ; and the smart waiters, 
 with their hair dressed and parted down the middle, gave 
 a pleasant, lively, stylish appearance to the whole affair. 
 
 Now I certainly dined (by the way, I must not forget 
 to mention that we had with the beef some boiled kidney 
 potatoes, very neatly dished up in a napkin), I certainly 
 dined, I say ; and half an hour afterwards felt, perhaps, 
 more at my ease than I should have done had I consulted 
 my own inclinations, and devoured twice the quantity 
 that on this occasion came to my share. But I would 
 rather, as a man not caring for appearances, dine, as a 
 general rule, off a beefsteak for two at the Cafe Foy, 
 than sit down to take a tenth part of such a meal every 
 day. There was only one man at the table besides your 
 humble servant who did not put water into his wine ; and 
 he I mean the other was observed by his friends, 
 who exclaimed, " Comment vous buvez sec," as if to do 
 so was a wonder. The consequence was, that half a dozen 
 bottles of wine served for the whole ten of us ; and the 
 guests, having despatched their dinner in an hour, skipped 
 lightly away from it, did not stay to ruminate and to feel 
 uneasy, and to fiddle about the last and penultimate waist- 
 coat button, as we do after a house-dinner at an English 
 club. What was it that made the charm of this dinner ? 
 for pleasant it was. It was the neat and comfortable 
 manner in which it was served ; the pheasant-tails had a 
 considerable effect; that snowy napkin coquettishly ar- 
 ranged round the kidneys gave them a distingue air ; the 
 light and the glittering service gave an appearance of 
 plenty and hospitality that sent everybody away contented. 
 
MEMOKIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 9 
 
 I put down this dinner just to show English and Scotch 
 housekeepers what may be done, and for what price. 
 Say, 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Soup and fresh bread | Imecost ^ g fi 
 Beef and carrots . O 
 Fowls and sauce .... 3 6 
 
 Pheasants (hens) 50 
 
 Grapes, pears, cheese, vegetables . 3 
 
 14 
 
 For fifteen pence par tete, a company of ten persons 
 may have a dinner set before them, nay, and be made 
 to fancy that they dine well, provided the service is hand- 
 somely arranged, that you have a good stock of side-dishes, 
 &c., in your plate-chest, and don't spare the spermaceti. 
 
 As for the wine, that depends on yourself. Always be 
 crying out to your friends, " Mr. So-and-so, I don't drink 
 myself, but pray pass the bottle. Tomkins, my boy, 
 help your neighbor, and never mind me. What ! Hop- 
 kins, are there two of us on the Doctor's list ? Pass the 
 wine ; Smith I 'm sure won't refuse it " ; and so on. A 
 very good plan is to have the butler (or the fellow in the 
 white waistcoat, who "behaves as sich") pour out the 
 wine when wanted (in half-glasses, of course), and to 
 make a deuced great noise and shouting, "John, John, 
 why the devil, sir, don't you help Mr. Simkins to an- 
 other glass of wine ? " If you point out Simkins once or 
 twice in this way, depend upon it, he won't drink a great 
 quantity of your liquor. You may thus keep your friends 
 from being dangerous by a thousand innocent manoeuvres; 
 and, as I have said before, you .may very probably make 
 them believe that they have had a famous dinner. There 
 was only one man in our company of ten the other day 
 1* 
 
10 MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 
 
 who ever thought that he had not dined ; and what was 
 he ? A foreigner, a man of a discontented, inquiring 
 spirit, always carping at things, and never satisfied. 
 
 Well, next day I dined au cinquieme with a family (of 
 Irish extraction, by the way), and what do you think was 
 our dinner for six persons ? Why, simply, 
 
 Nine dozen Ostend oysters ; 
 Soup a la mulligatawny ; 
 Boiled turkey, with celery sauce ; 
 Saddle of mutton roti. 
 
 Removes. Plompouding ; croute de macaroni. 
 Vin Beaune ordinaire, volnay, bordeaux, champagne, eau 
 chaude, cognac. 
 
 I forget the dessert. Alas ! in moments of prosperity 
 and plenty, one is often so forgetful : I remembered the 
 dessert at the Cercle well enough. 
 
 A person whom they call in this country an illustration 
 litterairC) the editor of a newspaper, in fact, with a 
 very pretty wife, were of the party, and looked at the 
 dinner with a great deal of good-humored superiority. I 
 declare, upon my honor, that I helped both the illustra- 
 tion and his lady twice to saddle of mutton ; and as for 
 the turkey and celery sauce, you should have seen how 
 our host dispensed it to them! They ate the oysters, 
 they ate the soup (" Diable ! mais il est poivre ! " said the 
 illustration, with tears in his eyes), they ate the turkey, 
 they ate the mutton, they ate the pudding ; and what did 
 our hostess say? Why, casting down her eyes gently, 
 and with the modestest air in the world, she said, " There 
 is such a beautiful piece of cold beef in the larder ; do 
 somebody ask for a little slice of it." 
 
 Heaven bless her for that speech! I loved and re- 
 spected her for it ; it brought the tears to my eyes. A 
 
MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 11 
 
 man who could sneer at such a sentiment could have 
 neither heart nor good-breeding. Don't you see that it 
 
 shows 
 
 Simplicity, 
 
 Modesty, 
 
 Hospitality. 
 Put these against 
 
 Waiters with their hair curled, 
 Pheasants roasted with their tails on, 
 A dozen spermaceti candles. 
 
 Add them up, I say, O candid reader, and answer, in the 
 sum of human happiness, which of the two accounts makes 
 the better figure ? 
 
 I declare, I know few things more affecting than that 
 little question about the cold beef; and considering calmly 
 our national characteristics, balancing in the scale of quiet 
 thought our defects and our merits, am daily more in- 
 clined to believe that there is something in the race of 
 Britons which renders them usually superior to the French 
 family. This is but one of the traits of English charac- 
 ter that has been occasioned by the use of roast beef. 
 
 It is an immense question, that of diet. Look at the 
 two bills of fare just set down, the relative consumption 
 of ten animals and of six. What a profound physical 
 and moral difference may we trace here. How distinct, 
 from the cradle upwards, must have been the thoughts, 
 feelings, education of the parties who ordered those two 
 dinners. It is a fact which does not admit of a ques- 
 tion, that the French are beginning, since so many Eng- 
 lish have come among them, to use beef much more pro- 
 fusely. Everybody at the restaurateur's orders beefsteak 
 and pommes. Will the national character slowly undergo 
 a change under the influence of this dish? W T ill the 
 
12 MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 
 
 French be more simple ? broader in the shoulders ? less 
 inclined to brag about military glory and such humbug ? 
 All this in the dark vista of futurity the spectator may 
 fancy is visible to him, and the philanthropist cannot but 
 applaud the change. This brings me naturally to the 
 consideration of the manner of dressing beefsteaks in this 
 country, and of the merit of that manner. 
 
 I dined on a Saturday at the Cafe Foy, on the Boule- 
 vard, in a private room, with a friend. We had 
 
 Potage julienne, with a little puree in it ; 
 
 Two entrecotes aux epinards ; 
 
 One perdreau truffe ; 
 
 One fromage roquefort ; 
 
 A bottle of nuits with the beef; 
 
 A bottle of sauterne with the partridge. 
 
 And perhaps a glass of punch, with a cigar, afterwards : 
 but that is neither here nor there. The insertion of the 
 puree into the julienne was not of my recommending; 
 and if this junction is effected at all, the operation should 
 be performed with the greatest care. If you put too 
 much puree, both soups are infallibly spoiled. A much 
 better plan it is to have your julienne by itself, though I 
 will not enlarge on this point, as the excellent friend with 
 whom I dined may chance to see this notice, and may be 
 hurt at the renewal in print of a dispute which caused a 
 good deal of pain to both of us. By the way, we had half 
 a dozen sardines while the dinner was getting ready, eating 
 them with delicious bread and butter, for which this place 
 is famous. Then followed the soup. Why the deuce 
 would he have the pu ; but never mind. After the 
 soup, we had what I do not hesitate to call the very best 
 beefsteak I ever ate in my life. By the shade of Helio 
 gabalus ! as I write about it now, a week after I have 
 
MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 13 
 
 eaten it, the old, rich, sweet, piquant, juicy taste comes 
 smacking on my lips again ; and I feel something of that 
 exquisite sensation I then had. I am ashamed of the de- 
 light which the eating of that piece of meat caused me. 
 G. and I had quarrelled about the soup (I said so, and 
 don't wish to return to the subject) ; but when we began 
 on the steak, we looked at each other, and loved each 
 other. We did not speak, our hearts were too full for 
 that ; but we took a bit, and laid down our forks, and 
 looked at one another and understood each other. There 
 were no two individuals on this wide earth, no two lov- 
 ers billing in the shade, no mother clasping baby to her 
 heart, more supremely happy than we. Every now and 
 then we had a glass of honest, firm, generous Burgundy, 
 that nobly supported the meat. As you may fancy, we 
 did not leave a single morsel of the steak ; but when it was 
 done, we put bits of bread into the silver dish, and wist- 
 fully sopped up the gravy. I suppose I shall never in 
 this world taste anything so good again. But what then ? 
 What if I did like it excessively ? Was my liking unjust 
 or unmanly ? Is my regret now puling or unworthy ? No. 
 " Laudo manentem!" as Titmouse says. When it is 
 eaten, I resign myself, and can eat a two-franc dinner at 
 Richard's without ill humor and without a pang. 
 
 Any dispute about the relative excellence of the beef- 
 steak cut from the filet, as is usual in France, and of the 
 entrecote, must henceforth be idle and absurd. When- 
 ever, my dear young friend, you go to Paris, call at once 
 for the entrecote ; the filet in comparison to it is a poor 
 fade lady's meat. What folly, by the way, is that in 
 England which induces us to attach an estimation to the 
 part of the sirloin that is called the Sunday side, poor, 
 tender, stringy stuff, not comparable to the manly meat 
 
14 MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 
 
 on the other side, handsomely garnished with crisp fat, 
 and with a layer of horn ! Give the Sunday side to 
 misses and ladies' maids, for men be the Monday's side, 
 or, better still, a thousand-fold more succulent and full of 
 flavor, the ribs of beef. This is the meat I would eat 
 were I going to do battle with any mortal foe. Fancy a 
 hundred thousand Englishmen, after a meal of stalwart 
 beef ribs, encountering a hundred thousand Frenchmen, 
 who had partaken of a trifling collation of soup, turnips, 
 carrots, onions, and Gruyere cheese. Would it be manly 
 to engage at such odds ? I say no. 
 
 Passing by Verey's one day, I saw a cadaverous cook 
 with a spatula, thumping a poor beefsteak with all his 
 might. This is not only a horrible cruelty, but an error. 
 They not only beat the beef, moreover, but they soak it 
 in oil. Absurd, disgusting barbarity ! Beef so beaten 
 loses its natural spirit ; it is too noble for corporal punish- 
 ment. You may by these tortures and artifices make it 
 soft and greasy, but tender and juicy never. 
 
 The landlord of the Cafe de Foy (I have received no 
 sort of consideration from him) knows this truth full well, 
 and follows the simple, honest plan ; first, to have good 
 meat, and next to hang it a long time. I have instructed 
 him how to do the steaks to a turn ; not raw, horribly 
 livid and blue in the midst, as I have seen great flaps of 
 meat (what a shame to think of our fine meat being so 
 treated!), but cooked all the way through. Go to the 
 Cafe" Foy then, ask for a BEEFSTEAK A LA TITMARSH, 
 and you will see what a dish will be set before you. I have 
 dwelt upon this point at too much length, perhaps, for 
 some of my readers ; but it can't be helped. The truth 
 is, beef is my weakness ; and I do declare, that I derive 
 more positive enjoyment from the simple viand than from 
 
MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 15 
 
 any concoction whatever in the whole cook's cyclopae- 
 dia. 
 
 Always drink red wine with beefsteaks ; port, if pos- 
 sible ; if not, Burgundy, of not too high a flavor, good 
 beaune say. This fact, which is very likely not known 
 to many persons who, forsooth, are too magnificent to 
 care about their meat and drink, this simple fact I 
 take to be worth the whole price I shall get for this ar- 
 ticle. 
 
 But to return to dinner. We were left, I think, G. 
 and I, sopping up the gravy with bits of bread, and de- 
 claring that no power on earth could induce us to eat a 
 morsel more that day. At one time we thought of coun- 
 termanding the perdreau aux truffes, that to my certain 
 knowledge had been betruffed five days before. 
 
 Poor blind mortals that we were ! ungrateful to our 
 appetites, needlessly mistrustful and cowardly. A man 
 may do what he dares ; nor does he know, until he tries, 
 what the honest appetite will bear. We were kept wait- 
 ing between the steak and the partridge some ten minutes 
 or so. For the first two or three minutes, we lay back 
 in our chairs quiet, exhausted indeed. Then we began 
 to fiddle with a dish of toothpicks, for want of anything 
 more savory ; then we looked out of the window ; then 
 G. got in a rage, rung the bell violently, and asked, 
 " Pourquoi diable nous fait on attendre si long temps ? " 
 The waiter grinned. He is a nice, good-humored fellow, 
 Auguste ; and I heartily trust that some reader of this 
 may give him a five-franc piece for my sake. Auguste 
 grinned and disappeared. 
 
 Presently, we were aware of an odor gradually coming 
 towards us, something musky, fiery, savory, mysterious, 
 a hot, drowsy smell, that lulls the senses, and yet in- 
 
16 MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 
 
 flames them, the troubles were coming ! Yonder they 
 lie, caverned under the full bosom of the red-legged bird. 
 My hand trembled as, after a little pause, I cut the ani- 
 mal in two. G. said I did not give him his share of the 
 troufles ; I don't believe I did. I spilled some salt into 
 my plate, and a little cayenne pepper, very little : we 
 began, as far as I can remember, the following conver- 
 sation : 
 
 Gustavus. " Chop, chop, chop." 
 
 Michael Angela. Globlobloblob." 
 
 G. "Gobble." 
 
 M. A. "Obble." 
 
 G. " Here 's a big one." 
 
 M. A. " Hobgob. What wine shall we have ? I should 
 like some champagne." 
 
 G. " It 's bad here. Have some sauterne." % 
 
 M. A. " Very well. Hobgobglobglob," &c. 
 
 Auguste (opening the sauterne). " Cloo-oo-oo-oop ! " 
 The cork is out ; he pours it into the glass, glock, glock, 
 glock. 
 
 Nothing more took place in the way of talk. The 
 poor little partridge was soon a heap of bones, a very 
 little heap. A trufflesque odor was left in the room, but 
 only an odor. Presently the cheese was brought: the 
 amber sauterne flask had turned of a sickly green hue ; 
 nothing save half a glass of sediment at the bottom, re- 
 mained to tell of thg light and social spirit that had but 
 one half-hour before inhabited the flask. Darkness fell 
 upon our little chamber; the men in the street began 
 crying, " Messager I Journal du Soir!" The bright 
 moon rose glittering over the tiles of the Rue Louis de 
 Grand, opposite, illuminating two glasses of punch that 
 two gentlemen in a small room of the Cafe" de Foy did 
 
MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 17 
 
 ever and anon raise to their lips. Both were silent ; both 
 happy ; both were smoking cigars, for both knew that 
 the soothing plant of Cuba is sweeter to the philosopher 
 after dinner than the prattle of all the women in the world. 
 Women, pshaw ! The man, who, after dinner, after 
 a good dinner, can think about driving home, and shav- 
 ing himself by candle-light, and enduing a damp shirt, 
 and a pair of tight glazed pumps to show his cobweb 
 stockings, and set his feet in a flame ; and, having under- 
 gone all this, can get into a cold cab and drive off to No. 
 222 Harley Street, where Mrs. Mortimer Smith is at 
 home ; where you take off your cloak in a damp, dark 
 back parlor, called Mr. Smith's study, and containing, 
 when you arrive, twenty-four ladies' cloaks and tippets, 
 fourteen hats, two pair of clogs (belonging to two gentle- 
 men of the Middle Temple, who walk for economy, and 
 think dancing at Mrs. Mortimer Smith's the height of en- 
 joyment) ; the man who can do all this, and walk, grace- 
 fully smiling, into Mrs. Smith's drawing-rooms, where 
 the brown holland bags have been removed from the 
 chandeliers ; a man from Kirkman's is thumping on the 
 piano, and Mrs. Smith is standing simpering in the mid- 
 dle of the room, dressed in red, with a bird of paradise in 
 her turban, a tremulous fan in one hand, and the other 
 clutching hold of her little fat gold watch and seals ; 
 the man who, after making his bow to Mrs. Smith, can 
 advance to Miss Jones, in blue crajte, and lead her to a 
 place among six other pairs of solemn-looking persons, 
 and whisper fadaisies to her (at which she cries, " fie, 
 you naughty man ! how can you ? "), and look at Miss 
 Smith's red shoulders struggling out of her gown, and 
 her mottled elbows that a pair of crumpled kid gloves 
 leave in a state of delicious nature ; and, after having 
 
18 MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 
 
 gone through certain mysterious quadrille figures with her, 
 lead her back to her mamma, who has just seized a third 
 glass of muddy negus from the black footman; the 
 man who can do all this may do it, and go hang, for me ! 
 And many such men there be, my Gustavus, in yonder 
 dusky London city. Be it ours, my dear friend, when 
 the day's labor and repast are done, to lie and ruminate 
 calmly ; to watch the bland cigar-smoke as it rises gently 
 ceiling- wards ; to be idle in body as well as mind ; not to 
 kick our heels madly in quadrilles, and puff and pant in 
 senseless gallopades ; let us appreciate the joys of idle- 
 ness ; let us give a loose to silence ; and having enjoyed 
 this, the best dessert after a goodly dinner, at close of eve, 
 saunter slowly home. 
 
 * * # # 
 
 As the dinner above described drew no less than three 
 franc pieces out of my purse, I determined to economize 
 for the next few days, and either to be invited out to din- 
 ner, or else to partake of some repast at a small charge, 
 such as one may have here. I had on the day succeeding 
 the troufled partridge a dinner for a shilling, viz. : 
 
 Bifsteck aux pommes (heu quantum mutatus ab illo !) 
 
 Galantine de volaille, 
 
 Fromage de Gruyere, 
 
 Demie-bouteille du vin tres-vieux de macon on chablis, 
 
 Pain a discretion. 
 
 This dinner, my J'oung friend, was taken about half 
 past two o'clock in the day, and was, in fact, a breakfast, 
 a breakfast taken at a two-franc house, in the Rue 
 Heure Vivienne ; it was certainly a sufficient dinner : I 
 certainly was not hungry for all the rest of the day. 
 Nay, the wine was decently good, as almost all wine is 
 in the morning, if one had the courage or the power to 
 
MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 19 
 
 drink it. You see many honest English families march- 
 ing into these two-franc eating-houses at five o'clock, and 
 fancying they dine in great luxury. Returning to Eng- 
 land, however, they inform their friends that the meat in 
 France is not good ; that the fowls are very small, and 
 black ; the kidneys very tough ; the partridges and fruit 
 have no taste in them ; and the soup is execrably thin. 
 A dinner at Williams's, in the Old Bailey, is better than 
 the best of these ; and therefore had the English Cockney 
 better remain at Williams's, than judge the great nation 
 so falsely. 
 
 The worst of these two-franc establishments is a horrid 
 air of shabby elegance which distinguishes them. At 
 some of them they will go the length of changing your 
 knife and fork with every dish ; they have grand chimney- 
 glasses, and a fine lady at the counter, and fine arabesque 
 paintings on the walls ; they give you your soup in a 
 battered dish of plated ware, which has served its best 
 time, most likely, in a first-rate establishment, and comes 
 here to etaler its second-hand splendor amongst amateurs 
 of a lower grade. I fancy the very meat that is served 
 to you has undergone the same degradation, and that 
 some of the mouldy cutlets that are offered to the two- 
 franc epicures lay once plump and juicy in Verey's larder. 
 Much better is the sanded floor and the iron fork ! 
 Homely neatness is the charm of poverty: elegance 
 should belong to wealth alone. There is a very decent 
 place where you dine for thirty-two sous in the Passage 
 Choiseuil. You get your soup in china bowls ; they don't 
 change your knife and fork, but they give you very fit por- 
 tions of meat and potatoes, and mayhap a herring with 
 mustard sauce, a dish of apple fritters, a dessert of stewed 
 prunes, and a pint of drinkable wine, as I have proved 
 only yesterday. 
 
20 MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 
 
 After two such banyan days, I allowed myself a little 
 feasting ; and as nobody persisted in asking me to dinner, 
 I went off to the Trois Freres by myself, and dined in 
 that excellent company. 
 
 I would recommend a man who is going to dine by him- 
 self here, to reflect well before he orders soup for dinner. 
 
 My notion is, that you eat as much after soup as with- 
 out it, but you don't eat with the same appetite. 
 
 Especially if you are a healthy man, as I am, deuced 
 hungry at five o'clock. My appetite runs away with me ; 
 and if I order soup (which is always enough for two), I 
 invariably swallow the whole of it ; and the greater por- 
 tion of my petit pain, too, before my second dish arrives. 
 
 The best part of a pint of Julienne or puree a la Con- 
 de*, is very well for a man who has only one dish besides 
 to devour ; but not for you and me, who like our fish and 
 our roti of game or meat as well. 
 
 Oysters you may eat. They do, for a fact, prepare one 
 to go through the rest of a dinner properly. Lemon and 
 cayenne pepper is the word, depend on it, .and a glass of 
 white wine braces you up for what is to follow. 
 
 French restaurateur dinners are intended, however, for 
 two people, at least ; still better for three ; and require a 
 good deal of thought before you can arrange them for one. 
 
 Here, for instance, is a recent menu : 
 
 Trois Freres Provenpeaux. f. o. 
 
 Pain 25 
 
 Beaune premiere . . . . 30 
 
 Puree a la creci 75 
 
 Turbot aux capres . . . . 1 75 
 
 Quart poulet aux truffes . . . 2 25 
 
 Champignons a la Proven9ale . . 1 25 
 
 Gelee aux pommes . . . . . 1 25 
 
 Cognac 30 
 
 10 80 
 
MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 21 
 
 A heavy bill for a single man ; and a heavy dinner, 
 too ; for I have said before I have a great appetite, and 
 when a thing is put before me I eat it. At Brussels I 
 once ate fourteen dishes; and have seen a lady, with 
 whom I was in love, at the table of a German grand 
 duke, eat seventeen dishes. This is a positive, though 
 disgusting fact. Up to the first twelve dishes she had a 
 very good chance of becoming Mrs. Titmarsh, but I have 
 lost sight of her since. 
 
 Well, then, I say to you, if you have self-command 
 enough to send away half your soup, order some ; but 
 you are a poor creature if you do, after all. If you are a 
 man, and have not that self-command, don't have any. 
 The Frenchmen cannot live without it, but I say to you 
 that you are better than a Frenchman. I would lay even 
 money that you who are reading this are more than five 
 feet seven in height, and weigh eleven stone; while a 
 Frenchman is five feet four and does not weigh nine. 
 The Frenchman has after his soup a dish of vegetables, 
 where you have one of meat. You are a difijrent and 
 superior animal, a French-beating animal (the history 
 of hundreds of years has shown you to be so) ; you must 
 have to keep up that superior weight and sinew, which is 
 the secret of your superiority, as for public institutions, 
 bah ! you must have, I say, simpler, stronger, succu- 
 lenter food. 
 
 Eschew the soup, then, and have the fish up at once. 
 It is the best to begin with fish, if you like it, as every 
 epicure and honest man should, simply boiled or fried in 
 the English fashion, and not tortured and bullied with 
 oil, onions, wine, and herbs, as in Paris it is frequently 
 done. 
 
 Turbot with lobster-sauce is too much; turbot a la 
 
22 MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 
 
 ffollandaise vulgar; sliced potatoes swimming in melted 
 butter are a mean concomitant for a noble, simple, liberal 
 fish: turbot with capers is the thing. The brisk little 
 capers relieve the dulness of the turbot ; the melted but- 
 ter is rich, bland, and calm, it should be, that is to say ; 
 not that vapid, watery mixture that I see in London ; 
 not oiled butter, as the Hollanders have it, but melted 
 with plenty of thickening matter : I don't know how to 
 do it, but I know it when it is good. 
 
 They melt butter well at the Rocher de Caucale, and 
 at the Freres. 
 
 Well, this turbot was very good; not so well, of 
 course, as one gets it in London, and dried rather in the 
 boiling ; which can't be helped, unless you are a Lucul- 
 lus or a Camba^eres of a man, and can afford to order 
 one for yourself. This grandeur d'dme is very rare ; my 
 friend, Tom Willows, is almost the only man I know 
 who possessed it. Yes, * * *, one of the wittiest men in 
 London, I once knew to take the whole interieur of a 
 diligence (six places), because he was a little unwell. 
 Ever since I have admired that man. He understands 
 true economy; a mean, extravagant man would have 
 contented himself with a single place, and been unwell 
 in consequence. How I am rambling from my subject, 
 however. The fish was good, and I ate up every single 
 scrap of it, sucking the bones and fins curiously. That 
 is the deuce of an appetite, it must be satisfied ; and if 
 you were to put a roast donkey before me, with the 
 promise of a haunch of venison afterwards, I believe I 
 should eat the greater part of the long-eared animal. 
 
 A pint of puree a la creci, a pain de gruau, a slice of 
 turbot, a man should think about ordering his bill, for 
 he has had enough dinner ; but no, we are creatures of 
 
MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 23 
 
 superstition and habit, and must have one regular course 
 of meat. Here comes the poulet a la Marengo : I hope 
 they 've given me the wing. 
 
 No such thing. The' poulet a la Marengo aux tniffes 
 is bad, too oily by far ; the truffles are not of this 
 year as they should be, for there are cart-loads in town : 
 they are poor in flavor, and have only been cast into the 
 dish a minute before it was brought to table, and what is 
 the consequence ? They do not flavor the meat in the 
 least ; some faint trufflesque savor you may get as you 
 are crunching each individual root, but that is all, and 
 that all not worth the having ; for as nothing is finer than 
 a good truffle, in like manner nothing is meaner than a 
 bad one. It is merely pompous, windy, and pretentious, 
 like those scraps of philosophy with which a certain emi- 
 nent novelist decks out his meat. 
 
 A mushroom, thought I, is better a thousand times 
 than these tough, flavorless roots. I finished every one 
 of them, however, and the fine, fat capon's thigh, which 
 they surrounded. It was a disappointment not to get a 
 wing, to be sure. They always give me legs ; but after 
 all, with a little good-humor and philosophy, a leg of a 
 fine Mans capon may be found very acceptable. How 
 plump and tender the rogue's thigh is ! his very drum- 
 stick is as fat as the calf of a London footman ; and the 
 sinews which puzzle one so over the lean, black hen-legs 
 in London, are miraculously whisked away from the 
 limb before me. Look at it now ! Half a dozen cuts 
 with the knife, and yonder lies the bone, white, large, 
 stark naked, without a morsel of flesh left upon it, soli- 
 tary in the midst of a pool of melted butter. 
 
 How good the Burgundy smacks after it ! I always 
 drink Burgundy at this house, and that not of the best 
 
24 MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 
 
 It is my firm opinion that a third-rate Burgundy, and a 
 third-rate claret, Beaune and Larose for instance, are 
 letter than the best. The Bordeaux enlivens, the Bur- 
 gundy invigorates : stronger drink only inflames ; and 
 where a bottle of good Beaune only causes a man to feel 
 a certain manly warmth of benevolence, a glow some- 
 thing like that produced by sunshine and gentle exercise, 
 a bottle of Chambertin will set all your frame in a, 
 fever, swells the extremities, and causes the pulses to 
 throb. Chambertin should never be handed round more 
 than twice ; and I recollect to this moment the headache 
 I had after drinking a bottle and a half of Romanee- 
 Gelee, for which this house is famous. Somebody else 
 paid for the (no other than you, O Gustavus ! with 
 whom I hope to have many a tall dinner on the same 
 charges) but 't was in our hot youth, ere experience 
 had taught us that moderation was happiness, and had 
 shown us that it is absurd to be guzzling wine at fifteen 
 francs a bottle. 
 
 By the way, I may here mention a story relating to 
 some of Blackwood's men, who dined at this very house. 
 Fancy the fellows trying claret, which they voted sour ; 
 then Burgundy, at which they made wry faces, and fin- 
 ished the evening with brandy and lunel! This is what 
 men call eating a French dinner. Willows and I dined 
 at the Rocher, and an English family there feeding or- 
 dered mutton-chops and potatoes. Why not, in these 
 cases, stay at home ? Chops is better chops in England 
 (the best chops in the world are to be had at the Reform 
 Club) than in France. What would literary men mean 
 by ordering lunel ? I always rather liked the descrip- 
 tions of eating in the Nodes. They were gross in all 
 cases, absurdly erroneous, in many ; but there was a 
 
MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 25 
 
 manliness about them, and strong evidence of a great, 
 though misdirected and uneducated, genius for victuals. 
 
 Mushrooms, thought I, are better than these tasteless 
 truffles, and so ordered a dish to try. You know what a 
 Provengale sauce is, I have no doubt ? a rich, savory 
 mixture, of garlic and oil ; which, with a little cayenne 
 pepper and salt, impart a pleasant taste to the plump 
 little mushrooms, that can't be described but may be 
 thought of with pleasure. 
 
 The only point was, how will they agree with me to- 
 morrow morning? for the fact is, I had eaten an im- 
 mense quantity of them, and began to be afraid ! Sup- 
 pose we go and have a glass of punch and a cigar ? O, 
 glorious garden of the Palais Royal ! your trees are leaf- 
 less now, but what matters ? Your alleys are damp, ,but 
 what of that ? All the windows are blazing with light 
 and merriment ; at least two thousand happy people are 
 pacing up and down the colonnades; cheerful sounds of 
 money chinking are heard as you pass the changers* 
 shops; bustling shouts of gargon, and Via monsieur! 
 come from the swinging doors of the restaurateurs. 
 Look at that group of soldiers gaping at Vefour's win- 
 dow, where lie lobsters, pine-apples, fat truffle-stuffed 
 partridges, which make me almost hungry again. I won- 
 der whether those three fellows with mustachios and a 
 toothpick apiece have had a dinner, or only a toothpick. 
 When the Trois Freres used to be on the first floor, and 
 had a door leading into the Rue de Valois, as well as one 
 into the garden, I recollect seeing three men with tooth- 
 picks mount the stair from the street, descend the stair 
 into the garden, and give themselves as great airs as if 
 they had dined for a napoleon a head. The rogues are 
 lucky if they have had a sixteen sous dinner ; and the 
 
 * 
 
26 MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 
 
 next time I dine abroad, I am resolved to have one my- 
 self. I never understood why Gil Bias grew so mighty 
 squeamish in the affair of the cat and the hare. Hare is 
 best, but why should not cat be good ? 
 
 Being on the subject of bad dinners, I may as well 
 ease my mind of one that occurred to me some few days 
 back. When walking in the Boulevard, I met my friend, 
 Captain Hopkinson, of the half-pay, looking very hungry, 
 and indeed going to dine. In most cases one respects the 
 dictum of a half-pay officer regarding a dining-house. 
 He knows as a general rule where the fat of the land lies, 
 and how to take his share of that fat in the most economi- 
 cal manner. 
 
 " I tell you what I do," says Hopkinson ; " I allow my- 
 self fifteen franc a week for dinner (I count upon being 
 asked out twice a week), and so have a three-franc dinner 
 at Richard's, where, for the extra franc, they give me an 
 excellent bottle of wine, and make me comfortable." 
 
 " Why should n't they ? " I thought. " Here is a man 
 who has served his king and country, and no doubt knows 
 a thing when he sees it." We made a party of four, 
 therefore, and went to the captain's place to dine. 
 
 We had a private room au second; a very damp and 
 dirty private room, with a faint odor of stale punch, and 
 dingy glasses round the walls. 
 
 We had a soup of puree aux crouton ; a very dingy, 
 dubious soup, indeed ; thickened, I fancy, with brown 
 paper, and flavored with the same. 
 
 At the end of the soup Monsieur Landlord came up 
 stairs very kindly, and gave us each a pinch of snuff out 
 of a gold snuff-box. 
 
 We had four portions of anguille & la tartare, very good 
 and fresh (it is best in these places to eat fresh-water 
 
MEMOEIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 27 
 
 fish). Each portion was half the length of a man's finger. 
 Dish one was despatched in no time, and we began drink- 
 ing the famous wine that our guide recommended. I 
 have cut him ever since. It was four-sous wine, weak, 
 vapid, watery stuff, of the most unsatisfactory nature. 
 
 We had four portions of gigot aux haricots, four flaps 
 of bleeding, tough meat, cut unnaturally (that is, with the 
 grain : the French gash the meat in parallel lines with 
 the bone). We ate these up as we might, and the land- 
 lord was so good as to come up again and favor us with a 
 pinch from his gold box. 
 
 With wonderful unanimity, as we were told the place 
 was famous for civet de lievre, we ordered civet de lievre 
 for four. 
 
 It came up, but we could n't, really we could n't. 
 We were obliged to have extra dishes, and pay extra. 
 Gustavus had a mayonnaise of crayfish, and half a fowl; 
 I fell to work upon my cheese as usual, and availed my- 
 self of the discretionary bread. We went away disgusted, 
 wretched, unhappy. We had had for our three francs bad 
 bread, bad meat, bad wine. And there stood the landlord 
 at the door (and be hanged to him !) grinning and offer- 
 ing his box. 
 
 We don't speak to Hopkinson any more now when we 
 meet him. How can you trust or be friendly with a man 
 who deceives you in this miserable way ? 
 
 What is the moral to be drawn from this dinner ? It 
 is evident. Avoid pretence ; mistrust shabby elegance ; 
 cut your coat according to your cloth ; if you have but a 
 few shillings in your pocket, aim only at those humble 
 and honest meats which your small store will purchase. 
 At the Cafe Foy, for the same money, I might have 
 had 
 
28 MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 
 
 f: s. 
 
 A delicious entrecote and potatoes . . .15 
 A pint of excellent wine . . . . 015 
 A little bread (meaning a good deal) . .05 
 A dish of stewed kidneys . . . . 10 
 
 F~0 
 Or at Paolo's. 
 
 A bread (as before) 05 
 
 A heap of macaroni, or ravioli . . . 015 
 
 A Milanese cutlet 10 
 
 A pint of wine 10 
 
 And ten sous for any other luxury your imagination 
 could suggest. The ravioli and the cutlets are admira- 
 bly dressed at Paolo's. Does any healthy man need 
 more? 
 
 These dinners, I am perfectly aware, are by no means 
 splendid ; and I might, with the most perfect ease, write 
 you out a dozen bills of fare, each more splendid and 
 piquant than the other, in which all the luxuries of the 
 season should figure. But the remarks here set down 
 are the result of experience, not fancy, and intended only 
 for persons in the middling classes of life. Very few men 
 can afford to pay more than five francs daily for dinner. 
 Let us calmly, then, consider what enjoyment may be had 
 for those five francs ; how, by economy on one day, we 
 may venture upon luxury the next ; how, by a little fore- 
 thought and care, we may be happy on all days. Who 
 knew and studied this cheap philosophy of life better than 
 old Horace, before quoted ? Sometimes (when in luck) 
 he cherupped over cups that were fit for an archbishop's 
 supper ; sometimes he philosophized over his own ordi- 
 naire at his own farm. How affecting is the last ode of 
 the first book : 
 
MEMOKIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 29 
 
 TO HIS SERVING-BOY. 
 
 Persicos odi, 
 
 Puer, apparatus; 
 
 Displicent nexss 
 
 Philyra coronse : 
 
 Mitte sectari 
 
 Eosa quo locorum 
 
 Sera moretur. 
 
 Simplici myrto 
 Nihil allabores 
 Sedulus curte : 
 Neque te ministrum 
 Dedecet myrtus, 
 Neque me sub arcta 
 Vite bibentem. 
 
 AD MINISTRAM. 
 
 Dear Lucy, you know what my wish is, 
 
 I hate all your Frenchified fuss : 
 Your silly entries and made dishes 
 
 Were never intended for us. 
 No footman in lace and in ruffles 
 
 Need dangle behind my arm-chair; 
 And never mind seeking for truffles, 
 
 Although they be ever so rare. 
 
 But a plain leg of mutton, my Lucy, 
 
 I pr'ythee get ready at three : 
 Have it smoking, and tender, and juicy, 
 
 And what better meat can there beV 
 And when it has feasted the master, 
 
 'T will amply suffice for the maid; 
 Meanwhile I will smoke my canaster, 
 
 And tipple my ale in the shade. 
 
 Not that this is the truth entirely and forever. - Ho- 
 ratius Flaccus was too wise to dislike a good thing ; but 
 it is possible that the Persian apparatus was on that day 
 beyond his means, and so he contented himself with hu.m- 
 ble fare. 
 
30 MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 
 
 A gentleman, by the by, has just come to Paris, to 
 whom I am very kind ; and who will, in all human prob- 
 ability, between this and next month, ask me to a dinner 
 at the Rocher de Caucale. If so, something may occur 
 worth writing about ; or if you are anxious to hear more 
 on the subject, send me over a sum to my address, to be 
 laid out for you exclusively in eating. I give you my 
 honor I will do you justice, and account for every farthing 
 of it. 
 
 One of the most absurd customs at present in use is 
 that of giving your friend, when some piece of good 
 luck happens to him, such as an appointment as Chief 
 Judge of Owhyhee, or King's Advocate to Timbuctoo, 
 of giving your friend, because, forsooth, he may have 
 been suddenly elevated from 200 a-year to 2,000, an 
 enormous dinner of congratulation. 
 
 Last year, for instance, when our friend, Fred Jowling, 
 got his place of Commissioner at Quashumaboo, it was 
 considered absolutely necessary to give the man a dinner, 
 and some score of us had to pay about fifty shillings 
 a-piece for the purpose. I had, so help me, Moses ! but 
 three guineas in the world at that period ; and out of this 
 sum the bienseances compelled me to sacrifice five sixths, 
 to feast myself in company of a man gorged with wealth, 
 rattling sovereigns in his pocket as if they had been so 
 much dross, and capable of treating us all without missing 
 the sum he might expend on us. 
 
 Jow himself allowed, as I represented the case to him, 
 that the arrangement was very hard; but represented, 
 fairly enough, that this was one of the sacrifices that a 
 man of the world, from time to time, is called to make. 
 " You, my dear Titmarsh," said he, know very well that 
 I don't care for these grand entertainments " (the rogue, 
 
MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 31 
 
 he is a five-bottle man, and just the most finished gourmet 
 of my acquaintance !) ; " you know that I am perfectly 
 convinced of your friendship for me, though you join in 
 the dinner or not, but, it would look rather queer if you 
 backed out, it would look rather queer? Jow said this 
 in such an emphatic way, that I saw I must lay down my 
 money ; and accordingly Mr. Lovegrove of Blackwall, for 
 a certain quantity of iced punch, champagne, cider cup, 
 fish, flesh, and fowl, received the last of my sovereigns. 
 
 At the beginning of the year Bolter got a place too, 
 Judge- Advocate in the Topinambo Islands, of 3,000 
 a-year, which he said was a poor remuneration in consid- 
 eration of the practice which he gave up in town. He 
 may have practised on his laundress, but for anything 
 else I believe the man never had a client in his life. 
 
 However, on his way to Topinambo by Marseilles, 
 Egypt, the Desert, the Persian Gulf, and so on Bolter 
 arrived in Paris ; and I saw from his appearance, and the 
 manner of shaking hands with me, and the peculiar way 
 in which he talked about the Rocher de Caucale, that he 
 expected we were to give him a dinner, as we had to 
 Jowling. 
 
 There were four friends of Bolter's in the capital be- 
 sides myself, and among us the dinner-question was 
 mooted : we agreed that it should be a simple dinner of 
 ten francs a head, and this was the bill of fare : 
 
 1. Oysters (common), nice. 
 
 2. Oysters, green of Marenne (very good). 
 8. Potage, puree de gibier (very fair). 
 
 As we were English, they instantly then served us, 
 
 4. Sole en matelotte Normande (comme 9a). 
 
 5. Turbot a la creme au gratin (excellent). 
 
 6. Jardiniere cutlets (particularly seedy). 
 
32 MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 
 
 7. Poulet k la Marengo (very fair, but why the deuce is 
 one always to be pestered by it ?). 
 
 I (Entrees of some kind, but a blank in my memory). 
 
 10. A r6t of chevreuil. 
 
 11. Ditto of eperlans (very hot, crisp, and nice). 
 
 12. Ditto of partridges (quite good and plump). 
 
 13. Pointes d'asperges. 
 
 14. Champignons k la Proveneale (the most delicious mush- 
 rooms I ever tasted). 
 
 15. Pine-apple jelly. 
 
 16. Blanc, or red mange. 
 
 1 7. Pencacks. Let everybody who goes to the Rocher or- 
 der these pancakes ; they are arranged with jelly inside, rolled 
 up between various couches of vermicilli, flavored with a leetle 
 wine ; and, by everything sacred, the most delightful meat pos- 
 sible. 
 
 18. Timballe of macaroni. 
 
 The jellies and sucreries should have been mentioned 
 in the dessert, and there were numberless plates of trifles, 
 which made the table look very pretty, but need not be 
 mentioned here. 
 
 The dinner was not a fine one, as you see. No rari- 
 ties, no troufles even, no mets de primeur, though there 
 were peas and asparagus in the market at a pretty fair 
 price. But with rarities no man has any business except 
 he have a colossal fortune. Hot-house strawberries, as- 
 paragus, &c., are, as far as my experience goes, most fade, 
 mean, and tasteless meats. Much better to have a simple 
 dinner of twenty dishes, and content therewith, than to 
 look for impossible splendors and Apician morsels. 
 
 In respect of wine. Let those who go to the Rocher 
 take my advice and order Madeira. They have here 
 some pale old East India very good. How they got it is 
 
MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 33 
 
 a secret, for the Parisians do not know good Madeira 
 when they see it. Some very fair strong young wine 
 may be had at the Hotel des Americains, in the Rue St. 
 Honors' ; as, indeed, all West India produce, pine-apple 
 rum, for instance. I may say, with confidence, that I 
 never knew what rum was until I tasted this at Paris. 
 
 But to the Rocher. The Madeira was the best wine 
 served ; though some Burgundy, handed round in the 
 course of dinner, and a bottle of Montrachet, similarly 
 poured out to us, were very fair. The champagne was 
 decidedly not good, poor, inflated, thin stuff. They say 
 the drink we swallow in England is not genuine wine, but 
 brandy-loaded and otherwise doctored for the English 
 market ; but, ah, what superior wine ! Au reste, the 
 French will not generally pay the money for the wine ; 
 and it therefore is carried from an ungrateful country to 
 more generous climes, where it is better appreciated. We 
 had claret and speeches after dinner ; and very possibly 
 some of the persons present made free with a jug of hot 
 water, a few lumps of sugar, and the horrid addition of a 
 glass of cognac. There can be no worse practice than 
 this. After a dinner of eighteen dishes, in which you 
 have drunk at least thirty-six glasses of wine, when the 
 stomach is full, the brain heavy, the hands and feet in- 
 flamed, when the claret begins to pall, you, forsooth, 
 must gorge yourself with brandy-and-water, and puff filthy 
 cigars. For shame ! Who ever does it ? Does a gen- 
 tleman drink brandy-and-water ? Does a man who mixes 
 in the society of the loveliest half of humanity befoul him- 
 self by tobacco smoke ? Fie, fie ! avoid the practice. I 
 indulge in it always myself ; but that is no reason why 
 you, a young man entering into the world, should degrade 
 yourself in any such way. No, no, my dear lad, never 
 2* c 
 
34 MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 
 
 refuse t an evening party, and avoid tobacco as you would 
 the upas plant. 
 
 'By the way, not having my purse about me when the 
 above dinner was given, I was constrained to borrow from 
 Bolter, whom I knew more intimately than the rest ; and 
 nothing grieved me more than to find, on calling at his 
 hotel four days afterwards, that he had set off by the mail 
 post for Marseilles. Friend of my youth, dear, dear Bol- 
 ton ! if haply this trifling page should come before thine 
 eyes, weary of perusing the sacred rolls of Themis in thy 
 far-off island in the Indian Sea, thou wilt recall our little 
 dinner in the little room of the Cancalian Coffee-House, 
 and think for a while of thy friend ! 
 
 Let us now mention one or two places that the Briton, 
 on his arrival here, should frequent or avoid. As a quiet, 
 dear house, where there are some of the best rooms in 
 Paris always the best meat, fowls, vegetables, &c. -*- we 
 may specially recommend Monsieur Voisin's cafe", oppo- 
 site the church of the Assumption. A very decent and 
 lively house of restauration is that at the corner of the 
 Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, on the Boulevard. I 
 never yet had a good dinner in my life at Vefour's ; some- 
 thing is always manque at the place. The Grand Vattel 
 is worthy of note, as cheap, pretty, and quiet. All the 
 English houses gentlemen may frequent who are so in- 
 clined ; but though the writer of this has many times 
 dined for sixteen sous at Catcomb's, cheek by jowl with a 
 French chasseur or a laborer, he has, he confesses, an an- 
 tipathy to enter into the confidence of a footman or groom 
 of his own country. 
 
 A gentleman who purchases pictures in this town was 
 lately waited upon by a lady, who said she had in her 
 possession one of the greatest rarities in the world, a 
 
MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 35 
 
 picture, admirable, too, as a work of art, no less than 
 an original portrait of Shakespeare, by his comrade, the 
 famous John Davis. The gentleman rushed off imme'di- 
 ately to behold the wonder, and saw a head, rudely but 
 vigorously painted on panel, about twice the size of life, 
 with a couple of hooks drawn through the top part of the 
 board, under which was written, 
 
 THE WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, 
 BY JOHN DAVIS. 
 
 " Voyez vous, Monsieur," said the lady ; " il n'y a plus 
 de doute. Le portrait de Shakespeare du celebre Davis, 
 et signe meme de lui ! " 
 
 I remember it used to hang up in a silent little street 
 in the Latin quarter, near an old convent, before a quaint 
 old quiet tavern that I loved. It was pleasant to see the 
 old name written up in a strange land, and the well- 
 known friendly face greeting one. There was a quiet 
 little garden at the back of the tavern, and famous good 
 roast-beef, clean rooms, and English beer. Where are 
 you now, John Davis ? Could not the image of thy au- 
 gust patron preserve thy house from ruin, or rally the 
 faithful around it ? Are you unfortunate, Davis ? Are 
 you a bankrupt ? Let us hope not. I swear to thee, 
 that when, one sunny afternoon, I first saw the ensign of 
 thy tavern, I loved thee for the choice, and douced my 
 cap on entering the porch, and looked around, and thought 
 all friends were here. 
 
 In the queer old pleasant novel of the Spiritual Quix- 
 ote, honest Tugwell, the Sancho of the story, relates a 
 Warwickshire legend, which at the time Graves wrote 
 was not much more than a hundred years old ; and by 
 which it appears that the owner of New Place was a 
 
36 MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 
 
 
 
 famous jesting gentleman, and used to sit at his gate of 
 summer evenings, cutting the queerest, merriest jokes 
 with all the passers-by. I have heard from a Warwick- 
 shire clergyman that the legend still exists in the coun- 
 try ; and Ward's Diary says, that Master Shakespeare 
 died of a surfeit, brought on by carousing with a literary 
 friend who had come to visit him from London. And 
 wherefore not ? Better to die of good wine and good 
 company than of slow disease and doctor's doses. Some 
 geniuses live on sour misanthropy, and some on meek 
 milk-and-water. Let us not deal too hardly with those 
 that are of a jovial sort, and indulge in the decent prac- 
 tice of the cup and the platter. 
 
 A word or two, by way of conclusion, may be said 
 about the numerous pleasant villages in the neighborhood 
 of Paris, or rather of the eating and drinking to be found 
 in the taverns of those suburban spots. At Versailles, 
 Monsieur Duboux, at the Hotel des Reservoirs, has a 
 good cook and cellars, and will gratify you with a heavier 
 bill than is paid at Verey's and the Rocher. On the 
 beautiful terrace of Saint Germain, looking over miles of 
 river and vineyard, of fair villages basking in the mead- 
 ows, and.great tall trees stretching wide round about ; you 
 may sit in the open air of summer evenings and see the 
 white spires of Saint Denis rising in the distance, and the 
 gray arches of Marly to the right, and before you the 
 city of Paris with innumerable domes and towers. 
 
 Watching these objects, and the setting sun gorgeously 
 illumining the heavens and them, you may have an ex- 
 cellent dinner served to you by the chef of Messire Gal- 
 lois, who at present owns the pavilion where Louis XIV. 
 was born. The maitre d'hotel is from the Rocher, and 
 told us that he came out to St. Germain for the sake of 
 
MEMORIALS OF GORMANDIZING. 37 
 
 the air. The only drawback to the entertainment is, that 
 the charges are as atrociously high in price as the dishes 
 provided are small in quantity ; and dining at this pavil- 
 ion on the loth of April, at a period when a botte of as- 
 paragus at Paris cost only three francs, the writer of this 
 and a chosen associate had to pay seven francs for about 
 the third part of a botte of asparagus, served up to them 
 by Messire Gallois. 
 
 Facts like these ought not to go unnoticed. Therefore, 
 let the readers of Fraser's Magazine who propose a visit 
 to Paris, take warning by the unhappy fate of the person 
 now addressing them, and avoid the place or not, as they 
 think fit. A bad dinner does no harm to any human 
 soul, and the philosopher partakes of such with easy res- 
 ignation ; but a bad and dear dinner is enough to raise 
 the anger of any man, however naturally sweet-tempered, 
 and he is bound to warn his acquaintance of it. 
 
 With one parting syllable in praise of the Marroniers 
 at Bercy, where you get capital eels, fried gudgeons fresh 
 from the Seine, and excellent wine of the ordinary kind, 
 this discourse is here closed. " En telle ou meilleure 
 pensee, Beuueurs ires illustres (car a vous non a aultres 
 sont dedies ces escriptz) reconfortez vostre malheur, et 
 beuuez fraiz si fair e se peult." 
 
MEN AND COATS. 
 
 HERE is some peculiar influence, which no 
 doubt the reader has remarked in his own 
 case, for it has been sung by ten thousand 
 poets, or versifying persons, whose ideas you 
 adopt, if perchance, as is barely possible, you have none 
 of your own, there is, I say, a certain balmy influence 
 in the spring-time, which brings a rush of fresh dancing 
 blood into the veins of all nature, and causes it to wear a 
 peculiarly festive and sporting look. Look at the old Sun, 
 how pale he was all the winter through ! Some days 
 he was so cold and wretched he would not come out at 
 all, he would not leave his bed till eight o'clock, and 
 retired to rest, the old sluggard ! at four ; but, lo ! comes 
 May, and he is up at five, he feels, like the rest of Us, 
 the delicious vernal influence ; he is always walking 
 abroad in the fresh air, and his jolly face lights up anew ! 
 Remark the trees ; they have dragged through the shiv- 
 ering winter time without so much as a rag to cover them, 
 but about May they feel obligated to follow the mode, and 
 come out in a new suit of green. The meadows, in like 
 manner, appear invested with a variety of pretty spring 
 fashions, not only covering their backs with a bran-new, 
 glossy suit, but sporting a world of little coquettish, orna- 
 mental gimcracks that are suited to the season. This one 
 
MEN AND COATS. 39 
 
 covers his robe with the most delicate twinkling white 
 daisies ; that tricks himself out with numberless golden 
 cowslips, or decorates his bosom with a bunch of dusky 
 violets. Birds sing and make love ; bees wake and make 
 honey ; horses and men leave off their shaggy winter 
 clothing and turn out in fresh coats. The only animal 
 that does not feel the power of spring, is that selfish, 
 silent, and cold-blooded beast, the oyster, who shuts him- 
 self up for. the best months of the year, and with whom 
 the climate disagrees. 
 
 Some people have wondered how it is that what is 
 called " the season " in London should not begin until 
 spring. What an absurd subject for wondering at ! How 
 could the London season begin at any other time ? How 
 could the great, black, bilious, overgrown city, stifled by 
 gas, and fogs, and politics, ever hope to have a season at 
 all, unless nature with a violent effort came to its aid 
 about Easter time, and infused into it a little spring 
 blood ? The town of London feels then the influences of 
 the spring, and salutes it after its fashion. The parks are 
 green for about a couple of months. Lady Smigsmag, 
 and other leaders of the ton, give their series of grand 
 parties ; Gunter and Grange come forward with iced- 
 creams and champagnes ; ducks and green-pease burst out ; 
 the river Thames blossoms with whitebait ; and Alder- 
 man Birch announces the arrival of fresh, lively turtle. 
 If there are no birds to sing and make love, as in coun- 
 try places, at least there are coveys of opera girls that 
 frisk and hop about airily, and Rubini and Lablache to 
 act as a couple of nightingales. " A lady of fashion re- 
 marked," says Dyson, in the Morning Post, " that for all 
 persons pretending to hold a position in genteel society," 
 I forget the exact words, but the sense of them remains 
 
40 MEN AND COATS. 
 
 indelibly engraven upon my mind, " for any one pre- 
 tending to take a place in genteel society two things are 
 indispensable. And what are these ? a BOUQUET AND 
 
 AN EMBROIDERED POCKET-HANDKERCHIEF." This is a 
 
 self-evident truth. Dyson does not furnish the bouquets, 
 he is not a market-gardener, he is not the goddess 
 Flora ; but, a town-man, he knows what the season re- 
 quires, and furnishes his contribution to it. The lilies of 
 the field are not more white and graceful than his em- 
 broidered nose ornaments, and with a little eau des cent- 
 milles fleurs, not more fragrant. Dyson knows that 
 pocket-handkerchiefs are necessary, and has " an express 
 from Longchamps " to bring them over. 
 
 Whether they are picked from ladies' pockets by Dy- 
 son's couriers, who then hurry breathless across the Chan- 
 nel with them, no one need ask. But the gist of Dyson's 
 advertisement, and of all the preceding remarks, is this 
 great truth, which need not be carried out further by any 
 illustrations from geography or natural history, that in 
 the spring-time all nature renews itself. There is not a 
 country newspaper published in England that does not 
 proclaim the same fact. Madame Hoggin informs the no- 
 bility and gentry of Penzance that her new and gigantic 
 stock of Parisian fashions has just arrived from London. 
 Mademoiselle M'Whirter begs to announce to the haul- 
 ton in the environs of John-o'- Groats that she has this in- 
 stant returned from Paris, with her dazzling and beautiful 
 collection of spring fashions. 
 
 In common with the birds, the trees, the meadows, 
 in common with the Sun, with Dyson, with all nature, in 
 fact, I yielded to the irresistible spring impulse, homo 
 sum, nihil humani a me alienum, &c., I acknowledged 
 the influence of the season, and ordered a new coat, waist- 
 
MEN AND COATS. 41 
 
 coat and tr in short, a new suit. Now, having worn 
 
 it for a few days, and studied the effect which it has upon 
 the wearer, I thought that perhaps an essay upon new 
 clothes and their influence might be attended with some 
 profit both to the public and the writer. 
 
 One thing is certain. A man does not have a new suit 
 of clothes every day; and another general proposition 
 may be advanced, that a man in sporting a coat for the 
 first time is either 
 
 agreeably affected, or 
 disagreeably affected, or 
 not affected at all, 
 
 which latter case I don't believe. There is no man, how- 
 ever accustomed to new clothes, but must feel some senti- 
 ment of pride in assuming them, no philosopher, how- 
 ever calm, but must remark the change of raiment. Men 
 consent to wear old clothes forever, nay, feel a pang at 
 parting with them for new ; but the first appearance of a 
 new garment is always attended with exultation. 
 
 Even the feeling of shyness, which makes a man 
 ashamed of his splendor, is a proof of his high sense of it. 
 "What causes an individual to sneak about in corners and 
 shady places, to avoid going out in new clothes of a Sun- 
 day, lest he be mistaken for a snob ? Sometimes even to 
 go the lengths of ordering his servant to powder his new 
 coat with sand, or to wear it for a couple of days, and re- 
 move the gloss thereof? Are not these manreuvres proofs 
 of the effects of new coats upon mankind in general ? 
 
 As this notice will occupy at least ten pages (for a rea- 
 son that may be afterwards mentioned), I intend, like the 
 great philosophers who have always sacrificed themselves 
 for the public good, imbibing diseases, poisons, and medi- 
 
42 MEN AND COATS. 
 
 cines, submitting to operations, inhaling asphysifications, 
 &c., in order that they might note in themselves the par- 
 ticular phenomena of the case, in like manner, I say, I 
 intend to write this essay in five several coats, viz : 
 
 1. My old single-breasted black frock-coat, with patches 
 at the elbows, made to go into mourning for William IV. 
 
 2. My double-breasted green ditto, made last year but 
 one, and still very good, but rather queer about the lining, 
 and snowy in the seams. 
 
 3. My grand black dress-coat, made by Messrs. Spard- 
 ing and Spohrer, of Conduit Street, in 1836. A little 
 scouring and renovating have given it a stylish look even 
 now ; and it was always a splendid cut. 
 
 4. My worsted-net-jacket that my uncle Harry gave 
 me on his departure for Italy. This jacket is wadded 
 inside with a wool like that one makes "Welsh wigs of; 
 and though not handsome, amazing comfortable, with 
 pockets all over. 
 
 5. MY NEW FROCK-COAT. 
 
 Now, will the reader be able to perceive any difference 
 in the style of writing of each chapter ? I fancy I see it 
 myself clearly; and am convinced that the new frock- 
 coat chapter will be infinitely more genteel, spruce, and 
 glossy, than the woollen-jacket chapter; which, again, 
 shall be more comfortable than the poor, seedy, patched 
 William-the-Fourth's black-frock chapter. The double- 
 breasted green one will be dashing, manly, free-and-easy ; 
 and, though not fashionable, yet with a well-bred look. 
 The grand black-dress chapter will be solemn and grave, 
 devilish tight about the waist, abounding in bows and 
 shrugs, and small talk ; it will have a great odor of bohea 
 and pound-cake ; perhaps there will be a faint whiff of 
 negus ; and the tails will whisk up in a quadrille at the 
 
MEN AND COATS. 43 
 
 end, or sink down, mayhap, on a supper-table bench be- 
 fore a quantity of trifles, lobster-salads, and champagnes ; 
 and near a lovely blushing white satin skirt, which is con- 
 tinually crying out, " O you ojous creature ! " or, " O you 
 naughty, satirical man, you ! " " And do you really be- 
 lieve Miss Moffat dyes her hair ? " " And have you read 
 that sweet thing in the Keepsake by Lord Diddle?" 
 " Well, only one leetle, leetle drop, for mamma will scold " ; 
 and "O you horrid Mr. Titmarsh, you have filled my 
 glass, I declare!" Dear white satin skirt, what pretty 
 shoulders and eyes you have ! what a nice white neck, 
 and bluish-mottled, round, innocent arms ! how fresh you 
 are and candid ! and ah, my dear, what a fool you are ! 
 
 * * * # #= 
 
 I don't have so many coats now-a-days as in the days 
 of hot youth, when the figure was more elegant, and 
 credit, mayhap, more plenty ; and, perhaps, this accounts 
 for the feeling of unusual exultation that comes over me 
 as I assume this one. Look at the skirts how they are 
 shining in the sun, with a delicate gloss upon them, 
 that evanescent gloss that passes away with the first 
 freshness of the coat, as the bloom does from the peach. 
 A friend meets you, he salutes you cordially, but looks 
 puzzled for a moment at the change in your appearance. 
 " I have it ! " says Jones. " Hobson, my boy, I congrat- 
 ulate you, a new coat, and very neat cut, puce-col- 
 ored frock, brown silk lining, brass buttons, and velvet 
 collar, quite novel, and quiet and genteel at the same 
 time." You say, "Pooh, Jones ! do you think so, though?" 
 and at the same time turn round just to give him a view 
 of the back, in which there is not a single wrinkle. You 
 find suddenly that you must buy a new stock ; that your 
 old Berlin gloves will never do ; and that a pair of three- 
 
44 MEN AND COATS. 
 
 and-sixpenny kids are absolutely necessary. You find 
 your boots are cruelly thick, and fancy that the attention 
 of the world is accurately divided between the new frock- 
 coat and the patch on your great toe. It is very odd that 
 that patch did not annoy you yesterday in the least de- 
 gree, that you looked with a good-natured grin at the 
 old sausage-fingered Berlin gloves, bulging out at the end 
 and concaved like spoons. But there is a change in the 
 
 man, without any doubt. Notice Sir M O'D ; 
 
 those who know that celebrated military man by sight 
 are aware of one peculiarity in his appearance, his hat 
 is never brushed. I met him one day with the beaver 
 brushed quite primly ; and looking hard at the baronet to 
 ascertain the cause of this phenomenon, saw that he had 
 a new coat. Even his great spirit was obliged to yield 
 to the power of the coat, he made a genteel effort, 
 he awoke up from his habitual Diogenic carelessness; 
 and I have no doubt that had Alexander, before he vis- 
 ited the cynic, ordered some one to fling a new robe into 
 his barrel, I have no doubt but that he would have found 
 the fellow prating and boasting with all the airs of a man 
 of fashion, and talking of tilburies, opera girls, and the 
 last ball at Devonshire House, as if the brute had been 
 used for all his life to no other company. Fie upon the 
 swaggering, vulgar bully ! I have always wondered how 
 the Prince of Macedon, a gentleman by birth, with an 
 excellent tutor to educate him, could have been imposed 
 upon by the grovelling, obscene, envious tub-man, and 
 could have uttered the speech we know of. It was a 
 humbug, depend upon it, attributed to his majesty by 
 some maladroit lion-mot maker of the court, and passed 
 subsequently for genuine Alexandrine. 
 
 It is hardly necessary for the moralist earnestly to 
 
MEN AND COATS. 45 
 
 point out to persons moving in a modest station of life 
 the necessity of not having coats of too fashionable and 
 rakish a cut. Coats have been, and will be in the course 
 of this disquisition, frequently compared to the flowers of 
 the field : like them they bloom for a season, like them 
 they grow seedy and they fade. 
 
 Can you afford always to renew your coat when this 
 fatal hour arrives ? Is your coat like the French mon- 
 archy, and does it never die ? Have, then, clothes of the 
 newest fashion, and pass on to the next article in the 
 Magazine, unless, always, you prefer the style of this 
 one. 
 
 But while a shabby coat, worn in a manly way, is a 
 bearable, nay, sometimes a pleasing object, reminding one 
 of " a good man struggling with the storms of fate," whom 
 Mr. Joseph Addison has represented in his tragedy of 
 Cato, while a man of a certain character may look 
 august and gentlemanlike in a coat of a certain cut, it is 
 quite impossible for a person who sports an ultra-fashion- 
 able costume to wear it with decency beyond a half-year 
 say. My coats always last me two years, and any man 
 who knows me knows how / look ; but I defy Count 
 d'Orsay thus publicly to wear a suit for seven hundred 
 and thirty days consecutively, and look respectable at the 
 end of that time. In like manner, I would defy, without 
 
 any disrespect, the Marchioness of X , or her Grace 
 
 the Duchess of Z , to sport a white satin gown con- 
 stantly for six months and look decent. There is propri- 
 ety in dress. Ah, my poor Noll Goldsmith, in your fa- 
 mous plum-colored velvet ! I can see thee strutting down 
 Fleet Street, and stout old Sam rolling behind as Maister 
 Boswell pours some Caledonian jokes into his ear, and 
 grins at the poor vain poet. In what a pretty condition 
 
46 MEN AND COATS. 
 
 will Goldy's puce-colored velvet be about two months 
 hence, when it is covered with dust and grease, and he 
 comes in his slatternly finery to borrow a guinea of his 
 friend ! 
 
 A friend of the writer's once made him a present of 
 two very handsome gold pins ; and what did the author 
 of this notice do ? Why, with his usual sagacity, he in- 
 stantly sold the pins for five-and-twenty shillings, the cost 
 of the gold, knowing full well that he could not afford to 
 live up to such fancy articles. If you sport handsome 
 gold pins, you must have everything about you to match. 
 Nor do I in the least agree with my friend Bosk, who has 
 a large amethyst brooch, and fancies that, because he 
 sticks it in his shirt, his atrocious shabby stock and sur- 
 tout may pass muster. No, no ! let us be all peacock, if 
 you please ; but one peacock's feather in your tail is a 
 very absurd ornament, and of course all moderate men 
 will avoid it. I remember, when I travelled with Captain 
 Cook in the South Sea Islands, to have seen Quashama- 
 boo with nothing on him but a remarkably fine cocked- 
 hat, his queen sported a red coat, and one of the prin- 
 cesses went frisking about in a pair of leather-breeches, 
 much to our astonishment. 
 
 This costume was not much more absurd than poor 
 Goldsmith's, who might be very likely seen drawing forth 
 from the gold-embroidered pocket of his plum-colored 
 velvet, a pat of butter wrapped in a cabbage-leaf, a pair of 
 farthing rushlights, an onion or two, and a bit of bacon. 
 
 I recollect meeting a great, clever, ruffianly boor of a 
 man, who had made acquaintance with a certain set of 
 very questionable aristocracy, and gave himself the air of 
 a man of fashion. He had a coat made of the very pat- 
 tern of Lord Toggery's, a green frock, a green velvet 
 
MEN AND COATS. 47 
 
 collar, a green lining : a plate of spring-cabbage is not of 
 a brisker, brighter hue. This man, who had been a shop- 
 keeper's apprentice originally, now declared that every 
 man who was a gentleman wore white kid gloves, and for 
 a certain period sported a fresh pair every day. 
 
 One hot, clear, sunshiny, July day, walking down the 
 Haymarket at two o'clock, I heard a great yelling and 
 shouting of blackguard boys, and saw that they were 
 hunting some object in their front. 
 
 The object approached us, it was a green object, 
 a green coat, collar, and lining, and a pair of pseudo- 
 white kid gloves. The gloves were dabbled with mud 
 and blood, the man was bleeding at the nose, and slaver- 
 ing at the mouth, and yelling some unintelligible verses 
 of a song, and swaying to and fro across the sunshiny 
 street, with the blackguard boys in chase. 
 
 I turned round the corner of Vigo Lane with the ve- 
 locity of a cannon-ball, and sprung panting into a baker's 
 shop. It was Mr. Bludyer, our London Diogenes. Have 
 a care ye gay, dashing Alexanders ! how ye influence 
 such men by too much praise, or debauch them by too 
 much intimacy. How much of that man's extravagance, 
 and absurd aristocratic airs, and subsequent roueries, and 
 cutting of old acquaintance, is to be attributed to his im- 
 itation of Lord Toggery's coat ! 
 
 Actors of the lower sort affect very much braiding and 
 fur collars to their frock-coats ; and a very curious and 
 instructive sight it is to behold these personages with 
 pale, lean faces, and hats cocked on one side, in a sort of 
 pseudo-military trim. One sees many such sauntering 
 under Drury Lane Colonnade, or about Bow Street, with 
 sickly smiles on their faces. Poor fellows, poor fellows ! 
 how much of their character is embroidered in that seedy 
 
48 MEN AND COATS. 
 
 braiding of their coats ! Near five o'clock, in the neigh- 
 borhood of Rupert Street and the Haymarket, you may 
 still occasionally see the old, shabby, manly, gentlemanly, 
 half-pay frock : but the braid is now growing scarce in 
 London ; and your military man, with reason perhaps, 
 dresses more like a civilian ; and understanding life bet- 
 ter, and the means of making his half-crown go as far as 
 five shillings in former days, has usually a club to dine 
 at, and leaves Rupert Street eating-houses to persons of a 
 different grade, to some of those dubious dandies whom 
 one sees swaggering in Regent Street in the afternoon, 
 or to those gay, spruce gentlemen whom you encounter 
 in St. Paul's Churchyard at ten minutes after five, on 
 their way westward from the City. Look at the same 
 hour at the Temple, and issuing thence and from Essex 
 Street, you behold many scores of neat barristers, who 
 are walking to the joint and half a pint of Marsala at the 
 Oxford and Cambridge Club. They are generally tall, 
 slim, proper, well-dressed men, but their coats are too 
 prim and professionally cut. Indeed, I have generally re- 
 marked that their clerks, who leave chambers about the 
 same time, have a far more rakish and fashionable air ; 
 and if, my dear madam, you will condescend to take a 
 beefsteak at the Cock, or at some of the houses around 
 Covent Garden, you will at once allow that this statement 
 is perfectly correct. 
 
 I have always had rather a contempt for a man who, 
 on arriving at home, deliberately takes his best coat from 
 his back and adopts an old and shabby one. It is a mean 
 precaution. Unless very low in the world indeed, one 
 should be above a proceeding so petty. Once I knew a 
 French lady very smartly dressed in a black velvet 
 pelisse, a person whom I admired very much, and in- 
 
MEN AND COATS. 49 
 
 deed for the matter of that she was very fond of me, but 
 that is neither here nor there, I say I knew a French 
 lady of some repute who used to wear a velvet pelisse, 
 and how do you think the back of it was arranged ? 
 
 Why, pelisses are worn, as you know, very full be- 
 hind ; and Madame de Tournuronval had actually a strip 
 of black satin let into the hinder part of her dress, over 
 which the velvet used to close with a spring when she 
 walked or stood, so that the satin was invisible. But 
 when she sat on a chair, especially one of the cane-bot- 
 tomed species, Euphemia gave a loose to her spring, the 
 velvet divided on each side, and she sat down on the satin. 
 
 Was it an authorized stratagem of millinery ? Is a wo- 
 man under any circumstances permitted to indulge in such 
 a manceuvre ? I say, No. A woman with such a gown 
 is of a mean, deceitful character. Of a woman who has 
 a black satin patch behind her velvet gown, it is right 
 that one should speak ill behind the back ; and when I 
 saw Euphemia Tournuronval spread out her wings (non 
 usitatce penntz, but what else to call them ?) spread out 
 her skirts and insure them from injury by means of this 
 dastardly ruse, I quitted the room in disgust, and never 
 was intimate with her as before. A widow I know she 
 was ; I am certain she looked sweet upon me ; and she 
 said she had a fortune, but I don't believe it. Away 
 with parsimonious ostentation ! That woman, had I 
 married her, would either have turned out a swindler, or 
 we should have had bouitti five times a week for dinner, 
 bouilli off silver, and hungry lackeys in lace looking 
 on at the windy meal ! 
 
 The old coat plan is not so base as the above female 
 arrangement ; but say what you will, it is not high-minded 
 and honorable to go out in a good coat, to flaunt the 
 
 3 D 
 
50 MEN AND COATS. 
 
 streets in it with an easy, degage air, as if you always 
 wore such, and returning home assume another under pre- 
 text of dressing for dinner. There is no harm in putting 
 on your old coat of a morning, or in wearing one always. 
 Common reason points out the former precaution, which 
 is at once modest and manly. If your coat pinches you, 
 there is no harm in changing it ; if you are going out to 
 dinner, there is no harm in changing it for a better. But 
 I say the plan of habitual changing is a base one, and 
 only fit for a man at last extremities ; or for a clerk in 
 the city, who hangs up his best garment on a peg, both 
 at the office and at home ; or for a man who smokes, and 
 has to keep his coat for tea-parties, a paltry precaution, 
 however, this. If you like smoking, why should n't you ? 
 If you do smell a little of tobacco, where 's the harm ? The 
 smell is not pleasant, but it does not kill anybody. If the 
 lady of the house do not like it, she is quite at liberty not 
 to invite you again. Et puis ? Bah ! Of what age are 
 you and I ? Have we lived ? Have we seen men and 
 cities ? Have we their manners noted, and understood 
 their idiosyncrasy ? Without a doubt ! And what is the 
 truth at which we have arrived ? This, that a pipe of 
 tobacco is many an hour in the day, and many a week in 
 the month, a thousand times better and more agreeable 
 society than the best Miss, the loveliest Mrs., the most 
 beautiful Baroness, Countess, or what not. Go to tea- 
 parties, those who will ; talk fiddle-faddle, such as like ; 
 many men there are who do so, and are a little par- 
 tial to music, and know how to twist the leaf of the song 
 that Miss Jemima is singing exactly at the right moment. 
 Very good. These are the enjoyments of dress-coats ; 
 but men, are they to be put off with such fare forever ? 
 No ! One goes out to dinner, because one likes eating 
 
MEN AND COATS. 51 
 
 and drinking ; because the very act of eating and drink- 
 ing opens the heart, and causes the tongue to wag. But 
 evenipg parties ! O, milk and water, bread and butter ! 
 No, no, the age is wiser ! The manly youth frequents his 
 club for common society, has a small circle of amiable 
 ladies for friendly intercourse, his book and his pipe 
 always. 
 
 Do not be angry, ladies, that one of your most ardent 
 and sincere admirers should seem to speak disparagingly 
 of your merits, or recommend his fellows to shun the so- 
 ciety in which you ordinarily assemble. No, Miss, I am 
 the man who respect you truly, the man who respect 
 and love you when you are most lovely and respectable, 
 in your families, my dears. A wife, a mother, a 
 daughter, has God made anything more beautiful ? A 
 friend, can one find a truer, kinder, a more generous 
 and enthusiastic one, than a woman often will be ? All 
 that has to do with your hearts is beautiful, and in every- 
 thing with which they meddle, a man must be a brute not 
 to love and honor you. 
 
 But Miss Rudge in blue crape, squeaking romances at 
 a harp, or Miss Tobin dancing in a quadrille, or Miss 
 Blogg twisting round the room in the arms of a lumber- 
 ing Lifeguardsman ; what are these ? so many vani- 
 ties. With the operations here described the heart has 
 nothing to do. Has the intellect ? O, ye gods ! think 
 of Miss Rudge's intellect while singing, 
 
 " Away, away to the mountain's brow, 
 Where the trees are gently waving ; 
 Away, away to the fountain's flow, 
 
 Where the streams are softly la-a-ving! " 
 
 These are the words of a real song that I have heard 
 many times, and rapturously applauded too. Such a 
 song, such a poem, such a songster ! 
 
52 MEN AND COATS. 
 
 No, madam, if I want to hear a song sung I will pay 
 eight and sixpence and listen to Tamburini and Persian!. 
 I will not pay, gloves, three-and-six ; cab, there and back, 
 four shillings ; silk stockings every now and then, say a 
 shilling a time ; I will not pay to hear Miss Rudge 
 screech such disgusting twaddle as the above. If I want 
 to see dancing, there is Taglioni for my money ; or across 
 the wafer, Mrs. Serle and her forty pupils ; or at Cov- 
 ent Garden, Madame Vedy, beautiful as a houri, dark- 
 eyed and agile as a gazelle. I can see all these in com- 
 fort, and they dance a great deal better than Miss Blogg 
 and Captain Haggerty, the great red-whiskered monster, 
 who always wears nankeens because he thinks his legs 
 are fine. If I want conversation, what has Miss Flock 
 to say to me, forsooth, between the figures of a cursed 
 quadrille that we are all gravely dancing ? By heavens, 
 what an agony it is ! Look at the he-dancers, they seem 
 oppressed with dreadful care. Look at the cavalier seul ! 
 if the operation lasted long the man's hair would turn 
 white, he would go mad ! And is it for this that men 
 and women assemble in multitudes, for this sorry pas- 
 time ? 
 
 No ! dance as you will, Miss Smith, and swim through 
 the quadrille like a swan, or flutter through the gallop 
 like a sylphide, and have the most elegant fresh toilettes, 
 the most brilliantly polished white shoulders, the blandest 
 eyes, the reddest, simperingest mouth, the whitest neck, 
 the in fact, I say, be as charming as you will, that is 
 not the place to which, if you are worth anything, you are 
 most charming. You are beautiful ; you are very much 
 decolletee ; your eyes are always glancing down at a 
 pretty pearl necklace, round a pearly neck, or on a fresh, 
 fragrant bouquet, stuck fiddlestick ! What is it that 
 
MEN AND COATS. 53 
 
 the men admire in you ? the animal, Miss, the white, 
 plump, external Smith, which men with their eye-glasses, 
 standing at various parts of the room, are scanning pertly 
 and curiously, and of which they are speaking brutally. 
 A pretty admiration, truly ! But is it possible that these 
 men can admire anything else in you who have so much 
 that is really admirable ? Cracknell, in the course of the 
 waltz, has just time to pant into your ear, " Were you at 
 Ascot Races ? " Kidwinter, who dances two sets of quad- 
 rilles with you, whispers to you, " Do you pwefer thtwaw- 
 bewy ithe aw wathbewy ithe ? " and asks the name of 
 " that gweat enawmuth fat woman in wed thatin and bird 
 of pawadithe ? " to which you reply, " Law, sir, it 's mam- 
 ma ! " The rest of the evening passes away in conversa- 
 tion similarly edifying. What can any of the men admire 
 in you, you little silly creature, but the animal ? There 
 is your mother, now, in red and a bird of paradise, as 
 Kidwinter says. She has a large fan, which she flaps to 
 and fro across a broad chest ; and has one eye directed to 
 her Amelia, dancing with Kidwinter before mentioned ; 
 another watching Jane, who is dancing vis-a>-vis with 
 Major Cutts ; and a third complacently cast upon Ed- 
 ward, who is figuring with Miss Binx in tire other quad- 
 rille. How the dear fellow has grown, to be sure ; and 
 how like his papa at his age heigho ! There is mam- 
 ma, the best woman breathing ; but fat, and even enor- 
 mous, as has been said of her. Does anybody gaze on 
 her ? And yet she was once as slim and as fair as you, 
 O simple Amelia ! 
 
 Does anybody care for her ? Yes, one. Your father 
 cares for her ; SMITH cares for her ; and in his eyes she 
 is still the finest woman of the room ; and he remembers 
 when he danced down seven-and-forty couples of a coun- 
 
54 MEN AND COATS. 
 
 .try-dance with her, two years before you were born or 
 thought of. But it was all chance that Miss Hopkins 
 turned out to be the excellent creature she was. Smith 
 did not know any more than that she was gay, plump, 
 good-looking, and had five thousand pounds. Hit or miss, 
 he took her, and has had assuredly no cause to complain ; 
 but she might have been a Borgia or Joan of Naples, 
 and have had the same smiling looks and red cheeks, and 
 five thousand pounds, which won his heart in the year 
 1814. 
 
 The system of evening parties, then, is a false and ab- 
 surd one. Ladies may frequent them professionally with 
 an eye to a husband, but a man is an ass who takes a wife 
 out of such assemblies, having no other means of judging 
 of the object of his choice. You are not the same person 
 in your white crape and satin slip as you are in your 
 morning dress. A man is not the same in his tight coat 
 and feverish glazed pumps, and stiff white waistcoat, as 
 he is in his green double-breasted frock, his old black 
 ditto, or his woollen jacket. And a man is doubly an ass 
 who is in the habit of frequenting evening parties, unless 
 he is forced thither in search of a lady to whom he is 
 attached, or unless he is compelled to go by his wife. A 
 man who loves dancing may be set down to be an ass ; 
 and the fashion is greatly going out with the increasing 
 good sense of the age. Do not say that he who lives at 
 home, or frequents clubs in lieu of balls, is a brute, and 
 has not a proper respect for the female sex ; on the con- 
 trary, he may respect it most sincerely. He feels that a 
 woman appears to most advantage, not among those whom 
 she cannot care about, but among those whom she loves. 
 He thinks her beautiful when she is at home making tea for 
 her old father. He believes her to be charming when she 
 
MEN AND COATS. 55 
 
 is singing a simple song at her piano, but not when she is 
 screeching at an evening party. He thinks by far the 
 most valuable part of her is her heart ; and a kind, sim- 
 ple heart, my dear, shines in conversation better than the 
 best of wit. He admires her best in her intercourse with 
 her family and her friends, and detests the miserable, 
 twaddling slipslop that he is obliged to hear from and 
 utter to her in the course of a ball ; and avoids and de- 
 spises such meetings. 
 
 He keeps his evening coat, then, for dinners. And if 
 this friendly address to all the mothers who read this 
 miscellany may somewhat be acted upon by them ; if 
 heads of families, instead of spending hundreds upon 
 chalking floors, and Gunter, and cold suppers, and Weip- 
 pert's band, will determine upon giving a series of plain, 
 neat, nice dinners, of not too many courses, but well 
 cooked, of not too many wines, but good of their sort, and 
 according to the giver's degree, they will see that the 
 young men will come to them fast enough ; that they 
 will marry their daughters quite as fast, without injuring 
 their health, and that they will make a saving at the 
 year's end. I say that young men, young women, and 
 heads of families, should bless me for pointing out this 
 obvious plan to them, so natural, so hearty, so hospitable, 
 so different to the present artificial mode. 
 
 A grand ball in a palace is splendid, generous, and 
 noble, a sort of procession in which people may figure 
 properly. A family dance is a pretty and pleasant amuse- 
 ment ; and (especially after dinner) it does the philoso- 
 pher's heart good to look upon merry young people who 
 know each other, and are happy, natural, and familiar. 
 But a Baker Street hop is a base invention, and as such 
 let it be denounced and avoided. 
 
56 MEN AND COATS. 
 
 A dressing-gown has great merits, certainly, but it is 
 dangerous. A man who wears it of mornings generally 
 takes the liberty of going without a neckcloth, or of not 
 shaving, and is no better than a driveller. Sometimes, 
 to be sure, it is necessary, in self-defence, not to shave, 
 as a precaution against yourself that is to say; and I 
 know no better means of ensuring a man's remaining at 
 home than neglecting the use of the lather and razor for 
 a week, and encouraging a crop of bristles. When I 
 wrote my tragedy, I shaved off for the last two acts my 
 left eyebrow, and never stirred out of doors until it had 
 grown to be a great deal thicker than its right-hand 
 neighbor. But this was an extreme precaution, and un- 
 less a man has very strong reasons indeed for stopping 
 at home, and a very violent propensity to gadding, his 
 best plan is to shave every morning neatly, to put on his 
 regular coat, and go regularly to work, and to avoid a 
 dressing-gown as the father of all evil. Painters are the 
 only persons who can decently appear in dressing-gowns ; 
 but these are none of your easy morning-gowns; they 
 are commonly of splendid stuff, and put on by the artist 
 in order to render himself remarkable and splendid in the 
 eyes of his sitter. Your loose-wadded German schlaf- 
 rock, imported of late years into our country, is the lazi- 
 est, filthiest invention ; and I always augur as ill of a 
 man whom I see appearing at breakfast in one, as of a 
 woman who comes down stairs in curl-papers. 
 
 By the way, in the third act of Macbeth, Mr. Macready 
 makes his appearance in the court-yard of Glamis Castle 
 in an affair of brocade that has always struck me as ab- 
 surd and un-Macbethlike. Mac in a dressing-gown (I 
 mean 'Beth, not 'Ready), Mac in list slippers, Mac 
 in a cotton nightcap, with a tassel bobbing up and down, 
 
MEN AND COATS. 57 
 
 I say the thought is unworthy, and am sure the worthy 
 thane would have come out, if suddenly called from bed, 
 by any circumstance, however painful, in a good stout 
 jacket. It is a more manly, simple, and majestic wear 
 than the lazy dressing-gown ; it more becomes a man of 
 Macbeth's mountainous habits ; it leaves his legs quite 
 free, to run whithersoever he pleases, whether to the 
 stables, to look at the animals, to the farm, to see the 
 pig that has been slaughtered that morning, to the gar- 
 den, to examine whether that scoundrel of a John Hos- 
 kins has dug up the potato-bed, to the nursery, to have 
 a romp with the little Macbeths that are spluttering and 
 quarrelling over their porridge, or whither you will. 
 A man in a jacket is fit company for anybody ; there is 
 no shame about it as about being seen in a changed coat ; 
 it is simple, steady, and straightforward. It is, as I have 
 stated, all over pockets, which contain everything you 
 want ; in one, your buttons, hammer, small nails, thread, 
 twine, and cloth-strips for the trees on the south wall ; in 
 another, your dog-whip and whistle, your knife, cigai*- 
 case, gingerbread for the children, paper of Epsom salts 
 for John Hoskins's mother, who is mortal bad, and so 
 on : there is no end to the pockets, and to the things you 
 put in them. Walk about in your jacket, and meet what 
 person you will, you assume at once an independent air ; 
 and, thrusting your hands into the receptacle that flaps 
 over each hip, look the visitor in the face, and talk to the 
 ladies on a footing of perfect equality. Whereas, look at 
 the sneaking way in which a man caught in a dressing- 
 gown, in loose bagging trousers most likely (for the man 
 who has a dressing-gown, has, two to one, no braces), and 
 in shuffling slippers, see how he whisks his dressing- 
 gown over his legs, and looks ashamed and uneasy. His 
 3* 
 
58 MEN AND COATS. 
 
 lanky hair hangs over his blowsy, fat, shining, unhealthy 
 face ; his bristly, dumpling-shaped double chin peers over 
 a flaccid shirt collar ; the sleeves of his gown are in rags, 
 and you see underneath a pair of black wristbands, and 
 the rim of a dingy flannel waistcoat. 
 
