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