 A man who is not strictly neat in his person is not an 
 honest man. I shall not enter into this very ticklish sub- 
 ject of personal purification and neatness, because this es- 
 say will be read by hundreds of thousands of ladies as 
 well as men ; and for the former I would wish to provide 
 nothing but pleasure. Men may listen to stern truths ; 
 but for ladies one should only speak verities that are 
 sparkling, rosy, brisk, and agreeable. A man who wears 
 a dressing-gown is not neat in his person ; his moral char- 
 acter takes invariably some of the slatternliness and loose- 
 ness of his costume ; he becomes enervated, lazy, incapa- 
 ble of great actions ; A man IN A JACKET is a man. All 
 great men wore jackets. Walter Scott wore a jacket, as 
 everybody knows ; Byron wore a jacket (not that I count 
 a man who turns down his collars for much) ; I have a 
 picture of Napoleon in a jacket, at St. Helena ; Thomas 
 Carlyle wears a jacket ; Lord John Russell always mounts 
 a jacket on arriving at the Colonial Office ; and if I have 
 a single fault to find with that popular writer, the author 
 
 of never mind what, you know his name as well as 
 
 I, it is that he is in the habit of composing his works 
 in a large, flowered damask dressing-gown, and morocco 
 slippers ; whereas, in a jacket he would write you off 
 something, not so flowery, if you please, but of honest 
 texture, something, not so long, but terse, modest, and 
 comfortable, no great, long, strealing tails of periods, 
 no staring peonies and hollyhocks of illustrations, 
 no flaring cords and tassels of episodes, no great, dirty, 
 
MEN AND COATS. 59 
 
 wadded sleeves of sentiment, ragged at the elbows and 
 cuffs, and mopping up everything that comes in their 
 way, cigar-ashes, ink, candle-wax, cold brandy-and- 
 water, coffee, or whatever aids to the brain he may em- 
 ploy as a literary man ; not to mention the quantity of 
 tooth-powder, whisker-dye, soapsuds, and pomatum, that 
 the same garment receives in the course of the toilets at 
 which it assists. Let all literary men, then, get jackets. 
 I prefer them without tails ; but do not let this interfere 
 with another man's pleasure : he may have tails if he 
 likes, and I for one will never say him nay. 
 
 Like all things, however, jackets are subject to abuse ; 
 and the pertness and conceit of those jackets cannot be 
 sufficiently reprehended which one sees on the backs of 
 men at watering-places, with a telescope poking out of 
 one pocket, and a yellow bandana flaunting from the 
 other. Nothing is more contemptible than Tims in a 
 jacket, with a blue bird's-eye neck-handkerchief tied 
 sailor-fashion, puffing smoke like a steamer, with his 
 great broad orbicular stern shining in the sun. I al- 
 ways long to give the wretch a smart smack upon that 
 part where his coat-tails ought to be, and advise him to 
 get into a more decent costume. There is an age and a 
 figure for jackets ; those who are of a certain build should 
 not wear them in public. "Witness fat officers of the 
 dragoon-guards that one has seen bumping up and down 
 the Steyne, at Brighton, on their great chargers, with a 
 laced and embroidered coat, a cartridge-box, or whatever 
 you call it, of the size of a twopenny loaf, placed on the 
 small of their backs, if their backs may be said to have 
 a small, and two little twinkling abortions of tails 
 pointing downwards to the enormity jolting in the saddle. 
 Officers should be occasionally measured, and after pass- 
 
60 MEN AND COATS. 
 
 ing a certain width, should be drafted into other regi- 
 ments, or allowed, nay ordered to wear frock-coats. 
 
 The French tailors make frock-coats very well, but the 
 people who wear them have the disgusting habit of wear- 
 ing stays, than which nothing can be more unbecoming 
 the dignity of man. Look what a waist the Apollo has, 
 not above four inches less in the girth than the chest is. 
 Look, ladies, at the waist of the Venus, and pray, pray 
 do not pinch in your dear little ribs in that odious and 
 unseemly way. In a young man a slim waist is very 
 well ; and if he looks like the Eddystone lighthouse, it is 
 as nature intended him to look. A man of certain age 
 may be built like a tower, stalwart and straight. Then a 
 man's middle may expand from the pure cylindrical to 
 the barrel shape ; well, let him be content. Nothing is 
 so horrid as a fat man with a band ; an hour-glass is a 
 most mean and ungracious figure. Daniel Lambert is 
 ungracious, but not mean. One meets with some men 
 who look in their frock-coats perfectly sordid, sneaking, 
 and ungentlemanlike, who if you see them dressed for an 
 evening have a slim, easy, almost fashionable, appearance. 
 Set these persons down as fellows of poor spirit and milk- 
 sops. Stiff white ties and waistcoats, prim straight tails, and 
 a gold chain, will give any man of moderate lankiness an 
 air of factitious gentility ; but if you want to understand 
 the individual, look at him in the daytime ; see him walk- 
 ing with his hat on. There is a great deal in the build 
 and wearing of hats, a great deal more than at first meets 
 the eye. I know a man who in a particular hat looked 
 so extraordinarily like a man of property, that no trades- 
 man on earth could refuse to give him credit. It was 
 one of Andre's, and cost a guinea and a half ready money; 
 but the person in question was frightened at the enormous 
 
MEN AND COATS. 61 
 
 charge, and afterwards purchased beavers in the city at 
 the cost of seventeen-and-sixpence. Arid what was the 
 consequence ? He fell off in public estimation, and very 
 soon after he came out in his city hat it began to be whis- 
 pered abroad that he was a ruined man. 
 
 A blue coat is, after all, the best ; but a gentleman of 
 my acquaintance has made his fortune by an Oxford mix- 
 ture, of all colors in the world, with a pair of white buck- 
 skin gloves. He looks as if he had just got off his horse, 
 and as if he had three thousand a-year in the country. 
 There is a kind of proud humility in an Oxford mixture. 
 Velvet collars, and all such gimcracks, had best be avoid- 
 ed by sober people. This paper is not written for drivel- 
 ling dandies, but for honest men. There is a great deal 
 of philosophy and forethought in Sir Robert Peel's dress ; 
 he does not wear those white waistcoats for nothing. I 
 say that O' Council's costume is likewise that of a profound 
 rhetorician, slouching and careless as it seems. Lord 
 Melbourne's air of reckless, good-humored, don't-care-a- 
 damn-ativeness is not obtained without an effort. Look 
 at the Duke as he passes along in that stern little straight 
 frock and plaid breeches ; look at him, and off with your 
 hat ! How much is there in that little gray coat of Na- 
 poleon's ! A spice of clap-trap and dandyism, no doubt ; 
 but we must remember the country which he had to gov- 
 ern. I never see a picture of George III. in his old stout 
 Windsor uniform without feeling a respect ; or of George 
 IV., breeches and silk stockings, a wig, a sham smile, a 
 frogged frock-coat and a fur collar, without that proper 
 degree of reverence which such a costume should inspire. 
 The coat is the expression of the man, ol^ep <uAA<oi/, 
 &c. ; and as the peach-tree throws out peach-leaves, the 
 pear-tree pear ditto, as old George appeared invested in the 
 
62 MEN AND COATS. 
 
 sober old garment of blue and red, so did young George 
 in oiled wigs, fur collars, stays, and braided surtouts, 
 according to his nature. 
 
 * * * * # 
 
 Enough, enough ; and may these thoughts arising in 
 the writer's mind from the possession of a new coat, which 
 circumstance caused him to think not only of new coats 
 but of old ones, and of coats neither old nor new, and 
 not of coats merely, but of men, may these thoughts so 
 inspired answer the purpose for which they have been set 
 down on paper, and which is not a silly wish to instruct 
 mankind, no, no; but an honest desire to pay a de- 
 serving tradesman whose confidence supplied the garment 
 in question. 
 
 PENTONVILLE, April 25, 1841. 
 
BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 
 
 OR some time after the fatal accident which 
 deprived her of her husband, Mrs. Bluebeard 
 wa?, as may be imagined, in a state of profound 
 grief. 
 
 There was not a widow in all the country who went to 
 such an expense for black bombazine. She had her 
 beautiful hair confined in crimped caps, and her weepers 
 came over her elbows. Of course she saw no company 
 except her sister Anne (whose company was anything 
 but pleasant to the widow) ; as for her brothers, their 
 odious mess-table manners had always been disagreeable 
 to her. What did she care for jokes about the major, or 
 scandal concerning the Scotch surgeon of the regiment ? 
 If they drank their wine out of black bottles or crystal, 
 what did it matter to her ? Their stories of the stable, 
 the parade, and the last run with the hounds, were per- 
 fectly odious to her ; besides she could not bear their im- 
 pertinent mustachios, and filthy habit of smoking cigars. 
 
 They were always wild, vulgar young men, at the best ; 
 but now now, oh ! their presence to her delicate soul 
 was horror ! How could she bear to look on them after 
 what had occurred? She thought of the best of hus- 
 bands ruthlessly cut down by their cruel, heavy, cavalry 
 sabres ; the kind friend, the generous landlord, the spot- 
 
64 BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 
 
 less justice of peace, in whose family differences these 
 rude cornets of dragoons had dared to interfere, whose 
 venerable blue hairs they had dragged down with sorrow 
 to the grave ! 
 
 She put up a most splendid monument to her departed 
 lord over the family vault of the Bluebeards. The rector, 
 Dr. Sly, who had been Mr. Bluebeard's tutor at college, 
 wrote an epitaph in the most pompous yet pathetic Latin : 
 " Siste, viator ! moerens conjux, heu ! quanto minus est 
 cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse"; in a word, 
 everything that is usually said in epitaphs. A bust of 
 the departed saint, with Virtue mourning over it, stood 
 over the epitaph, surrounded by medallions of his wives, 
 and one of these medallions had as yet no name in it, nor 
 (the epitaph said) could the widow ever be consoled until 
 her own name was inscribed there. " For then I shall 
 be with him. In coelo quies," she would say, throwing 
 up her fine eyes to heaven, and quoting the enormous 
 words of the hatchment which was put up in the church, 
 and over Bluebeard's hall, where the butler, the house- 
 keeper, the footman, the housemaid, and scullions, were 
 all in the profoundest mourning. The keeper went out 
 to shoot birds in a crape band ; nay, the very scarecrows 
 in the orchard and fruit-garden were ordered to be 
 dressed in black. 
 
 Sister Anne was the only person who refused to wear 
 black. Mrs. Bluebeard would have parted with her, but 
 she had no other female relative. Her father, it may be 
 remembered by readers of the former part of her Me- 
 moirs, had married again, and the mother-in-law and 
 Mrs. Bluebeard, as usual, hated each other furiously. 
 Mrs. Shacabac had come to the hall on a visit of condo- 
 lence ; but the widow was so rude to her on the second 
 
BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 65 
 
 day of the visit that the step-mother quitted the house in 
 a fury. As for the Bluebeards, of course they hated the 
 widow. Had not Mr. Bluebeard settled every shilling 
 upon her ? and, having no children by his former mar- 
 riage, her property, as I leave you to fancy, was pretty 
 handsome. So sister Anne was the only female relative 
 whom Mrs. Bluebeard would keep near her ; and, as we 
 all know, a woman mvst have a female relative under 
 any circumstances of pain, or pleasure, or profit, when 
 she is married, or when she is widowed, or when she is 
 in a delicate situation. But let us continue our story. 
 
 " I will never wear mourning for that odious wretch, 
 sister ! " Anne would cry. 
 
 " I will trouble you, Miss Anne, not to use such words 
 in my presence regarding the best of husbands, or to quit 
 the room at once ! " the widow would answer. 
 
 " I 'm sure it 's no great pleasure to sit in it. I won- 
 der you don't make use of the closet, sister, where the 
 other Mrs. Bluebeards are." 
 
 "Impertinence! they were all embalmed by M. Gan- 
 nal. How dare you report the monstrous calumnies re- 
 garding the best of men ? Take down the family Bible, 
 and read what my blessed saint says of his wives, read 
 it written in his own hand : 
 
 " * Friday, June 20. Married my beloved wife, Anna Ma- 
 ria Scrogginsia. 
 
 " ' Saturday, August 1. A bereaved husband has scarcely 
 strength to write down in this chronicle that the dearest of 
 wives, Anna Maria Scrogginsia, expired this day of sore 
 throat.' 
 
 " There ! can anything be more convincing than that ? 
 Read again : 
 
 
 
66 BLUEBEAKD'S GHOST. 
 
 " ' Tuesday, Sept. 1. This day I led to the hymeneal 
 altar my soul's blessing, Louisa Matilda Hopkinson. May 
 this angel supply the place of her I have lost ! 
 
 " ' Wednesday, October 5. O, Heavens ! pity the distrac- 
 tion of a wretch who is obliged to record the ruin of his dear- 
 est hopes and affections ! This day my adored Louisa Matilda 
 Hopkinson gave up the ghost ! A complaint of the head and 
 shoulders was the sudden cause of the event which has ren- 
 dered the unhappy subscriber the most miserable of men. 
 
 " ' BLUEBEARD.' 
 
 " Every one of the women are calendared in this de- 
 lightful, this pathetic, this truly virtuous and tender way ; 
 and can you suppose that a man who wrote such senti- 
 ments could be a murderer, miss ? " 
 
 " Do you mean to say that he did not kill them, then ? " 
 said Anne. 
 
 " Gracious, goodness, Anne, kill them ! they died all 
 as naturally as I hope you will. My blessed husband 
 was an angel of goodness and kindness to them. Was it 
 his fault that the doctors could not cure their maladies ? 
 No, that it was n't ! and when they died the inconsolable 
 husband had their bodies embalmed in order that on this 
 side of the grave he might never part from them." 
 
 " And why did he take you up in the tower, pray ? and 
 why did you send me in such a hurry to the leads ? and 
 why did he sharpen his long knife, and roar out to you to 
 
 COME DOWN ? " 
 
 " Merely to punish me for my curiosity, the dear, 
 good, kind, excellent creature ! " sobbed the widow, over- 
 powered with affectionate recollections of her lord's at- 
 tentions to her. 
 
 " I wish," said sister Anne, sulkily, " that I had not 
 been in such a hurry in summoning my brothers." 
 
 * Ah ! " screamed Mrs. Bluebeard, with a harrowing 
 
BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 67 
 
 scream, " don't, don't recall that horrid, fatal day, 
 miss ! If you had not misled your brothers, my poor, 
 dear, darling Bluebeard would still be in life, still still 
 the soul's joy of his bereaved Fatima ! " 
 
 Whether it is that all wives adore husbands when the 
 latter are no more, or whether it is that Fatima's version 
 of the story is really the correct one, and that the com- 
 mon impression against Bluebeard is an odious prejudice, 
 and that he no more murdered his wives than you and I 
 have, remains yet to be proved, and, indeed, does not 
 much matter for the understanding of the rest of Mrs. 
 B.'s adventures. And though people will say that 
 Bluebeard's settlement of his whole fortune on his wife, 
 in event of survivorship, was a mere act of absurd 
 mystification, seeing that he was fully determined to cut 
 her head off after the honeymoon, yet the best test of his 
 real intentions is the profound grief which the widow 
 manifested for his death, and the fact that he left her 
 mighty well to do in the world. 
 
 If any one were to leave you or me a fortune, my dear 
 friend, would we be too anxious to rake up the how and 
 the why ? Pooh ! pooh ! we would take it and make no 
 bones about it, and Mrs. Bluebeard did likewise. Her 
 husband's family, it is true, argued the point with her, 
 and said, "Madam, you must perceive that Mr. Blue- 
 beard never intended the fortune for you, as it was his 
 fixed intention to chop off your head ! It is clear that 
 he meant to leave his money to his blood relations, there- 
 fore you ought in equity to hand it over." But she sent 
 them all off with a flea in their ears, as the saying is, and 
 said, "Your argument may be a very good one, but I 
 will, if you please, keep the money." And she ordered 
 the mourning as we have before shown, and indulged in 
 
68 BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 
 
 grief, and exalted everywhere the character of the de- 
 ceased. If any one would but leave me a fortune what a 
 funeral and what a character I would give him ! 
 
 Bluebeard Hall is situated, as we all very well know, 
 in a remote country district, and, although a fine residence, 
 is remarkably gloomy and lonely. To the widow's sus- 
 ceptible mind, after the death of her darling husband, the 
 place became intolerable. The walk, the lawn, the foun- 
 tain, the green glades of park over which frisked the 
 dappled deer, all, all recalled the memory of her be- 
 loved. It was but yesterday that, as they roamed through 
 the park in the calm summer evening, her Bluebeard 
 pointed out to the keeper the fat buck he was to kill. 
 " Ah ! " said the widow, with tears in her fine eyes, " the 
 artless stag was shot down, the haunch was cut and roast- 
 ed, the jelly had been prepared from the currant-bushes 
 in the garden that he loved, but my Bluebeard never ate 
 of the venison ! Look, Anna sweet, pass we the old oak 
 hall ; 't is hung with trophies won by him in the chase, 
 with pictures of the noble race of Bluebeard ! Look ! by 
 the fireplace there is the gig-whip, his riding-whip, the 
 spud with which you know he used to dig the weeds out 
 of the terrace-walk ; in that drawer are his spurs, his 
 whistle, his visiting-cards, with his dear, dear name en- 
 graven upon them ! There are the bits of string that 
 he used to cut off the parcels and keep because string was 
 always useful ; his button-hook, and there is the peg on 
 which he used to hang his h h hat ! " 
 
 Uncontrollable emotions, bursts of passionate tears, 
 would follow these tender reminiscences of the widow; 
 and the long and short of the matter was, that she was 
 determined to give up Bluebeard Hall and live else- 
 where ; her love for the memory of the deceased, she 
 said, rendered the place too wretched. 
 
BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 69 
 
 Of course an envious and sneering world said that she 
 was tired of the country and wanted to marry again ; but 
 she little heeded its taunts, and Anne, who hated her step- 
 mother and could not live at home, was fain to accompany 
 her sister to the town where the Bluebeards have had for 
 many years a very large, genteel, old-fashioned house. So 
 she went to the town-house, where they lived and quar- 
 relled pretty much as usual; and though Anne often 
 threatened to leave her and go to a boarding-house, of 
 which there were plenty in the place, yet after all to live 
 with her sister, and drive out in the carriage with the 
 footman and coachman in mourning, and the lozenge on* 
 the panels, with the Bluebeard and Shacabac arms quar- 
 tered on it, was far more respectable, and so the lovely 
 sisters continued to dwell together. 
 
 For a lady under Mrs. Bluebeard's circumstances the 
 town-house had other and peculiar advantages. Besides 
 being an exceedingly spacious and dismal brick building, 
 with a dismal iron railing in front, and long dismal thin 
 windows with little panes of glass, it looked out into the 
 churchyard where, time out of mind, between two yew- 
 trees, one of which is cut into the form of a peacock, while 
 the other represents a dumb-waiter, it looked into the 
 churchyard where the monument of the late Bluebeard 
 was placed over the family vault. It was the first thing 
 the widow saw from her bedroom window in the morn- 
 ing, and 't was sweet to watch at night from the parlor 
 the pallid moonlight lighting up the bust of the departed, 
 and Virtue throwing great black shadows athwart it. 
 Polyanthuses, rhododendra, ranunculuses, and other flow- 
 ers with the largest names and of the most delightful 
 odors, were planted within the little iron railing that in- 
 
70 BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 
 
 closed the last resting-place of the Bluebeards ; and the 
 beadle was instructed to half-kill any little boys who 
 might be caught plucking these sweet testimonials of a 
 wife's affection. 
 
 Over the sideboard in the dining-room hung a full- 
 length of Mr. Bluebeard, by Ticklegill, R.A., in a militia 
 uniform, frowning down upon the knives and forks and 
 silver trays. Over the mantel-piece he was represented 
 in a hunting costume on his favorite horse ; there was a 
 sticking-plaster silhouette of him in the widow's bedroom, 
 and a miniature in the drawing-room, where he was drawn 
 in a gown of black and gold, holding a gold-tasselled 
 trencher cap with one hand, and with the other pointing 
 to a diagram of Pons Asinorum. This likeness was taken 
 when he was a fellow-commoner at St. John's College, 
 Cambridge, and before the growth of that blue beard 
 which was the ornament of his manhood, and a part of 
 which now formed a beautiful blue neck-chain for his be- 
 reaved wife. 
 
 Sister Anne said the town-house was even more dismal 
 than the country-house, for there was pure air at the Hall, 
 and it was pleasanter to look out on a park than on a 
 churchyard, however fine the monuments might be. But 
 the widow said she was a light-minded hussy, and per- 
 sisted as usual in her lamentations and mourning. The 
 only male whom she would admit within her doors was 
 the parson of the parish, who read sermons to her ; and, 
 as his reverence was at least seventy years old, Anne, 
 though she might be ever so much minded to fall in love, 
 had no opportunity to indulge her inclination; and the 
 town-people, scandalous as they might be, could not find 
 a word to say against the liaison of the venerable man 
 and the heart-stricken widow. 
 
BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 71 
 
 All other company she resolutely refused. When the 
 players were in the town, the poor manager, who came to 
 beg her to bespeak a comedy, was thrust out of the gates 
 by the big butler. Though there were balls, card-parties, 
 and assemblies, Widow Bluebeard would never subscribe 
 to one of them ; and even the officers, those all-conquering 
 heroes who make such ravages in ladies' hearts, and to 
 whom all ladies' doors are commonly open, could never 
 get an entry into the widow's house. Captain Whisker- 
 field strutted for three weeks up and down before her 
 house, and had not the least effect upon her. Captain 
 O'Grady (of an Irish regiment) attempted to bribe the 
 servants, and one night actually scaled the garden wall ; 
 but all that he got was his foot in a man-trap, not to men- 
 tion being dreadfully scarified by the broken glass ; and 
 so he never made love any more. Finally, Captain 
 Blackbeard, whose whiskers vied in magnitude with those 
 of the deceased Bluebeard himself, although he attended 
 church regularly every week, he who had not darkened 
 the doors of a church for ten years before, even Captain 
 Blackbeard got nothing by his piety ; and the widow never 
 once took her eyes off her book to look at him. The 
 barracks were in despair; and Captain Whiskerfield's 
 tailor, who had supplied him with new clothes in order to 
 win the widow's heart, ended by clapping the Captain 
 into jail. 
 
 His reverence the parson highly applauded the widow's 
 conduct to the officers ; but, being himself rather of a 
 social turn, and fond of a good dinner and a bottle, he 
 represented to the lovely mourner that she should endeav- 
 or to divert her grief by a little respectable society, and 
 recommended that she should from time to time entertain 
 a few grave and sober persons whom he would present to 
 
72 BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 
 
 her. As Dr. Sly had an unbounded influence over the 
 fair mourner, she acceded to his desires ; and accordingly 
 he introduced to her house some of the most venerable 
 and worthy of his acquaintance, all married people, 
 however, so that the widow should not take the least 
 alarm. 
 
 It happened that the doctor had a nephew, who was a 
 lawyer in London, and this gentleman came dutifully in 
 the long vacation to pay a visit to his reverend uncle. 
 " He is none of your roystering, dashing young fellows," 
 said his reverence ; " he is the delight of his mamma and 
 sisters ; he never drinks anything stronger than tea ; he 
 never missed church thrice a Sunday for these twenty 
 years ; and I hope, my dear and amiable madam, that you 
 will not object to receive this pattern of young men for 
 the sake of your most devoted friend, his uncle." 
 
 The widow consented to receive Mr. Sly. He was not 
 a handsome man certainly. " But what does that mat- 
 ter ? " said the doctor ; " he is good, and virtue is better 
 than all the beauty of all the dragoons in the Queen's 
 service." 
 
 Mr. Sly came there to dinner, and he came to tea ; and 
 he drove out with the widow in the carriage with the 
 lozenge on it ; and at church he handed the psalm-book ; 
 and, in short, he paid her every attention which could be 
 expected from so polite a young gentleman. 
 
 At this the town began to .talk, as people in towns will. 
 " The doctor kept all bachelors out of the widow's house," 
 said they, " in order that that ugly nephew of his may 
 have the field entirely to himself." These speeches were 
 of course heard by sister Anne, and the little minx was 
 not a little glad to take advantage of them, in order to 
 induce her sister to see some more cheerful company. 
 
BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 73 
 
 The fact is, the young hussy loved a dance or a game 
 at cards much more than a humdrum conversation over 
 a tea-table; and so she plied her sister day and night 
 with hints as to the propriety of opening her house, re- 
 ceiving the gentry of the county, and spending her for- 
 tune. 
 
 To this point the widow at length, though with many 
 sighs and vast unwillingness, acceded ; and she went so 
 far as to order a very becoming half-mourning, in which 
 all the world declared she looked charming. " I carry," 
 said she, " my blessed Bluebeard in my heart, that is 
 in the deepest mourning for him, and when the heart 
 grieves there is no need of outward show." 
 
 So she issued cards for a little quiet tea and supper, 
 and several of the best families in the town and neigh- 
 borhood attended her entertainment. It was followed by 
 another and another ; and at last Captain Blackbeard 
 was actually introduced, though, of course, he came in 
 plain clothes. 
 
 Dr. Sly and his nephew never could abide the captain. 
 "They had heard some queer stories," they said, "about 
 proceedings in barracks. Who was it that drank three 
 bottles at a sitting ? who had a mare that ran for the 
 plate ? and why was it that Dolly Coddlins left the town 
 so suddenly ? " Mr. Sly turned up the whites of his eyes 
 as his uncle asked these questions, and sighed for the 
 wickedness of the world. But for all that he was de- 
 lighted, especially at the anger which the widow mani- 
 fested when the Dolly Coddlins' affair was hinted at. 
 She was furious, and vowed she would never see the 
 wretch again. The lawyer and his uncle were charmed. 
 O shortsighted lawyer and parson, do you think Mrs. 
 Bluebeard would have been so angry if she had not been 
 
74 BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 
 
 jealous ? do you think she would have been jealous if 
 she had not .... had not what ? She protested that 
 she no more cared for the captain than she did for one of 
 her footmen ; but the next time he called she would not 
 condescend to say a word to him. 
 
 " My dearest Miss Anne," said the captain, as he met 
 her in Sir Roger de Coverley (she was herself dancing 
 with Ensign Trippet), " what is the matter with your 
 lovely sister?" 
 
 " Dolly Coddlins is the matter," said Miss Anne. " Mr. 
 Sly has told all " ; and she was down the middle in a 
 twinkling. 
 
 The captain blushed so at this monstrous insinuation 
 that any one could see how incorrect it was. He made 
 innumerable blunders in the dance, and was all the time 
 casting such ferocious glances at Mr. Sly (who did not 
 dance, but sat by the widow and ate ices), that his part- 
 ner thought he was mad, and that Mr. Sly became very 
 uneasy. 
 
 When the dance was over, he came to pay his respects 
 to the widow, and, in so doing, somehow trod so violently 
 on Mr. Sly's foot that that gentleman screamed with pain, 
 and presently went home. But though he was gone the 
 widow was not a whit more gracious to Captain Black- 
 beard. She requested Mr. Trippet to order her carriage 
 that night, and went home without uttering one single 
 word to Captain Blackbeard. 
 
 The next morning, and with a face of preternatural 
 longitude, the Rev. Dr. Sly paid a visit to the widow. 
 " The wickedness and bloodthirstiness of the world," 
 said he, " increase every day. O my dear madam, what 
 monsters do we meet in it, what wretches, what assas- 
 sins, are allowed to go abroad ! Would you believe it, 
 
BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 75 
 
 that this morning, as my nephew was taking his peaceful 
 morning meal, one of the ruffians from the barracks pre- 
 sented himself with a challenge from Captain Black- 
 beard ? " 
 
 " Is he hurt ? " screamed the widow. 
 
 " No, my dear friend, my dear Frederick is not hurt. 
 And oh, what a joy it will be to him to think you have 
 that tender solicitude for his welfare ! " 
 
 " You know I have always had the highest respect 
 for him," said the widow ; who, when she screamed, was 
 in truth thinking of somebody else. But the doctor did 
 not choose to interpret her thoughts in that way, and gave 
 all the benefit of them to his nephew. 
 
 " That anxiety, dearest madam, which you express 
 for him emboldens me, encourages me, authorizes me, to, 
 press a point upon you which I am sure must have en- 
 tered your thoughts ere now. The dear youth in whom 
 you have shown such an interest lives but for you ! .Yes, 
 fair lady, start not at hearing that his sole affections are 
 yours ; and with what pride shall I carry to him back 
 the news that he is not indifferent to you ! " 
 
 " And they going to fight ? " continued the lady, in 
 a breathless state of alarm. " For Heaven's sake, dearest 
 doctor, prevent the horrid, horrid meeting. Send for a 
 magistrate's warrant ; do anything ; but do not suffer 
 those misguided young men to cut each other's throats ! " 
 
 " Fairest lady, I fly ! " said the doctor, and went back 
 to lunch quite delighted with the evident partiality Mrs. 
 Bluebeard showed for his nephew. And Mrs. Bluebeard, 
 not content with exhorting him to prevent the duel, 
 rushed to Mr. Pound, the magistrate, informed him of the 
 facts, got out warrants against both Mr. Sly and the cap- 
 tain, and would have put them into execution ; but it was 
 
76 BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 
 
 discovered that the former gentleman had abruptly left 
 town, so that the constable could not lay hold of him. 
 
 It somehow, however, became to be generally known 
 that the widow Bluebeard had declared herself in favor 
 of Mr. Sly, the lawyer ; that she had fainted when told 
 her lover was about to fight a duel ; finally, that she had 
 accepted him, and would marry him as soon as the quar- 
 rel between him and the captain was settled. Dr. Sly, 
 when applied to, hummed and ha'd, and would give no di- 
 rect answer ; but he denied nothing, and looked so know- 
 ing, that all the world was certain of the fact ; and the 
 county paper next week stated : 
 
 - " We understand that the lovely and wealthy Mrs. Bl 
 b rd is about once more to enter the bands of wedlock with 
 our distinguished townsman, Frederick S y, Esq., of the 
 Middle Temple, London. The learned gentleman left town 
 in consequence of a dispute with a gallant son of Mars, which 
 was likely to have led to warlike results, had not a magistrate's 
 warrant intervened, when the captain was bound over to keep 
 the peace." 
 
 In fact, as soon as the captain was so bound over, Mr. 
 Sly came back, stating that he had quitted the town not 
 to avoid a duel, far from it, but to keep out of the way 
 of the magistrates, and give the captain every facility. 
 He had taken out no warrant ; Tie had been perfectly 
 ready to meet the captain ; if others had been more pru- 
 dent, it was not his fault. So he held up his head, and 
 cocked his hat with the most determined air ; and all the 
 lawyers' clerks in the place were quite proud of their 
 hero. 
 
 As for Captain Blackbeard, his rage and indignation 
 may be imagined ; a wife robbed from him, his honor put 
 in question by an odious, lanky, squinting lawyer ! He 
 
BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 77 
 
 fell ill of a fever incontinently ; and the surgeon was 
 obliged to take a quantity of blood from him, ten times the 
 amount of which he swore he would have out of the veins 
 of the atrocious Sly. 
 
 The announcement in the Mercury, however, filled the 
 widow with almost equal indignation. " The widow of 
 the gallant Bluebeard," she said, " marry an odious wretch 
 who lives in dingy chambers in the Middle Temple ! Send 
 for Dr. Sly." The doctor came ; she rated him soundly, 
 asked him how he dared set abroad such calumnies con- 
 cerning her ; ordered him to send his nephew back to 
 London at once ; and, as he valued her esteem, as he 
 valued the next presentation to a fat living which lay in 
 her gift, to contradict everywhere, and in the fullest 
 terms, the wicked report concerning her. 
 
 " My dearest madam," said the doctor, pulling his long- 
 est face, " you shall be obeyed. The poor lad shall be 
 acquainted with the fatal change in your sentiments ! " 
 
 " Change in my sentiments, Dr. Sly ! " 
 
 " With the destruction of his hopes, rather let me say ; 
 and Heaven grant that the dear boy have strength to bear 
 up against the misfortune which comes so suddenly upon 
 him!" 
 
 The next day sister Anne came with a face full of care 
 to Mrs. Bluebeard. " that unhappy lover of yours ! " 
 said she. 
 
 " Is the captain unwell ? " exclaimed the widow. 
 
 " No, it is the other," answered sister Anne. " Poor, 
 poor Mr. Sly ! He made a will leaving you all, except 
 five pounds a-year to his laundress: he made his will, 
 locked his door, took heart-rending leave of his uncle at 
 night, and this morning was found hanging at his bed- 
 post when Sambo, the black servant, took him up his 
 
78 BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 
 
 water to shave. l Let me be buried/ he said, ' with the 
 pincushion she gave me and the locket containing her 
 hair.' Did you give him a pincushion, sister? did you 
 give him a locket with your hair ? " 
 
 "It was only silver-gilt!" sobbed the widow; "and 
 now, O Heavens ! I have killed him ! " The heart-rend- 
 ing nature of her sobs may be imagined ; but they were 
 abruptly interrupted by her sister. 
 
 " Killed him ? no such thing ! Sambo cut him down 
 when he was as black in the face as the honest negro 
 himself. He came down to breakfast, and I leave you to 
 fancy what a touching meeting took place between the 
 nephew and the uncle." 
 
 " So much love ! " thought the widow. " What a pity 
 he squints so ! If he would but get his eyes put straight, 
 
 I might perhaps " She did not finish the sentence : 
 
 ladies often leave this sort of sentence in a sweet confu- 
 sion. 
 
 But hearing some news regarding Captain Blackbeard, 
 whose illness and blood-letting were described to her most 
 pathetically, as well as accurately, by the Scotch surgeon 
 of the regiment, her feelings of compassion towards the 
 lawyer cooled somewhat ; and when Dr. Sly called to know 
 if she would condescend to meet the unhappy youth, she 
 said, in rather a distrait manner, that she wished him 
 every happiness ; that she had the highest regard and 
 respect for him ; that she besought him not to think any 
 more of committing the dreadful crime which would have 
 made her unhappy forever ; but that she thought, for the 
 sake of both parties, they had better not meet until Mr. 
 Sly's feelings had grown somewhat more calm. 
 
 " Poor fellow ! poor fellow ! " said the doctor, " may he 
 be enabled to bear his frightful calamity ! I have taken 
 
BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 79 
 
 away his razors from him, and Sambo, my man, never lets 
 him out of his sight." 
 
 The next day Mrs. Bluebeard thought of sending a 
 friendly message to Dr. Sly's, asking for news of the 
 health of his nephew ; but, as she was giving her orders 
 on that subject to John Thomas the footman, it happened 
 that the captain arrived, and so Thomas was sent down 
 stairs again. And the captain looked so delightfully in- 
 teresting with his arm in a sling, and his beautiful black 
 whiskers curling round a face which was paler than usual, 
 that at the end of two hours the widow forgot the mes- 
 sage altogether, and, indeed, I believe, asked the captain 
 whether he would not stop and dine. Ensign Trippet 
 came, too, and the party was very pleasant ; and the mil- 
 itary gentlemen laughed hugely at the idea of the lawyer 
 having been cut off the bedpost by the black servant, 
 and were so witty on the subject, that the widow ended 
 by half believing that the bedpost and hanging scheme 
 on the part of Mr. Sly was only a feint, a trick to win 
 her heart. Though this, to be sure, was not agreed to 
 by the lady without a pang, for, entre nous, to hang one's 
 self for a lady is no small compliment to her attractions, 
 and, perhaps, Mrs. Bluebeard was rather disappointed 
 at the notion that the hanging was not a bond fide stran- 
 gulation. 
 
 However, presently her nerves were excited again ; 
 and she was consoled or horrified, as the case may be (the 
 reader must settle the point according to his ideas and 
 knowledge of woman-kind), she was at any rate dread- 
 fully excited by the receipt of a billet in the well-known 
 clerk-like ha^id of Mr. Sly. It ran thus : 
 
 " I saw you through your dining-room windows. You 
 were hob-nobbing with Captain Blackbeard. You looked 
 
80 BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 
 
 rosy and well. You smiled. You drank off the cham- 
 pagne at a single draught. 
 
 " I can bear it no more. Live on, smile on, and be 
 happy. My ghost shall repine, perhaps, at your happi- 
 ness with another, but in life I should go mad were I 
 to witness it. 
 
 " It is best that I should be gone. 
 
 " When you receive this, tell my uncle to drag the fish- 
 pond at the end of Bachelor's Acre. His black servant 
 Sambo accompanies me, it is true. But Sambo shall 
 perish with me should his obstinacy venture to restrain 
 me from my purpose. I know the poor fellow's honesty 
 well, but I also know my own despair. 
 
 " Sambo will leave a wife and seven children. Be 
 kind to those orphan mulattoes for the sake of 
 
 " FREDERICK." 
 
 The widow gave a dreadful shriek, and interrupted the 
 two captains, who were each just in the act of swallow- 
 ing a bumper of claret. " Fly fly save him," she 
 screamed; "save him, monsters, ere it is too late! 
 Drowned ! Frederick ! Bachelor's "Wa ." Syncope 
 took place, and the rest of the sentence was interrupted. 
 
 Deucedly disappointed at being obliged to give up 
 their wine, the two heroes seized their cocked hats, and 
 went towards the spot which the widow in her wild ex- 
 clamations of despair had sufficiently designated. 
 
 Trippet was for running to the fish-pond at the rate of 
 ten miles an hour. " Take it easy, my good fellow," said 
 Captain Blackbeard ; " running is unwholesome after din- 
 ner. And, if that squinting scoundrel of a lawyer does 
 drown himself, I sha'n't sleep any the worse.". So the two 
 gentlemen walked very leisurely on towards the Bache- 
 lor's Walk ; and, indeed, seeing on their way thither Ma- 
 
BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 81 
 
 jor Macabaw looking out of the window at his quarters 
 and smoking a cigar, they went up stairs to consult the 
 major, as also a bottle of Schiedam he had. 
 
 " They come not ! " said the widow, when restored to 
 herself. " O Heavens ! grant that Frederick is safe ! 
 Sister Anne, go up to the leads and look if anybody is 
 coming." And up, accordingly, to the garrets sister 
 Anne mounted. " Do you see anybody coming, sister 
 Anne?" 
 
 " I see Dr. Drench's little boy," said sister Anne ; " he 
 is leaving a pill and draught at Miss Molly Grub's." 
 
 " Dearest sister Anne, don't you see any one coming?" 
 shouted the widow once again. 
 
 " I see a flock of dust, no ! a cloud of sheep. Pshaw ! 
 I see the London coach coming in. There are three out- 
 sides, and the guard has flung a parcel to Mrs. Jenkins's 
 maid." 
 
 " Distraction ! Look once more, sister Anne." 
 
 " I see a crowd, a shutter, a shutter with a man on 
 it, a beadle, forty little boys, Gracious goodness ! 
 what can it be ? " and down stairs tumbled sister Anne, 
 and was looking out of the parlor-window by her sister's 
 side, when the crowd she had perceived from the garret 
 passed close by them. 
 
 At the head walked the beadle, slashing about at the 
 little boys. 
 
 Two scores of these followed and surrounded 
 
 A SHUTTER carried by four men. 
 
 On the shutter lay Frederick ! He was ghastly pale ; 
 his hair was draggled over his face ; his clothes stuck 
 tight to him on account of the wet ; streams of water gur- 
 gled down the shutter-sides. But he was not dead ! Ho 
 turned one eye round towards the window where Mrs. 
 
 4* p 
 
82 BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 
 
 Bluebeard sat, and gave her a look which she never 
 could forget. 
 
 Sambo brought up the rear of the procession. He was 
 quite wet through ; and if anything would have put his 
 hair out of curl, his ducking would have done so. But, 
 as he was not a gentleman, he was allowed to walk home 
 on foot, and as he passed the widow's window, he gave 
 her one dreadful glance with his goggling black eyes, and 
 moved on, pointing with his hands to the shutter. 
 
 John Thomas, the footman, was instantly despatched 
 to Dr. Sly's to have news of the patient. There was no 
 shilly-shallying now. He came back in half an hour to 
 say that Mr. Frederick flung himself into Bachelor's 
 Acre fish-pond with Sambo, had been dragged out with 
 difficulty, had been put to bed, and had a pint of white 
 wine whey, and was pretty comfortable. " Thank Heav- 
 en ! " said the widow, and gave John Thomas a seven- 
 shilling piece, and sat down with a lightened heart to tea. 
 "What a heart!" said she to sister Anne. "And 0, 
 what a pity it is that he squints ! " 
 
 Here the two captains arrived. They had not been to 
 the Bachelor's Walk ; they had remained at Major Maca- 
 baw's consulting the Schiedam. They had made up their 
 minds what to say. " Hang the fellow ! he will never 
 have the pluck to drown himself," said Captain Black- 
 beard. " Let us argue on that, as we may safely." 
 
 " My sweet lady," said he, accordingly, " we have had 
 the pond dragged. No Mr. Sly. And the fisherman 
 who keeps the punt assures us that he has not been there 
 all day." 
 
 " Audacious falsehood ! " said the widow, her eyes 
 flashing fire. " Go, heartless man ! who dares to trifle 
 thus with the feelings of a respectable and unprotected 
 
BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 83 
 
 woman. Go, sir, you 're only fit for the love of a 
 Dolly Coddlins ! " She pronounced the Coddlins with 
 a withering sarcasm that struck the captain aghast ; and, 
 sailing out of the room, she left her tea untasted, and did 
 not wish either of the military gentlemen good-night. 
 
 But, gentles, an' ye know the delicate fibre of wom- 
 an's heart, ye will not in very sooth believe that such 
 events as those we have described such tempests of 
 passion fierce winds of woe blinding lightnings of 
 tremendous joy and tremendous grief could pass over 
 one frail flower and leave it all unscathed. No ! Grief 
 kills as joy doth. Doth not the scorching sun nip the 
 rose-bud as well as the bitter wind ? As Mrs. Sigourney 
 sweetly sings : 
 
 " Ah! the heart is a soft and a delicate thing; 
 Ah ! the heart is a lute with a thrilling string; 
 A spirit that floats on a gossamer's wing ! " 
 
 Such was Fatima's heart. In a word, the preceding 
 events had a powerful effect upon her nervous system, 
 and she was ordered much quiet and sal-volatile by her 
 skilful medical attendant, Dr. Glauber. 
 
 To be so ardently, passionately loved as she was, to 
 know that Frederick had twice plunged into death from 
 attachment to her, was to awaken in her bosom " a thrill- 
 ing string," indeed ! Could she witness such attachment, 
 and not be touched by it ? She was touched by it, she 
 was influenced by the virtues, by the passion, by the mis- 
 fortunes of Frederick; but then he was so abominably 
 ugly that she could not she could not consent to be- 
 come his bride ! 
 
 She told Dr. Sly so. " I respect and esteem your 
 nephew," said she ; " but my resolve is made. I will 
 continue faithful to that blessed saint whose monument is 
 
84 BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 
 
 ever before my eyes " (she pointed to the churchyard as 
 she spoke). " Leave this poor tortured heart in quiet. 
 It has already suffered more than most hearts could bear. 
 I will repose under the shadow of that tomb until I am 
 called to rest within it, to rest by the side of my Blue- 
 beard!" 
 
 The ranunculuses, rhododendra, and polyanthuses, which 
 ornamented that mausoleum, had somehow been suffered 
 to run greatly to seed during the last few months, and it 
 was with no slight self-accusation that she acknowledged 
 this fact on visiting the " garden of the grave," as she 
 called it ; and she scolded the beadle soundly for neglect- 
 ing his duty towards it. He promised obedience for the 
 future, dug out all the weeds that were creeping round 
 the family vault, and (having charge of the key) entered 
 that awful place, and swept and dusted the melancholy 
 contents of the tomb. 
 
 Next morning the widow came down to breakfast look- 
 ing very pale. She had passed a bad night ; she had had 
 awful dreams ; she had heard a voice call her thrice at 
 midnight. " Pooh ! my dear, it 's only nervousness," said 
 sceptical sister Anne. 
 
 Here John Thomas, the footman, entered, and said the 
 beadle was in the hall looking in a very strange way. He 
 had been about the house since day -break, and insisted 
 on seeing Mrs. Bluebeard. " Let him enter," said that 
 lady, prepared for some great mystery. The beadle came ; 
 he was pale as death ; his hair was dishevelled, and his 
 cocked hat out of order. " What have you to say ? " said 
 the lady, trembling. 
 
 Before beginning, he fell down on his knees. 
 
 " Yesterday," said he, " according to your ladyship's 
 orders, I dug up the flower-beds of the family-vault, dust- 
 
BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 85 
 
 ed the vault and the the coffins (added he, trembling) 
 inside. Me and John Sexton did it together, and polished 
 up the plate quite beautiful." 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, don't allude to it," cried the 
 widow, turning pale. 
 
 " Well, my lady, I locked the door, came away, and 
 found in my hurry for I wanted to beat two little boys 
 what was playing at marbles on Alderman Paunch's 
 monyment I found, my lady, I 'd forgot my cane. 
 
 " I could n't get John Sexton to go back with me till 
 this morning, and I did n't like to go alone, and so we 
 went this morning ; and what do you think I found ? I 
 found his honor's coffin turned round, and the cane broke 
 in two. Here 's the cane ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " screamed the widow, " take it away, take it 
 away ! " 
 
 " Well, what does this prove," said sister Anne, " but 
 that somebody moved the coffin, and broke the cane ?" 
 
 " Somebody ! who 's somebody ? " said the beadle, star- 
 ing round about him. And all of a sudden he started 
 back with a tremendous roar, that made the ladies scream 
 and all the glasses on the sideboard jingle, and cried, 
 That's the man!" 
 
 He pointed to the portrait of Bluebeard, which stood 
 over the jingling glasses on the sideboard. " That 's the 
 man I saw last night walking round the vault, as I 'm a 
 living sinner. I saw him a-walking round and round, and, 
 when I went up to speak to him, I 'm blessed if he did n't 
 go in at the iron gate, which opened afore him like like 
 winking, and then in at the vault door, which I 'd double- 
 locked, my lady, and bolted inside, I '11 take my oath on 
 it!" 
 
 " Perhaps you had given him the key ? " suggested 
 sister Anne. 
 
86 BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 
 
 " It 's never been out of my pocket. " Here it is," 
 cried the beadle ; " I '11 have no more to do with it " ; and 
 he flung down the ponderous key, amidst another scream 
 from widow Bluebeard. 
 
 " At what hour did you see him ? " gasped she. 
 
 " At twelve o'clock, of course." 
 
 " It must have been at that very hour," said she, " I 
 heard the voice." 
 
 " What voice ? " said Anne. 
 
 " A voice that called * Fatima ! Fatima ! Fatima ! ' 
 three times as plain as ever voice did." 
 
 " It did n't speak to me," said the beadle ; " it only 
 nodded its head, and wagged its head and beard." 
 
 " W w was it a U ue bea?-d ? " said the widow. 
 
 " Powder-blue, ma'am, as I 've a soul to save ! " 
 
 Doctor Drench was of course instantly sent for. But 
 what are the medicaments of the apothecary in a case 
 where the grave gives up its dead ? Dr. Sly arrived, and 
 he offered ghostly ah ! too ghostly consolation. He 
 said he believed in them. His own grandmother had ap- 
 peared to his grandfather several times before he married 
 again. He could not doubt that supernatural agencies 
 were possible, even frequent. 
 
 " Suppose he were to appear to me alone," ejaculated 
 the widow, " I should die of fright." 
 
 The doctor looked particularly arch. " The best way 
 in these cases, my dear madam," said he, " the best way 
 for unprotected ladies is to get a husband. I never heard 
 of a first husband's ghost appearing to a woman and her 
 second husband in my life. In all history there is no 
 account of one." 
 
 " Ah ! why should I be afraid of seeing my Bluebeard 
 again?" said the widow; and the doctor retired quite 
 
BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 87 
 
 pleased, for the lady was evidently thinking of a second 
 husband. 
 
 " The captain would be a better protector for me cer- 
 tainly than Mr. Sly," thought the lady, with a sigh ; " but 
 Mr. Sly will certainly kill himself, and will the captain 
 be a match for two ghosts? Sly will kill himself; but 
 ah ! the captain won't " ; and the widow thought with 
 pangs of bitter mortification of Dolly Coddlins. How 
 how should these distracting circumstances be brought to 
 an end ? 
 
 She retired to rest that night not without a tremor, 
 to bed, but not to sleep. At midnight a voice was heard 
 in her room, crying, " Fatima ! Fatima ! Fatima ! " in 
 awful accents. The doors banged to and fro, the bells 
 began to ring, the maids went up and down stairs skurry- 
 ing and screaming, and gave warning in a body. John 
 Thomas, as pale as death, declared that he found Blue- 
 beard's yeomanry sword, that hung in the hall, drawn, 
 and on the ground ; and the sticking-plaster miniature in 
 Mr. Bluebeard's bedroom was found turned topsy-turvy ! 
 
 " It is some trick," said the obstinate and incredulous 
 sister Anne. " To-night I will come and sleep with you, 
 sister." And the night came, and the two sisters retired 
 together. 
 
 'T was a wild night. The wind howling without went 
 crashing through the old trees of the old rookery round 
 about the old church. The long bedroom windows went 
 thump, thumping ; the moon could be seen through them 
 lighting up the graves with their ghastly shadows ; the 
 yew-tree, cut into the shape of a bird, looked particularly 
 dreadfully, and bent and swayed as if it would peck 
 something off that other yew-tree which was of the shape 
 of a dumb-waiter. The bells at midnight began to ring 
 
88 BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 
 
 as usual, the doors clapped, jingle jingle down came a 
 suit of armor in the hall, and a voice came and cried, 
 " Fatima ! Fatima ! Fatima ! look, look, look ; the tomb, 
 the tomb, the tomb ! " 
 
 She looked. The vault door was open, and there in 
 the moonlight stood Bluebeard, exactly as he was repre- 
 sented in the picture, in his yeomanry dress, his face 
 frightfully pale, and his great blue beard curling over his 
 chest, as awful as Mr. Muntz's. 
 
 Sister Anne saw the vision as well as Fatima. We 
 shall spare the account of their terrors and screams. 
 Strange to say, John Thomas, who slept in the attic 
 above his mistress's bedroom, declared he was on the 
 watch all night, and had seen nothing in the churchyard, 
 and heard no sort of voices in the house. 
 
 And now the question came, What could the ghost 
 want by appearing ? " Is there anything," exclaimed the 
 unhappy and perplexed Fatima, " that he would have me 
 do ? It is well to say * now, now, now/ and to shew him- 
 self; but what is it that makes my blessed husband so 
 uneasy in his grave ? " And all parties consulted agreed 
 that it was a very sensible question. 
 
 John Thomas, the footman, whose excessive terror at 
 the appearance of the ghost had procured him his mis- 
 tress's confidence, advised Mr. Screw, the butler, who 
 communicated with Mrs. Baggs, the housekeeper, who 
 condescended to impart her observations to Mrs. Bustle, 
 the lady's-maid, John Thomas, I say, decidedly advised 
 that my lady should consult a cunning man. There was 
 such a man in town ; he had prophesied who should mar- 
 ry his (John Thomas's) cousin; he had cured Farmer 
 Horn's cattle, which were evidently bewitched ; he could 
 raise ghosts, and make them speak, and he therefore 
 
BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 89 
 
 was the very person to be consulted in the present junc- 
 ture. 
 
 " What nonsense is this you have been talking to the 
 maids, John Thomas, about the conjurer who lives in 
 in " 
 
 " In Hangman's Lane, ma'am, where the gibbet used to 
 stand," replied John, who was bringing in the muffins. 
 " It 's no nonsense, my lady. Every word as that man 
 says comes true, and he knows everything." 
 
 " I desire you will not frighten the girls in the servants' 
 hall with any of those silly stories," said the widow ; and 
 the meaning of this speech may, of course, at once be 
 guessed. It was that the widow meant to consult the 
 conjurer that very night. Sister Anne said that she 
 would never, under such circumstances, desert her dear 
 Fatima. John Thomas was summoned to attend the 
 ladies with a dark lantern, and forth they set on their 
 perilous visit to the conjurer at his dreadful abode in 
 Hangman's Lane. 
 
 ***** 
 
 What took place at that frightful interview has never 
 been entirely known. But there was no disturbance in 
 the house on the night after. The bells slept quite quiet- 
 ly, the doors did not bang in the least, twelve o'clock 
 struck, and no ghost appeared in the churchyard, and the 
 whole family had a quiet night. The widow attributed 
 this to a sprig of rosemary which the wizard gave her, 
 and a horseshoe which she flung into the garden round 
 the family vault, and which would keep any ghost quiet. 
 
 It happened the next day that, going to her milliner's, 
 sister Anne met a gentleman who has been before men- 
 tioned in this story, Ensign Trippet by name ; and, in- 
 deed, if the truth must be known, it somehow happened 
 
90 BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 
 
 that she met the ensign somewhere every day of the 
 week. 
 
 " What news of the ghost, my dearest Miss Shaca- 
 bac?" said he (you may guess on what terms the two 
 young people were by the manner in which Mr. Trippet 
 addressed the lady) ; " has Bluebeard's ghost frightened 
 your sister to any more fits, or set the bells a-ringing ? " 
 
 Sister Anne, with a very grave air, told him that he 
 must not joke on so awful a subject, that the ghost had 
 been laid for a while, that a cunning man had told her 
 sister things so wonderful that any man must believe in 
 them ; that, among other things, he had shown to Fa- 
 tima her future husband. 
 
 " Had," said the ensign, " he black whiskers and a red 
 coat?" 
 
 " No," answered Anne, with a sigh, " he had red whis- 
 kers and a black coat ? " 
 
 " It can't be that rascal Sly ! " cried the ensign. But 
 Anne only sighed more deeply, and would not answer yes 
 or no. " You may tell the poor captain," she said, " there 
 is no hope for him, and all he has left is to hang him- 
 self." 
 
 " He shall cut the throat of Sly first, though," replied 
 Mr. Trippet, fiercely. But Anne said things were not 
 decided as yet. Fatima was exceedingly restive, and un- 
 willing to acquiesce in the idea of being married to Mr. 
 Sly; she had asked for further authority. The wizard 
 said he could bring her own husband from the grave to 
 point out her second bridegroom, who shall be, can be, 
 must be, no other than Frederick Sly. 
 
 " It is a trick," said the ensign ; but Anne was too 
 much frightened by the preceding evening's occurrences 
 to say so. " To-night," she said, " the grave will tell all." 
 
BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 91 
 
 And she left Ensign Trippet in a very solemn and affect- 
 ing way. 
 
 * * * * # 
 
 At midnight three figures were seen to issue from 
 Widow Bluebeard's house, and pass through the church- 
 yard turnstile, and so away among the graves. 
 
 " To call up a ghost is bad enough," said the wizard ; 
 " to make him speak is awful. I recommend you, ma'am, 
 to beware, for such curiosity has been fatal to many. 
 There was one Arabian necromancer of my acquaintance 
 who tried to make a ghost speak, and was torn in pieces 
 on the spot. There was another person who did hear a 
 ghost speak certainly, but came away from the interview 
 deaf and dumb. There was another " 
 
 " Never mind," says Mrs. Bluebeard, all her old curi- 
 osity aroused, " see him and hear him I will. Have n't 
 I seen him and heard him, too, already ? When he 's 
 audible and visible, then 's the time." 
 
 " But when you heard him," said the necromancer, " he 
 was invisible, and when you saw him he was inaudible ; 
 so make up your mind what you will ask him, for ghosts 
 will stand no shilly-shallying. I knew a stuttering man 
 who was flung down by a ghost, and " 
 
 " I have made up my mind," said Fatima, interrupting 
 him. 
 
 " To ask him what husband you shall take," whispered 
 Anne. 
 
 Fatima only turned red, and sister Anne squeezed her 
 hand ; they passed into the graveyard in silence. 
 
 There was no moon ; the night was pitch dark. They 
 threaded their way through the graves, stumbling over 
 them here and there. An owl was toowhooing from 
 the church tower, a dog was howling somewhere, a cock 
 
92 BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 
 
 began to crow, as they will sometimes at twelve o'clock 
 at night. 
 
 " Make haste," said the wizard. " Decide whether you 
 will go on or not." 
 
 " Let us go back, sister," said Anne. 
 
 " I will go on," said Fatima. " I should die if I gave 
 it up, I feel I should." 
 
 " Here 's the gate ; kneel down," said the wizard. The 
 women knelt down. 
 
 " Will you see your first husband or your second hus- 
 band?" 
 
 " I will see Bluebeard first," said the widow ; " I shall 
 know then whether this be a mockery, or you have the 
 power you pretend to." 
 
 At this the wizard uttered an incantation, so frightful 
 and of such incomprehensible words, that it is impossible 
 for any mortal man to repeat them. And at the end of 
 what seemed to be a versicle of his chant he called Blue- 
 beard. There was no noise but the moaning of the wind 
 in the trees, and the toowhooing of the owl in the tower. 
 
 At the end of the second verse he paused again, and 
 called Bluebeard. The cock began to crow, the dog be- 
 gan to howl, a watchman in the town began to cry out 
 the hour, and there came from the vault within a hollow 
 groan, and a dreadful voice said, " Who wants me ? " 
 
 Kneeling in front of the tomb, the necromancer began 
 the third verse. As he spoke, the former phenomena 
 were still to be remarked. As he continued, a number 
 of ghosts rose from their graves, and advanced round the 
 kneeling figures in a circle. As he concluded, with a 
 loud bang the door of the vault flew open, and there in 
 blue light stood Bluebeard in his blue uniform, waving 
 his blue sword, and flashing his blue eyes round about ! 
 
BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 93 
 
 " Speak now, or you are lost," said the necromancer to 
 Fatima. But, for the first time in her life, she had not a 
 word to say. Sister Anne, too, was dumb with terror. 
 And, as the awful figure advanced towards them as they 
 were kneeling, the sister thought all was over with them, 
 and Fatima once more had occasion to repent her fatal 
 curiosity. 
 
 The figure advanced, saying, in dreadful accents, " Fa- 
 tima ! Fatima ! Fatima ! wherefore am I called from my 
 grave ? " when all of a sudden down dropped his sword, 
 down the ghost of Bluebeard went on his knees, and, 
 clasping his hands together, roared out "Murder, mer- 
 cy!" as loud as man could roar. 
 
 Six other ghosts stood round the kneeling group. " Why 
 do you call me from the tomb ? " said the first ; " Who 
 dares disturb my grave ? " said the second ; " Seize him 
 and away with him," cried the third. " Murder, mercy ! " 
 still roared the ghost of Bluebeard, as the white-robed 
 spirits advanced and caught hold of him. 
 
 " It 's only Tom Trippet," said a voice at Anne's ear. 
 
 "And your very humble servant," said a voice well 
 known to Mrs. Bluebeard ; and they helped the ladies to 
 rise, while the other ghosts seized Bluebeard. The nec- 
 romancer took to his heels and got off; he was found to 
 be no other than Mr. Claptrap, the manager of the 
 theatre. 
 
 It was some time before the ghost of Bluebeard could 
 recover from the fainting fit into which he had been 
 plunged when seized by the opposition ghosts in white ; 
 and while they were ducking him at the pump his blue- 
 beard came off, and he was discovered to be who do 
 you think ? Why Mr. Sly, to be sure ; and it appears 
 that John Thomas, the footman, had lent him the uni- 
 
94 BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. 
 
 form, and had clapped the doors, and rung the bells, and 
 spoken down the chimney ; and it was Mr. Claptrap who 
 gave Mr. Sly the blue fire and the theatre gong ; and he 
 went to London next morning by the coach ; and, as it 
 was discovered that the story concerning Miss Coddlins 
 was a shameful calumny, why, of course, the widow mar- 
 ried Captain Blackboard. Dr. Sly married them, and 
 has always declared that he knew nothing of his nephew's 
 doings, and wondered that he has not tried to commit 
 suicide since his last disappointment. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Trippet are likewise living happily to- 
 gether, and this, I am given to understand, is the ultimate 
 fate of a family in whom we were all very much inter- 
 ested in early life. 
 
 You will say that the story is not probable. Psha ! 
 Is n't it written in a book ? and is it a whit less probable 
 than the first part of the tale ? 
 
DICKENS IN FRANCE. 
 
 EEING placarded on the walls a huge an- 
 nouncement that " NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, ou 
 les Voleurs de Londres," was to be performed 
 at the Ambigu-'Comique Theatre on the Bou- 
 levard, and having read in the " Journal des Debats " a 
 most stern and ferocious criticism upon the piece in ques- 
 tion, and upon poor Monsieur Dickens, its supposed au- 
 thor, it seemed to me by no means unprofitable to lay out 
 fifty sous in the purchase of a stall at the theatre, and to 
 judge with my own eyes of the merits and demerits of 
 the play. 
 
 Who does not remember (except those who never saw 
 the drama, and therefore of course cannot be expected to 
 have any notion of it) who does not, I say, remember 
 the pathetic acting of Mrs. Keeley in the part of Smike, 
 as performed at the Adelphi ; the obstinate good-humor 
 of Mr. Wilkinson, who, having to represent the brutal 
 Squeers, was, according to his nature, so chuckling, oily, 
 and kind-hearted, that little boys must have thought it a 
 good joke to be flogged by him ; finally, the acting of the 
 admirable Yates in the kindred part of Mantalini ? Can 
 France, I thought, produce a fop equal to Yates? Is 
 there any vulgarity and assurance on the Boulevard that 
 can be compared to that of which, in the character of 
 
96 DICKENS IN FRANCE. 
 
 Man tali ni, he gives a copy so wonderfully close to na- 
 ture? Never then were fifty sous more cheerfully, 
 nay, eagerly paid, than by your obedient servant. 
 
 After China, this is the most ignorant country, thought 
 I, in the whole civilized world (the company was drop- 
 ping into the theatre, and the musicians were one by one 
 taking their seats) ; these people are so immensely con- 
 ceited, that they think the rest of Europe beneath them ; 
 and though they have invaded Spain, Italy, Russia, Ger- 
 many, not one in ten thousand can ask for a piece of 
 bread in the national language of the countries so con- 
 quered. But see the force of genius; after a time it 
 conquers everything, even the ignorance and conceit of 
 Frenchmen ! The name of Nicholas Nickleby crosses 
 the Channel in spite of them. I shall see honest John 
 Browdie and wicked Ralph once more, honest and wicked 
 in French. Shall we have the Kenwigses, and their 
 uncle, the delightful collector; and will he, in Ports- 
 mouth church, make that famous marriage with Juliana 
 Petowker ? Above all, what will Mrs. Nickleby say ? 
 the famous Mrs. Nickleby, who has lain undescribed un- 
 til Boz seized upon her and brought that great truth to 
 light, and whom yet every man possesses in the bosom of 
 his own family. Are there Mrs. Nicklebies, or, to 
 speak more correctly, are there Mistresses Nickleby in 
 France ? We shall see all this at the rising of the cur- 
 tain ; and, hark ! the fiddlers are striking up. 
 
 Presently the prompter gives his three heart-thrilling 
 slaps, and the great painted cloth moves upwards : it is 
 always a moment of awe and pleasure. What is coming ? 
 First you get a glimpse of legs and feet ; then suddenly 
 the owners of the limbs in question in steady attitudes, 
 looking as if they had been there one thousand years 
 
DICKENS IN FRANCE. 97 
 
 before ; now behold the landscape, the clouds ; the great 
 curtain vanishes altogether, the charm is dissolved, and 
 the disenchanted performers begin. 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 You see a court of a school, with great iron bars in 
 front, and a beauteous sylvan landscape beyond. Could 
 you read the writing on the large board over the gate, 
 you would know that the school was the " Paradis des 
 Enfans," kept by Mr. Squeers. Somewhere by that 
 bright river, which meanders through the background, is 
 the castle of the stately Earl of Clarendon, no relation 
 to a late ambassador at Madrid. 
 
 His lordship is from home ; but his young and lovely 
 daughter, Miss Annabella, is in Yorkshire, and at this 
 very moment is taking a lesson of French from Mr. 
 Squeers's sous-maitre, Neekolass Neeklbee. Nicholas is, 
 however, no vulgar usher ; he is but lately an orphan ; 
 and his uncle, the rich London banker, Monsieur Ralph, 
 taking charge of the lad's portionless sister, has procured 
 for Nicholas this place of usher at a school in le York- 
 sheer. 
 
 A rich London banker procuring his nephew a place in 
 a school at eight guineas per annum ! Sure there must 
 be some roguery in this ; and the more so when you know 
 that Monsieur Squeers, the keeper of the academy, was 
 a few years since a vulgar rope-dancer and tumbler at a 
 fair. But peace ! let these mysteries clear up, as, please 
 Heaven, before five acts are over they will. Meanwhile, 
 Nicholas is happy in giving his lessons to the lovely 
 Meess Annabel. Lessons, indeed ! Lessons of what ? 
 Alack, alack ! when two young, handsome, ardent, tender- 
 hearted people pore over the same book, we know what 
 5 O 
 
98 DICKENS IN FRANCE. 
 
 happens, be the book what it may. French or Hebrew, 
 there is always one kind of language in the leaves, as 
 those can tell who have conned them. 
 
 Meanwhile, in the absence of his usher, Monsieur 
 Squeers keeps school. But one of his scholars is in the 
 court-yard, a lad beautifully dressed, fat, clean, and 
 rosy. A gentleman by the name of Browdie, by profes- 
 sion a drover, is with the boy, employed at the moment 
 (for he is at leisure, and fond of music) in giving him a 
 lesson on the clarionet. 
 
 The boy thus receiving lessons is called facetiously by 
 his master Prospectus, and why ? Because he is so ex- 
 cessively fat and healthy, and well clothed, that his mere 
 appearance in the court-yard is supposed to entice parents 
 and guardians to place their children in a seminary where 
 the scholars were in such admirable condition. 
 
 And here I cannot help observing in the first place, 
 that Squeers, exhibiting in this manner a sample-boy, and 
 pretending that the whole stock was like him (whereas 
 they are a miserable, half-starved set), must have been 
 an abominable old scoundrel ; and secondly (though the 
 observation applies to the French nation merely, and may 
 be considered more as political than general), that, by 
 way of a fat specimen, never was one more unsatisfactory 
 than this. Such a poor shrivelled creature I never saw ; 
 it is like a French fat pig, as lanky as a greyhound ! 
 Both animals give one a thorough contempt for the nation. 
 
 John Browdie gives his lesson to Prospectus, who in- 
 forms him of some of the circumstances narrated above ; 
 and having concluded the lesson, honest John produces a 
 piece of pudding for his pupil. Ah, how Prospectus de- 
 vours it ! for though the only well-fed boy in the school, 
 he is, we regret to say, a gormandizer by disposition. 
 
DICKENS IN FRANCE. 99 
 
 "While Prospectus eats, another of Mr. Squeers' s schol- 
 ars is looking unnoticed on, another boy, a thousand 
 times more miserable. See yon poor shivering child, 
 trembling over his book in a miserable hutch at the cor- 
 ner of the court ! He is in rags, he is not allowed to live 
 with the other boys ; at play they constantly buffet him, 
 at lesson-time their blunders are visited upon his poor 
 shoulders. 
 
 Who is this unhappy boy ? Ten years since a man by 
 the name of Becher brought him to the Paradis des En- 
 fans, and paying in advance five years of his pension, 
 left him under the charge of Monsieur Squeers. No fam- 
 ily ever visited the child; and when at the five years' 
 end the instituteur applied at the address given him by 
 Becher for the further payment of his pupil's expenses, 
 Monsieur Squeers found that Becher had grossly deceived 
 him, that no such persons existed, and that no money was 
 consequently forthcoming, hence the misfortunes which 
 afterwards befell the hapless orphan. None cared for him, 
 none knew him. 'T is possible that even the name he 
 went by was fictitious. That name was Smike, pro- 
 nounced Smeek. 
 
 Poor Smeek ! he had, however, found one friend, 
 the kind-hearted sous-maitre Neeklbee, who gave him 
 half of his own daily pittance of bread and pudding, en- 
 couraged him to apply to his books, and defended him 
 as much as possible from the assaults of the schoolboys 
 and Monsieur Squeers. 
 
 John Browdie had just done giving his lesson of clar- 
 ionet to Prospectus when Neeklbee arrived at the school. 
 There was a difference between John and Nicholas ; for 
 the former, seeing the young usher's frequent visits at 
 Clarendon Castle, foolishly thought he was enamored 
 
100 DICKENS IN FRANCE. 
 
 
 of Meess Jenny, the fermier's daughter, on whom John, 
 
 too, had fixed an eye of affection. Silly John ! Nich- 
 olas's heart was fixed (hopelessly, as the young man 
 thought) upon higher objects. However, the very instant 
 that Nickleby entered the court-yard of the school, John 
 took up his stick, and set off for London, whither he was 
 bound, with a drove of oxen. 
 
 Nickleby had not arrived a whit too soon to protect 
 his poor friend, Smeek. All the boys were called into 
 the court-yard by Monsieur Squarrs, and made to say 
 their lessons. When it came to poor Smeek's turn, the 
 timid lad trembled, hesitated, and could not do his spell- 
 ing. 
 
 Inflamed with fury, old Squarrs rushed forward, and 
 would have assommed his pupil, but human nature could 
 bear this tyranny no longer. Nickleby, stepping forward, 
 defended the poor prostrate child; and when Squeers 
 raised his stick to strike pouf! pif! un, deux, trois, et 
 la ! Monsieur Nicholas flanqued him several coups de 
 poing, and sent him bientot grovelling a terre. 
 
 You may be sure that there was now a pretty hallooing 
 among the boys ; all jumped, kicked, thumped, bumped, 
 and scratched their unhappy master (and serve him right, 
 too!), and when they had finished their fun, vlan ! flung 
 open the gates of the Infants' Paradise, and run away 
 home. 
 
 Neeklbee, seeing what he had done, had nothing left but 
 to run away, too. He penned a hasty line to his lovely 
 pupil Miss Annabel, to explain that though his departure 
 was sudden his honor was safe, and seizing his stick quit- 
 ted the school. 
 
 There was but one pupil left in it, and he, poor soul, 
 knew not whither to go. But when he saw Nicholas, his 
 
DICKENS IN FRANCE. 
 
 101 
 
 sole friend, departing, he mustered courage, and then 
 made a step forward, and then wondered if he dared, 
 and then, when Nicholas was at a little distance from 
 him, ran, ran as if his life (as indeed it did) depended up- 
 on it. 
 
 This is the picture of Neeklbee and poor Smeek. They 
 are both dressed in the English fashion, and you must 
 fancy the curtain falling amidst thunders of applause. 
 
 [End of Act I. 
 
 Ah, ah, ah ! ouf, pouf." Dieu, qu'il fait chaud ! " 
 " Orgeat, limonade, biere ! " " L'Entracte, journal de 
 tous les spectacles ! " " LA MARSEILLAI-AI-AISE ! " 
 With such cries from pit and boxes the public wiles away 
 the weary ten minutes between the acts. The three 
 bonnes in the front boxes, who had been escorted by a 
 gentleman in a red cap, and jacket, and earrings, begin 
 sucking oranges with great comfort, while their friend 
 amuses himself with a piece of barley-sugar. The petite- 
 
102 DICKENS IN FRANCE. 
 
 maitresse in the private box smoothes her bandeaux of hair 
 and her little trim, white cuffs, and looks at her chiffons. 
 The friend of the tight black velvet spencer meanwhile 
 pulls his yellow kid gloves tighter on his hands, and looks 
 superciliously round the house with his double-glass. 
 Fourteen people, all smelling of smoke, all bearded, and 
 all four feet high, pass over your body to their separate 
 stalls. The prompter gives his thumps, whack whack 
 whack ! the music begins again, the curtain draws, 
 and, lo ! we have 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 The tavern of Les Armes du Koi appears to be one of 
 the most frequented in the city of London. It must be 
 in the Yorkshire road, that is clear ; for the first person 
 whom we see there is John Browdie ; to him presently 
 comes Prospectus, then Neeklbee, then poor Srneek, each 
 running away individually from the Paradis des Enfans. 
 
 It is likewise at this tavern that the great banker 
 Ralph does his business, and lets you into a number of 
 his secrets. Hither, too, comes Milor Clarendon, a hand- 
 some peer, forsooth, but a sad reprobate, I fear. Sorrow 
 has driven him to these wretched courses. Ten years 
 since he lost a son, a lovely child of six years of age ; 
 .and, hardened by the loss, he has taken to gambling, to 
 the use of the vins de France which take the reason pris- 
 oner, and to other excitements still more criminal. He 
 has cast his eyes upon the lovely Kate Nickleby (he, the 
 father of Miss Annabel !), and asks the banker to sup 
 with him, to lend him ten thousand pounds, and to bring 
 his niece with him. With every one of these requests 
 the capitalist promises to comply. The money he pro- 
 duces forthwith, the lady he goes to fetch. Ah, milor ! 
 
DICKENS IN FRANCE. 
 
 103 
 
 beware, beware, your health is bad, your property is 
 ruined, death and insolvency stare you in the face, 
 but what cares Lor Clarendon ? He is desperate J he 
 orders a splendid repast in a private apartment, and 
 while they are getting it ready, he and the young lords of 
 his acquaintance sit down and crack a bottle in the coffee- 
 room. A gallant set of gentlemen, truly ; all in short 
 coats with capes to them, in tights and Hessian boots, 
 such as our nobility are in the custom of wearing. 
 
 "I bet you cinq cents guinees, Lor Beef," says Milor 
 Clarendon (whom the wine has begun to excite), " that I 
 will have the lovely Kate Nicklbee at supper with us to- 
 night." 
 
104 DICKENS IN FRANCE. 
 
 " Done ! " says Lor Beef. But why starts yon stranger 
 who has just come into the hotel ? Why, forsooth ? be- 
 cause he is Nicholas Nickleby, Kate's brother ; and a 
 pretty noise he makes when he hears of his lordship's 
 project ! 
 
 " You have Meess Neeklbee at your table, sir ? You 
 are a liar ! " 
 
 All the lords start up. 
 
 " Who is this very strange person ? " says Milor Claren- 
 don, as cool as a cucumber. 
 
 " Dog ! give me your name ! " shouts Nicholas. 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! ha ! " says my lord, scornfully. 
 
 " John," says Nickleby, seizing hold of a waiter, " tell 
 me that man's name." 
 
 John the waiter looks frightened, and hums and has, 
 when, at the moment, who should walk in but Mr. Ralph 
 the banker, and his niece. 
 
 Ralph. " Nicholas ! confusion ! " 
 
 Kate. My brother!" 
 
 Nicholas. " A vaunt, woman ! Tell me, sirrah, by what 
 right you bring my sister into such company, and who is 
 the villain to whom you have presented her ? " 
 
 Ralph. "Lord Clarendon." 
 
 Nicholas. " The father of Meess Annabel ? Gracious 
 heaven ! " 
 
 What followed now need not be explained. The young 
 lords and the banker retire abashed to their supper, while 
 Meess Kate, and Smike, who has just arrived, fall into 
 .the arms of Nicholas. 
 
 Such, ladies and gentlemen, is the second act, rather 
 feeble in interest, and not altogether probable in action. 
 That five people running away from Yorkshire should all 
 come to the same inn in London, arriving within five 
 
DICKENS IN FRANCE. 105 
 
 minutes of each other, that Mr. Ralph, the great bank- 
 er, should make the hotel his place of business, and openly 
 confess in the coffee-room to his ex-agent Becher that he 
 had caused Becher to make away with or murder the son 
 of Lord Clarendon, finally, that Lord Clarendon him- 
 self, with an elegant town mansion, should receive his 
 distinguished guests in a tavern, of not the first respecta- 
 bility, all these points may, perhaps, strike the critic 
 from their extreme improbability. But, bless your soul ! 
 if these are improbabilities, what will you say to the rev- 
 elations of the 
 
 THIRD ACT. 
 
 That scoundrel Squarrs before he kept the school was, 
 as we have seen, a tumbler and saltimbanque, and, as 
 such, member of the great fraternity of cadgers, beggars, 
 gueux, thieves, that have their club in London. It is held 
 in immense Gothic vaults under ground : here the beg- 
 gars consort their plans, divide their spoil, and hold their 
 orgies. 
 
 In returning to London Monsieur Squarrs instantly 
 resumes his acquaintance with his old comrades, who ap- 
 point him, by the all-powerful interest of & peculiar person, 
 head of the community of cadgers. 
 
 That person is no other than the banker Ralph, who, 
 in secret, directs this godless crew, visits their haunts, and 
 receives from them a boundless obedience. A villain 
 himself, he has need of the aid of villany. He pants for 
 vengeance against his nephew, he has determined that his 
 niece shall fall a prey to Mil or Clarendon, nay, more, 
 he has a dark suspicion that Smike, the orphan boy, 
 the homeless fugitive from Yorkshire, is no other than 
 the child who ten years ago But, hush ! 
 5* 
 
106 DICKENS IN FRANCE. 
 
 "Where is his rebellious nephew and those whom he 
 protects ? The quick vigilance of Ralph soon discovered 
 them ; Nicholas, haviiig taken the name of Edward 
 Browne, was acting at a theatre in the neighborhood of 
 the Thames. Haste, Squarrs, take a couple of trusty 
 beggars with you, and hie thee to Wapping ; seize young 
 Smike and carry him to Cadger's Cavern, haste, then ! 
 The mind shudders to consider what is to happen. 
 
 In Nicholas's room at the theatre we find his little fam- 
 ily assembled, and with them honest John Browdie, who 
 has forgotten his part on learning that Nicholas was at- 
 tached, not to the fermiere, but to the mistress ; to them 
 comes gracious heavens ! Meess Annabel. " Fly," 
 says she, " fly ! I have overheard a plot concocted between 
 my father and your uncle ; the sheriff is to seize you for 
 the abduction of Smeek and the assault upon Squarrs," 
 &c. &c. &c. 
 
 In short, it is quite impossible to describe this act, so 
 much is there done in it. Lord Clarendon learns that he 
 has pledged his life interest in his estates to Ralph. 
 
 His Lordship dies, and Ralph seizes a paper, which 
 proves beyond a doubt that young Smike is no other than 
 Clarendon's long-lost son. 
 
 Uinfame Squarrs with his satellites carry off the boy ; 
 Browdie pitches Squarrs into the river ; the sheriff carries 
 Nickleby to prison ; and VICE TRIUMPHS in the person of 
 the odious Ralph. But vice does not always triumph; 
 wait awhile and you will see. For in the 
 
 FOURTH ACT. 
 
 John Browdie, determined to rescue his two young friends, 
 follows Ralph like his shadow ; he dogs him to a rendez- 
 vous of the beggars, and overhears all his conversation 
 
DICKENS IN FRANCE. 107 
 
 with Squarrs. The boy is in the Cadger's Cavern, hid- 
 den a thousand feet below the Thames ; there is to be a 
 grand jollification among the rogues that night, a dance 
 and a feast. "I" says John Browdie, will be there." 
 And, wonderful to say, who should pass but his old friend 
 Prospectus, to whom he gave lessons on the clarionet. 
 
 Prospectus is a cadger now, and is to play his clarionet 
 that night at Cadger's Hall. Browdie will join him, 
 he is dressed up like a blind beggar, and strange sights, 
 Heaven knows, meet his eyes in Cadger's Hall. 
 
 Here they come trooping in by scores, the halt and 
 the lame, black sweepers, one-legged fiddlers, the climber 
 inots, the fly-fakers, the kedgoree coves, in a word, the 
 rogues of London, to their Gothic hall, a thousand miles 
 below the level of the sea. Squarrs is their nominal 
 head ; but their real leader is the tall man yonder in the 
 black mask, he whom nobody knows but Browdie, who 
 has found him out at once, 't is Ralph ! 
 
 " Bring out the prisoner," says the black mask ; " he has 
 tried to escape, he has broken his oaths to the cadgers, 
 let him meet his punishment." 
 
 And without a word more, what do these cadgers do ? 
 They take poor Snaike and bury him alive ; down he goes 
 into the vault, a stone is rolled over him, the cadgers go 
 away, so much for Smike. 
 
 But in the mean time Master Browdie has not been 
 idle. He has picked the pocket of one of the cadgers of 
 a portfolio containing papers that prove Smike to be 
 Lord Clarendon beyond a doubt ; he lags behind until 
 all the cadgers are gone, and with the help of Nicholas 
 (who, by the by, has found his way somehow into the 
 place), he pushes away the stone, and brings the fainting 
 boy to the world. 
 
108 DICKENS IN FRANCE. 
 
 These things are improbable, you certainly may say, 
 but are they impossible ? If they are possible, then they 
 may come to pass ; if they may come to pass then, they 
 may be supposed to come to pass : and why should they 
 not come to pass ? That is my argument : let us pass on 
 to the 
 
 FIFTH ACT. 
 
 Aha ! Master Ralph, you think you will have it all 
 your own way, do you ? The lands of Clarendon are 
 yours, provided there is no male heir, and you have done 
 for him. The peerage, to be sure (by the laws of Eng- 
 land), is to pass to the husband of Meess Annabella. 
 Will she marry Ralph, or not ? Yes : then well and 
 good ; he is an earl for the future and the father of a new 
 race of Clarendon. No : then, in order to spell her still 
 more, he has provided amongst the beggars a lad who is 
 to personate the young mislaid Lord Clarendon, who is to 
 come armed with certain papers that make his right un- 
 questionable, and who will be a creature of Ralph's, to be 
 used or cast away at will. 
 
 Ralph pops the question ; the lady repels him with 
 scorn. " Quit the house, Meess," says he ; " it is not 
 yours, but mine. Give up that vain title which you have 
 adopted since your papa's death ; you are no countess, 
 your brother lives. Ho ! John, Thomas, Samuel ! intro- 
 duce his lordship, the Comte de Clarendon." 
 
 And who slips in ? Why, in a handsome new dress, 
 in the English fashion, Smike, to be sure, the boy 
 whom Ralph has murdered, the boy who. had risen 
 from the tomb, the boy who had miraculously discov- 
 ered the papers in Cadger's Hall and (by some underhand 
 work that went on behind the scenes, which I don't pre- 
 
DICKENS IN FRANCE. 109 
 
 tend to understand) had substituted himself for the sub- 
 stitute which that wicked banker had proposed to bring 
 forward ! A rush of early recollections floods the panting 
 heart of the young boy. Can it be ? Yes, no ; sure 
 these halls are familiar to him ? That conservatory, has 
 he not played with the flowers there, played with his 
 blessed mother at his side ? That portrait ! Stop ! a 
 a a a ah ! it is, it is my sister Anna Anna 
 bella! 
 
 Fancy the scene as the two young creatures rush with 
 a scream into each other's arms. Fancy John Browdie's 
 hilarity : he jumps for joy, and throws off his beggar's 
 cloak and beard. Nicholas clasps his hands, and casts 
 his fine eyes heavenward. But, above all, fancy the de- 
 spair of that cursed banker Ralph as he sees his victim 
 risen from the grave, and all his hopes dashed down into 
 it. Heaven, Thy hand is here ! How must the 
 banker then have repented of his bargain with the late 
 Lord Clarendon, and that he had not had his lordship's 
 life insured ! Perdition ! to have been out-tricked by a 
 boy and a country boor ! Is there no hope ? * * * 
 
 Hope ? Psha ! man, thy reign of vice is over, it is 
 the fifth act. Already the people are beginning to leave 
 the house, and never more again canst thou expect to lift 
 thy head. 
 
 " Monsieur Ralph," Browdie whispers, " after your 
 pretty doings in Cadger's Hall, had you not best be think- 
 ing of leaving the country, as Nicholas Nickleby's uncle, 
 I would fain not see you, crick ! You understand ? " 
 (pointing to his jugular). 
 
 " I do," says Ralph, gloomily, " and will be off in two 
 hours." And Lord Smike takes honest Browdie by one 
 hand, gently pressing Kate's little fingers with the other, 
 
110 DICKENS IN FRANCE. 
 
 and the sheriff, and the footmen, and attendants form a 
 tableaux, and the curtain begins to fall, and the blushing 
 Annabel whispers to happy Nicholas, " Ah ! my friend, 
 I can give up with joy to my brother ma couronne de 
 comtesse. What care I for rank or name with you ? the 
 name that I love above all others is that of LADY ANNA- 
 BEL NlCKLEBY." [Exeunt omnes. 
 
 The musicians have hurried off long before this. In 
 one instant the stage lamps go out, and you see fellows 
 starting forward to cover the boxes with canvas. Up 
 goes the chandelier amongst the gods and goddesses 
 painted on the ceiling. Those in the galleries, mean- 
 while, bellow out " SAINT-ERNEST ! " he it is who acted 
 John Browdie. Then there is a yell of " SMEEK ! 
 SMEEK ! " Blushing and bowing, Madame Prosper 
 comes forward ; by heavens ! a pretty woman, with ten- 
 der eyes and a fresh, clear voice. Next the gods call for 
 " CHILLY ! " who acted the villain : but by this time you 
 are bustling and struggling among the crowd in the lob- 
 bies, where there is the usual odor of garlic and tobacco. 
 Men in sabots come tumbling down from the galleries ; 
 cries of " Auguste, solo ! Eugenie ! prends ton paraphiie." 
 " Monsieur, vous me marchez sur les pieds," are heard in 
 the crowd, over which the brazen helmets of the Pom- 
 pier's tower are shining. A cabman in the Boulevard, 
 who opens his vehicle eagerly as you pass by, growls 
 dreadful oaths when, seated inside, you politely request 
 him to drive to the Barriere de 1'Etoile. " Ah, ces An- 
 glais," says he, " $a demeure dans les deserts, dans les 
 deserts, grand Dieu, avec les loups ; Us prennent leur 
 beautyfine the avec leurs tartines le soir, et puis Us se 
 couchent dans les deserts, ma parole d'konneur ; comme 
 des Arabes. n 
 
DICKENS IN FRANCE. Ill 
 
 If the above explanation of the plot of the new piece 
 of Nicholas Nickleby has appeared intolerably long to 
 those few persons who have perused it, I can only say for 
 their comfort that I have not told one half of the real 
 plot of the piece in question ; nay, very likely have pass- 
 ed over all the most interesting part of it. There, for in- 
 stance, was the assassination of the virtuous villain Becher, 
 the dying scene with my lord, the manner in which Nich- 
 olas got into the Cadger's Cave, and got out again. Have 
 I breathed a syllable upon any of these points ? No ; 
 and never will to my dying day. The imperfect account 
 of Nicholas Nickleby given above is all that the most im- 
 patient reader (let him have fair warning) can expect to 
 hear from his humble servant. Let it be sufficient to 
 know that the piece in itself contains a vast number of 
 beauties entirely passed over by the unworthy critic, and 
 only to be appreciated by any gentleman who will take 
 the trouble to step across the Channel, and thence from 
 his hotel to the ambiguously-comic theatre. And let 
 him make haste, too ; for who knows what may happen ? 
 Human life is proverbially short. Theatrical pieces 
 bloom and fade like the flowers of the field, and very like- 
 ly, long before this notice shall appear in print (as let us 
 heartily, from mercenary considerations, pray that it will), 
 the drama of Nicholas Nickleby may have disappeared 
 altogether from the world's ken, like Carthage, Troy, 
 Swallow Street, the Marylebone bank, Babylon, and 
 other fond magnificences elevated by men, and now for- 
 gotten and prostrate. 
 
 As for the worthy Boz, it will be seen that his share 
 in the piece is perfectly insignificant,' and that he has no 
 more connection with the noble geniuses who invented 
 the drama than a pig has with a gold-laced hat that a 
 
112 DICKENS IN FRANCE. 
 
 nobleman may have hung on it, or a starting-post on the 
 race-course with some magnificent, thousand-guinea, fiery 
 horses who may choose to run from it. How poor do his 
 writings appear after those of the Frenchman ! How 
 feeble, mean, and destitute of imagination ! He never 
 would have thought of introducing six lords, an ex-kid- 
 napper, a great banker, an idiot, a schoolmaster, his 
 usher, a cattle-driver, coming for the most part a couple 
 of hundred miles, in order to lay open all their secrets in 
 the coffee-room of the King's Arms hotel ! He never 
 could have invented the great subterraneous cavern, cime- 
 tiere et salle de bat, as Jules Janin calls it ! The credit of 
 all this falls upon the French adaptors of Monsieur Dick- 
 ens's romance ; and so it will be advisable to let the pub- 
 lic know. 
 
 But as the French play-writers are better than Dick- 
 ens, being incomparably more imaginative and poetic, so, 
 in progression, is the French critic, Jules Janin, above 
 named, a million times superior to the French play- 
 wrights, and, after Janin, Dickens disappears altogether. 
 He is cut up, disposed of, done for. J. J. has hacked him 
 into small pieces, and while that wretched romancer is 
 amusing himself across the Atlantic, and fancying, per- 
 haps, that he is a popular character, his business has been 
 done for ever and ever in Europe. "What matters that 
 he is read by millions in England and billions in Amer- 
 ica? that everybody who understands English had a cor- 
 ner in his heart for him ? The great point is, what does 
 Jules Janin think ? and that we shall hear presently ; for 
 though I profess the greatest admiration for Mr. Dickens, 
 yet there can be no reason why one should deny one's self 
 the little pleasure of acquainting him that some ill-dis- 
 posed persons in the world are inclined to abuse him. 
 "Without this privilege what is friendship good for? 
 
DICKENS IN FRANCE. 113 
 
 Who is Janin ? He is the critic of France. J. J., in 
 fact, the man who writes a weekly fueilleton in the 
 " Journal des Debats " with such indisputable brilliancy 
 and wit, and such a happy mixture of effrontery, and hon- 
 esty, and poetry, and impudence, and falsehood, and im- 
 pertinence, and good feeling, that one can't fail to be 
 charmed with the compound, and to look rather eagerly 
 for the Monday's paper ; Jules Janin is the man, who, not 
 knowing a single word of the English language, as he 
 actually professes in the preface, has helped to translate 
 the Sentimental Journey. He is the man, who, when he 
 was married (in a week when news were slack no doubt), 
 actually criticised his own marriage ceremony, letting all 
 the public see the proof-sheets of his bridal, as was the 
 custom among certain ancient kings, I believe.. In fact, 
 a more modest, honest, unassuming, blushing, truth-tell- 
 ing, gentlemanlike J. J. it is impossible to conceive. 
 
 Well, he has fallen foul of Monsieur Dickens, this fat 
 French moralist ; he says Dickens is immodest, and Jules 
 cannot abide immodesty ; and a great and conclusive 
 proof this is upon a question which the'two nations have 
 been in the habit of arguing, namely, which of the 
 two is the purer in morals ? and may be argued clear 
 thus : 
 
 1. We in England are accustomed to think Dickens 
 modest, and allow our children to peruse his works. 
 
 2. In France, the man who wrote the history of " The 
 Dead Donkey and the Guillotined Woman,"* and after- 
 wards his own epithalamium in the newspaper, is re- 
 volted by Dickens. 
 
 3. Therefore Dickens must be immodest, and grossly 
 
 * Some day the writer meditates a great and splendid review of 
 J. J.'s work. 
 
 H 
 
114 DICKENS IN FRANCE. 
 
 immodest, otherwise a person so confessedly excellent as 
 J. J. would never have discovered the crime. 
 
 4. And therefore it is pretty clear that the French 
 morals are of a much higher order than our own, which 
 remark will apply to persons and books, and all Jhe rela- 
 tions of private and public life. 
 
 Let us now see how our fat Jules attacks Dickens. 
 His remarks on him begin in the following jocular 
 way: 
 
 "THEATRE DB I/AMBIGU-COMIQUE. 
 " Nicolas Nickleby, Melodrame, en Six Actes. 
 
 " A genoux devant celui-la qui s'appelle Charles Dickens ! 
 a genoux ! II a accompli a lui seul ce que n'ont pu faire k eux 
 deux Lord Byron et Walter Scott ! Joignez-y, si vous voulez, 
 Pope et Milton et tout ce que la litterature Anglaise a produit 
 de plus solennel et de plus charmant. Charles Dickens ! mais 
 il n'est question que de lui en Angleterre. II en est la gloire, 
 et la joie, et 1'orgueil ! Savez-vous combien d'acheteurs pos- 
 sede ce Dickens; j'ai dit d'acheteurs, de gens qui tirent leur 
 argent du leur bourse pour que cet argent passe de leur main 
 dans la main du libraire ? Dix mille acheteurs. Dix mille ? 
 que disons-nous, dix mille ! vingt mille ! Vingt mille ? Quoi ! 
 vingt mille acheteurs ? Fi done, vingt mille ! quarante mille 
 acheteurs. Eh quoi ! il a trouve quarante mille acheteurs, 
 vous vous moquez de nous sans doute ? Oui, mon brave 
 homme on se rnoque de vous, car ce n'est pas vingt mille et 
 quarante mille et soixante mille acheteurs qu'a rencontres ce 
 Charles Dickens, c'est cent mille acheteurs. Cent mille, pas 
 un de moins. Cent mille esclaves, cent mille tributaires, cent 
 mille ! Et mes grands ecrivains modernes s'estiment bien 
 heureux et bien fiers quand leur livre le plus vante parvient, 
 au bout de six mois de celebrite, a son huitieme cent ! " 
 
 There is raillery for you ! there is a knowledge of 
 English literature, of " Pope et Milton, si solennel et 
 
DICKENS IN FRANCE. 115 
 
 si charmant ! " Milton, above all ; his little comedie 
 " Samson 1'Agoniste " is one of the gayest and most grace- 
 ful trifles that ever was acted on the stage. And to think 
 that Dickens has sold more copies of his work than the 
 above two eminent hommes-de-lettres, and Scott and By- 
 ron into the bargain ! It is a fact, and J. J. vouches for 
 it. To be sure, J. J. knows no more of English litera- 
 ture than I do of hieroglyphics, to be sure, he has not 
 one word of English. N'importe : he has had the advan- 
 tage of examining the books of Mr. Dickens's publishers, 
 and has discovered that they sell of Boz's works " cent 
 mille, pas un de moins" Janin will not allow of one less. 
 Can you answer numbers ? And there are our grands 
 ecrivains modernes, who are happy if they sell eight hun- 
 dred in six months. Byron and Scott doubtless, "le 
 solennel Pope, et le charmant Milton," as well as other 
 geniuses not belonging to. the three kingdoms. If a man 
 is an arithmetician as well as a critic, and we join to- 
 gether figures of speech and Arabic numerals, there is no 
 knowing what he may not prove. 
 " Or" continues J. J. : 
 
 " Or, parmi les chefs-d'oeuvre de sa fa9on que devore PAn- 
 gleterre, ce Charles Dickens a produit un gros melodrame en 
 deux gros volumes, intitule Nicolas Nickleby. Ce livre a 
 ete traduit chez nous par un homme de beaucoup d'esprit, qui 
 n'est pas fait pour ce triste metier-la. Si vous saviez ce que 
 peut-etre un pareil chef-d'oeuvre, certes vouz prendriez en pitie 
 les susdits cent mille souscripteurs de Charles Dickens. Fi- 
 gurez-vous done un amas d'inventions pueriles, ou 1'horrible 
 et le niais se donnent la main, dans une ronde infernale ; ici 
 passent en riant de bonnes gens si bons qu'ils en sont tout-a- 
 fait betes ; plus loin bondissent et blasphement toutes sortes de 
 bandits, de fripons, de voleurs et de miserables si affreux qu'on 
 ne sait pas comment pourrait vivre, seulement vingt-quatre 
 
116 DICKENS IN FRANCE. 
 
 heures, une societe ainsi composes. C'est le plus nauseabond 
 melange qu'on puisse imaginer de lait chaud et de bierre 
 tournee, d'ceufs frais et de bceuf sale, de haillons et d'habits 
 brodes, d'ecus d'or et de gros sous, de roses et de pissenlits. 
 On se bat, on s'embrasse, on s'injurie, on s'enivre, on meurt de 
 faim. Les filles de la rue et les lords de la Chambre haute, les 
 portefaix et les poetes, les ecoliers et les voleurs, se promenent, 
 bras dessus bras dessous, au milieu de ce tohubohu insup- 
 portable. Aimez-vous la fumee de tabac, Podeur de Tail, le 
 gout du pore frais, I'harmonie que fait un plat d'etain frappe 
 contre une casserole de cuivre non etame ? Lisez-moi con- 
 sciencieusement ce livre de Charles Dickens. Quelles plaies ! 
 quelles pustules! et que de saintes vertus ! Ce Dickens a 
 reuni en bloc toutes les descriptions de Guzman d'Alfarache et 
 tous les reves de Grandisson. Oh ! qu'etes-vous devenus, 
 vous les lectrices tant soit peu prudes des romans de Walter 
 Scott ? Oh ! qu'a-t-on fait de vous, les lectrices animees de 
 Don Juan et de Lara ? O vous, les chastes enthousiastes de 
 la Clarisse Harlowe, voilez-vous la face de honte ! A cent 
 mille exemplaires le Charles Dickens ! " 
 
 To what a pitch of devergondago must the English 
 ladies have arrived, when a fellow who can chronicle his 
 own marriage, and write the " The Dead Donkey and 
 the Guillotined Woman," when even a man like that, 
 whom nobody can accuse of being squeamish, is obliged 
 to turn away with disgust at their monstrous immodesty ! 
 
 J. J. is not difficult; a little harmless gallantry and 
 trifling with the seventh commandment does not offend 
 him, far from it. Because there are no love-intrigues 
 in Walter Scott, Jules says that Scott's readers are tant 
 soit peu prudes ! There ought to be, in fact, in life and 
 in novels, a little, pleasant, gentlemanlike, anti-seventh- 
 commandment excitement. Read "The Dead Donkey 
 and the Guillotined Woman," and you will see how the 
 thing may be agreeably and genteelly done. See what 
 
DICKENS IN FRANCE. 117 
 
 he says of " Clarisse," it is chaste ; of " Don Juan," 
 it is not indecent, it is not immoral, it is only ANIMEE ! 
 Animee ! O ciel ! what a word ! Could any but a French- 
 man have had the grace to hit on it ? " Animation " our 
 Jules can pardon; prudery he can excuse, in his good- 
 humored, contemptuous way ; but Dickens, this Dick- 
 ens, fie ! And, perhaps, there never was a more 
 succinct, complete, elegant, just, and satisfactory account 
 given of a book than that by our friend Jules of " Nicho- 
 las Nickleby." " It is the most disgusting mixture imag- 
 inable of warm milk and sour beer, of fresh eggs and salt 
 beef, of rags and laced clothes, of gold crowns and cop- 
 pers, of roses and dandelions." 
 
 There is a receipt for you ! or take another, which is 
 quite as pleasant: 
 
 IT. 
 
 " The fumes of tobacco, the odor of garlic, the taste of 
 fresh pork, the harmony made by striking a pewter plate 
 against an untinned copper saucepan. Read me consci- 
 entiously this book of Charles Dickens ; what sores ! what 
 pustules ! " &c. 
 
 Try either mixture (and both are curious), for fresh 
 pork is an ingredient in one, salt beef in another; to- 
 bacco and garlic in receipt No. 2 agreeably take the 
 places of warm milk and sour beer in formula No. 1 ; 
 and whereas, in the second prescription, a pewter plate 
 and untinned copper saucepan (what a devilish satire ia 
 that epithet untinned!), a gold crown and a few half- 
 pence, answer in the first. Take either mixture, and the 
 result is a Dickens. Hang thyself, thou unhappy writer 
 of Pickwick ; or, blushing at this exposition of thy faults, 
 turn red man altogether, and build a wigwam in a wilder- 
 
118 DICKENS IN FRANCE. 
 
 ness, and live with 'possums up gum-trees. Fresh pork 
 
 and warm milk ; sour beer and salt b Faugh ! how 
 
 could you serve us so atrociously ? 
 
 And this is one of the " chefs-d'o3uvre de sa faco?i que 
 devore 1'Angleterre." The beastly country ! How Jules 
 lashes the islanders with the sting of that epigram, 
 chefs-d'oeuvre de leur facon ! 
 
 ***** 
 
 Look you, J. J., it is time that such impertinence 
 should cease. Will somebody, out of three thousand 
 literary men in France, there are about three who have 
 a smattering of the English, will some one of the three 
 explain to J. J. the enormous folly and falsehood of all 
 that the fellow has been saying about Dickens and Eng- 
 lish literature generally ? We have in England literary 
 chefs-d'oeuvre de noire facon, and are by no means 
 ashamed to devour the same. " Le charmant Milton " 
 was not, perhaps, very skilled for making epigrams and 
 chansons-a-boire, but, after all, was a person of merit, 
 and of his works have been sold considerably more than 
 eight hundred copies. " Le solennel Pope " was a writer 
 not undeserving of praise. There must have been some- 
 thing worthy in Shakespeare, for his name has pene- 
 trated even to France, where he is not unfrequently 
 called " le Sublime Williams." Walter Scott, though a 
 prude, as you say, and not having the agreeable laisser- 
 aller of the author of the Dead Donkey, &c., could still 
 turn off a romance pretty creditably. He and " le Sub- 
 lime Williams " between them have turned your French 
 literature topsy-turvy ; and many a live donkey of your 
 crew is trying to imitate their paces and their roars, and 
 to lord it like those dead lions. These men made chefs- 
 d'oeuvre de notre facon, and we are by no means ashamed 
 to acknowledge them. 
 
DICKENS IN FRANCE. 119 
 
 But what right have you, blundering ignorances ! to 
 pretend to judge them and their works, you, who 
 might as well attempt to give a series of lectures upon 
 the literature of the Hottentots, and are as ignorant of 
 English as the author of the Random Recollections f 
 Learn modesty, Jules ; Listen to good advice ; and when 
 you say to other persons, lisez moi ce livre consciencieuse- 
 ment, at least do the same thing, O critic! before you 
 attempt to judge and arbitrate. 
 
 And I am ready to take an affidavit in the matter of 
 this criticism of Nicholas Nickleby, that the translator of 
 Sterne, who does not know English, has not read Boz in 
 the original, has not even read him in the translation, 
 and slanders him out of pure invention. Take these con- 
 cluding opinions of J. J. as a proof of the fact : 
 
 " De ce roman de Nicolas NicHeby a ete tire le melodrame 
 qui va suivre. Commencez d'abord par entasser les souter- 
 rains sur les tenebres, le vice sur le sang, le mensonge sur 1'in- 
 jure, I'adultere sur I'inceste, battez-moi tout ce melange, et 
 vous verrez ce que vous allez voir. 
 
 " Dans un comte Anglais, dans une ecole, ou plutot dans 
 une horrible prison habitee par le froid et la faim, un nomme 
 Squeers entraine, sous pretexte de les elever dans la belle dis- 
 cipline, tous les enfans qu'on lui confie. Ce miserable Squeers 
 specule tout simplement sur la faim, sur la soif, sur les habits 
 de ces pauvres petits. On n'entend que le bruit des verges, 
 les soupirs des battus, les cris des battans, les blasphemes du 
 maitre. C'est affreux a lire et a voir. Surtout ce qui fait peur 
 (je parle du livre en question), c'est la misere d'un pauvre 
 petit nomme Smilke, dont cet affreux Squeers est le bour- 
 reau. Quand parut le livre de Charles Dickens, on raconte 
 que plus d'un maitre de pension de TAngleterre se recria 
 centre la calomnie. Mais, juste ciel ! si la cent millieme partie 
 d'une pareille honte etait possible ; s'il etait vrai qu'un seul 
 
120 DICKENS IN FRANCE. 
 
 marchand de chair humaine ainsi bati put exister de 1'autre 
 cote du detroit, ce serait le deshonneur d'une nation tout en- 
 tiere. Et si en effet la chose est impossible, que venez-vous 
 done nous conter, que le roman, tout comme la comedie, est la 
 peinture des moeurs ? 
 
 " Or ce petit malheureux couvert de haillons et de plaies, le 
 jouet de M. Squeers, c'est tout simplement le fils unique de 
 Lord Clarendon, un des plus grands seigneurs de TAngleterre. 
 Voila justement ce que je disais tout k 1'heure. Dans ces ro- 
 mans qui sont le rebut d'une imagination en delire, il n'y a 
 pas de milieu. Ou bien vous etes le dernier des mendians 
 charges d'une besace vide, ou bien, salut a vous ! vous etes 
 due et pair du royaume et chevalier de la Jarretiere ! Ou le 
 manteau royal ou le haillon. Quelquefois, pour varier la 
 these, on vous met par dessus vos haillons le manteau de 
 pourpre. Votre tete est pleine de vermine, a la bonne 
 heure ! mais laissez faire le romancier, il posera tout & 1'heure 
 sur vos immondes cheveux la couronne ducale. Ainsi prece- 
 dent M. Dickens et le Capitaine Marryat et tous les autres." 
 
 Here we have a third receipt for the confection of 
 Nicholas Nicklefy, darkness and caverns, vice and 
 blood, incest and adultery, " battez mots tout $a" and the 
 thing is done. Considering that Mr. Dickens has not 
 said a word about darkness, about caverns, about blood 
 (further than a little harmless claret drawn from Squeers's 
 nose), about the two other crimes mentioned by J. J., 
 is it not de luxe to put them into the Nickleby-receipt ? 
 Having read the romances of his own country, and no 
 others, J. J. thought he was safe, no doubt, in introducing 
 the last-named ingredients ; but in England the people is 
 still tant soit pen prudes, and will have none such fare. 
 In what a luxury of filth, too, does this delicate critic in- 
 dulge ! votre tete est pleine de vermine (a flattering sup- 
 position for the French reader, by the way, and remark- 
 
DICKENS IN FRANCE. 121 
 
 able for its polite propriety). Your head is in this con- 
 dition ; but never mind ; let the romancer do his work, 
 and he will presently place upon your filthy hair (kind 
 again) the ducal coronet. This is the way with Monsieur 
 Dickens, Captain Marryat, and the others. 
 
 With whom, in Heaven's name? What has poor 
 Dickens ever had to do with ducal crowns, or with the 
 other ornaments of the kind which Monsieur Jules dis- 
 tributes to his friends ? Tell lies about men, friend Jules, 
 if you will, but not such lies. See, for the future, that 
 they have a greater likelihood about them j and try if, at 
 least when you are talking of propriety and decency of 
 behavior, to have your words somewhat more cleanly, 
 and your own manners as little offensive as possible. 
 
 And with regard to the character of Squeers, the im- 
 possibility of it, and the consequent folly of placing such 
 a portrait in a work that pretends to be a painting of 
 manners, that, too, is a falsehood like the rest. Such a 
 disgrace to human nature not only existed, but existed in 
 J. J.'s country of France. Who does not remember the 
 history of the Boulogne schoolmaster, a year since, whom 
 the newspapers called the " French Squeers " ; and about 
 the same time, in the neighborhood of Paris, there was a 
 case still more atrocious, of a man and his wife who 
 farmed some score of children, subjected them to ill- 
 treatment so horrible, that only J. J. himself, in his nasti- 
 est fit of indignation, could describe it; and ended by 
 murdering one or two, and starving all. The whole story 
 was in the Debats, J. J.'s own newspaper, where the ac- 
 complished critic may read it. 
 
JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OF LIFE AND 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 |E, who recall the consulship of Plancus, and 
 quite respectable old-fogeyfied times, remem- 
 ber, amongst other amusements which we had 
 as children, the pictures at which we were 
 permitted to look. There was Boydell's Shakespeare, 
 ^ black and ghastly gallery of murky Opies, glum North- 
 cotes, straddling Fuselis ! there were Lear, Oberon, Ham- 
 let, with starting muscles, rolling eyeballs, and long point- 
 ing quivering fingers ; there was little Prince Arthur 
 (Northcote) crying, in white satin, and bidding good 
 Hubert not put out his eyes ; there was Hubert crying ; 
 there was little Rutland being run through the poor little 
 body by bloody Clifford; there was Cardinal Beaufort 
 (Reynolds) gnashing his teeth, and grinning and howling 
 demoniacally on his death-bed (a picture frightful to the 
 present day) ; there was Lady Hamilton (Romney) wav- 
 ing a torch and dancing before a black background, 
 a melancholy museum indeed. Smirke's delightful Seven 
 Ages only fitfully relieved its general gloom. We did 
 not like to inspect it unless the elders were present, and 
 plenty of lights and company were in the room. 
 
 Cheerful relatives used to treat us to Miss Linwood's. 
 Let the children of the present generation thank their 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTEH. 123 
 
 stars that tragedy is put out of their way. Miss Lin- 
 wood's was worsted work. Your grandmother or grand- 
 aunts took you there, and said the pictures were admira- 
 ble. You saw " The Woodman " in worsted, with his 
 axe and dog, trampling through the snow ; the snow bit- 
 ter cold to look at, the woodman's pipe wonderful ; a 
 gloomy piece, that made you shudder. There were large 
 dingy pictures of woollen martyrs, and scowling warriors 
 with limbs strongly knitted ; there was especially, at the 
 end of a black passage, a den of lions, that would frighten 
 any boy not born in Africa, or Exeter Change, and ac- 
 customed to them. 
 
 Another exhibition used to be West's Gallery, where 
 the pleasing figures of Lazarus in his grave-clothes, and 
 Death on the Pale Horse, used to impress us children. 
 The tombs of Westminster Abbey, the vaults at St. 
 Paul's, the men in armor at the Tower, frowning fero- 
 ciously out of their helmets, and wielding their dreadful 
 swords ; that superhuman Queen Elizabeth at the end of 
 the room, a livid sovereign with glass eyes, a ruff, and a 
 dirty satin petticoat, riding a horse covered with steel : 
 who does not remember these sights in London in the 
 consulship of Plancus ? and the waxwork in Fleet Street, 
 not like that of Madame Tussaud's, whose chamber of 
 death is gay and brilliant, but a nice old gloomy wax- 
 work, full of murderers; and as a chief attraction, the 
 dead baby and the Princess Charlotte lying in state. 
 
 Our story-books had no pictures in them for the most 
 part. Frank (dear old Frank !) had none ; nor the Par- 
 ent's Assistant ; nor the Evenings at Home ; nor our 
 copy of the Ami des Enfans : there were a few just at 
 the end of the Spelling Book ; besides the allegory at the 
 beginning, of Education leading up Youth to the temple 
 
124 JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OF 
 
 of Industry, where Dr. Dilworth and Professor Walking- 
 hame stood with crowns of laurel ; there were, we say, 
 just a few pictures at the end of the Spelling Book, little 
 oval gray woodcuts of Bewick's, mostly of the Wolf and 
 the Lamb, the Dog and the Shadow, and Brown, Jones, 
 and Robinson with long ringlets and little tights ; but for 
 pictures, so to speak, what had we ? The rough old 
 wood-blocks in the old harlequin-backed fairy-books had 
 served hundreds of years ; before our Plancus, in the 
 time of Priscus Plancus, in Queen Anne's time, who 
 knows ? We were flogged at school ; we were fifty boys 
 in our boarding-house, and had to wash in a leaden 
 trough, under a cistern, with lumps of fat yellow soap 
 floating about in the ice and water. Are our sons ever 
 flogged? Have they not dressing-rooms, hair-oil, hip- 
 baths, and Baden towels ? And what picture-books the 
 young villains have ! What have these children done 
 that they should be so much happier than we were ? 
 
 We had the Arabian Nights and Walter Scott, to be 
 sure. Smirke's illustrations to the former are very fine. 
 We did not know how good they were then ; but we 
 doubt whether we did not prefer the little old Miniature 
 Library Nights with frontispieces by Uwins ; for these 
 books the pictures don't count. Every boy of imagina- 
 tion does his own pictures to Scott and the Arabian 
 Nights best. 
 
 Of funny pictures there were none especially intended 
 for us children. There was Rowlandson's Dr. Syntax : 
 Doctor Syntax, in a fuzz-wig, on a horse with legs like 
 sausages, riding races, making love, frolicking with rosy 
 exuberant damsels. Those pictures were very funny, 
 and that aqua-tinting and the gay-colored plates very 
 pleasant to witness ; but if we could not read the poem 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER. 125 
 
 in those days, could we digest it in this ? Nevertheless, 
 apart from the text which we could not master, we re- 
 member Dr. Syntax pleasantly, like those cheerful paint- 
 ed hieroglyphics in the Nineveh Court at Sydenham. 
 What matter for the arrow-head, illegible stuff? give us 
 the placid grinning kings, twanging their jolly bows over 
 their rident horses, wounding those good-humored ene- 
 mies, who tumble gayly off the towers, or drown, smiling 
 in the dimpling waters, amidst the anerithmon gelasma 
 of the fish. 
 
 After Dr. Syntax, the apparition of Corinthian Tom, 
 Jerry Hawthorne, and the facetious Bob Logic must be 
 recorded, a wondrous history indeed theirs was ! When 
 the future student of our manners comes to look over the 
 pictures and the writing of these queer volumes, what 
 will he think of our society, customs, and language in the 
 consulship of Plancus ? We have still in our mind's eye 
 some of the pictures of that sportive gallery : the white 
 coat, Prussian-blue pantaloons, Hessian boots, and hooked 
 nose of Corinthian Tom ; Jerry's green cut-away and 
 leather gaiters ; Bob Logic's green spectacles, and high- 
 waisted surtout. " Corinthian," it appears, was the phrase 
 applied to men of fashion and ton in Plancus's time: 
 they were the brilliant predecessors of the " swell " of the 
 present period, brilliant, but somewhat barbarous it 
 must be confessed. The Corinthians were in the habit 
 of drinking a great deal too much in Tom Cribb's parlor; 
 they used to go and see " life " in the ginshops ; of nights, 
 walking home (as well as they could), they used to knock 
 down " Charleys," poor harmless old watchmen with lan- 
 terns, guardians of the streets of Rome, Planco Consule. 
 They perpetrated a vast deal of boxing ; they put on the 
 " mufflers " in Jackson's rooms ; they " sported their 
 
126 JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OF 
 
 prads " in the Ring in the Park ; they attended cock- 
 fights, and were enlightened patrons of dogs and destroy- 
 ers of rats. Besides these sports, the delassemens of gen- 
 tlemen mixing with the people, our patricians, of course, 
 occasionally enjoyed the society of their own class. What 
 a wonderful picture that used to be of Corinthian Tom 
 dancing with Corinthian Kate at Almack's ! What a 
 prodigious dress Kate wore ! With what graceful aban- 
 don the pair flung their arms about as they swept through 
 the mazy quadrille, with all the noblemen standing round 
 in their stars and uniforms ! You may still, doubtless, 
 see the pictures at the British Museum, or find the vol- 
 umes in the corner of some old country-house library. 
 You are led to suppose that the English aristocracy of 
 1820 did dance and caper in that way, and box and drink 
 at Tom Cribb's, and knock down watchmen ; and the 
 children of to-day, turning to their elders, may say, 
 " Grandmamma, did you wear such a dress as that when 
 you danced at Almack's ? There was very little of it, 
 grandmamma. Did grandpapa kill many watchmen 
 when he was a young man, and frequent thieves, gin- 
 shops, cock-fights, and the ring before you married him ? 
 Did he use to talk the extraordinary slang and jargon 
 which is printed in this book ? He is very much changed. 
 He seems a gentlemanly old boy enough now." 
 
 In the above-named consulate, when we had grand- 
 fathers alive, there would be in the old gentleman's 
 library in the country two or three old mottled portfo- 
 lios, or great swollen scrap-books of blue paper, full of 
 the comic prints of grandpapa's time, ere Plancus ever 
 had the fasces borne before him. These prints were 
 signed Gillray, Bunbury, Rowlandson, Woodward, and 
 some actually George Cruikshank, for George is a vete- 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER. 127 
 
 ran now, and he took the etching needle in hand as a 
 child. He caricatured " Boney," borrowing not a little 
 from Gillray in his first puerile efforts. He drew Louis 
 XVIII. trying on Boney's boots; Before the century 
 was actually in its teens we believe that George Cruik- 
 shank was amusing the public. 
 
 In those great colored prints in our grandfather's port- 
 folios in the library, and in some other apartments of the 
 house, where the caricatures used to be pasted in those 
 days, we found things quite beyond our comprehension. 
 Boney was represented as a fierce dwarf, with goggle 
 eyes, a huge lace hat, and tricolored plume, a crooked 
 sabre, reeking with blood, a little demon, revelling in 
 lust, murder, massacre. John Bull was shown kicking 
 him a good deal ; indeed, he was prodigiously kicked all 
 through that series of pictures ; by Sydney Smith and our 
 brave allies the gallant Turks ; by the excellent and 
 patriotic Spaniards ; by the amiable and indignant Rus- 
 sians, all nations had boots at the service of poor 
 Master Boney. How Pitt used to defy him ! How 
 good old George, King of Brobdignag, laughed at Gul- 
 liver-Boney, sailing about in his tank to make sport for 
 their majesties ! This little fiend, this beggar's brat, 
 cowardly, murderous, and atheistic as he was (we re- 
 member in those old portfolios, pictures representing 
 Boney and his family in rags, gnawing raw bones in a 
 Corsican hut ; Boney murdering the sick at Jaffa ; Boney 
 with a hookah and a large turban, having adopted the 
 Turkish religion, &c.), this Corsican monster, never- 
 theless, had some devoted friends in England, according 
 to the Gillray chronicle, a set of villains who loved 
 atheism, tyranny, plunder, and wickedness, in general, 
 like their French friend. In the pictures, these men 
 
128 JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OF 
 
 were all represented as dwarfs, like their ally. The mis- 
 creants got into power at one time, and, if we remember 
 right, were called the Broadbacked Administration. One 
 with shaggy eyebrows and a bristly beard, the hirsute 
 ringleader of the rascals, was, it appears, called Charles 
 James Fox ; another miscreant, with a blotched counte- 
 nance, was a certain Sheridan ; other imps were hight 
 Erskine, Norfolk (Jockey of), Moira, Henry Petty. As 
 in our childish innocence we used to look at these de- 
 mons, now sprawling and tipsy in their cups ; now scaling 
 heaven, from which the angelic Pitt hurled them down ; 
 now cursing the light (their atrocious ringleader Fox 
 was represented with hairy cloven feet, and a tail and 
 horns) ; now kissing Boney's boot, but inevitably discom- 
 fited by Pitt and the other good angels, we hated these 
 vicious wretches, as good children should ; we were on 
 the side of Virtue and Pitt and Grandpapa. But if our 
 sisters wanted to look at the portfolios, the good old 
 grandfather used to hesitate. There were some prints 
 among them very odd indeed ; some that girls could not 
 understand; some that boys, indeed, had best not see. 
 We swiftly turn over those prohibited pages. How 
 many of them were in the wild, coarse, reckless, ribald, 
 generous book of old English humor ! 
 
 How savage the satire was, how fierce the assault, 
 what garbage hurled at opponents, what foul blows 
 were hit, what language of Billingsgate flung ! Fancy 
 a party in a country house now looking over Woodward's 
 facetia3, or some of the Gillray comicalities, or the slat- 
 ternly Saturnalia of Rowlandson ! Whilst we live we 
 must laugh, and have folks to make us laugh. We can- 
 not afford to lose Satyr, with his pipe and dances and 
 gambols. But we have washed, combed, clothed, and 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER. 129 
 
 taught the rogue good manners ; or rather, let us say, he 
 has learned them himself; for he is of nature soft and 
 kindly, and he has put aside his mad pranks and tipsy 
 habits; and, frolicsome always, has become gentle and 
 harmless, smitten into shame by the pure presence of our 
 women and the sweet confiding smiles of our children. 
 Among the veterans, the old pictorial satirists, we have 
 mentioned the famous name of one humorous designer 
 who is still alive and at work. Did we not see, by his own 
 hand, his own portrait of his own famous face, and whisk- 
 ers, in the " Illustrated London News " the other day ? 
 There was a print in that paper of an assemblage of Tea- 
 totallers in Sadler's Wells Theatre, and we straightway 
 recognized the old Roman hand, the old Roman's of 
 the time of Plancus, George Cruikshank's. There 
 were the old bonnets and droll faces and shoes, and short 
 trousers, and figures of 1820, sure enough. And there 
 was George (who has taken to the water-doctrine, as all 
 the world knows) handing some teatotalleresses over a 
 plank to the table where the pledge was being adminis- 
 tered. How often has George drawn that picture of 
 Cruikshank ! Where have n't we seen it ? How fine it 
 was, facing the effigy of Mr. Ainsworth in " Ainsworth's 
 Magazine," when George illustrated that periodical ! 
 How grand and severe he stands in that design in G. C.'s 
 " Omnibus," where he represents himself tonged like St. 
 Dunstan, and tweaking a wretch of a publisher by the 
 nose ! The collectors of George's etchings, O the 
 charming etchings ! O the dear old German popular 
 tales ! the capital " Points of Humor," the delightful 
 Phrenology and scrap-books, of the good time, our time, 
 Plancus's in fact, the collectors of the Georgian etch- 
 ings, we say, have at least a hundred pictures of the artist. 
 6* i 
 
130 JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OF 
 
 Why, we remember him in his favorite Hessian boots 
 in " Tom and Jerry " itself; and in woodcuts as far back 
 as the Queen's trial. He has rather deserted satire 
 and comedy of late years, having turned his attention to 
 the serious, and warlike, and sublime. Having confessed 
 our age and prejudices, we prefer the comic and fanciful 
 to the historic, romantic, and at present didactic George. 
 May respect, and length of days, and comfortable repose 
 attend the brave, honest, kindly, pure-minded artist, hu- 
 morist, moralist ! It was he first who brought English 
 pictorial humor and children acquainted. Our young 
 people and their fathers and mothers owe him many a 
 pleasant hour and harmless laugh. Is there no way in 
 which the country could acknowledge the long services 
 and brave career of such a friend and benefactor ? 
 
 Since George's time humor has been converted. Co- 
 mus and his wicked satyrs and leering fauns have disap- 
 peared, and fled into the lowest haunts ; and Comus's 
 lady (if she had a taste for humor, which may be doubted) 
 might take up our funny picture-books without the slight- 
 est precautionary squeamishness. What can be purer 
 than the charming fancies of Richard Doyle ? In all Mr. 
 Punch's huge galleries can't we walk as safely as through 
 Miss Pinkerton's school-rooms ? And as we look at Mr. 
 Punch's pictures, at the Illustrated News pictures, at all 
 the pictures in the book-shop windows at this Christmas 
 season, as oldsters, we feel a certain pang of envy against 
 the youngsters, they are too well off. Why had n't 
 we picture-books ? Why were we flogged so ? A plague 
 on the lictors and their rods in the time of Plancus ! 
 
 And now, after this rambling preface, we are arrived 
 at the subject in hand, Mr. John Leech and his " Pic- 
 tures of Life and Character," in the collection of Mr. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER. 131 
 
 Punch. This book is better than plum-cake at Christ- 
 mas. It is an enduring plum-cake, which you may eat, 
 and which you may slice and deliver to your friends ; 
 and to which, having cut it, you may come again and 
 welcome, from year's end to year's end. In the frontis- 
 piece you see Mr. Punch examining the pictures in his 
 gallery, a portly, well-dressed, middle-aged, respectable 
 gentleman, in a, white neckcloth, 'and a polite evening 
 costume, smiling in a very bland and agreeable manner 
 upon one of his pleasant drawings, taken out of one of his 
 handsome portfolios. Mr. Punch has very good reason 
 to smile at the work and be satisfied with the artist. Mr. 
 Leech, his chief contributor, and some kindred humorists, 
 with pencil and pen have served Mr. Punch admirably. 
 Time was, if we remember Mr. P's history rightly, that 
 he did not wear silk stockings nor well-made clothes (the 
 little dorsal irregularity in his figure is almost an orna- 
 ment now, so excellent a tailor has he). He was of hum- 
 ble beginnings. It is said he kept a ragged little booth, 
 which he put up at corners of streets ; associated with 
 beadles, policemen, his own ugly wife (whom he treated 
 most scandalously), and persons in a low station of life ; 
 earning a precarious livelihood by the cracking of wild 
 jokes, the singing of ribald songs, and halfpence extorted 
 from passers by. He is the Satyric genius we spoke 
 of anon : he cracks his jokes still, for satire must live ; 
 but he is combed, washed, neatly clothed, and perfectly 
 presentable. He goes into the very best company ; he 
 keeps a stud at Melton ; he has a moor in Scotland ; he 
 rides in the Park ; has his stall at the opera ; is con- 
 stantly dining out at clubs and in private society ; and 
 goes every night in the season to balls and parties, where 
 you see the most beautiful women possible. He is wel- 
 
132 JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OF 
 
 corned amongst his new friends, the great ; though, like 
 the good old English gentleman of the song, he does not 
 forget the small. He pats the heads of street boys and 
 girls ; relishes the jokes of Jack the costermonger and 
 Bob the dustman; good-naturedly spies out Molly the 
 cook, flirting with policeman X, or Mary the nursemaid, 
 as she listens to the fascinating guardsman. He used 
 rather to laugh at guardsmen, " plungers," and other mil- 
 itary men ; and was until latter days very contemptuous 
 in his behavior towards Frenchmen. He has a natural 
 antipathy to pomp, and swagger, and fierce demeanor. 
 But now that the guardsmen are gone to war, and the 
 dandies of " The Rag " dandies no more are bat- 
 tling like heroes at Balaklava and Inkermann, by the side 
 of their heroic allies, Mr. Punch's laughter is changed to 
 hearty respect and enthusiasm. It is not against courage 
 and honor he wars : but this great moralist must it be 
 owned ? has some popular British prejudices, and these 
 led him in peace-time to laugh at soldiers and French- 
 men. If those hulking footmen who accompanied the 
 carriages to the opening of Parliament the other day, 
 would form a plush brigade, wear only gunpowder in their 
 hair, and strike with their great canes on the enemy, Mr. 
 Punch would leave off laughing at Jeames, who, mean- 
 while, remains among us, to all outward appearance re- 
 gardless of satire, and calmly consuming his five meals 
 per diem. Against lawyers, beadles, bishops and clergy, 
 and authorities, Mr. Punch is still rather bitter. At the 
 time of the Papal aggression he was prodigiously angry ; 
 and one of the chief misfortunes which happened to him 
 at that period was that, through the violent opinions 
 which he expressed regarding the Roman Catholic hie- 
 rarchy, he lost the invaluable services, the graceful pencil, 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER. 133 
 
 the harmless wit, the charming fancy of Mr. Doyle. 
 Another member of Mr. Punch's cabinet, the biographer 
 of Jeames, the author of * 4 The Snob Papers," resigned his 
 functions on account of Mr. Punch's assaults upon the 
 present Emperor of the French nation, whose anger 
 Jeames thought it was unpatriotic to arouse. Mr. Punch 
 parted with these contributors : he filled their places with 
 others as good. The boys at the railroad stations cried 
 Punch just as cheerily, and sold just as many numbers, 
 after these events as before. 
 
 There is no blinking the fact that in Mr. Punch's 
 cabinet John Leech is the right-hand man. Fancy a 
 number of Punch without Leech's pictures ! What 
 would you give for it? The learned gentlemen who 
 write the work must feel that, without him, it were as 
 well left alone. Look at the rivals whom the popularity 
 of Punch has brought into the field ; the direct imitators 
 of Mr. Leech's manner, the artists with a manner of 
 their own, how inferior their pencils are to his in hu- 
 mor, in depicting the public manners, in arresting, amus- 
 ing the nation. The truth, the strength, the free vigor, 
 the kind humor, the John Bull pluck and spirit of that 
 hand are approached by no competitor. With what dex- 
 terity he draws a horse, a woman, a child ! He feels 
 them all, so to speak, like a man. What plump young 
 beauties those are with which Mr. Punch's chief con- 
 tributor supplies the old gentleman's pictorial harem ! 
 What famous thews and sinews Mr. Punch's horses have, 
 and how Briggs, on the back of them, scampers across 
 country ! You see youth, strength, enjoyment, manliness 
 in those drawings, and in none more so, to our thinking, 
 than in the hundred pictures of children which this artist 
 loves to design. Like a brave, hearty, good-natured 
 
134 JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OF 
 
 Briton, he becomes quite soft and tender with the little 
 creatures, pats gently their little golden heads, and 
 watches with unfailing pleasure their ways, their sports, 
 their jokes, laughter, caresses. Enfans terribles come 
 home from Eton ; young Miss practising her first flirta- 
 tion ; poor little ragged Polly making dirt pies in the 
 gutter, or staggering under the weight of Jacky, her 
 nurse-child, who is as big as herself, all these little 
 ones, patrician and plebeian, meet with kindness from this 
 kind heart, and are watched with curious nicety by this 
 amiable observer. 
 
 We remember, in one of those ancient Gillray port- 
 folios, a print which used to cause a sort of terror in us 
 youthful spectators, and in which the Prince of Wales 
 (His Royal Highness was a Foxite then) was repre- 
 sented as sitting alone in a magnificent hall after a volup- 
 tuous meal, and using a great steel fork in the guise of a 
 toothpick. Fancy the first young gentleman living em- 
 ploying such a weapon in such a way ! The most elegant 
 Prince of Europe engaged with a two-pronged iron fork, 
 the heir of Britannia with a bident! The man of 
 genius who drew that picture saw little of the society 
 which he satirized and amused. Gillray watched public 
 characters as they walked by the shop in St. James's 
 Street, or passed through the lobby of the House of 
 Commons. His. studio was a garret, or little better ; his 
 place of amusement, a tavern-parlor where his club held 
 its nightly sittings over their pipes and sanded floor. 
 You could not have society represented by men to whom 
 it was not familiar. When Gavarni came to England a 
 few years since one of the wittiest of men, one of the 
 most brilliant and dexterous of draughtsmen he pub- 
 lished a book of Les Anglais, and his Anglais were all 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER. 135 
 
 Frenchmen. The eye, so keen and so long practised to 
 observe Parisian life, could not perceive English charac- 
 ter. A social painter must be of the world which he de- 
 picts, and native to the manners which he portrays. 
 
 Now, any one who looks over Mr. Leech's portfolio 
 must see that the social pictures which he gives us are 
 authentic. What comfortable little drawing-rooms and 
 dining-rooms, what snug libraries we enter ; what fine 
 young-gentlemanly wags they are, those beautiful little 
 dandies who wake up gouty old grandpapa to ring the 
 bell ; who decline aunt's pudding and custards, saying 
 that they will reserve themselves for an anchovy toast 
 with the claret ; who talk together in ball-room doors, 
 where Fred whispers Charley, pointing to a dear little 
 partner seven years old, " My dear Charley, she has 
 very much gone off; you should have seen that girl last 
 season ! " Look well at everything appertaining to the 
 economy of the famous Mr. Briggs ; how snug, quiet, ap- 
 propriate all the appointments are ! What a comfortable, 
 neat, clean, middle-class house Briggs's is (in the Bays- 
 water suburb of London, we should guess, from the 
 sketches of the surrounding scenery) ! What a good 
 stable he has, with a loose box for those celebrated hunt- 
 ers which he rides ! How pleasant, clean, and warm 
 his breakfast-table looks ! What a trim little maid 
 brings in the top-boots which horrify Mrs. B. ! What a 
 snug dressing-room he has, complete in all its appoint- 
 ments, and in which he appears trying on the delightful 
 hunting-cap which Mrs. Briggs flings into the fire ! How 
 cosey all the Briggs party seem in their dining-room, 
 Briggs reading a Treatise on Dog-breaking by a lamp ; 
 Mamma and Grannie with their respective needle-works; 
 the children clustering round a great book of prints, 
 
136 JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OF 
 
 a great book of prints such as this before us, which, at 
 this season, must make thousands of children happy by 
 as many firesides ! The inner life of all these people is 
 represented : Leech draws them as naturally as Teniers 
 depicts Dutch boors, or Morland pigs and stables. It is 
 your house and mine : we are looking at everybody's 
 family circle. Our boys coming from school give them- 
 selves such airs, the young scapegraces ! our girls, going 
 to parties, are so tricked out by fond mammas, a social 
 history of London in the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. As such future students lucky they to have a 
 book so pleasant will regard these pages : even the 
 mutations of fashion they may follow here if they be so 
 inclined. Mr. Leech has as fine an eye for tailory and 
 millinery as for horse-flesh. How they change those 
 cloaks and bonnets ! How we have to pay milliners' 
 bills from year to year! Where are those prodigious 
 chatelaines of 1850 which no lady could be without? 
 Where those charming waistcoats, those "stunning" 
 waistcoats, which our young girls used to wear a few 
 brief seasons back, and which cause 'Gus, in the sweet 
 little sketch of " La Mode," to ask Ellen for her tailor's 
 address ! 'Gus is a young warrior by this time, very 
 likely facing the enemy at Inkermann ; and pretty Ellen, 
 and that love of a sister of hers, are married and happy, 
 let us hope, superintending one of those delightful nursery 
 scenes which our artist depicts with such tender humor. 
 Fortunate artist, indeed ! You see he must have been 
 bred at a good public school ; that he has ridden many a 
 good horse in his day ; paid, no doubt, out of his own 
 purse for the originals of some of those lovely caps and 
 bonnets ; and watched paternally the ways, smiles, frolics, 
 and slumbers of his favorite little people. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER. 137 
 
 As you look at the drawings, secrets come out of them, 
 private jokes, as it were, imparted to you by the au- 
 thor for your special delectation. How remarkably, for 
 instance, has Mr. Leech observed the hair-dressers of the 
 present age ! Look at " Mr. Tongs," whom that hideous 
 old bald woman, who ties on her bonnet at the glass, in- 
 forms that "she has used the whole bottle of Balm of 
 California, but her hair comes off yet." You can see the 
 bear's grease not only on Tongs's head but on his hands, 
 which he is clapping clammily together. Remark him 
 who is telling his client " there is cholera in the hair " ; 
 and that lucky rogue whom the young lady bids to cut 
 off " a long thick piece " for somebody, doubtless. All 
 these men are different, and delightfully natural and ab- 
 surd. Why should hair-dressing be an absurd profes- 
 sion ? 
 
 The amateur will remark what an excellent part hands 
 play in Mr. Leech's pieces : his admirable actors use 
 them with perfect naturalness. Look at Betty, putting 
 the urn down ; at cook, laying her hands on the kitchen 
 table, whilst her policeman grumbles at the cold meat. 
 They are cook's and housemaid's hands without mistake, 
 and not without a certain beauty too. The bald old lady, 
 who is tying her bonnet at Tongs's, has hands which you 
 see are trembling. Watch the fingers of the two old har- 
 ridans who are talking scandal : for what long years past 
 they have pointed out holes in their neighbors' dresses 
 and mud on their flounces. " Here 's a go ! I 've lost 
 my diamond ring." As the dustman utters this pathetic 
 cry, and looks at his hand, you burst out laughing. These 
 are among the little points of humor. One could indicate 
 hundreds of such as one turns over the pleasant pages. 
 
 There is a little snob or gent, whom we all of us know, 
 
138 JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES. 
 
 who wears little tufts on his little chin, outrageous pins 
 and pantaloons, smokes cigars on tobacconists' counters, 
 sucks his cane in the streets, struts about with Mrs. Snob 
 and the baby (the latter an immense woman, whom Snob 
 nevertheless bullies), who is a favorite abomination of 
 Leech, and pursued by that savage humorist into a thou- 
 sand of his haunts. There he is, choosing waistcoats at 
 the tailor's, such waistcoats ! Yonder he is giving a 
 shilling to the sweeper who calls him " capting " ; now 
 he is offering a paletot to a huge giant who is going out 
 in the rain. They don't know their own pictures, very 
 likely ; if they did, they would have a meeting, and thirty 
 or forty of them would be deputed to thrash Mr. Leech. 
 One feels a pity for the poor little bucks. In a minute 
 or two, when we close this discourse and walk the streets, 
 we shall see a dozen such. 
 
 Ere we shut the desk up, just one word to point out to 
 the unwary specially to note the backgrounds of land- 
 scapes in Leech's drawings, homely drawings of moor 
 and wood, and sea-shore and London street, the scenes 
 of his little dramas. They are as excellently true to 
 nature as the actors themselves ; our respect for the 
 genius and humor which invented both increases as we 
 look and look again at the designs. May we have more 
 of them ; more pleasant Christmas volumes, over which 
 we and our children can laugh together. Can we have 
 too much of truth, and fun, and beauty, and kindness ? 
 
LITTLE TRAVELS AND ROAD-SIDE 
 SKETCHES. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 FROM RICHMOND IN SURREY TO BRUSSELS IN BELGIUM. 
 
 QUITTED the Rose Cottage Hotel at Rich- 
 mond, one of the comfortablest, quietest, cheap- 
 est, neatest, little inns in England, and a thou- 
 sand times preferable, in my opinion, to the Star 
 and Garter, whither, if you go alone, a sneering waiter, 
 with his hair curled, frightens you off the premises ; and 
 where, if you are bold enough to brave the sneering wait- 
 er, you have to pay ten shillings for a bottle of claret ; 
 and whence, if you look out of the window, you gaze on 
 a view which is so rich that it seems to knock you down 
 with its splendor, a view that has its hair curled like 
 the swaggering waiter : I say, I quitted the Rose Cottage 
 Hotel with deep regret, believing that I should see nothing 
 so pleasant as its gardens, and its veal-cutlets, and its dear 
 little bowling-green, elsewhere. But the time comes 
 when people must go out of town, and so I got on the top 
 of the omnibus, and the carpet-bag was put inside. 
 
 If I were a great prince and rode outside of coaches 
 (as I should if I were a great prince), I would, whether 
 I smoked or not, have a case of the best Havanas in my 
 
140 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 pocket, not for my own smoking, but to give them to 
 the snobs on the coach, who smoke the vilest cheroots. 
 They poison the air with the odor of their filthy weeds. 
 A man at all easy in his circumstances would spare him- 
 self much annoyance by taking the above simple precau- 
 tion. 
 
 A gentleman sitting behind me tapped me on the back 
 and asked for a light. He was a footman, or rather val- 
 et. He had no livery, but the three friends who accom- 
 panied him were tall men in pepper-and-salt undress jack- 
 ets, with a duke's coronet on their buttons. 
 
 After tapping me on the back, and when he had finished 
 his cheroot, the gentleman produced another wind-instru- 
 ment, which he called a " kinopium," a sort of trumpet, 
 on which he showed a great inclination to play. He be- 
 gan puffing out of the " kinopium " a most abominable 
 air, which he said was the " Duke's March." It was 
 played by particular request of one of the pepper-and- 
 salt gentry. 
 
 The noise was so abominable that even the coachman 
 objected (although my friend's brother footmen were rav- 
 ished with it), and said that it was not allowed to play 
 toons on his bus. " Very well," said the valet, " we 're 
 
 only of the Duke of B 's establishment, THAT 's 
 
 ALL." The coachman could not resist that appeal to his 
 fashionable feelings. The valet was allowed to play his 
 infernal kinopium, and the poor fellow (the coachman), 
 who had lived in some private families, was quite anxious 
 to conciliate .the footmen of the Duke of Buccleuch's es- 
 tablishment, that 's all, and told several stories of his hav- 
 ing been groom in Captain Hoskins's family, nephew of 
 Governor Hoskins, which stories the footmen received 
 with great contempt. 
 
EOAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 141 
 
 The footmen were like the rest of the fashionable 
 world in .this respect. I felt for my part that I respected 
 them. They were in daily communication with a duke ! 
 They were not the rose, but they had lived beside it. 
 There is an odor in the English aristocracy which intoxi- 
 cates plebeians. I am sure that any commoner in Eng- 
 land, though he would die rather than confess it, would 
 have a respect for those great, big, hulking duke's foot- 
 men. 
 
 The day before, her Grace, the Duchess, had passed us 
 alone in a chariot-and-four with two outriders. What 
 better mark of innate superiority could man want ? Here 
 was a slim lady who required four six horses to her- 
 self, and four servants (kinopium was, no doubt, one of 
 the number) to guard her. 
 
 We were sixteen inside and out, and had consequent- 
 ly an eighth of a horse a-piece. 
 
 A duchess = 6, a commoner = , that is to say, 
 1 duchess = 48 commoners. 
 
 If I were a duchess of the present day, I would say 
 to the duke, my noble husband, " My dearest Grace, I 
 think, when I travel alone in my chariot from Hammer- 
 smith to London, I will not care for the outriders. In 
 these days, when there is so much poverty and so much 
 disaffection in the country, we should not eclabousser the 
 canaille with the sight of our preposterous prosperity." 
 
 But this is, very likely, only plebeian envy, and, I dare 
 say, if I were a lovely duchess of the realm, I would ride 
 in a coach-and-six, with a coronet on the top of my bon- 
 net, and a robe of velvet and ermine, even in the dog- 
 days. 
 
 Alas ! these are the dog-days. Many dogs are abroad, 
 snarling dogs, biting dogs, envious dogs, mad dogs ; 
 
142 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 beware of exciting the fury of such with your flaming 
 red velvet and dazzling ermine. It makes ragged Laza- 
 rus doubly hungry to see Dives feasting in cloth of gold ; 
 and so if I were a beauteous duchess * * * Silence, 
 vain man, can the queen herself make you a duchess ? 
 Be content, then, nor jibe at thy betters of " the Duke of 
 B 's establishment, that 's all." 
 
 On board the Antwerpen, off everywhere. 
 
 We have bidden adieu to Billingsgate, we have passed 
 the Thames Tunnel; it is one o'clock, and, of course, 
 people are thinking of being hungry. What a merry 
 place a steamer is on a calm sunny summer forenoon, 
 and what an appetite every one seems to have ! We are, 
 I assure you, no less than one hundred and seventy no- 
 blemen and gentlemen together, pacing up and down un- 
 der the awning, or lolling on the sofas in the cabin, and 
 hardly have we passed Greenwich when the feeding be- 
 gins. The company was at 'the brandy and soda-water in 
 an instant (there is a sort of legend that the beverage is 
 a preservative against sea-sickness), and I admired the 
 penetration of gentlemen who partook of the drink. In 
 the first place, the steward will put so much brandy into 
 the tumbler that it is fit to choke you ; and, secondly, the 
 soda-water, being kept as near as possible to the boiler of 
 the engine, is of a fine wholesome heat when presented 
 to the hot and thirsty traveller. Thus he is prevented 
 from catching any sudden cold which might be dangerous 
 to him. 
 
 The forepart of the vessel is crowded to the full as 
 much as the genteeler quarter. There are four carriages, 
 each with piles of imperials and aristocratic gimcracks of 
 travel, under the wheels of which those personages have 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 143 
 
 to clamber who have a mind to look at the bowsprit, and 
 perhaps to smoke a cigar at ease. The carriages over- 
 come, you find yourself confronted by a huge penful of 
 Durham oxen, lying on hay and surrounded by a barri- 
 cade of oars. Fifteen of these horned monsters maintain 
 an incessant mooing and bellowing. Beyond the cows 
 come a heap of cotton-bags, beyond the cotton-bags more 
 carriages, more pyramids of travelling trunks, and valets 
 and couriers bustling and swearing round about them. 
 And already, and in various corners and niches, lying on 
 coils of rope, black tar cloths, ragged cloaks, or hay, you 
 see a score of those dubious fore-cabin passengers, who 
 are never shaved, who always look unhappy, and appear 
 getting ready to be sick. 
 
 At one, dinner begins in the after-cabin, boiled salm- 
 on, boiled beef, boiled mutton, boiled cabbage, boiled 
 potatoes, and parboiled wine for any gentlemen who like 
 it, and two roast ducks between seventy. After this, 
 knobs of cheese are handed round on a plate, and there is 
 a talk of a tart somewhere at some end of the table. All 
 this I saw peeping through a sort of meat-safe which ven- 
 tilates the top of the cabin, and very happy and hot did 
 the people seem below. 
 
 " How the deuce can people dine at such an hour ? " 
 say several genteel fellows who are watching the manoeu- 
 vres. "I can't touch a morsel before seven." 
 
 But somehow at half past three o'clock we had dropped 
 a long way down the river. The air was delightfully 
 fresh, the sky of a faultless cobalt, the river shining and 
 flashing like quicksilver, and at this period steward 
 runs against me, bearing two great smoking dishes covered 
 by two great glistening hemispheres of tin. "Fellow," 
 says I, " what 's that ? " 
 
144 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 He lifted up the cover, it was ducks and green peas, by 
 jingo ! 
 
 " What, have n't they done yet, the greedy creatures ? " 
 I asked. " Have the people been feeding for three 
 hours?" 
 
 " Law bless you, sir, it 's the second dinner. Make 
 haste, or you won't get a place " ; at which words a gen- 
 teel party, with whom I had been conversing, instantly 
 tumbled down the hatchway, and I find myself one of the 
 second relay of seventy who are attacking the boiled salm- 
 on, boiled beef, boiled cabbage, &c. As for the ducks, 
 I certainly had some, peas, very fine yellow stiff peas, 
 that ought to have been split before they were boiled; 
 but, with regard to the ducks, I saw the animals gobbled 
 up before my eyes by an old widow lady and her party 
 just as I was shrieking to the steward to bring a knife 
 and fork to carve them. The fellow (I mean the widow 
 lady's whiskered companion) ! I saw him eat peas with 
 the very knife with which he had dissected the duck! 
 
 After dinner (as I need not tell the keen observer of 
 human nature who peruses this) the human mind, if the 
 body be in a decent state, expands into gayety and benev- 
 olence, and the intellect longs to measure itself in friend- 
 ly converse with the divers intelligences around it. We 
 ascend upon deck, and after eying each other for a brief 
 space, and with a friendly modest hesitation, we begin 
 anon to converse about the weather, and other profound 
 and delightful themes of English discourse. We confide 
 to each other our respective opinions of the ladies round 
 about us. Look at that charming creature in a pink bonnet, 
 and a dress of the pattern of a Kilmarnock snuff-box ; a 
 stalwart Irish gentleman in a green coat and bushy red 
 whiskers is whispering something very agreeable into her 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 145 
 
 ear, as is the wont of gentlemen of his nation ; for her 
 dark eyes kindle, her red lips open, and give an opportu- 
 nity to a dozen beautiful pearly teeth to display them- 
 selves, and glance brightly in the sun, while round the 
 teeth and the lips a number of lovely dimples make their 
 appearance, and her whole countenance assumes a look 
 of perfect health and happiness. See her companion in 
 shot silk and a dove-colored parasol ; in what a graceful 
 Watteau-like attitude she reclines. The tall courier, who 
 has been bouncing about the deck in attendance upon 
 these ladies (it is his first day of service, and he is eager 
 to make a favorable impression on them and the lady's- 
 maids too), has just brought them from the carriage a 
 small paper of sweet cakes (nothing is prettier than to 
 see a pretty woman eating sweet biscuits), and a bottle 
 that evidently contains Malmsey madeira. How dain- 
 tily they sip it ; how happy they seem ; how that lucky 
 rogue of an Irishman prattles away ! Yonder is a noble 
 group indeed ; an English gentleman and his family. 
 Children, mother, grandmother, grown-up daughters, fa- 
 ther, and domestics, twenty-two in all. They have a 
 table to themselves on the deck, and the consumption of 
 eatables among them is really endless. The nurses have 
 been bustling to and fro, and bringing first, slices of cake ; 
 then dinner ; then tea, with huge family jugs of milk ; 
 and the little people have been playing hide-and-seek 
 round the deck, coquetting with the other children, and 
 making friends of every soul on board. I love to see the 
 kind eyes of women fondly watching them as they gambol 
 about ; a female face, be it ever so plain, when occupied in 
 regarding children, becomes celestial almost, and a man can 
 hardly fail to be good and happy while he is looking on at 
 such sights. " Ah, sir," says a great big man, whom you 
 7 j 
 
146 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 would not accuse of sentiment, " I have a couple of those 
 little things at home " ; and he stops and heaves a great 
 big sigh and swallows down a half tumbler of cold some- 
 thing and water. We know what the honest fellow 
 means well enough. He is saying to himself, " God bless 
 my girls and their mother ! " but, being a Briton, is too 
 manly to speak out in a more intelligible way. Perhaps 
 it is as well for him to be quiet, and not chatter and ges- 
 ticulate like those Frenchmen a few yards from him, who 
 are chirping over a bottle of champagne. 
 
 There is, as you may fancy, a number of such groups 
 on the deck, and a pleasant occupation it is for a lonely 
 man to watch them and build theories upon them, and ex- 
 amine those two personages seated cheek by jowl. One 
 is an English youth, travelling for the first time, who has 
 been hard at his guide-book during the whole journey. 
 He has a Manuel du Voyageur in his pocket ; a very 
 pretty, amusing little oblong work it is too, and might be 
 very useful, if the foreign people in three languages, 
 among whom you travel, would but give the answers set 
 down in the book, or understand the questions you put to 
 them out of it. The other honest gentleman in the fur 
 cap, what can his occupation be ? We know him at once 
 for what he is. " Sir," says he, in a fine German accent, 
 "I am a brofessor of languages, and will gif you lessons 
 in Danish, Swedish, English, Bortuguese, Spanish, and 
 Bersian." Thus occupied in meditations, the rapid hours 
 and the rapid steamer pass quickly on. The sun is sink- 
 ing, and, as he drops, the ingenious luminary sets the 
 Thames on fire : several worthy gentlemen, watch in 
 hand, are eagerly examining the phenomena attending his 
 disappearance, rich clouds of purple and gold, that form 
 the curtains of his bed, little barks that pass black 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 147 
 
 across his disk, his disk every instant dropping nearer and 
 nearer into the water. " There he goes ! " says one sa- 
 gacious observer. " No he does n't," cries another. Now 
 he is gone, and the steward is already threading the deck, 
 asking the passengers, right and left, if they will take a 
 little supper. What a grand object is a sunset, and what 
 a wonder is an appetite at sea ! Lo ! the horned moon 
 shines pale over Margate, and the red beacon is gleaming 
 from distant Ramsgate pier. 
 
 ***** 
 A great rush is speedily made for the mattresses that 
 lie in the boat at the ship's side ; and, as the night is de- 
 lightfully calm, many fair ladies and worthy men deter- 
 mine to couch on deck for the night. The proceedings 
 of the former, especially if they be young and pretty, the 
 philosopher watches with indescribable emotion and in- 
 terest. What a number of pretty coquetries do the ladies 
 perform, and into what pretty attitudes do they take care 
 to fall ! All the little children have been gathered up by 
 the nursery-maids, and are taken down to roost below. 
 Balmy sleep seals the eyes of many tired wayfarers, as 
 you see in the case of the Russian nobleman asleep among 
 the portmanteaus ; and Titmarsh, who has been walking 
 the deck for some time with a great mattress on his 
 shoulders, knowing full well, that were he to relinquish 
 it for an instant, some other person would seize on it, 
 now stretches his bed upon the deck, wraps his cloak 
 about his knees, draws his white cotton nightcap tight 
 over his head and ears, and, as the smoke of his cigar 
 rises calmly upwards to the deep sky and the cheerful 
 twinkling stars, he feels himself exquisitely happy, and 
 thinks of thee, my Juliana ! 
 
 ***** 
 
148 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 Why people, because they are in a steamboat, should 
 get up so deucedly early I cannot understand. Gentle- 
 men have been walking over my legs ever since three 
 o'clock this morning, and, no doubt, have been indulging 
 in personalities (which I hate) regarding my appearance 
 and manner of sleeping, lying, snoring. Let the wags 
 laugh on ; but a far pleasanter occupation is to sleep until 
 breakfast-time, or near it. 
 
 The tea and ham and eggs, which, with a beef-steak or 
 two, and three or four rounds of toast, form the compo- 
 nent parts of the above-named elegant meal, are taken in 
 the river Scheldt. Little, neat, plump-looking churches 
 and villages are rising here and there among tufts of 
 trees and pastures that are wonderfully green. To the 
 right, as the Guide-book says, is Walcheren ; and on the 
 left, Cadsand, memorable for the English expedition, 
 of 1809, when Lord Chatham, Sir Walter Manny, and 
 Henry, Earl of Derby, at the head of the English, gained 
 a great victory over the Flemish mercenaries in the pay 
 of Philippe of Valois. The cloth-yard shafts of the Eng- 
 lish archers did great execution. Flushing was taken, 
 and Lord Chatham returned to England, where he dis- 
 tinguished himself greatly in the debates on the American 
 war, which he called the brightest jewel of the British 
 crown. You see, my love, that, though an artist by pro- 
 fession, my education has by no means been neglected ; and 
 what, indeed, would be the pleasure of travel, unless these 
 charming historical recollections were brought to bear 
 
 upon it? 
 
 Antwerp. 
 
 As many hundreds of thousands of English visit this 
 city (I have met at least a hundred of them in this half- 
 hour walking the streets, Guide-book in hand), and as 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 149 
 
 the ubiquitous Murray has already depicted the place, 
 there is no need to enter into a long description of it, 
 its neatness, its beauty, and its stiff antique splendor. 
 The tall, pale houses have many of them crimped gables, 
 that look like Queen Elizabeth's ruffs. There are as 
 many people in the streets as in London at three o'clock 
 in the morning. The market-women wear bonnets of a 
 flower-pot shape, and have shining brazen milk-pots, 
 which are delightful to the eyes of a painter. Along the 
 quays of the lazy Scheldt are innumerable good-natured 
 groups of beer-drinkers (small-beer is the most good-na- 
 tured drink in the world) ; along the barriers outside 
 of the town, and by the glistening canals, are more beer- 
 shops, and more beer-drinkers. The city is defended by 
 the queerest fat military. The chief traffic is between 
 the hotels and the railroad. The hotels give wonderful 
 good dinners ; and especially at the Grand Laboureur 
 may be mentioned a peculiar tart, which is the best of all 
 tarts that ever a man ate since he was ten years old. A 
 moonlight walk is delightful. At ten o'clock the whole 
 city is quiet ; and so little changed does it seem to be, 
 that you may walk back three hundred years into time, 
 and fancy yourself a majestical Spaniard, or an oppressed 
 and patriotic Dutchman, at your leisure. You enter the 
 inn, and the old Quentin Durward courtyard, in which 
 the old towers look down. There is a sound of singing, 
 singing at midnight. Is it Don Sombrero, who is 
 singing an Andalusian seguidilla under the window of 
 the Flemish burgomaster's daughter? Ah, no! it is a 
 fat Englishman in a zephyr coat ; he is drinking cold gin- 
 and-water in the moonlight, and warbling softly: 
 
 " Nix my dolly, pals, fake away, 
 N ix my dolly, pals, fake a a way." 
 
150 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 I wish the good people would knock off the top part 
 of Antwerp Cathedral spire. Nothing can be more gra- 
 cious and elegant than the lines of the first two compart- 
 ments ; but near the top there bulges out a little round, 
 ugly, vulgar, Dutch monstrosity (for which the architects 
 have, no doubt, a name) which offends the eye cruelly. 
 Take the Apollo, and set upon him a bob-wig and a little 
 cocked hat ; imagine God save the King ending with a 
 jig ; fancy a polonaise, or procession of slim, stately, ele- 
 gant court beauties, headed by a buffoon dancing a horn- 
 pipe. Marshal Gerard should have discharged a bomb- 
 shell at that abomination, and have given the noble 
 steeple a chance to be finished in the grand style of the 
 early fifteenth century, in which it was begun. 
 
 This style of criticism is base and mean, and quite con- 
 trary to the orders of the immortal Goethe, who was only 
 for allowing the eye to recognize the beauties of a great 
 work, but would have its defects passed over. It is an un- 
 happy, luckless organization which will be perpetually fault- 
 finding, and in the midst of a grand concert of music will 
 persist only in hearing that unfortunate fiddle out of tune. 
 
 Within except where the rococo architects have in- 
 troduced their ornaments (here is the fiddle out of tune 
 again) the cathedral is noble. A rich, tender sunshine 
 is streaming in through the windows, and gilding the 
 stately edifice with the purest light. The admirable 
 stained glass windows are not too brilliant in their colors. 
 The organ is playing a rich, solemn music ; some two 
 hundred of people are listening to the service ; and there 
 is scarce one of the women kneeling on her chair, en- 
 veloped in her full, majestic black drapery, but is not a 
 fine study for a painter. These large black mantles of 
 heavy silk brought over the heads of the women, and 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 151 
 
 covering their persons, fall into such .fine folds of drapery, 
 that they cannot help being picturesque and noble. See, 
 kneeling by the side of two of those fine devout-looking 
 figures, is a lady in a little twiddling Parisian hat and 
 leather, in a little lace mantelet, in a tight gown and 
 a bustle. She is almost as monstrous as yonder figure 
 of the Virgin, in a hoop, and with a huge crown and a 
 ball and a sceptre ; and a bambino dressed in a little 
 hoop, and in a little crown, round which are clustered 
 flowers and pots of orange-trees, and before which many 
 of the faithful are at prayer. Gentle clouds of incense 
 come wafting through the vast edifice ; and in the lulls 
 of the music you hear the faint chant of the priest, and 
 the silver tinkle of the bell. 
 
 Six Englishmen, with the Commissionaires and the 
 Murray's Guide-books in their hands, are looking at the 
 " Descent from the Cross." Of this picture the Guide- 
 book gives you orders how to judge. If it is the end of 
 religious painting to express the religious sentiment, a 
 hundred of inferior pictures must rank before Rubens. 
 Who was ever piously affected by any picture of the 
 master ? He can depict a livid thief writhing upon the 
 cross, sometimes a blonde Magdalen weeping below it ; 
 but it is a Magdalen a very short time indeed after her 
 repentance ; her yellow brocades and flaring satins are 
 still those which she wore when she was of the world ; 
 her body has not yet lost the marks of the feasting and 
 voluptuousness in which she used to indulge, according 
 to the legend. Not one of Rubens's pictures, among all 
 the scores that decorate chapels and churches here, has 
 the least tendency to purify, to touch the affections, or to 
 awaken the feelings of religious respect and wonder. 
 The " Descent from the Cross " is vast, gloomy, and 
 
152 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 awful ; but the awe inspired by it is, as I take it, alto- 
 gether material. He might have painted a picture of 
 any criminal broken on the wheel, and the sensation in- 
 spired by it would have been precisely similar. Nor in 
 a religious picture do you want the savoir-faire of the 
 master to be always protruding itself; it detracts from 
 the feeling of reverence, just as the thumping of cushion 
 and the spouting of tawdry oratory does from a sermon. 
 Meek religion disappears, shouldered out of the desk by 
 the pompous, stalwart, big-chested, fresh-colored, bushy- 
 whiskered pulpiteer. Rubens's piety has always struck 
 us as of this sort. If he takes a pious subject, it is to 
 show you in what a fine way he, Peter Paul Rubens, can 
 treat it. He never seems to doubt but that he is doing 
 it a great honor. His " Descent from the Cross," and its 
 accompanying wings and cover, are a set of puns upon 
 the word Christopher, of which the taste is more odious 
 than that of the hooped-petticoated Virgin yonder, with 
 her artificial flowers, and her rings and brooches. The 
 people who made an offering of that hooped-petticoat did 
 their best, at any rate ; they knew no better. There is 
 humility in that simple, quaint present ; trustfulness and 
 kind intention. Looking about at other altars, you see 
 (much to the horror of our pious) all sorts of queer little 
 emblems hanging up under little pyramids of penny can- 
 dles that are sputtering and flaring there. Here you 
 have a silver arm, or a little gold toe, or a wax leg, or a 
 gilt eye, signifying and commemorating cures that have 
 been performed by the supposed intercession of the saint 
 over whose chapel they hang. Well, although they are 
 abominable superstitions, yet these queer little offerings 
 seem to me to be a great deal more pious than Rubens's 
 big pictures; just as is the widow with her poor little 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 153 
 
 mite compared to the swelling Pharisee, who flings his 
 purse of gold into the plate. 
 
 A couple of days of Rubens and his church pictures 
 makes one thoroughly and entirely sick of him. His 
 very genius and splendor palls upon one, even taking the 
 pictures as worldly pictures. One grows weary of being 
 perpetually feasted with this rich, coarse, steaming food. 
 Considering them as church pictures, I don't want to go 
 to church to hear, however splendid, an organ play the 
 " British Grenadiers." 
 
 The Antwerpians have set up a clumsy bronze statue 
 of their div ? inity in a square of the town ; and those who 
 have not enough of Rubens in the churches may study 
 him, and, indeed, to much greater advantage, in a good, 
 well-lighted museum. Here there is one picture, a dying 
 saint taking the communion, a large piece, ten or eleven 
 feet high, and painted in an incredibly short space of 
 time, which is extremely curious, indeed, for the painter's 
 study. The picture is scarcely more than an immense 
 magnificent sketch ; but it tells the secret of the artist's 
 manner, which, in the midst of its dash and splendor, is 
 curiously methodical. Where the shadows are warm the 
 lights are cold, and vice versa; and the picture has been 
 so rapidly painted, that the tints lie raw by the side of 
 one another, the artist not having taken the trouble to 
 blend them. 
 
 There are two exquisite Vandykes (whatever Sir 
 Joshua may say of them), and in which the very manage- 
 ment of the gray tones which the president abuses forms 
 the principal excellence and charm. Why, after all, are 
 we not to have our opinion ? Sir Joshua is not the Pope. 
 The color of one of those Vandykes is as fine as fine 
 7* 
 
154 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 Paul Veronese, and the sentiment beautifully tender and 
 graceful. 
 
 I saw, too, an exhibition of the modern Belgian artists 
 (1843), the remembrance of whose pictures after a 
 month's absence has almost entirely vanished. Wapper's 
 hand, as I thought, seemed to have grown old and feeble, 
 Verboeckhoven's cattle-pieces are almost as good as Paul 
 Potter's, and Keyser has dwindled down into namby- 
 pamby prettiness, pitiful to see in the gallant young 
 painter who astonished the Louvre artists ten years ago 
 by a hand almost as dashing and ready as that of Rubens 
 himself. There were besides many caricatures of the new 
 German school, which are in themselves caricatures of the 
 masters before Raphael. 
 
 An instance of honesty may be mentioned here with 
 applause. The writer lost a pocket-book, containing a 
 passport and a couple of modest ten-pound notes. The 
 person who found the portfolio ingeniously put it into the 
 box of the post-office, and it was faithfully restored to the 
 owner ; but somehow the two ten-pound notes were 
 absent. It was, however, a great comfort to get the 
 passport, and the pocket-book, which must be worth about 
 ninepence. 
 
 BRUSSELS. 
 
 It was night when we arrived by the railroad from Ant- 
 werp at Brussels ; the route is very pretty and interest- 
 ing, and the flat countries through which the road passes 
 in the highest state of peaceful, smiling cultivation. The 
 fields by the roadside are enclosed by hedges as in Eng- 
 land, the harvest was in part down, and an English 
 country gentleman who was of our party pronounced 
 the crops to be as fine as any he had ever seen. Of 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 155 
 
 this matter a Cockney cannot judge accurately, but any 
 man can see with what extraordinary neatness and care 
 all these little plots of ground are tilled, and admire the 
 richness and brilliancy of the vegetation. Outside of the 
 moat of Antwerp, and at every village by which we 
 passed, it was pleasant to see the happy congregations of 
 well-clad people that basked in the evening sunshine, and 
 soberly smoked their pipes and drank their Flemish beer. 
 Men who love this drink must, as I fancy, have some- 
 thing essentially peaceful in their composition, and must 
 be more easily satisfied than folks on our side of the 
 water. The excitement of Flemish beer is, indeed, not 
 great. I have tried both the white beer and the brown ; 
 they are both of the kind which schoolboys denominate 
 " swipes," very sour and thin to the taste, but served, to 
 be sure, in quaint Flemish jugs that do not seem to have 
 changed their form since the days of Rubens, and must 
 please the lovers of antiquarian knick-knacks. Numbers 
 of comfortable-looking women and children sat beside the 
 head of the family upon the tavern-benches, and it was 
 amusing to see one little fellow of eight years old smok- 
 ing, with much gravity, his father's cigar. How the 
 worship of the sacred plant of tobacco has spread through 
 all Europe ! I am sure that the persons who cry out 
 against the use of it are guilty of superstition and unrea- 
 son, and that it would be a proper and easy task for 
 scientific persons to write an encomium upon the weed. 
 In solitude it is the pleasantest companion possible, and 
 in company never de trop. To a student it suggests all 
 sorts of agreeable thoughts, it refreshes the brain when 
 weary, and every sedentary cigar-smoker will tell you 
 how much good he has had from it, and how he has been 
 able to return to his labor, after a quarter of an hour's 
 
156 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 mild interval of the delightful leaf of Havannah. Drink- 
 ing has gone from among us since smoking came in. It 
 is a wicked error to say that smokers are drunkards ; 
 drink they do, but of gentle diluents mostly, for fierce 
 stimulants of wine or strong liquors are abhorrent to the 
 real lover of the Indian weed. Ah ! my Juliana, join 
 not in the vulgar cry that is raised against us. Cigars 
 and cool drinks beget quiet conversations, good-humor, 
 meditation ; not hot blood such as mounts into the head 
 of drinkers of apoplectic port or dangerous claret. Are 
 we not more moral and reasonable than our forefathers ? 
 Indeed, I think so, somewhat ; and many improvements 
 of social life and converse must date with the introduction 
 of the pipe. 
 
 We were a dozen tobacco-consumers in the wagon of 
 the train that brought us from Antwerp ; nor did the 
 women of the party (sensible women !) make a single 
 objection to the fumigation. But enough of this ; only 
 let me add, in conclusion, that an excellent Israelitish 
 gentleman, Mr. Hartog of Antwerp, supplies cigars for a 
 penny a-piece, such as are not to be procured in London 
 for four times the sum. 
 
 Through smiling cornfields, then, and by little woods, 
 from which rose here and there the quaint peaked towers 
 of some old-fashioned chateaux, our train went smoking 
 along at thirty miles an hour. We caught a glimpse of 
 Mechlin steeple, at first dark against the sunset, and 
 afterwards bright as we came to the other side of it, and 
 admired long glistening canals or moats that surrounded 
 the queer old town, and were lighted up in that wonder- 
 ful way which the sun only understands, and not even 
 Mr. Turner, with all his vermilion and gamboge, can put 
 down on canvas. The verdure was everywhere aston- 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 157 
 
 ishing, and we fancied we saw many golden Cuyps as we 
 passed by these quiet pastures. 
 
 Steam-engines and their accompaniments, blazing forges, 
 gaunt manufactories, with numberless windows and long 
 black chimneys, of course take away from the romance of 
 the place ; but, as we whirled into Brussels, even these 
 engines had a fine appearance. Three or four of the 
 snorting, galloping monsters had just finished their jour- 
 ney, and there was a quantity of flaming ashes lying 
 under the brazen bellies of each that looked properly 
 lurid and demoniacal. The men at the station came out 
 with flaming torches, awful-looking fellows, indeed ! 
 Presently the different baggage was handed out, and, in 
 the very worst vehicle J ever entered, and at the very 
 slowest pace, we were borne to the Hotel de Suede, from 
 which house of entertainment this letter is written. 
 
 We strolled into the town, but, though the night was 
 excessively fine and it was not yet eleven o'clock, the 
 streets of the little capital were deserted, and the hand- 
 some blazing cafes round about the theatres contained no 
 inmates. Ah, what a pretty sight is the Parisian Boule- 
 vard on a night like this ! how many pleasant hours has 
 one passed in watching the lights, and the hum, and the 
 stir, and the laughter of those happy, idle people ! There 
 was none of this gayety here ; nor was there a person to 
 be found, except a skulking commissioner or two (whose 
 real name in French is that of a fish that is eaten with 
 fennel-sauce), and who offered to conduct us to certain 
 curiosities in the town. What must we English not have 
 done, that in every town in Europe we are to be fixed 
 upon by scoundrels of this sort ; and what a pretty re- 
 flection it is on our country that such rascals find the 
 means of living on us ! 
 
158 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 Early the next morning we walked through a number 
 of streets in the place, and saw certain sights. The Park 
 is very pretty, and all the buildings round about it have 
 an air of neatness, almost of stateliness. The houses 
 are tall, the streets spacious, and the roads extremely 
 clean. In the Park is a little theatre, a cafe somewhat 
 ruinous, a little palace for the king of this little kingdom, 
 some smart public buildings (with S. P. Q. B. emblazoned 
 on them, at which pompous inscription one cannot help 
 laughing), and other rows of houses somewhat resem- 
 bling a little Rue de Rivoli. Whether from my own 
 natural greatness and magnanimity, or from that hand- 
 some share of national conceit that every Englishman 
 possesses, my impressions of this city are certainly any- 
 thing but respectful. It has an absurd kind of Lilliput 
 look with it. There are soldiers, just as in Paris, better 
 dressed, and doing a vast deal of drumming and bustle ; 
 and yet, somehow, far from being frightened at them, I 
 feel inclined to laugh in their faces. There are little 
 ministers, who work at their little bureaux, and to read 
 the journals, how fierce they are ! A great thundering 
 Times could hardly talk more big. One reads about the 
 rascally ministers, the miserable opposition, the designs 
 of tyrants, the eyes of Europe, &c., just as one would in 
 real journals. The Moniteur of Ghent belabors the Inde- 
 pendent of Brussels ; the Independent falls foul of the 
 Lynx ; and really it is difficult not to suppose sometimes 
 that these working people are in earnest. And yet how 
 happy were they sua si bona norint ! Think what a 
 comfort it would be to belong to a little state like this ; 
 not to abuse their privilege, but philosophically to use it. 
 If I were a Belgian, I would not care one single fig about 
 politics. I would not read thundering leading articles. 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 159 
 
 I would not have an opinion. What 's the use of an opin- 
 ion here ? Happy fellows ! do not the French, the Eng- 
 lish, and the Prussians, spare them the trouble of think- 
 ing, and make all their opinions for them ? Think of 
 living in a country free, easy, respectable, wealthy, and 
 with the nuisance of talking politics removed from out of 
 it. All this might the Belgians have, and a part do they 
 enjoy, but not the best part ; no, these people will be 
 brawling and by the ears, and parties run as high here as 
 at Stoke Pogis or little Pedlington. 
 
 These sentiments were elicited by the reading of a 
 paper at the cafe in the Park, where we sat under the 
 trees for a while and sipped our cool lemonade. Num- 
 bers of statues decorate the place, the very worst I ever 
 saw. These Cupids must have been erected in the time 
 of the Dutch dynasty, as I judge from the immense pos- 
 terior developments. Indeed the arts of the country are 
 very low. The statues here, and the lions before the 
 Prince of Orange's palace, would disgrace almost the 
 figure-head of a ship. 
 
 Of course we paid our visit to this little lion of Brus- 
 sels (the prince's palace, I mean). The architecture of 
 the building is admirably simple and firm ; and you re- 
 mark about it, and all other works here, a high finish in 
 doors, wood-works, paintings, &c., that one does not see in 
 France, where the buildings are often rather sketched 
 than completed, and the artist seems to neglect the limbs, 
 as it were, and extremities of his figures. 
 
 The finish of this little place is exquisite. We went 
 through some dozen of state rooms, paddling along over 
 the slippery floors of inlaid woods in great slippers, with- 
 out which we must have come to the ground. How did 
 his Royal Highness the Prince of Orange manage when 
 
160 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 he lived here, and her Imperial Highness the Princess, 
 and their excellencies the chamberlains, and the footmen? 
 They must have been on their tails many times a day, 
 that 's certain, and must have cut queer figures. 
 
 The ball-room is beautiful, all marble, and yet with 
 a comfortable, cheerful look. The other apartments are 
 not less agreeable, and the people looked with intense satis- 
 faction at some great lapis-lazuli tables, which the guide in- 
 formed us were worth four millions, more or less ; adding, 
 with a very knowing look, that they were un peu plus 
 cher que Tor. This speech has a tremendous effect on vis- 
 itors, and when we met some of our steamboat compan- 
 ions in the Park or elsewhere, in so small a place as 
 this one falls in with them a dozen times a day, " Have 
 you seen the tables ? " was the general question. Pro- 
 digious tables are they, indeed ! Fancy a table, my dear, 
 a table four feet wide, a table with legs. Ye Heav- 
 ens ! the mind can hardly picture to itself anything so 
 beautiful and so tremendous ! 
 
 There are some good pictures in the palace, too, but 
 not so extraordinarily good as the guide-books and the 
 guide would have us to think. The latter, like most men 
 of his class, is an ignoramus, who showed us an Andrea 
 del Sarto (copy or original), and called it a Correggio, 
 and made other blunders of a like nature. As is the 
 case in England, you are hurried through the rooms 
 without being allowed time to look at the pictures, and, 
 consequently, to pronounce a satisfactory judgment on 
 them. 
 
 In the museum more time was granted me, and I spent 
 some hours with pleasure there. It is an absurd little 
 gallery, absurdly imitating the Louvre, with just such 
 compartments and pillars as you see in the noble Paris 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 161 
 
 gallery ; only here the pillars and capitals are stucco and 
 white in place of marble and gold, and plaster of Paris 
 busts of great Belgians are placed between the pillars. 
 An artist of the country has made a portrait containing 
 them, and you will be ashamed of your ignorance when 
 you hear many of their names. Old Tilly of Magde- 
 burg figures in one corner ; Rubens, the endless Rubens, 
 stands in the midst. What a noble countenance it is, 
 and what a manly, swaggering consciousness of power ! 
 
 The picture to see here is a portrait, by the great Peter 
 Paul, of one of the governesses of the Netherlands. It 
 is just the finest portrait that ever was seen. Only a 
 half-length, but such a majesty, such a force, such a 
 splendor, such a simplicity about it ! The woman is in a 
 stiff, black dress, with a ruff, and a few pearls ; a yellow 
 curtain is behind her, the simplest arrangement that 
 can be conceived. But this great man knew how to rise 
 to his occasion ; and no better proof can be shown of 
 what a fine gentleman he was than this his homage to the 
 vice-queen. A common bungler would have painted her 
 in her best clothes, with crown and sceptre, just as our 
 queen has been painted by but comparisons are 
 odious. Here stands this majestic woman in her every- 
 day working-dress of black satin, looking your hat off, as 
 it were. Another portrait of the same personage hangs 
 elsewhere in the gallery, and it is curious to observe the 
 difference between the two, and see how a man of genius 
 paints a portrait, and how a common limner executes it. 
 
 Many more pictures are there here by Rubens, or 
 rather from Rubens's manufactory, odious and vulgar 
 most of them are, fat Magdalens, coarse Saints, vulgar 
 Virgins, with the scene-painter's tricks far too evident up- 
 on the canvas. By the side of one of the most aston- 
 
 K 
 
162 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 ishing color-pieces in the world, the " Worshipping of the 
 Magi," is a famous picture of Paul Veronese, that cannot 
 be too much admired. As Rubens sought in the first 
 picture to dazzle and astonish by gorgeous variety, Paul 
 in his seems to wish to get his effect by simplicity, and 
 has produced the most noble harmony that can be con- 
 ceived. Many more works are there that merit notice, 
 a singularly clever, brilliant, and odious Jordeans, for ex- 
 ample ; some curious costume-pieces ; one or two works 
 by the Belgian Raphael, who was a very Belgian Ra- 
 phael, indeed ; and a long gallery of pictures of the very 
 oldest school, that, doubtless, afford much pleasure to the 
 amateurs of ancient art. I confess that I am inclined to 
 believe in very little that existed before the time of 
 Raphael. There is, for instance, the Prince of Orange's 
 picture by Perrugino, very pretty, indeed, up to a certain 
 point, but all the heads are repeated, all the drawing is 
 bad and affected ; and this very badness and affectation is 
 what the so-called Catholic school is always anxious to 
 imitate. Nothing can be more juvenile or paltry than the 
 works of the native Belgians here exhibited. Tin crowns 
 are suspended over many of them, showing that the pic- 
 tures are prize compositions, and pretty things, indeed, 
 they are ! Have you ever read an Oxford prize-poem ? 
 Well, these pictures are worse even than the Oxford 
 poems, an awful assertion to make. 
 
 In the matter of eating, dear sir, which is the next 
 subject of the fine arts, a subject that, after many 
 hours' walking, attracts a gentleman very much, let me 
 attempt to recall the transactions of this very day at the 
 taUe-d'hote. 1. green pea-soup ; 2. boiled salmon ; 3. 
 muscles ; 4. crimped skate ; 5. roast meat ; 6. patties ; 
 7. melon ; 8. carp, stewed with mushrooms and onions ; 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 163 
 
 9. roast turkey ; 10. cauliflower and butter ; 11. fillets of 
 venison piques, with assafoetida sauce ; 12. stewed calf's 
 ear ; 13. roast veal ; 14. roast lamb ; 15. stewed cherries ; 
 16. rice pudding ; 17. Gruyere cheese, and about twenty- 
 four cakes of different kinds. Except 5, 13, and 14, I 
 give you my word I ate of all written down here, with 
 three rolls of bread and a score of potatoes. What is the 
 meaning of it ? How is the stomach of man brought to 
 desire and to receive all this quantity ? Do not gastro- 
 nomists complain of heaviness in London after eating a 
 couple of mutton-chops ? Do not respectable gentlemen 
 fall asleep in their arm-chairs ? Are they fit for mental 
 labor? Far from it. But look at the difference here; 
 after dinner here one is as light as a gossamer. One 
 walks with pleasure, reads with pleasure, writes with 
 pleasure, nay, there is the supper-bell going at ten 
 o'clock, and plenty of eaters, too. Let lord-mayors and 
 aldermen look to it, this fact of the extraordinary increase 
 of appetite in Belgium, and, instead of steaming to Black- 
 wall, come a little farther to Antwerp. 
 
 Of ancient architectures in the place, there is a fine old 
 Port de Halle, which has a tall, gloomy, bastile look ; a 
 most magnificent town-hall, that has been sketched a 
 thousand of times, and, opposite it, a building that I 
 think would be the very model for a Conservative club- 
 house in London. O how charming it would be to be 
 a great painter, and give the character of the building, 
 and the numberless groups round about it. The booths 
 lighted up by the sun, the market-women in their gowns 
 of brilliant hue, each group having a character, and 
 telling its little story, the troops of men lolling in all 
 sorts of admirable attitudes of ease round the great lamp. 
 
164 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 Half a dozen light blue dragoons are lounging about, and 
 peeping over the artist as the drawing is made, and the 
 sky is more bright and blue than one sees it in an hun- 
 dred years in London. 
 
 The priests of the country are a remarkably well-fed 
 and respectable race, without that scowling, hang-dog 
 look which one has remarked among reverend gentlemen 
 in the neighboring country of France. Their reverences 
 wear buckles to their shoes, light-blue neckcloths, and 
 huge three-cornered hats in good condition. To-day, 
 strolling by the cathedral, I heard the tinkling of a bell 
 in the street, and beheld certain persons, male and fe- 
 male, suddenly plump down on their knees before a little 
 procession that was passing. Two men in black held a 
 tawdry red canopy, a priest walked beneath it holding the 
 sacrament covered with a cloth, and before him marched 
 a couple of little altar-boys in short white surplices, such 
 as you see in Rubens, and holding lacquered lamps. A 
 small train of street-boys followed the procession, cap in 
 hand, and the clergyman finally entered a hospital for old 
 women, near the church, the canopy and the lamp-bearers 
 remaining without. 
 
 It was a touching scene, and, as I stayed to watch it, 
 I could not but think of the poor old soul who was dying 
 within, listening to the last words of prayer, led by the 
 hand of the priest to the brink of the black, fathomless 
 grave. How bright the sun was shining without all the 
 time, and how happy and careless everything around us 
 looked ! 
 
 The Duke d'Arenberg has a picture-gallery worthy of 
 his princely house. It does not contain great pieces, but 
 titbits of pictures, such as suit an aristocratic epicure. 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 165 
 
 For such persons a great huge canvas is too much, it is 
 like sitting down alone to a roasted ox ; and they do 
 wisely, I think, to patronize small, high-flavored, delicate 
 morceaux, such as the duke has here. 
 
 Among them may be mentioned, with special praise, 
 a magnificent small Rembrandt, a Paul Potter of exceed- 
 ing minuteness and beauty, an Ostade, which reminds one 
 of Wilkie's early performances, and a Dusart quite as 
 good as Ostade. There is a Bergham, much more unaf- 
 fected than that artist's works generally are ; and, what 
 is more precious in the eyes of many ladies as an object 
 of art, there is, in one of the grand saloons, some needle- 
 work done by the duke's own grandmother, which is 
 looked at with awe by those admitted to see the palace. 
 
 The chief curiosity, if not the chief ornament of a very 
 elegant library, filled with vases and bronzes, is a marble 
 head, supposed to be the original head of the Laocoon. 
 It is, unquestionably, a finer head than that which at 
 present figures upon the shoulders of the famous statue. 
 The expression of woe is more manly and intense ; in the 
 group, as we know it, the head of the principal figure has 
 always seemed to me to be a grimace of grief, as are the 
 two accompanying young gentlemen, with their pretty at- 
 titudes, and their little, silly, open-mouthed despondency. 
 It has always had upon me the effect of a trick, that statue, 
 and not of a piece of true art. It would look well in 
 the vista of a garden ; it is not august enough for a tem- 
 ple, with all its jerks, and twirls, and polite convulsions. 
 But who knows what susceptibilities such a confession 
 may offend? Let us say no more about the Laocoon, 
 nor its head, nor its tail. The duke was offered its weight 
 in gold, they say, for this head, and refused. It would 
 be a shame to speak ill of such a treasure, but I have my 
 opinion of the man who made the offer. 
 
166 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 In the matter of sculpture almost all the Brussels 
 churches are decorated with the most laborious wooden 
 pulpits, which may be worth their weight in gold, too, for 
 what I know, including his reverence preaching inside. 
 At St. Gudule the preacher mounts into no less a place 
 than the garden of Eden, being supported by Adam and 
 Eve, by Sin and Death, and numberless other animals ; 
 he walks up to his desk by a rustic railing of flowers, 
 fruits, and vegetables, with wooden peacocks, parroquets, 
 monkeys biting apples, and many more of the birds and 
 beasts of the field. In another church the clergyman 
 speaks from out a hermitage; in a third from a carved 
 palm-tree, which supports a set of oak clouds that form 
 the canopy of the pulpit, and are, indeed, not much heav- 
 ier in appearance than so many huge sponges. A priest, 
 however tall or stout, must be lost in the midst of all 
 these queer gimcracks; in order to be consistent, they 
 ought to dress him up, too, in some odd, fantastical suit. 
 I can fancy the cure of Meudon preaching out of such a 
 place, or the Rev. Sydney Smith, or that famous clergy- 
 man of the time of the League, who brought all Paris 
 to laugh and listen to him. 
 
 But let us not be too supercilious and ready to sneer. 
 It is only bad taste. It may have been very true devo- 
 tion which erected these strange edifices. 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 167 
 
 No. II. 
 
 GHENT. BRUGE'S. 
 
 GHENT (1840). 
 
 THE Beguine College or Village is one of the most 
 extraordinary sights that all Europe can show. On the 
 confines of the town of Ghent you come upon an old- 
 fashioned brick gate, that seems as if it were one of the 
 city barriers ; but, on passing it, one of the prettiest 
 sights possible meets the eye : at the porters lodge you 
 see an old lady, in black and a white hood, occupied over 
 her book ; before you is a red church with a tall roof and 
 fantastical Dutch pinnacles, and all around it rows upon 
 rows of small houses, the queerest, neatest, nicest that 
 ever were seen (a doll's house is hardly smaller or pret- 
 tier) ; right and left, on each side of little alleys, these 
 little mansions rise ; they have a courtlet before them, in 
 which some green plants or hollyhocks are growing ; and 
 to each house is a gate, that has mostly a picture or 
 queer-carved ornament upon or about it, and bears the 
 name, not of the Beguine who inhabits it, but of the saint 
 to whom she may have devoted it, the house of St. 
 Stephen, the house of St. Donatus, the English or Angel 
 Convent, and so on. Old ladies in black are pacing in 
 the quiet alleys here and there, and drop the stranger a 
 courtesy as he passes them and takes off his hat. Never 
 were such patterns of neatness seen as these old ladies 
 and their houses. I peeped into one or two of the 
 chambers, of which the windows were open to the pleas- 
 ant evening sun, and saw beds scrupulously plain, a 
 quaint old chair or two, and little pictures of favorite 
 saints decorating the spotless white walls. The old 
 
168 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 ladies kept up a quick, cheerful clatter, as they paused 
 to gossip at the gates of their little domiciles ; and with a 
 great deal of artifice, and lurking behind walls, and look- 
 ing at the church as if I intended to design that, I man- 
 aged to get a sketch of a couple of them. 
 
 But what white paper can render the whiteness of 
 their linen ? what black ink can do justice to the lustre 
 of their gowns and shoes ? Both of the ladies had a neat 
 ankle and a tight stocking ; and I fancy that Heaven is 
 quite as well served in this costume as in the dress of a 
 scowling, stockingless friar, whom I had seen passing just 
 before. The look and dress of the man made me shud- 
 der. His great red feet were bound up in a shoe open at 
 the toes, a kind of compromise for a sandal. I had just 
 seen him and his brethren at the Dominican Church, 
 where a mass of music was sung, and orange-trees, flags, 
 and banners, decked the aisle of the church. 
 
 One begins to grow sick of these churches, and the 
 hideous exhibitions of bodily agonies that are depicted on 
 the sides of all the chapels. Into one wherein we went 
 this morning was what they call a Calvary, a horrible, 
 ghastly image of a Christ in a tomb, the figure of the 
 natural size, and of the livid color of death ; gaping red 
 wounds on the body and round the brows : the whole 
 piece enough to turn one sick, and fit only to brutalize 
 the beholder of it. The Virgin is commonly represented 
 with a dozen swords stuck in her heart ; bleeding throats 
 of headless John-Baptists are perpetually thrust before 
 your eyes. At the cathedral-gate was a papier-mache 
 church-ornament shop, most of the carvings and re- 
 liefs of the same dismal character ; one, for instance, 
 represented a heart with a great gash in it, and a double 
 row of large blood-drops dribbling from it ; nails and a 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 169 
 
 knife were thrust into the heart ; round the whole was a 
 crown of thorns. Such things are dreadful to think of. 
 The same gloomy spirit which made a religion of them, 
 and worked upon the people by the grossest of all means, 
 terror, distracted the natural feelings of man to maintain 
 its power, shut gentle women into lonely, pitiless con- 
 vents, frightened poor peasants with tales of torment, 
 taught that the end and labor of life was silence, wretch- 
 edness, and the scourge, murdered those by fagot and 
 prison who thought otherwise. How has the blind and 
 furious bigotry of man perverted that which God gave us 
 as our greatest boon, and bid us hate where God bade 
 us love ! Thank Heaven that monk has gone out of 
 sight ! It is pleasant to look at the smiling, cheerful old 
 Beguine, and think no more of yonder livid face. 
 
 One of the many convents in this little religious city 
 seems to be the specimen-house which is shown to 
 strangers, for all the guides conduct you thither, and I 
 saw in a book kept for the purpose the names of in- 
 numerable Smiths and Joneses registered. 
 
 A very kind, sweet-voiced, smiling nun (I wonder, do 
 they always choose the most agreeable and best-humored 
 sister of the house to show it to strangers ?) came trip- 
 ping down the steps and across the flags of the little gar- 
 den court, and welcomed us with much courtesy into the 
 neat little old-fashioned, red-bricked, gable-ended, shin- 
 ing-windowed Convent of the Angels. First, she showed 
 us a whitewashed parlor, decorated with a grim picture 
 or two and some crucifixes and other religious emblems, 
 where, upon stiff old chairs, the sisters sit and work. 
 Three or four of them were still there, pattering over 
 their laces and bobbins ; but the chief part of the sister- 
 hood were engaged in an apartment hard by, from which 
 8 
 
170 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 issued a certain odor which I must say resembled onions, 
 and which was in fact the kitchen of the establishment. 
 
 Every Beguine cooks her own little dinner in her own 
 little pipkin ; and there was half a score of them, sure 
 enough, busy over their pots and crockery, cooking a re- 
 past which, when ready, was carried off to a neighbor- 
 ing room, the refectory, where, at a ledge-table which 
 is drawn out from under her own particular cupboard, 
 each nun sits down and eats her meal in silence. More 
 religious emblems ornamented the carved cupboard-doors, 
 and within, everything was as neat as neat could be: 
 shining pewter ewers and glasses, snug baskets of eggs 
 and pats of butter, and little bowls with about a farthing's 
 worth of green tea in them, for some great day of fete, 
 doubtless. The old ladies sat round as we examined 
 these things, each eating soberly at her ledge and never 
 looking round. There was a bell ringing in the chapel 
 hard by. " Hark ! " said our guide, " that is one of the 
 sisters dying. Will you come up and see the cells ? " 
 
 The cells, it need not be said, are the snuggest little 
 nests in the world, with serge-curtained beds and snowy 
 linen, and saints and martyrs pinned against the wall. 
 " We may sit up till twelve o'clock if we like," said the 
 nun ; " but we have no fire and candle, and so what 's the 
 use of sitting up ? When we have said our prayers we 
 are glad enough to go to sleep." 
 
 I forget, although the good soul told us, how many 
 times in the day, in public and in private, these devotions 
 are made, but fancy that the morning service in the 
 chapel takes place at too early an hour for most easy 
 travellers. We did not fail to attend in the evening, 
 when likewise is a general muster of the seven hundred, 
 minus the absent and sick, and the sight is not a little 
 curious and striking to a stranger. 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 171 
 
 The chapel is a very big whitewashed place of wor- 
 ship, supported by half a dozen columns on either side, 
 over each of which stands the statue of an Apostle, 
 with his emblem of martyrdom. Nobody was as yet 
 at the distant altar, which was too far off to see very 
 distinctly ; but I could perceive two statues over it, one 
 of which (St. Lawrence, no doubt) was leaning upon a 
 huge gilt gridiron that the sun lighted up in a blaze, a 
 painful but not a romantic instrument of death. A couple 
 of old ladies in white hoods were tugging and swaying 
 about at two bell-ropes that came down into the middle 
 of the church, and at least five hundred others in white 
 veils were seated all round about us in mute contempla- 
 tion until the service began, looking very solemn, and 
 white, and ghastly, like an army of tombstones by moon- 
 light. 
 
 The service commenced as the clock finished striking 
 seven ; the organ pealed out, a very cracked and old one, 
 and presently some weak old voice from the choir over- 
 head quavered out a canticle ; which done, a thin old 
 voice of a priest at the altar far off (and which had now 
 become quite gloomy in the sunset) chanted feebly an- 
 other part of the service ; then the nuns warbled once 
 more overhead ; and it was curious to hear, in the inter- 
 vals of the most lugubrious chants, how the organ went 
 off with some extremely cheerful military or profane air. 
 At one time was a march, at another a quick tune ; which 
 ceasing, the old nuns began again, and so sung until the 
 service was ended. 
 
 In the midst of it one of the while-veiled sisters ap- 
 proached us with a very mysterious air, and put down 
 her white veil close to our ears, and whispered. Were 
 we doing anything wrong, I wondered? Were they 
 
172 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 come to that part of the service where heretics and infi- 
 dels ought to quit the church ? What have you to ask, 
 O sacred, white-veiled maid ? 
 
 All she said was, " Deux centiemes pour les suisses" 
 which sum was paid ; and presently the old ladies, rising 
 from their chairs one by one, came in face of the 
 altar, where they knelt down, and said a short prayer ; 
 then, rising, unpinned their veils, and folded them up all 
 exactly in the same folds and fashion, and laid them 
 square like napkins on their heads, and tucked up their 
 long black outer dresses, and trudged off to their con- 
 vents. 
 
 The novices wear black veils, under one of which I 
 saw a young, sad, handsome face. It was the only thing 
 in the establishment that was the least romantic or 
 gloomy ; and, for the sake of any reader of a sentimental 
 turn, let us hope that the poor soul has been crossed in 
 love, and that over some soul-stirring tragedy that black 
 curtain has fallen. 
 
 Ghent has, I believe, been called a vulgar Venice. It 
 contains dirty canals and old houses that must satisfy the 
 most eager antiquary, though the buildings are not quite 
 in so good preservation as others that may be seen in the 
 Netherlands. The commercial bustle of the place seems 
 considerable, and it contains more beer-shops than any 
 city I ever saw. 
 
 These beer-shops seem the only amusement of the in- 
 habitants, until, at least, the theatre shall be built, of 
 which the elevation is now complete, a very handsome 
 and extensive pile. There are beer-shops in the cellars 
 of the houses, which are frequented, it is to be pre- 
 sumed, by the lower sort; there are beer-shops at the 
 barriers, where the citizens and their families repair ; and 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 173 
 
 beer-shops in the town, glaring with gas ; with long gauze 
 blinds, however, to hide what I hear is a rather question- 
 able reputation. 
 
 Our inn, the Hotel of the Post, a spacious and com- 
 fortable residence, is on a little place planted round with 
 trees, and that seems to be the Palais Royal of the town. 
 Three clubs, which look from without to be very com- 
 fortable, ornament this square with their gas-lamps. 
 Here stands, too, the theatre that is to be ; there is a cafe, 
 and on evenings a military band plays the very worst mu- 
 sic I ever remember to have heard. I went out to-night to 
 take a quiet walk upon this place, and the horrid brazen 
 discord of these trumpeters set me half mad. 
 
 I went to the cafe for refuge, passing on the way a 
 subterraneous beer-shop, where men and women were 
 drinking to the sweet music of a cracked barrel-organ. 
 They take in a couple of French papers at this cafe, and 
 the same number of Belgian journals. You may imagine 
 how well the latter are informed, when you hear that the 
 battle of Boulogne, fought by the immortal Louis Na- 
 poleon, was not known here until some gentlemen out of 
 Norfolk brought the News from London, and until it had 
 travelled to Paris, and from Paris to Brussels. For a 
 whole hour I could not get a newspaper at the cafe ; the 
 horrible brass band in the mean time had quitted the 
 place, and now, to amuse the Ghent citizens, a couple of 
 little boys came to the cafe, and set up a small concert. 
 One played ill on the guitar, but sang, very sweetly, 
 plaintive French ballads. The other was the comic 
 singer. He carried about with him a queer, long, damp- 
 looking, mouldy white hat, with no brim. " Ecoutez" 
 said the waiter to me, " il va faire T Anglais, Jest tres 
 drolel" The little rogue mounted his immense brim- 
 
174 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 less hat, and, thrusting his thumbs into the arm-holes of 
 his waistcoat, began to faire I 'Anglais, with a song in 
 which swearing was the principal joke. We all laughed 
 at this, and, indeed, the little rascal seemed to have a 
 good deal of humor. 
 
 How they hate us, these foreigners, in Belgium as 
 much as in France ! What lies they tell of us, how 
 gladly they would see us humiliated! Honest folks at 
 home over their port wine say, ."Ay, ay (and very good 
 reason they have too), national vanity, sir, wounded, 
 we have beaten them so often." My dear sir, there is 
 not a greater error in the world than this. They hate 
 you because you are stupid, hard to please, and intolera- 
 bly insolent and air-giving. I walked with an English- 
 man yesterday, who asked the way to a street of which 
 he pronounced the name very badly to a little Flemish 
 boy ; the Flemish boy did not answer, and there was my 
 Englishman quite in a rage, shrieking in the child's ear as 
 if he must answer. He seemed to think that it was the 
 duty of " the snob," as he called him, to obey the gentleman. 
 This is why we are hated for pride. In our free country 
 a tradesman, a lacquey, or a waiter, will submit to almost 
 any given insult from a gentleman: in these benighted 
 lands one man is as good as another ; and pray God it 
 may soon be so with us ! Of all European people, which 
 is the nation that has the most haughtiness, the strongest 
 prejudices, the greatest reserve, the greatest dulness? I 
 say an Englishman of the genteel classes. An honest 
 groom jokes and hobs-and-nobs and makes his way with 
 the kitchen-maids, for there is good social nature in the 
 man ; his master dare not unbend. Look at him, how he 
 scowls at you on your entering an inn-room ; think how 
 you scowl yourself to meet his scowl. To-day, as we 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 175 
 
 were walking and staring about the place, a worthy old 
 gentleman in a carriage, seeing a pair of strangers, took 
 off his hat and bowed very gravely with his old powdered 
 head out of the window : I am sorry to say that our first 
 impulse was to burst out laughing, it seemed so su- 
 premely ridiculous that a stranger should notice and wel- 
 come another. 
 
 As for the notion that foreigners hate us because we 
 have beaten them so often, my dear sir, this is the great- 
 est error in the world : well-educated Frenchmen do not 
 believe that we have beaten them. A man was once ready 
 to call rne out in Paris because I said that we had beaten 
 the French in Spain ; and here before rne is a French 
 paper, with a London correspondent discoursing about 
 Louis Bonaparte and his jackass expedition to Boulogne. 
 " He was received at Eglintoun, it is true," says the cor- 
 respondent, "but what do you think was the reason? 
 Because the English nobility were anxious to revenge 
 upon his person (with some coups de lance) the checks 
 which the ' grand homme ' his uncle had inflicted on us 
 in Spain" 
 
 This opinion is so general among the French, that they 
 would laugh at you with scornful incredulity if you ven- 
 tured to assert any other. Foy's history of the Spanish 
 War, does not, unluckily, go far enough. I have read a 
 French history which hardly mentions the war in Spain, 
 and calls the battle of Salamanca a French victory. You 
 know how the other day, and in the teeth of all evidence, 
 the French swore to their victory of Toulouse : and so it is 
 with the rest ; and you may set it down as pretty certain, 
 1st, That only a few people know the real state of things 
 in France, as to the matter in dispute between us ; 2d, 
 That those who do, keep the truth to themselves, and so 
 it is as if it had never been. 
 
176 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 These Belgians have caught up, and quite naturally, 
 the French tone. We are perfide Albion with them still. 
 Here is the Ghent paper, which declares that it is be- 
 yond a doubt that Louis Napoleon was sent by the Eng- 
 lish and Lord Palmerston ; and though it states in an- 
 other part of the journal (from English authority) that 
 the prince had never seen Lord Palmerston, yet the lie 
 will remain uppermost, the people and the editor will 
 believe it to the end of time. * * See to what a di- 
 gression yonder little fellow in the tall hat has given rise ! 
 Let us make his picture, and have done with him. 
 
 I could not understand, in my walks about this place, 
 which is certainly picturesque enough, and contains ex- 
 traordinary charms in the shapes of old gables, quaint 
 spires, and broad shining canals, I could not at first 
 comprehend why, for all this, the town was especially 
 disagreeable to me, and have only just hit on the reason 
 why. Sweetest Juliana, you will never guess it: it is 
 simply this, that I have not seen a single decent-looking 
 woman in the whole place ; they look all ugly, with coarse 
 mouths, vulgar figures, mean mercantile faces ; and so 
 the traveller walking among them finds the pleasure of 
 his walk excessively damped, and the impressions made 
 upon him disagreeable. 
 
 In the Academy there are no pictures of merit ; but 
 sometimes a second-rate picture is as pleasing as the best, 
 and one may pass an hour here very pleasantly. There 
 is a room appropriated to Belgian artists, of which I 
 never saw the like ; they are, like all the rest of the 
 things in this country, miserable imitations of the French 
 school, great nude Venuses, and Junos a la David, 
 with the drawing left out. 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 177 
 
 BRUGES. 
 
 The change from vulgar Ghent, with its ugly women 
 and coarse bustle, to this quiet, old, half-deserted, cleanly 
 Bruges, was very pleasant. I have seen old men at Ver- 
 sailles, with shabby coats and pigtails, sunning themselves 
 on the benches in the walls. They had seen better days, 
 to be sure, but they were gentlemen still. And so we 
 found, this morning, old dowager Bruges basking in the 
 pleasant August sun, and looking, if not prosperous, at 
 least cheerful and well-bred. It is the quaintest and 
 prettiest of all the quaint and pretty towns I have seen. 
 A painter might spend months here, and wander from 
 church to church, and admire old towers and pinnacles, 
 tall gables, bright canals, and pretty little patches of 
 green garden and moss-grown wall, that reflect in the 
 clear quiet water. Before the inn-window is a garden, 
 from which in the early morning issues a most wonder- 
 ful odor of stocks and wall-flowers. Next comes a road 
 with trees of admirable green. Numbers of little chil- 
 dren are playing in this road (the place is so clean that 
 they may roll in it all day without soiling their pina- 
 fores), and on the other side of the trees are little old- 
 fashioned, dumpy, whitewashed, red-tiled houses. A 
 poorer landscape to draw never was known, nor a pleas- 
 anter to see, the children, especially, who are inordi- 
 nately fat and rosy. Let it be remembered, too, that 
 here we are out of the country of ugly women. The ex- 
 pression of the face is almost uniformly gentle and pleas- 
 ing, and the figures of the women, wrapped in long 
 black monk-like cloaks and hoods, very picturesque. No 
 wonder there are so many children. The Guide-book 
 (omniscient Mr. Murray!) says there are fifteen thou- 
 sand paupers in the town, and we know how such multi- 
 
 8* L 
 
178 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 ply. How the deuce do their children look so fat and 
 rosy ? By eating dirt pies, I suppose. I saw a couple 
 making a very nice savory one, and another employed in 
 gravely sticking strips of stick betwixt the pebbles at the 
 house-door, and so making for herself a stately garden. 
 The men and women don't seem to have much more to 
 do. There are a couple of tall chimneys at either suburb 
 of the town, where no doubt manufactories are at work, 
 but within the walls everybody seems decently idle. 
 
 We have been, of course, abroad to visit the lions. 
 The tower in the Grand Place is very fine, and the bricks 
 of which it is built do not yield a whit in color to the 
 best stone. The great building round this .tower is very 
 like the pictures of the Ducal Palace at Venice, and 
 there is a long market area, with columns down the mid- 
 dle, from which hung shreds of rather lean-looking meat, 
 that would do wonders under the hands of Catterraole or 
 Haghe. In the tower there is a chime of bells that keep 
 ringing perpetually. They not only play tunes of them- 
 selves, and every quarter of an hour, but an individual 
 performs selections from popular operas on them at cer- 
 tain periods of the morning, afternoon, and evening. I 
 have heard to-day " Suoni la Tromba," " Son Vergin Vez- 
 zosa," from the Puritani, and other airs, and very badly 
 they were played, too ; for such a great monster as a 
 tower-bell cannot be expected to imitate Madame Grisi, 
 or even Signor Lablache. Other churches indulge in the 
 same amusement ; so that one may come here, and live 
 in melody all day or night, like the young woman in 
 Moore's Lalla Rookh. 
 
 In the matter of art, the chief attractions of Bruges 
 are the pictures of Hemling, that are to be seen in the 
 churches, the hospital, and the picture-gallery of the 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 179 
 
 place. There are no more pictures of Rubens to be 
 seen ; and, indeed, in the course of a fortnight one has 
 had quite enough of the great man and his magnificent, 
 swaggering canvases. What a difference is here with 
 simple Hemling, and the extraordinary creations of his 
 pencil ! The hospital is particularly rich in them ; and 
 the legend there is that the painter, who had served 
 Charles the Bold in his war against the Swiss, and his 
 last battle and defeat, wandered back wounded and penni- 
 less to Bruges, and here found cure and shelter. 
 
 This hospital is a noble and curious sight. The great 
 hall is almost as it was in the twelfth century. It is 
 spanned by Saxon arches, and lighted by a multiplicity 
 of Gothic windows of all sizes. It is very lofty, clean, and 
 perfectly well ventilated. A screen runs across the mid- 
 dle of the room, to divide the male from the female pa- 
 tients, and we were taken to examine each ward, where 
 the poor people seemed happier than possibly they would 
 have been in health and starvation without it. Great 
 yellow blankets were on the iron beds, the linen was 
 scrupulously clean, glittering pewter jugs and goblets 
 stood by the side of each patient, and they were provided 
 with godly books (to judge from the binding), in which 
 several were reading at leisure. Honest old comfortable 
 nuns, in queer dresses of blue, black, white, and flannel, 
 were bustling through the room, attending to the wants 
 of the sick. I saw about a dozen of these kind women's 
 faces ; one was young, all were healthy and cheerful. 
 One came with bare blue arms and a great pile of linen 
 from an outhouse, such a grange as Cedric the Saxon 
 might have given to a guest for the night. A couple 
 were in a laboratory, a tall, bright, clean room, five hun- 
 dred years old at least. " We saw you were not very re- 
 
180 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 ligious," said one of the old ladies, with a red, wrinkled, 
 good-humored face, " by your behavior yesterday in 
 chapel." And yet, we did not laugh and talk as we used 
 at college, but were profoundly affected by the scene that 
 we saw there. It was a fete-day ; a mass of Mozart was 
 sung in the evening, not well sung, and yet so exqui- 
 sitely tender and melodious, that it brought tears into our 
 eyes. There were not above twenty people in the church, 
 all, save three or four, were women in long black cloaks. 
 I took them for nuns at first. They were, however, the 
 common people of the town, very poor indeed, doubtless, 
 for the priest's box that was brought round was not 
 added to by most of them, and their contributions were 
 but two-cent pieces, five of these go to a penny ; but 
 we know the value of such, and can tell the exact worth 
 of a poor woman's mite ! The box-bearer did not seem 
 at first willing to accept our donation, we were strang- 
 ers and heretics ; however, I held out my hand, and he 
 came perforce, as it were. Indeed, it had only a franc in 
 it : but que voulez-vous ? I had been drinking a bottle of 
 Rhine wine that day, and how was I to afford more ? 
 The Rhine wine is dear in this country, and costs four 
 francs a bottle. 
 
 Well, the service proceeded. Twenty poor women, 
 two Englishmen, four ragged beggars, cowering on the 
 steps ; and there was the priest at the altar, in a great 
 robe of gold and damask, two little boys in white surplices 
 serving him, holding his robe as he rose and bowed, and 
 the money-gatherer swinging his censer, and filling the 
 little chapel with smoke. The music pealed with won- 
 derful sweetness : you could see the prim white heads of 
 the nuns in their gallery. The evening light streamed 
 down upon old statues of saints and carved brown stalls, 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 181 
 
 and lighted up the head of the golden-haired Magdalen 
 in a picture of the entombment of Christ. Over the gal- 
 lery, and, as it were, a kind protectress to the poor below, 
 stood the statue of the Virgin. 
 
 No. III. 
 
 WATERLOO. 
 
 IT is, my dear, the happy privilege of your sex in Eng- 
 land to quit the dinner-table after the wine-bottles have 
 once or twice gone round it, and you are thereby saved 
 (though, to be sure, I can't tell what the ladies do up 
 stairs) you are saved two or three hours' excessive 
 dulness, which the men are obliged to go through. 
 
 I ask any gentleman who reads this the letters to 
 my Juliana being written with an eye to publication to 
 remember especially how many times, how many hundred 
 times, how many thousand times, in his hearing, the battle 
 of Waterloo has been discussed after dinner, and to call 
 to mind how cruelly he has been bored by the discussion. 
 " Ah, it was lucky for us that the Prussians came up ! " 
 says one little gentleman, looking particularly wise and 
 ominous. " Hang the Prussians ! " (or, perhaps, some- 
 thing stronger) " the Prussians ! " says a stout old 
 major on half pay ; " we beat the French without them, 
 sir, as beaten them we always have ! We were thunder- 
 ing down the hill of Belle Alliance, sir, at the backs of 
 them, and the French were crying * Sauve qui pent ' long 
 before the Prussians ever touched them ! " And so the 
 battle opens, and for many mortal hours, amid rounds of 
 claret, rages over and over again. 
 
182 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 I thought to myself, considering the above things, what 
 a fine thing it will be in after-days to say that I have 
 been to Brussels and never seen the field of Waterloo ; 
 indeed, that I am such a philosopher as not to care a fig 
 about the battle, nay, to regret, rather, that when Na- 
 poleon came back, the British government had not spared 
 their men and left him alone. 
 
 But this pitch of philosophy was unattainable. This 
 morning, after having seen the park, the fashionable boule- 
 vard, the pictures, the cafes, having sipped, I say, the 
 sweets of every flower that grows in this paradise of Brus- 
 sels, quite weary of the place, we mounted on a Namur 
 diligence, and jingled off at four miles an hour for Wa- 
 terloo. 
 
 The road is very neat and agreeable, the forest of Soig- 
 nies here and there interposes pleasantly, to give your 
 vehicle a shade ; the country, as usual, is vastly fertile 
 and well cultivated. A farmer and the conductor were 
 my companions in the Imperial, and, could I have under- 
 stood their conversation, my dear, you should have had 
 certainly a report of it. The jargon which they talked 
 was, indeed, most queer and puzzling, French, I be- 
 lieve, strangely hushed up and pronounced, for here and 
 there one could catch a few words of it. Now and anon, 
 however, they condescended to speak in the purest French 
 they could muster, and, indeed, nothing is more curious 
 than to hear the French of the country. You can't un- 
 derstand why all the people insist upon speaking it so 
 badly. I asked the conductor if he had been at the bat- 
 tle ; he burst out laughing like a philosopher, as he was, 
 and said, " Pas si bete" I asked the farmer whether his 
 contributions were lighter now than in King William's 
 time, and lighter than those in the time of the emperor ? 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 183 
 
 He vowed that in war-time he had not more to pay than 
 in time of peace (and this strange fact is vouched for by 
 every person of every nation), and, being asked where- 
 fore the King of Holland had been ousted from his throne, 
 replied at once, " Parce que c'etoit un voleur" for which 
 accusation I believe there is some show of reason, his 
 majesty having laid hands on much Belgian property be- 
 fore the lamented outbreak which cost him his crown. A 
 vast deal of laughing and roaring passed between these 
 two worldly people and the postilion, whom they called 
 " baron," and I thought no doubt that this talk was one of 
 the many jokes that my companions were in the habit of 
 making. But not so ; the postilion was an actual baron, 
 the bearer of an ancient name, the descendant of gallant 
 gentlemen. Good heavens ! what would Mrs. Trollope 
 say to see his lordship here ? His father, the old baron, 
 had dissipated the family fortune, and here was this young 
 nobleman, at about five-and-forty, compelled to bestride a 
 clattering Flemish stallion, and bump over dusty pave- 
 ments at the rate of five miles an hour. But see the 
 beauty of high blood, with what a calm grace the man 
 of family accommodates himself to fortune. Far from 
 being cast down, his lordship met his fate like a man ; he 
 swore, and laughed, the whole of the journey, and, as we 
 changed horses, condescended to partake of half a pint of 
 Louvain beer, to which the farmer treated him, indeed 
 the worthy rustic treated me to a glass too. 
 
 Much delight and instruction have I had in the course 
 of the journey from my guide, philosopher, and friend, the 
 author of " Murray's Hand-book." He has gathered to- 
 gether, indeed, a store of information, and must, to make 
 his single volume, have gutted many hundreds of guide- 
 books. How the Continental ciceroni must hate him, 
 
184 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 whoever he is ! Every English party I saw had this in- 
 fallible red book in their hands, and gained a vast deal of 
 historical and general information from it. Thus I heard, 
 in confidence, many remarkable anecdotes of Charles V., 
 the Duke of Alva, Count Egmont, all of which I had be- 
 fore perceived, with much satisfaction, not only in the 
 Hand-book, but even in other works. 
 
 The laureate is, among the English poets, evidently the 
 great favorite of our guide. The choice does honor to 
 his head and heart. A man must have a very strong 
 bent for poetry, indeed, who carries Southey's works in 
 his portmanteau, and quotes them in proper time and occa- 
 sion. Of course, at Waterloo a spirit like our guide's 
 cannot fail to be deeply moved, and to turn to his favorite 
 poet for sympathy. Hark how the laureated bard sings 
 about the tombstones at Waterloo : 
 
 " That temple to our hearts was hallowed now, 
 
 For. many a wounded Briton there was laid, 
 With such for help as time might then allow 
 
 From the fresh carnage of the field conveyed. 
 And they whom human succor could not save, 
 
 Here, in its precincts, found a hasty grave. 
 And here, on marble tablets set on high, 
 
 In English lines by foreign workmen traced, 
 The names familiar to an English eye 
 
 Their brethren here the fit memorial placed, 
 Whose unadorned inscriptions briefly tell 
 
 Their gallant comrades' rank, and where they fell. 
 The stateliest monument of human pride, 
 
 Enriched with all magnificence of art, 
 To honor chieftains who in victory died, 
 
 Would wake no stronger feeling in the heart 
 Than these plain tablets, by the soldier's hand 
 
 Raised to his comrades in a foreign land." 
 
 There are lines for you ! wonderful for justice, rich in 
 thought and novel ideas. The passage concerning their 
 gallant comrades' rank should be specially remarked. 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 185 
 
 There, indeed, they lie, sure enough, the Honorable 
 Colonel This, of the Guards, Captain That, of the Hus- 
 sars, Major So-and-So, of the Dragoons, brave men 
 and good, who did their duty by their country on that 
 day, and died in the performance of it. 
 
 Amen: but I confess fairly, that in looking at these 
 tablets I felt very much disappointed at not seeing the 
 names of the men as well as the officers. Are they to be 
 counted for naught? A few more inches of marble to 
 each monument would have given space for all the names 
 of the men ; and the men of that day were the winners 
 of the battle. We have a right to be as grateful individ- 
 ually to any given private as to any given officer ; their 
 duties were very much the same. Why should the 
 country reserve its gratitude for the genteel occupiers of 
 the army-list, and forget the gallant fellows whose humble 
 names were written in the regimental books ? In read- 
 ing of the Wellington wars, and the conduct of the men 
 engaged in them, I don't know whether to respect them 
 or to wonder at them most. They have death, wounds, 
 and poverty in contemplation ; in possession, poverty, 
 hard labor, hard fare, and small thanks. If they do 
 wrong, they are handed over to the inevitable provost- 
 marshal ; if they are heroes, heroes they may be, but 
 they remain privates still, handling the old brown Bess, 
 starving on the old twopence a day. They grow gray in 
 battle and victory, and, after thirty years of bloody ser- 
 vice, a young gentleman of fifteen, fresh from a prepara- 
 tory school, who can scarcely read, and came but yester- 
 day with a pinafore on to papa's dessert, such a young 
 gentleman, I say, arrives in a spick and span red coat, 
 and calmly takes the command over our veteran, who 
 obeys him as if God and nature had ordained that so 
 throughout time it should be. 
 
186 LITTLE TRAVELS AND 
 
 That privates should obey, and that they should be 
 smartly punished if they disobey, this one can under- 
 stand very well. But to say obey forever and ever, 
 to say that Private John Styles is, by some physical 
 disproportion, hopelessly inferior to Cornet Snooks, to 
 say that Snooks shall have honors, epaulets, and a marble 
 tablet if he dies, and that Styles shall fight his fight, and 
 have his twopence a day, and when shot down shall be 
 shovelled into a hole with other Styleses, and so forgot- 
 ten ; and to think that we had in the course of the last 
 war some 400,000 of these Styleses, and some 10,000, 
 say, of the Snooks sort, Styles being by nature exactly 
 as honest, clever, and brave as Snooks, and to think 
 that the 400,000 should bear this, is the wonder ! 
 
 Suppose Snooks makes a speech. Look at these 
 Frenchmen, British soldiers, says he, and remember who 
 they are. Two-and-twenty years since they hurled their 
 king from his throne and murdered him (groans). They 
 flung out of their country their ancient and famous no- 
 bility, they published the audacious doctrine of equal- 
 ity, they make a cadet of artillery, a beggarly lawyer's 
 son, into an emperor, and took ignoramuses from the 
 ranks, drummers and privates, by Jove ! of whom 
 they made kings, generals, and marshals ! Is this to be 
 borne ? (cries of No ! no ! ) Upon them, my boys ! 
 down with these godless revolutionists, and rally round 
 the British lion ! 
 
 So saying, Ensign Snooks (whose flag, which he can't 
 carry, is held by a huge grizzly color-sergeant) draws a 
 little sword, and pipes out a feeble huzza. The men of 
 his company, roaring curses at the Frenchmen, prepare 
 to receive and repel a thundering charge of French 
 cuirassiers. The men fight, and Snooks is knighted be- 
 cause the men fought so well. 
 
ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 187 
 
 But live or die, win or lose, what do they get ? Eng- 
 lish glory is too genteel to meddle with those humble fel- 
 lows. She does not condescend to ask the names of the 
 poor devils whom she kills in her service. Why was not 
 every private man's name written upon the stones in 
 Waterloo Church as well as every officer's ? Five hun- 
 dred pounds to the stone-cutters would have served to 
 carve the whole catalogue, and paid the poor compliment 
 of recognition to men who died in doing their duty. If the 
 officers deserved a stone, the men did. But come, let us 
 away, and drop a tear over the Marquis of Anglesea's leg ! 
 
 As for Waterloo, has it not been talked of enough after 
 dinner? Here are some oats that were plucked before 
 Hougomont, where grow not only oats but flourishing 
 crops of grape-shot, bayonets, and legion-of-honor crosses, 
 in amazing profusion. 
 
 Well, though I made a vow not to talk about Waterloo 
 either here or after dinner, there is one little secret ad- 
 mission that one must make after seeing it. Let an Eng- 
 lishman go and see that field, and he never forgets it. 
 The sight is an event in his life ; and, though it has been 
 seen by millions of peaceable gents, grocers from Bond 
 Street, meek attorneys from Chancery Lane, and timid 
 tailors from Piccadilly, I will wager that there is not 
 one of them but feels a glow as he looks at the place, 
 and remembers that he, too, is an Englishman. 
 
 It is a wrong, egotistical, savage, unchristian feeling, 
 and that 's the truth of it. A man of peace has no right 
 to be dazzled by that red-coated glory, and to intoxicate 
 his vanity with those remembrances of carnage and tri- 
 umph. The same sentence which tells us that on earth 
 there ought to be peace and good-will amongst men, tells 
 us to whom GLOKY belongs. 
 
ON MEN AND PICTURES. 
 
 A PROPOS OF A WALK IN THE LOUVRE. 
 
 PARIS, June, 1841. 
 
 N the days of my youth I knew a young fellow 
 that I shall here call Tidbody, and who, born 
 in a provincial town of respectable parents, 
 had been considered by the drawing-master of 
 the place, and, indeed, by the principal tea-parties there, 
 as a great genius in the painting line, and one that was 
 sure to make his fortune. 
 
 When he had made portraits of his grandmother, of the 
 house-dog, of the door-knocker, of the church and parson 
 of the place, and had copied, tant Uen que mal, the most 
 of the prints that were to be found in the various houses 
 of the village, Harry Tidbody was voted to be very nearly 
 perfect ; and his honest parents laid out their little sav- 
 ings in sending the lad to Rome and Paris. 
 
 I saw him in the latter town in the year '32, before an 
 immense easel, perched upon a high stool, and copying 
 with perfect complacency a Correggio in the gallery, 
 which he thought he had imitated to a nicety. No mis- 
 givings ever entered into the man's mind that he was 
 making an ass of himself; he never once paused to con- 
 sider that his copy was as much like the Correggio as my 
 nose is like the Apollo's. But he rose early of mornings, 
 and scrubbed away all day with his macgilps and var- 
 
ON MEN AND PICTURES. 189 
 
 mshes ; he worked away through cold and through sun- 
 shine ; when other men were warming their fingers at the 
 stoves, or wisely lounging on the Boulevard, he worked 
 away, and thought he was cultivating art in the purest 
 fashion, and smiled with easy scorn upon those who took 
 the world more easily than he. Tidbody drank water 
 with his meals, if meals those miserable scraps of bread 
 and cheese, or bread and sausage, could be called, which 
 he lined his lean stomach with ; and voted those persons 
 godless gluttons who recreated themselves with brandy 
 and beef. He rose up at daybreak, and worked away 
 with bladder and brush ; he passed all night at life-acade- 
 mies, designing life-guardsmen with chalk and stump ; he 
 never was known to take any other recreation ; and in 
 ten years he had spent as much time over his drawing as 
 another man spends in thirty. At the end of his second 
 year of academical studies, Harry Tidbody could draw 
 exactly as well as he could eight years after. He had 
 visited Florence, and Rome, and Venice, in the interval ; 
 but there he was as he had begun, without one single far- 
 ther idea, and not an inch nearer the goal at which he 
 aimed. 
 
 One day, at the Life-academy in St. Martin's Lane, I 
 saw before me the back of a shock head of hair and a 
 pair of ragged elbows, belonging to a man in a certain 
 pompous attitude which I thought I recognized ; and 
 when the model retired behind his curtain to take his ten 
 minutes' repose, the man belonging to the back in ques- 
 tion turned round a little, and took out an old snuffy cot- 
 ton handkerchief and wiped his forehead and lank cheek- 
 bones, that were moist with the vast mental and bodily 
 exertions of the night. Harry Tidbody was the man in 
 question. In ten years he had spent at least three thou- 
 
190 ON MEN AND PICTURES. 
 
 sand nights in copying the model. When abroad, per- 
 haps, he had passed the Sunday evenings too in the same 
 rigorous and dismal pastime. He had piles upon piles of 
 gray paper at his lodgings, covered with worthless nudities 
 in black and white chalk. 
 
 At the end of the evening we shook hands, and I asked 
 him how the arts flourished. The poor fellow, with a 
 kind of dismal humor that formed a part of his character, 
 twirled round upon the iron heels of his old patched 
 Blucher boots, and showed me his figure for answer. 
 Such a lean, long, ragged, fantastical-looking personage, 
 it would be hard to match out of the drawing-schools. 
 
 " Tit, my boy," said he, when he had finished his pirou- 
 ette, " you may see that the arts have not fattened me 
 as yet ; and, between ourselves, I make by my profession 
 something considerably less than a thousand a year. But, 
 mind you, I am not discouraged ; my whole soul is in my 
 calling ; I can't do anything else if I would ; and I will 
 be a painter, or die in the attempt." 
 
 Tidbody is not dead, I am happy to say, but has a 
 snug place in the Excise of eighty pounds a year, and 
 now only exercises the pencil as an amateur. If his story 
 has been told here at some length, the ingenious reader 
 may fancy that there is some reason for it. In the first 
 place, there is so little to say about the present exhibi- 
 tion at Paris, that your humble servant does not know 
 how to fill his pages without some digressions ; and, sec- 
 ondly, the Tidbodian episode has a certain moral in it, 
 without which it never would have been related, and 
 which is good for all artists to read. 
 
 It came to my mind upon examining a picture of sixty 
 feet by forty (indeed, it cannot be much smaller), which 
 takes up a good deal of room in the large room of the 
 
ON MEN AND PICTURES. 191 
 
 Louvre. But of this picture anon. Let us come to the 
 general considerations. 
 
 Why the deuce will men make light of that golden 
 gift of mediocrity which for the most part they possess, 
 and strive so absurdly at the sublime ? What is it that 
 makes a fortune in this world but energetic mediocrity ? 
 What is it that is so respected and prosperous as good, 
 honest, emphatic, blundering dulness, bellowing common- 
 places with its great healthy lungs, kicking and struggling 
 with its big feet and fists, and bringing an awe-stricken 
 public down on its knees before it ? Think, my good sir, 
 of the people who occupy your attention and the world's. 
 Who are they ? Upon your honor and conscience now, 
 are they not persons with thews and sinews like your 
 own, only they use them with somewhat more activity, 
 with a voice like yours, only they shout a little louder, 
 with the average portion of brains, in fact, but working 
 them more ? But this kind of disbelief in heroes is very 
 offensive to the world, it must be confessed. There, 
 now, is The Times newspaper, which the other day rated 
 your humble servant for publishing an account of one of 
 the great humbugs of modern days, viz. the late funeral 
 of Napoleon, which rated me, I say, and talked in its 
 own grave, roaring way, about the flippancy and conceit 
 of Titmarsh. 
 
 O you thundering old Times! Napoleon's funeral 
 was a humbug, and your constant reader said so. The 
 people engaged in it were humbugs, and this your Michael 
 Angelo hinted at. There may be irreverence in this, 
 and the process of humbug-hunting may end rather awk- 
 wardly for some people. But, surely, there is no conceit. 
 The shamming of modesty is the most pert conceit of all, 
 the precieuse affectation of deference where you don't feel 
 
192 ON MEN AND PICTURES. 
 
 it, the sneaking acquiescence in lies. It is very hard that 
 a man may not tell the truth as he fancies it, without be- 
 ing accused of conceit : but so the world wags. As has 
 already been prettily shown in that before-mentioned little 
 book about Napoleon, that is still to be had of the pub- 
 lishers, there is a ballad in the volume, which, if properly 
 studied, will be alone worth two-and-sixpence to any 
 man. 
 
 Well, the funeral of Napoleon was a humbug; and, 
 being so, what was a man to call it ? What do we call a 
 rose ? Is it disrespectful to the pretty flower to call it by 
 its own innocent name ? And, in like manner, are we 
 bound, out of respect for society, to speak of humbug only 
 in a circumlocutory way, to call it something else, as 
 they say some Indian people do their devil, to wrap it 
 up in riddles and charades ? Nothing is easier. Take, 
 for instance, the following couple of sonnets on the sub- 
 ject : 
 
 The glad spring sun shone yesterday, as Mr. 
 M. Titmarsh wandered with his favorite lassie 
 By silver Seine, among the meadows grassy, 
 
 Meadows, like mail-coach guards new clad at Easter 
 Fair was the sight 'twixt Neuilly and Passy j 
 
 And green the field, and bright the river's glister. 
 
 The birds sang salutations to the spring ; 
 
 Already buds and leaves from branches burst : 
 
 "The surly winter time hath done its worst," 
 Said Michael; "Lo, the bees are on the wing! " 
 Then on the ground his lazy limbs did fling. 
 
 Meanwhile the bees pass'd by him with my first. 
 My second dare I to your notice bring, 
 
 Or name to delicate ears that animal accurst ? 
 
 To all our earthly family of fools 
 My whole, resistless despot, gives the law, 
 
ON MEN AND PICTURES. 193 
 
 Humble and great, we kneel to it with awe : 
 O'er camp and court, the senate and the schools, 
 Our grand invisible Lama sits and rules, 
 
 By ministers that are its men of straw. 
 
 Sir Robert utters it in place of wit, 
 And straight the Opposition shouts "Hear, hear!" 
 And, oh ! but all the Whiggish benches cheer 
 
 When great Lord John retorts it, as is fit. 
 In you, my Press,* each day throughout the year, 
 
 On vast broad sheets we find its praises writ. 
 wondrous are the columns that you rear, 
 
 And sweet the morning hymns you roar in praise of it ! 
 
 Sacred word ! It is kept out of the dictionaries, as if 
 the great compilers of those publications were afraid to 
 utter it. Well, then, the funeral of Napoleon was a hum- 
 bug, as Titmarsh wrote ; and a still better proof that it 
 was a humbug was this, that nobody bought Titmarsh's 
 book, and of the ten thousand copies made ready by the 
 publisher, not above three thousand went off. It was a 
 humbug, and an exploded humbug. Peace be to it! 
 Parlons d'autres chases; and let us begin to discourse 
 about the pictures without further shilly-shally. 
 
 I must confess, with a great deal of shame, that I love 
 to go to the picture gallery of a Sunday after church, on 
 purpose to see the thousand happy people of the working 
 
 * The reader can easily accommodate this line to the name of his 
 favorite paper. Thus: 
 
 " In you, my p' ea ch day throughout the year." 
 Or: 
 
 " In you, my j ^^' | daily through the year." 
 Or, in France : 
 
 " In you, my Galignani's Messengere" ; 
 
 a capital paper, because you have there the very cream of all the oth- 
 ers. In the last line, for "morning" you can read "evening," or 
 "weekly," as circumstances prompt. 
 
 9 M 
 
194 ON MEN AND PICTURES. 
 
 sort amusing themselves not very wickedly, as I fancy 
 in the only day in the week on which they have their 
 freedom. Genteel people, who can amuse themselves 
 every day throughout the year, do not frequent the 
 Louvre on a Sunday. You can't see the pictures well, 
 and are pushed and elbowed by all sorts of low-bred crea- 
 tures. Yesterday, there were at the very least two hun- 
 dred common soldiers in the place, little vulgar ruf- 
 fians, with red breeches and three halfpence a-day, ex- 
 amining the pictures in company with fifteen hundred 
 grisettes, two thousand liberated shop-boys, eighteen hun- 
 dred and forty-one artist-apprentices, half a dozen of liv- 
 ery servants, and many scores of fellows with caps, and 
 jackets, and copper-colored countenances, and gold ear- 
 rings, and large ugly hands, that are hammering, or weav- 
 ing, or filing, all the week. Fi done ! what a thing it is 
 to have a taste for low company ! Every man of decent 
 breeding ought to have been in the Bois de Boulogne, in 
 white kid gloves and on horseback, or on hack-back at 
 least. How the dandies just now went prancing and 
 curvetting down the Champs Elysees, making their 
 horses jump as they passed the carriages, with their ja- 
 panned boots glittering in the sunshine ! 
 
 The fountains were flashing and foaming, as if they too 
 were in their best for Sunday ; the trees are covered all 
 over with little, twinkling, bright green sprouts ; number- 
 less exhibitions of Punch and the Fantoccini are going on 
 beneath them ; and jugglers and balancers are entertain- 
 ing the people with their pranks. I met two fellows the 
 other day, one with a barrel-organ, and the other with a 
 beard, a turban, a red jacket, and a pair of dirty, short, 
 spangled, white trousers, who were cursing each other in 
 the purest St. Giles's English ; and if I had had impudence 
 
ON MEN AND PICTURES. 195 
 
 or generosity enough, I should have liked to make up 
 their quarrel over a chopine of Strasbourg beer, and hear 
 the histories of either. Think of these fellows quitting 
 our beloved country, and their homes in some calm nook 
 of Field Lane or Seven Dials, and toiling over to France 
 with their music and their juggling- traps, to balance cart- 
 wheels and swallow knives for the amusement of our 
 natural enemies ! They are very likely at work at this 
 minute, with grinning bonnes and conscripts staring at 
 their skill. It is pleasant to walk by and see the nurses 
 and the children so uproariously happy. Yonder is one 
 who has got a halfpenny to give to the beggar at the 
 crossing ; several are riding gravely in little carriages 
 drawn by goats. Ah, truly, the sunshine is a fine thing ; 
 and one loves to see the little people and the poor bask- 
 ing in it, as well as the great in their fine carriages, or 
 their prancing cock-tailed horses. 
 
 In the midst of sights of this kind, you pass on a fine 
 Sunday afternoon down the Elysian Fields and the Tuile- 
 ries, until you reach the before-mentioned low-bred crowd 
 rushing into the Louvre. 
 
 Well, then, the pictures of this exhibition are to be 
 numbered by thousands, and these thousands contain the 
 ordinary number of chefs-d'oeuvre ; that is to say, there may 
 be a couple of works of genius, half a dozen very clever 
 performances, a hundred or so of good ones, fifteen hun- 
 dred very decent good or bad pictures, and the remainder 
 atrocious. What a comfort it is, as I have often thought, 
 that they are not all masterpieces, and that there is a 
 good stock of mediocrity in this world, and that we only 
 light upon genius now and then, at rare angel intervals, 
 handed round like tokay at dessert, in a few houses, and 
 in very small quantities only! Fancy how sick one 
 would grow of it, if one had no other drink! 
 
196 ON MEN AND PICTURES. 
 
 Now, in this exhibition there are, of course, a certain 
 number of persons who make believe that they are 
 handing you round tokay, giving you the real imperi- 
 al stuff, with the seal of genius stamped on the cork. 
 There are numbers of ambitious pictures, in other words, 
 chiefly upon sacred subjects, and in what is called a se- 
 vere style of art. 
 
 The severe style of art consists in drawing your figures 
 in the first place very big and very neat, in which there 
 is no harm ; and in dressing them chiefly in stiff, crisp, 
 old-fashioned draperies, such as one sees in the illumi- 
 nated missals and the old masters. The old masters, no 
 doubt, copied the habits of the people about them ; and it 
 has always appeared as absurd to me to imitate these 
 antique costumes, and to dress up saints and virgins after 
 the fashion of the fifteenth century, as it would be to 
 adorn them with hoops and red-heels such as our grand- 
 mothers wore; and to make a Magdalen, for instance, 
 taking off her patches, or an angel in powder and a 
 hoop. 
 
 It is, or used to be, the custom at the theatres for the 
 grave-digger in " Hamlet " always to wear fifteen or six- 
 teen waistcoats, of which he leisurely divested himself, 
 the audience roaring at each change of raiment. Do the 
 Denmark grave-diggers always wear fifteen waistcoats ? 
 Let anybody answer who has visited the country. But 
 the probability is that the custom on the stage is a very 
 ancient one, and that the public would not be satisfied 
 at a departure from the legend. As in the matter of 
 grave-diggers, so it is with angels; they have and 
 Heaven knows why a regular costume, which every 
 "serious" painter follows; and which has a great deal 
 more to do with serious art than people at first may im- 
 
ON MEN AND PICTURES. 197 
 
 agine. They have large white wings, that fill up a quarter 
 of the picture in which they have the good fortune to be ; 
 they have white gowns that fall round their feet in pretty, 
 fantastical draperies ; they have fillets round their brows, 
 and their hair combed and neatly pomatumed down the 
 middle; and if they have not a sword, have an elegant 
 portable harp of a certain angelic shape. Large rims 
 of gold-leaf they have round their heads always, a 
 pretty business it would be if such adjuncts were to be 
 left out. 
 
 Now, suppose the legend ordered that every grave- 
 digger should be represented with a gold-leaf halo round 
 his head, and every angel with fifteen waistcoats, artists 
 would have followed serious art just as they do now, 
 most probably, and looked with scorn at the miserable 
 creature who ventured to scoff "at the waistcoats. Ten to 
 one but a certain newspaper would have called a man 
 flippant who did not respect the waistcoats, would 
 have said that he was irreverent for not worshipping the 
 waistcoats. But why talk of it? The fact is, I have 
 rather a desire to set up for a martyr, like my neighbors 
 in the literary trade : it is not a little comforting to un- 
 dergo such persecutions courageously. " O Socrate ! je 
 boirai la cigue avec toi ! " as David said to Robespierre. 
 You, too, were accused of blasphemy in your time ; and 
 the world has been treating us poor literary gents in the 
 same way ever since. There, now, is Bulw 
 
 But to return to the painters. In the matter of can- 
 vas covering, the French artists are a great deal more 
 audacious than ours ; and I have known a man starve all 
 the winter through, without fire and without beef, in order 
 that he might have the honor of filling five-and-twenty 
 feet square of canvas with some favorite subject of his. 
 
198 ON MEN AND PICTURES. 
 
 It is curious to look through the collection, and see 
 how for the most part the men draw their ideas. 
 There are caricatures of the late and early style of 
 Raphael ; there are caricatures of Masaccio ; there is 
 a picture painted in the very pyramidical form, and 
 in the manner of Andrea del Sarto ; there is a Holy 
 Family, the exact counterpart of Leonardo da Vinci; 
 and, finally, there is Achille Deveria, it is no use to 
 give the names and numbers of the other artists, who are 
 not known in England, there is Achille Deveria, who, 
 having nothing else to caricature, has caricatured a paint- 
 ed window, and designed a Charity, of which all the out- 
 lines are half an inch thick. 
 
 Then there are numberless caricatures in color as in 
 form. There is a Violet Entombment, a crimson one, 
 a green one ; a light emerald and gamboge Eve ; all 
 huge pictures, with talent enough in their composition, 
 but remarkable for this strange, mad love of extravagance, 
 which belongs to the nation. Titian and the Venetians 
 have loved to paint lurid skies and sunsets of purple and 
 gold ; here, in consequence, is a piebald picture of crim- 
 son and yellow, laid on in streaks from the top to the 
 bottom. 
 
 Who has not heard a great, comfortable, big-chested 
 man, with bands round a sleek double chin, and fat white 
 cushion-squeezers of hands, and large red whiskers, and a 
 soft roaring voice, the delight of a congregation, preaching 
 for an hour with all the appearance and twice the empha- 
 sis of piety, and leading audiences captive ? And who 
 has not seen a humble individual, who is quite confused 
 to be conducted down the aisle by the big beadle with his 
 silver staff (the stalwart " drum-major ecclesiastic ") ; and 
 when in his pulpit, saying his say in the simplest manner 
 
ON MEN AND PICTURES. 199 
 
 possible, uttering what are very likely commonplaces, 
 without a single rhetorical grace or emphasis ? 
 
 The great, comfortable, red- whiskered, roaring cushion- 
 thumper, is most probably the favorite with the public. 
 But there are some persons who, nevertheless, prefer to 
 listen to the man of timid, mild commonplaces, because 
 the simple words he speaks comes from his heart, and so 
 find a way directly to yours ; where, if perhaps you can't 
 find belief for them, you still are sure to receive them 
 with respect and sympathy. 
 
 There are many such professors at the easel as well as 
 the pulpit ; and you see many painters with a great vigor 
 and dexterity, and no sincerity of heart ; some with little 
 dexterity, but plenty of sincerity ; some one or two in a 
 million who have both these qualities, and thus become 
 the great men of their art. I think there are instances 
 of the two former kinds in this present exhibition of the 
 Louvre. There are fellows who have covered great swag- 
 gering canvases with all the attitudes and externals of 
 piety ; and some few whose humble pictures cause no stir, 
 and remain in quiet nooks, where one finds them, and 
 straightway acknowledges the simple, kindly appeal, which 
 they make. 
 
 Of such an order is the picture entitled " La Priere," by 
 M. Trimolet. A man and his wife are kneeling at an old- 
 fashioned praying-desk, and the woman clasps a little 
 sickly-looking child in her arms, and all three are pray- 
 ing as earnestly as. their simple hearts will let them. 
 The man is a limner, or painter of missals, by trade, as we 
 fancy. One of his works lies upon the praying-desk, and 
 it is evident that he can paint no more that day, for the 
 sun is just set behind the old-fashioned roofs of the houses 
 in the narrow street of the old city where he lives. In- 
 
200 ON MEN AND PICTURES. 
 
 deed, I have had a great deal of pleasure in looking at 
 this little quiet painting, and in the course of half a dozen 
 visits that I have paid to it, have become perfectly ac- 
 quainted with all the circumstances of the life of the 
 honest missal illuminator and his wife, here praying at 
 the end of their day's work in the calm summer even- 
 ing. 
 
 Very likely M. Trimolet has quite a different history 
 for his little personages, and so has everybody else who 
 examines the picture. But what of that ? There is the 
 privilege of pictures. A man does not know all that lies 
 in his picture, any more than he understands all the char- 
 acter of his children. Directly one or the other makes 
 its appearance in the world, it has its own private exist- 
 ence, independent of the progenitor. And in respect of 
 works of art, if the same piece inspire one man with joy, 
 that fills another with compassion, what are we to say of 
 it, but that it has sundry properties of its own which its 
 author even does not understand ? The fact is, pictures 
 " are as they seem to all," as Mr. Alfred Tennyson sings, 
 in the first volume of his poems. 
 
 Some of this character of holiness and devotion that I 
 fancy I see in M. Trimolet's pictures is likewise observa- 
 ble in a piece by Madame Juillerat, representing Saint 
 Elizabeth, of Hungary, leading a little beggar-boy into 
 her house, where the holy dame of Hungary will, no 
 doubt, make him comfortable with a good plate of vict- 
 uals. A couple of young ladies follow behind the prin- 
 cess, with demure looks, and garlands in their hair, that 
 hangs straight on their shoulders, as one sees it in the 
 old illuminations. The whole picture has a pleasant, mys- 
 tic, innocent look ; and one is all the better for regarding 
 it. What a fine instinct or task it was in the old missal 
 
ON MEN AND PICTURES. 201 
 
 illuminators to be so particular in the painting of the mi- 
 nor parts of their pictures ! the precise manner in which 
 the flowers and leaves, birds and branches, are painted, 
 give an air of truth and simplicity to the whole perform- 
 ance, and make nature, as it were, an accomplice and 
 actor in the scene going on. For instance, you may look 
 at a landscape with certain feelings of pleasure ; but if 
 you have pulled a rose, and are smelling it, and if of a 
 sudden a blackbird in a bush hard by begins to sing and 
 chirrup, your feeling of pleasure is very much enhanced, 
 most likely; the senses with which you examine the 
 scene become brightened as it were, and the scene itself 
 becomes more agreeable to you. It is not the same place 
 as it was before you smelt the rose, or before the blackbird 
 began to sing. Now, in Madame Juillerat's picture of 
 the Saint of Hungary and the hungry boy, if the flowers 
 on the young ladies' heads had been omitted, or not paint- 
 ed with their pleasing minuteness and circumstantiality, I 
 fancy that the effect of the piece would have been by no 
 means the same. Another artist of the mystical school, 
 Monsieur Servan, has employed the same adjuncts in a 
 similarly successful manner. One of his pictures repre- 
 sents St. Augustin meditating in a garden. A great clus- 
 ter of rose-bushes, hollyhocks, and other plants, are in the 
 foreground, most accurately delineated ; and a fine rich 
 landscape and river stretch behind the saint, round whom 
 the flowers seem to keep up a mysterious waving and 
 whispering that fill one with a sweet, pleasing, indescrib- 
 able kind of awe, a great perfection in this style of 
 painting. 
 
 In M. Aguado's gallery there is an early Raphael 
 (which all the world declares to be a copy, but no mat- 
 ter). This piece only represents two young people walk- 
 9* 
 
202 ON MEN AND PICTURES. 
 
 ing hand-in-hand in a garden, and looking at you with a 
 kind of " solemn mirth " (the expression of old Sternhold 
 and Hopkins has always struck me as very fine). A 
 meadow is behind them, at the end of which is a cottage, 
 and by which flows a river, environed by certain very 
 prim-looking trees ; and that is all. Well ; it is impossible 
 for any person who has a sentiment for the art to look 
 at this picture without feeling indescribably moved and 
 pleased by it. It acts upon you how ? How does a 
 beautiful, pious, tender air of Mozart act upon you? 
 What is there in it that should make you happy and gen- 
 tle, and fill you with all sorts of good thoughts and kindly 
 feelings? I fear that what Dr. Thumpcushion says at 
 church is correct, and that these indulgences are only 
 carnal, and of the earth earthy ; but the sensual effort in 
 this case carries one quite away from the earth, and up 
 to something that is very like heaven. 
 
 Now the writer of this has already been severely rep- 
 rehended for saying that Raphael at thirty had lost that 
 delightful innocence and purity which rendered the works 
 of Raphael of twenty so divine ; and perhaps it may be 
 the critic's fault and not the painter's (I 'm not proud, 
 and will allow that even a magazine critic may be mis- 
 taken). Perhaps by the greatest stretch of the perhaps, 
 it may be that Raphael was every whit as divine at thirty 
 as at eighteen ; and that the very quaintnesses and im- 
 perfections of manner observable in his early works are 
 the reasons why they appear so singularly pleasing to 
 me. At least, among painters of the present day, I feel 
 myself more disposed to recognize spiritual beauties in 
 those whose powers of execution are manifestly incom- 
 plete, than in artists whose hands are skilful and manner 
 formed. Thus there are scores of large pictures here, 
 
ON MEN AND PICTURES. 203 
 
 hanging in the Louvre, that represent subjects taken 
 from Holy Writ, or from the lives of the saints, pic- 
 tures skilfully enough painted and intended to be re- 
 ligious, that have not the slightest effect upon me, no 
 more than Dr. Thumpcushion's loudest and glibbest ser- 
 mon. 
 
 Here is No. 1475, for instance, a " Holy Family," 
 painted in the antique manner, and with all the accesso- 
 ries before spoken of, viz. large flowers, fresh roses, and 
 white stately lilies ; curling tendrils of vines forming fan- 
 tastical canopies for the heads of the sacred personages, 
 and rings of gold-leaf drawn neatly round the same. 
 Here is the Virgin, with long, stiff, prim draperies of blue, 
 red, and white ; and old Saint Anne in a sober dress, 
 seated gravely at her side ; and Saint Joseph in a becom- 
 ing attitude ; and all very cleverly treated, and pleasing 
 to the eye. But though this picture is twice as well 
 painted as any of those before mentioned, it does not 
 touch my heart in the least ; nor do any of the rest of the 
 sacred pieces. 
 
 Opposite the " Holy Family " is a great " Martyrdom 
 of Polycarp," and the Catalogue tells you how the ex- 
 ecutioners first tried to burn the saint ; but the fire went 
 out, and the executioners were knocked down ; then a 
 soldier struck the saint with a sword, and so killed him. 
 The legends recount numerous miracles of this sort, 
 which I confess have not any very edifying effect upon 
 me. Saints are clapped into boiling oil, which immedi- 
 ately turns cool ; or their heads are chopped off, and 
 their blood turns to milk ; and so on. One can't under- 
 stand why these continual delays and disappointments 
 take place, especially as the martyr is always killed at the 
 end ; so that it would be best at once to put him out of 
 
204 ON MEN AND PICTURES. 
 
 his pain. For this reason, possibly, the execution of 
 Saint Polycarp did not properly affect the writer of this 
 notice. 
 
 M. Laemlein has a good picture of the " Waking of 
 Adam," so royally described by Milton, a picture full 
 of gladness, vigor, and sunshine. There is a very fine 
 figure of a weeping woman in a picture of the " Death of 
 the Virgin " ; and the Virgin falling in M. Steuben's pic- 
 ture of " Our Saviour going to Execution," is very pa- 
 thetic. The mention of this gentleman brings us to what 
 is called the bourgeois style of art, of which he is one of 
 the chief professors. He excels in depicting a certain 
 kind of sentiment, and in the vulgar, which is often too 
 the true, pathetic. 
 
 Steuben has painted many scores of Napoleons ; and his 
 picture of Napoleon this year brings numbers of admir- 
 ing people round it. The emperor is seated on a sofa, 
 reading despatches; and the little King of Rome, in a 
 white muslin frock, with his hair beautifully curled, slum- 
 bers on his papa's knee. What a contrast! The con- 
 queror of the world, the stern warrior, the great giver of 
 laws and ruler of nations, he dare not move because the 
 little baby is asleep ; and he would not disturb him for 
 all the kingdoms he knows so well how to conquer. This 
 is not art, if you please ; but it is pleasant to see fat, 
 good-natured mothers and grandmothers clustered round 
 this picture, and looking at it with solemn eyes. The 
 same painter has an Esmeralda dancing and frisking in 
 her night-gown, and playing the tambourine to her goat, 
 capering likewise. This picture is so delightfully bad, 
 the little gypsy has such a killing ogle, that all the world 
 admires it. M. Steuben should send it to London, where 
 it would be sure of a gigantic success. 
 
ON MEN AND PICTURES. 205 
 
 M. Grenier has a piece much looked at, in the bour- 
 geois line. Some rogues of gypsies or mountebanks have 
 kidnapped a fine fat child, and are stripping it of its pret- 
 ty clothes ; and poor baby is crying ; and the gypsy-wom- 
 an holding up her finger, and threatening ; and the he- 
 mountebank is lying on a bank, smoking his pipe, the 
 callous monster ! Preciously they will illtreat that dear 
 little darling, if justice do not overtake them, if, ay, if. 
 But, thank Heaven ! there in the corner come the police, 
 and they will have that pipe -smoking scoundrel off to the 
 galleys before five minutes are over. 
 
 1056. A picture of the galleys. Two galley-slaves 
 are before you, and the piece is called, " A Crime and a 
 Fault." The poor " Fault " is sitting on a stone, looking 
 very repentant and unhappy indeed. The great " Crime " 
 stands grinning you in the face, smoking his pipe. The 
 ruffian ! That pipe seems to be a great mark of callosity 
 in ruffians. I heard one man whisper to another, as they 
 were looking at these galley-slaves, " They are portraits" 
 and very much affected his companion seemed by the in- 
 formation. 
 
 Of a similar virtuous interest is 705, by M. Finart. 
 " A Family of African Colonists carried off by Abdel- 
 Kader." There is the poor male colonist without a single 
 thing on but a rope round his wrists. His silver skin is 
 dabbled with his golden blood, and he looks up to heaven 
 as the Arabs are poking him on with the tips of their hor- 
 rid spears. Behind him come his flocks and herds, and 
 other members of his family. In front, principal figure, 
 is his angelic wife, in her night-gown, and in the arms of 
 an odious blackamoor on horseback. Poor thing, poor 
 thing ! she is kicking, and struggling, and resisting as 
 hard as she possibly can. 
 
206 ON MEN AND PICTURES. 
 
 485. The Two Friends." Debay. 
 
 "Deux jeunes femmes se donnent le gage le plus sacre* 
 d'une amitie sincere, dans un acte de de'voument et de recon- 
 naissance. 
 
 " L'une d'elles, faibte, extenude d'efforts inutilement tentes 
 pour allaiter, decouvre son sein tari, cause du deperissement 
 de son enfant. Sa douleur est comprise par son amie, a qui 
 la sante permet d'aj outer au bonheur de nourrir son propre 
 enfant, celui de rappeler a la vie le fils mourant de sa com- 
 pagne." 
 
 M. Debay's pictures are not bad, as most of the others 
 here mentioned as appertaining to the bourgeois class; 
 but, good or bad, I can't but own that I like to see these 
 honest, hearty representations, which work upon good 
 simple feeling in a good downright way; and, if not 
 works of art, are certainly works that can do a great deal 
 of good, and make honest people happy. Who is the 
 man that despises melodramas? I swear that T. P. 
 Cooke is a benefactor to mankind. Away with him who 
 has no stomach for such kind of entertainments, where 
 vice is always punished, where virtue always meets its 
 reward ; where Mrs. James Vining is always sure to be 
 made comfortable somewhere at the end of the third act ; 
 and if O. Smith is lying in agonies of death, in red 
 breeches, on the front of the stage, or has just gone off 
 in a flash of fire down one of the traps, I know it is only 
 make-believe on his part, and believe him to be a good, 
 kind-hearted fellow, that would not do harm to mortal ! 
 So much for pictures of the serious melo-dramatic sort. 
 
 M. Biard, whose picture of the " Slave-trade " made 
 so much noise in London last year, and indeed it is as 
 fine as Hogarth, has this year many comic pieces, and 
 a series representing the present majesty of France, 
 
ON MEN AND PICTURES. 207 
 
 when Duke of Orleans, undergoing various perils by land 
 and by water. There is much good in these pieces; but 
 I mean no disrespect in saying I like the comic ones best. 
 There is one entitled "Une Distraction." A National 
 Guard is amusing himself by catching flies. You can't 
 fail to laugh when you see it. There is "Le Gros Peche'," 
 and the biggest of all sins, no less than a drum-major 
 confessing. You can't see the monster's face, which the 
 painter has wisely hidden behind the curtain, as beyond 
 the reach of art ; but you see the priest's, and, murder ! 
 what a sin it must be that the big tambour has just im- 
 parted to him ! All the French critics sneer at Biard, as 
 they do at Paul de Kock, for not being artistical enough ; 
 but I do not think these gentlemen need mind the sneer : 
 they have the millions with them, as Feargus O'Connor 
 says, and they are good judges, after all. 
 
 A great comfort it is to think that there is a reasonable 
 prospect that, for the future, very few more battle-pieces 
 will be painted. They have used up all the victories, 
 and Versailles is almost full. So this year, much to my 
 happiness, only a few yards of warlike canvas are ex- 
 hibited in place of the furlongs which one was called up- 
 on to examine in former exhibitions. One retreat from 
 Moscow is there, and one storming of El Gibbet, or El 
 Arish, or some such place, in Africa. In the latter pic- 
 ture you see a thousand fellows, in loose red pantaloons, 
 rushing up a hill with base heathen Turks on the top, who 
 are firing off guns, carabines, and other pieces of ord- 
 nance, at them. All this is very well painted by Mon- 
 sieur Bollange, and the rush of red breeches has a queer 
 and pleasing appearance. In the Russian piece, you 
 have frozen men and cattle ; mothers embracing their off- 
 spring ; grenadiers scowling at the enemy, and especially 
 
208 ON MEN AND PICTURES. 
 
 one fellow standing on a bank with his bayonet placed in 
 the attitude for receiving the charge, and actually charged 
 by a whole regiment of Cossacks, a complete pulk, 
 ray dear madam, coming on in three lines, with their 
 lances pointed against this undaunted warrior of France. 
 I believe Monsieur Thiers sat for the portrait, or else the 
 editor of the " Courrier Francois," the two men in this 
 belligerent nation who are the 'belligerentest. A propos 
 of Thiers ; the " Nouvelles a la Main " have a good story 
 of this little sham Napoleon. When the second son of the 
 Duke of Orleans was born (I forget his royal highness's 
 title), news was brought to Monsieur Thiers. He was 
 told the princess was well, and asked the courier who 
 brought the news, " Comment se portait le Roi de 
 Home ? " It may be said, in confidence, that there is not 
 a single word of truth in the story. But what of that ? 
 Are not sham stories as good as real ones? Ask M. 
 Leullier ; who, in spite of all that has been said and writ- 
 ten upon a certain sea-fight, has actually this year come 
 forward with his 
 
 "1311 Heroisme de I' Equipage du Vaisseau le Vengeur, 
 4 Juin, 1794. 
 
 " Apres avoir soutenu longtemps un combat acharne centre 
 trois vaisseaux Anglais, le vaisseau le Vengeur avait perdu la 
 moitie de son equipage, le reste etait blesse pour la plupart : 
 le second capitaine avait ete coupe en deux par un boulet ; le 
 vaisseau etait rase par le feu de Tennemi, sa mature abattue, 
 ses flancs cribles par les boulets etaient ouverts de toutes 
 parts ; sa cale se remplissait a vue d'ceil ; il s'enfon9ait dans 
 la mer. Les marins qui restent sur son bord servent la bat- 
 terie basse jusqu'k ce qu'elle se trouve au niveau de la mer ; 
 quand elle va disparaitre, ils s'elancent dans la seconde, oil ils 
 repetent la meme manoeuvre ; celle-ci engloutie, ils montent 
 sur le pont. Un troncon de mt d'artimon restait encore de- 
 
ON MEN AND PICTURES. 209 
 
 bout ; leurs pavilions en lambeaux y sont cloues ; puis, re'unis- 
 sant instinctivement leurs volontes en une seule peusee, ils 
 veulent perir avec le navire qui leur a ete confie. Tous, com- 
 battants, blesses, mourants, se raniment: un cri immense s'eleve, 
 repete sur toutes les parties du tillac: Vive la Republique! 
 Vive la France . . Le Vengeur coule . . les cris continuent ; 
 tous . . les bras sont dresses an ciel, et ces braves, preferant la 
 mort a la captivite, emportent triomphalement leur pavilion 
 dans ce glorieux tombeau." France Maritime. 
 
 I think Mr. Thomas Carlyle is in the occasional habit 
 of calling lies wind-bags. This wind-bag, one would 
 have thought, exploded last year ; but no such thing. 
 You can't sink it, do what you will ; it always comes 
 bouncing up to the surface again, where it swims and 
 bobs about gayly for the admiration of all. This lie the 
 Frenchman will believe ; all the papers talk gravely 
 about the affair of the Vengeur, as if an established fact : 
 and I heard the matter disposed of by some artists the 
 other day in a very satisfactory manner. One has always 
 the gratification, in all French societies where the matter 
 is discussed, of telling the real story (or, if the subject be 
 not discussed, of bringing the conversation round to it, 
 and then telling the real story) ; one has always this 
 gratification, and a great, wicked, delightful one it is, 
 you make the whole company uncomfortable at once ; you 
 narrate the history in a calm, good-humored, dispassion- 
 ate tone ; and as you proceed, you see the different per- 
 sonages of the audience looking uneasily at one another, 
 and bursting out occasionally with a " Mais cependant " / 
 but you continue your tale with perfect suavity of man- 
 ner, and have the satisfaction of knowing that you have 
 stuck a dagger into the heart of every single person 
 using it. 
 
 N 
 
210 ON MEN AND PICTURES. 
 
 Telling, I say, this story to some artists who were ex- 
 amining M. Leullier's picture, and I trust that many 
 scores of persons besides were listening to the conversa- 
 tion, one of them replied to my assertion, that Captain 
 Renaudin's letters were extant, and that the whole affair 
 was a humbug, in the following way. 
 
 " Sir," said he, " the sinking of the Vengeur is an estab- 
 lished fact of history. It is completely proved by the 
 documents of the time ; and as for the letters of Captain 
 Renaudin, of which you speak, have we not had an exam- 
 ple the other day of some pretended letters of Louis 
 Philippe's, which were published in a newspaper here ? 
 And what, sir, were those letters ? Forgeries ! " 
 
 Q. E. D. Everybody said sans-culotte was right ; and I 
 have no doubt that if all the Vengeur's crew could rise from 
 the dead, and that English cox or boat swain, who 
 was last on board the ship* of which he and his comrades 
 had possession, and had to swim for his life, could come 
 forward, and swear to the real story, I make no doubt 
 that the Frenchmen would not believe it. Only one I 
 know, my friend Julius, who, ever since the tale has been 
 told to him, has been crying it into all ears and in all so- 
 cieties, and vows he is perfectly hoarse with telling it. 
 
 As for M. Leullier's picture, there is really a great 
 deal of good in it. Fellows embracing each other, and 
 holding up hands and eyes to heaven; and in the dis- 
 tance an English ship, with the crew in red coats, firing 
 away on the doomed vessel. Possibly, they are only 
 marines whom we see; but as I once beheld several 
 English naval officers in a play habited in top-boots, per- 
 haps the legend in France may be, that the navy, like 
 
 * The writer heard of this man from an English captain in the navy, 
 who had him on board his ship. 
 
ON MEN AND PICTURES. 211 
 
 the army, with us, is caparisoned in scarlet. A good 
 subject for another historical picture would be Cambronne, 
 saying, " La Garde meurt mais ne se rend pas" I have 
 bought a couple of engravings of the Vengeur and Cam- 
 bronne, and shall be glad to make a little historical col- 
 lection of facts similarly authenticated. 
 
 Accursed, I say, be all uniform coats of blue or of red ; 
 all ye epaulets and sabertashes ; all ye guns, shrapnels, 
 and musketoons ; all ye silken banners, embroidered with 
 bloody reminiscences of successful fights : down, down 
 to the bottomless pit with you all, and let honest men live 
 and love each other without you ! What business have 
 I, forsooth, to plume myself because the Duke of Wel- 
 lington beat the French in Spain and elsewhere; and 
 kindle as I read the tale, and fancy myself of a heroic 
 stock, because my uncle Tom was at the battle of Water- 
 loo, and because we beat Napoleon there ? Who are we, 
 in the name of Beelzebub ? Did we ever fight in our 
 lives ? Have we the slightest inclination for fighting and 
 murdering one another? Why are we to go on hating 
 one another from generation to generation, swelling up 
 our little bosoms with absurd national conceit, strutting 
 and crowing over our neighbors, and longing to be at 
 fisticuffs with them again ? As Aristotle remarks, in 
 war there are always two parties; and though it often 
 happens that both declare themselves to be victorious, it 
 still is generally the case that one party beats, and the 
 other is beaten. The conqueror is thus filled with na- 
 tional pride, and the conquered with national hatred, and 
 a desire to do better next time. If he has his revenge, 
 and beats his opponent as desired, these agreeable feel- 
 ings are reversed, and so Pride and Hatred continue in 
 scecula sceculorum, and ribands and orders are given 
 
212 ON MEN AND PICTURES. 
 
 away, and great men rise and flourish. " Remember you 
 are Britons ! " cries our general ; " there is the enemy, 
 and d 'em, give 'em the bayonet ! " Hurrah ! helter- 
 skelter, load and fire, cut and thrust, down they go ! 
 " Soldats ! dans ce moment terrible la France vous re- 
 garde ! Vive 1'Empereur ! " shouts Jacques Bonhomme, 
 and his sword is through your ribs in a twinkling. 
 " Children ! " roars Feld-marechal Sauerkraut, " men of 
 Hohenzollernsigmaringen ! remember the eyes of Vater- 
 land are upon you!" and murder again is the conse- 
 quence. Tomahee-tereboo leads on the Ashantees with 
 the very same war-cry, and they eat all their prisoners 
 with true patriotic cannibalism. 
 
 Thus the great truth is handed down from father to 
 son, that 
 
 A Briton, 1 
 
 A Frenchman, 
 
 An Ashantee, > is superior to all the rest of the world ; 
 
 A Hohenzollernsig- 
 maringenite, &c., J 
 
 and by this truth the dullards of the respective nations 
 swear, and by it statesmen govern. 
 
 Let the reader say for himself, does he not believe 
 himself to be superior to a man of any other country ? 
 We can't help it, in spite of ourselves we do. But if, 
 by changing the name, the fable applies to yourself, why 
 do you laugh ? 
 
 KuiS piSrjs; fiUTaro) va>[uve drj rrj 
 3>a/3uAa vapparvp, 
 
 as a certain poet says (in a quotation that is pretty well 
 known in England, and therefore put down here in a new 
 fashion). Why do you laugh, forsooth? Why do you 
 
ON MEN AND PICTURES. 213 
 
 not laugh? If donkeys' ears are a matter of laughter, 
 surely we may laugh at them when growing on our own 
 skulls. 
 
 Take a couple of instances from " actual life," as the 
 fashionable novel-puffers say. 
 
 A little, fat, silly woman, who in no country but this 
 would ever have pretensions to beauty, has lately set up 
 a circulating library in our street. She lends the five- 
 franc editions of the English novels, as well as the ro- 
 mances of her own country, and I have had several of the 
 former works of fiction from her store : Bulwer's " Night 
 and Morning," very pleasant, kind-hearted reading ; " Pe- 
 ter Priggins," an astonishing work of slang, that ought to 
 be translated if but to give Europe an idea of what a gay 
 young gentleman in England sometimes is; and other 
 novels never mind what. But to revert to the fat 
 woman. 
 
 She sits all day ogling and simpering behind her little 
 counter ; and from the slow, prim, precise way in which 
 she lets her silly sentences slip through her mouth, you 
 see at once that she is quite satisfied with them, and ex- 
 pects that every customer should give her an opportunity 
 of uttering a few of them for his benefit. Going there 
 for a book, I always find myself entangled in a quarter 
 of an hour's conversation. 
 
 This is carried on in not very bad French on my part ; 
 at least I find that when I say something genteel to the 
 library- woman, she is not at a loss to understand me, and 
 we have passed already many minutes in this kind of in- 
 tercourse. Two days since, returning " Night and Morn- 
 ing " to the library-lady and demanding the romance of 
 " Peter Priggins," she offered me instead " Ida," par M. 
 le Vicomte Darlincourt, which I refused, having already 
 
214 ON MEN AND PICTURES. 
 
 experienced some of his lordship's works ; next she pro- 
 duced "Stella," "Valida," " Eloa," by various French 
 ladies of literary celebrity ; but again I declined, declar- 
 ing respectfully that however agreeable the society of 
 ladies might be, I found their works a little insipid. The 
 fact is, that after being accustomed to such potent mix- 
 tures as the French romancers offer you, the mild com- 
 positions of the French romanceresses pall on the palate.* 
 
 "Madame," says I, to cut the matter short, "je lie 
 demande qu'un roman Anglais, " Peter Priggins " : 1'avez 
 vous ? oui ou non ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " says the library-woman, " Monsieur ne com- 
 prend pas notre langue c'est dommage." 
 
 Now one might, at first sight, fancy the above speech 
 an epigram, and not a bad one, on an Englishman's blun- 
 dering French grammar and pronunciation ; but those 
 who know the library-lady must be aware that she never 
 was guilty of such a thing in her life. It was simply a 
 French bull, resulting from the lady's dulness, and by 
 no means a sarcasm. She uttered the words with a great 
 air of superiority and a prim toss of the head, as much as 
 to say, " How much cleverer I am than you, you silly 
 foreigner ! and what a fine thing it is in me to know the 
 finest language in the world ! " In this way I have heard 
 donkeys of our two countries address foreigners in broken 
 English or French, as if people who could not understand 
 a language when properly spoken could comprehend it 
 when spoken ill. Why the deuce do people give them- 
 
 * In our own country, of course, Mrs. Trollope, Miss Mitford, 
 Miss Pardoe, Mrs. Charles Gore, Miss Edge worth, Miss Ferrier, Miss 
 Stickney, Miss Barrett, Lady Blessington, Miss Smith, Mrs. Austin, 
 Miss Austin, &c. T form exceptions to this rule; and glad am I to 
 offer per favor of this note a humble tribute of admiration to those 
 ladies. 
 
ON MEN AND PICTURES. 215 
 
 selves these impertinent, stupid airs of superiority, and 
 pique themselves upon the great cleverness of speaking 
 their own language ? 
 
 Take another instance of this same egregious national 
 conceit. At the English pastry-cook's (you can't read- 
 ily find a prettier or more graceful woman than Madame 
 Colombin, nor better plum-cake than she sells) at 
 Madame Colombin's, yesterday, a huge Briton, with 
 sandy whiskers and a double chin, was swallowing pat- 
 ties and cherry-brandy, and all the while making remarks 
 to a friend similarly employed. They were talking about 
 English and French ships. 
 
 " Hang me, Higgins," says Sandy-whiskers, " if I'd 
 ever go into one of their cursed French ships ! I should 
 be afraid of sinking at the very first puff of wind ! " 
 
 What Higgins replied does not matter. But think 
 what a number of Sandy-whiskerses there are in our na- 
 tion, fellows who are proud of this stupid mistrust, 
 who think it a mark of national spirit to despise French 
 skill, bravery, cookery, seamanship, and what not. Swal- 
 low your beef and porter, you great, fat-paunched man ; 
 enjoy your language and your country, as you have been 
 bred to do ; but don't fancy yourself, on account of these 
 inheritances of yours, superior to other people of other 
 ways and language. You have luck, perhaps, if you will, 
 in having such a diet and dwelling-place, but no merit. 
 * * And with this little discursive 
 
 essay upon national prejudices, let us come back to the 
 pictures, and finish our walk through the gallery. 
 
 In that agreeable branch of the art for which we have 
 I believe no name, but which the French call genre, there 
 are at Paris several eminent professors ; and as upon the 
 French stage the costume-pieces are far better produced 
 
216 ON MEN AND PICTURES. 
 
 than with us, so also are French costume-pictures much 
 more accurately and characteristically handled than are 
 such subjects in our own country. You do not see Cima- 
 bue and Giotto in the costume of Francis the First, as 
 they appeared (depicted by Mr. Simpson, I think) in the 
 Royal Academy Exhibition of last year; but the artists 
 go to some trouble for collecting their antiquarian stuff, 
 and paint it pretty scrupulously. 
 
 M. Jacquard has some pretty small pictures de genre ; 
 a very good one, indeed, of fat " Monks granting Absolu- 
 tion from Fasting " ; of which the details are finely and 
 accurately painted, a task more easy for a French artist 
 than an English one, for the former's studio (as may be 
 seen by a picture in this exhibition) is generally a mag- 
 nificent curiosity-shop ; and for old carvings, screens, 
 crockery, armors, draperies, &c., the painter here has but 
 to look to his own walls and copy away at his ease. Ac- 
 cordingly Jacquard's monks, especially all the properties 
 of the picture, are admirable. 
 
 M. Baron has " The Youth of Ribera," a merry Span- 
 ish beggar-boy, among a crowd of his like, drawing 
 sketches of them under a garden-wall. The figures are 
 very prettily thought and grouped ; there is a fine terrace, 
 arid palace, and statues in the background, very rich and 
 luxurious ; perhaps too pretty and gay in colors, and too 
 strong in details. 
 
 But the king of the painters of small history subjects, 
 is M. Robert Fleury ; a great artist indeed, and I trust 
 heartily he may be induced to send one or two of his 
 pieces to London, to show our people what he can do. 
 His mind, judging from his works, is rather of a gloomy 
 turn ; and he deals somewhat too much, to my taste, in 
 the horrible. He has this year " A Scene in the Inqui- 
 
ON MEN AND PICTURES. 217 
 
 sition." A man is howling and writhing with his feet 
 over a fire ; grim inquisitors are watching over him ; and 
 a dreadful executioner, with fierce eyes peering from un- 
 der a mysterious capuchin, is doggedly sitting over the 
 coals. The picture is downright horror, but admirably 
 and honestly drawn; and in effect rich, sombre, and 
 simple. 
 
 "Benvenuto Cellini" is better still; and the critics 
 have lauded the piece as giving a good idea of the fierce, 
 fantastic Florentine sculptor ; but I think M. Fleury has 
 taken him in too grim a mood, and made his ferocity too 
 downright. There was always a dash of the ridiculous 
 in the man, even in his most truculent moments ; and I 
 fancy that such simple rage as is here represented scarcely 
 characterizes him. The fellow never cut a throat with- 
 out some sense of humor, and here we have him greatly 
 too majestic to my taste. 
 
 " Old Michael Angelo watching over the Sick-bed of 
 his servant Urbino," is a noble painting ; as fine in feeling 
 as in design and color. One can't but admire in all these 
 the manliness of the artist. The picture is painted in a 
 large, rich, massive, vigorous manner ; and it is gratifying 
 to see that this great man, after resolute seeking for many 
 years, has found the full use of his hand at last, and can 
 express himself as he would. The picture is fit to hang 
 in the very best gallery in the world; and a century 
 hence will no doubt be worth five times as many crowns 
 as the artist asks or has had for it. 
 
 Being on the subject of great pictures, let us here men- 
 tion, 
 
 712. "Portrait of a Lady," by Hippolyto Flandrin. 
 
 Of this portrait all I can say is, that if you take the 
 best portraits by the best masters, a head of Sebastian 
 10 
 
218 ON MEN AND PICTURES. 
 
 or Michael Angelo, a head of Raphael, or one of those 
 rarer ones of Andria del Sarto, not one of them, for 
 lofty character and majestic nobleness and simplicity, can 
 surpass this magnificent work. 
 
 This seems, doubtless, very exaggerated praise, and 
 people reading it may possibly sneer at the critic who 
 ventures to speak in such a way. To all such I say, 
 Come and see it. You who admire Sir Thomas and the 
 " Books of Beauty " will possibly not admire it ; you who 
 give ten thousand guineas for a blowsy Murillo will not 
 possibly relish M. Flandrin's manner ; but you who love 
 simplicity and greatness come and see how an old lady, 
 with a black mantilla, and dark eyes, and gray hair, and a 
 few red flowers in her cap, has been painted by M. Flan- 
 drin of Lyons. If I were Louis-Philippe, I would send a 
 legion-of-honor cross, of the biggest sort, to decorate the 
 bosom of the painter who has executed this noble piece. 
 
 As for portraits (with the exception of this one, which 
 no man in England can equal, not even Mr. Samuel 
 Lawrence, who is trying to get to this point, but has not 
 reached it yet), our English painters keep the lead still, 
 nor is there much remarkable among the hundreds in the 
 gallery. There are vast numbers of English faces staring 
 at you from the canvases ; and among the miniatures es- 
 pecially, one can't help laughing at the continual recur- 
 rence of the healthy, vacant, simpering, aristocratic Eng- 
 lish type. There are black velvets and satins, ladies 
 with birds of paradise, deputies on sofas, and generals 
 and marshals in the midst of smoke and cannon-balls. 
 Nothing can be less to my taste than a pot-bellied, swag- 
 gering Marshal Soult, who rests his baton on his stomach, 
 and looks at you in the midst of a dim cloud of war. The 
 Duchess de Nemours is done by M. Winterhalter, and 
 
ON MEN AND PICTURES. 219 
 
 has a place of honor, as becomes a good portrait ; and, 
 above all, such a pretty lady. She is a pretty, smiling, 
 buxom blonde, with plenty of hair, and rather too much 
 hands, not to speak disrespectfully; and a slice of lace 
 which goes across the middle of her white satin gown 
 seems to cut the picture very disagreeably in two. There 
 is a beautiful head in a large portrait of a lad of eighteen, 
 painted by himself; and here may be mentioned two sin- 
 gle figures in pastel by an architect, remarkable for ear- 
 nest, spirituel beauty ; likewise two heads in chalk by 
 De Rudder; most charming sketches, full of delicacy, 
 grace, and truth. 
 
 The only one of the acknowledged great who has ex- 
 hibited this year is M. Delacroix, who has a large picture 
 relative to the siege of Constantinople, that looks very 
 like a piece of crumpled tapestry, but that has, neverthe- 
 less, its admirers, and its merits, as what work of his has 
 not? 
 
 His two smaller pieces are charming. "A Jewish 
 Wedding at Tangiers," is brilliant with light and merri- 
 ment ; a particular sort of merriment, that is, that makes 
 you gloomy in the very midst of the hey-day: and his 
 " Boat " is awful. A score of shipwrecked men are in 
 this boat, on a great, wide, swollen, interminable sea, 
 no hope, no speck of sail, and they are drawing lots 
 which shall be killed and eaten. A burly seaman, with 
 a red beard, has just put his hand into the hat, and is 
 touching his own to the officer. One fellow sits with his 
 hands clasped, and gazing, gazing into the great void 
 before him. By Jupiter, his eyes are unfathomable ! he 
 is looking at miles and miles of lead-colored, bitter, piti- 
 less brine ! Indeed one can't bear to look at him long ; 
 nor at that poor woman, so sickly and so beautiful, whom 
 
220 ON MEN AND PICTURES. 
 
 they may as well kill at once, or she will save them the 
 trouble of drawing straws ; and give up to their maws 
 that poor, white, faded, delicate, shrivelled carcass. Ah, 
 what a thing it is to be hungry! O, Eugenius Dela- 
 croix ! how can you manage, with a few paint-bladders, 
 and a dirty brush, and a careless hand, to dash down 
 such savage histories as these, and fill people's minds 
 with thoughts so dreadful ? Ay, there it is ; whenever I 
 go through' that part of the gallery where M. Delacroix's 
 picture is, I always turn away now, and look at a fat 
 woman with a parroquet opposite. For what 's the use 
 of being uncomfortable ? 
 
 Another great picture is one of about four inches 
 square, " The Chess-players," by M. Meissonnier, 
 truly an astonishing piece of workmanship. No silly 
 tricks of effect, and abrupt startling shadow and light, 
 but a picture painted with the minuteness and accuracy 
 of a daguerreotype, and as near as possible perfect in its 
 kind. Two men are playing at chess, and the chess-men 
 are no bigger than pin-heads ; every one of them an ac- 
 curate portrait, with all the light, shadow, roundness, 
 character, and color belonging to it. 
 
 Of the landscapes it is very hard indeed to speak, for 
 professors of landscapes almost all execute their art well ; 
 but few so well as to strike one with especial attention, or 
 to produce much remark. Constable has been a great 
 friend to the new landscape-school in France, who have 
 laid aside the slimy, weak manner formerly in vogue, 
 and, perhaps, have adopted in its place a method equally 
 reprehensible, that of plastering their pictures exces- 
 sively. When you wish to represent a piece of old tim- 
 ber, or a crumbling wall, or the ruts and stones in a road, 
 this impasting method is very successful, but here the 
 
ON MEN AND PICTURES. 221 
 
 skies are trowelled on ; the light vaporing distances are 
 as thick as plum-pudding, the cool clear shadows are 
 mashed-down masses of sienna and indigo. But it is un- 
 deniable that by these violent means a certain power is 
 had, and noon-day effects of strong sunshine are often 
 dashingly rendered. 
 
 How much pleasanter is it to see a little quiet gray 
 waste of David Cox than the very best and smartest of 
 such works ! Some men from Diisseldorf have sent very 
 fine, scientific, faithful pictures, that are a little heavy, but 
 still you see that they are portraits drawn respectfully 
 from the great, beautiful, various, divine face of Na- 
 ture. 
 
 In the statue-gallery there is nothing worth talking 
 about; and so let us make an end of the Louvre, and 
 politely wish a good morning to everybody. 
 
PICTURE GOSSIP: 
 
 IN A LETTER FROM MICHAEL ANGELO TITMARSH, 
 
 ALL ILLTJSTRISSIMO SIGNOR, IL MIO SIGNOR COLENDISSIMO AUGUSTO 
 HA ARVK, PITTORE IN ROMA. 
 
 AM going to fulfil the promise, my dear Au- 
 gusto, which I uttered with a faltering voice 
 and streaming eyes, before I stepped into the 
 jingling old courier's vehicle, which was to 
 bear me from Rome to Florence. Can I forget that night, 
 that parting ? Gaunter stood by so affected, that for 
 the last quarter of an hour he did not swear once; 
 Flake's emotion exhibited itself in audible sobs; Jelly- 
 son said naught, but thrust a bundle of Torlonia's four- 
 baiocchi cigars into the hand of the departing friend; 
 and you yourself were so deeply agitated by the event, 
 that you took four glasses of absinthe to string up your 
 nerves for the fatal moment. Strange vision of past 
 days ! for vision it seems to me now. And have I 
 been in Rome really and truly ? Have I seen the great 
 works of my Christian namesake of the Buonarotti fami- 
 ly, and the light arcades of the Vatican ? Have I seen 
 the glorious Apollo, and that other divine fiddle-player 
 whom Raphael painted ? Yes, and the English dan- 
 dies swaggering on the Pincian Hill ! Yes, and have 
 eaten woodcocks, and drank Ovieto hard by the huge, 
 
PICTURE GOSSIP. 223 
 
 broad-shouldered Pantheon Portico, in the comfortable 
 parlors of the Falcone. Do you recollect that speech I 
 made at Bertini's in proposing the health of the Pope of 
 Rome on Christmas day ? do you remember it ? / 
 don't. But his Holiness, no doubt, heard of the oration, 
 and was flattered by the compliment of the illustrious 
 English traveller. 
 
 I went to the exhibition of the Royal Academy lately, 
 and all these reminiscences rushed back on a sudden with 
 affecting volubility; not that there was anything in or 
 out of the gallery which put me specially in mind of 
 sumptuous and liberal Rome ; but in the great room was 
 a picture of a fellow in a broad Roman hat, in a velvet Ro- 
 man coat, and large yellow mustachios, and that prodigious 
 scowl which young artists assume when sitting for their 
 portraits, he was one of our set at Rome ; and the 
 scenes of the winter came back pathetically to my mind, 
 and all the friends of that season, Orifice, and his senti- 
 mental songs ; Father Giraldo, and his poodle, and Mac- 
 Brick, the trump of bankers. Hence the determination 
 to write this letter. But the hand is crabbed, and the 
 postage is dear, and, instead of despatching it by the mail, 
 I shall send it to you by means of the printer, knowing 
 well that " Eraser's Magazine " is eagerly read at Rome, 
 and not (on account of its morality) excluded in the In- 
 dex Expurgatorius. 
 
 And it will be doubly agreeable to me to write to you 
 regarding the fine arts in England, because I know, my 
 dear Augusto, that you have a thorough contempt for my 
 opinion, indeed, for that of all persons, excepting, of 
 course, one whose name is already written in this sen- 
 tence. Such, however, is not the feeling respecting my 
 critical powers in this country ; here they know the merit 
 
224 PICTURE GOSSIP. 
 
 of Michael Angelo Titmarsh better, and they say, " He 
 paints so badly, that, hang it ! he must be a good judge " ; 
 in the latter part of which opinion, of course, I agree. 
 
 You should have seen the consternation of the fellows 
 at my arrival ! of our dear brethren who thought I 
 was safe at Rome for the season, and that their works, 
 exhibited in May, would be spared the dreadful ordeal of 
 my ferocious eye. When I entered the club-room in 
 St. Martin's Lane, and called for a glass of brandy-and- 
 water like a bombshell, you should have seen the terror 
 of some of the artists assembled ! They knew that the 
 frightful projectile just launched into their club-room 
 must burst in the natural course of things. Who would 
 be struck down by the explosion ? was the thought of 
 every one. Some of the hypocrites welcomed me mean- 
 ly back, some of the timid trembled, some of the savage 
 and guilty muttered curses at my arrival. You should 
 have seen the ferocious looks of Daggerly, for example, 
 as he scowled at me from the supper-table, and clutched 
 the trenchant weapon with which he was dissevering his 
 toasted cheese. 
 
 From the period of my arrival until that of the open- 
 ing of the various galleries, I maintained with the artists 
 every proper affability, but still was not too familiar. It 
 is the custom of their friends, before their pictures are 
 sent in to the exhibitions, to visit the painter's works at 
 their private studios, and there encourage them by say- 
 ing, " Bravo, Jones ! " (I don't mean Jones, R. A., for I 
 defy any man to say bravo to him, but Jones in gen- 
 eral,) " Tomkins, this is your greatest work ! " " Smith, 
 my boy, they must elect you an associate for this ! " 
 and so forth. These harmless banalities of compliment 
 pass between the painters and their friends on such occa- 
 
PICTUJRE GOSSIP. 225 
 
 sions. I myself have uttered many such civil phrases in 
 former years under like circumstances. But it is differ- 
 ent now. Fame has its privations as well as its plea- 
 sures. The friend may see his companions in private, but 
 the JUDGE must not pay visits to his clients. I stayed 
 away from the ateliers of all the artists (at least, I only 
 visited one, kindly telling him that he did n't count as an 
 artist at all), would only see their pictures in the public 
 galleries, and judge them in the fair race with their 
 neighbors. This announcement and conduct of mine 
 filled all the Berners Street and Fitzroy Square district 
 with terror. 
 
 As I am writing this after having had my fill of their 
 works, so publicly exhibited in the country, at a distance 
 from catalogues, my only book of reference being an or- 
 chard whereof the trees are now bursting into full blos- 
 som, it is probable that my remarks will be rather 
 general than particular, that I shall only discourse about 
 those pictures which I especially remember, or, indeed, 
 upon any other point suitable to my honor, and your de- 
 lectation. 
 
 I went round the galleries with a young friend of mine, 
 who, like yourself at present, has been a student of 
 " High Art " at Rome. He had been a pupil of Mon- 
 sieur Ingres, at Paris. He could draw rude figures of 
 eight feet high to a nicety, and had produced many heroic 
 compositions of that pleasing class and size, to the great 
 profit of the paper-stretchers both in Paris and Rome. 
 He came, back from the latter place a year since, with 
 his beard and mustachios, of course. He could find no 
 room in all Newman Street and Soho big enough to hold 
 him and his genius, and was turned out of a decent house, 
 because, for the purposes of art, he wished to batter down 
 10* o 
 
226 PICTURE GOSSIP. 
 
 the partition wall between the two drawing-rooms he 
 had. His great cartoon last year (whether it was Carac- 
 tacus before Claudius, or a scene from the "Vicar of 
 Wakefield," I won't say) failed somehow. He was a 
 good deal cut up by the defeat, and* went into the country 
 to his relations, from whom he returned after a while, 
 with his mustachios shaved, clean linen, and other signs 
 of depression. He said (with a hollow laugh) he should 
 not commence on his great canvas this year, and so gave 
 up the completion of his composition of " Boadicea ad- 
 dressing the Iceni " : quite a novel subject, which, with 
 that ingenuity and profound reading which distinguishes 
 his brethren, he had determined to take up. 
 
 Well, sir, this youth and I went to the exhibitions to- 
 gether, and I watched his behavior before the pictures. 
 At the tragic, swaggering, theatrical, historical pictures, 
 he yawned ; before some of the grand, flashy landscapes, 
 he stood without the least emotion; but before some 
 quiet scenes of humor or pathos, or some easy little copy 
 of nature, the youth stood in pleased contemplation, the 
 nails of his high-lows seemed to be screwed into the floor 
 there, and his face dimpled over with grins. 
 
 " These little pictures," said he, on being questioned, 
 " are worth a hundred times more than the big ones. In 
 the latter you see signs of ignorance of every kind, 
 weakness of hand, poverty of invention, carelessness of 
 drawing, lamentable imbecility of thought. Their hero- 
 ism is borrowed from the theatre, their sentiment is so 
 maudlin that it makes you sick. I see no symptoms of 
 thought, or of minds strong and genuine enough to cope 
 with elevated subjects. No individuality, no novelty, the 
 decencies of costume (my friend did not mean that the 
 figures we were looking at were naked, like Mr. Etty's, 
 
PICTURE GOSSIP. 227 
 
 but that they were dressed out of all historical propriety) 
 are disregarded ; the people are striking attitudes, as at 
 the Coburg. There is something painful to me in this 
 naive exhibition of incompetency, this imbecility that is 
 so unconscious of its own failure. If, however, the as- 
 piring men don't succeed, the modest do ; and what they 
 have really seen or experienced, our artist can depict 
 with successful accuracy and delightful skill. Hence," 
 says he, " I would sooner have So-and-so's little sketch 
 ( l A Donkey on a Common ' ) than What-d 'ye-call-'em's 
 enormous picture ( ' Sir Walter Manny and the Crusa- 
 ders discovering Nova Scotia'), and prefer yonder un- 
 pretending sketch, * Shrimp-Catchers, Morning,' (how ex- 
 quisitely the long and level sands are touched off! how 
 beautifully the morning light touches the countenances of 
 the fishermen, and illumines the rosy features of the 
 shrimps!) to yonder pretentious illustration from Spen- 
 ser, * Sir Botibol rescues Una from Sir Uglimore in the 
 Cave of the Enchantress Ichthyosaura.' " 
 
 I am only mentioning another's opinion of these pic- 
 tures, and would not of course, for my own part, wish to 
 give pain by provoking comparisons that must be disa- 
 greeable to some persons. But I could not help agreeing 
 with my young friend, and saying, " Well, then, in the 
 name of goodness, my dear fellow, if you only like what is 
 real, and natural, and unaffected, if upon such works 
 you gaze with delight, while from more pretentious per- 
 formers you turn away with weariness, why the deuce 
 must you be in the heroic vein ? Why don't you do what 
 you like ? " The young man turned round on the iron- 
 heel of his high-lows, and walked down stairs clinking 
 them sulkily. 
 
 There are a variety of classes and divisions into which 
 
228 PICTURE GOSSIP. 
 
 the works of our geniuses may be separated. There are 
 the heroic pictures, the theatrical-heroic, the religious, the 
 historical-sentimental, the historical-familiar, the namby- 
 pamby, and so forth. 
 
 Among the heroic pictures of course Mr. Haydon's 
 ranks the first, its size and pretensions call for that place. 
 It roars out to you as it were with a Titanic voice from 
 among all the competition to public favor, " Come and 
 look at me." A broad-shouldered, swaggering, hulking 
 archangel, with those rolling eyes and distending nostrils 
 which belong to the species of sublime caricature, stands 
 scowling on a sphere from which the Devil is just de- 
 scending, bound earthwards. Planets, comets, and other 
 astronomical phenomena, roll and blaze round the pair 
 and flame in the new blue sky. There is something 
 burly and bold in this resolute genius which will attack 
 only enormous subjects, which will deal with nothing but 
 the epic, something respectable even in the defeats of 
 such characters. I was looking the other day at South- 
 ampton at a stout gentleman in a green coat and white 
 hat, who a year or two since fully believed that he could 
 walk upon the water, and set off in the presence of a 
 great concourse of people upon his supermarine journey. 
 There is no need to tell you that the poor fellow got a 
 wetting and sank amidst the jeers of all his beholders. I 
 think somehow they should not have laughed at that hon- 
 est ducked gentleman, they should have respected the 
 faith and simplicity which led him unhesitatingly to ven- 
 ture upon that watery experiment ; and so, instead of 
 laughing at Haydon, which you and I were just about to 
 do, let us check our jocularity, and give him credit for 
 his great earnestness of purpose. I begin to find the 
 world growing more pathetic daily, and laugh less every 
 
PICTURE GOSSIP. 229 
 
 year of my life. Why laugh at idle hopes, or vain pur- 
 poses, or utter blundering self-confidence? Let us be 
 gentle with them henceforth, who knows whether there 
 may not be something of the sort chez nous ? But I am 
 wandering from Haydon and his big picture. Let us 
 hope somebody will buy. Who, I cannot tell ; it will not 
 do for a chapel ; it is too big for a house : I have it, it 
 might answer to hang up over a caravan at a fair, if a 
 travelling orrery were exhibited inside. 
 
 This may be sheer impertinence and error, the picture 
 may suit some tastes, it does " The Times " for instance, 
 which pronounces it to be a noble work of the highest 
 art ; whereas the " Post " won't believe a bit, and passes it 
 by with scorn. What a comfort it is that there are dif- 
 ferent tastes then, and that almost all artists have thus a 
 chance of getting a livelihood somehow ! There is Mar- 
 tin, for another instance, with his brace of pictures about 
 Adam and Eve, which I would venture to place in the 
 theatrical-heroic class. One looks at those strange pieces 
 and wonders how people can be found to admire, and yet 
 they do. Grave old people with chains and seals, look 
 dumb-foundered into those vast perspectives, and think 
 the apex of the sublime is reached there. In one of Sir 
 Bulwer Lytton's novels there is a passage to that effect. 
 I forget where, but there is a new edition of them coming 
 out in single volumes, and am positive you will find the 
 sentiment somewhere. They come up to his conceptions 
 of the sublime, they answer his ideas of beauty of the 
 Beautiful, as he writes with a large B. He is himself an 
 artist and a man of genius. What right have we poor 
 devils to question such an authority ? Do you recollect 
 how we used to laugh in the Capitol at the Domenichino 
 Sibyl which this same author praises so enthusiastically ? 
 
230 PICTUKE GOSSIP. 
 
 a wooden, pink-faced, goggle-eyed, ogling creature, we 
 said it was, with no more beauty or sentiment than a wax 
 doll. But this was our conceit, dear Augusto ; on sub- 
 jects of art, perhaps, there is no reasoning after all : or 
 who can tell why children have a passion for lollypops, 
 and this man worships beef while t' other adores mutton ? 
 To the child, lollypops may be the truthful and beautiful, 
 and why should not some men find Martin's pictures as 
 much to their taste as Milton ? 
 
 Another instance of the blessed variety of tastes may 
 be mentioned here advantageously ; while, as you have 
 seen, " The Times " awards the palm to Haydon, and Sir 
 Lytton exalts Martin as the greatest painter of the Eng- 
 lish school, " The Chronicle," quite as well informed, no 
 doubt, says that Mr. Eddis is the great genius of the pres- 
 ent season, and that his picture of Moses's mother parting 
 with him before leaving him in the bulrushes is a great 
 and noble composition. 
 
 This critic must have a taste for the neat and agreea- 
 ble, that is clear. Mr. Eddis's picture is nicely colored ^ 
 the figures in fine clean draperies, the sky a bright clean 
 color ; Moses's mother is a handsome woman ; and as 
 she holds her child to her breast for the last time, and 
 lifts up her fine eyes to heaven, the beholder may be rea- 
 sonably moved by a decent bourgeois compassion, a 
 handsome woman parting from her child is always an 
 object of proper sympathy, but as for the greatness of 
 the picture as a. work of art, that is another question of 
 tastes again. This picture seemed to me to be essentially 
 a prose composition, not a poetical one. It tells you no 
 more than you can see. It has no more wonder or po- 
 etry about it than a police report or a newspaper para- 
 graph, and should be placed, as I take it, in the historic- 
 
PICTURE GOSSIP. 231 
 
 sentimental school, which is pretty much followed in 
 England, nay, as close as possible to the namby-pamby 
 quarter. 
 
 Of the latter sort there are some illustrious examples ; 
 and as it is the fashion for critics to award prizes, I would 
 for my part cheerfully award the prize of a new silver 
 teaspoon to Mr. Redgrave, that champion of suffering 
 female innocence, for his " Governess." That picture is 
 more decidedly spooney than, perhaps, any other of this 
 present season ; and the subject seems to be a favorite 
 with the artist. We have had the " Governess " one year 
 before, or a variation of her under the name of " The 
 Teacher," or vice versa. The Teacher's young pupils are 
 at play in the garden, she sits sadly in the school-room, 
 there she sits, poor dear ! the piano is open beside her, 
 and (0, harrowing thought !) " Home, sweet home ! " is 
 open in the music-book. She sits and thinks of that dear 
 place, with a sheet of black-edged note-paper in her hand. 
 They have brought her her tea and bread and butter on 
 a tray. She has drunk the tea, she has not tasted the 
 bread and butter. There is pathos for you ! there is art ! 
 This is, indeed, a love for lollypops with a vengeance, a 
 regular babyhood of taste, about which a man with a 
 manly stomach may be allowed to protest a little pee- 
 vishly, and implore the public to give up such puling food. 
 
 There is a gentleman in the Octagon Room who, to be 
 sure, runs Mr. Redgrave rather hard, and should have a 
 silver pap-spoon at any rate, if the teaspoon is irrevoca- 
 bly awarded to his rival. The Octagon Room prize is a 
 picture called the " Arrival of the Overland Mail." A 
 lady is in her bedchamber, a portrait of her husband, Ma- 
 jor Jones (cherished lord of that bridal apartment, with 
 its drab-curtained bed), hangs on the wainscot in the dis- 
 
232 PICTURE GOSSIP. 
 
 tance, and you see his red coat and mustachios gleaming 
 there between the wardrobe and the wash-hand-stand. 
 But where is his lady ? She is on her knees by the bed- 
 side, her face has sunk into the feather-bed ; her hands 
 are clasped agonizingly together ; a most tremendous 
 black-edged letter has just arrived by the overland mail. 
 It is all up with Jones. Well, let us hope she will marry 
 again, and get over her grief for poor J. 
 
 Is not there something naive and simple in this down- 
 right way of exciting compassion ? I saw people looking 
 at this pair of pictures evidently with yearning hearts. 
 The great geniuses who invented them have not, you see, 
 toiled in vain. They can command the sympathies of the 
 public, they have gained Art-Union prizes, let us hope, 
 as well as those humble imaginary ones which I have just 
 awarded, and yet my heart is not naturally hard, though 
 it refuses to be moved by such means as are here em- 
 ployed. 
 
 If the simple statement of a death is to harrow up the 
 feelings, or to claim the tributary tear, mon Dieu ! a man 
 ought to howl every morning over the newspaper obitu- 
 ary. If we are to cry for every governess who leaves 
 home, what a fund of pathos " The Times " advertisements 
 would afford daily ! we might weep down whole columns 
 of close type. I have said before, I am growing more in- 
 clined to the pathetic daily, but let us in the name of 
 goodness make a stand somewhere, or the namby-pamby 
 of the world will become unendurable ; and we shall melt 
 away in a deluge of blubber. This drivelling, hysterical 
 sentimentality, it is surely the critic's duty to grin down, 
 to shake any man roughly by the shoulder who seems 
 dangerously affected by it, and, not sparing his feelings 
 in the least, tell him he is a fool for his pains, to have no 
 
PICTURE GOSSIP. 233 
 
 more respect for those who invent it, but expose their 
 error with all the downrightness that is necessary. 
 
 By far the prettiest of the maudlin pictures is Mr. 
 Stone's " Premier Pas." It is that old, pretty, rococo, 
 fantastic Jenny and Jessamy couple, whose loves the 
 painter has been chronicling any time these five years, 
 and whom he has spied out at various wells, porches, 
 &c. The lad is making love with all his might, and 
 the maiden is in a pretty confusion, her heart flut- 
 ters, and she only seems to spin. She drinks in the 
 warm words of the young fellow with a pleasant convic- 
 tion of the invincibility of her charms. He appeals nerv- 
 ously, and tugs at a pink which is growing up the porch- 
 side. It is that pink, somehow, which has saved the 
 picture from being decidedly namby-pamby. There is 
 something new, fresh, and delicate about the little inci- 
 dent of the flower. It redeems Jenny, and renders that 
 young prig, Jessamy, bearable. The picture is very 
 nicely painted, according to the careful artist's wont. 
 The neck and hands of the girl are especially pretty. 
 The lad's face is effeminate and imbecile, but his velvet- 
 een breeches are painted with great vigor and strength. 
 
 This artist's picture of the " Queen and Ophelia " is in 
 a much higher walk of art. There may be doubts about 
 Ophelia. She is too pretty to my taste. Her dress (es- 
 pecially the black bands round her arms) too elaborately 
 conspicuous and coquettish. The queen is a noble dra- 
 matic head and attitude. Ophelia seems to be looking at 
 us, the audience, and in a pretty attitude expressly to 
 captivate us. The queen is only thinking about the 
 crazed girl, and Hamlet, and her own gloomy affairs, and 
 has quite forgotten her own noble beauty and superb pres- 
 ence. The color of the picture struck me as quite new, 
 
234 PICTURE GOSSIP. 
 
 sedate, but bright and very agreeable. The checkered 
 light and shadow is made cleverly to aid in forming the 
 composition, it is very picturesque and good. It is by 
 far the best of Mr. Stone's works, and in the best line. 
 Good by, Jenny and Jessamy ; we hope never to see you 
 again, no more rococo rustics, no more namby-pamby : 
 the man who can paint the queen of Hamlet must forsake 
 henceforth such fiddle-faddle company. 
 
 By the way, has any Shakespearian commentator ever 
 remarked how fond the queen really was of her second 
 husband, the excellent Claudius? How courteous and 
 kind the latter always was towards her ? So excellent a 
 family-man ought to be pardoned a few errors in consid- 
 eration of his admirable behavior to his wife. He did go 
 a little far, certainly, but then it was to possess a jewel 
 of a woman. 
 
 More pictures indicating a fine appreciation of the 
 tragic sentiment are to be found in the Exliibition. 
 Among them may be mentioned specially Mr. Johnson's 
 picture of " Lord Russell taking the Communion in Prison 
 before Execution." The story is finely told here, the 
 group large and noble. The figure of the kneeling wife, 
 who looks at her husband, meekly engaged in the last 
 sacred office, is very good indeed ; and the little episode 
 of the jailer, who looks out into the yard indifferent, 
 seems to me to give evidence of a true dramatic genius. 
 In " Hamlet," how those indifferent remarks of Guilden- 
 stern and Rosencrantz, at the end, bring out the main 
 figures and deepen the surrounding gloom of the tragedy! 
 
 In Mr. Frith's admirable picture of the " Good Pas- 
 tor," from Goldsmith, there is some sentiment of a very 
 quiet, refined, Sir-Roger-de-Co verley -like sort, not too 
 much of it, it is indicated rather than expressed. " Sen- 
 
PICTURE GOSSIP. 235 
 
 timent, sir," Walker of the " Original " used to say, 
 " sentiment, sir, is like garlic in made dishes : it should 
 be felt everywhere and seen nowhere." 
 
 Now, I won't say that Mr. Frith's sentiment is like 
 garlic, or provoke any other savory comparison regarding 
 it ; but say, in a word, this is one of the pictures I would 
 like to have sent abroad to be exhibited at a European 
 congress of painters, to show what an English artist can 
 do. The young painter seems to me to have had a 
 thorough comprehension of his subject and his own abili- 
 ties. And what a rare quality is this, to know what you 
 can do ! An ass will go and take the grand historic walk, 
 while, with lowly wisdom, Mr. Frith prefers the lowly 
 path where there are plenty of flowers growing, and chil- 
 dren prattling along the walks. This is the sort of pic- 
 ture that is good to paint now-a-days, kindly, beautiful, 
 inspiring delicate sympathies, and awakening tender good- 
 humor. It is a comfort to have such a companion as that 
 in a study to look up at when your eyes are tired with 
 work, and to refresh you with its gentle, quiet good-fel- 
 lowship. I can see it now, as I shut my own eyes, dis- 
 played faithfully on the camera-obscura of the brain, 
 the dear old parson, with his congregation of old and 
 young clustered round him ; the little ones plucking him 
 by the gown, with wondering eyes, half roguery, half ter- 
 ror ; the smoke is curling up from the cottage-chimneys, in 
 a peaceful Sabbath-sort of way ; the three village quid- 
 nuncs are chattering together at the churchyard stile ; 
 there 's a poor girl seated there on a stone, who has been 
 crossed in love evidently, and looks anxiously to the par- 
 son for a little doubtful consolation. That 's the real sort 
 of sentiment, there 's no need of a great, clumsy, black- 
 edged letter to placard her misery, as it were, after Mr. 
 
236 PICTURE GOSSIP. 
 
 Redgrave's fashion. The sentiment is only the more sin- 
 cere for being unobtrusive ; and the spectator gives his 
 compassion the more readily, because the unfortunate ob- 
 ject makes no coarse demands upon his pity. 
 
 The painting of this picture is exceedingly clever and 
 dexterous. One or two of the foremost figures are painted 
 with the breadth and pearly delicacy of Greuze. The 
 three village politicians, in the background, might have 
 been touched by Teniers, so neat, brisk, and sharp is the 
 execution of the artist's facile brush. 
 
 Mr. Frost (a new name, I think, in the Catalogue) has 
 given us a picture of " Sabrina," which is so pretty that I 
 heartily hope it has not been purchased for the collection 
 from u Comus," which adorns the Buckingham Palace sum- 
 merhouse. It is worthy of a better place and price than 
 our royal patrons appear to be disposed to give for the 
 works of English artists. What victims have those poor 
 fellows been of this awful patronage ! Great has been 
 the commotion in the pictorial world, dear Augusto, re- 
 garding the fate of those frescos which royalty was 
 pleased to order, which it condescended to purchase at a 
 price that no poor amateur would have the face to offer. 
 Think of the greatest patronage in the world giving forty 
 pounds for pictures worth four hundred, condescending 
 to buy works from humble men who could not refuse, and 
 paying for them below their value ! Think of august 
 powers and principalities ordering the works of such a 
 great man as Etty to be hacked out of the palace-wall ! 
 That was a slap in the face to every artist in England ; 
 and I can agree with the conclusion come to by an indig- 
 nant poet of Punch's band, who says, for his part, 
 
 " I will not toil for queen and crown, 
 If princely patrons spurn me down ; 
 
PICTURE GOSSIP. 237 
 
 I will not ask for royal job, 
 Let my Maecenas be A SNOB ! " 
 
 This is, however, a delicate, an awful subject, over which 
 loyal subjects like you and I had best mourn in silence : 
 but the fate of Etty's noble picture of last year made me 
 tremble lest Frost should be similarly nipped ; and I hope 
 more genuine patronage for this promising young painter. 
 His picture is like a mixture of very good Hilton and 
 Howard, raised to a state of genius. There is sameness 
 in the heads, but great grace and beauty, a fine sweep- 
 ing movement in the composition of the beautiful fairy 
 figures, undulating gracefully through the stream, while 
 the lilies lie gracefully overhead. There is another sub- 
 marine picture of " Nymphs cajoling Young Hylas," 
 which contains a great deal of very clever imitations of 
 Boucher. 
 
 That youthful Goodall, whose early attempts promised 
 so much, is not quite realizing those promises, I think, and 
 is cajoled, like Hylas before mentioned, by dangerous 
 beauty. His " Connemara Girls going to Market " are a 
 vast deal too clean and pretty for such females. They 
 laugh and simper in much too genteel a manner ; they 
 are washing such pretty white feet as I don't think are 
 common about Leenane or Ballynalinch, and would be 
 better at ease in white satin slippers than trudging up 
 Croaghpatrick. There is a luxury of geographical knowl- 
 edge for you ! I have not done with it yet. Stop till we 
 come to Roberts's " View of Jerusalem," and Muller's pic- 
 tures of " Rhodes," and " Xanthus," and " Telmessus." 
 This artist's sketches are excellent, like nature, and like 
 Decamps, that best of painters of Oriental life and colors. 
 In the pictures, the artist forgets the brilliancy of color 
 which is so conspicuous in his sketches, and " Telmessus " 
 looks as gray and heavy as Dover in March. 
 
238 PICTURE GOSSIP. 
 
 Mr. Pickersgill (not the Academician, by any means) 
 deserves great praise for two very poetical pieces ; one 
 from Spenser, I think (Sir Botibol, let us say, as before, 
 with somebody in some hag's cave) ; another called the 
 " Four Ages," which has still better grace and sentiment. 
 This artist, too, is evidently one of the disciples of Hil- 
 ton ; and another, who has, also, as it seems to me, 
 studied with advantage that graceful and agreeable Eng- 
 lish painter, Mr. Hook, whose " Song of the Olden 
 Time " is hung up in the Octagon Closet, and makes a 
 sunshine in that exceedingly shady place. The female 
 figure is faulty, but charming (many charmers have their 
 little faults, it is said) ; the old bard who is singing the 
 song of the olden time, a most venerable, agreeable, and 
 handsome old minstrel. In Alnaschar-like moods a man 
 fancies himself a noble patron, and munificent rewarder 
 of artists ; in which case I should like to possess myself 
 of the works of these two young men, and give them 
 
 four times as large a price as the gave for pictures 
 
 five times as good as theirs. 
 
 I suppose Mr. Eastlake's composition from u Comus " is 
 the contribution in which he has been mulcted, in com- 
 pany with his celebrated brother artists, for the famous 
 Buckingham Palace pavilion. Working for nothing is 
 very well ; but to work for a good, honest, remunerating 
 price is, perhaps, the best way, after all. I can't help 
 thinking that the artist's courage has failed him over his 
 " Comus " picture. Time and pains he has given, that is 
 quite evident. The picture is prodigiously labored, and 
 hatched, and tickled up with a Chinese minuteness ; but 
 there is a woful lack of vis in the work. That poor la- 
 borer has kept his promise, has worked the given num- 
 ber of hours ; but he has had no food all the while, and 
 
PICTURE GOSSIP. 239 
 
 has executed his job in a somewhat faint manner. This 
 face of the lady is pure and beautiful ; but we have seen 
 it at any time these ten years, with its red transparent 
 shadows, its mouth in which butter would n't melt, and its 
 beautiful brown madder hair. She is getting rather tedi- 
 ous, that sweet, irreproachable creature, that is the fact. 
 She may be an angel ; but sky-blue, my wicked senses 
 tell me, is a feeble sort of drink, and men require strong- 
 er nourishment. 
 
 Mr. Eastlake's picture is a prim, mystic, cruciform 
 composition. The lady languishes in the middle ; an an- 
 gel is consoling her, and embracing her with an arm out 
 of joint ; little rows of cherubs stand on each side the 
 angels and the lady, wonderful little children, with 
 blue or brown beady eyes, and sweet little flossy curly 
 hair, and no muscles or bones, as becomes such super- 
 natural beings, no doubt. I have seen similar little dar- 
 lings in the toy-shops in the Lowther Arcade for a shil- 
 ling, with just such pink cheeks and round eyes, their 
 bodies formed out of cotton wool, and their extremities 
 veiled in silver paper. Well ; it is as well, perhaps, that 
 Etty's jovial nymphs should not come into such a com- 
 pany. Good Lord ! how they would astonish the weak 
 nerves of Mr. Eastlake's precieuse young lady ! 
 
 Quite unabashed by the squeamishness exhibited in the 
 highest quarter (as the newspapers call it), Mr. Etty 
 goes on rejoicing in his old fashion. Perhaps he is worse 
 than ever this year, and despises nee dulces amores nee 
 chortzas, because certain great personages are offended. 
 Perhaps, this year, his ladies and Cupids are a little ha- 
 zardes ; his Venuses expand more than ever in the line 
 of Hottentot beauty ; his drawing and coloring are still 
 more audacious than they were ; patches of red shine on 
 
240 PICTURE GOSSIP. 
 
 the cheeks of his blowsy nymphs ; his idea of form goes 
 to the verge of monstrosity. If you look at the pictures 
 closely (and, considering all things, it requires some cour- 
 age to do so), the forms disappear; feet and hands are 
 scumbled away, and distances appear to be dabs and 
 blotches of lakes, and brown, and ultramarine. It must 
 be confessed, that some of these pictures would not be 
 suitable to hang up everywhere, in a young ladies' 
 school, for instance. But how rich and superb is the 
 color! Did Titian paint better, or Rubens as well? 
 There is a nymph and child in the left corner of the 
 Great Room, sitting, without the slightest fear of catch- 
 ing cold, in a sort of moonlight, of which the color ap- 
 pears to me to be as rich and wonderful as Titian's best, 
 " Bacchus and Ariadne," for instance, and better 
 than Rubens's. There is a little head of a boy in a blue 
 dress (for once in a way) which kills every picture in the 
 room, out-stares all the red-coated generals, out-blazes 
 Mrs. Thwaites and her diamonds (who has the place of 
 honor) ; and has that unmistakable, inestimable, inde- 
 scribable mark of the GREAT painter about it, which 
 makes the soul of a man kindle up as he sees it, and 
 own that there is Genius. How delightful it is to feel 
 that shock, and how few are the works of art that can 
 give it ! 
 
 The author of that sibylline book of mystic rhymes, 
 the unrevealed bard of the " Fallacies of Hope," is as great 
 as usual, vibrating between the absurd and the sublime, 
 until the eye grows dazzled in watching him, and can't 
 really tell in what region he is. If Etty's color is wild 
 and mysterious, looking here as if smeared with the fin- 
 ger, and there with the palette-knife, what can be said 
 about Turner ? Go up and look at one of his pictures, 
 
PICTURE GOSSIP. 241 
 
 and you laugh at yourself and at him, and at the picture, 
 and that wonderful amateur who is invariably found to 
 give a thousand pounds for it, or more, some sum wild, 
 prodigious, unheard-of, monstrous, like the picture itself. 
 All about the author of the " Fallacies of Hope " is a mys- 
 terious extravaganza ; price, poem, purchaser, picture. 
 Look at the latter for a little time, and it begins to affect 
 you too, to mesmerize you. It is revealed to you ; 
 and, as it is said in the East, the magicians make children 
 see the sultauns, carpet-bearers, tents, &c., in a spot of 
 ink in their hands ; so the magician, Joseph Mallard, 
 makes you see what he likes on a board, that to the first 
 view is merely dabbed over with occasional streaks of 
 yellow, and flecked here and there with vermilion. The 
 vermilion blotches become little boats full of harpooners 
 and gondolas, with a deal of music going on on board. 
 That is not a smear of purple you see yonder, but a beau- 
 tiful whale, whose tail has just slapped a half-dozen whale- 
 boats into perdition ; and as for what you fancied to be a 
 few zigzag lines spattered on the canvas at hap-hazard, 
 look ! they turn out to be a ship with all her sails ; the 
 captain and his crew are clearly visible in the ship's 
 bows ; and you may distinctly see the oil-casks getting 
 ready under the superintendence of that man with the 
 red whiskers and the cast in his eye ; who is, of course, 
 the chief mate. In a word, I say that Turner is a great 
 and awful mystery to me. I don't like to contemplate 
 him too much, lest I should actually begin to believe in 
 his poetry as well as his paintings, and fancy the " Falla- 
 cies of Hope " to be one of the finest poems in the world. 
 Now Stanfield has no mysticism or oracularity about 
 him. You can see what he means at once. His style is 
 as simple and manly as a seaman's song. One of the 
 11 p 
 
242 PICTURE GOSSIP. 
 
 most dexterous, he is also one of the most careful of 
 painters. Every year his works are more elaborated, 
 and you are surprised to find a progress in an artist who 
 had seemed to reach his acme before. His battle of frig- 
 ates this year is a brilliant, sparkling pageant of naval 
 war. His great picture of the " Mole of Ancona," fresh, 
 healthy, and bright as breeze and sea can make it. 
 There 'are better pieces still by this painter, to my mind ; 
 one in the first room, especially, a Dutch landscape, 
 with a warm, sunny tone upon it, worthy of Cuyp and 
 Callcott. Who is G. Stanfield, an exhibitor and evidently 
 a pupil of the Royal Academician ? Can it be a son of 
 that gent? If so, the father has a worthy heir to his 
 name and honors. G. Stanfield's Dutch picture may be 
 looked at by the side of his father's. 
 
 Roberts has also distinguished himself and advanced 
 in skill, great as his care had been and powerful his ef- 
 fects before. " The Ruins of Karnac " is the most poeti- 
 cal of this painter's works, I think. A vast and awful 
 scene of gloomy Egyptian ruin ! The sun lights up tre- 
 mendous lines of edifices, which were only parts formerly 
 of the enormous city of the hundred gates ; long lines of 
 camels come over the reddening desert, and camps are 
 set by the side of the glowing pools. This is a good pic- 
 ture to gaze at, and to fill your eyes and thoughts with 
 grandiose ideas of Eastern life. 
 
 This gentleman's large picture of " Jerusalem " did not 
 satisfy me so much. It is yet very faithful. Anybody 
 who had visited this place must see the careful fidelity 
 with which the artist has mapped the rocks and valleys, 
 and laid down the lines of the buildings ; but the picture 
 has, to my eyes, too green and trim a look ; the mosques 
 and houses look fresh and new, instead of being moulder- 
 
PICTURE GOSSIP. 243 
 
 ing, old, sun-baked edifices of glaring stone rising amidst 
 wretchedness and ruin. There is not, to my mind, that 
 sad, fatal aspect, which the city presents from whatever 
 quarter you view it, and which haunts a man who has 
 seen it ever after with an impression of terror. Perhaps 
 in the spring for a little while, at which season the sketch 
 for this picture was painted, the country round about may 
 look very cheerful. "When we saw it in autumn, the 
 mountains that stand round about Jerusalem were not 
 green, but ghastly piles of hot rock, patched here and 
 there with yellow, weedy herbage. A cactus or a few 
 bleak olive-trees made up the vegetation of the wretched, 
 gloomy landscape ; whereas, in Mr. Roberts's picture, the 
 valley of Jehoshaphat looks like a glade in a park, and 
 the hills, up to the gates, are carpeted with verdure. 
 
 Being on the subject of Jerusalem, here may be men- 
 tioned with praise Mr. Hart's picture of a Jewish cere- 
 mony, with a Hebrew name I have forgotten. This 
 piece is exceedingly bright and pleasing in color, odd and 
 novel as a representation of manners and costume, a 
 striking and agreeable picture. I don't think as much 
 can be said for the same artist's " Sir Thomas More go- 
 ing to Execution." Miss More is crying on papa's neck, 
 pa looks up to heaven, halberdiers look fierce, &c. : all 
 the regular adjuncts and property of pictorical tragedy 
 are here brought into play. But nobody cares, that is 
 the fact; and one fancies the designer himself cannot 
 have cared much for the orthodox historical group whose 
 misfortunes he was depicting. 
 
 These pictures are like boy's hexameters at school. 
 Every lad of decent parts in the sixth form has a knack 
 of turning out great quantities of respectable verse, with- 
 out blunders, and with scarce any mental labor; but 
 
244 PICTURE GOSSIP. 
 
 these verses are not the least like poetry, any more than 
 the great Academical paintings of the artists are like great 
 painting. You want something more than a composition, 
 and a set of costumes and figures decently posed and 
 studied. If these were all, for instance, Mr. Charles Land- 
 seer's picture of " Charles I. before the Battle of Edge 
 Hill," would be a good work of art. Charles stands at a 
 tree before the inn door, officers are round about, the lit- 
 tle princes are playing with a little dog, as becomes their 
 youth and innocence, rows of soldiers appear in red coats, 
 nobody seems to have anything particular to do, except 
 the royal martyr, who is looking at a bone of ham that a 
 girl out of the inn has hold of. 
 
 Now this is all very well, but you want something 
 more than this in an historic picture, which should have 
 its parts, characters, varieties, and climax, like a drama. 
 You don't want the Deus intersit for no other purpose 
 than to look at a knuckle of ham ; and here is a piece 
 well composed, and (bating a little want of life in the 
 figures) well drawn, brightly and pleasantly painted, as 
 all this artist's works are, all the parts and accessories 
 studied and executed with care and skill, and yet mean- 
 ing nothing, the part of Hamlet omitted. The king 
 in this attitude (with the baton in his hand, simpering at 
 the bacon aforesaid) has no more of the heroic in him 
 than the pork he contemplates, and he deserves to lose 
 every battle he fights. I prefer the artist's other still- 
 life pictures to this. He has a couple more, professed- 
 ly so called, very cleverly executed, and capital cabinet 
 pieces. 
 
 Strange to say, I have not one picture to remark upon 
 taken from the " Vicar of Wakefield." Mr. Ward has a 
 very good Hogarthian work, with some little extrava- 
 
PICTURE GOSSIP. 245 
 
 gance and caricature, representing Johnson waiting in 
 Lord Chesterfield's ante-chamber, among a crowd of 
 hangers-on and petitioners, who are sulky, or yawning, or 
 neglected, while a pretty Italian singer comes out, having 
 evidently had a very satisfactory interview with his lord- 
 ship, and who (to lose no time) is arranging another ren- 
 dezvous with another admirer. This story is very well, 
 coarsely, and humorously told, and is as racy as a chap- 
 ter out of Smollett. There is a yawning chaplain, whose 
 head is full of humor ; and a pathetic episode of a widow 
 and pretty child, in which the artist has not succeeded so 
 well. 
 
 There is great delicacy and beauty in Mr. Herbert's 
 picture of "Pope Gregory teaching Children to Sing." 
 His Holiness lies on his sofa, languidly beating time over 
 his book. He does not look strong enough to use the 
 scourge in his hands, and with which the painter says he 
 used to correct his little choristers. Two ghostly aides- 
 de-camp in the shape of worn, handsome, shaven ascetic 
 friars, stand behind the pontiff demurely; and all the 
 choristers are in full song, with their mouths as wide 
 open as a nest of young birds when the mother comes. 
 The painter seems to me to have acquired the true 
 spirit of the Middle- Age devotion. All his works have 
 unction ; and the prim, subdued, ascetic race, which forms 
 the charm and mystery of the missal-illuminations, and 
 which has operated to convert some imaginative minds 
 from the new to the old faith. 
 
 And, by way of a wonder, behold a devotional picture 
 from Mr. Edwin Landseer, " A Shepherd Praying at a 
 Cross in the Fields." I suppose the Sabbath church- 
 bells are ringing from the city far away in the plain. Do 
 you remember the beautiful lines of Uhland ? 
 
246 PICTURE GOSSIP. 
 
 " Es ist der tag des Herrn 
 Ich bin allein auf weitern Flur 
 Noch eine Morgen-glocke nur 
 Uud stille nah und fern. 
 
 " Anbetend knie ich hier 
 susses Graun geheimes Wehn 
 Als knieten viele Ungesehn 
 Und beteten mit mir." 
 
 Here is a noble and touching pictorial illustration of 
 them, of Sabbath repose and recueillement, an almost 
 endless flock of sheep lies around the pious pastor ; the 
 sun shines peacefully over the vast fertile plain; blue 
 mountains keep watch in the distance ; and the sky above 
 is serenely clear. I think this is the highest flight of po- 
 etry the painter has dared to take yet. The numbers 
 and variety of attitude and expression in that flock of 
 sheep quite startle the spectator as he examines them. 
 The picture is a wonder of skill. 
 
 How richly the good pictures cluster at this end of the 
 room ! There is a little Mulready, of which the color 
 blazes out like sapphires and rubies ; a pair of Leslies, 
 one called the " Heiress," one a scene from Moliere, 
 both delightful: these are flanked by the magnificent 
 nymphs of Etty, before mentioned. What school of art 
 in Europe, or what age, can show better painters than 
 these in their various lines ? The young men do well, 
 but the elders do best still. No wonder the English pic- 
 tures are fetching their thousands of guineas at the sales. 
 They deserve these great prices as well as the best works 
 of the Hollanders. 
 
 I am sure that three such pictures as Mr. Webster's 
 " Dame's School " ought to entitle the proprietor to pay 
 the income-tax. There is a little caricature in some of 
 the children's faces, but the schoolmistress is a perfect 
 
PICTURE GOSSIP. 247 
 
 figure, most admirably natural, humorous, and sentimen- 
 tal. The picture is beautifully painted, full of air, of 
 delightful harmony and tone. 
 
 There are works by Creswick that can hardly be praised 
 too much. One particularly, called u A Place to be Re- 
 membered," which no lover of pictures can see and forget. 
 Danby's great " Evening Scene " has portions which are 
 not surpassed by Cuyp or Claude ; and a noble landscape 
 of Lee's, among several others, a height, with some 
 trees and a great expanse of country beneath. 
 
 From the fine pictures you come to the class which are 
 very nearly being fine pictures. In this I would enume- 
 rate a landscape or two by Collins. Mr. Leigh's " Poly- 
 phemus," of which the landscape part is very good, and 
 only the figure questionable ; and, let us say, Mr. Elmore's 
 " Origin of the Guelf and Ghibelline Factions," which 
 contains excellent passages, and admirable drawing and 
 dexterity, but fails to strike as a whole somehow. There 
 is not sufficient purpose in it, or the story is not enough 
 to interest, or, though the parts are excellent, the whole 
 is somewhere deficient. 
 
 There is very little comedy in the Exhibition, most of 
 the young artists tending to the sentimental rather than 
 the ludicrous. Leslie's scene from Moliere is the best 
 comedy. Collins's " Fetching the Doctor " is also de- 
 lightful fun. The greatest farce, however, is Chalon's 
 picture with an Italian title, " B. Virgine col," &c. Im- 
 pudence never went beyond this. The infant's hair has 
 been curled into ringlets, the mother sits on her chair 
 with painted cheeks and a Haymarket leer. The picture 
 might serve for the oratory of an opera girl. 
 
 Among the portraits, Knight's and Watson Gordon's 
 are the best. A " Mr. Pigeon " by the former hangs in 
 
248 PICTURE GOSSIP. 
 
 the place of honor usually devoted to our gracious Prince, 
 and is a fine rich state picture. Even better are there 
 by Mr. Watson Gordon : one representing a gentleman 
 in black silk stockings, whose name has escaped the mem- 
 ory of your humble servant ; another, a fine portrait of 
 Mr. De Quincey, the opium-eater. Mr. Lawrence's heads, 
 solemn and solidly painted, look out at you from their 
 frames, though they be ever so high placed, and push out 
 of sight the works of more flimsy but successful practi- 
 tioners. A portrait of great power and richness of color is 
 that of Mr. Lopez, by Linnell. Mr. Grant is the favorite ; 
 but a very unsound painter, to my mind, painting like a 
 brilliant and graceful amateur rather than a serious artist. 
 But there is a quiet refinement and beauty about his fe- 
 male heads, which no other painter can perhaps give, and 
 charms in spite of many errors. Is it Count D'Orsay, or 
 is it Mr. Ainsworth, that the former has painted? Two 
 peas are not more alike than these two illustrious char- 
 acters. 
 
 In the miniature-room, Mr. Richmond's drawings are 
 of so grand and noble a character, that they fill the eye 
 as much as full-length canvases. Nothing can be finer 
 than Mrs. Fry and the gray-haired lady in black velvet. 
 There is a certain severe, respectable, Exeter-Hall look 
 about most of this artist's pictures, that the observer may 
 compare with the Catholic physiognomies of Mr. Herbert : 
 see his picture of Mr. Pugin, for instance ; it tells of 
 chants and cathedrals, as Mr. Richmond's work somehow 
 does of Clapham Common and the May meetings. The 
 genius of May Fair fires the bosom of Chalon, the tea 
 party, the quadrille, the hair-dresser, the tailor, and the 
 flunky. All Ross's miniatures sparkle with his wonder- 
 ful and minute skill ; Carrick's are excellent ; Thorburn's 
 
PICTURE GOSSIP. 249 
 
 almost take the rank of historical pictures. In his picture 
 of two sisters, one has almost the most beautiful head in 
 the world ; and his picture of Prince Albert, clothed in 
 red and leaning on a turquoise sabre, has ennobled that 
 fine head, and given his royal highness's pale features an 
 air of sunburnt and warlike vigor. Miss Corbaux, too, 
 has painted one of the loveliest heads ever seen. Perhaps 
 this is the pleasantest room of the whole, for you are sure 
 to meet your friends here ; kind faces smile at you from 
 
 the ivory ; and features of fair creatures, O, how * * 
 
 * * # * * 
 
 Here the eccentric author breaks into a rhapsody of 
 thirteen pages regarding No. 2576, Mrs. Major Blogg, 
 who was formerly Miss Poddy of Cheltenham, whom it 
 appears that Michael Angelo knew and admired. The 
 feelings of the Poddy family might be hurt, and the jeal- 
 ousy of Major Blogg aroused, were we to print Titmarsh's 
 rapturous description of that lady ; nor, indeed, can we 
 give him any further space. He concludes by a wither- 
 ing denunciation of most of the statues, in the vault where 
 they are buried ; praising, however, the children, Paul 
 and Virginia, the head of Bayly's nymph, and M'Dowall's 
 boy. He remarks the honest character of the English 
 countenance as exhibited in the busts, and contrasts it 
 with Louis Philippe's head by Jones, on whom, both as a 
 sculptor and a singer, he bestows great praise. He in- 
 dignantly remonstrates with the committee for putting by 
 far the finest female bust in the room, No. 1434, by Pow- 
 ers of Florence, in a situation where it cannot be seen ; 
 and, quitting the gallery finally, says he must go before 
 he leaves town and give one more look at Hunt's " Boy 
 at Prayers," in the Water- Color Exhibition, which he 
 pronounces to be the finest serious work of the year. 
 11* 
 
THE ANONYMOUS IN PERIODICAL 
 LITERATURE. 
 
 Y rising young friend HITCHINGS, the author 
 of " Randolph the Robber," " The Murderers 
 of May Fair," and other romances, and one 
 of the chief writers in the Lictor newspaper, 
 a highly liberal, nay, seven-leagued boots progressional 
 journal, was discoursing with the writer of the present 
 lines upon the queer decision to which the French As- 
 sembly has come, and which enforces a signature hence- 
 forth to all the leading articles in the French papers. As 
 an act of government, Hitchings said he thought the 
 measure most absurd and tyrannous, but he was not sorry 
 for it, as it would infallibly increase the importance of 
 the profession of letters, to which we both belonged. 
 The man of letters will no longer be the anonymous 
 slave of the newspaper-press proprietor, Hitchings said ; 
 the man of letters will no longer be used and flung aside 
 in his old days; he will be rewarded according to his 
 merits, and have the chance of making himself a name. 
 And then Hitchings spoke with great fervor regarding 
 the depressed condition of literary men, and said the 
 time was coming when their merits would get them their 
 own. 
 
 On this latter subject, which is a favorite one with 
 
THE ANONYMOUS IN PERIODICAL LITERATURE. 251 
 
 many gentlemen of our profession, I, for one, am confess- 
 edly incredulous. I am resolved not to consider myself 
 a martyr. I never knew a man who had written a good 
 book (unless, indeed, it were a Barrister with Attorneys) 
 hurt his position in society by having done so. On the 
 contrary, a clever writer, with decent manners asd con- 
 duct, makes more friends than any other man. And I do 
 not believe (parenthetically) that it will make much dif- 
 ference to my friend Hitchings whether his name is af- 
 fixed to one, twenty, or two thousand articles of his com- 
 position. But what would happen in England if such a 
 regulation as that just passed in France were to become 
 law ; and the House of Commons omnipotent, which 
 can shut up our parks for us, which can shut up our 
 post-office for us, which can do anything it will, should 
 take a fancy to have the signature of every writer of a 
 newspaper article? 
 
 Have they got any secret ledger at the " Times," in 
 which the names of the writers of all the articles in that 
 journal are written down ? That would be a curious 
 book to see. Articles in that paper have been attributed 
 to every great man of the day. At one time it was said 
 Brougham wrote regularly; at another, Canning was a 
 known contributor ; at some other time, it was Sir Robert 
 Peel, Lord Aberdeen. It would be curious to see the 
 real names. The Chancellor's or the Foreign Secreta- 
 ry's articles would most likely turn out to be written by 
 Jones or Smith. I mean no disrespect to the latter, but 
 the contrary, to be a writer for a newspaper requires 
 more knowledge, genius, readiness, scholarship, than you 
 want in Saint Stephen's. Compare a good leading arti- 
 cle and a speech in the House of Commons : compare a 
 House of Commons orator with a writer, psha ! 
 
252 THE ANONYMOUS IN PERIODICAL LITERATURE. 
 
 Would Jones or Smith, however, much profit by the 
 publication of their names to their articles? That is 
 doubtful. When the Chronicle or the Times speaks now, 
 it is " we " who are speaking, we the Liberal Conserva- 
 tives, we the Conservative Sceptics ; when Jones signs 
 the article it is we no more, but Jones. It goes to the 
 public with no authority. The public does not care very 
 much what Jones's opinions are. They don't purchase 
 the Jones organ any more, the paper droops ; and, in 
 fact, I can conceive nothing more wearisome than to see 
 the names of Smith, Brown, Jones, Robinson, and so 
 forth, written in capitals every day, day after day, under 
 the various articles of the paper. The public would be- 
 gin to cry out at the poverty of the literary dramatis 
 persona. We have had Brown twelve times this month 
 it would say. That Robinson's name is always coming 
 up. As soon as there is a finance question, or a foreign 
 question, or what not, it is Smith who signs the article. 
 Give us somebody else. 
 
 Thus Brown and Robinson would get a doubtful and 
 precarious bread instead of the comfortable and regular 
 engagement which they now have. The paper would 
 not be what it is. It would be impossible to employ men 
 on trial, and see what their talents were worth. Occa- 
 sion is half a public writer's battle. To sit down in his 
 study and compose an article that might be suitable, is a 
 hard work for him, twice as hard as the real work, 
 and yet not the real work, which is to fight the battle at 
 two hours' notice, at the given place and time. The de- 
 bate is over at twelve o'clock at night, let us say. Mr. 
 Editor looks round, and fixes on his man. " Now 's your 
 time, Captain Smith," says he, " charge the enemy, and 
 rout them," or " advance, Colonel Jones, with your 
 column, and charge." 
 
THE ANONYMOUS IN PERIODICAL LITERATURE. 253 
 
 Now there may be men who are Jones's or Robinson's 
 superiors in intellect, and who give them a week or 
 ten days to prepare would turn out such an article as 
 neither of the two men named could ever have produced, 
 that is very likely. I have often, for my part, said 
 the most brilliant thing in the -world, and one that would 
 utterly upset that impudent Jenkins, whose confounded 
 jokes and puns spare nobody ; but then it has been three 
 hours after Jenkins's pun, when I was walking home 
 very likely, and so it is with writers ; some of them 
 possess the amazing gift of the impromptu, and can al- 
 ways be counted upon in a moment of necessity ; whilst 
 others, slower coaches or leaders, require to get all their 
 heavy guns into position, and laboriously to fortify their 
 camp before they begin to fire. 
 
 Now, saying that Robinson is the fellow chiefly to be 
 intrusted with the quick work of the paper, it would be 
 a most unkind and unfair piece of tyranny on the news- 
 paper proprietor to force him to publish Robinson's name 
 as the author of all the articles d'occasion. You have 
 no more right to call for this publicity from the newspa- 
 per owner, who sells you three yards of his printed fab- 
 ric, than to demand from the linen-draper from what 
 wholesale house he got his calico, who spun it, who 
 owned the cotton, and who cropped it in America. It is 
 the article, and not the name and pedigree of the artifi- 
 cer, which a newspaper or any other dealer has a right 
 to sell to the public. If I get a letter (which Heaven 
 forbid ! ) from Mr. Tapes, my attorney, I know it is not 
 in Tapes's own handwriting ; I know it is a clerk writes 
 it. So a newspaper is a composite work, got up by many 
 hireling hands, of whom it is necessary to know no other 
 name than the printer's or proprietor's. 
 
254 THE ANONYMOUS IN PERIODICAL LITERATURE. 
 
 It is not to be denied that men of signal ability will 
 write for years in papers, and perish unknown, and in 
 so far their lot is a hard one, and the chances of life are 
 against them. It is hard upon a man, with whose work 
 the whole town is ringing, that not a soul should know 
 or care who is the author who so delights the public. 
 
 But, on the other hand, if your article is excellent, 
 would you have had any great renown from it, supposing 
 the paper had not published it ? Would you have had a 
 chance at all but for that paper? Suppose you had 
 brought out that article on a broad sheet, who would 
 have bought it? Did you ever hear of an unknown 
 man making a fortune by a pamphlet ? 
 
 Again, it may so happen to a literary man that the 
 stipend which he receives from one publication is not suf- 
 ficient to boil his family pot, and that he must write in 
 some other quarter. If Brown writes articles in the 
 daily papers, and articles in the weekly and monthly 
 periodicals, too, and signs the same, he surely weakens 
 his force by extending his line. It would be better for 
 him to write incognito than to placard his name in so 
 many quarters, as actors understand, who do not per- 
 form in too many pieces on the same night ; and painters, 
 who know that it is not worth their while to exhibit more 
 than a certain number of pictures. 
 
 Besides, if to some men the want of publicity is an 
 evil, to many others the privacy is most welcome. Many 
 a young barrister is a public writer, for instance, to whose 
 future prospects his fame as a literary man would give no 
 possible aid, and whose intention it is to put away the pen, 
 when the attorneys begin to find out his juridical merits. 
 To such a man it would only be a misfortune to be known 
 as a writer of leading articles. His battle for fame and 
 
THE ANONYMOUS IN PERIODICAL LITERATURE. 255 
 
 fortune is to be made with other weapons than the pen. 
 Then, again, a man without ambition, and there are 
 very many such sensible persons, or whose ambition does 
 not go beyond h\s pot aufeu, is happy to have the oppor- 
 tunity of quietly and honorably adding to his income, 
 of occupying himself, of improving himself, of pay- 
 ing for Tom at college, or for Mamma's carriage, and 
 what not. Take away this modest mask, force every 
 man upon the public stage to appear with his name pla- 
 carded, and we lose some of the best books, some of the 
 best articles, some of the pleasantest wit that we have 
 ever had. 
 
 On the whole, then, in this controversy I am against 
 Hitchings ; and although he insists upon it that he is a 
 persecuted being, I do not believe it; and although he 
 declares that I ought to consider myself trampled on by 
 the world, I decline to admit that I am persecuted, and 
 protest that it treats me and my brethren kindly in the 
 main. 
 
GOETHE: 
 
 A LETTER TO G. H. LEWES. 
 
 LONDON, 28th April, 1855. 
 
 EAR LEWES: I wish I had more to tell 
 you regarding Weimar and Goethe. Five- 
 and-twenty years ago, at least a score of young 
 English lads used to live at Weimar for study, 
 or sport, or society ; all of which were to be had in the 
 friendly little Saxon capital. The Grand Duke and 
 Duchess received us with the kindliest hospitality. The 
 Court was splendid, but yet most pleasant and homely. 
 We were invited in our turns to dinners, balls, and as- 
 semblies there. Such young men as had a right, appeared 
 in uniforms, diplomatic and military. Some, I remem- 
 ber, invented gorgeous clothing, the kind old Hof Mar- 
 schall of those days, M. de Spiegel (who had two of the 
 most lovely daughters eyes ever looked on), being in no- 
 wise difficult as to the admission of these young England- 
 ers. Of the winter nights we used to charter sedan- 
 chairs, in which we were carried through the snow to 
 those pleasant Court entertainments. I, for my part, had 
 the good luck to purchase Schiller's sword, which formed 
 a part of my Court costume, and still hangs in my study, 
 and puts me in mind of days of youth the most kindly 
 and delightful. 
 
GOETHE. 257 
 
 We knew the whole society of the little city, and but 
 that the young ladies, one and all, spoke admirable Eng- 
 lish, we surely might have learned the very best German. 
 The society met constantly. The ladies of the Court had 
 their evenings. The theatre was open twice or thrice in 
 the week, where we assembled, a large family party. 
 Goethe had retired from the direction, but the great tra- 
 ditions remained still. The theatre was admirably con- 
 ducted ; and besides the excellent Weimar company, fa- 
 mous actors and singers from various parts of Germany 
 performed " Gastrolle " * through the winter. In that 
 winter, I remember we had Ludwig Devrient in Shylock, 
 Hamlet, Falstaff, and the " Robbers " ; and the beautiful 
 Schroder in Fidelio." 
 
 After three-and-twenty years' absence I passed a couple 
 of summer days in the well-remembered place, and was 
 fortunate enough to find some of the friends of my youth. 
 Madame de Goethe was there, and received me and my 
 daughters with the kindness of old days. We drank tea 
 in the open air at the famous cottage in the Park, f which 
 still belongs to the family, and had been so often inhab- 
 ited by her illustrious father. 
 
 In 1831, though he had retired from the world, Goethe 
 would nevertheless very kindly receive strangers. His 
 daughter-in-law's tea-table was always spread for us. We 
 passed hours after hours there, and night after night with 
 the pleasantest talk and music. We read over endless 
 novels and poems in French, English, and German. My 
 delight in those days was to make caricatures for chil- 
 dren. I was touched to find that they were remembered, 
 and some even kept until the present time; and very 
 
 * What in England are called " starring engagements." 
 t The Gartenhaus. 
 
 Q 
 
258 GOETHE. 
 
 proud to be told, as a lad, that the great Goethe had 
 looked at some of them. 
 
 He remained in his private apartments, where only a 
 very few privileged persons were admitted ; but he liked 
 to know all that was happening, and interested himself 
 about all strangers. Whenever a countenance struck his 
 fancy, there was an artist settled in Weimar who made a 
 portrait of it. Goethe had quite a gallery of heads, in 
 black and white, taken by this painter. His house was 
 all over pictures, drawings, casts, statues, and medals. 
 
 Of course I remember very well the perturbation of 
 spirit, with which, as a lad of nineteen, I received the 
 long-expected intimation that the Herr Geheimrath would 
 see me on such a morning. This notable audience took 
 place in a little ante-chamber of his private apartments, 
 covered all round with antique casts and bas-reliefs. He 
 was habited in a long gray or drab redingote, with a white 
 neckcloth, and a red ribbon in his button-hole. He kept 
 his hands behind his back, just as in Rauch's statuette. 
 His complexion was very bright, clear and rosy. His 
 eyes extraordinarily dark,* piercing and brilliant. I felt 
 quite afraid before them, and recollect comparing them to 
 the eyes of the hero of a certain romance called " Mel- 
 moth the Wanderer," which used to alarm us boys thirty 
 years ago, eyes of an individual who had made a bar- 
 gain with a Certain Person, and at an extreme old age 
 retained these eyes in all their awful splendor. I fancied 
 Goethe must have been still more handsome as an old 
 man than even in the days of his youth. His voice was 
 very rich and sweet. He asked me questions about my- 
 
 * This must have been the effect of the position in which he sat 
 with regard to the light. Goethe's eyes were dark brown, but not very 
 dark. 
 
GOETHE. 259 
 
 self, which I answered as best I could. I recollect I was 
 at first astonished, and then somewhat relieved, when I 
 found he spoke French with not a good accent. 
 
 Vidi tantum. I saw him but three times. Once, walk- 
 ing in the garden of his house in the Frauenplan ; once, 
 going to step into his chariot on a sunshiny day, wearing 
 a cap and a cloak with a red collar. He was caressing 
 at the time a beautiful little golden-haired granddaugh- 
 ter, over whose sweet, fair face the earth has long since 
 closed too. 
 
 Any of us who had books or magazines from England 
 sent them to him, and he examined them eagerly. " Fra- 
 ser's Magazine " had lately come out, and I remember he 
 was interested in those admirable outline portraits which 
 appeared for a while in its pages. But there was one, a 
 
 very ghastly character of Mr. R , which, as Madame 
 
 de Goethe told me, he shut up and pu^ away from him 
 angrily. " They would make me look like that," he said ; 
 though in truth I can fancy nothing more serene, majestic, 
 and healthy looking than the grand old Goethe. 
 
 Though his sun was setting, the sky round about was 
 calm and bright, and that little Weimar illumined by it. 
 In every one of those kind salons the talk was still of Art 
 and letters. The theatre, though possessing no very ex- 
 traordinary actors, was still conducted with a noble intel- 
 ligence and order. The actors read books, and were 
 men of letters and gentlemen, holding a not unkindly re- 
 lationship with the Add. At Court, the conversation was 
 exceedingly friendly, simple, and polished. The Grand 
 Duchess (the present Grand Duchess Dowager), a lady 
 of very remarkable endowments, would kindly borrow our 
 books from us, lend us her own, and graciously talk to 
 us young men about our literary tastes and pursuits. In 
 
260 GOETHE. 
 
 the respect paid by this Court to the Patriarch of letters, 
 there was something ennobling, I think, alike to the sub- 
 ject and sovereign. With a five-and-twenty years' ex- 
 perience since those happy days of which I write, and an 
 acquaintance with an immense variety of human kind, I 
 think I have never seen a society more simple, more 
 charitable, courteous, gentlemanlike than that of the dear 
 little Saxon city, where the good Schiller and the great 
 Goethe lived and lie buried. 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 W. M. THACKERAY. 
 
A LEAF OUT OF A SKETCH-BOOK. 
 
 F you will take a leaf out of my sketch-book, 
 you are welcome. It is only a scrap, but I 
 have nothing better to give. "When the fish- 
 ing-boats come in at a watering-place, have n't 
 you remarked that though these may be choking with 
 great fish, you can only get a few herrings or a whiting 
 or two ? The big fish are all bespoken in London. As 
 it is with fish, so it is with authors let us hope. Some 
 Mr. Charles, of Paternoster Row, some Mr. Groves, of 
 Cornhill, (or elsewhere,) has agreed for your turbots and 
 your salmon, your soles and your lobsters. Take one of 
 my little fish, any leaf you like out of the little book, 
 a battered little book : through what a number of coun- 
 tries, to be sure, it has travelled in this pocket ! 
 
 The sketches are but poor performances, say you. I 
 don't say no ; and value them no higher than you do, ex- 
 cept as recollections of the past. The little scrawl helps 
 to fetch back the scene which was present and alive once, 
 and is gone away now, and dead. The past resurges out 
 of its grave : comes up a sad-eyed ghost sometimes 
 and gives a wan ghost-like look of recognition, ere it pops 
 down under cover again. Here's the Thames, an old 
 graveyard, an old church, and some old chestnuts stand- 
 ing behind it. Ah ! it was a very cheery place, that old 
 
262 A LEAF OUT OF A SKETCH-BOOK 
 
 graveyard ; but what a dismal, cut-throat, crack-windowed, 
 disreputable residence was that " charming villa on the 
 banks of the Thames," which led me on the day's ex- 
 cursion ! Why, the " capacious stabling " was a ruinous 
 wooden old barn, the garden was a mangy potato patch, 
 overlooked by the territories of a neighboring washer- 
 woman. The housekeeper owned that the water was con- 
 stantly in the cellars and ground-floor rooms in winter. 
 Had I gone to live in that place, I should have perished 
 like a flower in spring, or a young gazelle, let us say, with 
 dark blue eye. I had spent a day and hired a fly at ever 
 so much charges, misled by an unveracious auctioneer, 
 against whom I have no remedy for publishing that abom- 
 inable work of fiction which led me to make a journey, 
 lose a day, and waste a guinea. 
 
 What is the next picture in the little show-book ? It 
 is a scene at Calais. The sketch is entitled " The Little 
 Merchant." He was a dear, pretty little rosy-cheeked mer- 
 chant, four years old maybe. He had a little scarlet 
 kepi ; a little military frock-coat ; a little pair of military 
 red trousers and boots, which did not near touch the 
 ground from the chair on which he sat sentinel. He was 
 a little crockery merchant, and the wares over which he 
 was keeping guard, sitting surrounded by walls and piles 
 of them as in a little castle, were .... well, I never 
 saw such a queer little crockery merchant. 
 
 Him and his little chair, boots, kepi, crockery, you can 
 see in the sketch, but I see, nay hear, a great deal 
 more. At the end of the quiet little old, old street, which 
 has retired out of the world's business as it were, being 
 quite too aged, feeble, and musty to take any part in life, 
 there is a great braying and bellowing of serpents and 
 bassoons, a nasal chant of clerical voices, and a pattering 
 
A LEAF OUT OF A SKETCH-BOOK. 263 
 
 of multitudinous feet. We run towards the market. It 
 is a Church fete day. Banners painted and gilt with 
 images of saints are flaming in the sun. Candles are 
 held aloft, feebly twinkling in the noontide shine. A 
 great procession of children with white veils, white shoes, 
 white roses, passes, and the whole town is standing with 
 its hat off to see the religious show. When I look at my 
 little merchant, then, I not only see him, but that proces- 
 sion passing over the place ; and as I see those people in 
 their surplices, I can almost see Eustache de St. Pierre 
 and his comrades walking in their shirts to present them- 
 selves to Edward and Philippa of blessed memory. And 
 they stand before the wrathful monarch, poor fellows, 
 meekly shuddering in their chemises, with ropes round 
 their necks ; and good Philippa kneels before the royal 
 conqueror, and says, " My King, my Edward, my beau 
 Sire ! Give these citizens their lives for our Lady's 
 gramercy and the sake of thy Philippa ! " And the 
 Plantagenet growls, and scowls, and softens, and he lets 
 those burgesses go. This novel and remarkable historical 
 incident passes through my mind as I see the clergymen 
 and clergyboys pass in their little short white surplices on 
 a mid-August day. The balconies are full, the bells are 
 all in a jangle, and the blue noonday sky quivers over- 
 head. 
 
 I suppose other pen and pencil sketchers have the same 
 feeling. The sketch brings back, not only the scene, but 
 the circumstances under which the scene was viewed. In 
 taking up an old book, for instance, written in former 
 days by your humble servant, he comes upon passages 
 which are outwardly lively and facetious, but inspire their 
 writer with the most dismal melancholy. I lose all cog- 
 nizance of the text sometimes, which is hustled and el- 
 
264 A LEAF OUT OF A SKETCH-BOOK. 
 
 bowed out of sight by the crowd of thoughts which throng 
 forward, and which were alive and active at the time that 
 text was born. Ah, my good Sir ! a man's books may n't 
 be interesting (and I could mention other authors' works 
 besides this one's which set me to sleep), but if you knew 
 all a writer's thoughts how interesting his book would be ! 
 Why, a grocer's day-book might be a wonderful history, 
 if alongside of the entries of cheese, pickles, and figs, you 
 could read the circumstances of the writer's life, and the 
 griefs, hopes, joys, which caused the heart to beat, while 
 the hand was writing and the ink flowing fresh. Ah 
 memory ! ah the past, ah the sad, sad past ! Look under 
 this waistcoat, my dear Madame. There. Over the 
 liver. Don't be frightened. You can't see it. But 
 there, at this moment, I assure you, there is an enormous 
 vulture gnawing, gnawing. 
 
 Turn over the page. You can't deny that this is a nice 
 little sketch of a quaint old town, with city towers, and an 
 embattled town gate, with a hundred peaked gables, and 
 ricketty balconies, and gardens sweeping down to the river 
 wall, with its toppling ancient summer-houses under which 
 the river rushes ; the rushing river, the talking river, that 
 murmurs all day, and brawls all night over the stones. 
 At early morning and evening under this terrace which 
 you see in the sketch it is the terrace of the Steinbock 
 or Capricorn Hotel the cows come ; and there, under 
 the walnut-trees before the tannery, is a fountain and 
 pump where the maids come in the afternoon and for 
 some hours make a clatter as noisy as the river. Moun- 
 tains gird it around, clad in dark green firs, with purple 
 shadows gushing over their sides, and glorious changes 
 and gradations of sunrise and setting. A more pictu- 
 resque, quaint, kind, quiet little town than this of Coire in 
 
A LEAF OUT OF A SKETCH-BOOK. 265 
 
 the Grisons, I have seldom seen ; or a more comfortable 
 little inn than this of the Steinbock or Capricorn, on the 
 terrace of which we are standing. But quick, let us turn 
 the page. To look at it makes one horribly melancholy. 
 As we are on the inn-terrace one of our party lies ill in 
 the hotel within. When will that doctor come ? Can we 
 trust to a Swiss doctor in a remote little town away at the 
 confines of the railway world ? He is a good, sensible, 
 complacent doctor, laus Deo, the people of the hotel 
 as kind, as attentive, as gentle, as eager to oblige. But 
 O, the gloom of those sunshiny days ; the sickening 
 languor and doubt which fill the heart as the hand is mak- 
 ing yonder sketch, and I think of the invalid suffering 
 within ! 
 
 Quick, turn the page. And what is here ? This pic- 
 ture, ladies and gentlemen, represents a steamer on the 
 Alabama river, plying (or which plied), between Mont- 
 gomery and Mobile. See, there is a black nurse with a 
 cotton handkerchief round her head, dandling and tossing 
 a white baby. Look in at the open door of that cabin, or 
 " state room " as they call the crib yonder. A mother is 
 leaning by a bed-place ; and see, kicking up in the air, 
 are a little pair of white, fat legs, over which that happy 
 young mother is bending in such happy, tender contem- 
 plation. That gentleman with a forked beard and a 
 slouched hat, whose legs are sprawling here and there, 
 and who is stabbing his mouth and teeth with his pen- 
 knife, is quite good-natured, though he looks so fierce. A 
 little time ago, as I was reading in the cabin, having one 
 book in my hand and another at my elbow, he affably 
 took the book at my elbow, read in it a little, and put it 
 down by my side again. He meant no harm. I say he 
 is quite good-natured and kind. His manners are not 
 12 
 
266 A LEAF OUT OF A SKETCH-BOOK. 
 
 those of May Fair, but is not Alabama a river as well as 
 Thames ? I wish that other little gentleman were in the 
 cabin who asked me to liquor twice or thrice in the course 
 of the morning, but whose hospitality I declined, prefer- 
 ring not to be made merry by wine or strong waters before 
 dinner. After dinner, in return for his hospitality, I asked 
 him if he would drink ? " No, sir, I have dined," he an- 
 swered, with very great dignity, and a tone of reproof. 
 Very good. Manners differ. I have not a word to say. 
 
 Well, my little Mentor is not in my sketch, but he is 
 in my mind as I look at it : and this sketch, ladies and 
 gentlemen, is especially interesting and valuable, because 
 the steamer blew up on the very next journey : blew up, I 
 give you my honor, burst her boilers close by my state- 
 room, so that I might, had I but waited for a week, have 
 witnessed a celebrated institution of the country, and had 
 the full benefit of the boiling. 
 
 I turn a page and who are these little men who appear 
 on it ? JIM and SADY are two young friends of mine at 
 Savannah in Georgia. I made Sady's acquaintance on 
 a first visit to America, a pretty little brown boy with 
 beautiful bright eyes, and it appears that I presented 
 him with a quarter of a dollar, which princely gift he re- 
 membered years afterwards, for never were eyes more 
 bright and kind than the little man's when he saw me, 
 and I dined with his kind masters on my second visit. 
 Jim at my first visit had been a little toddling tadpole of 
 a creature, but during the interval of the two journeys 
 had developed into the full-blown beauty which you see. 
 On the day after my arrival these young persons paid me 
 a visit, and here is a humble portraiture of them, and an 
 accurate account of a conversation which took place be- 
 tween us, as taken down on the spot by the elder of the 
 interlocutors. 
 
A LEAF OUT OF A SKETCH-BOOK. 
 
 267 
 
 Jim is five years old : Sady is seben : only Jim is a 
 great deal fatter. Jim and Sady have had sausage and 
 hominy for breakfast. One sausage, Jim's was the big- 
 gest. Jim can sing, but declines on being pressed, and 
 looks at Sady and grins. They both work in de garden. 
 Jim has been licked by Master, but Sady never. These 
 are their best clothes. They go to church in these clothes. 
 Heard a fine sermon yesterday, but don't know what it 
 was about. Never heard of England, never heard of 
 America. Like orangees best. Don't know any old 
 woman who sells orangees. (A pecuniary transaction 
 takes place.) Will give that quarter dollar to Pa. That 
 was Pa who waited at dinner. Are hungry, but dinner 
 not cooked yet. Jim all the while is revolving on his 
 
268 
 
 A LEAF OUT OF A SKETCH-BOOK. 
 
 axis and when begged to stand still turns round in a fitful 
 manner. 
 
 Exeunt Jim and Sady with a cake apiece which the 
 housekeeper gives them. Jim tumbles down stairs. 
 
 In his little red jacket, his little his little ? his im- 
 mense red trousers. 
 
 On my word the fair proportions of Jim are not exag- 
 gerated, such a queer little laughing blackamoorkin I 
 have never seen. Seen ? I see him now, and Sady, and 
 a half-dozen more of the good people, creeping on silent 
 bare feet to the drawing-room door when the music begins, 
 and listening with all their ears, with all their eyes. 
 Good night, kind little, warm-hearted little Sady and 
 Jim ! May peace soon be within your doors, and plenty 
 within your walls ! I have had so much kindness there, 
 that I grieve to think of friends in arms, and brothers in 
 anger. 
 
THE LAST SKETCH. 
 
 OT many days since I went to visit a house 
 where in former years I had received many a 
 friendly welcome. We went in to the own- 
 er's an artist's studio. Prints, pictures, 
 and sketches hung on the walls as I had last seen and 
 remembered them. The implements of the painter's art 
 were there. The light which had shone upon so many, 
 many hours of patient and cheerful toil, poured through 
 the northern window upon print and bust, lay figure and 
 sketch, and upon the easel before which the good, the 
 gentle, the beloved Leslie labored. In this room the 
 busy brain had devised, and the skilful hand executed, 
 I know not how many of the noble works which have 
 delighted the world with their beauty and charming hu- 
 mor. Here the poet called up into pictorial presence, 
 and informed with life, grace, beauty, infinite friendly 
 mirth and wondrous naturalness of expression, the people 
 of whom his dear books told him the stories, his Shake- 
 speare, his Cervantes, his Moliere, his Le Sage. There 
 was his last work on the easel, a beautiful fresh smil- 
 ing shape of Titania, such as his sweet guileless fancy 
 imagined the " Midsummer Night's " queen to be. Gra- 
 cious, and pure, and bright, the sweet smiling image 
 glimmers on the canvas. Fairy elves, no doubt, were to 
 
270 THE. LAST SKETCH. 
 
 have been grouped around their mistress in laughing 
 clusters. Honest Bottom's grotesque head and form are 
 indicated as reposing by the side of the consummate 
 beauty. The darkling forest would have grown around 
 them, with the stars glittering from the midsummer sky : 
 the flowers at the queen's feet, and the boughs and foliage 
 about her, would have been peopled with gambolling 
 sprites and fays. They were dwelling in the artist's 
 mind, no doubt, and would have been developed by that 
 patient, faithful, admirable genius : but the busy brain 
 stopped working, the skilful hand fell lifeless, the loving, 
 honest heart ceased to beat. What was she to have been 
 that fair Titania when perfected by the patient skill 
 of the poet, who in imagination saw the sweet innocent 
 figure, and with tender courtesy and caresses, as it were, 
 posed and shaped and traced the fair form? Is there 
 record kept anywhere of fancies conceived, beautiful, un- 
 born ? Some day will they assume form in some yet un- 
 developed light ? If our bad unspoken thoughts are reg- 
 istered against us, and are written in the awful account, 
 will not the good thoughts unspoken, the love and tender- 
 ness, the pity, beauty, charity, which pass through the 
 breast, and cause the heart to throb with silent good, find 
 a remembrance, too ? A few weeks more, and this lovely 
 offspring of the poet's conception would have been com- 
 plete, to charm the world with its beautiful mirth. 
 May there not be some sphere unknown to us where it 
 may have an existence ? They say our words, once out 
 of our lips, go travelling in omne cevum, reverberating for 
 ever and ever. If our words, why not our thoughts ? If 
 the Has Been, why not the Might Have Been ? 
 
 Some day our spirits may be permitted to walk in gal- 
 leries of fancies more wondrous and beautiful than any 
 
THE LAST SKETCH. 271 
 
 achieved works which at present we see, and our minds 
 to behold and delight in masterpieces which poets' and 
 artists' minds have fathered and conceived only. 
 
 With a feeling much akin to that with which I looked 
 upon the friend's the admirable artist's unfinished 
 work, I can fancy many readers turning to these, the 
 last pages which were traced by Charlotte Bronte's 
 hand. Of the multitude that has read her books, who 
 has not known and deplored the tragedy of her family, 
 her own most sad and untimely fate ? Which of her read- 
 ers has not become her friend? Who that has known 
 her books has not admired the artist's noble English, 
 the burning love of truth, the bravery, the simplicity, 
 the indignation at wrong, the eager sympathy, the pious 
 love and reverence, the passionate honor, so to speak, of 
 the woman ? What a story is that of that family of poets 
 in their solitude yonder on the gloomy northern moors ! 
 At nine o'clock at night, Mrs. Gaskell tells, after evening 
 prayers, when their guardian and relative had gone to bed, 
 the three poetesses, the three maidens, Charlotte, and 
 Emily, and Anne, Charlotte being the "motherly friend 
 and guardian to the other two," " began, like restless 
 wild animals, to pace up and down their parlor, " making 
 out " their wonderful stories, talking over plans and pro- 
 jects, and thoughts of what was to be their future life. 
 
 One evening, at the close of 1854, as Charlotte Nicholls 
 sat with her husband by the fire, listening to the howling 
 of the wind about the house, she suddenly said to her 
 husband, " If you had not been with me, I must have 
 been writing now." She then ran up stairs and brought 
 down, and read aloud, the beginning of a new tale. When 
 she had finished, her husband remarked, " the critics will 
 accuse you of repetition." She replied, " O, I shall alter 
 
272 THE LAST SKETCH. 
 
 that. I always begin two or three times before I can 
 please myself." But it was not to be. The trembling 
 little hand was to write no more. The heart, newly 
 awakened to love and happiness, and throbbing with ma- 
 ternal hope, was soon to cease to beat ; that intrepid out- 
 speaker and champion of truth, that eager, impetuous 
 redresser of wrong, was to be called out of the world's 
 fight and struggle, to lay down the shining arms, and to 
 be removed to a sphere where even a noble indignation 
 cor ulterius nequit lacerare, and where truth complete, 
 and right triumphant, no longer need to wage war. 
 
 I can only say of this lady, vidi tantum. I saw her 
 first just as I rose out of an illness from which I had 
 never thought to recover. I remember the trembling little 
 frame, the little hand, the great honest eyes. An impet- 
 uous honesty seemed to me to characterize the woman. 
 Twice I recollect she took me to task for what she held 
 to be errors in doctrine. Once about Fielding we had a 
 disputation. She spoke her mind out. She jumped too 
 rapidly to conclusions. (I have smiled at one or two 
 passages in the " Biography," in which my own disposi- 
 tion or behavior forms the subject of talk.) She formed 
 conclusions that might be wrong, and built up whole theo- 
 ries of character upon them. New to the London world, 
 she entered it with an independent, indomitable spirit of 
 her own ; and judged of contemporaries, and especially 
 spied out arrogance or affectation, with extraordinary 
 keenness of vision. She was angry with her favor- 
 ites if their conduct or conversation fell below her ideal. 
 Often she seemed to me to be judging the London folk 
 prematurely : but perhaps the city is rather angry at be- 
 ing judged. I fancied an austere little Joan of Arc 
 marching in upon us, and rebuking our easy lives, our 
 
THE LAST SKETCH. 273 
 
 easy morals. She gave me the impression of being a 
 very pure, and lofty, and high-minded person. A great 
 and holy reverence of right and truth seemed to be with 
 her always. Such, in our brief interview, she appeared 
 to me. As one thinks of that life so noble, so lonely, 
 of that passion for truth, of those nights and nights 
 of eager study, swarming fancies, invention, depression, 
 elation, prayer ; as one reads the necessarily incom- 
 plete, though most touching and admirable history of the 
 heart that throbbed in this one little frame, of this one 
 amongst the myriads of souls that have lived and died on 
 this great earth, this great earth? this little speck in 
 the infinite universe of God, with what wonder do we 
 think of to-day, with what awe await to-morrow, when 
 that which is now but darkly seen shall be clear ! As I 
 read this little fragmentary sketch, I think of the rest. Is 
 it ? And where is it ? Will not the leaf be turned some 
 day, and the story be told ? Shall the deviser of the tale 
 somewhere perfect the history of little EMMA'S griefs and 
 troubles ? Shall TITANIA come forth complete with her 
 sportive court, with the flowers at her feet, the forest around 
 her, and all the stars of summer glittering overhead ? 
 
 How well I remember the delight, and wonder, and 
 pleasure with which I read " Jane Eyre," sent to me- by 
 an author whose name and sex were then alike unknown 
 to me ; the strange fascinations of the book ; and how, 
 with my own work pressing upon me, I could not, having 
 taken the volumes up, lay them clown until they were 
 read through ! Hundreds of those who, like myself, rec- 
 ognized and admired that master-work of a great genius, 
 will look with a mournful interest and regard and curi- 
 osity upon the last fragmentary sketch from the noble 
 hand which wrote " Jane Eyre." 
 
 12* K 
 
"STRANGE TO SAY, ON CLUB PAPER." 
 
 EFORE the Duke of York's column, and be- 
 tween the Athenseum and United Service 
 Clubs, I have seen more than once, on the es- 
 planade, a preacher holding forth to a little 
 congregation of badauds and street-boys, whom he enter- 
 tains with a discourse on the crimes of a rapacious aris- 
 tocracy, or warns of the imminent peril of their own 
 souls. Sometimes this orator is made to " move on " by 
 brutal policemen. Sometimes, on a Sunday, he points to 
 a white head or two visible in the windows of the clubs 
 to the right and left of him, and volunteers a statement 
 that those quiet and elderly Sabbath-breakers will very 
 soon be called from this world to another, where their lot 
 will by no means be so comfortable as that which the rep- 
 robates enjoy here, in their arm-chairs, by their snug 
 fires. 
 
 At the end of last month, had I been a Pall Mall 
 preacher, I would have liked to send a whip round to all 
 the clubs in St. James's, and convoke the few members 
 remaining in London to hear a discourse sub Dio on a 
 text from the Observer newspaper. I would have taken 
 post under the statue of Fame, say, where she stands 
 distributing wreaths to the three Crimean Guardsmen. 
 (The crossing-sweeper does not obstruct the path, and I 
 
"STRANGE TO SAY, ON CLUB PAPER." 275 
 
 suppose is away at his villa on Sundays.) And, when 
 the congregation was pretty quiet, I would have be- 
 gun : 
 
 In the Observer of the 27th September, 1863, in the 
 fifth page and the fourth column, it is thus written : 
 
 " The codicil appended to the will of the late Lord 
 Clyde, executed at Chatham, and bearing the signature 
 of Clyde, F. M., is written, strange to say, on a sheet of 
 paper bearing the Atkenceum Club mark." 
 
 What the codicil is, my dear brethren, it is not our 
 business to inquire. It conveys a benefaction to a faith- 
 ful and attached friend of the good field-marshal. The 
 gift may be a lac of rupees, or it may be a house and its 
 contents, furniture, plate, and wine-cellar. My friends, 
 I know the wine-merchant, and, for the sake of the leg- 
 atee, hope heartily that the stock is large. 
 
 Am I wrong, dear brethren, in supposing that you 
 expect a preacher to say a seasonable word on death 
 here? If you don't, I fear you are but little familiar 
 with the habits of preachers, and are but lax hearers of 
 sermons. We might contrast the vault where the war- 
 rior's remains lie shrouded and coffined, with that in 
 which his worldly provision of wine is stowed away. 
 Spain and Portugal and France, all the lands which 
 supplied his store, as hardy and obedient subaltern, as 
 resolute captain, as colonel daring but prudent, he has 
 visited the fields of all. In India and China he marches 
 always unconquered ; or at the head of his dauntless 
 Highland brigade he treads the Crimean snow ; or he 
 rides from conquest to conquest in India once more ; suc- 
 coring his countrymen in the hour of their utmost need ; 
 smiting down the scared mutiny, and trampling out the 
 embers of rebellion ; at the head of a heroic army, a 
 
276 " STRANGE TO SAY, ON CLUB PAPER." 
 
 consummate chief. And now his glorious old sword is 
 sheathed, and his honors are won ; and he has bought 
 him a house, and stored it with modest cheer for his 
 friends (the good old man put water in his own wine, and 
 a glass or two sufficed him), behold the end comes, and 
 his legatee inherits these modest possessions by virtue of 
 a codicil to his lordship's will, written, "strange to say, 
 upon a sheet of paper bearing the Athenceum Club mark" 
 It is to this part of the text, my brethren, that I pro- 
 pose to address myself particularly, and if the remarks I 
 make are offensive to any of you, you know the doors of 
 our meeting-house are open, and you can walk out when 
 you will. Around us are magnificent halls and palaces, 
 frequented by such a multitude of men as not even the 
 Roman Forum assembled together. Yonder are the 
 Martium and the Palladium. Next to the Palladium is 
 the elegant Viatorium, which Barry gracefully stole from 
 Rome. By its side is the massive Reformatorium : and 
 the the Ultratorium rears its granite columns beyond. 
 Extending down the street palace after palace rises mag- 
 nificent, and under their lofty roofs warriors and lawyers, 
 merchants and nobles, scholars and seamen, the wealthy, 
 the poor, the busy, the idle assemble. Into the halls 
 built down this little street and its neighborhood the prin- 
 cipal men of all London come to hear or impart the 
 news ; and the affairs of the state or of private individu- 
 als, the quarrels of empires or of authors, the movements 
 of the court or the splendid vagaries of fashion, the in- 
 trigues of statesmen or of persons of another, sex yet 
 more wily, the last news of battles in the great occidental 
 continents, nay, the latest betting for the horse-races, or 
 the advent of a dancer at the theatre, all that men do 
 is discussed in these Pall Mall agora?, where we of Lon- 
 don daily assemble. 
 
"STRANGE TO SAY, ON CLUB PAPER." 277 
 
 Now among so many talkers, consider how many false 
 reports must fly about : in such multitudes imagine how 
 many disappointed men there must be ; how many chat- 
 terboxes; how many feeble and credulous (whereof I 
 mark some specimens in my congregation) ; how many 
 mean, rancorous, prone to believe ill of their betters, 
 eager to find fault ; and then, my brethren, fancy how the 
 words of my text must have been read and received in 
 Pall Mall ! (I perceive several of the congregation 
 looking most uncomfortable. One old boy with a dyed 
 mustache turns purple in the face, and struts back to 
 the Martium ; another, with a shrug of the shoulder and 
 a murmur of " Rubbish," slinks away in the direction of 
 the Togatorium, and the preacher continues.) The will 
 of Field-Marshal Lord Clyde signed at Chatham, 
 mind, where his lordship died is written, strange to 
 say, on a sheet of paper bearing the Athenaeum Club 
 mark ! 
 
 The inference is obvious. A man cannot get Athenas- 
 um paper except at the Athenaeum. Such paper is not 
 sold at Chatham, where the last codicil to his lordship's 
 will is dated. And so the painful belief is forced upon 
 us, that a Peer, a Field-Marshal, wealthy, respected, il- 
 lustrious, could pocket paper at his club, and carry it 
 away with him to the country. One fancies the hall porter 
 conscious of the old lord's iniquity, and holding down his 
 head as the marshal passes the door. What is that roll 
 which his lordship carries? Is it his marshal's baton 
 gloriously won ? No ; it is a roll of foolscap conveyed 
 from the club. What has he on his breast, under his 
 great-coat ? Is it his Star of India ? No ; it is a bundle 
 of envelopes, bearing the head of Minerva, some sealing- 
 wax, and a half-score of pens. 
 
278 " STRANGE TO SAY, ON CLUB PAPER." 
 
 Let us imagine how in the hall of one or other of these 
 clubs this strange anecdote will be discussed. 
 
 " Notorious screw," says Sneer. " The poor old fel- 
 low's avarice has long been known." 
 
 u Suppose he wishes to imitate the Duke of Marl- 
 borough," says Simper. 
 
 " Habit of looting contracted in India, you know ; ain't 
 so easy to get over, you know," says Snigger. 
 
 " When officers dined with him in India," remarks Sol- 
 emn, " it was notorious that the spoons were all of a dif- 
 ferent pattern." 
 
 " Perhaps it is n't true. Suppose he wrote his paper 
 at the club ? " interposes Jones. 
 
 u It is dated at Chatham, my good man," says Brown. 
 " A man if he is in London, says he is in London. A 
 man if he is in Rochester, says he is in Rochester. This 
 man happens to forget that he is using the club paper; 
 and he happens to be found out : many men don't happen 
 to be found out. I 've seen literary fellows at clubs writ- 
 ing their rubbishing articles ; I have no doubt they take 
 away reams of paper. They crib thoughts ; why should 
 n't they crib stationery ? One of your literary vagabonds 
 who is capable of stabbing a reputation, who is capable 
 of telling any monstrous falsehood to support his party, 
 is surely capable of stealing a ream of paper." 
 
 " Well, well, we have all our weaknesses," sighs Rob- 
 inson. " Seen that article, Thompson, in the Observer, 
 about Lord Clyde and the club paper? You '11 find it 
 up stairs. In the third column of the fifth page, towards 
 the bottom of the page. I suppose he was so poor he 
 could n't afford to buy a quire of paper. Had n't four- 
 pence in the world. 0, no ! " 
 
 " And they want to get up a testimonial to this man's 
 
"STRANGE TO SAY, ON CLUB PAPER." 279 
 
 memory, a statue or something ! " cries Jawkins. " A 
 man who wallows in wealth and takes paper away from 
 his club ! I don't say he is not brave : brutal courage 
 most men have. I don't say he was not a good officer : 
 a man with such experience must have been a good offi- 
 cer, unless he was born fool. But to think of this man, 
 loaded with honors, though of a low origin, so lost to 
 self-respect as actually to take away the Athenselim paper ! 
 These parvenus, sir, betray their origin, betray their 
 origin. I said to my wife this very morning, ' Mrs. Jaw- 
 kins,' I said, ' there is talk of a testimonial to this man. 
 I will not give one shilling. I have no idea of raising 
 statues to fellows who take away club paper. No, by 
 George, I have not. Why, they will be raising statues 
 to men who take club spoons next ! Not one penny of 
 my money shall they have ! ' ' 
 
 And now, if you please, we will tell the real story 
 which has furnished this scandal to a newspaper, this tat- 
 tle to club gossips and loungers. The field-marshal, wish- 
 ing to make a further provision for a friend, informed his 
 lawyer what he desired to do. The lawyer, a member of 
 the Athenaeum Club, there wrote the draft of such a codi- 
 cil as he would advise, and sent the paper by the post to 
 Lord Clyde at Chatham. Lord Clyde, finding the paper 
 perfectly satisfactory, signed it and sent it back: and 
 hence we have the story of " the codicil bearing the sig- 
 nature of Clyde, F. M., and written, strange to say, upon 
 paper bearing the Athenaeum Club mark." 
 
 Here I have been imagining a dialogue between a half- 
 dozen gossips such as congregate round a club fireplace 
 of an afternoon. I wonder how many people besides, 
 whether any chance reader of this very page, has read 
 and believed this story about the good old lord ? Have 
 
280 "STRANGE TO SAY, ON CLUB PAPER." 
 
 the country papers copied the anecdote, and our " own 
 correspondents " made their remarks on it ? If, my good 
 sir, or madam, you have read it and credited it, don't you 
 own to a little feeling of shame and sorrow, now that the 
 trumpery little mystery is cleared ? To " the new inhabi- 
 tant of light," passed away and out of reach of our cen- 
 sure, misrepresentation, scandal, dulness, malice, a silly 
 falsehood matters nothing. Censure and praise are alike 
 to him, " the music warbling to the deafened ear, the in- 
 cense wasted on the funeral bier," the pompous eulogy 
 pronounced over the gravestone, or the lie that slander 
 spits on it. Faithfully though this brave old chief did 
 his duty, honest and upright though his life was, glorious 
 his renown, you see he could write at Chatham on Lon- 
 don paper ; you see men can be found to point out how 
 " strange " his behavior was. 
 
 And about ourselves ? My good people, do you by 
 chance know any man or woman who has formed unjust 
 conclusions regarding his neighbor ? Have you ever 
 found yourself willing, nay, eager to believe evil of some 
 man whom you hate ? Whom you hate because he is 
 successful, and you are not : because he is rich, and you 
 are poor : because he dines with great men who don't in- 
 vite you : because he wears a silk gown, and yours is 
 still stuff: because he has been called in to perform the 
 operation though you lived close by : because his pictures 
 have been bought, and yours returned home unsold : be- 
 cause he fills his church, and you are preaching to empty 
 pews ? If your rival prospers, have you ever felt a 
 twinge of anger ? If his wife's carriage passes you and 
 Mrs. Tomkins, who are in a cab, don't you feel that those 
 people are giving themselves absurd airs of importance ? 
 If he lives with great people, are you not sure he is a 
 sneak ? And if vou ever felt envy towards another, and 
 
" STRANGE TO SAY, ON CLUB PAPER." 281 
 
 if your heart has ever been black towards your brother, 
 if you have been peevish at his success, pleased to hear 
 his merit depreciated, and eager to believe all that is said 
 in his disfavor, my good sir, as you yourself contritely 
 own that you are unjust, jealous, uncharitable, so you 
 may be sure some men are uncharitable, jealous, and un- 
 just regarding you. 
 
 The proofs and manuscript of this little sermon have 
 just come from the printer's, and as I look at the writing, 
 I perceive, not without a smile, that one or two of the 
 pages bear, " strange to say," the mark of a club of which 
 I have the honor to be a member. Those lines quoted in 
 a foregoing page are from some noble verses written by 
 one of Mr. Addison's men, Mr. Tickell, on the death of 
 Cadogan, who was amongst the most prominent " of Marl- 
 borough's captains and Eugenio's friends." If you are ac- 
 quainted with the history of those times, you have read 
 how Cadogan had his feuds and hatreds too, as Tickell's 
 patron had his, as Cadogan's great chief had his. " The 
 Duke of Marlborough's character has been so variously 
 drawn" (writes a famous contemporary of the duke's), 
 " that it is hard to pronounce on either side without the 
 suspicion of flattery or detraction. I shall say nothing of 
 his military accomplishments, which the opposite reports 
 of his friends and enemies among the soldiers have ren- 
 dered problematical. Those maliguers who deny him 
 personal valor, seem not to consider that this accusation 
 is charged at a venture, since the person of a general is 
 too seldom exposed, and that fear which is said sometimes 
 to have disconcerted him before action might probably be 
 more for his army than himself." If Swift could hint a 
 doubt of Marlborough's courage, what wonder that a 
 nameless scribe of our day should question the honor of 
 Clyde? 
 
AUTOUR DE MON CHAPEAU. 
 
 EVER have I seen a more noble tragic face. 
 In the centre of the forehead there was a 
 great furrow of care, towards which the brows 
 rose piteously. What a deep solemn grief in 
 the eyes ! They looked blankly at the object before them, 
 but through it, as it were, and into the grief beyond. In 
 moments of pain, have you not looked at some indifferent 
 object so ? It mingles dumbly with your grief, and re- 
 mains afterwards connected with it in your mind. It 
 may be some indifferent thing, a book which you were 
 reading at the time when you received her farewell let- 
 ter (how well you remember the paragraph afterwards, 
 the shape of the words, and their position on the page !) ; 
 the words you were writing when your mother came in, 
 and said it was all over, she was MARRIED, Emily 
 married, to that insignificant little rival at whom you 
 have laughed a hundred times in her company. Well, 
 well, my friend and reader, whoe'er you be, old man 
 or young, wife or maiden, you have had your grief- 
 pang. Boy, you have lain awake the first night at- 
 school, and thought of home. Worse still, man, you have 
 parted from the dear ones with bursting heart: and, 
 lonely boy, recall the bolstering an unfeeling comrade 
 gave you ; and, lonely man, just torn from your children, 
 
AUTOUR DE MON CHAPEAU. 283 
 
 their little tokens of affection yet in your pocket, 
 pacing the deck at evening in the midst of the roaring 
 ocean, you can remember how you were told that supper 
 was ready, and how you went down to the cabin and had 
 brandy-and-water and biscuit. You remember the taste 
 of them. Yes, forever. You took them whilst you and 
 your Grief were sitting together, and your Grief clutched 
 you round the soul. Serpent, how you have writhed round 
 me, and bitten me ! Remorse, Remembrance, &c., come 
 in the night season, and I feel you gnawing, gnawing! 
 .... I tell you that man's face was like Laocoon's 
 (which, by the way, I always think overrated. The 
 real head is at Brussels, at the Duke Daremberg's, not 
 at Rome). 
 
 That man ! What man ? That man of whom I said 
 that his magnificent countenance exhibited the noblest 
 tragic woe. He was not of European blood. He was 
 handsome, but not of European beauty. His face white, 
 not of a Northern whiteness: his eyes protruding 
 somewhat, and rolling in their grief. Those eyes had 
 seen the Orient sun, and his beak was the eagle's. His 
 lips were full. The beard, curling round them, was un- 
 kempt and tawny. The locks were of a deep, deep cop- 
 pery red. The hands, swart and powerful, accustomed 
 to the rongh grasp of the wares in which he dealt, seemed 
 unused to the flimsy artifices of the bath. He came from 
 the Wilderness, and its sands were on his robe, his cheek, 
 his tattered sandal, and the hardy foot it covered. 
 
 And his grief, whence came his sorrow ? I will tell 
 you. He bore it in his hand. He had evidently just 
 concluded the compact by which it became his. His 
 business was that of a purchaser of domestic raiment. 
 At early dawn, nay, at what hour when the city is 
 
284 AUTOUR DE MON CHAPEAU. 
 
 alive, do we not all hear the nasal cry of " Clo " ? In 
 Paris, Habits Galons, Marchand d'habits, is the twanging 
 signal* with which the wandering merchant makes his 
 presence known. It was in Paris I saw this man. 
 Where else have I not seen him ? In the Roman Ghet- 
 to, at the Gate of David, in his fathers' once imperial 
 city. The man I mean was an itinerant vendor and 
 purchaser of wardrobes, what you call an .... 
 Enough ! You know his name. 
 
 On his left shoulder hung his bag ; and he held in that 
 hand a white hat, which I am sure he had just purchased, 
 and which was the cause of the grief which smote his 
 noble features. Of course I cannot particularize the sum, 
 but he had given too much for that hat. He felt he 
 might have got the thing for less money. It was not the 
 amount, I am sure it was the principle involved. He 
 had given fourpeuce (let us say) for that which three- 
 pence would have purchased. He had been done : and 
 a manly shame was upon him, that he, whose energy, 
 acuteness, experience, point of honor, should have made 
 him the victor in any mercantile duel in which he should 
 engage, had been overcome by a porter's wife, who very 
 likely sold him the old hat, or by a student who was tired 
 of it. I can understand his grief. Do I seem to be 
 speaking of it in a disrespectful or flippant way ? Then 
 you mistake me. He had been outwitted. He had de- 
 sired, coaxed, schemed, haggled, got what he wanted, and 
 now found he had paid too much for his bargain. You 
 don't suppose I would ask you to laugh at that man's 
 grief? It is you, clumsy cynic, who are disposed to 
 sneer, whilst, it may be, tears of genuine sympathy are 
 trickling down this nose of mine. What do you mean by 
 laughing? If you saw a wounded soldier on the field 
 
AUTOUR DE MON CHAPEAU. 285 
 
 of battle, would you laugh ? If you saw a ewe robbed 
 of her lamb, would you laugh, you brute ? It is you who 
 are the cynic, and have no feeling : and you sneer because 
 that grief is unintelligible to you which touches my finer 
 sensibility. The OLD CLOTHES' MAN had been defeated 
 in one of the daily battles of his most interesting, check- 
 ered, adventurous life. 
 
 Have you ever figured to yourself what such a life 
 must be ? The pursuit and conquest of twopence must 
 be the most eager and fascinating of occupations. We 
 might all engage in that business if we would. Do not 
 whist-players, for example, toil, and think, and lose their 
 temper over sixpenny points? They bring study, nat- 
 ural genius, long forethought, memory, and careful histor- 
 ical experience to bear upon their favorite labor. Don't 
 tell me that it is the sixpenny points, and five shillings 
 the rub, which keep them for hours over their painted 
 pasteboard. It is the desire to conquer. Hours pass by. 
 Night glooms. Dawn, it may be, rises unheeded ; and 
 they sit calling for fresh cards at the Portland, or the 
 Union, while waning candles sputter in the sockets, and 
 languid waiters snooze in the ante-room. Sol rises. 
 Jones has lost four pounds ; Brown has won two ; Rob- 
 inson lurks away to his family house and (mayhap, in- 
 dignant) Mrs. R. Hours of evening, night, morning, 
 have passed away whilst they have been waging this six- 
 penny battle. What is the loss of four pounds to Jones, 
 the gain of two to Brown ? B. is, perhaps, so rich that 
 two pounds more or less are as naught to him ; J. is so 
 hopelessly involved that to win four pounds cannot ben- 
 efit his creditors, or alter his condition ; but they play for 
 that stake : they put forward their best energies : they 
 ruff, finesse (what are the technical words, and how do I 
 
286 AUTOUR DE MON CHAPEAU. 
 
 know ?) It is but a sixpenny game if you like ; but they 
 want to win it. So as regards my friend yonder with the 
 hat. He stakes his money : he wishes to win the game, 
 not the hat merely. I am not prepared to say that he is 
 not inspired by a noble ambition. Ca3sar wished to be 
 first in a village. If first of a hundred yokels, why not 
 first of two ? And my friend, the old clothes' man, wishes 
 to win his game, as well as to turn his little sixpence. 
 
 Suppose in the game of life and it is but a twopenny 
 game after all you are equally eager of winning. Shall 
 you be ashamed of your ambition, or glory in it ? There 
 are games, too, which are becoming to particular periods 
 of life. I remember in the days of our youth, when my 
 friend Arthur Bowler was an eminent cricketer. Slim, 
 swift, strong, well-built, he presented a goodly appear- 
 ance on the ground in his flannel uniform. Militdsti non 
 sine gloria, Bowler my boy ! Hush ! We tell no tales. 
 Mum is the word. Yonder comes Charley, his son. 
 Now Charley his son has taken the field, and is famous 
 among the eleven of his school. Bowler, senior, with his 
 capacious waistcoat, &c., waddling after a ball, would pre- 
 sent an absurd object, whereas it does the eyes good to 
 see Bowler, junior, scouring the plain, a young exem- 
 plar of joyful health, vigor, activity. The old boy wisely 
 contents himself with amusements more becoming his age 
 and waist ; takes his sober ride ; visits his farm soberly, 
 busies himself about his pig.>, his ploughing, his peaches, 
 or what not. Very small routiniers amusements interest 
 him ; and (thank goodness !) nature provides very kindly 
 for kindly-disposed fogies. We relish those things which 
 we scorned in our lusty youth. I see the young folks of 
 an evening kindling and glowing over their delicious 
 novels. I look up and watch the eager eye flashing 
 
AUTOUR DE MON CHAPE AU. 287 
 
 down the page, being, for my part, perfectly contented 
 with my twaddling old volume of Howell's Letters or 
 the Gentleman's Magazine. I am actually arrived at 
 such a calm frame of mind that I like batter-pudding. 
 I never should have believed it possible; but it is so. 
 Yet a little while, and I may relish water-gruel. It will 
 be the age of man lait de poule et mon bonnet de nuit. 
 And then, the cotton extinguisher is pulled over the 
 old noddle, and the little flame of life is popped out. 
 
 Don't you know elderly people who make learned 
 notes in Army Lists, Peerages, and the like ? This is 
 the batter-pudding, water-gruel of old age. The worn- 
 out old digestion does not care for stronger food. For- 
 merly it could swallow twelve hours' tough reading, and 
 digest an encyclopaedia. 
 
 If I had children to educate, I would at ten or twelve 
 years of age have a professor or professoress of whist for 
 them, and cause them to be well grounded in that great 
 and useful game. You cannot learn it well when you 
 are old, any more than you can learn dancing or billiards. 
 In our house at home we youngsters did not play whist, 
 because we were dear, obedient children, and the elders 
 said playing at cards was " a waste of time." A waste 
 of time, my good people ! Allans ! What do elderly 
 home-keeping people do of a night after dinner? Dar- 
 by gets his newspaper; my dear Joan her Missionary 
 Magazine, or her volume of Cumming's Sermons, 
 and don't you know what ensues? Over the arm of 
 Darby's arm-chair the paper flutters to the ground unheed- 
 ed, and he performs the trumpet obbligato que vous savez 
 on his old nose. My dear old Joan's head nods over her 
 sermon (awakening though the doctrine may be). Ding, 
 ding, ding : can that be ten o'clock ? It is time to send 
 
288 AUTOUR DE MON CHAPEAU. 
 
 the servants to bed, my dear, and to bed master and 
 mistress go too. But they have not wasted their time 
 playing at cards. O no ! I belong to a club where 
 there is whist of a night ; and not a little amusing is it 
 to hear Brown speak of Thompson's play, and vice versa. 
 But there is one man Greatorex let us call him 
 who is the acknowledged captain and primus of all the 
 whist-players. We all secretly admire him. I, for my 
 part, watch him in private life, hearken to what he says, 
 note what he orders for dinner, and have that feeling of 
 awe for him that I used to have as a boy for the cock of 
 the school. Not play at whist? Quette triste vieillesse 
 vous vous preparez! were the words of the great and 
 good Bishop of Autun. I can't. It is too late now. 
 Too late ! too late ! Ah ! humiliating confession ! That 
 joy might have been clutched, but the life-stream has 
 swept us by it, the swift life-stream rushing to the 
 nearing sea. Too late ! too late ! Twentystone, my 
 boy ! When you read in the papers " Valse a deux 
 temps," and all the fashionable dances taught to adults 
 by " Miss Lightfoots," don't you feel that you would like 
 to go in and learn ? Ah, it is too late ! You have 
 passed the choreas, Master Twentystone, and the young 
 people are dancing without you. 
 
 I don't believe much of what my Lord Byron, the 
 poet, says ; but when he wrote : " So, for a good old gen- 
 tlemanly vice, I think I shall - put up with avarice," I 
 think his lordship meant what he wrote, and if he prac- 
 tised what he preached, shall not quarrel with him. As 
 an occupation in declining years, I declare I think saving 
 is useful, amusing, and not unbecoming. It must be a 
 perpetual amusement. It is a game that can be played 
 by day, by night, at home and abroad, and at which you 
 
AUTOUR DE MON CHAPEAU. 289 
 
 must win in the long run. I am tired and want a cab. 
 The fare to my house, say, is two shillings. The cabman 
 will naturally want half-a-crown. I pull out my book. 
 I show him the distance is exactly three miles and fifteen 
 hundred and ninety yards. I offer him my card, my 
 winning card. As he retires with the two shillings, blas- 
 pheming inwardly, every curse is a compliment to my 
 skill. I have played him and beat him ; and a sixpence 
 is my spoil, and just reward. This is a game, by the 
 way, which women play far more cleverly than we do. 
 But what an interest it imparts to life ! During the 
 whole drive home I know I shall have my game at the 
 journey's end ; am sure of my hand, and shall beat my 
 adversary. Or, I can play in another way. I won't 
 have a cab at all ; I will wait for the omnibus ; I will be 
 one of the damp fourteen in that steaming vehicle. " I 
 will wait about in the rain for an hour, and 'bus after 
 'bus shall pass, but I will not be beat. I will have a 
 place, and get it at length, with my boots wet through, 
 and an umbrella dripping between my legs. I have a 
 rheumatism, a cold, a sore-throat, a sulky evening, a 
 doctor's bill to-morrow, perhaps. Yes, but I have won 
 my game, and am gainer of a shilling on this rubber. 
 
 If you play this game all through life, it is wonderful 
 what daily interest it has, and amusing occupation. For 
 instance, my wife goes to sleep after dinner over her vol- 
 ume of sermons. As soon as the dear soul is sound 
 asleep, I advance softly and puff out her candle. Her 
 pure dreams will be all the happier without that light ; 
 and, ?ay she sleeps an hour, there is a penny gained. 
 
 As for clothes, parbleu ! There is not much money to 
 be saved in clothes, for the fact is, as a man advances in 
 life as he becomes an ancient Briton (mark the pleas- 
 13 s 
 
290 AUTOUR DE MON CHAPEAU. 
 
 antry) he goes without clothes. When my tailor pro- 
 poses something in the way of a change of raiment, I 
 laugh in his face. My blue coat and brass buttons will 
 last these ten years. It is seedy ? What then ? I 
 don't want to charm anybody in particular. You say 
 that my clothes are shabby ? What do I care ? When 
 I wished to look well in somebody's eyes, the matter may 
 have been different. But now when I receive my bill of 
 10 (let us say) at the year's end, and contrast it with 
 old tailors' reckonings, I feel that I have played the 
 game with master tailor, and beat him, and my old 
 clothes are a token of the victory. 
 
 I do not like to give servants board wages, though 
 they are cheaper than household bills ; but I know they 
 save out of board wages, and so beat me. This shows 
 that it is not the money but the game which interests me. 
 So about wine. I have it good and dear. I will trouble 
 you to tell me where to get it good and cheap. You 
 may as well give me the address of a shop where I can 
 buy meat for fourpence a pound, or sovereigns for fifteen 
 shillings a piece. At the game of auctions, docks, shy 
 wine-merchants, depend on it there is no winning ; and I 
 would as soon think of buying jewelry at an auction in 
 Fleet Street as of purchasing wine from one of your 
 dreadful needy wine agents such as infest every man's 
 door. Grudge myself good wine ? As soon grudge my 
 horse corn. Merci ! that would be a very losing game 
 indeed, and your humble servant has no relish for such. 
 
 But in the very pursuit of saving there must be a 
 hundred harmless delights and pleasures which we who 
 are careless necessarily forego. What do you know 
 about the natural history of your household? Upon 
 your honor and conscience, do you know the price of a 
 
AUTOUR DE MON CHAPEAU. 291 
 
 pound of butter? Can you say what sugar costs, and 
 how much your family consumes and ought to consume ? 
 How much lard do you use in your house ? As I think 
 on these subjects I own I hang down the head of shame. 
 I suppose for a moment that you, who are reading this, 
 are a middle-aged gentleman, and paterfamilias. Can 
 you answer the above questions? You know, sir, you 
 cannot. Now turn round, lay down the book, and sud- 
 denly ask Mrs. Jones and your daughters if they can an- 
 swer ? They cannot. They look at one another. They 
 pretend they can answer. They can tell you the plot 
 and principal characters of the last novel. Some of 
 them know something about history, geology, and so 
 forth. But of the natural history of home Nichts, and 
 for shame on you all ! Honnis soyez ! For shame on 
 you ? for shame on us ! 
 
 In the early morning I hear a sort of call or jodel un- 
 der my window, and know 't is the matutinal milkman 
 leaving his can at my gate. O household gods ! have I 
 lived all these years and don't know the price or the 
 quantity of the milk which is delivered in that can? 
 Why don't I know ? As I live, if I live till to-morrow 
 morning, as soon as I hear the call of Lactantius, I will 
 dash out upon him. How many cows? How much 
 milk, on an average, all the year round ? What rent ? 
 What cost of food and dairy servants ? What loss of 
 animals, and average cost of purchase ? If I interested 
 myself properly about my pint (or hogshead, whatever it 
 be) of milk, all this knowledge would ensue ; all this ad- 
 ditional interest in life. What is this talk of my friend, 
 Mr. Lewes, about objects at the seaside, and so forth? 
 Objects at the seaside ? Objects at the area-bell ; ob- 
 jects before my nose ; objects which the butcher brings 
 
292 AUTOUE DE MON CHAPEAU. 
 
 me in his tray ; which the cook dresses and puts down 
 before me, and over which I say grace ! My daily life is 
 surrounded with objects which ought to interest me. The 
 pudding I eat (or refuse, that is neither here nor there, and, 
 between ourselves, what I have said about batter-pudding 
 may be taken cum grano, we are not come to that yet, ex- 
 cept for the sake of argument or illustration), the pud- 
 ding, I say, on my plate, the eggs that made it, the fire that 
 cooked it, the tablecloth on which it is laid, and so forth, 
 are each and all of these objects a knowledge of which 
 I may acquire, a knowledge of the cost and produc- 
 tion of which I might advantageously learn? To the 
 man who does know these things, I say the interest of 
 life is prodigiously increased. The milkman becomes a 
 study to him ; the baker a being he curiously and tender- 
 ly examines. Go, Lewes, and clap a hideous sea-anem- 
 one into a glass ; I will put a cabman under mine, and 
 make a vivisection of a butcher. O Lares, Penates, and 
 gentle household gods, teach me to sympathize with all 
 that comes within my doors ! Give me an interest in the 
 butcher's book. Let me look forward to the ensuing 
 number of the grocer's account with eagerness. It seems 
 ungrateful to my kitchen-chimney not to know the cost 
 of sweeping it ; and I trust that many a man who reads 
 this, and muses on it, will feel, like the writer, ashamed 
 of himself, and hang down his head humbly. 
 
 Now, if to this household game you could add a little 
 money interest, the amusement would be increased far 
 beyond the mere money value, as a game at cards for 
 sixpence is better than a rubber for nothing. If you can 
 interest yourself about sixpence, all life is invested with 
 a new excitement. From sunrise to sleeping you can 
 always be playing that game, with butcher, baker, 
 
AUTOUR DE MON CHAPEAU. 293 
 
 coal-merchant, cabman, omnibus man, nay, diamond- 
 merchant and stockbroker. You can bargain for a guinea 
 over the price of a diamond necklace, or for a sixteenth 
 per cent in a transaction at the Stock Exchange. We 
 all know men who have this faculty who are not ungener- 
 ous with their money. They give it on great occasions. 
 They are more able to help than you and I who spend 
 ours, and say to poor Prodigal, who conies to us out at 
 elbow, " My dear fellow, I should have been delighted ; 
 but I have already anticipated my quarter, and am going 
 to ask Screwby if he can do anything for me." 
 
 In this delightful, wholesome, ever-novel, twopenny 
 game, there is a danger of excess, as there is in every 
 other pastime or occupation of life. If you grow too 
 eager for your twopence, the acquisition or the loss of it 
 may affect your peace of mind, and peace of mind is bet- 
 ter than any amount of twopences. My friend, the old 
 clothes' man, whose agonies over the hat have led to this 
 rambling disquisition, has, I very much fear, by a too 
 eager pursuit of small profits, disturbed the equanimity 
 of a mind that ought to be easy and happy. " Had I 
 stood out," he thinks, " I might have had the hat for 
 threepence," and he doubts whether, having given four- 
 pence for it, he will ever get back his money. My good 
 Shadrach, if you go through life passionately deploring 
 the irrevocable, and allow yesterday's transactions to em- 
 bitter the cheerfulness of to-day and to-morrow, as 
 lieve walk down to the Seine, souse in, hats, body, 
 clothes-bag, and all, and put an end to your sorrows and 
 sordid cares. Before and since Mr. Franklin wrote his 
 pretty apologue of the Whistle, have we not all made 
 bargains of which we repented, and coveted and acquired 
 objects for which we have paid too dearly? Who has 
 
294 AUTOUR DE MON CHAPEAU. 
 
 not purchased his hat in some market or other ? There 
 is General M'Clellan's cocked hat for example. I dare 
 say he was eager enough to wear it, and he has learned 
 that it is by no means cheerful wear. There were the 
 military beavers of Messeigneurs of Orleans : they wore 
 them gallantly in the face of battle ; but I suspect they 
 were glad enough to pitch them into the James River, 
 and come home in mufti. Ah, mes amis ! a chacun son 
 schakot ! I was looking at a bishop the other day, and 
 thinking : " My right reverend lord, that broad-brim and 
 rosette must bind your great broad forehead very tightly, 
 and give you many a headache. A good easy wide- 
 awake were better for you, and I would like to see that 
 honest face with a cutty pipe in the middle of it." There 
 is my Lord Mayor. My once dear lord, my kind friend, 
 when your two years' reign was over, did not you jump 
 for joy, and fling your chapeau-bras out of window : and 
 has n't that hat cost you a pretty bit of money ? There, 
 in a splendid travelling chariot, in the sweetest bonnet, 
 all trimmed with orange-blossoms and Chantilly lace, sits 
 my Lady Rosa, with old Lord Snowden by her side. 
 Ah, Rosa ! what a price have you paid for that hat which 
 you wear ; and is your ladyship's coronet not purchased 
 too dear? Enough of hats. Sir, or Madam, I take off 
 mine, and salute you with profound respect. 
 
ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 
 
 S some bells in a church hard by are making a 
 great holiday clanging in the summer after- 
 noon, I am reminded somehow of a July day, 
 a garden, and a great clanging of bells years 
 and years ago, on the very day when George IV. was 
 crowned. I remember a little boy lying in that garden, 
 reading his first novel. It was called "The Scottish 
 Chiefs." The little boy (who is now ancient and not lit- 
 tle) read this book in the summer-house of his great grand- 
 mamma. She was eighty years of age then. A most 
 lovely and picturesque old lady, with a long tortoise-shell 
 cane, with a little puff, or tour, of snow white (or was it 
 powdered ?) hair under her cap, with the prettiest little 
 black velvet slippers and high heels you ever saw. She 
 had a grandson, a lieutenant in the navy ; son of her 
 son, a captain in the navy ; grandson of her husband, a 
 captain in the navy. She lived for scores and scores of 
 years in a dear little old Hampshire town inhabited by 
 the wives, widows, daughters of navy captains, admirals, 
 lieutenants. Dear me ! Don't I remember Mrs. Duval, 
 widow of Admiral Duval ; and the Miss Dennets, at the 
 Great House at the other end of the town, Admiral Den- 
 net's daughters ; and the Miss Barrys, the late Captain 
 Barry's daughters ; and the good old Miss Maskews, Ad- 
 
296 ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 
 
 miral Maskews' daughter ; and that dear little Miss Nor- 
 val, and the kind Miss Bookers, one of whom married 
 Captain, now Admiral, Sir Henry Excellent, K. C. B. ? 
 Far, far away into the past I look and seek the little 
 town with its friendly glimmer. That town was so 
 like a novel of Miss Austen's, that I wonder was she born 
 and bred there ? No, we should have known, and the 
 good old ladies would have pronounced her to be a little 
 idle thing, occupied with her silly books and neglecting 
 her housekeeping. There were other towns in England, 
 no doubt, where dwelt the widows and wives of other 
 navy captains, where they tattled, loved each other, and 
 quarrelled ; talked about Betty, the maid, and her fine 
 ribbons, indeed ! Took their dish of tea at six, played at 
 quadrille every night till ten, when there was a little bit 
 of supper, after which Betty came with the lantern ; and 
 next day came, and next, and next, and so forth, until a 
 day arrived when the lantern was out, when Betty came 
 no more : all that little company sank to rest under the 
 daisies, whither some folks will presently follow them. 
 How did they live to be so old, those good people ? Moi 
 qui vous parle, I perfectly recollect old Mr. Gilbert, who 
 had been to sea with Captain Cook ; and Captain Cook, 
 as you justly observe, dear miss, quoting out of your 
 Hangnail's Questions, was murdered by the natives of 
 Owhyhee, anno 1779. Ah ! don't you remember his pic- 
 ture, standing on the sea-shore, in tights and gaiters, with 
 a musket in his hand, pointing to his people not to fire 
 from the boats, whilst a great tattooed savage is going to 
 stab him in the back ? Don't you remember those houris 
 dancing before him and the other officers at the great 
 Otaheite ball ? Don't you know that Cook was at the 
 siege of Quebec, with the glorious Wolfe, who fought un- 
 
ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 297 
 
 der the Duke of Cumberland, whose royal father was a 
 distinguished officer at Ramillies, before he commanded 
 in chief at Dettingen ? Huzzay' ! Give it them, my 
 lads ! My horse is down ? Then I know I shall not run 
 away. Do the French run ? then I die content. Stop. 
 Wo ! Quo me rapis f My Pegasus is galloping off, 
 goodness knows where, like his Majesty's charger at Det- 
 tingen. 
 
 How do these rich historical and personal reminiscences 
 come out of the subject at present in hand ? What is that 
 subject, by the way ? My dear friend, if you look at the 
 last essaykin (though you may leave it alone, and I shall 
 not be in the least surprised or offended), if you look at 
 the last paper where the writer imagines Athos and Por- 
 thos, Dalgetty and Ivanhoe, Amelia and Sir Charles 
 Grandison, Don Quixote and Sir Roger, walking in at the 
 garden- window, you will at once perceive that NOVELS 
 and their heroes and heroines are our present subject of 
 discourse, into which we will presently plunge. Are you 
 one of us, dear sir, and do you love novel-reading ? To 
 be reminded of your first novel will surely be a pleasure 
 to you. Hush ! I never read quite to the end of my first, 
 "The Scottish Chiefs." I couldn't. I peeped in an 
 alarmed furtive manner at some of the closing pages. 
 Miss Porter, like a kind, dear, tender-hearted creature, 
 would not have Wallace's head chopped off at the end of 
 Vol. V. She made him die in prison,* and if I remem- 
 ber right (protesting I have not read the book for forty- 
 
 * I find, on reference to the novel, that Sir William died on the scaf- 
 fold, not in prison. His last words were : " ' My prayer is heard. 
 Life's cord is cut by Heaven. Helen! Helen! May Heaven preserve 
 my country, and .' He stopped. He fell. And with that mighty 
 shock the scaffold shook to its foundation." 
 13* 
 
298 ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 
 
 two or three years), Robert Bruce made a speech to his 
 soldiers, in which he said, "And Bannockburn shall equal 
 Cambuskenrieth." * But I repeat, I could not read the 
 end of the fifth volume of that dear delightful book for 
 crying. Good heavens ! It was as sad, as sad as going 
 back to school. 
 
 The glorious Scott cycle of romances came to me some 
 four or five years afterwards ; and I think boys of our 
 year were specially fortunate in coming upon those de- 
 lightful books at that special time when we could best 
 enjoy them. O, that sunshiny bench on half-holidays, 
 with Claverhouse or Ivanhoe for a companion ! I have 
 remarked of very late days some little men in a great 
 state of delectation over the romances of Captain Mayne 
 Reid, and Gustave Aimard's Prairie and Indian Stories, 
 and, during occasional holiday visits, lurking off to bed 
 with the volume under their arms. But are those In- 
 dians and warriors so terrible as our Indians and war- 
 riors were ? (I say, are they ? Young gentlemen, mind, 
 I do not say they are not.) But as an oldster I can be 
 heartily thankful for the novels of the 1-10 Geo. IV., let 
 us say, and so downward to a period not unremote. Let 
 
 * The remark of Bruce (which I protest I had not read for forty-two 
 years), I find to be as follows: " When this was uttered by the Eng- 
 lish heralds, Bruce turned to Ruthven, with an heroic smile. ' Let him 
 come, my brave barons ! and he shall find that Bannockburn shall 
 page with Cambuskenneth ! ' " In the same amiable author's famous 
 novel of " Thaddeus of Warsaw," there is more crying than in any 
 novel I ever remember to have read. See, for example, the last page. 
 . . . . " Incapable of speaking, Thaddeus led his wife back to her 
 Carriage His tears gushed out in spite of himself, and min- 
 gling with hers, poured those thanks, those assurances, of animated 
 approbation through her heart, which made it even ache with excess 
 of happiness." .... And a sentence or two further, " Kosciusko 
 did bless him, and embalmed the benediction with a shower of tears." 
 
ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 299 
 
 us see ; there is, first, our dear Scott. Whom do I love 
 in the works of that dear old master ? Amo 
 
 The Baron of Bradwardine, and Fergus. (Captain 
 Waverley is certainly very mild.) 
 
 Amo Ivanhoe ; LOCKSLEY ; the Templar. 
 
 Amo Quentin Durward, and specially Quentin's uncle, 
 who brought the Boar to bay. I forget the gentleman's 
 name. 
 
 I have never cared for the Master of Ravenswood, or 
 fetched his hat out of the water since he dropped it there 
 when I last met him (circa 1825). 
 
 Amo SALADIN and the Scotch knight in "The Talis- 
 man." The Sultan best. 
 
 Amo CLAVERHOUSE. 
 
 Amo MAJOR DALGETTY. Delightful Major! To 
 think of him is to desire to jump up, run to the book, and 
 get the volume down from the shelf. About all those 
 heroes of Scott, what a manly bloom there is, and honor- 
 able modesty ! They are not at all heroic. They seem 
 to blush somehow in their position of hero, and as it were 
 to say, " Since it must be done, here goes ! " They are 
 handsome, modest, upright, simple, courageous, not too 
 clever. If I were a mother (which is absurd), I should 
 like to be mother-in-law to several young men of the 
 "Walter- Scott-hero sort. 
 
 Much as I like those most unassuming, manly, unpre- 
 tending gentlemen, I have to own that I think the heroes 
 of another writer, viz. 
 LEATHER-STOCKING, 
 UNCAS, 
 HARDHEART, 
 TOM COFFIN, 
 are quite the equals of Scott's men: perhaps Leather- 
 
300 ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 
 
 stocking is better than any one in " Scott's lot." La 
 Longue Carabine is one of the great prize-men of fiction. 
 He ranks with your Uncle Toby, Sir Roger de Coverley, 
 Falstaff, heroic figures, all, American or British, 
 and the artist has deserved well of his country who de- 
 vised them. 
 
 At school, in my time, there was a public day, when 
 the boys' relatives, an examining bigwig or two from the 
 universities, old school-fellows, and so forth, came to the 
 place. The boys were all paraded ; prizes were admin- 
 istered ; each lad being in a new suit of clothes, and 
 magnificent dandies, I promise you, some of us were. O, 
 the chubby cheeks, clean collars, glossy new raiment, 
 beaming faces, glorious in youth, fit tueri ccelum, 
 bright with truth, and mirth, and honor ! To see a hun- 
 dred boys marshalled in a chapel or old hall ; to hear their 
 sweet fresh voices when they chant, and look in their 
 brave calm faces, I say, does not the sight and sound of 
 them smite you, somehow, with a pang of exquisite kind- 
 ness? .... Well. As about boys, so about Novel- 
 ists. I fancy the boys of Parnassus School all paraded. 
 I am a lower boy myself in that academy. I like our 
 fellows to look well, upright, gentlemanlike. There is 
 Master Fielding, he with the black eye. What a mag- 
 nificent build of a boy ! There is Master Scott, one of 
 the heads of the school. Did you ever see the fellow 
 more hearty and manly? Yonder lean, shambling, ca- 
 daverous lad, who is always borrowing money, telling 
 lies, leering after the housemaids, is Master Laurence 
 Sterne, a bishop's grandson, and himself intended for 
 the Church ; for shame, you little reprobate ! But what 
 a genius the fellow has ! Let him have a sound flogging, 
 and as soon as the young scamp is out of the whipping- 
 
ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 301 
 
 room, give him a gold medal. Such would be my prac- 
 tice if I were Doctor Birch, and master of the school. 
 
 Let us drop this school metaphor, this birch and all 
 pertaining thereto. Our subject, I beg leave to remind 
 the reader's humble servant, is novel heroes and heroines. 
 How do you like your heroes, ladies ? Gentlemen, what 
 novel heroines do you prefer? When I set this essay 
 going, I sent the above question to two of the most invet- 
 erate novel-readers of my acquaintance. The gentleman 
 refers me to Miss Austen; the lady says Athos, Guy 
 Livingstone, and (pardon my rosy blushes) Colonel Es- 
 mond, and owns that in youth she was very much in love 
 with Valancourt. 
 
 Valancourt, and who was he ? cry the young people. 
 Valancourt, my dears, was the hero of one of the most 
 famous romances which ever was published in this coun- 
 try. The beauty and elegance of Valancourt made your 
 young grandmammas' gentle hearts to beat with respect- 
 ful sympathy. He and his glory have passed away. 
 Ah, woe is me that the glory of novels should ever de- 
 cay ; that dust should gather round them on the shelves ; 
 that the annual checks from Messieurs the publishers 
 should dwindle, dwindle ! Inquire at Mudie's, or the 
 London Library, who asks for " The Mysteries of Udol- 
 pho " now ? Have not even " The Mysteries of Paris " 
 ceased to frighten ? Alas, our novels are but for a sea- 
 son ; and I know characters, whom a painful modesty 
 forbids me to mention, who shall go to limbo along 
 with Valancourt, and Doricourt, and Thaddeus of War- 
 saw. 
 
 A dear old sentimental friend, with whom I discoursed 
 on the subject of novels yesterday, said that her favorite 
 hero was Lord Orville, in " Evelina," that novel which 
 
302 ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 
 
 Dr. Johnson loved so. I took down the book from a 
 dusty old crypt at a club, where Mrs Barbauld's novelists 
 repose ; and this is the kind of thing, ladies and gentle- 
 men, in which your ancestors found pleasure : 
 
 " And here, whilst I was looking for the books, I was 
 followed by Lord Orville. He shut the door after he 
 came in, and approaching me with a look of anxiety, 
 said, ' Is this true, Miss Anville, are you going ? ' 
 
 " ' I believe so, my lord,' said I, still looking for the 
 books. 
 
 " * So suddenly, so unexpectedly : must I lose you ? ' 
 
 " * No great loss, my lord,' said I, endeavoring to speak 
 cheerfully. 
 
 "'Is it possible,' said he gravely, 'Miss Anville can 
 doubt my sincerity ? ' 
 
 "'I can't imagine,' cried I, 'what Mrs. Selwyn has 
 done with those books.' 
 
 " * Would to heaven,' continued he, ' I might flatter 
 myself you would allow me to prove it ! ' 
 
 " ' I must run up stairs,' cried I, greatly confused, ' and 
 ask what she has done with them.' 
 
 " ' You are going, then,' cried he, taking my hand, 
 * and you give me not the smallest hope of any return ! 
 Will you not, my too lovely friend, will you not teach 
 me, with fortitude like your own, to support your ab- 
 sence ? ' 
 
 " * My lord,' cried I, endeavoring to disengage my 
 hand, ' pray let me go ! ' 
 
 " ' I will,' cried he, to my inexpressible confusion, 
 dropping on one knee, * if you wish me to leave you.' 
 
 " ' O, my lord,' exclaimed I, ' rise, I beseech you ; rise. 
 Surely your lordship is not so cruel as to mock me.' 
 
 " ' Mock you ! ' repeated he earnestly, ' no, I revere you. 
 
ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 303 
 
 I esteem and admire you above all human beings ! You 
 are the friend to whom my soul is attached, as to its bet- 
 ter half. You are the most amiable, the most perfect of 
 women ; and you are dearer to me than language has the 
 power of telling.' 
 
 " I attempt not to describe my sensations at that mo- 
 ment ; I scarce breathed ; I doubted if I existed ; the. * 
 blood forsook my cheeks, and my feet refused to sustain 
 me. Lord Orville hastily rising supported me to a chair, 
 upon which I sank almost lifeless. 
 
 " I cannot write the scene that followed, though every 
 word is engraven on my heart; but his protestations, his 
 expressions, were too flattering for repetition ; nor would 
 he, in spite of my repeated efforts to leave him, suffer me 
 to escape ; in short, my dear sir, I was not proof against 
 his solicitations, and he drew from me the most sacred 
 secret of my heart ! " * 
 
 * Contrast this old perfumed, powdered D' Arblay conversation with 
 the present modern talk. If the two young people wished to hide their 
 emotions now-a-days, and express themselves in modest language, the 
 story would run : 
 
 " Whilst I was looking for the books, Lord Orville came in. He 
 looked uncommonly down in the mouth, as he said: 'Is this true, 
 Miss Anville ; are you going to cut ? ' 
 
 " ' To absquatulate, Lord Orville,' said I, still pretending that I was 
 looking for the books. 
 
 " 4 You 're very quick about it,' said he. 
 
 " ' Guess it 's no great loss,' I remarked, as cheerfully as I could. 
 
 "'You don't think I 'm chaffing?' said Orville, with much emo- 
 tion. 
 
 " ' What has Mrs Selwyn done with the books ? ' I went on. 
 
 " ' What, going? ' said he, ' and going for good? I wish I was such 
 a good-plucked one as you, Miss Anville,' " &c. 
 
 The conversation, you perceive, might be easily written down to 
 this key ; and if the hero and heroine were modern, they would not 
 be suffered to go through their dialogue on stilts, but would converse 
 in the natural, graceful way at present customary. By the way, what 
 
304 ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 
 
 Other people may not much like this extract, madam, 
 from your favorite novel, but when you come to read it, 
 you will like it. I suspect that when you read that book 
 which you so love, you read it a deux. Did you not 
 yourself pass a winter at Bath, when you were the belle 
 of the assembly ? Was there not a Lord Orville in your 
 case, too? As you think of him eleven lustres pass 
 away. You look at him with the bright eyes of those 
 days, and your hero stands before you, the brave, the 
 accomplished, the simple, the true gentleman ; and he 
 makes the most elegant of bows to one of the most beau- 
 tiful young women the world ever saw ; and he leads you 
 out to the cotillon, to the dear, unforgotten music. Hark 
 to the horns of Elfland, blowing, blowing ! Bonne vieiUe, 
 you remember their melody, and your heart-strings thrill 
 with it still. 
 
 Of your heroic heroes, I think our friend Monsigneur 
 Athos, Count de la Fere, is my favorite. I have read 
 about him from sunrise to sunset with the utmost content- 
 ment of mind. He has passed through how many vol- 
 umes ? Forty ? Fifty ? I wish for my part there were a 
 hundred more, and would never tire of him rescuing pris- 
 oners, punishing ruffians, and running scoundrels through 
 the midriff with his most graceful rapier. Ah, Athos, Por- 
 thos, and Aramis, you are a magnificent' trio. I think I 
 like d'Artagnan in his own memoirs best. I bought him 
 years and years ago, price fivepence, in a little parchment- 
 
 a strange custom that is in modern lady novelists to make the men 
 bully the women ! In the time of Miss Porter and Madame D'Arblay, 
 we have respect, profound bows and courtesies, graceful courtesy from 
 men to women. In the time of Miss Bronte, absolute rudeness. Is it 
 true, mesdames, that you like rudeness, and are pleased at being ill- 
 used by men? I could point to more than one lady novelist who so 
 represents you. 
 
ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 305 
 
 covered Cologne-printed volume, at a stall in Gray's-inn- 
 lane. Dumas glorifies him and makes a marshal of him ; 
 if I remember rightly, the original D'Artagnan was a 
 needy adventurer, who died in exile very early in Louis 
 XIV.'s reign. Did you ever read the " Chevalier d'Har- 
 menthal " ? Did you ever read the " Tulipe Noire," as 
 modest as a story by Miss Edgeworth ? I think of the 
 prodigal banquets to which this Lucullus of a man has in- 
 vited me, with thanks and wonder. To what a series of 
 splendid entertainments he has treated me ! Where does 
 he find the money for these prodigious feasts ? They say 
 that all the works bearing Dumas's name are not written 
 by him. Well ? Does not the chief cook have aides 
 under him ? Did not Rubens's pupils paint on his can- 
 vases ? Had not Lawrence assistants for his back- 
 grounds ? For myself, being also du metier, I confess I 
 would often like to have a competent, respectable, and 
 rapid clerk for the business part of my novels ; and on his 
 arrival, at eleven o'clock, would say, " Mr. Jones, if you 
 please, the archbishop must die this morning in about five 
 pages. Turn to article ' Dropsy ' (or what you will) in 
 Encyclopedia. Take care there are no medical blunders 
 in his death. Group his daughters, physicians, and chap- 
 lains round him. In Wales's ' London,' letter B, third 
 shelf, you will find an account of Lambeth, and some 
 prints of the place. Color in with local coloring. The 
 daughter will come down, and speak to her lover in his 
 wherry at Lambeth Stairs," &c., &c. Jones (an intelli- 
 gent young man) examines the medical, historical, topo- 
 graphical books necessary ; his chief points out to him in 
 Jeremy Taylor (fol., London, .MDCLV.) a few remarks, such 
 as might befit a dear old archbishop departing this life. 
 When I come back to dress for dinner, the archbishop is 
 
 T 
 
306 ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 
 
 dead on my table in five pages ; medicine, topography, 
 theology, all right, and Jones has gone home to his family 
 some hours. Sir Christopher is the architect of St. 
 Paul's. He has not laid the stones or carried up the 
 mortar. There is a great deal of carpenter's and joiner's 
 work in novels which surely a smart professional hand 
 might supply. A smart professional hand ? I give you 
 my word, there seem to me parts of novels, let us say 
 the love-making, the " business," the villain in the cup- 
 board, and so forth, which I should like to order John 
 Footman to take in hand, as I desire him to bring the 
 coals and polish the boots. Ask me indeed to pop a rob- 
 ber under a bed, to hide a will which shall be forthcoming 
 in due season, or at my time of life to write a namby- 
 pamby love conversation between Emily and Lord Ar- 
 thur ! I feel ashamed of myself, and especially when my 
 business obliges me to do the love passages, I blush so, 
 though quite alone in my study, that you would fancy I 
 was going off in an apoplexy. Are authors affected by 
 their own works.? I don't know about other gentlemen, 
 but if I make a joke myself I cry ; if I write a pathetic 
 scene I am laughing wildly all the time, at least Tom- 
 kins thinks so. You know I am such a cynic ! 
 
 The editor of the Cornhill Magazine (no soft and 
 yielding character like his predecessor, but a man of stern 
 resolution) will only allow these harmless papers to run 
 to a certain length. But for this veto I should gladly 
 have prattled over half a sheet more,' and have discoursed 
 on many heroes and heroines of novels whom fond mem- 
 ory brings back to me. Of these books I have been a 
 diligent student from those early days, which are recorded 
 at the commencement of this little essay. 0, delightful 
 novels, well remembered ! O, novels, sweet and delicious 
 
ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 307 
 
 as the raspberry open-tarts of budding boyhood ! Do I 
 forget one night after prayers (when we under-boys were 
 sent to bed), lingering at my cupboard to read one little 
 half page more of my dear Walter Scott, and down 
 came the monitor's dictionary upon my head ? Rebecca, 
 daughter of Isaac of York, I have loved thee faithfully 
 for forty years ! Thou wert twenty years old (say), and 
 I but twelve, when I knew thee. At sixty odd, love, 
 most of the ladies of thy Orient race have lost the bloom 
 of youth, and bulged beyond the line of beauty ; but to 
 me thou art ever young and fair, and I will do battle with 
 any felon Templar who assails thy fair name. 
 
ON SOME CARP AT SANS SOUCI. 
 
 ]E have lately made the acquaintance of an old 
 lady of ninety, who has passed the last twenty- 
 five years of her old life in a great metropoli- 
 tan establishment, the workhouse, namely, 
 of the parish of Saint Lazarus. Stay, twenty-three or 
 four years ago, she came out once, and thought to earn a 
 little money by hop-picking ; but being overworked, and 
 having to lie out at night, she got a palsy which has inca- 
 pacitated her from all further labor, and has caused her 
 poor old limbs to shake ever since. 
 
 An illustration of that dismal proverb which tells us 
 how poverty makes us acquainted with strange bedfel- 
 lows, this poor old shaking body has to lay herself down 
 every night in her workhouse bed by the side of some 
 other old woman with whom she may or may not agree. 
 She herself can't be a very pleasant bedfellow, poor 
 thing ! with her shaking old limbs and cold feet. She 
 lies awake a deal of the night, to be sure, not thinking of 
 happy old times, for hers never were happy ; but sleep- 
 less with aches, and agues, and rheumatism of old age. 
 " The gentleman gave me brandy-and-water," she said, 
 her old voice shaking with rapture at the thought. I 
 never had a great love for Queen Charlotte, but I like 
 her better now from what this old lady told me. The 
 
ON SOME CARP AT SANS SOUCI. 309 
 
 Queen, who loved snuff herself, has left a legacy of snuff 
 to certain poorhouses ; and, in her watchful nights, this 
 old woman takes a pinch of Queen Charlotte's snuff, 
 " and it do comfort me, sir, that it do ! " Pulveris exigui 
 munus. Here is a forlorn aged creature, shaking with 
 palsy, with no soul among the great struggling multitude 
 of mankind to care for her, not quite trampled out of life, 
 but past and forgotten in the rush, made a little happy, 
 and soothed in her hours of unrest by this penny legacy. 
 Let me think as I write. (The next month's sermon, 
 thank goodness ! is safe to press.) This discourse will 
 appear at the season when I have read that wassail bowls 
 make their appearance ; at the season of pantomime, tur- 
 key and sausages, plum-puddings, jollifications for school- 
 boys ; Christmas bills, and reminiscences more or less sad 
 and sweet, for elders. If we oldsters are not merry, we 
 shall be having a semblance of merriment. We shall see 
 the young folks laughing round the holly-bush. We shall 
 pass the bottle round cosily as we sit by the fire. That 
 old thing will have a sort of festival too. Beef, beer, 
 and pudding will be served to her for that day, also. 
 Christmas falls on a Thursday. Friday is the workhouse 
 day for coming out. Mary, remember that old Goody 
 Twoshoes has her invitation for Friday, 26th December ! 
 Ninety, is she, poor old soul ? Ah ! what a bonny face 
 to catch under a mistletoe ! " Yes, ninety, sir," she says, 
 " and my mother was a hundred, and my grandmother 
 was a hundred and two." 
 
 Herself ninety, her mother a hundred, her grandmother 
 a hundred and two ? What a queer calculation ! 
 
 Ninety ! Very good, granny ; you were born, then, in 
 1772. 
 
 Your mother, we will say, was twenty-seven when you 
 were born, and was born therefore in 1745. 
 
310 ON SOME CARP AT SANS SOUCI. 
 
 Your grandmother was thirty when her daughter was 
 born, and was born therefore in 1715. 
 
 We will begin with the present granny first. My good 
 old creature, you can't of course remember, but that little 
 gentleman for whom your mother was laundress in the 
 Temple was the ingenious Mr. Goldsmith, author of a 
 " History of England," " The Vicar of Wakefield," and 
 many diverting pieces. You were brought almost an in- 
 fant to his chambers in Brick Court, and he gave you 
 some sugar-candy, for the doctor was always good to chil- 
 dren. That gentleman who wellnigh smothered you by 
 sitting down on you as you lay in a chair asleep was the 
 learned Mr. S. Johnson, whose history of " Ra^selas " you 
 have never read, my poor soul; and whose tragedy of 
 " Irene " I don't believe any man in these kingdoms ever 
 perused. That tipsy Scotch gentleman who used to come to 
 the chambers sometimes, and at whom everybody laughed, 
 wrote a more amusing book than any of the scholars, 
 your Mr. Burke and your Mr. Johnson, and your Doctor 
 Goldsmith. Your father often took him home in a chair 
 to his lodgings ; and has done as much for Parson Sterne 
 in Bond Street, the famous wit. Of course, my good 
 creature, you remember the Gordon Riots, and crying No 
 Popery before Mr. Langdale's house, the Popish distil- 
 ler's, and that bonny fire of my Lord Mansfield's books in 
 Bloomsbury Square ? Bless us, what a heap of illumina- 
 tions you have seen ! For the glorious victory over the 
 Americans at Breed's Hill; for the peace in 1814, and 
 the beautiful Chinese bridge in St. James's Park ; for the 
 coronation of his Majesty, whom you recollect as Prince 
 of Wales, Goody, don't you ? Yes ; and you went in a 
 procession of laundresses to pay your respects to his good 
 lady, the injured Queen of England, at Brandenburg 
 
ON SOME CARP AT SANS SOUCI. 311 
 
 House ; and you remember your mother told you how 
 she was taken to see the Scotch lords executed at the 
 Tower. And as for your grandmother, she was born five 
 months after the battle of Malplaquet. She was ; where 
 her poor father was killed, fighting like a bold Briton for 
 the Queen. With the help of a Wade's Chronology, I 
 can make out ever so queer a history for you, my poor 
 old body, and a pedigree as authentic as many in the 
 peerage-books. 
 
 Peerage-books and pedigrees ? What does she know 
 about them ? Battles and victories, treasons, kings, and 
 beheadings, literary gentlemen, and the like, what have 
 they ever been to her ? Granny, did you ever hear of 
 General Wolfe ? Your mother may have seen him em- 
 bark, and your father may have carried a musket under 
 him. Your grandmother may have cried huzzay for Marl- 
 borough ; but what is the Prince Duke to you, and did 
 you ever so much as hear tell of his name ? How many 
 hundred or thousand of years had that toad lived who 
 was in the coal at'the defunct Exhibition ? and yet he 
 was not a bit better informed than toads seven or eight 
 hundred years younger. 
 
 " Don't talk to me your nonsense about Exhibitions, 
 and Prince Dukes, and toads in coals, or coals in toads, 
 or, what is it ! " says granny. " I know there was a good 
 Queen Charlotte, for she left me snuff; and it comforts 
 me of a night when I lie awake." 
 
 To me there is something very touching in the notion 
 of that little pinch of comfort doled out to granny, and 
 gratefully inhaled by her in the darkness. Don't you re- 
 member what traditions there used to be of chests of 
 plate, bulses of diamonds, laces of inestimable value, sent 
 out of the country privately by the old Queen, to enrich 
 
312 ON SOME CARP AT SANS SOUCI. 
 
 certain relations in M-ckl-nb-rg Str-l-tz ? Not all the 
 treasure went. Non omnis moritur. A poor old palsied 
 thing at midnight is made happy sometimes as she lifts 
 her shaking old hand to her nose. Gliding noiselessly 
 among the beds where lie the poor creatures huddled in 
 their cheerless dormitory, I fancy an old ghost with a 
 snuff-box that does not creak. " There, Goody, take of 
 my rappee. You will not sneeze, and I shall not say, 
 4 God bless you.' But you will think kindly of old 
 Queen Charlotte, won't you ? Ah ! I had a many trou- 
 bles, a many troubles. I was a prisoner almost so much 
 as you are. I had to eat boiled mutton every day : en- 
 tre nous, I abominated it. But I never complained. I 
 swallowed it. I made the best of a hard life. We have 
 all our burdens to bear. But hark ! I hear the cock- 
 crow, and snuff the morning air." And with this the 
 royal ghost vanishes up the chimney, if there be a 
 chimney in that dismal harem, where poor old Twoshoes 
 and her companions pass their nights, their dreary 
 nights, their restless nights, their cold, Ibng nights, shared 
 in what glum companionship, illumined by what a feeble 
 taper ! 
 
 " Did I understand you, my good Twoshoes, to say that 
 pour mother was seven-and-twenty years old when you 
 were born, and that she married your esteemed father 
 when she herself was twenty -five ? 1745, then, was the 
 date of your dear mother's birth. I dare say her father 
 was absent in the Low Countries, with his Royal High- 
 ness the Duke of Cumberland, under whom he had the 
 honor of carrying a halberd at the famous engagement of 
 Fontenoy, or if not there, he may have been at Pres- 
 ton Pans, under General Sir John Cope, when the wild 
 Highlanders broke through all the laws of discipline and 
 
ON SOME CARP AT SANS SOUCI. 313 
 
 the English lines ; and, being on the spot, did he see the fa- 
 mous ghost which did n't appear to Colonel Gardiner of 
 the Dragoons ? My good creature, is it possible you don't 
 remember that Doctor Swift, Sir Robert Walpole (my 
 Lord Orford, as you justly say), old Sarah Maryborough, 
 and little Mr. Pope, of Twitnam, died in the year of your 
 birth ? What a wretched memory you have ? What ? 
 have n't they a library, and the commonest books of ref- 
 erence at the old convent of Saint Lazarus, where you 
 dwell?" 
 
 " Convent of Saint Lazarus, Prince William, Dr. Swift, 
 Atossa, and Mr. Pope, of Twitnam ! What is the gentle- 
 man talking about ? " says old Goody, with a " Ho ! ho ! " 
 and a laugh like an old parrot, you know they live to 
 be as old as Methuselah, parrots do, and a parrot of a 
 hundred is comparrotively young (ho ! ho ! ho !). Yes, 
 and likewise carps live to an immense old age. Some 
 which Frederick the Great fed at Sans Souci are there 
 now, with great humps of blue mould on their old backs ; 
 and they could tell all sorts of queer stories, if they chose 
 to speak but they are very silent, carps are of their 
 nature pen communicatives. O, what has been thy long 
 life, old Goody, but a dole of bread and water and a 
 perch on a cage ; a dreary swim round and round a Lethe 
 of a pond ? What are Rossbach or Jena to those mouldy 
 ones, and do they know it is a grandchild of England who 
 brings bread to feed them ? 
 
 No ! Those Sans Souci carps may live to be a thou- 
 sand years old and have nothing to tell but that one day 
 is like another; and the history of friend Goody Two- 
 shoes has not much more variety than theirs. Hard 
 labor, hard fare, hard bed, numbing cold all night, and 
 gnawing hunger most days. That is her lot. Is it law- 
 14 
 
314 ON SOME CARP AT SANS SOUCI. 
 
 ful in my prayers to say, " Thank heaven, I am not as 
 one of these ? " If I were eighty, would I like to feel the 
 hunger always gnawing, gnawing ? to have to get up and 
 make a bow when Mr. Bumble the beadle entered the 
 common room ? to have to listen to Miss Prim, who came 
 to give me her ideas of the next world ? If I were eighty, 
 I own I should not like to have to sleep with another 
 gentleman of my own age, gouty, a bad sleeper, kicking 
 in his old dreams, and snoring ; to march down my vale 
 of years at word of command, accommodating my totter- 
 ing old steps to those of the other prisoners in my dingy, 
 hopeless old gang; to hold out a trembling hand for a 
 sickly pittance of gruel, and say, " Thank you, mam ! " to 
 Miss Prim, when she has done reading her sermon. 
 John ! when Goody Twoshoes comes next Friday, I de- 
 sire she may not be disturbed by theological controver- 
 sies. You have a very fair voice, and I heard you and 
 the maids singing a hymn very sweetly the other night, 
 and was thankful that our humble household should be in 
 such harmony. Poor old Twoshoes is so old and tooth- 
 less and quaky, that she can't sing a bit ; but don't be giv- 
 ing yourself airs over her, because she can't sing and you 
 can. Make her comfortable at our kitchen hearth. Set 
 that old kettle to sing by our hob. Warm her old stom- 
 ache with nut-brown ale and a toast laid in the fire. Be 
 kind to the poor old school-girl of ninety, who has had 
 leave to come out for a day of Christmas holiday. Shall 
 there be many more Christmases for thee ? Think of the 
 ninety she has seen already ; the four score and ten cold, 
 cheerless, nipping New Years ! 
 
 If you were in her place, would you like to have a re- 
 membrance of better early days, when you were young, 
 and happy, and loving, perhaps ; or would you prefer to 
 
ON SOME CARP AT SANS SOUCI. 315 
 
 have no past on which your mind could rest ? About the 
 year 1788, Goody, were your cheeks rosy, and your eyes 
 bright, and did some young fellow in powder and a pig- 
 tail look in them ? We may grow old, but to us some 
 stories never are old. On a sudden they rise up, not 
 dead, but living, not forgotten, but freshly remembered. 
 The eyes gleam on us as they used to do. The dear 
 voice thrills in our hearts. The rapture of the meeting, 
 the terrible, terrible parting, again and again the tragedy 
 is acted over. Yesterday, in the street, I saw a pair of 
 eyes so like two which used to brighten at my coming 
 once, that the whole past came back as I walked lonely, 
 in the rush of the Strand, and I was young again in the 
 midst of joys and sorrows, alike sweet and sad, alike 
 sacred, and fondly remembered. 
 
 If I tell a tale out of school, will any harm come to my 
 old school-girl ? Once, a lady gave her a half-sovereign, 
 which was a source of great pain and anxiety to Goody 
 Twoshoes. She sewed it away in- her old stays some- 
 where, thinking here at least was a safe investment 
 (vestis a vest an investment, pardon me, thou poor 
 old thing, but I cannot help the pleasantry). And what 
 do you think ? Another pensionnaire of the establish- 
 ment cut the coin out of Goody's stays, an old woman 
 who went upon two crutches! Faugh, the old witch! 
 What ? Violence amongst these toothless, tottering, trem- 
 bling, feeble ones ? Robbery amongst the penniless ? 
 Dogs coming and snatching Lazarus's crumbs out of his 
 lap? Ah, how indignant Goody was as she told the 
 story ! To that pond at Potsdam where the carps live 
 for hundreds of hundreds of years, with hunches of blue 
 mould on their back, I dare say the little Prince and Prin- 
 cess of Preussen-Britannien come sometimes with crumbs 
 
316 ON SOME CARP AT SANS SOUCI. 
 
 and cakes to feed the mouldy ones. Those eyes may 
 have goggled from beneath the weeds at Napoleon's jack- 
 boots : they have seen Frederick's lean shanks reflected 
 in their pool ; and perhaps Monsieur de Voltaire has fed 
 them, and now, for a crumb of biscuit they will fight, 
 push, hustle, rob, squabble, gobble, relapsing into their 
 tranquillity when the ignoble struggle is over. Sans 
 souci, indeed ! It is mighty well writing " Sans souci " 
 over the gate ; but where is the gate through which 
 Care has not slipped ? She perches on the shoulders of 
 the sentry in the sentry-box : she whispers the porter 
 sleeping in his arm-chair : she glides up the staircase, 
 and lies down between the king and queen in their 
 bed-royal : this very night I dare say she will perch upon 
 poor old Goody Twoshoes's meagre bolster, and whisper, 
 " Will the gentleman and those ladies ask me again ? 
 No, no ; they will forget poor old Twoshoes." Goody ! 
 For shame of yourself! Do not be cynical. Do not 
 mistrust your fellow-creatures. What ? Has the Christ- 
 mas morning dawned upon thee ninety times ? For four- 
 score and ten years has it been thy lot to totter on this 
 earth, hungry and obscure ? Peace and goodwill to thee, 
 let us say at this Christmas season. Come, drink, eat, 
 rest awhile at our hearth, thou poor old pilgrim ! And 
 of the bread which God's bounty gives us, I pray, brother 
 reader, we may not forget to set aside a part for those 
 noble and silent poor, from whose innocent hands war has 
 torn the means of labor. Enough ! As I hope for beef 
 at Christmas, I vow a note shall be sent to Saint Lazarus 
 Union House, in which Mr. Roundabout requests the 
 honor of Mrs. Twoshoes's company on Friday, 26th De- 
 cember. 
 
DESSEIN'S. 
 
 ARRIVED by the night-mail packet from 
 Dover. The passage had been rough, and 
 the usual consequences had ensued. I was 
 disinclined to travel farther that night on my 
 road to Paris, and knew the Calais hotel of old as one of 
 the cleanest, one of the dearest, one of the most comfort- 
 able hotels on the continent of Europe. There is no 
 town more French than Calais. That charming old 
 Hotel Dessein, with its court, its gardens, its lordly kitch- 
 en, its princely waiter, a gentleman of the old school, 
 who has welcomed the finest company in Europe, have 
 long been known to me. I have read complaints in The 
 Times, more than once, I think, that the Dessein bills are 
 dear. A bottle of soda-water certainly costs well, nev- 
 er mind how much. I remember as a boy, at the Ship 
 at Dover (imperante Carolo Decimo), when, my place to 
 London being paid, I had but 12s. left after a certain 
 little Paris excursion (about which my benighted parents 
 never knew anything), ordering for dinner a whiting, a 
 beefsteak, and a glass of negus, and the bill was, dinner 
 7s., glass of negus 2s., waiter 6c?., and only half-a-crown 
 left, as I was a sinner, for the guard and coachman on 
 the way to London ! And I was a sinner. I had gone 
 without leave. What a long, dreary, guilty, forty hours' 
 
318 DESSEIN'S. 
 
 journey it was from Paris to Calais, I remember ! How 
 did I come to think of this escapade, which occurred in 
 the Easter vacation of the year 1830 ? I always think of 
 it when I am crossing to Calais. Guilt, sir, guilt remains 
 stamped on the memory, and I feel easier in my mind now 
 that it is liberated of this old peccadillo. I met my college 
 tutor only yesterday. We were travelling, and stopped 
 at the same hotel. He had the very next room to mine. 
 After he had gone into his apartment, having shaken me 
 quite kindly by the hand, I felt inclined to knock at his 
 door, and say, " Doctor Bentley, I beg your pardon, but 
 do you remember, when I was going down at the Easter 
 vacation in 1830, you asked me where I was going to 
 spend my vacation ? And I said, with my friend Slings- 
 by, in Huntingdonshire. Well, sir, I grieve to have to 
 confess that I told you a fib. I had got 20 and was 
 going for a lark to Paris, where my friend Edwards was 
 staying." There, it is out. The Doctor will read it, for 
 I did not wake him up after all to make my confession, 
 but protest he shall have a copy of this Roundabout sent 
 to him when he returns to his lodge. 
 
 They gave me a bedroom there ; a very neat room on 
 the first floor, looking into the pretty garden. The hotel 
 must look pretty much as it did a hundred years ago 
 when he visited it. I wonder whether he paid his bill ? 
 Yes : his journey was just begun. He had borrowed or 
 got the money somehow. Such a man would spend it 
 liberally enough when he had it, give generously, nay, 
 drop a tear over the fate of the poor fellow whom he 
 relieved. I don't believe a word he says, but I never 
 accused him of stinginess about money. That is a fault 
 of much more virtuous people than he. Mr. Laurence 
 is ready enough with his purse when there are anybody's 
 
DESSEIN'S. 319 
 
 guineas in it. Still, when I went to bed in the room, in 
 his room, when I think how I admire, dislike, and have 
 abused him, a certain dim feeling of apprehension filled 
 my mind at the midnight hour. What if I should see his 
 lean figure in the black satin breeches, his sinister smile, 
 his long thin finger pointing to me in the moonlight (for 
 I am in bed, and have popped my candle out), and he 
 should say, "You mistrust me, you hate me, do you? 
 And you, don't you know how Jack, Tom, and Harry, your 
 brother authors, hate you?" I grin and laugh in the 
 moonlight, in the midnight, in the silence. " you ghost 
 in black satin breeches and a wig ! I like to be hated by 
 some men," I say. "I know men whose lives are a 
 scheme, whose laughter is a conspiracy, whose smile 
 means something else, whose hatred is a cloak, and I had 
 rather these men should hate me than not." 
 
 " My good sir," says he, with a ghastly grin on his lean 
 face, "you have your wish." 
 
 "Apres?" I say. " Please let me go to sleep. I sha'n't 
 sleep any the worse because " 
 
 " Because there are insects in the bed, and they sting 
 you ? " (This is only by way of illustration, my good 
 sir ; the animals don't bite me now. All the house at 
 present seems to me excellently clean.) "'T is absurd to 
 affect this indifference. If you are thin-skinned, and the 
 reptiles bite, they keep you from sleep." 
 
 "There are some men who cry out at a flea-bite as 
 loud as if they were torn by a vulture," I growl. 
 
 " Men of the genus irritable, my worthy good gentle- 
 man ! and you are one." 
 
 " Yes, sir, I am of the profession, as you say ; and 
 I dare say make a great shouting and crying at a small 
 hurt." 
 
320 DESSEIN'S. 
 
 " You are ashamed of that quality by which you earn 
 your subsistence, and such reputation as you have ? Your 
 sensibility is your livelihood, my worthy friend. You 
 feel a pang of pleasure or pain ? It is noted in your 
 memory, and some day or other makes its appearance in 
 your manuscript. Why, in your last Roundabout rub- 
 bish you mention reading your first novel on the day 
 when King George IV. was crowned. I remember him 
 in his cradle at St. James's, a lovely little babe ; a gilt 
 Chinese railing was before him, and I dropped the tear 
 of sensibility as I gazed on the sleeping cherub." 
 
 " A tear, a fiddlestick, Mr. STERNE," I growled out, 
 for of course I knew my friend in the wig and satin 
 breeches to be no other than the notorious, nay, celebrated 
 Mr. Laurence Sterne. 
 
 " Does not the sight of a beautiful infant charm and 
 melt you, mon ami ? If not, I pity you. Yes, he was 
 beautiful. I was in London the year he was born. I 
 used to breakfast at the Mount Coffee-house. I did not 
 become the fashion until two years later, when my " Tris- 
 tram " made his appearance, who has held his own for a 
 hundred years. By the way, mon bon monsieur, how 
 many authors of your present time will last till the next 
 century ? Do you think Brown will ? " 
 
 I laughed with scorn as I lay in my bed (and so did 
 the ghost give a ghastly snigger) . 
 
 " Brown ! " I roared. " One of the most over-rated 
 men that ever put pen to paper." 
 
 " What do you think of Jones ? " 
 
 I grew indignant with this old cynic. " As a reason- 
 able ghost, come out of the other world, you don't mean," 
 I said, " to ask me a serious opinion of Mr. Jones ? His 
 books may be very good reading for maid-servants and 
 
DESSEIN'S. 321 
 
 school-boys, but you don't ask me to read them ? As a 
 scholar yourself you must know that " 
 
 " Well, then, Robinson ? " 
 
 " Robinson, I am told, has merit. I dare say ; I never 
 have been able to read his books, and can't, therefore, 
 form any opinion about Mr. Robinson. At least you will 
 allow that I am not speaking in a prejudiced manner 
 about him." 
 
 " Ah ! I see you men of letters have your cabals and 
 jealousies, as we had in my time. There was an Irish 
 fellow by the name of Gouldsmith, who used to abuse 
 me ; but he went into no genteel company, and faith ! 
 it mattered little, his praise or abuse. I never was more 
 surprised than when I heard that Mr. Irving, an Ameri- 
 can gentleman of parts and elegance, had wrote the fel- 
 low's life. To make a hero of that man, my dear sir, 
 't was ridiculous ! You followed in the fashion, I hear, 
 and chose to lay a wreath before this queer little idol. 
 Preposterous! A pretty writer, who has turned some 
 neat couplets. Bah ! I have no patience with Master 
 Posterity, that has chosen to take up this fellow, and 
 make a hero of him ! And there was another gentleman 
 of my time, Mr. Thiefcatcher Fielding, forsooth ! a fellow 
 with the strength, and the tastes, and the manners of a 
 porter ! What madness has possessed you all to bow be- 
 fore that Calvert Butt of a man ? a creature without 
 elegance or sensibility ! The dog had spirits, certainly. 
 I remember my Lord Bathurst praising them : but as for 
 reading his books ma foi, 'I would as lief go and dive 
 for tripe in a cellar. The man's vulgarity stifles me. 
 He wafts me whiffs of gin. Tobacco and onions are in . 
 his great coarse laugh, which choke me, pardi ; and I 
 don't think much better of the other fellow, the Scots' 
 14* u 
 
322 DESSEIN'S. 
 
 gallipot purveyor, Peregrine Clinker, Humphrey Ran- 
 dom, how did the fellow call his rubbish ? Neither of 
 these men had the lei air, the bon ton, the je ne s$ais 
 quoy. Pah ! If I meet them in my walks by our Sty- 
 gian river, I give them a wide berth, as that hybrid 
 apothecary fellow would say. An ounce of civet, good 
 apothecary; horrible, horrible! The mere thought of 
 the coarseness of those men gives me the chair de poule. 
 Mr. Fielding, especially, has no more sensibility than a 
 butcher in Fleet Market. He takes his heroes out of ale- 
 house kitchens, or worse places still. And this is the 
 person, whom Posterity has chosen to honor along with 
 me, me ! Faith, Monsieur Posterity, you have put 
 me in pretty company, and I see you are no wiser than 
 we were in our time. Mr. Fielding, forsooth ! Mr. Tripe 
 and Onions ! Mr. Cowheel and Gin ! Thank you for 
 nothing, Monsieur Posterity!" 
 
 " And so," thought I, " even among these Stygians this 
 envy and quarrelsomeness (if you will permit me the 
 word) survive. What a pitiful meanness ! To be sure, 
 I can understand this feeling to a certain extent ; a sense 
 of justice will prompt it. In my own case, I often feel 
 myself forced to protest against the absurd praises 
 lavished on contemporaries. Yesterday, for instance, 
 Lady Jones was good enough to praise one of my works. 
 Tres bien. But in the very next minute she began, with 
 quite as great enthusiasm, to praise Miss Hobson's last 
 romance. My good creature, what is that woman's praise 
 worth who absolutely admires the writings of Miss Hob- 
 son ? I offer a friend a bottle of '44 claret, fit for a pon- 
 tifical supper. " This is capital wine," says he ; " and now 
 we have finished the bottle, will you give me a bottle 
 of that ordinaire we drank the other day ? " Very well, 
 
DESSEIN'S. 323 
 
 my good man. You are a good judge, of ordinaire, I 
 dare say. Nothing so provokes my anger, and rouses my 
 sense of justice, as to hear other men undeservedly 
 praised. In a word, if you wish to remain friends with 
 me, don't praise anybody. You tell me that the Venus de' 
 Medici is beautiful, or Jacob Omnium is tall. Que dia- 
 lle! Can't I judge for myself? Have n't I eyes and a 
 foot-rule ? I don't think the Venus is so handsome, since 
 you press me. She is pretty, but she has no expression. 
 And as for Mr. Omnium, I can see much taller men in a 
 fair for twopence." 
 
 " And so," I said, turning round to Mr. Sterne, " you 
 are actually jealous of Mr. Fielding ? O you men of let- 
 ters, you men of letters ! Is not the world (your world, 
 I mean) big enough for all of you ? " 
 
 I often travel in my sleep. I often of a night find my- 
 self walking in my night-gown about the gray streets. It 
 is awkward at first, but somehow nobody makes any re- 
 mark. I glide along over the ground with my naked 
 feet. The mud does not wet them. The passers-by do 
 not tread on them. I am wafted over the ground, down 
 the stairs, through the doors. This sort of travelling, 
 dear friends, I am sure you have all of you indulged. 
 
 Well, on the night in question (and, if you wish to 
 know the precise date, it was the 31st of September last), 
 after having some little conversation with Mr. Sterne in 
 our bedroom, I must have got up, though I protest I don't 
 know how, and come down stairs with him into the coffee- 
 room of the Hotel Dessein, where the moon was shining, 
 and a cold supper was laid out. I forget what we had 
 " vol au vent d'o3ufs de Phenix agneau aux pistaches 
 k la Barmecide," what matters what we had ? As 
 regards supper this is certain, the less you have of it the 
 better. 
 
324 DESSEIN'S. 
 
 That is what one of the guests remarked, a shabby 
 old man in a wig, and such a dirty, ragged, disreputable 
 dressing-gown that I should have been quite surprised at 
 him, only one never is surprised in dr under certain 
 circumstances. 
 
 " I can't eat 'em now," said the greasy man (with his 
 false old teeth, I wonder he could eat anything). U I 
 remember Alvanley eating three suppers once at Carlton 
 House, one night de petite comite" 
 
 " Petit comite, sir," said Mr. Sterne. 
 
 " Dammy, sir, let me tell my own story my own way. 
 I say, one night at Carlton House, playing at blind hookey 
 with York, Wales, Tom Raikes, Prince Boothby, and 
 Dutch Sam the boxer, Alvanley ate three suppers, and 
 won three and twenty hundred pounds in ponies. Never 
 saw a fellow with such an appetite except Wales in his 
 good time. But he destroyed the finest digestion a man 
 ever had with maraschino, by Jove, always at it." 
 
 " Try mine," said Mr. Sterne. 
 
 " What a doosid queer box," says Mr. Brummell. 
 
 " I had it from a Capuchin friar in this town. The 
 box is but a horn one; but to the nose of sensibility 
 Araby's perfume is not more delicate." 
 
 " I call it doosid stale old rappee," says Mr. Brummell 
 (as for me I declare I could not smell anything at all 
 in either of the boxes). " Old boy in smock-frock, take a 
 pinch?" 
 
 The old boy in the smock-frock, as Mr. Brummell 
 called him, was a very old man, with long white beard, 
 wearing, not a smock-frock, but a shirt ; and he had actu- 
 ally nothing else save a rope rourid his neck, which hung 
 behind his chair in the queerest way. 
 
 " Fair sir," he said, turning to Mr. Brummell, " when 
 
DESSEIN'S. 325 
 
 the Prince of Wales and his father laid siege to our 
 town " 
 
 " What nonsense are you talking, old cock ? " says Mr. 
 Brummell ; " Wales was never here. His late Majesty 
 George IV. passed through on his way to Hanover. My 
 good man, you don't seem to know what 's up at all. 
 What is he talkin' about the siege of Calais ? I lived 
 here fifteen years ! Ought to know. What 's his old 
 name ? " 
 
 " I am Master Eustace, of Saint Peter," said the old 
 gentleman in the shirt. " When my Lord King Edward 
 laid siege to this city " 
 
 " Laid siege to Jericho ! " cries Mr. Brummell. " The 
 old man is cracked, cracked, sir ! " 
 
 " Laid siege to this city," continued the old man, 
 " I and five more promised Messire Gautier de Mauny 
 that we would give ourselves up as ransom for the place. 
 And we came before our Lord King Edward, attired as 
 jou see, and the fair queen begged our lives out of her 
 gramercy." 
 
 " Queen, nonsense ! you mean the Princess of Wales, 
 pretty woman, petit nez retrousse, grew monstrous 
 stout?" suggested Mr. Brummell, whose reading was 
 evidently not extensive. " Sir Sydney Smith was a fine 
 fellow, great talker, hook-nose, so has Lord Cochrane, so 
 has Lord Wellington. She was very sweet on Sir Syd- 
 ney." 
 
 * Your acquaintance with the history of Calais does not 
 seem to be considerable," said Mr. Sterne to Mr. Brum- 
 mell, with a shrug. 
 
 " Don't it, bishop ? for I conclude you are a bishop 
 by your wig. I know Calais as well as any man. I 
 lived here for years before I took that confounded consu- 
 
326 DESSEIN'S. 
 
 late at Caen. Lived in this hotel, then at Leleux's. Peo- 
 ple used to stop here. Good fellows used to ask for poor 
 George Brummell ; Hertford did, so did the Duchess of 
 Devonshire. Not know Calais indeed ! That is a good 
 joke. Had many a good dinner here : sorry I ever left 
 it." 
 
 " My Lord King Edward," chirped the queer old gen- 
 tleman in the shirt, " colonized the place with his Eng- 
 lish, after we had yielded it up to him. I have heard 
 tell they kept it for nigh three hundred years, till my 
 Lord de Guise took it from a fair Queen, Mary of blessed 
 memory, a holy woman. Eh, but Sire Gautier of Mauny 
 was a good knight, a valiant captain, gentle and courte- 
 ous withal ! Do you remember his ransoming the " 
 
 " What is the old fellow twaddlin' about?" cries Brum- 
 mell. He is talking about some knight ? I never spoke 
 to a knight, and very seldom to a baronet. Firkins, my 
 butterman, was a knight, a knight and alderman. 
 Wales knighted him once on going into the city." 
 
 " I am not surprised that the gentleman should not un- 
 derstand Messire Eustace of St. Peter's," said the ghostly 
 individual addressed as Mr. Sterne. " Your reading 
 doubtless has not been very extensive ? " 
 
 " Dammy, sir, speak for yourself ! " cries Mr. Brum- 
 mell, testily. "I never professed to be a reading man, 
 but I was as good as my neighbors. Wales was n't a 
 reading man ; York was n't a reading man ; Clarence 
 was n't a reading man ; Sussex was, but he was n't a 
 man in society. I remember reading your " Sentimental 
 Journey," old boy : read it to the duchess at Beauvoir, I 
 recollect, and she cried over it. Doosid clever, amusing 
 book, and does you great credit. Birron wrote doosid clev- 
 er books, too ; so did Monk Lewis. George Spencer was 
 
DESSEIN'S. 327 
 
 an elegant poet, and my dear Duchess of Devonshire, if 
 she had not been a grande dame, would have beat 'em 
 all, by George. Wales could n't write : he could sing, 
 but he could n't spell." 
 
 " Ah, you know the great world ? so did I in my time, 
 Mr. Brummell. I have had the visiting tickets of half 
 the nobility at my lodgings in Bond Street. But they 
 left me there no more cared for than last year's calendar," 
 sighed Mr. Sterne. " I wonder who is the mode in Lon- 
 don now ? One of our late arrivals, my Lord Macaulay, 
 has prodigious merit and learning, and, faith, his histories 
 are more amusing than any novels, my own included." 
 
 " Don't know, I 'm sure ; not in my line. Pick this 
 bone of chicken," says Mr. Brummell, trifling with a skel- 
 eton bird before him. 
 
 " I remember in this city of Calais worse fare than yon 
 bird," said old Mr.' Eustace, of Saint Peter. " Marry, 
 sirs, when my Lord King Edward laid siege to us, lucky 
 was he who could get a slice of horse for his breakfast, and 
 a rat was sold at the price of a hare." 
 
 " Hare is coarse food, never tasted rat," remarked the 
 Beau. Table-d'hote poor fare enough for a man like me, 
 who has been accustomed to the best of cookery. But 
 rat stifle me! I couldn't swallow that: never could 
 bear hardship at all." 
 
 " We had to bear enough when my Lord of England 
 pressed us. 'T was pitiful to see the faces of our women 
 as the siege went on, and hear the little ones asking for 
 dinner." 
 
 " Always a bore, children. At dessert, they are bad 
 enough, but at dinner they 're the deuce and all," remarked 
 Mr. Brummell. 
 
 Messire Eustace, of St. Peter, did not seem to pay 
 
328 DESSEIN'S. 
 
 much attention to the Beau's remarks, but continued his 
 own train of thought as old men will do. 
 
 " I hear," said he, " that there has actually been no 
 war between us of France and you men of England for 
 wellnigh fifty year. Ours has ever been a nation of war- 
 riors. And besides her regular found men-at-arms, 't is 
 said the English of the present time have more than a 
 hundred thousand of archers with weapons that will carry 
 for half a mile. And a multitude have come amongst us 
 of late from a great Western country, never so much as 
 heard of in my time, valiant men and great drawers of 
 the long-bow, and they say they have ships in armor that 
 no shot can penetrate. Is it so ? Wonderful ; wonder- 
 ful ! The best armor, gossips, is a stout heart." 
 
 " And if ever manly heart beat under shirt-frill, thine 
 is that heart, Sir Eustace ! " cried Mr. Sterne, enthusi- 
 astically. 
 
 " We, of France, were never accused of lack of cour- 
 age, sir, in so far as I know," said Messire Eustace. " We 
 have shown as much in a thousand wars with you Eng- 
 lish by sea and land ; and sometimes we conquered, and 
 sometimes, as is the fortune of war, we were discomfited. 
 And notably in a great sea-fight which befell off Ushant 
 
 on the first of June Our amiral, Messire Vil- 
 
 laret Joyeuse, on board his galleon named the Vengeur, 
 being sore pressed by an English bombard, rather than 
 yield the crew of his ship to mercy, determined to go 
 down with all on board of her : and, to the cry of Vive 
 
 la Repub or, I would say, of Notre Dame a la 
 
 Rescousse, he and his crew all sank to an immortal 
 grave- " 
 
 " Sir," said I, looking with amazement at the old gen- 
 tleman, " surely, surely, there is some mistake in your 
 
DESSEIN'S. 329 
 
 statement. Permit me to observe that the action of the 
 first of June took place five hundred years after your 
 time, and " 
 
 " Perhaps I am confusing my dates," said the old gen- 
 tleman, with a faint blush. *' You say I am mixing up 
 the transactions of my time on earth with the story of my 
 successors ? It may be so. We take no count of a few 
 centuries more or less in our dwelling by the darkling Sty- 
 gian river. Of late, there came amongst us a good knight, 
 Messire de Cambronne, who fought against you English 
 in the country of Flanders, being captain of the guard of 
 my Lord the King of France, in a famous battle where 
 you English would have been utterly routed but for the 
 succor of the Prussian heathen. This Messire de Cam- 
 bronne, when bidden to yield by you of England, an- 
 swered this, ' The guard dies but never surrenders ' ; and 
 fought a long time afterwards, as became a good knight. 
 In our wars with you of England it may have pleased the 
 Fates to give you the greater success, but on our side, 
 also, there has been no lack of brave deeds performed by 
 brave men." 
 
 " King Edward may have been the victor, sir, as being 
 the strongest, but you are the hero of the siege of Calais ! " 
 cried Mr. Sterne. " Your story is sacred, and your name 
 has been blessed for five hundred years. Wherever men 
 speak of patriotism and sacrifice, Eustace, of Saint Pierre, 
 shall be beloved and remembered. I prostrate myself 
 before the bare feet which stood before King Edward. 
 What collar of chivalry is to be compared to that glori- 
 ous order which you wear ? Think, sir, how, out of the 
 myriad millions of our race, you, and some few more, 
 stand forth as exemplars of duty and honor. Fortunati 
 nimium ! " 
 
330 DESSEIN'S. 
 
 " Sir," said the old gentleman, " I did but my duty at a 
 painful moment ; and 't is matter of wonder to me that 
 men talk still, and glorify such a trifling matter. By our 
 Lady's grace, in the fair kingdom of France, there are 
 scores of thousands of men, gentle and simple, who would 
 do as I did. Does not every sentinel at his post, does 
 not every archer in the front of battle, brave it, and die 
 where his captain bids him ? Who am I that I should be 
 chosen out of all France to be an example of fortitude ? 
 I braved no tortures, though these I trust I would have 
 endured with a good heart. I was subject to threats 
 only. Who was the Roman knight of whom the Latin 
 clerk Horatius tells ? " 
 
 " A Latin clerk ? Faith, I forget my Latin," says 
 Mr. Brummell. " Ask the parson here." 
 
 " Messire Regulus, I remember, was his name. Taken 
 prisoner by the Saracens, he gave his knightly word, and 
 was permitted to go seek a ransom among his own peo- 
 ple. Being unable to raise the sum that was a fitting ran- 
 som for such a knight, he returned to Afric, and cheerfully 
 submitted to the tortures which the Paynims inflicted. 
 And 'tis said he took leave of his friends as gayly as 
 though he were going to a village kermes, or riding to his 
 garden house in the suburb of the city." 
 
 " Great, good, glorious man ! " cried Mr. Sterne, very 
 much moved. " Let me embrace that gallant hand, and 
 bedew it with my tears ! As long as honor lasts thy 
 name shall be remembered. See this dew-drop twinkling 
 on my cheek ! 'T is the sparkling tribute that Sensibility 
 pays to Valor. Though in my life and practice I may 
 turn from Virtue, believe me, I never have ceased to 
 honor her ! Ah, Virtue ! Ah, Sensibility ! O " 
 
 Here Mr. Sterne was interrupted by a monk of the 
 
DESSEIN'S. 331 
 
 Order of St. Francis who stepped into the room, and beg- 
 ged us all to take a pinch of his famous old rappee. I 
 suppose the snuff was very pungent, for, with a great 
 start, I woke up ; and now perceived that I must have 
 been dreaming altogether. Dessein's of now-a-days is not 
 the Dessein's which Mr. Sterne, and Mr. Brummell, and 
 I, recollect in the good old times. The town of Calais 
 has bought the old hotel, and Dessein has gone over to 
 Quillacq's. And I was there yesterday. And I remem- 
 ber old diligences, and old postilions in pig-tails and jack- 
 boots, who were once as alive as I am, and whose cracking 
 whips I have heard in the midnight many and many a 
 time. Now, where are they ? Behold, they have been 
 ferried over Styx, and have passed away into limbo. 
 
 I wonder what time does my boat go ? Ah ! Here 
 comes the waiter bringing me my little bill. 
 
ON A PEAR-TREE. 
 
 GRACIOUS reader no doubt has remarked 
 that these humble sermons have for subjects 
 some little event which happens at the preach- 
 er's own gate, or which falls under his pe- 
 culiar cognizance. Once, you may remember, we dis- 
 coursed about a chalk-mark on the door. This morning 
 Betsy, the housemaid, comes with a frightened look, and 
 says, " Law, mum ! there 's three bricks taken out of the 
 garden-wall, and the branches broke, and all the pears 
 taken off the pear-tree ! " Poor peaceful suburban pear- 
 tree ! Jail-birds have hopped about thy branches, and 
 robbed them of their smoky fruit. But those bricks re- 
 moved; that ladder evidently prepared, by which un- 
 known marauders may enter and depart from my little 
 Englishman's castle ; is not this a subject of thrilling 
 interest, and may it not be continued in a future number ? 
 that is the terrible question. Suppose, having escalad- 
 ed the outer wall, the miscreants take a fancy to storm 
 the castle ? Well well ! we are armed ; we are numer- 
 ous ; we are men of tremendous courage, who will de- 
 fend our spoons with our lives ; and there are barracks 
 close by (thank goodness ! ) whence, at the noise of our 
 shouts and firing at least a thousand bayonets will bristle 
 to our rescue. 
 
ON A PEAR-TREE. 333 
 
 What sound is yonder ? A church bell. I might go 
 myself, but how listen to the sermon ? I am think- 
 ing of those thieves who have made a ladder of my wall, 
 and a prey of my pear-tree. They may be walking to 
 church at this moment, neatly shaved, in clean linen, with 
 every outward appearance of virtue. If I went, I know 
 I should be watching the congregation, and thinking, " Is 
 that one of the fellows who came over my wall ? " If, 
 after the reading of the eighth Commandment, a man 
 sang out with particular energy, " Incline our hearts to 
 keep this law," I should think, " Aha, Master Basso, did 
 you have pears for breakfast this morning ? " Crime is 
 walking round me, that is clear. Who is the perpetra- 
 tor ? .... What a changed aspect the world has, since 
 these last few lines were written ! I have been walking 
 round about my premises, and in consultation with a gen- 
 tleman in a single-breasted blue coat, with pewter but- 
 tons, and a tape ornament on the collar. He has looked 
 at the holes in the wall, and the amputated tree. We 
 have formed our plan of defence, perhaps of attack. 
 Perhaps some day you may read in the papers : " DAR- 
 ING ATTEMPT AT BURGLARY, HEROIC VICTORY 
 OVER THE VILLAINS," &c., &c. Rascals as yet un- 
 known ! perhaps you, too, may read these words, and may 
 be induced to pause in your fatal intention. Take the 
 advice of a sincere friend, and keep off. To find a man 
 writhing in my man-trap, another mayhap impaled in my 
 ditch, to pick off another from my tree (scoundrel ! as 
 though he were a pear), will give me no pleasure ; 
 but such things may happen. Be warned in time, vil- 
 lains ! Or, if you must pursue your calling as cracks- 
 men, have the goodness to try some other shutters. 
 Enough ! subside into your darkness, children of night ! 
 
334 ON A PEAR-TREE. 
 
 Thieves ! we seek not to have you hanged, you are 
 but as pegs whereon to hang others. 
 
 I may have said before, that if I were going to be hanged 
 myself, I think I should take an accurate note of my sen- 
 sations, request to stop at some public-house on the road 
 to Tyburn, and be provided with a private room and 
 writing materials, and give an account of my state of 
 mind. Then, gee up, carter ! I beg your reverence to 
 continue your apposite, though not novel, remarks on my 
 situation ; and so we drive up to Tyburn turnpike, 
 where an expectant crowd, the obliging sheriffs, and the 
 dexterous and rapid Mr. Ketch are already in waiting. 
 
 A number of laboring people are sauntering about our 
 streets, and taking their rest on this holiday, fellows 
 who have no more stolen my pears than they have robbed 
 the crown jewels out of the Tower, and I say I cannot 
 help thinking in my own mind, " Are you the rascal who 
 got over my wall last night ? " Is the suspicion haunt- 
 ing my mind written on my countenance ? I trust not. 
 "What if one man after another were to come up to me 
 and say, " How dare you, sir, suspect me in your mind 
 of stealing your fruit? Go be hanged, you and your 
 jargonels ! " You rascal thief! it is not merely three 
 halfp'orth of sooty fruit you rob me of, it is my peace of 
 mind, my artless innocence and trust in my fellow- 
 creatures, my childlike belief that everything they say 
 is true. How can I hold out the hand of friendship in 
 this condition, when my first impression is, " My good sir, 
 I strongly suspect that you were up my pear-tree last 
 night ? " It is a dreadful state of mind. The core is black ; 
 the death-stricken fruit drops on the bough, and a great 
 worm is within, fattening and feasting and wriggling ! 
 Who stole the pears ? I say. Is it you, brother ? Is it 
 
ON A PEAR-TREE. 335 
 
 you, madam ? Come ! are you ready to answer, re- 
 spondere parati et cantare pares ? (O shame ! shame ! ) 
 
 Will the villains ever be discovered and punished who 
 stole my fruit ? Some unlucky rascals who rob orchards 
 are caught up the tree at once. Some rob through life 
 with impunity. If I, for my part, were to try and get up 
 the smallest tree, on the darkest night, in the most remote 
 orchard, I wager any money I should be found out, be 
 caught by the leg in a man-trap, or have Towler fasten- 
 ing on me. I always am found out ; have been ; shall 
 be. It 's my luck. Other men will carry off bushels of 
 fruit, and get away undetected, unsuspected ; whereas I 
 know woe and punishment would fall upon me were I to 
 lay my hand on the smallest pippin. So be it. A man 
 who has this precious self-knowledge will surely keep his 
 hands from picking and stealing, and his feet upon the 
 paths of virtue. 
 
 I will assume, my benevolent friend and present read- 
 er, that you yourself are virtuous, not from a fear of pun- 
 ishment, but from a sheer love of good : but as you and I 
 walk through life, consider what hundreds of thousands of 
 rascals we must have met, who have not been found out 
 at all. In high places and low, in Clubs and on 'Change, 
 at church, or the balls and routs of the nobility and gentry, 
 how dreadful it is for benevolent beings like you and me 
 to have to think these undiscovered though not unsus- 
 pected scoundrels are swarming ! What is the difference 
 between you and a galley-slave ? Is yonder poor wretch at 
 the hulks not a man and a brother too ? Have you ever 
 forged, my dear sir ? Have you ever cheated your neigh- 
 bor ? Have you ever ridden to Hounslow Heath and 
 robbed the mail? Have you ever entered a first-class 
 railway carriage, where an old gentleman sat alone in a 
 
336 ON A PEAR-TREE. 
 
 sweet sleep, daintily murdered him, taken his pocket- 
 book, and got out at the next station ? You know that 
 this circumstance occurred in France a few months since. 
 If we have travelled in France this autumn we may have 
 met the ingenious gentleman who perpetrated this daring 
 and successful coup. We may have found him a well- 
 informed and agreeable man. I have been acquainted 
 with two or three gentlemen who have been discovered 
 after after the performance of illegal actions. What ? 
 That agreeable, rattling fellow we met was the celebra- 
 ted Mr. John Sheppard ? Was that amiable, quiet gen- 
 tleman in spectacles the well-known Mr. Fauntleroy ? 
 In Hazlitt's admirable paper, " Going to a Fight," he de- 
 scribes a dashing sporting fellow who was in the coach, 
 and who was no less a man than the eminent destroyer 
 of Mr. William Weare. Don't tell me that you would 
 not like to have met (out of business) Captain Sheppard, 
 the Reverend Doctor Dodd, or others rendered famous by 
 their actions and misfortunes, by their lives and their 
 deaths. They are the subjects of ballads, the heroes of 
 romance. A friend of mine had the house in May Fair, 
 out of which poor Doctor Dodd was taken handcuffed. 
 There was the paved hall over which he stepped. That 
 little room at the side was, no doubt, the study where he 
 composed his elegant sermons. Two years since I had 
 the good fortune to partake of some admirable dinners in 
 Tyburnia, magnificent dinners indeed ; but rendered 
 doubly interesting from the fact that the house was that 
 occupied by the late Mr. Sadleir. One night the late 
 Mr. Sadleir took tea in that dining-room, and, to the sur- 
 prise of his butler, went out, having put into his pocket 
 his own cream-jug. The next morning, you know, he 
 was found dead on Hampstead Heath, with the cream-jug 
 
ON A PEAR-TREE. 337 
 
 lying by him, into which he had poured the poison by 
 which he died. The idea of the ghost of the late gentle- 
 man flitting about the room gave a strange interest to the 
 banquet. Can you fancy him taking his tea alone in the 
 dining-room ? He empties that cream-jug and puts it in 
 his pocket ; and then he opens yonder door, through 
 which he is never to pass again. Now he crosses the 
 hall : and hark ! the hall-door shuts upon him, and his 
 steps die away. They are gone into the night. They 
 traverse the sleeping city. They lead him into the fields, 
 where the gray morning is beginning to glimmer. He 
 pours something from a bottle into a little silver jug. It 
 touches his lips, the lying lips. Do they quiver a prayer 
 ere that awful draught is swallowed? "When the sun 
 rises they are dumb. 
 
 I neither knew this unhappy man, nor his countryman 
 Laertes let us call him who is at present in exile, 
 having been compelled to fly from remorseless creditors. 
 Laertes fled to America, where he earned his bread by 
 his pen. I own to having a kindly feeling towards this 
 scapegrace, because, though an exile, he did not abuse the 
 country whence he fled. I have heard that he went away 
 taking no spoil with him, penniless almost ; and on his 
 voyage he made acquaintance with a certain Jew ; and 
 when he fell sick, at New York, this Jew befriended him, 
 and gave him help and money out of his own store, which 
 was but small. Now, after they had been awhile in the 
 strange city, it happened that the poor Jew spent all his 
 little money, and he too fell ill, and was in great penury. 
 And now it was Laertes who befriended that Ebrew 
 Jew. He fee'd doctors ; he fed and tended the sick and 
 hungry. Go to, Laertes ! I know thee not. It may be 
 thou art justly exul patrice. But the Jew shall inter- 
 
 15 v 
 
338 ON A PEAR-TREE. 
 
 cede for thee, thou not, let us trust, hopeless Christian 
 sinner. 
 
 Another exile to the same shore I knew : who did not ? 
 Julius Caesar hardly owed more money than Cucedicus : 
 and, gracious powers ! Cucedicus, how did you manage 
 to spend and owe so much ? All day he was at work for 
 his clients ; at night he was occupied in the Public Coun- 
 cil. He neither had wife nor children. The rewards 
 which he received from his orations were enough to main- 
 tain twenty rhetoricians. Night after night I have seen 
 him eating his frugal meal, consisting but of a fish, a 
 small portion of mutton, and a small measure of Iberian 
 or Trinacrian wine, largely diluted with the sparkling 
 waters of Rhenish Gaul. And this was all he had ; and 
 this man earned and paid away talents upon talents ; and 
 fled, owing who knows how many more ! Does a man 
 earn fifteen thousand pounds a year, toiling by day, talk- 
 ing by night, having horrible unrest in his bed, ghastly 
 terrors at waking, seeing an officer lurking at every cor- 
 ner, a sword of justice forever hanging over his head, 
 and have for his sole diversion a newspaper, a lonely mut- 
 ton-chop, and a little sherry and seltzer-water ? In the 
 German stories we read how men sell themselves to a 
 certain Personage, and that Personage cheats them. He 
 gives them wealth; yes, but the gold pieces turn into 
 worthless leaves. He sets them before splendid banquets ; 
 yes, but what an awful grin that black footman has who 
 lifts up the dish-cover ; and don't you smell a peculiar 
 sulphurous odor in the dish ? Faugh ! take it away ; I 
 can't eat. He promises them splendors and triumphs. 
 The conqueror's car rolls glittering through the city, the 
 multitudes shout and huzzah. Drive on, coachman.. Yes, 
 but who is that hanging on behind the carriage ? Is this 
 
ON A PEAR-TREE. 339 
 
 the reward of eloquence, talents, industry ? Is this the 
 end of a life's labor ? Don't you remember how, when 
 the dragon was infesting the neighborhood of Babylon, 
 the citizens used to walk dismally out of evenings, and 
 look at the valleys round about strewed with the bones of 
 the victims whom the monster had devoured ? O insa- 
 tiate brute, and most disgusting, brazen, and scaly reptile ! 
 Let us be thankful, children, that it has not gobbled us 
 up too. Quick. Let us turn away, and pray that we 
 may be kept out of the reach of his horrible maw, jaw, 
 claw ! 
 
 When I first came up to London, as innocent as Mon- 
 sieur Gil Bias, I also fell in with some pretty acquaint- 
 ances, found my way into several caverns, and delivered 
 my purse to more than one gallant gentleman of the 
 road. One I remember especially, one who never 
 eased me personally of a single maravedi, one than 
 whom I never met a bandit more gallant, courteous, and 
 amiable. Rob me ? Rolando feasted me ; treated me to 
 his dinner and his wine ; kept a generous table for his 
 friends, and I know was most liberal to many of them. 
 How well I remember one of his speculations ! It was a 
 great plan for smuggling tobacco. Revenue officers were 
 to be bought off; silent ships were to ply on the Thames; 
 cunning depots were to be established, and hundreds of 
 thousands of pounds to be made by the coup. How his 
 eyes kindled as he propounded the scheme to me ! How 
 easy and certain it seemed ! It might have succeeded : 
 I can't say ; but the bold and merry, the hearty and 
 kindly Rolando came to grief, a little matter of imitated 
 signatures occasioned a Bank persecution of Rolando the 
 Brave. He walked about armed, and vowed he would 
 never be taken alive : but taken he was ; tried, con- 
 
34:0 ON A PEAR-TREE. 
 
 demned, sentenced to perpetual banishment ; and I heard 
 that for some time he was universally popular in the 
 colony which had the honor to possess him. What a 
 song he could sing! 'T was when the cup was sparkling 
 before us, and heaven gave a portion of its blue, boys, 
 blue, that I remember the song of Roland at the old Pi- 
 azza Coffee-house. And now where is the old Piaz- 
 za Coffee-house? Where is Thebes? where is Troy? 
 where is the Colossus of Rhodes ? Ah, Rolando, Rolan- 
 do ! thou wert a gallant captain, a cheery, a handsome, 
 a merry. At me thou never presentedst pistol. Thou 
 badest the bumper of Burgundy fill, fill for me, giving 
 those who preferred it champagne. Ccdum non animum, 
 &c. Do you think he has reformed now that he has 
 crossed the sea, and changed the air ? I have my own 
 opinion. Howbeit, Rolando, thou wert a most kindly 
 and hospitable bandit. And I love not to think of thee 
 with a chain at thy shin. 
 
 Do you know how all these memories of unfortunate 
 men have come upon me ? When they came to frighten 
 me this morning by speaking of my robbed pears, my 
 perforated garden wall, I was reading an article in the 
 " Saturday Review " about Rupilius. I have sat near 
 that young man at a public dinner, and beheld him in a 
 gilded uniform. But yesterday he lived in splendor, had 
 long hair, a flowing beard, a jewel at his neck, and a 
 smart surtout. So attired, he stood but yesterday in 
 court ; and to-day he sits over a bowl of prison cocoa, 
 with a shaved head, and in a felon's jerkin. 
 
 That beard and head shaved, that gaudy deputy-lieu- 
 tenant's coat exchanged for felon uniform, and your daily 
 bottle of champagne for prison cocoa, my poor Rupilius, 
 what a comfort it must be to have the business brought 
 
ON A PEAR-TREE. 341 
 
 to an end ! Champagne was the honorable gentleman's 
 drink in the House of Commons dining-room, as I am 
 informed. What uncommonly dry champagne that must 
 have been ! When we saw him outwardly happy, how 
 miserable he must have been ! when we thought him 
 prosperous, how dismally poor ! When the great Mr. 
 Harker, at the public dinners, called out : " Gentlemen, 
 charge your glasses, and please silence for the honorable 
 Member for Lambeth!" how that honorable Member 
 must have writhed inwardly ! One day, when there was 
 a talk of a gentleman's honor being questioned, Rupilius 
 said, " If any man doubted mine, I would knock him 
 down." But that speech was in the way of business. 
 The Spartan boy, who stole the fox, smiled while the 
 beast was gnawing him under his cloak : I promise you 
 Rupilius had some sharp fangs gnashing under his. We 
 have sat at the same feast, I say; we have paid our 
 contribution to the same charity. Ah ! when I ask this 
 day for my daily bread, I pray not to be led into tempta- 
 tion, and to be delivered from evil. 
 
ON A MEDAL OF GEORGE THE FOURTH. 
 
 
 
 jEFORE me lies a coin bearing the image and 
 superscription of King George IV., and of the 
 nominal value of two-and-sixpence. But an 
 official friend at a neighboring turnpike says 
 the piece is hopelessly bad ; and a chemist tested it, re- 
 turning a like unfavorable opinion. A cabman, who had 
 brought me from a club, left it with the club porter, ap- 
 pealing to the gent who gave it a pore cabby, at ever so 
 much o'clock of a rainy night, which he hoped he would 
 give him another. I have taken that cabman at his word. 
 He has been provided with a sound coin. The bad piece 
 is on the table before me, and shall have a hole drilled 
 through it, as soon as this essay is written, by a loyal sub- 
 ject who does not desire to deface the Sovereign's fair 
 image, but to protest against the rascal who has taken her 
 name in vain. Fid. Def., indeed ! Is that what you call 
 defending the faith ? You dare to forge your Sovereign's 
 name, and pass your scoundrel pewter as her silver ? I 
 wonder who you are, wretch and most consummate trick- 
 ster ? This forgery is so complete that even now I am 
 deceived by it, I can't see the difference between the 
 base and sterling metal. Perhaps this piece is a little 
 lighter ; I don't know. A little softer ; is it ? I have 
 not bitten it, not being a connoisseur in the tasting of 
 
ON A MEDAL OF GEORGE THE FOURTH. 343 
 
 pewter or silver. I take the word of three honest men, 
 though it goes against me : and though I have given two- 
 and-sixpence worth of honest consideration for the coun- 
 ter, I shall not attempt to implicate anybody else in my 
 misfortune, or transfer my ill-luck to a deluded neighbor. 
 I say the imitation is so curiously successful, the stamp- 
 ing, milling of the edges, lettering, and so forth, are so 
 neat, that even now, when my eyes are open, I cannot 
 see the cheat. How did those experts, the cabman, and 
 pikeman, and tradesman, come to find it out ? How do 
 they happen to be more familiar with pewter and silver 
 than I am ? You see, I put out of the question another 
 point which I might argue without fear of defeat, namely, 
 the cabman's statement that I gave him this bad piece of 
 money. Suppose every cabman who took me a shilling 
 fare were to drive away and return presently with a bad 
 coin and an assertion that I had given it to him ? This 
 would be absurd and mischievous ; an encouragement of 
 vice amongst men who already are subject to temptations. 
 Being homo, I think if I were a cabman myself, I might 
 sometimes stretch a furlong or two in my calculations of 
 distance. But don't come twice, my man, and tell me I 
 have given you a bad half-crown. No, no ! I have paid 
 once like a gentleman, and once is enough. For instance, 
 during the Exhibition time I was stopped by an old coun- 
 try-woman in black, with a huge umbrella, who, bursting 
 into tears, said to me, " Master, be this the way to Har- 
 low, in Essex ? " " This the way to Harlow ? This is 
 the way to Exeter, my good lady, and you will arrive 
 there if you walk about 170 miles in your present direc- 
 tion," I answered courteously, replying to the old crea- 
 ture. Then she fell a-sobbing as though her old heart 
 would break. She had a daughter a-dying at Harlow. 
 
344 ON A MEDAL OF GEORGE THE FOURTH. 
 
 She had walked already "vifty dree mile" that day. 
 Tears stopped the rest of her discourse, so artless, genu- 
 ine, and abundant, that I own the truth I gave her, 
 in I believe genuine silver, a piece of the exact size of 
 that .coin which forms the subject of this essay. Well. 
 About a month since, near to the very spot where I had 
 met my old woman, I was accosted by a person in black, 
 a person in a large draggled cap, a person with a huge 
 umbrella, who was beginning, "I say, master, can you 
 
 tell me if this be the way to Har " but here she 
 
 stopped. Her eyes goggled wildly. She- started from 
 me, as Macbeth turned from Macduff. She would not 
 engage with me. It was my old friend of Harlow, in 
 Essex. I dare say she has informed many other people 
 of her daughter's illness, and her anxiety to be put upon 
 the right way to Harlow. Not long since a very gentle- 
 manlike man, Major Delamere let us call him (I like the 
 title of Major very much), requested to see me, named a 
 dead gentleman who he said had been our mutual friend, 
 and on the strength of this mutual acquaintance, begged 
 me to cash his check for five pounds ! 
 
 It is these things, my dear sir, which serve to make 
 a man cynical. I do conscientiously believe that, had I 
 cashed the Major's check, there would have been a dif- 
 ficulty about payment on the part of the respected bank- 
 ers on whom he drew. On your honor and conscience, 
 do you think that old widow who was walking from Tun- 
 bridge Wells to Harlow had a daughter ill, and was an 
 honest woman at all ? The daughter could n't always, 
 you see, be being ill, and her mother on her way to her 
 dear child through Hyde Park. In the same way some 
 habitual sneerers may be inclined to hint that the cab- 
 man's story was an invention, or at any rate, choose to 
 
ON A MEDAL OF GEORGE THE FOURTH. 345 
 
 ride off (so to speak) on the doubt. No. My opinion, I 
 own, is unfavorable as regards the widow from Tunbridge 
 Wells, and Major Delamere ; but, believing the cabman 
 was honest, I am glad to think he was not injured by the 
 reader's most humble servant. 
 
 What a queer, exciting life this rogue's march must 
 be : this attempt of the bad half-crowns to get into circula- 
 tion ! Had my distinguished friend the Major knocked 
 at many doors that morning, before operating on mine ? 
 The sport must be something akin to the pleasure of tiger 
 or elephant hunting. What ingenuity the sportsman 
 must have in tracing his prey, what daring and cau- 
 tion in coming upon him ! What coolness in facing the 
 angry animal (for, after all, a man on whom you draw a 
 check a bout portant will be angry) ! What a delicious 
 thrill of triumph, if you can bring him down ! If I have 
 money at the banker's and draw for a portion of it over 
 the counter, that is mere prose, any dolt can do that. 
 But, having no balance, say, I drive up in a cab, present 
 a check at Coutts's, and, receiving the amount, drive off? 
 What a glorious morning's sport that has been ! How 
 superior in excitement to the common transactions of 
 every-day life !....! must tell a story ; it is against 
 myself, I know, but it will out, and perhaps my mind 
 will be the easier. 
 
 More than twenty years ago, in an island remarkable 
 for its verdure, I met, four or five times, one of the most 
 agreeable companions with whom I have passed a night. 
 I heard that evil times had come upon this gentleman ; 
 and, overtaking him in a road near rny own house one 
 evening, I asked him to come home to dinner. In two 
 days he was at my door again. At breakfast-time was 
 this second appearance. He was in a cab (of course he 
 15* 
 
346 ON A MEDAL OF GEOKGE THE FOURTH. 
 
 was in a cab, they always are, these unfortunate, these 
 courageous men). To deny myself was absurd. My 
 friend could see me over the parlor blinds, surrounded by 
 my family, and cheerfully partaking the morning meal. 
 Might he have a word with me ? and can you imagine its 
 purport ? By the most provoking delay, his uncle the 
 admiral not being able to come to town till Friday, 
 would I cash him a check ? I need not say it would be 
 paid on Saturday without fail. I tell you that man went 
 away with money in his pocket, and I regret to add that 
 his gallant relative has not come to town yet! 
 
 Laying down the pen, and sinking back in my chair, 
 here, perhaps, I fall into a five minutes' reverie, and think 
 of one, two, three, half a dozen cases in which I have 
 been content to accept that sham promissory coin in re- 
 turn for sterling money advanced. Not a reader, what- 
 ever his age, but could tell a like story. I vow and be- 
 lieve there are men of fifty, who will dine well to-day, 
 who have not paid their school debts yet, and who have 
 not taken up their long-protested promises to pay. Tom, 
 Dick, Harry, my boys, I owe you no grudge, and rather 
 relish that wince with which you will read these meek 
 lines and say, " He means me." Poor Jack in Hades ! 
 Do you remember a certain pecuniary transaction, and a 
 little sum of money you borrowed " until the meeting of 
 Parliament " ? Parliament met often in your lifetime : 
 Parliament has met since : but I think I should scarce be 
 more surprised if your ghost glided into the room now, 
 and laid down the amount of our little account, than I 
 should have been if you had paid me in your lifetime 
 with the actual acceptances of the Bank of England. 
 You asked to borrow, but you never intended to pay. I 
 would as soon have believed that a promissory note of 
 
ON A MEDAL OF GEORGE THE FOURTH. 347 
 
 Sir John Falstaff (accepted by Messrs. Bardolph and 
 Nym, and payable in Aldgate,) would be as sure to find 
 payment, as that note of the departed nay, lamented 
 
 Jack Thriftless. 
 
 He who borrows, meaning to pay, is quite a different 
 person from the individual here described. Many 
 most, I hope took Jack's promise for what it was 
 worth, and quite well knew that when he said, " Lend 
 me," he meant " Give me " twenty pounds. " Give me 
 change for this half-crown," said Jack ; I know it 's a 
 pewter piece, and you gave him the change in honest sil- 
 ver, and pocketed the counterfeit gravely. 
 
 What a queer consciousness that must be which ac- 
 companies such a man in his sleeping, in his waking, in 
 his walk through life, by his fireside with his children 
 round him ! " For what we are going to receive," &c., 
 
 he says grace before his dinner. " My dears ! Shall 
 I help you to some mutton ? I robbed the butcher of 
 the meat. I don't intend to pay him. Johnson, my boy, 
 a glass of champagne ? Very good, is n't it ? Not too 
 sweet. Forty-six. I get it from So-and-so, whom I in- 
 tend to cheat." As eagles go forth and bring home to 
 their eaglets the lamb or the pavid kid, I say there are 
 men who live and victual their nests by plunder. We 
 all know highway robbers in white neckcloths, domestic 
 bandits, marauders, passers of bad coin. What was yon- 
 der check which Major Delamere proposed I should cash 
 but a piece of bad money ? What was Jack Thriftless's 
 promise to pay ? Having got his booty, I fancy Jack 
 or the Major returning home, and wife and children gath- 
 ering round about him. Poor wife and children ! They 
 respect papa very likely. They don't know he is false 
 coin. Maybe the wife has a dreadful inkling of the 
 
348 ON A MEDAL OF GEORGE THE FOURTH. 
 
 truth, and, sickening, tries to hide it from the daughters 
 and sons. Maybe she is an accomplice : herself a brazen 
 forgery. If Turpin and Jack Sheppard were married, 
 very likely Mesdames Sheppard and Turpin did not 
 know, at first, what their husbands' real profession was, 
 and fancied, when the men left home in the morning, 
 they only went away to follow some regular and honor- 
 able business. Then a suspicion of the truth may have 
 come ; then a dreadful revelation ; and presently we 
 have the guilty pair robbing together, or passing forged 
 money each on his own account. You know Doctor Dodd? 
 I wonder whether his wife knows that he is a forger, 
 and scoundrel ? Has she had any of the plunder, think 
 you, and were the darling children's new dresses bought 
 with it ? The Doctor's sermon last Sunday was certainly 
 charming, and we all cried. Ah, my poor Dodd! 
 Whilst he is preaching most beautifully, pocket-handker- 
 chief in hand, he is peering over the pulpit cushions, 
 looking out piteously for Messrs. Peachum and Lockit 
 from the police-office. By Doctor Dodd you understand 
 I would typify the rogue of respectable exterior, not com- 
 mitted to jail yet, but not undiscovered. We all know 
 one or two such. This very sermon, perhaps, will be 
 read by some, or more likely, for, depend upon it, your 
 solemn hypocritic scoundrels don't care much for light 
 literature, more likely, I say, this discourse will be 
 read by some of their wives, who think, " Ah mercy ! 
 does that horrible cynical wretch know how my poor hus- 
 band blacked my eye, or abstracted mamma's silver tea- 
 pot, or forced me to write So-and-so's name on that piece 
 of stamped paper, or what not ? " My good creature, I 
 am not angry with you. If your husband has broken 
 your nose, you will vow that he had authority over your 
 
ON A MEDAL OF GEORGE THE FOURTH. 349 
 
 person, and a right to demolish any part of it ; if he has 
 conveyed away your mamma's teapot, you will say that 
 she gave it to him at your marriage, and it was very ugly, 
 and what not : if he takes your aunt's watch, and you love 
 him, you will carry it erelong to the pawnbroker's, and per- 
 jure yourself, O, how you will perjure yourself, in 
 the witness-box ! I know this is a degrading view of wom- 
 an's noble nature, her exalted mission, and so forth, and 
 so forth. I know you will say this is bad morality. Is 
 it ? Do you, or do you not, expect your womankind to 
 stick by you for better or for worse ? Say I have com- 
 mitted a forgery, and the officers come in search of me, 
 is my wife, Mrs. Dodd, to show them into the dining- 
 room, and say, " Pray step in, gentlemen ! My husband 
 has just come home from church. That bill with my 
 Lord Chesterfield's acceptance, I am bound to own, was 
 never written by his lordship, and the signature is in the 
 doctor's handwriting " ? I say, would any man of sense, 
 or honor, or fine feeling, praise his wife for telling the 
 truth under such circumstances? Suppose she made a 
 fine grimace, and said, " Most painful as my position is, 
 most deeply as I feel for my William, yet truth must 
 prevail, and. I deeply lament to state that the beloved 
 partner of my life did commit the flagitious act with 
 which he is charged, and is at this present moment locat- 
 ed in the two-pair back, up the chimney, whither it is my 
 duty to lead you." Why, even Dodd himself, who was 
 one of the greatest humbugs who ever lived, would not 
 have had the face to say that he approved of his wife 
 telling the truth in such a case. Would you have had 
 Flora Macdonald beckon the officers, saying, " This way, 
 gentlemen ! You will find the young chevalier asleep in 
 that cavern." Or don't you prefer her to be splendide 
 
350 ON A MEDAL OF GEORGE THE FOURTH. 
 
 mendax, and ready at all risks to save him ? If ever I 
 lead a rebellion, and my women betray me, may I be 
 hanged but I will not forgive them ; and if ever I steal a 
 teapot, and my women don't stand up for me, pass the 
 articles under their shawls, whisk down the street with 
 it, outbluster the policeman, and utter any amount of fibs 
 before Mr. Beak ; those beings are not what I take them 
 to be, and for a fortune I won't give them so much 
 as a bad half-crown. 
 
 Is conscious guilt a source of unmixed pain to the 
 bosom which harbors it ? Has not your criminal, on the 
 contrary, an excitement, an enjoyment within quite un- 
 known to you and me who never did anything wrong in 
 our lives ? The housebreaker must snatch a fearful joy 
 as he walks unchallenged by the policeman with his sack 
 full of spoons and tankards. Do not cracksmen, when 
 assembled together, entertain themselves with stories of 
 glorious old burglaries which they or by-gone heroes have 
 committed ? But that my age is mature and my habits 
 formed I should really just like to try a little criminality. 
 Fancy passing a forged bill to your banker ; calling on a 
 friend and sweeping his sideboard of plate, his hall of 
 umbrellas and coats; and then going home . to dress for 
 dinner, say, and to meet a bishop, a judge, and a po- 
 lice magistrate or so, and talk more morally than any 
 man at table ! How I should chuckle (as my host's 
 spoons clinked softly in my pocket) whilst I was uttering 
 some noble speech about virtue, duty, charity ! I wonder 
 do we meet garroters in society? In an average tea- 
 party, now, how many returned convicts are there? 
 Does John Footman, when he asks permission to go and 
 spend the evening with some friends, pass his time in 
 thuggee ; waylay and strangle an old gentleman or two ; 
 let himself into your house, with the house-key, of 
 
ON A MEDAL OF GEORGE THE FOURTH. 351 
 
 course, and appear as usual with the shaving-water when 
 you ring your bell in the morning ? The very possibility 
 of such a suspicion invests John with a new and roman- 
 tic interest in my mind. Behind the grave politeness of 
 his countenance I try and read the lurking treason. 
 Full of this pleasing subject, I have been talking thief- 
 stories with a neighbor. The neighbor tells me how 
 some friends of her's used to keep a jewel-box under a 
 bed in their room ; and, going into the room, they thought 
 they heard a noise under the bed. They had the courage 
 to look. The cook was under the bed, under the bed 
 with the jewel-box. Of course she said she had come 
 for purposes connected with her business; but this was 
 absurd. A cook under a bed is not there for professional 
 purposes. A relation of mine had a box containing dia- 
 monds under her bed, which diamonds she told me were 
 to be mine. Mine ! One day, at dinner-time, between 
 the entrees and the roast, a cab drove away from my 
 relative's house containing the box wherein lay the dia- 
 monds. John laid the dessert, brought the coffee, waited 
 all the evening, and 0, how frightened he was when 
 he came to learn that his mistress's box had been con- 
 veyed out of her own room, and it contained diamonds, 
 " Law bless us, did it now ? " I wonder whether 
 John's subsequent career has been prosperous ? Per- 
 haps the gentlemen from Bow Street were all in the 
 wrong when they agreed in suspecting John as the author 
 of the robbery. His noble nature was hurt at the sus- 
 picion. You conceive he would not like to remain in a 
 family where they were mean enough to suspect him of 
 stealing a jewel-box out of a bedroom, and the injured 
 man and my relatives soon parted. But, inclining (with 
 my usual cynicism) to think that he did steal the valua- 
 bles, think of his life for the month or two whilst he still 
 
352 ON A MEDAL OF GEORGE THE FOURTH. 
 
 remains in the service ! He shows the officers over the 
 house, agrees with them that the coup must have been 
 made by persons familiar with it ; gives them every as- 
 sistance; pities his master and mistress with a manly 
 compassion ; points out what a cruel misfortune it is to 
 himself as an honest man, with his living to get and his 
 family to provide for, that this suspicion should fall on 
 him. Finally, he takes leave of his place, with a deep 
 though natural melancholy that ever he had accepted it. 
 What 's a thousand pounds to gentlefolks ? A loss, cer- 
 tainly ; but they will live as well without the diamonds 
 as with them. But to John his Hhhonor was worth 
 more than diamonds, his Hhonor was. Whohever is to 
 give him back his character? Who is to prevent hany 
 one from saying, " Ho yes. This is the butler which was 
 in the family where the diamonds was stole ? " &c. 
 
 I wonder has John prospered in life subsequently ? If 
 he is innocent, he does not interest me in the least. 
 The interest of the case lies in John's behavior supposing 
 him to be guilty. Imagine the smiling face, the daily 
 service, the orderly performance of duty, whilst within 
 John is suffering pangs lest discovery should overtake 
 him. Every bell of the door which he is obliged to open 
 may bring a police officer. The accomplices may peach. 
 What an exciting life John's must have been for a while. 
 And now, years and years after, when pursuit has long 
 ceased, and detection is impossible, does he ever revert to 
 the little transaction ? Is it possible those diamonds cost 
 a thousand pounds ? What a rogue the fence must have 
 been who only gave him so and so ! And I pleasingly 
 picture to myself an old ex-butler and an ancient receiver 
 of stolen goods meeting and talking over this matter, 
 which dates from times so early that the Queen's fair 
 image could only just have begun to be coined or forged. 
 
ON A MEDAL OF GEORGE THE FOURTH. 353 
 
 I choose to take John at the time when his little pec- 
 cadillo is suspected, perhaps, but when there is no specific 
 charge of robbery against him. He is not yet convicted : 
 he is not even on his trial ; how then can we venture to 
 say he is guilty ? Now think what scores of men and 
 women walk the world in a like predicament ; and what 
 false coin passes current ! Pinchbeck strives to pass off 
 his history as sound coin. He knows it is only base 
 metal, washed over with a thin varnish of learning. Polu- 
 phloisbos puts his sermons in circulation : sounding brass, 
 lackered over with white metal, and marked with the 
 stamp and image of piety. What say you to Dra wean- 
 sir's reputation as a military commander ? to Tibbs's pre- 
 tensions to be a fine gentleman ? to Sapphira's claims as 
 a poetess, or Rodoessa's as a beauty ? His bravery, his 
 piety, high birth, genius, beauty, each of these deceiv- 
 ers would palm his falsehood on u*, and have us accept 
 his forgeries as sterling coin. And we talk here, please 
 to observe, of weaknesses rather than crimes. Some of 
 us have more serious things to hide than a yellow cheek 
 behind a raddle of rouge, or a white poll under a wig of 
 jetty curls. You know, neighbor, there are not only 
 false teeth in this world, but false tongues : and some 
 make up a bust and an appearance of strength with pad- 
 ding, cotton, and what not ; while another kind of artist 
 tries to take you in by wearing under his waistcoat, and 
 perpetually thumping, an immense sham heart. Dear 
 sir, may yours and mine be found, at the right time, of 
 the proper size and in the right place. 
 
 And what has this to do with half-crowns, good or bad ? 
 Ah, friend ! may our coin, battered, and clipped, and de- 
 faced though it be, be proved to be Sterling Silver on the 
 day of the Great Assay ! 
 
ON ALEXANDRINES. 
 
 A LETTER TO SOME COUNTRY COUSINS 
 
 EAR COUSINS, Be pleased to receive here- 
 with a packet of MayaH's photographs, and 
 copies of " Illustrated News," " Illustrated 
 Times," " London Review," " Queen," and 
 " Observer," each containing an account of the notable 
 festivities of the past week. If besides these remem- 
 brances of home you have a mind to read a letter from 
 an old friend, behold here it is. When I was at school, 
 having left my parents in India, a good-natured captain 
 or colonel would come sometimes and see us Indian boys, 
 and talk to us about papa and mamma, and give us coins 
 of the realm, and write to our parents, and say, " I drove 
 over yesterday and saw Tommy at Dr. Birch's. I took 
 him to the George, and gave him a dinner. His appetite 
 is fine. He states that he is reading Cornelius Nepos, 
 with which he is much interested. His masters report," 
 &c. And though Dr. Birch wrote by the same mail a 
 longer, fuller, and official statement, I have no doubt the 
 distant parents preferred the friend's letter, with its art- 
 less, possibly ungrammatical, account of their little darling. 
 I have seen the young heir of Britain. These eyes 
 have beheld him and his bride, on Saturday in Pall 
 Mall (when they stopped for a while before the house of 
 
ON ALEXANDRINES. 355 
 
 Smith, Elder, and Co., and all within admired a lovely 
 cloak of purple velvet and sable worn by a lady of whose 
 appearance the photographers will enable you to judge), 
 and on Tuesday, in the nave of St. George's Chapel at 
 Windsor, when the young Princess Alexandra of Denmark 
 passed by with her blooming procession of bridesmaids ; 
 and half an hour later, when the Princess of Wales came 
 forth from the chapel, her husband by her side robed in 
 the purple mantle of the famous Order which his fore- 
 father established here five hundred years ago. We were 
 to see her yet once again, when her open carriage passed 
 out of the Castle gate to the station of the near railway 
 which was to convey her to Southampton. 
 
 Since womankind existed, has any woman ever had 
 such a greeting ? At ten hours' distance, there is a city 
 far more magnificent than ours. With every respect for 
 Kensington turnpike, I own that the Arc de 1'Etoile at 
 Paris is a much finer entrance to an imperial capital. In 
 our black, orderless, zigzag streets, we can show nothing 
 to compare with the magnificent array of the Rue de Riv- 
 oli, that enormous regiment of stone stretching for five 
 miles and presenting arms before the Tuileries. Think 
 of the late Fleet Prison and Waithman's Obelisk, and of 
 the Place de la Concorde and the Luxor Stone ! " The 
 finest site in Europe," as Trafalgar Square has been called 
 by some obstinate British optimist, is disfigured by tro- 
 phies, fountains, columns, and statues so puerile, disorderly, 
 and hideous, that a lover of the arts must hang the head 
 of shame as he passes to see our dear old queen city ar- 
 raying herself so absurdly ; but when all is said and done, 
 we can show one or two of the greatest sights in the 
 world. I doubt if any Roman festival was as vast or 
 striking as the Derby day, or if any Imperial triumph 
 
356 ON ALEXANDRINES. 
 
 could show such a prodigious muster of faithful people as 
 our young Princess saw on Saturday, when the nation 
 turned out to greet her. The calculators are squabbling 
 about the numbers of hundreds of thousands, of millions, 
 who came forth to see her and bid her welcome. Imagine 
 
 O 
 
 beacons flaming, rockets blazing, yards manned, ships and 
 forts saluting with their thunder, every steamer and ves- 
 sel, every town and village from Ramsgate to Gravesend, 
 swarming with happy gratulation ; young girls with flow- 
 ers, scattering roses before her ; staid citizens and alder- 
 men pushing and squeezing and panting to make the 
 speech, and bow the knee, and bid her welcome ! Who 
 is this who is honored with such a prodigious triumph, 
 and received with a welcome so astonishing ? A year 
 ago we had never heard of her. I think about her pedi- 
 gree and family not a few of us are in the dark still, and 
 I own, for my part, to be much puzzled by the allusions 
 of newspaper genealogists and bards and skalds to " Vi- 
 kings," Berserkers, and so forth. But it would be inter- 
 esting to know how many hundreds of thousands of 
 photographs of the fair bright face have by this time made 
 it beloved and familiar in British homes. Think of all 
 the quiet country nooks from Land's End to Caithness, 
 where kind eyes have glanced at it. The farmer brings 
 it home from market ; the curate from his visit to the 
 Cathedral town ; the rustic folk peer at it in the little vil- 
 lage shop window ; the squire's children gaze on it round 
 the drawing-room table : every eye that beholds it looks 
 tenderly on its bright beauty and sweet, artless grace, and 
 young and old pray God bless her. We have an elderly 
 friend (a certain Goody Twoshoes, who has been men- 
 tioned before in the pages of this Magazine), and who in- 
 habits, with many other old ladies, the Union-house of the 
 
ON ALEXANDRINES. 357 
 
 parish of St. Lazarus in Soho. One of your cousins from 
 this house went to see her, and found Goody and her com- 
 panion crones all in a flutter of excitement about the mar- 
 riage. The whitewashed walls of their bleak dormitory 
 were ornamented with prints out of the illustrated jour- 
 nals, and hung with festoons and true-lover's knots of 
 tape and colored paper ; and the old bodies had had a 
 good dinner, and the old tongues were chirping and clack- 
 ing away, all eager, interested, sympathizing ; and one 
 very elderly and rheumatic Goody, who is obliged to keep 
 her bed (and has, I trust, an exaggerated idea of the cares 
 attending on royalty), said, " Pore thing, pore thing ! I 
 pity her." Yes, even in that dim place there was a little 
 brightness and a quavering huzza, a contribution of a 
 mite subscribed by those dozen poor pld widows to the 
 treasure of loyalty with which the nation endows the 
 Prince's bride. 
 
 Three hundred years ago, when our dread Sovereign 
 Lady Elizabeth came to take possession of her realm and 
 capital city, Holingshed, if you please (whose pleasing 
 history of course you carry about with you), relates in 
 his fourth volume folio, that, " At hir entring the citie, 
 she was of the people received maruellous intierlie, as ap- 
 peared by the assemblies, praiers, welcommings, cries, and 
 all other signes which argued a woonderfull earnest loue " : 
 and at various halting-places on the royal progress chil- 
 dren habited like angels appeared out of allegoric edifices 
 and spoke verses to her : 
 
 Welcome, Queen, as much as heart can think, 
 
 Welcome again, as much as tongue can tell, 
 Welcome to jo} r ous tongues and hearts that will not shrink. 
 
 God thee preserve, we pray, and wish thee ever well ! 
 
 Our new Princess, you may be sure, has also had her 
 
358 ON ALEXANDRINES. 
 
 Alexandrines, and many minstrels have gone before her 
 singing her praises. Mr. Tupper, who begins in very 
 great force and strength, and who proposes to give her no 
 less than eight hundred thousand welcomes in the first 
 twenty lines of his ode, is not satisfied with this most lib- 
 eral amount of acclamation, but proposes at the end of his 
 poem a still more magnificent subscription. Thus we be- 
 gin, " A hundred thousand welcomes, a hundred thousand 
 welcomes." (In my copy the figures are in the well- 
 known Arabic numerals, but let us have the numbers lit- 
 erally accurate) : 
 
 A hundred thousand welcomes ! 
 A hundred thousand welcomes ! 
 
 And a hundred thousand more! 
 happy heart of England, 
 Shout aloud and sing, land, 
 As no land sang before ; 
 And let the pasans soar 
 And ring from shore to shore, 
 A hundred thousand welcomes, 
 And a hundred thousand more; 
 
 And let the cannons roar, 
 
 The joy-stunned city o'er. 
 And let the steeples chime it 
 A hundred thousand welcomes, 
 And a hundred thousand more; 
 
 And let the people rhyme it 
 
 From neighbor's door to door, 
 
 From every man's heart's core, 
 A hundred thousand welcomes 
 And a hundred thousand more. 
 
 This contribution, in twenty not long lines, of 900,000 
 (say nine hundred thousand) welcomes is handsome in- 
 deed ; and shows that when our bard is inclined to be lib- 
 eral, he does not look to the cost. But what is a sum of 
 900,000 to his further proposal ? 
 
ON ALEXANDRINES. 359 
 
 let all these declare it, 
 Let miles of shouting swear it, 
 
 In all the years of yore, 
 
 Unparalleled before ! 
 And thou, most welcome Wand'rer 
 
 Across the Northern Water, 
 Our England's ALEXANDRA, 
 
 Our dear adopted daughter, 
 
 Lay to thine heart, conned o'er and o'er, 
 
 In future years remembered well, 
 
 The magic fervor of this spell 
 That shakes the land from shore to shore, 
 And makes all hearts and eyes brim o'er; 
 
 Our hundred thousand welcomes, 
 
 Our fifty million welcomes, 
 And a hundred million more ! 
 
 Here we have, besides the most liberal previous sub- 
 scription, a further call on the public for no less than one 
 hundred and fifty million one hundred thousand welcomes 
 for her Royal Highness. How much is this per head for 
 all of us in the three kingdoms ? Not above five wel- 
 comes apiece, and I am sure many of us have given more 
 than five hurrahs to the fair young Princess. 
 
 Each man sings according to his voice, and gives in 
 proportion to his means. The guns at Sheerness, " from 
 their adamantine lips " (which had spoken in quarrelsome 
 old times a very different language), roared a hundred 
 thundering welcomes to the fair Dane. The maidens of 
 England strewed roses before her feet at Gravesend when 
 she landed. Mr. Tupper, with the million and odd wel- 
 comes, may be compared to the thundering fleet ; Mr. 
 Chorley's song to the flowerets scattered on her Royal 
 Highness's happy and carpeted path : 
 
 Blessings on that fair face ! 
 
 Safe on the shore 
 Of her home-dwelling place, 
 
 Stranger no more. 
 
360 ON ALEXANDRINES. 
 
 Love, from her household shrine 
 
 Keep sorrow far! 
 May, for her hawthorn twine, 
 June, bring sweet eglantine, 
 Autumn, the golden vine, 
 
 Dear Northern Star! 
 
 Hawthorn for May, eglantine for June, and in autumn 
 a little tass of the golden vine for our Northern Star. I 
 am sure no one will grudge the Princess these simple en- 
 joyments, and of the produce of the last-named pleasing 
 plant, I wonder how many bumpers were drunk to her 
 health on the happy day of her bridal ? As for the Lau- 
 reate's verses, I would respectfully liken his Highness to 
 a giant showing a beacon-torch on " a windy headland." 
 His flaring torch is a pine-tree, to be sure, which nobody 
 can wield but himself. He waves it : and four times in 
 the midnight he shouts mightily, " Alexandra ! " and the 
 Pontic pine is whirled into the ocean and Enceladus goes 
 home. 
 
 Whose muse, whose cornemuse, sounds with such 
 plaintive sweetness from Arthur's Seat, while Edinburgh 
 and Musselburgh lie rapt in delight, and the mermaids 
 come flapping up to Leith shore to hear the exquisite 
 music ? Sweeter piper Edina knows not than Aytoun, 
 the Bard of the Cavaliers, who has given in his frank ad- 
 hesion to the reigning dynasty. When a most beautiful, 
 celebrated, and unfortunate princess, whose memory the 
 Professor loves, when Mary, wife of Francis the Sec- 
 ond, King of France, and by her own right proclaimed 
 Queen of Scotland and England (poor soul !), entered 
 Paris with her young bridegroom, good Peter Ronsard 
 wrote of her, 
 
 Toi qui as veu 1'excellence de celle 
 Qui rend le ciel de 1'Escosse envieux, 
 
ON ALEXANDRINES. 361 
 
 Dy hardiment, contentez vous mes yeux, 
 Vous ne verrez jarnais chose plus belle.* 
 
 Vous ne verrez jamais chose plus belle. Here is an 
 Alexandrine written three hundred years ago, as simple 
 as bon jour. Professor Aytoun is more ornate. After 
 elegantly complimenting the spring, and a description of 
 her Royal Highness's well-known ancestors, "the Ber- 
 serkers," he bursts forth, 
 
 The Rose of Denmark comes, the Royal Bride ! 
 
 loveliest Rose ! our paragon and pride, 
 
 Choice of the Prince whom England holds so dear, 
 
 What homage shall we pay 
 
 To one who has no peer ? 
 
 What can the bard or wildered minstrel say 
 
 More than the peasant, who, on bended knee, 
 
 Breathes from his heart an earnest prayer for thee ? 
 
 Words are not fair, if that they would express 
 
 Is fairer still ; so lovers in dismay 
 
 Stand all abashed before that loveliness 
 
 They worship most, but find no words to pray. 
 
 Too sweet for incense ! (bravo!) Take our loves instead, 
 
 Most freely, truly, and devoutly given ; 
 
 Our prayer for blessings on that gentle head, 
 
 For earthly happiness and rest in heaven ! 
 
 May never sorrow dim those dove-like eyes, 
 
 But peace as pure as reigned in Paradise, 
 
 Calm and untainted on creation's eve, 
 
 Attend thee still ! May holy angels, &c. 
 
 This is all very well, my dear country cousins. But 
 will you say " Amen " to this prayer ? I won't. As- 
 suredly our fair Princess will shed many tears out of the 
 u dovelike eyes," or the heart will be little worth. Is she 
 to know no parting, no care, no anxious longing, no ten- 
 der watches by the sick, to deplore no friends and kin- 
 dred, and feel no grief? Heaven forbid ! When a bard 
 or wildered minstrel writes so, best accept his own con- 
 
 * Quoted in "Mignet's Life of Mary." 
 16 
 
362 ON ALEXANDRINES. 
 
 fession, that he is losing his head. On the day of her 
 entrance into London who looked more bright and happy 
 than the Princess ? On the day of the marriage, the 
 fair face wore its marks of care already, and looked out 
 quite grave, and frightened almost, under the wreaths 
 and lace and orange-flowers. Would you have had her 
 feel no tremor ? A maiden on the bridegroom's thresh- 
 old, a Princess led up to the steps of a throne ? I think 
 her pallor and doubt became her as well as her smiles. 
 That, I can tell you, was our vote who sat in X compart- 
 ment, let us say, in the nave of St. George's Chapel at 
 Windsor, and saw a part of one of the brightest ceremo- 
 nies ever performed there. 
 
 My dear cousin Mary, you have an account of the 
 dresses ; and I promise you there were princesses besides 
 the bride whom it did the eyes good to behold. Around 
 the bride sailed a bevy of young creatures so fair, white, 
 and graceful that I thought of those fairy-tale beauties who 
 are sometimes princesses, and sometimes white swans. 
 The Royal Princesses and the Royal Knights of the 
 Garter swept by in prodigious robes and trains of purple 
 velvet, thirty shillings a yard, my dear, not of course in- 
 cluding the lining, which, I have no doubt, was of the 
 richest satin, or that costly " miniver " which we used to 
 read about in poor Jerrold's writings. The young princes 
 were habited in kilts ; and by the side of the Princess 
 Royal trotted such a little wee solemn Highlander ! He 
 is the young heir and chief of the famous clan of Bran- 
 denburg. His eyrie is amongst the Eagles, and I pray no 
 harm may befall the dear little chieftain. 
 
 The heralds in their tabards were marvellous to behold, 
 and a nod from Rouge Croix gave me the keenest gratifi- 
 cation. I tried to catch Garter's eye, but either I could n't 
 
ON ALEXANDRINES. 363 
 
 or he would n't. In his robes, he is like one of the Three 
 Kings in old missal illuminations. Gold Stick in waiting 
 is even more splendid. With his gold rod and robes and 
 trappings of many colors, he looks like a royal enchanter, 
 and as if he had raised up all this scene of glamour by a 
 wave of his glittering wand. The silver trumpeters wear 
 such quaint caps, as those I have humbly tried to depict 
 on the playful heads of children. Behind the trumpeters 
 came a drum-bearer, on whose back a gold-laced drum- 
 mer drubbed his march. 
 
 When the silver clarions had blown, and, under a clear 
 chorus of white-robed children chanting round the organ, 
 the noble procession passed into the chapel, and was hid- 
 den from our sight for a while, there was silence, or from 
 the inner chapel ever so faint a hum. Then hymns arose, 
 and in the lull we knew that prayers were being said, and 
 the sacred rite performed which joined Albert Edward to 
 Alexandra his wife. I am sure hearty prayers were 
 offered outside the gate as well as within for that princely 
 young pair, and for their Mother and Queen. The peace, 
 the freedom, the happiness, the order which her rule 
 guarantees, are part of my birthright as an Englishman, 
 and I bless God for my share. Where else shall I find 
 such liberty of action, thought, speech, or laws which pro- 
 tect me so well ? Her part of her compact with her peo- 
 ple, what sovereign ever better performed ? If ours sits 
 apart from the festivities of the day, it is because she 
 suffers from a grief so recent that the loyal heart cannot 
 master it as yet, and remains treu und fest to a beloved 
 memory. A part of the music which celebrates the day's 
 service was composed by the husband who is gone to the 
 place where the just and pure of life meet the reward 
 promised by the Father of all of us to good and faithful 
 
364 ON ALEXANDRINES. 
 
 servants who have well done here below. As this one 
 gives in his account, surely we may remember how the 
 Prince was the friend of all peaceful arts and learning ; 
 how he was true and fast always to duty, home, honor ; 
 how, through a life of complicated trials, he was sagacious, 
 righteous, active, and self-denying. And as we trace in 
 the young faces of his many children the father's features 
 and likeness, what Englishman will not pray that they 
 may have inherited also some of the great qualities which 
 won for the Prince Consort the love and respect of our 
 country ? 
 
 The papers tell us how, on the night of the marriage 
 of the Prince of Wales, all over England and Scotland 
 illuminations were made, the poor and children were 
 feasted, and in village and city thousands of kindly 
 schemes were devised to mark the national happiness 
 and sympathy. "The bonfire on Coptpoint at Folke- 
 stone was seen in France," the Telegraph says, " more 
 clearly than even the French marine lights could be seen 
 at Folkestone." Long may the fire continue to burn ! 
 There are European coasts (and inland places) where 
 the liberty light has been extinguished, or is so low that 
 you can't see to read by it, there are great Atlantic 
 shores where it flickers and smokes very gloomily. Let 
 us be thankful to the honest guardians of ours, and for 
 the kind sky under which it burns bright and steady. 
 
THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 
 
 A STORY A LA MODE. 
 
 PAET I. 
 
 VERY one remembers in the Fourth Book of 
 the immortal poem of your Blind Bard (to 
 whose sightless orbs no doubt Glorious Shapes 
 were apparent, and Visions Celestial), how 
 
 Adam discourses to Eve of the Bright Visitors who 
 
 hovered round their Eden, 
 
 " Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth, 
 Unseen both when we wake and when we sleep." 
 
 " ' How often/ says Father Adam, l from the steep of 
 echoing hill or thicket, have we heard celestial voices to 
 the midnight air, sole, or responsive to each other's notes, 
 singing ! ' After the Act of Disobedience, when the 
 erring pair from Eden took their solitary way, and went 
 forth to toil and trouble on common earth, though the 
 Glorious Ones no longer were visible, you cannot say 
 they were gone ? It was not that the Bright Ones were 
 absent, but that the dim eyes of rebel man no longer could 
 see them. In your chamber hangs a picture of one whom 
 you never knew, but whom you have long held in tender- 
 est regard, and who was painted for you by a friend of 
 mine, the Knight of Plympton. She communes with you. 
 She smiles on you. When your spirits are low, her 
 
366 THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 
 
 bright eyes shine on you and cheer you. Her innocent 
 sweet smile is a caress to you. She never fails to soothe 
 you with her speechless prattle. You love her. She is 
 alive with you. As you extinguish your candle and turn 
 to sleep, though your eyes see her not, is she not there 
 still smiling ? As you lie in the night awake, and think- 
 ing of your duties, and the morrow's inevitable toil op- 
 pressing the busy, weary, wakeful brain as with a remorse, 
 the crackling fire flashes up for a moment in the grate, 
 and she is there, your little Beauteous Maiden, smiling 
 with her sweet eyes ! When moon is down, when fire is 
 out, when curtains are drawn, when lids are closed, is she 
 not there, the little Beautiful One, though invisible, pres- 
 ent and smiling still? Friend, the Unseen Ones are 
 round about us. Does it not seem as if the time were 
 drawing near when it shall be given to men to behold 
 them?" 
 
 The print of which my friend spoke, and which, indeed, 
 hangs in my room, though he has never been there, is 
 that charming little winter piece of Sir Joshua, represent- 
 ing the little Lady Caroline Montagu, afterwards Duch- 
 ess of Buccleuch. She is represented as standing in the 
 midst of a winter landscape, wrapped in muff and cloak : 
 and she looks out of her picture with a smile so exquisite 
 that a Herod could not see her without being charmed. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mr. PINTO," I said to the person 
 with whom I was conversing. (I wonder, by the way, 
 that I was not surprised at his knowing how fond I am of 
 this print.) " You spoke of the Knight of Plympton. 
 Sir Joshua died, 1792 : and you say he was your dear 
 friend ? " 
 
 As I spoke I chanced to look at Mr. Pinto ; and then 
 it suddenly struck me : Gracious powers ! Perhaps you 
 
THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 367 
 
 are a hundred years old, now I think of it. You look 
 more than a hundred. Yes, you may be a thousand years 
 old for what I know. Your teeth are false. One eye is 
 evidently false. Can I say that the other is not ? If a 
 man's age may be calculated by the rings round his eyes, 
 this man may be as old as Methuselah. He has no 
 beard. He wears a large curly glossy brown wig, and 
 his eyebrows are painted a deep olive-green. It was odd 
 to hear this man, this walking mummy, talking sentiment, 
 in these queer old chambers in Shepherd's Inn. 
 
 Pinto passed a yellow bandanna handkerchief over his 
 awful white teeth, and kept his glass eye steadily fixed 
 on me. "Sir Joshua's friend ?" said he (you perceive, 
 eluding my direct question). " Is not every on-e that 
 knows his pictures Reynolds's friend ? Suppose I tell 
 you that I have been in his painting room scores of times, 
 and that his sister The has made me tea, and his sister 
 Toffy has made coffee for me ? You will only say I am 
 an old ombog." (Mr. Pinto, I remarked, spoke all lan- 
 guages with an accent equally foreign.) " Suppose I tell 
 you that I knew Mr. Sam Johnson, and did not like him ? 
 that I was at that very ball at Madame Cornelis's, which 
 you have mentioned in one of your little what do you 
 call them ? bah ! my memory begins to fail me, in 
 one of your little Whirligig Papers ? Suppose I tell you 
 that Sir Joshua has been here, in this very room ? " 
 
 " Have you, then, had these apartments for more 
 than seventy years ? " I asked. 
 
 "They look as if they had not been swept for that 
 time, don't they ? Hey ? I did not say that I had 
 them for seventy years, but that Sir Joshua has visited 
 me here." 
 
 " When ? " I asked, eying the man sternly, for I be- 
 gan to think he was an impostor. 
 
368 THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 
 
 He answered me with a glance still more stern : " Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds was here this very morning, with Angel- 
 ica Kaufmann, and Mr. Oliver Goldschmidt. He is still 
 very much attached to Angelica, who still does not care 
 for him. Because he is dead (and I was in the fourth 
 mourning coach at his funeral) is that any reason why he 
 should not come back to earth again ? My good sir, you 
 are laughing at me. He has sat many a time on that 
 very chair which you are occupying. There are several 
 spirits in the room now, whom you cannot see. Excuse 
 me." Here he turned round as if he was addressing 
 somebody, and began rapidly speaking a language un- 
 known to me. " It is Arabic," he said ; " a bad patois, I 
 own. I learned it in Barbary, when I was a prisoner 
 amongst the Moors. In anno 1609, bin ick aldus ghek- 
 ledt gheghaen. Ha ! you doubt me : look at me well. 
 At least I am like " 
 
 Perhaps some of my readers remember a paper of 
 which the figure of a man carrying a barrel formed the 
 initial letter, and which I copied from an old spoon now 
 in my possession. As I looked at Mr. Pinto, I do declare 
 he looked so like the figure on that old piece of plate that 
 I started and felt very uneasy. " Ha ! " said he, laugh- 
 ing through his false teeth (I declare they were false, 
 I could see utterly toothless gums working up and down 
 behind the pink coral), " you see I wore a beard den ; I 
 am shafed now ; perhaps you tink I am a spoon. Ha, 
 ha ! " And as he laughed he gave a cough which I 
 thought would have coughed his teeth out, his glass eye 
 out, his wig off, his very head off; but he stopped this 
 convulsion by stumping across the room and seizing a lit- 
 tle bottle of bright pink medicine, which, being opened, 
 spread a singular acrid aromatic odor through the apart- 
 
THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 369 
 
 ment ; and I thought I saw but of this I cannot take 
 an affirmation a light green and violet flame flickering 
 round the neck of the phial as he opened it. By the 
 way, from the peculiar stumping noise which he made in 
 crossing the bare-boarded apartment, I knew at once that 
 my strange entertainer had a wooden leg. Over the dust 
 which lay quite thick on the boards, you could see the 
 mark of one foot very neat and pretty, and then a round 
 O, which was naturally the impression made by the wood- 
 en stump. I own I had a queer thrill as I saw that mark, 
 and felt a secret comfort that it was not cloven. 
 
 In this desolate apartment in which Mr. Pinto had in- 
 vited me to see him, there were three chairs, one bottom- 
 less, a little table on which you might put a breakfast- 
 tray, and not a single other article of furniture. In the 
 next room, the door of which was open, I could see a 
 magnificent gilt dressing-case, with some splendid dia- 
 mond and ruby shirt-studs lying by it, and a chest of 
 drawers, and a cupboard apparently full of clothes. 
 
 Remembering him in Baden Baden in great magnifi- 
 cence, I wondered at his present denuded state. " You 
 have a house elsewhere, Mr. Pinto ? " I said. 
 
 " Many," says he. " I have apartments in many cities. 
 I lock dem up, and do not cary mosh logish." 
 
 I then remembered that his apartment at Baden, where 
 I first met him, was bare, and had no bed in it. 
 
 " There is, then, a sleeping-room beyond ? " 
 
 " This is the sleeping-room." (He pronounces it dis.) 
 Can this, by the way, give any clew to the nationality of 
 this singular man ? 
 
 " If you sleep on these two old chairs you have a rickety 
 couch ; if on the floor, a dusty one." 
 
 " Suppose I sleep up dere ? " said this strange man, and 
 16* x 
 
370 THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 
 
 he actually pointed up to the ceiling. I thought him mad, 
 or what he himself called an ombog. " I know. You do 
 not believe me ; for why should I deceive you ? I came 
 but to propose a matter of business to you. I told you I 
 could give you the clew to the mystery of the Two Chil- 
 dren in Black, whom we met at Baden, and you came to 
 see me. If I told you, you^would not believe me. What 
 for try and convinz you ? Ha hey ? " And he shook 
 his hand once, twice, thrice, at me, and glared at me out 
 of his eye in a peculiar way. 
 
 Of what happened now I protest I cannot give an ac- 
 curate account. It seemed to me that there shot a flame 
 from his eye into my brain, whilst behind his glass eye 
 there was a green illumination as if a candle had been lit 
 in it. It seemed to me that from his long fingers two 
 quivering flames issued, sputtering, as it were, which 
 penetrated me, and forced me back into one of the chairs, 
 the broken one, out of which I had much difficulty 
 in scrambling, when the strange glamour was ended. It 
 seemed to me that, when I was so fixed, so transfixed in 
 the broken chair, the man floated up to. the ceiling, 
 crossed his legs, folded his arms as if he was lying on a 
 sofa, and grinned down at me. When I came to myself he 
 was down from the ceiling, and, taking me out of the 
 broken cane-bottomed chair, kindly enough, " Bah ! " 
 said he, " it is the smell of my medicine. It often gives the 
 vertigo. I thought you would have had a little fit. Come 
 into the open air." And we went down the steps, and 
 into Shepherd's Inn, where the setting sun was just shining 
 on the statue of Shepherd ; the laundresses were trapesing 
 about ; the porters were leaning against the railings ; and 
 the clerks were playing at marbles, to my inexpressible 
 consolation. 
 
THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 371 
 
 " You said you were going to dine at the Gray's-inn 
 Coffee-house," he said. I was. I often dine there. There 
 is excellent wine at the Gray's-inn Coffee-house ; but I 
 declare I NEVER SAID so. I was not astonished at his 
 remark ; no more astonished than if I was in a dream. 
 Perhaps I was in a dream. Is life a dream ? Are dreams 
 facts ? Is sleeping being really awake ? I don't know. 
 I tell you I am puzzled. I have read " The Woman in 
 White," u The Strange Story," not to mention that 
 story stranger than fiction in the " Cornhill Magazine," 
 that story for which THREE credible witnesses are ready 
 to vouch. I have read that Article in " The Times " 
 about Mr. Foster. I have had messages from the dead ; 
 and not only from the dead, but from people who never 
 existed at all. I own I am in a state of much bewilder- 
 ment ; but, if you please, will proceed with my simple, 
 my artless story. 
 
 Well, then. We passed from Shepherd's Inn into Hoi- 
 born, and looked for a while at Woodgate's bric-a-brac 
 shop, which I never can pass without delaying at the 
 windows, indeed, if I were going to be hung, I would 
 beg the cart to stop, and let me have one look more at 
 that delightful omnium gatherum. And passing Wood- 
 gate's, we come to Gale's little shop, No. 47, which is also 
 a favorite haunt of mine. 
 
 Mr. Gale happened to be at his door, and as we ex- 
 changed salutations, " Mr. Pinto," I said, " will you like 
 to see a real curiosity in this curiosity shop ? Step into 
 Mr. Gale's little back room." 
 
 In that little back parlor there are Chinese gongs ; there 
 are old Saxe and Sevres plates ; there is Fiirstenberg, 
 Carl. Theodor, Worcester, Amstel, Nankin and other 
 jimcrockery. And in the corner what do you think there 
 
372 THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 
 
 is ? There is an actual GUILLOTINE. If you doubt 
 me, go and see, Gale, High Holborn, No. 47. It is a 
 slim instrument, much slighter than those which they 
 make now ; some nine feet high, narrow, a pretty piece 
 of upholstery enough. ' There is the hook over which the 
 rope used to play which unloosened the dreadful axe 
 above ; and look ! dropped into the orifice where the 
 head used to go, there is THE AXE itself, all rusty with 
 
 A GREAT NOTCH IN THE BLADE. 
 
 As Pinto looked at it, Mr. Gale was not in the room, 
 I recollect, happening to have been just called out by 
 a customer who offered him three pound fourteen and 
 sixpence for a blue Shepherd in pate tendre, Mr. Pinto 
 gave a little start, and seemed crispe for a moment. Then 
 he looked steadily towards one of those great porcelain 
 stools which you see in gardens, and, it seemed to me, 
 I tell you I won't take my affidavit, I may have been 
 maddened by the six glasses I took of that pink elixir, 
 I may have been sleep-walking, perhaps am as I write 
 now, I may have been under the influence of that as- 
 tounding MEDIUM into whose hands I had fallen, 
 but I vow I heard Pinto say, with rather a ghastly grin 
 at the porcelain stool, 
 
 "Nay, nefer shague your gory locks at me, 
 Dou canst not say I did it." 
 
 (He pronounced it, by the way, I dit it, by which I know 
 that Pinto was a German.) 
 
 I heard Pinto say those very words, and sitting on the 
 porcelain stool I saw, dimly at first, then with an awful 
 distinctness, a ghost, an eidolon, a form, A 
 HEADLESS MAN seated, with his head in his lap, which 
 wore an expression of piteous surprise. 
 
 At this minute, Mr. Gale entered from the front shop 
 
THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 373 
 
 to show a customer some delf plates ; and he did not see 
 but we did the figure rise up from the porcelain 
 stool, shake its head, which it held in its hand, and which 
 kept its eyes fixed sadly on us, and disappear behind the 
 guillotine. 
 
 " Come to the Gray's-inn Coffee-house," Pinto said, 
 " and I will tell you how the notch came to the axe" And 
 we walked down Holborn at about thirty-seven minutes 
 past six o'clock. 
 
 If there is anything in the above statement which 
 astonishes the reader, I promise him that in the next chap- 
 ter of this little story he will be astonished still more. 
 
 PAKT II. 
 
 U will excuse me," I said to my companion, " for 
 remarking, that when you addressed the the 
 individual sitting on the porcelain stool, with his head in 
 his lap, your ordinarily benevolent features " (this I 
 confess was a bouncer, for between ourselves a more 
 sinister and ill-looking rascal than Mons. P. I have sel- 
 dom set eyes on) " your ordinarily handsome face 
 wore an expression that was by no means pleasing. You 
 grinned at the individual just as you did at me when 
 
 you went up to the cei , pardon me, as I thought you 
 
 did, when I fell down in a fit in your chambers " ; and I 
 qualified my words in a great flutter and tremble ; I did 
 not care to offend the man, I did not dare to offend 
 the man. I thought once or twice of jumping into a cab 
 and flying ; of taking refuge in Day and Martin's Black- 
 ing Warehouse ; of speaking to a policeman, but not one 
 
374 THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 
 
 would come. I was this man's slave. I followed him like 
 his dog. I could not get away from him. So, you see, I 
 went on meanly conversing with him, and affecting a sim- 
 pering confidence. I remember when I was a little boy 
 at school, going up fawning and smiling in this way to 
 some great hulking bully of a sixth-form boy. So I said 
 in a word, " Your ordinarily handsome face wore a disa- 
 greeable expression," &c. 
 
 " It is ordinarily very handsome," said he, with such a 
 leer at a couple of passers-by, that one of them cried, 
 " O, crikey, here 's a precious guy ! " and a child, in its 
 nurse's arms, screamed itself into convulsions. " 0, oui, 
 che suis tres-choli garcon, bien peau, cerdainement" con- 
 tinued Mr. Pinto ; " but you were right. That that 
 person was not very well pleased, when he saw me. 
 There was no love lost between us, as you say ; and the 
 world never knew a more worthless miscreant. I hate 
 him, voyez-vouz ? I hated him alife ; I hate him dead. 
 I hate him man ; I hate him ghost : and he know it, and 
 tremble before me. If I see him twenty tausend years 
 hence and why not ? I shall hate him still. You 
 remarked how he was dressed ? " 
 
 " In black satin breeches and striped stockings ; a 
 white pique waistcoat, a gray coat, with large metal but- 
 tons, and his hair in powder. He must have worn a pig- 
 tail only " 
 
 " Only it was cut off Ha, ha, ha ! " Mr. Pinto cried, 
 yelling a laugh, which, I observed, made the policemen 
 stare very much. " Yes. It was cut off by the same 
 blow which took off the scoundrel's head, ho, ho, ho ! " 
 And he made a circle with his hook-nailed finger round 
 his own yellow neck, and grinned with a horrible triumph. 
 " I promise you that fellow was surprised when he found 
 
THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 375 
 
 his head in the pannier. Ha, ha ! Do you ever cease 
 to hate those whom you hate ? " fire flashed terrifically 
 from his glass eye, as he spoke " or to love dose whom 
 you once loved. 0, never, never ! " And here his natu- 
 ral eye was bedewed with tears. " But here we are at 
 the Gray's-inn Coffee-house. James, what is the joint ? " 
 
 That very respectful and efficient waiter brought in the 
 bill of fare, and I, for my part, chose boiled leg of pork 
 and pease-pudding, which my acquaintance said would do 
 as well as anything else ; though I remarked he only 
 trifled with the pease-pudding, and left all the pork on 
 the plate. In fact, he scarcely ate anything. But he 
 drank a prodigious quantity of wine ; and I must say 
 that my friend Mr. Hart's port wine 'is so good that I my- 
 self took well, I should think I took three glasses. 
 Yes, three, certainly, ffe, I mean Mr. P., the old 
 rogue, was insatiable: for we had to call for a second 
 bottle in no time. When that was gone, my companion 
 wanted another. A little red mounted up to his yellow 
 cheeks as he drank the wine, and he winked at it in a 
 strange manner. " I remember," said he, musing, " when 
 port wine was scarcely drunk in this country, though 
 the Queen liked it, and so did Harley ; but Bolingbroke 
 did n't, he drank Florence and champagne. Dr. Swift 
 put water to his wine. ' Jonathan,' I once said to him 
 but bah ! autres temps, autres mceurs. Another magnum, 
 James." 
 
 This was all very well. " My good sir," I said, " it 
 may suit you to order bottles of '20 port, at a guinea a 
 bottle ; but that kind of price does not suit me. I only 
 happen to have thirty-four and sixpence in my pocket, of 
 which I want a shilling for the waiter, and eighteen-pence 
 for my cab. You rich foreigners and swells may spend 
 
376 THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 
 
 what you like " (I had him there : for my friend's dress 
 was as shabby as an old-clothes-man's) ; "but a man with 
 a family, Mr. What-d'you-call'im, cannot afford to spend 
 seven or eight hundred a year on his dinner alone." 
 
 " Bah ! " he said. " Nunkey pays for all, as you say. 
 I will what you call stant the dinner, if you are so poor!" 
 and again he gave that disagreeable grin, and placed an 
 odious crooked-nailed, and by no means clean finger to 
 his nose. But I was not so afraid of him now, for we 
 were in a public place ; and the two half-glasses of port 
 wme had, you see, given me courage. 
 
 " What a pretty snuff-box ! " he remarked, as I handed 
 him mine, which I am still old-fashioned enough to carry. 
 It is a pretty old gold box enough, but valuable to me 
 especially as a relic of an old, old relative, whom I can 
 just remember as a child, when she was very kind to me. 
 " Yes ; a pretty box. I can remember when many ladies, 
 most ladies, carried a box, nay, two boxes, taba- 
 tiere and bonbonniere. What lady carries snuff-box now, 
 hey ? Suppose your astonishment if a lady in an assem- 
 bly were to offer you a prise ? I can remember a lady 
 with such a box as this, with a tour, as we used to call 
 it then ; with paniers, with a tortoise-shell cane, with the 
 prettiest little high-heeled velvet shoes in the world ! 
 ah ! that was a time, that was a time ! Ah, Eliza, Eliza, 
 I have thee now in my mind's eye ! At Bungay on the 
 Waveney, did I not walk with thee, Eliza? Aha, did 
 I not love thee ? Did I not walk with thee then ? Do I 
 not see thee still ? " 
 
 This was passing strange. My ancestress but there 
 is no need to publish her revered name did indeed live 
 at Bungay Saint Mary's, where she lies buried. She 
 used to walk with a tortoise-shell cane. She used to 
 
THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 377 
 
 wear little black velvet shoes, with the prettiest high 
 heels in the world. 
 
 "Did you did you know, then, my great gr-ndm- 
 ther ? " I said. 
 
 He pulled up his coat-sleeve, " Is that her name ? " 
 he said. 
 
 Eliza " 
 
 There, I declare, was the very name of the kind old 
 creature written in red on his arm. 
 
 " You knew her old," he said, divining my thoughts 
 (with his strange knack) ; " /knew her young and lovely. 
 I danced with her at the Bury ball. Did I not, dear, 
 dear Miss ? " 
 
 As I live, he here mentioned dear gr-nny's maiden 
 name. Her maiden name was Her honored mar- 
 ried name was 
 
 " She married your great gr-ndf-th-r the year Poseidon 
 won the Newmarket Plate," Mr. Pinto dryly remarked. 
 
 Merciful powers ! I remember, over the old shagreen 
 knife and spoon case on the sideboard in my gr-nny's 
 parlor, a print by Stubbs of that very horse. My grand- 
 sire, in a red coat and his fair hair flowing over his 
 shoulders, was over the mantel-piece, and Poseidon won 
 the Newmarket Cup in the year 1783 ! 
 
 " Yes ; you are right. I danced a minuet with her at 
 Bury that very night, before I lost my poor leg. And I 
 quarrelled with your grandf , ha!" 
 
 As he said "Ha ! " there came three quiet little taps on 
 the table, it is the middle table in t|ie Gray's-inn Cof- 
 fee-house, under the bust of the late Duke of W-11-ngt-n. 
 
 " I fired in the air," he continued ; " did I not ? " 
 (Tap, tap, tap.) " Your grandfather hit me in the leg. 
 He married three months afterwards. ' Captain Brown,' 
 
378 THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 
 
 I said, ' who could see Miss Sm-th without loving her ? ' 
 She is there ! She is there ! " (Tap, tap, tap.) " Yes, 
 my first love " 
 
 But here there came tap, tap, which everybody knows 
 means " No." 
 
 " I forgot," he said, with a faint blush stealing over his 
 
 wan features, " she was not my first love. In Germ 
 
 in my own country there was a young woman " 
 
 Tap, tap, tap. There was here quite a lively little 
 treble knock ; and when the old man said, " But I loved 
 thee better than all the world, Eliza," the affirmative sig- 
 nal was briskly repeated. 
 
 And this I declare UPON MY HONOR. There was, I 
 have said, a bottle of port wine before us, I should say 
 a decanter. That decanter was LIFTED UP, and out of it 
 into our respective glasses two bumpers of wine were 
 poured. I appeal to Mr. Hart, the landlord, I appeal 
 to James, the respectful and intelligent waiter, if this 
 statement is not true ? And when we had finished that 
 magnum, and I said, for I did not now in the least 
 doubt of her presence, " Dear gr-nny, may we have 
 another magnum ? " the table distinctly rapped " No." 
 
 " Now, my good sir," Mr. Pinto said, who really began 
 to be affected by the wine, " you understand the interest 
 
 I have taken in you. I loved Eliza " (of course 
 
 I don't mention family names). " I knew you had that 
 box which belonged to her, I will give you what you 
 like for that box. Name your price at once, and I pay 
 you on the spot." 
 
 " Why, when we came out, you said you had not six- 
 pence in your pocket." 
 
 " Bah ! give you anything you like, fifty, a hun- 
 dred, a tausend pound." 
 
THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 379 
 
 " Come, come," said I, " the gold of the box may be 
 worth nine guineas, and the fagon we will put at six 
 more." 
 
 " One tausend guineas ! " he screeched. " One tau- 
 sand and fifty pound, dere ! " and he sank back in his 
 chair, no, by the way, on his bench, for he was sitting 
 with his back to one of the partitions of the boxes, as I 
 dare say James remembers. 
 
 " Don't go on in this way," I continued, rather weak- 
 ly, for I did not know whether I was in a dream. " If 
 you offer me a thousand guineas for this box I must take 
 it. Must n't I, dear gr-nny ? " 
 
 The table most distinctly said, " Yes " ; and putting 
 out his claws to seize the box, Mr. Pinto plunged his 
 hooked nose into it, and eagerly inhaled some of my 47 
 with a dash of Hardman. 
 
 " But stay, you old harpy ! " I exclaimed, being now 
 in a sort of rage, and quite familiar with him. " Where 
 is the money ? Where is the check ? " 
 
 " James, a piece of note-paper and a receipt stamp ! " 
 
 " This is all mighty well, sir," I said, but I don't know 
 you ; I never saw you before. I will trouble you to 
 hand me that box back again, or give me a check with 
 some known signature." 
 
 "Whose? Ha, HA, HA!" 
 
 The room happened to be very dark. Indeed, all the 
 waiters were gone to supper, and there were only two 
 gentlemen snoring in their respective boxes. I saw a 
 hand come quivering down from the ceiling, a very 
 pretty hand, on which was a ring with a coronet, with a 
 lion rampant gules for a crest. / saw that hand take a 
 dip of ink and write across the paper. Mr. Pinto then, 
 taking a gray receipt stamp out of his blue leather pocket- 
 
380 THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 
 
 book, fastened it on to the paper by the usual process ; 
 and the hand then wrote across the receipt stamp, went 
 across the table and shook hands with Pinto, and then, 
 as if waving him an adieu, vanished in the direction of 
 the ceiling. 
 
 There was the paper before me, wet with the ink. 
 There was the pen which THE HAND had used. Does 
 anybody doubt me ? / have that pen now. A cedar 
 stick of a not uncommon sort, and holding one of Gillott's 
 pens. It is in my inkstand now, I tell you. Anybody 
 may see it. The handwriting on the check, for such the 
 document was, was the writing of a female. It ran thus : 
 "London, midnight, March 31, 1862. Pay the bearer 
 one thousand and fifty pounds. Rachel Sidonia. To 
 Messrs. Sidonia, Pozzosanto, & Co., London." 
 
 " Noblest and best of women ! " said Pinto, kissing the 
 sheet of paper with much reverence ; " my good Mr. 
 Roundabout, I suppose you do not question that signa- 
 ture ? " 
 
 Indeed, the house of Sidonia, Pozzosanto, & Co. is 
 known to be one of the richest in Europe, and as for the 
 Countess Rachel, she was known to be the chief manager 
 of that enormously wealthy establishment. There was 
 only one little difficulty, the Countess Rachel died last 
 October. 
 
 I pointed out this circumstance, and tossed over the pa- 
 per to Pinto with a sneer. 
 
 " C'est a brendre ou a laisser" he said with some heat. 
 " You literary men are all imbrudent ; but I did not 
 tink you such a fool wie dis. Your box is not worth 
 twenty pound, and I offer you a tausend because I know 
 you want money to pay dat rascal Tom's college bills." 
 (This strange man actually knew that my scapegrace 
 
THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 381 
 
 Tom has been a source of great expense and annoyance 
 to me.) " You see money costs me nothing, and you re- 
 fuse to take it ! Once, twice ; will you take this check 
 in exchange for your trumpery snuff-box ? " 
 
 What could I do ? My poor granny's legacy was valu- 
 able and dear to me, but after all a thousand guineas are 
 not to be had every day. "Be it a bargain," said I. 
 " Shall we have a glass of wine on it ? " says Pinto ; and 
 to this proposal I also unwillingly acceded, reminding 
 him, by the way, that he had not yet told me the story of 
 the headless man. 
 
 " Your poor gr-ndm-ther was right, just now, when she 
 said she was not my first love. 'T was one of those banales 
 expressions " (here Mr. P. blushed once more) " which 
 we use to women. We tell each she is our first passion. 
 They reply with a similar illusory formula. No man is 
 any woman's first love ; no woman any man's. We are 
 in love in our nurse's arms, and women coquette with 
 their eyes before their tongue can form a word. How 
 could your lovely relative love me ? I was far, far too 
 old for her. I am older than I look. I am so old that 
 you would not believe my age were I to tell you. I 
 have loved many and many a woman before your rela- 
 tive. It has not always been fortunate for them to love 
 me. Ah, Sophronia ! Round the dreadful circus where 
 you fell, and whence I was dragged corpse-like by 
 the heels, there sat multitudes more savage than the 
 lions which mangled your sweet form ! Ah, tenez ! when 
 we marched to the terrible stake together at Valladolid, 
 the Protestant and the J . But away with mem- 
 ory ! Boy ! It was happy for thy grandam that she 
 loved me not. 
 
 " During that strange period," he went on, " when the 
 
382 THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 
 
 teeming Time was great with the revolution that was 
 speedily to be born, I was on a mission in Paris with my 
 excellent, my maligned friend, Cagliostro. Mesmer was 
 one of our band. I seemed to occupy but an obscure 
 rank in it ; though, as you know, in secret societies the 
 humble man may be a chief and director, the ostensible 
 leader but a puppet moved by unseen hands. Never 
 mind who was chief, or who was second. Never mind 
 my age. It boots not to tell it : why shall I expose my- 
 self to your scornful incredulity, or reply to your 
 questions in words that are familiar^to you, but which yet 
 you cannot understand? Words are symbols of things 
 which you know, or of things which you don't know. If 
 you don't know them, to speak is idle." (Here I confess 
 Mr. P. spoke for exactly thirty-eight minutes, about 
 physics, metaphysics, language, the origin and destiny of 
 man, during which time I was rather bored, and, to relieve 
 my ennui, drank a half-glass or so of wine.) " LOVE, 
 friend, is the fountain of youth ! It may not happen to 
 me once, once in an age: but when I love, then I am 
 young. I loved when I was in Paris. Bathilde, 
 Bathilde, I loved thee, ah, how fondly ! Wine, I say, 
 more wine ! Love is ever young. I was a boy at the 
 little feet of Bathilde de Bechamel, the fair, the fond, 
 the fickle, ah, the false ! " The strange old man's agony 
 was here really terrific, and he showed himself much 
 more agitated than he had been when speaking about 
 my gr-ndm-th-r. 
 
 " I thought Blanche might love me. I could speak to 
 her in the language of all countries, and tell her the 
 lore of all ages. I could trace the nursery legends which 
 she loved up to their Sanscrit source, and whisper to her 
 the darkling mysteries of Egyptian Magi. I could chant 
 
THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 383 
 
 for her the wild chorus that rang in the dishevelled Eleu- 
 sinian revel: I could tell her, and I would, the watch- 
 word never known but to one woman, the Saban queen, 
 which Hiram breathed in the abysmal ear of Solomon. 
 You don't attend. Psha ! you have drunk too much 
 wine ! " Perhaps I may as well own that 1 was not 
 attending, for he had been carrying on for about fifty- 
 seven minutes; and I don't like a man to have all the 
 talk to himself. 
 
 "Blanche de Bechamel was wild, then, about this 
 secret of Masonry. In early, early days I loved, I mar- 
 ried a girl fair as Blanche, who, too, was tormented by 
 curiosity, who, too, would peep into my closet, into the 
 only secret I guarded from her. A dreadful fate befell 
 poor Fatima. An accident shortened her life. Poor 
 thing ! she had a foolish sister who urged her on. I 
 always told her to beware of Ann. She died. They said 
 her brothers killed her. A gross falsehood. Am I dead ? 
 If I were, could I pledge you in this wine ? " 
 
 " Was your name," I asked, quite bewildered, " was 
 your name, pray, then, ever Blueb " 
 
 " Hush ! the waiter will overhear you. Methought we 
 were speaking of Blanche de Bechamel. I loved her, 
 young man. My pearls, and diamonds, and treasure, my 
 wit, my wisdom, my passion, I flung them all into the 
 child's lap. I was a fool ! Was strong Samson not as weak 
 as I ? Was Solomon the Wise much better when Balkis 
 wheedled him ? I said to the king But enough of 
 that, I spake of Blanche de Bechamel. 
 
 " Curiosity was the poor child's foible. I could see, as 
 I talked to her, that her thoughts were elsewhere (as yours, 
 my friend, have been absent once or twice to-night). To 
 know the secret of Masonry was the wretched child's 
 
384 THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 
 
 mad desire. With a thousand wiles, smiles, caresses, she 
 strove to coax it from me, from me, ha ! ha ! 
 
 " I had an apprentice, the son of a dear friend, who 
 died by my side at Rossbach, when Soubise, with whose 
 army I happened to be, suffered a dreadful defeat for 
 neglecting my advice. The young Chevalier Goby de 
 Mouchy was glad enough to serve as my clerk, and help 
 in some chemical experiments in which I was engaged 
 with my friend Dr. Mesmer. Bathilde saw this young 
 man. Since women were, has it not been their business 
 to smile and deceive, to fondle and lure ? Away ! From 
 the very first it has been so ! " And as my companion 
 spoke, he looked as wicked as the serpent that coiled 
 round the tree, and hissed a poisoned counsel to the first 
 woman. 
 
 " One evening I went, as was my wont, to see Blanche. 
 She was radiant ; she was wild with spirits ; a saucy 
 triumph blazed in her blue eyes. She talked, she rattled 
 in her childish way. She uttered, in the course of her 
 rhapsody, a hint an intimation so terrible that the 
 truth flashed across me in a moment. Did I ask her ? 
 She would lie to me. But I know how to make falsehood 
 impossible. And I ordered her to go to sleep" 
 
 At this moment the clock (after its previous convul- 
 sions) sounded TWELVE. And as the new Editor of the 
 Cornhill Magazine and he, I promise you, won't stand 
 any nonsense will only allow seven pages, I am obliged 
 to leave off at THE VERY MOST INTERESTING POINT OF 
 THE STORY. 
 
THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 385 
 
 PART III. 
 
 ARE you of our fraternity ? I see you are not. The 
 secret which Mademoiselle de Bechamel confided to 
 me in her mad triumph and wild hoyden spirits, she was 
 but a child, poor thing, poor thing, scarce fifteen : but I 
 love them young, a folly not unusual with the old ! " 
 (Here Mr. Pinto thrust his knuckles into his hollow eyes ; 
 and, I am sorry to say, so little regardful was he of personal 
 cleanliness, that his tears made streaks of white over his 
 gnarled dark hands.) " Ah, at fifteen, poor child, thy fate 
 was terrible ! Go to ! It is not good to love me, friend. 
 They prosper not who do. I divine you. You need not 
 say what you are thinking " 
 
 In truth, I was thinking, if girls fall in love with this 
 sallow, hooked-nosed, glass-eyed, wooden-legged, dirty, 
 hideous old man, with the sham teeth, they have a queer 
 taste. That is what I was thinking. 
 
 " Jack Wilks said the handsomest man in London had 
 but half an hour's start of him. And, without vanity, I 
 am scarcely uglier than Jack Wilks. We were members 
 of the same club at Medenham Abbey, Jack and I, and 
 had many a merry night together. Well, sir, I Mary 
 of Scotland knew me but as a little hunchbacked music- 
 master ; and yet, and yet, I think, she was not indifferent 
 
 to her David Riz and she came to misfortune. They 
 
 all do, they all do!" 
 
 " Sir, you are wandering from your point!" I said, 
 with some severity. For, really, for this old humbug to 
 hint that he had been the baboon who frightened the club 
 at Medenham, that he had been in the Inquisition at Val- 
 ladolid, that, under the name of D. Riz, as he called it, 
 17 Y 
 
386 THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 
 
 he had known the lovely Queen of Scots, was a little 
 too much. " Sir," then I said, " you were speaking about 
 a Miss de Bechamel. I really have not time to hear all 
 your biography." 
 
 " Faith, the good wine gets into my head." (I should 
 think so, the old toper ! Four bottles all but two glasses.) 
 " To return to poor Blanche. As I sat laughing, joking 
 with her, she let slip a word, a little word, which filled me 
 with dismay. Some one had told her a part of the Secret, 
 the secret which has been divulged scarce thrice in 
 three thousand years, the Secret of the Freemasons. 
 Do you know what happens to those uninitiate who learn 
 that secret ? to those wretched men the initiate who re- 
 veal it?" 
 
 As Pinto spoke to me, he looked through and through 
 me with his horrible piercing glance, so that I sat quite 
 uneasily on my bench. He continued : " Did I question 
 her awake ? I knew she would lie to me. Poor child ! 
 I loved her no less because I did not believe a word she 
 said. I loved her blue eye, her golden hair, her delicious 
 voice, that was true in song, though when she spoke, false 
 as Eblis ! You are aware that I possess in rather a re- 
 markable degree what we have agreed to call the mes- 
 meric power. I set the unhappy girl to sleep. Then 
 she was obliged to tell me all. It was as I had surmised. 
 Goby de Mouchy, my wretched, besotted, miserable sec- 
 retary, in his visits to the chateau of the old Marquis de 
 Bechamel, who was one of our society, had seen Blanche. 
 I suppose it was because she had been warned that he 
 was worthless, and poor, artful, and a coward, she loved 
 him. She wormed out of the besotted wretch the secrets 
 of our Order. ' Did he tell you the NUMBER ONE ? ' I 
 asked. 
 
THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 387 
 
 She said, < Yes.' 
 
 " * Did he,' I further inquired, ' tell you the ' 
 
 " ' O, don't ask me, don't ask me ! ' she said, writhing 
 on the sofa, where she lay in the presence of the Marquis 
 de Bechamel, her most unhappy father. Poor Bechamel, 
 poor Bechamel ! How pale he looked as I spoke ! ' Did 
 he tell you,' I repeated with a dreadful calm, * the NUM- 
 BER TWO ? ' She said, ' Yes.' 
 
 " The poor old marquis rose up, and clasping his hands, 
 
 fell on his knees before Count Cagl Bah ! I went 
 
 by a different name then. Vat 's in a name ? Dat vich 
 ve call a Rosicrucian by any other name vil smell as 
 sveet. l Monsieur,' he said, * I am old, I am rich. I 
 have five hundred thousand livres of rentes in Picardy. 
 I have half as much in Artois. I have two hundred and 
 eighty thousand on the Grand Livre. I am promised by 
 my sovereign a dukedom and his orders, with a reversion 
 to my heir. I am a Grandee of Spain of the First Class, 
 and Duke of Volovento. Take my titles, my ready 
 money, my life, my honor, everything I have in the 
 world, but don't ask the THIRD QUESTION.' 
 
 " ' Godefroid de Bouillon, Comte de Bechamel, Grandee 
 of Spain and Prince of Volovento, in our Assembly what 
 was the oath you swore ? ' ' The old man writhed as he 
 remembered its terrific purport. 
 
 "Though my heart was racked with agony, and I 
 would have died, ay, cheerfully " (died, indeed, as if that 
 were a penalty !) " to spare yonder lovely child a pang, I 
 said to her calmly, ' Blanche de Bechamel, did Goby de 
 Mouchy tell you secret NUMBER THREE ? ' 
 
 " She whispered a oui that was quite faint, faint and 
 small. But her poor father fell in convulsions at her feet. 
 
 "She died suddenly that night. Did I not tell you 
 
388 THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 
 
 these I love come to no good ? When General Bonaparte 
 crossed the Saint Bernard, he saw in the convent an old 
 monk with a white beard, wandering about the corridors, 
 cheerful and rather stout, but mad, mad as a March 
 hare. * General,' I said to him, ' did you ever see that 
 face before ? ' He had not. He had not mingled much 
 with the higher classes of our society before the Revolu- 
 tion, /knew the poor old man well enough ; he was the 
 last of a noble race, and I loved his child." 
 
 And did she die by ? " 
 
 " Man ! did I say so ? Do I whisper the secrets of 
 the Vehmgericht? I say she died that night; and he, 
 he, the heartless, the villain, the betrayer, you saw him 
 seated in yonder curiosity-shop, by yonder guillotine, with 
 his scoundrelly head in his lap. 
 
 " You saw how slight that instrument was ? It was 
 one of the first which Guillotin made, and which he 
 showed to private friends in a hangar in the Rue Picpus, 
 where he lived. The invention created some little con- 
 versation amongst scientific men at the time, though I 
 remember a machine in Edinburgh of a very similar con- 
 struction, two hundred well, many, many years ago, 
 and at a breakfast which Guillotin gave he showed us the 
 instrument, and much 'talk arose amongst us as to whether 
 people suffered under it. 
 
 " And now I must tell you what befell the traitor who 
 had caused all this suffering. Did he know that the poor 
 child's death was A SENTENCE ? He felt a cowardly sat- 
 isfaction that with her was gone the secret of his treason. 
 Then he began to doubt. I had MEANS to penetrate all 
 his thoughts, as well as to know his acts. Then he be- 
 came a slave to a horrible fear. He fled in abject terror 
 to a conven.t. They still existed in Paris; and behind 
 
THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 389 
 
 the walls of Jacobins the wretch thought himself secure. 
 Poor fool ! I had but to set one of my somnambulists to 
 sleep. Her spirit went forth and spied the shuddering 
 wretch in his cell. She described the street, the gate, the 
 convent, the very dress which he wore, and which you 
 saw to-day. 
 
 " And now this is what happened. In his chamber in 
 the Rue St. Honore, at Paris, sat a man alone, a man 
 who has been maligned, a man who has been called a 
 knave and charlatan, a man who has been persecuted 
 even to the death, it is said, in Roman Inquisitions, for- 
 sooth, and elsewhere. Ha ! ha ! A man who has a mighty 
 will. 
 
 " And looking towards the Jacobin Convent (of which, 
 from his chamber, he could see the spires and trees), this 
 man WILLED. And it was not yet dawn. And he willed ; 
 and one who was lying in his cell in the Convent of Jaco- 
 bins, awake and shuddering with terror for a crime which 
 he had committed, fell asleep. 
 
 " But though he was asleep his eyes were open. 
 
 " And after tossing and writhing, and clinging to the 
 pallet, and saying, < No, I will not go,' he rose up and 
 donned his clothes, a gray coat, a vest of white pique, 
 black satin small-clothes, ribbed 'silk stockings, and a 
 white sj;ock with a steel buckle; and he arranged his 
 hair, and he tied his queue, all the while being in that 
 strange somnolence which walks, which moves, which 
 FLIES sometimes, which sees, which is indifferent to pain, 
 which OBEYS. And he put on his hat, and he went forth 
 from his cell ; and though the dawn was not yet, he trod 
 the corridors as seeing them. And he passed into the 
 cloister, and then into the garden where lie the ancient 
 dead. And he came to the wicket, which Brother Jerome 
 
390 THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 
 
 was opening just at the dawning. And the crowd was 
 already waiting with their cans and bowls to receive the 
 alms of the good brethren. 
 
 " And he passed through the crowd and went on his 
 way through, and the few people then abroad who marked 
 him, said, * Tiens ! How very odd he looks ! He looks 
 like a man walking in his sleep ! ' This was said by va- 
 rious persons : 
 
 " By milk-women, with their cans and carts, coming 
 into the town. 
 
 " By roysterers, who had been drinking at the taverns 
 of the Barrier, for it was Mid-Lent. 
 
 " By the sergeants of the watch, who eyed him sternly 
 as he passed near their halberds. 
 
 " But he passed on unmoved by the halberds, 
 
 " Unmoved by the cries of the roysterers, 
 
 " By the market-women coming with their milk and eggs. 
 
 " He walked through the Rue St. Honore, I say : 
 
 " By the Rue Rambuteau, 
 
 " By the Rue St. Antoine, 
 
 " By the King's Chateau of the Bastille, 
 
 " By the Faubourg St. Antoine. 
 
 " And he came to No. 29 in the Rue Picpus, a house 
 which then stood between a court and garden, 
 
 " That is, there was a building of one story, with, a great 
 coach-door. 
 
 " Then there was a court, around which were stables, 
 coach-houses, offices. 
 
 " Then there was a house, a two-storied house, with 
 & perron in front. 
 
 " Behind the house was a garden, a garden of two 
 hundred and fifty French feet in length. 
 
 " And as one hundred feet of France equal one hun- 
 
THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 391 
 
 dred and six feet of England, this garden, my friends, 
 equalled exactly two hundred and sixty-five feet of Brit- 
 ish measure. 
 
 "In the centre of the garden was a fountain and a 
 statue, or, to speak more correctly, two statues. One 
 was recumbent, a man. Over him, sabre in hand, stood 
 a woman. 
 
 "The man was Olofernes. The woman was Judith. 
 From the head, from the trunk, the water gushed. It 
 was the taste of the doctor; was it not a droll of 
 taste ? 
 
 " At the end of the garden was the doctor's cabinet of 
 study. My faith, a singular cabinet, and singular pic- 
 tures ! 
 
 " Decapitation of Charles Premier at Vitehall. 
 
 "Decapitation of Montrose at Edimbourg. 
 
 " Decapitation of Cinq Mars. When I tell you that he 
 was a man of a taste charming ! 
 
 " Through this garden, by these statues, up these stairs, 
 went the pale figure of him who, the porter said, knew 
 the way of the house. He did. Turning neither right 
 nor left, he seemed to walk through the statues, the ob- 
 stacles, the flower-beds, the stairs, the door, the tables, 
 the chairs. 
 
 " In the corner of the room was THAT INSTRUMENT 
 which Guillotin had just invented and perfected. One 
 day he was to lay his own head under his own axe. 
 Peace be to his name ! With him I deal not ! 
 
 " In a frame of mahogany, neatly worked, was a board 
 with a half-circle in it, over which another board fitted. 
 Above was a heavy axe, which fell you know how. It 
 was held up by a rope, and when this rope was untied, or 
 cut, the steel fell. 
 
392 THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 
 
 " To the story which I now have to relate you may 
 give credence, or not, as you will. The sleeping man 
 went up to that instrument. 
 
 " He laid his head in it, asleep. 
 
 " Asleep ! 
 
 " He then took a little penknife out of the pocket of 
 his white dimity waistcoat. 
 
 " He cut the rope, asleep ! 
 
 " The axe descended on the head of the traitor and vil- 
 lain. The notch in it was made by the steel buckle of 
 his stock, which was cut through. 
 
 " A strange legend has got abroad that after the deed 
 was done, the figure rose, took the head from the basket, 
 walked forth through the garden, and by the screaming 
 porters at the gate, and went and laid itself down at the 
 Morgue. But for this I will not vouch. Only of this be 
 sure. ' There are more things in heaven and earth, Ho- 
 ratio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.' More 
 and more the light peeps through the chinks. Soon, 
 amidst music ravishing, the curtain will rise, and the glo- 
 rious scene be displayed. Adieu ! Remember me. Ha ! 
 't is dawn," Pinto said. And he was gone. 
 
 I am ashamed to say that my first movement was to 
 clutch the check which he had left with me, and which I 
 was determined to present the very moment the bank 
 opened. I know the importance of these things, and that 
 men change their mind sometimes. I sprang through the 
 streets to the great banking-house of Manasseh, in Duke 
 Street. It seemed to me as if I actually flew as I walked. 
 As the clock struck ten I was at the counter and laid 
 down my check. 
 
 The gentleman who received it, who was one of the He- 
 brew persuasion, as were the other two hundred clerks of 
 
THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 393 
 
 the establishment, having looked at the draft with terror 
 in his countenance, then looked at me, then called to him- 
 self two of his fellow clerks, and queer it was to see all 
 their aquiline beaks over the paper. 
 
 " Come, come ! " said I, " don't keep me here all day. 
 Hand me over the money, short, if you please ! " for I 
 was, you see, a little alarmed, and so determined to as- 
 sume some extra bluster. 
 
 " Will you have the kindness to step into the parlor to 
 the partners ? " the clerk said, and I followed him. 
 
 " What, again ? " shrieked a bald-headed, red-whis- 
 kered gentleman, whom I knew to be Mr. Manasseh. 
 " Mr. Salathiel, this is too bad ! Leave me with this 
 gentleman, S." And the clerk disappeared. 
 
 " Sir," he said, " I know how you came by this ; the 
 Count de Pinto gave it you. It is too bad ! I honor 
 my parents ; I honor their parents ; I honor their bills ! 
 But this one of grandma's is too bad, it is, upon my 
 word, now! She Ve been dead these five-and-thirty 
 years. And this last four months she has left her burial- 
 place and took to drawing on our 'ouse ! It 's too bad, 
 grandma; it is too bad!" and he appealed to me, and 
 tears actually trickled down his nose. 
 
 " Is it the Countess Sidonia's check or not ? " I asked, 
 haughtily. 
 
 " But, I tell you, she 's dead ! It 's a shame ! it 's a 
 shame ! it is, grandmamma ! " and he cried, and wiped 
 his great nose in his yellow pocket-handkerchief. " Look 
 year, will you take pounds instead of guineas ? She 's 
 dead, I tell you ! It 's no go ! Take the pounds, one 
 tausand pound ! ten nice, neat, crisp hundred-pound 
 notes, and go away vid you, do ? " 
 
 " I will have my bond, sir, or nothing," I said ; and I 
 17* 
 
394 THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 
 
 put on an attitude of resolution which I confess surprised 
 even myself. 
 
 " Wery veil," he shrieked, with many oaths, " then you 
 shall have noting, ha, ha, ha ! noting but a police- 
 man ! Mr. Abednego, call a policeman ! Take that, 
 you humbug and impostor!" and here, with an abun- 
 dance of frightful language which I dare not repeat, the 
 wealthy banker abused and defied me. 
 
 Au bout du compte, what was I to do, if a banker did 
 not choose to honor a check drawn by his dead grand- 
 mother ? I began to wish I had my snuff-box back. I 
 began to think I was a fool for changing that little old- 
 fashioned gold for this slip of strange paper. 
 
 Meanwhile the banker had passed from his fit of anger 
 to a paroxysm of despair. He seemed to be addressing 
 some person invisible, but in the room : " Look here, 
 ma'am, you 've really been coming it too strong. A 
 hundred thousand in six months, and now a thousand 
 more ! The 'ouse can't stand it ; it won't stand it, I say ! 
 What ? Oh ! mercy, mercy ! " 
 
 As he uttered these words, A HAND fluttered over 
 the table in the air ! It was a female hand, that which 
 I had seen the night before. That female hand took a 
 pen from the green-baize table, dipped it in a silver ink- 
 stand, and wrote on a quarter of a sheet of foolscap on 
 the blotting-bobk, " How about the diamond robbery ? 
 If you do not pay, I will tell him where they are." 
 
 What diamonds ? what robbery ? what was this mys- 
 tery ? That will never be ascertained, for the wretched 
 man's demeanor instantly changed. " Certainly, sir ; 
 O, certainly," he said, forcing a grin. " How will you 
 have the money, sir? All right, Mr. Abednego. This 
 Way out." 
 
THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 395 
 
 " I hope I shall often see you again," I said ; on which 
 I own poor Manasseh gave a dreadful grin, and shot 
 back into his parlor. 
 
 I ran home, clutching the ten delicious, crisp hundred 
 pounds, and the dear little fifty which made up the ac- 
 count. I flew through the streets again. I got to my 
 chambers. I bolted the outer doors. I sank back in my 
 great chair, and slept 
 
 My first thing on waking was to feel for my money. 
 Perdition ! Where was I ? Ha ! on the table before 
 me was my grandmother's snuff-box, and by its side one 
 of those awful those admirable sensation novels, 
 which I had been reading, and which are full of deli- 
 cious wonder. 
 
 But that the guillotine is still to be seen at Mr. Gale's, 
 No. 47, High Holborn, I give you MY HONOR. I suppose 
 I was dreaming about it. I don't know. What is 
 dreaming ? What is life ? Why should n't I sleep on 
 the ceiling? and am I sitting on it now, or on the 
 floor ? I am puzzled. But enough. If the fashion for 
 sensation novels goes on, I tell you I will write one in 
 fifty volumes. For the present, DIXI. But between 
 ourselves, this Pinto, who fought at the Colosseum, who 
 was nearly being roasted by the Inquisition, and sang 
 duets at Holyrood, I am rather sorry to lose him after 
 three little bits of Roundabout Papers. Et vous ? 
 
 JUNE, 1862. 
 
DE FINIBUS. 
 
 ]HEN Swift was in love with Stella, and de- 
 spatching her a letter from London thrice a 
 month by the Irish packet, you may remem- 
 ber how he would begin letter No. xxin., we 
 will say, on the very day when xxn. had been sent away, 
 stealing out of the coffee-house or the assembly so as to be 
 able to prattle with his dear ; " never letting go her kind 
 hand, as it were," as some commentator or other has said 
 in speaking of the Dean and his amour. When Mr. John- 
 son, walking to Dodsley's, and touching the posts in Pall 
 Mall as he walked, forgot to pat the head of one of them, 
 he went back and imposed his hands on it, impelled I 
 know not by what superstition. I have this I hope not 
 dangerous mania too. As soon as a piece of work is out 
 of hand, and before going to sleep, I like to begin an- 
 other : it may be to write only half a dozen lines : but 
 that is something towards Number the Next. The print- 
 er's boy has not yet reached Green Arbor Court with 
 the copy. Those people who were alive half an hour 
 since, Pendennis, Clive Newcome, and (what do you call 
 him ? what was the name of the last hero ? I remember 
 now !) Philip Firmin, have hardly drunk their glass of 
 wine, and the mammas have only tfeis minute got the 
 children's cloaks on, and have been bowed out of my 
 
DE FINIBUS. 397 
 
 premises, and here I come back to the study again : 
 tamen usque recurro. How lonely it looks now all these 
 people are gone ! My dear, good friends, some folks are ut- 
 terly tired of you, and say, " What a poverty of friends the 
 man has ! He is always asking us to meet those Penden- 
 nises, Newcomes, and so forth. Why does he not intro- 
 duce us to some new characters ? Why is he not thrilling 
 like Twostars, learned and profound like Threestars, ex- 
 quisitely humorous and human like Fourstars ? Why, 
 finally, is he not somebody else ? " My good people, it is 
 not only impossible to please you all, but it is absurd to 
 try. The dish which one man devours, another dislikes. 
 Is the dinner of to-day not to your taste ? Let us hope 
 to-morrow's entertainment will be more agreeable. .... 
 I resume my original subject. What an odd, pleasant, 
 humorous, melancholy feeling it is to sit in the study, 
 alone and quiet, now all these people are gone who have 
 been boarding and lodging with me for twenty months ! 
 They have interrupted my rest : they have plagued me at 
 all sorts of minutes : they have thrust themselves upon 
 me when I was ill, or wished to be idle, and I have 
 growled out a " Be hanged to you, can't you leave me 
 alone now ? " Once or twice they have prevented my 
 going out to dinner. Many and many a time they have 
 prevented rny coming home, because I knew they were 
 there waiting in the study, and a plague take them ! and 
 I have left home and family, and gone to dine at the 
 Club, and told nobody where I went. They have bored 
 me, those people. They have plagued me at all sorts of 
 uncomfortable hours. They have made such a disturb- 
 ance in my mind and house, that sometimes I have hardly 
 known what was going on in my family, and scarcely 
 have heard what my neighbor said to me. They are gone 
 
398 DE FINIBUS. 
 
 at last ; and you would expect me to be at ease ? Far 
 from it. I should almost be glad if Woolcomb would 
 walk in and talk to me ; or Twysden reappear, take his 
 place in that chair opposite me, and begin one of his tre- 
 mendous stories. 
 
 Madmen, you know, see visions, hold conversations 
 with, even draw the likeness of people invisible to you 
 and me. Is this making of people out of fancy mad- 
 ness ? and are novel-writers at all entitled to strait-waist- 
 coats ? I often forget people's names in life ; and in my 
 own stories contritely own that I make dreadful blunders 
 regarding them ; but I declare, my dear sir, with respect 
 to the personages introduced into your humble servant's 
 fables, I know the people utterly, I know the sound of 
 their voices. A gentleman came in to see me the other 
 day, who was so like the picture of Philip Firmin in 
 Mr. Walker's charming drawings in the Cornhill Maga- 
 zine, that he was quite a curiosity to me. The same eyes, 
 beard, shoulders, just as you have seen them from month 
 to month. Well, he is not like the Philip Firmin in my 
 mind. Asleep, asleep in the grave, lies the bold, the gen- 
 erous, the reckless, the tender-hearted creature whom I 
 have made to pass through those adventures which have 
 just been brought to an end. It is years since I heard 
 the laughter ringing, or saw the bright blue eyes. When 
 I knew him both were young. I become young as I think 
 of him. And this morning he was alive again in this 
 room, ready to laugh, to fight, to weep. As I write, do 
 you know, it is the gray of evening ; the house is quiet ; 
 everybody is out ; the room is getting a little dark, and I 
 look rather wistfully up from the paper with perhaps ever 
 
 so little fancy that HE MAY COME IN.: No? 
 
 No movement. No gray shade, growing more palpable, 
 
DE FINIBUS. 399 
 
 out of which at last look the well-known eyes. No, the 
 printer came and took him away with the last page of the 
 proofs. And with the printer's boy did the whole cortege 
 of ghosts flit away, invisible ? Ha ! stay ! what is this ? 
 Angels and ministers of grace ! The door opens, and a 
 dark form enters, bearing a black, a black suit of 
 clothes. It is John. He says it is time to dress for dinner. 
 
 * * # * * 
 
 Every man who has had his German tutor, and has 
 been coached through the famous Faust of Goethe (thou 
 wert my instructor, good old Weissenborn, and these eyes 
 beheld the great master himself in dear little Weimar 
 town !) has read those charming verses which are prefixed 
 to the drama, in which the poet reverts to the time when 
 his work was first composed, and recalls the friends, now 
 departed, who once listened to his song. The dear shad- 
 ows rise up around him, he says ; he lives in the past 
 again. It is to-day which appears vague and visionary. 
 "We humbler writers cannot create Fausts, or raise up 
 monumental works that shall endure for all ages ; but our 
 books are diaries, in which our own feelings must of neces- 
 sity be set down. As we look to the page written last 
 month, or ten years ago, we remember the day and its 
 events ; the child ill, mayhap, in the adjoining room, and 
 the doubts and fears which racked the brain as it still 
 pursued its work ; the dear old friend who read the com- 
 mencement of the tale, and whose gentle hand shall be 
 laid in ours no more. I own for my part that, in reading 
 pages which this hand penned formerly, I often lose sight 
 of the text under my eyes. It is not the words I see ; 
 but that past day ; that by-gone page of life's history ; that 
 tragedy, comedy it may be, which our little home company 
 was enacting ; that merry-making which we shared ; that 
 
400 DE FINIBUS. 
 
 funeral which we followed ; that bitter, bitter grief which 
 we buried. 
 
 And such being the state of my mind, I pray gentle 
 readers to deal kindly with their humble servant's mani- 
 fold short-comings, blunders, and slips of memory. As 
 sure as I read a page of my own composition, I find a 
 fault or two, half a dozen. Jones is called Brown. 
 Brown, who is dead, is brought to life. Aghast, and 
 months after the number was printed, I saw that I had 
 called Philip Firmin, Clive Newcome. Now Clive New- 
 come is the hero of another story by the reader's most 
 obedient writer. The two men are as different, in my 
 mind's eye, as as Lord Palmerston and Mr. Disraeli, 
 let us say. But there is that blunder at page 990, line 
 76, volume 84 of the Cornhill Magazine, and it is past 
 mending ; and I wish in my life I had made no worse blun- 
 ders or errors than that which is hereby acknowledged. 
 
 Another Finis written. Another milestone passed on 
 this journey from birth to the next world ! Sure it is a 
 subject for solemn cogitation. Shall we continue this 
 story-telling business and be voluble to the end of our 
 age ? Will it not be presently time, prattler, to hold 
 your tongue, and let younger people speak ? I have a 
 friend, a painter, who, like other persons who shall be 
 nameless, is growing old. He has never painted with 
 such laborious finish as his works now show. This master 
 is still the most humble and diligent of scholars. Of Art, 
 his mistress, he is always an eager, reverent pupil. In 
 his calling, in yours, in mine, industry and humility will 
 help and comfort us. A word with you. In a pretty 
 large experience I have not found the men who write 
 books superior in wit or learning to those who don't write 
 at all. In regard of mere information, non-writers must 
 
DE FINIBUS. 401 
 
 often be superior to writers. You don't expect a lawyer 
 in full practice to be conversant with all kinds of litera- 
 ture; he is too busy with his law; and so a writer is 
 commonly too busy with his own books to be able to 
 bestow attention on the works of other people. After a 
 day's work (in which I have been depicting, let us say, 
 the agonies of Louisa on parting with the Captain, or the 
 atrocious behavior of the wicked Marquis to Lady Emily) 
 I march to the Club, proposing to improve my mind and 
 keep myself " posted up," as the Americans phrase it, 
 with the literature of the day. And what happens? 
 Given, a walk after luncheon, a pleasing book, and a 
 most comfortable arm-chair by the fire, and you know the 
 rest. A doze ensues. Pleasing book drops suddenly, is 
 picked up once with an air of some confusion, is laid 
 presently softly in lap ; head falls on comfortable arm- 
 chair cushion ; eyes close ; soft nasal music is heard. Am 
 I telling Club secrets ? Of afternoons, after lunch, I say, 
 scores of sensible fogies have a doze. Perhaps I have 
 fallen asleep over that very book to which " Finis " has 
 just been written. And if the writer sleeps, what hap- 
 pens to the readers ? says Jones, coming down upon me 
 with his lightning wit. What ? You did sleep over it ? 
 And a very good thing too. These eyes have more than 
 once seen a friend dozing over pages which this hand has 
 written. There is a vignette somewhere in one of my 
 books of a friend so caught napping with " Pendennis," 
 or the " Newcomes," in his lap ; and if a writer can give 
 you a sweet, soothing, harmless sleep, has he not done you 
 a kindness ? So is the author who excites and interests 
 you worthy of your thanks and benedictions. I am 
 troubled with fever and ague, that seizes me at odd 
 intervals and prostrates me for a day. There is cold 
 
402 DE FINIBUS. 
 
 fit, for which, I am thankful to say, hot brandy-and-water 
 is prescribed, and this induces hot fit, and so on. In one 
 or two of these fits I have read novels with the most 
 fearful contentment of mind. Once, on the Mississippi, it 
 was my dearly beloved " Jacob Faithful " ; once at Frank- 
 fort, 0. M., the delightful Vingt Ans Apres of Monsieur 
 Dumas ; once at Tonbridge Wells, the thrilling " Woman 
 in White " ; and these books gave me amusement from 
 morning till sunset. I remember those ague fits with a 
 great deal of pleasure and gratitude. Think of a whole 
 day in bed, and a good novel for a companion! No 
 cares ; no remorse about idleness ; no visitors ; and the 
 Woman in White or the Chevalier d'Artagnan to tell 
 me stories from dawn to night ! " Please, ma'am, my 
 master's compliments, and can he have the third vol- 
 ume ? " (This message was sent to an astonished friend 
 and neighbor who lent me, volume by volume, the " W. in 
 W.") How do you like your novels ? I like mine strong, 
 " hot with," and no mistake ; no love-making ; no obser- 
 vations about society; little dialogue, except where the 
 characters are bullying each other ; plenty of fighting ; 
 and a villain in the cupboard, who is to suffer tortures 
 just before Finis. I don't like your melancholy Finis. 
 I never read the history of a consumptive heroine twice. 
 If I might give a short hint to an impartial writer (as 
 the Examiner used to say in old days), it would be to 
 act, not a la mode le pays de Pole (I think that was the 
 phraseology), but always to give quarter. In the story 
 of Philip, just come to an end, I have the permission of 
 the author to state that he was going to drown the two 
 villains of the piece a certain Doctor F and a cer- 
 tain Mr. T. H on board the President, or some other 
 
 tragic ship, but you see I relented. I pictured to myself 
 
DE FINIBUS. 403 
 
 Firmin's ghastly face amid the crowd of shuddering peo- 
 ple on that reeling deck in the lonely ocean, and thought, 
 " Thou ghastly lying wretch, thou shalt not be drowned : 
 thou shalt have a fever only ; a knowledge of thy danger ; 
 and a chance ever so small a chance of repentance." 
 I wonder whether he did repent when he found himself 
 in the yellow-fever, in Virginia ? The probability is, he 
 fancied that his son had injured him very much, and for- 
 gave him on his deathbed. Do you imagine there is a 
 great deal of genuine right-down remorse in the world ? 
 Don't people rather find excuses which make their minds 
 easy ; endeavor to prove to themselves that they have 
 been lamentably belied and misunderstood ; and try and 
 forgive the persecutors who will present that bill when it 
 is due ; and not bear malice against the cruel ruffian who 
 takes them to the police-office for stealing the spoons? 
 Years ago I had a quarrel with a certain well-known 
 person (I believed a statement regarding him which his 
 friends imparted to me, and which turned out to be quite 
 incorrect). To his dying day that quarrel was never 
 quite made up. I said to his brother, "Why is your 
 brother's soul still dark against me ? It is I who ought 
 to be angry and unforgiving ; for I was in the wrong." 
 In the region which they now inhabit (for Finis has been 
 set to the volumes of the lives of both here below), 
 if they take any cognizance of our squabbles, and tittle- 
 tattles, and gossips on earth here, I hope they admit that 
 my little error was not of a nature unpardonable. If you 
 have never committed a worse, my good sir, surely the 
 score against you will not be heavy. Ha, dilectissimi 
 fratres! It is in regard of sins not found out that we 
 may say or sing (in an undertone, in a most penitent and 
 lugubrious minor key), Miserere noUs miseris peccatori- 
 lus. 
 
404 . DE FINIBUS. 
 
 Among the sins of commission which novel-writers not 
 seldom perpetrate, is the sin of grandiloquence, or tall- 
 talking, against which, for my part, I will offer up a special 
 libera me. This is the sin of schoolmasters, governesses, 
 critics, sermoners, and instructors of young or old people. 
 Nay (for I am making a clean breast, and liberating my 
 soul), perhaps of all the novel-spinners now extant, the 
 present speaker is the most addicted to preaching. Does 
 he not stop perpetually in his story and begin to preach to 
 you ? When he ought to be engaged with business, is he 
 not forever taking the Muse by the sleeve, and plaguing 
 her with some of his cynical sermons ? I cry peccavi 
 loudly and heartily. I tell you I would like to be able 
 to write a story which should show no egotism whatever, 
 in which there should be no reflections, no cynicism, 
 no vulgarity (and so forth), but an incident in every other 
 page, a villain, a battle, a mystery in every chapter. I 
 should like to be able to feed a reader so spicily as to 
 leave him hungering and thirsting for more at the end of 
 every monthly meal. 
 
 Alexandre Dumas describes himself, when inventing 
 the plan of a work, as lying silent on his back for two 
 whole days on the deck of a yacht in a Mediterranean 
 port. At the end of the two days he arose, and called 
 for dinner. In those two days he had built his plot. 
 He had moulded a mighty clay, to be cast presently in 
 perennial brass. The chapters, the characters, the inci- 
 dents, the combinations were all arranged in the artist's 
 brain ere he set a pen to paper. My Pegasus won't fly, 
 so as to let me survey the field frelow me. He has no 
 wings, he is blind of one eye certainly, he is restive, stub- 
 born, slow ; crops a hedge when he ought to be galloping, 
 or gallops when he ought to be quiet. He never will 
 
DE FINIBUS. 405 
 
 show off when I want him. Sometimes he goes at a pace 
 which surprises me. Sometimes, when I most wish him 
 to make the running, the brute turns restive, and I am 
 obliged to let him take his own time. I wonder do other 
 novel-writers experience this fatalism ? They must go a 
 certain way, in spite of themselves. I have been sur- 
 prised at the observations made by some of my characters. 
 It seems as if an occult Power was moving the pen. The 
 personage does or says something, and I ask, how the 
 Dickens did he come to think of that ? Every man has 
 remarked in dreams, the vast dramatic power which is 
 sometimes evinced, I won't say the surprising power, for 
 nothing does surprise you in dreams. But those strange 
 characters you meet make instant observations of which- 
 you never can have thought previously. In like manner, 
 the imagination foretells things. We spake anon of the 
 inflated style of some writers. What also if there is an 
 afflated style, when a writer is like a Pythoness on 
 her oracle tripod, and mighty words, words which he 
 cannot help, come blowing, and bellowing, and whistling, 
 and moaning through the speaking pipes of his bodily or- 
 gan ? I have told you it was a very queer shock to me 
 the other day when, with a letter of introduction in his 
 hand, the artist's (not my) Philip Firmin walked into this 
 room, and sat down in the chair opposite. In the novel 
 of " Pendennis," written ten years ago, there is an account 
 of a certain Costigan, whom I had invented (as I suppose 
 authors invent their personages out of scraps, heel-taps, 
 odds and ends of characters). I was smoking in a tavern 
 parlor one night, and this Costigan came into the room 
 alive, the very man, the most remarkable resem- 
 blance of the printed sketches of the man, of tlje rude 
 drawings in which I had depicted him. He had the 
 
406 DE FINIBUS. 
 
 same little coat, the same battered hat, cocked on one 
 eye, the same twinkle in that eye. " Sir," said I, know- 
 ing him to be an old friend whom I had met in unknown 
 regions, " sir," I said, " may I offer you a glass of brandy 
 and water ? " " Bedad, ye may" says he, " and I'll sing 
 ye a song tu." Of course he spoke with an Irish brogue. 
 Of course he had been in the army. In ten minutes he 
 pulled out an army agent's account, whereon his name 
 was written. A few months after we read of him in a 
 police court. How had I come to know him, to divine 
 him ? Nothing shall convince me that I have not seen 
 that man in the world of spirits. In the world of spirits 
 and water I know I did ; but that is a mere quibble of 
 words. I was not surprised when he spoke in an Irish 
 brogue. I had had cognizance of him before somehow. 
 Who has not felt that little shock which arises when a 
 person, a place, some words in a book (there is always a 
 collocation) present themselves to you, and you know 
 that you have before met the same person, words, scene, 
 and so forth ? 
 
 They used to call the good Sir Walter the " Wizard of 
 the North." What if some writer should appear who 
 can write so enchantingly that he shall be able to call 
 into actual life the people whom he invents ? What if 
 Mignon, and Margaret, and Goetz von Berlichingen are 
 alive now (though I don't say they are visible), and 
 Dugald Dalgetty and Ivanhoe were to step in at that 
 open window by the little garden yonder? Suppose 
 Uncas and our noble old Leather-Stocking were to glide 
 silent in? Suppose Athos, Porthos, and Aramis should 
 enter with a noiseless swagger, curling their mustachios ? 
 And dearest Amelia Booth, on Uncle Toby's arm ; and 
 Tittlebat Titmouse, with his hair dyed green; and all 
 
DE FINIBUS. 407 
 
 the Crummies company of comedians, with the Gil Bias 
 troop ; and Sir Roger de Coverley ; and the greatest of 
 all crazy gentlemen, the Knight of La Mancha, with 
 his blessed squire ? I say to you, I look rather wist- 
 fully towards the window, musing upon these people. 
 Were any of them to enter, I think I should not be very 
 much frightened. Dear old friends, what pleasant hours 
 I have had with them ! We do not see each other very 
 often, but when we do, we are ever happy to meet. I 
 had a capital half hour with Jacob Faithful last night ; 
 when the last sheet was corrected, when "Finis" had 
 been written, and the printer's boy, with the copy, was 
 safe in Green Arbour Court. 
 
 So you are gone, little printer's boy, with the last 
 scratches and corrections "on the proof, and a fine flourish 
 by way of Finis at the story's end. The last corrections ? 
 I say those last corrections seem never to be finished. A 
 plague upon the weeds ! Every day, when I walk in my 
 own little literary garden-plot, I spy some, and should 
 like to have a spud, and root them out. Those idle 
 words, neighbor, are past remedy. That turning back 
 to the old pages produces anything but elation of mind. 
 Would you not pay a pretty fine to be able to cancel 
 some of them? O, the sad old pages, the dull old 
 pages! 0, the cares, the ennui, the squabbles, the re- 
 petitions, the old conversations over and over again ! 
 But now and again a kind thought is recalled, and now 
 and again a dear memory. Yet a few chapters more, 
 and then the last : after which, behold Finis itself come 
 to an end, and the Infinite begun. 
 
 Cambridge : Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 
 
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ 
 
 This book is due on the last DATE stamped below. 
 
 100m-8,'65 (F6282s8)2373